by George Moore
“Won’t you sit down, Monsignor?”
“I have come, Miss Innes, to remind you of a promise that you once made me.”
The colour returned to her cheeks, and a smile to her lips. But she did not remember, and was slightly embarrassed.
“Did I make you a promise?”
“Have you forgotten my speaking to you about some poor sisters who might be driven from their convent if they failed to pay the interest on a mortgage?”
“Ah, yes, on the night of the concert.”
“They have paid the interest and kept a roof over their heads, but in doing so they have exhausted their resources; and not to put too fine a point upon it, I am afraid they often have not enough to eat. Something must be done for them. I thought that a concert would be the quickest way of getting them some money.”
“You want me to sing?”
“It really would be a charitable action.”
“I shall be delighted to sing for them. Where is this convent?”
“At Wimbledon.”
“My old convent! The Passionist Sisters!”
“Your old convent?”
“Yes,” Evelyn replied, the colour rising slightly to her cheeks. “I made a retreat there, long ago, before I went on the stage.”
She was grieved to hear that the Reverend Mother she had known was dead; she had died two years ago, and Mother Margaret was dead too. Monsignor could tell her nothing about Sister Bonaventure. Mother Philippa was the sub-prioress; and in the midst of her questions he explained how the financial difficulties had arisen. They were, he said, the result of the imprudences of the late Reverend Mother, one of the best and holiest of women, but unfortunately not endowed with sufficient business foresight. He was quite prepared to admit that the little wooden chapel which had preceded the present chapel was inadequate, and that she was justified in building another, but not in expending nearly one thousand pounds in stained glass. The new chapel had cost ten thousand pounds, and the interest of this money had to be paid. There were other debts —
“But there is no reason why I should weary you with an exact statement.”
“But you do not weary me, Monsignor; I am, on the contrary, deeply interested.”
“The convent owes a great deal to the late Reverend Mother, and the last thing I wish to express is disapproval. We do not know the circumstances, and must not judge her; we know that she acted for the best. No doubt she is now praying to God to secure the safety of her convent.”
Evelyn sat watching him, fascinated by the clear, peremptory, ecclesiastical dignity which he represented. If he had a singing voice, she said to herself, it would be a tenor. He had allowed the conversation to wander from the convent to the concert; and they were soon talking of their musical preferences. There was an impersonal tenderness, a spiritual solicitude in his voice which enchained her; no single idea held her, but wave after wave of sensation passed, transforming and dissolving, changeable as a cloud. Human life demands hope, and the priest is a symbol of hope; there is always a moment when the religionist doubts, and there is also a moment when the atheist says, “Who knows, perhaps.” And this man had done what she had not been able to do: he had put aside the paltry pleasures of the world, he placed his faith in things beyond the world, pleasures which perchance were not paltry. An entirely sensual life was a terrible oppression; hers often weighed upon her like a nightmare; to be happy one must have an ideal and strive to live up to it. Her mind flickered and sank, changing rapidly as an evening sky, never coming to anything distinct enough to be called a thought. She desired to hear him speak, she felt that she must speak to him about religion; she wanted to know if he were sure, and how he had arrived at his certitudes.... She wanted to talk to him about life, death and immortality. She had tried to lead the conversation into a religious discussion, but he seemed to avoid it, and just as she was about to put a definite question, Ulick came into the room. He stood crushing his grey felt hat between his hands, a somewhat curious figure, and she watched him talking to Monsignor, thinking of the difference of vision. As Ulick said, everything was in that. Men were divided by the difference of their visions. She was curious to know how the dogmatic and ritualistic vision of Monsignor affected Ulick, and when the prelate left she asked him.
He was as ingenuous and unexpected on this subject as he was on all subjects. If the antique priest, he said, clothed himself in purple, it was to produce an exaltation in himself which would bring him closer to the idea, which would render him, as it were, accessible to it. But the vestments of the modern priest had lost their original meaning, they were mere parade. This explanation was very like Ulick; she smiled, and was interested, but her interest was passing and superficial. The advent of the priest had moved her in the depths of her being, and her mind was thick with lees of ancient sentiment, and wrecks of belief had floated up and hung in mid memory. She knew that the beauty of the ritual, the eternal psalms, the divine sacrifice, the very ring of the bell, the antiquity of the language, lifted her out of herself, and into a higher, a more intense ecstasy than the low medium of this world’s desires. And if she did not believe that the bread and wine were the true body and blood of God, she still believed in the real Presence. She was aware of it as she might be of the presence of someone in the room, though he might be hidden from her eyes. Though the bread and wine might not be the body and blood of Christ, still the act of consecration did seem to her to call down the spirit of God, and it had seemed to her to inhabit the church at the moment of consecration. It might not be true to Owen, nor yet to Ulick, but it was true to her — it was a difference of vision.... She sat buried in herself. Then she walked to the window confused and absorbed, with something of the dread of a woman who finds herself suddenly with child. When Ulick came to her she did not notice him, and when he asked her to do some music with him she refused, and when he put his arms about her she drew away sullenly, almost resentfully.
A few days after she was in Park Lane. She had gone there to pay some bills, and she was going through them when she was startled by the front door bell. It was a visitor without doubt. Her thoughts leaped to Monsignor, and her face lighted up. But he did not know she was at Park Lane; he would not go there.... It was Owen come up from Bath. What should she say to him? Good heavens! It was too late to say she was not at home. He was already on the stairs. And when he entered he divined that he was not welcome. They sat opposite each other, trying to talk. Suddenly he besought her not to throw him over.... She had to refuse to kiss him, and that was convincing, he said. Once a woman was not greedy for kisses, the end was near. And his questions were to the point, and irritatingly categorical. Had she ever been unfaithful to him? Did she love Ulick Dean? Not content with a simple denial, he took her by both hands, and looking her straight in the face, asked her to give him her word of honour that Ulick Dean was not her lover, that she had never kissed him, that she had never even desired to kiss him, that no idea of love making had ever arisen between them. She pledged her word on every point, and this was the second time that her liaison with Ulick had obliged her to lie, deliberately in so many words. Nor did the lying even end there. He wanted her to stay, to dine with him; she had to invent excuses — more lies.
She was returning to Dulwich in her carriage, and until she arrived home her thoughts hankered and gnawed, pestered and terrified her. Never had she felt so ashamed, so disgusted with herself, and the after taste of the falsehoods she had told came back into her mouth, and her face grew dark in the beautiful summer evening. Her brows were knit, and she resolved that if the occasion happened again, she would tell Owen the truth. This was no mock determination; on this point she was quite sure of herself. Looking round she saw the mean streets of Camberwell. She saw them for a moment, and then she sank back into her reverie.
She was deceiving Owen, she was deceiving her father, she was deceiving Ulick, she was deceiving Monsignor — he would not have thought of asking her to sing at the concert if he knew what a life
was hers. Nor would those good women at the convent accept her aid if they knew what kind of woman she was. And the strange thing was that she did not believe herself to be a bad woman; at the bottom of her heart she loved truth and sincerity. She wished to have an ideal and to live up to it, yet she was doing the very opposite. That was what was so strange, that was what she did not understand, that was what made her incomprehensible to herself. She sighed, and at the bottom of her heart there lay an immense weariness, a weariness of life, of the life she was leading, and she longed for a life that would coincide with her principles, and she felt that if she did not change her life, she would do something desperate. She might kill herself.
It is true that man is a moral animal, but it is not true that there is but one morality; there are a thousand, the morality of each race is different, the morality of every individual differs. The origin of each sect is the desire to affirm certain moral ideas which particularly appeal to it; every change of faith is determined by the moral temperament of the individual; we prefer this religion to that religion because our moral ideas are more implicit in these affirmations than in those.
The restriction of sexual intercourse is the moral ideal of Western Europe; it is the one point on which all Christians are agreed; it is the one point on which they all feel alike. So inherent is the idea of sexual continence in the Western hemisphere that even those whose practice does not coincide with their theory rarely impugn the wisdom of the law which they break; they prefer to plead the weakness of the flesh as their excuse, and it is with reluctance that they admit that without an appeal to conscience it would be impossible to prove that it is wrong for two unmarried people to live together. It is not perceived that the fact that no material proof can be produced strengthens rather than weakens the position of the moralist. To do unto others as you would be done unto, to love your neighbour as yourself, are practical moralities which may be derived from social necessities, but the abstract moralities, that sexual intercourse is wrong except between married people, and that it is wrong to tell a lie, even if the lie be a perfectly harmless one, exist of themselves. That we cannot bring abstract moralities into the focus of our understanding is no argument. As well deny the stars because we cannot understand them. That abstract moralities impose on us should be a sufficient argument that they cannot be the futilities that Owen would argue them to be — not them, he only protested against one.... (She had not thought of that before — Owen was no more rational than she.) That the idea of chastity should persist in spite of reason is proof of its truth. For what more valid argument in favour of a chaste life than that the instinct of chastity abides in us? After all, what we feel to be true is for us the greatest truth, if not the only real truth. Ulick was nearer the truth than Owen. He had said, “A sense which eludes all the other senses and which is not apprehensible to reason governs the world, all the rest is circumstantial, ephemeral. Were man stripped one by one of all his attributes, his intelligence, his knowledge, his industry, as each of these shunks was broken up and thrown aside, the kernel about which they had gathered would be a moral sense.”
Evelyn remembered that when she had sent Owen away before, he had said, “Sexual continence at best is not the whole of morality; from your use of the word one would think that it was.” But for her the sexual conscience was the entire conscience — she had no temptation to steal. There was lying, but she was never tempted to tell lies except for one reason; she could not think of herself telling a lie for any other. To her the sexual sin included all the others. She turned her head aside, for the bitterness of her conscience was unendurable, and she vowed that, whatever happened, she would speak the truth if Owen questioned her again. She could never bring herself to tell such horrible falsehoods again.
These revulsions of feeling alternated with remembrances of Owen’s tenderness; fugitive sensations of him tingled in her veins, and ill-disposed her to Ulick. She spoke little, and sat with averted eyes. When he asked her if he should come to her room, she answered him peremptorily; and he heard her lock her door with a determined hand.
As she lay in bed, conscious of the inextricable tangle of her life, it was knotting so closely and rapidly that her present double life could not endure much longer, the odious taste of the lies she had told that afternoon rose again to her lips, and, as if to quench the bitterness, she vowed that she would tell Owen the truth ... if he asked her. If he did not ask her she would have to bear the burden of her lies. She tried not to wish that he might ask her. Then questions sallied from every side. She could not marry Owen without telling him about Ulick. She could not marry Ulick without telling him that she had been unfaithful to him with Owen. Should she send away Owen and marry Ulick, or would it be better to send away Ulick and marry Owen — if he would marry her after he had heard her confession? It was unendurable to have to tell lies all day long — yes, all day long — of one sort or another. She ought to send them both away.... But could she remain on the stage without a lover? Could she go to Bayreuth by herself? Could she give up the stage? And then?
She awoke in a different mood — at least, it seemed to her that her mood was different. She was not thinking of Owen, of the lies she had told him; and she could talk gaily with Ulick about the concert she had promised to sing at. She seemed inclined to take the whole responsibility of this concert upon her own shoulders. As Ulick said, it was impossible for her to take a small part in any concert.
They were driving in Richmond Park, not far from the convent. The autumn-tinted landscape, the vicissitudes of the woods, and the plaintive air brought a tender yearning into her mood, and she contrasted the lives of those poor, holy women with her own life. Ulick did not intrude himself; he sat silent by her, and she thought of Monsignor. Sometimes he was no more than a little shadow in the background of her mind; but he was never wholly absent, and that day all matters were unconsciously referred to him. She was curious to know what his opinions were of the stage; and as they returned home in the short, luminous autumn evening, she seemed to discover suddenly the fact that she was no longer as much interested in the stage as she used to be. She even thought that she would not greatly care if she never sang on the stage again. Last night she had put the thought aside as if it were madness, to-day it seemed almost natural. Thinking of the poor sisters who lived in prayer and poverty on the edge of the common, she remembered that her life was given up to the portrayal of sensual emotion on the stage. She remembered the fierce egotism of the stage — an egotism which pursued her into every corner of her life. Compared with the lives of the poor sisters who had renounced all that was base in them, her life was very base indeed. In her stage life she was an agent of the sensual passion, not only with her voice, but with her arms, her neck and hair, and every expression of her face, and it was the craving of the music that had thrown her into Ulick’s arms. If it had subjugated her, how much more would it subjugate and hold within its sensual persuasion the ignorant listener — the listener who would perceive in the music nothing but its sensuality. Why had the Church not placed stage life under the ban of mortal sin? It would have done so if it knew what stage life was, and must always be. She then wondered what Monsignor thought of the stage, and from the moment her curiosity was engaged on this point it did not cease to trouble her till it brought her to the door of the presbytery. The ostensible object of her visit was to make certain proposals to Monsignor regarding the music she was to sing at the concert.
She was shown into a small room; its one window was so high up on the wall that the light was dim in the room, though outside there was brilliant sunshine. The sadness of the little room struck cold upon her, and she noticed the little space of floor covered with cocoa-nut matting, and how it grated under the feet. The furniture was a polished oak table, with six chairs to match. A pious print hung on each wall. One was St. Monica and St. Augustine, and the rapt expression of their faces reminded her that she might be bartering a divine inheritance for a coarse pleasure that left but regret
in the heart. And it was in such heartsick humour that Monsignor found her. He seemed to assume that she needed his help, and the tender solicitude with which he wished to come to her aid was in itself a consolation. She was already an incipient penitent as she told him of her project to bring an orchestra at her own expense to Wimbledon, and give the forest murmurs with the Bird Song from “Siegfried.” Monsignor left everything to her; he placed himself unreservedly in her hands. After a long silence she pushed a cheque for fifty pounds across the table, begging him not to mention the name of the giver. She was singing for them, that was sufficient obligation. He approved of her delicacy of feeling, thanked her for her generosity, and the business of the interview seemed ended.
“I’m so much obliged to you, Monsignor Mostyn, for having come to me, for having given me an opportunity of doing some good with my money. Hitherto, I’m ashamed to say, I’ve spent it all on myself. It has often seemed to me intolerably selfish, and I often felt that I must do something, only I did not know what to do.”
Then, feeling that she must take him into her confidence, she asked him what proportion of our income we should devote to charity. He said it was impossible to fix a precise sum, but he knew many deserving cases, and offered to advise her in the distribution of whatever money she might decide to spend in charity. Suddenly his manner changed; he even seemed to wish her to stay, and the conversation turned back to music. The conversation was mundane as possible, and it was only now and then, by some slight allusion to the Church, that he reminded Evelyn, and perchance himself, that the essential must be distinguished from the circumstantial.
Again and again the temptation rose up, it seemed to look out from her very eyes, and she was so conscious of this irresistible desire to speak to him of herself that she no longer heard him, and hardly saw the blank wall with the pious print upon it.
