by George Moore
In losing the Prioress she had lost everything, the others had only lost a Prioress, who would be replaced by another Prioress, and a new conviction of her loneliness awoke in her when she knelt by the newly-made grave. She remembered Sister Mary John, whom she would never see again. Even God seemed to have deserted her, yet she had made many sacrifices for Him.
When she announced that she would not vote for the new Prioress the nuns viewed her still more coldly. They asked her if she thought that none among them was worthy to fill the place of the late Prioress. Or did she feel no further interest in the welfare of the convent? Evelyn answered that the choice of the new Prioress would probably decide whether the rule of the Order should be widened, whether they should cut themselves off from the Mother House in France, and that she would like to avoid the responsibility of taking sides.
“But,” said Sister Winifred, “no one has a right to shirk her responsibility; that is why we elected you a choir Sister.”
She could not vote — on that point her resolution did not seem to admit of any change; the nuns continued to press her, and she did not like to remind them that she had freed the convent from debt, in order that it might remain a contemplative order. As she hesitated, Sister Winifred came to her rescue, saying, —
“Sister Teresa has no doubt very good reasons for abstaining from voting!”
Evelyn’s defection left little doubt in Sister Winifred’s mind that Mother Philippa would be elected, and in that case the new buildings would be finished before a year was out, a school would be in progress, and before ten years the conversion of Wimbledon to Rome would be an accomplished fact. The few nuns who still clung to the ancient tradition of the order could offer no serious opposition to so constant an energy as Sister Winifred’s. Mother Philippa was elected Prioress, and at the end of the month the subject of conversation during the morning recreations was the possibility of obtaining the Bishop’s consent to their separating themselves from the Mother House in France and entering upon scholastic activity.
Monsignor, who had just returned to England, was sent for, and it was hoped he would use his very great influence with his lordship.
“Where, for instance,” the Prioress said to him, “could parents get children taught as they could here? But I am very sorry to say that Sister Teresa lost her voice this winter; we miss her voice sadly at Benediction, but for teaching it won’t matter in the least, and then she is an excellent pianist, she can even teach composition.” Monsignor sympathised with the sublime idea that a constant stream of petitions was necessary to save this world from the wrath of God, but at the same time it did not seem to him that a school would seriously infringe upon the tradition of the order. He spoke volubly for some minutes, partly in the hopes of distracting Evelyn’s attention from the Reverend Mother’s remarks concerning her, which had seemed to him injudicious. At the same moment Evelyn was thinking how, just as she had finished her work, it had undone itself, it had just crumbled away, and she saw it scattering like a little heap of dust. True, it was that she was leaving the convent, but she did not wish the idea abandoned — the idea that she had striven for; she wished it to be carried on by others; she knew herself to be weak, she knew she must fall out of the ranks, but her belief in the ideal was unimpaired. And she thought of these things as she calculated the height of the garden walls, as she listened to Mother Philippa telling Monsignor the price they would charge for boarders and for non-boarders, and the advantages that such a school would offer to the villa residents. But before she could leave the convent she must finish the Prioress’s book. Her promise to the Prioress to finish her history of the convent, its story as it had existed under her leadership, had become sacred to Evelyn, and the unfinished manuscript was the last tie that bound her to the convent. She had hoped to finish it in six weeks or a month, but the book was not yet finished; new difficulties arose, and the old difficulties seemed insuperable, and this manuscript which she worked at day after day became like some redoubtable secret enemy. “If I do not write I shall never get away from here,” she cried to herself in the silent cloisters, and raising her eyes from the paper she thought of herself as of a prisoner scraping her way through an unending wall.
She went about her avocations — a quiet nun, gentle, almost demure; her resolution to escape deep in her heart, and the nuns began to think she had at last become like themselves. Only at recreation did she try to avoid the rule. If it were fine the nuns sat in a circle in the shade of a favourite tree, and gossiped about little external pieties — the lighting of candles and the repainting of the statuettes, and to appear interested in these conversations had always been the greatest of Evelyn’s conventual difficulties, and now it seemed more difficult than ever. One day they were babbling of the advantage it would be to them if some of their pupils distinguished themselves in painting or in music when they left the convent. Sister Winifred cast down her eyes and blushed, and Evelyn felt they could talk better without her. She availed herself of this little incident to steal away.
To walk by herself in the sun, in the evening light, thinking of the dead Prioress, or of the nun who had gone away because she could not endure her love, seemed like happiness, and she felt she could be happy in the convent if her friends could be given back to her. When they were with her the convent was a pure aspiration, meagre and a little grey, perhaps, but still pure and true. And while thinking of the grey pieties of the cloister her eyes turned to the sun-setting. The sunset seemed to steal into her heart, and to become a source of secret joy to her. She wondered what was the influence of the sun; it made the woods grow green and the flowers blossom, it drew all things into itself, the rays darted from the horizon to the zenith, and she stood at the highest point of the garden watching the light, breathless and delighted. She saw the beautiful earth quiescent like a nun watching before the sacrament. The plants lifted their leaves to the light. Everything knew it, even the stones in the centre of the earth; she watched the distant woods submerged in the light of the sun; her soul dilated and knew its light; the shell broke which till now had darkened it from her; her flesh and spirit seemed to become one with it; her immortal spirit seemed to ascend into the immortal light; her eyes seemed to see into the depths of the sea, and her ears were soothed by the murmur of the waves.
The great secret was revealed; she understood the mysterious yearning which impels us in turn to reject and to accept life; and she had learnt these things merely by watching the flowers raising their leaves to the light.
She sat down in the grass and watched a sun-flower till it seemed a sentient being whose silent adoration of its distant shepherd in the heavens was turning it into the likeness of the glory it longed to reach. She closed her eyes to imagine it better, and the sun-flower in her thoughts grew and expanded, and went upwards to the brimming love which gave it life; and the imagined ecstasy of the meeting thrilled her heart, and she remembered that yesterday the elevation of the Host had left her unmoved. Why was it that the mere sight of a flower evoked a vanished sweetness which no ritual could awaken in her? And in another moment of revelation she knew that to seek the Real Presence on the altar alone is a denial of the Divine Being elsewhere, and she felt the door would be closed to her until in every mood and in every place she could recognise the sacrament as an eternal act in nature.
She was wakeful that night, but in the darkness there was light, and she felt that it had come to lead her out as it had led her into the convent, for there are not two lights, but one light.
Her book was finished, and she awaited her opportunity — her opportunity was the accident that Sister Agnes should be called away suddenly and leave her keys on the nail; and the little porteress rarely left her door, and when she did her keys were at her girdle. Winter passed into spring and Evelyn still waited, and she sometimes said “if the opportunity does not occur soon I shall not have the strength,” and she asked herself if she would have the strength to begin life again. The weeks went by, and one day i
n April the porteress passed her in the passage, the keys were not at her girdle, and Evelyn walked down the Georgian hall and down the covered way, and taking the keys from the nail she opened the door.
At that moment the pigeons left their roosts and flew towards the fields. The fields were shining in the morning light; thrush and cuckoo were calling, the spring moved among the first primroses, and Evelyn stood watching the spring-tide.
She had only to take a step to regain her life in the world, but she could not take that step. She no longer even seemed to desire it. In the long months she had been kept waiting a change had taken place in her. She felt that something had broken in her, and she closed the door, and having locked it she hung the keys on the nail.
And walking up the covered way dimly aware that she was walking, she remembered that she would soon come to the end of the covered way, and would meet Sister Agnes returning to her post. And then she remembered that she had left something undone in the sacristy, and she returned there quickly and began to arrange some flowers for the Virgin’s altar.
Sister Teresa, 1909 version
Entirely rewritten
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
PREFACE
A WEAVER GOES to the mart with a divided tapestry, and with half in either hand he walks about telling that whoever possesses one must, perforce, possess the other for the sake of the story. But allegories are out of place in popular editions; they require linen paper, large margins, uncut edges; even these would be insufficient; only illuminated vellum can justify that which is never read. So perhaps it will be better if I abandon the allegory and tell what happened: how one day after writing the history of “Evelyn Innes” for two years I found myself short of paper, and sought vainly for a sheet in every drawer of the writing-table; every one had been turned into manuscript, and “Evelyn Innes” stood nearly two feet high.
“Five hundred pages at least,” I said, “and only half of my story finished…. This is a matter, on which I need the publisher’s opinion.”
Ten minutes after I was rolling away in a hansom towards Paternoster Square, very anxious to persuade him that the way out of my difficulty would be to end the chapter I was then writing on a full close.
“That or a novel of a thousand pages,” I said.
“A novel of a thousand pages!” he answered. “Impossible! We must divide the book.” It may have been to assuage the disappointment he read on my face that he added, “You’ll double your money.”
My publisher had given way too easily, and my artistic conscience forthwith began to trouble me, and has never ceased troubling me since that fatal day. The book the publisher puts asunder the author may not bring together, and I shall write to no purpose in one preface that “Evelyn Innes” is not a prelude to “Sister Teresa” and in another that “Sister Teresa” is not a sequel to “Evelyn Innes.” Nor will any statement of mine made here or elsewhere convince the editors of newspapers and reviews to whom this book will be sent for criticism that it is not a revised edition of a book written ten years ago, but an entirely new book written within the last eighteen months; the title will deceive them, and my new book will be thrown aside or given to a critic with instructions that he may notice it in ten or a dozen lines. Nor will the fact that “Evelyn Innes” occupies a unique place in English literature cause them to order that the book shall be reread and reconsidered — a unique place I hasten to add which it may easily lose to-morrow, for the claim made for it is not one of merit, but of kind.
“Evelyn Innes” is a love story, the first written in English for three hundred years, and the only one we have in prose narrative. For this assertion not to seem ridiculous it must be remembered that a love story is not one in which love is used as an ingredient; if that were so nearly all novels would be love stories; even Scott’s historical novels could not be excluded. In the true love story love is the exclusive theme; and perhaps the reason why love stories are so rare in literature is because the difficulty of maintaining the interest is so great; probably those in existence were written without intention to write love stories. Mine certainly was. The manuscript of this book was among the printers before it broke on me one evening as I hung over the fire that what I had written was a true love story about a man and a woman who meet to love each other, who are separated for material or spiritual reasons, and who at the end of the story are united in death or affection, no matter which, the essential is that they should be united. My story only varies from the classical formula in this, that the passion of “the lovely twain” is differentiated.
It would be interesting to pursue this subject, and there are other points which it would be interesting to touch upon; there must be a good deal for criticism in a book which has been dreamed and re-dreamed for ten years. But, again, of what avail? The book I now offer to the public will not be read till I am dead. I have written for posterity if I have written for anybody except myself. The reflection is not altogether a pleasant one. But there it is; we follow our instinct for good or evil, but we follow it; and while the instinct of one man is to regard the most casual thing that comes from his hand as “good enough,” the instinct of another man compels him to accept all risks, seeking perfection always, although his work may be lost in the pursuit.
My readers, who are all Balzacians, are already thinking of Porbus and Poussin standing before le chef d’oeuvre Inconnu in the studio of Mabuse’s famous pupil — Frenhofer. Nobody has seen this picture for ten years; Frenhofer has been working on it in some distant studio, and it is now all but finished. But the old man thinks that some Eastern woman might furnish him with some further hint, and is about to start on his quest when his pupil Porbus persuades him that the model he is seeking is Poussin’s mistress. Frenhofer agrees to reveal his mistress (i.e., his picture) on condition that Poussin persuades his mistress to sit to him for an hour, for he would compare her loveliness with his art. These conditions having been complied with, he draws aside the curtain; but the two painters see only confused colour and incoherent form, and in one corner “a delicious foot, a living foot escaped by a miracle from a slow and progressive destruction.”
In the first edition of “Evelyn Innes” (I think the passage has been dropped out of the second) Ulick Dean says that one should be careful what one writes, for what one writes will happen. Well, perhaps what Balzac wrote has happened, and I may have done no more than to realise one of his most famous characters.
G.M.
I
AS SOON AS Mother Philippa came into the parlour Evelyn guessed there must be serious trouble in the convent.
“But what is the matter, Mother Philippa?”
“Well, my dear, to tell you the truth, we have no money at all.”
“None at all! You must have some money.”
“As a matter of fact we have none, and Mother Prioress won’t let us order anything from the tradespeople.”
“Why not?”
“She will not run into debt; and she’s quite right; so we have to manage with what we’ve got in the convent. Of course there are some vegetables and some flour in the house; but we can’t go on like this for long. We don’t mind so much for ourselves, but we are so anxious about Mother Prioress; you know how weak her heart is, and all this anx
iety may kill her. Then there are the invalid sisters, who ought to have fresh meat.”
“I suppose so,” and Evelyn thought of driving to the Wimbledon butcher and bringing back some joints.
“But, Mother, why didn’t you let me know before? Of course I’ll help you.”
“The worst of it is, Evelyn, we want a great deal of help.”
“Well, never mind; I’m ready to give you a great deal of help… as much as I can. And here is the Prioress.”
The Prioress stood resting, leaning on the door-handle, and Evelyn was by her side in an instant.
“Thank you, my child, thank you,” and she took Evelyn’s arm.
“I’ve heard of your trouble, dear Mother, and am determined to help you; so you must sit down and tell me about it.”
“Reverend Mother ought not to be about,” said Mother Philippa. “On Monday night she was so ill we had to get up to pray for her.”
“I’m better to-day. If it hadn’t been for this new trouble—” As the Prioress was about to explain she paused for breath, and Evelyn said:
“Another time. What does it matter to whom you owe the money? You owe it to somebody, and he is pressing you for it — isn’t that so? Of course it is, dear Mother. Well, I’ve come to bring you good news. You remember my promise to arrange a concert tour as soon as I was free? Everything has been arranged; we start next Thursday, and with fair hope of success.”
“How good of you!”
“You will succeed, Evelyn; and as Mother Philippa says, it is very good of you.”
The Prioress spoke with hesitation, and Evelyn guessed that the nuns were thinking of their present necessities.
“I can let you have a hundred pounds easily, and I could let you have more if it were not—” The pause was sufficiently dramatic to cause the nuns to press her to go on speaking, saying that they must know they were not taking money which she needed for herself. “I wasn’t thinking of myself, but of my poor people; they’re so dependent upon me, and I am so dependent upon them, even more than they are upon me, for without them there would be no interest in my life, and nothing for me to do except to sit in my drawing-room and look at the wall paper and play the piano.”
