The White Ladies of Worcester: A Romance of the Twelfth Century

The Bishop spoke with apparent vexation, but his heart had bounded in the upspring of a great relief. Was he after all in time to save with outstretched hand that most priceless crystal bowl?

The Bishop dismounted outside the Convent gate. He took Shulamite's nose into his hand, and spoke gently in her ear.

Then: "Lead her home, Philip," he said, "and surround her with tenderest care. Her brave heart hath done wonders this day. It is for us to see that her body doth not pay the penalty. Here! Take her rein, and go."

Mary Mark looked out through the wicket, in response to a knocking on the door. She gasped when she saw the Lord Bishop, on foot, without the gate.

Quickly she opened, wide, and wider; hiding her buxom form behind the door.

But the Bishop had no thought for Mary Mark, nor inclination to play hide-and-seek with a conscience-stricken porteress.

Avoiding the front entrance, he crossed the courtyard to the right, passed beneath the rose-arch, along the yew walk, and over the lawn, to the seat under the beech, where two days before he had awaited the coming of the Prioress.

Here he paused for a moment, looking toward the silent cloisters, and picturing her tall figure, her flowing veil and stately tread, advancing toward him over the sunny lawn.

Yet no. Even in these surroundings he could not see her now as Prioress. Even across the Convent lawn there moved to meet him the lovely woman with jewelled girdle, white robe, and coronet of golden hair—the bride of Hugh.

Perhaps this was the hardest moment to Symon of Worcester, in the whole of that hard day.

It was the one time when he thought of himself.

"I have lost her!" he said. "Holy Jesu—Thou Whose heart did break after three hours of darkness and of God-forsaken loneliness—have pity! The light of my life is gone from me, yet must I live."

Overwhelmed by this sudden realisation of loss, worn out in mind and exhausted in body, the Bishop sank upon the seat.

Mora was safe with Hugh. That much had been accomplished.

For the rest, things must take their own course. He could do no more—go no further.

Then he heard again her voice in the arbour of golden roses, saying, in those low sweet tones which thrilled his very soul: "He stood to me for all that was vital and alive, in life and in religion; strong to act; able to endure."

During five minutes the Bishop sat, eyes closed, hands firmly clasped.

So still he sat, that the little Knight of the Bloody Vest, watching, with bright eyes, from the tree overhead, almost made up his mind to drop to the other end of the seat. He was missing Sister Mary Antony, who had not appeared at all that morning. This meant neither crumbs nor cheese, and the "little vain man" was hungry.

But at the end of five minutes the Bishop rose, calm and purposeful; moved firmly up the lawn, mounted the steps, and passed into the cloisters.

CHAPTER XXXVII

WHAT MOTHER SUB-PRIORESS KNEW

Mother Sub-Prioress had applied her eye, for the fiftieth time, to the keyhole; but naught could she see in the Prioress's cell, save a portion of the great wooden cross against the opposite wall.

Sister Mary Rebecca, mounted upon a stool, attempted to spy through the hole over the rope and pulley by means of which the Reverend Mother rang the Convent bell. But all Sister Mary Rebecca saw, after bumping her head upon a beam, and her nose on the wall, owing to the impossibility of getting it out of the way of her eye, was a portion of the top of the Reverend Mother's window.

She cried out, as a great discovery, that the curtains were drawn back; upon which, Mother Sub-Prioress, exclaiming, tartly, that that had been long ago observed from the garden below, pushed the stool in her anger, and sent Sister Mary Rebecca flying.

Jumping to save herself, she alighted heavily on the feet of Sister Teresa, striking Mary Seraphine full in the face with her elbow, and scattering, to right and left, the crowd around the door.

This cleared a view for Mother Sub-Prioress straight down the passage and through the big open door, to the cloisters; when, looking up—to scold Mary Rebecca for taking such a leap, to bid Sister Teresa cease writhing, and Mary Seraphine to shriek in her cell with the door shut, if shriek she must—Mother Sub-Prioress saw the Bishop, alone and unattended, walking toward them from the cloisters.

"Benedicite," said the Bishop, as he approached. "I am fortunate in chancing to find the whole community assembled."

The Bishop's uplifted fingers brought the nuns to their knees; but they rose at once to their feet again and crowded behind Mother Sub-Prioress as, taking a step forward, she hastened to explain the situation.

"My Lord Bishop, you find us in much distress. The Reverend Mother is locked into her cell, and we fear that, after a long night of vigil and fasting, she hath swooned. We cannot get an answer by much knocking, and we have no means of forcing the door, which is of most massive strength and thickness."

The Bishop looked searchingly into the ferrety face of Mother Sub-Prioress, but he saw naught there save genuine distress and perplexity.

He looked at the massive door, and at the excited crowd of nuns. He even gave himself time to note that the nose and lip of Seraphine were beginning to swell, and to experience a whimsical wish that the Knight could see her.

Then his calm, observant eye turned again to Mother Sub-Prioress.

"And why do you make so sure, Mother Sub-Prioress, that the Reverend Mother is indeed within her cell?"

"Because we know her to be," replied Mother Sub-Prioress, as tartly as she dared, when addressing the Lord Bishop. "Permit me, Reverend Father, to recount to you the happenings of the last twenty hours.

"Soon after her return from Vespers, yestereven, the Reverend Mother sent word by Mary Antony that she purposed again spending the night in prayer and vigil, and would not be present at the evening meal; also that she must not, on any account whatever, be disturbed. Mary Antony took this message to the kitchens, bidding the younger lay-sisters to prepare the meal without her, saying she cared not how badly it was served, seeing the Reverend Mother would not be there to partake of it."

Mother Sub-Prioress paused to sniff, and to give the other nuns an opportunity for ejaculations concerning Sister Antony. But their awe of the Lord Bishop, and their genuine anxiety for the old lay-sister, kept them silent.

The Bishop stroked his chin, keeping the corners of his mouth firmly in place by means of his thumb and finger. Old Antony was delectably funny when she said these things herself; but she was delectably funnier, when her remarks were repeated by Mother Sub-Prioress.

"The old creature," continued Mother Sub-Prioress, eyeing the Bishop's meditative hand suspiciously, "then betook herself to the outer gates, told the porteress that she had your orders, Reverend Father, to report to you if the Reverend Mother again elected to pass a night in vigil and in fasting, because you and she—you and she forsooth!—were made anxious by the too constant fasting and the too prolonged vigils of the Reverend Mother. Mary Mark very properly refused to allow the old"–

"Lay-sister," interposed the Bishop, sternly.

Mother Sub-Prioress gasped; then made obeisance:—"the old lay-sister to leave the Convent. Whereupon Sister Antony sent Mary Mark to deliver the Reverend Mother's message to me, bribing her, with the promise of a gift from you, my lord, to leave her the key. When the porteress returned, Mary Antony was gone, having left the great doors ajar, and the key within the lock. She has not been seen since. Did she reach the Palace, and speak with you, my lord? Is she now in safety at the Palace?"

"Nay," said the Bishop gravely. "Sister Mary Antony hath not been seen at the Palace."

"Alack-a-day!" exclaimed Sister Abigail; "she will have fallen by the way, and perished! She was too old to face the world or attempt to reach the city."

"Peace, girl!" commanded the Sub-Prioress. "Thy comments and thy wailings mend not the matter, and do but incense the Lord Bishop."

Nothing could have appeared less incensed than the Bishop's benign countenance. But he had spoken sternly to Mother Sub-Prioress, therefore she endeavoured to put herself in the right by charging him, at the first opportunity, with unreasonable irritation.

The Bishop reassured Sister Abigail, with a smile; then, pointing toward the closed door: "Proceed with your recital, Mother Sub-Prioress," he said. "You have as yet given me no proof confirming your belief that the Prioress is within the cell."

"When the absence of Mary Antony became known, my lord," continued Mother Sub-Prioress, "we felt it right to acquaint the Reverend Mother with the old lay-sister's flight. I, myself, knocked upon this door; but the only reply I received was the continuous low chanting of prayers, from within; not so much a clear chanting, as a murmur; and whenever, during the night, nuns listened at the door, or ventured again to tap, the sound of the Reverend Mother's voice, reciting psalms or prayers, reached them. As you may remember, my lord, the ground upon the other side of the building is on a lower level than the cloister lawn. The windows of the Reverend Mother's cell are therefore raised above the shrubbery and it is not possible to see into the chamber. But Sister Mary Rebecca, who went round after dark, noted that the Reverend Mother had lighted her tapers and drawn her curtains. This morning the light is extinguished, the curtains are drawn back, and the casement flung open. Moreover at the usual hour for rising, the Reverend Mother rang the bell, as is her custom, to waken the nuns—rang it from within her cell, by means of this rope and pulley."

"Ah," said the Bishop.

"Sister Abigail, up already, thereupon ran to the Reverend Mother's cell; and, the bell still swinging, tapped and asked if she might bring in milk and bread. Once more the only answer was the low chanting of prayers. Also, Sister Abigail declares, the voice was so weak and faltering, she scarce knew it for the Reverend Mother's. And since then, my lord, there has been silence within the cell, and a sore sense of fear within our hearts; for it is unlike the Reverend Mother to keep her door locked, when the entire community calls and knocks without."

The Bishop lifted his hand.

"In that speak you truly, Mother Sub-Prioress," said he. "Also I must tell you without further delay, that the Prioress is not within her cell."

"Not within her cell!" exclaimed Mother Sub-Prioress.

"Not within her cell!" shrieked a score of terrified voices, like seagulls calling to each other, before a gathering storm.

"The Prioress left the Convent yesterday afternoon," said the Bishop, "with my knowledge and approval; travelling at once, with a sufficient escort, to a place some distance from Worcester, where I also spent the night. I have come to bring you a message from His Holiness the Pope, sent to me direct from Rome. . . . The Holy Father bids me say that your Prioress has been moved on by me, with his full knowledge and approval, to a place where she is required for higher service. Perhaps I may also tell you," added the Bishop, looking with kindly sympathy upon all the blankly disconcerted faces, "that this morning I myself performed a solemn rite, for which I held the Pope's especial mandate, setting apart your late Prioress for this higher service. She grieved that it was not possible to bid you farewell. She sends you loving greetings, her thanks for loyalty and obedience, and prays that the blessing of the Lord may ever be with you."

The Bishop ceased speaking.

At first there was an amazed silence.

Then the unexpected happened. Mother Sub-Prioress, without any warning, broke into passionate weeping.

Never before had Mother Sub-Prioress been known to weep. The sight petrified the Convent. Yet somehow all knew that she wept because, in the hard old nut which did duty for her heart, there was a kernel of deep love for their noble Prioress.

The other nuns wept, because Mother Sub-Prioress wept.

The sobbing became embarrassing in its completeness. Wheresoever the Bishop looked he was confronted by a weeping nun.

Suddenly Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, holding herself once more in control. It had just occurred to her that the Bishop's word could not be taken against the evidence of all their senses! On that very morning, at five o'clock the Convent call to rise had been rung from within the Prioress's cell!

So Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, punished her nose for sharing in the general breakdown, and looking with belligerent eye at the Bishop, said: "If the Reverend Mother be not within her cell, perhaps it will please you, my lord, to inform the Convent who is within it!"

"That point," said the Bishop, "can speedily be settled."

He took from his girdle the Prioress's master-key, handed over to him before he left Warwick.

Fitting it into the lock, he opened the door of the cell, and entered, followed by the Sub-Prioress and a crowd of palpitating, eager nuns.

A few paces from the door the Bishop paused, signing to Mother Sub-Prioress to come forward, but restraining, with uplifted hand, those who pressed in behind her.

The chamber was very still.

The chair of the Prioress was empty.

But, before the shrine of the Madonna, there lay, stretched upon the floor, the unconscious form of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE BISHOP KEEPS VIGIL

Old Mary Antony lay dying.

The Bishop had not allowed her to be carried from the cell of the Prioress, to her own.

He had commanded that the Reverend Mother's couch be moved from the inner room and placed before the shrine of the Virgin. On this lay Mary Antony, while the Bishop himself kept watch beside her.

The evening light came in through the open casement, illumining the calm old face, from which the soothing hand of death was already smoothing the wrinkles.

Five hours had passed since they found her.

It had taken long to restore her to consciousness; and so soon as she awoke to her surroundings, and recognised Mother Sub-Prioress, and the many faces around her, she relapsed into silence, refusing to answer any questions, yet keeping her eyes anxiously fixed upon the door.

Seeing which, Sister Teresa slipped from the room and ran secretly to tell the Lord Bishop, who had paid but a brief visit to the Palace and was now pacing the lawn below the cloisters.

The Bishop came at once; when, seeing him enter, Mary Antony gave a cry, striving to raise herself from the pillows.

Moving to the bedside, the Bishop laid his hand upon the shaking hands, which had been clasped at sight of him.

An eager question was in the eyes lifted to his.

The Bishop bent over the couch.

"Yes," he said, and smiled.

The anxious look faded. The eyes closed. A triumphant smile illumined the dying face.

Turning, the Bishop asked a few whispered questions of the Sub-Prioress.

Mary Antony had taken a sip of wine, but seemed to find it impossible to partake of food. She had been so long without, that now nature refused it.

"Undoubtedly she is dying," said Mother Sub-Prioress, not unkindly, but in the matter-of-fact tone of one to whom the hard outline of a fact is unsoftened by the atmosphere of imagination or of sympathy.

"I know it," said the Bishop, in low tones. "Therefore am I come to confess our sister and to administer the final rites and consolations of the Church. I have with me all that is needed. You may now withdraw, and leave me to watch alone beside Sister Mary Antony."

"We sent for Father Peter," began Mother Sub-Prioress, "but she paid no heed to any of his questions, neither would she"–

The Bishop took one step toward Mother Sub-Prioress, with uplifted hand, pointing to the door.

Mother Sub-Prioress hastened out.

The Bishop followed her into the passage, where a waiting crowd of nuns created that atmosphere of excited tension, which seizes certain minds at the near approach of death.

"I bid you all to go to your cells," said the Bishop, "there to spend the next hour in earnest prayer for the passing soul of this aged nun who, during so long a time, has lived and worked in this Convent. Let every door be closed. I keep the final vigil alone. When I need help I shall ring the Convent bell."

Immovable in the passage stood the Bishop, until every figure had vanished; every door had closed.

Then he re-entered the Prioress's cell, and shut the door.

He placed the holy oil on the step, before the shrine of the Madonna, just where old Antony had knelt when she had prayed our blessèd Lady to be pleased to sharpen her old wits.

Then he drew forth a tiny flask of rare Italian workmanship, let fall a few drops from it into a spoonful of wine, and firmly poured the liquid between the old lay-sister's parted lips.

One anxious moment; then he heard her swallow.

At that, the Bishop drew the Prioress's chair to the side of the couch, and sat down to await events.

In a few moments the stertorous breathing ceased, the open mouth closed. Mary Antony sighed thrice, as a little child that has wept before sleeping sighs in its sleep.

Then she opened her eyes, and fixed them on the Bishop.

"Reverend Father"—she began, then chuckled, gleefully. Her voice had come back, and with it a great activity of brain, though the hands upon the coverlet seemed to belong to someone else, and she hoped they would not rise up and strike her. Her feet, she could not feel at all; but, seeing that she was most comfortably lying there where she best loved to be, why should she require feet? Feet are such tired things. One rests better without them.

"Speak low," said the Bishop, bending forward. "Speak low, dear Sister Antony; partly to spare thy strength; and partly because, though I have sent all the White Ladies to their cells, our good Mother Sub-Prioress, in her natural anxiety for thy welfare, may be outside the door, even now."

Mary Antony chuckled.

"If we could but thrust a nail through into her ear," she whispered. Then suddenly serious, she put the question which already her eyes had asked: "Did I succeed in keeping from them the flight of the Reverend Mother, until you arrived, Reverend Father?"

"Yes, faithful heart, wise beyond all expectation, you did."

Again Mary Antony chuckled.

"I locked them out," she said, with a knowing wink, "but I also took them in. Yea, verily, I took them in! Scores of times they called me 'Reverend Mother.' 'Open the door, I humbly pray you, Reverend Mother,' pleaded Mother Sub-Prioress at the keyhole. 'Dixi: Custodiam vias meas,' chanted Mary Antony, in a beauteous voice! . . . 'Open, open, Reverend Mother!' besought a multitude without. 'Quid multiplicati sunt gui tribulant me!' intoned Mary Antony, within. . . . 'Most dear and Reverend Mother,' crooned Sister Mary Rebecca, at midnight, 'I have something of deepest importance to say'—'Dixit insipiens,' was Mary Antony's appropriate response. Eh, and Sister Mary Rebecca, thinking none could observe her, had already been round, in the moonlight, and attempted to climb a tree. All the Reverend Mother's windows were closely curtained; but old Antony had her eye to a crack, and the sight of Sister Mary Rebecca climbing, made all the other trees to shake with laughter, but is not a sight to be described to the great Lord Bishop. . . . Nay, then!"—with a startled cry—"Why doth this knotted finger rise up and shake itself at me?"

The Bishop took the worn old hand, now stone cold, laid it back upon the quilt, and covered it with his own.

The drug he had administered had indeed revived the powers, but the over-excited brain was inclined to wander.

He recalled it with a name which he knew would act as a potent spell.

"Would you have news of the Prioress, Sister Antony?"

Instantly the eyes grew eager.

"Is she safe, Reverend Father? Is she well? Hath she taken happiness to her with both hands, not thrusting it away?"

"Happiness hath taken her by both hands," said the Bishop. "This morning I blest her union with a noble knight to whom she was betrothed before she came hither."

"I know," whispered old Antony ecstatically. "I heard it all, I and my meat chopper, hidden in there; I and my meat chopper—not willing to let the Reverend Mother face danger alone. And I did thrust the handle of the chopper between my gums, that I might not cry 'Bravely done!' when the noble Knight and his men-at-arms flung a rope over a strong bough, and hanged that clerkly fellow—somewhat lean and out at elbows. Oh, ah? It was bravely done! I heard it all! I saw it all!"

Then the joy faded; a look of shame and grief came into the old face.

"But having thus seen and heard has led me into grievous sin, Reverend Father. Alas, I have lied about holy things, sinning, I fear me, beyond forgiveness, though indeed I did it, meaning to do well. May I tell you all, Reverend Father, that you may judge whether in that which I did, I acted according to our blessèd Lady's will and intention, or whether the deceitfulness of mine own heart has led me into mortal sin?"

The Bishop looked anxiously at the sun dipping slowly in the west. The effect of the drug he had given should last an hour, if care were taken of this spurious strength. He judged a quarter of that time to have already sped.

"Tell me from the beginning, without reserve, dear Antony," he said. "But speak low, for my ear only. Remember possible listeners outside the door."

So presently the whole tale was told, with many a quaint twist of old Antony's. And the Bishop's heart melted to tenderness as she whispered the story, and he realised the greatness of the devotion which had gone forward, without a thought of self, in the bold endeavour to bring happiness to the Prioress she loved, yet the anxious conscience, which now trembled at the thought of that which the fearless heart had done.

"I lied about holy things; I put words into our blessèd Lady's mouth; I said she moved her hand. But you did tell me, Reverend Father, that the Reverend Mother was so made that unless there was a vision or revelation from our Lady, she would thrust away her happiness with both hands. And there would not have been a vision if old Antony had not contrived one. Yet I fear me, for the sin of that contriving, I shall never find forgiveness; my soul must ever stay in torment."

Tears coursed down the wrinkled cheeks.

The Bishop kneeled beside the bed.

"Dear Antony," he said. "Listen to me. 'Perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment.' You have loved with a perfect love. You need have no fear. Trust in the love of God, in the precious blood of the Redeemer, which cleanseth from all sin, in the understanding tenderness of our Lady, who knoweth a woman's heart. You meant to do right; and if, honestly intending to do well, you used the wrong means, Divine love, judging you by your intention, will pardon the mistake. 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' Think no more of yourself, in this. Dwell solely on our Lord. Silence your own fears, by repeating: 'He is faithful and just.'"

"Think you, Reverend Father," quavered the pathetic voice, "that They will sometimes let old Antony out of hell for an hour, to sit on her jasper seat and see the Reverend Mother walk up the golden stairs, with the splendid Knight on one side and the great Lord Bishop on the other?"

"Sister Mary Antony," said the Bishop, clearly and solemnly, "there is no place in hell for so faithful and so loving a heart. You shall go straight to your jasper seat; and because, with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, your eyes will scarce have time to grow used to the great glory, before you see the Reverend Mother coming, walking between the two who have faithfully loved her; and you, who have also loved her faithfully, will also mount the golden stair, and together we all shall kneel before the throne of God, and understand at last the full meaning of those words of wonder: GOD IS LOVE."

A look of ineffable joy lit up the dying face.