The wind had gathered the snow into the bushes and all the corners of
the common, and the whole earth seemed but a little brown patch, with
a dead grey sky sweeping by. For many weeks the sky had been grey,
and heavy clouds had passed slowly, like a funeral, above the low
horizon. The wind had torn the convent garden until nothing but a few
twigs remained; even the laurels seemed about to lose their leaves.
The nuns had retreated with blown skirts; Sister Mary John had had to
relinquish her digging, and her jackdaw had sought shelter in the
hen-house.
One night, when the nuns assembled for evening prayer, the north wind
seemed to lift the roof as with hands; the windows were shaken; the
nuns divined the wrath of God in the wind, and Miss Dingle, who had
learned through pious incantation that the Evil One would attempt a
descent into the convent, ran to warn the porteress of the danger. At
that moment the wind was so loud that the portress listened,
perforce, to the imaginings of Miss Dingle's weak brain, thinking, in
spite of herself, that some communication had been vouchsafed to her.
"Who knows," her thoughts said, "who can say? The ways of Providence
are inscrutable." And she looked at the little daft woman as if she
were a messenger.
As they stood calculating the strength of the lock and hinges the
door-bell suddenly began to jingle.
"He wouldn't ring the bell; he would come down the chimney," said
Miss Dingle.
"But who can it be?" said the portress, "and at this hour."
"This will save you." Miss Dingle thrust a rosary into the nun's hand
and fled down the passage. "Be sure to throw it over his neck."
The nun tried to collect her scattered thoughts and her courage.
Again the bell jingled; this time the peal seemed crazier than the
first, and, rousing herself into action, she asked through the
grating who it might be.
"It is I, Sister Evelyn; open the door quickly, Sister Agnes."
The nun held the door open, thanking God it was not the devil, and
Evelyn dragged her trunk through the door, letting it drop upon the
mat abruptly.
"Tell dear Mother I want to speak to her--say that I must see her--be
sure to say that, and I will wait for her in the parlour."
"There is no light there; I will fetch one."
"Never mind, don't trouble; I don't want a light. But go to the
Reverend Mother and tell her I must see her before any one else."
"Of course, Sister Evelyn, of course." And the portress hurried away,
feeling that things had happened in a life which was beyond her life,
beyond its scope. Perhaps Sister Evelyn had come to tell the Prioress
the Pope himself was dead, or had gone mad; something certainly had
happened into which it was no business of hers to inquire. And this
vague feeling sent her running down the passage and up the stairs,
and returning breathless to Evelyn, whom she found in a chair nearly
unconscious, for when she called to her Evelyn awoke as from sleep,
asking where she was.
"Sister Evelyn, why do you ask? You are in Wimbledon Convent, with
Sister Agnes; what is the matter?"
"Matter? Nothing and everything." She seemed to recover herself a
little. "I had forgotten, Sister Agnes, I had forgotten. But the
Prioress, where is she?"
"In her room, and she will see you. But you asked me to go to the
Prioress saying she must see you--have you forgotten, Sister Evelyn?
You know the way to her room?"
Evelyn did not answer; and feeling perhaps that she might lose her
way in the convent, Sister Agnes said she would conduct her to the
Prioress, and opened the door for her, saying, "Reverend Mother,
Sister Evelyn."
There was a large fire burning in the room, and Evelyn was conscious
of the warmth, of bodily comfort, and was glad to sit down.
"You are very cold, my child, you are very cold. Don't trouble to
speak, take your time and get warm first." And Evelyn sat looking
into the fire for a long time. At last she said:
"It is warm here, Mother, I am so glad to be here. But perhaps you
will turn me away and won't have me. I know you won't, I know you
won't, so why did I come all this long way?"
"My dear child, why shouldn't we be glad to have you back? We were
sorry to part with you."
"That was different, that was different."
These answers, and the manner in which they were spoken even more
than the answers themselves, frightened the Prioress; but unable to
think of what might have happened, she sat wondering, waiting for
Evelyn to reveal herself. The hour was late, and Evelyn showed no
signs of speaking. Perhaps it would be better to ring for one of the
lay sisters, and ask her to show Evelyn to her room.
"You will stay here to-night?"
"Yes, if you will allow me."
"Allow you, my dear child! Why speak in this way?"
"Oh, Mother, I am done for, I am done for!"
"You haven't told me yet what has happened."
Evelyn did not answer; she seemed to have forgotten everything, or to
be thinking of one thing, and unable to detach her thoughts from it
sufficiently to answer the Prioress's question.
"Your father--"
"My father is dead," she answered. And the Prioress, imagining her
father's death to be the cause of this mental breakdown, spoke of the
consolations of religion, which no doubt Mr. Innes had received, and
which would enable Mr. Innes's soul to appear before a merciful God
for judgment.
"There is little in this life, my dear; we should not be sorry for
those who leave it--that is, if they leave it in a proper disposition
of soul."
"My father died after having received the Sacraments of the Church.
Oh, his death!" And thinking it well to encourage her to speak, the
Prioress said:
"Tell me, my dear, tell me; I can understand your grief and
sympathise with you; tell me everything."
And like one awakening Evelyn told how for days he had fluctuated
between life and death, sometimes waking to consciousness, then
falling back into a trance. In spite of the hopes the doctors had
held out to him he had insisted he was dying.
"'I am worn to a thread,' he said, 'I shall flicker like that candle
when it reaches the socket, and then I shall go out. But I am not
afraid of death: death is a great experience, and we are all better
for every experience. There is only one thing--'
"He was thinking of his work, he was sorry he was called away before
his work was done; and then he seemed to forget it, to be absorbed in
things of greater importance."
Sometimes the wind interrupted the Prioress's attention, and she
thought of the safety of her roofs; Evelyn noticed the wind, and her
notice of it served to accentuate her terror. "It is terror," the
Prioress said to herself, "rather than grief."
"I waited by his bedside seeing the soul prepare for departure. The
soul begins to leave the body several days before it goes; it flies
round and round like a bird that is going to some distant country. I
must tell you all about it, Mother. He lay for hours and hours
looking into a corner of the room. I am sure he saw something there;
and one night I heard him call me. I went to him and asked him what
he wanted; but he lay quiet, looking into the corner of the room, and
then he said, 'The wall has been taken away,' I know he saw something
there. He saw something, he learnt something in that last moment that
we do not know. That last moment is the only real moment of our
lives, the only true moment--all the rest is falsehood, delirium,
froth. The rest of life is contradictions, distractions, and lies,
but in the moment before death I am sure everything becomes quite
clear to us. Then we learn what we are. We do not know ourselves
until then. If I ask who am I, what am I, there is no answer. We do
not believe in ourselves because we do not know who we are; we do not
know enough of ourselves to believe in anything. We do not believe;
we acquiesce that certain things are so because it is necessary to
acquiesce, but we do not believe in anything, not even that we are
going to die, for if we did we should live for death, and not for
life."
"Your father's death has been a great grief to you; only time will
help you to recover yourself."
"Recover myself? But I shall never recover, no, Mother, never, never,
never!"
The Prioress asked when Mr. Innes had died.
"I can't remember, Mother; some time ago."
The Prioress asked if he were dead a week.
"Oh, more than that, more than that."
"And you have been in Rome ever since? Why did you not come here at
once?"
"Why, indeed, did I not come here?" was all Evelyn could say. She
seemed to lose all recollection, or at all events she had no wish to
speak, and sat silent, brooding. "Of what is she thinking?" the
Prioress asked herself, "or is she thinking of anything? She seems
lost in a great terror, some sin committed. If she were to confess to
me. Perhaps confession would relieve her." And the Prioress tried to
lead Evelyn into some account of herself, but Evelyn could only say,
"I am done for, Mother, I am done for!" She repeated these words
without even asking the Prioress to say no more: it seemed to her
impossible to give utterance to the terror in her soul. What could
have happened to her?"
"Did you meet, my child, either of the men whom you spoke to me of?"
The question only provoked a more intense agony of grief.
"Mother, Mother, Mother!" she cried, "I am done for! let me go, let
me leave you."
"But, my child, you can't leave us to-night, it is too late. Why
should you leave us at all?"
"Why did I ever leave you? But, Mother, don't let us talk any more
about it. I know myself; no one can tell me anything about myself; it
is all clear to me, all clear to me from the beginning; and now, and
now, and now--"
"But, my child, all sins can be forgiven. Have you confessed?"
"Yes, Mother, I confessed before I left Italy, and then came on here
feeling that I must see you; I only wanted to see you. Now I must
go."
"No, my child, you mustn't go; we will talk of this to-morrow."
"No, let us never talk of it again, that I beseech you, Mother;
promise me that we shall never talk of it again."
"As you like, as you like. Perhaps every one knows her own soul
best.... It is not for me to pry into yours. You have confessed, and
your grief is great."
The Prioress went back to her chair, feeling relieved, thinking it
was well that Evelyn had confessed her sin to some Italian priest who
did not know her, for it would be inconvenient for Father Daly to
know Evelyn's story. Evelyn could be of great use to them; it were
well, indeed, that she had not even confessed to her. She must not
leave the convent; and arriving at that conclusion, suddenly she rang
the bell. Nothing was said till the lay sister knocked at the door.
"Will you see, Sister Agnes, that Sister Evelyn's bed is prepared for
her?"
"In the guest-room or in the novitiate, Reverend Mother?"
"In the novitiate," the Prioress answered.
Evelyn had sunk again into a stupor, and, only half-conscious of what
was happening to her, she followed the lay sister out of the
Prioress's room.
"It is very late," the Prioress said to herself, "all the lights in
the convent should be out; but the rule doesn't apply to me." And she
put more coal on the fire, feeling that she must give all her mind to
the solution of the question which had arisen--whether Evelyn was to
remain with them to-morrow. It had almost been decided, for had she
not told Sister Agnes to take Evelyn to the novitiate? But Evelyn
might herself wish to leave to-morrow, and if so what inducements,
what persuasion, what pressure should be used to keep her? And how
far would she be justified in exercising all her influence to keep
Evelyn? The Prioress was not quite sure. She sat thinking. Evelyn in
her present state of mind could not be thrown out of the convent. The
convent was necessary for her salvation in this world and in the
next.
"She knows that, and I know it."
The Prioress's thoughts drifted into recollections of long ago; and
when she awoke from her reverie it seemed that she must have been
dreaming a long while: "too long" she thought; "but I have not
thought of these things for many a year.... Evelyn has confessed, her
sins are behind her, and it would be so inconvenient--" The
Prioress's thoughts faded away; for even to herself she did not like
to admit that it would be inconvenient for Evelyn to confess to
Father Daly the sins she had committed--if she had committed any.
Perhaps it might be all an aberration, an illusion in the interval
between her father's death and her return to the convent. "Her sins
have been absolved, and for guidance she will not turn to Father Daly
but to me." The Reverend Mother reflected that a man would not be
able to help this woman with his advice. She thought of Evelyn's
terror, and how she had cried, "I am done for, I am done for!" She
remembered the tears upon Evelyn's cheeks and every attitude so
explicit of her grief.
"A penitent if ever there was one, one whom we must help, whom we
must lead back to God. Evelyn must remain in the convent. To-morrow
we must seek to persuade her. But it will not be difficult." Then,
listening to the wind, the Prioress remembered that the convent roof
required re-slating. "Who knows? Perhaps what happened may have been
divinely ordered to bring her back to us? Who knows? who knows?" She
thought of the many other things the convent required: the chapel
wanted re-decorating, and they had to spare every penny they could
from their food and clothing to buy candles for the altar; another
item of expense was the resident chaplain; and when in bed she lay
thinking that perhaps to-morrow she would find a way out of the
difficulty that had puzzled her so long.