Miss Bonnet worked with good will, and no one but Mrs. Bradley came and watched. This, in itself, was a departure from custom of more than ordinary significance, for it meant that none of the nuns was on supervising duty. All were extremely busy, as Mrs. Bradley knew, and there was, in any case, no provision for the supervision of physical training that day. Little Mother Jude was superintending the scouring and polishing of all the kitchen utensils, and proposed to go fishing in the moorland streams to give the Bishop a palatable Lenten dish. That it was just a little early for trout had caused her a sleepless night, but none of the fishing was preserved, and she had her own methods—having poached salmon in her unregenerate days, when she was a barefoot child—for obtaining what she required. Indeed, as she declared, with a smile, to Mrs. Bradley, she would poach fish for the Bishop any day, and on Sundays, too, should he desire it. Mrs. Bradley could scarcely poke a nun in the ribs, but she cackled with great appreciation.
Mother Ambrose was burnishing the Orphanage, and all the orphans were let off school to help her. They polished and, scrubbed and fetched and carried, and tripped over pails of water, cleaned paint, slid on the soap and had narrow escapes from death in many forms. They were, most of them, very happy, because they liked anything better than school and their lessons. The Bishop, in fact, was very generally popular, Mrs. Bradley gathered, and soon would arrive, fat and laughing, to have his ring kissed, himself idolised, his every word received with breathless ecstasy. A rather indelicate comparison of a cock among hens, which came unbidden to her mind, Mrs. Bradley quickly smothered out of existence.
Mother Simon-Zelotes, her copies of the chalice and paten now carefully locked away, the originals in the strong-room of the bank, was getting her special class to finish their own designs so that there could be a good show of work for the Bishop to see. Mother Cyprian, her embroidered bookbindings done, was energetically exhorting her pupils to get on with their needlework, decorative stitchery, pattern drafting, knitting and drawn- thread work. Even Mother Francis herself, still calm, but sharp-tongued and critical, was getting drawings and paintings mounted ready for show, and urging her flock to fresh efforts, clear colours, rare images and ideas, so that the Bishop should make favourable comment on her work.
Only the Mother Superior, in the impregnable calm of age, awaited the Bishop without trepidation or excitement; awaited the Bishop merely as one friend will wait for another, knowing well that partings and meetings, even the parting of death and the meeting of souls cannot weaken or strengthen the bonds forged of confidence, sympathy, mutual goodwill and affection.
She sent for Mrs. Bradley to go and see her. She was in the nuns’ parlour, a pleasant room except for the inevitable religious picture with its emphasis on suffering and death. It was odd, Mrs. Bradley thought, thus to insist upon death rather than upon life and resurrection.
“My dear,” said the Mother Superior, “I asked you to come because I want to know whether you’re sure.”
“Quite sure.”
“It is a case, then, for the police?”
“We shall have to decide about that.”
“You have proof?”
“Enough for any prosecuting counsel.” The old woman in the heavy black robes sighed profoundly.
“From the very first I feared it,” she said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I know. I knew, when first my son came along with the tale, that you feared it. We shall get the girl off to New York by to-morrow’s boat. What about the paten and the chalice?”
“If your chauffeur will call for them, and give a receipt to-morrow morning, they should be here about twelve.”
“It’s the best we can do, I suppose. I would like to leave it as late as we possibly can.”
“At what time does Ulrica leave?”
“She is catching a train at ten-thirty.”
“Your son is going to meet her?”
“At the docks, and see her on to the boat. There mustn’t be any hitch.”
“She will be well looked after on the journey. Two of us will take her to her destination.”
“Mother Saint Timothy and Mother Saint Dominic isn’t it? And that, I hope, will mean the end of this dreadful business. Already rumour has died down, and I think no more children have been taken away from the school. As for me, I am going along to the guest-house to get some sleep. I expect to have another wakeful night.”
“You guard the child well. We are indebted to you. Oh, and for more than that.”
“I keep awake for my own sake,” Mrs. Bradley replied, with a humorous grimace and a shrug. “It is easy enough, for I live the life of a hunted animal.” She concluded the statement with a chuckle.
“You are good to us—very good. God will reward you,” the other old woman said gently. With very faint faith in this vicarious promise, Mrs. Bradley took her leave. When she had gone the Mother Superior knelt at the prie-dieu and prayed for Mrs. Bradley— for her bodily safety, for the success of her enterprise, and, last but not least, for her to be saved from the sin of unseemly levity.
Mrs. Bradley, who was conscious not of levity, unseemly or otherwise, but of the equally sinful feeling of acute depression, a sensation which she had been trying to fight off for days, walked over to the guesthouse with less than her customary briskness. It was a quarter to twelve, for she had remained in the gymnasium some time before going to the Mother Superior. She found Bessie and Maggie in the kitchen peeling potatoes. They had nearly finished this task and apparently were not on speaking terms, for a deathly silence reigned, a silence as foreign to both their natures as to a stream bounding downhill over boulders.
“Oh, Bessie,” said Mrs. Bradley, “I am going to my room for a bit. Will you come and wake me, without fail, at twenty past twelve?”
“Yes, certainly, madam,” Bessie tonelessly replied. Mrs. Bradley’s jaw did not drop, but her mental reaction was the same as if it had done so. She made no comment, however, thanked Bessie, smiled at Maggie, and went up the stairs.
“Won’t be the same without her,” said Bessie, gazing at the door which had closed behind Mrs. Bradley’s small figure. “Not ’arf a corf-drop, she ain’t.”
