Evelyn was about to interrupt, but the Prioress shook her head, saying, "Well, if not the whole of the convent, at all events part of it—several novices." And she told Evelyn the disease would spread from nun to nun, and that there was no way of checking it.
"Unless by becoming an active order," Evelyn answered, "founding a school."
The old woman rose to her feet instantly, saying that she had spoken out of a moment of weakness; and that it would be cowardly for her to give way to Mother Philippa and Sister Winifred; she would never acquiesce in any alteration of the rule.
"But you, too," she said, "are inclined towards the school?"
Evelyn admitted she was thinking of the poor, people whom she had left to their fate, so that she might save herself from sin; and the talk of the two women dropped from the impersonal to the personal, Evelyn telling the Prioress a great deal more of herself than she had told before, and the Prioress confiding to Evelyn in the end her own story, a simple one, which Evelyn listened to with tears in her eyes.
"Before I came here I was married, and before I was married I often used to come to the convent, for I was fond of the nuns, and was a pious girl. But after my marriage I was captured by life—the vine of life grew about me and held me tight. One day, passing by the door of the convent, my husband said, 'It is lucky that love rescued you, for when I met you you were a little taken by the convent, and might have become a nun if you hadn't fallen in love. You might have shut yourself up there and lived in grey habit and penances!' That day I wore a grey silk dress, and I remember lifting the skirt up as we passed the door and hitting the kerbstone with it. 'Shut up in that prison-house! Did I ever seriously think of such a thing?' These were my words, but God, in his great goodness and wisdom, resolved to bring me back. A great deal is required to save our souls, so deeply are we enmeshed in the delight of life and in the delight of one another…. God took my husband from me after an illness of three weeks. That happened forty years ago. I used to sit on the seashore, crying all day, and my little child used to put his arms about me and say, 'What is mammie crying for?' Then my child died; seemingly without any reason, and I felt that I could not live any longer amid the desires and activities of the world. I'll not try to tell you what my grief was; you have suffered grief, and can imagine it. Perhaps you can. I left my home and hurried here. When I saw you return, soon after your father's death; I couldn't but think of my own returning. I saw myself in you."
"But, Mother, do you regret that you came here?"
The old nun did not answer for some time.
"It is hard to say, Teresa. There are deceptions everywhere, in the convent as in the world; and the mediocrity of the Sisters here is tiresome; one longs for a little more intelligence. And, as I was saying just now, everything declines; an idea ravels like a sleeve. Are you happy here?… You are not; I see it in your eyes."
"The only ones who are happy here," Evelyn answered, "I am sure, are those like Veronica, who pass from the schoolroom to the novitiate."