by A. J. Cronin
Did she understand? The strained pallor of her face gleaming in the dimness of that passageway answered the question without speech. It was, then, as she had expected. With a rushing intuition she perceived that once again she stood on the verge of humiliation, injustice, and rebuke. Again and again – would it never cease? Suddenly the tic started in her cheek, but she remained motionless, making no reply.
‘To become a good religious,’ came the voice once more, ‘ it is necessary to abandon all.’
And the voice held no annoyance, only a frigid authority. Yet again Lucy made no reply.
‘Do you understand?’ demanded the mistress finally, with her slow and measured tone. Then, expectantly, she paused.
Lucy stirred. It was the moment: not the sign that she had prayed for, something different, better! And now, as though she had awaited it, alone with this woman who had so abased her, she grasped it fiercely. Her heart, that had been contracted, suddenly expanded. Her thin nostrils dilated, her pale lips compressed into a rigid line, as she demanded with a cutting disdain:
‘Am I permitted to speak?’
The mistress inclined slightly her half-averted head.
‘You understand that Sister Adrienne first addressed me?’
‘It is no difference.’
‘And if she again addresses me, what must I do?’
The words flew back across the gloomy stillness of the hall.
‘As you are instructed. Make no reply.’
They looked at each other, and into Lucy’s eyes there flowed the fierce light of battle. She was a woman with a soul, not a cringing, spineless weakling that would grovel and lick the dust and fawn obeisantly, crying ‘Oh, pardon, ma bonne mère’ for a nameless fault that never had existed. A sudden bitter nausea transfused her veins like fire. She was the equal of this white and barren creature. Yes, more than her equal. Despite her worn and beaten body, she was stronger – better than she. By Christ, she was. Stronger and better than she. She had known the ecstasies of love and the pangs of labour. She was no blenched virgin venting long-penned repression in this causeless spleen. She was a woman, and she was not afraid. Her head reared like an angry horse, her thin and haggard face was transfigured, as she confronted Marie Emmanuel with a menacing air.
‘Do you recognise,’ she exclaimed in a loud, full tone, ‘that for three months you have made my life a misery?’
‘What misery?’ The exclamation was spontaneous, accompanied by a swift and surreptitious glance.
‘Unspeakable misery. And all for nothing.’
The words came with a furious rush. ‘ You have set yourself out to deride me and to lower me to nothing.’
Marie Emmanuel’s eyelids fluttered faintly. She had turned strangely pale.
‘It is so,’ she answered slowly, ‘but only for your good – for your benefit.’
‘My benefit!’ cried Lucy. She made a violent gesture of repudiation, and, as she moved her arm, involuntarily Marie Emmanuel moved backwards towards the staircase.
‘It is not right,’ she exclaimed immoderately, her voice strangely shrinking. ‘ You do not conduct yourself reasonably.’
A frightful joy suffused Lucy’s breast. She saw that discomposure, and it filled her with a bursting exultation.
‘You see what I am,’ she declared passionately; ‘I have submitted. And all the time I am stronger than you.’
Marie Emmanuel’s face turned livid in the shadow of the hall.
‘It is against God to speak like that,’ she exclaimed in a strained voice. ‘Tomorrow you must make reparation.’
‘Reparation!’ A bitter exasperation swept her, flooded her suddenly with a cold disgust. ‘It is not yet tomorrow,’ she said scornfully. She stared at the other, who now leaned against the shadowed wall. Virtue had gone out of her, and in its place there remained only contempt.
‘It is late,’ said the mistress hesitatingly; ‘it is time to retire.’
For a moment the two women looked at each other in silence, then slowly Marie Emmanuel lowered her eyes, turned, and began to ascend the stairs.
With clenched hands and a quivering lip, Lucy observed her go. ‘I can’t,’ she thought to herself, ‘I can’t stand it.’ Then, with a gesture of fierce despair, she turned, as though from habit, to the door. But she did not fasten the door. Instead, she opened it and stood with heaving breast gazing into the sweet, mysterious beauty of the night. Before her was the garden, lapped by the radiance of a lucid moon. Behind her, in the enclosure, that warren of cells, the pettiness and misery. Her heart beat loudly in her ears as, standing on the threshold, she held her hot face towards the tender invocation of the night, with head thrown backwards towards the sky, her body arched in the darkness, vibrant and intense, with all the tautness of a drawn bow. Then suddenly that how relaxed. She started. The door slammed behind her. Trembling, she rushed into the freedom of the air.
Chapter Ten
The garden engulfed her like a cool, unfathomable sea. The moment she rushed from that doorway she was absorbed, detached from reality, enclosed by the vast opaque billows which slid silently around her. Withdrawn by instinct, compelled now as by some force beyond, she ran crouching, heedless of her course, rushing only to escape.
Upon the grass, drenched with dew and stained by still shadows from the trees, her feet were soundless. Her bent figure swam through the ghostly light, itself a moving, unsubstantial shade which followed no path and left no trace.
But where was she going? Running – running with a quick, sobbing breath, running to nowhere. Enclosed by the impassable barrier which circled the grounds, whither could she escape?
Shaken and confused, the very movement of her flight touched her with a rising fear. Girded by the wall, the forest, and the night, trapped under the vault of the dispassionate sky, she was like a minnow quivering its tiny, frighted way through vast, uncharted oceans whose cold abysmal depths were pierced by neither light nor understanding.
Abruptly she halted in her course, panting, stricken by despair. Where was she going? What was she doing here? She, Lucy Moore, alone in this vast, incomprehensible enclosure, alone, shut away, at this hour, in the heart of a strange land. She clutched her drooping bosom and threw back her head. The moon, like a pale host set in the dark monstrance of the infinite, gleamed towards her without comfort. The stars were but a tarnished dust of gilt sprinkled randomly. For the rest, nothing but darkness in that sombre sky, a darkness beneath which she was submerged and nothing.
Stupidly she raised her hand to her brow, striving to think, overcome by the scent of the ripe fruit which hung in the quiet air like the fume of a languorous wine. Around her the garden now took shape under her wondering eyes: the trees still as statuettes, the pale flowers standing motionless, like lovely coral fronds. Such loveliness and stillness linked and laid out before her within this peaceful place. Yes – with knitted brows she remembered – she had come here for peace. Her face contorted, and in the contemplation of that thought all the new-found beauty of the garden dissolved and was lost to her.
The intolerable memory ran through her with a rising bitterness, and again her brows drew downwards, wincingly as from an arid pain. It was for love of God that she had come here – to offer herself entirely to Him. Not to God so much as to Jesus – Jesus the Saviour, crucified for love of her. Jesus was God – the Son and the Father together with the Holy Ghost, all in one. A mystery securely incomprehensible, so firm and safe she gave it now no thought, but blundered onwards towards her love of Christ. That had drawn her hither, compelling her to the sweet pain of sacrifice and utter abandonment. But to what end? Her hands clenched together and her eyes drew fiercely towards the faint amorphous outline of the convent sprawling shapeless and gloomy in the darkness. In that warren peopled by pale creatures who moved machine-like to the pealing of a bell – there it was that she had laboured to learn the fatuous rote, to crush the virtue from her soul, to spend the essence of her love on nothing. Cramped by the petti
ness, ground by the discipline, she had grovelled and kissed boots when all her spirit strained upwards in that soaring of her love. God had made her a woman with a soul which was His soul. To abase that soul was to abase God. She would fight, and fight to the end; she would suffer; she would die; but no longer would she lower her head. So she had always been, and so she would remain.
A swift scorn mingled with her bitter anger. Were they women there within those narrow cells, or neutral beings that walked like shadows – sterile virgins who need not fight for chastity? Fiercely she embraced the memory of her life. Worn as it now must be, her body had at least fulfilled its function; her womb had burgeoned, her turgid breasts acknowledged the suckling’s lips. Whatever she might be, she was a woman who had loved and worked and battled onwards fiercely all her life.
A sudden revulsion of feeling took her, and, turning, she looked about her with a straining eye. She must do something. She could not stand still weakly and let the futile rush of circumstance submerge her. Never had she done that! And Jesus was on her side, conscious of her love, watching her even now as she stood reaching out towards Him. A faint smile warmed her set face.
‘Jesus,’ she whispered suddenly, involuntarily, ‘Help me!’ She lowered her head swiftly and stood stiffly, as though listening. Then, with a sudden uplifting of her voice, which split the quiescence of the night like a meteor soaring across that dull canopy above, she called loudly:
‘Jesus! Jesus! Help me now! I came here for love of You.’
Again she waited, listening, her eye remote and wildly glinting. But there was no answer from the aimless, brooding sky.
Restlessly she stirred, and moved her cold limbs, whilst a vague return of that first fear laid a dank finger on her brow. She began to walk slowly and stiffly from under the trees. Then, suddenly, the moon went out behind a cloud, and all the garden sank instantly into obscurity. Unconsciously she quickened her pace to the impulse of this piercing blackness which now so utterly surrounded her. Her body, worn by the rigours it had borne, was bent forwards. Her legs moved fumblingly. Her arms hung limply by her side. In her head there was a throbbing pulse. Dazedly she asked herself why Jesus did not help her. A moment ago she had entreated His aid. Even a sign! And she had been plunged into darkness. That was the answer. Had He not been like this Himself once in a Garden that was named Gethsemane: crying aloud like her for succour? But His suffering had not passed. Nor did hers pass. A frightful mental anguish suddenly assailed her like a cruel wind, under which her mind plunged and tossed like a ship stricken by a hurricane. Was the suffering of Christ like her own suffering – all for nothing?
Why was she here? This darkness was not a garden, but a universe through which she staggered blindly. Her love for her husband, for her son, for Jesus – it was the same love repeated – senselessly repeated. She trembled. Her rushing tenderness towards the Infant Saviour was but the same tenderness which had flooded her when her infant son lay within her arms. The smile of the Baby Jesus was the smile of her own child, her love for one the love for both. And Frank! She saw again those pale, waxen hands folded in death, and the vague, mysterious image of his face. But it was not his face. It was the face of Christ. And the body was Christ’s body as, drooping, it had been borne by the holy women from the cross to be placed within the tomb. The same limp, exsanguine human form.
A low, inarticulate cry burst from her lips. And all her thoughts were inarticulate, too, whirling amongst uncertainty and doubt. But madly, amidst the unutterable chaos, those three loves united and made themselves mysteriously a trinity that was one. Rising out of her! Her woman’s body was the fount of all love, springing from the earth from which everything arose, into which everything must pass and be assumed again to dust.
She pressed her hands tightly across her eyes and sobbed aloud. She trembled and moved faster, like a quarry hunted by unseen hounds. Had she come to this place to lose her faith? It was impossible! Fiercely she fought against the thought. Jesus had died to save her. He had kindled in her the fire of His love: the love for His burning heart. Those flames leaping around the tabernacle – let that be the vision of an exalted mind! – the fact remained that Jesus was there – the Baby Jesus, as old Adrienne had said – so sweet a thought: bound body and soul into the substance of the Sacrament. That wafer was the Godhead – not bread, but God. Could she adore bread, prostrate herself, a pagan, before a disc of bread? It was Jesus, her sweet Jesus, who was there – whom she absorbed into her loving breast when, kneeling at the altar rail, the host dissolved upon her tongue. Would she deny her dear Lord whom she so passionately loved? He was there by virtue of a miracle. A miracle of the divine love for her. But what was a miracle? It was a word; letters of the alphabet linked together. But were there other alphabets and other letters, other creeds, other miracles, other gods, and throughout this vast, immeasurable universe other worlds whirling through space, where creatures prostrated themselves, maybe, before the symbols of their faith, in all oblivion of the name of Christ?
What in the name of God was coming to her? Was she going mad? She moaned, and in a frenzy fell upon her knees. ‘Jesus! Jesus!’ she cried out. ‘ Your noble brow pierced by thorns; Your lovely face dripping with sweat and blood. I love You! I love You! Help my unbelief.’ Passionately she beat her breast and lifted up her head. Nothing to show in that dumb sky whether her voice was heard or lost for ever in the infinite. Was she lost too, then? Suffused by hopelessness, abandoned. Her figure sagged listlessly, her eye lit with a light of wildness.
Her belief was nonsense – idiot’s talk. There could be no God! Christ was a man. There never were and never could be miracles. The saintly Benedict with his holy sack expressed a fatuous mythology.
That place in there, with a key to turn every door, was but a madhouse. That key! Now she remembered! The key at Blandford. And that empty look, that smiling childishness upon those faces – it was the same look that marked Miss Hocking’s senseless face.
So it was all for nothing – the tearing of paper – a tragic essay in futility! She shivered. As from a long way off she seemed to hear the ringing of a bell, a queer, insistent tolling – not a message of peace, but of alarm. Was it a bell or merely the ringing within her ears? Was it from that asylum where, with bell and key, her life had moved so uselessly, controlled by the swing of the one and the turn of the other? The sound went on – on – on – soaring through the night. Then into the darkness faint points of light appeared and moved uncertainly, wandering and elusive as distant wildfire. Fascinated, she stared, then all at once she stumbled to her feet. The lights converged towards her, swinging like bells to the sound of those other distant bells. She was terrified. She had deserted God – denied Him! Was she now beset by devils who came rushing to torment her? Her dry throat constricted upon her feeble cry.
Turning, she made as though to run, but somehow she could not. She tried, then tried again, with inexpressible anguish, to move her numb and rooted figure. But she was petrified to immobility. She made a last convulsive effort; she fought, struggled, thrust the devilish lights away from her;, then her stiff form relaxed, and she fell feebly to the ground, into the deeper darkness of her swoon.
There she was found by those who had been seeking her with lanterns, and thus they bore her back to the convent.
Chapter Eleven
When she awoke she felt the warm morning sunshine striking upon her face, streaming over her coverlet, an experience so unusual and unreal that instantly she closed her eyes. But in a moment she reopened them. A large man in a frock coat was standing beside the bed. His beard was long and squarely trimmed; pince-nez balanced themselves upon his long and serious nose. But he was not serious: with one hand thrust into his breast, he was smiling.
‘You have slept well,’ he said in an encouraging tone. ‘Yes, undoubtedly you feel better.’
Her stiff face did not smile, nor did she reply, but again her swollen eyelids drooped. Though she felt drowsy, she was not asleep. V
aguely she heard voices: a conversation very polite and formal; the dignified departure of the doctor. Yes, she supposed it was the doctor. Beyond the curé, no other man was admitted to the cloister. Here she sharply opened her eyes once more and looked around. They fell at once upon the old sister infirmière, who nodded and smiled agreeably from over the high brass rail which formed the foot of the bed. But she was not in the infirmary, nor was she in her cell. The bed wherein she lay at once precluded that; un grand lit it was, so large and soft after her pallet of straw, that she seemed not to be on any surface, but to float enveloped by a cloud. And the room? The room was too pleasant, too open, the furnishings too lavish! A Brussels rug upon the polished floor, curtains of yellow lace upon the window, actually a small swing mirror upon the chest of drawers, and, on the mantelpiece, flowers – red flowers of paper, half-poppy, half-rose, clustered closely in a yellow vase; yes, it was no room that she could remember.
And where was her habit? Quietly she let her eyes fall upon the chair by her bedside. It was empty, quite empty. So they had taken away her habit, and placed her in this strange elaborate room, meeting her frightful disobedience of the Rule with smiles, and kindness, and the stout, amicable apothecary with his thick square beard. Yes, now she knew where she was. They had put her out; she was outside the cloister in a bedroom above the parlours.
Again her eyes closed. But she could not think. She had, indeed, no wish to think. Her body ached, as though it had been flogged with heavy rods; her head was buoyant; her eyelids thick and drowsy. Some liquid was held to her lips in a bowl. She drank. A fly buzzed over the window-pane. Again she slept.
It was high afternoon when she awoke, and the sun now spread a soft, bright square upon the pattern of the rug beside the door. She was alone in the room – perhaps she had been awakened by the quiet closing of the door as the old infirmière went out – and, flat upon her back, for a long time she was still, thinking of nothing. Dimly she recollected her frightful experience in the garden, but without sense of time, without acuteness, like something terrible yet vague, like a storm which had ravaged and almost destroyed her but now was gone. No, she did not wish to think.
