Father Daly paced the garden alley, reading his Breviary, and,
catching sight of him, Sister Winifred, a tall, thin woman, with a
narrow forehead and prominent teeth, said to herself, "Now's my
chance."
"I hope you won't mind my interrupting you, Father, but I have come
to speak to you on a matter of some importance. It will take some
minutes for me to explain it all to you, and in confession, you see,
our time is limited. You know how strict the Prioress is that we
shouldn't exceed our regulation three minutes."
"I know that quite well," the little man answered abruptly; "a most
improper rule. But we'll not discuss the Prioress, Sister Winifred.
What have you come to tell me?"
"Well, in a way, it is about the Prioress. You know all about our
financial difficulties, and you know they are not settled yet."
"I thought that Sister Teresa's singing--"
"Of course, Sister Teresa's singing has done us a great deal of good,
but the collections have fallen off considerably; and, as for the
rich Catholics who were to pay off our debts, they are like the ships
coming from the East, but whose masts have not yet appeared above the
horizon."
"But does the Prioress still believe that these rich Catholics will
come to her aid?"
"Oh, yes, she believes; she tells us that we must pray, and that if
we pray they will come. Well, Father, prayer is very well, but we
must try to help ourselves, and we have been thinking it over; and,
in thinking it over, some of us have come to very practical
conclusions."
"You have come to the conclusion that perhaps a good deal of time is
wasted in this garden, which might be devoted to good works?"
"Yes, that has struck us, and we think the best way out of our
difficulties would be a school."
"A school!"
"Something must be done," she said, "and we are thinking of starting
a school. We've received a great deal of encouragement. I believe I
could get twenty pupils to-morrow, but Mother Prioress won't hear of
it. She tells us that we are to pray, and that all will come right.
But even she does not depend entirely upon prayer; she depends upon
Sister Teresa's singing."
"A most uncertain source of income, I should say."
"So we all think."
They walked in silence until within a few yards of the end of the
walk; and, just as they were about to turn, the priest said:
"I was talking at the Bishop's to a priest who has been put in charge
of a parish in one of the poorest parts of South London. There is no
school, and the people are disheartened; and he has gone to live
among them, in a wretched house, in one of the worst slums of the
district. He lives in one of the upper rooms, and has turned the
ground floor, which used to be a greengrocer's shop, into a temporary
chapel and school, and now he is looking for some nuns to help him in
the work. He asked me if I could recommend any, and I thought of you
all here, Sister Winifred, with your beautiful church and garden,
doing, what I call, elegant piety. It has come to seem to me
unbearably sad that you and I and these few here, who could do such
good work, should be kept back from doing it."
"I am afraid our habit, Father, makes that sort of work out of the
question for us." And Sister Winifred dropped her habit for a moment
and let it trail gracefully.
"Long, grey habits, that a speck of dirt will stain, are very
suitable to trail over green swards, but not fit to bring into the
houses of the poor, for fear they should be spoiled. "Oh," he cried,
"I have no patience with such rules, such petty observances. I have
often asked myself why the Bishop chose to put me here, where I am
entirely out of sympathy, where I am useless, where there is nothing
for me to do really, except to try to keep my temper. I have spoken of
this matter to no one before, but, since you have come to speak to me,
Sister Winifred, I, too, must speak. Ever since I've been here I've
been longing for some congenial work--work which I could feel I was
intended to do. It seems hard at times to feel one's life slipping
away and the work one could do always withheld from one's reach. You
understand?"
"Indeed, I do. It is the fate of many of us here, Father Daly."
"Now, if you could make a new foundation--if some three or four of
you--if the Bishop would send me there."
"Of course, we might go and do good work in the district you speak
of, but I doubt whether the Bishop would recognise us as a new
foundation."
"I daresay he wouldn't." And they walked a little way in silence.
"You were telling me of your project for a school, Sister Winifred."
Sister Winifred entered into the details. But she had unduly excited
Father Daly, and he could not listen.
"My position here," he said, interrupting her, "is an impossible one.
The only ones here who consider my advice are the lay sisters, the
admirable lay sisters who work from morning till evening, and forego
their prayers lest you should want for anything. You know I'm treated
very nearly with contempt by almost all the choir sisters. You think
I don't know that I am spoken of as a mere secular priest? Every
suggestion of mine meets with a rude answer. You have witnessed a
good deal of this, Sister Winifred. I daresay you've forgotten, but I
remember it all... you have come to speak to me here because the
Prioress will not allow you to spend more than three minutes in the
confessional, arrogating to herself the position of your spiritual
adviser, only allowing to me what is to her no more than the
mechanical act of absolution. In her eyes I am a mere secular priest,
incapable of advising those who live in an Order! Do you think I
haven't noticed her deference to the very slightest word that Father
Ambrose deigns to speak to her? Her rule doesn't apply to his
confessional, only to mine--a rule which I have always regarded as
extremely unorthodox; I don't feel at all sure that the amateur
confessional which she carries on upstairs wouldn't be suppressed
were it brought under the notice of Rome; I have long been determined
to resist it, and I beg of you, Sister Winifred, when you come to me
to confession to stay as long as you think proper. On this matter I
now see that the Prioress and I must come to an understanding."
"But not a word. Father Daly, must we breathe to her of what I have
come to tell you about. The relaxation of our Order must be referred
to the Bishop, and with your support."
They walked for some yards in silence, Father Daly reflecting on the
admirable qualities of Sister Winifred, her truthfulness and her
strength of character which had brought her to him; Sister Winifred
congratulating herself on how successfully she had deceived Father
Daly and thinking how she might introduce another subject into the
conversation (a delicate one it was to introduce); so she began to
talk as far away as possible from the subject which she wished to
arrive at. The founders of the Orders seemed to her the point to
start from; the conversation could be led round to the question of
how much time was wasted on meditation; it would be easy to drop a
sly hint that the meditations of the nuns were not always upon the
Cross; she managed to do this so adroitly that Father Daly fell into
the trap at once.
"Love of God, of course, is eternal; but each age must love God in
its own fashion, and our religious sentiments are not those of the
Middle Ages." The exercises of St. Ignatius did not appeal in the
least to Father Daly, who disapproved of letting one's thoughts brood
upon hell; far better think of heaven. Too much brooding on hell
engenders a feeling of despair, which was the cause of Sister
Teresa's melancholia. Too intense a fear of hell has caused men, so
it is said, to kill themselves. It seems strange, but men kill
themselves through fear of death. "I suppose it is possible that fear
of hell might distract the mind so completely--Well, let us not talk
on these subjects. We were talking of--" The nun reminded the priest
they were talking of the exercises of St. Ignatius. "Let us not speak
of them. St. Ignatius's descriptions of the licking of the flames
round the limbs of the damned may have been suitable in his time, but
for us there are better things in the exercises."
"But do you not think that the time spent in meditation might be
spent more profitably, Father? I have often thought so."
"If the meditation were really one."
"Exactly, Father, but who can further thoughts; thought wanders, and
before one is aware one finds oneself far from the subject of the
meditation."
"No doubt; no doubt."
"It was through active work that Sister Teresa was cured." "If any
fact has come to your knowledge, Sister, it is your duty to tell it
to me, the spiritual adviser of the nuns, notwithstanding all the
attempts of the Prioress to usurp my position."
"Well, Father, if you ask me--"
"Yes, certainly I ask you." And Sister Winifred told how, through a
dream, Sister Cecilia had been unable to go down from her cell to
watch before the Sacrament.
"We are not answerable for our dreams," the priest answered.
"No; but if we pray for dreams?"
"But Cecilia could not desire such a dream?"
"Not exactly that dream." And so the story was gradually unfolded to
the priest.
"What you tell me is very serious. The holy hours which should be
devoted to meditation of the Cross wasted in dreams of counterparts!
A strange name they have given these visitations, some might have
given them a harsher name." Father Daly's thoughts went to certain
literature of the Middle Ages. "The matter is, of course, one that is
not entirely unknown to me; it is one of the traditional sins of the
convent, one of the plagues of the Middle Ages. The early Fathers
suffered from the visits of Succubi. What you tell me is very
alarming. Would it not be well for me to speak to the Prioress on the
subject?"
"No, on no account."
"But she must be exceedingly anxious to put a stop to such a
pollution of the meditation?"
"Yes, indeed, I will say that nobody is more opposed to it; but she
is one of these women who, though she sees that something is wrong,
will not go to the root of the wrong at once. The tendency of her
mind is towards the contemplative, and not towards the active orders,
and she will not give way to the relaxation of the rule. You had
better just take the matter into your hands, feeling sure she will
approve of the action in the end. A word or two on the subject in
your sermon on Sunday would be very timely."
Father Daly promised to think the matter over, and Sister Winifred
said:
"But you must know we shall have much opposition?"
"But who will oppose us?"
"Those who have succeeded in getting counterparts will not surrender
them easily." And Sister Winifred was persuaded to mention the names
of the nuns incriminated in this traffic with the spirits of the
children who had been drowned in Noah's flood.
"Beings from the other world!" Father Daly cried, alarmed that not
one of the nuns had spoken on this subject to him in the convent.
"This is the first time a nun has spoken to me--"
"All will speak to you on this matter when you explain to them the
danger they are incurring--when you tell them in your sermon. There
is the bell; now I must fly. I will tell you more when I come to
confession this afternoon." As she went up the path she resolved to
remain ten minutes in the confessional at least, for such a breach of
the rule would challenge the Prioress's spiritual authority, and in
return for this Father Daly would use his influence with the Bishop
to induce the Prioress to relax the rule of the community. To make
her disobedience more remarkable, she loitered before slipping into
the confessional, and the Prioress, who had just come into the
chapel, noticed her. But without giving it another thought the
Prioress began her prayers. At the end of five minutes, however, she
began to grow impatient, and at the end of ten minutes to feel that
her authority had been set aside.
"You've been at least ten minutes in the confessional, Sister
Winifred."
"It is hard, indeed, dear Mother, if one isn't allowed to confess in
peace," Sister Winifred answered. And she tossed her head somewhat
defiantly.
"All the hopes of my life are at an end," the Prioress said to Mother
Hilda." Every one is in rebellion against me; and this branch of our
Order is about to disappear. I feel sure the Bishop will decide
against us, and what can we do with the school? Sister Winifred will
have to manage it herself. I will resign. It is hard indeed that this
should happen after so many years of struggle; and, after redeeming
the convent from its debts, to be divided in the end."