"You see, Evelyn," the Prioress said, "it is contrary to the whole
spirit of the religious life to treat the lay sisters as servants,
and though I am sure you don't intend any unkindness, they have
complained to me once or twice that you order them about."
"But, my dear Mother, it seems to me that we are all inferior to the
lay sisters. To slight them--" "I am sure you did not do so
intentionally."
"I said, 'Do hurry up,' but I only meant I was in a hurry. I don't
think anything you could have said could have pained me more than
that you should think I lacked respect for the lay sisters."
Seeing that Evelyn was hurt the Prioress said:
"The sisters have no doubt forgotten all about it by now."
But Evelyn wanted to know which of the sisters had complained, so
that she might beg her pardon.
"She doesn't want you to beg her pardon."
"I beg you to allow me, it will be better that I should. The benefit
will be mine."
The Prioress shook her head, and listened willingly to Evelyn, who
told her of her letter to Monsignor. "Now, wasn't it extraordinary,
Mother, that I should have written like that about Sister Bridget,
and to-day you should tell me that the lay sisters complained about
me? If the complaint had been that I was inclined to put the active
above the contemplative orders and was dissatisfied with our life
here--"
"Dissatisfied!" the Prioress said.
"Only this, Mother: I have been reading the story of the Order of the
Little Sisters of the Poor, and it seems to me so wonderful that
everything else, for the moment, seems insignificant."
The Reverend Mother smiled.
"Your enthusiasms, my dear Evelyn, are delightful. The last book you
read, the last person you meet--"
"Do you think I am so frivolous, so changeable as that, dear Mother?"
"Not changeable, Evelyn, but spontaneous."
"It would seem to me that everything in me is of slow growth--but why
talk of me when there is Jeanne to talk about; marvellous,
extraordinary, unique--" Evelyn was nearly saying "divine Jeanne,"
but she stopped herself in time and substituted the word "saintly."
"No one seems to me more real than this woman, no one in literature;
not Hamlet, nor Don Quixote, not Dante himself starts out into
clearer outline than this poor servant-girl--a goatherd in her
childhood." And to the Prioress, who did not know the story of this
poor woman, Evelyn told it, laying stress--as she naturally would--
on Jeanne's refusal to marry a young sailor, whom she had been
willing to marry at first, but whom she refused to marry on his
returning after a long voyage. When he asked her for whom she had
refused him, she answered for nobody, only she did not wish to marry,
though she knew of no reason why she should not. It was not caprice
but an instinct which caused Jeanne to leave her sweetheart, and to
go on working in humble service attending on a priest until he died,
then going to live with his sister, remaining with her until she
died, and saving during all these long twenty years only
four-and-twenty pounds--all the money she had when she returned to the
little seaport town whence she had come: a little seaport town where
the aged poor starved in the streets, or in garrets in filth and
vermin, without hope of relief from any one.
It was to this cruel little village, of which there are many along
the French coast, and along every coast in the world, that Jeanne
returned to rent a garret with an old and bedridden woman, unable to
help herself. Without the poor to help the poor the poor would not
be able to live, and this old woman lived by the work of Jeanne's
hands for many a year, Jeanne going every morning to the
market-place to find some humble employment, finding it sometimes,
returning at other times desperate, but concealing her despair from
her bedridden companion, telling her as gaily as might be that they
would have to do without any dinner that day. So did they live until
two little seamstresses--women inspired by the same pity for the
poor as Jeanne herself--heard of her, and asked the _curé_, in whom
this cruel little village had inspired an equal pity, to send for
Jeanne. She was asked to give her help to those in greater need than
she--the blind beggars and such like who prowled about the walls of
the churches.
On leaving the priest it is related that she said: "I don't
understand, but I never heard any one speak so beautifully." But
next day when she went to see the priest she understood everything,
sufficient at all events for the day which was to take to her garret
a blind woman whom the seamstresses had discovered in the last
stages of neglect and age. There was the bedridden woman whom Jeanne
supported, and who feared to share Jeanne's charity with another, and
resented the intrusion; she had to be pacified and cajoled with some
little present of food, for the aged and hungry are like animals--
food appeases them, silences many a growl; and the blind woman was
given a corner in the garret. "But how is she to be fed?" was the
question put to Jeanne next morning, and from that question the
whole Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor started. Jeanne,
inspired suddenly, said, "I will beg for them," and seizing a basket
she went out to beg for broken victuals.
"There is a genius for many things besides the singing of operas,
painting pictures, and writing books," Evelyn said, "and Jeanne's
genius was for begging for her poor people. And there is nothing
more touching in the world's history than her journey in the
milk-cart to the regatta. You see, dear Mother, she was accustomed to
beg from door to door among squalid streets, stopping a passer-by,
stooping under low doorways, intruding everywhere, daring everything
among her own people, but frightened by the fashionable folk _en
grande toilette_ bent on amusement. It seems that her courage almost
failed her, but grasping the cross which hung round her neck, she
entered a crowd of pleasure-seekers, saying, 'Won't you give me
something for my poor people?' Now, Mother, isn't the story a
wonderful one? for there was genius in this woman, though it was only
for begging: a tall, thin, curious, fantastic figure, considered
simple by some, but gifted for her task which had been revealed to
her in middle age."
"But why, Evelyn, does that seem to you so strange that her task
should have been revealed to her in middle age?"
Evelyn looked at the Reverend Mother for a while unable to answer,
then went on suddenly with her tale, telling how that day, at that
very regatta, a man had slapped Jeanne in the face, and she had
answered, "You are perfectly right, a box on the ears is just what
is suited to me; but now tell me what you are going to give me for
my poor people." At another part of the ground somebody had begun to
tease her--some young man, no doubt, in a long fashionable grey
frock-coat with race-glasses hung round his neck, had ventured to
tease this noble woman, to twit her, to jeer and jibe at her
uncouthness, for she was uncouth, and she stood bearing with these
jeers until they apologised to her. "Never mind the apology," she
had answered; "you have had your fun out of me, now give me
something for my poor people." They gave her five francs, and she
said, "At that price you may tease me as much as you please."
Evelyn asked if it were not extraordinary how an ignorant and uncouth
woman, a goatherd during her childhood, a priest's servant till she
was well on in middle age, should have been able to invent a system
of charity which had penetrated all over Europe. Every moment Evelyn
expected the Prioress to check her, for she was conscious that she
was placing the active orders above the contemplative, Jeanne above
St. Teresa, and, determined to see how far she could go in this
direction without being reproved, she began to speak of how Jeanne,
after having made the beds and cleaned the garret in the morning,
took down a big basket and stood receiving patiently the
remonstrances addressed to her, the blind woman saying, "I am
certain and sure you will forget to ask for the halfpenny a week
which I used to get from the grocery store, you very nearly forgot it
last week, and had to go back for it." "But I'll not make a mistake
this time," Jeanne would answer. Her bed-ridden friend would reprove
her, "But you did forget to ask for my soup." To bear patiently with
all such unjust remonstrances was part of Jeanne's genius, and
Evelyn asked the Reverend Mother if it were not strange that a woman
like Jeanne had never inspired some great literary work.
"I spoke just now of Hamlet, Don Quixote, but Falstaff himself is not
more real than Jeanne, and her words are always so wonderful,
wonderful as Joan of Arc's. When the old woman used to hide their
food under the bed-clothes and sell it for food for the pigs,
leaving the Little Sisters almost starving, Jeanne used to say,
'So-and-so has not been as nice as usual this afternoon.' How is it,
Mother, that no great writer has ever given us a portrait of Jeanne?"
"Well, Jeanne, my dear Evelyn, has given us her own portrait. What
can a writer add to what Nature has given? No one has ever yet given
a portrait of a great saint, of St. Teresa--what can any one tell us
that we do not already know?"
"St. Teresa's life passed in thought, whereas Jeanne's passed in
action."
"Don't be afraid, Evelyn," the Prioress said, "to say what you mean,
that perhaps the way of the Little Sisters of the Poor is a better
way than ours."
"It seems so, Mother, doesn't it?"
"It is permissible to have doubts on such a subject--which is the
better course, mercy or prayer? We have all had our doubts on this
subject, and it is the weakness of our intelligences that causes
these doubts to arise."
"How is that, Mother?"
"It is easy to realise the beauty of the relief of material
suffering. The flesh is always with us, and we realise so easily
that it suffers that there are times when relief of suffering seems
to us the only good. But in truth bread and prayer are as necessary
to man, one as the other. You have never heard the story of the
foundation of our Order? It will not appeal to the animal sympathies
as readily as the foundation of the Sisters of the Poor, but I don't
think it is less human." And the Reverend Mother told how in Lyons a
sudden craving for God had occurred in a time of extraordinary
prosperity. Three young women had suddenly wearied of the pleasure
that wealth brought them, and had without intercommunication decided
that the value of life was in foregoing it, that is to say,
foregoing what they had always been taught to consider as life; and
this story reaching as it did to the core of Evelyn's own story, was
listened to by her with great interest, and she heard in the quiet
of the Reverend Mother's large room, in which the silence when the
canaries were not shrilling was intense, how a sign had been
vouchsafed to these three young women, daughters of two bankers and
a silk merchant, and how all three had accepted the signs vouchsafed
to them and become nuns.
"I am not depreciating the active Orders when I say they are more
easily understood by the average man than--shall I say the Carmelite
or any contemplative Order, our own for example. To relieve
suffering makes a ready appeal to his sympathies, but he is
incapable of realising what the world would be were it not for our
prayers. It would be a desert. In truth the active and the
contemplative Orders are identical, when we look below the surface."
"How are they identical, Mother?"
"In this way: the object of the active Orders is to relieve
suffering, but the good they do is not a direct good. There will
always be suffering in the world, the little they relieve is only
like a drop taken out of the ocean. It might even be argued that if
you eliminate on one side the growth is greater on the other; by
preserving the lives of old people one makes the struggle harder for
others. There is as much suffering in the world now as there was
before the Little Sisters began their work--that is what I mean."
"Then, dear Mother, the Order does not fulfil its purpose."
"On the contrary, Evelyn, it fulfils its purpose, but its purpose is
not what the world thinks it is; it is by the noble example they set
that the Little Sisters of the Poor achieve their purpose. It is by
forsaking the world that they achieve their purpose, by their
manifestation that the things of this world are not worth
considering. The Little Sisters pray in outward acts, whereas the
contemplative Orders pray only in thought. The purpose, as I have
said, is identical; the creation of an atmosphere of goodness,
without which the world could not exist. There are two atmospheres,
the atmosphere of good and the atmosphere of evil, and both are
created by thought, whether thought in the concrete form of an act
or thought in its purest form--an aspiration. Therefore all those
who devote themselves to prayer, whether their prayers take the form
of good works or whether their prayer passes in thought, collaborate
in the production of a moral atmosphere, and it is the moral
atmosphere which enables man to continue his earthly life. Yourself
is an instance of what I mean. You were inspired to leave the stage,
but whence did that inspiration come? Are you sure that our prayers
had nothing to do with it? And the acts of the Little Sisters of the
Poor all over the world--are you sure they did not influence you?"
Evelyn thought of Owen's letter, the last he had written to her, for
in it he reminded her that she had nearly yielded to him. But was it
she who had resisted? She attributed her escape rather to a sudden
realisation on his part that she would be unhappy if he persisted.
Now, what was the cause of this sudden realisation, this sudden
scruple? For one seemed to have come into Owen's mind. How wonderful
it would be if it could be attributed to the prayers of the nuns,
for they had promised to pray for her, and, as the Prioress said,
everything in the world is thought: all begins in thought, all
returns to thought, the world is but our thought.
While she pondered, unable to believe that the nuns' prayers had
saved her, unwilling to discard the idea, the Prioress told of the
three nuns who came to England about thirty years ago to make the
English foundation. But of this part of the story Evelyn lost a
great deal; her interest was not caught again until the Prioress
began to tell how a young girl in society, rich and beautiful, whose
hand was sought by many, came to the rescue of these three nuns with
all her fortune and a determination to dedicate her life to God. Her
story did not altogether catch Evelyn's sympathies, and the Prioress
agreed with Evelyn that her conduct in leaving her aged parents was
open to criticism. We owe something to others, and it appears that
an idea had come into her mind when she was twelve years old that
she would like to be a nun, and though she appeared to like
admiration and to encourage one young man, yet she never really
swerved from her idea, she always told him she would enter a
convent.
Evelyn did not answer, for she was thinking of the strange threads
one finds in the weft of human life. Every one follows a thread, but
whither do the threads lead? Into what design? And while Evelyn was
thinking the Prioress told how the house in which they were now
living had been bought with five thousand out of the thirty thousand
pounds which this girl had brought to the convent. The late Prioress
was blamed for this outlay. Blame often falls on innocent shoulders,
for how could she have foreseen the increased taxation? how could she
have foreseen that no more rich postulants would come to the
convent, only penniless converts turned out by their relations, and
aged governesses? A great deal of the money had been lost in a
railway, and it was lost at a most unfortunate time, only a few days
before the lawyer had written to say that the Australian mine in
which most of their money was invested had become bankrupt.
"There was nothing for us to do," the Prioress said, "but to mortgage
the property, and this mortgage is our real difficulty, and its
solution seems as far off as ever. There seems to be no solution. We
are paying penal interest on the money, and we have no security that
the mortgagee will not sell the property. He has been complaining
that he can do better with his money, though we are paying him five
and six per cent.
"And if he were to sell the property, Mother, you would all have to
go back to your relations?"
"All of us have not relations, and few have relations who would take
us in. The lay sisters--what is to become of them?--some of them old
women who have given up their lives. Frankly, Evelyn, I am at my
wits' end."
"But, Mother, have I not offered to lend you the money? It will be a
great pleasure to me to do it, and in some way I feel that I owe the
money."
"Owe the money, Evelyn?"
The women sat looking at each other, and at the end of a long silence
the Prioress said:
"It is impossible for us to take your money, my child?"
"But something must be done, Mother."
"If you were staying with us a little longer--"
"I have made no plans to leave you." And to turn the conversation
from herself Evelyn spoke of the crowds that came to Benediction.
"To hear you, dear, and when you leave us our congregation will be
the same as it was before, a few pious old Catholic ladies living on
small incomes who can hardly afford to put a shilling into the
plate." Evelyn spoke of the improvement of the choir, and the
Prioress interrupted her, saying, "Don't think for a moment that any
reformation in the singing of the plain chant is likely to bring
people to our church; the Benedictine gradual _versus_ the Ratisbon."
And the Prioress shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "What has
brought us a congregation is you, my dear--your voice and your story
which is being talked about. The story is going the rounds that you
are going to become a nun, and that interests everybody. An opera
singer entering a convent! Such a thing was never heard of before,
and they come to hear you."
"But, Mother, I never said I was going to join the Order. I only came
here in the hope--"
"And I accepted you as a postulant in the hope that you would
persevere. All this seems very selfish, Evelyn. It looks as if we
were only thinking! of your money; but you know it isn't so."
"Indeed, I do, Mother. I know it isn't so."
"When are you going to leave us?"
"Well, nothing is decided. Every day I expect to hear from my father,
and if he wishes--"
"But if he doesn't require you? By remaining with us you may find you
have a vocation. Other women have persevered and discovered in the
end--" The Prioress's face changed expression, and Evelyn began to
think that perhaps the Prioress had discovered a vocation in
herself, after long waiting, and though she had become Prioress
discovered too late that perhaps she had been mistaken. "You have no
intention of joining the Order?"
"You mean to become a novice and then to become a nun and live here
with you?"
"You need say no more."
"But you don't think I have deceived you, Mother?"
"No, I don't blame anybody, only a hope has gone. Besides, I at
least, Evelyn, shall be very sorry to part with you, sorry for many
reasons which I may not tell you... in the convent we don't talk of
our past life." And Evelyn wondered what the Prioress alluded to.
"Has she a past like mine? What is her story?"
The canaries began singing, and they sang so loudly the women could
hardly hear themselves speak. Evelyn got up and waved her
handkerchief at the birds, silencing them.
* * * * *
Late that night a telegram came telling Evelyn that her father was
dangerously ill, and she was to start at once for Rome.