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Sister Teresa by George Moore

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"Have you noticed, Sister Teresa, how beaming Sister Veronica has
looked for the last day or two? I can't think what has come to her."

"Can't you, indeed? You must be very slow. Hasn't she been put into
the sacristy just before Father Ambrose's visit; now she will be able
to put out his vestments herself. You may be sure we shall have the
best vestments out every day, and she will be able to have any amount
of private interviews behind our backs."

"Now, children, that will do," said Mother Hilda, noticing Veronica's
crimson cheeks as she bent over her work.

Evelyn wondered, and that evening in the sacristy Veronica broke into
expostulations with an excitement that took Evelyn by surprise.

"How could I not care for Father Ambrose! I have known him all my
life. Once I was very ill with pleurisy. I nearly died, and Father
Ambrose anointed me, and gave me the last Sacraments. I had not made
my first Communion then. I was only eleven, but they gave me the
Sacrament, for they thought I was dying, and I thought so too, and I
promised our Lord I would be a nun if I got well. I never told any
one except Father Ambrose, and he has helped me all through to keep
my vow, so you see he has been everything to me; I have never loved
any one as I love Father Ambrose. When he comes here I always ask him
for some rule or direction, so that I may have the happiness of
obeying him till his next visit; and it is so trying, is it not,
Sister Teresa, when the novices make their silly little jokes about
it? Of course, they don't understand, they can't; but to me Father
Ambrose means everything I care for; besides, he is really a saint. I
believe he would have been canonised if he had lived in the Middle
Ages. He has promised to profess me. It is wrong, I know, but really
I should hardly care to be professed if Father Ambrose could not be
by. We must have these vestments for him." Evelyn was about to take
them out. "No, allow me."

Veronica took the vestments out of her hand, a pretty colour coming
into her cheeks as she did so. And Evelyn understood her jealousy,
lest any other hands but hers should lay the vestments out that he
was to wear, and she turned her head so that Veronica might not think
she was being watched. And the little nun was happy in the corner of
the sacristy laying out the vestments, putting the gold chalice for
him to use, and the gold cruets, which Evelyn had never seen used
before."

"You see, being a monk, he has a larger amice than the ordinary
priest." And Veronica produced a strip of embroidery which she tacked
on the edge of the amice, so that it might give the desired
appearance when the monk drew it over his head on entering or leaving
the sacristy.

A few days after Evelyn came upon this amice with the embroidery edge
put away in a secret corner, so that it should not be used in the
ordinary way; and, as she stood wondering at the child's love for the
aged monk, Sister Agnes came to tell her she was wanted to bid Sister
Mary John goodbye.

"To bid Sister Mary John goodbye!"

"Yes, Sister Teresa, that is what the Prioress told me to tell you."

Evelyn hurried to the library. Sister Mary John was standing near the
window, and she wore a long black cloak over her habit, and had a
bird-cage in her hand. Evelyn saw the sly jackdaw, with his head on
one side, looking at her.

"What is the meaning of this, Sister? You don't tell me you are going
away? And for how long?"

"For ever, Sister; we shall never see each other again. I promised
the Prioress not to tell you before. It was a great hardship, but I
gave my promise, she allowing us to see each other for a few minutes
before I left."

"I can't take in what you're saying. Going away for ever? Oh, Sister,
this cannot be true!" And Evelyn stood looking at the nun, her eyes
dilated, her fingers crisped as if she would hold Sister Mary John
back. "But what is taking you away?"

"That is a long story, too long for telling now; besides, you know
it. You know I have been very fond of you, Teresa; too fond of you."

"So that's it. And how shall I live here without you?"

"You are going to enter the convent, and as a nun you will learn to
live without me; you will learn to love God better than you do now."

"One moment; tell me, it is only fair you should tell me, how our
love of each other has altered your love of God?"

"I can never tell you, Teresa, I can only say that I never
understood, perhaps, as I do now, that nothing must come between the
soul and God, and that there is no room for any other love in our
hearts. We must remember always we are the brides of Christ, you and
I, Sister."

"But I am not professed, and never shall be."

"I hope you will, Sister, and that all your love will go to our
crucified Lord."

They stood holding each other's hands.

"Won't you let me kiss you before you go?"

"Please let me go; it will be better not. The carriage is waiting; I
must go."

"But never, never to see you again!"

"Never is a long while; too long. We shall meet in heaven, and it
would be unwise to forfeit that meeting for a moment of time on this
earth."

"A moment of time on this earth," Evelyn answered. She stood looking
out of the window like one dazed; and taking advantage of her
abstraction Sister Mary John left the room. The Prioress came into
the library.

"Mother, what does this mean? Why did you let her go?"

The Prioress sat down slowly and looked at Evelyn without speaking.

"Mother, you might have let her stay, for my sake."

"I allowed her to see you before she left, and that was the most I
could do, under the circumstances."

"The most you could do under the circumstances? I don't understand.
Mother, you might have asked her to wait. She acted on impulse."

"No, Teresa, she came to me some weeks ago to tell me of her
scruples."

"Scruples! Her love of me, you mean?"

"I see she has told you. Yes."

The Prioress was about to ask her about her vows; but the present was
not the moment to do so, and she allowed Evelyn to go back to the
sacristy.



XXIX

"Veronica, she has gone away for good--gone away to France. All I
could do--Now I am alone here, with nobody."

"But, Teresa, I don't understand. What are you speaking about?"
Evelyn told her of Sister Miry John's departure. "You cared for her a
great deal, one could see that."

"Well, she was the one whom I have seen most of since I have been
here... except you, Veronica." A look appeared in the girl's face
which suggested, very vaguely, of course, but still suggested, that
Veronica was jealous of the nun who had gone. Evelyn looked into the
girl's face, trying to read the dream in it, until she forgot
Veronica, and remembered the nun who had gone; and when she awoke
from her dream she saw Veronica still standing before her with a
half-cleaned candlestick in her hand.

"She seemed so determined, and all I could say only made her more so;
yet I told her I was very fond of her... and she always seemed to
like me. Why should she be so determined?"

"I should have thought you would have guessed, Teresa."

Evelyn begged Veronica to explain, but the girl hesitated, looking at
her curiously all the time saying at last:

"It seems to me there can be only one reason for her leaving, and
that was because she believed you to be her counterpart."

"Her counterpart--what's that?"

"Have you been so long in the convent without knowing what a
counterpart is, Teresa? The convent is full of counterparts. Did you
never see one in the garden, in a shady corner? You spent many hours
in the garden. I am surprised. Are you telling the truth, Sister?"

Evelyn opened her eyes.

"Telling the truth! But do they come in the summer-time in the
garden, while the sun is out?"

"Yes, they do; and very often they come to one in the evening... but
more often at night."

Evelyn stood looking into Veronica's face without speaking, and at
that moment the bell rang.

"We have only just got time," Veronica said, "to get into chapel."

"What can she mean? Counterparts visiting the nuns in the twilight...
at night! Who are these counterparts?" Evelyn asked herself. "The
idle fancies of young girls, of course." But she was curious to hear
what these were, and on the first favourable opportunity she
introduced the subject, saying:

"What did you mean, Veronica, when you said that it was strange I had
been in the convent so long without finding my counterpart?"

"I didn't say that, Teresa. I said without a counterpart finding you
out, or that is what I meant to say. It is the counterpart which
seeks us, not we the counterpart. It would be wrong for us to seek
one. You know what I said about your singing, how it disturbed me and
prevented me from praying? Well, sometimes a memory of your singing
precedes the arrival of my counterpart."

"But did you not say that Sister Mary John was my counterpart?"

Veronica answered that Sister Mary John may have thought so.

"But she is a choir sister." And to this Veronica did not know what
answer to make. The silence was not broken for a long while, each
continuing her work, wondering when the other would speak. "Have all
the nuns counterparts?"

"I don't know anything about the choir sisters, but Rufina and Jerome
have. Cecilia is too stupid, and no counterpart ever seems to come to
her. Sister Angela has the most beautiful counterpart in the world,
except mine!" And the girl's eyes lit up.

Evelyn was on the point of asking her to describe her visitor, but,
fearing to be indiscreet, she asked Veronica to tell her who were the
counterparts, and whence they came. Veronica could tell her nothing,
and, untroubled by theory or scruple, she seemed to drift away--
perhaps into the arms of her spiritual lover. On rousing her from her
dream Evelyn learnt that Sister Angela, who was fond of reading the
Bible, had discovered many texts anent counter-partial love. Which
these could be Evelyn wondered, and Veronica quoted the words of the
Creed, "Christ descended into hell."

"But the counterpart doesn't emanate out of hell?"

A look of pain came into the nun's face, and she reminded Evelyn that
Christ was away for three days between his death and his
resurrection, and there were passages she remembered in Paul, in the
Epistle to the Romans, which seemed to point to the belief that he
descended into hell, at all events that he had gone underground; but
of this Veronica had no knowledge, she could only repeat what Sister
Angela had said--that when Christ descended into hell, the warders of
the gates covered their faces, so frightened were they, not having
had time to lock the gates against him, and all hell was harrowed.
But Christ had walked on, preaching to those men and women who had
been drowned in the Flood, and they had gone up to heaven with him.

"But, Veronica, those who are in hell never come out of it."

"No, they never come out of it; only Christ can do all things, and He
descended into hell, not to watch the tortures of the damned--you
couldn't think that, Sister Teresa?--but to save those who had died
before His coming. Once we had a meditation on a subject given to us
by Mother Hilda from one of the Gospels: Three men were seen coming
from a tomb, two supporting a man standing between them, the shadow
of the Cross came from behind; and the heads of two men touched the
sky, but the head of the man they supported passed through the sky,
and far beyond it, for the third man was our Lord coming out of
hell."

"But, Veronica, you were telling me about the counterparts."

"Well, Sister Teresa, the counterparts are those whom Christ redeemed
in those three days, and they come and visit every convent."

"In what guise do they come?" Evelyn asked. And she heard that the
arrival of the counterpart was always unexpected, but was preceded by
an especially happy state of quiet exaltation.

"Have you never felt that feeling, Sister Teresa? As if one were
detached from everything, and ready to take flight."

"Yes, dear, I think I know what you mean. But the counterpart is a
sort of marriage, and you know Christ says that there is neither
marriage, nor giving in marriage, when the kingdom of God shall come
to pass."

"Not giving in marriage," the girl answered, "as is understood in the
world, but we shall all meet in heaven; and the meeting of our
counterpart on earth is but a faint shadow of the joy we shall
experience after death--an indwelling, spirit within spirit, and
nothing external. That is how Mother Hilda teaches St. Teresa when we
read her in the novitiate."

"Sister Teresa is wonderful--her ravishments when God descended upon
her and she seemed to be borne away. But I didn't think that any one
among you experienced anything like that. It doesn't seem to me that
a counterpart is quite the same; there is something earthly."

"No, Sister, nothing earthly whatever."

"But, Veronica, you said that Sister Mary John left the convent
because she believed me to be her counterpart. I am in the world, am
I not?"

A perplexed look came into Veronica's face, and she said:

"There are counterparts and counterparts."

"And you think I am a wicked counterpart? You wouldn't like me to be
yours?"

"I didn't say that, Sister; only mine is in heaven."

"And when did he come last to you?" Evelyn asked, as she folded up
the vestments.

"Teresa, you are folding those vestments wrong. You're not thinking
of what you're doing." And the vestments turned the talk back to
Father Ambrose.

"Surely the monk isn't the counterpart you were speaking of just
now?"

"No, indeed, my counterpart is quite different from Father Ambrose;
he is young and beautiful. Father Ambrose has got a beautiful soul,
and I love him very dearly; but my counterpart is, as I have said, in
heaven, Sister."

The conversation fell, and Evelyn did not dare to ask another
question; indeed, she determined never to speak on the subject again
to Veronica. But a few days afterwards she yielded to the temptation
to speak, or Veronica--she could not tell which was to blame in this
matter, but she found herself listening to Veronica telling how she
had, for weeks before meeting with her counterpart, often felt a soft
hand placed upon her, and the touch would seem so real that she would
forget what she was doing, and look for the hand without being able
to find it.

"One night it seemed, dear, as if I could not keep on much longer,
and all the time I kept waking up. At last I awoke, feeling very cold
all over; it was an awful feeling, and I was so frightened that I
could hardly summon courage to take my habit from the peg and put it
upon my bed. But I did this, for, if what was coming were a wicked
thought, it would not be able to find me out under my habit. At last
I fell asleep, lying on my back with arms and feet folded, a position
I always find myself in when I awake, no matter in what position I
may go to sleep. Very soon I awoke, every fibre tingling, an
exquisite sensation of glow, and I was lying on my left side
(something I am never able to do), folded in the arms of my
counterpart. I cannot give you any idea of the beauty of his flesh,
and with what joy I beheld and felt it. Luminous flesh, and full of
tints so beautiful that they cannot be imagined. You would have to
see them. And he folded me so closely in his arms, telling me that it
was his coming that had caused the coldness; and then telling of his
love for me, and how he would watch over me and care for me. After
saying that, he folded me so closely that we seemed to become one
person; and then my flesh became beautiful, luminous, like his, and I
seemed to have a feeling of love and tenderness for it. I saw his
face, but it is too lovely to speak about. How could I think such a
visitation sinful? for all my thoughts were of pure love, and he did
not kiss me; but I fell asleep in his arms, and what a sleep I slept
there! When I awoke he was no longer by me."

"But why should you think it was sinful, dear?"

"Because our counterpart really is, or should be, Jesus Christ; we
are His brides, and mine was only an angel."

"But you've said, dear, that those who were drowned in the Flood come
down to those living now upon earth to prepare them--" The sentence
dropped away on Evelyn's lips; she could not continue it, for it
seemed to her disgraceful to draw out this girl into speaking of
things which were sacred to her, and which had a meaning for her that
was pure. Her love was for God, and she was trying to explain; and
the terms open to her were terms of human love, which she, Evelyn,
with a sinful imagination, misconstrued, involuntarily perhaps, but
misconstrued nevertheless.

At that moment Sister Angela came into the sacristy, and, seeing
Sister Veronica and Teresa looking at each other in silence, a look
of surprise came into her face, and she said:

"Now, you who are always complaining that the work of the sacristy is
behindhand, Veronica--"

Veronica awoke from her dream.

"I know, Sister, we ought not to waste time talking, but Teresa asked
me about my counterpart." Evelyn felt the blood rising to her face,
and she turned away so that Angela might not see it.

"And you've told her?"

"Yes. And you, Sister Angela, have got a counterpart; won't you tell
Teresa about him?"

And then, unable to repress herself at that moment, Evelyn turned to
Angela, saying:

"It began about Sister Mary John--who left the convent to my great
grief, so Veronica tells me, because she believed herself to be my
counterpart."

At this, Angela's face grew suddenly very grave, and she said:

"Of course, Teresa, she would leave the convent if she believed that;
but there was no reason for her believing it?"

"None," Evelyn answered, feeling a little frightened. "None. But what
do you mean?"

"Only this, that our counterparts are in heaven; but there are
counterparts and counterparts. One--I cannot explain now, dear, for I
was sent by the Prioress to ask you, Veronica, to go to her room; she
wants to speak to you. And I must go back to the novitiate. I
suppose," she added, "Veronica has told you that our counterparts are
a little secret among ourselves? Mother Hilda knows nothing of them.
It would not do to speak of these visitations; but I never could see
any harm, for it isn't by our own will that the counterpart comes to
us; he is sent."

Evelyn asked in what Gospel Christ's descent into hell is described,
and heard it was in that of Nicodemus; her estimation of Angela went
up in consequence. Angela was one of the few with intellectual
interests; and it was Evelyn's wish to hear about this Gospel that
led her, a few days afterwards, to walk with Angela and Veronica in
the orchard. Angela was delighted to be questioned regarding her
reading, and she told all she knew about Nicodemus. Veronica walked a
little ahead, plucking the tall grasses and enjoying the beautiful
weather. Evelyn, too, enjoyed the beautiful weather while listening
to the story of the harrowing of hell, as described by Nicodemus.
There were no clouds anywhere, and the sky, a dim blue overhead,
turned to grey as it descended. The June verdure of the park was a
wonderful spectacle, so many were the varying tints of green; only a
few unfledged poplars retained their russet tints. Outside the
garden, along the lanes, all the hedges overflowed with the great
lush of June; nettles and young ivy, buttercups, cow-parsley in
profusion, and in the hedge itself the white blossom of the hawthorn.
"The wild briar," Evelyn said to herself, "preparing its roses for
some weeks later, and in the low-lying lands, where there is a dip in
the fields, wild irises are coming into flower, and under the larches
on the banks women and children spend the long day chattering. Here
we talk of Nicodemus and spiritual loves."

Angela, an alert young woman, whose walk still retained a dancing
movement, whose face, white like white flowers and lit with laughing
eyes, set Evelyn wondering what strange turn of mind should have
induced her to enter a convent. Locks of soft golden hair escaped
from her hood, intended to grow into long tresses, but she had
allowed her hair to be cut. An ideal young mother, she seemed to
Evelyn to be; and the thought of motherhood was put into Evelyn's
mind by the story Angela was telling, for her counterpart had been
drowned in Noah's deluge when he was four years old.

"But he is a dear little fellow, and he creeps into my bed, and lies
in my arms; his hair is all curls, and he told me the story of his
drowning, how it happened five thousand years ago. He was carried
away in his cot by the flood, and had floated away, seeing the tops
of trees, until a great brown bear, weary of swimming, laid hold of
the cot and overturned it."

Veronica, who had heard Nicodemus's description of the harrowing of
hell many times, returned to them, a bunch of wild flowers in her
hand.

"Are not these Bright Eyes beautiful? They remind me of the eyes of
my baby; his eyes are as blue as these." And she looked into the
little blue flower. "Sister Teresa hasn't yet met a counterpart, but
that is only because she doesn't wish for it; one must pray and
meditate, otherwise one doesn't get one." And Evelyn learned how
Rufina had waited a long time for her counterpart. One day an
extraordinary fluttering began in her breast, and she heard the being
telling her not to forget to warn the doctor that he had grown a
little taller, and had come now to reach the end of toes and fingers.
Evelyn wanted to understand what that meant, but Angela could not
tell her, she could only repeat what Rufina had told her; and a look
of reproval came into Veronica's face when Angela said that when
Rufina was asked what her counterpart was like she said that it was
like having something inside one, and that lately he seemed to be
much in search of her mouth and tongue; and when she asked him what
he was like he replied that he was all a kiss."

"It really seems to me--" A memory of her past life checked her from
reproving the novices for their conversation; they were innocent
girls, and though their language seemed strange they were innocent at
heart, which was the principal thing, whereas she was not. And the
talk went on now about Sister Cecilia, who had been long praying for
a counterpart, but whose prayers were not granted.

"She is so stupid; how could a counterpart care about her? What could
he say?" Angela whispered to Veronica, pressing the bunch of flowers
which Veronica had given to her lips.

"Cecilia isn't pretty. But our counterparts don't seek us for our
beauty," Veronica answered, Evelyn thought a little pedantically,
"otherwise mine never would have found me." And the novices laughed.

The air was full of larks, some of them lost to view, so high were
they; others, rising from the grass, sang as they rose.

"Listen to that one, how beautifully that bird sings!" And the three
women stood listening to a heaven full of larks till the Angelus bell
called their thoughts away from the birds.

"We have been a long time away. Mother Hilda will be looking for us."
And they returned slowly to the Novice Mistress, Evelyn thinking of
Cecilia. "So it was for a counterpart she was praying all that time
in the corner of the chapel; and it was a dream of a counterpart that
caused her to forget to fill the sacred lamp."



XXX

It was the day of the month when the nuns watched by day and night
before the Sacrament. Cecilia's watch came at dawn, at half-past two,
and the last watcher knocked at her cell in the dusk, telling her she
must get up at once. But Cecilia answered:

"I cannot get up, Sister, I cannot watch before the Sacrament this
morning."

"And why, Sister? Are you ill?"

"Yes, I am very ill."

"And what has made you ill?"

"A dream, Sister."

And seeing it was Angela who had come to awaken her, Cecilia rose
from her pillow, saying, "A horrible dream, not a counterpart like
yours, Angela; oh! I can't think of it! It would be impossible for me
to take my watch."

And walking down the passage, not knowing what to make of Cecilia's
answers, Angela stopped at Barbara's cell to tell her Cecilia was ill
and could not take her watch that morning.

"And you must watch for her."

"Why... what is it?"

"I can tell you no more, Cecilia's ill."

And she hurried away to avoid further questions, wondering what
reason stupid Cecilia would give Mother Hilda for her absence from
chapel and the row there would be if she were to tell that a
counterpart had visited her! If she could only get a chance to tell
Cecilia that she must say she was ill! If she didn't--Angela's
thoughts turned to her little counterpart, from whom she might be
separated for ever. No chance of speaking happened as the procession
moved towards the refectory; and after breakfast the novices bent
their heads over their work, when Mother Hilda said:

"I hear, Cecilia, that you were so ill this morning that you couldn't
take your watch."

"It wasn't illness--not exactly."

"What, then?"

"A bad dream, Mother."

"It must have been a very bad dream to prevent you from getting up to
take your watch. I'm afraid I don't believe in dreams." The novices
breathed more freely, and their spirits rose when Mother Hilda said,
"The cake was heavy; you must have eaten too much of it. Barbara, you
must take notice of this indigestion, for you are fond of cake." The
novices laughed again, and thought themselves safe. But after
breakfast the Prioress sent for Cecilia, and they saw her leave the
novitiate angry with them all--she had caught sight of their smiles
and dreaded their mockery, and went to the Prioress wondering what
plausible contradiction she could give to Angela's story of the ugly
counterpart, so she was taken aback by the first question.

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