‘Deathless Saint Magdalen of the damasked throne,’ she muttered, ‘friend of Jesus, weaver of wiles, vex not my soul with frets and weariness but hearken to my prayer. Who flees, may she pursue; who spurns gifts may she offer them; who loves not, willy-nilly may she love. Broider my speech with the quaint flowers of Paradise, on thine own loom weave me wiles and graces to the ensnaring of my love. Up the path of Admiration lead Sappho to my desire.’
She felt a touch on her shoulder, and, looking round, saw a lay-sister, in the brown habit of the Carmelites. Her twinkling black eyes reminded Madeleine of another pair of eyes, but whose she could not remember.
‘I ask pardon, Madame,’ the sister said in a low voice, ‘but we hold ourselves the hostesses, as it were, of all wanderers on Carmel. Is there aught that I can do for you?’
Madeleine’s heart began to beat wildly; the suddenness with which an opportunity had been given her for procuring her wish seemed to her of the nature of a miracle. Through her perennial grief at the old, old story, the Magdalene must have heard her prayer. A certainty was born in on her that her desire would be granted. She and the other Madeleine would one day visit the Chapel together, and side by side set up rows and rows of wax candles in gratitude for the perfection of their friendship.
‘Oh, sister, I am much beholden to you,’ she stammered. The nun led the way out of the Church into the great garden that marched with that of the Luxembourg and rivalled it in magnificence. She sat down by a statue of the Virgin, enamelled in gold and azure.
Madeleine thought with contemptuous pity of the comparatively meagre dimensions and furnishing of Port-Royal, and triumphed to think how far she had wandered from Jansenism.
‘You have the air of one in trouble,’ said the nun kindly. Her breath smelt of onions, and somehow or other this broke the spell of the situation for Madeleine. It was a touch of realism not suited to a mystical messenger.
‘I perceive graven on your countenance the lines of sorrow, my child,’ she went on, ‘but to everything exists its holy pattern, and these lines can also be regarded as a blessing, when we call to mind the holy stigmata.’ She gabbled off this speech as though it had been part of the patter of a quack.
‘Yes, I am exceeding unhappy,’ said Madeleine; ‘at least I am oppressed by fears as to the issue of certain matters,’ she corrected herself, for ‘unhappy’ seemed a word of ill-omen.
‘Poor child!’ said the Sister, ‘but who knows but that oil and balm of comfort may not pour on you from Mount Carmel?’