The Prioress wondered why she had not heard the bell announcing their return, and calling to the hour of prayer and silence. Also why Mary Antony had not brought in the key and her report.
Thinking to inquire into this, she turned from the window, just as a darting snake of fire cleft the sky. A crash of thunder followed; and, at that moment, the door of the chamber bursting open, old Mary Antony, breathless, stumbled in, forgetting to knock, omitting to kneel, not waiting leave to speak, both hands outstretched, one tightly clenched, the other holding the great key: "Oh, Reverend Mother!" she gasped. Then the stern displeasure on that loved face silenced her. She dropped upon her knees, ashen and trembling.
Now the Prioress held personal fear in high scorn; and if, after ninety years' experience of lightning and thunder, Mary Antony was not better proof against their terrors, the Prioress felt scant patience with her. She spoke sternly.
"How now, Mary Antony! Why this unseemly haste? Why this rush into my presence; no knock; no pause until I bid thee enter? Is the storm-fiend at thy heels? Now shame upon thee!"
For only answer, Mary Antony opened her clenched hand: whereupon twenty peas fell pattering to the floor, chasing one another across the Reverend Mother's cell.
The Prioress frowned, growing suddenly weary of these games with peas.
"Have the Ladies returned?" she asked.
Mary Antony grovelled nearer, let fall the key, and seized the robe of the Prioress with both hands, not to carry it to her lips, but to cling to it as if for protection.
With the clang of the key on the flags, a twisted blade of fire rent the sky.
As the roar which followed rolled away, echoed and re-echoed by distant hills, the old lay-sister lifted her face.
Her lips moved, her gums rattled; the terror in her eyes pleaded for help.
This was the moment when it dawned on the Prioress that there was more here than fear of a storm.
Stooping she laid her hands firmly, yet with kindness in their strength, on the shaking shoulders.
"What is it, dear Antony?" she said.
"Twenty White Ladies went," whispered the old lay-sister. "I counted them. Twenty White Ladies went; but——"
"Well?"
"Twenty-one returned," chattered Mary Antony, and hid her face in the Reverend Mother's robe.
Two flashes, with their accompanying peals of thunder passed, before the Prioress moved or spoke. Then raising Mary Antony she placed her in a chair, disengaged her robe from the shaking hands, passed out into the cell passage, and herself sounded the call to silence and prayer.
Returning to her cell she shut the door, poured out a cordial and put it to the trembling lips of Mary Antony. Then taking a seat just opposite, she looked with calm eyes at the lay-sister.
"What means this story?" said the Prioress.
"Reverend Mother, twenty holy Ladies went——"
"I know. And twenty returned."
"Aye," said the old woman more firmly, nettled out of her speechlessness; "twenty returned; and twenty peas I dropped from hand to hand. Then—when no pea remained—yet another White Lady glided by; and with her went an icy wind, and around her came the blackness of the storm.
"Down the steps I fled, locked the door, and took the key. How I mounted again, I know not. As I drew level with the cloisters, I saw that twenty-first White Lady, for whom—Saint Peter knows—I held no pea, passing from the cloisters into the cell passage. As I hastened on, fain to see whither she went, a blinding flash, like an evil twisting snake, shot betwixt her and me. When I could see again, she was gone. I fled to the Reverend Mother, and ran in on the roar of the thunder."
"Saw you her face, Mary Antony?"
"Nay, Reverend Mother. But, of late, the holy Ladies mostly walk by with their faces shrouded."
"I know. Now, see here, dear Antony. Two peas dropped together, the while you counted one."
"Nay, Reverend Mother. Twenty peas dropped one by one; also I counted twenty White Ladies. And, after I had counted twenty, yet another passed."
"But how could that be?" objected the Prioress. "If twenty went, but twenty could return. Who should be the twenty-first?"
Then old Mary Antony leaned forward, crossing herself.
"Sister Agatha," she whispered, tremulously. "Poor Sister Agatha returned to us again."
But, even as she said it, swift came a name to the mind of the Prioress, answering her own question, and filling her with consternation and a great anger. "Wilfred! Wilfred, are you come to save me?" foolish little Seraphine had said. Was such sacrilege possible? Could one from the outside world have dared to intrude into their holy Sanctuary?
Yet old Antony's tale carried conviction. Her abject fear was now explained.
That the Dead should come again, and walk and move among the haunts of men, seeking out the surroundings they have loved and left, seems always to hold terror for the untutored mind, which knows not that the Dead are more alive than the living; and that there is no death, saving the death of sin.
But to the Reverend Mother, guarding her flock from sin or shame, a visitor from the Unseen World held less of horror than a possible intruder from the Seen.
A rapid glance as she sounded the bell, had shown her that the passage was empty.
Which cell now sheltered two, where there should be but one?
The Prioress walked across to a recess near the south window, touched a spring, and slid back a portion of the oak panelling. Passing her hand into a secret hiding place in the wall, she drew forth a beautifully fashioned dagger, with carved ivory handle, crossed metal thumb-guard, blade of bevelled steel, polished and narrowing to a sharp needle point. She tested the point, then slipped the weapon into her belt, beneath her scapulary. As she closed the panel, and turned back into the chamber, a light of high resolve was in her eyes. Her whole bearing betokened so fine a fearlessness, such noble fixity of purpose that, looking on her, Mary Antony felt her own fears vanishing.
"Now listen, dear Antony," said the Prioress, holding the old woman with her look. "I must make sure that this twenty-first White Lady of thine is but a trick played on thee by thy peas. Should she be anywhere in the Convent I shall most certainly have speech with her.
"Meanwhile, go thou to thy kitchens, and give thy mind to the preparing of the evening meal. But ring not the Refectory bell until I bid thee. Nay, I myself will sound it this evening. It may suit me to keep the nuns somewhat longer at their devotions.
"Should I sound the alarm bell, let all thy helpers run up here; but go thou to the cell of Mother Sub-Prioress and persuade her not to rise. If needful say that it is my command that she keep her bed. … Great heavens! What a crash! May our Lady defend us! The lightning inclines to strike. I shall pass to each cell and make sure that none are too greatly alarmed."
"Now, haste thee, Antony; and not a word concerning thy fears must pass thy lips to any; no mention of a twenty-first White Lady nor"—the Prioress crossed herself—"of Sister Agatha, to whom may our Lord grant everlasting rest."
Mary Antony, kneeling, kissed the hem of the Prioress's robe. Then, rising, she said—with unwonted solemnity and restraint: "The Lord defend you, Reverend Mother, from foes, seen and unseen," and, followed by another blinding flash of lightning, she left the cell.
CHAPTER IX