Miss Dingle looked suspiciously at Evelyn, and some dim thought whether Evelyn was the devil in disguise must have crossed her mind. But whatever the thought was, it was but a flitting thought; it pa.s.sed in a moment, and Miss Dingle said--"But the devil is always trying to hurt us. That is what he comes for."
"So that is why you surrounded yourself with pious pictures--to keep him away?"
Miss Dingle nodded.
"What a nice dress you have on. I suppose you like blue. I always notice you wear it."
"I wear blue, as much blue as I can, for blue is the colour of the Virgin Mary, and he dare not attack me while I have it on. But I wear sometimes only a handkerchief, sometimes only a skirt, but now that he is about so frequently, I have to dress entirely in blue."
Evelyn asked her if she had lived in the convent long, and Miss Dingle told her she had lived there for the last three or four years, but she would give no precise answer when Evelyn asked if she hoped to become a nun, or whether she liked her home or the convent the better.
"Now," she said, "I must really go and say some prayers in the church."
Evelyn offered to accompany her, but she said she was well armed, and showed Evelyn several rosaries, which in case of need she would wave in his face.
Sister Mary John was digging in the kitchen garden, and Evelyn told her how she had come upon Miss Dingle in the summer-house surrounded by pious pictures. Leaning on her spade, Sister Mary John looked across the beds thinking, and Evelyn wondered of what. She said at last that Miss Dingle thought too much of the devil.
"We should not waste thoughts on him, all our thoughts should be for G.o.d; there is much more pleasure and profit in such thoughts."
"But it does seem a little absurd to imagine that the devil is hiding behind gooseberry bushes."
"The devil is everywhere, temptation is always near."
Evelyn saw that the nun did not care for discussion on the subject of the devil"s objectivity, and in the pause in the conversation she noticed Sister Mary John"s enormous boots. They looked like a man"s boots, and she had a full view of them, for Sister Mary John wore her skirt very short, so that she might be able to dig with greater ease.
"One of the disadvantages of convent life are the few facilities it affords for exercise and for music," she added, with her beautiful smile. "I must have exercise, I can"t live without it.... It is extraordinary how differently people are const.i.tuted. There is Mother Mary Hilda, she had never been for what I should call a good sharp walk in her life, and she does not know what an ache or a pain is."
The nun pointed with admiration to the bed which she had dug up that morning, and complained of the laziness of the gardener: he had not done this nor that, but he was such a good man--since he became a Catholic.
"He and I used to talk about things while we were at work: he said that he had never had it properly explained to him that there should only be one true religion.
"Since he became a Catholic, has he not done as much work as he used to do?"
"No, I"m afraid he has not," Sister Mary John answered. "Indeed, we have been thinking of sending him away, but it would be difficult for him to get another Catholic situation, and his faith would be endangered if he lived among Protestants."
At this moment they were interrupted by a loud caw, and looking round, Evelyn saw the convent jackdaw. The bird had hopped within a few yards, cawing all the while, evidently desirous of attracting their attention.
With grey head a-slanted, the bird watched them out of sly eyes. "Pay no attention to him; you"ll see what he"ll do," said Sister Mary John, and while Evelyn waited, a little afraid of the bird who seemingly had selected her for some purpose of his own, she listened to the story of his domestication. He had been hatched out in the hen-house, and had tamed himself; he had declined to go wild, preferring a sage convent life to the irregularity of the world. The bird hopped about, feigning an interest in the worms, but getting gradually nearer the two women. At last, with a triumphant caw caw, he flew on to Sister Mary John"s shoulder, eyeing Evelyn all the while, clearly bent on making her acquaintance.
"He"ll come on your shoulder presently," said Sister Mary John, and after some plausive coquetting the bird fluttered on to Evelyn"s shoulder, and Sister Mary John said--
"You wait; you"ll see what he will do."
Evelyn remained quite still, feeling the bird"s bill caressing her neck.
When she looked round she noticed a wicked expression gathering in his eyes.
"Pretend," said Sister Mary John, "not to see him."
Evelyn did as she was bidden, and, satisfied that he was no longer observed, the bird plunged his beak into Evelyn"s hair, pulled at it as hard as he could, and then flew away, cawing with delight.
"That is one of his favourite tricks. We are so fond of him, and so afraid that one day a cat will take him. But there is Mother Mary Hilda coming to fetch you for your lesson."
Evelyn bade Sister Mary John good-bye, and went forward to meet her instructress.
The morning seemed full of adventure. There were Miss Dingle, her pious pictures, and the devil behind the gooseberry bushes. There was the picturesque figure of Sister Mary John, digging, making ready for the winter cabbages. There was the jackdaw, his story and his humours, and there was her discovery of the genius of St. Teresa. All these things had happened that morning, and Evelyn walked a little elated, her heart full of spiritual enthusiasm. The project was already astir in her for the acquisition of an edition in the original Spanish, and she looked forward to a study of that language as a pleasant and suitable occupation when she returned to London. She questioned Mother Mary Hilda regarding the merits of the English translation; the French, she said, she could read no longer. She described the worthy father"s prose as asthmatic; she laughed at his long, wheezy sentences, but Sister Mary Hilda seemed inclined to set store on the Jesuit"s pious intentions. The spirit was more essential than the form, and it was with this argument on their lips they sat down to the Latin lesson. The nun had opened the book, and Evelyn was about to read the first sentence, when, raising her eyes and voice, she said--
"Oh! Mother Mary Hilda, you"ve forgotten ... this is my last lesson, I am going away to-morrow."
"Even so it need not be the last lesson; you will come and see us during the winter, if you are in London. I don"t remember that you said that you are going abroad to sing."
"Mother Mary Hilda, I"m thinking of leaving the stage."
The nun turned the leaves of the breviary, and it seemed to Evelyn that she dreaded the intrusion on her thoughts of a side of life the very existence of which she had almost succeeded in forgetting; and, feeling a little humbled, Evelyn applied herself to the lesson. And it was just as Mary Hilda"s hand closed the books that the door opened and the Reverend Mother entered, bringing, it seemed, a new idea and a new conception of life into the room. Mother Mary Hilda gathered up her books, and having answered the Reverend Mother"s questions in her own blithe voice, each word illuminated by the happy smile which Evelyn thought so beautiful, withdrew like an apparition.
The Reverend Mother took the place that Mother Mary Hilda had left, and by her very manner of sitting down, showed that she had come on some special intention.
"Miss Innes, I have come to ask you not to leave to-morrow. If you are not already tired of our life, it would give us great pleasure if you would stay with us till Monday."
"It is very good of you to ask me to stay, I have been very happy; indeed, I dread returning; it is difficult to return to the life of the world after having seen what your life is here."
"We should only be too happy if you will prolong your stay. You are free to remain as long as you please."
"Thank you, Reverend Mother, it is very good of you, but I cannot live here in idleness, walking about the garden. What should I do if it were to rain?"
"It looks like rain to-day. We have had a long term of fine weather."
The nun"s old white hand lay on the table, a little crippled, but still a nervous, determined hand, and the pale, sparkling eyes looked so deep into the enigma of Evelyn"s soul that she lost her presence of mind; her breath came more quickly, and she hastily remembered that this retreat now drawing to a close had solved nothing, that the real solution of her life was as far off as ever.
"Then I may take it that you will stay with us till Monday. I will not weary you with our repeated thanks for what you have done for us. You know that we are very grateful, and shall never forget you in our prayers, but you will not mind my thanking you again for the pleasure your singing has given us. You have sung every day. You really have been very kind."
"I beg of you not to mention it, Reverend Mother; to sing for you and all the dear sisters was a great pleasure to me. I never enjoyed singing in a theatre so much."
"I am glad you have enjoyed your stay, Miss Innes. Your room will always be ready. I hope you will often come to see us."
"It will be a great advantage for me to come and stay with you from time to time." Neither spoke for a time, then Evelyn said, "Reverend Mother, is it not strange that I should have come back to this convent, my old convent? I never forgot it. I often wondered if I should come here again. When I was here before, it was just as now; it was in a great crisis of my life. It was just before I left home, just before I went to Paris to learn singing. I don"t know if Monsignor has told you that I have decided to leave the stage."
"Monsignor has entrusted you to me, and I should like to count you as one of my children. All the nuns tell me their little troubles. Though I have guessed there must be some great trouble in your life, I should like you to feel that you can tell me everything, if to do so can be the least help to you."
Evelyn"s eyes brightened, and, trembling with emotion, she leaned across the table; the Reverend Mother took her hand, and the touch of that old benign hand was a delight, and she felt that she must confide her story.
"I have been several times on the point of speaking to you on the subject of my past, for if I am to come here again I feel that you should know something about me. But how to tell it. I had thought of asking Father Daly to tell you. To-day is your day for confession, but last week I confessed to Monsignor, and do not like to submit myself to another director. Do you understand?"
"Father Daly is an excellent, worthy man, the convent is under the greatest obligations to him, but I could not recommend him as a very enlightened director of souls. That is why the nuns tell me all their troubles. I should like you to feel that you can tell me everything."
"Reverend Mother, if you did not pa.s.s from the schoolroom to the convent like Veronica, you will have heard, you must know, that the life of an opera singer is generally a sinful life. I was very young at the time, only one-and-twenty. I knew that I had a beautiful voice, and that my father could not teach me to sing. But it was not for self-interest that I left him; I was genuinely in love with Sir Owen Asher. He was very good to me; he wanted to marry me; from the world"s point of view I was very successful, but I was never happy. I felt that I was living a sinful life, and we cannot go on doing what we feel to be wrong and still be happy. Night after night I could not sleep. My conscience kept me awake. I strove against the inevitable, for it is very difficult to change one"s life from end to end, but there was no help for it."
Her story, as she told it, seemed to her very wonderful, more wonderful than she had thought it was, and she would have liked to have told the Reverend Mother all the torment and anguish of mind she had gone through. But she felt that she was on very thin ice, and trembled inwardly lest she was shocking the nun.
It was exciting to tell that it was her visit to the convent that had brought about her repentance; how that very night her eyes had opened at dawn, and she had seen clearly the wickedness of her life, and she could not refrain from saying that it was Owen Asher"s last letter, in which he said that at all hazards he would save her from losing herself in religion, that had sent her to Monsignor for advice. She noticed her omission of all mention of Ulick, and it seemed to her strange that she could still be interested in her sins, and at the same time genuinely determined to reform her life. The nun sat looking at her, thinking what answer she should make, and Evelyn wondered what that answer would be.