Sister Teresa Part 23

"Come into the dining-room," he said. "You know Mr. Harding? He is there." He pa.s.sed out of the room, leaving the door open for Merat to follow through. "Harding, read this letter." He stood watching Harding while he read; but before Harding was half-way down the page he said: "You see, she is going into a convent. They have got her, they have got her! But they shan't get her as long as I have a shoulder with which to force in a door. The doors of those mansions where she has gone to live are not very strong, are they, Merat? She shall see me; she shall not go to that convent. That blasted priest shall not get her. Those ghouls of nuns!" And he was about to break from the room when Merat threw herself in front of him.

"Remember, Sir Owen, she has been very ill; remember what has happened, and if you prevent her from going to the convent--"

"So, Merat, you're against me too? You want to drive her into a convent, do you?"

"Sir Owen, you hardly know what you are saying. I am thinking of what might happen if you went to Ayrdale Mansions and forced in the door.

Sir Owen, I beg of you."

"Then if you oppose me you are responsible. They will get her, I tell you; those blasted ghouls, haunters of graveyards, diggers of graves, faint creatures who steal out of the light, mumblers of prayers! You know, Harding, what I say is true. G.o.d!" He raised his fist in the air and fell back into an armchair, screaming oaths and blasphemies without sense. It was on Harding's lips to say, "Asher, you are making a show of yourself." "_Vous vous donnez en spectacle_"

were the words that crossed Merat's mind. But there was something n.o.ble in this crisis, and Harding admired Owen--here was one who was not afraid to shriek out and to rage. And what n.o.bler cause for a man's rage?

"The woman he loves is about to be taken out of the sunlight into the grey shadow of the cloister. Why shouldn't he rage?"

"To sing of death, not of life, and where the intelligence wilts and bleaches!" he shrieked. "What an awful end! don't you understand?

Devils! devils!" and he slipped from his chair suddenly on to the hearthrug, and lay there tearing at it with his fingers. The elegant fribble of St. James' Street had pa.s.sed back to the primeval savage robbed of his mate.

"You give way to your feelings, Asher."

At these words Asher sprang to his feet, yelling:

"Why shouldn't I give way to my feelings? You haven't lost the most precious thing on G.o.d's earth. You never cared for a woman as I do; perhaps you never cared for one at all. You don't look as if you did." Owen's face wrinkled; he jibbered at one moment like a demented baboon, at the next he was transfigured, and looked like some t.i.tan as he strode about the room, swearing that they should not get her.

"But it all depends upon herself, Owen; you can do nothing," Harding said, fearing a tragedy. But Owen did not seem to hear him, he could only hear his own anger thundering in his heart. At last the storm seemed to abate a little, and he said that he knew Harding would forgive him for having spoken discourteously; he was afraid he had done so just now.

"But, you know, Harding, I have suspected this abomination; the taint was in her blood. You know those Papists, Harding, how they cringe, how shamefaced they are, how low in intelligence. I have heard you say yourself they have not written a book for the last four hundred years. Now, why do you defend them?"

"Defend them, Asher? I am not defending them."

"Paralysed brains, arrested intelligences." He stopped, choked, unable to articulate for his haste. "That brute, Monsignor Mostyn-- at all events I can see him, and kick the vile brute." And taken in another gust of pa.s.sion, Owen went towards the door. "Yes, I can have it out with him."

"But, Asher, he is an old man; to lay hands upon him would be ruin."

"What do I care about ruin? I am ruined. They have got her, and her mind will be poisoned. She will get the abominable ascetic mind. The pleasure of the flesh transferred! What is legitimate and beautiful in the body put into the mind, the mind sullied by pa.s.sions that do not belong to the mind. That is what papistry is! They will poison that pure, beautiful woman's mind. That priest has put them up to it, and he shall pay for it if I can get at him to-night!" Owen broke away suddenly, leaving Harding and Merat in the dining-room, Harding regretting that he had accepted Owen's invitation to dinner... If Asher and Monsignor were to meet that night? Good Lord! ... Owen would strike him for sure, and a blow would kill the old man.

"Merat, this is very unfortunate.... Not to be able to control one's temper. You have known him a long time.... I hope nothing will happen. Perhaps you had better wait."

"No, Mr. Harding, I can't wait; I must go back to mademoiselle." And the two went out together, Harding turning to the right, jumping into a cab as soon as he could hail one, and Merat getting into another in order to be in time to save her mistress from her madman lover.

XVI

Three hours after Harding and Merat had left Berkeley Square, Owen let himself in with his latch-key. He was very pale and very weary, and his boots and trousers were covered with mud, for he had been splashing through wet streets, caring very little where he went. At first he had gone in the direction of the river, thinking to rouse up Monsignor, and to tell him what he thought of him, perhaps to give him a good thrashing; but the madness of his anger began to die long before reaching the river. In the middle of St. James's Park the hopelessness of any effort on his part to restrain Evelyn became clear to him suddenly, and he uttered a cry, walking on again, and on again, not caring whither he walked, splashing on through the wet, knowing well that nothing could be done, that the inevitable had happened.

"It would have been better if she had died," he often said; "it would have been much better if she had died, for then I should be free, and she would be free. Now neither is free."

There were times when he did not think at all, when his mind was away; and, after a long absence of thought, the memory of how he had lost her for ever would strike him, and then it seemed as if he could walk no longer, but would like to lie down and die. All the same, he had to get home, and the sooner he got home the better, for there was whisky on the table, and that would dull his memory; and, tottering along the area railings, he thought of the whisky, understanding the drunkard for the first time and his temptations.

"Anything to forget the agony of living!"

Three or four days afterwards he wrote to her from Riversdale.

Something had to be written, though it was not very clear that anything could be gained by writing, only he felt he must write just to wish her goodbye, to show that he was not angry, for he would like her to know that he loved her always; so he wrote:

"For the last four days I have been hoping to get a letter from you saying you had changed your mind, and that what was required to restore you to health was not a long residence in a convent, but the marriage ceremony. This morning, when my valet told me there were no letters, I turned aside in bed to weep, and I think I must have lain crying for hours, thinking how I had lost my friend, the girl whom I met in Dulwich, whom I took to Paris, the singer whose art I had watched over. It was a long time before I could get out of bed and dress myself, and during breakfast tears came into my eyes; it was provoking, for my servant was looking at me. You know how long he has been with me, so, yielding to the temptation to tell somebody, I told him; I had to speak to somebody, and I think he was sorry for me, and for you. But he is a well-bred servant, and said very little, thinking it better to leave the room on the first opportunity.

"Merat, who brought your letter, told me you said I would understand why it was necessary for you to go to a convent for rest. Well, in a way, I do understand, and, in a way, I am glad you are going, for at all events your decision puts an end to the strife that has been going on between us now for the last three years. It was first difficult for me to believe, but I have become reconciled to the belief that you will never be happy except in a chaste life. I daresay it would be easy for me, for Ulick, or for some other man whom you might take a fancy to, to cause you to put your idea behind you for a time. Your senses are strong, and they overpower you. You were, on more than one occasion, nearly yielding to me, but if you had yielded it would have only resulted in another crisis, so I am glad you did not. It is no pleasure to make love to a woman who thinks it wrong to allow you to make love to her, and, could I get you as a mistress, strange as it will seem to you, upon my word, Evelyn, I don't think I would accept you. I have been through too much. Of course, if I could get back the old Evelyn, that would be different, but I am very much afraid she is dead or overpowered; another Evelyn has been born in you, and it overpowers the old. An idea has come into your mind, you must obey it, or your life would be misery. Yes, I understand, and I am glad you are going to the convent, for I would not see you wretched. When I say I understand, I only mean that I acquiesce--I shall never cease to wonder how such a strange idea has come into your mind; but there is no use arguing that point, we have argued it often enough, G.o.d knows! I cannot go to London to bid you goodbye. Goodbyes are hateful to me. I never go to trains to see people off, nor down to piers to wave handkerchiefs, nor do I go to funerals. Those who indulge their grief do so because their grief is not very deep. I cannot go to London to bid you goodbye unless you promise to see me in the convent. Worse than a death-bed goodbye would be the goodbye I should bid you, and it, too, would be for eternity. But say I can go to see you in the convent, and I will come to London to see you.

"Yours,

"OWEN."

"MY DEAR OWEN,--You have written me a beautiful letter. Not one word of it would I have unwritten, and it is a very great grief to me that I cannot write you a letter which would please you as much as your letter pleases me. No woman, since the world began, has had such a lover as I have had, and yet I am putting him aside. What a strange fatality! Yet I cannot do otherwise. But there is consolation for me in the thought that you understand; had it been otherwise, it would have been difficult for me to bear it. You know I am not acting selfishly, but because I cannot do otherwise. I have been through a great deal, Owen, more, perhaps, even than you can imagine. That night! But we must not speak of it, we must not speak of it! Rest is required, avoidance of all agitation--that is what the doctor says, and it agitates me to write this letter. But it must be done. To see you, to say goodbye to you, would be an agitation which neither of us could bear, we should both burst into tears; and for you to come to see me in the convent would be another agitation which must be avoided. The Prioress would not allow me to see you alone, if she allowed me to see you at all. No, Owen, don't come to see me either in London or in the convent. Leave me to work out my destiny as best I can. In three or four months perhaps I shall have recovered. Until then,

"Yours ever,

"EVELYN."

XVII

In a letter to Monsignor, Evelyn wrote:

"I have just sent a letter to my father, in which I tell him, amid many hopes of a safe arrival in Rome, not unduly tired, and with all the dear instruments intact, unharmed by rough hands of porters and Custom House officers, that, one of these days, in three or four months, when I am well, I look forward to contributing the _viola da gamba_ part of a sonata to the concert of the old instrumental music which he will give when he has put his choir in order: you know I used to play that instrument in my young days. A more innocent wish never entered into the heart of a human being, you will say, yet this letter causes me many qualms, for I cannot help thinking that I have been untruthful; I have--lied is, perhaps, too strong a word-- but I have certainly equivocated to the Prioress, and deceived her, I think, though it is possible, wishing to be deceived, she lent herself to the deception. Now I am preferring an accusation against the dear Prioress! My goodness, Monsignor, what a strange and difficult thing life is, and how impossible to tell the exact truth!

If one tries to be exact one ends by entangling the thread, and getting it into very ugly knots indeed. In trying to tell the truth, I have been guilty of a calumny against the Prioress, nothing short of that, Monsignor, nothing short of that--against the dear Prioress, who deserves better of me, for her kindness towards me since I have been to the convent has never ceased for a single instant!

"One of her many kindnesses is the subject of this letter. When I arrived here the nuns were not decided, and I was not decided, whether I should live in the convent as I did before, as a guest, or whether, in view of the length of my probable residence in the convent, I should be given the postulant's cap and gown. Mother Mary Hilda thought it would be dangerous to open the doors of the novitiate to one who admitted she was entering the religious life only as an experiment, especially to one like myself, an opera singer, who, however zealously she might conform to the rule, would bring a certain atmosphere with her into the novitiate, one which could not fail to affect a number of young and innocent girls, and perhaps deleteriously. I think I agree with Mother Mary Hilda. All this I heard afterwards from Mother Philippa, who, in her homely way, let out the secret of these secret deliberations to me--how the Prioress, who desired the invest.i.ture, said that every postulant entered the novitiate as an experiment. 'But believing,' Mother Mary Hilda interrupted, 'that the experiment will succeed, whereas, in her case, the postulant does not believe at all.'

"As it was impossible for the Mothers to decide I was sent for, and asked whether I thought the experiment would succeed or fail.' But what experiment?--I had to ask. And the Prioress and Mother Hilda were not agreed, their points of view were not the same; mine was, again, a different point of view, mine being, as you know, a determination to conquer a certain thing in my nature which had nearly brought about my ruin, and which, if left unchecked, would bring it about. Room for doubt there was none, and, after such an escape as mine, one does not hesitate about having recourse to strong remedies. My remedy was the convent, and, my resolve being to stay in the convent till I had conquered myself, it did not at the time seem to me a falsehood to say that I put myself in the hands of G.o.d, and hoped the experiment would succeed. Mother Mary Hilda, who is very persistent, asked me what I meant by conquering myself, and I answered, a subjugation of that part of me which was repellent to G.o.d. At these words the Prioress's face lit up, and she said, 'Well, Mother Hilda, I suppose you are satisfied?' Mother Hilda did not answer, but I could see that she was not satisfied; and I am not satisfied either, for I feel that I am deceiving the nuns.

"But, Monsignor, if a different answer had been given, if I had said that I looked upon the convent as a refuge where a difficult time might be pa.s.sed, two or three months, it does not seem to me that I would have answered the nuns more truthfully. The Prioress seems to think with me in this, going so far as to suggest that there are occasions when we do well not to try to say everything, for the very simple reason that we do not know everything--even about ourselves; and she seemed glad that I had not said more, and took me there and then to her room, and, in the presence of Mother Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda, said, 'Now, we must hide all this fair hair under a little cap.' I knelt in front of the Prioress, and she put a white cap on my head, and pinned a black veil over it; and when she had done this she drew me to her and kissed me, saying, 'Now you look like my own child, with all your worldly vanities hidden away. I believe Monsignor Mostyn would hardly know his penitent in her new dress.'

"I think I can see you smile as you read this, and I think I can hear you thinking, 'Once an actress always an actress.' But there is not sufficient truth in this criticism to justify it, and if such a thought does cross your mind, I feel you will suppress it quickly in justice to me, knowing, as you must know, that a badge gives courage to the wearer, putting a conviction into the heart that one is not alone, but a soldier in a great army walking in step towards a definite end. This sounds somewhat grandiloquent, but it seems to me somewhat like the truth. Trying to get into step is interesting and instructive, and the novitiate, though hardly bearable at times, is better than sitting in the lonely guest-room. Mother Hilda's instruction in the novitiate seems childish, yet why is it more childish than a hundred other things? Only because one is not accustomed to look at life from the point of view of the convent. As a guest, I felt it to be impossible to remain in the convent for three months, and it pleased me, I admit it, and interested me, I admit it, to try to become part of this conventual life, so different, so strangely different, from the life of the world, so remote from common sympathies. In speaking of this life, one hardly knows what words to employ, so inadequate are words to express one's meaning, or shall I say one's feeling? 'Actress again,' I hear your thoughts, Monsignor; 'a woman desirous of a new experience, of new sensations.' No, no, Monsignor, no; but I confess that the pure atmosphere of the convent is easier and more agreeable to breathe than the atmosphere of the world and its delight. To her whose quest is chast.i.ty, it is infinitely agreeable to feel that she is living among chaste women, the chast.i.ty of the nuns seems to penetrate and enfold me. To the hunted animal a sense of safety is perhaps a greater pleasure than any other, and one is never really unhappy, however uncomfortable one's circ.u.mstances may be, if one is doing what one wants to do.... But I am becoming sententious."

In another letter to Monsignor she said:

"This morning I received a long and delightful letter from my father telling me about the progress he is making, or I should say the progress that the choir is making under his direction, and how convinced he found everybody of the necessity of a musical reformation of some kind, and how gratifying it was to find them ready to accept his reading of the old music as the one they had been waiting for all this time. But, Monsignor, does my father exaggerate?

For all this sounds too delightful to be true. Is it possible that his ideas meet with no opposition? Or is it that an opposition is preparing behind an ambuscade of goodwill? Father is such an optimist that any enthusiasm for his ideas convinces him that stupidity has ended in the world at last. But you will not be duped, Monsignor, for Rome is your native city, and his appointment of _capelmeister_ is owing to you, and the kindly reception of my father's ideas--if they have been received as he thinks--is also owing to you. You will not be deceived, as he would easily be, by specious appearance, and will support him in the struggle that may be preparing under cover. I know you will. "His letter is entirely concerned with music; he does not tell me about his daily life, and, knowing how neglectful he is of material things, thinking only of his ideas, I am not a little anxious about him: how he is lodged, and if there is anybody by him who will see that he has regular meals.

He will neglect his meals if he is allowed to neglect them, so, in the interests of the musical reformation, somebody should be charged to look after him, and he should not be allowed to overwork himself; but it will be difficult to prevent this. The most we can hope for is that he shall get his meals regularly, and that the food be of good quality and properly cooked. The food here is not very good, nor very plentiful; to feel always a little hungry is certainly trying, and the doctor has spoken to the Prioress on the subject, insisting that nourishing food is necessary to those suffering from nervous breakdown, and healthy exercise; of healthy exercise there is plenty, for the nuns dig their own garden; so I am a reformer in a small way, and I can a.s.sure you my reformation is appreciated by the nuns, who thank me for it; my singing at Benediction is better appreciated on a full than on an empty stomach, especially when it is the song that fills the stomach. And it is my singing that enables Mother Philippa, who looks after the catering, to spend more money at the baker's and the butcher's. There has been an improvement, too, in the cooking; a better watch is kept in the kitchen, and not only my health but the health of the entire community is improved.

"We are a little more joyous now than we were, and every day I seem to be better able to appreciate the happiness of living among people who share one's ideas. One cannot love those whose ideas are different, at least I cannot; a mental atmosphere suitable to our minds is as necessary as fresh air is to our lungs. And I feel it a great privilege to be allowed to live among chaste women, no longer to feel sure of my own unworthiness, no longer; it is terrible to live always at war with oneself. The eyes of the nuns and their voices exhale an atmosphere in which it seems to me my soul can rise, and very often as I walk in the garden with them I feel as if I were walking upon air. Owen Asher used to think that intellectual conversation kindled the soul; so it does in a way; and great works of art enkindle the soul and exalt it; but there is another exaltation of soul which is not discoverable in the intellect, and I am not sure that it is not the greater: the exaltation of which I speak is found in obedience, in submission, yes, and in ignorance, in trying--I will not say to lower oneself--but in trying to bring oneself within the range of the humble intelligence and to understand it. And there is plenty of opportunity for this in the convent. To explain what I mean, and perhaps to pa.s.s away the tedium of an afternoon which seems long drawn out, I will put down here for you, Monsignor, the conversation, as much as I can remember of it, which introduced me to the inhabitants of the novitiate.

"When Mother Hilda recited the Litany of Our Lady, and we had risen to our feet, she said:

"'Now, Evelyn, you must be introduced to your sisters--Sister Barbara I think you have met, as she sings in the choir. This is Sister Angela; this tall maypole is Sister Winifred, and this little being here is Sister Jerome, who was the youngest till you came. Aren't you pleased, Jerome, to have one younger than yourself?' The novices said, 'How do you do?' and looked shy and awkward for a minute, and then they forgot me in their anxiety to know whether recreation was to be spent indoors or out.

"'Mother, we may go out, mayn't we? Oh, thank you so much, it is such a lovely evening. We need not wear cloaks, need we? Oh, that is all right, just our garden shoes.' And there was a general scurry to the cells for shoes, whilst Mother Hilda and I made our way downstairs, and by another door, into the still summer evening.