In Convent Walls Part 29

"But we renounce them for Him."

"We renounce for Him that which He demandeth of us." Margaret's voice was low and sorrowful now. "Ay, there be times when He holdeth out His hand for the one dearest earthly thing, and calls us to resign either it or Him. Blessed are they that then, howsoever they shrink and faint, yet love Him more than it, and brace their will to give it up to Him.

To them that so do, Annora, He giveth Himself; and He is better than any earthly thing. '_Quid enim mihi est in caelo? et a Te quid volui super terram_?' [Psalm 73, verse 25] But it seems to me that we ought to beware of renouncing what He does not ask of us. If we are in doubt, then let us draw the line on the safe side,--on His side, not on the side of our inclinations. Yet of one thing am I sure--that many a woman mortifies her graces instead of her sins, and resigns to G.o.d that which He asks not, keeping that which He would have."

"Mortify graces!" I cried. "O Margaret! how could we?"

"I think thou wouldst, Sister, if thou hadst refused to kiss me," she replied with an amused smile.

"But kisses are such very carnal things," said I. "Mother Ada always says so. She saith we read of none of the holy Apostles kissing any body, save only Judas Iscariot."

"Who told her so? Doth she find it written that they did not kiss any body? Annora, I marvel if our Lord kissed not the little children. And I am sure the holy patriarchs kissed each other. I do not believe in trying to be better than G.o.d. I have noted that when man endeavours to purify himself above our Lord's example, he commonly ends in being considerably less good than other men."

"I wish we might love each other!" I said with a sigh. And I am very much afraid I kissed her again. I do not know what Mother Ada would have said.

"I do not wish we might!" said Margaret, st.u.r.dily. "I do, and I will."

"But if we should make idols of each other!" said I.

"I shall not make an idol of thee," answered my sister, again in that low sad tone. "I set up one idol, and He came to me, and held out His pierced hands, and I tore it down from over the altar, and gave it to Him. He is keeping it for me, and He will give it back one day, in the world where we need fear no idol-making, nor any sin at all. Annora, thou shalt hear my story."

At that moment I looked up, and saw Mother Alianora's eyes wide open.

"Do you lack aught, dear Mother?" I asked.

"No, my children," she answered gently. "Go on with thy tale, Margaret.

The ears of one that will soon hear the harps of the angels will not harm thee."

I was somewhat surprised she could say that. What of the dread fires of Purgatory that must come first? Did she count herself so great a saint as to escape them? Then I thought, perhaps, she might have had the same revealed to her in vision. The thought did not appear to trouble Margaret, who took it as matter of course. Not, truly, that I should be surprised if Mother Alianora were good enough to escape Purgatory, for I am sure she is the best woman ever I knew: but it was strange she should reckon it of herself. Mother Ada always says they are no saints that think themselves such: whereto Mother Gaillarde once added, in her dry, sharp way, that they were not much better who tried to make other folk think so. I do not know of whom she was thinking, but I fancied Mother Ada did, from her face.

Then Margaret began her story.

"You know," she saith, "it is this year forty-seven years since Annora and I were professed. And wherefore we were so used, mere babes as we were, knew I never."

"Then that I can tell thee," I made answer, "for it was Queen Isabel that thrust us in hither. Our father did somewhat to her misliking, what indeed I know not: and she pounced on us, poor little maids, and made us to suffer for his deed."

"Was that how it was done?" said Margaret. "Then may G.o.d pardon her more readily than I have done! For long years I hated with all the force of my soul him or her that had been the cause thereof. It is past now. The priests say that man sinneth when, having no call of G.o.d, he shall take cowl upon him. What then of those which thrust it on him, whether he will or no? I never chose this habit. For years I hated it as fervently as it lay in me to hate. Had the choice been given me, any moment of those years, I would have gone back to the world that instant.

The world!" Her voice changed suddenly. "What is the world? It is the enemy of G.o.d: true. But will bolts and bars, walls and gates, keep it out? Is it a thing to be found in one city, which man can escape by journeying to another? Is it not rather in his own bosom, and ever with him? They say much of carnal affections that are evil, and creep not into religious houses. As if man should essay to keep Satan and his angels out of his house by painting G.o.d's name over the door! But all love, of whatsoever sort, say they, is a filthiness of the flesh. Ah me! how about the filthiness of the spirit? Is there no pride and jealousy in a religious house? no strife and envying? no murmuring and rebellion of heart? And are these fairer things in G.o.d's sight than the natural love of our own blood? Doth He call us to give up that, and not these? May it not be rather that if there were more true love, there were less envy and jealousy? if there were more harmless liberty, there were less murmuring? When man takes G.o.d's scourge into his hands, it seems to me he is apt to wield it ill."

"But, Margaret!" said I, "so shouldst thou make Satan cast out Satan.

Forbidden love were as ill as strife and murmuring."

"Forbidden of whom?" saith she. "G.o.d never forbade me to love my brethren and sisters. He told me to do it. He never forbade me to honour my father and mother--to dwell with them, to tend and cherish them in their old age. He told me to do it. Ay, and He spake of certain that did vainly worship Him seeing they taught learning and commandments of men." [Matthew 15, verse 9, Vulgate.]

"O Margaret! what art thou saying? Holy Church enjoins vows of religion."

"Tell me then, Annora, what is Holy Church? It is a word that fills man's mouth full comely, that I know. But what it _is_, is simply the souls of all righteous men--all the redeemed of Christ our Lord, which is His Body, and is filled with His Spirit. When did He enjoin such vows? or when did all righteous men thus band together to make men and women unrighteous, by binding commands upon them that were of men, not of G.o.d?"

"Margaret, my Sister!" I cried in terror. "Whence drewest thou such shocking thoughts? What will Father Benedict say when thou confessest them?"

"It is not to Father Benedict I confess _them_," she said, with a little curl of her lips. "I confess to him what he expects to hear--that I loved not to sweep the gallery this morrow, or that I ate a lettuce last night and forgot to sign the cross over it. Toys are meet for babes, and babes for toys. They cannot understand the realities of life. Such matters I confess to--another Priest, and He can understand them."

"Well," said I, "I always thought Father Hamon something less wise than Father Benedict: at least, Father Benedict chides me, and Father Hamon gives me neither blame nor commendation. But, Margaret, I do not understand thy strange sayings in any wise. Surely thou knowest what is the Church?"

"I know what it is not," saith she; "and that is Father Hamon, or Father Benedict, or Father Anything-Else. Christ and they that are Christ's-- the Head and the Body, the Bridegroom and the Bride: behold the Church, and behold her Priest and Confessor!"

"Margaret," saith Mother Alianora, "who taught thee that? Where didst thou hear such learning?"

She did not speak chidingly, but only as if she desired information. I was surprised she was not more severe, for truly I never heard such talk, and I was sorely afraid for my poor Margaret, lest some evil thing had got hold of her--maybe the Devil himself in the likeness of some Sister in her old convent.

A wave of pain swept over Margaret's eyes when Mother Alianora said that, and a dreamy look of calm came and chased it thence.

"Where?" she said. "In the burning fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter than its wont. Of whom? Verily, I think, of that Fourth that walked there, who was the Son of G.o.d. He walks oftener, methinks, in the fiery furnace with His martyrs, than in the gilded galleries with the King Nebuchadnezzar and his princes. At least I have oftener found Him there."

She seemed as if she lost herself in thought, until Mother Alianora saith, in her soft, faint voice--"Go on, my child."

Margaret roused up as if she were awoke from sleep.

"Well!" she said, "nothing happened to me, as you may well guess, for the years of childhood that followed, when I was learning to read, write, and illuminate, to sew, embroider, cook, and serve in various ways. My Lady Prioress found that I had a wit at devising patterns and such like, so I was kept mainly to the embroidery and painting: being first reminded that it was not for mine own enjoyment, but that I should so best serve the Order. I took the words and let them drop, and I took the work and delighted in it. So matters went until I was a maid of seventeen years. And then something else came into my life."

I asked, "What was it?" for she had paused. But her next words were not an answer.

"I marvel," she saith, "of what metal Saint Gilbert was made, that founded our Order. Was it out of pity, or out of bitter hardness, or out of simple want of understanding, that he framed our Rule, and gave us more liberty than other Sisters? Is it more or less happy for a lark that thou let him out of his cage once in the year in a small cell whence he cannot escape into the free air of heaven? Had I been his mother or his sister, when the Saint writ his Rule, I had said to him, Keep thy brethren and sisters apart at the blessed Sacrament, or else bandage their eyes."

"O Margaret!" I cried out, for it was awful to hear such words. As if the blessed Saint Gilbert could have made a mistake! "Dost thou think thyself wiser than the holy saints?"

"Yes," she answered simply. "I am sure I know more about women than Saint Gilbert did. That he did not know much about them was shown by such a Rule, he might as well have set the door of the lark's cage open, and have said to the bird, 'Now, stay in!' Well, I did not stay in.

One morrow at ma.s.s, I was all suddenly aware of a pair of dark eyes scanning my face across the nave--"

"From the brethren's side of the church! O Margaret!"

"Well, Annora? I am human: so, perchance, was he. He had been thrust into this life, as I had. Had we both been free, we might have loved each other without a voice saying, 'It is sin.' Why was it sin because we wore black and white habits?"

"But the vows, Margaret! the vows!"

"What vows? I made none, worthy to be called vows. I was bidden, a little babe of four years, to say 'ay' and 'nay' at certain times, and 'I am willing,' and so forth. What knew I of the import attaching to such words? I do ensure thee I knew nothing at all, save that when I had been good and done as I was told, I should have a pretty little habit like the Sisters, and be called 'Sister' as these grown women were. Is that what G.o.d calls a vow?--a vow of life-long celibacy, dragged from a babe that knew not what vow nor celibacy were! 'Doth G.o.d lack your lie?' saith Job [Job 13, verse 7]. Yea, the Psalmist crieth, '_Numquid adhaeret Tibi sedes iniquitatis_?' [Psalm 94, verse 20]--Wala wa! the only thing I marvel is that He thundereth not down with His great wrath, and delivereth not him that is in misery out of the hand of him that despoileth."

If it had been any other Sister, I think I should have been horribly shocked: but do what I would, I could not speak angrily to my own sister. I wonder if it were very wicked in me! But it surprised me much that Mother Alianora lay and hearkened, and said nought. Neither was she asleep, for I glanced at her from time to time, and always saw her awake and listening. Truly, she had little need of nurses, for it was no set malady that ailed her--only a gentle, general decay from old age. Why two of us were set to watch her I could not tell. Had I thought it possible that Mother Gaillarde could do a thing so foreign to her nature, I might have fancied that she sent us two there that night just in order that we might talk and comfort each other. If Mother Alianora had been the one to do it, I might have thought such a thing: or if my Lady had sent us herself, I should have supposed she had never considered the matter: but Mother Gaillarde! Well, whatever reason she had, I am thankful for that talk with Margaret. So I kept silence, and my sister pursued her tale.

"He was not a Brother," she said, "but a young man training for the priesthood under the Master. But not yet had he taken the holy vows, therefore I suppose thou wilt think him less wicked than me."

She looked up into my face with a half-smile.

"O Margaret! I wis not what to think. It all sounds so strange and shocking--only that I have not the heart to find fault with thee as I suppose I should do."

Margaret answered by a little laugh.

"In short," said she, "thou canst be wicked sometimes like other folk.

Be it done! I ensure thee, Annora, it comforts me to know the same.

Because it is not real wickedness, only painted. And I fear not painted sin, any more than I hold in honour painted holiness. For real sin is not paint; it is devilishness. And real holiness is not paint; it is dwelling in G.o.d. And G.o.d is love."