Part 3—- Chapter 2.
Sister Margaret.
“Do I not know
The life of woman is full of woe?
Toiling on and on and on,
With breaking heart, and tearful eyes,
And silent lips - and in the soul
The secret longings that arise,
Which this world never satisfies?”
Longfellow.
Mother Alianora was lying in her bed when I entered the Infirmary, just under the window, where the soft light of the low autumn sun came in and lit up her pillow and her dear old face. She smiled when she saw me.
There was another Sister in the room, who was stirring a pan over the fire, and at first I scarcely noticed her. I went up to the dear Mother, and asked her how she was.
“Well, my child,” she said, tenderly. “Nearly at Home.”
Something came up in my throat that would not let me speak.
“Hast thou been sent to relieve Sister Marian?” she asked.
“I know not,” said I, after a moment’s struggle with myself: then, remembering what I had been bidden, I added, “Mother Gaillarde bade me come.”
We sat silent for a few moments. Sister Marian poured out the broth and brought it to the Mother, and I supported her while she drank a little of it. She could not take much.
Just before the bell rang for compline, Mother Ada came in.
“I bring an order from my Lady,” said she. “Sister Marian will be relieved after compline by another Sister, who will be sent up. Sister Annora is to stay with the sick Mother during compline, and both she and the Sister who then comes will keep watch during the night.”
I was surprised. I never knew any case of sickness, unless it were something very severe and urgent, allowed to interfere with a Sister’s attendance at compline. But I was glad enough to stay.
Mother Ada went away again after her orders were given, and Sister Marian followed her when the bell rang. As soon as the little sounds of the Sisters’ footsteps had died away, and we knew they were all shut in the oratory, Mother Alianora, in a faint voice, bade me bring a stool beside her bed and sit down.
“Annora,” said she, in that feeble voice, “my child, thou art fifty years old, yet I think of thee as a child still. And in many respects thou art so. It has been thy lot, whether for good or evil—which, who knoweth save God?—to be safe sheltered from very much of the ill that is in the world. But I doubt not, at times, questionings will arise in thy heart, whether the good may not have been shut out too. Is it so, my child?”
I suppose Mother Ada would say I was exceedingly carnal. But something in the touch of that soft, wrinkled hand, in whose veins I knew ran mine own blood, seemed to break down all my defences. I laid my head down on the coverlet, my cheek upon her hand, and in answer I poured forth all that had been so long shut close in mine own heart—that longing cry within me for some real, warm, human love, that ceaseless regret for the lost happiness which was meant to have been mine.
“O Mother, Mother! is it wicked in me?” I cried. “You, who are so near God, you should see with clearer eyes than we, lost in the tangled wilderness of this world. Is it wicked of me to dream of that lost love, and of all that it might have been to me? Am I his true wife, or is she—whoever that she may be? Am I robbing; God when I love any other creature? Must I only love any one in Heaven? and am I to prepare for that by loving nobody here on earth?”
The door opened softly, and the Sister who was to share my watch came in. She must have heard my closing words.
“My child!” said the faint voice of the dear Mother, who had always felt to me more like what I supposed mothers to be than any other I had known—“my child, ‘it is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe unto them through whom they come!’ It seems to me probable that one sin may be written in many books: that the actor, and the inciter, and the abettor—ay, and those who might have prevented, and did not—may all have their share. Thy coming hither, and thy religious life, having received no vocation of God, was not thy fault, poor, helpless, oppressed child! and such temptations as distress thee, therefrom arising, will not be laid to thy charge as sins. But if thou let a temptation slide into a sin by consenting thereto, by cherishing and pursuing it with delight, then art thou not guiltless. That thou shouldst feel thyself unhappy here, in an unsuitable place, and that thou mightest have been a happier woman in the wedded life of the world,—that is no marvel: truly, I think it of thee myself. To know it is no sin: to repine and murmur thereat, these are forbidden. Thy lot is appointed of God Himself—God, thy Father, who loveth thee, who hath given Himself for thee, who pleased not Himself when He came down to die for thee. Are there not here drops of honey to sweeten the bitter cup? And if thou want another yet, then remember how short this life is, and that after it, they that have done His will shall be together with Him for ever. Dear hearts, it is only a little while.”
The Sister who was to watch with me had come forward to the foot of the bed, and was standing silent there. When Mother Alianora thus spoke, I fancied that I heard a little sob. Wondering who she was, I looked up—looked up, to my great astonishment, into those dark, strange eyes of my own sister Margaret.
Margaret and I, alone, to keep the watch all night long! What could my Lady Prioress mean? Here was an opportunity to indulge my will, not to mortify it; to make my love grow, instead of repressing it. I had actually put into my hand the chance that I had so earnestly desired, to speak to Margaret alone.
But now that the first difficulty was removed, another rose up before me. Would Margaret speak to me? Was she, perhaps, searching for opportunities of mortification, and would refuse the indulgence permitted? I knew as much of the King’s Court, as much of a knightly tournament, as I knew of that sealed-up heart of hers. Should I be allowed to know any more?
“Annora,” said our aunt again, “there is one thine in my life that I regret sorely, and it is that I was not more of a mother to thee when thou earnest as a little child. Of course I was under discipline: but I feel now that I did not search for opportunities as I might have done, that I let little chances pass which I might have seized. My child, forgive me!”
“Dearest Mother!” I said, “you were ever far kinder to me than any one else in all the world.”
“Thank God I have heard that!” saith she. “Ah, children—for we are children to an aged woman like me—life looks different indeed, seen from a deathbed, to what it does viewed from the little mounds of our human wisdom as we pass along it. Here, there is nothing great but God; there is nothing fair save Christ and Heaven; there is nothing else true, nor desirable, nor of import. Every thing is of consequence, if, and just so far as, it bears on these: and all other things are as the dust of the floor, which ye sweep off and forth of the doors into the outward. Life is the way upward to God, or the way down to Satan. What does it matter whether the road were smooth or rough, when ye come to the end thereof? The more weary and footsore, the more chilled and hungered ye are, the sweeter shall be the marriage-supper and the rest of the Father’s House.”
“Ay—when we are there.” It was Margaret who spoke.
“And before, let us look forward, my child.”
“Easy enough,” said Margaret, “when the sun gleameth out fair, and ye see the domes of the city stand up bravely afore. But in the dark night, when neither sun nor star appeareth, and ye are out on a wild moor, and thick mist closeth you in, so that ye go it may be around thinking it be forward, till ye know not whether your face is toward the city or no—”
“Let thy face be toward the Lord of the city,” said Mother Alianora. “He shall lead thee forth by the right way, that thou mayest come to His city and to His holy hill. The right way, daughter, is sometimes the way over the moor, and through the mist. ‘Who of you walketh in darkness, and there is no light to him? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God.’ Why, my child, it is only when man cannot see that it is possible for him to trust. Faith is not called in exercise so long as thou walkest by sight.”
“But when thou art utterly alone,” said my sister in a low voice, “with not one footstep on the road beside thee—”
“That art thou never, child, so thou be Christ’s. His footsteps are alway there.”
“In suffering, ay: but in perplexity?”
“Daughter, when thou losest His steps, thou yet hast Himself. ‘If any lack wisdom, let him ask of God.’ And God is never from home.”
“Neither is Satan.”
“‘Greater is He that is in you than he in the world.’”
Mother Alianora seemed weary when she had said this, and lay still a while: and Margaret did not answer. I think the Mother dropped asleep; I sat beside her and watched. But Margaret stood still at the foot of the bed, not sitting down, and in the dim light of our one little lamp I could scarcely see her face as she stood, only that it was turned toward the casement, where a faint half-moon rode in the heavens, and the calm ancient stars looked down on us. Oh, how small a world is ours in the great heavens! yet for one soul of one little babe in this small world, the Son of God hath died.
My heart went out to Margaret as she stood there: yet my lips were sealed. I felt, strangely, as if I could not speak. Something held me back, and I knew not if it were God, or Satan, or only mine own want of sense and bravery. The long hours wore on. The church bell tolled for lauds, and we heard the soft tramp of the Sisters’ feet as they passed and returned: then the doors closed, and Mother Ada’s voice said,
“Laus Deo!” and Sister Ismania’s replied, “Deo gratias!” Then Mother Ada’s footsteps passed the door as she went to her cell, and once more all was silence. On rolled the hours slowly, and still Mother Alianora seemed to sleep: still Margaret stood as if she had been cut in stone, without so much as moving, and still I sat, feeling much as if I were stone too, and had no power to move or speak.
It might be about half-way between lauds and prime when the spell was at last broken. And it was broken, to my astonishment, by Margaret’s asking me a question that fairly took my breath away.
“Annora, art thou a saint?”
These were the first words Margaret had ever spoken to me, except from necessity. That weary, dried-up thing that I call mine heart, seemed to give a little bit of throb.
“Our Lady love us, no!” said I. “I never was, nor never could be.”
“I am glad to hear it,” she said.
“Why, Margaret?”
Oh, how my heart wanted to call her something sweeter! It said, My darling, my beloved, mine own little sister! But my tongue was all so unwonted to utter such words that I could not persuade it to say them.
Yet more to my surprise, Margaret came out of the window,—came and knelt at my feet, and laid her clasped hands on my knee.
“Hadst thou said ‘Ay,’ I should have spoken no more. As thou art not—Annora, is it true that we twain had one mother?”
Something in Margaret’s tone helped me. I took the clasped hands in mine own.
“It is true, mine own Sister,” I said.
“‘Sister!’ and ‘Mother!’” she said. “They are words that mean nothing at all to me. I wonder if God meant them to mean nothing to us? Could we not have been as good women, and have served Him as well, if we had dwelt with our own blood, as other maidens do, or even if—”
Her voice died away.
“Margaret,” I said, “Mother Ada would say it was wicked, but mine heart is for ever asking the same questions.”
“Is it?” she said eagerly. “O Annora! then thou knowest! I thought, maybe, thou shouldst count it wicked, and chide me for indulging such thoughts.”
“How could I chide any one, sinner as I am!” said I. “Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! But thou wilt see I am no saint, nor like to be.”
“Despise thee!” she said. “Dear heart, wert thou to know how much further I have gone!”
I looked on her with some alarm.
“Margaret! we are professed religious women.” (Note 1.)
“Religious women!” she answered. “If thou gild a piece of wood, doth it become gold? Religious women are not women that wear black and white, cut in a certain fashion: they are women that set God above all things. And have I not done that? Have I not laid mine heart upon His altar, a living sacrifice, because I believed He called me to break that poor quivering thing in twain? And will He judge me that did His will, to the best of my power and knowledge, because now and then a human sob breaks from my woman-heart, by reason that I am not yet an angel, and that He did not make me a stone? I do not believe it. I will not believe it. He that gave His own Son to die for man can be no Moloch delighting in human suffering—caring not how many hearts be crushed so long as there be flowers upon His altar, how many lives be made desolate so long as there be choirs to sing antiphons! Annora, it is not God who does such things, but men.”
I was doubtful how to answer, seeing I could not understand what she meant. I only said—
“Yet God permits men to do them.”
“Ay. But He never bids them to make others suffer,—far less to take pleasure in doing so.”
“Margaret,” said I, “may I know thy story? I have told thee mine. Truly, it is not much to tell.”
“No,” she said, as if dreamily,—“not much: only such an one as will be told out by the mile rather than the yard, from thousands of convents on the day when the great doom shall be. Only the story of a crushed heart—how much does that matter to the fathers of the Order? There be somewhat too many in these cells for them to take any note of one.”
I remembered what Mother Gaillarde had said.
“It is terrible, if that be true,” I answered. “I thought I was the only one, and that made me unhappy because I must be so wicked. At times, in meditation, I have looked round the chamber and thought—Here be all these blessed women, wrapped in holy meditations, and only I tempted by wicked thoughts of the world outside, like Lot’s wife at Sodom.”
Margaret fairly laughed. “Verily,” said she, “if it were given to us to lift the veil from the hearts of all these blessed women, and scan their holy meditations, I reckon thine amaze would not be small. Annora, I think thou art a saint.”
“Impossible!” said I. “Why, I fell asleep in the midst of the Rosary a s’ennight back,—having been awake half the night before—and Father Benedict said I must do penance for it. Saints are not such as I.”
“Annora, if the angels that write in men’s books have no worse to set down in thine than what thou hast told me, I count they shall reckon their work full light. O humble and meek of heart, thinking all other better than thyself—trust me, they be, at best, like such as thou.”
Margaret left her station at my feet, and coming round, knelt down beside me, and laid her head on my shoulder.
“Kiss me, Sister,” she said.
So did I, at once, without thought: and then, perceiving what I had done, I was affrighted.
“O Margaret! have we not sinned? Is it not an indulgence of the flesh?”
“Wert thou made without flesh?” asked Margaret, with a short, dry laugh.
“No, but it must be mortified!”
“Sin must be mortified,” she answered more gravely. “Why should we mortify love?”
“Not spiritual love: but natural love, surely, we renounce.”
“Why should we renounce it? Does God make men sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, only that they may have somewhat to renounce? Can He train us only in the wilderness of Sinai, and not in the land flowing with milk and honey?”
“But we renounce them for Him.”
“We renounce for Him that which He demandeth of us.” Margaret’s voice was low and sorrowful now. “Ay, there be times when He holdeth out His hand for the one dearest earthly thing, and calls us to resign either it or Him. Blessed are they that then, howsoever they shrink and faint, yet love Him more than it, and brace their will to give it up to Him. To them that so do, Annora, He giveth Himself; and He is better than any earthly thing. ‘Quid enim mihi est in caelo? et a Te quid volui super terram?’ (Psalm 73, verse 25) But it seems to me that we ought to beware of renouncing what He does not ask of us. If we are in doubt, then let us draw the line on the safe side,—on His side, not on the side of our inclinations. Yet of one thing am I sure—that many a woman mortifies her graces instead of her sins, and resigns to God that which He asks not, keeping that which He would have.”
“Mortify graces!” I cried. “O Margaret! how could we?”
“I think thou wouldst, Sister, if thou hadst refused to kiss me,” she replied with an amused smile.
“But kisses are such very carnal things,” said I. “Mother Ada always says so. She saith we read of none of the holy Apostles kissing any body, save only Judas Iscariot.”
“Who told her so? Doth she find it written that they did not kiss any body? Annora, I marvel if our Lord kissed not the little children. And I am sure the holy patriarchs kissed each other. I do not believe in trying to be better than God. I have noted that when man endeavours to purify himself above our Lord’s example, he commonly ends in being considerably less good than other men.”
“I wish we might love each other!” I said with a sigh. And I am very much afraid I kissed her again. I do not know what Mother Ada would have said.
“I do not wish we might!” said Margaret, sturdily. “I do, and I will.”
“But if we should make idols of each other!” said I.
“I shall not make an idol of thee,” answered my sister, again in that low sad tone. “I set up one idol, and He came to me, and held out His pierced hands, and I tore it down from over the altar, and gave it to Him. He is keeping it for me, and He will give it back one day, in the world where we need fear no idol-making, nor any sin at all. Annora, thou shalt hear my story.”
At that moment I looked up, and saw Mother Alianora’s eyes wide open.
“Do you lack aught, dear Mother?” I asked.
“No, my children,” she answered gently. “Go on with thy tale, Margaret. The ears of one that will soon hear the harps of the angels will not harm thee.”
I was somewhat surprised she could say that. What of the dread fires of Purgatory that must come first? Did she count herself so great a saint as to escape them? Then I thought, perhaps, she might have had the same revealed to her in vision. The thought did not appear to trouble Margaret, who took it as matter of course. Not, truly, that I should be surprised if Mother Alianora were good enough to escape Purgatory, for I am sure she is the best woman ever I knew: but it was strange she should reckon it of herself. Mother Ada always says they are no saints that think themselves such: whereto Mother Gaillarde once added, in her dry, sharp way, that they were not much better who tried to make other folk think so. I do not know of whom she was thinking, but I fancied Mother Ada did, from her face.
Then Margaret began her story.
“You know,” she saith, “it is this year forty-seven years since Annora and I were professed. And wherefore we were so used, mere babes as we were, knew I never.”
“Then that I can tell thee,” I made answer, “for it was Queen Isabel that thrust us in hither. Our father did somewhat to her misliking, what indeed I know not: and she pounced on us, poor little maids, and made us to suffer for his deed.”
“Was that how it was done?” said Margaret. “Then may God pardon her more readily than I have done! For long years I hated with all the force of my soul him or her that had been the cause thereof. It is past now. The priests say that man sinneth when, having no call of God, he shall take cowl upon him. What then of those which thrust it on him, whether he will or no? I never chose this habit. For years I hated it as fervently as it lay in me to hate. Had the choice been given me, any moment of those years, I would have gone back to the world that instant. The world!” Her voice changed suddenly. “What is the world? It is the enemy of God: true. But will bolts and bars, walls and gates, keep it out? Is it a thing to be found in one city, which man can escape by journeying to another? Is it not rather in his own bosom, and ever with him? They say much of carnal affections that are evil, and creep not into religious houses. As if man should essay to keep Satan and his angels out of his house by painting God’s name over the door! But all love, of whatsoever sort, say they, is a filthiness of the flesh. Ah me! how about the filthiness of the spirit? Is there no pride and jealousy in a religious house? no strife and envying? no murmuring and rebellion of heart? And are these fairer things in God’s sight than the natural love of our own blood? Doth He call us to give up that, and not these? May it not be rather that if there were more true love, there were less envy and jealousy? if there were more harmless liberty, there were less murmuring? When man takes God’s scourge into his hands, it seems to me he is apt to wield it ill.”
“But, Margaret!” said I, “so shouldst thou make Satan cast out Satan. Forbidden love were as ill as strife and murmuring.”
“Forbidden of whom?” saith she. “God never forbade me to love my brethren and sisters. He told me to do it. He never forbade me to honour my father and mother—to dwell with them, to tend and cherish them in their old age. He told me to do it. Ay, and He spake of certain that did vainly worship Him seeing they taught learning and commandments of men.” (Matthew 15, verse 9, Vulgate.)
“O Margaret! what art thou saying? Holy Church enjoins vows of religion.”
“Tell me then, Annora, what is Holy Church? It is a word that fills man’s mouth full comely, that I know. But what it is, is simply the souls of all righteous men—all the redeemed of Christ our Lord, which is His Body, and is filled with His Spirit. When did He enjoin such vows? or when did all righteous men thus band together to make men and women unrighteous, by binding commands upon them that were of men, not of God?”
“Margaret, my Sister!” I cried in terror. “Whence drewest thou such shocking thoughts? What will Father Benedict say when thou confessest them?”
“It is not to Father Benedict I confess them,” she said, with a little curl of her lips. “I confess to him what he expects to hear—that I loved not to sweep the gallery this morrow, or that I ate a lettuce last night and forgot to sign the cross over it. Toys are meet for babes, and babes for toys. They cannot understand the realities of life. Such matters I confess to—another Priest, and He can understand them.”
“Well,” said I, “I always thought Father Hamon something less wise than Father Benedict: at least, Father Benedict chides me, and Father Hamon gives me neither blame nor commendation. But, Margaret, I do not understand thy strange sayings in any wise. Surely thou knowest what is the Church?”
“I know what it is not,” saith she; “and that is Father Hamon, or Father Benedict, or Father Anything-Else. Christ and they that are Christ’s—the Head and the Body, the Bridegroom and the Bride: behold the Church, and behold her Priest and Confessor!”
“Margaret,” saith Mother Alianora, “who taught thee that? Where didst thou hear such learning?”
She did not speak chidingly, but only as if she desired information. I was surprised she was not more severe, for truly I never heard such talk, and I was sorely afraid for my poor Margaret, lest some evil thing had got hold of her—maybe the Devil himself in the likeness of some Sister in her old convent.
A wave of pain swept over Margaret’s eyes when Mother Alianora said that, and a dreamy look of calm came and chased it thence.
“Where?” she said. “In the burning fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter than its wont. Of whom? Verily, I think, of that Fourth that walked there, who was the Son of God. He walks oftener, methinks, in the fiery furnace with His martyrs, than in the gilded galleries with the King Nebuchadnezzar and his princes. At least I have oftener found Him there.”
She seemed as if she lost herself in thought, until Mother Alianora saith, in her soft, faint voice—“Go on, my child.”
Margaret roused up as if she were awoke from sleep.
“Well!” she said, “nothing happened to me, as you may well guess, for the years of childhood that followed, when I was learning to read, write, and illuminate, to sew, embroider, cook, and serve in various ways. My Lady Prioress found that I had a wit at devising patterns and such like, so I was kept mainly to the embroidery and painting: being first reminded that it was not for mine own enjoyment, but that I should so best serve the Order. I took the words and let them drop, and I took the work and delighted in it. So matters went until I was a maid of seventeen years. And then something else came into my life.”
I asked, “What was it?” for she had paused. But her next words were not an answer.
“I marvel,” she saith, “of what metal Saint Gilbert was made, that founded our Order. Was it out of pity, or out of bitter hardness, or out of simple want of understanding, that he framed our Rule, and gave us more liberty than other Sisters? Is it more or less happy for a lark that thou let him out of his cage once in the year in a small cell whence he cannot escape into the free air of heaven? Had I been his mother or his sister, when the Saint writ his Rule, I had said to him, Keep thy brethren and sisters apart at the blessed Sacrament, or else bandage their eyes.”
“O Margaret!” I cried out, for it was awful to hear such words. As if the blessed Saint Gilbert could have made a mistake! “Dost thou think thyself wiser than the holy saints?”
“Yes,” she answered simply. “I am sure I know more about women than Saint Gilbert did. That he did not know much about them was shown by such a Rule, he might as well have set the door of the lark’s cage open, and have said to the bird, ‘Now, stay in!’ Well, I did not stay in. One morrow at mass, I was all suddenly aware of a pair of dark eyes scanning my face across the nave—”
“From the brethren’s side of the church! O Margaret!”
“Well, Annora? I am human: so, perchance, was he. He had been thrust into this life, as I had. Had we both been free, we might have loved each other without a voice saying, ‘It is sin.’ Why was it sin because we wore black and white habits?”
“But the vows, Margaret! the vows!”
“What vows? I made none, worthy to be called vows. I was bidden, a little babe of four years, to say ‘ay’ and ‘nay’ at certain times, and ‘I am willing,’ and so forth. What knew I of the import attaching to such words? I do ensure thee I knew nothing at all, save that when I had been good and done as I was told, I should have a pretty little habit like the Sisters, and be called ‘Sister’ as these grown women were. Is that what God calls a vow?—a vow of life-long celibacy, dragged from a babe that knew not what vow nor celibacy were! ‘Doth God lack your lie?’ saith Job (Job 13, verse 7). Yea, the Psalmist crieth, ‘Numquid adhaeret Tibi sedes iniquitatis?’ (Psalm 94, verse 20)—Wala wa! the only thing I marvel is that He thundereth not down with His great wrath, and delivereth not him that is in misery out of the hand of him that despoileth.”
If it had been any other Sister, I think I should have been horribly shocked: but do what I would, I could not speak angrily to my own sister. I wonder if it were very wicked in me! But it surprised me much that Mother Alianora lay and hearkened, and said nought. Neither was she asleep, for I glanced at her from time to time, and always saw her awake and listening. Truly, she had little need of nurses, for it was no set malady that ailed her—only a gentle, general decay from old age. Why two of us were set to watch her I could not tell. Had I thought it possible that Mother Gaillarde could do a thing so foreign to her nature, I might have fancied that she sent us two there that night just in order that we might talk and comfort each other. If Mother Alianora had been the one to do it, I might have thought such a thing: or if my Lady had sent us herself, I should have supposed she had never considered the matter: but Mother Gaillarde! Well, whatever reason she had, I am thankful for that talk with Margaret. So I kept silence, and my sister pursued her tale.
“He was not a Brother,” she said, “but a young man training for the priesthood under the Master. But not yet had he taken the holy vows, therefore I suppose thou wilt think him less wicked than me.”
She looked up into my face with a half-smile.
“O Margaret! I wis not what to think. It all sounds so strange and shocking—only that I have not the heart to find fault with thee as I suppose I should do.”
Margaret answered by a little laugh.
“In short,” said she, “thou canst be wicked sometimes like other folk. Be it done! I ensure thee, Annora, it comforts me to know the same. Because it is not real wickedness, only painted. And I fear not painted sin, any more than I hold in honour painted holiness. For real sin is not paint; it is devilishness. And real holiness is not paint; it is dwelling in God. And God is love.”
“But not that sort of love!” I cried.
“Is there any sort but one?” she made answer. “Love is an angel, Annora: it is self-love that is of the Devil. When man helps man to sin, that is not love. How can it be, when God is love, and God and sin are opposites? Tarry until my tale be ended, and then shalt thou be judge thyself how far Roland’s love and mine were sin.”
“Go on,” said I.
“Well,” she said, “for many a week it went no further than looks. Then it came to words.”
“In the church!”
“No, not in the church, my scrupulous sister! We should have felt that as wrong as thou. Through the wall between the gardens, where was a little chink that I dare be bound we were not the first to find. Would that no sinfuller words than ours may ever pass athwart it! We found out that both of us had been thrust into the religious life without our own consent: I, thou savest, by the Queen’s wrath (which I knew not then); he, by a cousin that coveted his inheritance. And we talked much, and at last came to agreement that as neither he nor I had any vocation, it would be more wrong in us to continue in this life than to escape and be we’d.”
“But what priest should ever have wedded a Sister to man training for holy orders?”
“None. We were young, Annora: we thought not of such things. As for what should come after we were escaped, we left that to chance. Nay, chide me not for my poor broken dream, for it was a dream alone. The Prioress found us out. That night I was in solitary cell, barred in my prison, with no companions save a discipline that I was bidden to use, and a great stone crucifix that looked down upon me. Ay, I had one Other, but at first I saw Him not. Nay, nor for eight years afterwards. Cold, silent, stony, that crucifix looked down: and I thought He was like that, the living Christ that had died for me, and I turned away from Him. My heart seemed that night as if it froze to ice. It was hard and ice-bound for eight years. During that time there were many changes at Watton. Our Prioress died; and a time of sore sickness removed many of our Sisters. At the end of the eight years, only three Sisters were left who could remember my punishment—it was more than I have told”—ah, poor soul! lightly as she passed it thus, I dare be bound it was—“and these, I imagine, knew not why it was. And at last our confessor died.
“I thought I had utterly outlived my youthful dream. Roland had disappeared as entirely as if he had never been. What had become of him I knew not—not even if he were alive. I went about my duties in a dull, wooden way, as an image might do, if it could be made to move so as to sew or paint without a soul. Life was worth nothing to me—only to get it over. My love was dead, or it was my heart: which I knew not. Either came to the same thing. There were duties I disliked, and one of these was confession: but I went through with them, in the cold, dull way of which I spake. It had to be: what did it matter?
“One morrow, about a week after our confessor’s death, my Lady Prioress that then was told us at recreation-time that our new confessor had come. We were commanded to go to him, ten in the day, and to make a full confession from our infancy. My turn came on the second day. So many of our elder Sisters had died or been transferred, that I was, at twenty-five years, one of the eldest (beside the Mothers) left in the house.
“I knelt down in the confessional, and repeated the Confiteor. Then, in that stony way, I went on with my life-confession: the falsehood that I had told when a child of eight, the obstinacy that I had shown at ten, the general sins whereof I had since been guilty: the weariness of divine things which ever oppressed me, the want of vocation that I had always felt. I finished, and paused. He would ask me some questions, of course. Let him get them over. There was silence for a moment. And then I heard myself asked—‘Is that all thou hast to confess?’—in the voice I had loved best of all the world. My tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of my mouth. I only whispered, ‘Roland!’ in tones which I could not have told for mine own.
“‘I scarce thought to find thee yet here, Margaret,’ he said. ‘I well-nigh feared to do it. But after thy confession, I see wherefore God hath sent me—that I may pour out into the dry and thirsty cup of thine heart a little of that spiced wine of the kingdom which He hath given to me.’
“Mine heart sank down very low. ‘Thou hast received thy vocation, then?’ I said; and I felt the poor broken thing ache so that I knew it must be yet alive. Roland would care no more for me, if he had received a vocation. I must go on yet alone till death freed me. Alone, for evermore!
“‘I have received the blessedest of all vocations,’ he answered; ‘the call to God Himself. Margaret, art thou thinking that if this be so, I shall love thee no more? Nay, for I shall love thee more than ever. Beloved, God is not stone and ice; He is not indifference nor hatred. Nay, He is love, and whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Open thy heart to that love, and then this little, little life will soon be over, and we shall dwell together beside the river of His pleasures, unto the ages of the ages.’
“‘It sounds fair, Roland,’ I said; ‘but it is far away. My soul is hard and dry. I cannot tell how to open the door.’
“‘Then,’ said he, ‘ask Jesus to lift the latch and to come in. Thou wilt never desire Him to go forth again. I have much to say: but it hath been long enough now. Every time thou prayest, say also, “Lord Jesu, come into mine heart and make it soft.” He will come if thou desire Him. And if thou carest not to do this for His sake, do it for thine own.’
“‘I care not for mine own, nor for any thing,’ I answered drearily.
“‘Then,’ saith he, and the old tenderness came into his tone for a moment, ‘then, Margaret, do it for mine.’
“I believe he forgot to absolve me: but I did not miss it.
“It is four and twenty years since that day: and during all these years I have been learning to know Christ our Lord, and the fellowship of His sufferings. For as time passed on, Roland told me much of saintly men from whom he had learned, and of many a lesson direct from our Lord Himself. Now He has taken Roland’s place. Not that I love Roland less: but I love him differently. He is not first now: and all the bitterness has gone out of my love. Not all the pain. For we came to the certainty after a time, when he had taught me much, that we had better bide asunder for this life, and in that which is to come we shall dwell together for evermore. He was about to resign his post as confessor, when the Lord disposed of us otherwise, for the Master thought fit to draft me into the house at Shuldham, and after eighteen years there was I sent hither. So Roland, I suppose, bides at Watton. I know not: the Lord knows. We gave up for His sake the sweet converse wherein our hearts delighted, that we might serve Him more fully and with less distraction. I do not believe it was sinful. That it is sin in me to love Roland shall I never own. But lest we should love each other better than we love Him, we journey apart for this lower life. And I do not think our Lord is angry with me when at times the longing pain and the aching loneliness seem to overcome me, for a little while. I think He is sorry for me. For since I learned—from Roland—that He is not dead, but the Living One—that He is not darkness, but the Light—that He is not cold and hard, but the incarnate Love—since then, I can never feel afraid of Him. And I believe that He has not only made satisfaction for my sins, but also that He can carry my burdens, and can forgive my blunders. And if we cannot speak to one another, we can both speak to Him, and entrust Him with our messages for each other. He will give them if it be good: and before giving, He will change the words if needful, so that we shall be sure to get the right message. Sometimes, when I have felt very lonely, and He comes near me, and sends His peace into my heart, I wonder whether Roland was asking Him to do it: and I pray Him to comfort and rest Roland whenever he too feels weary. So you see we send each other many more letters round by Heaven than we could possibly do by earth. It was the last word Roland said to me—‘The road upward is alway open,’ and, ‘Et de Hierosolymis et de Britannia, aequaliter patet aula caelestis.’” (Note 2.)
Margaret was silent.
Then said Mother Alianora, “Child, thou hast said strange things: if they be good or ill, God wot. I dare not have uttered some of them thus boldly; yet neither dare I condemn thee. We all know so little! But one thing have I learned, methinks—that God will not despise a gift because men cast it at His feet as having no value for them. I say not, He will not despise such givers: verily, they shall have their reward. But if the gift be a living thing that can feel and smart under the manner of its usage, then methinks He shall stoop to lift it with very tender hands, so as to let it feel that it hath value in His eyes—its own value, that nought save itself can have. My children, we are not mere figures to Him—so many dwellers in so many houses. Before Him we are living men and real women—each with his separate heart, and every separate pang that rends it. The Church of God is one: but it is His Body, and made of many members. We know, when we feel pain, in what member it is. Is He less wise, less tender, less sensitive than we? There are many, Margaret, who would feel nought but horror at thy story; I advise thee not to tell it to any other, lest thou suffer in so doing. But I condemn thee not: for I think Christ would not, if He stood now among us. Dear child, keep at His feet: it is the only safe place, and it is the happy place. Heaven will be wide enough to hold us all, and before long we shall be there.”
Note 1. To the mind of a Roman Catholic, a “religious person” is only a priest, monk, or nun.
Note 2. “From Jerusalem, or from England, the way to Heaven is equally near.”—Jerome.