Mary was strangely subdued and quiet. Her little restless movements were still for once; and her quick, vivacious face was tranquil and a little awed.

"Oh, Mistress Margaret, I love to hear you talk like that. Tell me more."

"Well, my dear, we thought too much about ourselves, I think; and too little about G.o.d and His poor children who were not so happy as we were; so then the troubles began; and they got nearer and nearer; and at last the Visitor came. He--he was my brother, my dear, which made it harder; but he made a good end. I will tell you his story another time. He took away our great crucifix and our jewelled cope that old Mr. Wickham used to wear on the Great Festivals; and left us. He turned me out, too; and another who asked to go, but I went back for a while. And then, my dear, although we offered everything; our cows and our orchard and our hens, and all we had, you know how it ended; and one morning in May old Mr.

Wickham said ma.s.s for us quite early, before the sun was risen, for the last time; and,--and he cried, my dear, at the elevation; and--and we were all crying too I think, and we all received communion together for the last time--and,--and, then we all went away, leaving just old Dame Agnes to keep the house until the Commissioner came. And oh, my dear, I don't think the house ever looked so dear as it did that morning, just as the sun rose over the roofs, and we were pa.s.sing out through the meadow door where we had sat so often, to where the horses were waiting to take us away."

Miss Corbet's own eyes were full of tears as the old lady finished: and she put out her white slender hand, which Mistress Torridon took and stroked for a moment.

"Well," she said, "I haven't talked like this for a long while; but I knew you would understand. My dear, I have watched you while you have been here this time."

Mary Corbet smiled a little uneasily.

"And you have found me out?" she answered smiling.

"No, no; but I think our Saviour has found you out--or at least He is drawing very near."

A slight discomfort made itself felt in Mary's heart. This nun then was like all the rest, always trying to turn the whole world into monks and nuns by hints and pretended intuitions into the unseen.

"And you think I should be a nun too?" she asked, with just a shade of coolness in her tone.

"I should suppose not," said Mistress Margaret, tranquilly. "You do not seem to have a vocation for that, but I should think that our Lord means you to serve Him where you are. Who knows what you may not accomplish?"

This was a little disconcerting to Mary Corbet; it was not at all what she had expected. She did not know what to say; and took up the leather book again and began to turn over the pages. Mistress Margaret went on serenely with her embroidery, which she had neglected during the last sentence or two; and there was silence.

"Tell me a little more about the nunnery," said Mary in a minute or two, leaning back in her chair, with the book on her knees.

"Well, my dear, I scarcely know what to say. It is all far off now like a childhood. We talked very little; not at all until recreation; except by signs, and we used to spend a good deal of our time in embroidery. That is where I learnt this," and she held out her work to Mary for a moment.

It was an exquisite piece of needlework, representing a stag running open-mouthed through thickets of green twining branches that wrapped themselves about his horns and feet. Mary had never seen anything quite like it before.

"What does it mean?" she asked, looking at it curiously.

"_Quemadmodum cervus_,"--began Mistress Margaret; "as the hart brayeth after the waterbrooks,"--and she took the embroidery and began to go on with it.--"It is the soul, you see, desiring and fleeing to G.o.d, while the things of the world hold her back. Well, you see, it is difficult to talk about it; for it is the inner life that is the real history of a convent; the outer things are all plain and simple like all else."

"Well," said Mary, "is it really true that you were happy?"

The old lady stopped working a moment and looked up at her.

"My dear, there is no happiness in the world like it," she said simply.

"I dream sometimes that we are all back there together, and I wake crying for joy. The other night I dreamed that we were all in the chapel again, and that it was a spring morning, with the dawn beginning to show the painted windows, and that all the tapers were burning; and that ma.s.s was beginning. Not one stall was empty; not even old Dame Gertrude, who died when I was a novice, was lacking, and Mr. Wickham made us a sermon after the creed, and showed us the crucifix back in its place again; and told us that we were all good children, and that Our Lord had only sent us away to see if we would be patient; and that He was now pleased with us, and had let us come home again; and that we should never have to go away again; not even when we died; and then I understood that we were in heaven, and that it was all over; and I burst out into tears in my stall for happiness; and then I awoke and found myself in bed; but my cheeks were really wet.--Well, well, perhaps, by the mercy of G.o.d it may all come true some day."

She spoke so simply that Mary Corbet was amazed; she had always fancied that the Religious Life was a bitter struggle, worth, indeed, living for those who could bear it, for the sake of the eternal reward; but it had scarcely even occurred to her that it was so full of joy in itself; and she looked up under her brows at the old lady, whose needle had stopped for a moment.

A moment after and Lady Maxwell appeared coming down the steps into the garden; and at her side Anthony, who was dressed ready for riding.

Old Mistress Margaret had, as she said, been watching Mary Corbet those last few weeks; and had determined to speak to her plainly. Her instinct had told her that beneath this flippancy and glitter there was something that would respond; and she was anxious to leave nothing undone by which Mary might be awakened to the inner world that was in such danger of extinction in her soul. It cost the old lady a great effort to break through her ordinary reserve, but she judged that Mary could only be reached on her human side, and that there were not many of her friends whose human sympathy would draw her in the right direction. It is strange, sometimes, to find that some silent old lady has a power for sounding human character, which far shrewder persons lack; and this quiet old nun, so ignorant, one would have said, of the world and of the motives from which ordinary people act, had managed somehow to touch springs in this girl's heart that had never been reached before.

And now as Miss Corbet and Lady Maxwell talked, and Anthony lolled embarra.s.sed beside them, attempting now and then to join in the conversation, Mistress Margaret, as she sat a little apart and worked away at the panting stag dreamed away, smiling quietly to herself, of all the old scenes that her own conversation had called up into clearer consciousness; of the pleasant little meadow of the Suss.e.x priory, with the old apple-trees and the straight box-lined path called the nun's walk from time immemorial; all lighted with the pleasant afternoon glow, as it streamed from the west, throwing the slender poplar shadows across the gra.s.s; and of the quiet chatter of the brook as it over-flowed from the fish ponds at the end of the field and ran through the meadows beyond the hedge. The cooing of the pigeons as they sunned themselves round the dial in the centre of this Italian garden and on the roof of the hall helped on her reminiscences, for there had been a dovecote at the priory. Where were all her sisters now, those who had sat with her in the same sombre habits in the garth, with the same sunshine in their hearts? Some she knew, and thanked G.o.d for it, were safe in glory; others were old like her, but still safe in Holy Religion in France where as yet there was peace and sanctuary for the servants of the Most High; one or two--and for these she lifted up her heart in pet.i.tion as she sat--one or two had gone back to the world, relinquished everything, and died to grace. Then the old faces one by one pa.s.sed before her; old Dame Agnes with her mumbling lips and her rosy cheeks like wrinkled apples, looking so fresh and wholesome in the white linen about her face; and then the others one by one--that white-faced, large-eyed sister who had shown such pa.s.sionate devotion at first that they all thought that G.o.d was going to raise up a saint amongst them--ah! G.o.d help her--she had sunk back at the dissolution, from those heights of sanct.i.ty towards whose summits she had set her face, down into the muddy torrent of the world that went roaring down to the abyss--and who was responsible? There was Dame Avice, the Sacristan, with her businesslike movements going about the garden, gathering flowers for the altar, with her queer pursed lips as she arranged them in her hands with her head a little on one side; how annoying she used to be sometimes; but how good and tender at heart--G.o.d rest her soul! And there was Mr. Wickham, the old priest who had been their chaplain for so many years, and who lived in the village parsonage, waited upon by Tom Downe, that served at the altar too--he who had got the horses ready when the nuns had to go at last on that far-off May morning, and had stood there, holding the bridles and trying to hide his wet face behind the horses; where was Tom now? And Mr. Wickham too--he had gone to France with some of the nuns; but he had never settled down there--he couldn't bear the French ways--and besides he had left his heart behind him buried in the little Suss.e.x priory among the meadows.

And so the old lady sat, musing; while the light and shadow of reminiscence moved across her face; and her lips quivered or her eyes wrinkled up with humour, at the thought of all those old folks with their faces and their movements and their ways of doing and speaking. Ah! well, please G.o.d, some day her dream would really come true; and they shall all be gathered again from France and England with their broken hearts mended and their tears wiped away, and Mr. Wickham himself shall minister to them and make them sermons, and Tom Downe too shall be there to minister to him--all in one of the many mansions of which the Saviour spoke.

And so she heard nothing of the talk of the others; though her sister looked at her tenderly once or twice; and Mary Corbet chattered and twitched her buckles in the sun, and Anthony sat embarra.s.sed in the midst of Paradise; and she knew nothing of where she was nor of what was happening round her, until Mary Corbet said that it was time for the horses to be round, and that she must go and get ready and not keep Mr.

James and Mr. Anthony waiting. Then, as she and Anthony went towards the house, the old lady looked up from the braying stag and found herself alone with her sister.

Mistress Margaret waited until the other two disappeared up the steps, and then spoke.

"I have told her all, sister," she said, "she can be trusted."

Lady Maxwell nodded gently.

"She has a good heart," went on the other, "and our Lord no doubt will find some work for her to do at Court."

There was silence again; broken by the gentle little sound of the silk being drawn through the stuff.

"You know best, Margaret," said Lady Maxwell.

Even as she spoke there was the sound of a door thrown violently open and old Sir Nicholas appeared on the top of the steps, hatless and plainly in a state of great agitation; beside him stood a courier, covered with the dust of the white roads, and his face crimson with hard riding. Sir Nicholas stood there as if dazed, and Lady Maxwell sprang up quickly to go to him. But a moment after there appeared behind him a little group, his son James, Miss Corbet and a servant or two; while Anthony hung back; and Mr. James came up quickly, and took his father by the arm; and together the little company came down the steps into the still and sunny garden.

"What is it?" cried Lady Maxwell, trying to keep her voice under control; while Mistress Margaret laid her work quietly down, and stood up too.

"Tell my lady," said Sir Nicholas to the courier, who stood a little apart.

"If you please, my lady," he said, as if repeating a lesson, "a Bull of the Holy Father has been found nailed to the door of the Bishop of London's palace, deposing Elizabeth and releasing all her subjects from their allegiance."

Lady Maxwell went to her husband and took him by the arm gently.

"What does it mean, sweetheart?" she asked.

"It means that Catholics must choose between their sovereign and their G.o.d."

"G.o.d have mercy," said a servant behind.

CHAPTER VI

MR. STEWART

Sir Nicholas' exclamatory sentence was no exaggeration. That terrible choice of which he spoke, with his old eyes shining with the desire to make it, did not indeed come so immediately as he antic.i.p.ated; but it came none the less. From every point of view the Bull was unfortunate, though it may have been a necessity; for it marked the declaration of war between England and the Catholic Church. A gentle appeal had been tried before; Elizabeth, who, it must be remembered had been crowned during ma.s.s with Catholic ceremonial, and had received the Blessed Sacrament, had been entreated by the Pope as his "dear daughter in Christ" to return to the Fold; and now there seemed to him no possibility left but this ultimatum.

It is indeed difficult to see what else, from his point of view, he could have done. To continue to pretend that Elizabeth was his "dear daughter"

would have discredited his fatherly authority in the eyes of the whole Christian world. He had patiently made an advance towards his wayward child; and she had repudiated and scorned him. Nothing was left but to recognise and treat her as an enemy of the Faith, an usurper of spiritual prerogatives, and an apostate spoiler of churches; to do this might certainly bring trouble upon others of his less distinguished but more obedient children, who were in her power; but to pretend that the suffering thus brought down upon Catholics was unnecessary, and that the Pope alone was responsible for their persecution, is to be blind to the fact that Elizabeth had already openly defied and repudiated his authority, and had begun to do her utmost to coax and compel his children to be disobedient to their father.

The shock of the Bull to Elizabeth was considerable; she had not expected this extreme measure; and it was commonly reported too that France and Spain were likely now to unite on a religious basis against England; and that at least one of these Powers had sanctioned the issue of the Bull.

This of course helped greatly to complicate further the already complicated political position. Steps were taken immediately to strengthen England's position against Scotland with whom it was now, more than ever, to be feared that France would co-operate; and the Channel Fleet was reinforced under Lord Clinton, and placed with respect to France in what was almost a state of war, while it was already in an informal state of war with Spain. There was fierce confusion in the Privy Council. Elizabeth, who at once began to vacillate under the combined threats of La Mothe, the French amba.s.sador, and the arguments of the friend of Catholics, Lord Arundel, was counter-threatened with ruin by Lord Keeper Bacon unless she would throw in her lot finally with the Protestants and continue her hostility and resistance to the Catholic Scotch party. But in spite of Bacon Elizabeth's heart failed her, and if it had not been for the rashness of Mary Stuart's friends, Lord Southampton and the Bishop of Ross, the Queen might have been induced to subst.i.tute conciliation for severity towards Mary and the Catholic party generally. Southampton was arrested, and again there followed the further encouragement of the Protestant camp by the rising fortunes of the Huguenots and the temporary reverses to French Catholicism; so the pendulum swung this way and that. Elizabeth's policy changed almost from day to day. She was tormented with temporal fears of a continental crusade against her, and by the spiritual terrors of the Pope's Bull; and her unfathomable fickleness was the despair of her servants.

Meanwhile in the religious world a furious paper war broke out; and volleys from both sides followed the solemn roar and crash of _Regnans in Excelsis_.