Chapter III: Feast of St. Agnes, April 20

A YEAR ago at this time I was at home, busily preparing flowers and wreaths for my sister's bridal, under dear mother's eye. I knew Alice wanted violets, and Dick and I went to search for them in the coombe, where the banks being shady, the violets do longest linger. When we had filled our baskets with the flowers, which we found in abundance, both white and blue, we sat down a little on the moss to listen to the singing of the birds and the lapse of the water. These gentle sounds, albeit most sweet and tender, did somewhat dispose us to silence, if not melancholy. Presently Richard said:

"I wonder where we shall be a year from now, Rosamond? You know this same spring used to be a favorite haunt of the Fair Dame of Stanton, my ancestress. They say she used to see in the bosom of the water, as in a mirror, all that was to come to pass."

"I can tell pretty well where we shall be a year from now, without any of the Fair Dame's art," said I. "You know she was said to be a heretic, if not worse."

"Yes, but I don't believe it!" answered Dick, valiantly. "I believe she was a good woman, and a good wife. But since you know so well, tell me where we shall be?"

"You will be in France with my Lord your uncle," said I, "or else attending him at Court, winning your spurs by brave deeds, or dancing with fair dames and damsels; and I shall be at the convent, working of cut-work copes and altar-cloths in silk and gold; or helping Mother Gertrude dry herbs, and distil cordials, and make comfits: or studying the lives of the Saints; or—"

"Be wasting your time and youth on some nonsense or other," interrupted Richard, who never could bear to hear of my being a nun. "It is a shame!"

"It was my mother's doing, and I will not hear a word against it!" said I. "Besides, I don't know why I shouldn't be happy there as well as anywhere else. A great many nuns are happy, and beside that, Dick, to be happy is not the business of life."

Dick received this remark with the grunt which he always bestows on my wise speeches, and we were silent for a time. Then Dick said passionately, all at once—pointing to a chaffinch, a dear little fowl, which sat on a twig singing his very heart out, "Sweetheart! Sweetheart!" over and over again:

"Rosamond, nothing shall make me think that yonder bird does not serve God just as acceptably while he is flitting about gathering food for his young ones, and singing in the free air of heaven, as if he were shut behind the bars of a cage, singing the same song over and over, after the old bird-catcher's whistle."

"The bird is only a bird," I answered, "and, as Master Ellenwood often tells us, comparisons are no arguments. Besides, Dick, I have to go, so where is the use of repining? My mother has promised for me, and I have promised her again this very day (and so I had); so where is the use of an argument?"

"It's a shame!" said Dick, passionately; adding, "If you cared for me as I do for you, you wouldn't talk so coolly of its being an end."

Whereat there was nothing to do but to rise and return to the house.

I don't know why I have written this down, only it is a part of my life. There can be no harm in it, because Richard and I can never be anything to each other—not even brother and sister—because a good religious knows no ties of natural affection. No doubt the coombe is full this very day of violets and primroses, and all other sweet flowers, and the spring is welling up and running over its basin all among the moss and fern, and the brook liverwort; and I dare say the very same chaffinch is singing there this minute. There are violets in our convent garden as well, but they are planted in a straight bed, and Mother Gabrielle uses the flowers to make her sirups, and the leaves are gathered for our sallets. There is a spring, too, but not one bit like that in the coombe. That boils up out of a deep and wide cleft in the rock, filling its basin full and running over the stones in twenty little vagrant streams. Great ferns grow over and shade it, and leaves drop into it in the autumn, and birds and wild-wood creatures come to drink of its waters. This pours in a steady orderly stream from a pipe which sticks straight out from the wall, and runs down a straight course, paved and edged with cut stone, into the stew-pond where we keep our fish.

Still our convent garden is a sweet and pretty place, full of orderly knots and beds of flowers and herbs, chiefly such as are good to distil cordials, or to help out our messes on fast days—rue, and mints, and hyssops, and angelica, and caraway, and burnet—with abundance of roses, and poppies, and white lilies, and a long bed of sweet flowers for the bees.

We have a fine stock of beehives. Then we have plum and pear and apple trees, and a bed of strawberries. At the end of the garden are two most ancient elm trees, and under them a very small, and very, very old chapel of our Lady of Sorrows. Dear Mother says it is by far the oldest part of the convent. It is very small, as I said, built of huge stones, with low heavy arches. Over the altar stands the image of our Lady, rudely carved in some dark wood. It is a very holy image, and used to work miracles in old times. I wish it would again. I should dearly love to see a miracle.

At the back of this chapel, and joining it, so as to be under the same roof, is another building, very low and massive, with no windows, but one very narrow slit, close under the eaves. A heavy iron-studded door opens into it from the chapel itself. Mother Gertrude told me one day that it contained the staircase leading to a burial vault under the chapel, now never used, and that it had not been opened for years and years.

The Sisters are not fond of this shrine, holy as it is, and I think they are afraid of it. Indeed I know Sister Bridget told me that if an unfaithful nun were to watch there over night, she would be found dead on the floor in the morning—if indeed a ghost or demon did not arise from the vault and drag her down to a living death below.

"I should not think a ghost would dare to come into the sacred place!" said Amice.

"Evil spirits have power over the unfaithful, wherever they are—remember that, child!" said Sister Bridget, solemnly.

"And over the faithful too, sometimes," said Amice, who is as usual reading the lives of Saints. "I am sure St. Frances was dreadfully disturbed by them."

"Power to disturb, but not to destroy them, child. But prayers offered at that shrine have great efficacy for the deliverance of souls from purgatory," said old Mother Mary Monica, who is the oldest person in the house, and very fond of the company of us young ones. "If any one had a friend in purgatory, and should watch all night in prayer before that image, it would go far to deliver him."

"Do you really think so, Mother?" I asked.

"Think so, child! I know it for a truth. The blessed Saint Ethelburga herself tried it, and was assured by a vision and a miracle that her prayers were granted. Eh dear, I could tell you many stories of miracles, my daughters. They used to be plenty in my young days. Why, I was converted by a miracle myself."

"Tell us about it, dear Mother, will you?" said Amice and I both together; and Amice added, "See, here is a nice seat, and the warm sun is good for your pains, you know."

So she sat down, the good old soul, and Amice and I on stones at her feet, and she told us the tale. I will set it down just as I remember it.

"You must know, my children, that I was a giddy young girl in attendance on the Queen—not the Queen that now is, but Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry the Seventh, this King's father—when I went with my mistress to make a retreat at the convent of the poor Clares, in London—"

"The same that Sister Catherine is always praising," said I.

"Yes, the very same; but don't you put me out. Where was I?"

"Where you went with the Queen to make a retreat, dear Mother."

"O yes. Well, I had been a giddy girl, as I told you, but I had been somewhat sobered of late, because my cousin Jack, whom my father always meant I should wed, had been on the wrong side in the late troubles, and was in hiding at that time. Now, I liked Jack right well, and was minded to marry none other; but I was a King's ward, my father being dead, and I having a good fortune. So I had a many suitors, and I knew the King was favorable to a knight, Sir Edward Peckham, of Somerset, who had come to him with help just at the right time. Now, I wanted nobody but Jack; but of all my suitors there was none that I misliked so much as Sir Edward Peckham!"

"Why?" asked I, much interested.

"Because I could not abide him, child. That was reason enough. Well, things being even in this shape, I was glad enough when my mistress made her retreat in the convent of the Poor Clares, and chose me to attend on her, out of all her train. That was a strict order, children. Matins at one o'clock in the morning—not overnight, as we have them here—no food till dinner at eleven, and no flesh meat even on feast days—almost perpetual silence! Well, it was always and ever my way to fall in with whatever was going on, let it be what it might; so I fasted and prayed with the best, and kept all the hours, till I was so tired I could hardly stand. In the midst of it all came a messenger to my mistress from the King, bidding her return to the Court in three days and bring me with her, for the King was minded that my marriage should no longer be put off.

"Children, I was like one distracted, and I was all but ready to cast myself away, body and soul. The Mother Superior marked my grief, and I was won to tell her the whole. She was an austere woman—not one bit like our Mother—but she was very kind to me in my trouble—"

"I am sure our dear Mother Superior is a saint, if ever there was one," said I.

"That she is, that she is, child; but there may be a difference in saints, you know. Well, Mother Superior pitied my grief, and soothed me, and when I was quieted like, she councilled me to watch all night before a shrine in which were some very holy relics—specially part of the veil of St. Clare, our blessed founder."

"'Perhaps the Saint may take pity on you and show you the way out of your present troubles,' said she. 'Fast this day from all food, my daughter, and this night I will myself conduct you to the shrine where you are to watch.'"

"Well, children, I did fast and say my rosary all the rest of the day, till I was ready to drop; and at nine at night the Mother Superior led me to a little chapel off the church, where was the shrine of St. Clare. It was all dark—only looking toward the church I could just see the glimmer of the ever-burning lamp, before the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Here she left me, and here I was to kneel till daylight, saying my prayers and the seven psalms."

"I don't see how you could kneel so long," said Amice.

"I might lie prone a part of the time, if I would," replied Mother Mary Monica, "and so indeed I did. I don't know what time it was—somewhere before Matins, and I know not whether overcome with fatigue I had not dozed a little, when I was waked by a bright light. I raised myself on my knees, and looking toward the altar, I saw the figure of St. Clare surrounded by a clear but mild radiance, and holding out to me in her hand a nun's veil, while a voice of heavenly sweetness, said to me these words: 'Here, my child, is thy only refuge.' The light faded away, and I sunk down—in a swoon this time, for when some of the Sisters came to seek me at prime, they found me pale and lifeless, while—mark, my daughters—on my head was laid that most sacred relic, the veil of St. Clare—yes, on this unworthy head the blessed veil was laid."

We both looked at the good Mother in a kind of awe.

"Well, I told the good Sisters and my mistress what I had seen. There could be no doubt after that in my mind, especially as two or three days after I had certain news of Jack's death. The King would not hear of my profession at first, but the Prior of the Franciscans took my part, and his Majesty would not have liked setting the whole of the Gray Friars against him; so he gave way, and even paid over my portion, which must have gone hard, for his blessed Majesty was fond of money; and Sir Edward went home riding alone, with a flea in his ear, instead of a bride by his side. Marry him, indeed, with his thin legs and his long lean jaws! So that is the way I was converted, my children, and got my own way, by the help of the Blessed St. Clare, to whom I have always had a particular devotion ever since. And who knows what miracles might be vouchsafed to you, if you were to watch all night before the shrine of our Lady?"

We had no time for any more talk just then, but ever since I have been turning over in my mind what Mother Mary Monica said. It does seem dreadful to me—the thought of watching all night and alone in that dreary place without a light. To be sure, the moon is at the full, and would shine directly into the great window, but then those dreadful vaults, and Sister Bridget's story do so run in my head. Every time the wind shook the ivy or whistled in the loopholes of the stones, I should fancy it a rustle among the graves below, or the grating of that heavy door on its hinges. And then, so cold and damp.

Wretch that I am, to weigh these things one moment in the balance against my dear mother's soul! I feel sure that she could not have died in mortal sin, but to pass without the sacraments, without one moment's warning! Oh, it is dreadful! And then her marrying instead of taking the veil. That I think troubles dear Mother Superior worse than anything. Yes, I am quite resolved. I will watch this very night before the shrine in the garden chapel; but I will tell nobody of my resolve, save Amice and Mother Gertrude. I don't want the whole flock exclaiming, pitying or praising me, or hinting at my setting up for a saint, as some of them do.

[Of course, being now enlightened by Holy Scripture, I do not believe that my dear mother was benefitted by my watching, nor indeed that she needed such benefit; but I will ever maintain that the exertion to overcome my own fears (which were very terrible), for my mother's sake, was of great service to me. 'Twas a true act of self-sacrifice, though done in ignorance, and that not to pile up a stock of merit for myself, but to do good to another.]