Chapter 34

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_ CHAPTER XXXIV

The creation of the beast was accomplished in the novitiate, no one being allowed to see it except the Prioress. The great difficulty was to find beads large enough for the eyes, and it threatened to frustrate the making of their beast. But the latest postulant suggested that perhaps the buttons off her jacket would do, they were just the thing,' and the legs of the beast were most natural and life-like; it had even a tail.

As no one out of the novitiate had seen this very fine beast, the convent was on tip-toe with excitement, and when, at the conclusion of dinner, the elephant was wheeled into the refectory, every one clapped her hands, and there were screams of delight. Then the saddle was brought in and attached by blue ribbons. Sister Bridget, who did not seem quite sure that the elephant was not alive, was lifted on it and held there; and was wheeled round the refectory in triumph, the novices screaming with delight, the professed, too. Only Evelyn stood silent and apart, sorry she could not mix with the others, sharing their pleasures. To stand watching them she felt to be unkind, so she went into the garden, and wandered to the sundial, whence she could see Richmond Park; and looking into the distance, hearing the childish gaiety of the nuns, she remembered Louise's party at the Savoy Hotel years and years ago. The convent had ceased to have any meaning for her; so she must return, but not to the mummers, they, too, had faded out of her life. She did not know whither she was going, only that she must wander on... as soon as the Prioress died. The thought caused her to shudder, and, remembering that the old woman was alone in her room, she went up to ask her if she would care to come into the garden with her. The Prioress was too weak to leave her room, but she was glad to have Evelyn, and to listen to her telling of the great success of the elephant.

"Of course, my dear, the recreations here must seem to you very childish. I wonder what your life will be when I'm gone?"

"To-morrow you will be stronger, and will be able to come into the garden."

But the old nun never left her room again, and Evelyn's last memory of her in the garden was when they had sat by the fish-pond, looking into the still water, reflecting sky and trees, with a great carp moving mysteriously through a dim world of water-weed and flower. There were many other memories of the Prioress which lingered through many years, memories of an old woman lying back in her chair, frail and white, slipping quite consciously out of life into death. Every day she seemed to grow a trifle smaller, till there was hardly anything left of her. It was terrible to be with her, so conscious was she that death was approaching, that she and death were drawing nearer and nearer, and to hear her say, "Four planks are the only habit I want now." Another time, looking into Evelyn's eyes, she said, "It is strange that I should be so old and you so young."

"But I don't feel young, Mother." And every day the old woman grew more and more dependent upon Evelyn.

"You are very good to me. Why should you wait here till I am dead? Only it won't be long, dear. Of what matter to me that the convent will be changed when I am dead. If I am a celestial spirit, our disputes--which is the better, prayer or good works--will raise a smile upon my lips. But celestial spirits have no lips. Why should I trouble myself? And yet--"

Evelyn could see that the old woman could not bear to think that her life's work was to fall to pieces when she was gone.

"But, dear Mother, we all wish that what we have done shall remain; and we all wish to be remembered, at least for a little while. There is nothing more human. And your papers, dear Mother, will have to be published; they will vindicate you, as nothing else could."

"But who is to publish them?" the Prioress asked. "They would require to be gone over carefully, and I am too weak to do that, too weak even to listen to you reading them."

Evelyn promised the Prioress again that she would collect all the papers, and, as far as she could, select those which the Prioress would herself select; and the promise she could see pleased the dying woman. It was at the end of the week that the end came. Evelyn sat by her, holding her hand, and hearing an ominous rattling sound in the throat, she waited, waited, heard it again, saw the body tremble a little, and then, getting up, she closed the eyes, said a little prayer, and went out of the room to tell the nuns of the Prioress's death, surprised at what seemed to her like indifference, without tears in her eyes, or any manifestation of grief. There could be none, for she was not feeling anything; she seemed to herself to be mechanically performing certain duties, telling Mother Philippa, whom she met in the passage, in a smooth, even voice, that the Prioress had died five minutes ago, without any suffering, quite calmly. Her lack of feeling seemed to her to give the words a strange ring, and she wondered if Mother Philippa would be stirred very deeply.

"Dead, Sister, dead? How terrible! None of us there. And the prayers for the dying not said. Surely, Teresa, you could have sent for us. I must summon the community at once." And the sub-Prioress hurried away, feeling already on her shoulders the full weight of the convent affairs.

In a few moments the Sisters, with scared faces, were hurrying from all parts of the house to the room where the Prioress lay dead. Evelyn felt she could not go back, and she slipped away to look for Veronica, whom she found in the sacristy.

"Veronica, dear, it is all over."

The girl turned towards her and clasped her hands.

"Auntie is dead," was all she said, and, dropping into a chair, her tears began to flow.

"Dear Veronica, we both loved her very much."

"So we did, Sister; the convent will be very different without her. Whom will they elect? Sister Winifred very possibly. It won't matter to you, dear, you will go, and we shall have a school; everything will be different."

"But many weeks will pass before I leave. Your aunt asked me to put her papers in order; I shall be at work in the library for a long while."

"Oh, I am so glad, Sister. I thought perhaps you would go at once." And Veronica dried her tears. "But, dear, we can't talk now. I must join the others in the prayers for the dead, and there will be so much to do."

"We shall have to strip the altar, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, the whole chapel--we shall want all our black hangings. But I must go."

At that moment a Sister hurried in to say the bell was to be tolled at once, and Evelyn went with Veronica to the corner of the cloister where the ropes hung, and stood by listlessly while Veronica dragged at the heavy rope, leaving a long interval between each clang.

"Oughtn't we to go up, Sister?" Veronica asked again.

"No, I can't go back yet," Evelyn answered. And she went into the garden and followed the winding paths, wondering at the solemn clanging, for it all seemed so useless.

The chaplain arrived half an hour afterwards, and next day several priests came down from London, and there was a great assembly to chant the Requiem Mass. But Evelyn, though she worked hard at decorating the altar, was not moved by the black hangings, nor by the doleful chant, nor by the flutter of the white surplice and the official drone about the grave. All the convent had followed the prelates down the garden paths; by the side of the grave Latin prayers were recited and holy water was sprinkled. On the day the Prioress was buried there were few clouds in the sky, sunshine was pretty constant, and all the birds were singing in the trees; every moment Evelyn expected one of her bullfinches to come out upon a bough and sing its little stave. If it did, she would take his song for an omen. But the bullfinches happened to be away, and she wished that the priests' drone would cease to interrupt the melody of the birds and boughs. The dear Prioress would prefer Nature's own music, it was kinder; and the sound of the earth mixed with the stones falling on the coffin-lid was the last sensation. After it the prelates and nuns returned to the convent, everybody wondering what was going to happen next, every nun asking herself who would be elected Prioress.

"Dear Mother, it is all over now," Evelyn said to Mother Hilda in the passage, and the last of the ecclesiastics disappeared through a doorway, going to his lunch.

"Yes, dear Teresa, it is all over so far as this world is concerned. We must think of her now in heaven."

"And to-morrow we shall begin to think for whom we shall vote--at least, you will be thinking. I am not a choir sister, and am leaving you."

"Is that decided, Teresa?"

"Yes, I think so. Perhaps now would be the time for me to take off this habit; I only retained it at the Prioress's wish. But, Mother, though I have not discovered a vocation, and feel that you have wasted much time upon me, still, I wouldn't have you think I am ungrateful."

"My dear, it never occurred to me to think so." And the two women walked to the end of the cloister together, Evelyn telling Mother Hilda about the Prioress and the Prioress's papers.

And from that day onward, for many weeks, Evelyn worked in the library, collecting her papers, and writing the memoir of the late Prioress, which, apparently, the nun had wished her to do, though why she should have wished it Evelyn often wondered, for if she were a soul in heaven it could matter to her very little what anybody thought of her on earth. How a soul in heaven must smile at the importance attached to this rule and to these exercises! How trivial it all must seem to the soul!... And yet it could not seem trivial to the soul, if it be true that by following certain rules we get to heaven. If it be true! Evelyn's thoughts paused, for a doubt had entered into her mind--the old familiar doubt, from which no one can separate herself or himself, from which even the saints could not escape. Are they not always telling of the suffering doubt caused them? And following this doubt, which prayers can never wholly stifle, the old original pain enters the heart. We are only here for a little while, and the words lose nothing of their original freshness by repetition; and, in order to drink the anguish to its dregs, Evelyn elaborated the words, reminding herself that time is growing shorter every year, even the years are growing shorter.

"The space is very little between me and the grave."

Some celebrated words from a celebrated poet, calling attention to the brevity of life, came into her mind, and she repeated them again and again, enjoying their bitterness. We like to meditate on death; even the libertine derives satisfaction from such meditation, and poets are remembered by their powers of expressing our great sorrow in stinging terms. "Our lives are not more intense than our dreams," Evelyn thought; "and yet our only reason for believing life to be reality is its intensity. Looked at from the outside, what is it but a little vanishing dust? Millions have preceded that old woman into the earth, millions shall follow her. I shall be in the earth too--in how many years? In a few months perhaps, in a few weeks perhaps. Possibly within the next few days I may hear how long I may expect to live, for what is more common than to wake with a pain, and on consulting a doctor to see a grave look come into his face, and to hear him tell of some mortal disease beyond his knife's reach? Words come reluctantly to one's tongue. "How long have I to live?" "About a year, about six months; I cannot say for certain."

Doctors are answering men and women in these terms every day, and Evelyn thought of some celebrated sayings that life's mutability has inspired. She remembered some from the Bible, and some from Shakespeare; and those she remembered from Fitzgerald, from his "Omar Khayyam," took her back to the afternoon she spent with Owen by the Serpentine, to the very day when he gave her the poem to read, thinking to overcome her scruples with literature.

"There were no scruples in me then. My own business, 'The Ring,' is full of the pagan story of life and death. We have babbled about it ever since, trying to forget or explain it, without, however, doing either; I tried to forget it on the stage, and did not succeed, but it was not fear of death that brought me here. The nuns do not succeed better than I; all screens are unavailing, for the wind is about everywhere--a cold, searching wind, which prayers cannot keep out; our doorways are not staunch--the wind comes under the door of the actress's dressing-room and under the door of the nun's cell in draughts chilling us to the bone, and then leaving us to pursue our avocations for a time in peace. The Prioress thought that in coming here she had discovered a way to heaven, yet she was anxious to defend herself from her detractors upon earth. If she had believed in her celestial inheritance she would have troubled very little, and I should be free to go away now. Perhaps it is better as it is," she reflected. And it seemed to her that no effort on her part was called for or necessary. She was certain she was drifting, and that the current would carry her to the opposite bank in good time; she was content to wait, for had she not promised the Prioress to perform a certain task? And it was part of her temperament to leave nothing undone; she also liked a landmark, and the finishing of her book would be a landmark.

She was even a little curious to see what turn the convent affairs would take, and as she sat biting the end of her pen, thinking, the sound of an axe awoke her from her reverie. Trees were being felled in the garden; "and an ugly, red-brick building will be run up, in which children of city merchants will be taught singing and the piano." Was it contempt for the world's ignorance in matters of art that filled her heart? or was she animated with a sublime pity for those parents who would come to her (if she remained in the convent, a thing she had no intention of doing) to ask her, Evelyn Innes, if she thought that Julia would come to something if she were to persevere, or if Kitty would succeed if she continued to practice "The Moonlight Sonata," a work of the beauty of which no one in the convent had any faintest comprehension? She herself had some gifts, and, after much labour, had brought her gifts to fruition, not to any splendid, but to some fruition. It was not probable that any one who came to the convent would do more than she had done; far better to learn knitting or cooking--anything in the world except music. Her gift of singing had brought her to this convent. Was it really so? Was her gift connected in some obscure way with the moral crisis which had drawn her into this convent? There seemed to be a connection, only she did not seem to be able to work it out. But there must be one surely, otherwise her poor people, whom she loved so dearly, would not have been abandoned. A very cruel abandonment it was, and she pondered a long while on this subject without arriving at any other conclusion except that for her to remain in the convent to teach music to the children of rich merchants, who had villas in Wimbledon, was out of the question. Her poor people were calling to her, and the convent had no further concern in her life. Of that she was sure. It was no longer the same convent. The original aspiration had declined; the declension had been from the late Prioress to Sister Winifred, who, knowing that her own election to Prioress was impossible, had striven to get Mother Philippa elected Prioress and herself sub-Prioress--a very clever move on her part, for with Mother Philippa as Prioress the management of the school would be left to her, and the school was what interested her. Of course, the money they made would be devoted to building a chapel, or something of that kind; but it was the making of money which would henceforth be the pleasure of the convent. Evelyn took a certain pleasure in listening negligently to Mother Winifred, who seemed unable to resist the desire to talk to her about vocations whenever they met. From whatever point they started, the conversation would soon turn upon a vocation, and Evelyn found herself in the end listening to a story of some novice who thought she had no vocation and had left the convent, but had returned.

"And very often," Mother Winifred would say sententiously, "those who think themselves most sure of their vocation find themselves without one."

And Evelyn would answer, "Those who would take the last place are put up first--isn't that it, Mother Winifred?"

Very often as they walked round the great, red-brick building, with rows of windows on either side facing each other, so that the sky could be seen through the building, Evelyn said:

"But do you not regret the trees?" She took pleasure in reminding every nun that they sacrificed the beauty of the garden in the hope of making a little money; and these remarks, though they annoyed Mother Winifred, did not prevent her from speaking with pride of the school, now rapidly advancing towards completion, nor did Evelyn's criticism check her admiration of Evelyn herself. It seemed to Evelyn that Mother Winifred was always paying her compliments, or if she were not doing that, she would seek opportunities to take Evelyn into her confidence, telling her of the many pupils they had been promised, and of the conversions that would follow their teaching. The girls would be impressed by the quiet beauty of the nun's life; some of them would discover in themselves vocations for the religious life, and a great many would certainly go away anxious for conversion; and, even if their conversions did not happen at once, though they might be delayed for years, sooner or later many conversions would be the result of this school. And the result of all this flummery was:

"Now, why should you not stay with us, dear, only a little while longer? It would be such a sad thing if you were to go away, and find that, after all, you had a vocation for the religious life, for if you return to us you will have to go through the novitiate again."

"But, Mother Winifred, you always begin upon the supposition that I have a vocation. Now, supposing you begin upon the other supposition --that I have not one."

Mother Winifred hesitated, and looked sharply at Evelyn; but, unable to take her advice, on the very next opportunity she spoke to Evelyn of the vocation which she might discover in herself when it was too late.

"You have forgotten what I said, Mother Winifred."

Mother Winifred laughed, but, undaunted, she soon returned with some new argument, which had occurred to her in the interval, as she prayed in church, or in her cell at night, and the temptation to try the effect of the new argument on Evelyn was irresistible.

"Dear Sister Teresa--you see the familiar name comes to my tongue though you have put off the habit--we shall be a long time in straitened circumstances. A new mortgage has had, as you know, to be placed on the property in order to get money to build the school; the school will pay, but not at once."

Evelyn protested she was not responsible for this new debt. She had advised the Prioress and Mother Winifred against it, warning them that she did not intend to remain in the convent.

"But we always expected that you would remain."

And in this way Evelyn was made to feel her responsibility so much that in the end she consented to give up part of her money to the nuns. So long as she had just enough to live upon it did not matter, and she owed these nuns a great deal. True that she had paid them ten times over what she owed them, but still, it was difficult to measure one's debts in pounds, shillings, and pence. However, that was the way the nuns wanted her to measure them, and if she could leave them fifteen hundred pounds--. And as soon as this sum was agreed upon, Sister Winifred never lost an opportunity of regretting that the convent was obliged to accept this magnificent donation, hinting that the Prioress and herself would be willing (and there would be no difficulty in obtaining the consent of the choir sisters) to accept Evelyn's services for three years in the school instead of the money.

"Five hundred a year we shall be paying you, but the value of your teaching will be very great; mothers will be especially anxious to send their daughters to our school, so that they may get good singing lessons from you."

"And when I leave?"

"Well, the school will have obtained a reputation by that time. Of course, you will be a loss, but we must try to do without you."

"Three years in this convent!"

"But you are quite free here; you come and go as you please. After all, your intention in leaving the convent is to teach music. Why not teach music here?"

The argument was an ingenious one, but Evelyn did not feel that it would appeal to her in the least, either to continue living in the convent after she had finished her book, or to go back to the convent to give singing lessons three or four times a week.

It would be preferable for her to give fifteen hundred pounds to the convent, and so finish with the whole thing; and this she intended to do, though she put Mother Winifred off with evasion, leaving her thinking that perhaps after all she would teach for some little while in the convent. It was necessary to do this, for Mother Winifred could persuade Mother Philippa as she pleased; and it had occurred to Evelyn that perhaps Mother Winfred might arrange for her expulsion. Nothing could be easier than to tell her that somebody's friend was going to stay with them in the convent, that the guest-room would be wanted. To leave now would not suit Evelyn at all. The late Prioress's papers belonged to the convent; and to deceive Mother Winifred completely Evelyn agreed to give some singing lessons, for they had already begun to receive pupils, though the school was not yet finished.

This teaching proved very irksome to her, for it delayed the completion of her book, and she often meditated an escape, thinking how this might be accomplished while the nuns played at ball in the autumn afternoon. Very often they were all in the garden, all except Sister Agnes, the portress, and she often left her keys on the nail. So it would be easy for Evelyn to run down the covered way and take the keys from the nail and open the door. And the day came when she could not resist the temptation of opening the door, not with a view to escape; but just to know what the sensation of the open door was like. And she stood for some time looking into the landscape, remembering vaguely, somewhere at the back of her mind, that she could not take the Prioress's papers with her, they did not belong to her; the convent could institute an action for theft against her, the Prioress not having made any formal will, only a memorandum saying she would like Evelyn to collect her papers.

So it was necessary for her to lock the gate again, to restore the keys to the nail, and return to the library. But in a few weeks more her task would be done, and it would be pleasanter to go away when it was done; and, as it has already been said, Evelyn liked landmarks. "To pass out is easy, but the Evelyn that goes out will not be the same as the Evelyn who came in." And a terror gathered in her mind, remembering that she was forty, and to begin life again after forty, and after such an experience as hers, might prove beyond her strength. Doubts enter into every mind, doubt entered into hers; perhaps the convent was the natural end of her life, not as a nun, but as an oblate. The guest-room was a pleasant room, and she could live more cheaply in the convent than elsewhere. There are cowardly hours in every life, and there were hours when this compromise appealed to Evelyn Innes. But if she remained she would have to continue teaching under Mother Winifred's direction. A little revolt awoke in her. She could not do that; and she began to think what would happen to her when she left the convent. There would not be money enough left her to sit down in a small flat and do nothing; she would have to work. Well, she would have to do that in any case, for idleness was not natural to her, and she would have to work for somebody besides herself--for her poor people--and this she could do by giving singing lessons. Where? In Dulwich? But to go back to the house in which she lived her life, to the room which used to be hung with the old instruments, and to revive her mother's singing classes? No, she could not begin her life from exactly the same point at which she left off. And gradually the project formed in her mind of a new life, a life which would be at once new and old. And the project seemed to take shape as she wrote the last pages of her memoir of the late Prioress.

"It is done, and I have got a right to my own manuscript; they cannot take that from me." And she went into the sacristy, her manuscript in her hand.

The cool, sweet room seemed empty, and Veronica emerged from the shadow, almost a shadow. There were two windows, lattice panes, and these let the light fall upon the counter, along which the vestments were laid for the priest. The oak press was open, and it exhaled an odour of orris root and lavender, and Veronica, standing beside it, a bunch of keys at her girdle, once more reminded Evelyn of the mediaeval virgin she had seen in the Rhenish churches.

"I have finished collecting your aunt's papers."

"And now you are going to leave us?"

There was a sob in the girl's voice, and all Evelyn's thoughts about her seemed to converge and to concentrate. There was the girl before her who passed through life without knowing it, interested in putting out the vestments for an old priest, hiding his amice so that no other hands but hers should touch it; this and the dream of an angel who visited her in sleep and whose flesh was filled with luminous tints constituted all she knew of life, all she would ever know. There were tears in her eyes now, there was a sob in her voice; she would regret her friend for a day, for a week, and then the convent life would draw about her like great heavy curtains. Evelyn remembered how she had told her of a certain restlessness which kept her from her prayers; she remembered how she had said to her, "It will pass, everything will pass away." She would become an old nun, and would be carried to the graveyard just as her aunt had been. When would that happen? Perhaps not for fifty years. Sooner or later it would happen. And Evelyn listened to Veronica saying the convent would never be the same without her, saying:

"Once you leave us you will never come back."

"Yes, I shall, Veronica; I shall come once or twice to see you."

"Perhaps it would be better for you not to come at all," the girl cried, and turned away; and then going forward suddenly as Evelyn was about to leave the sacristy, she said:

"But when are you leaving? When are you leaving?"

"To-morrow; there is no reason why I should wait any longer."

"We cannot part like this." And she put down the chalice, and the women went into a chill wind; the pear-trees were tossing, and there were crocuses in the bed and a few snowdrops.

"You had better remain until the weather gets warmer; to leave in this bleak season! Oh, Sister, how we shall miss you! But you were never like a nun."

They walked many times to and fro, forgetful of the bleak wind blowing.

"It must be so, you were never like a nun. Of course we all knew, I at least knew... only we are sorry to lose you."

The next day a carriage came for Evelyn. The nuns assembled to bid her goodbye; they were as kind as their ideas allowed them to be, but, of course, they disapproved of Evelyn going, and the fifteen hundred pounds she left them did not seem to reconcile them to her departure. It certainly did not reconcile Mother Winifred, who refused to come down to wish her goodbye, saying that Evelyn had deceived them by promising to remain, or at all events led them to think she would stay with them until the school was firmly established. Mother Philippa apologised for her, but Evelyn said it was not necessary.

"After all, what Mother Winifred says is the truth, only I could not do otherwise. Now, goodbye, I'll come to see you again, may I not?"

They did not seem very anxious on this point, and Evelyn thought it quite possible she might never see the convent again, which had meant so much to her and which was now behind her. Her thoughts were already engaged in the world towards which she was going, and thinking of the etiolated hands of the nuns she remembered the brown hands of her poor people; it was these hands that had drawn her out of the convent, so she liked to think; and it was nearly the truth, not the whole truth, for that we may never know. _

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