Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  At that hour of the day the sun was warm enough to sit out; the little shiver in the air was not unpleasant; and sitting on the garden bench, she opened her book in a little tremor of excitement. Her thoughts fluttered, and she strove to imagine what book the saint could have written to justify so beautiful a title. Her expectations were realised. The character of the book is clearly defined in the first pages: she perceived it to be a complete manual of convent life, a perfect compendium of a nun’s soul. On its pages lay that shadowy, evanescent and hardly apprehensible thing — the soul of a nun, only the soul, not a word regarding her daily life: any mother-abbess could have written such a materialistic book: St. Teresa, with the instinct of her genius, addressed herself to the task which none but she could fulfil — the evolution of a nun’s soul. And as Evelyn read she marked the passages that specially caught her attention.

  “Do not imagine, my daughters, that it is useless to pray, as you are constantly praying, for the defenders of the Church: Have a care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves. Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of which I am speaking. Perhaps you fear that it will not go to diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory: I answer that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless. Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer — well, let it be so.”

  “Oh, to be good like that,” she thought. And her soul raised its eyes in a little shy emulation.... A few pages further on she read —

  “That all may take heed. For neglect of this counsel a nun may find herself in an entanglement from which she may not find strength to free herself. And then, great God! What feebleness, what puerile complaisances this particular friendship may not be the source. It is impossible to say what number, none but an eye-witness may believe. They are but trifles, and I see no reason for specifying them here. I merely add: in whosoever it is found it is an evil, in a superior it is a plague spot....

  “An excellent remedy is to be together only at those times enjoined by the rule, on other occasions to refrain from speech, as is now our custom, and to live separately each in her cell as the rule ordains. And, although it be a praiseworthy custom to unite for work in a community room, I desire that the nuns of the convent of St. Joseph shall be freed from this custom, for it is much easier to keep silence if each works in her cell. Moreover, it is of the first importance to accustom oneself to solitude, in order to advance oneself in prayer; and as prayer should be the mortar of this monastery, we should cherish all that which increases the spirit in us.”

  Glancing down the pages, her eyes were arrested by a passage of even more subtle, more penetrating wisdom.

  “Would you know a certain sign, my daughters, by which you may judge of your progress in virtue? Let each one look within herself and discover if she believes herself to be the unworthiest of you all, and if for the benefit of the others she makes it visible by her actions that she really thinks that this is so, that is the certain sign of spiritual advancement, and not delight in prayer, nor ravishment, nor visions, and such like favours which God grants to souls when he is so pleased. We shall only know the value of such favours in the next world. It is not so with humility — humility is a money which is always current, it is safely invested capital, a perpetual income; but extraordinary favours are money which is lent for a time and may at any moment be called in. I repeat, our true treasure is profound humility, great mortification, and an obedience which, seeing God in the superior, submits to his every order.”

  The saint’s delicate yet virile perception, and her power of expressing the shadowy and evanescent, filled Evelyn with admiration; and the saint appeared to her in the light of a great novelist; she wondered if Balzac had ever read these pages.

  “The best remedy, in my opinion, that a nun can employ to conquer the imperfect affection which she still bears her parents, is to abstain from seeing them until by patient prayer she has obtained from God the freedom of her soul; when she is so disposed that their visit is a cross, let her see them by all means. For then she will bring good to their souls, and do no harm to her own.”

  This seemed not a little grim. But how touching is the personal confession which appears on the following page.

  “My parents loved me extremely, according to what they said, and I loved them in a way that did not allow them to forget me. Nevertheless I have seen from what has happened to me, and what has happened to other nuns, how little we may count upon their affection for us.”

  The unselfishness of such conduct seemed open to doubt. But unselfishness is a word that none may speak without calling into question the entire conduct of his or her life. Evelyn remembered that she had left her father for the sake of her voice, and that she had refused to marry Owen because marriage, especially marriage with Owen, did not seem compatible with her soul’s safety. Looked at from a certain side, her life did seem self-centred, but allowance, she thought, must be made for the difficulties — the entanglements in which the first false step had involved her. But in any case she must not question the efficacy of prayer, that was a dogma of the Church. The mission of the contemplative orders is to pray for those who do not pray for themselves, and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer, we need not scruple to leave our parents to live in a monastery where, by our prayers, we held them to eternal salvation. We leave them for a little while, but only that we may live with them for ever.

  “Believe me, my dear sisters, if you serve him well you will not find better parents than those the Divine Master sends you. I know that it is even so.”

  “What beauty there is in her sternness,” Evelyn thought.

  “I repeat that those whose trend is toward worldly things and who do not make progress in virtue, shall leave this monastery; should she persist in remaining a nun let her enter another convent; for if she doesn’t she will see what will happen to her. Nor must she complain about me; nor accuse me of not having make known to her the practical life of the monastery I founded. If there is an earthly paradise it is in this house, but only for souls who desire nothing but to please God, who have no thought for themselves; for these the life here is infinitely agreeable.”

  This passage is one of the very few in which appears the wise, practical woman, the founder of an order and of many monasteries, who lived side by side in the same body, the constant associate of the lyrical saint. Evelyn tried to picture her to herself, and two pictures alternated in her thoughts. She saw deep, eager, passionate eyes, and a frail, exhausted body borne along easily by the soul, and doing the work of the unconquerable soul. In the second picture, there were the same consuming eyes, the same wasted body, but the expression was quite different. The saint’s manner was the liveliest, happiest manner, and Evelyn thought of the privilege of such companionship, and she envied those who had walked with her, hearing her speak.

  The little pond at her feet was full of fair reflections of the sky and trees, and the idea of convent life lay on the pages of the book even as fair. In itself it was disparate and vague, but on the pages of the book it floated clear and distinct. She asked if any of the Wimbledon nuns lived a life of that intense inward rapture which St. Teresa deemed essential if a sister were to be allowed to remain in the convent of St. Joseph at Avila, and the coincidence of the names gave her pause. This convent’s patron saint was St. Joseph, and she sought for some resemblance between the Reverend Mother and St. Teresa. She wondered if she, Evelyn, were a nun, towards which of the nuns would her personal sympathies incline: would she love better Sister Veronica or Sister Mary John? It might be Mother Mary Hilda. It would be one of the three. There was not one among the others likely to interest her in the least. She tried to imagine this friendship: it assumed a vague shape and then dissolved in the distance. But would the Reverend Mother tolerate this friendship, or would it be promptly cut down to the root according to the advice of St. Teresa?

  H
er thoughts pursued their way, now and then splashing as they leaped out of the soul’s dimness. Only the splashing of the fish broke the stillness of the garden, and startled at a sudden gurgling sound, she rose, in time to see a shadowy shape sinking with a motion of fins amid the weeds. That she should be living in a convent, that she should have repented of her sins, that the fish should leap and fall back with strange, gurgling sound, filled her with wonderment. The vague autumn blue expressed some vague yearning, some indistinct aspiration; the air was like crystal, the leaves were falling.... We have perceptions of the outer forms of things, but that is all we know of them. The only thing we are sure of is what is in ourselves. We know the difference between right and wrong. She stood for a long time at the edge of the fish pond, gazing into the vague depths. Then she walked, exalted, overcome by the mystery of things. She seemed to walk upon air, the world was a-thrill with spiritual significances, all was symbol and exaltation. Her past life shrank to a tiny speck, and she knew that she had been happy only since she had been in the convent. Ah, that little chapel, haunted by prayers! it breathed prayer, in that chapel contemplation was never far off. She had prayed there as she had never prayed before, and she wondered if she should attribute the difference in her prayers to the chapel or to herself. She had always felt, in a dumb, instinctive way, that to her at least everything depended on her chastity.... She had been chaste now a long while. The explanation seemed to have come to her. Yes, it is by denial of the sexual instinct that we become religious.

  As she passed through the orchard she caught sight of the strange little person whom she had seen in chapel with a pile of prayer books beside her, and who always wore something startlingly blue, whether skirt, handkerchief or cloak. She had met her in the garden before, but she had hurried away, her eyes fixed on the ground. Mother Philippa had spoken of a Miss Dingle, a simple-minded person who had been sent by her family to the convent to be looked after by the nuns, and Evelyn concluded that it must be she. But at that moment other thoughts engaged her attention; and she lingered in the orchard, returning slowly by St. Peter’s walk. As she passed the Georgian temple or summer-house, she was taken by a desire to examine it, and there she found Miss Dingle. She was seated on the floor, engaged, so Evelyn thought, in a surreptitious game of Patience. That was only how she could account for Miss Dingle’s consternation and fear at seeing her. But what she had taken for cards were pious pictures. Evelyn stood in the doorway, and for the first time had an opportunity of seeing what Miss Dingle was really like. It was difficult to say whether her face was ugly or pretty; the features were not amiss — it was the expression, vague and dim like that of an animal, that puzzled Evelyn.

  “Please let me help you to pick up your pictures.” Miss Dingle did not answer, and Evelyn feared for a moment that she had offended her. “Won’t you let me help you to pick up your pictures?”

  “Yes,” she said, “you may help me to pick them up, but you must be very quick.”

  “But why must I be quick? Are you in such a very great hurry?”

  Miss Dingle seemed uncertain of her own thoughts, and to reassure her, Evelyn asked her if she would not like to walk with her in the orchard.

  “Oh,” she said, looking at Evelyn shyly — it was a sort of child-like curiosity, “I dare not go into the orchard to-day.... I brought these pictures to keep him from me. I know that he is about.”

  “Who is about?”

  “I’m afraid he might hurt me.”

  “But who would hurt you?”

  “Well,” she said cautiously, “perhaps he’d be afraid to come near me to-day,” and she glanced at her frock. “But I’m sure he’s about. Did you see any one as you came through the furze bushes?”

  “No,” Evelyn answered; and trying to conceal her astonishment, she said, “I’m sure there’s no one there.”

  “Ah, he knows it would be useless.” She glanced again at her frock. “You see my blue skirt, that has perhaps frightened him away.”

  “But who has gone away?”

  “Oh, the devil is always about.”

  “But you don’t think he would hurt you?”

  Miss Dingle looked suspiciously at Evelyn, and some dim thought whether Evelyn was the devil in disguise must have crossed her mind. But whatever the thought was, it was but a flitting thought; it passed in a moment, and Miss Dingle said— “But the devil is always trying to hurt us. That is what he comes for.”

  “So that is why you surrounded yourself with pious pictures — to keep him away?”

  Miss Dingle nodded.

  “What a nice dress you have on. I suppose you like blue. I always notice you wear it.”

  “I wear blue, as much blue as I can, for blue is the colour of the Virgin Mary, and he dare not attack me while I have it on. But I wear sometimes only a handkerchief, sometimes only a skirt, but now that he is about so frequently, I have to dress entirely in blue.”

  Evelyn asked her if she had lived in the convent long, and Miss Dingle told her she had lived there for the last three or four years, but she would give no precise answer when Evelyn asked if she hoped to become a nun, or whether she liked her home or the convent the better.

  “Now,” she said, “I must really go and say some prayers in the church.”

  Evelyn offered to accompany her, but she said she was well armed, and showed Evelyn several rosaries, which in case of need she would wave in his face.

  Sister Mary John was digging in the kitchen garden, and Evelyn told her how she had come upon Miss Dingle in the summer-house surrounded by pious pictures. Leaning on her spade, Sister Mary John looked across the beds thinking, and Evelyn wondered of what. She said at last that Miss Dingle thought too much of the devil.

  “We should not waste thoughts on him, all our thoughts should be for God; there is much more pleasure and profit in such thoughts.”

  “But it does seem a little absurd to imagine that the devil is hiding behind gooseberry bushes.”

  “The devil is everywhere, temptation is always near.”

  Evelyn saw that the nun did not care for discussion on the subject of the devil’s objectivity, and in the pause in the conversation she noticed Sister Mary John’s enormous boots. They looked like a man’s boots, and she had a full view of them, for Sister Mary John wore her skirt very short, so that she might be able to dig with greater ease.

  “One of the disadvantages of convent life are the few facilities it affords for exercise and for music,” she added, with her beautiful smile. “I must have exercise, I can’t live without it.... It is extraordinary how differently people are constituted. There is Mother Mary Hilda, she had never been for what I should call a good sharp walk in her life, and she does not know what an ache or a pain is.”

  The nun pointed with admiration to the bed which she had dug up that morning, and complained of the laziness of the gardener: he had not done this nor that, but he was such a good man — since he became a Catholic.

  “He and I used to talk about things while we were at work: he said that he had never had it properly explained to him that there should only be one true religion.

  “Since he became a Catholic, has he not done as much work as he used to do?”

  “No, I’m afraid he has not,” Sister Mary John answered. “Indeed, we have been thinking of sending him away, but it would be difficult for him to get another Catholic situation, and his faith would be endangered if he lived among Protestants.”

  At this moment they were interrupted by a loud caw, and looking round, Evelyn saw the convent jackdaw. The bird had hopped within a few yards, cawing all the while, evidently desirous of attracting their attention. With grey head a-slanted, the bird watched them out of sly eyes. “Pay no attention to him; you’ll see what he’ll do,” said Sister Mary John, and while Evelyn waited, a little afraid of the bird who seemingly had selected her for some purpose of his own, she listened to the story of his domestication. He had been hatched out in the hen-house, and had tamed himself; h
e had declined to go wild, preferring a sage convent life to the irregularity of the world. The bird hopped about, feigning an interest in the worms, but getting gradually nearer the two women. At last, with a triumphant caw caw, he flew on to Sister Mary John’s shoulder, eyeing Evelyn all the while, clearly bent on making her acquaintance.

  “He’ll come on your shoulder presently,” said Sister Mary John, and after some plausive coquetting the bird fluttered on to Evelyn’s shoulder, and Sister Mary John said —

  “You wait; you’ll see what he will do.”

  Evelyn remained quite still, feeling the bird’s bill caressing her neck. When she looked round she noticed a wicked expression gathering in his eyes.

  “Pretend,” said Sister Mary John, “not to see him.”

  Evelyn did as she was bidden, and, satisfied that he was no longer observed, the bird plunged his beak into Evelyn’s hair, pulled at it as hard as he could, and then flew away, cawing with delight.

  “That is one of his favourite tricks. We are so fond of him, and so afraid that one day a cat will take him. But there is Mother Mary Hilda coming to fetch you for your lesson.”

  Evelyn bade Sister Mary John good-bye, and went forward to meet her instructress.

  The morning seemed full of adventure. There were Miss Dingle, her pious pictures, and the devil behind the gooseberry bushes. There was the picturesque figure of Sister Mary John, digging, making ready for the winter cabbages. There was the jackdaw, his story and his humours, and there was her discovery of the genius of St. Teresa. All these things had happened that morning, and Evelyn walked a little elated, her heart full of spiritual enthusiasm. The project was already astir in her for the acquisition of an edition in the original Spanish, and she looked forward to a study of that language as a pleasant and suitable occupation when she returned to London. She questioned Mother Mary Hilda regarding the merits of the English translation; the French, she said, she could read no longer. She described the worthy father’s prose as asthmatic; she laughed at his long, wheezy sentences, but Sister Mary Hilda seemed inclined to set store on the Jesuit’s pious intentions. The spirit was more essential than the form, and it was with this argument on their lips they sat down to the Latin lesson. The nun had opened the book, and Evelyn was about to read the first sentence, when, raising her eyes and voice, she said —