THE NUNNERY.
The Eastwoods spent several weeks at the High Lodge. They saw it at its
very best, in all the spring blossoming, when the trees put on their
most delicate greenery, and all the children, big and little, and all
the orphans, and even the young ladies of the Upper School, got “their
new things” for Easter. I am not sure that Mrs. Eastwood entered as she
intended to do into “the humours” of the establishment. She disapproved
of a great many things. She disapproved, for instance, totally of Father
Featherstone, who directed the consciences of the community, and walked
about indoors in a soutane, out of doors in a very ugly black cloak--an
insignificant little individual, of whom Miss Vane and her sisters
professed to stand much in awe, a profession in which Mrs. Eastwood did
not believe. She herself disliked the odd little nondescript, and still
more strongly disapproved of him. “Why should you neglect the clergy of
the parish?” she said. “I think your rector might have good reason to be
affronted----”
“But my rector is not affronted. He has no time to look after our
services,” said the lay-abbess.
Mrs. Eastwood, however, was not convinced. She shook her head at Father
Featherstone’s petticoats. She asked whether it was supposed that there
was anything wicked in a man’s ordinary dress, and called the poor
little priest “it” with a shocking Protestantism which was terrible to
Miss Vane. But John Vane, who was there constantly--not as an inmate,
for that would have been considered impossible at the High Lodge, but as
a visitor--took Mrs. Eastwood’s hint with peals of profane laughter. “Ni
homme--ni femme--prêtre,” he said, when he saw the black-robed father
making his way through the sunshiny April gardens, and laughed and
coaxed his sister who loved him, as pious sisters often love scoffing
brothers, out of all offence. Miss Vane herself admitted that she could
not go against Reginald--no one in the family had ever been able to go
against him. “But everybody calls Mr. Vane John----” said Nelly. “My
dear, there never was a John in our family,” said Sister Lætitia, with
momentary tartness; but then she added, softening, “You shall call him
John, if you like, Nelly.” To such a sudden, insidious attack, what
could Nelly answer? She professed not to be aware of the meaning of the
things that were said to her. She made a conscientious endeavour not to
allow herself to feel that her heart was a great deal lighter than it
had been, now that there was no struggle of divided duty; and when
Jenny’s bold comparison of one man with another came into her mind, she
tried to think that it was novel to her, that it was indifferent to her,
that she had nothing to do with such a question. And in reality Nelly
shrank, as every pure-minded and high-spirited girl naturally does, from
the thought of replacing one with another--of giving her hand into the
hand of another. The transfer was horrible to her, even though her heart
had made it unawares. At the end of a fortnight, indeed, John Vane went
abruptly away, leaving time and silence to work for him. He too saw that
an immediate transfer was a thing impossible, though his sister was slow
to see it. “Why shouldn’t they settle it all at once and get done with
it?” Miss Vane said; “I never had any time to waste in nonsense. They
will be far happier if they make up their minds at once.” And perhaps,
on the whole, she was right. But what does it matter who is right when
fantastic questions of feeling are to be considered?
When John Vane went away Nelly breathed more freely. She had got free
from the toils in which her foolish youthful feet had been caught
unawares. She ran about the High Lodge as she had been used to do at The
Elms, with that tinkle of her pleasant steps like a brook, that flutter
of her coming and going like a bird among the branches, which had been
peculiar to her in the old days at home. There was perpetual movement of
light young steps and gleam of cheerful faces in that well-populated
place; but Nelly’s kept their special character, and were always
recognizable. I do not think, for my own part, that Ernest Molyneux
enjoyed his release as Nelly did. I don’t believe he enjoyed it at all.
And this was strictly poetic justice, as the gentle reader will perceive
who remarks how Molyneux worried Nelly and rent her gentle being in
twain. He has been very bitter about women ever since, and he it is, I
am informed, who has written the most virulent of those articles on the
subject which have appeared from time to time in a very able and amiable
periodical known to all men. Let us hope that in thus developing his
sentiments he found as much ease to his mind as Nelly did when, after
her long and feverish struggle to keep loving him and approving of him,
to keep faithful to her promise, and steadfast in her duty, she got free
from his toils, and turned her back on love, and healed herself among
the spring blossoms and the admiring girls at the High Lodge. How they
all admired her! She was not so saintly, not so abstracted as poor
Innocent, predoomed (they thought) to the crown of martyrdom. But Nelly
could do so many things; she was so clever, she was so pretty; and was
it not whispered in the community that she had rejected one lover
because he had failed to come up to the full standard of her ideal; and
had they not seen how Mr. Vane, whom everybody at the High Lodge
regarded as the very type of manly excellence, was at her feet? The
girls thought there had never been any one seen so delightful as Nelly.
They copied her very tones, her little gestures, her modes of speech;
and Nelly healed herself of her long warfare in the midst of the
cheerful order of the community, amongst the girls and the flowers.