Part 3—- Chapter 1.
Wherein Sister Alianora La Despenser Maketh Moan (1371).
Caged.
“But of all sad words by tongue or pen,
The saddest are these—
‘It might have been!’”
Whittier.
“I marvel if the sun is never weary!”
Thus spoke my sister Margaret (Note 1), as she stood gazing from the window of the recreation-room, and Sister Roberga looked up and laughed.
“Nay, what next?” saith she. “Heard I ever such strange fancies as thine? Thou wilt be marvelling next if the stars be never athirst.”
“And if rain be the moon weeping,” quoth Sister Philippa, who seemed as much amused as Roberga.
“No, the moon weepeth not,” said Margaret. “She is too cold to weep. She is like Mother Ada.”
“Eh dear, what fancies hast thou!” saith Sister Roberga. “Who but thou would ever have thought of putting the moon and Mother Ada into one stall!”
“What didst thou mean, Sister Margaret?” saith the quiet voice of Mother Alianora, as she sat by the chimney corner.
Mother Alianora is our father’s sister—Margaret’s and mine; but I ought not to think of it, since a recluse should have no kindred out of her Order and the blessed saints. And there are three Sisters in the Priory named Alianora: wherefore, to make diversity, the eldest professed is called Alianora, and the second (that is myself) Annora, and the youngest, only last year professed, Nora. We had likewise in this convent an Aunt Joan, but she deceased over twenty years gone. Margaret was professed in the Order when I was, but not at this house; and she hath been transferred hither but a few weeks (Note 2), so that her mind and heart are untravelled ground to me. She was a Sister at Watton: and since I can but just remember her before our profession, it seems marvellous strange that we should now come to know one another, after nearly fifty years’ cloistered life. There is yet another Sister named Margaret, but being younger in profession we call her Sister Magota.
When Mother Alianora spoke, Margaret turned back from the window, as she ought when addressed by a superior.
“I mean, Mother, that he never hath any change of work,” she said. “Every morrow he has to rise, and every night must he set: and always the one in east and the other in west. I think he must be sore, sore weary, for he hath been at it over five thousand years.”
Sister Roberga and Sister Philippa laughed. Mother Alianora did not laugh. A soft, rather sorrowful, sort of smile came on her aged face.
“Art thou so weary, my daughter, that the thought grew therefore?” saith she.
Something came into Margaret’s eyes for a moment, but it was out again, almost before I could see it. I knew not what it was; Margaret’s eyes are yet a puzzle to me. They are very dark eyes, but they are different in their look from all the other dark eyes in the house. Sister Olive has eyes quite as dark; but they say nothing. Margaret’s eyes talk so much that she might do very well without her tongue. Not that I always understand what they say; the language in which they speak is generally a foreign one to me. I fancy Mother Alianora can read it better. I listened for Margaret’s reply.
“Dear Mother, is not weariness the lot of all humanity, and more especially of women?”
“Mary love us!” cries Philippa. “What gibberish you talk, Sister Margaret!”
“Sister Philippa will come here and ask Sister Margaret’s forgiveness at once,” saith Mother Gaillarde, the sub-Prioress.
Sister Philippa banged down her battledore on the table, and marching up, knelt before Margaret and asked forgiveness, making a face behind her back as soon as she had turned.
“Sister Philippa will take no cheese at supper,” added the sub-Prioress.
Sister Philippa pulled another face—a very ugly one; it reminded me somewhat too much of the carved figure of the Devil with his mouth gaping on the Prior’s stall in our Abbey Church. That and Sister Philippa’s faces are the ugliest things I ever saw, except the Cellarer, and he looks so good-tempered that one forgets his ugliness.
“Sister Philippa is not weary, as it should seem,” saith Mother Alianora, again with her quiet smile. “Otherwise, to speak thereof should scarcely seem gibberish to her.”
I spoke not, but I thought it was in no wise gibberish to me. For I never had that vocation which alone should make nuns. Not God, but man, forced this veil upon me; for, ah me! I was meant for another life. And that other life, that should have been mine, I never cease to long for and to mourn over.
Only six years old was I—for though my seventh birthday was near, it was not past—when I was thrust into this house of religion. My vocation and my will were never asked. We—Margaret and I—were in Queen Isabel’s way; and she plucked us and flung us over the hedge like weeds that cumbered her garden. It was all by reason she hated our father: but what he had done to make her thus hate him, that I never knew. And I was an affianced bride when I was torn away from all that should have made life glad, and prisoned here for ever more. How my heart keeps whispering to me, “It might have been!” There is a woman who comes for doles to the convent gate, and at times she hath with her the loveliest little child I ever saw; and they smile on each other, mother and child, and look so happy when they smile. Why was I cut off thus from all that makes other women happy? Nobody belongs to me; nobody loves me. The very thought of being loved, the very wish to be so, is sin in me, who am a veiled nun. But why was it made sin? It was not sin aforetime. He might have loved me, he whom I never saw after I was flung over the convent wall—he who was mine and not hers to whom I suppose they will have wedded him. But I know nothing: I shall never know. And they say it is sin to think of him. Every thing seems to be sin; and loving people more especially. Mother Ada told me one day that she saw in me an inclination to be too much drawn to Mother Alianora, and warned me to mortify it, because she was my father’s sister, and therefore there was cause to fear it might be an indulgence of the flesh. And now, these weeks past, my poor, dry, withered heart seems to have a little faint pulsation in it, and goes out to Margaret—my sister Margaret with the strange dark eyes, my own sister who is an utter stranger to me. Must I crush the poor dry thing back, and hurt all that is left to hurt of it? Oh, will no saint in Heaven tell me why it is, that God, who loveth men, will not have monks and nuns to love each other? The Lord Prior saith He is a jealous God, and demands that we give all our love to Him. Yet I may love the blessed saints without any derogation to Him—but I must not love mine own sister. It is very perplexing. Do earthly fathers forbid their children to love one another, lest they should not be loved themselves sufficiently? I should have thought that love, like other things, increased by exercise, and that loving my sister would rather help me to love God. But they say not. I suppose they know.
Ah me, if I should find out at last that they mistook God’s meaning!—that I might have had His love and Margaret’s too!—nay, even that I might have had His love and that other, of which it is so wicked in me to think, and yet something is in me that will keep ever thinking! O holy and immaculate Virgin, O Saint Margaret, Saint Agnes, and all ye blessed maidens that dwell in Heaven, have mercy on me, miserable sinner! My soul is earth-bound, and I cannot rise. I am the bride of Christ, and I cannot cease lamenting my lost earthly bridal.
But hath Christ a thousand brides? They say holy Church is His Bride, and she is one. Then how can all the vestals in all the convents be each of them His bride? I suppose I cannot understand as I ought to do. Perhaps I should have understood better if that might have been had been—if I had not stood withering all these years, taught to crush down this poor dried heart of mine. They will not let me have any thing to love. When Mother Ada thought I was growing too fond of little Erneburg, she took her away from me and gave her to Sister Roberga to teach. Yet the child seemed to soften my heart and do it good.
“Are the holy Mother and the blessed saints not enough for thee?” she said.
But the blessed saints do not look at me and smile, as Erneburg did. She doth it even now, across the schoolroom—though I have never been permitted to speak word to her since Mother Ada took her from me. And I must smile back again,—ay, however many times I have to lick a cross on the oratory floor for doing it. Why ought I not? Did not our Lord Himself take the little children into His arms? I am sure He must have smiled on them—they would have been frightened if He had not done so.
They say I have but a poor wit, and am fit to teach only babes.
“And not fit to teach them,” saith Mother Ada—in a tone which I am sure people would call cross and snappish if she were an extern—“for her fancy all runs to playing with them, rather than teaching them any thing worth knowing.”
Ah, Mother Ada, but is not love worth knowing? or must they have that only from their happy mothers, who not being holy women are permitted to love, and not from a poor, crushed, hopeless heart like mine?
There is nothing in our life to look forward to. “Till death” is the vow of the Sisterhood. And death seems a poor hope.
I know, of course, what Mother Ada would say: that I have no vocation, and my heart is in the world and of the world. But God sent me to the world: and man—or rather woman—thrust me against my will into this Sisterhood.
“Not a bit better than Lot’s wife!” says Mother Ada. “She was struck to a pillar of salt for looking back, and so shalt thou be, Sister Annora, with thy worldly fancies and carnal longings.”
Well, if I were, I am not sure I should feel much different. Sometimes I seem to myself to be hardening into stone, body and soul. Soul! ah, that is the worst of it.
Now and then, in the dead of night, when I lie awake—and for an hour or more after lauds, I can seldom sleep—one awful thought harrieth and weareth me, at times almost to madness. I never knew till a year ago, when I heard the Lord Prior speaking to Mother Gaillarde thereanent, that holy Church held the contract of marriage for the true canonical tie. And if it be thus, and we were never divorced—and I never heard word thereof—what then? Am I his true wife—I, not she? Is he happy with her? Who is she, and what is she? Doth she care for him, and make him her first thought, and give all her heart to him, as I would have done, if—
How the convent bell startled me! Miserable me! I am vowed to God, and I am His for ever. But the vow that came first, if it were never undone—Mater purissima, Sancta Virgo virginum, ora pro me!
Is there some tale, some sad, strange story, lying behind those dark eyes, in that shut-up heart of my sister Margaret? Not like mine; she was never betrothed. But her eyes seem to me to tell a story.
Margaret never speaks to me, unless I do it first: and I dare not, except about some work, when Mother Gaillarde or Mother Ada is present. Yet once or twice I have caught those dark eyes scanning my face, with a wistful look. Maybe she too is trying to crush down her heart, as I have done. But I cannot help thinking that the heart behind those eyes will take a great deal of crushing.
Mother Alianora is so different from the two I named just now, I am sure there is not a better nor holier woman in all the Order. But she is always gentle and tender; never cold like Mother Ada, nor hard and sarcastic like Mother Gaillarde. I am glad my Lady Prioress rules with an easy hand—(“sadly too slack!” saith Mother Gaillarde)—so that dear Mother Alianora doth not get chidden for what is the best part of her. I should not be afraid of speaking to Margaret if only she were present of our superiors.
At recreation-time, this afternoon, Sister Amphyllis asked Mother Alianora how long she had been professed.
“Forty-nine years,” saith she, with her gentle smile.
I was surprised to hear it. She hath then been in the Order only five years longer than I have.
“And how old were you, Mother?” saith Sister Amphyllis.
“Nineteen years,” saith she.
“There must many an one have died since you came here, Mother?”
“Ay,” quoth Mother Alianora, with a far-away look at the trees without. “The oldest nun in all the Abbey, Sister Margery de Burgh, died the month after I came hither. She remembered a Sister that was nearly an hundred years old, and that had received the holy veil from the hand of Saint Gilbert himself.”
Sister Amphyllis crossed herself.
“Annora,” saith Mother Alianora, “canst thou remember Mother Guendolen?”
What did I know about Mother Guendolen? Some faint, vague, misty memories seemed to awake within me—an odd, incongruous mixture like a dream—dark eyes like Margaret’s, which told a tale, but this seemed a tale of terror; and an enamelled cross, which had somewhat to do with a battle and a queen.
“I scarcely know, Mother,” said I. “Somewhat do I recall, yet what it is I hardly know. Were her eyes dark, with an affrighted look in them?”
“They were dark,” said Mother Alianora, “but the very peace of God was in them. Ah, thou art mixing up two persons—herself and her cousin, Mother Gladys. They were near of an age, and Mother Guendolen only outlived Mother Gladys by one year: but they were full diverse manner of women. Thou shouldst remember her, Annora. Thou wert a maiden of fifteen when she died.”
All at once she seemed to flash up before me.
“I do remember her, Mother, if it please you. She was tall, and had very black hair, and dark flashing eyes, and she moved like a queen.”
“I think of her,” saith Mother Alianora, “rather as she was in her last days, when those flashing eyes flashed no longer, and the queen was lost in the saint.”
“If it please you, Mother,” I said, “had she not an enamelled cross that she wore? I recollect something about it.”
Mother Alianora smiled, somewhat amusedly.
“She had; and perchance thy memory runneth back to a battle over that cross betwixt her and Sister Sayena, who laid plaint afore my Lady Prioress that Mother Guendolen kept to herself an article of private property, which should have gone into the treasury. It had been her mother’s, a marriage-gift from the Queen that then was. Well I remember Mother Guendolen’s words—‘I sware to part from this cross alone with life, and the Master granted me to keep it when I entered the Order.’ Then the fire died out of her eyes, and her voice fell low, and she added—‘ah, my sister! dost thou envy me Christ’s cross?’ Ay, she had carried more of that cross than most. She came here about the age thou didst, Annora—a little child of six years.”
“Who was she in the world, Mother?” quoth Sister Nora.
I was surprised to see Mother Alianora glance round the room, as if to see who was there, afore she answered. Nor did she answer for a moment.
“She was Sister Guendolen of Sempringham: let that satisfy thee. Maybe, in the world above, she is that which she should have been in this world, and was not.”
And I could not but wonder if Mother Guendolen’s life had held a might have been like mine.
I want to know what ‘carnal’ and ‘worldly’ mean. They are words which I hear very often, and always with condemnation: but they seem to mean quite different things, in the lips of different speakers. When Mother Ada uses them, they mean having affection in one’s heart for any thing, or any person, that is not part of holy Church. When Mother Gaillarde speaks them, they mean caring for any thing that she does not care for—and that includes everything except power, and grandeur, and the Order of Saint Gilbert. And when Mother Alianora says them, they fall softly on the ear, as if they meant not love, nor happiness, nor any thing good and innocent, but simply all that could grieve our Lord and hurt a soul that loved Him. They are, with her, just the opposite of Jesus Christ.
Oh, if only our blessed Lord had been on earth now, and I might have gone on pilgrimage to the place where He was! If I could have asked Him all the questions that perplex me, and laid at His feet all the sorrows that trouble me! For I do not think He would have commanded the saints to chase me away because I maybe have poorer wits than other women,—He who let the mothers bring the babes to Him: I fancy He would have been patient and gentle, even with me. I scarce think He would have treated sorrow—even wrong or mistaken sorrow, if only it were real—as some do, with cold looks, and hard words, and gibes that take so much bearing. I suppose He would have told me wherein I sinned, but I think He would have done it gently, so as not to hurt more than could be helped—not like some, who seem to think that nothing they say or do can possibly hurt any one.
But it is no use saying such things to people. Once, I did say about a tenth part of what I felt, when Mother Ada was present, and she turned on me almost angrily.
“Sister Annora, you are scarce better than an idiot! Know you not that confession to the priest is the same thing as to our Lord Himself?”
Well, it may be so, though it never feels like it: but I am sure the priest is not the same thing. If I were a young mother with little babes, I could never bring them to any priest I have known save one, and that was a stranger who confessed us but for a week, some five years gone, when the Lord Prior was ill. He was quite different from the others: there was a soul behind his eyes—something human, not merely a sort of metallic box which sounded when you rang it with another bit of metal.
I never know why Margaret’s eyes make me think of that man, but I suppose it may be that there was the same sort of look in his. I am not sure that I can put it into words. It makes me think, not of a dry bough like my heart feels to be, but rather of a walled recluse—something alive, very much alive, inside thick, hard, impenetrable walls which you cannot enter, and it can never leave, but itself soft and tender and sweet. And I fancy that people who look like that must have had histories.
Another person troubles me beside that man and Margaret, and that is Saint Peter’s wife’s mother. Because, if the holy Apostle had a wife’s mother, he must have had a wife; and what could a holy Apostle be doing with a wife? I ventured once to ask Mother Ada how it was to be explained, and she said that of course Saint Peter must have been married before his conversion and calling by our Lord.
“And I dare be bound,” added Mother Gaillarde, “that she was a shocking vixen, or something bad, so as to serve for a thorn in the flesh to the holy Apostle. He’d a deal better have been an unwedded man.”
Well, some folks’ relations are thorns in the flesh, I can quite suppose. I should think Mother Gaillarde was, and that her being a nun was a mercy to some man, so that she was told off to prick us and not him. But is every body so? and are we all called to be thorns in the flesh to somebody? I should not fancy being looked on by my relations (if I were in the world) as nothing but a means of grace. It might be good for them, but I doubt if it would for me.
I wonder if Margaret ever knew that priest whose eyes looked like hers. I should like to ask her. But Mother Ada always forbids us to ask each other questions about our past lives. She says curiosity is a sin; it was curiosity which led Eve to listen to the serpent. But I do not think Mother Ada’s soul has any wings, and I always feel as if mine had—something that, if only I were at liberty, would spread itself and carry me away, far, far from here, right up into the very stars, for aught I know. Poor caged bird as I am! how can my wings unfold themselves? I fancy Margaret has wings—very likely, stronger than mine. She seems to have altogether a stronger nature.
Mother Alianora will let us ask questions: she sometimes asks them herself. Well, so does Mother Gaillarde, more than any body; but in such a different way! Mother Alianora asks as if she were comforting and helping you: Mother Gaillarde as though you were a piece of embroidery that had been done wrong, and she were looking to see where the stitches had begun to go crooked. If I were a piece of lawn, I should not at all like Mother Gaillarde to pull the crooked stitches out of me. She pounces on them so eagerly, and pulls so savagely at them.
I marvel what Margaret’s history has been!
Last evening, as we were putting the orphans to bed—two of the Sisters do it by turns, every week—little Damia saith to me—
“Sister Annora, what is the matter with our new Sister?”
“Who dost thou mean, my child?” I asked. “Sister Marian?”
For Sister Marian was our last professed.
“No,” said the child; “I mean Sister Margaret, who has such curious eyes—eyes that say every thing and don’t tell any thing—it is so funny! (So other folks than I had seen those eyes.) But what was the matter with her yesterday morning, at the holy Sacrament?”
“I know not, Damia, for I saw nothing. A religious, as thou knowest, should not lift her eyes, save for adoration.”
“O Sister Annora, how many nice things she must lose! But I will tell you about Sister Margaret. It was just when the holy mass began. Father Hamon had said ‘Judica me’ and then, you know, the people had to reply, ‘Quia Tu es.’ And when they began the response, Sister Margaret’s head went up, and her eyes ran up the aisle to the altar.”
“Damia, my child!” I said.
“Indeed, Sister, I am not talking nonsense! It looked exactly like that. Then, in another minute, they came back, looking so sorry, and so, so tired! If you will look at her, you will see how tired she looks, and has done ever since. I thought her soul had been to look for something which it could not find, and that made her so sorry.”
“Had ever child such odd fancies as thou!” said I, as I tucked her up. “Now say thy Hail Mary, and go to sleep.”
I thought it but right to check Damia, who has a very lively imagination, and would make up stories by the yard about all she sees, if any one encouraged her. But when I sat down again to the loom, instead of the holy meditations which ought to come to me, and I suppose would do so if I were perfect, I kept wondering if Damia had seen rightly, and if Margaret’s soul had been to look for something, and was disappointed in not finding it. I looked at her—she was just across the room,—and as Damia said, there was a very sorrowful, weary look on her face—a look as if some thought, or memory, or hope, had been awakened in her, only to be sent back, sorely disappointed and disheartened. Somebody else noticed it too.
My Lady Prioress was rather late last night in dismissing us. Sister Roberga said she was sure there had been some altercation between her and Mother Gaillarde: and certainly Mother Gaillarde, as she stood at the top of the room by my Lady, did not look exactly an incarnation of sweetness. But my Lady gave the word at last: and as she said—“Pax vobiscum, Sorores!” every Sister went up to her, knelt to kiss her hand, took her own lamp from the lamp-stand, and glided softly from the recreation-room. Half-way down stood Mother Alianora, and at the door Mother Ada. Margaret was just behind me: and as I passed Mother Alianora, I heard her ask—
“Sister Margaret, art thou suffering in some wise?”
I listened for Margaret’s answer. There was a moment’s hesitation before it came.
“No, Mother, I thank you; save from a malady which only One can heal.”
“May He heal thee, my child!” was the gentle answer.
I was surprised at Margaret’s answering with anything but thanks.
“Mother, you little know for what you pray!”
“That is often the case,” said Mother Alianora. “But He knoweth who hath to answer: and He doeth all things well. He will give thee, maybe, not the physic thou lookest for; yet the right remedy.”
I heard Margaret answer, as we passed on, in a low voice, as if she scarce desired to be heard—“For some diseases there is no remedy but death.”
There are two dormitories in our house, and Margaret is in the west one, while I sleep in the eastern. At the head of the stairs we part to our places. That I should speak a word to her in the night is impossible. And in the day I can never see her without a score of eyes upon us, especially Mother Gaillarde’s, and she seems to have eyes, not in the back of her head only, but all over her veil.
I suppose, if we had lived like real sisters and not make-believe ones, Margaret and I would have had a little chamber to ourselves in our father’s castle, and we could have talked to each other, and told our secrets if we wished, and have comforted one another when our hearts were sad. And I do not understand why it should please our Lord so much more to have us shut up here, making believe to be one family with thirty other women who are not our sisters, except in the sense that all Christian women are children of God. I wonder where it is in the Gospels, that our Lord commanded it to be done. I cannot find it in my Evangelisterium. I dare say the holy Apostles ordered it afterwards: or perhaps it is in some Gospel I have never seen. There are only four in my book.
If that strange priest would come again to confess us, I should like very much to ask him several questions of that sort. I never saw any other priest that I could speak to freely, as I could to him. Father Hamon would not understand me, I am sure: and Father Benedict would rebuke me sharply whether he understood or not; telling me for the fiftieth time that I ought to humble myself to the dust because my vocation is so imperfect. Well, I know I have no vocation. But why then was I shut up here when God had not called me? I had no choice allowed me. Or why, seeing things are thus, cannot the Master or some one else loose me from my vow, and let me go back to the world which they keep blaming me because they say I love?
Yet what should I do in the world? My mother has been dead many years, for her name is in the obituary of the house. As to my brothers and sisters, I no more know how many of them are living, nor where they are, than if they dwelt in the stars. I remember my brother Hugh, because he used to take my part when the others teased me: but as to my younger brothers, I only know there were some; I forget even their names. I think one was Hubert, or Robert, or something that ended in bert. And my sisters—I remember Isabel; she was three years elder than I. And—was one Elizabeth? I think so. But wherever they are, I suppose they would feel me a stranger among them—an intruder who was not wanted, and who had no business to be there. I am unfit both for Heaven and earth. Nobody wants me—least of all God.
I do not imagine that is Margaret’s history. How far she may or may not have a vocation—that I leave; I know nothing about it. But I cannot help fancying that somebody did want her, and that it might be to put her out of somebody’s way—Foolish woman! what am I saying? Why, Margaret was not five years old when she was professed. How can she have had any history of the kind? I simply do not understand it.
Poor little Damia! I think Mother Gaillarde has given her rather hard measure.
I found the child crying bitterly when she came into the children’s south dormitory where I serve this week.
“Why, whatever is the matter, little one?” said I.
“O Sister Annora!” was all she could sob out.
“Well, weep not thus broken-heartedly!” said I. “Tell me what it is, and let us see if it cannot be amended.”
“It’s Erneburg!” sobbed little Damia.
“Erneburg! But Erneburg and thou art friends!”
“Oh yes, we’re friends enough! only Mother Gaillarde won’t let me give her the tig.”
And little Damia indulged in a fresh burst of tears.
“Give her what?” I said.
“My tig! The tig she gave me. And now I must carry it all night long! She might have let me just give it her!”
I thought I saw how matters stood.
“You have been playing?”
“Yes, playing at
“‘Carry my tig
To Poynton Brig—’
“and Erneburg gave me a tig, and I can’t give it back. Mo—other Gaillarde won’t le-et me!” with a fresh burst of sobs.
“Now, whatever is all this fuss?” asked Mother Gaillarde, from the other end of the room. “Sister, do keep these children quiet.”
But Mother Ada came to us.
“What is the matter?” she said in her icicle voice.
Little Damia was crying too much to speak, and I had to tell her that the children had been playing at a game in which they touched one another if they could, and it was deemed a terrible disgrace to be touched without being able to return it.
“What nonsense!” said Mother Ada. “They had better not be allowed to play at such silly games. Go to sleep immediately, Damia: do you hear? Give over crying this minute.”
I wondered whether Mother Ada thought that joy and sorrow could as easily be stopped as a tap could be turned to stop water. Little Damia could not stop crying so instantly as this: and Mother Ada told her if she did not, she should have no fruit to-morrow: which made her cry all the more. Mother Gaillarde then marched up, and gave the poor child an angry shake: and that produced screams instead of sobbing.
“Blessed saints, these children!” said Mother Gaillarde. “I wish there never were any! With all reverence I say it, I do think if the Almighty could have created men and women grown-up, it would have saved a world of trouble. But I suppose He knows best.—Damia, stop that noise! If not, I’ll give thee another shake.”
Little Damia burrowed down beneath the bed-clothes, from which long-drawn sobs shook the bed at intervals: but she did contrive to stop screaming. Mother Gaillard left the dormitory, with another sarcastic remark on the dear delight of looking after children: and the minute after, Mother Alianora entered it from the other end. She came up to where I stood, by Damia’s bed.
“Not all peace here?” she said, with her tranquil smile. “Little Damia, what aileth thee?”
As soon as her voice was heard, little Damia’s head came up, and in a voice broken by sobs, she told her tale.
“Come, I think that can be put right,” saith the Mother, kindly. “Lie still, my child, till I come to thee again.”
She went away, and in a few minutes returned, with Erneburg. Of course Mother Alianora can go where the Sisters cannot.
“Little Damia,” she said, smiling, as she laid her hand on the child’s head, “I bring Erneburg to return thee thy ‘tig.’ Now canst thou go to sleep in peace?”
“Yes, thank you, Mother. You are good!” said little Damia gratefully, looking quite relieved, as Erneburg kissed her.
“Such a little thing!” said Mother Alianora, with a smile. “Yet thou art but a little thing thyself.”
They went away, and I tarried a moment to light the blessed Mother’s lamp, and to say the Hail Mary with the children. When I came down-stairs, the first voice I heard in the recreation-room was Mother Gaillarde’s.
“Well, if ever I did hear such a story! Sister, you ruin those children!”
“Nay,” saith Mother Alianora’s gentle voice, “surely not, my Sister, by a little kindness such as that.”
“Kindness, indeed! Before I’d have given in to such nonsense!”
“Sister Gaillarde, maybe some matters that you and I would weep over may seem full as foolish to the angels and to God. And to Him it may be of more import to comfort a little child in its trouble than to pass a statute of Parliament. Ah, me! if God waited to comfort us till we were wise, little comforting should any of us have. But it is written, ‘Like whom his mother blandisheth, thus I will comfort you,’—and mothers do not wait for children to be discreet before they comfort them. At least, my mother did not.”
Such a soft, sweet, tender light came into her eyes as made my heart ache. My mother might have comforted me so.
Just then I caught Margaret’s look. I do not know what it was like: but quite different from Mother Alianora’s. Something strained and stretched, as it were, like a piece of canvas when you strain it on a frame for tapestry-work. Then, all at once, the strain gave way and broke up, and calm, holy peace came instead. If I might talk with Margaret!
Mother Alianora is ill in the Infirmary. And I may not go to her.
I pleaded hard with Mother Ada to appoint me nurse for this week.
“Why?” she said in her coldest voice.
I could not answer.
“Either thou deceivest thyself, Sister,” she added, “which is ill enough, or thou wouldst fain deceive me. Knowest thou not that to attempt to deceive thy superiors is to lie to the Holy Ghost as Ananias and Sapphira did? How then dost thou dare to do it? I see plainly enough what motive prompts thee: not holy obedience—that is thoroughly inconsistent with such fervent entreaties—nor a desire to mortify thy will, but simply a wish for the carnal indulgence of the flesh. Thou knowest full well that particular friendships are not permitted to the religious, it is only the lust of the flesh which prompts a fancy for one above another: if not, every Sister would have an equal share in thy regard. It is a carnal, worldly heart in which such thoughts dwell as even a wish for the company of any Sister in especial. And hast thou forgotten that the very purpose for which we were sent here was to mortify our wills?”
I thought I was not likely to forget it, so long as nothing was allowed me save opportunities for mortifying mine. But one more word did I dare to utter.
“Is obedience so much better than love, Mother?”
“What hast thou to do with love, save the love of God and the blessed Mother and the holy saints? The very word savoureth of the world. All the love thou givest to the creature is love taken from God.”
“Is love, then, a thing that can be measured and cut in lengths, Mother? The more you tend a plant, the better it flourishes. If I am to love none save God, will not my heart dry and wither, so that I shall not be able to love Him? Sometimes I think it is doing so.”
“You think!” she said. “What right have you to think? Leave your superiors to think for you; and you, cultivate holy obedience, as you ought. All the heresies and schisms that ever vexed the Church have arisen from men setting themselves up to think when they should simply have obeyed.”
“But, Mother, forgive me! I cannot help thinking.”
“That shows how far you are from perfection, Sister. A religious who aims at perfection should never allow herself to think, except only how she can best obey. Beware of pride and presumption, the instant you allow yourself to depart from the perfection of obedience.”
“But, Mother, that is the perfection of a thing. And I am a woman.”
“Sister Annora, you are reasoning, when your duty is to obey.”
If holy obedience means to obey without thinking, I am afraid I shall never be perfect in it! I do not know how people manage to compress themselves into stones like that.
I tried Mother Gaillarde next, since I had only found an icicle clad in Mother Ada’s habit. I was afraid of her, I confess, for I knew she would bite: and she did so. I begged yet harder, for I had heard that Mother Alianora was worse. Was I not even to see her before she died?
“What on earth does it matter?” said Mother Gaillarde. “Aren’t you both going to Heaven? You can talk there—without fear of disobedience.”
“My Lord Prior said. Mother, in his last charge, that a convent ought to be a little heaven. If that be so, why should we not talk now?”
Mother Gaillarde’s laugh positively frightened me. It was the hardest, driest, most metallic sound I ever heard.
“Sister Annora, you must be a baby! You have lived in a convent nearly fifty years, and you ask if it be a little heaven!”
“I cry you mercy, Mother. I asked if it should not be so.”
“That’s another matter,” said she, with a second laugh, but it did not startle me like the first. “We should all be perfect, of course. Pity we aren’t!”
As she worked away at the plums she was stoning without saying either yes or no, I ventured to repeat my question.
“You may do as you are told!” was Mother Gaillarde’s answer. “Can’t you let things alone?”
Snappishly as she spoke, yet—I hardly know why,—I did not feel the appeal to her as hopeless as to Mother Ada. To entreat the latter was like beseeching a stone wall. Mother Gaillarde’s very peevishness (if I dare call it so) showed that she was a woman, and not an image.
“Mother Gaillarde,” I said, suddenly—for something seemed to bid me speak out—“be not angry with me, I pray you. I am afraid of letting things alone. My heart seems to be like a dry bough, and my soul withering up, and I want to keep them alive and warm. Surely death is not perfection!”
I was going on, but something which I saw made me stop suddenly. Two warriors were fighting together in Mother Gaillarde’s face. All at once she dropped the knife, and hiding her face in her veil, she sobbed for a minute as if her heart were breaking. Then, all at once, she brushed away her tears and stood up again.
“Child!” she said, in a voice very unlike her usual one, “you are too young for your years. Do not think that dried-up hearts are the same thing as no hearts. Women who seem as though they could not love any thing may have loved once too well, and when they awoke from the dream may never have been able to dream again. Ay, thou art right: death is not perfection. Some of us, maybe, are very far off perfection—further than others think us; furthest of all from what we think ourselves. There have been times when I seemed to see for a moment what perfection is—and it was far, far from all we call it here. God forgive us all! Go to the Infirmary: and if any chide thee for being there, say thou earnest in obedience to me.”
She turned back to her plum-stoning with a resolute face which might have been a mask of iron: and I, after offering lowly thanks, took the way to the Infirmary.
I fear I have been unjust to Mother Gaillarde, and I am sorry for it. I seem to see now, that her hard, snappish speeches (for she does snap sometimes) are not from absence of heart, but are simply a veil to hide the heart. Ah me! how little we human creatures know of each others’ hidden feelings! But I shall never think Mother Gaillarde without heart again.
Note 1. The rule of silence varied considerably in different Orders, but in all, except the very strict, nuns were at liberty to converse during some period of the day.
Note 2. This transferring of Margaret from Watton is purely imaginary.