§ 3

The post arrived just as Stella was setting out with the car one day early the next month to meet her father in Ashford. He had been in Canterbury for a couple of days, attending a dinner and some meetings of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and this afternoon she was to meet him at Ashford Station and drive him home. She was in plenty of time, so when she saw Gervase’s writing on the envelope handed to her, she went back into the house and opened it.

It was now three months since she had spoken to Gervase or heard anything directly from him. He still came over to Vinehall on Sundays and to certain early masses in the week, but he never called at Dr. Mount’s cottage, nor had she seen him out of church, not heard his voice except in dialogue with the Priest—“I will go unto the Altar of God” ... “Even unto the God of my joy and gladness”....

She wondered what he could have to say to her now. Perhaps he had recovered, and was coming back. She would be pleased, for she missed his company—also it would be good to have his letters when she was out in Canada.... But Stella knew what happened to people who “recovered” and “came back,” and reflected sadly that it would be her duty to discourage Gervase if he thought himself cured.

But the letter did not contain what she expected.

Conster Manor

Leasan.

Sussex.

“Jan. 2, 1922

“My dear Stella,

“I’m writing to tell you something rather funny which has happened to me. I don’t mean that I’ve fallen out of love with you—I never shall and don’t want to. But I’m going to do something with my love which I never expected.

“You know that in September, I went ‘into retreat’ for four days at Thunders Abbey. I was sure I’d hate it—and so I did in a way—but when I’d got there I saw at once that it was going to be more important than I’d thought. At first I thought it was just a dodge of Father Luce’s for making me uncomfortable—you know he looks upon me as a luxury-loving young aristocrat, in need of constant mortification. I don’t know what it was exactly that made me change—it was partly, I think, the silence, and partly, I know, the Divine Office. At the end of my visit I knew that Office as the great work of prayer, and Thunders Abbey as just part of that heart of prayer which keeps the world alive. And, dear, I knew that my place was in that heart. I can’t describe to you exactly what I felt—and I wouldn’t if I could. But you’re a Catholic, so you won’t think I’m talking nonsense when I say that I feel I belong there, or, in plainer language, that I have a vocation. You don’t believe that vocations come only to priggish maidens and pious youth, but much more often to ordinary healthy, outdoor people like you and me. Of course I know that even you will think (as Father Luce and the Father Superior have thought) that my vocation may possibly be another name for disappointment in love. I’ve thought it myself, but I don’t believe it. Anyhow it’s at last been settled that I’m going to be allowed to try. As soon as I’ve finished at Gillingham’s I shall go. You know the Community, of course. It’s an order for work among the poor, and has houses in London, Birmingham and Leeds. At Thunders Abbey there’s a big farm for drunkards, epileptics, idiots, and other pleasant company. I’d be useful there, as they’ve just started motor traction, but I don’t know where they’ll send me. Of course I may come out again; but I don’t think so. One knows a sure thing, Stella, and I never felt so sure about anything as about this—and it’s all the more convincing, because I went in without a thought of it. I expect you will be tremendously surprised, but I know you won’t write trying to dissuade me, and telling me all the good I could do outside by letting out taxis for hire and things like that. You dear! I feel I owe everything to you—including this new thing which is so joyful and so terrifying. For I’m frightened a bit—I’m not just going in because I like it—I don’t know if I do. And yet I’m happy.

“Don’t say a word to anyone, except your father. I must wait till the time is ripe to break the news to my family, and then, I assure you, the excitement will be intense. But I felt I must write and tell you as soon as I knew definitely they’d let me come and try, because you are at the bottom of it all—I don’t mean as a disappointment in love, but as the friend who first showed me the beauty of this faith which makes such demands on us. Stella, I’m glad you brought me to the faith before I’d had time to waste much of myself. It’s lovely to think that I can give Him all my grown-up life. I can never pay you back for what you’ve done, but I can come nearest to it by taking my love for you into this new life. My love for you isn’t going to die, but it’s going to become a part of prayer.

“May I come and see you next Sunday? I thought I would write and tell you about things first, for now you know you won’t feel there are any embarrassments or regrets between us. Dear Stella, I think of you such a lot, and I’m afraid you must still be unhappy. But I know that this thing I am going to do will help you as much as me. Perhaps, too, some day I shall be a Priest—though I haven’t thought about that yet—and then I shall be able to help you more. Oh my dear, it isn’t every man who’s given the power to do so much for the woman he loves. I bless you, my dear, and send you in anticipation one of those free kisses we shall all give one another in Paradise.”

“Gervase.

P.S. There is a rumour that you are going away, but as I can’t trace its succession back further than Rose, I pronounce it of doubtful validity.

P.P.S. Dear, please burn this—it’s more than a love-letter.

P.P.P.S. I hope I haven’t written like a prig.”

Stella let the letter fall into her lap. She was surprised. Somehow she had never thought of Gervase as a religious; she had never thought of him except as a keen young engineer—attractive, self-willed, eccentric, devout. His spiritual development had been so like hers—and she, as she knew well, had no vocation to the religious life—that she was surprised now to find such an essential difference. But her surprise was glad, for though she brushed aside his words of personal gratitude, she felt the thrill of her share in the adventure, and a conviction that it would be for her help as well as for his happiness. Moreover, this new development took away the twinges of self-reproach which she could not help feeling when she thought of her sacrifice of his content to Peter’s jealousy.

But her chief emotion was a kind of sorrowful envy. She envied Gervase not so much the peace of the cloister—not so much the definiteness of his choice—as his freedom. He was free—he had made the ultimate surrender and was free. She knew that he had now passed beyond her, though she had had a whole youth of spiritual experience and practice and he barely a couple of years. He was beyond her, not because of his vocation, but because of his freedom. His soul had escaped like a bird from the snare, but hers was still struggling and bound.

She would never feel for Peter as Gervase felt for her. Her utmost hope was, not to carry her love for him into a new, purged state, but to forget him—if she aimed at less she was deceiving herself, forgetting the manner of woman she was. She had not Gervase’s transmuting ecstasy—nor could she picture herself giving Peter “free kisses” in a Paradise where flesh and blood had no inheritance. Her loves would always be earthly—she would meet her friends in Paradise, but not her lovers.