The White Ladies of Worcester - Florence Louisa Barclay (best classic books of all time txt) 📗

Mother's door.

The Prioress stood alone; a tragic figure in her grief.

Mother Sub-Prioress drew near. Her narrow face, peering from out her veil, more than ever resembled a ferret. Her small eyes gleamed with a merciless light.

"Is mine the task, Reverend Mother?" she whispered.

The Prioress inclined her head.

Mother Sub-Prioress murmured a second question.

The Prioress turned and looked at the crucifix.

"Yes," she said, firmly.

Mother Sub-Prioress sidled nearer; then whispered her third question.

The Prioress did not answer. She was looking at the carved, oaken stool, overthrown. She was wondering whether she could have acted with better judgment, spoken more wisely. Her heart was sore. Such noble natures ever blame themselves for the wrong-doing of the worthless.

Receiving no reply, Mother Sub-Prioress whispered a suggestion.

"No," said the Prioress.

Mother Sub-Prioress modified her suggestion.

The Prioress turned and looked at the tender figure of the Madonna, brooding over the blessed Babe.

"No," said the Prioress.

Mother Sub-Prioress frowned, and made a further modification; but in tones which suggested finality.

The Prioress inclined her head.

The Sub-Prioress, bowing low, lifted the hem of the Reverend Mother's veil, and kissed it; then passed from the room.

The Prioress moved to the window.

The sunset was over. The evening star shone, like a newly-lighted lamp, in a pale purple sky. The fleet-winged swallows had gone to rest.

Bats flitted past the casement, like homeless souls who know not where to go.

Low chanting began in the cells; the nuns, with open doors, singing _Miserere_.

But, as she looked at the evening star, the Prioress heard again, with startling distinctness, the final profanity of poor Sister Seraphine: "I want life--not death!"

Along the corridor passed a short procession, on its way to the cell of Mary Seraphine.

First went a nun, carrying a lighted taper.

Next, the two tall nuns who had borne Mary Seraphine to her cell.

Behind them, Mother Sub-Prioress, holding something beneath her scapulary which gave to her more of a presence than she usually possessed.

Solemn and official,--nay, almost sacrificial--was their measured shuffle, as they moved along the passage, and entered the cell of Mary Seraphine.

The Prioress closed her door, and, kneeling before the crucifix, implored forgiveness for the sacrilege which, all unwittingly, she had provoked.

The nuns, in their separate cells, chanted the _Miserere_. But--suddenly--with one accord, their voices fell silent; then hastened on, in uncertain, agitated rhythm.

Old Mary Antony below, playing her favourite game, also paused, and pricked up her ears: then filliped the wizen pea, which stood for Mother Sub-Prioress, into the darkest corner, and hurried off to brew a soothing balsam.

So, when the Refectory bell had summoned all to the evening meal, the old lay-sister crept to the cell of Mary Seraphine, carrying broth and comfort.

But Sister Seraphine was better content than she had been for many weeks.

At last she had become the centre of attention; and, although, during the visit of Mother Sub-Prioress to her cell, this had been a peculiarly painful position to occupy, yet to the morbid mind of Mary Seraphine, the position seemed worth the discomfort.

Therefore, her mind now purged of its discontent, she cheerfully supped old Antony's broth, and applied the soothing balsam; yet planning the while, to gain favour with the Prioress, by repeating to her, at the first convenient opportunity, the naughty remarks concerning Mother Sub-Prioress, now being made for her diversion, by the kind old woman who had risked reproof, in order to bring to her, in her disgrace, both food and consolation.


CHAPTER VI


THE KNIGHT OF THE BLOODY VEST

"Nay, I have naught for thee this morning," said Mary Antony to the robin; "naught, that is, save spritely conversation. I can tell thee a tale or two; I can give thee sage advice; but, in my wallet, little Master Mendicant, I have but my bag of peas."

The old lay-sister sat resting in the garden. She had had a busy hour, yet complicated in its busy-ness, for, starting out to do weeding, she had presently fancied herself intent upon making a posy, and now, sat upon the stone seat beneath the beech tree, holding a large nosegay made up of many kinds of flowering weeds, arranged with much care, and bound round with convolvulus tendrils.

Keen and uncommon shrewd though old Antony certainly was in many ways, her great age occasionally betrayed itself by childish vagaries. Her mind would start off along the lines of a false premise, landing her eventually in a dream-like conclusion. As now, when waking from a moment's nodding in the welcome shade, she wondered why her old back seemed well-nigh broken, and marvelled to find herself holding a big posy of dandelions, groundsel, plantain, and bindweed.

On the other end of the seat, stood the robin. The beech was just near enough to the cloisters, the pieman's tree, and his own particular yew hedge, to come within his little kingdom.

Having mentioned her bag of peas, Mary Antony experienced an irresistible desire to view them and, moreover, to display them before the bright eyes of the robin.

She laid the queer nosegay down upon the grass at her feet, turned sidewise on the stone slab, and drew the bag from her wallet.

"Now, Master Pieman!" she said. "At thine own risk thou doest it; but with thine own bright eyes thou shalt see the holy Ladies; the Unnamed, all like peas in a pod, as the Lord knows they do look, when they walk to and fro; but first, if so be that I can find them, the Few which I distinguish from among the rest."

Presently, after much peering into the bag, the fine white pea, the wizened pea, and the pale and speckled pea, lay in line upon the stone.

"This," explained Mary Antony, pointing, with knobby forefinger, to the first, "is the Reverend Mother, Herself--large, and pure, and noble. . . . Nay, hop not too close, Sir Redbreast! When we enter her chamber we kneel at the threshold, till she bids us draw nearer. True, _we_ are merely soberly-clad, holy women, whereas _thou_ art a gay, gaudy man; bold-eyed, and, doubtless, steeped in sin. But even thou must keep thy distance, in presence of this most Reverend Pea of great price.

"This," indicating the shrivelled pea, "is Mother Sub-Prioress, who would love to have the whipping of thee, thou naughty little rascal!

"This is Sister Mary Rebecca who daily grows more crooked, both in mind and body; yet who ever sweetly smileth.

"Now will I show thee, if so be that I can find her, Sister Teresa, a kindly soul and gracious, but with a sniff which may be heard in the kitchens when that holy Lady taketh her turn at the Refectory reading. And when, the reading over, having sniffed every other minute, she at length, feels free to blow, beshrew me, Master Redbreast, one might think our old dun cow had just been parted from a newly-born calf. Yea, a kind, gracious soul; but noisy about the nose, and forgetful of the ears of other people, her own necessity seeming excuse enough for veritable trumpet blasts."

Mary Antony, half turning as she talked, peered into the open bag in search of Sister Teresa.

Then, quick as thought, the unexpected happened.

Three rapid hops, a jerky bend of the red breast, a flash of wings----

The robin had flown off with the white pea! The shrivelled and the speckled alone remained upon the seat.

Uttering a cry of horror and dismay, the old lay-sister fell upon her knees, lifting despairing hands to trees and sky.

Down by the lower wall, in earnest meditation, the Prioress moved back and forth, on the Cypress Walk.

Mary Antony's shriek of dismay, faint but unmistakable, reached her ears. Turning, she passed noiselessly up the green sward, on the further side of the yew hedge; but paused, in surprise, as she drew level with the beech; for the old lay-sister's voice penetrated the hedge, and the first words she overheard seemed to the Prioress wholly incomprehensible.

"Ah, thou Knight of the Bloody Vest!" moaned Mary Antony. "Heaven send thy wicked perfidy may fall on thine own pate! Intruding thyself into our most private places; begging food, which could not be refused; wheedling old Mary Antony into letting thee have a peep at the holy Ladies--thou bold, bad man!--and then carrying off the Reverend Mother, Herself! Ha! Hadst thou but caught away Mother Sub-Prioress, she would have reformed thy home, whipped thy children, and mended thine own vile manners, thou graceless churl! Or hadst thou taken Sister Mary Rebecca, _she_ would have brought the place about thine ears, telling thy wife fine tales of thine unfaithfulness; whispering that Mary Antony is younger and fairer than she. But, nay, forsooth! Neither of these will do! Thou must needs snatch away the Reverend Mother, Herself! Oh, sacrilegious fiend! Stand not there mocking me! Where is the Reverend Mother?"

"Why, here am I, dear Antony," said the Prioress, in soothing tones, coming quickly from behind the hedge.

One glance revealed, to her relief, that the lay-sister was alone. Tears ran down the furrows of her worn old face. She knelt upon the grass; beside her a large nosegay of flowering weeds; upon the seat, peas strewn from out a much-used, linen bag. Above her on a bough, a robin perched, bending to look, with roguish eye, at the scattered peas.

To the Prioress it seemed that indeed the old lay-sister must have taken leave of her senses.

Stooping, she tried to raise her; but Mary Antony, flinging herself forward, clasped and kissed the Reverend Mother's feet, in an abandonment of penitence and grief.

"Nay, rise, dear Antony," said the Prioress, firmly. "Rise! I command it. The day is warm. Thou hast been dreaming. No bold, bad man has forced his way within these walls. No 'Knight of the Bloody Vest' is here. Rise up and look. We are alone."

But Mary Antony, still on her knees, half raised herself, and, pointing to the bough above, quavered, amid her sobs: "The bold, bad man is there!"

Looking up, the Prioress met the bright eye of the robin, peeping down.

Why, surely? Yes! There was the "Bloody Vest."

The Prioress smiled. She began to understand.

The robin burst into a stream of triumphant song. At which, old Mary Antony, still kneeling, shook her uplifted fist.

The Prioress raised and drew her to the seat.

"Now sit thee here beside me," she said, "and make full confession. Ease thine old heart by telling me the entire tale. Then I will pass sentence on the robin if, true to his name, he turns out to be a thief."

So there, in the Convent garden, while the robin sang overhead, the Prioress listened to the quaint recital; the dread of making mistake in the daily counting; the elaborate plan of dropping peas; the manner in which the peas became identified with the personalities of the White Ladies; the games in the cell; the taming of the robin; the habit of sharing with the little bird, interests which might not be shared with others, which had resulted that morning in the