Sister Teresa Part 41

"Yes, I am sad; but you are not the cause of my sadness, though what you have come to tell me is sad enough. I was just coming to the conclusion, when you came into the room, that things must take their course. G.o.d is good; his guiding hand is in everything, so I suppose all that is happening is for the best. But it is difficult to see whither it is tending, if it be not towards the dissolution of the Order."

"The dissolution of the Order, Mother!"

"Well, if not of its dissolution, at all events of a change in the rule. You know that many here--Mother Philippa, Sister Winifred, aided and abetted by Father Daly--are anxious for a school, and we can only have a school by becoming an active Order. You have helped us a great deal, and our debts are no longer as pressing as they were; but we still owe a good deal of money, and as you do not intend to become a member of the community you will take your money away with you. And this fact will strengthen the opposition against me."

The Prioress lay back in her chair, white and frail, exhausted by the heat.

"May I pull down the blind, Mother?"

"Yes, you may, dear; the sun is very hot."

"Your determination to leave us isn't the only piece of bad news which reached me this morning. Have you heard of Sister Cecilia's adventure with her counterpart?" Evelyn nodded and tried to repress a smile. "It is difficult not to smile, so ridiculous is her story; and if I didn't look upon the matter as very serious, I shouldn't be able to prevent myself from smiling."

"But you will easily be able, Mother, to smile at this nonsense.

Veronica, who is a most pious girl, will not allow her mind to dwell on counterparts since she knows it to be a sin, or likely to lead to sin, and Angela and the others--if there are any others--"

"That will not make an end to the evil. Everything, my dear Teresa, declines. Ideas, like everything else, have their term of life.

Everything declines, everything turns to clay, and I look upon this desire for spiritual visitations as a warning that the belief which led to the founding of this Order has come to an end! From such n.o.ble prayers as led to the founding of this Order we have declined to prayers for the visitation of counterparts."

Evelyn was about to interrupt, but the Prioress shook her head, saying, "Well, if not the whole of the convent, at all events part of it--several novices." And she told Evelyn the disease would spread from nun to nun, and that there was no way of checking it.

"Unless by becoming an active order," Evelyn answered, "founding a school."

The old woman rose to her feet instantly, saying that she had spoken out of a moment of weakness; and that it would be cowardly for her to give way to Mother Philippa and Sister Winifred; she would never acquiesce in any alteration of the rule.

"But you, too," she said, "are inclined towards the school?"

Evelyn admitted she was thinking of the poor, people whom she had left to their fate, so that she might save herself from sin; and the talk of the two women dropped from the impersonal to the personal, Evelyn telling the Prioress a great deal more of herself than she had told before, and the Prioress confiding to Evelyn in the end her own story, a simple one, which Evelyn listened to with tears in her eyes.

"Before I came here I was married, and before I was married I often used to come to the convent, for I was fond of the nuns, and was a pious girl. But after my marriage I was captured by life--the vine of life grew about me and held me tight. One day, pa.s.sing by the door of the convent, my husband said, 'It is lucky that love rescued you, for when I met you you were a little taken by the convent, and might have become a nun if you hadn't fallen in love. You might have shut yourself up there and lived in grey habit and penances!' That day I wore a grey silk dress, and I remember lifting the skirt up as we pa.s.sed the door and hitting the kerbstone with it. 'Shut up in that prison-house! Did I ever seriously think of such a thing?' These were my words, but G.o.d, in his great goodness and wisdom, resolved to bring me back. A great deal is required to save our souls, so deeply are we enmeshed in the delight of life and in the delight of one another.... G.o.d took my husband from me after an illness of three weeks. That happened forty years ago. I used to sit on the seash.o.r.e, crying all day, and my little child used to put his arms about me and say, 'What is mammie crying for?' Then my child died; seemingly without any reason, and I felt that I could not live any longer amid the desires and activities of the world. I'll not try to tell you what my grief was; you have suffered grief, and can imagine it.

Perhaps you can. I left my home and hurried here. When I saw you return, soon after your father's death; I couldn't but think of my own returning. I saw myself in you."

"But, Mother, do you regret that you came here?"

The old nun did not answer for some time.

"It is hard to say, Teresa. There are deceptions everywhere, in the convent as in the world; and the mediocrity of the Sisters here is tiresome; one longs for a little more intelligence. And, as I was saying just now, everything declines; an idea ravels like a sleeve.

Are you happy here?... You are not; I see it in your eyes."

"The only ones who are happy here," Evelyn answered, "I am sure, are those like Veronica, who pa.s.s from the schoolroom to the novitiate."

"You think that? But the convent is a great escapement. You came here, having escaped death only by an accident, and when you went to Rome to see your father you came back distraught, your mind unhinged, and it was months before you could believe that your sins could be forgiven. If you leave here, what will become of you? You will return to the stage."

Evelyn smiled sadly.

"You will meet your lovers again. Temptation will be by you; you are still a young woman. How old are you, Teresa?"

"Thirty-eight. But I no longer feel young."

"Then, do you not think it better to spend the last term with us? I am an old woman, Teresa, and you are the only friend I have in the convent, the only one who knows me; it would be a great charity if you were to remain with me.... But you fear I shall live too long?

No, Teresa, the time will not be very long."

"Mother, don't talk like that, it only grieves me. As long as you wish me to stay I'll stay."

"But if I weren't here you would leave?" Evelyn did not answer. "You would be very lonely?"

"Yes, I should be lonely." And then, speaking at the end of a long silence, she said, "Why did you send away Sister Mary John? She was my friend, and one must have a friend--even in a convent."

"Teresa, I begged of her to remain. And you are lonely now without her?"

"I should be lonelier, Mother, if you weren't here."

"We will share our loneliness together."

Evelyn seemed to acquiesce.

"My dear child, you are very good; you have a kind heart. One sees it in your eyes."

She left the Prioress's room frightened, saying. "Till the Prioress's death."

x.x.xI

Father Daly paced the garden alley, reading his Breviary, and, catching sight of him, Sister Winifred, a tall, thin woman, with a narrow forehead and prominent teeth, said to herself, "Now's my chance."

"I hope you won't mind my interrupting you, Father, but I have come to speak to you on a matter of some importance. It will take some minutes for me to explain it all to you, and in confession, you see, our time is limited. You know how strict the Prioress is that we shouldn't exceed our regulation three minutes."

"I know that quite well," the little man answered abruptly; "a most improper rule. But we'll not discuss the Prioress, Sister Winifred.

What have you come to tell me?"

"Well, in a way, it is about the Prioress. You know all about our financial difficulties, and you know they are not settled yet."

"I thought that Sister Teresa's singing--"

"Of course, Sister Teresa's singing has done us a great deal of good, but the collections have fallen off considerably; and, as for the rich Catholics who were to pay off our debts, they are like the s.h.i.+ps coming from the East, but whose masts have not yet appeared above the horizon."

"But does the Prioress still believe that these rich Catholics will come to her aid?"

"Oh, yes, she believes; she tells us that we must pray, and that if we pray they will come. Well, Father, prayer is very well, but we must try to help ourselves, and we have been thinking it over; and, in thinking it over, some of us have come to very practical conclusions."

"You have come to the conclusion that perhaps a good deal of time is wasted in this garden, which might be devoted to good works?"

"Yes, that has struck us, and we think the best way out of our difficulties would be a school."

"A school!"

"Something must be done," she said, "and we are thinking of starting a school. We've received a great deal of encouragement. I believe I could get twenty pupils to-morrow, but Mother Prioress won't hear of it. She tells us that we are to pray, and that all will come right.

But even she does not depend entirely upon prayer; she depends upon Sister Teresa's singing."