"But my luggage."
"If you'll come into the parlour I'll get one of the sisters to help me
to carry it upstairs."
Evelyn was sitting at the table turning over the leaves of the
Confessions of St. Augustine, when the Reverend Mother entered. She
seemed to Evelyn even smaller than she had done on the first occasion
they had met; she seemed lost in the voluminous grey habit, and the
long, light veil floated in the wind of her quick step.
"I'm glad you were able to come so soon. All the sisters are anxious to
meet you, you who have done so much for us."
"I've done very little, Reverend Mother. Could I have done less for my
old convent? I hope that your difficulties are at an end."
"At an end, no, but you helped us over a critical moment in the fortunes
of our convent."
Her hands were leaned against the edge of the table, her white fingers,
white with age, played with the hem of her veil, her blue, anxious eyes
were fixed on Evelyn at once tenderly, expectantly, and compassionately.
Her voice was the clear, refined voice which signifies society, and
Evelyn would not have been surprised to learn that she belonged to an
old aristocratic family, Evelyn imagined her to be a woman in whom the
genius of government dominated, and who, not having found an outlet into
the world, had turned to the cloister. Was that her story? Evelyn
wondered, and suddenly seemed to forsee a day when she would hear the
story which shone behind those clear blue eyes, and obliterated age from
the white face.
They went up the circular staircase, at the top of which was a large
landing; there were two rooms at the head of the stairs, and the
Reverend Mother said--
"These are our guest chambers." Standing on a second landing, one step
higher than the first, a solid wooden partition had been erected, and
pointing to a door the nun said with a laugh, "That door leads to the
sisters' cells. You must not make a mistake."
Evelyn was pleased to see that her room had two windows overlooking the
garden. There was a table covered by a cloth at which she could write,
and she bent over the bowl of roses and wondered which kind nun had
gathered them. The Reverend Mother left her, saying that she would be
told when supper was ready, and on looking round the room she perceived
her portmanteau, which the lay sister had not unstrapped. She would have
to unstrap it herself. She remembered that she had brought very few
things with her, and yet she was surprised at the smallness of her
luggage. For she usually took half-a-dozen dresses with her, now she had
only brought one change, a grey alpaca. She thought she might have left
her dressing-case behind, a plain brush and comb would have been all she
needed. But at the last moment, she had felt that she could not do
without these bottles of scent and brushes and nicknacks; they had
seemed indispensable. The dressing-case was Owen's influence still
pursuing her. She had not known why she was compelled to bring the
dressing-case, now she knew--Owen! Never would she be able to wholly
separate herself from him. He had become part of her.
As she stood in the convent room noticing the beeswaxed floor and the
two rugs, one by the small iron bed, she remembered a hunting morning
three years ago at Riversdale. She had gone to Owen's room to see if he
were ready. A multitude of orders were being given there, the valet was
searching anxiously in the large wardrobe, piled high with many various
coats and trousers; Owen stood before the looking-glass tying a white
scarf, and two footmen watched each movement, dreading a mistake. She
remembered that she had been amused at the time, and she never recalled
the scene without smiling. But she had liked Owen better for the
innumerable superfluities, all of which were necessary to his happiness,
the breakdown of any one of which made him the most miserable man alive.
She remembered how she had secretly imitated him, and how she had
gathered about her a mass of superfluous necessities. But they had never
become necessities to her, they had always galled her. It was in a
spirit of perversity she had imitated him. She had always felt it to be
wrong to eat peaches at five francs a piece, and had always been aware
of an inward resentment against the extravagance of a reserved carriage
on the railway and private saloon on board the boat. She had always
desired a simple life; the life of these nuns was a simple life, simpler
perhaps than she cared for. There was no hot water in her room, she
wondered how she would wash her hands, and smiling at her philosophical
reflections, she thought how Owen would laugh if he could see her in her
present situation--in a convent, crying out for a constant supply of hot
water and her maid. A religious life with home comforts, that was what
she wanted.
She was always a subject of amusement to herself, and she was still
smiling when a knock awoke her from her whimsical reveries. She answered
"Come in," and an elderly nun told her that supper was ready in the
parlour. In this room, furnished with a table and six chairs and four
pious prints, Evelyn ate her convent meal, a sort of mixed meal, which
included soup, cold meat, coffee, jam and some unripe pears. The
porteress took the plates away, and somehow Evelyn could not help
feeling that she was giving a good deal of trouble. She could see that
the nuns did everything for themselves, and she abandoned hope of ever
finding a can of hot water in her room. She remembered that when she
made her retreat some years ago, she had not noticed these things. She
owed all her wants to Owen. Mother Philippa came in, delighted to see
her, and anxious to know if she had everything she wanted.
"I thought you would be sure to be going abroad, and that next Easter,
the time you were here before, would be the time to ask you."
"But the Reverend Mother thought that now would be a better time."
"Yes, she said that Easter was a long way off, and that a rest would do
you good after singing all the season in London."
Evelyn wondered what idea the phrase "the season in London" awoke in the
mind of the nun. A little puzzled look did pass in her eyes, and then
she resumed her friendly chatter. Evelyn listened, more interested in
Mother Philippa's kind, amicable nature than in what she said. She
imagined in different circumstances what a good wife she would have
been, and what a good mother! "But she is happier as she is." Evelyn
could not imagine any soul-rending uncertainties in Mother Philippa. At
a certain age, at seventeen or eighteen, she had felt that she would
like to be a nun; very probably she was not any more pious than her
sisters; she had merely felt that the life would suit her. That was her
story. Evelyn smiled, and looked into Mother Philippa's mild eyes, in
which there was nothing but simple kindness, and with a yes and a no she
kept the conversation going till the bell rang for Office.
"I do not know if you would care to come to church. Perhaps you are
tired after your journey?"
"Journey! I have only driven a few miles."
Evelyn ran upstairs for her hat, and she followed the nun down the
cloister which led to the church.
"That is your door, it will take you into the outer church."
The nuns' choir was still empty, but the two candles on the high altar
were already lit, ready for Matins and Lauds. Evelyn had only just taken
her place, when at that moment a door opened on the other side of the
grille, and the grey figures, their heads a little bent, came in couples
and took their place in the stalls. They were wonderfully beautiful and
impressive, and the idea they represented seemed to Evelyn
extraordinary, simple and true. For, once we are convinced that there is
a God, and that we are here to save our souls, it were surely folly to
think of anything else. Our loves and our ambitions, what are they when
we consider him? and Evelyn remembered how he waits for us in an
eternity of bliss and love, only asking for our love. These were the
wise ones, they thought of the essential and let the ephemeral and
circumstantial go by them. Even from a worldly point of view, their life
was the wiser, since it produced the greater happiness. Owen was a proof
of this. She remembered how he used to say he had the finest place, the
most beautiful pictures, and the most desirable mistress in Europe. Yet
he was always the unhappiest man she knew. His life had been an
unceasing effort to capture happiness, and he had failed because he had
sought happiness from without instead of seeking it from within. He
lived in externals, he was dependent on a multitude of things, the
breakdown of any one of which was sufficient to cause him the acutest
misery. The howl of a dog, the smell of a cigar, any trifle was
sufficient to wreck his happiness. He had taught her to live in external
things, to place her faith in the world instead of in her own
conscience. How unhappy she had been; she had been driven to the brink
of suicide. Ah, if it had not been for Monsignor. She bent her face on
her hands, and did not dare to think further.
When her prayer was finished, she listened to the high monotonous chant
of the nuns reciting Matins. It sank into her soul, soothing it, and at
the same time inspiring an ardent melancholy. The long, unbroken rhythm
flowed on and on, each side of the choir chanting an alternate verse. In
the dimness of her sensation, Evelyn lost count of time, nor did she
know of what she was thinking. She was suddenly awakened by a sound of
shuffling. The nuns had risen to their feet, and in the middle of the
floor a sister began the lessons in a shrill voice, keeping always on
the same note, never letting her voice fall at the close of the
sentences. Evelyn grew more interested; the rite was full of a
penetrating mystery. She viewed the lines of grey nuns and heard the
Latin syllables. These poor nuns whom she was just now pitying for their
ignorance of life could at all events read the Office in Latin.