What to do with herself was still her problem. Sophie and Octavius had absorbed every minute of all her days for the last five years, and in consequence she had lost her girlhood’s friends and gradually dropped out of the social life of the Island. She could have got back into it again, she supposed, but she found that she did not want to, for she had lost her taste for society, and the urge was in her to move not backward but forward; though as yet she did not know to what. I must just wait and see, she said to herself.
Fairyland . . . Paradise . . . In this place and at this time, Marguerite could know that the one was a parable of the other, and both were synonyms for something that had no name.
Ever since the day of Marguerite Véronique’s birthday party she had been slowly passing out of the darkness into a state of liberation that for want of that unknown name she called Paradise, yet shadowed still by mistrust of herself. Perhaps the whole experience was a figment of her imagination; perhaps she was not quite normal. If she could know that others had come this way . . .
She opened her eyes and saw that the bright line of the sea had drawn a little nearer, and that she must go. She put the cover on her box of shells, slipped it in her pocket, got up and walked slowly and reluctantly away over the silver sand. Standing in the narrow rocky entrance that was the gate of this enchanted place, she stopped and looked back, seeing it again in imagination as she had seen it in her childhood, with the pebbles laughing and the anemones staring with their mad bright eyes, and the white gull flying backward and forward overhead. Good-by, fairyland of childhood. I’ll not see you again till life comes round full circle and the gate that a growing child came out of will be the gate where an old woman enters in.
She made her way back to La Baie des Saints and the village, and slowly climbed the long, steep road to the cliff top. She had walked all the way from Le Paradis, she was ridiculously tired, and when she reached the summit she had to stop and get her breath back. The pinnacles and bastions of grey granite fell away below her, grand as ever, and there, across the bay, was Notre Dame du Castel towering up against the sky, as it had towered for centuries, a great fortress of the spirit that time had never touched.
Looking at it, Marguerite found herself thinking about Reverend Mother who had been so kind to her. She was still there, she had heard. It seemed only yesterday that she had sat warming herself in that small fire-lit cell that she had thought was like the inside of a seashell. The shabby little book that Reverend Mother had given her was even now in her pocket with the box of shells. “I should be sorry not to see you again,” Reverend Mother had said, “for I am your friend.”
Marguerite did not hesitate. She smoothed her bonnet strings, gathered her black cloak more firmly round her shoulders, and made her way along the cliff top to the narrow road that approached Notre Dame du Castel from the landward side.
3
It was once more the hour for correspondence, and Reverend Mother sat at her desk dealing with it. She had changed very little, and she bore her years lightly. The penciling of lines about her brilliant, keen grey eyes was more noticeable, her smooth olive cheek was more hollowed, and her delicate eyebrows were now grey, but that was the only difference. The years from forty-three to sixty-five had set little mark upon a body so consistently disregarded by its owner that it had been able to carry on its orderly functions without let or hindrance from vanity or fear. The vagaries of her mortal body did not interest Reverend Mother, and in consequence it had served her well.
But nevertheless she was aware of a slight fatigue this afternoon. There was this problem of the Notre Dame du Castel Orphanage. Years ago a rich and devout old lady had left the convent a substantial legacy, with the instructions that it was to be used for the founding of some charitable institution on the Island, the nature of which she left to be decided by the discretion of the Order. The Order had shifted the responsibility of decision onto the shoulders of Reverend Mother, who, in doubt as to whether a hospital, a home for the aged or a children’s orphanage was most needed by the islanders, had upon an autumn day some twenty-two years ago gone down to the chapel to lay the problem before Almighty God. She had not at that moment had the opportunity of doing so, however, for a commotion in the chapel had distracted her attention, and the discovery of a wet and dirty child as the cause of it, a child who had been cut off by the tide in La Baie des Petits Fleurs and had had the temerity to climb up the cliff at the risk of her life and batter for entrance at the west door of the chapel, had for the moment put the whole problem out of her mind. Later, however, when the child had been fed and dried and restored to the arms of an agitated papa, and she had once more gone down to the chapel with her problem, she had seen the advent of the child as a definite piece of guidance. On her knees before the altar she had recoiled at the thought of the dangers to which children are constantly exposed, especially those children who have no agitated papas to whose arms they can return at the completion of adventure. She had shivered at the thought of orphans exposed to the corruption of a wicked world, of orphans exposed to the elements, of orphans permanently wet and dirty and hungry, and (under the guidance of Almighty God, so she had said) she had decided for the orphanage. A suitable house had been procured upon a twenty-two-year lease, with the option of renewing the lease at the end of the period, and the orphanage, if a constant responsibility and source of anxiety, had become nevertheless a most flourishing concern. But now, in a few months’ time, the lease would be terminated, the owners were unwilling to renew it, and nowhere upon the Island could Reverend Mother find another vacant house large enough to house twenty female orphans; devout, happy little orphans who went to Mass on Sundays walking two by two, clothed in dresses of Madonna blue with white tuckers at the necks, blue cloaks, and black bonnets tied beneath their orphaned chins with neat blue bows. As Reverend Mother sat at her desk, with a letter from a despairing house agent held in one hand, her mind’s eye was seeing those blue-clad orphans returning from Mass two by two, hungry as hunters . . . with no home to which to return.
It was at this moment that Sœur Angélique knocked and entered. Sœur Angélique, also, had changed little with the years. Her bulk loomed as large as ever, and her round, red face was as foolish and good-humored as ever. She lifted heavy weights with the same ease, and prayed with the same difficulty, as before, and she used the identical black safety pins to pin up her habit when she scrubbed the sacristy floor. She was Porteress today, and the pins were not lifting her skirt back from her flannel petticoat but skewered into the large black pincushion of her bosom.
“What is it, Sister?” asked Reverend Mother.
“A lady to see you, Mother,” said Sœur Angélique, her little black eyes popping with enthusiasm. “And she is beautiful as the Mother of God.”
“No doubt,” said Reverend Mother drily. “But it is neither the day nor hour for visitors. You should have told the lady to make an appointment and come again at the correct time.”
“But I did, Mother,” protested Sœur Angélique. “I told her that you received no visitors except at the correct hour for visiting, and by appointment. She is obstinate, that one, though beautiful as the Mother of God. She said that her name was M’selle Le Patourel and that you would see her.”
“Go down again,” said Reverend Mother, “and tell Mademoiselle Le Patourel that I shall be delighted to see her on visitor’s day, and ask her to make an appointment. . . . And, Sister, your safety pins must be fastened together and kept tidily in your pocket, not skewered into your bosom in that manner.”
Sœur Angélique waddled heavily away upon her flat feet, complaining under her breath. Ah, but she was cold, that one! Holy, but cold. This little matter of the safety pins. Never could Reverend Mother let it rest. Holy, but without heart. And the poor, beautiful one down below! To send her away was like removing an angel from the doorstep.
Marguerite, however, had no intention of being removed from the do
orstep, for she was every whit as obstinate as Reverend Mother herself. What she was doing required courage, and if she were not allowed to do it today, she was afraid she might falter in the doing of it tomorrow. She smiled sweetly at Sœur Angélique and sent her back once more to Reverend Mother, this time carrying a book in her hand. It was perhaps too much to hope that Reverend Mother would remember the little girl who had once knocked so perseveringly upon the seaward door of the convent, as the grown woman was now knocking on the landward door, but there was just a chance.
“She will not go, Mother,” said Sœur Angélique, reappearing once more before the exasperated gaze of her superior, the safety pins still in her bosom. “And she sends you this book.”
Reverend Mother took the little volume. It opened at familiar words. “To arrive at this state, the beginning is very difficult. . . . Knock, persevere in knocking, and I answer for it that He will open to you in His due time.” She turned to the flyleaf and saw her own name, Marie Ursule Lamonté, written there in the spidery handwriting of the old village curé who had given it to her, and below it was written in the round handwriting of a child, Marguerite Félicité Le Patourel. Twenty-two years flashed away suddenly and the child sat there in her blue dress, warming her toes at the fire.
“Ask Mademoiselle Le Patourel to come up instantly, Sister,” she commanded. “Quickly, Sister!”
Mon Dieu, there is no accounting for the holy ones, thought Sœur Angélique, as she once more waddled away. One thing one minute and another another, until those who are not so holy are out of breath hustling this way and that fulfilling their incomprehensible commands.
It was natural that Sœur Angélique should not have recognized her, thought Reverend Mother, as she stood up to greet Marguerite. She would not have recognized her herself had it not been for the fearless glance of the blue eyes, the carriage of the head, the childish way in which, after she had greeted her hostess, she put her hands behind her back and stood straight as a poplar tree. But it was to Sœur Angélique’s credit that she had described this woman as beautiful, for her greying hair and worn face might not have appeared beautiful to many.
“Sit down, my daughter,” said Reverend Mother gently. “Take off your cloak and bonnet.”
Marguerite took them off and then sat down easily and gracefully on the stool, her hands linked round her knees. She was more easily recognizable without her bonnet. Her curly hair and her white neck were still lovely, and her gravely appraising glance was just the same as she looked about her, verifying the whitewashed walls lit to rose-color by the firelight, the crucifix and prie-dieu, the statue of the Virgin in the niche on the wall, and the blue of the Atlantic seen through the narrow windows in the thickness of the wall.
“It is all just the same,” she said.
“Convents don’t alter very much,” said Reverend Mother, smiling. “Nuns do not follow the latest Paris fashions in clothes or furniture. The wimple and gown of the fourteenth century, and tables and chairs that have been here longer than we have, satisfy us and do not tempt us with vanity or comfort.”
“You are fortunate,” said Marguerite. “In the world we are afraid of vanity.”
“You do not look vain,” said Reverend Mother. “Sitting on that low stool in your mourning garments, you look both humble and sorrowful. Are you in trouble?”
“I love my parents, and I have lost them,” said Marguerite. “But that is a common trouble, isn’t it? In that I am not unlike other women. I wish I knew if I have been like others in my vanity and humiliation, and joy and fear. If others have passed the same way, then I am not going crazy, and I am not alone, and there must be a way to live that will suit the kind of person that I am.”
“Your experience does not sound phenomenal, my daughter,” said Reverend Mother. “But I could judge better with a few more details.”
Her voice, that chilled so many by its coldness, did not chill Marguerite. She felt exactly the same liking for Reverend Mother that she had felt when she was a child, for she was subconsciously aware that the nun’s apparent coldness was not the result of want of feeling but of iron control clamped down upon too much. And she did not want emotional sympathy. She was worn out by emotion. She wanted a cut-and-dried explanation of her condition that should serve as some sort of map for the future. So badly did she want it that she did not find it so difficult as she had expected to break her reserve and give this woman, who was almost a stranger to her, a completely honest account of her life for the last fifteen years. Now and then Reverend Mother slipped in an extremely searching question, but she gave straightforward answers to straightforward questions as she had twenty-two years ago, and her eyes never faltered, however deep her shame.
“And so you did not really read that book I gave you, you did not turn to the comforts of religion, until after your lover had sailed away without declaring his love?” asked Reverend Mother.
“No,” said Marguerite.
“You want to know that your experiences are not uncommon. I am happy to inform you that it is quite common for women to turn to the Heavenly Lover as a second best,” commented Reverend Mother with excessive dryness.
Marguerite’s face was crimson.
“And when it appeared to you that the earthly lover had failed you spiritually as well as physically, you imagined that God had also withdrawn His presence? Wasn’t that tantamount to judging God by man?”
“Yes,” said Marguerite.
“The way in which our sex perpetually insults Almighty God in this way is quite deplorable,” said Reverend Mother.
“Yes,” said Marguerite, and now her neck as well as her face was crimson.
“Yet it appears that all is now well,” said Reverend Mother, in a voice now so dry that it sounded almost brittle. “This man, William, apparently has some feeling for you after all, and so God, too, has returned.”
“Yes,” said Marguerite, and she could hardly articulate.
Reverend Mother stretched out a hand and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “I think, now, that you should cease to brood upon your shame,” she said. “You have experienced your own nothingness. You know of it for all time. You will not forget. No, your experience is not uncommon. Should I be a nun today if I had not discovered the man I loved to be so great a sinner that my pride revolted from marriage with him? Possibly not. And so great is the magnanimity of God that if we come at last to His feet I think He cares little how we came. . . . Divine humility is a strange thing for proud humanity to contemplate. . . . As for your spiritual experiences, they have been normal for a woman of your temperament, setting out upon the agelong quest for reality. We glimpse reality in childhood, in those sudden, flashing moments when the veil of appearance suddenly slips and we are aware of something behind, something indescribable and incomprehensible, but incomparably lovely. If you remember your childhood at all, you will remember those moments. All our life afterward is a search for the reality we saw then—saw without understanding and then lost. We think of it as a place, a person, a state, according to our temperaments.”
“My sister used to have what we called her ‘moments,’ ” said Marguerite, gazing into the fire, thinking herself back into her childhood. “But I don’t remember that I did. The whole of life was so shining and beautiful to me then. I don’t think one moment seemed more glorious than another.”
“You loved life and saw good days, did you?” asked Reverend Mother, her voice softening into a slight suspicion of tenderness. “Not isolated moments but a perpetual experience of felicity. I expect your sister, whose moments came only now and then, was more aware of the unearthliness of that childhood’s felicity than you were. Was she a restless woman, your sister, that she has been so eager to travel to the other side of the world?”
“She was always restless,” said Marguerite.
“It is that conception of reality as a place that makes some souls pilgrims a
nd wanderers,” said Reverend Mother. “They must always go out from the environment in which they were born in search of a better country. They are the creators, the pioneers, the builders of new worlds. Yet I think they are often unsatisfied. They can never build the perfect thing. The country they want is both within them and beyond the confines of this world, and in neither place does it occur to most of them to look for it. The lovers of this world, those who conceive of reality as a person, are generally more fortunate, I think. If the craving of the soul for its perfect mate remains unsatisfied, they find salvation in the service of others, in saving others.”
“They are the best of all, surely,” said Marguerite softly.
“Not necessarily the best. You find the saints in each person of this trinity of search. Yet perhaps life is less hard for them than for the rest of us. They are friendly people, at their best in personal relationships, liked wherever they go. The atmosphere they breathe is warm and glowing. Ours, my daughter, is colder and more rarefied.”
“Ours?” asked Marguerite.
“Ascetics like ourselves conceive of reality as a state. We long for inward perfection. Do not think that I do not understand what you have been through. I and countless others have passed the same way. First the completely selfish delight in the discovery of religion, then the apparent falling away, the loss and humiliation and chaos. ‘I was swept up to Thee by Thy beauty and torn away from Thee by my own weight,’ said St. Augustine. You were born again, my daughter, you escaped from the weight of the old self when you passed through that terrible humiliation. Though you did not realize it, the new self was growing as a child in the womb during the time of chaos; destruction and construction go always hand in hand, the one the price that is paid for the other; they will go on through your whole life; for until you die, sin and judgment and rebirth will be an integral part of your growth. But you need not fear that that particular depth of suffering will come again. Something was destroyed in you then that will not need to be destroyed again. Now you are made anew. Now you will breathe in the air of another country, not for your own delight, but to breathe it out again in prayer for others.”