CHAPTER XI
A STATION OF THE CROSS
Philosophers tell us that the value of existence lies not in the objectsperceived, but in the powers of perception. The tragedy of a child over abroken doll is not less poignant than the anguish of a worshipper over abroken idol, or of a king over a ruined realm. Thus the conflict ofIsabel during those past autumn and winter months was no less august thanthe pain of the priest on the rack, or the struggle of his innocentbetrayer to rescue him, or the misery of Lady Maxwell over the sorrowsthat came to her in such different ways through her two sons.
Isabel's soul was tender above most souls; and the powers of feeling painand of sustaining it were also respectively both acute and strong. Thesense of pressure, or rather of disruption, became intolerable. She wasindeed a soul on the rack; if she had been less conscientious she wouldhave silenced the voice of Divine Love that seemed to call to her fromthe Catholic Church; if she had been less natural and feminine she wouldhave trampled out of her soul the appeal of the human love of Hubert. Asit was, she was wrenched both ways. Now the cords at one end or the otherwould relax a little, and the corresponding relief was almost a shock;but when she tried to stir and taste the freedom of decision that nowseemed in her reach, they would tighten again with a snap; and she wouldfind herself back on the torture. To herself she seemed powerless; itappeared to her, when she reflected on it consciously, that it was merelya question as to which part of her soul would tear first, as to whichultimately retained her. She began to be terrified at solitude; thethought of the coming night, with its long hours of questioning andtorment until the dawn, haunted her during the day. She would read in herroom, or remain at her prayers, in the hopes of distracting herself fromthe struggle, until sleep seemed the supreme necessity: then, when shelay down, sleep would flap its wings in mockery and flit away, leavingher wide-awake staring at the darkness of the room or of her own eyelids,until the windows began to glimmer and the cocks to crow from farmbuildings.
In spite of her first resolve to fight the battle alone, she soon foundherself obliged to tell Mistress Margaret all that was possible; but shefelt that to express her sheer need of Hubert, as she thought it, wasbeyond her altogether. How could a nun understand?
"My darling," said the old lady, "it would not be Calvary without thedarkness; and you cannot have Christ without Calvary. Remember that theLight of the World makes darkness His secret place; and so you see thatif you were able to feel that any human soul really understood, it wouldmean that the darkness was over. I have suffered that Night twice myself;the third time I think, will be in the valley of death."
Isabel only half understood her; but it was something to know that othershad tasted the cup too; and that what was so bitter was not necessarilypoisonous.
At another time as the two were walking together under the pines oneevening, and the girl had again tried to show to the nun the burningdesolation of her soul, Mistress Margaret had suddenly turned.
"Listen, dear child," she said, "I will tell you a secret. Over there,"and she pointed out to where the sunset glowed behind the tree trunks andthe slope beyond, "over there, in West Grinsted, rests our dear Lord inthe blessed sacrament. His Body lies lonely, neglected and forgotten byall but half a dozen souls; while twenty years ago all England reverencedIt. Behold and see if there be any sorrow--" and then the nun stopped, asshe saw Isabel's amazed eyes staring at her.
But it haunted the girl and comforted her now and then. Yet in thefierceness of her pain she asked herself again and again, was ittrue--was it true? Was she sacrificing her life for a dream, afairy-story? or was it true that there the body, that had hung on thecross fifteen hundred years ago, now rested alone, hidden in a silverpyx, within locked doors for fear of the Jews.--Oh! dear Lord, was ittrue?
Hubert had kept his word, and left the place almost immediately after hislast interview; and was to return at Easter for his final answer.Christmas had come and gone; and it seemed to her as if even thetenderest mysteries of the Christian Religion had no touch with her now.She walked once more in the realm of grace, as in the realm of nature, anexile from its spirit. All her sensitive powers seemed so absorbed ininterior pain that there was nothing in her to respond to or appreciatethe most keen external impressions. As she awoke and looked up onChristmas morning early, and saw the frosted panes and the snow lyinglike wool on the cross-bars, and heard the Christmas bells peal out inthe listening air; as she came downstairs and the old pleasant acridsmell of the evergreens met her, and she saw the red berries over eachpicture, and the red heart of the wood-fire; nay, as she knelt at thechancel rails, and tried in her heart to adore the rosy Child in themanger, and received the sacred symbols of His Flesh and Blood, andentreated Him to remember His loving-kindness that brought Him down fromheaven--yet the whole was far less real, less intimate to her, than thesound of Hubert's voice as he had said good-bye two months ago; less realthan one of those darting pangs of thought that fell on her heart all daylike a shower of arrows.
And then, when the sensitive strings of her soul were stretched toanguish, a hand dashed across them, striking a wailing discord, and theydid not break. The news of Anthony's treachery, and still more hissilence, performed the incredible, and doubled her pain without breakingher heart.
On the Tuesday morning early Lady Maxwell had sent her note by a courier;bidding him return at once with the answer. The evening had come, and hehad not appeared. The night passed and the morning came; and it was nottill noon that the man at last arrived, saying he had seen Mr. Norris onthe previous evening, and that he had read the note through there andthen, and had said there was no answer. Surely there could be but oneexplanation of that--that no answer was possible.
It could not be said that Isabel actively considered the question andchose to doubt Anthony rather than to trust him. She was so nearlypassive now, with the struggle she had gone through, that this blow cameon her with the overwhelming effect of an hypnotic suggestion. Her willdid not really accept it, any more than her intellect really weighed it;but she succumbed to it; and did not even write again, nor question theman further. Had she done this she might perhaps have found out thetruth, that the man, a stupid rustic with enough shrewdness to lie, butnot enough to lie cleverly, had had his foolish head turned by the buzzof London town and the splendour of Lambeth stables and the friendlinessof the grooms there, and had got heavily drunk on leaving Anthony; thatthe answer which he had put into his hat had very naturally fallen outand been lost; and that when at last he returned to the country alreadyeight hours after his time, and found the note was missing, he hadstalwartly lied, hoping that the note was unimportant and that thingswould adjust themselves or be forgotten before a day of reckoning shouldarrive.
And so Isabel's power of resistance collapsed under this last blow; andher soul lay still at last, almost too much tormented to feel. Her lasthope was gone; Anthony had betrayed his friend.
The week crept by, and Saturday came. She went out soon after dinner tosee a sick body or two in an outlying hamlet; for she had never forgottenMrs. Dent's charge, and, with the present minister's approval, stillvisited the sick one or two days a week at least. Then towards sunset shecame homewards over some high ground on the outskirts of Ashdown Forest.The snow that had fallen before Christmas, had melted a week or two ago;and the frost had broken up; it was a heavy leaden evening, with an angryglow shining, as through chinks of a wall, from the west towards whichshe was going. The village lay before her in the gloom; and lights werebeginning to glimmer here and there. She contrasted in a lifeless waythat pleasant group of warm houses with their suggestions of love andhomeliness with her own desolate self. She passed up through the villagetowards the Hall, whither she was going to report on the invalids to LadyMaxwell; and in the appearance of the houses on either side she thoughtthere was an unaccustomed air. Several doors stood wide open with thebrightness shining out into the twilight, as if the inhabitants hadsuddenly deser
ted their homes. Others were still dark and cold, althoughthe evening was drawing on. There was not a moving creature to be seen.She passed up, wondering a little, through the gatehouse, and turned intothe gravel sweep; and there stopped short at the sight of a great crowdof men and women and children, assembled in dead silence. Some one wasstanding at the entrance-steps, with his head bent as if he were talkingto those nearest him in a low voice.
As she came up there ran a whisper of her name; the people drew back tolet her through, and she passed, sick with suspense, to the man on thesteps, whom she now recognised as Mr. James' body-servant. His facelooked odd and drawn, she thought.
"What is it?" she asked in a sharp whisper.
"Mr. James is here, madam; he is with Lady Maxwell in the cloister-wing.Will you please to go up?"
"Mr. James! It is no news about Mr. Anthony--or--or Mr. Hubert!"
"No, madam." The man hesitated. "Mr. James has been racked, madam."
The man's voice broke in a great sob as he ended.
"Ah!"
She reeled against the post; a man behind caught her and steadied her;and there was a quick breath of pity from the crowd.
"Ah, poor thing!" said a woman's voice behind her.
"I beg your pardon, madam," said the servant. "I should not have----"
"And--and he is upstairs?"
"He and my lady are together, madam."
She looked at him a moment, dazed with the horror of it; and then goingpast him, pushed open the door and went through into the inner hall. Hereagain she stopped suddenly: it was half full of people, silent andexpectant--the men, the grooms, the maid-servants, and even two or threefarm-men. She heard the rustle of her name from the white faces thatlooked at her from the gloom; but none moved; and she crossed the hallalone, and turned down the lower corridor that led to the cloister-wing.
At the foot of the staircase she stopped again; her heart drummed in herears, as she listened intently with parted lips. There was a profoundsilence; the lamp on the stairs had not been lighted, and the terracewindow only let in a pale glimmer.
It was horrible to her! this secret presence of incarnate pain thatbrooded somewhere in the house, this silence of living anguish, worsethan death a thousand times!
Where was he? What would it look like? Even a scream somewhere would haverelieved her, and snapped the tension of the listening stillness that layon her like a shocking nightmare. This lobby with its well-knowndoors--the banister on which her fingers rested--the well of thestaircase up which she stared with dilated eyes--all was familiar; andyet, somewhere in the shadows overhead lurked this formidable Presence ofpain, mute, anguished, terrifying....
She longed to run back, to shriek for help; but she dared not: and stoodpanting. She went up a couple of steps--stopped, listened to the sickthumping of her heart--took another step and stopped again; and so,listening, peering, hesitating, came to the head of the stairs.
Ah! there was the door, with a line of light beneath it. It was therethat the horror dwelt. She stared at the thin bright line; waited andlistened again for even a moan or a sigh from within, but none came.
Then with a great effort she stepped forward and tapped.
There was no answer; but as she listened she heard from within the gentletinkle of some liquid running into a bowl, rhythmically, and with pauses.Then again she tapped, nervously and rapidly, and there was a murmur fromthe room; she opened the door softly, pushed it, and took a step into theroom, half closing it behind her.
There were two candles burning on a table in the middle of the room, andon the near side of it was a group of three persons....
Isabel had seen in one of Mistress Margaret's prayer-books an engravingof an old Flemish Pieta--a group of the Blessed Mother holding in herarms the body of her Crucified Son, with the Magdalen on one side,supporting one of the dead Saviour's hands. Isabel now caught her breathin a sudden gasp; for here was the scene reproduced before her.
Lady Maxwell was on a low seat bending forwards; the white cap and ruffseemed like a veil thrown all about her head and beneath her chin; shewas holding in her arms the body of her son, who seemed to have faintedas he sat beside her; his head had fallen back against her breast, andhis pointed beard and dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised thedeathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouthwas open, like a dead man's. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his lefthand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the wholeair was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a longbandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light overthe opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled with the light ofthe tapers, throwing a strange radiance over the group. The table onwhich the tapers stood looked to Isabel like a stripped altar.
She stood by the door, her lips parted, motionless; looking with greateyes from face to face. It was as if the door had given access to anotherworld where the passion of Christ was being re-enacted.
Then she sank on her knees, still watching. There was no sound but thefaint ripple of the water into the basin and the quiet breathing of thethree. Lady Maxwell now and then lifted a handkerchief in silence andpassed it across her son's face. Isabel, still staring with great wideeyes, began to sigh gently to herself.
"Anthony, Anthony, Anthony!" she whispered.
"Oh, no, no, no!" she whispered again under her breath. "No, Anthony! youcould not, you could not!"
Then from the man there came one or two long sighs, ending in a moan thatquavered into silence; he stirred slightly in his mother's arms; and thenin a piteous high voice came the words "_Jesu ... Jesu ... esto mihi... Jesus_."
Consciousness was coming back. He fancied himself still on the rack.
Lady Maxwell said nothing, but gathered him a little closer, and bent herface lower over him.
Then again came a long sobbing indrawn breath; James struggled for amoment; then opened his eyes and saw his mother's face.
Mistress Margaret had finished with the water; and was now swiftlymanipulating a long strip of white linen. Isabel still sunk on her kneeswatched the bandage winding in and out round his wrist, and between histhumb and forefinger.
Then he turned his head sharply towards her with a gasp as if in pain;and his eyes fell on Isabel.
"Mistress Isabel," he said; and his voice was broken and untuneful.
Mistress Margaret turned; and smiled at her; and at the sight theintolerable compression on the girl's heart relaxed.
"Come, child," she said, "come and help me with his hand. No, no, liestill," she added; for James was making a movement as if to rise.
James smiled at her as she came forward; and she saw that his face had astrange look as if after a long illness.
"You see, Mistress Isabel," he said, in the same cracked voice, and withan infinitely pathetic courtesy, "I may not rise."
Isabel's eyes filled with sudden tears, his attempt at his old manner wasmore touching than all else; and she came and knelt beside the old nun.
"Hold the fingers," she said; and the familiar old voice brought the girla stage nearer her normal consciousness again.
Isabel took the priest's fingers and saw that they were limp and swollen.The sleeve fell back a little as Mistress Margaret manipulated thebandage; and the girl saw that the forearm looked shapeless anddiscoloured.
She glanced up in swift terror at his face, but he was looking at hismother, whose eyes were bent on his; Isabel looked quickly down again.
"There," said Mistress Margaret, tying the last knot, "it is done."
Mr. James looked his thanks over his shoulder at her, as she nodded andsmiled before turning to leave the room.
Isabel sat slowly down and watched them.
"This is but a flying visit, Mistress Isabel," said James. "I must leaveto-morrow again."
He had sat up now, and settled himself in his seat, though his mother'sarm was still round him. The voice and the pitiful attempt were terribleto Isabel. Slowly the consciousnes
s was filtering into her mind of whatall this implied; what it must have been that had turned this tallself-contained man into this weak creature who lay in his mother's arms,and fainted at a touch and sobbed. She could say nothing; but could onlylook, and breathe, and look.
Then it suddenly came to her mind that Lady Maxwell had not spoken aword. She looked at her; that old wrinkled face with its white crown ofhair and lace had a new and tremendous dignity. There was no anxiety init; scarcely even grief; but only a still and awful anguish, toweringabove ordinary griefs like a mountain above the world; and there was thesupreme peace too that can only accompany a supreme emotion--she seemedconscious of nothing but her son.
Isabel could not answer James; and he seemed not to expect it; he hadturned back to his mother again, and they were looking at one another.Then in a moment Mistress Margaret came back with a glass that she put toJames' lips; and he drank it without a word. She stood looking at thegroup an instant or two, and then turned to Isabel.
"Come downstairs with me, my darling; there is nothing more that we cando."
They went out of the room together; the mother and son had not stirredagain; and Mistress Margaret slipped her arm quickly round the girl'swaist, as they went downstairs.
* * * *
In the cloister beneath was a pleasant little oak parlour looking out onto the garden and the long south side of the house. Mistress Margarettook the little hand-lamp that burned in the cloister itself as theypassed along silently together, and guided the girl through into theparlour on the left-hand side. There was a tall chair standing before thehearth, and as Mistress Margaret sat down, drawing the girl with her,Isabel sank down on the footstool at her feet, and hid her face on theold nun's knees.
There was silence for a minute or two. Mistress Margaret set down thelamp on the table beside her, and passed her hands caressingly over thegirl's hands and hair; but said nothing, until Isabel's whole body heavedup convulsively once or twice, before she burst into a torrent ofweeping.
"My darling," said the old lady in a quiet steady voice, "we should thankGod instead of grieving. To think that this house should have given twoconfessors to the Church, father and son! Yes, yes, dear child, I knowwhat you are thinking of, the two dear lads we both love; well, well, wedo not know, we must trust them both to God. It may not be true ofAnthony; and even if it be true--well, he must have thought he wasserving his Queen. And for Hubert----"
Isabel lifted her face and looked with a dreadful questioning stare.
"Dear child," said the nun, "do not look like that. Nothing is so bad asnot trusting God."
"Anthony, Anthony!"... whispered the girl.
"James told us the same story as the gentleman on Sunday," went on thenun. "But he said no hard word, and he does not condemn. I know hisheart. He does not know why he is released, nor by whose order: but anorder came to let him go, and his papers with it: and he must be out ofEngland by Monday morning: so he leaves here to-morrow in the litter inwhich he came. He is to say mass to-morrow, if he is able."
"Mass? Here?" said the girl, in the same sharp whisper; and her sobbingceased abruptly.
"Yes, dear; if he is able to stand and use his hands enough. They havesettled it upstairs."
Isabel continued to look up in her face wildly.
"Ah!" said the old nun again. "You must not look like that. Remember thathe thinks those wounds the most precious things in the world--yes--andhis mother too!"
"I must be at mass," said Isabel; "God means it."
"Now, now," said Mistress Margaret soothingly, "you do not know what youare saying."
"I mean it," said Isabel, with sharp emphasis; "God means it."
Mistress Margaret took the girl's face between her hands, and lookedsteadily down into her wet eyes. Isabel returned the look as steadily.
"Yes, yes," she said, "as God sees us."
Then she broke into talk, at first broken and incoherent in language, butdefinite and orderly in ideas, and in her interpretations of these lastmonths.
Kneeling beside her with her hands clasped on the nun's knee, Isabel toldher all her struggles; disentangling at last in a way that she had neverbeen able to do before, all the complicated strands of self-will andguidance and blindness that had so knotted and twisted themselves intoher life. The nun was amazed at the spiritual instinct of this Puritanchild, who ranged her motives so unerringly; dismissing this as of self,marking this as of God's inspiration, accepting this and rejecting thatelement of the circumstances of her life; steering confidently betweenthe shoals of scrupulous judgment and conscience on the one side, and thehidden rocks of presumption and despair on the other--these very dangersthat had baffled and perplexed her so long--and tracing out through themall the clear deep safe channel of God's intention, who had allowed herto emerge at last from the tortuous and baffling intricacies of characterand circumstance into the wide open sea of His own sovereign Will.
It seemed to the nun, as Isabel talked, as if it needed just a finaltouch of supreme tragedy to loosen and resolve all the complications; andthat this had been supplied by the vision upstairs. There she had seen atriumphant trophy of another's sorrow and conquest. There was hardly anelement in her own troubles that was not present in that human Pietaupstairs--treachery--loneliness--sympathy--bereavement--and above all thesupreme sacrificial act of human love subordinated to divine--human love,purified and transfigured and rendered invincible and immortal by thevery immolation of it at the feet of God--all this that the son andmother in their welcome of pain had accomplished in the crucifixion ofone and the heart-piercing of the other--this was light opened to theperplexed, tormented soul of the girl--a radiance poured out of thedarkness of their sorrow and made her way plain before her face.
"My Isabel," said the old nun, when the girl had finished and was hidingher face again, "this is of God. Glory to His Name! I must ask James'leave; and then you must sleep here to-night, for the mass to-morrow."
* * * *
The chapel at Maxwell Hall was in the cloister wing; but a strangervisiting the house would never have suspected it. Opening out of LadyMaxwell's new sitting-room was a little lobby or landing, about fouryards square, lighted from above; at the further end of it was the doorinto her bedroom. This lobby was scarcely more than a broad passage; andwould attract no attention from any passing through it. The only piece offurniture in it was a great tall old chest as high as a table, that stoodagainst the inner wall beyond which was the long gallery that looked downupon the cloister garden. The lobby appeared to be practically as broadas the two rooms on either side of it; but this was effected by the outerwall being made to bulge a little; and the inner wall being thinner thaninside the two living-rooms. The deception was further increased by thetwo living-rooms being first wainscoted and then hung with thicktapestry; while the lobby was bare. A curious person who should look inthe chest would find there only an old dress and a few pieces of stuff.This lobby, however, was the chapel; and through the chest was theentrance to one of the priest's hiding holes, where also the altar-stoneand the ornaments and the vestments were kept. The bottom of the chestwas in reality hinged in such a way that it would fall, on the properpressure being applied in two places at once, sufficiently to allow theside of the chest against the wall to be pushed aside, which in turn gaveentrance to a little space some two yards long by a yard wide; and herewere kept all the necessaries for divine worship; with room besides for acouple of men at least to be hidden away. There was also a way from thishole on to the roof, but it was a difficult and dangerous way; and wasonly to be used in case of extreme necessity.
It was in this lobby that Isabel found herself the next morning kneelingand waiting for mass. She had been awakened by Mistress Margaret shortlybefore four o'clock and told in a whisper to dress herself in the dark;for it was impossible under the circumstances to tell whether the housewas not watched; and a light seen from outside might conceiv
ably causetrouble and disturbance. So she had dressed herself and come down fromher room along the passages, so familiar during the day, so sombre andsuggestive now in the black morning with but one shaded light placed atthe angles. Other figures were stealing along too; but she could not tellwho they were in the gloom. Then she had come through the littlesitting-room where the scene of last night had taken place and into thelobby beyond.
But the whole place was transformed.
Over the old chest now hung a picture, that usually was in Lady Maxwell'sroom, of the Blessed Mother and her holy Child, in a great carved frameof some black wood. The chest had become an altar: Isabel could see theslight elevation in the middle of the long white linen cloth where thealtar-stone lay, and upon that again, at the left corner, a pile of linenand silk. Upon the altar at the back stood two slender silvercandlesticks with burning tapers in them; and a silver crucifix betweenthem. The carved wooden panels, representing the sacrifice of Isaac onthe one half and the offering of Melchisedech on the other, servedinstead of an embroidered altar-frontal. Against the side wall stood alittle white-covered folding table with the cruets and other necessariesupon it.
There were two or three benches across the rest of the lobby; and atthese were kneeling a dozen or more persons, motionless, their facesdowncast. There was a little wind such as blows before the dawn moaninggently outside; and within was a slight draught that made the taperflames lean over now and then.
Isabel took her place beside Mistress Margaret at the front bench; and asshe knelt forward she noticed a space left beyond her for Lady Maxwell. Amoment later there came slow and painful steps through the sitting-room,and Lady Maxwell came in very slowly with her son leaning on her arm andon a stick. There was a silence so profound that it seemed to Isabel asif all had stopped breathing. She could only hear the slow plunging pulseof her own heart.
James took his mother across the altar to her place, and left her there,bowing to her; and then went up to the altar to vest. As he reached itand paused, a servant slipped out and received the stick from him. Thepriest made the sign of the cross, and took up the amice from thevestments that lay folded on the altar. He was already in his cassock.
Isabel watched each movement with a deep agonising interest; he was sofrail and broken, so bent in his figure, so slow and feeble in hismovements. He made an attempt to raise the amice but could not, andturned slightly; and the man from behind stepped up again and lifted itfor him. Then he helped him with each of the vestments, lifted the albover his head and tenderly drew the bandaged hands through the sleeves;knit the girdle round him; gave him the stole to kiss and then placed itover his neck and crossed the ends beneath the girdle and adjusted theamice; then he placed the maniple on his left arm, but so tenderly! andlastly, lifted the great red chasuble and dropped it over his head andstraightened it--and there stood the priest as he had stood last Sunday,in crimson vestments again; but bowed and thin-faced now.
Then he began the preparation with the servant who knelt beside him inhis ordinary livery, as server; and Isabel heard the murmur of the Latinwords for the first time. Then he stepped up to the altar, bent slowlyand kissed it and the mass began.
Isabel had a missal, lent to her by Mistress Margaret; but she hardlylooked at it; so intent was she on that crimson figure and his strangemovements and his low broken voice. It was unlike anything that she hadever imagined worship to be. Public worship to her had meant hitherto oneof two things--either sitting under a minister and having the wordapplied to her soul in the sacrament of the pulpit; or else the saying ofprayers by the minister aloud and distinctly and with expression, so thatthe intellect could follow the words, and assent with a hearty Amen. Theminister was a minister to man of the Word of God, an interpreter of Hisgospel to man.
But here was a worship unlike all this in almost every detail. The priestwas addressing God, not man; therefore he did so in a low voice, and in atongue as Campion had said on the scaffold "that they both understood."It was comparatively unimportant whether man followed it word for word,for (and here the second radical difference lay) the point of the worshipfor the people lay, not in an intellectual apprehension of the words, butin a voluntary assent to and participation in the supreme act to whichthe words were indeed necessary but subordinate. It was the thing thatwas done; not the words that were said, that was mighty with God. Here,as these Catholics round Isabel at any rate understood it, and as she toobegan to perceive it too, though dimly and obscurely, was the sublimemystery of the Cross presented to God. As He looked down well pleasedinto the silence and darkness of Calvary, and saw there the actaccomplished by which the world was redeemed, so here (this handful ofdisciples believed), He looked down into the silence and twilight of thislittle lobby, and saw that same mystery accomplished at the hands of onewho in virtue of his participation in the priesthood of the Son of Godwas empowered to pronounce these heart-shaking words by which the Bodythat hung on Calvary, and the Blood that dripped from it there, wereagain spread before His eyes, under the forms of bread and wine.
Much of this faith of course was still dark to Isabel; but yet sheunderstood enough; and when the murmur of the priest died to a throbbingsilence, and the worshippers sank in yet more profound adoration, andthen with terrible effort and a quick gasp or two of pain, those wrenchedbandaged hands rose trembling in the air with Something that glimmeredwhite between them; the Puritan girl too drooped her head, and lifted upher heart, and entreated the Most High and most Merciful to look down onthe Mystery of Redemption accomplished on earth; and for the sake of theWell-Beloved to send down His Grace on the Catholic Church; to strengthenand save the living; to give rest and peace to the dead; and especiallyto remember her dear brother Anthony, and Hubert whom she loved; andMistress Margaret and Lady Maxwell, and this faithful household: and thepoor battered man before her, who, not only as a priest was made like tothe Eternal Priest, but as a victim too had hung upon a prostrate cross,fastened by hands and feet; thus bearing on his body for all to see themarks of the Lord Jesus.
* * * *
Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret both rose and stepped forward afterthe Priest's Communion, and received from those wounded hands the BrokenBody of the Lord.
And then the mass was presently over; and the server stepped forwardagain to assist the priest to unvest, himself lifting each vestment off,for Father Maxwell was terribly exhausted by now, and laying it on thealtar. Then he helped him to a little footstool in front of him, for himto kneel and make his thanksgiving. Isabel looked with an odd wonder atthe server; he was the man that she knew so well, who opened the door forher, and waited at table; but now a strange dignity rested on him as hemoved confidently and reverently about the awful altar, and touched thevestments that even to her Puritan eyes shone with new sanctity. Itstartled her to think of the hidden Catholic life of this house--of theseservants who loved and were familiar with mysteries that she had beentaught to dread and distrust, but before which she too now was to bow herbeing in faith and adoration.
After a minute or two, Mistress Margaret touched Isabel on the arm andbeckoned to her to come up to the altar, which she began immediately tostrip of its ornaments and cloth, having first lit another candle on oneof the benches. Isabel helped her in this with a trembling dread, as allthe others except Lady Maxwell and her son were now gone out silently;and presently the picture was down, and leaning against the wall; theornaments and sacred vessels packed away in their box, with the vestmentsand linen in another. Then together they lifted off the heavy altarstone. Mistress Margaret next laid back the lid of the chest; and put herhands within, and presently Isabel saw the back of the chest fall back,apparently into the wall. Mistress Margaret then beckoned to Isabel toclimb into the chest and go through; she did so without much difficulty,and found herself in the little room behind. There was a stool or two andsome shelves against the wall, with a plate or two upon them and one ortwo tools. She received the boxes handed through, and follo
wed MistressMargaret's instructions as to where to place them; and when all was done,she slipped back again through the chest into the lobby.
The priest and his mother were still in their places, motionless.Mistress Margaret closed the chest inside and out, beckoned Isabel intothe sitting-room and closed the door behind them. Then she threw her armsround the girl and kissed her again and again.
"My own darling," said the nun, with tears in her eyes. "God blessyou--your first mass. Oh! I have prayed for this. And you know all oursecrets now. Now go to your room, and to bed again. It is only a littleafter five. You shall see him--James--before he goes. God bless you, mydear!"
She watched Isabel down the passage; and then turned back again to wherethe other two were still kneeling, to make her own thanksgiving.
Isabel went to her room as one in a dream. She was soon in bed again, butcould not sleep; the vision of that strange worship she had assisted at;the pictorial details of it, the glow of the two candles on the shouldersof the crimson chasuble as the priest bent to kiss the altar or to adore;the bowed head of the server at his side; the picture overhead with theMother and her downcast eyes, and the radiant Child stepping from herknees to bless the world--all this burned on the darkness. With the leasteffort of imagination too she could recall the steady murmur of theunfamiliar words; hear the rustle of the silken vestment; the stirringsand breathings of the worshippers in the little room.
Then in endless course the intellectual side of it all began to presentitself. She had assisted at what the Government called a crime; it wasfor that--that collection of strange but surely at least innocentthings--actions, words, material objects--that men and women of the sameflesh and blood as herself were ready to die; and for which othersequally of one nature with herself were ready to put them to death. Itwas the mass--the mass--she had seen--she repeated the word to herself,so sinister, so suggestive, so mighty. Then she began to think again--ifindeed it is possible to say that she had ever ceased to think of him--ofAnthony, who would be so much horrified if he knew; of Hubert, who hadrenounced this wonderful worship, and all, she feared, for love ofher--and above all of her father, who had regarded it with suchrepugnance:--yes, thought Isabel, but he knows all now. Then she thoughtof Mistress Margaret again. After all, the nun had a spiritual life whichin intensity and purity surpassed any she had ever experienced or evenimagined; and yet the heart of it all was the mass. She thought of theold wrinkled quiet face when she came back to breakfast at the DowerHouse: she had soon learnt to read from that face whether mass had beensaid that morning or not at the Hall. And Mistress Margaret was only oneof thousands to whom this little set of actions half seen and words halfheard, wrought and said by a man in a curious dress, were more preciousthan all meditation and prayer put together. Could the vastsuperstructure of prayer and effort and aspiration rest upon a piece ofempty folly such as children or savages might invent?
Then very naturally, as she began now to get quieter and less excited,she passed on to the spiritual side of it.
Had that indeed happened that Mistress Margaret believed--that the veryBody and Blood of her own dear Saviour, Jesus Christ, had in virtue ofHis own clear promise--His own clear promise!--become present there underthe hands of His priest? Was it, indeed,--this half-hour action,--themost august mystery of time, the Lamb eternally slain, presenting Himselfand His Death before the Throne in a tremendous and bloodlessSacrifice--so august that the very angels can only worship it afar offand cannot perform it; or was it all a merely childish piece ofblasphemous mummery, as she had been brought up to believe? And then thisPuritan girl, who was beginning to taste the joys of release from hermisery now that she had taken this step, and united a whole-heartedoffering of herself to the perfect Offering of her Lord--now her soulmade its first trembling movement towards a real external authority. "Ibelieve," she rehearsed to herself, "not because my spiritual experiencetells me that the Mass is true, for it does not; not because the Biblesays so, because it is possible to interpret that in more than one way;but because that Society which I now propose to treat as Divine--theRepresentative of the Incarnate Word--nay, His very mystical Body--tellsme so: and I rely upon that, and rest in her arms, which are the Arms ofthe Everlasting, and hang upon her lips, through which the InfallibleWord speaks."
And so Isabel, in a timid peace at last, from her first act of Catholicfaith, fell asleep.
She awoke to find the winter sun streaming into her room, and MistressMargaret by her bedside.
"Dear child," said the old lady, "I would not wake you earlier; you havehad such a short night; but James leaves in an hour's time; and it isjust nine o'clock, and I know you wish to see him."
When she came down half an hour later she found Mistress Margaret waitingfor her outside Lady Maxwell's room.
"He is in there," she said. "I will tell Mary"; and she slipped in.Isabel outside heard the murmur of voices, and in a moment more wasbeckoned in by the nun.
James Maxwell was sitting back in a great chair, looking exhausted andwhite. His mother, with something of the same look of supreme sufferingand triumph, was standing behind his chair. She smiled gravely andsweetly at Isabel, as if to encourage her; and went out at the furtherdoor, followed by her sister.
"Mistress Isabel," said the priest, without any introductory words, inhis broken voice, and motioning her to a seat, "I cannot tell you whatjoy it was to see you at mass. Is it too much to hope that you will seekadmission presently to the Catholic Church?"
Isabel sat with downcast eyes. His tone was a little startling to her. Itwas as courteous as ever, but less courtly: there was just the faintestring in it, in spite of its weakness, as of one who spoke with authority.
"I--I thank you, Mr. James," she said. "I wish to hear more at any rate."
"Yes, Mistress Isabel; and I thank God for it. Mr. Barnes will be theproper person. My mother will let him know; and I have no doubt that hewill receive you by Easter, and that you can make your First Communion onthat day."
She bowed her head, wondering a little at his assurance.
"You will forgive me, I know, if I seem discourteous," went on thepriest, "but I trust you understand the terms on which you come. You comeas a little child, to learn; is it not so? Simply that?"
She bowed her head again.
"Then I need not keep you. If you will kneel, I will give you myblessing."
She knelt down at once before him, and he blessed her, lifting hiswrenched hand with difficulty and letting it sink quickly down again.
By an impulse she could not resist she leaned forward on her knees andtook it gently into her two soft hands and kissed it.
"Oh! forgive him, Mr. Maxwell; I am sure he did not know." And then hertears poured down.
"My child," said his voice tenderly, "in any case I not only forgive him,but I thank him. How could I not? He has brought me love-tokens from myLord."
She kissed his hand again, and stood up; her eyes were blinded withtears; but they were not all for grief.
Then Mistress Margaret came in from the inner room, and led the girl out;and the mother came in once more to her son for the ten minutes before hewas to leave her.