The morning after the return from Rome of the Bishop"s messenger, the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, chanced to be crossing the Convent courtyard, when there came a loud knocking on the outer gates.
Mary Antony, hastening, thrust aside the buxom porteress, and herself opened the _guichet_, and looked out.
The Lord Bishop, mounted upon his white palfrey, waited without; Brother Philip in attendance.
What a bewildering surprise! What a fortunate thing, thought old Antony, that she should chance to be there to deal with such an emergency.
Never did the Bishop visit the Nunnery, without sending a messenger beforehand to know whether the Prioress could see him, stating the exact hour of his proposed arrival; so that, when the great doors were flung wide and the Bishop rode into the courtyard, the Prioress would be standing at the top of the steps to receive him; Mother Sub-Prioress in attendance in the background; the other holy ladies upon their knees within the entrance; Mary Antony, well out of sight, yet where peeping was possible, because she loved to see the Reverend Mother kneel and kiss the Bishop"s ring, rising to her feet again without pause, making of the whole movement one graceful, deep obeisance. After which, Mary Antony, still peeping, greatly loved to see the Prioress mount the wide, stone staircase with the Bishop; each shewing a courtly deference to the other.
(One of Mary Antony"s most exalted dreams of heaven, was of a place where she should sit upon a jasper seat and see the Reverend Mother and the great Lord Bishop mounting together interminable flights of golden stairs; while Mother Sub-Prioress and Sister Mary Rebecca looked through black bars, somewhere down below, whence they would have a good view of Mary Antony on her jasper seat, but no glimpse of the golden stairs or of the radiant figures which she watched ascending.)
So much for the usual visits of the Bishop, when everything was in readiness for his reception.
But now, all unexpected, the Bishop waited without the gate, and Mary Antony had to deal with this emergency.
Crying to the porteress to open wide, she hastened to the steps. . . .
It was impossible to summon the Reverend Mother in time. . . . The Lord Bishop must not be kept waiting! . . . Even now the great doors were rolling back.
Mary Antony mounted the six steps; then turned in the doorway.
The Lord Bishop must be received. There was n.o.body else to do it. She would receive the Lord Bishop!
As she saw him riding in upon Icon, blessing the porteress as he pa.s.sed, she remembered how she had ridden round the river meadow as the Bishop. Now she must play her part as the Prioress.
So it came to pa.s.s that, as he rode up to the door and dismounted, flinging his rein to Brother Philip, the Bishop found himself confronted by the queer little figure of the aged lay-sister, drawn up to its full height and obviously upheld by a sense of importance and dignity.
As the Bishop reached the entrance, she knelt and kissed his ring; then tried to rise quickly, failed, and clutching at his hand, exclaimed: "Devil take my old knee-joints!"
Never before had the Bishop been received with such a formula! Never had his ring been kissed by a lay-sister! But remembering the scene when old Antony rode round the field upon Icon, he understood that she now was playing the part of Prioress.
"Good-day, worthy Mother," he said, as he raised her. "The spirit is willing I know, but, in your case, the knee-joints are weak. But no wonder, for they have done you long service. Why, I get up slowly from kneeling, yet my knees are thirty years younger than yours. . . . Nay I will not mount to the Reverend Mother"s chamber until you acquaint her of my arrival. Take me round to the garden, and there let me wait in the shade, while you seek her."
Greatly elated at the success of her effort, and emboldened by his charming condescension, Mary Antony led the Bishop through the rose-arch; and, casting a furtive glance at his face from behind the curtain of her veil, ventured to hope there was naught afoot which could bring trouble or care to the Reverend Mother.
Mary Antony was trotting beside the Bishop, down the long walk between the yew hedges, when she gave vent to this anxious question.
At once the Bishop slackened speed.
"Not so fast, Sister Antony," he said. "I pray you to remember mine age, and to moderate your pace. Why should you expect trouble or anxiety for the Reverend Mother?"
"Nay," said Mary Antony, "I expect naught; I saw naught; I heard naught! "Twas all mine own mistake, counting with my peas. I told the Reverend Mother so, and set her mind at rest by carrying up _six_ peas, saying that I had found _six_ and not _five_ in my wallet."
"Let us pause," said the Bishop, "and look at this lily. How lovely are its petals. How tall and white it shews against the hedge. Why did you need to set the Reverend Mother"s mind at rest, Sister Antony, by carrying up six peas?"
"Because," said the old lay-sister, "when I had counted as they returned, the twenty holy ladies who had gone to Vespers, yet another pa.s.sed making twenty-one. Upon which I ran and reported to the Reverend Mother, saying in my folly, that I feared the twenty-first was Sister Agatha, returned to walk amongst the Living, she being over fifty years numbered with the Dead. Yet many a time, just before dawn, have I heard her rapping on the cloister door; aye, many a time--tap!
tap! tap! But what good would there be in opening to a poor lady you helped thrust into her shroud, nigh upon sixty years before? So "Tap away!" says I; "tap away, Sister Agatha! Try Saint Peter at the gates of Paradise. Old Antony knows better than to let you in.""
"What said the Reverend Mother when you reported on a twenty-first White Lady?" asked the Bishop.
"Reverend Mother bid me begone, while she herself dealt with the wraith of Sister Agatha."
"And why did you _not_ go?" asked the Bishop, quietly.
Completely taken aback, Mary Antony"s ready tongue failed her. She stood stock still and stared at the Bishop. Her gums began to rattle and she clapped her knuckles against them, horror and dismay in her eyes.
The Bishop looked searchingly into the frightened old face, and there read all he wanted to know. Then he smiled; and, taking her gently by the arm, paced on between the yew hedges.
"Sister Antony," he said, and the low tones of his voice fell like quiet music upon old Antony"s perturbed spirit; "you and I, dear Sister Antony, love the Reverend Mother so truly and so faithfully, that there is nothing we would not do, to save her a moment"s pain. _We_ know how n.o.ble and how good she is; and that she will always decide aright, and follow in the footsteps of our blessed Lady and all the holy saints.
But others there are, who do not love her as we love her, or know her as we know her; and they might judge her wrongly. Therefore we must tell to none, that which we know--how the Reverend Mother, alone, dealt with that visitor, who was not the wraith of Sister Agatha."
Mary Antony peeped up at the Bishop. A light of great joy was on her face. Her eyes had lost their look of terror, and began to twinkle cunningly.
"I know naught," she said. "I saw naught; I heard naught."
The Bishop smiled.
"How many peas were left in your wallet, Sister Antony ?"
"Five," chuckled Mary Antony.
"Why did you shew six to the Reverend Mother?"
"To set her mind at rest," whispered the old lay-sister.
"To cause her to think that you had heard naught, seen naught, and knew naught?"
Mary Antony nodded, chuckling again.
"Faithful old heart!" said the Bishop. "What gave thee this thought?"
"Our blessed Lady, in answer to her pet.i.tion, sharpened the wits of old Antony."
The Bishop sighed. "May our blessed Lady keep them sharp," he murmured, half aloud.
"Amen," said Mary Antony with fervour.
CHAPTER XXVI
LOVE NEVER FAILETH
The Bishop awaited the Prioress on that stone seat under the beech, from which the robin had carried off the pea.
He saw her coming through the sunlit cloisters.
As she moved down the steps, and came swiftly toward him, he was conscious at once of an indefinable change in her.