When she opened her eyes and saw the convent room, she remembered how
she had come there. Her still dreaming face lighted up with a smile, and
she began to wonder what was going to happen next. Soon after, someone
knocked. It was the little porteress telling her that it was seven
o'clock. Evelyn expected her to come in, pull up the blinds and pour out
her bath. But she did not even open the door, and Evelyn lay looking
through the strange room, unable to face the discomfort of a small basin
of cold water. She would have to do her hair herself, and there was no
toilette table. The convent seemed suddenly a place to flee from; she
hadn't realised that it would be like this.... But it would never do for
her to miss Mass, and she sat on the edge of the bed, unable to think of
any solution of her difficulties. The only glass in the room was about a
foot square; it had been placed on the chest of drawers, and nothing
seemed to Evelyn more inefficient than this wretched glass. Its very
position on the top of the chest of drawers was vexatious. She could not
even get it into the proper angle, and when she removed the piece of
paper that held it in position, it swung round and its back confronted
her. That morning it seemed as if she could not dress herself. Her hair
had curled itself into many a knot; she nearly broke the comb, and her
hand dropped by her side, and then she laughed outright, having caught
sight of some part of her dejection. As she hooked on her skirt she
reflected on the necessity of not leaving bottles of scent nor too many
sponges for the observation of the nuns; and the nightgown she had
brought was certainly not a conventual garment.
She hurried downstairs, and was just in time to see the nuns coming into
church. They came in by a side door, walking two by two, and Evelyn was
again struck by the beauty and mystery of this grey procession. She had
seen on the stage the outward show of men who had renounced the
world--the pilgrims in "Tannhäuser," the knights in "Parsifal," but this
was no outward show. The women she was now witnessing had renounced the
world; the life she was witnessing was the life they lived from hour to
hour, from day to day, from year to year. She had included lovers amid
their renunciations; such inclusion was ridiculous, for of such sins as
hers they had not even dreamed. To pass through life without knowing
life! To have renounced, to have refused love, friends, art, everything,
dinner-parties, conversations, all the distractions which we believe
make life endurable, to have refused these things from the
beginning--not even to have been tempted to taste, not even to have
desired to put life to the test of a fugitive personal experience, but
to have divined from the first, by instinct, by the grace of God, the
worthlessness of life--that was what was so wonderful. Mother Philippa,
that simple nun, had done this, instinct had led her--there was no other
explanation. She had arrived at the same conclusion as the wisest of the
philosophers and without any soul-searching, by instinct--each of the
humble lay sisters, the little porteress had done this. And Evelyn was
filled with shame when she thought of the effort it had cost her to free
herself from a life of sin.
In extraordinary beauty of grey habit and veil and solemn procession,
the nuns passed to their seats. Now they were kneeling altarwise, and
Evelyn was still occupied by the thought that this was not outward show
as she had often seen it on the stage, but the thing itself. This was
not acting, this was truth, the truth of all their lifetimes.
Suddenly began the plaint of the organ, and some half-dozen voices sang
a hymn; and these pale, etiolated voices interested her. It was not the
clear, sexless voice of boys, these were women's voices, out of which
sex had faded like colour out of flowers; and these pale, deciduous
voices wailing a poor, pathetic music, so weak and feeble that it was
almost interesting through its very feebleness, interested Evelyn. Tears
trembled in her eyes, and she listened to the poor voices rising and
falling, breaking forth spasmodically in the lamentable hymn. "Desolate"
and "forgotten" were the words that came up in her mind.
They were still kneeling altarwise; their profiles turned from her.
Outside of the choir stalls, on either side of the church, were two
special stalls, and the Reverend Mother and the sub-prioress knelt
apart. Their backs were turned to Evelyn, and she noticed the fine
delicate shoulders of the Reverend Mother, and the heavy figure of
Mother Philippa. "Even in their backs they are like themselves," she
thought. She smiled at her descriptive style, "like themselves," and
then, seeing that Mass had begun, she resolutely repressed all levity,
and began her prayers. She had not felt especially pious till that
moment, and to rouse herself she remembered Monsignor's words, "That at
the height of her artistic career she should have been awakened to a
sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle of his grace," and
she felt that the devotion of her whole life to his service would not be
a sufficient return for what he had done for her. But in spite of her
efforts she followed the sacrifice of the Mass in her normal
consciousness until the bell rang for the Elevation. When the priest
raised the Host she was conscious of the Real Presence. She raised her
eyes a little, and the bent figures of the nuns, their veils hanging
loose about them, contributed to her exaltation, and with a last effort,
holding as it were her life in her hands, she asked pardon of God for
her sins.
Then the pale, etiolated voices of the nuns, the wailing of these weak
voices--there were three altos, three sopranos--began again. They were
singing an Agnus Dei, a simple little music nowise ugly, merely feeble,
touchingly commonplace; they were singing in unison thirds and fifths,
and the indifferent wailing of the voices contrasted with the firmness
of the organist's touch; and Evelyn knew that they had one musician
among them. She listened, touched by the plaintive voices, so feeble in
the ears of man, but beautiful in God's ears. God heard beyond the mere
notes; the music of the intention was what reached God's ears. The music
of these poor voices was more favourable in his ears than her voice.
Months she had spent seeking the exact rhythm of a phrase intended to
depict and to rouse a sinful desire. Though the hymns were ugly--and
they were very ugly--she would have done better to sing them; and she
sought to press herself into the admission that art which does not tend
to the glory of God is vain and harmful. Far better these hideous hymns,
if singing them conducts to everlasting life. But every time she pressed
her mind towards an inevitable conclusion, it turned off into an obscure
bypath. She brought it back like an intractable ass, but the stubborn
beast again dodged her, and she had to abandon the attempt to convince
herself that art which did not tend to the honour and glory of God
should be suppressed--should be at least avoided. Once we were convinced
that there was a God and a resurrection, this world must become as
nothing in our eyes, only it didn't become as nothing in our eyes; every
sacrifice should become easy, but every sacrifice didn't become easy.
That was the point; to these nuns, perhaps, not to her. At least not
yet.
She had fussed a great deal this morning because she had no hot water to
wash with. Seven o'clock had seemed to her somewhat early to get up. But
they had been up long before. She had heard of nuns who got up at four
in the morning to say the Office. She did not know what time these nuns
got up, but she felt that she was not capable of much greater sacrifice
than six or seven o'clock. These nuns lived on a little coarse food, and
spent the day in prayer. She thought of their aching knees in the long
vigils of their adorations. She understood that the inward happiness
their life gives them compensates them for all their privations. She
understood that they are the only ones who are happy, yet the knowledge
did not help her; she felt that she would never be happy in their
happiness, and a great sorrow came over her. Mass was over, and again
the beautiful procession, with bowed heads and meekly folded veils,
glided out of the church. Only the watchers remained.
Last night she had sat watching the stars shining on the convent garden.
There were, as Owen said, twenty millions of suns in the Milky Way;
beyond the Milky Way there were other constellations of which we know
nothing, nebulæ which time has not yet resolved into stars, or stars so
distant that time has not yet brought their light hither. But why seek
mystery beyond this poor planet? It furnishes enough, surely. That we
should see the stars, that we should know the stars, that we should
place God above the stars--are not these common facts as wonderful as
the stars themselves? That those twenty or five-and-twenty women should
give up all the seduction of life for the sake of an idea, accepting
Owen's theory that it is but an idea, even so the wonder of it is not
less; even from Owen's point of view is not this convent as wonderful as
the stars?
On coming out of church, she was told that in half-an-hour her breakfast
would be ready in the parlour, and to loosen the mental tension--she had
thought and felt a great deal in the last hour--she asked the lay sister
who were the nuns who sang in the choir. The lay sister answered her
perfunctorily. Evelyn could see that she was not open at that moment to
conversation. She guessed that the sister had work to attend to, and was
not surprised that she did not come back to take the things away.
Although only just begun, the day had already begun to seem long. She
proposed to herself some pious reading; and wondered how she was going
to get through the day. She would have liked to go into the garden; but
she did not know the rules of the convent, and feared to transgress
them. However, she was free to go to her room. The books she had brought
with her would help her to get through the morning.
Berlioz's _Memoirs I_ The faded voices she had heard that morning
singing dreary hymns were more wonderful than his orchestral dreams. Nor
did she find the spiritual stimulus she needed in Pater's _Imaginary
Portraits_. Some moody souls reflecting with no undue haste, without
undue desire to arrive at any definite opinion concerning certain
artistic problems, did not appeal to her. She put the book aside,
fearing that she was in no humour for reading that morning; and with
little hope of being interested, she took up another book. The size of
the volume and the disproportion of the type seemed to drag her to it,
and the title was a sort of prophetic echo of the interest she was to
find in the book. Her thoughts clouded in a sense of delight as she
read; she followed as a child follows a butterfly, until the fluttering
colour disappears in the sky. And before she was aware of any idea, the
harmony of the gentle prose captivated her, and she sat down, holding in
her heart the certitude that she was going to be enchanted. The book
procured for her the delicious sensualism of reading things at once new
and old. It seemed to her that she was reading things that she had known
always, but which she had somehow neglected to think out for herself.
The book seemed like her inner self suddenly made clear. All that the
author said on the value of Silence was so true. She raised her eyes
from the page to think. She seemed to understand something, but she
could not tell what it was. The object of every soul is to unite itself
to another soul, to be absorbed in another, to find life and happiness
in another; the desire of unison is the deepest instinct in man. But how
little, the author asked, do words help us to understand? We talk and
talk, and nothing is really said; the conversation falls, we walk side
by side, our eyes fixed on the quiet skies, and lo! our souls come
together and are united in their immortal destiny. She again raised her
eyes from the page--now she understood, and she thought a long while.
The chapter entitled "The Profound Life" interested her equally. The
nuns realised it, but those who live in the world live on the surface of
things. To live a life of silence and devotion, illumined not from
without but from within, the eternal light that never fails or withers,
and to live unconscious of the great stream of things, our back turned
to that great stream flowing mysteriously, solemnly, like a river! The
chapter entitled "Warnings" had for her a strangely personal meaning.
How true it is that we know everything, only we have not acquired the
art of saying it. Had she not always known that her destiny was not with
Owen, that he was but a passing, not the abiding event of her life? She
looked through the convent room, and the abiding event of her life now
seemed to murmur in her ear, seemed to pass like a shadow before her
eyes. At the moment when she thought she was about to hear and see, a
knock came at her door, and the revelation of her destiny passed, with a
little ironical smile, out of her eyes and ears.
Her visitor was a strange little nun whom she had not seen before. Over
her slim figure the white serge habit fell in such graceful, mediæval
lines as Evelyn had seen in German cathedrals; and her face was delicate
and childlike beneath the white forehead band. She came forward with a
diffident little smile.
"Reverend Mother sent me to you; she is watching now, or she would have
come herself, but she thought you might like me to take you round the
garden. She will join us there when she comes out of church. But
Reverend Mother said you must do just as you liked."
The little nun corresponded to her mood even as the book had done; she
seemed an apparition, a ghost risen from its pages. Her face was a thin
oval, and the purity of the outline was accentuated by the white
kerchief which surrounded it. The nose was slightly aquiline, the chin
a little pointed, the lips well cut, but thin and colourless--lips that
Evelyn thought had never been kissed, and that never would be kissed.
The thought seemed disgraceful, and Evelyn noticed hastily the dark
almond eyes that saved the face from insipidity; the black eyebrows were
firmly and delicately drawn, her complexion, without being pale, was
extraordinarily transparent, and the thin hands and long, narrow
fingers, half hidden beneath the long sleeves, were in the same idea of
mediæval delicacy.
"I was longing to go out, but I had not the courage. I feared it might
be against the rule for me to go into the garden alone. But tell me
first who you are."
"Oh, I'm Sister Veronica. I'm only a novice as yet."
Evelyn noticed that, unlike the other nuns she had seen, Sister Veronica
wore neither the silver heart on her breast, suspended by a red cord,
nor the long straight scapular which gave such dignity to the religious
habit. Her habit was held in at the waist by a leather girdle; it looked
as though it might slip any moment over the slight, boyish hips, and by
her side hung a rosary of large black beads.
Sister Veronica warned Evelyn that she must be careful how she went down
the staircase, as it was very slippery. Evelyn said she would be
careful; she added that the sisters kept the stairs in beautiful order,
and wondered what her next remark would be. She was nervous in the
presence of these convent women, lest by some unfortunate remark she
should betray herself. And when they reached the garden it was Sister
Veronica who was the most self-possessed--she was already confessing to
Evelyn that they had all felt very nervous knowing that a "real" singer
was listening to them.
"Oh, do you sing?" Evelyn asked eagerly.
"Well, I have to try," Sister Veronica answered, with a little laugh.
"Mother Prioress thought perhaps I might learn, so she put me in the
choir, but Sister Mary John says I shall never be the least use."
"Is Sister Mary John the sister who teaches you?"
"Yes; it is she who played the organ at Mass. She loves music. She is
simply longing to hear you sing, Miss Innes. Do you think you will sing
at Benediction this afternoon for us? It would be lovely."
"I don't know, really. You see I haven't been asked yet."
"Oh, Reverend Mother is sure to ask you--at least I hope she will. We
all want to hear you so much."
They were sitting in the shadow of a great elm; all around was a
wonderful silence, and to turn the conversation from herself, Evelyn
asked Sister Veronica if she didn't care for their beautiful garden.
"Oh, yes, indeed I do. I'm glad you like it.... When I was a child my
greatest treat was to be allowed to play in the nuns' garden."
"Then you knew the convent long before you came to be a nun yourself?"
"Oh, yes, I've known it all my life."
"So it was not strange when you came here first?"
"No, it was like coming home."
Evelyn repeated the nun's words to herself, "Like coming home." And she
seemed to see far into their meaning. Here was an illustration of what
she had read in the book--she and Veronica seemed to understand each
other in the silence. But it became necessary to speak, and in answer to
a question, Sister Veronica told Evelyn that there were four novices and
two postulants in the novitiate, and that the name of the novice
mistress was Mother Mary Hilda. The novitiate was in the upper storey of
the new wing, above the convent refectory.
"And here is Reverend Mother," and Sister Veronica suddenly got up.
Evelyn got up too, and they waited till the elderly nun slowly crossed
the lawn. Evelyn noticed, even when the Reverend Mother was seated, that
Veronica remained standing.
"You can go now, Veronica."
Veronica smiled a little good-bye to Evelyn, and left them immediately.
"Veronica told you, Miss Innes, I was taking my watch?"
"Yes, Reverend Mother."
"I hope she has not been wearying you with the details of our life?"
"On the contrary, I have been very much interested.... Your life here is
so beautiful that I long to know more about it. At present my knowledge
is confined to the fact that the second storey in the new wing is the
novitiate, and that there are four novices and two postulants." The
Reverend Mother smiled, and after a pause Evelyn added--
"But Sister Veronica is very young."
"She is older than she looks, she is nearly twenty. Ever since she was
quite a child she wished to be a nun. Even then her mind was quite made
up."
"She told me that when she was a child her great pleasure was to be
allowed to walk in the convent garden."
"Yes. You don't know, perhaps, that she is my niece. My poor brother's
child. She was left an orphan at a very early age. Her's is a sad story.
But God has been good: she never doubted her vocation, she passed from
an innocent childhood to a life dedicated to God. So she has been spared
the trouble that is the lot of those who live in the world."
An accent of past but unforgotten sorrow had crept into her voice; and
once more Evelyn was convinced that she had not, like Veronica, passed
from innocent childhood into the blameless dream of convent life. She
had known the world and had renounced it. In the silence that had fallen
Evelyn wondered what her story might be, and whether she would ever hear
it. But she knew that in the convent no allusion is made to the past,
that there the past is really the past.
"I hope that you will sing for us at Benediction. All the sisters are
longing to hear you. It will be such a pleasure to them."
"I shall be very glad ... only I have brought nothing with me. But I
daresay I shall find something among the music you have here."
"Sister Mary John will find you something; she is our organist."
"And an excellent musician. I noticed her playing."
"She has always been anxious to improve the choir, but unfortunately
none of the sisters except her has any voice to speak of.... You might
sing Gounod's 'Ave Maria' at Benediction; you know it, of course, what a
beautiful piece of music it is. But I see that you don't admire it."
"Well," Evelyn said, smiling, "it is contrary to all the principles I've
been brought up in."
"We might walk a little; we are at the end of the summer, and the air is
a little cold. You do not mind walking very slowly? I'm forbidden to
walk fast on account of my heart."
They crossed the sloping lawn, and walking slowly up St. Peter's walk,
amid sad flutterings of leaves from the branches of the elms, Evelyn
told the Reverend Mother the story of the musical reformation which her
father had achieved. She asked Evelyn if it would be possible to give
Palestrina at the convent and they reached the end of the walk. It was
flushed with September, and in the glittering stillness the name of
Palestrina was exquisite to speak. They passed the tall cross standing
at the top of the rocks, and the Reverend Mother said, speaking out of
long reflection--"Have I never heard any of the music you sing? Wagner I
have never heard, but the Italian operas, 'Lucia' and 'Trovatore,' or
Mozart? Have you never sung Mozart?"
"Very little. I am what is called a dramatic soprano. The only Italian
opera I've sung is 'Norma.' Do you know it?"
"Yes."
"I've sung Leonore--not in 'Trovatore,' in 'Fidelio.'"
"But surely you admire 'Trovatore'--the 'Miserere,' for instance. Is not
that beautiful?"
"It is no doubt very effective, but it is considered very common now."
Evelyn hummed snatches of the opera; then the waltz from "Traviata."
"I've sung Margaret."
"Ah."
And as she hummed the Jewel Song she watched the Reverend Mother's
face, and was certain that the nun had heard the music on the stage. But
at that moment the angelus bell rang. Evelyn had forgotten the
responses, and as she walked towards the convent she asked the Reverend
Mother to repeat them once again, so that she might have them by heart.
She excused herself, saying how difficult was the observance of
religious forms for those who live in the world.
After dinner she wrote two letters. One was to her father, the other was
to Monsignor, and having directed the letters she imagined the postal
arrangement to be somewhat irregular. After Benediction she would ask
Veronica what time the letters left the convent. And looking across the
abyss which separated them, she saw her passionate self-centred past and
Veronica's little transit from the schoolroom to the convent. It seemed
strange to her that she never had what might be called a girl friend.
But she had arrived at a time when a woman friend was a necessity, and
it now suddenly occurred to her that there would be something
wonderfully sweet and satisfying in the uncritical love of a woman
younger than herself. She felt that the love of this innocent creature
who knew nothing, who never would know anything, and who therefore would
suspect nothing, would help her to forget her past as Monsignor wished.
She felt a sympathy awaken in her for her own sex which she had never
known before, and this yearning was confounded in a desire to be among
those who knew nothing of her past. Now she was glad that she had
refrained from taking the Reverend Mother into her confidence, and she
wondered how much Monsignor had told her the day they had walked in the
garden; it relieved her to remember that he knew very little except what
she had told him in confession.
Someone knocked. She answered, "Come in." It was Mother Philippa and
another nun.
"I hope we're not interrupting.... But you're reading, I see."
"No, I was thinking;" and glad of the interruption, she let the book
fall on her knees. "Pray come in, Mother Philippa," and Evelyn rose to
detain her.
The nuns entered very shyly. Evelyn handed them chairs, and as she did
so she remarked the tall, angular nun who followed Mother Philippa, and
whose face expressed so much energy.
"Good afternoon, Miss Innes. I hope you slept well last night, and did
not find your bed too uncomfortable?"
"Thank you, Mother Philippa. I liked my bed. I slept very well." Evelyn
drew two chairs forward, and Mother Philippa introduced Evelyn to Sister
Mary John. And while she explained that she had heard from the Reverend
Mother that Miss Innes had promised to sing at Benediction, Sister Mary
John sat watching Evelyn, her large brown eyes wide open. Her eagerness
was even a little comical, and Evelyn smiled through her growing liking
for this nun. She was unlike any other nun she had seen. Nuns were
usually formal and placid, but Sister Mary John was so irreparably
herself that while the others presented feeble imitations of the
Reverend Mother's manner, her walk and speech, Sister Mary John
continued to slouch along, to cross her legs, to swing her arms, to lean
forward and interrupt when she was interested in the conversation; when
she was not, she did not attempt to hide her indifference. Evelyn
thought that she must be about eight-and-twenty or thirty. The eyes were
brown and exultant, and the eyebrows seemed very straight and black in
the sallow complexion. All the features were large, but a little of the
radiant smile that had lit up all her features when she came forward to
greet Evelyn still lingered on her face. Now and then she seemed to grow
impatient, and then she forgot her impatience and the smile floated back
again. At last her opportunity came, and she seized it eagerly.
"I'm quite ashamed, Miss Innes, we sang so badly this morning; our
little choir can do better than that."
"I was interested; the organ was very well played."
"Did you think so? I have not sufficient time for practice, but I love
music, and am longing to hear you sing. But the Reverend Mother says
that you have brought no music with you."
"I hear," said Mother Philippa, "that you do not care for Gounod's 'Ave
Maria.'"
"If the Reverend Mother wishes me to sing it, I shall be delighted to do
so, if Sister Mary John has the music."
Sister Mary John shook her head authoritatively, and said that she quite
understood that Miss Innes did not approve of the liberty of writing any
melody over Bach's beautiful prelude. Besides, it required a violin. The
conversation then turned on the music at St. Joseph's. Sister Mary John
listened, breaking suddenly in with some question regarding Palestrina.
She had never heard any of his music; would Miss Innes lend her some?
Was there nothing of his that they could sing in the convent?
"I do not know anything of his written for two voices. You might play
the other parts on the organ, but I'm afraid it would sound not a little
ridiculous."
"But have you heard the Benedictine nuns sing the plain chant; they
pause in the middle of the verse--that is the tradition, is it not?"
Meanwhile Mother Philippa sat forgotten. Evelyn noticed her isolation
before Sister Mary John, and addressed an observation to her. But Mother
Philippa said she knew nothing about music, and that they were to go on
talking as if she weren't there. But a mere listener is a dead weight in
a conversation; and whenever Evelyn's eyes went that way, she could see
that Mother Philippa was thinking of something else; and when she
looked towards Sister Mary John she could see that she was longing to be
alone with her. A delightful hour of conversation awaited them if they
could only find some excuse to get away together, and Evelyn looked at
Sister Mary John, saying with her eyes that the suggestion must come
from her.
"If I were to take Miss Innes to the organ loft and show her what music
we have--don't you think so, Mother Philippa?'
"Yes, I think that would be the best thing to do.... I'm sure the
Reverend Mother would see no objection to your taking Miss Innes to the
organ loft."
Mother Philippa did not see the look of relief and delight that passed
in Sister Mary John's eyes, and it was Evelyn who had a scruple about
getting rid of Mother Philippa.
"I was so disappointed not to have seen you the day you came here; and
what made it so hard was that it was first arranged that it was the
Reverend Mother and I who were to meet you. I had looked forward to
seeing you. I love music, and it is seven years since I've spoken to
anyone who could tell the difference between a third and a fourth.
There's no one here who cares about music."
It seemed to Evelyn that the problem of life must have presented itself
to Sister Mary John very much as it presents itself to a woman who is
suddenly called to join her husband in India. The woman hates leaving
London, her friends, and all the habits of life in which she has grown
up; but she does not hesitate to give up these things to follow the man
she loves out to India.
"I don't know why it was settled that Mother Philippa was to meet you
instead of me; it seemed so useless, meeting you meant so little to her
and so much to me; I'm always inclined to argue, but that day the
Reverend Mother's heart was very bad; she had had a fainting fit in the
early morning; we all got up to pray for her."
"Yet she was quite cheerful; I never should have guessed."
"Mother Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda tried to dissuade her. But she
would see you."
"Then it is with her heart disease that the Reverend Mother rules the
convent," Evelyn thought, as she followed Sister Mary John up the spiral
staircase to the organ loft. She looked over the curtained railing into
the church. The watcher knelt there, her head bowed, her habit still as
sculpture, and Evelyn heard Sister Mary John pulling out her music. She
could not find what she wanted, and she sat with her legs apart,
throwing from side to side piles of old torn music.
"Never can one find a piece of music when one wants it: I don't know if
you have noticed that nothing is so difficult to find as a piece of
music. Day after day it is under your hands, it would seem as if there
was not another piece in the organ loft, but the moment you want it, it
has disappeared. I don't know how it is."
"What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help you."
"Well, I was thinking that you might like"--Sister Mary John looked up
at Evelyn--"I suppose you can sing B flat, or even C?"
"Yes, I can sing C;" and Evelyn thought of the last page of the "Dusk of
the Gods." "But what are you looking for?"
Sister Mary John did not answer. She threw the music from side to side,
every minute growing more impatient. "It is most strange," she said at
last, looking up at Evelyn. Evelyn smiled. With all her brusque,
self-willed ways, Sister Mary John was clearly a lady born and an
intelligent woman.
"I'm afraid I shall not be able to find you anything that you'd care to
sing."
"Oh, yes, I shall," Evelyn replied encouragingly.
"It is all such poor stuff. We've no singers here. Do you know, I've
never heard a great singer, and I've often wished to. The only thing I
regret is not having heard a little music before I came here. But I've
heard of Wagner; you sing Wagner, don't you, Miss Innes?"
"Yes, I sing little else. 'Fidelio'--"
"Ah, I know some of the music. Do you sing--"
Sister Mary John hummed a few bars.
"Yes, I sing that."
"Well, I shall hear you sing to-day. I've been wishing to go to St.
Joseph's to hear Palestrina. You were brought up on music. You can sing
at sight--in the key that it is written in?"
"Yes, I think so."
"But all prima-donnas can do that?"
"No; on the contrary, I think I'm the only one. Singers on the operatic
stage learn their parts at the piano."
She could see that to Sister Mary John music was the temptation of her
life, and she imagined that her confession must be a little musical
record. She had lost her temper with Sister So-and-So because she could
not, etc. But time was getting on. If she was to sing that afternoon,
she must find something, and seeing that Sister Mary John lingered over
some sheets of music, as if she thought that it presented some
possibility, Evelyn asked her what it was. It was a Mass by Mozart for
four voices, which Sister Mary John had arranged for a single voice.
"The choir and I sing the melody in unison, and I play the entire Mass
on the organ."
Evelyn smiled, and seeing that the smile distressed the nun, she was
sorry.
"To you, of course, it would sound absurd, it does to me too, but it was
a little change, it was the only thing I could think of. We have some
pieces written for two voices, but I can hardly get them sung. I have
to teach the sisters the parts separately. Till they know them by heart,
I can't trust them. It is impossible sometimes not to lose one's temper.
If we had a few good voices, people would come to hear them, the convent
would be spoken about, and some charitable people would come forward and
pay off our mortgages. I've lain awake at night thinking of it; the
Reverend Mother agrees with me. But in the way of voices we've been as
unlucky as we could well be. I've been here eight years--there was one,
but she died six years ago of consumption. It is heartbreaking. I play
the organ, I beat the time, and, as I said to them the other day, 'There
are five of you, and I'm the only one that sings.'"
Sister Mary John asked Evelyn if she composed. Evelyn told her that she
did not compose, and remembering Owen's compositions, she hoped that
Sister Mary John had not an "O Salutaris" in manuscript.
"Let me look through the music; we are talking of other things instead
of looking."
"So we are.... Let us look." At the bottom of a heap, Sister Mary John
found Cherubini's "Ave Maria."
"Could you sing this? It is a beautiful piece of music."
Evelyn read it over.
"Yes," she said, "I can sing it, but it wants careful playing; the end
is a sort of little duet between the voice and the organ. If you don't
follow me exactly, the effect will be like this," and she showed what it
would be on the mute keyboard.
"You haven't confidence in my playing."
"Every confidence, Sister Mary John, but remember I don't know the
piece, and it is not easy. I think we had better try it over together."
"I should like to very much, but you will not sing with all your voice?"
"No, we'll just run through it...."
The nun followed in a sort of ecstasy, and when they came to what Evelyn
had called the duet, she played the beautiful antiphonal music looking
up at the singer. The second time Evelyn was surer of herself, and she
let her voice flow out a little in suave vocalisation, so that she might
judge of the effect.
"I told you that I had never heard anyone sing before. If you were one
of us!"
Evelyn laughed, and then, catching sight of the nun's eyes fixed very
intently upon her, she spoke of the beauty of the "Ave Maria," and was
surprised that she did not know anything of Cherubini's.
"Gracious, how the time has gone! That is the first bell for vespers."
She hurried away, forgetting all about Evelyn, leaving her to find her
way back to her room as best she could. But Evelyn found Sister Mary
John waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. She had come back for
her, she had just remembered her, and Sister Mary John apologised for
her absence of mind, and seemed distressed at her apparent rudeness.
They walked a little way together, and the nun explained that it was not
her fault; her absence of mind was an inheritance from her father.
Everything she had she had inherited from him--"my love of music and my
absence of mind."
She was intensely herself, quaint, eccentric, but she was, Evelyn
reflected, perhaps more distinctly from the English upper classes than
any of the nuns she had seen yet. She had not the sweetness of manner of
the Reverend Mother, her manners were the oddest; but withal she had
that refinement which Evelyn had first noticed in Owen, and afterwards
in his friends, that style which is inheritance, which tradition alone
can give. She had spoken of her father, and Evelyn could easily imagine
Sister Mary John's father--a lord of old lineage dwelling in an
eighteenth century house in the middle of a flat park in the Midlands.
She could see a piece of artificial lake obtained by the damming of a
small stream; one end full of thick reeds, in which the chatter of wild
ducks was unceasing. But her family, her past, her name--all was lost in
the convent, in the veil. The question was, had she renounced the world,
or had she refused the world? Evelyn could not even conjecture. Sister
Mary John was outside not only of her experience, but also of her
present perception of things. Evelyn wondered why one of such marked
individuality, of such intense personal will, had chosen a life the very
_raison d'être_ of which was the merging of the individual will in the
will of the community? Why should one, the essential delight of whose
life was music, choose a life in which music hardly appeared? Was her
piety so great that it absorbed every other inclination? Sister Mary
John did not strike her as being especially religious. What instinct
behind those brown eyes had led her to this sacrifice? Apparently at
pains to conceal nothing, Sister Mary John concealed the essential.
Evelyn could even imagine her as being attractive to men--that radiant
smile, the beautiful teeth, and the tall, supple figure, united to that
distinct personality, would not have failed to attract. God did not get
her because men did not want her, of that Evelyn was quite sure.
There were on that afternoon assembled in the little white chapel of the
Passionist Sisters about a dozen elderly ladies, about nine or ten stout
ladies dressed in black, who might be widows, and perhaps three or four
spare women who wore a little more colour in their hats; these might be
spinsters, of ages varying between forty and fifty-five. Amid these
Evelyn was surprised and glad to perceive three or four young men; they
did not look, she thought, particularly pious, and perceiving that they
wore knickerbockers, she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up
from Richmond Park. They had come in probably to rest, having left
their machines at the inn. Even though she was converted, she did not
wish to sing only to women, and it amused her to perceive that something
of the original Eve still existed in her. But if any one of these young
men should happen to have any knowledge of music, he could hardly fail
to notice that it was not a nun who was singing. He would ride away
astonished, mystified; he would seek the explanation of the mystery, and
would bring his friend to hear the wonderful voice at the Passionist
Convent. By the time he came again she would be gone, and his friend
would say that he had had too much to drink that afternoon at the inn.
They would not be long in finding an explanation; but should there
happen to be a journalist there, he would put a paragraph in the papers,
and all sorts of people would come to the convent and go away
disappointed.
She looked round the church, calculating its resonance, and thought with
how much of her voice she should sing so as to produce an effect
without, however, startling the little congregation. The sermon seemed
to her very long; she was unable to fix her attention, and though all
Father Daly said was very edifying, her thoughts wandered, and wonderful
legends and tales about a voice heard for one week at the Wimbledon
Convent thronged her brain, and she invented quite a comic little
episode, in which some dozen or so of London managers met at
Benediction. She thought that their excuses one to the other would be
very comic.
She was wearing the black lace scarf instead of a hat; it went well with
the grey alpaca, and under it was her fair hair; and when she got up to
go to the organ loft after the sermon, she felt that the old ladies and
the bicyclists were already wondering who she was. Her involuntary
levity annoyed her, and she forced a certain seriousness upon herself as
she climbed the steep spiral staircase.
"So you have found your way ... this is our choir," and she introduced
Evelyn to the five sisters, hurrying through their names in a low
whisper. "We don't sing the 'O Salutaris,' as there has been exposition.
We'll sing this hymn instead, and immediately after you'll sing the 'Ave
Maria'; it will take the place of the Litany."
Then the six pale voices began to wail out the hymn, wobbling and
fluctuating, the only steady voice being Sister Mary John's. Though
mortally afraid of the Latin syllables, Evelyn seconded Sister Mary
John's efforts, and the others, taking courage, sang better than usual.
Sister Mary John turned delighted from the organ, and, her eyes bright
with anticipation, said, "Now."
She played the introduction, Evelyn opened her music. The moment was one
of intense excitement among the five nuns. They had gathered together in
a group. The great singer who had saved their convent (had it not been
for her they would have been thrown back upon the world) was going to
sing. Evelyn knew what was passing in their minds, and was a little
nervous. She wished they would not look at her so, and she turned away
from them. Sister Mary John played the chord, and the voice began.
Owen often said that if Evelyn had two more notes in her voice she would
have ranked with the finest. She sang from the low A, and she could take
the high C. From B to B every note was clear and full, one as the other;
he delighted especially in the middle of her voice; for one whole
octave, and more than an octave, her voice was pure and sonorous and as
romantic as the finest 'cello. And the romance of her voice transpired
in the beautiful Beethoven-like phrase of Cherubini's "Ave Maria." It
was as if he had had her voice singing in his ear while he was writing,
when he placed the little grace notes on the last syllable of Maria. The
phrase rose, still remaining well within the medium of her voice, and
the same interval happened again as the voice swelled up on the word
"plena." In the beautiful classical melody her voice was like a 'cello
heard in the twilight. In the music itself there is neither belief nor
prayer, but a severe dignity of line, the romance of columns and
peristyle in the exaltation of a calm evening. Very gradually she poured
her voice into the song, and her lips seemed to achieve sculpture. The
lines of a Greek vase seemed to rise before the eye, and the voice
swelled on from note to note with the noble movement of the bas-relief
decoration of the vase. The harmonious interludes which Sister Mary John
played aided the excitement, and the nuns, who knelt in two grey lines,
were afraid to look up. In a remote consciousness they feared it was not
right to feel so keenly; the harmonious depth of the voice entered their
very blood, summoning visions of angel faces. But it was an old man with
a white beard that Veronica saw, a hermit in the wilderness; she was
bringing him vestments, and when the vision vanished Evelyn was singing
the opening phrase, now a little altered on the words Santa Maria.
There came the little duet between the voice and the organ, in which any
want of precision on the part of Sister Mary John would spoil the effect
of the song; but the nun's right hand answered Evelyn in perfect
concord. And then began the runs introduced in the Amen in order to
exhibit the skill of the singer. The voice was no longer a 'cello, deep
and resonant, but a lonely flute or silver bugle announcing some joyous
reverie in a landscape at the close of day. The song closed on the
keynote, and Sister Mary John turned from the instrument and looked at
the singer. She could not speak, she seemed overpowered by the music,
and like one more dreaming than waking, and sitting half turned round on
her seat, she looked at Evelyn.
"You sing beautifully," she said. "I never heard singing before."
And she sat like one stupefied, still hearing Evelyn's singing in her
brain, until one of the sisters advanced close and said, "Sister, we
must sing the 'Tantum ergo.'"
"Of course we must. I believe if you hadn't reminded me I should have
forgotten it. Gracious! I don't know what it will sound like after
singing like that. But you'll lead them?"
Evelyn hummed the plain chant under her breath, afraid lest she should
extinguish the pale voices, and surprised how expressive the antique
chant was when sung by these etiolated, sexless voices. She had never
known how much of her life of passion and desire had entered into her
voice, and she was shocked at its impurity. Her singing sounded like
silken raiment among sackcloth, and she lowered her voice, feeling it to
be indecorous and out of place in the antique hymn. Her voice, she felt,
must have revealed her past life to the nuns, her voice must have
shocked them a little; her voice must have brought the world before them
too vividly. For all her life was in her voice, she would never be able
to sing this hymn with the same sexless grace as they did. Her voice
would be always Evelyn Innes--Owen Asher's mistress.
The priest turned the Host toward them, and she saw the two long rows of
grey-habited nuns leaning their veiled heads, and knew that this was the
moment they lived for, the essential moment when the body which the
Redeemer gave in expiation of the sins of the world is revealed.
Evelyn's soul hushed in awe, and all that she had renounced seemed very
little in this moment of mystery and exaltation.
"What am I to say, Miss Innes? I shall think of this day when I am an
old woman. But you'll sing again before you leave?"
"Yes, sister, whenever you like."
"When I like? That would be all day. But I did follow you in the duet, I
was so anxious. I hope I did not spoil it?"
"I was never better accompanied. You made no mistake."
As they passed by her the other nuns thanked her under their breath. She
could see that they looked upon her as a providence sent by God to save
them from being cast back upon the world they dreaded, the world from
which they had fled. But all this extraordinary drama, this intensity of
feeling, remained inarticulate. They could only say, "Thank you, Miss
Innes; it was very good of you to come to sing for us." It was their
very dumbness that made them seem so wonderful. It was the dumbness of
these women--they could only speak in prayer--it was that that overcame
her. But the Reverend Mother was different. Evelyn listened to her,
thinking of nothing but her, and when the Reverend Mother left her,
Evelyn moved away, still under the spell of the authoritative sweetness
which her presence and manner exhaled. But the Reverend Mother was only
a part of a scheme of life founded on principles the very opposite to
those on which she had attempted to construct her life. Even in singing
the "Ave Maria," she had not been able to subdue her vanity. Her
pleasure in singing it had in a measure sprung out of the somewhat mean
desire to proclaim her superiority over those who had attained the
highest plane by renouncing all personal pride. They had proclaimed
their superiority in their obeisance. It was in giving, not in
receiving, praise that we rise above ourselves. This was the lesson that
every moment of her convent life impressed upon her. Her thoughts went
back to the Reverend Mother, and Evelyn thought of her as of some woman
who had come to some terrible crisis in her worldly life--some crisis
violent as the crisis that had come in her own life. The Reverend Mother
must have perceived, just as she had done, as all must do sooner or
later, that life out of the shelter of religion becomes a sort of
nightmare, an intolerable torture. Then she wondered if the Reverend
Mother were a widow--that appeared to her likely. One who had suffered
some great disaster--that too seemed to her likely. She had been an
ambitious woman. Was she not so still? Is a passion ever obliterated? Is
it not rather transformed? If she had been personally ambitious, she was
now ambitious only for her convent: her passion had taken another
direction. And applying the same reasoning to herself, she seemed to see
a future for herself in which her love passions would become transformed
and find their complete expressions in the love of God.
The Reverend Mother again addressed her, and Evelyn considered what age
she might be. Between sixty and seventy in point of years, but she
seemed so full of intelligence, wisdom and sweetness that she did not
suggest age; one did not think of her as an old woman. Her slight figure
still retained its grace, and though a small woman, she suggested a tall
one; and the moment she spoke there was the voice which drew you like
silk and entangled you as in a soft winding web. Evelyn smiled a little
as she listened, for she was thinking how the Reverend Mother as a young
woman must have swayed men. Presumably at one time it had pleased her to
sway men's passion, or at least it pleased Evelyn's imagination to think
it had. Not that she thought the Reverend Mother had ever been anything
but a good woman, but she had been a woman of the world, and Evelyn
attributed no sin to that. Even the world is not wholly bad; the
Reverend Mother and Monsignor owed their personal magnetism to the
world. Without the world they would have been like Father Daly and
Mother Philippa--holy simplicities. She looked at the quiet nun, and her
simple good nature touched her. Evelyn went toward her. Sister Mary John
broke into the conversation so often that the Reverend Mother had once
to check her.
"Sister Mary John, we hope that Miss Innes will sing to-morrow and every
day while she is with us. But she must do as she likes, and these
musical questions are not what we are talking about now."
But Sister Mary John was hardly at all abashed at this reproof. She was
clearly the only one who stood in no awe of the Reverend Mother.
They were sitting on the terrace, and a mauve sunset faded in the grey
sky. There was a strange wistfulness in the autumn air and in the dim
garden where the gentle nuns were taking their recreation. There was a
subtle harmony in the grey habits and floating veils; they blended and
mingled with the blue mist that was rising among the trees. And a pale
light fell across the faded lawns, and Evelyn looked into the light, and
felt the pang that the passing of things brings into the heart. This
spectacle of life seemed to her strangely pathetic, and it seemed to
mean something which eluded her, and which she would have given a great
deal to have been able to express. Music alone could express the
yearning that haunted her heart, the plaint of the Rhine Maidens was the
nearest to what she felt, and she began to sing their song. Sister Mary
John asked her eagerly what she was singing. She would have told her,
but the Reverend Mother grew impatient with Sister Mary John.
"You must be introduced to Mother Mary Hilda, our novice mistress, then
you will know all the mothers except our dear Mother Christina, who is
quite an invalid now, and rarely leaves her cell."
On St. Peter's path a little group of nuns were walking up and down,
pressing round a central figure. They were faint grey shadows, and their
meaning would not be distinguished in the violet dusk. It was like a
half-effaced picture in which the figures are nearly lost in the
background; their voices, however, sounded clear, and their laughter was
mysterious and far distant, yet distinct in the heart. Evelyn again
began to hum the plaint of the Rhine Maidens. But the voices of the
novices were more joyous, for they, Evelyn thought, have renounced both
love and gold. The Reverend Mother clapped her hands to attract
attention, and one of the novices, it was Sister Veronica, ran to them.
"Ask Mother Mary Hilda to come and speak to me, Veronica."
"Yes, Reverend Mother;" and Veronica ran with the message without once
looking at Evelyn. Mother Mary Hilda crossed the lawn toward them, and
Evelyn noticed her gliding, youthful walk. She was younger than the
prioress or even the sub-prioress. And she had that attractive
youthfulness of manner which often survives in the cloister after middle
age.
"Here is Miss Innes," said the prioress; "I know you wished to make her
acquaintance."
"Yes, indeed."
Evelyn noticed the bright eyes and the small, clearly cut nose and the
pointed chin, but her liveliest sensation was of Mother Hilda's hand; so
small was it and soft that it seemed like a little crushed bird in
Evelyn's hand, and Evelyn did not think that hers was a large hand.
"I am sure, Miss Innes, you feel that you have been thanked sufficiently
for all you have done for us, but you'll forgive us if we feel that we
cannot thank you often enough. Your singing at Benediction to-day was a
great pleasure to us all. Whose 'Ave Maria' was it, Miss Innes?"
Evelyn told them, and thinking it would interest the nuns, she admitted
that her father would not allow it to be sacred music. This led the
conversation on to the question of Palestrina, and how the old music had
rescued the Jesuits from their pecuniary embarrassments. A casual
mention of Wagner showed her that the Reverend Mother was interested,
and she said that she might sing them Elizabeth's prayer. Evelyn spoke
of the Chorale in the first act of the "Meistersinger," and this led her
into quite a little account of the music she sang on the stage. It
pleased her to notice the different effect of her account of her art on
the four nuns. The conversation, she could see, carried the prioress
back into the past, but she put aside these memories of long ago and
affected a polite interest in the stage. Mother Philippa listened as she
might to a story, too far removed from her for her to be more than
vaguely interested; Sister Mary John listened in the hopes that Evelyn
would illustrate her experience with some few bars of the music--with
her it was the music and nothing else; Mother Mary Hilda listened very
prettily, and Evelyn noticed that it was she who asked the most
questions. Mother Mary Hilda was the most fearless, and showed the least
dread in the conversation. Yet for no single moment did Evelyn think
that she was the worldliest of the four nuns. Evelyn thought that
probably she was the least. Her trivial utterances were the necessity of
the unimportant moment, and she seemed to bring to them the
enlightenment of her own vivid faith. The holiness that shone out of her
eyes inspired the calm, tender smile, and was in her whole manner. "She
speaks," Evelyn thought, "of worldly things without affectation, but how
clear it is that they lie outside, far outside, of her real life."
Evelyn was saying that it was a long while since she had sung any sacred
music, and, referring to the difference of the rule in France and in
England, she mentioned that in Paris the opera singers frequently sang
in the churches.
"It must be hard on Catholics with beautiful voices like yours that they
may not be allowed to sing in church choirs, for there can be nothing
so delightful as to bring a great gift to God's service."
It was the prioress who broke off the conversation, to Evelyn's regret.
"Mother Hilda, I am afraid we are forgetting your young charges."
"Yes, indeed, I must run back to my children. Good-bye, Miss Innes, I am
so glad that you have come to us;" and the warm, soft clasp of the
little hand was to Evelyn a further assurance of friendly welcome.