She was ashamed not to be able to follow the Office in chapel, so at the
Reverend Mother's suggestion she consented to employ part of her long
convent leisure in taking lessons in Latin. Mother Mary Hilda was to be
her instructress.
The library was a long, rather narrow room, once the drawing-room of the
Georgian mansion. Only a carved Adams' chimney-piece, now painted over
in imitation of oak remained of its former adornment; the tall windows
were eighteenth century, and with that air they looked upon the terrace.
The walls had been lined by the nuns with plain wooden shelves, and upon
them were what seemed to be a thousand books, every one in a grey linen
wrapper, with the title neatly written on a white label pasted on the
back. Evelyn's first thought was of the time it must have taken to cover
them, but she remembered that in a convent time is of no consequence. If
a thing can be done better in three hours than in one, there is no
reason why three hours should not be spent upon it. She had noticed,
too, that the sisters regarded the library with a little air of demure
pride. Mother Mary Hilda had told her that the large tin boxes were
filled with the convent archives. There were piles of unbound
magazines--the _Month_ and the _Dublin Review_. There was a ponderous
writing-table, with many pigeon-holes; Evelyn concluded it to be the
gift of a wealthy convert, and she turned the immense globe which showed
the stars and planets, and wondered how the nuns had become possessed of
such a thing, and how they could have imagined that it could ever be of
any use to them. She grew fond of this room, and divided her time
between it and the garden. It had none of the primness of the convent
parlour, which gave her a little shiver every time she entered it. In
the further window there stood a deep-seated, venerable arm-chair,
covered in worn green leather, the one comfortable chair, Evelyn often
thought, in the convent. And in this chair she spent many hours, either
learning to construe the Office with Mother Mary Hilda, or reading by
herself. The investigation of the shelves was an occupation, and the
time went quickly, taking down book after book, and she seemed to
penetrate further into the spirit of the convent through the medium of
the convent books.
The light literature of the convent were improving little tales of
conversion, and edifying stories of Catholic girls who decline to enter
into mixed marriages, and she thought of the novices reading this
artless literature on Sunday afternoons. There were endless volumes of
meditations, mostly translations from the French, full of Gallicisms and
parenthetical phrases, and Evelyn often began a paragraph a second time;
but in spite of her efforts to control her thoughts they wandered, and
her eyes, lost in reverie, were fixed on the sunny garden.
She returned the volumes to the shelves, and remembering Mother Mary
Hilda's recommendation, she took down a volume of Faber's works. She
found his effusive, sentimental style unendurable; and had turned to go
to her room for one of the books she had brought with her when her eyes
lighted upon Father Dalgairn's _Frequent Communion_. The father's
account of the various customs of the Church regarding the
administration of the Sacrament--the early rigorism of the African
fathers, and the later rigorism of the Jansenists at once interested
her, and, lifting her eyes from the book, she remembered that the
Sacrament had always been the central light around which the spiritual
belief of the church had revolved. Her instinctive religion had always
been the Sacrament. When Huxley and Darwin and Spencer had undermined
the foundations of her faith, and the entire fabric of revelation was
showering about her, her belief in the Divine Presence had remained,
burning like a lamp, inviolate among the débris of a temple. She had
never been able to resist the Sacrament. She had put her belief in the
mystery of transubstantiation to the test, and when the sanctus bell
rang, her head had solemnly bowed; softer than rose leaves or
snowflakes, belief had rained down upon her choked heart. She had never
been able to reason about the Divine Presence--she felt it. She had
believed whether she willed it or not. Owen's arguments had made no
difference. Her desire of the Sacrament had more than once altered the
course of her life, and that she should have unconsciously wandered back
to the Passionist Convent, a convent vowed to Perpetual Adoration,
seemed to her to be full of significance.
Father Dalgairn's book had made clear to her that wherever she went and
whatever she did she would always believe in the Divine Presence. His
book had discovered to her the instinctive nature of her belief in the
Sacrament, but it had not widened her spiritual perceptions, still less
her artistic: the delicious terror and irresistible curiosity which she
experienced on opening St. Teresa's _Book of Her Life_ she had never
experienced before. It was like re-birth, being born to a new
experience, to a purer sensation of life. It was like throwing open the
door of a small, confined garden, and looking upon the wide land of the
world. It was like breathing the wide air of eternity after that of a
close-scented room. She knew that she was not capable of such pure
ecstasy, yet it seemed to her very human to think and feel like this;
and the saint's holy rapture seemed as natural--she thought for a
moment--even more natural, even more truly human than the rapture which
she had found in sinful love.
Before she had read a dozen pages, she seemed to know her like her own
soul, though yet unaware whether the saint lived in this century or a
dozen centuries ago. For all she said about the material facts of her
life St. Teresa might be alive to-day and in England. She lived in
aspiration, out of time and place; and like one who, standing upon a
hill top, sees a bird soaring, a wild bird with the light of the heavens
upon its wings, Evelyn seemed to see this soul waving its wings in its
flight towards God. The soul sang love, love, love, and heaven was
overflowed with cries for its Divine Master, for its adorable Master,
for its Bridegroom-elect.
The extraordinary vehemence and passion, the daring realism of St.
Teresa reminded Evelyn of Vittoria. She found the same unrestrained
passionate realism in both; she thought of Belasquez's early pictures,
and then of Ribera. Then of Ulick, who had told her that the great
artist dared everything. St. Teresa had dared everything. She had dared
even to discriminate between the love of God the Father and God the Son.
It was God the Father that inspired in her the highest ecstasy, the most
complete abandonment of self. In these supreme moments the human form of
Jesus Christ was a hindrance, as in a lower level of spiritual
exaltation it was a help.
"The moment my prayer began to pass from the natural to the
supernatural, I strove to obliterate from my soul every physical
obstacle. To lift my soul up, to contemplate, I dared not; aware of my
imperfection it seemed over bold. Nevertheless I knew the presence of
God to be about me, and I tried to gather myself in him. And nothing
could then induce me to return to the sacred humanity of the Saviour."
But how touching is the saint's repentance for this infidelity to the
Divine Bridegroom.
"O Lord of my soul, of all my goods, Jesus crucified, I shall never
remember without pain that I once thought this thing. I shall think of
it as a great treason, and I stand convicted before the Good Master; and
though it proceeded from my ignorance, I shall never expiate it with
tears."
Just as every variation of habit, of fashion is noticeable to those who
live outside themselves, so the changes and complexities in the life of
the soul are perceived by them who live within themselves. The saint
relates how for many months she refrained from prayer, and as we know
that prayer was the source of all her joy, a joy touching ecstasy, often
above the earth and resplendent with vision, we can imagine the anguish
that these abstinences must have caused her.
"To destroy confidence in God the Demon spread a snare, his most
insidious snare. He persuaded me that owing to my imperfections I could
not, without being wanting in humility, present myself in prayer to God.
This caused me such anguish that for a year and a half I refrained. For
at least a year, for the six months following I am not sure of my
memory. Unfortunate one, what did I do! By my own act I plunged myself
in hell without demons being about to drag me there."
This scruple is followed by others. The saint suspects the entire
holiness of her joy in prayer, and she asks if these transports, these
ravishments, these moments in which she lies exhausted in the arms of
the Beloved Bridegroom, were contrived by the Demon or if they were
granted to her by God. Her anxiety is great, and men learned in holy
doctrine are consulted. They incline to the belief that her visions
proceed from God, and encourage her to persevere. Then she cries to her
Divine Master, to the Lord of her soul, to her adorable Master, to the
adorable Bridegroom.
"Cannot we say of a soul to whom God extends this solicitude and these
delicacies of love that the soul has made for our Lord a bed of roses
and lilies, and that it is impossible that this adorable Master will not
come, though he may delay, and take his delight with her."
This saint, in whom religion was genius, was one of Ulick's most
unqualified admirations. He never spoke of her that his voice did not
acquire an accent of conviction, or without alluding to the line of an
old English poet, who had addressed her:
'Oh, thou undaunted daughter of desires.'
She recalled with a smile his contempt of the Austins and the Eliots,
those most materialistic writers, he would say, whose interest in
humanity and whose knowledge of it is limited to social habits and
customs. But St. Teresa he placed among the highest writers, among the
great visionaries. "Her desire sings," he said, "like the sea and the
winds, and it breaks like fire about God's feet." He had said that the
soul that flashed from her pages was more intense than any soul in
Shakespeare or Balzac. "They had created many, she but one incomparable
soul--her own, and in surging drift of vehement aspiration, and in
recession of temporal things we hear the singing of the stars, the
beating of the eternal pulse."
On Friday she had finished the autobiography, and before going into the
garden she took down another of the saint's works, _The Way of
Perfection_, intending to look through it in some sunny corner.
She had slipped easily into the early hours of the convent. After
breakfast she had the morning to herself, and she divided it between the
library and the garden. The leaves were beginning to fall, and in the
thinning branches there seemed to be an appearance of spring. From St.
Peter's walk she strolled into the orchard, and then into the piece of
uncultivated ground at the end of it. Some of the original furze bushes
remained, and among these a streamlet trickled through the long grasses,
and following it she found that it led her to the fish pond in the
shrubbery, at the back of St. Peter's walk. There was there a pleasant,
shady place, where she could sit and read. She stood for a moment
watching the fish. They were so tame that they would take the bread from
the novices' hands. She had brought some bread, but she had to throw it
to them. She divided it amongst them, not forgetting to favour the
little ones, and she thought it strange that they could distinguish her
from the novices. That much they knew of the upper air. The fish watched
her out of their beady eyes, stirring in their dim atmosphere with a
strange, finny motion.
At that hour of the day the sun was warm enough to sit out; the little
shiver in the air was not unpleasant; and sitting on the garden bench,
she opened her book in a little tremor of excitement. Her thoughts
fluttered, and she strove to imagine what book the saint could have
written to justify so beautiful a title. Her expectations were realised.
The character of the book is clearly defined in the first pages: she
perceived it to be a complete manual of convent life, a perfect
compendium of a nun's soul. On its pages lay that shadowy, evanescent
and hardly apprehensible thing--the soul of a nun, only the soul, not a
word regarding her daily life: any mother-abbess could have written such
a materialistic book: St. Teresa, with the instinct of her genius,
addressed herself to the task which none but she could fulfil--the
evolution of a nun's soul. And as Evelyn read she marked the passages
that specially caught her attention.
"Do not imagine, my daughters, that it is useless to pray, as you
are constantly praying, for the defenders of the Church: Have a
care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it
seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves.
Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of
which I am speaking. Perhaps you fear that it will not go to
diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory: I answer
that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless.
Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer--well,
let it be so."
"Oh, to be good like that," she thought. And her soul raised its eyes
in a little shy emulation.... A few pages further on she read--
"That all may take heed. For neglect of this counsel a nun may find
herself in an entanglement from which she may not find strength to
free herself. And then, great God! What feebleness, what puerile
complaisances this particular friendship may not be the source. It
is impossible to say what number, none but an eye-witness may
believe. They are but trifles, and I see no reason for specifying
them here. I merely add: in whosoever it is found it is an evil, in
a superior it is a plague spot....
"An excellent remedy is to be together only at those times enjoined
by the rule, on other occasions to refrain from speech, as is now
our custom, and to live separately each in her cell as the rule
ordains. And, although it be a praiseworthy custom to unite for
work in a community room, I desire that the nuns of the convent of
St. Joseph shall be freed from this custom, for it is much easier
to keep silence if each works in her cell. Moreover, it is of the
first importance to accustom oneself to solitude, in order to
advance oneself in prayer; and as prayer should be the mortar of
this monastery, we should cherish all that which increases the
spirit in us."
Glancing down the pages, her eyes were arrested by a passage of even
more subtle, more penetrating wisdom.
"Would you know a certain sign, my daughters, by which you may
judge of your progress in virtue? Let each one look within herself
and discover if she believes herself to be the unworthiest of you
all, and if for the benefit of the others she makes it visible by
her actions that she really thinks that this is so, that is the
certain sign of spiritual advancement, and not delight in prayer,
nor ravishment, nor visions, and such like favours which God grants
to souls when he is so pleased. We shall only know the value of
such favours in the next world. It is not so with
humility--humility is a money which is always current, it is safely
invested capital, a perpetual income; but extraordinary favours are
money which is lent for a time and may at any moment be called in.
I repeat, our true treasure is profound humility, great
mortification, and an obedience which, seeing God in the superior,
submits to his every order."
The saint's delicate yet virile perception, and her power of expressing
the shadowy and evanescent, filled Evelyn with admiration; and the saint
appeared to her in the light of a great novelist; she wondered if Balzac
had ever read these pages.
"The best remedy, in my opinion, that a nun can employ to conquer
the imperfect affection which she still bears her parents, is to
abstain from seeing them until by patient prayer she has obtained
from God the freedom of her soul; when she is so disposed that
their visit is a cross, let her see them by all means. For then she
will bring good to their souls, and do no harm to her own."
This seemed not a little grim. But how touching is the personal
confession which appears on the following page.
"My parents loved me extremely, according to what they said, and I
loved them in a way that did not allow them to forget me.
Nevertheless I have seen from what has happened to me, and what has
happened to other nuns, how little we may count upon their
affection for us."
The unselfishness of such conduct seemed open to doubt. But
unselfishness is a word that none may speak without calling into
question the entire conduct of his or her life. Evelyn remembered that
she had left her father for the sake of her voice, and that she had
refused to marry Owen because marriage, especially marriage with Owen,
did not seem compatible with her soul's safety. Looked at from a certain
side, her life did seem self-centred, but allowance, she thought, must
be made for the difficulties--the entanglements in which the first false
step had involved her. But in any case she must not question the
efficacy of prayer, that was a dogma of the Church. The mission of the
contemplative orders is to pray for those who do not pray for
themselves, and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer, we need not
scruple to leave our parents to live in a monastery where, by our
prayers, we held them to eternal salvation. We leave them for a little
while, but only that we may live with them for ever.
"Believe me, my dear sisters, if you serve him well you will not
find better parents than those the Divine Master sends you. I know
that it is even so."
"What beauty there is in her sternness," Evelyn thought.
"I repeat that those whose trend is toward worldly things and who
do not make progress in virtue, shall leave this monastery; should
she persist in remaining a nun let her enter another convent; for
if she doesn't she will see what will happen to her. Nor must she
complain about me; nor accuse me of not having make known to her
the practical life of the monastery I founded. If there is an
earthly paradise it is in this house, but only for souls who desire
nothing but to please God, who have no thought for themselves; for
these the life here is infinitely agreeable."
This passage is one of the very few in which appears the wise, practical
woman, the founder of an order and of many monasteries, who lived side by
side in the same body, the constant associate of the lyrical saint.
Evelyn tried to picture her to herself, and two pictures alternated in
her thoughts. She saw deep, eager, passionate eyes, and a frail,
exhausted body borne along easily by the soul, and doing the work of the
unconquerable soul. In the second picture, there were the same consuming
eyes, the same wasted body, but the expression was quite different. The
saint's manner was the liveliest, happiest manner, and Evelyn thought of
the privilege of such companionship, and she envied those who had walked
with her, hearing her speak.
The little pond at her feet was full of fair reflections of the sky and
trees, and the idea of convent life lay on the pages of the book even as
fair. In itself it was disparate and vague, but on the pages of the book
it floated clear and distinct. She asked if any of the Wimbledon nuns
lived a life of that intense inward rapture which St. Teresa deemed
essential if a sister were to be allowed to remain in the convent of St.
Joseph at Avila, and the coincidence of the names gave her pause. This
convent's patron saint was St. Joseph, and she sought for some
resemblance between the Reverend Mother and St. Teresa. She wondered if
she, Evelyn, were a nun, towards which of the nuns would her personal
sympathies incline: would she love better Sister Veronica or Sister Mary
John? It might be Mother Mary Hilda. It would be one of the three. There
was not one among the others likely to interest her in the least. She
tried to imagine this friendship: it assumed a vague shape and then
dissolved in the distance. But would the Reverend Mother tolerate this
friendship, or would it be promptly cut down to the root according to
the advice of St. Teresa?
Her thoughts pursued their way, now and then splashing as they leaped
out of the soul's dimness. Only the splashing of the fish broke the
stillness of the garden, and startled at a sudden gurgling sound, she
rose, in time to see a shadowy shape sinking with a motion of fins amid
the weeds. That she should be living in a convent, that she should have
repented of her sins, that the fish should leap and fall back with
strange, gurgling sound, filled her with wonderment. The vague autumn
blue expressed some vague yearning, some indistinct aspiration; the air
was like crystal, the leaves were falling.... We have perceptions of the
outer forms of things, but that is all we know of them. The only thing
we are sure of is what is in ourselves. We know the difference between
right and wrong. She stood for a long time at the edge of the fish pond,
gazing into the vague depths. Then she walked, exalted, overcome by the
mystery of things. She seemed to walk upon air, the world was a-thrill
with spiritual significances, all was symbol and exaltation. Her past
life shrank to a tiny speck, and she knew that she had been happy only
since she had been in the convent. Ah, that little chapel, haunted by
prayers! it breathed prayer, in that chapel contemplation was never far
off. She had prayed there as she had never prayed before, and she
wondered if she should attribute the difference in her prayers to the
chapel or to herself. She had always felt, in a dumb, instinctive way,
that to her at least everything depended on her chastity.... She had
been chaste now a long while. The explanation seemed to have come to
her. Yes, it is by denial of the sexual instinct that we become
religious.
As she passed through the orchard she caught sight of the strange little
person whom she had seen in chapel with a pile of prayer books beside
her, and who always wore something startlingly blue, whether skirt,
handkerchief or cloak. She had met her in the garden before, but she had
hurried away, her eyes fixed on the ground. Mother Philippa had spoken
of a Miss Dingle, a simple-minded person who had been sent by her family
to the convent to be looked after by the nuns, and Evelyn concluded that
it must be she. But at that moment other thoughts engaged her attention;
and she lingered in the orchard, returning slowly by St. Peter's walk.
As she passed the Georgian temple or summer-house, she was taken by a
desire to examine it, and there she found Miss Dingle. She was seated on
the floor, engaged, so Evelyn thought, in a surreptitious game of
Patience. That was only how she could account for Miss Dingle's
consternation and fear at seeing her. But what she had taken for cards
were pious pictures. Evelyn stood in the doorway, and for the first time
had an opportunity of seeing what Miss Dingle was really like. It was
difficult to say whether her face was ugly or pretty; the features were
not amiss--it was the expression, vague and dim like that of an animal,
that puzzled Evelyn.
"Please let me help you to pick up your pictures." Miss Dingle did not
answer, and Evelyn feared for a moment that she had offended her. "Won't
you let me help you to pick up your pictures?"
"Yes," she said, "you may help me to pick them up, but you must be very
quick."
"But why must I be quick? Are you in such a very great hurry?"
Miss Dingle seemed uncertain of her own thoughts, and to reassure her,
Evelyn asked her if she would not like to walk with her in the orchard.
"Oh," she said, looking at Evelyn shyly--it was a sort of child-like
curiosity, "I dare not go into the orchard to-day.... I brought these
pictures to keep him from me. I know that he is about."
"Who is about?"
"I'm afraid he might hurt me."
"But who would hurt you?"
"Well," she said cautiously, "perhaps he'd be afraid to come near me
to-day," and she glanced at her frock. "But I'm sure he's about. Did
you see any one as you came through the furze bushes?"
"No," Evelyn answered; and trying to conceal her astonishment, she said,
"I'm sure there's no one there."
"Ah, he knows it would be useless." She glanced again at her frock. "You
see my blue skirt, that has perhaps frightened him away."
"But who has gone away?"
"Oh, the devil is always about."
"But you don't think he would hurt you?"
Miss Dingle looked suspiciously at Evelyn, and some dim thought whether
Evelyn was the devil in disguise must have crossed her mind. But
whatever the thought was, it was but a flitting thought; it passed in a
moment, and Miss Dingle said--"But the devil is always trying to hurt
us. That is what he comes for."
"So that is why you surrounded yourself with pious pictures--to keep him
away?"
Miss Dingle nodded.
"What a nice dress you have on. I suppose you like blue. I always notice
you wear it."
"I wear blue, as much blue as I can, for blue is the colour of the
Virgin Mary, and he dare not attack me while I have it on. But I wear
sometimes only a handkerchief, sometimes only a skirt, but now that he
is about so frequently, I have to dress entirely in blue."
Evelyn asked her if she had lived in the convent long, and Miss Dingle
told her she had lived there for the last three or four years, but she
would give no precise answer when Evelyn asked if she hoped to become a
nun, or whether she liked her home or the convent the better.
"Now," she said, "I must really go and say some prayers in the church."
Evelyn offered to accompany her, but she said she was well armed, and
showed Evelyn several rosaries, which in case of need she would wave in
his face.
Sister Mary John was digging in the kitchen garden, and Evelyn told her
how she had come upon Miss Dingle in the summer-house surrounded by
pious pictures. Leaning on her spade, Sister Mary John looked across the
beds thinking, and Evelyn wondered of what. She said at last that Miss
Dingle thought too much of the devil.
"We should not waste thoughts on him, all our thoughts should be for
God; there is much more pleasure and profit in such thoughts."
"But it does seem a little absurd to imagine that the devil is hiding
behind gooseberry bushes."
"The devil is everywhere, temptation is always near."
Evelyn saw that the nun did not care for discussion on the subject of
the devil's objectivity, and in the pause in the conversation she
noticed Sister Mary John's enormous boots. They looked like a man's
boots, and she had a full view of them, for Sister Mary John wore her
skirt very short, so that she might be able to dig with greater ease.
"One of the disadvantages of convent life are the few facilities it
affords for exercise and for music," she added, with her beautiful
smile. "I must have exercise, I can't live without it.... It is
extraordinary how differently people are constituted. There is Mother
Mary Hilda, she had never been for what I should call a good sharp walk
in her life, and she does not know what an ache or a pain is."
The nun pointed with admiration to the bed which she had dug up that
morning, and complained of the laziness of the gardener: he had not done
this nor that, but he was such a good man--since he became a Catholic.
"He and I used to talk about things while we were at work: he said that
he had never had it properly explained to him that there should only be
one true religion.
"Since he became a Catholic, has he not done as much work as he used to
do?"
"No, I'm afraid he has not," Sister Mary John answered. "Indeed, we have
been thinking of sending him away, but it would be difficult for him to
get another Catholic situation, and his faith would be endangered if he
lived among Protestants."
At this moment they were interrupted by a loud caw, and looking round,
Evelyn saw the convent jackdaw. The bird had hopped within a few yards,
cawing all the while, evidently desirous of attracting their attention.
With grey head a-slanted, the bird watched them out of sly eyes. "Pay no
attention to him; you'll see what he'll do," said Sister Mary John, and
while Evelyn waited, a little afraid of the bird who seemingly had
selected her for some purpose of his own, she listened to the story of
his domestication. He had been hatched out in the hen-house, and had
tamed himself; he had declined to go wild, preferring a sage convent
life to the irregularity of the world. The bird hopped about, feigning
an interest in the worms, but getting gradually nearer the two women. At
last, with a triumphant caw caw, he flew on to Sister Mary John's
shoulder, eyeing Evelyn all the while, clearly bent on making her
acquaintance.
"He'll come on your shoulder presently," said Sister Mary John, and
after some plausive coquetting the bird fluttered on to Evelyn's
shoulder, and Sister Mary John said--
"You wait; you'll see what he will do."
Evelyn remained quite still, feeling the bird's bill caressing her neck.
When she looked round she noticed a wicked expression gathering in his
eyes.
"Pretend," said Sister Mary John, "not to see him."
Evelyn did as she was bidden, and, satisfied that he was no longer
observed, the bird plunged his beak into Evelyn's hair, pulled at it as
hard as he could, and then flew away, cawing with delight.
"That is one of his favourite tricks. We are so fond of him, and so
afraid that one day a cat will take him. But there is Mother Mary Hilda
coming to fetch you for your lesson."
Evelyn bade Sister Mary John good-bye, and went forward to meet her
instructress.
The morning seemed full of adventure. There were Miss Dingle, her pious
pictures, and the devil behind the gooseberry bushes. There was the
picturesque figure of Sister Mary John, digging, making ready for the
winter cabbages. There was the jackdaw, his story and his humours, and
there was her discovery of the genius of St. Teresa. All these things
had happened that morning, and Evelyn walked a little elated, her heart
full of spiritual enthusiasm. The project was already astir in her for
the acquisition of an edition in the original Spanish, and she looked
forward to a study of that language as a pleasant and suitable
occupation when she returned to London. She questioned Mother Mary Hilda
regarding the merits of the English translation; the French, she said,
she could read no longer. She described the worthy father's prose as
asthmatic; she laughed at his long, wheezy sentences, but Sister Mary
Hilda seemed inclined to set store on the Jesuit's pious intentions. The
spirit was more essential than the form, and it was with this argument
on their lips they sat down to the Latin lesson. The nun had opened the
book, and Evelyn was about to read the first sentence, when, raising her
eyes and voice, she said--
"Oh! Mother Mary Hilda, you've forgotten ... this is my last lesson, I
am going away to-morrow."
"Even so it need not be the last lesson; you will come and see us during
the winter, if you are in London. I don't remember that you said that
you are going abroad to sing."
"Mother Mary Hilda, I'm thinking of leaving the stage."
The nun turned the leaves of the breviary, and it seemed to Evelyn that
she dreaded the intrusion on her thoughts of a side of life the very
existence of which she had almost succeeded in forgetting; and, feeling
a little humbled, Evelyn applied herself to the lesson. And it was just
as Mary Hilda's hand closed the books that the door opened and the
Reverend Mother entered, bringing, it seemed, a new idea and a new
conception of life into the room. Mother Mary Hilda gathered up her
books, and having answered the Reverend Mother's questions in her own
blithe voice, each word illuminated by the happy smile which Evelyn
thought so beautiful, withdrew like an apparition.
The Reverend Mother took the place that Mother Mary Hilda had left, and
by her very manner of sitting down, showed that she had come on some
special intention.
"Miss Innes, I have come to ask you not to leave to-morrow. If you are
not already tired of our life, it would give us great pleasure if you
would stay with us till Monday."
"It is very good of you to ask me to stay, I have been very happy;
indeed, I dread returning; it is difficult to return to the life of the
world after having seen what your life is here."
"We should only be too happy if you will prolong your stay. You are free
to remain as long as you please."
"Thank you, Reverend Mother, it is very good of you, but I cannot live
here in idleness, walking about the garden. What should I do if it were
to rain?"
"It looks like rain to-day. We have had a long term of fine weather."
The nun's old white hand lay on the table, a little crippled, but still
a nervous, determined hand, and the pale, sparkling eyes looked so deep
into the enigma of Evelyn's soul that she lost her presence of mind; her
breath came more quickly, and she hastily remembered that this retreat
now drawing to a close had solved nothing, that the real solution of her
life was as far off as ever.
"Then I may take it that you will stay with us till Monday. I will not
weary you with our repeated thanks for what you have done for us. You
know that we are very grateful, and shall never forget you in our
prayers, but you will not mind my thanking you again for the pleasure
your singing has given us. You have sung every day. You really have been
very kind."
"I beg of you not to mention it, Reverend Mother; to sing for you and
all the dear sisters was a great pleasure to me. I never enjoyed singing
in a theatre so much."
"I am glad you have enjoyed your stay, Miss Innes. Your room will always
be ready. I hope you will often come to see us."
"It will be a great advantage for me to come and stay with you from time
to time." Neither spoke for a time, then Evelyn said, "Reverend Mother,
is it not strange that I should have come back to this convent, my old
convent? I never forgot it. I often wondered if I should come here
again. When I was here before, it was just as now; it was in a great
crisis of my life. It was just before I left home, just before I went to
Paris to learn singing. I don't know if Monsignor has told you that I
have decided to leave the stage."
"Monsignor has entrusted you to me, and I should like to count you as
one of my children. All the nuns tell me their little troubles. Though I
have guessed there must be some great trouble in your life, I should
like you to feel that you can tell me everything, if to do so can be the
least help to you."
Evelyn's eyes brightened, and, trembling with emotion, she leaned across
the table; the Reverend Mother took her hand, and the touch of that old
benign hand was a delight, and she felt that she must confide her story.
"I have been several times on the point of speaking to you on the
subject of my past, for if I am to come here again I feel that you
should know something about me. But how to tell it. I had thought of
asking Father Daly to tell you. To-day is your day for confession, but
last week I confessed to Monsignor, and do not like to submit myself to
another director. Do you understand?"
"Father Daly is an excellent, worthy man, the convent is under the
greatest obligations to him, but I could not recommend him as a very
enlightened director of souls. That is why the nuns tell me all their
troubles. I should like you to feel that you can tell me everything."
"Reverend Mother, if you did not pass from the schoolroom to the convent
like Veronica, you will have heard, you must know, that the life of an
opera singer is generally a sinful life. I was very young at the time,
only one-and-twenty. I knew that I had a beautiful voice, and that my
father could not teach me to sing. But it was not for self-interest that
I left him; I was genuinely in love with Sir Owen Asher. He was very
good to me; he wanted to marry me; from the world's point of view I was
very successful, but I was never happy. I felt that I was living a
sinful life, and we cannot go on doing what we feel to be wrong and
still be happy. Night after night I could not sleep. My conscience kept
me awake. I strove against the inevitable, for it is very difficult to
change one's life from end to end, but there was no help for it."
Her story, as she told it, seemed to her very wonderful, more wonderful
than she had thought it was, and she would have liked to have told the
Reverend Mother all the torment and anguish of mind she had gone
through. But she felt that she was on very thin ice, and trembled
inwardly lest she was shocking the nun.
It was exciting to tell that it was her visit to the convent that had
brought about her repentance; how that very night her eyes had opened at
dawn, and she had seen clearly the wickedness of her life, and she could
not refrain from saying that it was Owen Asher's last letter, in which
he said that at all hazards he would save her from losing herself in
religion, that had sent her to Monsignor for advice. She noticed her
omission of all mention of Ulick, and it seemed to her strange that she
could still be interested in her sins, and at the same time genuinely
determined to reform her life. The nun sat looking at her, thinking what
answer she should make, and Evelyn wondered what that answer would be.
"We shall pray for you.... You will not fall into sin again; it is our
prayers that enable men to overcome their passions. Were it not for our
prayers, God would have long ago destroyed the world. Think of the times
of persecution and sacrilege, when prayer only survived in the
monasteries."
Evelyn could not but acquiesce: a world without prayer would be an
intolerable world, as unendurable to man as to God. But if the Reverend
Mother's explanation were a true one! If these poor forsakers of the
world were in truth the saviours of the world, without whose aid the
world would have perished long since!
When she had gone, Evelyn sat thinking, her head leaned on her hand, her
eyes fixed on the distant garden, seeing life from afar, strange and
distant, like reflections in still waters. She could see distant figures
in St. Peter's walk, tending the crosses and the statues of the Virgin
placed in nooks, or hanging on the branches. Some four or five nuns were
playing at ball on the terrace, and in the plaintive autumn afternoon,
there was something extraordinarily touching in their simple amusement;
and she had, perforce, to feel how much wiser was their childishness
than the vanity of the world.
Ulick had said that their adventure was the same, only their ways were
different. He had said that he sought God in art, while she sought him
in dogma. But if she accepted dogma, it was only as a cripple accepts a
crutch, Catholicism was essential to her, without it she could not walk;
but while conforming to dogma, it seemed possible to transcend its
narrowness, and to attach to every petty belief a spiritual
significance. It is right that we should acquiesce in these beliefs, for
they are the symbols by which the faith was kept alive and handed down.
God leads us by different ways, and though we may prefer to worship God
in the open air, we should not despise him who builds a house for
worship. The Real Being is all that we are sure of, for He is in our
hearts, the rest is as little shadows. Ulick had quoted an Eastern
mystic--'He that sees himself sees God, and in him there is neither I
nor thou.'
And, reflecting on the significance of these words, she turned with
pensive fingers the leaves of _The Way of Perfection_.
But she was going back to London on Monday! In London she would meet
Owen and all her former life. She knew in a way how she was going to
escape him. But her former life was everywhere. She got up and walked
about the room, then she stood at the window, her hands held behind her
back. She was sorely tried, and felt so weak in spirit that she was
tempted, or fancied that she was tempted, to go away with Owen in the
_Medusa_. Or she might tell him that she would marry him, and so end the
whole matter. But she knew that she would do neither of these things.
She knew that she would sacrifice Owen and her career as an opera singer
so that she might lead a chaste life. Yet a life of prayer and chastity
was not natural to her; her natural preferences were for lovers and
worldly pleasures, but she was sacrificing all that she liked for all
that she disliked. She wondered, quite unable to account for her choice
to herself. Her life seemed very mad, but, mad or sane, she was going to
sacrifice Owen and her career. She might sing at concerts, but she did
not think such singing would mean much to her and she thought of the
splendid successful life that lay before her if she remained on the
stage. Again she wondered at her choice, seeking in herself the reason
that impelled her to do what she was doing. She could not say that she
liked living with her father in Dulwich, nor did she look forward to
giving singing lessons, and yet that was what she was going to do. She
strove to distinguish her soul; it seemed flying before her like a bird,
making straight for some goal which she could not distinguish. She could
distinguish its wings in the blue air, and then she lost sight of them;
then she caught sight of them again, and they were then no more than a
tremulous sparkle in the air. Suddenly the vision vanished, and she
found herself face to face with herself--her prosaic self which she had
known always, and would know until she ceased to know everything. She
was here in the Wimbledon Convent, and Owen was in London waiting for
her. She knew she never would live with him again. But how would she
finally separate herself from him? How would it all come about? She
could imagine herself yielding, but if she did, it would not last a
week. Her life would be unendurable, and she would have to send him
away. For it is not true that Tannhäuser goes back to Venus. He who
repents, he who had once felt the ache and remorse of sin, may fall into
sin again, but he quickly extricates himself; his sinning is of no long
duration! It was the casual sin that she dreaded; at the bottom of her
heart she knew that she would never live a life of sin again. But she
trembled at the thought of losing the perfect peace and happiness which
now reigned in her heart, even for a few hours. Her face contracted in
an expression of terror at the thought of finding herself again involved
in the anguish, revolt and despair which she had endured in Park Lane.
She recalled the moments when she saw herself vile and loathsome, when
she had turned from the image of her soul which had been shown to her.
Then, to rid herself of the remembrance, she thought of the joy she had
experienced that morning at hearing in the creed that God's kingdom
shall never pass away. Her soul had kindled like a flame, and she had
praised God, crying to herself, "Thy kingdom shall last for ever and
ever." It had seemed to her that her soul had acquired kingship over all
her faculties, over all her senses, for the time being it had ruled her
utterly; and so delicious was its subjection that she had not dared to
move lest she should lose this sweet peace. Her lips had murmured an Our
Father, but so slowly that the Sanctus bell had rung before she had
finished it. Nothing troubled her, nothing seemed capable of troubling
her, and the torrent of delight which had flowed into and gently
overflowed her soul had intoxicated and absorbed her until it had seemed
to her that there was nothing further for her to desire.
She remembered that when Mass was over she had risen from her knees
elated, feeling that she had prayed even as the nuns prayed, and she had
retired to her room, striving to restrain her looks and thoughts so that
she might prolong this union with God.
To remember this experience gave her courage. For she could not doubt
that the intention of so special a favour was to convince her that she
would not be lacking in courage when the time came to deny herself to
Owen Asher. At the same time she was troubled, and she feared that she
was not quite sincere with herself. She would easily resist him now; but
in six months' time, in a year? Besides, she would meet other men; her
thoughts even now went out towards one. Ah! wretched weakness,
abominable sin! She was filled with contempt for herself, and yet at the
bottom of her heart, like hope at the bottom of Pandora's box, there was
tolerance. Her sins interested her; she would not be herself without
them, and this being so, how could she hope to conquer herself?
Saturday and Sunday were monotonous and anxious days. She had begun to
wonder what was in the newspapers, and she had written to say that her
carriage was to come to fetch her on Monday at three o'clock.
There had not been a gleam of light since early morning, only a gentle
diffused twilight, and the foliage in the garden was almost human in its
listlessness; a flat grey sky hung about the trees like a shroud. Mother
Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda were walking with her about the
grass-grown drive. They were waiting for the Reverend Mother, who had
gone to fetch a medal for Evelyn. She heard her chestnuts champing their
bits ready to take her back to London, and she could not listen to
Mother Philippa's conversation, for she had been suddenly taken with a
desire to say one last prayer in the chapel. She must say one more
prayer in the presence of the Sacrament. So, excusing herself, she ran
back, and, kneeling down, she buried her face in her hands. At once all
her thoughts hushed within her; it was like bees entering a hive to make
honey. Prayer came to her without difficulty, without even asking, and
she enjoyed almost five minutes' breathless adoration.
The three nuns kissed her, and as the Reverend Mother hung the medal
round her neck, she told her that prayers would be constantly offered up
for her preservation. The chestnuts plunged at starting.... If she were
killed now it would not matter. But the horses soon settled down into
their long swinging trot of ten miles an hour, and all the way to London
she reflected. The Reverend Mother had said that the prayers of nuns and
monks were the wall and bastion tower which saved a sinful world from
the wrath of God, and she thought of the fume of prayer ascending night
and day from this convent as from a censer. Men had always prayed, since
the beginning of things men had prayed, and as Ulick had said, wisdom
was not invented yesterday. He agreed with the naturalistic philosophers
that force is indestructible, only objecting that the naturalistic
philosophers did not go far enough, the theory of the indestructibility
of force being equally applicable to the spiritual world. The world
exists not in itself, but in man's thought.... Often an intense
evocation has brought the absent one before the seer's eyes, and that
there are sympathies which transcend and overrule the laws of time and
space hardly admits of doubt. Life is but a continual hypnotism; and the
thoughts of others reach us from every side, determining in some measure
our actions. It was therefore certain that she would be influenced by
the prayers that would be offered up for her by the convent. She
imagined these prayers intervening between her and sin, coming to her
aid in some moment of perilous temptation, and perhaps in the end
determining the course of her life.