by George Moore
CHAP. XVI.
AND THE IDEA of a bell sounding across the evening landscape was in the mind of the congregation when Sister Mary John played the octave; and the broken chords she played with her right hand awoke a sensation of lights dying behind distant hills.
It is almost night, and amid a lonely landscape a harsh rock appears, and by it a forlorn woman stands — a woman who is without friend or any mortal hope — and she commends herself to the care of the Virgin. She begins to sing softly, tremulous like one in pain and doubt, “Ave Maria, hearken to the Virgin’s cry.” The melody she sings is rich, even ornate, but the richness of the phrase with its two little grace notes does not mitigate the sorrow at the core; the rich garb in which the idea is clothed does not rob the song of its humanity.
Evelyn’s voice filled with the beauty of the melody, and she sang the phrase which closes the stansa, a phrase which dances like a puff of wind in an evening bough, so tenderly, so lovingly, that acute tears trembled under the eyelids. And all her soul was in her voice when she sang the phrase of passionate faith which the lonely, disheartened woman sings, looking up from the desert rock. Then her voice sank into the calm beauty of the “Ave Maria,” now given with confidence in the Virgin’s intercession, and the broken chords passed down the keyboard, uniting with the last note of the solemn octaves, which had sounded through the song like hells heard across an evening landscape.
“How beautiful she sings it,” a man said out loud, and his neighbour looked and wondered, for the man’s eyes were full of tears.
“You have a beautiful voice, child,” said the old nun, when they came out of church, “and it is a real pleasure to me to hear you sing, and to know that for the future your great gift will be devoted to the service of God. Shall we go into the garden for a little walk before supper? We shall have it to ourselves, and the air will do you good.”
It was the month of June, and the convent garden was in all the colour of its summer — crimson and pink; and all the scents of the month, stocks and sweetbriar, were blown up from St. Peter’s Walk. In the long mixed borders the blue larkspurs stood erect between Canterbury bells, and the bushy peonies, crimson and pink, and, over all, the great vagrant poppies showered their gay petals. Roses, like pale porcelain, clustered along the low terraced walk and up the house itself, over the stucco walls; but more beautiful than the roses were the delicate petals of the clematis stretched out like fingers upon the walls.
An old nun was being wheeled up and down the terrace in a chair by one of the lay Sisters, that she might enjoy the sweet air.
“I must introduce you to Sister Lawrence,” the Prioress said, “she will never forgive me if I don’t. She is the eldest member of our community; if she lives another two years she will complete half a century of convent life.”
As they drew near Evelyn saw two black eyes in a white, almost fleshless face. The eyes alone seemed to live, and the shrunken figure, huddled in many shawls, gave an impression of patriarchal age. Evelyn saw by her veil that Sister Lawrence was a lay Sister, and the old nun tried to draw herself up in her chair as they approached, and kissed the hand of the Prioress.
“Well, Sister, how are you feeling? I have brought you our new musical postulant to look at. I want to know what you think of her. You must know, Evelyn,” said the Prioress, “that Sister Lawrence is a great judge of people’s vocations; I always consult her about my new postulants.”
Sister Lawrence took Evelyn’s hands between hers, and gazed into her face so earnestly that Evelyn feared her innermost thoughts were being read. Then with a little touch of wilfulness, that came oddly from one so old and venerable, the Sister said, —
“Well, Reverend Mother, she is pretty, anyhow, and it is a long time since we had a pretty postulant.”
“Really, Lawrence, I am ashamed of you,” said the Prioress with playful severity; “Sister Evelyn will be quite disedified.”
“Mother, if I like them to be pretty it is only because they have one more gift to bring to the feet of our dear Lord. I see in Sister Evelyn’s face that she has a vocation. I believe she is the providence that God has sent to help us through our difficulties.”
“We’re all praying,” said the Prioress, “that it may be so.”
CHAP. XVII.
“SISTER CECILIA, WHO is our sacristan, is a little slow and forgetful,” the Prioress said one day. “She wants a little help, and you are just the one, Evelyn, to help her, and you will soon learn the work.”
The sacristry was a large, cool room, wainscoted in oak, and Evelyn followed the Prioress into a sweet fragrance of lavender and orris root. She was shown how the vestments were laid on the shelves, with tissue paper between them, and how they were covered with holland wrappers. These vestments were the pride of the convent. They dated from its prosperous times; and Evelyn thought, as she was shown the white satin vestments for the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, used on Easter Sundays, the professed days of the Sisters, and the visits of the Bishop, and the white embroidered vestments with the figure of Our Lady in a blue medallion in the centre of the cross, used for all feasts of the Virgin, how the altar raiment had always been the pious labour and vanity of women who inured their bodies to the discomfort of coarse habits and lived in bare cells; how women’s natural desire for embroidered silks and richly-assorted colours had found expression in the adornment of the altar and the garmenting of a priest.
There were two sets of red vestments, one made of red and green brocade, and the colour of its lining, Evelyn said, reminded her of beet-root, and she got into the habit of calling them the “beet-root ones,” and it amused her to avoid putting them for wear whenever she could. On another shelf were the great copes in satin and brocade, gold and white, with embroidered hoods, and orphreys with veils to match. The processional banners were stored in tall presses, and with them, hanging on wire hooks, were the altar curtains, thick with gold thread.
The pride of the convent in its vestments and banners never ceased; how much had been paid for them, and how much they were now worth, was a constant subject of conversation. Once a whisper had gone round that the white satin vestments might have to be sold, and the nuns had said they would rather live on bread and water always than part with them. This was a little while before Evelyn had come to their help, and she had been told that it was she who had saved the vestments; so when they were in use she raised herself in her place so that she might see them better, and she kept a special watchfulness over them for moth and dust.
In the sacristy they were always busy and always behindhand with their work. For the high altar there were the curtains and embroidered frontals and the tabernacle hangings, and as these had to harmonise with the vestments it often happened they were changed every day; and on the day before Mass for the Dead the whole altar had to be stripped after Benediction and black hangings had to be put on, and these had to be changed the next morning after Mass was over. Then the management of the candles demanded much attention. They had to be all of equal length when the altar was lighted for Benediction; and to be economical, with as splendid a show as possible, was the ambition of the sacristan. It was essential to make sure that no candle should ever burn into its socket, leaving less than the twelve ordained by the Church for Exposition.
The work of the sacristy seemed to Evelyn to be arranged with a view to giving the greatest amount of trouble to the sacristan. It was the Prioress’s whim never to use the ordinary altar cloth with an embroidered hem, but always cloths on which lace frontals were lightly tacked, and the sewing on of the lace without creasing the beautiful white linen required great care and dexterity, and the spilling of a little wax at once condemned an altar cloth to the wash. Then, every member of the community seemed to have an interest in the business of the sacristy. Apart from the canonical directions for divine service, there existed an unwritten code of customs of pious observances. Some saints were honoured by having their banners exhibited in the sanctuary throughout the octave o
f the feast, while others were allowed little temporary altars on which some relic could be exposed.
The Sisters themselves were often mistaken as to what had been done on previous anniversaries, but the Prioress’s memory was unfailing, and in cases of doubt every point had to be referred to her. One of the strictest rules of the house was that the sacristan took orders from none but the Prioress; and Evelyn rejoiced that this was so, for it gave her frequent excuse for little hasty visits and chats in the Prioress’s room.
To arrange the high altar for a great feast Evelyn would sometimes rob one of the other altars, especially if it were dedicated to a saint who did not appeal to her; and the Prioress, coming one day to see what progress was being made, found St. Joseph’s altar stripped save for a single pair of candlesticks and two flower vases filled with artificial flowers. Evelyn was admonished, and she dared to answer that she was not interested in St. Joseph— “though, of course, he was a very worthy man.”
“My dear Evelyn, I cannot allow you to speak in this way of St. Joseph, who is one of the patrons of the convent, nor can I allow his altar to be robbed in this fashion.”
On another occasion the Prioress held to her opinion regarding the vestments to be used, but Evelyn answered, “Yes, Mother, I know. I always use the common ones for the martyrs; but the apostles — well — are the apostles, and you would not like them to be put off with the beetroot things.” Behind them stood Sister Cecilia, listening with growing astonishment that a mere postulant should dare to speak to the Prioress on terms of equality! She took no pride in her position as sacristan, seeming to see in her duties only a great deal of work and a responsibility from which she would like to be free. Evelyn could see that Sister Cecilia looked upon her enthusiasms as amateurish, and that she was convinced they would soon wear off. Meanwhile, the nun was glad to relinquish her work and retire to the chapel to indulge in pious reverie. She was the type of nun who is the despair of every Reverend Mother — the idle devout — her common complaint being that she had no time to say her prayers. The Prioress thought that the community prayers according to the rule of the convent were sufficient, and one day she compelled her to return to the sacristy, and had then compared Sister Cecilia’s work with Evelyn’s. If she did not, the Prioress said, put more fervour into her prayers than she put into her work, they would avail her little enough.
Evelyn had brought her experience of stage decoration and her own talent for personal decoration for the parts she had played into the decoration of the chapel, and poor Sister Cecilia wondered at the marvels which Evelyn accomplished with the scantiest materials. But fired by the Prioress’s remarks she henceforth refused to Evelyn any share in the work of the altar, and on the feast of the Assumption she laboured until she could no more, anxious to accomplish a decoration which would win words of approval from the Reverend Mother. But when she stopped to view her work at the end of the day the conviction that it was worthless forced her to ask Evelyn to put it right.
Evelyn tried to rearrange the altar as quietly and as unobtrusively as she could, pretending that her alterations were few and slight, and keeping herself from looking towards the nun who prayed for strength to conquer her sinful jealousy. Sister Cecilia had told Evelyn she was not to tend the sacred lamp any longer; but forgot this piece of spitefulness in her contrition, and left the chapel without filling the lamp; and that night, for luck was always against her, the Prioress came down to say her prayers when the community was in bed. She found the chapel in darkness, and had to return to her room for matches. Now it was a point of pious observance that the Easter light, struck on Holy Saturday, should be preserved through the year, each new wick being lighted from the dying one. Sister Cecilia’s carelessness had broken the continuity; she was severely reprimanded and dismissed from the sacristy. She ate her meals that day kneeling on the refectory floor, and for many a day the shameful occurrence was remembered.
Veronica was appointed in her place, and delighted at her promotion, she wore a quaint little air of importance, and hurried about with a bunch of keys hanging from her belt by a long chain.
It amused Evelyn to find herself under Veronica’s orders, but the little novice was quite composed; she merely said, “I cannot help it, Sister Evelyn; of course you ought to be in my place, and I cannot think why dear Mother has arranged it like this.”
They might talk in the sacristy, and Evelyn began to see into Veronica’s nature; and her innocent nature revealed itself in little questions.
“Why do you want to be a nun, Sister Evelyn? “she said as they folded up the vestments after Mass.
“Is it strange that I should wish to be a nun?”
“Yes, for you are not like any of us, nor has the convent been the same since you came.”
“Are you sorry I want to be a nun?”
“Sorry, Sister Evelyn? No, indeed. God chose you from the beginning as the means he would employ to save us, only I cannot see you as a nun, always satisfied with the life here.”
“Everyone does not know from childhood what they are going to do. You always knew your vocation, Veronica.”
“I can’t imagine myself anything but a nun, and yet I’m not always satisfied. Sometimes I’m filled with longing, a great longing, and I feel as though I could not live without it; yet I don’t know what I want. It is an extraordinary feeling. Do you know what I mean, Sister Evelyn?”
“Yes, dear, I think I do.”
“It makes me feel quite faint, and it seises me so suddenly; I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, only I haven’t liked to. There are days when it makes me so restless that I cannot say my prayers, and so I know the feeling must be wrong.”
The nun’s words stirred an old scruple in Evelyn, and she did not dare to answer, but Sister Veronica continued as if talking to herself, —
“It is something in the quality of your voice. It thrills through me, and brings on this feeling worse than anything. But as no one else seems affected by your singing as I am, I fancied that it was because you felt the same.”
“I would not worry over it, Veronica. You’ll get over it. It will pass.”
“I hope it will,” Veronica said. Her eyes were full of reverie, and behind her the open press exhaled a thin fragrance of lavender.
CHAP. XVIII.
FATHER AMBROSE WAS a Carmelite monk, a great preacher, and a man of the highest sanctity, who was a very old friend of the house, and the spiritual adviser of the Prioress and many of her nuns. He came once or twice a year, and his visits were among the great events of conventual history. He was coming to them that week; he would stay with Father Daly some days, and this visit was the subject of conversation during the morning’s recreation.
It was pleasant to sit talking of him under their great tree. The air and the earth were warm, and Mother Hilda sat in the midst of her novices and postulants, helping the conversation, guiding it occasionally. Everyone was anxious to talk, but everyone was anxious to think, too, for everyone knew that she would be questioned by the aged monk, and that the chances of her being accepted as a nun depended in no small measure on his opinion of her vocation. But in the midst of their personal interests in the monk, Evelyn noticed that the eyes of the novices were frequently turned to Veronica, and that they were all laughing at her.
“Have you noticed, Sister Evelyn, how beaming Sister Veronica has looked for the last day or two? I can’t think what has come to her.”
“Yes, isn’t it lucky for her to have been put in the sacristy just before Father Ambrose’s visit; now she will be able to put out his vestments herself.”
“Yes, and you may be sure we shall have all the best vestments every day; and she will be able to have any number of private interviews behind our backs.”
“Now, children, that will do,” interrupted Mother Hilda, as she noticed Veronica’s crimson cheeks as she bent over her work.
Evelyn wondered, and that evening in the sacristy Veronica broke into expostulations with an excitement
that took Evelyn by surprise.
“How could I not care for Father Ambrose? I have known him all my life. Once I was very ill with pleurisy, I nearly died, and Father Ambrose anointed me and gave me the last sacrament. I had not made my first communion then, I was only eleven, but they gave me the sacrament, for they thought I was dying, and I thought so too, and I promised our Lord I would be a nun if I got well. I never told anyone except Father Ambrose, and he has helped me all through to keep my vow — so you see, he has been everything to me. I have never loved anyone as I have loved Father Ambrose. When he comes here I always ask him for some rule or directions, so that I may have the happiness of obeying him till his next visit, and it is so trying, is it not, Sister Evelyn, when the novices make their silly little jokes about it, and of course they do not understand, they can’t; but to me Father Ambrose means everything I care for; besides, he really is a saint. I believe he would have been canonised if he had lived in the Middle Ages. He has promised to profess me. It is wrong, I know, but really, I should hardly care to be professed if Father Ambrose could not be by.”
“So this,” Evelyn thought, “is the passion of this child’s life, this spiritual love of an aged monk, a love which is part and parcel of her highest and holiest thoughts. It is the most real thing in a life wholly purged of external events.”
And to Evelyn, always curiously interested in the mystery of sex, this spiritual love within the convent was strangely pathetic. Evelyn noted the change that had come over the little sacristan; her eyes shone, and her pale oval face had a pretty fresh colour, and she seemed to dance through her work.
Evelyn watched her sympathetically, understanding instinctively that Veronica was jealous that any other hands than hers should lay out the vestments he was to wear, and she turned her head so that Sister Veronica should not think she was being watched; and the little nun was happy in the corner of the sacristy laying out the gold vestments he was to wear, putting the gold chalice for him to use, and the gold cruets, which Evelyn had never seen used before, and she left out the finest towels for him to dry his hands. Being a monk he had a larger amice than the ordinary priest, and Veronica produced a coloured strip of embroidery, which she tacked on to the outer hem of the amice so as to give it the desired appearance when the monk drew it over his head on entering or leaving the sacristy. Weeks after, Evelyn came upon this amice with the embroidery attached put away in a secret corner so that it should not be used in the ordinary way, and when on the second evening of his stay Father Ambrose preached familiarly to the nuns, choosing his text from the Song of Solomon, and dwelling upon the mystical union between Christ and his earthly spouse, Evelyn felt that of all the nuns it was probably Veronica who penetrated most fully into his meaning.
