This being an occasion for articulate speech, Elizabeth replied that we
were on our way to the corridor to say our beads.
"You had better be out of doors," Madame Rayburn said. "You look as
if you needed fresh air. Go into the avenue until the bell rings for
Benediction. No farther, remember, or you may be late. You had better
take your veils with you to save time."
This _was_ being treated with distinction. Sent out of doors by
ourselves, just as if we were First Cours girls,--those privileged
creatures whom we had seen for the last three days pacing gravely
and silently up and down the pleasant walks. No such liberty had
ever been accorded to us before, and I felt a thrill of pride when
Julia Reynolds--walking alone in the avenue--raised her eyes from the
"Pensées Chrétiennes" of Madame Swetchine (I recognized its crimson
cover, having been recently obliged to translate three whole pages of
it as a penance), and stared at us with the abstract impersonal gaze of
one engrossed in high spiritual concerns. It was a grey day in early
June, a soft and windless day, and, as we walked sedately under the big
mulberry trees, a sense of exquisite well-being stole into my heart.
I was conscious of some faint appreciation of the tranquillity that
breathed around me, some dim groping after the mystery of holiness,
some recognizable content in the close companionship of my friend. I
forgot that I was going to free myself from all inordinate affection
for created things, and knew only that it was pleasant to walk by
Elizabeth's side.
"Let us contemplate in this second joyful mystery the visitation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin, St. Elizabeth," she said.
Why, there it was! The Blessed Virgin's cousin was named Elizabeth,
too. Of course they were friends; perhaps they were very fond of
each other; only St. Elizabeth was so much too old. Could one have a
real friend, years older than one's self? My mind was wandering over
this aspect of the case while I pattered my responses, and my pearl
beads--not half so pretty as Elizabeth's coral ones--slipped quickly
through my fingers. When we had finished the five decades, and had said
the _De profundis_ for the dead, there was still time on our hands. The
chapel bell had not yet rung. We walked for a few minutes in silence,
and then I held up my rosary as a suggestion that we should begin the
sorrowful mysteries. But Elizabeth shook her head.
"Let's have a little serious conversation," she said.
Not Balaam, when he heard the remonstrance of his ass, not Albertus
Magnus, when the brazen head first opened its lips and spoke, was more
startled and discomfited than I. Such a proposal shook my moral sense
to its foundations. But Elizabeth's light blue eyes--curiously light,
by contrast with her dark skin and hair--were raised to mine with
perfect candour and good faith. It was plain that she did not hold
herself a temptress.
"A little _serious_ conversation," she repeated with emphasis.
For a moment I hesitated. Three speechless days made the suggestion a
very agreeable one, and I was in the habit of consenting to whatever
Elizabeth proposed. But conversation, even serious conversation,
was a daring innovation for a retreat, and I was not by nature an
innovator. Then suddenly a happy thought came to me. I had brought
along my Ursuline Manual (in those days we went about armed with all
our spiritual weapons), and I opened it at a familiar page.
"Let's find out our predominant passions," I said.
Elizabeth consented joyfully. Her own prayer-book was French, a
_Paroissien Romain_, and the predominant passions had no place in it.
She was evidently flattered by the magnificence of the term, as applied
to her modest transgressions. It was something to know--at twelve--that
one was possessed of a passion to predominate.
"We'll skip the advice in the beginning?" she said.
I nodded, and Elizabeth, plunging, as was her wont, into the heart of
the matter, read with impressive solemnity:--
"The predominant passion of many young people is pride, which never
fails to produce such haughtiness of manner and self-sufficiency as to
render them equally odious and ridiculous. Incessantly endeavouring
to attract admiration, and become the sole objects of attention, they
spare no pains to set themselves off, and to outdo their companions.
By their conceited airs, their forwardness, their confidence in their
own opinions, and neglect or contempt of that timid, gentle, retiring
manner, so amiable and attractive in youth, they defeat their own
purpose, and become as contemptible as they aim at being important."
There was a pause. The description sounded so little like either of us
that I expected Elizabeth to go right on to more promising vices. But
she was evidently turning the matter over in her mind.
"I think that's Adelaide Harrison's predominant passion," she said at
length.
Somewhat surprised, I acquiesced. It had not occurred to me to send my
thoughts wandering over the rest of the school, or I should, perhaps,
have reached some similar conclusion.
"Yes, it's certainly Adelaide Harrison's passion," Elizabeth went on
thoughtfully. "You remember how she behaved about that composition of
hers, 'The Woods in Autumn,' that Madame Duncan thought so fine. She
said she ought to be able to write a good composition when her mother
had written a whole volume of poems, and her brother had written
something else,--I don't remember what. That's what _I_ call pride."
"She says they are a talented family," I added maliciously. ("Is my
conversation always charitable and edifying?") "That she taught herself
to read when she was six years old, and that they all speak French when
they are together. I don't believe that."
"It must be horrid, if they do," said Elizabeth. "I'm glad I'm not one
of them. Vous ne mangez rien, ma chère Adelaide. Est-ce que vous êtes
malade?"
"Hélas! oui, mon père. J'ai peur que j'étudie trop. Go on, Elizabeth,
I'm afraid the bell will ring."
Thus adjured, Elizabeth continued: "There are many young people whose
predominant passion is a certain ill-humour, fretfulness, peevishness,
or irritability, which pervades their words, manners, and even looks.
It is usually brought into action by such mere trifles that there is
no chance of peace for those who live in the house with them. Even
their best friends are not always secure from their ill-tempered
sallies, their quarrelsome moods. Pettish and perverse, they throw a
gloom over the gayest hour, and the most innocent amusement. As this
luckless disposition is peculiarly that of women, young girls cannot be
too earnestly recommended to combat the tendency in youth, lest they
become, when older, the torment of that society they are intended to
bless and ornament."
Another pause,--a short one this time. Elizabeth's eyes met mine with
an unspoken question, and I nodded acquiescence. "Tony!" we breathed
simultaneously.
It was true. Tony's engaging qualities were marred by a most prickly
temper. We knew her value well. She played all games so admirably that
the certainty of defeat modified our pleasure in playing with her.
She was fleet of foot, ready of wit, and had more fun in her little
brown head than all the rest of us could muster. She would plunge us
into abysses of mischief with one hand, and extricate us miraculously
with the other. She was startlingly truthful, and lived nobly up to our
wayward but scrupulous standard of schoolgirl honour, to the curious
code of ethics by which we regulated our lives. She might have been
Elizabeth's vice-regent; she might even have disputed the authority of
our constitutional sovereign, and have led us Heaven knows whither,
had it not been for her pestilential quarrelsomeness. How often had
she and I started out at the recreation hour in closest amity, and had
returned, silent and glowering, with the wide gravel walk between us.
If she were in a fractious mood, no saint from Paradise could have kept
the peace. Therefore, when Elizabeth looked at me, we said "Tony!" and
then stopped short. She was our friend, one of the band, and though we
granted her derelictions, we would not discuss them. We could be ribald
enough at Adelaide Harrison's expense, but not at Tony's.
"Why don't you lend her this book?" said Elizabeth kindly.
I shook my head. I knew why very well. And I rather think Elizabeth
did, too.
By this time it looked as if we were going to fit the whole school with
predominant passions, and not find any for ourselves; but the next line
Elizabeth read struck a chill into my soul, and, as she went on, every
word seemed like a barbed arrow aimed unswervingly at me.
"A propensity to extravagant partialities is a fault which frequently
predominates in some warm, impetuous characters. These persons are
distinguished by a precipitate selection of favourites in every
society; by an overflow of marked attentions to the objects of their
predilection, whose interests they espouse, whose very faults they
attempt to justify, whose opinions they support, whether right or
wrong, and whose cause they defend, often at the expense of good sense,
charity, moderation, and even common justice. Woe to him who ventures
to dissent from them. The friendship or affection of such characters
does not deserve to be valued, for it results, not from discernment of
merit, but from blind prejudice. Besides, they annoy those whom they
think proper to rank among their favourites by expecting to engross
their whole attention, and by resenting every mark of kindness they may
think proper to show to others. However, as their affections are in
general as short-lived as they are ardent, no one person is likely to
be long tormented with the title of their friend."
I was conscious of two flaming cheeks as we walked for a moment in
silence, and I glanced at Elizabeth out of the tail of my eye to see
if she were summing up my case. It wasn't true, it couldn't be true,
that extravagant partialities (when they were _my_ partialities) were
short-lived. I was preparing to combat this part of the accusation when
Elizabeth's cool voice dispelled my groundless fears.
"I think that's silly," she said. "Nobody is like that."
The suddenness of my relief made me laugh outright, and then,--Oh,
baseness of the human heart!--I sought to strengthen my own position by
denouncing some one else. "Not Annie Churchill?" I asked.
Elizabeth considered. "No, not even Annie Churchill. What makes you
think of her?"
It was an awkward question. How could I say that two nights before the
retreat, Annie had slipped into my alcove,--a reprehensible habit she
had,--and, with an air of mystery, had informed me she was "trying to
do something,"--she didn't like to tell me what, because she thought
that maybe I was trying to do it, too. Upon my intimating that I was
trying to go to bed, and nothing else that I knew of, she had said
quite solemnly: "I am trying to gain Elizabeth's affections." As it was
impossible for me to adduce this piece of evidence (even an unsought
confidence we held sacred), I observed somewhat lamely: "Oh, she does
seem to get suddenly fond of people."
"Who's she fond of?" asked the unsuspecting--and
ungrammatical--Elizabeth.
"Oh, do go on!" I urged, and, even as I said it, the Benediction
bell rang. A score of girls, serious, black-veiled young penitents,
appeared, as if by magic, hastening to the chapel. We joined them
silently, and filed into rank. Already my conscience was pricking. Had
our "serious" conversation been either charitable or edifying? Was it
for this that Madame Rayburn had sent us out to walk under the mulberry
trees?
It pricked harder still--this sore little conscience--the next day,
when Lilly came to me, looking downcast and miserable. "Madame Duncan
said I might speak to you," she whispered, "because it was about
something important. It _is_ important, very. Father Santarius is sure
to tell us we must put those straws back, and I've broken one of mine."
Straws! I stared at her aghast. Where were my straws? I didn't know. I
hadn't the faintest idea. I had lost them both, as I lost everything
else, except the empty head so firmly, yet so uselessly fixed upon
my shoulders. It was really wonderful that a little girl who had only
three places in the world in which to put anything--a desk, a washstand
drawer, and a japanned dressing-case (our clothes were all kept for us
with exquisite neatness in the vestry)--should not have known where
her few possessions were; but I could have lost them all in any of
these receptacles, and never have found one of them again. When a mad
scramble through my desk had furnished incontestable proof that no
straws were there, and Lilly had departed, somewhat comforted by my
more desperate case, I sat gloomily facing the complicated problem
before me. I must confess my sin, I would be called upon to make
restitution, and I had nothing to restore. The more I thought about it,
the more hopeless I grew, and the more confused became my sense of
proportion. If I had stolen the Bambino himself,--as a peasant woman,
it is said, once stole the Baby of Ara-Coeli,--I could not have felt
guiltier.
"Agnes," said Madame Rayburn's voice, "you had better go to the chapel
now, and prepare for confession."
She was looking down on me, and, as I rose to my feet, a light broke in
upon my darkness. I knew where to turn for help.
"If you've taken a thing, and you haven't got it any more to give it
back, what can you do?" I asked.
The suddenness with which my query was launched (I always hated
roundabout approaches) startled even this seasoned nun. "If you've
taken a thing," she echoed. "Do you mean stolen?"
"Yes," I answered stolidly.
She looked astonished for a moment, and then the shadow of a smile
passed over her face. "Is it something you have eaten?" she asked, "and
that is why you cannot give it back?"
I laughed a little miserable laugh. It was natural that this solution
of the problem should present itself to Madame Rayburn's mind, albeit
we were not in the fruit season. But then, it had once happened that a
collation had been set for the Archbishop and some accompanying priests
in the conference room, and that Elizabeth, Lilly, and I, spying
through a half-open door the tempting array of sandwiches and cake,
had descended like Harpies upon the feast. This discreditable incident
lingered, it was plain, in Madame Rayburn's memory, and prompted her
question.
"No, it wasn't anything to eat," I said; and then, recognizing the
clemency of her mood (she was not always clement), I revealed the
sacrilegious nature of my spoliation. "And I've lost them, and can't
put them back," I wound up sorrowfully.
Madame Rayburn looked grave. Whether it was because she was shocked, or
because she was amused and wanted to conceal her amusement, I cannot
say. "Did you do this by yourself?" she said; and then, seeing my face,
added hastily: "No, I won't ask you that question. It isn't fair, and
besides, I know you won't answer. But if there are any more straws in
anybody's possession, I want you to bring them to me to-night. That's
all. Now go to confession. Say you've told, and that it's all right."
I was dismissed. With a light heart I sped to the chapel. To see one's
way clear through the intricacies of life; to be sure of one's next
step, and of a few steps to follow,--at eleven, or at threescore and
ten, this is beatitude.
It was Saturday morning when we emerged from retreat, a clear, warm
Saturday in June. Mass was over, and we filed down in measureless
content to the refectory. Because of our four days' silence, we were
permitted to speak our blessed mother tongue at breakfast time.
Therefore, instead of the dejected murmur which was the liveliest
expression of our Gallic eloquence, there rose upon the startled air a
clamorous uproar, a high, shrill, joyous torrent of sound. A hundred
girls were talking fast and furiously to make up for lost time. We
had hot rolls for breakfast, too, a luxury reserved for such special
occasions; and we were all going to the woods in the afternoon, both
First and Second Cours,--going for two long, lovely hours, which would
give us time to reach the farthest limits of our territory. Elizabeth
came and squeezed herself on the bench beside me, to propose a private
search for the white violets that grew in the marshy ground beyond
the lake, and that bloomed long after the wood violets had gone. Tony
shouted across two intervening benches that she didn't see why we could
not secure the boat, and have a row,--as if the Second Cours girls were
at all likely to get possession of the boat when the First Cours girls
were around. "We can, if we try," persisted Tony, in whom four days of
peaceful meditation had bred the liveliest inclination for a brawl. As
for me, I ate my roll, and looked out of the window at the charming
vista stretching down to the woods; and my spirits mounted higher and
higher with the rising tide of joy, with the glad return to the life of
every day. Heaven, an assured hereafter, had receded comfortably into
the dim future. Hell was banished from our apprehensions. But, oh, how
beautiful was the world!
Un Congé sans Cloche
We had only two or three of them in the year, and their slow approach
stirred us to frenzy. In the dark ages, when I went to school, no one
had yet discovered that play is more instructive than work, no one was
piling up statistics to prove the educational value of idleness. In
the absence of nature studies and athletics, we were not encouraged
to spend our lives out of doors. In the absence of nerve specialists,
we were not tenderly restrained from studying our lessons too hard.
It is wonderful how little apprehension on this score was felt by
either mothers or teachers. We had two months' summer holiday,--July
and August,--and a week at Christmas time. The rest of the year we
spent at school. I have known parents so inhuman as to regret those
unenlightened days.
But can the glorified little children whose lives seem now to be
one vast and happy playtime, can the privileged schoolgirls who
are permitted to come to town for a matinée,--which sounds to me
as fairy-like as Cinderella's ball,--ever know the real value of a
holiday? As well expect an infant millionaire to know the real value
of a quarter. We to whom the routine of life was as inevitable as the
progress of the seasons, we to whom Saturdays were as Mondays, and who
grappled with Church history and Christian doctrine on pleasant Sunday
mornings, _we_ knew the mad tumultuous joy that thrilled through hours
of freedom. The very name which from time immemorial had been given to
our convent holidays illustrated the fulness of their beatitude. When
one lives under the dominion of bells, every hour rung in and out
with relentless precision, _sans cloche_ means glorious saturnalia.
Once a nervous young nun, anxious at the wild scattering of her flock,
ventured, on a _congé_, to ring them back to bounds; whereupon her
bell was promptly, though not unkindly, taken away from her by two of
the older girls. And when the case was brought to court, the Mistress
General upheld their action. A law was a law, as binding upon its
officers as upon the smallest subject in the realm.
The occasions for a _congé sans cloche_ were as august as they were
rare. "Mother's Feast," by which we meant the saint's day of the
Superioress, could always be reckoned upon. The feast of St. Joseph was
also kept in this auspicious fashion,--which gave us a great "devotion"
to so kind a mediator. Once or twice in the year the Archbishop came
to the convent, and in return for our addresses, our curtsies, our
baskets of flowers, and songs of welcome, always bravely insisted that
we should have a holiday. "Be sure and tell me, if you don't get it,"
he used to say, which sounded charmingly confidential, though we well
knew that we should never have an opportunity to tell him anything of
the kind, and that we should never dare to do it, if we had.
In the year of grace which I now chronicle, the Archbishop was going
to Rome, and had promised to say good-by to us before he sailed. Those
were troubled times for Rome. Even we knew that something was wrong,
though our information did not reach far beyond this point. Like the
little girl who couldn't tell where Glasgow was, because she had not
finished studying Asia Minor, we were still wandering belated in the
third Crusade,--a far cry from united Italy. When Elizabeth, who had
read the address, said she wondered why the Pope was called "God's
great martyr saint," we could offer her very little enlightenment. I
understand that children now interest themselves in current events, and
ask intelligent questions about things they read in the newspapers.
For us, the Wars of the Roses were as yesterday, and the Crusades were
still matters for deep concern. Berengaria of Navarre had been the
"leading lady" of our day's lesson, and I had written in my "Compendium
of History"--majestic phrase--this interesting and comprehensive
statement: "Berengaria led a blameless life, and, after her husband's
death, retired to a monastery, where she passed the remainder of her
days."
It was the middle of May when the Archbishop came, and, as the
weather was warm, we wore our white frocks for the occasion. Very
immaculate we looked, ranged in a deep, shining semicircle, a blue
ribbon around every neck, and gloves on every folded hand. It would
have been considered the height of impropriety to receive, ungloved,
a distinguished visitor. As the prelate entered, accompanied by the
Superioress and the Mistress General, we swept him a deep curtsy,--oh,
the hours of bitter practice it took to limber my stiff little knees
for those curtsies!--and then broke at once into our chorus of
welcome:--
"With happy hearts we now repair
All in this joyous scene to share."
There were five verses. When we had finished, we curtsied again and sat
down, while Mary Rawdon and Eleanor Hale played a nervous duet upon the
piano.
The Archbishop looked at us benignantly. It was said of him that he
dearly loved children, but that he was apt to be bored by adults. He
had not what are called "social gifts," and seldom went beyond the
common civilities of intercourse. But he would play jackstraws all
evening with half a dozen children, and apparently find himself much
refreshed by the entertainment. His eyes wandered during the duet to
the ends of the semicircle, where sat the very little girls, as rigidly
still as cataleptics. Wriggling was not then deemed the prescriptive
right of childhood. An acute observer might perhaps have thought
that the Archbishop, seated majestically on his dais, and flanked
by Reverend Mother and Madame Bouron, glanced wistfully at these
motionless little figures. We were, in truth, as remote from him as if
we had been on another continent. Easy familiarity with our superiors
was a thing undreamed of in our philosophy. The standards of good
behaviour raised an impassable barrier between us.
Frances Fenton made the address. It was an honour once accorded to
Elizabeth, but usually reserved as a reward for superhuman virtue.
Not on _that_ score had Elizabeth ever enjoyed it. Frances was first
blue ribbon, first medallion, and head of the Children of Mary. There
was nothing left for her but beatification. She stepped slowly, and
with what was called a "modest grace," into the middle of the room,
curtsied, and began:--
"Your children's simple hearts would speak,
But cannot find the words they seek.
These tones no music's spell can lend;
And eloquence would vainly come
To greet our Father, Guide, and Friend.
Let hearts now speak, and lips be dumb!"
"Then why isn't she dumb?" whispered Tony aggressively, but without
changing a muscle of her attentive face.
I pretended not to hear her. I had little enough discretion, Heaven
knows, but even I felt the ripe unwisdom of whispering at such a time.
It was Mary Rawdon's absence, at the piano, I may observe, that placed
me in this perilous proximity.
"Our reverence fond and hopeful prayer
Will deck with light one empty place,
And fill with love one vacant chair."