_Feast of St. Agnes, April 20._
A YEAR ago at this time I was at home, busily preparing flowers and
wreaths for my sister's bridal, under dear mother's eye. I knew Alice
wanted violets, and Dick and I went to search for them in the coombe,
where the banks being shady, the violets do longest linger. When we
had filled our baskets with the flowers, which we found in abundance,
both white and blue, we sat down a little on the moss to listen to the
singing of the birds and the lapse of the water. These gentle sounds,
albeit most sweet and tender, did somewhat dispose us to silence, if
not melancholy. Presently Richard said:
"I wonder where we shall be a year from now, Rosamond? You know this
same spring used to be a favorite haunt of the Fair Dame of Stanton, my
ancestress. They say she used to see in the bosom of the water, as in a
mirror, all that was to come to pass."
"I can tell pretty well where we shall be a year from now, without
any of the Fair Dame's art," said I. "You know she was said to be a
heretic, if not worse."
"Yes, but I don't believe it!" answered Dick, valiantly. "I believe she
was a good woman, and a good wife. But since you know so well, tell me
where we shall be?"
"You will be in France with my Lord your uncle," said I, "or else
attending him at Court, winning your spurs by brave deeds, or dancing
with fair dames and damsels; and I shall be at the convent, working of
cut-work copes and altar-cloths in silk and gold; or helping Mother
Gertrude dry herbs, and distil cordials, and make comfits: or studying
the lives of the Saints; or—"
"Be wasting your time and youth on some nonsense or other," interrupted
Richard, who never could bear to hear of my being a nun. "It is a
shame!"
"It was my mother's doing, and I will not hear a word against it!" said
I. "Besides, I don't know why I shouldn't be happy there as well as
anywhere else. A great many nuns are happy, and beside that, Dick, to
be happy is not the business of life."
Dick received this remark with the grunt which he always bestows
on my wise speeches, and we were silent for a time. Then Dick said
passionately, all at once—pointing to a chaffinch, a dear little
fowl, which sat on a twig singing his very heart out, "Sweetheart!
Sweetheart!" over and over again:
"Rosamond, nothing shall make me think that yonder bird does not serve
God just as acceptably while he is flitting about gathering food for
his young ones, and singing in the free air of heaven, as if he were
shut behind the bars of a cage, singing the same song over and over,
after the old bird-catcher's whistle."
"The bird is only a bird," I answered, "and, as Master Ellenwood often
tells us, comparisons are no arguments. Besides, Dick, I have to go, so
where is the use of repining? My mother has promised for me, and I have
promised her again this very day (and so I had); so where is the use of
an argument?"
"It's a shame!" said Dick, passionately; adding, "If you cared for me
as I do for you, you wouldn't talk so coolly of its being an end."
Whereat there was nothing to do but to rise and return to the house.
I don't know why I have written this down, only it is a part of my
life. There can be no harm in it, because Richard and I can never be
anything to each other—not even brother and sister—because a good
religious knows no ties of natural affection. No doubt the coombe
is full this very day of violets and primroses, and all other sweet
flowers, and the spring is welling up and running over its basin all
among the moss and fern, and the brook liverwort; and I dare say the
very same chaffinch is singing there this minute. There are violets in
our convent garden as well, but they are planted in a straight bed, and
Mother Gabrielle uses the flowers to make her sirups, and the leaves
are gathered for our sallets. There is a spring, too, but not one bit
like that in the coombe. That boils up out of a deep and wide cleft in
the rock, filling its basin full and running over the stones in twenty
little vagrant streams. Great ferns grow over and shade it, and leaves
drop into it in the autumn, and birds and wild-wood creatures come
to drink of its waters. This pours in a steady orderly stream from a
pipe which sticks straight out from the wall, and runs down a straight
course, paved and edged with cut stone, into the stew-pond where we
keep our fish.
Still our convent garden is a sweet and pretty place, full of orderly
knots and beds of flowers and herbs, chiefly such as are good to distil
cordials, or to help out our messes on fast days—rue, and mints, and
hyssops, and angelica, and caraway, and burnet—with abundance of roses,
and poppies, and white lilies, and a long bed of sweet flowers for the
bees.
We have a fine stock of beehives. Then we have plum and pear and apple
trees, and a bed of strawberries. At the end of the garden are two most
ancient elm trees, and under them a very small, and very, very old
chapel of our Lady of Sorrows. Dear Mother says it is by far the oldest
part of the convent. It is very small, as I said, built of huge stones,
with low heavy arches. Over the altar stands the image of our Lady,
rudely carved in some dark wood. It is a very holy image, and used to
work miracles in old times. I wish it would again. I should dearly love
to see a miracle.
At the back of this chapel, and joining it, so as to be under the same
roof, is another building, very low and massive, with no windows, but
one very narrow slit, close under the eaves. A heavy iron-studded door
opens into it from the chapel itself. Mother Gertrude told me one day
that it contained the staircase leading to a burial vault under the
chapel, now never used, and that it had not been opened for years and
years.
The Sisters are not fond of this shrine, holy as it is, and I think
they are afraid of it. Indeed I know Sister Bridget told me that if an
unfaithful nun were to watch there over night, she would be found dead
on the floor in the morning—if indeed a ghost or demon did not arise
from the vault and drag her down to a living death below.
"I should not think a ghost would dare to come into the sacred place!"
said Amice.
"Evil spirits have power over the unfaithful, wherever they
are—remember that, child!" said Sister Bridget, solemnly.
"And over the faithful too, sometimes," said Amice, who is as usual
reading the lives of Saints. "I am sure St. Frances was dreadfully
disturbed by them."
"Power to disturb, but not to destroy them, child. But prayers offered
at that shrine have great efficacy for the deliverance of souls from
purgatory," said old Mother Mary Monica, who is the oldest person in
the house, and very fond of the company of us young ones. "If any one
had a friend in purgatory, and should watch all night in prayer before
that image, it would go far to deliver him."
"Do you really think so, Mother?" I asked.
"Think so, child! I know it for a truth. The blessed Saint Ethelburga
herself tried it, and was assured by a vision and a miracle that
her prayers were granted. Eh dear, I could tell you many stories of
miracles, my daughters. They used to be plenty in my young days. Why, I
was converted by a miracle myself."
"Tell us about it, dear Mother, will you?" said Amice and I both
together; and Amice added, "See, here is a nice seat, and the warm sun
is good for your pains, you know."
So she sat down, the good old soul, and Amice and I on stones at her
feet, and she told us the tale. I will set it down just as I remember
it.
"You must know, my children, that I was a giddy young girl in
attendance on the Queen—not the Queen that now is, but Queen Elizabeth,
wife of Henry the Seventh, this King's father—when I went with my
mistress to make a retreat at the convent of the poor Clares, in
London—"
"The same that Sister Catherine is always praising," said I.
"Yes, the very same; but don't you put me out. Where was I?"
"Where you went with the Queen to make a retreat, dear Mother."
"O yes. Well, I had been a giddy girl, as I told you, but I had been
somewhat sobered of late, because my cousin Jack, whom my father always
meant I should wed, had been on the wrong side in the late troubles,
and was in hiding at that time. Now, I liked Jack right well, and was
minded to marry none other; but I was a King's ward, my father being
dead, and I having a good fortune. So I had a many suitors, and I knew
the King was favorable to a knight, Sir Edward Peckham, of Somerset,
who had come to him with help just at the right time. Now, I wanted
nobody but Jack; but of all my suitors there was none that I misliked
so much as Sir Edward Peckham!"
"Why?" asked I, much interested.
"Because I could not abide him, child. That was reason enough. Well,
things being even in this shape, I was glad enough when my mistress
made her retreat in the convent of the Poor Clares, and chose me to
attend on her, out of all her train. That was a strict order, children.
Matins at one o'clock in the morning—not overnight, as we have them
here—no food till dinner at eleven, and no flesh meat even on feast
days—almost perpetual silence! Well, it was always and ever my way
to fall in with whatever was going on, let it be what it might; so I
fasted and prayed with the best, and kept all the hours, till I was so
tired I could hardly stand. In the midst of it all came a messenger to
my mistress from the King, bidding her return to the Court in three
days and bring me with her, for the King was minded that my marriage
should no longer be put off.
"Children, I was like one distracted, and I was all but ready to cast
myself away, body and soul. The Mother Superior marked my grief, and
I was won to tell her the whole. She was an austere woman—not one bit
like our Mother—but she was very kind to me in my trouble—"
"I am sure our dear Mother Superior is a saint, if ever there was one,"
said I.
"That she is, that she is, child; but there may be a difference in
saints, you know. Well, Mother Superior pitied my grief, and soothed
me, and when I was quieted like, she councilled me to watch all night
before a shrine in which were some very holy relics—specially part of
the veil of St. Clare, our blessed founder."
"'Perhaps the Saint may take pity on you and show you the way out of
your present troubles,' said she. 'Fast this day from all food, my
daughter, and this night I will myself conduct you to the shrine where
you are to watch.'"
"Well, children, I did fast and say my rosary all the rest of the day,
till I was ready to drop; and at nine at night the Mother Superior
led me to a little chapel off the church, where was the shrine of St.
Clare. It was all dark—only looking toward the church I could just see
the glimmer of the ever-burning lamp, before the Holy Sacrament of the
Altar. Here she left me, and here I was to kneel till daylight, saying
my prayers and the seven psalms."
"I don't see how you could kneel so long," said Amice.
"I might lie prone a part of the time, if I would," replied Mother Mary
Monica, "and so indeed I did. I don't know what time it was—somewhere
before Matins, and I know not whether overcome with fatigue I had not
dozed a little, when I was waked by a bright light. I raised myself
on my knees, and looking toward the altar, I saw the figure of St.
Clare surrounded by a clear but mild radiance, and holding out to me
in her hand a nun's veil, while a voice of heavenly sweetness, said
to me these words: 'Here, my child, is thy only refuge.' The light
faded away, and I sunk down—in a swoon this time, for when some of the
Sisters came to seek me at prime, they found me pale and lifeless,
while—mark, my daughters—on my head was laid that most sacred relic,
the veil of St. Clare—yes, on this unworthy head the blessed veil was
laid."
We both looked at the good Mother in a kind of awe.
"Well, I told the good Sisters and my mistress what I had seen. There
could be no doubt after that in my mind, especially as two or three
days after I had certain news of Jack's death. The King would not hear
of my profession at first, but the Prior of the Franciscans took my
part, and his Majesty would not have liked setting the whole of the
Gray Friars against him; so he gave way, and even paid over my portion,
which must have gone hard, for his blessed Majesty was fond of money;
and Sir Edward went home riding alone, with a flea in his ear, instead
of a bride by his side. Marry him, indeed, with his thin legs and
his long lean jaws! So that is the way I was converted, my children,
and got my own way, by the help of the Blessed St. Clare, to whom I
have always had a particular devotion ever since. And who knows what
miracles might be vouchsafed to you, if you were to watch all night
before the shrine of our Lady?"
We had no time for any more talk just then, but ever since I have been
turning over in my mind what Mother Mary Monica said. It does seem
dreadful to me—the thought of watching all night and alone in that
dreary place without a light. To be sure, the moon is at the full, and
would shine directly into the great window, but then those dreadful
vaults, and Sister Bridget's story do so run in my head. Every time the
wind shook the ivy or whistled in the loopholes of the stones, I should
fancy it a rustle among the graves below, or the grating of that heavy
door on its hinges. And then, so cold and damp.
Wretch that I am, to weigh these things one moment in the balance
against my dear mother's soul! I feel sure that she could not have
died in mortal sin, but to pass without the sacraments, without one
moment's warning! Oh, it is dreadful! And then her marrying instead
of taking the veil. That I think troubles dear Mother Superior worse
than anything. Yes, I am quite resolved. I will watch this very night
before the shrine in the garden chapel; but I will tell nobody of my
resolve, save Amice and Mother Gertrude. I don't want the whole flock
exclaiming, pitying or praising me, or hinting at my setting up for a
saint, as some of them do.
[Of course, being now enlightened by Holy Scripture, I do not believe
that my dear mother was benefitted by my watching, nor indeed that she
needed such benefit; but I will ever maintain that the exertion to
overcome my own fears (which were very terrible), for my mother's sake,
was of great service to me. 'Twas a true act of self-sacrifice, though
done in ignorance, and that not to pile up a stock of merit for myself,
but to do good to another.]
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