Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

A Quick Conversion

“When is this horror to have an end? Only with my life? Am I, indeed, to pass the remainder of my days within this dismal cell? Days so happy, till that the happiest of all – its ill-starred night! And my love so strong, so confident – its reward seeming so nigh – all to be for nought – sweet dreams and bright hopes suddenly, cruelly extinguished! Nothing but darkness now; within my heart, in this gloomy place, everywhere around me! Oh, it is agony! When will it be over?”

It is the English girl who thus bemoans her fate – still confined in the convent, and the same cloister. Herself changed, however. Though but a few weeks have passed, the roses of her cheeks have become lilies, her lips wan, her features of sharper outline, the eyes retired in their sockets, with a look of woe unspeakable. Her form, too, has fallen away from the full ripe rounding that characterised it, though the wreck is concealed by a loose drapery of ample folds. For Soeur Marie now wears the garb of the Holy Sisterhood – hating it, as her words show.

She is seated on the pallet’s edge while giving utterance to her sombre soliloquy; and without change of attitude continues it: —

“Imprisoned I am – that certain! And for no crime. It may be without hostility on the part of those who have done it. Perhaps, better it were so? Then there might be hope of my captivity coming to an end. As it is, there is none – none! I comprehend all now – the reason for bringing me here – keeping me – everything. And that reason remains – must, as long as I am alive! Merciful heaven!”

The exclamatory phrase is almost a shriek; despair sweeping through her soul, as she thinks of why she is there shut up. For hingeing upon that is the hopelessness, almost a dead, drear certainty, she will never have deliverance!

Stunned by the terrible reflection, she pauses – even thought for the time stayed. But the throe passing, she again pursues her soliloquy, now in more conjectural strain: —

“Strange that no friend has come after me? No one caring for my fate – even to inquire! And he– no, that is not strange – only sadder, harder to think of. How could I expect, or hope, he would?

“But surely it is not so? I may be wronging them all – friends – relatives – even him? They may not know where I am? Cannot! How could they? I know not myself! Only that it is France, and in a nunnery. But what part of France, and how I came to it, likely they are ignorant as I.

“And they may never know! Never find out! If not, oh! what is to become of me? Father in Heaven! Merciful Saviour! help me in my helplessness!”

After this frenzied outburst a calmer interval succeeds; in which human instincts as thoughts direct her. She thinks: —

“If I could but find means to communicate with my friends – make known to them where I am, and how, then – Ah! ’tis hopeless. No one allowed near me but the attendant and that Sister Ursule. For compassion from either, I might just as well make appeal to the stones of the floor! The Sister seems to take delight in torturing me – every day doing or saying some disagreeable thing. I suppose, to humble, break, bring me to her purpose – that the taking of the veil. A nun! Never! It is not in my nature, and I would rather die than dissemble it!”

“Dissemble!” she repeats in a different accent. “That word helps me to a thought. Why should I not dissemble? I will.”

Thus emphatically pronouncing, she springs to her feet, the expression of her features changing suddenly as her attitude. Then paces the floor to and fro, with hands clasped across her forehead, the white attenuated fingers writhingly entwined in her hair.

“They want me to take the veil – the black one! So shall I; the blackest in all the convent’s wardrobe if they wish it – aye, crape if they insist on it? Yes, I am resigned now – to that – anything. They can prepare the robes, vestments, all the adornments of their detested mummery; I am prepared, willing, to put them on. It’s the only way – my only hope of regaining liberty. I see – am sure of it!”

She pauses, as if still but half resolved, then goes on —

“I am compelled to this deception! Is it a sin? If so, God forgive me! But no – it cannot be! ’Tis justified by my wrongs – my sufferings!”

Another and longer pause, during which she seems profoundly to reflect. After it – saying:

“I shall do so – pretend compliance. And begin this day – this very hour, if the opportunity arise. What should be my first pretence? I must think of it; practice, rehearse it. Let me see. Ah! I have it. The world has forsaken, forgotten me. Why then should I cling to it! Instead, why not in angry spite fling it off – as it has me. That’s the way!”

A creaking at the cloister door tells of its key turning in the lock. Slight as is the sound, it acts on her as an electric shock, suddenly and altogether changing the cast of her countenance. The instant before half angry, half sad, it is now a picture of pious resignation! Her attitude different also. From striding tragically over the floor she has taken a seat, with a book in her hand, which she seems industriously perusing. It is that “Aid to Faith” recommended, but hitherto unread.

She is to all appearance so absorbed in its pages as not to notice the opening of the door, nor the footsteps of one entering. How natural her start, as she hears a voice, and looking up beholds Soeur Ursule!

“Ah!” ejaculates the latter, with an exultant air, as of a spider that sees a fly upon the edge of its web, “Glad, Marie, to find you so employed! It promises well, both for the peace of your mind and the good of your soul. You’ve been foolishly lamenting the world left behind: wickedly too. What is to compare with that to come? As dross-dirt, to gold or diamonds! The book you hold in your hand will tell you so. Doesn’t it?”

“It does, indeed.”

“Then profit by its instructions; and be sorry you have not sooner taken counsel from it.”

“I am sorry, sister Ursule.”

“It would have comforted you – will now.”

“It has already. Ah! so much! I would not have believed any book could give me the view of life it has done. I begin to understand what you’ve been telling me – to see the vanities of this earthly existence, how poor and empty they are in comparison with the bright joys of that other life. Oh! why did I not know it before?”

At this moment a singular tableau is exhibited within that Convent cell – two female figures, one seated, the other standing – novice and nun; the former fair and young, the latter ugly as old. And still in greater contrast, the expression upon their faces. That of the girl’s downcast, demure, lids over the eyes less as if in innocence than repentant of some sin, while the glances of the woman show pleased surprise, struggling against incredulity!

Her suspicion still in the ascendant, Soeur Ursule stands regarding the disciple, so suddenly converted, with a look which seems to penetrate her very soul. It is borne without sign of quailing, and she at length comes to believe the penitence sincere, and that her proselytising powers have not been exerted in vain. Nor is it strange she should so deceive herself. It is far from being the first novice contre coeur she has broken upon the wheel of despair and made content to taking a vow of life-long seclusion from the world.

Convinced she has subdued the proud spirit of the English girl, and gloating over a conquest she knows will bring substantial reward to herself, she exclaims prayerfully, in mock pious tone:

“Blessed be Holy Mary for this new mercy! On your knees ma fille, and pray to her to complete the work she has begun!”

And upon her knees drops the novice, while the nun as if deeming herself de trop in the presence of prayer, slips out of the cloister, silently shutting the door.

Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Two

A Sudden Relapse

For some time after the exit of Soeur Ursule, the English girl retains her seat, with the same demure look she had worn in the presence of the nun; while before her face the book is again open, as though she had returned to reading it. One seeing this might suppose her intensely interested in its contents. But she is not even thinking of them! Instead, of a sharp skinny ear, and a steel grey eye – one or other of which she suspects to be covering the keyhole.

Her own ear is on the alert to catch sounds outside – the shuffling of feet, the rattle of rosary beads, or the swishing of a dress against the door.

She hears none; and at length satisfied that Sister Ursule’s suspicions are spent, or her patience exhausted, she draws a free breath – the first since the séance commenced.

Then rising to her feet, she steps to a corner of the cell, not commanded by the keyhole; and there dashes the hook down, as though it had been burning her fingers!

“My first scene of deception,” she mutters to herself – “first act of hypocrisy. Have I not played it to perfection?”

She draws a chair into the angle, and sits down upon it. For she is still not quite sure that the spying eye has been withdrawn from the aperture, or whether it may not have returned to it.

“Now that I’ve made a beginning,” she murmurs on, “I must think what’s to be done in continuance; and how the false pretence is to be kept up. What will they do? – and think? They’ll be suspicious for a while, no doubt; look sharply after me, as ever! But that cannot last always; and surely they won’t doom me to dwell for ever in this dingy hole. When I’ve proved my conversion real, by penance, obedience, and the like, I may secure their confidence, and by way of reward, get transferred to a more comfortable chamber. Ah! little care I for the comfort, if convenient, – with a window out of which one could look. Then I might have a hope of seeing – speaking to some one – with heart less hard than Sister Ursule’s, and that other creature – a very hag!”

“I wonder where the place is? Whether in the country, or in a town among houses? It may be the last – in the very heart of a great city, for all this death-like stillness! They build these religious prisons with walls so thick! And the voices, I from time to time hear, are all women’s. Not one of a man amongst them! They must be the Convent people themselves! Nuns and novices! Myself one of the latter! Ha! ha! I shouldn’t have known it if Sister Ursule hadn’t informed me. Novice, indeed – soon to be a nun! No! but a free woman – or dead! Death would be better than life like this!”

The derisive smile that for a moment played upon her features passes off, replaced by the same forlorn woe-begone look, as despair comes back to her heart. For she again recalls what she has read in books – very different from that so contemptuously tossed aside – of girls, young and beautiful as herself – high-born ladies – surreptitiously taken from their homes – shut up as she – never more permitted to look on the sun’s light, or bask in its beams, save within the gloomy cloisters of a convent, or its dismally shadowed grounds.

The prospect of such future for herself appals her, eliciting an anguished sigh – almost a groan.

“Ha!” she exclaims the instant after, and again with altered air, as though something had arisen to relieve her. “There are voices now! Still of women! Laughter! How strange it sounds! So sweet! I’ve not heard such since I’ve been here. It’s the voice of a girl? It must be – so clear, so joyous. Yes! Surely it cannot come from any of the sisters? They are never joyful – never laugh.”

She remains listening, soon to hear the laughter again, a second voice joining in it, both with the cheery ring of school girls at play. The sound comes in with the light – it could not well enter otherwise – and aware of this, she stands facing that way, with eyes turned upward. For the window is far above her head.

“Would that I could see out! If I only had something on which to stand!”

She sweeps the cell with her eyes, to see only the pallet, the frail chairs, a little table with slender legs, and a washstand – all too low. Standing upon the highest, her eyes would still be under the level of the sill.

She is about giving it up, when an artifice suggests itself. With wits sharpened, rather than dulled by her long confinement – she bethinks her of a plan, by which she may at least look out of the window. She can do that by upending the bedstead!

Rash she would raise it on the instant. But she is not so; instead considerate, more than ever cautious. And so proceeding, she first places a chair against the door in such position that its back blocks the keyhole. Then, dragging bed clothes, mattress, and all to the floor, she takes hold of the wooden framework; and, exerting her whole strength, hoists it on end, tilted like a ladder against the wall. And as such it will answer her purpose, the strong webbing, crossed and stayed, to serve for steps.