"What are you looking for, Sister Evelyn?"
"Veronica asked me to go into the garden; I think it was to gather
some laurel-leaves, but I can't remember where they grow."
"Never mind the leaves, I will gather them for you. Take my spade and
dig a little while. It is pleasanter being in the open air than in
that hot sacristy."
"But I don't know how to dig. You'll only laugh at me."
"No, no. See, here is a bed of spring onions, and it wants digging
out. You press the spade in as far as you can, pull down the handle,
and lift out the earth. I shall be some little while away, and I
expect you will have dug some yards. You can dig as far as this. Try,
Evelyn, make up your mind that you will; if you make up your mind,
you will succeed."
Evelyn promised.
"But you won't stay a long time, will you?" she called after the nun.
"Now I know why Sister Mary John wears men's boots." And she stooped
to pin up her skirt.
All the while the sky was clearing, the wind drove the clouds
westward, breaking up the dark masses, scattering, winnowing, letting
the sun through. Delicious was the glow, though it lasted but for a
few minutes--perhaps more delicious because it was so transitory.
Another patch of wind-driven clouds came up, and the world became
cold and grey again. A moment afterwards the clouds passed, the sun
shone out, and the delicious warmth filled mind and body with a
delight that no artificial warmth could; and, to enjoy the glowing of
the sun, Evelyn left her digging, and wandered away through the
garden, stopping now and then to notice the progress of the spring. A
late frost had cut the blossoms of the pear and the cherry; the
half-blown blossom dropped at the touch of the finger, and Evelyn
regretted the frost, thinking of the nets she had made.
"They'll be of very little use this year." And she wondered if the
currant and gooseberry-bushes had escaped; the apples had, for they
were later, unless there was another frost. "And then my nets will be
of no use at all; and, I have worked so hard at them!"
The lilac-bushes were not yet in leaf--only some tiny green shoots.
"We shall not have any lilac this year till the middle of May. Was
there ever such a season?" Larks were everywhere, ascending in short
flights, trilling as they ascended; and Evelyn listened to their
singing, thinking it most curious--quaint cadenzas in which a note
was wanting, like in the bagpipes, a sort of aerial bagpipes. But on
a bare bough a thrush sang, breaking out presently into a little tune
of five notes. "Quite a little tune; one would think the bird had
been taught it." She waited for him to sing it again, but, as if not
wishing to waste his song, being a careful bird, he continued a sort
of recitative; then, thinking his listener had waited long enough for
his little aria, he broke out again. "There it is, five notes--a
distinct little tune." Why should he sing and no other thrush sing
it? There was a robin; but he sang the same little roundelay all the
year.... A little, pale-brown bird, fluttering among the bushes,
interested her; but it was some time before she could catch fair
sight of it. "A dear little wren!" she said. "It must have its nest
about here." She sought it, knowing its beautifully woven house, with
one hole, through which the bird passes to feed a numerous progeny,
and expected to find it amid the tangle of traveller's-joy which
covered an old wall.
In the convent garden there was a beautiful ash-tree, under which
Evelyn had often sat with the nuns during recreation, but it showed
no signs of coming into leaf; and the poplars rose up against the
bright sky, like enormous brooms. The hawthorns had resisted the
frost better than the sycamores. One pitied the sycamore and the
chestnut-trees most of all; and, fearing they would bear no leaves
that year, Evelyn stood with a black and shrivelled leaf in her hand.
"Autumn, before the spring has begun," she said. "But here is Jack."
And she stooped to pick up the great yellow tom-cat, whom she
remembered as a kindly, affectionate animal; but now he ran away from
her, turning to snarl at her. "What can have happened to our dear
Jack?" she asked herself. And Miss Dingle, who had been watching her
from a little distance, cried out:
"You'll not succeed in catching him; he has been very wicked lately,
and is quite changed. The devil must have got into him, in spite of
the blue ribbon I tied round his neck."
"How are you, Miss Dingle?"
Miss Dingle evinced a considerable shyness, and muttered under her
breath that she was very well. She hoped Evelyn was the same; and ran
away a little distance, then stopped and looked back, her curiosity
getting the better of her. "Ordinary conversation does not suit her,"
Evelyn said to herself. And, when they were within speaking distance
again, Evelyn asked her what had become of the blue ribbon she had
tied round the cat's neck to save him from the devil.
"He tore it off--I mean the devil took it off. I can't catch him. If
you'd try?--if you'd get between him and that bush. It is a pity to
see a good cat go to the devil because we can't get a bit of blue
ribbon on his neck."
Evelyn stood between the cat and the bush, and creeping near, caught
him by the neck, and held him by the forepaws while Miss Dingle tried
to tie the ribbon round his neck; but Jack struggled, and raising one
of his hind paws obliged Evelyn to loose him.
"There is no use trying; he won't let it be put on his neck."
"But what will become of him? He will get more and more savage." Miss
Dingle ran after the cat, who put up his tail and trotted away,
eluding her. She came back, telling Evelyn that she might see the
devil if she wished. "That is to say, if you are not afraid. He's in
that corner, and I don't like to go there. I have hunted him out of
these bushes--you need not be afraid, my rosary has been over them
all."
Evelyn could see that Miss Dingle wished her to exorcise the
dangerous corner, and she offered to do so.
"You have two rosaries, you might lend me one."
"No, I don't think I could. I want two, one for each hand, you
see.... I have not seen you in the garden this last day or two.
You've been away, haven't you?"
"I've been in Rome."
"In Rome! Then why don't you go and hunt him out... frighten him
away? You don't need a rosary if you have touched the precious
relics. You should be able to drive him out of the garden, and out of
the park too, though the park is a big place. But here comes Sister
Mary John. You will tell me another time if you've brought back
anything that the Pope has worn."
Sister Mary John came striding over the broken earth, followed by her
jackdaw. The bird stopped to pick up a fat worm, and the nun sent
Miss Dingle away very summarily.
"I can't have you here, Alice. Go to the summer-house and worry the
devil away with your holy pictures. I've no time for you, dear," she
said to the jackdaw, who had alighted on her shoulder; "and I have
been looking for you everywhere," she said, turning from her bird to
Evelyn. "You promised me--But I suppose digging tired you?"
"No, it was not that, Sister, only the sun came out and the warmth
was so delicious; I am afraid I am easily beguiled."
"We are all easily beguiled," Sister Mary John answered somewhat
sharply. "Now we must try to get on with our digging. You can help me
a little with it, can't you?" And looking up and down a plot about
ten yards long and twenty feet wide, protected by a yew-hedge, she
said, "This is the rhubarb-bed. And this piece," she said, walking to
another plot between the yew-hedge and the gooseberry bushes, "will
have to be dug up. We were short of vegetables last year."
"You speak very lightly, Sister, of so much digging. Do you never get
tired?" So that she might not lose heart altogether, Sister Mary John
told her one of these beds had been dug up in autumn, and that no
more would be required than the hoeing out of the weeds.
"Is hoeing lighter work than digging?"
"You will find out soon." Evelyn set to work; but when she had
cleared a large piece of weeds she had to go over the ground again,
having missed a great many. "But you will soon get used to the work.
Now, there's the dinner bell. Are you so tired as all that?"
"Well, you see, I have never done any digging before."
After dinner Sister Mary John without further words told her she was
to go in front with the dibble and make holes for the potatoes, for
an absent-minded person could not be trusted with the seed potatoes--
she would be sure to break the shoots. The next week they were
engaged in sowing French beans and scarlet runners, and Evelyn
thought it rather unreasonable of the sister to expect her to know by
instinct that French beans should not be set as closely together as
the scarlet runners, and she laughed outright when the sister said,
"But surely you know that broad beans must be trodden firmly into the
ground?" Sister Mary John noticed her laugh. "Work in the garden
suits her," she said to herself, "she is getting better; only we must
be careful against a relapse. Now, Evelyn, we must weed the flower
beds, or there will be no flowers for the Virgin in May." And they
weeded and weeded, day after day, filling in the gaps with plants
from the nursery. A few days later came the seed sowing, the
mignonette, sweet pea, stocks, larkspur, poppies, and nasturtiums--
all of which should have been sown earlier, the nun said, only the
season was so late, and the vegetables had taken all their time.
"They all like to see flowers on the altar, but not one of them will
tie up her habit and dig, and they are as ignorant as you are, dear."
"Sister, that is unkind. I have learned as much as can be expected in
a month."
"You aren't so careless as you were." The two women walked a little
way, and then they sat for a long time looking into the distant park,
enjoying the soft south wind blowing over it. Evelyn would have liked
to have sat there indefinitely, and far too soon did the nun remind
her that time was going by and they must return to their work. "We
have had some warm nights lately and the wallflowers are out; come
and look at them, dear." And forgetful of her, Sister Mary John rose
and went towards the flower garden. Evelyn was too tired to follow,
and she sat watching Sister Mary John, who seemed as much part of the
garden as the wind, or the rain, or the sun.