It was a brilliant July day, and the convent at Robeen was decked for a
festival. The occasion was a very great one. Cloth of gold hung in the
chapel, the entrance-hall was splendid with flowers, and the whole
white front of the buildings had put on signs of holiday. Indeed,
this festival was unique, the very greatest day in the history of the
sisterhood. Easter, Christmas, and the saints’ days recurred annually
in their proper order, and the emotions they brought with them were no
doubt familiar to holy ladies whose business it was to live in close
touch with the other world. But on this day the great of the earth,
beings much more unapproachable, as a rule, than the saints, were to
visit the convent. Honour was to be paid to ladies whose magnificence
was guaranteed by worldly titles; to the Proconsuls of the far-off
Imperial power, holders of the purse-strings of the richest nation
upon earth; to Judges accustomed to sit in splendid robes and awful
head-dresses, pronouncing the doom of malefactors; to a member of the
Cabinet, a very mighty man, though untitled; and quite possibly--a
glittering hope--to the Lord Lieutenant himself.
It was therefore no wonder that the nuns had decked their convent
with all possible splendour. On each side of the iron gateway was a
flag-post. From the top of one fluttered the green banner of Ireland,
with its gold harp and a great crown over it. From the other hung
the Union Jack, emblem of that marriage of nationalities for whose
consummation eight centuries have not sufficed. It was hoisted upside
down--not with intentional disrespect, but because Sister Gertrude, who
superintended this part of the decorations, had long ago renounced the
world, and did not remember that the tangled crosses had a top or a
bottom to them. Between the posts hung a festoon of signalling flags,
long pointed strips of bunting with red balls or blue on them. The
central streamer just tipped as it fluttered the top of the iron cross
which marked the religious nature of the gateway. The straight gravel
walk inside was covered with red baize, and on each side of it were
planted tapering poles, round which crimson and white muslin circled
in alternate stripes, giving them the appearance of huge old-fashioned
sugar-sticks. These added to the gaiety of the scene, though it cannot
be supposed that they were of any actual use. The most bewildered
visitor was hardly likely to stray off the red baize or miss his way to
the door in front of him. Within the great entrance-hall were palms and
flowering shrubs in pots or tubs. The mosaic flooring, imported from
Italy, and a source of pride to all the Sisters, shone with much washing
and polishing. The Madonna with the blue eyes and the golden crown,
before which even Bishops crossed themselves, was less in evidence than
usual, for the expected guests were mostly heretics. She stood retired
behind the flower-pots, and veiled her benignity with the leaves of
palms.
Right and left of the hall stretched corridors, whose shining parquet
invited the curious to explore the working-rooms and eating-rooms which
lay beyond. The door of the chapel stood open, and offered a vision
of simpering angels crowding the canvas of the altar-piece, a
justly-admired specimen of German religious art. Before it, dimly
seen, two nuns knelt, types of conventual piety, absorbed in spiritual
contemplation amid the tumult of the world’s invasion of their
sanctuary. Another door led to the garden. Here a fountain played into a
great stone basin, and neat gravel walks intersected each other at sharp
angles among flower-beds. The grass which lay around the maze of paths
was sacred as a rule, even from the list slippers of the nuns, but
to-day booths stood on it like stalls at a charity bazaar, hung with
tweeds, blankets, and stockings. A tall Calvary lowered incongruously
over one. An inferior Madonna, deposed from her old station in the
entrance-hall, presided in a weather-beaten blue robe over another.
Beyond the garden, blocked off from it by a white wall, lay the factory
itself, the magnet which was drawing the great of the earth to the
nunnery. Here were the workers, all of them bright young women, smiling
pleasantly and well washed for the occasion. They were dressed in neat
violet petticoats and white blouses, with shawls thrown back from their
heads, a glorified presentment of the Mayo woman’s working dress. Here
and there, a touch of realism creditable to the Reverend Mother’s talent
for stage management, one sat in bare feet--not, of course, dust or mud
stained, as bare feet are apt to be in Connaught, but clean. The careful
observer of detail might have been led to suppose that the Sisters
improved upon the practice of the Holy Father himself, and daily washed
the feet of the poor.
Everywhere fresh-complexioned, gentle-faced nuns flitted silently about.
The brass crosses pendent over their breasts relieved with a single
glitter the sombre folds of their robes. Snowy coifs, which had cost the
industrial schoolgirls of a sister house hours of labour and many tears,
shone, glazed and unwrinkled, round their heads. Even the youngest of
them had acquired the difficult art of walking gracefully with her hands
folded in front of her.
At about two o’clock the visitors began to arrive, although the train
from Dublin which was to bring the very elect was not due for another
half-hour. Lady Geoghegan, grown pleasantly stout and cheerfully
benignant, came by a local train, and rejoiced the eyes of beholders
with a dress made of one of the convent tweeds. Sir Gerald followed
her, awkward and unwilling. He had been dragged with difficulty from his
books and the society of his children, and was doubtful whether a cigar
in a nunnery garden might not be counted sacrilege. With them was
a wonderful person--an English priest: it was thus he described
himself--whom Lady Geoghegan had met in Yorkshire. His charming manners
and good Church principles had won her favour and earned him the holiday
he was enjoying at Clogher House. He was arrayed in a pair of gray
trousers, a white shirt, and a blazer with the arms of Brazenose College
embroidered on the pocket, his sacerdotal character being marked only
by his collar. He leaped gaily from the car which brought them from the
station, and, as he assisted his hostess to alight, amazed the little
crowd around the gate by chaffing the driver in an entirely unknown
tongue. The good man had an ear for music, and plumed himself on his
ability to pick up any dialect he heard--Scotch, Yorkshire, or Irish
brogue. The driver was bewildered, but smiled pleasantly. He realized
that the gentleman was a foreigner, and since the meaning of his speech
was not clear, it was quite likely that he might be hazy about the value
of money and the rates of car hire.
The Duchess of Drummin came in her landau. Like Lady Geoghegan, she
marked the national and industrial nature of the occasion in her attire.
At much personal inconvenience, for the day was warm, she wore a long
cloak of rich brown tweed, adorned with rows of large leather-covered
buttons. Lady Josephine Maguire fluttered after her. She had bidden
her maid disguise a dress, neither Irish nor homespun, with as much
Carrickmacross lace as could be attached to it. Lord Eustace, who
represented his father, appeared in all the glory of a silk hat and a
frock-coat. He eyed Sir Gerald’s baggy trousers and shabby wideawake
with contempt, and turned away his eyes from beholding the vanity of
obviously bad form when he came face to face with the English priest in
his blazer.
A smiling nun took charge of each party as it arrived. Lady Geoghegan
plied hers with questions, and received a series of quite uninforming
answers. Her husband followed her, bent principally upon escaping
from the precincts if he could. Already he was bored, and he knew that
speeches from great men were in store for him if he were forced to
linger. The Duchess of Drummin eyed each object presented to her notice
gravely through long-handled glasses, but gave her attendant nun very
little conversational help. Lady Josephine made every effort to be
intelligent, and inquired in a dormitory where the looking-glasses
were. She was amazed to hear that the nuns did, or failed to do, their
hair--the head-dresses concealed the result of their efforts--without
mirrors. Lord Eustace was preoccupied. Amid his unaccustomed
surroundings he walked uncertain whether to keep his hat on his head
or hold it in his hands. The English priest, whose name was Austin, got
detached from Lady Geoghegan, and picked up a stray nun for himself. She
took him, by his own request, straight to the chapel. He crossed himself
with elaborate care on entering, and knelt for a moment before the
altar. The nun was delighted.
‘So you, too, are a Catholic?’
‘Certainly,’ he replied briskly--‘an English Catholic.’
‘Ah! many of our priests go to England. Perhaps you have met Father
O’Connell. He is on a London mission.’
‘No,’ said Mr. Austin, ‘I do not happen to have met him. My church is in
Yorkshire.’
The nun gazed at him in amazement.
‘Your church! Then you are----
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am a priest.’
Her eyes slowly travelled over him. They began at the gray trousers,
passed to the blazer, resting a moment on the college arms, which
certainly suggested the ecclesiastical, and remained fixed on his
collar. After all, why should she, a humble nun, doubt his word when he
said he was a priest? Perhaps he might belong to some order of which
she had never heard. Eccentricities of costume might be forced on the
English clergy by Protestant intolerance. She smothered her uncertainty,
and took him at his word. They went together into the garden. Mr. Austin
took off his hat before the tarnished Madonna, and crossed himself
again. The nun’s doubts vanished.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I should like to buy some of this tweed. Is it
for sale?’
‘Oh, certainly. Sister Aloysia will sell it to you. We are so glad, so
very glad, when anyone will buy what our poor workers make. It is all a
help to the good cause.’
‘Now this,’ said Mr. Austin, fingering a bright-green cloth, ‘would make
a nice lady’s dress. Don’t you think so?’
The nun cast down her eyes.
‘I do not know, Father, about dresses. Sister Aloysia, the Reverend
Father wants to buy tweed to make a dress for ‘--she hesitated; perhaps
it was his niece, but he looked young to have a full-grown niece--‘for
his sister.’
Sister Aloysia looked round her, puzzled. She saw no Reverend Father.
‘This,’ said the other, ‘is Father--Father----’
‘Austin,’ he helped her out.
‘Father Austin,’ added the nun.
‘And you wish,’ said Sister Aloysia, ‘to buy a dress for your sister?’
‘Not for my sister,’ said Mr. Austin--‘for my wife.’
Both nuns started back as if he had tried to strike them.
‘Your wife! Your wife! Then you are a Protestant.’
‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘I detest all Protestants. I am a Catholic--an
Anglo-Catholic.’
Neither of the nuns had ever heard of an Anglo-Catholic before.
What manner of religion such people might profess was doubtful and
unimportant. One thing was clear--this was not a priest in any sense of
the word which they could recognise. They distrusted him, as a wolf,
not certainly in the clothing, but using the language, of a sheep. The
situation became embarrassing. Mr. Austin prepared to bow himself away.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘I shall ask Lady Geoghegan’--he rolled the title
out emphatically; it formed a salve to his wounded dignity--‘I shall ask
Lady Geoghegan to purchase the tweed for me. I must be on the look-out
for a friend who promised to meet me here this afternoon--a young man
whom I contemplate engaging as my curate. I am most particular in the
choice of a curate, and should, of course, prefer a public school
and ‘Varsity man. I need scarcely say that I refer only to Oxford and
Cambridge as the Universities. As a rule, I do not care for Irishmen,
but on the recommendation of my friend Dr. Henry, I am willing to
consider this Mr. Conneally.’
It seemed to Mr. Austin that a preference for the English Universities,
the friendship of a distinguished professor, a contempt for the mere
Irishman, and a titled hostess ought to restore the respect he had
forfeited by the mention of his wife. Curiously enough, and this shows
the disadvantage of a monastic seclusion from the world, the nuns
remained unimpressed. The conception of a married priest was too much
for them. As he walked away Mr. Austin heard Sister Aloysia murmur:
‘How very indecent!’
Meanwhile, the train from Dublin had arrived, and Mr. Austin, when he
returned after his interview with Hyacinth, found that even the two nuns
he had victimized had forgotten him in the excitement of gazing at
more important visitors. Mr. Justice Saunders, a tall, stout man with a
florid face, made a tour of the factory under the charge of one of the
senior Sisters. He took little notice of what he was shown, being
mainly bent on explaining to his escort how he came to be known in legal
circles as ‘Satan Saunders.’ Afterwards he added a tale of how he had
once bluffed a crowd in an out-of-the-way country town into giving three
cheers for the Queen.
‘You’re all loyal here,’ he said. ‘I saw the Union Jack flying over the
gate as I came in.’
The nun smiled, a slow, enigmatic smile, and the Judge, watching her,
was struck by her innocence and simplicity.
‘Surely,’ she said, ‘the Church must always be loyal.’
‘Well, I’m not so sure of that. I’ve met a few firebrands of priests in
my time.’
‘Oh, those!’ she said with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘You must not think
of them. It will always be easy to keep them in order when the time
comes. They spring from the cabins. What can you expect of them? But the
Church---- Can the Church fail of respect for the Sovereign?’
Mr. Clifford and Mr. Davis followed Judge Saunders. They were members of
the Congested Districts Board, and it was clear from the manner of
the nun who escorted them that they were guests of very considerable
importance in her estimation. Mr. Clifford was an Englishman who had
been imported to assist in governing Ireland because he was married to
the sister of the Chief Secretary’s wife. He was otherwise qualified
for the task by possessing a fair knowledge of the points of a horse. He
believed that he knew Ireland and the Irish people thoroughly.
His colleague, Mr. Davis, was a man of quite a different stamp. The
son of a Presbyterian farmer in County Tyrone, he had joined the Irish
Parliamentary party, and made himself particularly objectionable in
Westminster. He had devoted his talents to discovering and publishing
the principles upon which appointments to lucrative posts are made
by the officials in Dublin Castle. It was found convenient at last to
provide him with a salary and a seat on the Congested Districts Board.
Thus he found himself engaged in ameliorating the lot of the Connaught
peasants. Mr. Clifford used to describe him as ‘a bit of a bounder--in
fact, a complete outsider--but no fool.’ His estimate of Mr. Clifford
was perhaps less complimentary.
‘Every business,’ he used to say, ‘must have at least one gentleman in
it to do the entertaining and the dining out. We have Mr. Clifford. He’s
a first-rate man at one of the Lord Lieutenant’s balls.’
A professor from Trinity College was one of the two guests conducted by
the Reverend Mother herself. Nominally this learned gentleman existed
for the purpose of impressing upon the world the beauties of Latin
poetry, but he was best known to fame as an orator on the platforms
of the Primrose League, and a writer of magazine articles on Irish
questions. He was a man who owed his success in life largely to his
faculty for always keeping beside the most important person present. The
Lord Lieutenant, being slightly indisposed, had been unable to make an
early start, so the most honourable stranger was Mr. Chesney, the Chief
Secretary. To him Professor Cairns attached himself, and received a
share of the Reverend Mother’s blandishments.
Mr. Chesney himself was dapper and smiling as usual. Even the early
hour at which he had been obliged to leave home had neither ruffled his
temper nor withered the flower in his buttonhole. He spent his money
generously at the various stalls in the garden, addressed friendly
remarks to the women in the factory, and asked the questions with which
Mr. Davis had primed him in the train.
Quite a crowd of minor people followed the great statesman. There were
barristers who hoped to become County Court Judges, and ladies who
enjoyed a novel kind of occasion for displaying their clothes, hoping to
see their names afterwards in the newspaper accounts of the proceedings.
There were a few foremen from leading Dublin shops, who foresaw the
possibility of a fashionable boom in Robeen tweeds and flannels. There
were also reporters from the Dublin papers, and a representative--Miss
O’Dwyer--of a syndicate which supplied ladies’ journals with accounts of
the clothes worn at fashionable functions.
The supreme moment of the day arrived when the company assembled to
listen to words of wisdom from the orators selected to address them.
Seats had been provided by carting in forms from the neighbouring
national schools. A handsomely-carved chair of ecclesiastical design
awaited Mr. Chesney.
He opened his speech by assuring his audience that there was no occasion
for him to address them at all, a truth which struck home to the heart
of Sir Gerald, who was trying to arrange himself comfortably at a desk
designed for a class of infants.
‘Facts,’ Mr. Chesney explained himself, ‘are more eloquent than words.
You have seen what I could never have described to you--the contented
workers in this factory and the artistic designs of the fabrics they
weave. Many of you remember what Robeen was a few years ago--a howling
wilderness. We are told on high authority that even the wilderness shall
blossom as a rose.’
He bowed in the direction of the Reverend Mother, possibly with a
feeling that it was suitable to acknowledge her presence when quoting
Holy Writ, possibly with a vague idea that she might consider herself
a spiritual descendant of the Prophet Isaiah. ‘You see it now a hive of
happy industry.’
He observed with pleasure that the reporters were busy with their
note-books, and he knew that these editors of public utterance might be
relied on to unravel a tangled metaphor before publishing a speech. He
went on light-heartedly, confident that in the next day’s papers his
wilderness would blossom into something else, and that the hive, if
it appeared at all, would be arrived at by some other process than
blossoming. The habit of rolling out agreeable platitudes to audiences
forced to listen is one which grows on public men as dram-drinking does
on the common herd. Mr. Chesney was evidently enjoying himself, and
there seemed no reason why he should ever stop. He could, and perhaps
would, have gone on for hours but for the offensive way in which Judge
Saunders snapped the case of his watch at the end of every period. There
was really no hurry, for the special train which was to bring them back
to Dublin would certainly wait until they were ready for it. Mr. Chesney
felt aggrieved at the repeated interruption, and closed his speech
without giving the audience the benefit of his peroration.
The Judge came next, and began with reminding his hearers that he
was known as ‘Satan Saunders.’ An account of the origin of the name
followed, and was enjoyed even by those who had listened to the Judge’s
oratory before, and therefore knew the story. There was something
piquant, almost _risqué_, in the constant repetition of a really wicked
word like ‘Satan’ in the halls of a nunnery. The audience laughed
reassuringly, and the Judge went on to supply fresh pabulum for mirth by
suggesting that the Reverend Mother should clothe her nuns in their own
tweeds. He was probably right in supposing that the new costumes would
add a gaiety to the religious life. Other jests followed, and he sat
down amid a flutter of applause after promising that when he next
presided over the Winter Assizes in a draughty court-house he would send
for a Robeen blanket and wrap his legs in it.
Mr. Clifford, who followed the Judge, began by wondering whether anyone
present had ever been in Lancashire. After a pause, during which no one
owned to having crossed the Channel, he said that Lancashire was the
home of the modern factory. There every man and woman earned good wages,
wore excellent clothes, and lived in a house fitted with hot and cold
water taps and a gas-meter. It was his hope to see Mayo turned into
another Lancashire. When ladies of undoubted commercial ability, like
the Lady Abbess who presided over the Robeen convent--Lady Abbess
sounded well, and Mr. Clifford was not strong on ecclesiastical
titles--took the matter up, success was assured. All that was required
for the development of the factory system in Mayo was capital, and that
‘we, the Congested Districts Board, are in a position to supply.’ With
the help of some prompting from Mr. Davis, he proceeded to lay
before the audience a few figures purporting to explain the Board’s
expenditure.
Professor Cairns was evidently anxious to follow Mr. Clifford, if only
in the humble capacity of the proposer of a vote of thanks. But his
name was not on the programme, and Mr. Chesney was already engaged in a
whispered conversation with the Reverend Mother. Ignoring the professor,
almost rudely, he announced that the company in general was invited to
tea in the dining-room.
The refreshments provided, if not substantial, were admirable in
quality. There happened just then to be a young lady engaged, at the
expense of the County Council, in teaching cookery in a neighbouring
convent. She was sent over to Robeen for the occasion, and made a number
of delightful cakes at extremely small expense. The workers in the
factory had given the butter she required as a thank-offering, and the
necessary eggs came from another convent where the nuns, with financial
assistance from the Congested Districts Board, kept a poultry-farm.
The Reverend Mother dispensed her hospitality with the same air of
generosity with which Mr. Clifford had spoken of providing capital for
the future ecclesiastical factories.