By What Authority?

by Robert Hugh Benson

“What does it mean?” she asked, looking at it curiously.

“Quemadmodum cervus,”—began Mistress Margaret; “as the hart brayeth after the waterbrooks,”—and she took the embroidery and began to go on with it.—“It is the soul, you see, desiring and fleeing to God, while the things of the world hold her back. Well, you see, it is difficult to talk about it; for it is the inner life that is the real history of a convent; the outer things are all plain and simple like all else.”

“Well,” said Mary, “is it really true that you were happy?”

The old lady stopped working a moment and looked up at her.

“My dear, there is no happiness in the world like it,” she said simply. “I dream sometimes that we are all back there together, and I wake crying for joy. The other night I dreamed that we were all in the chapel again, and that it was a spring morning, with the dawn beginning to show the painted windows, and that all the tapers were burning; and that mass was beginning. Not one stall was empty; not even old Dame Gertrude, who died when I was a novice, was lacking, and Mr. Wickham made us a sermon after the creed, and showed us the crucifix back in its place again; and told us that we were all good children, and that Our Lord had only sent us away to see if we would be patient; and that He was now pleased with us, and had let us come home again; and that we should never have to go away again; not even when we died; and then I understood that we were in heaven, and that it was all over; and I burst out into tears in my stall for happiness; and then I awoke and found myself in bed; but my cheeks were really wet.—Well, well, perhaps, by the mercy of God it may all come true some day.”

She spoke so simply that Mary Corbet was amazed; she had always fancied that the Religious Life was a bitter struggle, worth, indeed, living for those who could bear it, for the sake of the eternal reward; but it had scarcely even occurred to her that it was so full of joy in itself; and she looked up under her brows at the old lady, whose needle had stopped for a moment.

A moment after and Lady Maxwell appeared coming down the steps into the garden; and at her side Anthony, who was dressed ready for riding.

Old Mistress Margaret had, as she said, been watching Mary Corbet those last few weeks; and had determined to speak to her plainly. Her instinct had told her that beneath this flippancy and glitter there was something that would respond; and she was anxious to leave nothing undone by which Mary might be awakened to the inner world that was in such danger of extinction in her soul. It cost the old lady a great effort to break through her ordinary reserve, but she judged that Mary could only be reached on her human side, and that there were not many of her friends whose human sympathy would draw her in the right direction. It is strange, sometimes, to find that some silent old lady has a power for sounding human character, which far shrewder persons lack; and this quiet old nun, so ignorant, one would have said, of the world and of the motives from which ordinary people act, had managed somehow to touch springs in this girl’s heart that had never been reached before.

And now as Miss Corbet and Lady Maxwell talked, and Anthony lolled embarrassed beside them, attempting now and then to join in the conversation, Mistress Margaret, as she sat a little apart and worked away at the panting stag dreamed away, smiling quietly to herself, of all the old scenes that her own conversation had called up into clearer consciousness; of the pleasant little meadow of the Sussex priory, with the old apple-trees and the straight box-lined path called the nun’s walk from time immemorial; all lighted with the pleasant afternoon glow, as it streamed from the west, throwing the slender poplar shadows across the grass; and of the quiet chatter of the brook as it over-flowed from the fish ponds at the end of the field and ran through the meadows beyond the hedge. The cooing of the pigeons as they sunned themselves round the dial in the centre of this Italian garden and on the roof of the hall helped on her reminiscences, for there had been a dovecote at the priory. Where were all her sisters now, those who had sat with her in the same sombre habits in the garth, with the same sunshine in their hearts? Some she knew, and thanked God for it, were safe in glory; others were old like her, but still safe in Holy Religion in France where as yet there was peace and sanctuary for the servants of the Most High; one or two—and for these she lifted up her heart in petition as she sat—one or two had gone back to the world, relinquished everything, and died to grace. Then the old faces one by one passed before her; old Dame Agnes with her mumbling lips and her rosy cheeks like wrinkled apples, looking so fresh and wholesome in the white linen about her face; and then the others one by one—that white-faced, large-eyed sister who had shown such passionate devotion at first that they all thought that God was going to raise up a saint amongst them—ah! God help her—she had sunk back at the dissolution, from those heights of sanctity towards whose summits she had set her face, down into the muddy torrent of the world that went roaring down to the abyss—and who was responsible? There was Dame Avice, the Sacristan, with her businesslike movements going about the garden, gathering flowers for the altar, with her queer pursed lips as she arranged them in her hands with her head a little on one side; how annoying she used to be sometimes; but how good and tender at heart—God rest her soul! And there was Mr. Wickham, the old priest who had been their chaplain for so many years, and who lived in the village parsonage, waited upon by Tom Downe, that served at the altar too—he who had got the horses ready when the nuns had to go at last on that far-off May morning, and had stood there, holding the bridles and trying to hide his wet face behind the horses; where was Tom now? And Mr. Wickham too—he had gone to France with some of the nuns; but he had never settled down there—he couldn’t bear the French ways—and besides he had left his heart behind him buried in the little Sussex priory among the meadows.

And so the old lady sat, musing; while the light and shadow of reminiscence moved across her face; and her lips quivered or her eyes wrinkled up with humour, at the thought of all those old folks with their faces and their movements and their ways of doing and speaking. Ah! well, please God, some day her dream would really come true; and they shall all be gathered again from France and England with their broken hearts mended and their tears wiped away, and Mr. Wickham himself shall minister to them and make them sermons, and Tom Downe too shall be there to minister to him—all in one of the many mansions of which the Saviour spoke.