And the mist descended a little lower, and Marguerite could only see the Madonna’s feet.
This concentrated her attention upon the door. Somehow she must get inside it. She went up the worn stone steps and hammered upon it with her small fists. But she did not make much noise and nothing happened. Then she looked up again and the mist had hidden even the feet of the Madonna, and for the second and last time that day fear gripped her. Perhaps the nuns never went near the inside of the door. They would not hear her knocking. Was she going to be here all night? If she was, she would perhaps die of the cold. Papa, perhaps, would get a boat from the village and row about and try to find her, but he would get lost in the mist; or perhaps he would find her bonnet floating on the sea and think she had been drowned and go home again. She stood with her body stretched against the door and hammered and hammered, and her throat was constricted with her fear and her heart pounded so much that she could scarcely hear the sound of her own hammering.
There was the beating of powerful wings overhead and some great creature came sweeping down out of the mist, and she shrank against the door in even greater fear. But it was a gull. His wingtips touched her in passing, and the wind of his flight lifted her hair. It was a seagull and she was not afraid any more. She could hear him crying somewhere far down in the mist. She was protected, and it was all going to be quite all right. Her common sense returned. No good standing up and making herself more tired than she was already pounding away with her fists on the door; they did not make enough noise. She looked about her and a saw a stone lying on the grass. She fetched it, sat down on top of the steps, made herself as comfortable as she could, and began to knock rhythmically and patiently at the door with the hard stone.
2
Mère Madeleine sat before the statue of the Holy Child in the convent chapel, alternately praying for the children of the world, as was her duty at this hour, and complaining volubly of her rheumatism. She both prayed and complained in a loud monotone, for she was deaf and had no idea what a row she was making. She was not more than seventy, but old for her age because the life of a religious is not an easy one for a delicately nurtured woman, and her wretched complaint had settled worst of all in her knees. She prayed sitting, by Reverend Mother’s permission, her old black ebony stick beside her, for from November to April really she could not kneel at all, and she rubbed her knobbly old hands up and down over her knees and swayed her body backward and forward, and prayed and complained, and wished Le Bon Dieu would take her away to Paradise before she had to face another winter in this ice-cold convent upon this wind-swept clifftop at the world’s end. She had been born in the south of France and loved warmth like a cat, but had not had it since she had taken the holy habit of religion. It was for the warmth of Paradise that she most chiefly longed; the warmth, and not having rheumatism or being deaf and shortsighted.
Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines; whose beams the Blessèd only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!
What in the world was she saying? Not what she ought to be saying. She was repeating the verse of some old Elizabethan poet whom she had read in the days when she had been a cultured young woman of the world who had prided herself upon her cosmopolitan reading. Yes, she had been young once, young and beautiful—and warm. And now—
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
Never tirèd pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more—
Mother of God, what was the matter with her nowadays? After almost a lifetime spent in prayer and contemplation she had believed that at least she had her thoughts well disciplined, but as one got older, one’s hard-won control slipped a little and one felt sometimes as though spiritually one were back again in one’s youth, with all the battles to fight again. Mother of God, surely it was not so. Surely the strength of the spirit, bought at such cost, was retained though the mind and body weakened. It taught one humility, this weakness of old age, and without humility one was a lost soul. It made one again that little child who alone can enter the kingdom of heaven. No doubt Reverend Mother had known what she was doing when she commanded the oldest of her nuns to pray at this hour for the children of the world. No doubt one prayed more effectively for the weak if one were weak one’s self.
Mère Madeleine recollected and strengthened herself with all the will and courage that she had. As a punishment for wandering thoughts she dragged herself off her chair and knelt down, groaning with the pain, to pray for all children in danger, her puckered, colorless face framed in its white wimple lifted to the rosy smooth one of the Holy Child within his niche in the massive old grey pillar. “Mother of God, who heldest thy child safely in thine arms, hold safely all children in danger. Mon Dieu, I wish it were not in my knees. I should prefer it in the shoulders, which are not used in prayer. Holy Jesu, who wept childish tears, comfort all children who fear or weep. The rubbing did no good. I shall try the liniment. Holy Mother, Marie Watch-All, hold out thine arms and gather all children to the knowledge of thy love. I wish I were not deaf. I liked to hear the birds. Little Jesu, save all children. Holy Mother, bless all children. Holy angels, guard all children. . . . Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore. . . .”
At last her lips were still, her hands quiet, her face an old cameo carved from ivory. Anyone entering the chapel would have seen her only as a motionless shadow before the statue of the Holy Child, a rosy-cheeked urchin in a blue robe, his arms full of roses, candles burning at his feet, and a golden halo behind his curly head.
Mère Madeleine lost all count of time. She did not need to think of it, for at the time appointed another nun would come to take up her link in the chain of prayer that did not cease in the chapel day or night. She did not know how long she had been praying when the knocking disturbed her soul and brought her with folded wings to earth.
The chapel was very old, its windows mere slits in the huge thickness of the walls. The statue of the Holy Child was right under the tower, close to the locked west door, or deaf old Mère Madeleine would not have heard the knocking. As it was she heard it so faintly that she thought it was a knocking within her, the Holy Child knocking at her heart. “I hear you,” she said to the rosy-cheeked urchin. “The door is unlocked. I unlocked it half a century ago. You know that. What are you knocking for?”
But the knocking continued, and she turned her head sideways in vague bewilderment, as a bird does when it listens for some sound beneath the ground. Then she groped for her stick, got up, mumbling to herself, and shuffled over to the locked west door, where she put her head against the wood and listened. Yes, there it was, a rhythmic pounding; though to her deaf ears it sounded no louder than the light tapping of a bird’s beak upon the bark of a tree. Yet her muddled old mind grasped the fact that to the Holy Child, or whoever it was out there, this door must be opened. She put her gnarled hands around the key and tried to turn it, but it was beyond her strength. She rubbed her nose with her forefinger and considered what she should do.
In a moment it occurred to her that this was the afternoon when Sœur Angélique scrubbed out the sacristy. Sœur Angélique was a lay sister, a peasant woman whose brawny arms were always at the service of the more spiritually minded nuns whose strivings in the heavenly sphere led to a certain lack of muscle in the physical.
“Comment?” she asked, looking up from the stone floor she was scrubbing at the frail figure of old Mère Madeleine leaning on her stick. “The Holy Child knocking at the west door? Holy Mother!”
She arose upon her large, flat feet, pushing the soapsuds off her fingers into the bucket, and her little black eyes blinked with consternation in her foolish, good-humored round red face. For some while now they had thought in the convent that old Mère Madeleine’s wits were beginning to fail he
r. Well, now they had failed, and with a suddenness that alarmed Sœur Angélique. But she thought it would be best to humor the old lady and go along with her to the west door, and she began to unfasten the large black safety pins that pinned the skirt and sleeves of her habit up over her flannel petticoat and back from her arms for the scrubbing. She took a long time over this, as over everything she did, her capacious mouth slowly filling with safety pins as she labored. She was a huge, ponderous woman, immensely stupid and immensely kind. She had come to the convent after her husband and two young sons had been drowned at sea, and had learned at Reverend Mother’s knee, word by word like a child, with great labor, the words of the prayers in which she prayed now for the repose of their souls in Paradise. For the rest she prayed with her scrubbing brush and broom, her dishcloth and polishing rags, and with her huge strength that carried the coals and shoveled away the snow and lifted the sick and dying as though they were of no more weight than a gossamer cobweb. . . . But she was slow.
“Hurry, dear Sœur Angélique!” implored Mère Madeleine.
Sœur Angélique took the safety pins one by one from her mouth and put them in her pocket. Then she shook out the skirts of her habit and waddled majestically, with earth-shaking tread, from the sacristy to the chapel, Mère Madeleine shuffling after on her stick. Their progress was held up for some while by Sœur Angélique’s genuflection before the altar, which resembled the descent to earth and the getting up again of an elephant, and took as long, but finally they got going once more and reached the locked west door, where Sœur Angélique found to her awe and astonishment that Mère Madeleine was justified in her assertion that the Christ Child knocked.
“Mother of God! Mother of God!” she muttered in awe and fear, as her great hands closed over the key and the iron grated in the lock. It took the whole of her immense strength to get the door open, but at last it swung inward, bringing trails of bramble and ivy with it, and there, bright against the background of grey mist that was as mysterious as the background of a dream, was a golden-haired child in a blue robe.
The two old nuns gazed and ejaculated, crossed themselves and ejaculated again, and the mist streamed in to mingle with the heavy wreaths of the incense, and the smell of the sea with the scent of the lilies, and Mère Madeleine, all bemused, crying aloud endearments that she thought were whispered, dropped her stick and held out her arms and Marguerite stepped over the threshold and went with alacrity into them; while Sœur Angélique, chuckling with the ecstatic pride and wonder of a hen who has just laid a silver egg with gold spots on it, shut the door to keep the wonder in, slumped heavily to her knees and praised God with a loud voice.
It was at this moment that Reverend Mother entered upon the scene. She did not usually come to the chapel at this time; it was her hour for dealing with correspondence; but she had had a letter which troubled her, and she had come to lay the problem it contained before her God. However, the problem of the racket going on at the west end of the chapel seemed to her at the moment the more urgent of the two, and she turned that way instead of toward the altar.
“What is this, Mère Madeleine?” she asked, raising her voice that she might be heard above the torrents of endearments and thanksgivings. “Sœur Angélique, need your prayers be quite so loud? And who is this dirty, wet little creature?”
The chill serenity of Reverend Mother’s voice, as well as the solidity and dampness of the heavenly vision in her arms, brought Mère Madeleine back to earth. Her dim old eyes peered more closely at the child. It was a real child, a little girl! But what a sweet, round, smiling face, what long eyelashes! What a dimple! It was years since Mère Madeleine had set eyes on a child, though she had prayed for them so unceasingly. She croaked with laughter, hugged Marguerite closer than before, and kissed her, and Marguerite, always a responsive child, gave back the kisses with good measure, and her merry answering laugh echoed in the chapel. . . . She was so happy to be safe inside the door at last, safe from that wet chill mist and that hungry sea.
“Mère Madeleine!” reproved Reverend Mother. “Sœur Angélique, get up at once. My child, come here to me and explain your presence here.”
They all obeyed that voice that was like an incisive, clean-cutting diamond. Marguerite went to Reverend Mother and stood looking fearlessly up into her face, her hands behind her back.
“I was cut off by the tide in La Baie des Petits Fleurs,” she said in her clear voice, “and I did not want to be drowned, and so I climbed up the steps in the cliff and knocked at the door, and they let me in.”
“You climbed up the cliff!” ejaculated Reverend Mother. “I did not know such a thing was possible.”
“It was difficult,” conceded Marguerite, “but God helped me.”
Reverend Mother’s face softened and she looked down intently into the childish face raised to hers. Very few people could meet Reverend Mother’s eyes, but Marguerite could. She had never seen anyone quite like Reverend Mother, and she was interested. She had seen lots of old ladies with wrinkled parchment faces like Mère Madeleine’s, and many round red peasant faces such as Sœur Angélique’s, but never a face like this one. Reverend Mother had a clear olive skin, without color yet almost luminous in its purity, with a beautiful penciling of fine clear lines about her grey eyes with their brilliant, keen glance like the thrust of steel. Her eyebrows were dark and delicate, with one deep line of concentration strongly marked between them. But there were no lines of anxiety on her broad, low forehead, and no laughter lines about her resolute, tight-lipped mouth.
So they stood, the nun and the child, each in characteristic attitude, fearlessly, the one with linked hands before her, the other with her hands clasped behind her back, and they did not know why it was that their eyes so held each other and so questioned.
Then Reverend Mother moved, holding out her hand and smiling with frigid kindness. “Come with me, my child,” she said. “You must get dry and have a hot drink. Sœur Angélique, your work in the sacristy waits for you. Mère Madeleine, I think it possible that this is the first time for a century that the chain of prayer has been broken in this place.”
Bound by holy obedience, Mère Madeleine turned away without a word, but the hunger in her face as she turned caused Reverend Mother to change her mind. “On second thought, Mère Madeleine, I need your help with the child,” she said. “The situation in which we find ourselves is quite unprecedented. Sœur Angélique, leave your work in the sacristy and pray here instead of Mère Madeleine. Do not look so scared, my daughter. It will not be for long, and your bereaved soul should know beyond all other souls how to pray for children in danger. Kneel then before the Holy Child and add to your prayers for other children a thanksgiving for the safety of this one.”
Sœur Angélique wrung her great hands and rolled her little black eyes in distress. The lay sisters were not as a rule called upon to pray alone in the chapel. She had no words. None had been taught her to meet this situation, and Reverend Mother, with Marguerite’s hand in hers and Mère Madeleine hobbling after, had already left the chapel. But holy obedience was holy obedience, and wiping the perspiration of her distress off her forehead with the back of her hand, she descended to earth like a landslide before the Holy Child and knelt there swaying herself and sighing volubly. So she was found by Mère Agnes fifteen minutes later, swaying and sighing, and weeping because all that while—a good hour, so she thought—no words had come to her; nothing but that dreadful memory of two little boys drowning in a stormy sea. “Mother of God, but I am a fool!” she ejaculated in exasperation as she went back to her work in the sacristy. But she found, as she bent to her scrubbing, that she had left the pain of that terrible memory behind her in the chapel. Perhaps the Holy Mother had taken it from her and would use it instead of a prayer. The Holy Mother had been a good housewife in her day, and doubtless knew how to make use of all the bits and pieces that came to hand.
3
Margu
erite sat in her petticoat on a little stool before the fire of vraic in Reverend Mother’s study, drinking hot milk. Her wet blue dress had been taken to the kitchen to be dried by Sœur Cécile who did the laundry. Behind her sat Mère Madeleine combing the tangles out of her wet hair and murmuring sweet old-fashioned endearments that she had not had the chance of using for a lifetime. Slightly muddled though her brain might be, she had not forgotten the little love words of her youth. Her husky old voice never stopped at all, and the pretty words seemed to Reverend Mother to fill her bare study like a flock of butterflies. She herself sat very upright in a hard straight-backed chair of old oak, her hands folded in her lap, and gently questioned Marguerite as to her afternoon’s adventures. Marguerite, stretching her bare feet toward the comfortable warmth of the fire and wriggling her toes with pleasure, gave clear, straightforward answers to clear, straightforward questions, and Reverend Mother was soon in possession of all the relevant facts.
“Mère Madeleine, those tangles are quite straightened now,” she said. “Find a lay sister and send her to the village with the news of the child’s safety. Say that we will keep her here until she is fetched by her parents. Then leave me to talk with the child for a while. You shall see her again before she leaves us.”
Reluctantly Mère Madeleine laid aside her comb and hobbled from the room. Reverend Mother and Marguerite were alone together, the nun observing the child and the child observing this strange room where she sat. The stone walls were whitewashed, the scrubbed stone floor bare except for a strip of scarlet matting on the hearth and another before the big writing table. Through the two narrow windows in the thickness of the wall there was nothing to be seen but the mist-shrouded Atlantic. Besides the desk the room contained only a couple of beautiful old oak chairs, the stool, a bookshelf full of books, a little statue of the Virgin in a niche in the wall, and a prie-dieu with a crucifix of ebony and ivory hung above it. The beautiful orange glow from the burning seaweed lit up the white walls and the white ivory figure on the black cross. It even gave a glow of warmth to Reverend Mother’s white wimple and clear, pale skin. In spite of its austerity the room was not cold. It was very beautiful in its simplicity, and Marguerite within the flushed white walls felt as though she were inside a mother-of-pearl shell. She stored up every detail of it in her memory.