Consequences

"It won't be easy, Miss, today," said the maid, a disquieted eye roving over the Park railings to the dusty streets where pedestrians, indeed, thronged endlessly, but few vehicles of any sort were to be discerned.

Alex would have liked to sit down, but none of the benches were unoccupied, and, in any case, she knew that Lady Isabel would be shocked at her doing such a thing, under no better chaperonage than that of a maid.

Quite conscious of her own unreason, she yet said fretfully:

"I really can't get all the way home, unless I can sit down and rest somewhere."

She had only said it to relieve her own sense of fatigue and irritability, and was surprised when Holland replied in a tone of reasonable suggestion:

"There's the convent just close to Bryanston Square, Miss. You can always go in there it's always open."

"What convent?"

Holland named the Order of the house at Liège where Alex had been at school.

She exclaimed at the coincidence.

"I thought their London house was in the East End."

"Yes, Miss," Holland explained, becoming suddenly voluble. "But the Sisters opened a new house last year. I went to the consecration of the chapel. It was a beautiful ceremony, Miss."

"Of course, you're a Catholic, aren't you? I forgot."

"Yes, Miss," said Holland, stiffening. It was evident that the fact to which Alex referred so lightly was of supreme importance to her.

"Well, a church is better than nowhere in this heat," said Miss Clare disconsolately.

Lady Isabel had decreed nearly two years ago that church-going, at all events during the season, was incompatible with late nights, and Alex had acquiesced without much difficulty.

Religion did not interest her, and she had kept up no intercourse with the nuns at Liège since leaving school.

Holland, looking at once shocked and rather excited, pointed out the tall, narrow building, wedged into a line of similar buildings, with a high flight of steps leading to the open door.

"It's always open like that," Holland said. "Any one can go into the chapel."

The open door, indeed, gave straight on to the oak door of the chapel across a narrow entrance lobby.

Alex was instantly conscious of the sharply-defined contrast between the hot glare and incessant roar of multifarious noises outside in the brilliant streets, and the dark, cool hush that pervaded the silent convent chapel.

The sudden sensation of physical relief almost brought tears to her eyes, as she sank thankfully on to a little cushioned prieu-dieu drawn up close to the high, carved rood-screen before the chancel steps.

Holland had slid noiselessly to her knees behind one of the humble wooden benches close to the entrance.

There was absolute silence.

As her eyes grew accustomed to the soft gloom, Alex saw that the chapel was a very small one, of an odd oblong shape, with high, carved stalls on either side of it that recalled the big convent chapel at Liège to her mind. The wax candles shed a peculiarly mild glow over the High Altar, which was decked with a mass of white blossom and feathery green, but the rest of the chapel was unlit except by the warm, softened shaft of sunshine that struck through the painted oval windows behind the altar, and lay in deep splashes of colour over the white-embroidered altar-cloth and the red-carpeted altar steps.

The peace and harmony of her surroundings fell on Alex' wearied spirit with an almost poignant realization of their beauty. The impression thus made upon her, striking with utter unexpectedness, struck deep, and to the end of her life the remembrance was to remain with her, of the sudden sense which had come upon her of entering into another world, when she stepped straight from the streets of London into the convent chapel, on Diamond Jubilee Day.

It seemed to her that she had been sitting still there for some time, scarcely conscious of thought or feeling, when the remembrance gradually began to filter through her mind, as it were, of teachings, unheeded at the time, from her schooldays at Liège.

What if the solution to all her troubles lay here, before the small gilt door of the tabernacle?

Alex had never prayed in her life. The mechanical formula extorted from the Clare children by old Nurse had held no meaning for them, least of all to Alex, who was not temperamentally religious, and instinctively disliked anything which was presented to her in the light of an obligation.

Her lack of fundamental religious instruction had remained undiscovered, and consequently unrectified, throughout her schooldays, and she had unconsciously adopted since then the standard typified no less in Sir Francis' courteously blank attitude towards the faith of his fathers, than in Lady Isabel's conventional adherence to the minimum of church-going permitted by the social code.

What if comfort had been waiting for her all the time?

"Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy burdened, and I will refresh you."

Alex did not know that she was crying until she found herself wiping away the tears that were blinding her.

The loneliness that encompassed her seemed to her to be suddenly lightened, and she formulated the first vague, stammering prayer of her life.

"Help me … make me good … and let there be some one soon who will understand … some one who will understand and still love me … who will want me to care too … If only there was some one for whose sake everything really mattered, I believe I could be good… Please help me…"

She felt certain that her prayer would be heard and granted.

There was the slightest possible movement beside her, and turning sharply, she saw the tall figure of a woman wearing the habit of the Order, standing over her.

She had not known that this nun was in the chapel.

The tall, commanding presence bent and knelt down on the ground beside her, with a deep inclination of her head towards the High Altar.

"Forgive me for disturbing you, but when you are quite ready to come away, will you come and speak to me for a moment or two before you go?" She paused for a second, but Alex was too much surprised to reply.

"Don't hurry. I shall wait for you outside."

The nun rose slowly, laying her hand for an instant on Alex' shoulder, and moved soundlessly away.

Alex looked at her watch, and was surprised by the lateness of the hour.

She drew down her veil, and gathered up the long, fashionable skirt of her dress, preparatory to leaving the chapel.

In the little lobby outside she looked round curiously. On the instant, some one moved forward out of a shadowy corner.

"Come in here for a moment, won't you? I think it is Miss Clare?"

"Yes."

Alex, faintly uneasy, although she could not have explained why, looked round for her maid.

Holland came forward at once.

"Good afternoon, Mary," said the nun, addressing her calmly. "How are you?"

"Very well, thank you, Mother Gertrude. I hadn't hoped to be here again so soon, but Miss Clare was tired, and we were just going past, on the way back after the procession."

"Ah, yes, to be sure," said the nun with the air of recalling an unimportant fact – "the Jubilee procession takes place today. That must make the streets unpleasantly crowded. Won't you rest a little while in the parlour, Miss Clare? Perhaps your maid might find a cab to take you home."

"Will you try, Holland?" said Alex eagerly. She felt unable to walk any more.

This time Holland made no demur at the suggestion, and only glanced a respectful farewell at the nun, who said, with a smile that seemed somehow full of authority: "Good-bye, then, Mary, for the present. I will take care of your young lady whilst you are away. It may take a little while to find a cab on a day like this."

As the maid went out, Mother Gertrude motioned to Alex to precede her down the small, uneven steps leading out of the lobby into a better-lighted passage beyond.

"There are two steps down, that's all. These old houses are dark, and inconveniently built but we are lucky to get anything so central… Come into the parlour, we shall not be disturbed, and your maid will know where to find us when she returns."

"I had no idea that Holland came here, and – and knew you," said Alex, rather confused.

In the stiff, ugly parlour, furnished with cane-seated chairs and a round table, it was easy to see Mother Gertrude, as she seated herself opposite to Alex in the window.

She was an exceptionally tall, upright woman, a natural dignity of carriage emphasized by the sweeping black folds of veil and habit, her hands demurely hidden under the wide-falling sleeves as she sat with arms lightly crossed. Her strong, handsome face, of a uniform light reddish colour, showed one or two hard lines, noticeably round the closed, determined mouth, and her strongly-marked eyebrows almost met over straight-gazing, very light grey eyes. Even her religious habit could not conceal the lines and contour of a magnificent figure, belonging to a woman in the full maturity of life.

"Are you surprised to find that your maid comes to the convent?" she asked, smiling.

Her voice was deep and of a commanding quality that seemed to match her personality, but her smile was her least attractive feature. It was only a slow widening of her mouth, showing a set of patently porcelain teeth, and deepening the creases on either side of her face. Her eyes remained watchful and unchanged.

"Mary Holland was one of our children when she was quite a little thing, at our Poor-school at Bermondsey. She has always been a good girl, and we take a great interest in her."

"Was that why you knew who I was?" Alex inquired, remembering how the nun had addressed her by-name.

"Yes. I knew that Mary Holland had taken a place with Lady Isabel Clare, and was much interested to hear from her of her 'young lady.' Tell me, were you not at school at our Mother-house in Belgium?"

Alex, unversed in the infinitely far-reaching ramifications of inter-conventual communication, was again surprised.

"Yes, I was there for about five years, but I don't remember – " She hesitated.

"Oh, no, I was never there. I have been Superior in London for more than ten years, but I have heard your name several times, though not since you left school. We like to keep in touch with our children, but you have probably been busy going about with your mother?"

"I didn't even know there was a house of the Order here," Alex admitted.

"It has not been established very long. Our chapel was only consecrated a few months ago. It is very tiny, but perhaps some day you will pay another visit here."

Mother Gertrude was not looking at Alex as she spoke, but down at her own long rosary beads; and the fact somehow made it easier for Alex to reply without embarrassment.

"Yes, I should like to come if I may – and if I can. It felt so – so peaceful."

"Yes," returned the nun, without any show of surprise or indeed, any emotion at all, in her carefully colourless voice. "Yes, it is very peaceful here – a great contrast to the hurry and unrest of the world. And for any one who is tired, or troubled, or perhaps unhappy, and conscious of wrong-doing, there is always comfort to be found here. No one asks any questions, and if, perhaps, a poor soul is too much worn-out with conflict for prayer, why, even that is not necessary."

Alex gazed at her, surprised.

"Do you think that God wants things put into words?" said the nun with her slow smile.

Alex did not know what to reply. She looked silently at the Superior, and felt that those light, penetrating, grey eyes had probed to the depths of her confusion and beyond it, to the scenes of loneliness and bewilderment that had made her weep in the chapel.

"Do a lot of people come here?" she asked involuntarily, from the sense that a wide experience of humanity must have gone to the making of those keen perceptions.

"Yes. Many of them I know, and see here, and anything that passes in this little room is held in sacred confidence. But very often, of course, there are visitors to the chapel of whom we know nothing – just passers-by."

"That was what I was."

The nun looked at her for a moment. "And yet," she said slowly, "something made me want to come and speak to you, even before I caught sight of your maid, and guessed you must be Miss Clare. It is curious that you should have turned out to be one of our children."

Alex thought so too, but the term with its sense of shelter touched her strangely. She was shaken both by physical fatigue and her recent violent crying, and moreover, the forceful, magnetic personality of the Superior was already making its sure impression upon her young, unbalanced susceptibilities.

"May I see you again, next time I come?" she asked rather tremulously.

Mother Gertrude stood up.

"Whenever you like," she said emphatically, her direct gaze adding weight to the deliberately-spoken words. "Come whenever you like. You have been brought here by what looks like a strange chance. Don't neglect the way now that you know it."

She held Alex' hand in hers for a moment, and then took her back to the little lobby.

"Mary has actually got a four-wheeled cab! That is very clever of her. I hope they will not have been anxious about you at home. You must tell them that you were with friends, quite safe."

She laid a slight emphasis on the words, smiling a little.

"Good-bye," said Alex; "thank you very much."

"Good-bye," repeated the Nun. "And God bless you, my child."