The Retrospect

At Malling Abbey it was still more forcibly borne in upon me how I had grown away from the attitudes of my youth.

The glorious old place – the eleventh-century tower has for its base the foundations of a Saxon church, that is nothing for England – now belongs to, or is occupied by, a community of nuns and their priest-chaplain; English Benedictines is the correct label for them, I believe. The only members of the household not too sacred for the common use of visitors were the lay-women, and even they could not take us across the line separating the earth and floors allowed to unconsecrated feet from the precincts trodden by the Mother Superior and her nuns. The rooms they occupied we could not see – not for love or money (and we dropped no mean donation into the box displayed in the neutral vestibule); nor their chapel, although the priest's chapel was shown to us. A late Mother Superior had been more indulgent to the respectful curiosity of the wayfarer, but the present Mother was "very strict," we were told. So we did not so much as catch a glimpse of sacerdotal raiment, except that of the priest taking the place of the absent chaplain – austere in his caped cassock and biretta – and the Sister who had once been the sweet-maker, and who dropped in to see her successor, who was her own sister, while we were with the latter – a pleasant girl, with whom C. had an acquaintance, and who was a charming hostess to us.

She worked very hard – for love, plus board and lodging – at the making of the sweets (in Australian parlance, lollies) which were an important source of revenue to the community. She made them in large quantities and of high quality, and they had a steady sale amongst those who knew of them, the high church aristocracy being the "connection" chiefly. C. and I, both interested in fine cookery, had a great time in her workroom, filled and lined with the materials, appliances and finished products of her vicarious trade. She showed us everything without any professional reserve or personal pride, explaining over and over again that she had not the genius of the sister she had superseded. The sister had been the famous sweet-maker; her humble self had taken, but could not fill, that expert's place. But the expert had put on the habit of the Order, and "When you have to go to church seven times a day, you have no time for sweet-making," said our lay friend, unconscious of the meanings borne by her words to a life-taught, world-taught listener. When the sweet-maker who had entered the Sisterhood, which, so far as I could learn, had no definite occupation except to pray and meditate, lingered for a minute at her old cooking-table, looking on at the really arduous labours of her successor, there was no evidence in her demeanour of any doubt as to which of the two stood on the higher plane.

Well, I was even as these dear, dense women when I was young. I wanted (at about the age of seventeen) to go into a sisterhood and say prayers all day instead of living my life. And I was so morally undeveloped, so intellectually juvenile, as to believe that I would thereby be performing a noble, if not even the noblest, deed. Supposing I had not been shaken out of my groove – the old hereditary groove, so deeply worn that one does not see over the edges unless one is pushed up – where should I have been now? I asked myself the question at Malling Abbey, standing between the Mary in the black gown and white wimple and the Martha making fondu with all her might, and the answers of a startled imagination sent cold chills adown my spine.

Our unemancipated, unappreciated Martha was quite delightful to us. The proud Marys would not let us near them, but she did all she could to serve and oblige us – she and the dear old housekeeper of the chaplain, who, in her reverend lord's absence and out of the human kindness of her heart, stretched a point to please a stranger from so far, and allowed me to peep into the home he had made in the ancient gatehouse; an austerely and appropriately appointed one as ever I saw, but suggesting, oh, what a life for a man with his manhood in him! The sweet-maker not only gave us sweets and the secrets of their manufacture, she took chairs for us into the abbey grounds, that we might take our picnic luncheon in comfort; not, of course, in the garden, for the nuns walked there, but beside a pond with willow-trees – a typical bit of convent ground which I seemed to have visited in a previous existence. As we ate our sandwiches, and viewed through sylvan veils the grey jumble of the ancient buildings and the new but not discordant Guest House incorporated with them, the Twentieth Century and its works seemed very far away.

I think it was the chaplain's housekeeper who showed us the Pilgrims' Bath – a place of weird suggestions. It is a stone outhouse hidden in trees, and containing a sunk stone tank, with stone steps going down into it. Here, in the bygone ages, the pilgrims washed themselves, or were washed, before entering the sacred precincts. The cistern was empty now, and there was no apparatus for taking water out of it. In those pre-hygienic days … However, it was interesting to know that washing was done at all.

The Guest House looked the abode of peace. It takes in lady boarders, for the pecuniary benefit of the community – which, if it does not work for its living, must still be supported somehow – and how I would have loved to be one, if I had stayed in my groove! Even as it was, the sweet seclusion and simplicity and refinement of the life fascinated me intensely. But the Guest House is presided over by a "Guest Mistress," and liberty is the basis of peace, as of all forms of happiness – to me. She may be a darling, but I could not stand her now. The guests will all have to be women of the Church and not of the world, souls in steady grooves of tradition from which they have never been shaken out. To them, if they are tired, it should be an ideal place of rest. One thing I wish I had asked the sweet-maker: Are they allowed to worship in the nuns' chapel? Surely not, if we were not permitted even to look at it. In the priest's chapel, then? That seems too small, and I think I saw no seat for a congregation of more than two – his housekeeper and under maid. Perhaps the paying guests are sent to the parish church. But suppose the rector of Malling (I know nothing of him) should be an Evangelical? One thing is certain. They will have to go to church somewhere, and to go often.

For nearly a thousand years the tower of this old abbey has stood where it now stands, and who knows for how many years the Saxon church which laid its foundations stood there before it? As I looked up at its lofty broken crown, and down and around upon the structures beneath it, I thought how many things beside stone walls outlive their time and use and meaning.

On 1st November – a "beautiful day" – we went to Sutton Vallance. November was the month of departure, and this, the last of my country excursions, was peculiarly interesting and memorable. For at Sutton Vallance my beloved godmother, the eldest aunt, had lived for some years, and in the graveyard of the parish church she lies – carried there by her last wish when she died in London. In girlhood I had wanted to visit her at this place, and had not been able; after her death I made a promise to myself that I would keep tryst with her dear ghost at the Kentish graveside some day, if ever I got the chance.

It was not for that, however, that the expedition to Sutton Vallance was planned. The claims of life came foremost, and it was life, not death, that called us thither, a set of circumstances to which I gladly yielded precedence over any affair of mine.

To C. and her sister came, the day before, two friends from the West Indies, a pleasant man and wife. They represented old families of their island, and his had the custom of colonial gentlefolk, the world over, of sending their sons home to be educated. He was himself an "old boy" of Sutton Vallance Grammar School, as I think he said his father had been, and as he intended his own sons to be in due course. He was delightedly revisiting England after years of absence – from fifteen to twenty, perhaps – and to him the heart of England was this village above the Weald and the old buildings that crowned it. We went to Sutton Vallance that he might report himself to his old Headmaster, still in harness, and show his wife the studies and dormitories, prayer-room and playing grounds, where he had lived his schoolboy life, and where her children would live theirs in the days to come. We had the landau from Maidstone again, and set forth a party of five; if we had been a party of a hundred instead, I do not think another member of it could have entered into his feelings as I did. In the sympathy engendered by the similarity of our circumstances, I enjoyed the afternoon, I am sure, as much as he did – the neglected grave notwithstanding.

We passed it – the churchyard where I knew it was – while he was eagerly identifying each little feature of the road as the scene of some schoolboy prank or other; he spoke of the path beside which my dear one lay, to describe the order in which the school was marched to church – "through that gate … in at that door" – and I did not bring upon the living brightness of his hour a suggestion of the shadows that would fall all too soon in any case.

The 1st of November was a Sunday. His time in England, like mine, was short, and this was the only day available for the momentous visit. It had to be now, or perhaps never. So, when we reached the school, temporary disappointments were encountered. The Headmaster was out. So was the only under master left of the old staff. The strange matron and some elder boys, deeply interested in a guest with such credentials, did what they could to repair the loss, and he played host to his wife and us. It was delightful to observe and to listen to him as he rummaged over the place; to hear him and the matron instructing each other in the differences between Then and Now; to see him with his old boy's hand on the young boys' shoulders – "you fellows" – telling them what Sybarites they were with their hot water laid on, and inquiring of them how the sporting credit of the old shop stood in comparison with that of rival schools. I am afraid it was found that the old shop had fallen from grace in some particulars; the mother of the boys who were to go there in a few years was certainly critical, and I had seen schools as big that were better ordered in my own country overseas; but it was full of interest, plus precious associations, for me as for him, and that was distinctly a "happy day" – happy for me, the neglected grave notwithstanding; while as for him, I prophesy that in his old age he will look back upon it as one of the happiest of his life.

It would hardly have been that without a sight of his old Headmaster. And when we had quite "done" the school, and were down on the street where our carriage waited, an inward reluctance to make an end just there was felt by all, and resulted in suggestions calculated to give the Headmaster another chance. The hour was late, we were far from home, and —we had had no tea. F. proposed that we should forage in the village for our evening meal. I demurred on behalf of C. and the secret weaknesses. C. said the night air would do her no harm inside the carriage, and that she would wind a scarf over her mouth. Then F. named a local house of entertainment. "No, no," said our Old Boy, "you must come with me to the old tuck shop" – which in the palmy days, it seemed, had been good for every comforting kind of meal. This we did. The old tuck shop was found to be in its old place, unchanged; even the old proprietor (who looked ninety) and his old wife (who still looked young) were there; they and the Old Boy all but fell into each other's arms. We were shown into an inner parlour, a table was swiftly spread and piled with good things, including a sufficient teapot; and we four ladies rested and refreshed ourselves in great content. The Old Boy dodged in and out, snatching a cake or a slice of bread-and-butter, returning to talk with his old friends, reappearing for a gulp of tea and to gaze ardently out of the unblinded window adown the darkening street. Anon we saw him through that same window sprinting as for his life after a vanishing bicycle. When he came back, in about half-an-hour, it was to express his satisfaction at having caught, made himself known to, and had a nice chat with, the remaining under master. So night closed around us, and the great hope of the day was given up.

Suddenly, as we were all sitting together, about to summon our coachman, who had also had his tea, there was a stir outside, the door of our parlour was impetuously flung open, and a tall old man strode in, at sight of whom the Old Boy sprang to his feet with an inarticulate grunt of joy.

I felt that it was a meeting we should not have witnessed, but it was good to witness it. The swift interchange of words told what their relations in the past had been, but the tones of voice, the glow of eyes, the grip of hands, still more. I could not easily forget the face of the younger man when he said he had sons for the old school, nor the face of the elder taking that tribute of filial loyalty. In the gap of years lay the grave of the Headmaster's wife, and he was not destined to train up another generation; the Old Boy was a strong and useful man of the world, come into his inheritance of all that a boy of the right sort grows up for. He introduced his wife. The stress of repressed emotion was relieved. Would we not all come back and dine with him, the Headmaster asked. He begged us to do so, but we could not. Then would we all come back and dine with him to-morrow? Again we could not. The Old Boy's business of life compelled his return to London next morning. So the great occasion passed. The Headmaster gripped hands again, and returned to the school which would be ever the dearer to him for these few minutes out of it; and the Old Boy stood amongst us visibly transfigured, like Moses just down from the Mount.

"Now," said he intensely, "do you wonder at my wanting to come back to my old school?"

Subdued and thoughtful and silent, we drove home. Moonlight and fog wove the veil of evening through which glimmered the headstones of the churchyard as we went by. There was not time now to stop the carriage and pay my own tribute to the past and dear. Already C. was too late, and there was not light to distinguish one grave from another. Well, it did not matter whether I stood over my beloved one's coffined dust or looked from a few yards' distance at the dim grass covering it. That which haunted the spot was just as close to me.

There were three more days – "another lovely day," when my husband came to fetch me; and yet "another lovely day, slightly foggy," when we took him to Maidstone to show him the sights that I had seen; and one that was "still lovely, after the usual foggy dawn," which was November the 4th, and our last in Kent.

But these were days when C.'s thoughts and mine were not concentrated upon the pleasures and businesses in hand – when the blue plumbago in my bedroom was not needed for any purpose but to look lovely against the wall. November was the month of departure. In another fortnight I was to be upon the sea. Towards the sea and the south my face was set, and she knew what it was I looked for. All the charms of Kent in the golden weather could not now deflect my gaze. England is Home indeed to the English-born. The dear world in every part is Home to the spirit that loves life and freedom, and discerns no frontiers between nation and nation, nor barriers between man and man. But there is one wee spot, one house amongst the countless millions of human dwellings – no matter in what hole or corner you have tucked it – that is the only place on earth, or in the universe for that matter, where your heart, if it be a mother's heart, can rest.