XVIII

"You see, Evelyn," the Prioress said, "it is contrary to the whole spirit of the religious life to treat the lay sisters as servants, and though I am sure you don't intend any unkindness, they have complained to me once or twice that you order them about."

"But, my dear Mother, it seems to me that we are all inferior to the lay sisters. To slight them—" "I am sure you did not do so intentionally."

"I said, 'Do hurry up,' but I only meant I was in a hurry. I don't think anything you could have said could have pained me more than that you should think I lacked respect for the lay sisters."

Seeing that Evelyn was hurt the Prioress said:

"The sisters have no doubt forgotten all about it by now."

But Evelyn wanted to know which of the sisters had complained, so that she might beg her pardon.

"She doesn't want you to beg her pardon."

"I beg you to allow me, it will be better that I should. The benefit will be mine."

The Prioress shook her head, and listened willingly to Evelyn, who told her of her letter to Monsignor. "Now, wasn't it extraordinary, Mother, that I should have written like that about Sister Bridget, and to-day you should tell me that the lay sisters complained about me? If the complaint had been that I was inclined to put the active above the contemplative orders and was dissatisfied with our life here—"

"Dissatisfied!" the Prioress said.

"Only this, Mother: I have been reading the story of the Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and it seems to me so wonderful that everything else, for the moment, seems insignificant."

The Reverend Mother smiled.

"Your enthusiasms, my dear Evelyn, are delightful. The last book you read, the last person you meet—"

"Do you think I am so frivolous, so changeable as that, dear Mother?"

"Not changeable, Evelyn, but spontaneous."

"It would seem to me that everything in me is of slow growth—but why talk of me when there is Jeanne to talk about; marvellous, extraordinary, unique—" Evelyn was nearly saying "divine Jeanne," but she stopped herself in time and substituted the word "saintly." "No one seems to me more real than this woman, no one in literature; not Hamlet, nor Don Quixote, not Dante himself starts out into clearer outline than this poor servant-girl—a goatherd in her childhood." And to the Prioress, who did not know the story of this poor woman, Evelyn told it, laying stress—as she naturally would— on Jeanne's refusal to marry a young sailor, whom she had been willing to marry at first, but whom she refused to marry on his returning after a long voyage. When he asked her for whom she had refused him, she answered for nobody, only she did not wish to marry, though she knew of no reason why she should not. It was not caprice but an instinct which caused Jeanne to leave her sweetheart, and to go on working in humble service attending on a priest until he died, then going to live with his sister, remaining with her until she died, and saving during all these long twenty years only four-and-twenty pounds—all the money she had when she returned to the little seaport town whence she had come: a little seaport town where the aged poor starved in the streets, or in garrets in filth and vermin, without hope of relief from any one.

It was to this cruel little village, of which there are many along the French coast, and along every coast in the world, that Jeanne returned to rent a garret with an old and bedridden woman, unable to help herself. Without the poor to help the poor the poor would not be able to live, and this old woman lived by the work of Jeanne's hands for many a year, Jeanne going every morning to the market-place to find some humble employment, finding it sometimes, returning at other times desperate, but concealing her despair from her bedridden companion, telling her as gaily as might be that they would have to do without any dinner that day. So did they live until two little seamstresses—women inspired by the same pity for the poor as Jeanne herself—heard of her, and asked the curé, in whom this cruel little village had inspired an equal pity, to send for Jeanne. She was asked to give her help to those in greater need than she—the blind beggars and such like who prowled about the walls of the churches.

On leaving the priest it is related that she said: "I don't understand, but I never heard any one speak so beautifully." But next day when she went to see the priest she understood everything, sufficient at all events for the day which was to take to her garret a blind woman whom the seamstresses had discovered in the last stages of neglect and age. There was the bedridden woman whom Jeanne supported, and who feared to share Jeanne's charity with another, and resented the intrusion; she had to be pacified and cajoled with some little present of food, for the aged and hungry are like animals— food appeases them, silences many a growl; and the blind woman was given a corner in the garret. "But how is she to be fed?" was the question put to Jeanne next morning, and from that question the whole Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor started. Jeanne, inspired suddenly, said, "I will beg for them," and seizing a basket she went out to beg for broken victuals.

"There is a genius for many things besides the singing of operas, painting pictures, and writing books," Evelyn said, "and Jeanne's genius was for begging for her poor people. And there is nothing more touching in the world's history than her journey in the milk-cart to the regatta. You see, dear Mother, she was accustomed to beg from door to door among squalid streets, stopping a passer-by, stooping under low doorways, intruding everywhere, daring everything among her own people, but frightened by the fashionable folk en grande toilette bent on amusement. It seems that her courage almost failed her, but grasping the cross which hung round her neck, she entered a crowd of pleasure-seekers, saying, 'Won't you give me something for my poor people?' Now, Mother, isn't the story a wonderful one? for there was genius in this woman, though it was only for begging: a tall, thin, curious, fantastic figure, considered simple by some, but gifted for her task which had been revealed to her in middle age."

"But why, Evelyn, does that seem to you so strange that her task should have been revealed to her in middle age?"

Evelyn looked at the Reverend Mother for a while unable to answer, then went on suddenly with her tale, telling how that day, at that very regatta, a man had slapped Jeanne in the face, and she had answered, "You are perfectly right, a box on the ears is just what is suited to me; but now tell me what you are going to give me for my poor people." At another part of the ground somebody had begun to tease her—some young man, no doubt, in a long fashionable grey frock-coat with race-glasses hung round his neck, had ventured to tease this noble woman, to twit her, to jeer and jibe at her uncouthness, for she was uncouth, and she stood bearing with these jeers until they apologised to her. "Never mind the apology," she had answered; "you have had your fun out of me, now give me something for my poor people." They gave her five francs, and she said, "At that price you may tease me as much as you please."

Evelyn asked if it were not extraordinary how an ignorant and uncouth woman, a goatherd during her childhood, a priest's servant till she was well on in middle age, should have been able to invent a system of charity which had penetrated all over Europe. Every moment Evelyn expected the Prioress to check her, for she was conscious that she was placing the active orders above the contemplative, Jeanne above St. Teresa, and, determined to see how far she could go in this direction without being reproved, she began to speak of how Jeanne, after having made the beds and cleaned the garret in the morning, took down a big basket and stood receiving patiently the remonstrances addressed to her, the blind woman saying, "I am certain and sure you will forget to ask for the halfpenny a week which I used to get from the grocery store, you very nearly forgot it last week, and had to go back for it." "But I'll not make a mistake this time," Jeanne would answer. Her bed-ridden friend would reprove her, "But you did forget to ask for my soup." To bear patiently with all such unjust remonstrances was part of Jeanne's genius, and Evelyn asked the Reverend Mother if it were not strange that a woman like Jeanne had never inspired some great literary work.

"I spoke just now of Hamlet, Don Quixote, but Falstaff himself is not more real than Jeanne, and her words are always so wonderful, wonderful as Joan of Arc's. When the old woman used to hide their food under the bed-clothes and sell it for food for the pigs, leaving the Little Sisters almost starving, Jeanne used to say, 'So-and-so has not been as nice as usual this afternoon.' How is it, Mother, that no great writer has ever given us a portrait of Jeanne?"

"Well, Jeanne, my dear Evelyn, has given us her own portrait. What can a writer add to what Nature has given? No one has ever yet given a portrait of a great saint, of St. Teresa—what can any one tell us that we do not already know?"

"St. Teresa's life passed in thought, whereas Jeanne's passed in action."

"Don't be afraid, Evelyn," the Prioress said, "to say what you mean, that perhaps the way of the Little Sisters of the Poor is a better way than ours."

"It seems so, Mother, doesn't it?"

"It is permissible to have doubts on such a subject—which is the better course, mercy or prayer? We have all had our doubts on this subject, and it is the weakness of our intelligences that causes these doubts to arise."

"How is that, Mother?"

"It is easy to realise the beauty of the relief of material suffering. The flesh is always with us, and we realise so easily that it suffers that there are times when relief of suffering seems to us the only good. But in truth bread and prayer are as necessary to man, one as the other. You have never heard the story of the foundation of our Order? It will not appeal to the animal sympathies as readily as the foundation of the Sisters of the Poor, but I don't think it is less human." And the Reverend Mother told how in Lyons a sudden craving for God had occurred in a time of extraordinary prosperity. Three young women had suddenly wearied of the pleasure that wealth brought them, and had without intercommunication decided that the value of life was in foregoing it, that is to say, foregoing what they had always been taught to consider as life; and this story reaching as it did to the core of Evelyn's own story, was listened to by her with great interest, and she heard in the quiet of the Reverend Mother's large room, in which the silence when the canaries were not shrilling was intense, how a sign had been vouchsafed to these three young women, daughters of two bankers and a silk merchant, and how all three had accepted the signs vouchsafed to them and become nuns.

"I am not depreciating the active Orders when I say they are more easily understood by the average man than—shall I say the Carmelite or any contemplative Order, our own for example. To relieve suffering makes a ready appeal to his sympathies, but he is incapable of realising what the world would be were it not for our prayers. It would be a desert. In truth the active and the contemplative Orders are identical, when we look below the surface."

"How are they identical, Mother?"

"In this way: the object of the active Orders is to relieve suffering, but the good they do is not a direct good. There will always be suffering in the world, the little they relieve is only like a drop taken out of the ocean. It might even be argued that if you eliminate on one side the growth is greater on the other; by preserving the lives of old people one makes the struggle harder for others. There is as much suffering in the world now as there was before the Little Sisters began their work—that is what I mean."

"Then, dear Mother, the Order does not fulfil its purpose."

"On the contrary, Evelyn, it fulfils its purpose, but its purpose is not what the world thinks it is; it is by the noble example they set that the Little Sisters of the Poor achieve their purpose. It is by forsaking the world that they achieve their purpose, by their manifestation that the things of this world are not worth considering. The Little Sisters pray in outward acts, whereas the contemplative Orders pray only in thought. The purpose, as I have said, is identical; the creation of an atmosphere of goodness, without which the world could not exist. There are two atmospheres, the atmosphere of good and the atmosphere of evil, and both are created by thought, whether thought in the concrete form of an act or thought in its purest form—an aspiration. Therefore all those who devote themselves to prayer, whether their prayers take the form of good works or whether their prayer passes in thought, collaborate in the production of a moral atmosphere, and it is the moral atmosphere which enables man to continue his earthly life. Yourself is an instance of what I mean. You were inspired to leave the stage, but whence did that inspiration come? Are you sure that our prayers had nothing to do with it? And the acts of the Little Sisters of the Poor all over the world—are you sure they did not influence you?"

Evelyn thought of Owen's letter, the last he had written to her, for in it he reminded her that she had nearly yielded to him. But was it she who had resisted? She attributed her escape rather to a sudden realisation on his part that she would be unhappy if he persisted. Now, what was the cause of this sudden realisation, this sudden scruple? For one seemed to have come into Owen's mind. How wonderful it would be if it could be attributed to the prayers of the nuns, for they had promised to pray for her, and, as the Prioress said, everything in the world is thought: all begins in thought, all returns to thought, the world is but our thought.

While she pondered, unable to believe that the nuns' prayers had saved her, unwilling to discard the idea, the Prioress told of the three nuns who came to England about thirty years ago to make the English foundation. But of this part of the story Evelyn lost a great deal; her interest was not caught again until the Prioress began to tell how a young girl in society, rich and beautiful, whose hand was sought by many, came to the rescue of these three nuns with all her fortune and a determination to dedicate her life to God. Her story did not altogether catch Evelyn's sympathies, and the Prioress agreed with Evelyn that her conduct in leaving her aged parents was open to criticism. We owe something to others, and it appears that an idea had come into her mind when she was twelve years old that she would like to be a nun, and though she appeared to like admiration and to encourage one young man, yet she never really swerved from her idea, she always told him she would enter a convent.

Evelyn did not answer, for she was thinking of the strange threads one finds in the weft of human life. Every one follows a thread, but whither do the threads lead? Into what design? And while Evelyn was thinking the Prioress told how the house in which they were now living had been bought with five thousand out of the thirty thousand pounds which this girl had brought to the convent. The late Prioress was blamed for this outlay. Blame often falls on innocent shoulders, for how could she have foreseen the increased taxation? how could she have foreseen that no more rich postulants would come to the convent, only penniless converts turned out by their relations, and aged governesses? A great deal of the money had been lost in a railway, and it was lost at a most unfortunate time, only a few days before the lawyer had written to say that the Australian mine in which most of their money was invested had become bankrupt.

"There was nothing for us to do," the Prioress said, "but to mortgage the property, and this mortgage is our real difficulty, and its solution seems as far off as ever. There seems to be no solution. We are paying penal interest on the money, and we have no security that the mortgagee will not sell the property. He has been complaining that he can do better with his money, though we are paying him five and six per cent.

"And if he were to sell the property, Mother, you would all have to go back to your relations?"

"All of us have not relations, and few have relations who would take us in. The lay sisters—what is to become of them?—some of them old women who have given up their lives. Frankly, Evelyn, I am at my wits' end."

"But, Mother, have I not offered to lend you the money? It will be a great pleasure to me to do it, and in some way I feel that I owe the money."

"Owe the money, Evelyn?"

The women sat looking at each other, and at the end of a long silence the Prioress said:

"It is impossible for us to take your money, my child?"

"But something must be done, Mother."

"If you were staying with us a little longer—"

"I have made no plans to leave you." And to turn the conversation from herself Evelyn spoke of the crowds that came to Benediction.

"To hear you, dear, and when you leave us our congregation will be the same as it was before, a few pious old Catholic ladies living on small incomes who can hardly afford to put a shilling into the plate." Evelyn spoke of the improvement of the choir, and the Prioress interrupted her, saying, "Don't think for a moment that any reformation in the singing of the plain chant is likely to bring people to our church; the Benedictine gradual versus the Ratisbon." And the Prioress shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "What has brought us a congregation is you, my dear—your voice and your story which is being talked about. The story is going the rounds that you are going to become a nun, and that interests everybody. An opera singer entering a convent! Such a thing was never heard of before, and they come to hear you."

"But, Mother, I never said I was going to join the Order. I only came here in the hope—"

"And I accepted you as a postulant in the hope that you would persevere. All this seems very selfish, Evelyn. It looks as if we were only thinking! of your money; but you know it isn't so."

"Indeed, I do, Mother. I know it isn't so."

"When are you going to leave us?"

"Well, nothing is decided. Every day I expect to hear from my father, and if he wishes—"

"But if he doesn't require you? By remaining with us you may find you have a vocation. Other women have persevered and discovered in the end—" The Prioress's face changed expression, and Evelyn began to think that perhaps the Prioress had discovered a vocation in herself, after long waiting, and though she had become Prioress discovered too late that perhaps she had been mistaken. "You have no intention of joining the Order?"

"You mean to become a novice and then to become a nun and live here with you?"

"You need say no more."

"But you don't think I have deceived you, Mother?"

"No, I don't blame anybody, only a hope has gone. Besides, I at least, Evelyn, shall be very sorry to part with you, sorry for many reasons which I may not tell you… in the convent we don't talk of our past life." And Evelyn wondered what the Prioress alluded to. "Has she a past like mine? What is her story?"

The canaries began singing, and they sang so loudly the women could hardly hear themselves speak. Evelyn got up and waved her handkerchief at the birds, silencing them.

* * * * *

Late that night a telegram came telling Evelyn that her father was dangerously ill, and she was to start at once for Rome.