Frances could not help feeling that it was as well that her Retreat
had officially ended that morning after the first Mass, for no further
opportunity was vouchsafed her for reflection.
A French lay-sister, to whom the office was always entrusted, came to
dress her in the wedding-dress of cheap white satin, convent-made, and
long white lace veil.
She found the little novice with all her soft straight brown hair
hanging over her shoulders.
“Ah!” said Sœur Eugénie, “au moins vous serez quitte de tout cela
demain!” She picked up a strand of the long silken mass and let it fall
again disdainfully.
“What a joy, to have finished with one’s _coiffure_ for ever!” she
remarked complacently. Then she produced hairpins which had served in
the same capacity many times before, and twisted the novice’s hair into
a species of strange outstanding chignon which had been fashionable
some forty years previously in Paris.
“Vous voila!” she said triumphantly, when Frances had suffered under
her vigorous ministrations for what seemed a long while.
She produced a small, very old, folding mirror, and Frances gazed
in silence at the monstrous erection. She was more distressed on
Rosamund’s account than on her own, and tried surreptitiously to pull
and coax the strained-back hair over her forehead and temples.
When the dress and veil were fastened she looked at herself in the
glass again and saw with relief that the coarse lace draped over her
head and face was thick enough to conceal Sœur Eugénie’s disastrous
manifestations of her skill.
Then she pulled on the white cotton gloves that lay on the bed and
tried to collect her thoughts whilst waiting to be summoned to the
chapel.
It distressed her a little that her mind should still be vibrating
from that little while with Rosamund. Nevertheless she was aware of an
increasing happiness that seemed to pervade her soul, and to make all
lesser, more surface preoccupations, of no account.
In a few moments she heard the brisk and heavy tread of the
novice-mistress, and rose to meet her.
Mère Thérèse looked at her very kindly, said “Vous êtes contente, chère
petite?” more as though stating a fact than asking a question, and on
the monosyllabic but heartfelt reply of the novice, blessed her very
tenderly. Then she took her downstairs. Frances followed her obediently
to an unaccustomed entrance of the chapel, that which was used by the
professed nuns, the lady boarders and visitors to the convent.
The novices always went in and out by a small side-door, which gave
directly on to that part of the chapel where the community stalls were
placed.
But Frances knew that for a _prise d’habit_ the double doors at the end
of the chapel would be opened, and that she must pass up the narrow
aisle thronged on either side by visitors, and through the light oaken
framework of screen behind which stood the harmonium and the small
choir of nuns and novices, and up to the steps of the Sanctuary.
Rosamund and Lady Argent would be each provided with a _prie-dieu_ just
in front of the railings, where they could see and hear to the best
possible advantage.
“Wait here,” whispered Mère Thérèse, well versed in every corner of the
intricate and inconveniently built house.
She beckoned Frances into a small angular nook that served as a little
lobby, between the main entrance to the chapel and the narrow staircase
leading to the wing of the house reserved for the lady boarders.
“No one will disturb you. The ladies are all in the chapel already.
Father Anselm has just arrived. You are quite ready?”
“Yes,” said Frances gently.
Mère Thérèse, grown strangely materialistic, all the practical
Frenchwoman in her to the fore, arranged the modest train where it
would be least crushed, and put back the veil that Frances had kept
down.
“Vous étoufferiez!” she remarked matter-of-factly. Then she smoothed
back the hair already strained away from Frances’ temples, said
“Voilà!” in tones of satisfaction, and prepared to leave the novice
alone.
Her parting instructions were:
“I will myself be awaiting you at the chapel doors when you hear the
first notes of the _Ave Maris Stella_. Do not forget to put your veil
down and walk slowly.”
Frances, left alone, sank into the only available seat. She felt very
tired.
She wondered whether Rosamund was already in the chapel, and wished
that she had tried to explain the ceremonial of a _prise d’habit_ to
her sister. Then she derided herself for supposing that their brief
moments of intercourse could have been spent thus. Besides, she
remembered with relief, Lady Argent would have told Rosamund what to
expect, and there were doubtless innumerable little paper booklets of
an explanatory nature at the disposal of visitors.
She strove to concentrate her mind on higher thoughts, but only
realized afresh, at the failure of the effort, her own excessive
fatigue, part physical and part emotional.
Presently the stairs began to shake, and a creaking, ponderous sound of
descent became audible.
Frances straightened herself, and reflected with dismay that she was
entirely visible to anyone coming downstairs.
She closed her eyes and began to say the Rosary, trying in vain to fix
her attention on the words she uttered mechanically.
The heavy footsteps became incredibly loud, and then paused in front of
her.
“Now don’t,” said Mrs. Mulholland’s voice, “_don’t_ let me disturb you,
my dear. Don’t move--don’t stir--not one word, my dear, though, of
course, there’s no actual rule of silence for you just now, to-day. If
there were, I shouldn’t be speaking to you, that goes without saying.
But we’re not in silence for a clothing.”
Frances, convinced that Mrs. Mulholland knew all the convent
regulations at least as well as did the Superior herself, rose, smiling
a little.
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Mulholland zealously, “that’s right. Now,
there’s just one word I wanted to say--I’m not going to keep you one
moment--not that they’re quite ready for you yet in the chapel. Mère
Pauline isn’t in her place and won’t be, either, for a moment or two.
She’s detained.”
Frances wondered, not for the first time, whence was the source of the
mysterious information that always seemed to be at Mrs. Mulholland’s
finger-tips concerning the movements of the community, both
individually and collectively.
“I knew I should find you here,” pursued the triumphant old voice. “I
delayed coming down on purpose, so as to catch you. _I_ knew, my dear.
The novices always wait just here for the ‘_Ave Maris Stella_’ to
begin--have done for years. I’ve seen about twenty _prises d’habits_ in
my time--some of them lay-sisters, some of them choir-sisters. One or
two of them have left, you know, even _after_ taking the holy Habit of
the Order. One English novice we had went away just when she ought to
have been taking her first vows. Found she had no real vocation, you
know. But there’s no fear of that with you, my dear, is there? From the
first time I saw you here for the Retreat last year, with that nice
friend of yours who wasn’t a Catholic, poor thing, I always said ‘Miss
Grantham has the vocation. Mark my words,’ I said, ‘Miss Grantham has
the vocation. She’ll come back here one of these days,’ I said. And
sure enough! Well, well, well, you look very happy, my dear, _and_ in
the right place.”
“I think so,” said Frances, smiling at her.
“That’s it, that’s it. Ah well, there’s nothing like God’s Holy Will,”
said Mrs. Mulholland with an enthusiasm which was none the less ardent
for sounding strangely vague. “If He’d thought fit to call me to the
religious life--but no doubt I wasn’t worthy. That’s what I always
say--not worthy.”
Mrs. Mulholland’s voice became cheerfully resigned. “But there it is,”
she said with the air of one reaching a conclusion, “there it is.
One is taken, and the other left. And your dear sister here for the
ceremony and all.”
“Please pray for her, that she mayn’t mind too much,” said Frances, her
eyes suddenly filling with tears. “She isn’t a Catholic.”
“Ah well, the sacrifice that you’re both making may bring a blessing
on her--no doubt it will. And tell me, my dear, what about that nice
friend of yours, Mrs. Severing, who came for the Retreat last year? I
hoped we were going to see her to-day.”
“She couldn’t come, but she wrote to me.”
“Ah! Couldn’t leave the poor son, I dare say. Very likely--ve-ry
likely,” said Mrs. Mulholland with lugubrious sagacity. “But she’ll
have your good prayers, my dear, and you know you’ll never be refused
anything on your clothing day. That’s really what I came to ask you--to
say a little word for a very special intention of mine. Will you do
that, my dear?”
“Of course I will,” said Frances, gently and cordially.
Mrs. Mulholland fumbled for a moment in her enormous pocket and then
drew forth a folded piece of paper.
“Now just let me pin that inside your waistbelt, and I shall be
quite happy. I’ve just dotted down the intention--initials only, you
know--but the Lord will understand. I should like you to have it on
you, my dear, and you can burn it afterwards, you know.”
Frances submitted to Mrs. Mulholland’s rather heavy-handed manipulation
of the old-fashioned ribbon-band round her waist.
“There now! God bless you, and pray for me; and one thing more, my
dear: You can count on me to say a few words to your sister. Just
a little word of sympathy, or explanation, to show her that we
Catholics----”
There came a sudden sound of voices uplifted in unison from the chapel.
“_Ave Maris Stella!_” exclaimed Mrs. Mulholland, and made Frances
precede her out of the narrow lobby.
Thereafter it seemed to Frances that she was conscious of nothing so
much as of the activities of Mrs. Mulholland. It was Mrs. Mulholland
who gave her, as it were, into the hands of Mère Thérèse, waiting at
the entrance of the chapel, muttering hoarsely: “Here she is, ma Mère,
here she is. Pray for me, dear.”
It was Mrs. Mulholland who squeezed hastily past her into the chapel
and made vehement signals that she was to advance, and it was Mrs.
Mulholland who, by some agency known only to herself, had caused her
own large _prie-dieu_ to be transferred from its customary corner in
the back of the church to the best possible coign of vantage in a line
with those of Lady Argent and Rosamund.
Even as the “_Ave Maris Stella_” pealed through the chapel, and she
came slowly up the narrow aisle, it seemed to Frances that the husky,
heartfelt tones of Mrs. Mulholland sounded above everybody else’s.
And it was undoubtedly Mrs. Mulholland who was whisking about the
leaves of the little books on either side of her, and guiding her
neighbours with an explanatory forefinger.
The little procession of acolytes, preceding the tall tonsured figure
of the Prior of Twickenham, came into the Sanctuary, and Frances sank
upon her knees on the red velvet cushion before the steps.
And it was only a few moments later, when the customary prayers had
been recited, that she felt a pull at the back of her dress, and heard
the ubiquitous voice of Mrs. Mulholland behind her.
“Sit down, sit down. He’s going to give the address now.”
Frances sat down, and Mrs. Mulholland leant forward at an angle that
suffused her large old face with crimson, and arranged the train of her
dress under the chair.
Father Anselm’s address was very short and simple. There was much that
was practical in it, and Frances felt vaguely relieved that it should
contain no mystical allusions that might vex or distress Rosamund. This
our sister, said the Prior, was about to take a step which, though to
the outward eye might seem more striking, with its symbolical dress,
than the more simple ceremony of a Profession, was nevertheless only
a preliminary step. The goal of our sister’s religious life was still
before her--those vows which should bind her irrevocably to the life to
which she had been called.
Poverty, Chastity, Obedience. The vow of Poverty, which would not only
mean the relinquishment of worldly goods and possessions, but also that
poverty of spirit which should claim no rights and no belongings in
this world, not even the rights of personal judgment, the disposal of
self.... Then the vow of Chastity, which would discipline our sister’s
earthly affections, rendering them indeed not less ardent, but more
supernatural--a wide and universal charity which should include all
... our sister had given up her earthly family ties: good and sacred
as they were, the relinquishment of them was better still--but her
family now would be the poor, the sick, the friendless--in all and each
she would see and love God Himself. Finally, the vow of Obedience.
Our sister would see the Will of God in the will of her Superior, and
would gladly submit to it in greater as in smaller things. In the Order
which our sister had joined, a nun might be sent at a moment’s notice
to some far-off country, there to live and work and perhaps die, with
no return to the land of her birth. But her home was not here--it was
in the Heaven, towards which every step of the way was leading her ...
where, as the Scriptures themselves had promised, she would receive
again a hundredfold all that she had given up for Christ’s sake.
The Prior’s voice ceased, and he turned again towards the Altar.
The time had come for Frances to reply to the few formal questions that
would be put to her. She did so quite steadily, although her voice
sounded strange in her own ears.
Then the habit which she was shortly to don was blessed, and Prior
Anselm fumbled with the scissors and somehow cut from her head the
symbolical lock of hair.
Mère Thérèse held back her veil as he did so, but Frances was conscious
of Mrs. Mulholland hovering over her officiously.
Then she turned and slowly followed the Superior and Mère Thérèse into
the little adjoining Sacristy where Sœur Eugénie was waiting to divest
her of her white satin dress and lace veil, and help her into the garb
which would henceforth be hers for life.
The white Cross, distinguishing mark of the Order, gleamed upon her
breast now.
She lifted the linen _coiffe_, ingeniously pinned together, that bound
her head under the veil, but Sœur Eugénie, laughing a little, pointed
to her late handiwork, still erect upon the head of the novice.
“Allons,” said Mère Thérèse, and began to take out hairpins, careful to
let none fall on the floor, where it might possibly be overlooked or
swept away.
Then the lay-sister put a dustsheet over Frances’ shoulders and quickly
cropped off the lengths of her brown hair.
The feeling of coolness and comfort was pleasant when the veil was
again put on her head, but Frances gave one curious fleeting pang to
the memory of that soft mass, lying strewn about the dustsheet.
The little Superior, who had been busying herself with the white
artificial wreath of roses that lay ready, turned round.
“Sister Frances Mary”--she greeted the novice by her new name--“God
bless you, my dear daughter.”
Frances knelt for a moment to receive her Superior’s embrace, and then
turned to Mère Thérèse.
“Et maintenant,” said that practical woman, as ever consecrating the
briefest possible time to emotion, however permissible,--“le baiser le
paix aux sœurs.”
This exercise was one which Frances had always viewed with some slight
apprehension.
The newly invested novice, bearing a lighted candle, made the round of
the community, each nun and lay-sister standing at her stall in the
chapel, also the bearer of a lighted candle, and exchanged with each
the symbolical kiss of peace.
A nervous dread of the effect of so many lighted wax candles on
inflammable veils and music scores sent the blood to Frances’ head
and made her slow progress round the chapel a painful one, but the
older nuns proved expert at holding veils out of possible contact with
candle-grease, and moreover to her great relief, the draught of these
repeated salutations extinguished several tapers, including her own.
As she returned thankfully to her _prie-dieu_, Mrs. Mulholland, who had
mysteriously become possessed of a full-sized candle, leant forward and
determinedly applied its flame to Frances’ cold and extinguished taper.
Frances smiled at her gently, and Mrs. Mulholland subsided into her
seat again and blew her nose with a vigorous, trumpet-like sound
denoting considerable emotion. Then the Prior read the concluding
prayers and placed upon Frances’ head the wreath of artificial white
roses, where it balanced insecurely until Mrs. Mulholland again sprang
from her seat and affixed it to the novice’s veil with a couple of
safety-pins apparently produced by miraculous means from her person.
The _Te Deum_ pealed through the chapel in conclusion, and then, as the
community filed out in the customary order, two by two, Frances was
left for a few moments to the solitude and quiet which her whole soul
craved.
Her head bent and her hands tightly clasped, she made her earnest
ardent thanksgiving, her simple, fervent resolution to try and be
worthy of all that she had received, her tender, childlike petitions
for those whom she loved, for all those for whom she had promised to
pray, for that religious order which she was hereafter to count, in all
its scattered branches, as her earthly home.
She lost herself in a dreamy contentment that was half contemplation
and half the mental inertia following on prolonged physical and
emotional strain. It was almost as though rousing herself from sleep
that she heard a whispered summons to the parlour, and rose obediently
to follow the lay-sister out of the chapel.
Scarcely less dreamlike was the afternoon spent in Rosamund’s company,
when Frances took her once or twice round the tiny garden, showed her,
in obedience to Mère Pauline’s recommendations, the poor school and the
portion of the house reserved for lady boarders, and returned with her
to the parlour, where Lady Argent, serenely voluble, was entertained by
such of the nuns as could spare quarter of an hour.
“I can’t see your part of the house, and where you sleep, can I?” asked
Rosamund.
It was almost the first suggestion that she had made, and Frances
divined in her an intense anxiety lest she should unwittingly distress
the novice by proposals or requests contrary to the mysterious rule of
which she knew so little.
“No, of course not,” she added almost immediately, her eyes on her
sister’s face. “I expect you’re not allowed to have visitors up to your
cell.”
There was only the faintest sound of hope underlying the suggestion now.
“I’m afraid not,” said Frances rather mournfully. “But there’s nothing
to see, really. It’s only a little cubicle in a long dormitory.”
She wondered rather nervously immediately afterwards whether she ought
to have given even that information. There was so much that might not
be discussed outside the community, and it was so strange to feel such
restriction in her intercourse with Rosamund.
At four o’clock Frances was called away to Vespers, and tea was brought
to the visitors, and at five Lady Argent said gently:
“My dears, I am going to make a little visit to the chapel, and in
about twenty minutes’ time I am afraid our cab will be here. Will you
come and fetch me?”
“Let’s go into the chapel together for a minute,” whispered Frances,
when the last quarter of an hour had sped past them.
They knelt at the back of the little chapel, Frances still conscious
of exultation in the joint sacrifice that both were making. She prayed
ardently for her sister and for herself.
The door opened behind them, and the ubiquitous Mrs. Mulholland sank
heavily upon her knees beside Frances.
“The cab is here,” she whispered hoarsely; “and Mère Pauline and Mère
Thérèse are in the hall. You’d better come, my dear.”
Frances bent her head, the crown of white roses still on her veil, and
an instant later she rose, and left the chapel with Rosamund and Lady
Argent.
The Superior herself had come to bid her guests farewell, and she spoke
kindly to Rosamund, and said that she must come and pay her sister a
visit again next year.
But Mère Thérèse drew Rosamund aside and gave her a little silver
medal. “Comme souvenir de ce beau jour, de la part de Sœur Françoise
Marie,” she said.
Rosamund thanked her, and Frances heard her ask the novice-mistress in
strangled accents if her sister seemed really happy.
“Mais oui, mais oui. Voyez comme elle a bonne mine. La santé, c’est un
signe de vocation,” asseverated Mère Thérèse.
“I am really happy--I am in the right place,” Frances said softly.
She was tense with the determination that no sign of distress at
parting should add to Rosamund’s sense of loss.
The novice-mistress looked at both small, set faces, alike in spite of
Frances’ coiffe and veil, and said approvingly:
“Voilà un sacrifice fait avec courage, n’est ce pas?”
Then Lady Argent kissed Frances, with murmured blessings and
endearments, and went down the steps to the waiting cab.
The Superior had already hastened away in obedience to another call.
Mère Thérèse embraced Rosamund, assured her that she would pray for
her, and turned aside for a moment while the sisters exchanged their
speechless farewell.
Frances stood on the steps, with the novice-mistress immediately behind
her, and watched the cab move slowly away from the convent door,
Rosamund still gazing at her from the window.
Both faces, tense and colourless, were smiling until the cab was lost
to sight.
The novice-mistress looked at Frances kindly, but she did not say
anything except:
“Go and put on your apron, Sister, and help Sœur Léonide in the
refectory. She has been delayed and requires assistance.”
Frances went.
She made little acts of resignation in her own mind as she went, and
said “Fiat voluntas tua,” but tears, such as she had not shed since the
first strange days of her novitiate, were choking her, and fell thick
and blinding as she donned her black apron and went into the refectory.
Old Sœur Léonide said “Pauvre chou!” when she saw her, and immediately
stuck a pin into her sleeve in order to remind herself that she must do
penance for having spoken unnecessarily.
Then she showed Frances what had to be done, and they worked quickly
and in silence until the bell rang.
At the evening recreation the novices all congratulated Frances, and
called her “Sœur Françoise Marie,” and she was ashamed of the tears
that she could not stop, although no one made any comment on them.
The evening recital of the office calmed her at last, and she again
renewed her offering of herself and of all that she held dear.
That night, in the dormitory, she had occasion to go to the can of
luke-warm water that stood beside the uncurtained window at the end
of the long room. Forgetful for a moment of her surroundings, Frances
looked out on the still patch of garden lying below, bathed in a white
flood of moonlight.
Just so had she seen the garden at Porthlew on summer evenings, just so
would it be flooded now. The same white light would stream now, strong
and peaceful, over that smaller garden, on a hill above the Wye Valley.
It was perhaps visible from the surroundings, unknown to Frances,
amidst which Rosamund now was.
The thought, which was a sufficiently obvious one, suddenly struck
Frances, in her overwrought state, as strange and piteous.
She looked out at the moonlit garden with a rush of longing and sorrow
for Rosamund.
A great clock outside struck the half-hour with a loud clang, making
her start violently.
Half-past nine--and it was the evening of her _prise d’habit_.
Sister Frances Mary turned from the window and went into her cell.