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.