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.