"Do I not know
The life of woman is full of woe?
Toiling on and on and on,
With breaking heart, and tearful eyes,
And silent lips--and in the soul
The secret longings that arise,
Which this world never satisfies?"
Longfellow.
Mother Alianora was lying in her bed when I entered the Infirmary, just
under the window, where the soft light of the low autumn sun came in and
lit up her pillow and her dear old face. She smiled when she saw me.
There was another Sister in the room, who was stirring a pan over the
fire, and at first I scarcely noticed her. I went up to the dear
Mother, and asked her how she was.
"Well, my child," she said, tenderly. "Nearly at Home."
Something came up in my throat that would not let me speak.
"Hast thou been sent to relieve Sister Marian?" she asked.
"I know not," said I, after a moment's struggle with myself: then,
remembering what I had been bidden, I added, "Mother Gaillarde bade me
come."
We sat silent for a few moments. Sister Marian poured out the broth and
brought it to the Mother, and I supported her while she drank a little
of it. She could not take much.
Just before the bell rang for compline, Mother Ada came in.
"I bring an order from my Lady," said she. "Sister Marian will be
relieved after compline by another Sister, who will be sent up. Sister
Annora is to stay with the sick Mother during compline, and both she and
the Sister who then comes will keep watch during the night."
I was surprised. I never knew any case of sickness, unless it were
something very severe and urgent, allowed to interfere with a Sister's
attendance at compline. But I was glad enough to stay.
Mother Ada went away again after her orders were given, and Sister
Marian followed her when the bell rang. As soon as the little sounds of
the Sisters' footsteps had died away, and we knew they were all shut in
the oratory, Mother Alianora, in a faint voice, bade me bring a stool
beside her bed and sit down.
"Annora," said she, in that feeble voice, "my child, thou art fifty
years old, yet I think of thee as a child still. And in many respects
thou art so. It has been thy lot, whether for good or evil--which, who
knoweth save God?--to be safe sheltered from very much of the ill that
is in the world. But I doubt not, at times, questionings will arise in
thy heart, whether the good may not have been shut out too. Is it so,
my child?"
I suppose Mother Ada would say I was exceedingly carnal. But something
in the touch of that soft, wrinkled hand, in whose veins I knew ran mine
own blood, seemed to break down all my defences. I laid my head down on
the coverlet, my cheek upon her hand, and in answer I poured forth all
that had been so long shut close in mine own heart--that longing cry
within me for some real, warm, human love, that ceaseless regret for the
lost happiness which was meant to have been mine.
"O Mother, Mother! is it wicked in me?" I cried. "You, who are so near
God, you should see with clearer eyes than we, lost in the tangled
wilderness of this world. Is it wicked of me to dream of that lost
love, and of all that it might have been to me? Am I his true wife, or
is she--whoever that she may be? Am I robbing; God when I love any
other creature? Must I only love any one in Heaven? and am I to prepare
for that by loving nobody here on earth?"
The door opened softly, and the Sister who was to share my watch came
in. She must have heard my closing words.
"My child!" said the faint voice of the dear Mother, who had always felt
to me more like what I supposed mothers to be than any other I had
known--"my child, `it is impossible that scandals should not come: but
woe unto them through whom they come!' It seems to me probable that one
sin may be written in many books: that the actor, and the inciter, and
the abettor--ay, and those who might have prevented, and did not--may
all have their share. Thy coming hither, and thy religious life, having
received no vocation of God, was not thy fault, poor, helpless,
oppressed child! and such temptations as distress thee, therefrom
arising, will not be laid to thy charge as sins. But if thou let a
temptation slide into a sin by consenting thereto, by cherishing and
pursuing it with delight, then art thou not guiltless. That thou
shouldst feel thyself unhappy here, in an unsuitable place, and that
thou mightest have been a happier woman in the wedded life of the
world,--that is no marvel: truly, I think it of thee myself. To know it
is no sin: to repine and murmur thereat, these are forbidden. Thy lot
is appointed of God Himself--God, thy Father, who loveth thee, who hath
given Himself for thee, who pleased not Himself when He came down to die
for thee. Are there not here drops of honey to sweeten the bitter cup?
And if thou want another yet, then remember how short this life is, and
that after it, they that have done His will shall be together with Him
for ever. Dear hearts, it is only a little while."
The Sister who was to watch with me had come forward to the foot of the
bed, and was standing silent there. When Mother Alianora thus spoke, I
fancied that I heard a little sob. Wondering who she was, I looked up--
looked up, to my great astonishment, into those dark, strange eyes of my
own sister Margaret.
Margaret and I, alone, to keep the watch all night long! What could my
Lady Prioress mean? Here was an opportunity to indulge my will, not to
mortify it; to make my love grow, instead of repressing it. I had
actually put into my hand the chance that I had so earnestly desired, to
speak to Margaret alone.
But now that the first difficulty was removed, another rose up before
me. Would Margaret speak to me? Was she, perhaps, searching for
opportunities of mortification, and would refuse the indulgence
permitted? I knew as much of the King's Court, as much of a knightly
tournament, as I knew of that sealed-up heart of hers. Should I be
allowed to know any more?
"Annora," said our aunt again, "there is one thine in my life that I
regret sorely, and it is that I was not more of a mother to thee when
thou earnest as a little child. Of course I was under discipline: but I
feel now that I did not search for opportunities as I might have done,
that I let little chances pass which I might have seized. My child,
forgive me!"
"Dearest Mother!" I said, "you were ever far kinder to me than any one
else in all the world."
"Thank God I have heard that!" saith she. "Ah, children--for we are
children to an aged woman like me--life looks different indeed, seen
from a deathbed, to what it does viewed from the little mounds of our
human wisdom as we pass along it. Here, there is nothing great but God;
there is nothing fair save Christ and Heaven; there is nothing else
true, nor desirable, nor of import. Every thing is of consequence, if,
and just so far as, it bears on these: and all other things are as the
dust of the floor, which ye sweep off and forth of the doors into the
outward. Life is the way upward to God, or the way down to Satan. What
does it matter whether the road were smooth or rough, when ye come to
the end thereof? The more weary and footsore, the more chilled and
hungered ye are, the sweeter shall be the marriage-supper and the rest
of the Father's House."
"Ay--when we are there." It was Margaret who spoke.
"And before, let us look forward, my child."
"Easy enough," said Margaret, "when the sun gleameth out fair, and ye
see the domes of the city stand up bravely afore. But in the dark
night, when neither sun nor star appeareth, and ye are out on a wild
moor, and thick mist closeth you in, so that ye go it may be around
thinking it be forward, till ye know not whether your face is toward the
city or no--"
"Let thy face be toward the Lord of the city," said Mother Alianora.
"He shall lead thee forth by the right way, that thou mayest come to His
city and to His holy hill. The right way, daughter, is sometimes the
way over the moor, and through the mist. `Who of you walketh in
darkness, and there is no light to him? Let him trust in the name of
the Lord, and lean upon his God.' Why, my child, it is only when man
cannot see that it is possible for him to trust. Faith is not called in
exercise so long as thou walkest by sight."
"But when thou art utterly alone," said my sister in a low voice, "with
not one footstep on the road beside thee--"
"That art thou never, child, so thou be Christ's. _His_ footsteps are
alway there."
"In suffering, ay: but in perplexity?"
"Daughter, when thou losest His steps, thou yet hast Himself. `If any
lack wisdom, let him ask of God.' And God is never from home."
"Neither is Satan."
"`Greater is He that is in you than he in the world.'"
Mother Alianora seemed weary when she had said this, and lay still a
while: and Margaret did not answer. I think the Mother dropped asleep;
I sat beside her and watched. But Margaret stood still at the foot of
the bed, not sitting down, and in the dim light of our one little lamp I
could scarcely see her face as she stood, only that it was turned toward
the casement, where a faint half-moon rode in the heavens, and the calm
ancient stars looked down on us. Oh, how small a world is ours in the
great heavens! yet for one soul of one little babe in this small world,
the Son of God hath died.
My heart went out to Margaret as she stood there: yet my lips were
sealed. I felt, strangely, as if I could not speak. Something held me
back, and I knew not if it were God, or Satan, or only mine own want of
sense and bravery. The long hours wore on. The church bell tolled for
lauds, and we heard the soft tramp of the Sisters' feet as they passed
and returned: then the doors closed, and Mother Ada's voice said,
"_Laus Deo_!" and Sister Ismania's replied, "_Deo gratias_!" Then
Mother Ada's footsteps passed the door as she went to her cell, and once
more all was silence. On rolled the hours slowly, and still Mother
Alianora seemed to sleep: still Margaret stood as if she had been cut in
stone, without so much as moving, and still I sat, feeling much as if I
were stone too, and had no power to move or speak.
It might be about half-way between lauds and prime when the spell was at
last broken. And it was broken, to my astonishment, by Margaret's
asking me a question that fairly took my breath away.
"Annora, art thou a saint?"
These were the first words Margaret had ever spoken to me, except from
necessity. That weary, dried-up thing that I call mine heart, seemed to
give a little bit of throb.
"Our Lady love us, no!" said I. "I never was, nor never could be."
"I am glad to hear it," she said.
"Why, Margaret?"
Oh, how my heart wanted to call her something sweeter! _It_ said, My
darling, my beloved, mine own little sister! But my tongue was all so
unwonted to utter such words that I could not persuade it to say them.
Yet more to my surprise, Margaret came out of the window,--came and
knelt at my feet, and laid her clasped hands on my knee.
"Hadst thou said `Ay,' I should have spoken no more. As thou art not--
Annora, is it true that we twain had one mother?"
Something in Margaret's tone helped me. I took the clasped hands in
mine own.
"It is true, mine own Sister," I said.
"`Sister!' and `Mother!'" she said. "They are words that mean nothing
at all to me. I wonder if God meant them to mean nothing to us? Could
we not have been as good women, and have served Him as well, if we had
dwelt with our own blood, as other maidens do, or even if--"
Her voice died away.
"Margaret," I said, "Mother Ada would say it was wicked, but mine heart
is for ever asking the same questions."
"Is it?" she said eagerly. "O Annora! then thou knowest! I thought,
maybe, thou shouldst count it wicked, and chide me for indulging such
thoughts."
"How could I chide any one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I
doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou
rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was
troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost
flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me
on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet
illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! But thou
wilt see I am no saint, nor like to be."
"Despise thee!" she said. "Dear heart, wert thou to know how much
further I have gone!"