"Either thou deceivest thyself, Sister," she added, "which is ill
enough, or thou wouldst fain deceive me. Knowest thou not that to
attempt to deceive thy superiors is to lie to the Holy Ghost as Ananias
and Sapphira did? How then dost thou dare to do it? I see plainly
enough what motive prompts thee: not holy obedience--that is thoroughly
inconsistent with such fervent entreaties--nor a desire to mortify thy
will, but simply a wish for the carnal indulgence of the flesh. Thou
knowest full well that particular friendships are not permitted to the
religious, it is only the lust of the flesh which prompts a fancy for
one above another: if not, every Sister would have an equal share in thy
regard. It is a carnal, worldly heart in which such thoughts dwell as
even a wish for the company of any Sister in especial. And hast thou
forgotten that the very purpose for which we were sent here was to
mortify our wills?"
I thought I was not likely to forget it, so long as nothing was allowed
me save opportunities for mortifying mine. But one more word did I dare
to utter.
"Is obedience so much better than love, Mother?"
"What hast thou to do with love, save the love of God and the blessed
Mother and the holy saints? The very word savoureth of the world. All
the love thou givest to the creature is love taken from God."
"Is love, then, a thing that can be measured and cut in lengths, Mother?
The more you tend a plant, the better it flourishes. If I am to love
none save God, will not my heart dry and wither, so that I shall not be
able to love Him? Sometimes I think it is doing so."
"You think!" she said. "What right have you to think? Leave your
superiors to think for you; and you, cultivate holy obedience, as you
ought. All the heresies and schisms that ever vexed the Church have
arisen from men setting themselves up to _think_ when they should simply
have obeyed."
"But, Mother, forgive me! I cannot help thinking."
"That shows how far you are from perfection, Sister. A religious who
aims at perfection should never allow herself to think, except only how
she can best obey. Beware of pride and presumption, the instant you
allow yourself to depart from the perfection of obedience."
"But, Mother, that is the perfection of a thing. And I am a woman."
"Sister Annora, you are reasoning, when your duty is to obey."
If holy obedience means to obey without thinking, I am afraid I shall
never be perfect in it! I do not know how people manage to compress
themselves into stones like that.
I tried Mother Gaillarde next, since I had only found an icicle clad in
Mother Ada's habit. I was afraid of her, I confess, for I knew she
would bite: and she did so. I begged yet harder, for I had heard that
Mother Alianora was worse. Was I not even to see her before she died?
"What on earth does it matter?" said Mother Gaillarde. "Aren't you both
going to Heaven? You can talk there--without fear of disobedience."
"My Lord Prior said. Mother, in his last charge, that a convent ought
to be a little heaven. If that be so, why should we not talk now?"
Mother Gaillarde's laugh positively frightened me. It was the hardest,
driest, most metallic sound I ever heard.
"Sister Annora, you must be a baby! You have lived in a convent nearly
fifty years, and you ask if it be a little heaven!"
"I cry you mercy, Mother. I asked if it should not be so."
"That's another matter," said she, with a second laugh, but it did not
startle me like the first. "We should all be perfect, of course. Pity
we aren't!"
As she worked away at the plums she was stoning without saying either
yes or no, I ventured to repeat my question.
"You may do as you are told!" was Mother Gaillarde's answer. "Can't you
let things alone?"
Snappishly as she spoke, yet--I hardly know why,--I did not feel the
appeal to her as hopeless as to Mother Ada. To entreat the latter was
like beseeching a stone wall. Mother Gaillarde's very peevishness (if I
dare call it so) showed that she was a woman, and not an image.
"Mother Gaillarde," I said, suddenly--for something seemed to bid me
speak out--"be not angry with me, I pray you. I am afraid of letting
things alone. My heart seems to be like a dry bough, and my soul
withering up, and I want to keep them alive and warm. Surely death is
not perfection!"
I was going on, but something which I saw made me stop suddenly. Two
warriors were fighting together in Mother Gaillarde's face. All at once
she dropped the knife, and hiding her face in her veil, she sobbed for a
minute as if her heart were breaking. Then, all at once, she brushed
away her tears and stood up again.
"Child!" she said, in a voice very unlike her usual one, "you are too
young for your years. Do not think that dried-up hearts are the same
thing as no hearts. Women who seem as though they could not love any
thing may have loved once too well, and when they awoke from the dream
may never have been able to dream again. Ay, thou art right: death is
not perfection. Some of us, maybe, are very far off perfection--further
than others think us; furthest of all from what we think ourselves.
There have been times when I seemed to see for a moment what perfection
is--and it was far, far from all we call it here. God forgive us all!
Go to the Infirmary: and if any chide thee for being there, say thou
earnest in obedience to me."
She turned back to her plum-stoning with a resolute face which might
have been a mask of iron: and I, after offering lowly thanks, took the
way to the Infirmary.
I fear I have been unjust to Mother Gaillarde, and I am sorry for it. I
seem to see now, that her hard, snappish speeches (for she does snap
sometimes) are not from absence of heart, but are simply a veil to hide
the heart. Ah me! how little we human creatures know of each others'
hidden feelings! But I shall never think Mother Gaillarde without heart
again.
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Note 1. The rule of silence varied considerably in different Orders,
but in all, except the very strict, nuns were at liberty to converse
during some period of the day.
Note 2. This transferring of Margaret from Watton is purely imaginary.