WHAT THE BISHOP REMEMBERED
Symon, Bishop of Worcester, sat in his library, in the cool of the day.
He was weary, with a weariness which surpassed all his previous
experience of weariness, all his imaginings as to how weary, in body
and spirit, a man could be, yet continue to breathe and think.
With some, extreme fatigue leads to restlessness of body. Not so with
the Bishop. The more tired he was, the more perfectly still he sat;
his knees crossed, his elbows on the arms of his chair, the fingers of
both hands pressed lightly together, his head resting against the high
back of the chair, his gaze fixed upon the view across the river.
As he looked with unseeing eyes upon the wide stretch of meadow, the
distant woods and the soft outline of the Malvern hills, he was
thinking how good it would be never again to leave this quiet room;
never to move from this chair; never again to see a human being; never
to have to smile when he was heart-sick, or to bow when he felt
ungracious!
Those who knew the Bishop best, often spoke together of his wondrous
vitality and energy, their favourite remark being: that he was never
tired. They might with more truth have said that they had never known
him to appear tired.
It had long been a rule in the Bishop's private code, that weariness,
either of body or spirit, must not be shewn to others. The more tired
he was, the more ready grew his smile, the more alert his movements,
the more gracious his response to any call upon his sympathy or
interest.
He never sighed in company, as did Father Peter when, having supped too
well off jolly of salmon, roast venison, and raisin pie, he was fain to
let indigestion pass muster for melancholy.
He never yawned in Council, either gracefully behind his hand, as did
the lean Spanish Cardinal; or openly and unashamed, as did the round
and rosy Abbot of Evesham, displaying to the fascinated gaze of the
brethren in stalls opposite, a cavernous throat, a red and healthy
tongue, and a particularly fine set of teeth.
Moreover the Bishop would as soon have thought of carrying a garment
from the body of a plague-stricken patient into the midst of a family
of healthy children, as of entering an assemblage with a jaded
countenance or a languorous manner.
Therefore: "He is never weary," said his friends.
"He knoweth not the meaning of fatigue," agreed his acquaintances.
"There is no merit in labour which is not in anywise a burden, but,
rather, a delight," pronounced those who envied his powers.
"He is possessed," sneered his enemies, "by a most energetic demon!
Were that demon exorcised, the Bishop would collapse, exhausted."
"He is filled," said his admirers, "by the Spirit of God, and is thus
so energized that he can work incessantly, without experiencing
ordinary human weakness."
And none knew that it was a part of his religion to Symon of Worcester,
to hide his weariness from others.
Yet once when, in her chamber, he sat talking with the Prioress, she
had risen, of a sudden, saying: "You are tired, Father. Rest there in
silence, while I work at my missal."
She had passed to the table; and the Bishop had sat resting, just as he
was sitting now, save that his eyes could then dwell on her face, as
she bent, absorbed, over the illumination.
After a while he had asked: "How knew you that I was tired, my dear
Prioress?"
Without lifting her eyes, she had made answer: "Because, my Lord
Bishop, you twice smiled when there was no occasion for smiling."
Another period of restful silence, while she worked, and he watched her
working. Then he had remarked: "My friends say I am never tired."
And she had answered: "They would speak more truly if they said that
you are ever brave."
It had amazed the Bishop to find himself thus understood. Moreover he
could scarce put on his biretta, so crowned was his head by the laurels
of her praise. Also this had been the only time when he had wondered
whether the Prioress really believed Father Gervaise to be at the
bottom of the ocean. It is ever an astonishment to a man when the
unerring intuition of a woman is brought to bear upon himself.
Now, in this hour of his overwhelming fatigue, he recalled that scene.
Closing his eyes on the distant view, and opening them upon the
enchanted vistas of memory, he speedily saw that calm face, with its
chastened expression of fine self-control, bending above the page she
was illuminating. He saw the severe lines of the wimple, the folds of
the flowing veil, the delicate movement of the long fingers,
and--yes!--resting upon her bosom the jewelled cross, sign of her high
office.
Thus looking back, he vividly recalled the extraordinary restfulness of
sitting there in silence, while she worked. No words were needed. Her
very presence, and the fact that she knew him to be weary, rested him.
He looked again. But now the folds of the wimple and veil were gone.
A golden circlet clasped the shining softness of her hair.
The Bishop opened tired eyes, and fixed them once again upon the
landscape.
He supposed the long rides on two successive days had exhausted him
physically; and the strain of securing and ensuring the safety and
happiness of the woman who was dearer to him than life, had reacted now
in a mental lassitude which seemed unable to rise up and face the
prospect of the lonely years to come.
The thought of her as now with the Knight, did not cause him suffering.
His one anxiety was lest anything unforeseen should arise, to prevent
the full fruition of their happiness.
He had never loved her as a man loves the woman he would wed;--at
least, if that side of his love had attempted to arise, it had
instantly been throttled and flung back.
It seemed to him that, from the very beginning he had ever loved her as
Saint Joseph must have loved the maiden intrusted to his keeping--his,
yet not his; called, in the inspired dream, "Mary, thy wife"; but so
called only that he might have the right to guard and care for her--she
who was shrine of the Holiest, o'ershadowed by the power of the
Highest; Mother of God, most blessèd Virgin forever.
It seemed to the Bishop that his joy in watching over Mora, since his
appointment to the See of Worcester, had been such as Saint Joseph
could well have understood; and now he had accomplished the supreme
thing; and, in so doing, had left himself desolate.
On the afternoon of the previous day, so soon as the body of the old
lay-sister had been removed from the Prioress's cell, the Bishop had
gathered together all those things which Mora specially valued and
which she had asked him to secure for her; mostly his gifts to her.
The Sacramentaries, from which she so often made copies and
translations, now lay upon his table.
His tired eyes dwelt upon them. How often he had watched the firm
white fingers opening those heavy clasps, and slowly turning the pages.
The books remained; yet her presence was gone.
His weary brain repeated, over and over, this obvious fact; then began
a hypothetical reversal of it. Supposing the books had gone, and her
presence had remained? . . . Presently a catalogue formed itself in
his mind of all those things which might have gone, unmissed,
unmourned, if her dear presence had remained. . . . Before long the
Palace . . . the City . . . the Cathedral itself . . . all had swelled
the list. . . . He was alone with Mora and the sunset; . . . and the
battlements of glory were the radiant walls of heaven; . . . and soon
he and she were walking up old Mary Antony's golden stair
together. . . .
Hush! . . . "So He giveth His belovèd sleep."
* * * * * *
The Bishop had but just returned from laying to rest, in the
burying-ground of the Convent, the worn-out body of the aged lay-sister.
When he had signified that he intended himself to perform the last
rites, Mother Sub-Prioress had ventured upon amazed expostulation.
Such an honour had never, in the history of the Community, been
accorded even to the Canonesses, much less to a lay-sister. Surely
Father Peter--or the Prior? Had it been the Prioress herself, why
then----
Few can remember the petrifying effect of a flash of sudden anger in
the kindly eyes of Symon of Worcester. Mother Sub-Prioress will never
forget it.
So, with as much pomp and circumstance as if she had been Prioress of
the White Ladies, old Mary Antony's humble remains were laid in that
plot in the Convent burying-ground which she had chosen for herself,
half a century before.
Much sorrow was shewn, by the entire Community. The great loss they
had sustained by the mysterious passing of the Prioress from their
midst, weighed heavily upon them; and seemed, in some way which they
could not fathom, to be connected with the death of the old lay-sister.
As the solemn procession slowly wended its way from the Chapel, along
the Cypress Walk, and so, across the orchard, to the burying-ground,
the tears which ran down the chastened faces of the nuns, were as much
a tribute of love to their late Prioress, as a sign of sorrow for the
loss of Mary Antony. The little company of lay-sisters sobbed without
restraint. Sister Abigail, so often called "noisy hussy" by old
Antony, fully, on this final occasion, justified the name.
As the procession was re-forming to leave the grave, Sister Mary
Seraphine felt that the moment had now arrived, old Antony being
disposed of, when she might suitably become the centre of attention,
and be carried, on the return journey. She therefore fell prone upon
the ground, in a fainting fit.
The Bishop, his chaplain, the priests and acolytes, paused uncertain
what to do.
Sister Teresa, and other nuns, would have hastened to raise her, but
the command of Mother Sub-Prioress rang sharp and clear.
"Let her lie! If she choose to remain with the Dead, it is but small
loss to the Living."
And with hands devoutly crossed upon her breast, ferret face peering to
right and left from out the curtain of her veil, Mother Sub-Prioress
moved forward at the head of the nuns.
The Bishop's procession, which had wavered, continued to lead the way;
solemn chanting began; and, as the Bishop turned into the Cypress Walk
he saw the flying figure of Mary Seraphine running among the trees in
the orchard, trying to catch up, and to take her place again,
unnoticed, among the rest.
The Bishop smiled, remembering his many talks with the Prioress
concerning Seraphine, and the Knight's dismay when he feared they were
foisting the wayward nun upon him.
Then he sighed as he realised that the control of the Convent had now
passed into the able hands of Mother Sub-Prioress; and that, in these
unusual circumstances, the task of selecting and appointing a new
Prioress, fell to him.
Perhaps his conversations on this subject, first with the Prior, and
later on with Mother Sub-Prioress, partly accounted for his extreme
fatigue, now that he found himself at last alone in his library.
But the reward of those "whose strength is to sit still," had come to
the Bishop.
Soon after he fixed his eyes upon the Gregorian and Gelasian
Sacramentaries, his eyelids gently began to droop. Sleep was already
upon him when he decided to let the Palace, the City, yea, even the
Cathedral go, if he might but keep the Prioress. And as he walked with
Mora up the golden stair, his mind was at rest; his weary body slept.
A very few minutes of sleep sufficed the Bishop.
He awoke as suddenly as he had fallen asleep; and, as he awoke, he
seemed to hear himself say: "Nay, Hugh. None save the old lay-sister,
Mary Antony."
He sat up, wondering what this sentence could mean; also when and where
it had been spoken.
As he wondered, his eye fell upon the white stone which he had flung
into the Severn, and which the Knight, diving from the parapet, had
retrieved from the river bed. The stone seemed in some way connected
with this chance sentence which had repeated itself in his brain.
The Bishop rose, walked over to his deed chest, took the white stone in
his hand and stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon it, wrapped in
thought. Then he passed out on to the lawn, and paced slowly to and
fro between the archway leading from the courtyard, to the parapet
overlooking the river.
Yes; it was here.
He had ridden in on Shulamite, from the heights above the town, whence
he had watched the Prioress ride in the river meadow.
He had found Hugh d'Argent awaiting him, and together they had paced
this lawn in earnest conversation.
Hugh had been anxious to hear every detail of his visit to the Convent
and the scene in the Prioress's cell when he had shewn her the copy of
the Pope's mandate, just received from Rome. In speaking of the
possible developments which might take place in the course of the next
few hours, Hugh had asked whether any in the Convent, beside Mora
herself, knew of his presence in Worcester, or that he had managed to
obtain entrance to the cloisters by the crypt passage, to make his way
disguised to Mora's cell, and to have speech with her.
The Bishop had answered that none knew of this, save the old lay-sister
Mary Antony, who was wholly devoted to the Prioress, made shrewd by
ninety years of experience in outwitting her superiors, and could be
completely trusted.
"How came she to know?" the Bishop seemed to remember that the Knight
had asked. And he had made answer that he had as yet no definite
information, but was inclined to suspect that when the Prioress had
bidden the old woman begone, she had slipped into some place of
concealment from whence she had seen and heard something of what passed
in the cell.
To this the Knight had made no comment; and now, walking up and down
the lawn, the white stone in his hand, the Bishop could not feel sure
how far Hugh had taken in the exact purport of the words; yet well he
knew that sentences which pass almost unnoticed when heard with a mind
preoccupied, are apt to return later on, with full significance, should
anything occur upon which they shed a light.
This then was the complication which had brought the Bishop out to pace
the lawn, recalling each step in the conversation, there where it had
taken place.
Sooner or later, Mora will tell her husband of Mary Antony's wondrous
vision. If she reaches the conclusion, uninterrupted, all will be
well. The Knight will realise the importance of concealing the fact of
the old lay-sister's knowledge--by non-miraculous means--of his
presence in the cell, and his suit to the Prioress. But should she
preface her recital by remarking that none in the Community had
knowledge of his visit, the Knight will probably at once say: "Nay,
there you are mistaken! I have it from the Bishop that the old
lay-sister, Mary Antony, knew of it, having stayed hidden where she saw
and heard much that passed; yet being very faithful, and more than
common shrewd, could--so said the Bishop--be most completely trusted."
Whereupon irreparable harm would be done; for, at once, Mora would
realise that she had been deceived; and her peace of mind and calm of
conscience would be disturbed, if not completely overthrown.
One thing seemed clear to the Bishop.
Hugh must be warned. Probably no harm had as yet been done. The
vision was so sacred a thing to Mora, that weeks might elapse before
she spoke of it to her husband.
With as little delay as possible Hugh must be put upon his guard.