Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  It was on Friday morning that Agnes handed her Ulick’s letter. She did not read it at once, it lay on the table while she was dressing, and she was uncertain whether it would not be better to put off reading it until she came back from St. Joseph’s.

  “Alas, from our first meeting, and before it, we were aware of the fate which has overtaken us. We heard it in our hearts, that numb restlessness, that vague disquietude, that prophetic echo which never dies out of ears attuned to the music of destiny ... Love you less, you who are the source of all joy to me? Evelyn, my heart aches and my brain is light with grief, but the terrible certitude persists that we are being drawn asunder. I see you like a ship that has cleared the harbour bar, and is already amid the tumult of the ocean.... We are ships, and the destiny of ships is the ocean, the ocean draws us both: we have rested as long as may be, we have delayed our departure, but the tide has lifted us from our moorings. With an agonised heart I watched the sails of your ship go up, and now I see that mine, too, are going aloft, hoisted by invisible hands. I look back upon the bright days and quiet nights we have rested in this tranquil harbour. Like ships that have rested a while in a casual harbour, blown hither by storms, we part, drawn apart by the eternal magnetism of the sea. I would go to you, Evelyn, if I could, and pray you not to leave me. But you would not hear: destiny hears no prayers. In the depths of our consciousness, below the misery of the moment, there lies a certain sense that our ways are different ways, and that we must fare forth alone, whither we know not, over the ocean’s rim; and in this sense of destiny we must find comfort. Will resignation, which is the highest comfort, come to us in time? My eyes fall upon my music paper, and at the same time your eyes turn to the crucifix. Ours is the same adventure, though a different breeze fills the sails, though the prows are set to a different horizon. God is our quest — you seek him in dogma, I in art.

  “But, Evelyn, my heart is aching so. How awful the word never, and the years are filled with its echoes. And the wide ocean which lies outside the harbour is so lonely, and I have no heart for any other joy. ‘May we not meet again?’ my heart cries from time to time; ‘may not some propitious storm blow us to the same anchorage again, into the same port?’ Ah, the suns and the seas we shall have sailed through would render us unrecognisable, we should not know each other. Last night I wandered by the quays, and, watching the constellations, I asked if we were divided for ever, if, when the earth has become part and parcel of the stars, our love will not reappear in some starry affinity, in some stellar friendship. — Yours,

  “ULICK DEAN.”

  The symbol of the ships seemed to Evelyn to express the union and the division and the destiny that had overtaken them. She sat and pondered, and in her vision ships hailed each other as they crossed in mid-ocean. Ships drew together as they entered a harbour. Ships separated as they fared forth, their prows set towards different horizons. She sat absorbed in the mystery of destiny. Like two ships, they had rested side by side in a casual harbour. They had loved each other as well as their different destinies had allowed them. None can do more. She loved him better — in a way — but he was less to her than Owen. She felt that, and he had felt that.... As he said, if they were to meet again they would not recognise each other, so different were the suns that would shine upon them and the oceans they would travel through. She understood what he meant, and a prevision of her future life seemed to nicker up in her brain, like the sea seen through a mist; and through vistas in the haze she saw the lonely ocean, and her bark was already putting off from the shore. All she had known she was leaving behind. The destiny of ships is the ocean.

  Owen’s letter she received in the evening about six o’clock. She changed colour at the sight of it, and her hand trembled, and she tore the envelope across as she opened it.

  “You ask me to make no attempt to save you. You ask me to stand on the bank while you struggle and are dragged down by the current. Evelyn, I have never disobeyed your slightest wish before, but I declare my right to use all means to save you from a terrible fate. I return to London to do so. God only knows if I shall succeed.... In any case I hope you will never allude again to any money questions. What I gave, I gave, and unless you want to kill me outright, never speak again of returning my presents. — As ever,

  OWEN ASHER.”

  Her eyes ran through the lines, and her heart said, “How he loves me.” But the temptation to see him quenched instantly in remembrance of her Communion, and she tore the letter hastily into two pieces, as if by destroying it she destroyed the difficulty it had created for her. She must not see him. But how was she to avoid meeting him? To-morrow be would be waiting in the street for her, and she walked about the room too agitated to think clearly. He seemed like the devil trying to come between her and God. She must not see him, of that she was quite sure. She would lock herself in her room. But then she would miss Holy Communion, and her heart was set on the Sacrament; the Sacrament alone could give her strength to persevere. To see him and to hear him would ruin her peace of mind, and peace of mind was essential to the reverent reception of the Sacrament. It was lost already, or very nearly. She stopped in her walk, she looked into her soul, she asked herself if any thought had crossed her mind which would render her unfit for Communion ... and on the spot she resolved to go straight to Monsignor and consult him. He would advise her, he would find some way out of the difficulty. But it was now six; she could not get to St. Joseph’s before seven. It was late, but she did not think he would refuse to see her; he would know that it was only a matter of the greatest moment that would bring her to inquire for him at that hour.

  It was as she expected. Monsignor did not receive anyone so late in the evening.

  “Yes, I know, but I think Monsignor Mostyn will see me. Tell him — tell him that my business does not admit delay.”

  She was shown into the same waiting-room. This seemed to her a favourable presage, and she offered up a prayer that Monsignor would not refuse to see her; everything depended on that. She listened for his step; twice she was mistaken; at last the door opened. It was he, and he guessed, before she had time to speak, what had happened.

  “One of those men,” he said, “has come again into your life?”

  She nodded, and, still unable to speak, she searched in her pocket for their letters.

  “I received these letters to-day — one this morning, the other, Sir Owen’s, just now. That was why I came. I felt that I had to see you.”

  “Pray sit down, my child, you are agitated.” He handed her a chair.

  “You remember you said I might go to Communion on Sunday, and if I were to meet him to-morrow it would — there is no temptation, I don’t mean that — but I do not wish to be reminded of things which you told me I was to try to forget.”

  The priest stood reading the letters, and Evelyn sat looking into space, absorbed in the desire to escape from Owen. All her faith was in Monsignor, and she believed he would be able to save her from Owen’s intrusion.

  “I don’t think you need fear anything from Mr. Dean.”

  “No, not from him.”

  Monsignor continued to read Ulick’s letter. Evelyn wished he would read Owen’s; Ulick’s interested her not in the least.

  “Mr. Dean seems a very extraordinary person. Does he believed in astrology, the casting of horoscopes, or is it mere affectation?”

  “I don’t know; he always talks like that. He believes, or says he believes, in Lir and the great Mother Dana, in the old Irish Gods. But, Monsignor, please read Sir Owen’s letter. I want to know what I am to do.”

  He walked once across the room, and when he returned to the table he said half to himself, as if his thoughts had long out-stripped his words —

  “I am glad I advised you to leave Park Lane, for of course he will go there first.”

  “He will easily find out I’m at Dulwich, he need not even ask — he will guess it at once.”

  “Yes, to be sure.”

  “If I am not to
meet him I must go away — but where? All my friends and acquaintances are his friends. You would approve of none of them Monsignor,” she said, smiling a little.

  He did not seem to hear her. Suddenly he said, “I think you had better go and spend a few days at the Passionist Convent. The Reverend Mother sent you an invitation through me, you remember, so we need have no hesitation in proposing it. Indeed, I feel confident that they will receive you with the greatest pleasure. It will do you a great deal of good. You will have peace and quiet, my child; you will find yourself in an atmosphere of faith and purity which cannot but be helpful to you in your present unsettled state.”

  It seemed to Evelyn that that was what she had wanted all the time, only she had not been able to say so. Yes; to spend a week with those dear nuns, to sit in the convent garden, to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament in the convent church, it would be a real spiritual luxury.

  “Yes, I should love to go,” she said. “I feel it is just what I need. I have so much to think out, so much to learn, and at home there are a hundred things to distract me.”

  “Very well, then, that is settled. I will send the Reverend Mother word to-morrow; but there is no necessity, you can write yourself, and say you are coming in the afternoon; she will only have to get your room ready.”

  “But, Monsignor, my Communion? I had forgotten it was from you I was to receive Holy Communion. Of course I know it doesn’t really make any difference, but still, you heard my confession, and I would far rather receive Communion this first time from you than from anyone else. I don’t think it could be quite the same thing — if it weren’t from you.”

  “And I should be sorry too, my child, as by God’s grace I have been the means of bringing you thus far, not to complete your reconciliation to him. But I think we can manage that too without much difficulty. I say Mass to-morrow at nine o’clock, and will give you Communion then, and you can go to the convent for your retreat early in the afternoon. Will that suit you?”

  And Evelyn could not find words to express her gratitude.

  That evening she sat with her father. He was busy stringing a lute, and they had not spoken for some time; they often spent quite long whiles without speaking, and only occasionally they raised their eyes to see each other. The sensation of the other’s presence was sufficient for their happiness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  IT BEING SATURDAY, there was choir practice at St. Joseph’s, and when Evelyn returned her father had left, and she breakfasted alone. After breakfast she sat absorbed in the mysteries of the Sacrament she had received. But in the middle of her exaltation doubt intervened, and Owen’s arguments flashed through her mind. She strove to banish them; it was terrible that she should think such things over again, and on the morning of her Communion. Her spiritual joy was blighted; she could only hope that these dreadful thoughts were temptations of the devil, and that she was in no wise responsible. She stood in the middle of the room, asking herself if she had not in some slight measure yielded to them. No direct answer came to her question, but the words, “When I’m a bad woman I believe, when I’m a good woman I doubt,” sounded clear and distinct in her brain, and she remained thinking a long while.

  Her father came in after lunch. And while she spoke about his trebles and his altos, she was thinking how she should tell him that she was going away that afternoon.

  “You’re very silent.”

  “I was at Holy Communion this morning.”

  “This morning? I thought you were going to Communion on Sunday?”

  “Yes, so I was, but I received a letter from Owen Asher saying he intended to see me. I took it to Monsignor; he said it was necessary that I should not see Owen, and he advised me to go and stay with the Sisters at Wimbledon. That is why I went to Communion this morning; I wanted Monsignor to give me Communion. Father, I cannot remain here, I should be sure to meet him.”

  “He will not come here.”

  “No, but he’ll be waiting in the street.”

  “When are you going?”

  “This afternoon,” she answered, and handed him Owen’s letter. He glanced at it, and said —

  “He seems very fond of you.”

  The answer shocked her, and nothing more was said on the subject. A little later she asked him about the trains. She did not know how she was to get from Dulwich to Wimbledon. Neither were very apt in looking out the trains, and eventually it was Agnes who discovered the changes that would have to be made. She would have to go first to Victoria, and then she would have to drive from Victoria to Waterloo, and this seemed so complicated and roundabout that she decided to drive all the way in a hansom. Dulwich and Wimbledon could not be more than ten miles apart.

  “I must go upstairs now, father, and pack my things.”

  Her father followed her and stood by, while she hesitated what she should take. Smiling, she rejected a tea-gown as unsuitable for convent wear, and put in a black lace scarf which she thought would be useful for wearing in church; it would look better in the convent chapel than a hat. Instead of a flowered silk she chose a grey alpaca. Then she remembered that she must take some books with her. It would be useless to bring pious books with her, she would find plenty of those in the convent.

  “Have you any books, father? I must have something to read.”

  “There are a few books downstairs; you know them all.”

  “You don’t read much, father?”

  “Not much, except music. But Ulick brings books here, you may find something among them.”

  She returned with Berlioz’s Memoirs, Pater’s Imaginary Portraits, and Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience.

  “I suppose these books belong to Ulick. I don’t know if I ought to take them.”

  “I cannot advise you; you must do as you like. I suppose you’ll bring them back?”

  “Oh, yes, of course I shall bring them back.”

  “Evelyn, dear, is it quite essential that you should go?”

  “Yes, father, yes, it is quite; but I don’t know how I am to get away.”

  “How you’re to get away! What do you mean?”

  “Well,” she answered, laughing, “you see in his letter he says he’s coming to watch me. Father, I can see that you pity him; you’re sorry for him, aren’t you?”

  “Well, Evelyn, he offered to marry you, he made you a great singer, and you say he’d do anything for you. I suppose I am sorry for him.”

  They stood looking out of the window.

  “You know I’d like to stop with you; it can’t be helped; but I shall come back.”

  “Do you think you’ll come back?”

  “Of course I shall come back. Where should I go if I did not come back?”

  At that moment Agnes drove up in a hansom; she ran up the little garden, and carried out Evelyn’s bag and placed it in the hansom.

  “I must go now, father; good-bye, darling. I shan’t be away more than seven or eight days.”

  A moment after her dear father was behind her, and she was alone in the hansom, driving towards the convent. About her were villas engarlanded with reddening creeper. On one lawn a family had assembled under the shade of a dwarf cedar, and miles of this kind of landscape lay before her. It seemed to her like painted paper, an illusion that might pass away at any moment. Her truth was no longer in the external world, but in her own soul. Her soul was making for a goal which she could not discern. She was leaving a life of wealth and fame and love for a life of poverty, chastity and obscurity. All the joy and emulation of the stage she was relinquishing for a dull, narrow, bare life at Dulwich, giving singing lessons and saying prayers at St. Joseph’s. Yet there was no question which she would choose, and she marvelled at the strangeness of her choice.

  The road lay through fields and past farmhouses, but the suburban street was never quite lost sight of. Its blue roofs and cheap porticos appeared unexpectedly at the end of an otherwise romantic prospect, and so on and so on, until the driver let his horse walk
up Wimbledon hill. When they reached the top she craned her neck, and was in time to catch a glimpse of the windmill far away to the right. The inn was in front of her, the end of a long point of houses stretching into the common, and the hansom rolled easily on the wide, curving roads. She anticipated the choked gardens, the decaying pear trees, the gold crowns of sunflowers; and a moment after the hansom passed these things and she saw the old green door, and heard the jangling peal. The eyes of the lay sister looked through the barred loop-hole.

  “How do you do, sister? I suppose you expected me?”

  The cabman put the trunk inside the long passage, and Evelyn said —

  “But my luggage.”

  “If you’ll come into the parlour I’ll get one of the sisters to help me to carry it upstairs.”

  Evelyn was sitting at the table turning over the leaves of the Confessions of St. Augustine, when the Reverend Mother entered. She seemed to Evelyn even smaller than she had done on the first occasion they had met; she seemed lost in the voluminous grey habit, and the long, light veil floated in the wind of her quick step.

  “I’m glad you were able to come so soon. All the sisters are anxious to meet you, you who have done so much for us.”

  “I’ve done very little, Reverend Mother. Could I have done less for my old convent? I hope that your difficulties are at an end.”

  “At an end, no, but you helped us over a critical moment in the fortunes of our convent.”