In Convent Walls Part 26

"Erneburg! But Erneburg and thou art friends!"

"Oh yes, we're friends enough! only Mother Gaillarde won't let me give her the tig."

And little Damia indulged in a fresh burst of tears.

"Give her what?" I said.

"My tig! The tig she gave me. And now I must carry it all night long!

She might have let me just give it her!"

I thought I saw how matters stood.

"You have been playing?"

"Yes, playing at

"'Carry my tig To Poynton Brig--'

"and Erneburg gave me a tig, and I can't give it back. Mo--other Gaillarde won't le-et me!" with a fresh burst of sobs.

"Now, whatever is all this fuss?" asked Mother Gaillarde, from the other end of the room. "Sister, do keep these children quiet."

But Mother Ada came to us.

"What is the matter?" she said in her icicle voice.

Little Damia was crying too much to speak, and I had to tell her that the children had been playing at a game in which they touched one another if they could, and it was deemed a terrible disgrace to be touched without being able to return it.

"What nonsense!" said Mother Ada. "They had better not be allowed to play at such silly games. Go to sleep immediately, Damia: do you hear?

Give over crying this minute."

I wondered whether Mother Ada thought that joy and sorrow could as easily be stopped as a tap could be turned to stop water. Little Damia could not stop crying so instantly as this: and Mother Ada told her if she did not, she should have no fruit to-morrow: which made her cry all the more. Mother Gaillarde then marched up, and gave the poor child an angry shake: and that produced screams instead of sobbing.

"Blessed saints, these children!" said Mother Gaillarde. "I wish there never were any! With all reverence I say it, I do think if the Almighty could have created men and women grown-up, it would have saved a world of trouble. But I suppose He knows best.--Damia, stop that noise! If not, I'll give thee another shake."

Little Damia burrowed down beneath the bed-clothes, from which long-drawn sobs shook the bed at intervals: but she did contrive to stop screaming. Mother Gaillard left the dormitory, with another sarcastic remark on the dear delight of looking after children: and the minute after, Mother Alianora entered it from the other end. She came up to where I stood, by Damia's bed.

"Not all peace here?" she said, with her tranquil smile. "Little Damia, what aileth thee?"

As soon as her voice was heard, little Damia's head came up, and in a voice broken by sobs, she told her tale.

"Come, I think that can be put right," saith the Mother, kindly. "Lie still, my child, till I come to thee again."

She went away, and in a few minutes returned, with Erneburg. Of course Mother Alianora can go where the Sisters cannot.

"Little Damia," she said, smiling, as she laid her hand on the child's head, "I bring Erneburg to return thee thy 'tig.' Now canst thou go to sleep in peace?"

"Yes, thank you, Mother. You are good!" said little Damia gratefully, looking quite relieved, as Erneburg kissed her.

"Such a little thing!" said Mother Alianora, with a smile. "Yet thou art but a little thing thyself."

They went away, and I tarried a moment to light the blessed Mother's lamp, and to say the Hail Mary with the children. When I came down-stairs, the first voice I heard in the recreation-room was Mother Gaillarde's.

"Well, if ever I did hear such a story! Sister, you ruin those children!"

"Nay," saith Mother Alianora's gentle voice, "surely not, my Sister, by a little kindness such as that."

"Kindness, indeed! Before I'd have given in to such nonsense!"

"Sister Gaillarde, maybe some matters that you and I would weep over may seem full as foolish to the angels and to G.o.d. And to Him it may be of more import to comfort a little child in its trouble than to pa.s.s a statute of Parliament. Ah, me! if G.o.d waited to comfort us till we were wise, little comforting should any of us have. But it is written, 'Like whom his mother blandisheth, thus I will comfort you,'--and mothers do not wait for children to be discreet before they comfort them. At least, my mother did not."

Such a soft, sweet, tender light came into her eyes as made my heart ache. My mother might have comforted me so.

Just then I caught Margaret's look. I do not know what it was like: but quite different from Mother Alianora's. Something strained and stretched, as it were, like a piece of canvas when you strain it on a frame for tapestry-work. Then, all at once, the strain gave way and broke up, and calm, holy peace came instead. If I might talk with Margaret!

Mother Alianora is ill in the Infirmary. And I may not go to her.

I pleaded hard with Mother Ada to appoint me nurse for this week.

"Why?" she said in her coldest voice.

I could not answer.

"Either thou deceivest thyself, Sister," she added, "which is ill enough, or thou wouldst fain deceive me. Knowest thou not that to attempt to deceive thy superiors is to lie to the Holy Ghost as Ananias and Sapphira did? How then dost thou dare to do it? I see plainly enough what motive prompts thee: not holy obedience--that is thoroughly inconsistent with such fervent entreaties--nor a desire to mortify thy will, but simply a wish for the carnal indulgence of the flesh. Thou knowest full well that particular friendships are not permitted to the religious, it is only the l.u.s.t of the flesh which prompts a fancy for one above another: if not, every Sister would have an equal share in thy regard. It is a carnal, worldly heart in which such thoughts dwell as even a wish for the company of any Sister in especial. And hast thou forgotten that the very purpose for which we were sent here was to mortify our wills?"

I thought I was not likely to forget it, so long as nothing was allowed me save opportunities for mortifying mine. But one more word did I dare to utter.

"Is obedience so much better than love, Mother?"

"What hast thou to do with love, save the love of G.o.d and the blessed Mother and the holy saints? The very word savoureth of the world. All the love thou givest to the creature is love taken from G.o.d."

"Is love, then, a thing that can be measured and cut in lengths, Mother?

The more you tend a plant, the better it flourishes. If I am to love none save G.o.d, will not my heart dry and wither, so that I shall not be able to love Him? Sometimes I think it is doing so."

"You think!" she said. "What right have you to think? Leave your superiors to think for you; and you, cultivate holy obedience, as you ought. All the heresies and schisms that ever vexed the Church have arisen from men setting themselves up to _think_ when they should simply have obeyed."

"But, Mother, forgive me! I cannot help thinking."

"That shows how far you are from perfection, Sister. A religious who aims at perfection should never allow herself to think, except only how she can best obey. Beware of pride and presumption, the instant you allow yourself to depart from the perfection of obedience."

"But, Mother, that is the perfection of a thing. And I am a woman."

"Sister Annora, you are reasoning, when your duty is to obey."

If holy obedience means to obey without thinking, I am afraid I shall never be perfect in it! I do not know how people manage to compress themselves into stones like that.

I tried Mother Gaillarde next, since I had only found an icicle clad in Mother Ada's habit. I was afraid of her, I confess, for I knew she would bite: and she did so. I begged yet harder, for I had heard that Mother Alianora was worse. Was I not even to see her before she died?