For thirty years Peter Peters had ruled the Craven properties, and they were all his life. For the last ten years he had never ceased urging his employer to assume the reins of government himself. His entreaties, protestations and threats of resignation had been unheeded. Craven felt sure that he would never relinquish his post, he had grown into the soil and was as firmly fixed as the Towers itself. He was an institution in the county, a personality on the bench. He ruled his own domains with a kindly but absolute autocracy which succeeded perfectly on the Craven estates and was the envy of other agents, who had not his ability to do likewise. Well born, original and fearless he was popular in castle and in cottage, and his advice was respected by all. He neither sought nor abused a confidence, and in consequence was the depository of most of the secrets of the countryside. To his sympathetic ears came both grave offences and minor indiscretions, as to a kindly safety-valve who advised and helped—and was subsequently silent. His exoneration was considered final. “I confessed to Peter” became a recognised formula, instituted by a giddy young Marchioness at the north end of the county, whose cousin he was. And there, invariably, the matter ended. And for Craven it was the one bright spot in the darkness before him. Life was going to be hell—but there would always be Peter.
At the Convent gates the taxi skidded badly at the suddenly applied brakes, and then backed jerkily into position. Craven felt an overwhelming inclination to take to his heels. The portress who admitted him had evidently received orders, for she silently conducted him to a waiting room and left him alone. It was sparsely furnished but had on the walls some fine old rosewood panelling. The narrow heavily leaded windows overlooked a paved quadrangle, glistening with moisture. For a few moments the rain had ceased but drops still pattered sharply on to the flagstones from the branches of two large chestnut trees. The outlook was melancholy and he turned from the window, shivering. But the chill austere room was hardly more inspiring. The atmosphere was strange to him. It was a world apart from anything that had ever touched him. He marvelled suddenly at the countless lives living out their allotted span in the confined area of these and similar walls. Surely all could not submit willingly to such a crushing captivity? Some must agonize and spend their strength unavailingly, like birds beating their wings against the bars of a cage for freedom. To the man who had roamed through all the continents of the world this forced inactivity seemed appalling—stultifying. The hampering of personal freedom, the forcing of independent minds into one narrow prescribed channel that admitted of no individual expansion, the waste of material and the fettering of intellects, that were heaven-sent gifts to be put out to usury and not shrouded away in a napkin, revolted him. The conventual system was to him a survival of medievalism, a relic of the dark ages; the last refuge of the shirkers of the world. The communities themselves, if he had thought of them at all, had been regarded as a whole. He had never troubled to consider them as composed of single individuals. Today he thought of them as separate human beings and his intolerance increased. An indefinite distaste never seriously considered seemed, during the few moments in the bare waiting room, to have grown suddenly into active dislike. He was wholly out of sympathy with his surroundings, impatient of the necessity that brought him into contact with what he would have chosen to avoid. He looked about with eyes grown hard and contemptuous. The very building seemed to be the embodiment of retrogression and blind superstition. He was filled with antagonism. His face was grim and his figure drawn up stiffly to its full height when the door opened to admit the Mother Superior. For a moment she hesitated, a faint look of surprise coming into her face. And no antagonism, however intolerant, could have braved her gentle dignity. “It is—Monsieur Craven?” she asked, a perceptible interrogation in her soft voice.
She took the letters he gave her and read them carefully—pausing once or twice as if searching for the correct translation of a word—then handed them back to him in silence. She looked at him again, frankly, with no attempt to disguise her scrutiny, and the perplexity in her eyes grew greater. One small white hand slid to the crucifix hanging on her breast, as if seeking aid from the familiar symbol, and Craven saw that her fingers were trembling. A faint flush rose in her face.
“Monsieur is perhaps married, or—happily—he has a mother?” she asked at last, and the flush deepened as she looked up at the big man standing before her. She made a little gesture of embarrassment but her eyes did not waver. They would not, he thought with sudden intuition. For he realised that it was one of his own order who confronted him. It was not what he had anticipated. The Mother Superior’s low voice continuing in gentle explanation broke into his thoughts.
“Monsieur will forgive that I catechise him thus but I had expected one—much older.” Her distress was obvious. And Craven divined that as a prospective guardian he fell short of expectation. And yet, his lack of years was apparently to her the only drawback. His lack of years—Good God, and he felt so old! His youth was a disadvantage that counted for nothing in the present instance. If she could know the truth, if the anxious gaze that was fixed so intently on him could look into his heart with understanding, he knew that she would shrink from him as from a vile contamination.
He conceived the horror dawning in her eyes, the loathing in her attitude, and seemed to hear her passionate protest against his claim to the child who had been sheltered in the safety of the community that he had despised. The safety of the community—that had not before occurred to him. For the first time he considered it a refuge to those who there sought sanctuary and who were safeguarded from such as—he. He winced, but did not spare himself. The sin had been only his. The child who had died for love of him had been as innocent of sin as the birds who loved and mated among the pine trees in her Garden of Enchantment. She had had no will but his. Arrogantly he had taken her and she had submitted—was he not her lord? Before his shadow fell across her path no blameless soul within these old convent walls had been more pure and stainless than the soul of O Hara San. It was the sins of such as he that drove women to this shelter that offered refuge and consolation, to escape from such as he they voluntarily immured themselves; surrendering the purpose of their being, seeking in bodily denial the salvation of their souls.
The room had grown very dark. A sudden glare of light made Craven realise that a question asked was still unanswered. He had not, in his abstraction, been aware of any movement. Now he saw the Mother Superior walking leisurely back from the electric switch by the door, and guessed from her placid face that the interval had been momentary and had passed unnoticed. Some answer was required now. He pulled himself together.
“I am not married,” his voice was strained, “and I have no mother. But my aunt—Miss Craven—the sculptor—” he paused enquiringly and she smiled reassurance.
“Miss Craven’s beautiful work is known to me,” she said with ready tact that put him more at ease.
“My aunt has, most kindly, promised to—to co-operate,” he finished lamely.
The anxiety faded from the Mother Superior’s face and she sat down with an air of relief, motioning Craven to a chair. But with a curt bow he remained standing. He had no wish to prolong the interview beyond what courtesy and business demanded. He listened with a variety of feelings while the Nun spoke. Her earnestness he could not fail to perceive, but it required a decided effort to concentrate, and follow her soft well modulated voice.
She spoke slowly, with feeling that broke at times the tone she strove to make dispassionate.