Chapter 24

And in this way Evelyn was made to feel her responsibility so much that in the end she consented to give up part of her money to the nuns. So long as she had just enough to live upon it did not matter, and she owed these nuns a great deal. True that she had paid them ten times over what she owed them, but still, it was difficult to measure one's debts in pounds, shillings, and pence. However, that was the way the nuns wanted her to measure them, and if she could leave them fifteen hundred pounds--. And as soon as this sum was agreed upon, Sister Winifred never lost an opportunity of regretting that the convent was obliged to accept this magnificent donation, hinting that the Prioress and herself would be willing (and there would be no difficulty in obtaining the consent of the choir sisters) to accept Evelyn's services for three years in the school instead of the money.

"Five hundred a year we shall be paying you, but the value of your teaching will be very great; mothers will be especially anxious to send their daughters to our school, so that they may get good singing lessons from you."

"And when I leave?"

"Well, the school will have obtained a reputation by that time. Of course, you will be a loss, but we must try to do without you."

"Three years in this convent!"

"But you are quite free here; you come and go as you please. After all, your intention in leaving the convent is to teach music. Why not teach music here?"

The argument was an ingenious one, but Evelyn did not feel that it would appeal to her in the least, either to continue living in the convent after she had finished her book, or to go back to the convent to give singing lessons three or four times a week.

It would be preferable for her to give fifteen hundred pounds to the convent, and so finish with the whole thing; and this she intended to do, though she put Mother Winifred off with evasion, leaving her thinking that perhaps after all she would teach for some little while in the convent. It was necessary to do this, for Mother Winifred could persuade Mother Philippa as she pleased; and it had occurred to Evelyn that perhaps Mother Winfred might arrange for her expulsion. Nothing could be easier than to tell her that somebody's friend was going to stay with them in the convent, that the guest-room would be wanted. To leave now would not suit Evelyn at all. The late Prioress's papers belonged to the convent; and to deceive Mother Winifred completely Evelyn agreed to give some singing lessons, for they had already begun to receive pupils, though the school was not yet finished.

This teaching proved very irksome to her, for it delayed the completion of her book, and she often meditated an escape, thinking how this might be accomplished while the nuns played at ball in the autumn afternoon. Very often they were all in the garden, all except Sister Agnes, the portress, and she often left her keys on the nail. So it would be easy for Evelyn to run down the covered way and take the keys from the nail and open the door. And the day came when she could not resist the temptation of opening the door, not with a view to escape; but just to know what the sensation of the open door was like. And she stood for some time looking into the landscape, remembering vaguely, somewhere at the back of her mind, that she could not take the Prioress's papers with her, they did not belong to her; the convent could institute an action for theft against her, the Prioress not having made any formal will, only a memorandum saying she would like Evelyn to collect her papers.

So it was necessary for her to lock the gate again, to restore the keys to the nail, and return to the library. But in a few weeks more her task would be done, and it would be pleasanter to go away when it was done; and, as it has already been said, Evelyn liked landmarks. "To pass out is easy, but the Evelyn that goes out will not be the same as the Evelyn who came in." And a terror gathered in her mind, remembering that she was forty, and to begin life again after forty, and after such an experience as hers, might prove beyond her strength. Doubts enter into every mind, doubt entered into hers; perhaps the convent was the natural end of her life, not as a nun, but as an oblate. The guest-room was a pleasant room, and she could live more cheaply in the convent than elsewhere. There are cowardly hours in every life, and there were hours when this compromise appealed to Evelyn Innes. But if she remained she would have to continue teaching under Mother Winifred's direction. A little revolt awoke in her. She could not do that; and she began to think what would happen to her when she left the convent. There would not be money enough left her to sit down in a small flat and do nothing; she would have to work. Well, she would have to do that in any case, for idleness was not natural to her, and she would have to work for somebody besides herself--for her poor people--and this she could do by giving singing lessons. Where? In Dulwich? But to go back to the house in which she lived her life, to the room which used to be hung with the old instruments, and to revive her mother's singing classes? No, she could not begin her life from exactly the same point at which she left off. And gradually the project formed in her mind of a new life, a life which would be at once new and old. And the project seemed to take shape as she wrote the last pages of her memoir of the late Prioress.

"It is done, and I have got a right to my own manuscript; they cannot take that from me." And she went into the sacristy, her manuscript in her hand.

The cool, sweet room seemed empty, and Veronica emerged from the shadow, almost a shadow. There were two windows, lattice panes, and these let the light fall upon the counter, along which the vestments were laid for the priest. The oak press was open, and it exhaled an odour of orris root and lavender, and Veronica, standing beside it, a bunch of keys at her girdle, once more reminded Evelyn of the mediæval virgin she had seen in the Rhenish churches.

"I have finished collecting your aunt's papers."

"And now you are going to leave us?"

There was a sob in the girl's voice, and all Evelyn's thoughts about her seemed to converge and to concentrate. There was the girl before her who passed through life without knowing it, interested in putting out the vestments for an old priest, hiding his amice so that no other hands but hers should touch it; this and the dream of an angel who visited her in sleep and whose flesh was filled with luminous tints constituted all she knew of life, all she would ever know. There were tears in her eyes now, there was a sob in her voice; she would regret her friend for a day, for a week, and then the convent life would draw about her like great heavy curtains. Evelyn remembered how she had told her of a certain restlessness which kept her from her prayers; she remembered how she had said to her, "It will pass, everything will pass away." She would become an old nun, and would be carried to the graveyard just as her aunt had been. When would that happen? Perhaps not for fifty years. Sooner or later it would happen. And Evelyn listened to Veronica saying the convent would never be the same without her, saying:

"Once you leave us you will never come back."

"Yes, I shall, Veronica; I shall come once or twice to see you."

"Perhaps it would be better for you not to come at all," the girl cried, and turned away; and then going forward suddenly as Evelyn was about to leave the sacristy, she said:

"But when are you leaving? When are you leaving?"

"To-morrow; there is no reason why I should wait any longer."

"We cannot part like this." And she put down the chalice, and the women went into a chill wind; the pear-trees were tossing, and there were crocuses in the bed and a few snowdrops.

"You had better remain until the weather gets warmer; to leave in this bleak season! Oh, Sister, how we shall miss you! But you were never like a nun."

They walked many times to and fro, forgetful of the bleak wind blowing.

"It must be so, you were never like a nun. Of course we all knew, I at least knew... only we are sorry to lose you."

The next day a carriage came for Evelyn. The nuns assembled to bid her goodbye; they were as kind as their ideas allowed them to be, but, of course, they disapproved of Evelyn going, and the fifteen hundred pounds she left them did not seem to reconcile them to her departure. It certainly did not reconcile Mother Winifred, who refused to come down to wish her goodbye, saying that Evelyn had deceived them by promising to remain, or at all events led them to think she would stay with them until the school was firmly established. Mother Philippa apologised for her, but Evelyn said it was not necessary.

"After all, what Mother Winifred says is the truth, only I could not do otherwise. Now, goodbye, I'll come to see you again, may I not?"

They did not seem very anxious on this point, and Evelyn thought it quite possible she might never see the convent again, which had meant so much to her and which was now behind her. Her thoughts were already engaged in the world towards which she was going, and thinking of the etiolated hands of the nuns she remembered the brown hands of her poor people; it was these hands that had drawn her out of the convent, so she liked to think; and it was nearly the truth, not the whole truth, for that we may never know.

XXXV

The blinds of 27, Berkeley Square were always down, and when Sir Owen's friends called the answer was invariably the same: "No news of Sir Owen yet; his letters aren't forwarded; business matters are attended to by Mr. Watts, the secretary." And Sir Owen's friends went away wondering when the wandering spirit would die in him.

It was these last travels, extending over two years, in the Far East, that killed it; Owen felt sure of that when he entered his house, glad of its comfort, glad to be home again; and sinking into his armchair he began to read his letters, wondering how he should answer the different invitations, for every one was now more than six months old, some going back as far as eighteen months. It seemed absurd to write to Lady So-and-so, thanking her for an invitation so long gone by. All the same, he would like to see her, and all his friends, the most tedious would be welcome now. He tore open the envelopes, reading the letters greedily, unsuspicious of one amongst them which would make him forget the others--a letter from Evelyn. It came at last under his hand, and having glanced through it he sank back in his chair, overcome, not so much by surprise that she had left her convent as at finding that the news had put no great gladness into his heart, rather, a feeling of disappointment.

"How little one knows about oneself!" But he wasn't sorry she had left the convent. A terrible result of time and travel it would be if his first feeling on opening her letter were one of disappointment. He was sorry she had been disappointed, and thought for a long time of that long waste of life, five years spent with nuns. "We are strange beings, indeed," he said. And getting up, he looked out the place she wrote from, discovering it to be a Surrey village, probably about thirty miles from London, with a bad train service; and having sent a telegram asking if it would suit her for him to go down to see her next day, he fell back in his chair to think more easily how his own life had been affected by Evelyn's retreat from the convent; and again he experienced a feeling of disappointment. "A long waste of life, not only of her life, but of mine," for he had travelled thousands of miles... to forget her? Good heavens, no! What would his life be without remembrance of Evelyn? He had come home believing himself reconciled to the loss of Evelyn, and willing to live in memories of her--the management of his estate a sufficient interest for his life, and his thoughts were already engaged in the building of a new gatehouse; after all, Riversdale was his business, and he had come home to work for his successor while cherishing a dream-- wasn't it strange? But this letter had torn down his dream and his life was again in pieces. Would he ever be at rest while she was abroad? Would it not have been better for them both if she had remained in her convent? The thought seemed odiously selfish. If she were to read his disappointment on hearing that she was no longer in the convent? ... Telepathy! There were instances! And his thoughts drifted away, and he seemed to lose consciousness of everything, until he was awakened by the butler bringing back her reply.

Now he would see her in twenty-four hours, and hear from her lips a story of adventure, for it is an adventure to renounce the world, the greatest, unless a return to the world be a greater. She had known both; and it would be interesting to hear her tell both stories--if she could tell her stories; she might only be half aware of their interest and importance.

"God only knows what she is like now! A wreck, a poor derelict woman, with no life to call her own. The life of an actress which I gave her, and which was so beautiful, wrecked; and the life of a nun, which she insisted on striving after, wrecked." A cold, blighting sorrow like a mist came up, it seemed to penetrate to his very bones, and he asked why she had left the convent--of what use could she be out of it?... only to torment him again. Twenty times during the course of the evening and the next morning he resolved not to go to see her, and as many times a sudden desire to see her ripped up his resolution; and he ordered the brougham. "Five years' indulgence in vigils and abstinences, superstitions must have made a great change in her; utterly unlike the Evelyn Innes whom I discovered years ago in Dulwich, the beautiful pagan girl whom I took away to Paris." He was convinced. But anxious to impugn his conviction, he took her letter from his pocket, and in it discovered traces, which cheered him, of the old Evelyn.

"She must have suffered terribly on finding herself obliged after five years to retreat, and something of the original spirit was required for her to fight her way out, for, of course, she was opposed at every moment."

The little stations went by one by one: the train stopped nine or ten times before it reached the penultimate.

"In the next few minutes I shall see her. She is sure to come to the station to meet me. If she doesn't I'll go back--what an end that would be! A strange neighbourhood to choose. Why did she come here? With whom is she living? In a few minutes I shall know."

The train began to slacken speed. "Why, there she is on the platform." The train rushed by her, the first-class carriages stopping at the other end; and, calling to the porter to take his bag out of the carriage, he sprang out, tall and thin. "Like one who had never had the gout," she said, as she hurried to meet him, smiling, so intimately did his appearance bring back old times. "He is so like himself, and better dressed than I am; the embroidered waistcoat still goes in at the waist; and he still wears shirts with mauve stripes. But he is a good deal greyer... and more wrinkled than I am."

"So it is you, Evelyn. Let me look at you." And, holding both her hands, he stood looking into the face which he had expected to find so much changed that he hardly found it changed at all, his eyes passing over, almost without notice, the white hairs among the red, and the wrinkles about the eyes and forehead, which, however, became more apparent when she smiled. His touch was more conclusive of disappointment than his eyes; her hands seemed harder than they used to be, the knuckles had thickened, and, not altogether liking his scrutiny, she laughed, withdrawing her hands.

"Where is your valet, Owen?"

It was then that he saw that her teeth had aged a little, yellowed a little; a dark spot menaced the loss of one of the eye-teeth if not attended to at once. But her figure seemed the same, and to get a back view he dropped his stick. No, the convent had not bent her; a tall, erect figure was set off to advantage by a dark blue linen dress, and the small, well-reared head and its roll of thick hair by the blue straw hat trimmed with cornflowers.

"Her appearance is all right; the vent must be in her mind," he said, preparing himself for a great disillusionment as soon as their talk passed out of the ordinary ruts.

"My valet? I didn't bring him. You might not be able to put him up."

"I shouldn't."

"But is there any one to carry my bag? I'll carry it myself if you don't live too far from here."

"About a mile. We can call at the inn and tell them to send a fly for your bag--if you don't mind the walk."

"Mind the walk--and you for companionship? Evelyn, dear, it is delightful to find myself walking with you, and in the country," he added, looking round.

"The country is prettier farther on."

Owen looked round without, however, being able to give his attention to the landscape.

"Prettier farther on? But how long have you been here?"

"Nearly two years now. And you--when did you return?"

"How did you know I was away?"

"You didn't write."

"I returned yesterday."

"Yesterday? You only read yesterday my letter written six months ago."

"We have so much to talk about, Evelyn, so much to learn from each other."

"The facts will appear one by one quite naturally. Tell me, weren't you surprised to hear I had left the convent? And tell me, weren't you a little disappointed?"

"Disappointed, my dear Evelyn? Should I have wired to you, and come down here if--. It seemed as if the time would never pass."

"I don't mean that you aren't glad to see me. I can see you are. But admit that you were disappointed that I hadn't succeeded--"

"I see what you mean. Well, I was disappointed that you were disappointed; I admit so much." And, walking up the sunny road, he wondered how it was that she had been able to guess what his thoughts were on reading her letter. After all, he was not such a brute as he had fancied himself, and her divination relieved his mind of the fear that he lacked natural feeling, since she had guessed that a certain feeling of disappointment was inevitable on hearing that she had not been able to follow the chosen path. But how clever of her! What insight!

"I hope you don't misunderstand. I cannot put into words the pleasure--."

"I quite understand. Even if we turn out of our path sometimes, we don't like others to vacillate... conversions, divagations, are not sympathetic."

"Quite true. The man who knows, or thinks he knows, whither he is going commands our respect, and we are willing to follow--"

"Even though he is the stupider?"

"Which is nearly always." And they ceased talking, each agreeably surprised by the other's sympathy.

It was on his lips to say, "We are both elderly people now, and must cling to each other." But no one cares to admit he is elderly, and he did not speak the words for his sake and for hers, and he refrained from asking her further questions about the convent; for he had come to see a woman, loved for so many years, and who would always be loved by him, and not to gratify his curiosity; he asked why she had chosen this distant country to live in.

"Distant country? You call this country distant? You, who have only just come back--"

"Returned yesterday from the Amur."

"From the Amur? I thought I was _the_ amour."

"So you are. I am speaking now of a river in Manchuria."

'Manchuria? But why did you go there?"

"Oh, my dear Evelyn, we have so much to tell each other that it seems hopeless. Can you tell me why you--no, don't answer, don't try to tell why you went to the convent; but tell me why you came to live in this neighbourhood?"

"Well, the land is very cheap here, and I wanted a large piece of ground."

"Oh, so you've settled here?"

"Yes; I've built a cottage... But I haven't been able to lay the garden out yet."

"Built a cottage?"

"What is there surprising in that?"

"Only this, that I returned home resolved to do some building at Riversdale--a gate lodge," and he talked to her of the gate lodge he had in mind, until he became aware of the incongruity. "But I didn't come here to talk to you of gate lodges. Tell me, Evelyn, how do you spend your time?"

"I go to town every morning to teach singing; I have singing-classes."

"So you are a singing-mistress now. Well, everything comes round at last. Your mother--"

"Yes, everything comes round again," she said, sighing; "and the neighbourhood isn't inconvenient. There is a good train in the morning and a good train in the evening; the one you came by is a wretched one, but if you had come by the later train you would have seen less of me. You're not sorry?"

"My dear Evelyn, don't be affected. I'm trying to take it all in. You have retreated from the convent, and are now a singing-mistress. Have you lost your voice?"

"I'm afraid a good deal of it." And, pointing with her parasol, she said, "There is the inn; I will tell them to fetch your bag."

As she went towards the "Stag and Hounds" he congratulated himself that the earlier woman still subsisted in the later, there could be no doubt of that, and in sufficient proportion for her to create a new life, and out of nothing but her own wits, for if she had escaped from the convent with her intelligence, or part of it, she hadn't escaped with her money; the nuns had got her money safe enough. She would be loth to admit it, but it could not be otherwise. So out of her own wits she had negotiated the purchase of a large piece of ground (she had said a large piece), and built a cottage, and a very pretty cottage too, he was sure of that; and his face assumed a blank expression, for he was away with her in some past time, in the midst of an architectural discussion. But returning gradually from this happy past, her intelligence seemed to him like some strong twine or wire! "How clever of her to have discovered this country where land was cheap!" And he looked round, seeing its beauty because she lived in it. Above all, to have found work to do, no easy matter when one has torn oneself and one's past to shreds, as she had done. No doubt she was making quite a nice little income by teaching; and, in increasing admiration, he walked round the dusty inn and the triangular piece of grass in front of it. A game of bat-and-trap was in progress, and he conceived a love for that old English game, though till now he thought it stupid and vulgar. The horse-pond appealed to him as a picturesque piece of water, and, standing back from it, he admired the rows of trees on the further bank--pollards of some kind--and, still more, the reflections of these trees in the dark green water; and his eyes followed the swallows, dipping and gliding through the moveless air. A spire showed between the trees, a girl and some children were gathering wild flowers in the hedgerows. How like England! But here was Evelyn!

"Did you ever see a more beautiful evening? And aren't you glad that the evening in which I see you again is--one would like to call it beatific, only I don't like the word; it reminds me of the convent you have left."

"One goes away in order that one may return home, Owen."

"Quite true; and all my travels were necessary for me to admire your long, red road winding gracefully up the hillside between tall hedges, full of roses, convolvulus, and ivy, under trees throwing a pleasant shade." And coming suddenly upon an extraordinary fragrance, he threw up his head, and, with dilated nostrils, cried out, "Honeysuckle!"

"Yes, isn't it sweet?" she said. And, standing under a cottage porch, he thought of the days gone by; and their memory was as overpowering as the vine.

"I have brought you no present."

"Owen, you only returned yesterday."