In Convent Walls Part 35

I felt as though my tongue refused to speak. Something was coming-- what, I did not know.

Margaret answered for me, and the Lady Joan's hand fell softly on mine.

"Did you love each other," she said, "when you were little children? If so, we ought to love each other, for he was very dear to me. Mother Annora, he was my father."

"You!" I just managed to say.

"Ah, you did, I think," she said, quietly. "He died a young man, in the first great visitation of the Black Death, over twenty years ago: and my mother survived him twenty years. She married again, and died three years since."

Margaret asked what I wanted to hear. I was very glad, for I felt as if I could ask nothing. It was strange how Margaret seemed to know just what I wished.

"Who was your mother, my Lady?"

The Lady Joan coloured, and did not answer for a moment. Then she said,--"I fear you will not like to know it: yet it was not her fault, nor his. Queen Isabel arranged it all: and she hath answered for her own sins at the Judgment Bar. My mother was Agnes de Mortimer, daughter of the Earl of March."

"Why not?" said Margaret.

"Ah, then you know not. I scarce expected a Despenser to hear his name with patience. But I suppose you were so young--Sisters, he was the great enemy of your father."

So they wedded my lost love to the daughter of my enemy! Almost before the indignation rose up within me, there came to counteract it a vision of the cross of Calvary, and of Him who said, "Father, forgive them!"

The momentary feeling of anger died away. Another feeling took its place: the thought that the after-bond was dissolved now, and death had made him mine again.

"Mother Annora," said the Lady Joan's soft voice, "will you reject me, and look coldly on me, if I ask whether you can love me a little? He used to love to talk to me of you, whom he remembered tenderly, as he might have remembered a little sister that G.o.d had taken. He often wondered where you were, and whether you were happy. And when I was a little child, I always wanted to hear of that other child--you lived, eternal, a little child, for me. Many a time I have fancied that I would make retreat here, and try to find you out, if you were still alive. Do you think it sinful to love any thing?--some nuns do. But if not, I should like you to love the favourite child of your lost love."

"Methinks," said Margaret, quietly, "it is true in earthly as in heavenly things, and to carnal no less than spiritual persons, '_Major horum est caritas_.'" [First Corinthians 13, verse 13.]

I hardly know what I said. But I think Joan was satisfied.

Note 1. Her thoughts wandered to her married sister, Isabel Lady Hastings and Monthermer, who lived at Marlborough Castle.

Note 2. The last native Princess of Wales, being the only (certainly proved) child of the last Prince Llywelyn, and Alianora de Montfort.

She was thrust into the convent at Sempringham with her cousin Gladys.

PART THREE, CHAPTER 4.

MORTIFYING THE WILL.

"L'orgueil n'est jamais mieux deguise, et plus capable de tromper, que lorsqu'il se cache sous la figure de l'humilite."

Rochefoucauld.

"Oh, you have no idea how happy we are here!" said Sister Ada to Joan.

"I often pity the people who live in the world. Their time is filled with such poor, mean things, and their thoughts must be so frivolous.

Now our time is all taken up with holy duties, and we have no room for frivolous thoughts. The world is shut out: it cannot creep in here. We are the happiest of women."

I happened to look at Sister Gaillarde, and I saw the beginning of one of her grim smiles: but she did not speak.

"Some of you do seem happy and peaceful," said Joan (she says I am to call her Joan). "But is it so with all?"

Sister Gaillarde gave her little Amen nod.

"Oh dear, yes!" answered Sister Ada. "Of course, where the will is not perfectly mortified, there is not such unbroken bliss as where it is.

But when the rule of holy obedience is fully followed out, so that we have no will whatever except that of our superiors, you cannot imagine what sweet peace flows into the soul. Now, if Father Benedict were to command me any thing, I should be positively delighted to do it, because it was a command from my superior. It would not in the least matter what it was. Nay, the more repugnant it was to my natural inclinations, the more it would delight me."

Joan's eyes wandered to two or three other faces, with a look which said, "Do you agree to this?"

"Don't look at me!" said Sister Gaillarde. "I'm no seraph. It wouldn't please me a bit better to have dirty work to do because Father Benedict ordered it. I can't reach those heights of perfection--never understood them. If Sister Ada do, I'm glad to hear it. She must have learned it lately."

"I do not understand it, as Sister Ada puts it," said I, as Joan's eyes came to me. "I understand what it is to give up one's will in any thing when it seems to be contrary to the will of G.o.d, and to have more real pleasure in trying to please Him than in pleasing one's self. I understand, too, that there may be more true peace in bearing a sorrow wherein G.o.d helps and comforts you, than in having no sorrow and no comfort. But Sister Ada seems to mean something different--as if one were to be absolutely without any will about any thing, and yet to delight in the crossing of one's will. Now, if I have not any wall, I do not see how it is to be crossed. And to have none whatever would surely make me something different from a woman and a sinner. I should be like a harp that could be played on--not like a living creature at all."

Two or three little nods came from Sister Gaillarde.

"People who have no wills are very trying to deal with," said Margaret.

"People who have wills are," said Sister Philippa.

"Nay," said Margaret, "if I am to be governed, let it be by one that has a will. 'Do this,' and 'Go there,' may be vexatious at times: but far worse is it to ask for direction, and hear only, 'As you like,' 'I don't know,' 'Don't ask me.'"

"Now that is just what I should like," said Sister Philippa. "I never get it, worse luck!"

"Did you mean me, Sister Margaret?" said Sister Ada, stiffly.

"I cry you mercy, Mother; I was not thinking of you at all," answered Margaret.

"It sounded very much as if you were," said Sister Ada, in her iciest fashion. "I think, if you had been anxious for perfection, you would not have answered me in that proud manner, but would have come here and entreated my pardon in a proper way. But I am too humble-minded to insist on it, seeing I am myself the person affronted. Had it been any one else, I should have required it at once."

"I said--" Margaret got so far, then her brow flushed, and I could see there was an inward struggle. Then she rose from the form, and laying down her work, knelt and kissed the ground at Mother Ada's feet. I could hear Sister Roberga whisper to Sister Philippa, "That mean-spirited fool!"

Sister Gaillarde said in a softer tone than is her wont,--"_Beati pauperes spiritu: quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum_." [Matthew 5, verse 3.]

"Thank you, Sister Gaillarde," said Sister Ada, quickly. "I scarcely expected recognition from _you_."

"You got as much as you expected, then," said Sister Gaillarde, drily, with a look across at me which almost made me laugh.

"I told you, I got more than I expected," was Sister Ada's answer.

"Did you mean it for her?" asked Joan, in so low a voice that only those on each side of her could hear.

"I meant it for whoever deserved it," was Sister Gaillarde's reply.

Just then Mother Joan came in and sat down.

"Sister Ada," she said, "Sister Marian tells me, that my Lady has given orders for that rough black rug that n.o.body likes to be put on your bed this week."

"No, has she?" cried Sister Ada, in tones which, if she were delighted, very much belied her feelings. "How exceedingly annoying! What could my Lady be thinking of? She knows how I detest that rug. I shall not be able to sleep a wink. Well! I suppose I must submit; it is my duty.