"Hope for what, dear Mother?"
"That we shall discover a vocation in Evelyn. You heard what Sister
Lawrence said, and she has had great experience."
"It is possible to God, of course, that an opera singer may find a vocation for the religious life, and live happily in a community of nuns devoted to Perpetual Adoration."
"But you don't believe God desires that such a thing should come to pass?"
"I shouldn't like to say that, it would be too presumptuous; but it would be entirely out of the ordinary course."
The Prioress began to wonder if Mother Hilda suspected that some great sin committed while she was in Rome was the cause of Evelyn's nervous breakdown; and the Mistress of the Novices, as she walked by the side of the Prioress, began to wonder why the Prioress wished that Evelyn should become a nun. It might be that the Prioress, who was a widow, was interested in the miracle of the great shock which had caused Evelyn to relinquish her career and to turn to the Church! That might be her motive, she reflected. Those who have lived in the world are attracted and are interested in each other, and are to some extent alien to the real nun, to her who never doubts her vocation from the first and resolves from the first to bring her virginity to God—it being what is most pleasing to him. It might be that the Prioress was influenced, unconsciously, of course, by some such motive; yet it was strange that she should be able to close her eyes to Evelyn's state of mind. The poor woman was still distracted and perplexed by a great shock which had happened before she came to the convent and which had been aggravated by another when she went to Rome; she had returned to them as to a refuge from herself. Such mental crises often happened to women of the world, to naturally pious women; but natural piety did not in the least mean a vocation, and Mother Hilda had to admit to herself that she could discover no sign of a vocation in Evelyn. How were it possible to discover one? She was not herself, and would not be for a long while, if she ever recovered herself. Mother Prioress had chosen to admit her as a postulant…. Even that concession Mother Hilda did not look upon with favour. Why not go one step farther and make Miss Dingle a postulant? It seemed to her that if Mother Prioress insisted that Evelyn should take the white veil at present, a very serious step would be taken. It was the Mistress of the Novices who would be responsible for Evelyn's instruction, and Evelyn was hardly ever in the novitiate; she was always singing, or working in the garden.
XXIV
"I am afraid, dear Mother, her progress towards recovery is slow."
"I don't agree with you. A great nervous breakdown! That journey to Rome, only to see her father die before her eyes, was a great shock— such a one as it would take anybody a long time to recover from. Evelyn is very highly-strung, there can be no doubt of that. I wonder how it is that you don't understand?"
"But I do understand, dear Mother, only I find it hard to believe that the time has come for her to take the white veil."