by George Moore
She resolved to say very little when she gave back the manuscript; but something had to be said, and Evelyn confessed her opinions. But the Sister did not understand her scruples, and she charged Evelyn’s love of God with being cold.
“We are the brides of Christ; St. Teresa has spoken quite plainly on that point. And St. John of the Cross speaks of the union of God in much the same way, and so did all the saints. Oh, Sister, your scruples are morbid; we should surely set no measure to our love of God. There is no lover like God. He is always by you and you can turn to Him at any moment......God wishes us to keep all our love for Him.”
The Sister’s innocent candour made her feel ashamed, and she resolved never to suspect Sister Mary’s love of God again. She even denied to herself that she had ever suspected it, and accused her sinful imagination. But in the secret life of her soul this intimate and almost sensual love of God continued to perplex her, and while mistrusting it she half desired it, asking herself if faith in God were possible without passionate love. She was aware that her belief in God was more a moral than a sensible conviction. She did not see Christ in the Host as Sister Mary John had done, and she was not certain whether she accepted the Host as an extraordinary symbolic interpretation of God’s constant descent into man, of the union of the human and the Divine kind, or as the actual body of the Creator and administrator of things. If her faith on this essential point was not clear, could she live in a convent dedicated to perpetual adoration? She was not quite certain on this point, and while thinking she remembered that no other nun but Sister Mary John was possessed by sufficient faith to allow her to see the Divine flesh in the Host. Evelyn reflected that if she were to leave the convent she might lose her faith. She could conquer her sinful nature only among those whose lives proved to her that they held the world to be worthless. She could live safe from sin only amid a stream of petitions going up daily to God for her safety. Moreover, her belief in the great sacrament had increased since she had come back from Rome; she desired faith, an ardent, irrevocable, sensible faith, and it would not be withheld from her if she prayed.
By a special dispensation from the Reverend Mother, her watch before the sacrament was increased from half-an-hour to an hour; she was therefore put on an equality with the choir nuns; and kneeling before the sacrament she thought of God as intimately as she dared, excluding all thought of the young Galilean prophet and seer, allowing herself to think only of the exquisite doctrine. She did not wish Him to take her in His arms until one day starting suddenly from her prayers she asked who it was who stood before her. She seemed to see Him among His disciples, sitting at a small table with a love-light upon His face. She scrutinised the face, fearing it might not be His. She seemed to have seen it. Presently she discovered Ulick; and tremblingly she remembered the night she found him among his disciples. So she did not dare to think of Christ any longer; and with regret and tenderness, and yet with a certain exaltation of the spirit, she turned to the Father, to the original essence which had existed before the world needed a redeemer. She lost herself for a time in the vast spirit which hears the song of nature through space and the ages. But very soon she turned to the young Galilean prophet again, and His exquisite doctrine seemed to her to be all that man needs to bring to perfect fruition the original germ of immortality implanted in Him.
The Prioress divined her trouble, and in consideration of it allowed her to communicate every day, and henceforth He and she were no longer divided. Time passed so quickly in thinking of Him that only a few moments seemed to have divided them, and she awoke at dawn conscious that the hour of the Lord was nigh.
On Sundays the interval with God was longer, for on Sundays the choral Mass was at nine for the convenience of strangers, and the nuns received holy communion at an earlier hour. So there was a long interval in which God brooded in the heart, in which she walked enfolded in the Divine atmosphere. Then the spirit and flesh ceased to battle, and the flesh received the spirit at every pore. But unhappily this state was forfeit to any slight interruption, and the object of all the nuns was to make it last as long as possible. As sacristan Evelyn was especially liable to interruptions. There were occasions when the server did not attend, and it befell Evelyn to recite the Confiteor aloud to the communicants, to make the final responses and to put out the candles when the priest left the altar; and to do these things lost her the joy of her communion. She was dragged out of the unbounded joys and tenderness which had gathered in her heart.
When communion was carried to the sick, to old Mother Lawrence, who could not come down to the chapel at so early an hour, Evelyn and another novice, each with a lighted candle, and Sister Veronica, with a little bell to announce the coming of the Host, preceded the priest through the cloister and up the novitiate stairs to the infirmary. The novices knelt, with their candles in their hands, at the foot of the bed, and the aged nun, wasted with age and abstinences and prayers, waited, tremulous with expectation, her withered hands feebly clasped, for the priest to lay the Host upon her tongue. Once she was very ill indeed; they thought she was dying, yet in her mortal weakness she strove to get on her knees to receive the sacrament, and Veronica, who perceived Sister Lawrence’s intention, passed her hands under the armpits, lifting the old nun, but the knees, in which there was no strength, slipped away, only in her eyes was there any life — little spots which awoke out of their dulness at the approach of the sacrament. The gravity of the moment ennobled their different sentiments — Father Daly’s faith gross and obtuse, Veronica’s faith inherent and unsullied, Evelyn’s faith passionate and febrile. The two women were in tears, and their tears only made them more beautiful, and their hearts grew happy and confident as they looked at the old nun now lying peacefully among the pillows, her face calm, seemingly lighted up with a vision. Of what happy eternity, Evelyn thought as they left the bedside, and to the sound of the tinkling bell they passed into the chapel.
Evelyn loved this solemn office; it gave her an intimate sense of personal service on Christ, of walking with Him on earth, and never from repetition did the sight of the nuns prostrated in their stalls as the sacrament was carried back to the altar become trite and formal. This visible manifestation of their undaunted renouncement of the vulgar world exalted her, and new courage came into her heart. She noted the accumulated heads and the joined hands clasped convulsively, with perhaps one face lifted for a moment to gaze on God that went by, eager for some deeper pang of faith, fearful and yet eager to approach God. What are all the manifestations of personal vanity, she thought, whether in art or war or statesmanship, compared with this undaunted self-effacement?
CHAP. XXVII.
SHE WAS WRITING in the library, and Veronica had just opened the door, and though her back was turned to the door she seemed to know it was Veronica. She had seen very little of her lately, and at one time Evelyn, Veronica, and Sister Mary John had formed a little group. But since Evelyn had become attached to Sister Mary John, Veronica had withdrawn herself from their friendship, and she now treated them to little disdainful airs, and she did not at once answer Evelyn, who, with the prettiest smile, had asked her whom she had come in search of, and there was an accent of concentrated dislike in her voice when she said she was looking for Sister Mary John.
“I heard her trampling about the passage just now; she is on her way here, no doubt, and won’t keep you waiting long.”
Evelyn understood the word “trampling” as an allusion to the hobnails which Sister Mary John wore in the garden. Veronica had lately been indulging in bitter remarks, but it was not the rudeness of the present remark that startled Evelyn, but Veronica’s manner. She did not give Evelyn time to answer her, but left the room instantly, and Evelyn sat nibbling the end of her pen, thinking of what had happened. The little jealousy with which she had credited Veronica did not seem sufficient to account for so much dislike, and she was forced towards the conclusion that Veronica’s dislike of Sister Mary John went deeper than she had suspected. She seem
ed to foresee some unpleasantness, and she sat thinking till the door opened; she hoped it was Veronica, but it was Sister Mary John.
“I can’t think what is the matter with Veronica,” she said. “I passed her in the passage just now, and when I asked her if she had seen you, she said she was really too busy to speak to me, and a moment after she stopped for quite a long while to play with the black kitten which was catching flies in the window.”
Evelyn stood looking at the nun, thinking of Veronica’s remarks regarding the hobnails.
“Do you know what it means? Has she ever been rude to you?”
“No, I don’t think she has.”
But, in spite of herself, she began awkwardly and hesitatingly to tell of the little passage-of-arms between herself and Veronica. And while laughing at Veronica’s jealousy, she stopped suddenly to ask Sister Mary John of what she was thinking.
“She is quite right; it is we who are in the wrong. We have been disobeying the rule this long while.”
Evelyn could not find words to answer her, and an ominous silence was broken by the smiling, ruddy-cheeked porteress.
“Sister Teresa, Monsignor has come, and is waiting to see you in the parlour.”
The colour rose to her cheeks, and so excited was she at the thought of seeing Monsignor that she forgot Veronica’s rudeness, and very nearly forgot the rupture her jealousy might cause in a friendship which had been the principal interest in her life for the last three months; and asking the Sister if she were tidy, she hurried away.
As the door closed Sister Mary John looked round the library, and a little sadness appeared in her face, and many things became clear to her which, until now, she had only half understood. It was Monsignor who had converted Evelyn — Evelyn was therefore attached to him in a special way; but she saw that part of Evelyn’s exultation sprang from her instinctive interest in men.
“A man always comes before everyone else, whether she is on the stage or in a convent. So she goes flying to him, her heart in both hands, eager to confide and to trust.”
Sister Mary John walked across the library, cruelly perplexed, for it had suddenly been revealed to her that to bring the friendship to an end she must leave the convent. She must go straight to the Prioress and tell her her life was being absorbed in Evelyn, and beg her to transfer her to the Mother House in France.
Evelyn was now talking to Monsignor in the parlour, and the nun could see him listening, encouraging her to reveal herself by an attentive silence. The Prioress had sent for him, so that he might advise her regarding Evelyn. When the interview was over the Prioress would go to the parlour to hear Monsignor’s opinion. So the opportuneness of the moment for her to confide her difficulty to the Prioress was evident to Sister Mary John. The very words she should say rose up in her mind, yet she hesitated, and she stopped in the middle of the room to ask herself why she hesitated. Questions would be intolerable and shameful; but the Prioress would understand, and there would be few questions.
As she turned from the door a voice of extraordinary sweetness began to whisper in her, and she heard that for the sake of retaining Evelyn for a few short years she would lose her through eternity. Were it not better to see her in heaven? And then a strange confusion of thought happened in her. She was tempted by the thought that even in heaven they would be separated by their love of God, and she remembered with horror that it was since love of Evelyn had begun in her that that passionate love of Christ, which was her vocation, and without which she could not live in a convent, had declined. She must choose between Christ and Evelyn. Well, had not Evelyn chosen Monsignor before her? She was conscious of an exceeding wickedness; her thoughts faded, and she became, as it were, vague pain and irresolution.
But suddenly a great strength was vouchsafed to her, and she went to the Prioress’s room.
It was always easy to talk to the Prioress. In their confessions the nuns spoke as if they were thinking aloud, and Sister Mary John explained how this friendship had come to be a disintegrating influence, how her spiritual character had fallen away since Evelyn had become to her a sensible pleasure. She had known this a long while, but had stifled the voice of her conscience. Veronica’s jealousy had brought her, as it were, to bay, and in a flash she had realised how deeply she was involved in the entanglement of her senses. Speaking quickly, she said that Evelyn had absorbed her life, that she lived immersed in her as she should live immersed in God.
“My dear child, you exaggerate unconsciously, for enough power remains in you to break silence and to put the matter into my hands.”
“I could do nothing else; I had to come to tell you, Mother. The truth is I am losing my vocation, and to regain it I must leave. Dear Mother, I have come to ask you to transfer me to our house in France.”
A shadow flitted across the Prioress’s face, and the nun anticipated a refusal.
“I am thinking, my dear child, of what is best to be done.” And while the Prioress thought of the best way out of the dilemma, the nun regretted the trouble she was giving this old woman. There was a swish of wind and rain on the window, and the trees waved disconsolately in the wet air, and their waving carried her thoughts out to sea, where there were sails and rigging, and she saw herself on her way to France. France was to be the end of her life, and she was thinking of the end of her days in the Mother House at Lyons, where she knew no one, when the Prioress said, “Mrs. Cater is going to France next month. You can travel with her.”
“So a month must pass. I had thought of leaving today or to-morrow, but I see that that is impossible. A month — how shall I endure it?”
“No one will know,” the Prioress answered, with a little vehemence; “it is a secret between us, and I forbid you to tell anyone the reason of your leaving.”
“May I not tell Teresa?”
“Teresa will be professed in the next few weeks, I hope, perhaps next week; she has reached a critical moment of her life, and her mind must not be disturbed. The raising of such a question at such a moment might be fatal to her vocation.”
The Prioress rose from her chair, and following Sister Mary John to the door, impressed upon her again that it was essential that no one should ever know why she had left the convent.
“You may tell Teresa before you leave; but she must hear nothing of it till the moment of your leaving. I give you permission merely to say good-bye to her on the day you leave, and in the interval you will see as little of each other as possible.”
But when Sister Mary John said that Sister Elisabeth could accompany Evelyn as well as she could, the Prioress interrupted her. “You must always accompany her when she sings at Benediction. You must do nothing to let her suspect that you are leaving the convent on her account.”
And at that moment the Prioress remembered that Evelyn was talking with Monsignor.
“She thinks him a Bossuet,” the Prioress said to herself, as she returned to her chair; “they have corresponded for months on literary questions.” She hoped Evelyn would not be effusive in her admiration, and so convey a false impression of herself, and then a little smile hovered round the corners of her mouth, a sign of the thought that had passed. She began to arrange her papers, and as she did so Evelyn asked the prelate to tell her about Rome.
The last time she had seen him was in the early summer, soon after her clothing, and she had hardly been able to speak to him. She had not recovered from the shock of her father’s death; and he recalled all the circumstances of it so vividly, the very moment when he bad led her from the room.
Her father’s death was almost as much before her now as then, but differently. Her grief had gone, as it were, out of the flesh, and was reflected now merely in her imagination. It looked at her out of the sky like a star, the sign whereby the wayfarer directs his steps. The old poignant grief which the sight of Monsignor had reawakened in her only endured for a moment; she had recovered herself, and was asking him to tell her about Rome and its ecclesiastics. She thought of them because of h
er father’s relations with them; she talked gaily and eagerly; and yet she had, perhaps, never felt so clearly, nor had the feeling ever been so conclusive, that the personal life was dead in her, that she now lived for the nuns, in order to keep them out of their difficulties; and that when that was done her mission would be accomplished.
All her surface characteristics remained, but in her deeper self had been changed. It seemed to her that she had been lifted out of animal life, to some extent, and had been carried forward, if not into, at least towards the life of the soul. She felt this very clearly now, and yet she wished to hear of the little externalities of religion to which pious women devote so much time.
She reminded him of things which he had almost forgotten, and he was surprised that she wished to hear the end of the disputation in which he had been engaged with a certain cardinal, who had taken a reactionary view regarding the value of the Biblical account of the creation. She reminded him of the arguments he had used, but he had forgotten them, and she recalled his very words. He had said that the cardinal had committed the Church as far as he could commit the Church to certain opinions which might afterwards have to be reconsidered. Monsignor had said that religion had nothing to fear from science. Science is exclusively concerned with man’s physical surroundings; religion is, with equal exclusiveness, concerned with the development of his moral consciousness. She said that this way of putting the question had struck her at the time; and his face lighted up, and he expressed surprise at her memory of his opponents and the details of the disputation.