Sister Teresa — Chapter 7

London: T. Fisher Unwin, 8 July 1901, pages 35-44, 3,395 words

VII

In their long strayings by the Serpentine she often wondered what she should say if they were to meet Owen. He would pass them quickly, with a cynical smile on his lips and in his eyes, for he would think the worst.

Ulick had asked her if he might accompany her on her concert tour, but she had refused, feeling she could not hold out against his tenderness much longer. The moment would have come when she would have thrown herself into his arms. He had not tried to kiss her as Owen had done, and it would have been easy for any other woman to have seen him every day without danger, but she was different. She could resist once, twice, even three times, but the time came when she could resist no longer. Love with her was like one of those poisons which remain in the body; it is not the actual dose which kills, but the accumulation of doses, and she knew that men had again become a feverish curiosity in her.

At Edinburgh the larger part of the stalls was taken up by Lady Ascott’s party. Lady Ascott had had a large house party at Thornton Grange, and she brought all her friends to Edinburgh to hear Evelyn. She brought many of the county people with her, and after the concert came to see Evelyn. Evelyn was thinking of the men whom she heard talking behind her, and almost independently of her will she turned from the women who were complimenting her on her singing, and it was only by an effort of will that she engaged in conversation with Lady Ascott or some amiable old gentleman.

The temptation pursued her and kept her awake. She lay on her left side, seeing in the darkness the faces she had seen during the evening. And every day the danger seemed to grow more threatening. She would have abandoned her concert tour had it not been for the nuns — for their sakes she was obliged to go on with it. Every day her danger grew more imminent. Lady Ascott had asked her to Thornton Grange, and after all Lady Ascott had done to make her Edinburgh concert a success she did not see how she could refuse to spend the interval between the Edinburgh and the Glasgow concert with her.

Thornton Grange was thirty miles west of Edinburgh, so it would be on her way to Glasgow, and as she went there she thought of the people she would meet. She would be sure to meet there some of the men whom she had met last autumn when she lunched with Owen, and the women she had met there too, for they went about in gangs. She knew what the party would be like; she knew it all before it began. It would consist principally of an exasperated desire to do something to escape from the tedium of leisure. Everyone would be divided as if the Atlantic divided them, even when they lay in each other’s arms; her friendship with which had taught her that physical intimacies are but surface emotions, forgotten as soon as they are satisfied, whereas spiritual intimacies live in the heart; they are part of our eternal life and reach beyond the stars.

Then why was she going to Thornton Grange? Because it was difficult to refuse Lady Ascott’s invitation? Yes, and because she liked to go, and because she was drawn there. She knew these people would weary her; she despised them. She knew that they knew no more of life than animals, but these thoughts were in her brain merely. She felt she had lost control over herself; her brain was on fire, and outside the country was lit up by swift lightnings.

A high wind had been blowing all day, and the storm had begun in the dusk, and when she arrived at the station the coachman could hardly get his horses to face the rain and wind. She took the storm for a sign, but she could not go back now, and she tried to think of something else. She had heard of the trees in the park, and she peered through the wet panes. ‘It is a miserable thing,' she thought, 'to linger on the threshold; it is only the daring spirits who pass across and close the door.' But she put these thoughts out of her mind, and for the first time yielded to the temptation to think of the men she was going to meet that night at dinner.

'How are you, my dear Evelyn? I am so glad to see you; you will find some friends here,' said Lady Ascott, who had come forward to meet her.

They were on the threshold of the shadowy drawingroom, and out of a background of rich pictures, china vases, books in little inlaid cases on marble console tables on which stood lamps and tall, shaded candles, Owen came forward to meet her.

'I am so glad to see you, Evelyn; you did not expect me. You are not sorry, I hope?’

She hardly answered. She went past him into the drawing-room, and with a scared look sat down by herself on a sofa as if to watch the card players.

Lady Ascott asked Owen what he thought was the matter with her. He shrugged his shoulders and went towards Evelyn. But at that moment some other guests arrived. They had come from a different station, and were greeted with little cries of facetious intimacy, and amidst a reiteration of Christian names they narrated their journeys, and their narratives were chequered with the names of other friends who had been staying in the houses they had just come from. It seemed to Evelyn that the desire of these people was to pretend to be all members of one family. Their jokes implied an intimate acquaintance with the idiosyncrasies of a large number of people, and it seemed that they often spoke with a view to giving prominence to this fact. They knew each other’s intrigues, mercenary and sensual, and each other’s plans for the winter months, and the object of their house parties; their race meetings and intrigues were vanity and distraction. Suddenly Evelyn heard one of the women say of a poet whose acquaintance she had made she was afraid Society would get hold of him and spoil him. ‘She’s like me,' Evelyn said to herself; ‘she sees through it all, but cannot escape from it. I run a little way, and am brought back again.’

And like one watching a revel, she sat apart, hearing the tingling of the temptation in her flesh; and in despair she went up to her room, where Merat was waiting to dress her for dinner. As she stood before the glass she asked herself what was the meaning that lurked in the dress she wore, in the wine and the meats which awaited them.

These people did not meet to exchange ideas. Everything — dress, flowers, wine, food and conversation were but pretexts and stimulants; the pleasure of, consciously or unconsciously, sex was the object of this party.

It was Owen who took her in to dinner, and amid the influence of food, wine, conversation and the scent of the flowers the combat within her grew denser.

After dinner the card players withdrew, and Owen sat beside her telling how this meeting had been devised. Her manner implied acquiescence, and when she was asked to sing she walked to the piano gravely like one who had come to a sudden decision. She sang all that Owen asked her to sing — that song in which lovers sit in the hot July night, under the moon, among flowers that flourished and fell; and that other song in which desire moves mysteriously like wind among tall grasses by the cliff’s edge, and nothing else is heard but the vacant pipe of the shepherd.

She had yielded herself, and the sensual intoxication that flowed through her lips thrilled in everyone; and men and women came forward together to thank her for the pleasure she had given. She was ready to sing again, but Owen excused her, and they went away to sit in the scent of some lilies drooping in a great china vase set on a marquetry table in the library.

The moment had come, and he spoke to her of love, and only of love, and his conversation alternated between descriptions of love’s tenderest whisperings to love’s violent gratifications, and all he said was interpenetrated with recollections of passionate hours, and she sat listening, not daring to speak, her nervous eyes alone telling him of the flame he was blowing up in her heart. Their hands touched, sometimes their knees, and she was borne, as it were, out of her reason.

The roar of the wind up and down the glen was uncanny to listen to; it moaned in the chimneys and threw itself against the house in swift and determined attacks. Rain was dashed against the window-panes, and Owen and Evelyn looked at each other in alarm. He spoke of the high pines, for an admission of his desire was trembling on his lips. In spite of himself he spoke of the love affairs of one of the women present, and in spite of herself she asked him which woman he was making love to. A sudden thickness came into his throat; their bodies swayed a little, they might have fallen into each other’s arms if Lady Ascott had not come upon them, and startled out of her mood, Evelyn looked up and saw Lady Ascott standing by her.

‘The women yonder will go on playing cards till one o’clock in the morning, but as you have been travelling I thought you might be tired.’

Lady Ascott took her to her room and stood talking to her for some time, and Merat, who thought she knew every trick and turn of her mistress’s mind, had already guessed that she had given Sir Owen permission to visit her, and no shadow of doubt remained when Evelyn said she would not go to bed yet; Merat need not stay, she would undress herself.

When the maid had left the room Evelyn walked a few steps forward, and then leaned against the bed, for she was taken in a sudden terror of the inevitable. She felt all resistance to be dead in her; she was helpless as one enfolded in a flame. Her brain would not think for her, and between desire and her terror of it questions flashed. ‘What did Lady Ascott mean — had she done it on purpose? Would Owen come to her? Did he know her room? After all, it might end in nothing.' Her hands went to her dress to unhook it, but they fell tremblingly. She looked towards the door like one waiting. She took a book and then laid it aside, for she could not fix her thoughts, and she sat looking into the fire, thinking of the delight it would be to hear the handle turn in the door, to see him pass into the room. The moment the door was closed behind him he would take her in his arms and hold her, both speechless with desire.

The storm had abated and there was overhead a large clear space of sky through which the moon was whirling brightly, and in the wind-tossed landscape she seemed to see her own soul, and the vision was so clear and explicit that she drew the curtains back and returned to the fire and sat looking into it, frightened, like one who has seen a ghost.

An hour later she heard the card players in the passage. They went to their rooms, and from that time there was no sound in the house, only the soughing of the wind in the trees outside.

She loved Owen no longer, and if she yielded, an hour’s delight would be followed by a miserable terror and despair so abject that she might kill herself. But God seemed far away, and as she lay staring into the darkness images of fierce sensuality crowded upon her, the fever that consumed her was unendurable, her will was being stolen from her, and with the rape of her will her flesh hardened and was thrust forward in burning pulsations. She held her breasts in both hands, and bit her pillow like a neck, and her reason seemed to drift and sicken, and her body was her whole reality. Once more she argued it out. This was desire separated from imaginative passion and therefore sin, even according to Ulick’s code of ethics. But she could not think; her only consciousness was of the burning of her blood which would not let her lie down. She got out of bed and she tried to think of Ulick — of any subject that might distract her thoughts from Owen. He was sleeping but a few yards away, and her door was not locked. She lay down again, wearied by this hot struggle with herself. But memories arose, and like ghosts they passed under the sheets and lay beside her, and she was now too exhausted to repulse them.

Then her eyes closed, and she lay with the temptation in her arms, its breath mixing with her breath. It lay still, like a child, between her breasts, and she lay afraid to move. It mastered her slowly. Opening her eyes she saw Owen in his room waiting for her. The anguish of the struggle was nearly over, and a sweet ease had begun in her; and raising herself up in bed she paused to listen, for voices were singing. It was a sad, wailing song; she seemed to have heard it before, voices singing as they walked in procession. She was not sure whence the voices came — outside or within the house, or if they were echoes borne from afar by the wind, or if they were in her own brain. The voices grew more distinct, and she recognised the hymn — the beautiful Veni Creator. One voice was clear and true — to whom was she listening? The voices grew louder, they seemed to come nearer, and whether they were echoes borne on the wind, or memories singing in her own brain, she was not sure. Soon the room was filled with the plain chant, and then, almost without her being aware of any transition, the voices seemed to grow fainter, suddenly, and she heard them in the far distance. She sat on her bed listening, and when she could hear them no longer the hymn continued in her brain, and she could not tell at what point hallucination ended and memory began.

She fell back on her pillow, wondering, and hearing and seeing only the nuns, her lips began to whisper prayers. Suddenly she awoke. It was morning, and lying between dreams and waking thoughts she remembered the miraculous midnight intervention with a strange distinctness. She could not doubt the miracle, and was overcome by the thought of the great danger she had escaped; she thanked God for sending the nuns to help her, and she realised her own unworthiness. She understood that her summer spent in the Park with Ulick had been a preparation for this breakdown. Their long talks under the trees, their long musical reveries at the piano, and this concert tour, everything had led her to this disaster. She thought of the music she had sung last night, and of how she had sung it — of the house she was staying in, and of its inmates, and she resolved to leave at once. She must abandon what remained of her tour, and this was the sorest part, for the nuns would suffer through her sin. But her first business was to purge herself; she must destroy this terrible sensual beast within her, and she told Merat she was to pack her things and be ready to leave after breakfast.

And amid the glitter of silver dishes, and the savoury odour of kidneys and omelettes, amid the elaborately-dressed people and the pomp of footmen she broke the news to Lady Ascott.

'I am sorry,' she said, 'but I am obliged to leave to-day by an early train.’

'Sir Owen, will you try to persuade her? Get her some omelette and I will get her coffee. Which will you have, dear, tea or coffee?’

There was no train till mid-day, and she could not refuse to go into the garden with Owen.

‘You are not leaving?’

'Do not let us go through it all again, Owen.'

But he insisted, and reminding her of her last night’s mood — how different she was then — he besought her to tell him what had happened.

'You cannot have been to confession — you did not get out of your bed and run to a priest, did you?’

She smiled; they walked on a few paces, and then she spoke of the weather, for traces of last night’s storm were visible everywhere — in the cold air, and in the long chestnut leaves which filled the roadway.

A squirrel cracked a nut and let the shells fall. A blackbird whistled, but stopped when the sun was swallowed up in great clouds again. The sweet peas were worn by the wind, the sunflowers hung, shabby on their decaying stalks, and out of a faint odour of dying mignonette they passed through the wicket into the woods. On either side of the pathway two robins were singing their rival roundelays.

'But where are you going, Evelyn? You are not going to enter the convent?’

'I am determined, Owen, to separate myself from those whose ideas conflict with mine, that is all.’

'But that is everything.’

'Yes, it is everything, Owen. You see the carriage has come. Good-bye.’

They walked up the drive, and he put her into the carriage, and when it drove away he turned and stood watching the waterfowl swimming in the pool below, stealing mysteriously into the reeds when the guests who walked on the lower terrace approached too close.

‘That damned, stupid creed, which has reduced half Europe to decrepitude, has robbed me of her,' he said, as they sat down to lunch, and like one unable to contain himself any longer he told the whole story, how he had discovered her in Dulwich and had taken her to Paris and made a great artist of her. For a moment he was ridiculous, but when he said, 'A time comes in every man’s life when all past passions are as nothing, or seem to collect into one supreme passion, which can never change or leave him,' his words awoke an echo in every heart.

Someone suggested that a spiritual message had come to her in a dream, and instances were given. Owen, nervously irascible, denied all belief in omens, portents and visions. The others were not so incredulous, and they got up from the table impressed, and anxious for the moment to learn something of the spiritual life.

'It is all very interesting,' someone said, ‘so long as you are not called upon to practise it;' and the remark sufficed to change the conversation, which had been unduly prolonged.

Some of the guests were taken to climb the cliffs which commanded an extensive view; others walked through the woods, and they counted the number of trees which had been blown down.

Evelyn’s mysterious departure haunted these pleasure-seekers, and beguiled by the mystery which had collected in the autumn park, they looked into the shadows; and when they came suddenly upon some patient cattle standing by the hedge side they were obliged to stop, and they gazed perplexed. Unending flights of rooks came through the sky, and the clamour of the wings in the branches was part of the mystery too. They questioned the light of the first star, and the elliptical flight of the bats. Owen, when he went up to his own room to dress for dinner, drew the curtain, and with a strange grief in his heart he stood looking out on the moon-lit world and on the strange silence of the windless night.