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.