by George Moore
Suddenly she remembered the day she had seen the convent for the first time. She had driven Monsignor and Father Daly there in her carriage. Ah! those chestnut horses, what had happened to them? were they dead? Maybe they were drawing cabs. A few days later she had gone to confession to Monsignor, and to escape from her lovers she had returned to the convent for a retreat. She remembered the drive back to London, and how she had found Owen Asher waiting for her in the Park Lane drawing-room. How long ago all that seemed now, and how strange that she should remember it. She, a nun, sitting in the choir, her book upon her knees. What strange romance of destiny had brought her here? She saw that afternoon in Park Lane as one sees a sail blotted on the horizon — the very mood in which she had nearly yielded to Owen. She was sure she would have yielded if he had persisted, but he had refrained. The convent, she supposed, was still in her eyes. The prayers of the nuns had restrained him — could it have been that? And then she remembered one long afternoon in the Park with Ulick. They had stood a long while looking at the spire of Kensington Church, and as they walked home in the twilight he had asked her to marry him, and she had almost consented. He had tried to overrule her will with his, and she had promised to meet him at Victoria. They were to have gone to Dulwich together to her father; they were to have been married at once, so that there could be no turning back. But while sitting by the fire after dinner, thinking every moment she must get up to go to meet him at Victoria, she had been overcome. Never had her will been so completely overcome. She had not been able to get up from her chair. She remembered putting the moment off from five minutes to five minutes, and her strange dreams. When she awoke Merat was by her. She had come to ask her if she had any letters for the post, and to tell her that on the morrow her Cousin Sophie was to take her vows. They had gone together to the convent, and she remembered the Carmelite nun whom she had seen afterwards at the grating. A few days after she had found the Wimbledon convent starving, and had arranged a concert tour in order to get a little money for them. It had been a success until she had gone to stay at Thornton Grange. Lady Ascott, where was she? Owen had made love to her the whole evening, and she had nearly left her room to go to his; but as she was about to go she had heard voices singing the Veni Creator, and the hymn had brought appeasement to her senses. She had fallen asleep. The next morning she had left Thornton Grange, and abandoned her tour.
She thought of the year she had lived in Bays water, looking after Patrick Sullivan and his like, and she remembered how she had met Owen in the slum. He had tried to persuade her that she must not leave her father, however great the necessities of the nuns might be. He had offered to bet that Monsignor would say the same, and Monsignor had taken Owen’s view of her duty; and she agreed to abandon the convent to its fate, but how vain her resolution had been. Her father had been summoned to Rome, and she had gone to live in the convent for three months, until he was settled in Rome and had found a house for her to live in. At the end of a few months, when she thought she would have to leave the convent and return to her father, when she wished to leave it, when she was weary of it, a letter had come from Monsignor saying her father was ill, and she had gone to Rome to see him die. But notwithstanding the break in her postulancy, the Bishop had given his consent to her clothing.... She paused, abashed at finding so much design in her life — all incoherences vanished. She thought of a fish swimming in front of a net. At first the net is so far away that the fish does not perceive it, then gradually the meshes drift nearer, and the fish perceives that it narrows to a thin neck from which there is no escape.... Her life seemed to have been ordained from the beginning; she seemed to have been created for a special purpose.
She used to think that she was deficient in will, and then that she had a great deal of will, for she resisted all the pressure that the world could bring against her. There was Owen’s love and his wealth, and Ulick with a different spirituality from that of the convent, and there were all the innumerable influences — the influence of Louise and Lady Ascott, and other influences half forgotten and half remembered, and all had proved unavailing. She had come to the conclusion she had an exceptionally strong will, and now it seemed to her that she had neither a feeble will nor a strong will, but had been created to do a certain work, and her life seemed to her like a long skein. A great deal of the skein was already unwound, and was the end of the skein the redemption of the convent from debt? Was it true that God managed our affairs, even in such small particulars as the financial difficulties of a convent? She had sometimes wondered at her own disinterestedness, but to redeem the convent from debt it was necessary that someone should be supremely disinterested.
The nuns got up and the procession left the chapel, and during recreation she walked with the Reverend Mother, speaking very little, unable to think because of the caressing touch of the air upon her cheek, excited by the colour of the border that had begun to light up, and stirred into sympathy with the brook that babbled through the underwoods on its way to the river. Remembrance of Owen and Ulick flashed through her mind, and no sooner had she put one set of memories aside than another arose. Again and again she caught herself thinking of her lovers, wondering if any one of them would have inspired her with the love which she now felt herself capable of giving. She had never really loved — not Owen, not Ulick, though she had loved Ulick better. The thousand and one distractions of her life at that time had prevented her loving then as she could love now. It seemed to her that she had learnt to love; but she did not think a man could love a nun. Yet who could love so well as a nun?
It seemed to her she must have been thinking a long while; and a few days after she caught herself questioning the usefulness of their lives in this convent, nor could she deny to herself that she sympathised with the schismatics who had wished to turn the contemplative into an active order. Would an active order satisfy her? She thought not. She was afraid she desired the personal life — the life she had told Monsignor was dead to her; to attain that she would have to leave the convent, and the very thought of breaking her holy vows filled her with terror. But when she lay down to sleep the thought of the personal came upon her between sleeping and waking. If she were to leave the convent, what would she do? A nun who had broken her vows would always be an anomaly. She would be out of place wherever she went. And sitting up in her bed, seeing her cell in the light of the moon, she remembered how she had written to Monsignor telling him that when she left the convent she proposed to take a cottage in the country with a large garden, and that she would have five or six little cripple boys to live with her. If her father had not died she would have done this somewhere near Rome, or in England — somewhere within easy reach of her father. But God had designed her for another purpose, and she must thank him that she had been allowed to accomplish that purpose, or nearly. She wished that it had not been accomplished so soon, for until it was accomplished she had something to live for. Though she might not question the will of God, she might pray that He would be kind to her and treat her very gently like one who has done her work and has earned some peaceful years. She hoped He would not allow her to be tempted again by the flesh; that He would take out of her mind all thoughts of the men she had known and of the men she had sinned with.
The sin of fornication — that terrible sin — had always been her trouble and in the years she would have to live in the convent now, doing nothing, having accomplished His work, she prayed that He would take pity on her, and never allow her to be tempted again.
CHAP. XXXII.
SHE WAS SO weary of singing Gounod’s “Ave Maria” that she had intentionally accentuated the vulgarity of the melody, and wondered if the caricature had been noticed. “The more vulgarly it is sung, the more money it draws.” Smiling at the theatrical phrase that had arisen unexpectedly to her lips, she went into the garden. There she heard that she had never sung so well; all the nuns seemed to agree with Sister Elizabeth, and Evelyn looked from face to face, not finding the slightest perception of th
e truth in any one. Suddenly they seemed divided from her, and wondering what her father would have said if he had lived to hear her sing as she had sung that afternoon, she walked aside, pretending an interest in the flowers. It was then that the Prioress joined them in the garden, and she told Evelyn that a lady had been so moved by the beauty of her singing that she had promised to send them a cheque for fifty pounds.
“So you see God has given you strength to accomplish what you intended to accomplish. Now we are free from debt.”
The sun was setting; the earth drew a calm deep breath under the lovely sky and Evelyn’s soul dilated and was drawn into mysterious sympathy with the flowering earth. “How beautifully the evening wears its sacramental air,” she said, and she lifted the cup of a lily as she would lift a sleeping child from its cradle, and wondered why a prayer should be more pleasing to God than simple attendance on this flower. And thinking of the flower she walked with the Prioress to the end of the garden. There were many visitors in the garden that day, and it seemed to these two nuns that they might leave their visitors to be entertained by Sister Jerome and Sister Winifred for a little while longer. They might do this without impropriety; and they wandered as far as the fish-pond, and stood listening to the stream, loath to return to the ladies, who wished to compliment Evelyn on having freed the convent from debt.
“I’m afraid we must go back, Teresa.”
“Dear Mother, Jerome is amusing them. I heard her telling them that St. Joseph’s statue had to go up to town to get a new coat of paint, and that the Virgin had to go with him to be mended.”
The Prioress smiled, and at that moment Sister Jerome appeared on the pathway, and they had not walked many yards when they met the lady who had sent Sister Jerome to fetch them.
“I remember hearing you sing at Covent Garden,” said the effusive woman.
“You must not speak to me of my unregenerate days,” and then, becoming serious, she said, “All that is far away.”
“My favourite piece of music is that ‘Ave Maria,’ and I did not know it was so beautiful till I heard it sung today. Are you not very proud, Sister Teresa, of being able to get so much money out of the public?”
“I take very little interest in my singing. I thought I had sung very badly this afternoon — in fact, I know I did, but it seemed to please.”
The Prioress continued the conversation, and Evelyn regretted she had been told that the last portion of the debt had been paid. Henceforth there was nothing to strive for, nothing to hope for, and every day would be the fellow of the same, as the day before. The idea of the school seemed to have gone with Father Daly, and the schism which seemed too terrible at the time now seemed better than the noiseless monotony which was to be the future. Henceforth nothing would happen to break the peace of their lives, and she saw the days and nights folding and unfolding like heavy curtains. Her life would be like Sister Bridget’s, and she thought of what Sister Bridget’s life had been. She had been more than forty years in this convent; the thirtieth of this month would be the fortieth anniversary of her vows, and Evelyn remembered that she too might live till she was seventy. With the exception of Mother Lawrence, who was now completely bedridden, Bridget was the oldest member of the community. Yet she continued to scrub, and to sweep, and to carry up coals and water as regularly as she had done these last forty years. Everyone loved Sister Bridget’s funny old face, and it was felt that something ought to be done to commemorate the anniversary of her vows.
“I should like to see her on an elephant, riding round the garden; what a spree it would be,” said Sister Jerome.
The words were hardly out of her mouth when she regretted them, foreseeing allusions to elephants till the end of her days; for Sister Jerome often said foolish things, and was greatly quizzed for them. Of course she knew they could not get an elephant. She knew too that they would not be able to control an elephant if they did get one. But this time it seemed as if her foolish remark were going to escape ridicule. Sister Agatha said she did not see why they should not make an elephant, and in a moment everyone was listening. Sister Agatha’s notion was to take the long table from the library and pile it up with cushions, stuffing it, as nearly as possible, into the shape of an elephant.
“That is exactly as I had intended,” said Sister Jerome.
And the creation of the beast was accomplished in the novitiate, no one being allowed to see it except the Reverend Mother. The great difficulty was to find beads large enough (or the eyes, and it threatened to frustrate the making o( their beast. The latest postulant suggested that perhaps the buttons off her jacket would do. They were just the thing, and the legs o( the beast were most natural and life-like; it had even a tail.
As no one out o( the novitiate had seen this very fine beast, the convent was on tiptoe with excitement, and when, at the conclusion of dinner, the elephant was wheeled into the refectory, everyone clapped her hands, and there were screams of delight Then the saddle was brought in and attached by blue ribbons. Sister Bridget, who did not seem quite sure that the elephant was not alive, was lifted on to it, and held there, and wheeled in triumph round the refectory. The nuns clapped their hands, and rushed after the beast, pushing it a little way, beseeching Sister Bridget not to get off but to allow herself to be drawn once more round the room. Flowers were fetched and scattered. There was no reason why Evelyn should disapprove, nor did she disapprove. She tried to remember that she had o(ten seen grown-up people acting quite as childishly, nevertheless she asked, —
“Am I going to spend the whole o( my life with these women who are no better than little children?”
The novices rushed about screaming with delight, and the professed too — the older the nuns were the more eagerly did they enter into the sport, and in the midst of a dispute as to who was to ride it next Evelyn stole away into the garden.
The parched ground was cracking, and, filled with pity (or the thirsting plants, she filled a can with water, and shed a refreshing sprinkle over them, not drowning them under a torrent as Sister Elizabeth did when she helped her in the garden. “But they do not like this cold well water,” she said, and she looked at the cloudless sky (or a cloud. A cloud had passed some few minutes ago, but it was high up in the sky, and it had flown away. “The flowers would give a great deal for three hours of fine, small, dense rain. How they would enjoy it,” and standing with her eyes fixed on the dusty horizon, she began to sing some of Isolde’s music.
It was five years since she had sung it, and in five years she had forgotten nearly all of it. Other ideas had absorbed her. Yet it was in quest of this idea that she had gone to Ireland. She remembered Chapelisod, a few cottages, a miserable inn, and a dirty river. But Tristan and Isolde had walked together there. Afterward she had gone with Ulick to see some Druid altars, and sitting on the hill above the altars, they had talked of the primal mysteries, of gods, demi-gods and great heroes.
The childish gaiety of the nuns streamed through the windows into the garden.
“Can they still be dragging that elephant about?”
She got up abruptly like one moved by a sudden intention.
“Does another quest lie before me?” She tried to stifle the thought, but it cried across her life, like a curlew across waste lands.
CHAP. XXXIII.
IT SEEMED TO her that the server trudged to and fro carrying the book as if it were a bundle of sticks. He seemed to ring the bell stupidly; the ritual seemed ridiculous; and she hid her face in her hands in order that she might fix her thoughts on the mystery of the bread and wine. But she could only think of the enigma of the stars; a vast cobweb spun into endless space; and in such a pantheistic mood she felt that she dared not go to the sacred table. The priest waited a moment, thinking she had forgotten, and when she went to the Prioress’s room at the end of the week the Prioress’s first words were, —
