Sister Teresa — Chapter 24

London: T. Fisher Unwin, 8 July 1901, pages 135-140, 1,923 words

XXIV

The silence of the convent had once seemed to her a hardship, and now these extra hours of silence seemed to her no hardship at all, and she passed a whole week without speaking, and in special humility of the spirit. She accepted all Mother Hilda’s instruction as a patient accepts her medicines. She looked forward to the gown, the veil, the wreath and the ceremony as the patient looks forward to the doctor’s ordinances, and she was anxious to exceed the rule, to do a little more than it required of her. The stage had enabled her to escape from herself, her vows were a more serious escapement, and on the day of her clothing she was the most infantile nun in the convent. She joined in all the babble and laughter, and her appreciation of the wedding-cake exceeded Sister Agatha’s. But she over-did it a little, and in the midst of her gaiety her mood changed, and she asked if she might go into the garden. Sister Jerome was particularly noisy that afternoon, her unceasing humour had begun to jar, and Evelyn felt she must get away from it.

It was a relief to watch the gardener.

He was mowing between the flower-beds, and the thick young grass that had just grown up after the winter lay along the lawn in irregular lines; and she noticed that the summer had not yet covered the earth, and that brown patches showed among grey-green tulip leaves, the tall May tulips which the Dutchmen used to paint. She looked towards the orchard, where the white pear blossom was shedding, and the apple blossom was beginning to show in tight pink knots amid brown boughs.

The convent pets had increased, and Evelyn in her walk round the garden met three goslings straying under the flowering laburnums. She returned them to their mother in the orchard, and a little farther on she came upon the cat playing with the long-lost tortoise. He had found the tortoise among the potato ridges, and, sitting in front of it, tapped the black head whenever it appeared beyond the shell. And holding the great grey tom cat by his front paws she decided to carry him to the other end of the garden, to where sparrows were pecking up the sweet peas. And then she wandered in St Peter’s Walk, watching the young leaves swinging.

The mystery of the spring seemed afloat in the misty distances, and standing on the terrace, her eyes fixed on the wooded horizon, she thought of the Birmingham girl whose renunciation of the world had been much more complete than hers had been that morning. For the order of the Carmelites was more severe than that of the Passionists. She remembered the lilacs in the courtyard, and the smell of the wax inside the church, and the quavering voices of the nuns, and the priest’s intoning of the Veni Creator. She did not linger over these external appearances — she was more concerned with her personal impression. Three years ago the ceremony had seemed to her like a gross mediaeval superstition. She remembered how it had frightened her. That a girl should choose to forego lover, husband, children, riches, fame — everything! All these things might have been hers, but she had put them away, knowing them to be vain things.

Evelyn remembered how even then she had begun to perceive the unreality of the things which the world calls real things. Yet on the day of the girl’s clothing it had seemed to her that for a time one should be the dupe of that illusion which the world calls reality. It had seemed to her that the girl should have tasted of the cup before she had refused it. She could have sympathised with a renunciation, but she could not then sympathise with a refusal. She could not admit that anyone should know from the beginning that the world was a vain thing; such precocity; and conflicted with her prejudice. She remembered how she had been taken with a sudden impulse to ask this girl what reason had compelled her to refuse life, and how she had followed Merat through a side door and down a passage. She had come to a room divided by a grating, and behind the grating she had seen the girl, her face suffused with tears, and she had not been able to ask what she had come to ask. The conviction that the girl could not answer her had stayed the question on her lips. The mere sight of the girl had told her that she had been led by a sublime instinct beside which the wisdom of all the philosophers was very little....

That girl had known the truth from the beginning, and had confirmed her conviction by an act, and Evelyn remembered that even at that time her own feet were on the way that had led her to the convent. But how incredulous she would have looked if anyone had told her then that in a little while she would stand a nun on the terrace of the Wimbledon convent.

There was no doubt that she was greatly changed, and yet it was the strange discomfort of her clothes that reminded her she was a nun — the voluminous trailing habit with its wide, hanging sleeves, and, smiling, she thought that this stiff, white head-dress made her feel more like a nun than her vows.

She stood, her eyes fixed on the horizon. It had changed from blue to violet, the evening was growing more beautiful. Evelyn had begun to feel that she would stand looking at it for ever, and it was at that moment that the rosy-cheeked porteress came tripping down the terrace to tell her that a lady had called to see her.

‘The lady is in the parlour. Mother Hilda is with her, and she has sent me for you.’

It was Louise who had called to see her, but when Evelyn entered the parlour Mother Hilda was not there, and she was not certain if she should remain.

‘I can see you are doubtful whether you should stay with me, Evelyn; how is it that you can accept such obedience? And that ridiculous gown, those sleeves and that head-dress! I hear you were Clothed to-day. You have had your hair cut off. But is this the Evelyn, the Evelyn with whom I used to sing?’

‘Yes, dear Louise, it is I; and it is kind of you to come here. But how did you find me out? Let me know before Mother Hilda returns. We shall not be able to talk freely before her. This opportunity is quite exceptional.’

‘But, Evelyn, your gown distracts me. Well, it was accident that gave me your address. Owen Asher did not know it.’

‘Louise, you must not talk to me of him. Thougn I should like to know he is well. Nor must you talk to me of the stage. All that is past.’

‘Then what shall we talk about? ’

‘Tell me how you found me out.’

‘You look so serious that I shall find it hard to tell you anything.... I was singing Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” and a man told me he had heard a nun at Wimbledon sing it more beautifully than anyone — myself, of course, excepted. Something told me it was you, and the moment I heard you I knew.’

‘I have not sung it for some weeks.’

‘It is about three weeks ago, but I was with a friend and could not call that day, and the following day I went to Paris. I have just returned. This is the first free day I had.’

‘It is very good of you to come, Louise. I am glad you have not forgotten me.’

'But tell me — I want you to tell me how long this fancy — this whim of yours — is going to last.’

‘You surely cannot think that I am not serious. I assure you that living in a convent is no joke at all.’

'Then you are not happy?’

'On the contrary, I am happy, and I grow happier every day. When I said that to live in a convent was not a joke I meant that it would be horrible if one were not sure of one’s vocation.’

'But you will tell me, Evelyn, what reason led you here, what impulse.’

‘Ah, that is what everyone wants to know. The question you have asked me is the question everyone wishes to put to a nun. I remember longing to ask a Carmelite nun why she had refused the world. She was only eighteen or twenty.’

‘And what answer did she give you?’

‘I asked her nothing; the reason was plain upon her face. But I will tell you why I came here. I came here in quest of happiness. The same reason that took me to the stage took me here. The happiness I seek is not the happiness I sought in art and lovers. But I came here in quest of happiness.’

'And you have found it?’

'Nuns are far happier than actresses. They seem to me to be perfectly happy, and they have surrendered everything.’

'And are you happy?’

‘I am happier than I used to be. But I have not yet taken the vows which separate me irrevocably from the things which make us unhappy; I am not so happy as the nuns who have been here for twenty years, but I am sure I am happier than you are, Louise.’

‘I am not happy at all.’

The conversation paused and then Evelyn said, 'The moment we come to see that life is something more than a set of adventures (that is how I used to look upon my life), the moment we come to see that life has a spiritual meaning, we find ourselves propelled to alter our lives.’

‘One can alter one’s life without shutting oneself up in a nunnery?’

‘We must go where we feel we shall find health.... A person suffering from a contagious disease would leave the infected place as soon as he was cured.’

'Perhaps your convalescent might think it his duty to remain to tend the sick.’

‘Ah, which is the better, the active or the contemplative order? which is it better, to pray or to act?’

‘My dear Evelyn, you were always a little mad. I know all about convents and nuns. I was brought up in a convent, and I, too, was tempted by the religious life, but I did not give way to the temptation. But what are you striving after, Evelyn? You can never know for certain that there is a future life.’

‘Even so. It interests me more to pursue a moral idea than to sing difficult music for applause and gain. The inward satisfaction one gets by living for an idea is infinitely greater than one gets by the pursuit of artistic or other pleasure. It is delicious to feel that one is not prompted by selfish motives. I assure you I would sing the ugliest music ever written to get money to pay the convent’s debts. To pay off these debts is the object of my life.’

'You think that it is a sufficient object?’

'It is sufficient for me. London had come to seem like a stuffy omnibus. Moreover, I could not breathe in London.’