Nicholas Nickleby
her busy task, “we have prayed at matins, our daily alms have been
distributed at the gate, the sick peasants have been tended,--all our
morning tasks have been performed. I hope our occupation is a blameless
one?’
‘“See here,” said the friar, taking the frame from her hand, “an
intricate winding of gaudy colours, without purpose or object, unless
it be that one day it is destined for some vain ornament, to minister to
the pride of your frail and giddy sex. Day after day has been employed
upon this senseless task, and yet it is not half accomplished. The shade
of each departed day falls upon our graves, and the worm exults as he
beholds it, to know that we are hastening thither. Daughters, is there
no better way to pass the fleeting hours?”
‘The four elder sisters cast down their eyes as if abashed by the holy
man’s reproof, but Alice raised hers, and bent them mildly on the friar.
‘“Our dear mother,” said the maiden; “Heaven rest her soul!”
‘“Amen!” cried the friar in a deep voice.
‘“Our dear mother,” faltered the fair Alice, “was living when these long
tasks began, and bade us, when she should be no more, ply them in all
discretion and cheerfulness, in our leisure hours; she said that if in
harmless mirth and maidenly pursuits we passed those hours together,
they would prove the happiest and most peaceful of our lives, and that
if, in later times, we went forth into the world, and mingled with its
cares and trials--if, allured by its temptations and dazzled by its
glitter, we ever forgot that love and duty which should bind, in holy
ties, the children of one loved parent--a glance at the old work of our
common girlhood would awaken good thoughts of bygone days, and soften
our hearts to affection and love.”
‘“Alice speaks truly, father,” said the elder sister, somewhat proudly.
And so saying she resumed her work, as did the others.
‘It was a kind of sampler of large size, that each sister had before
her; the device was of a complex and intricate description, and
the pattern and colours of all five were the same. The sisters bent
gracefully over their work; the monk, resting his chin upon his hands,
looked from one to the other in silence.
‘“How much better,” he said at length, “to shun all such thoughts and
chances, and, in the peaceful shelter of the church, devote your lives
to Heaven! Infancy, childhood, the prime of life, and old age, wither as
rapidly as they crowd upon each other. Think how human dust rolls onward
to the tomb, and turning your faces steadily towards that goal, avoid
the cloud which takes its rise among the pleasures of the world, and
cheats the senses of their votaries. The veil, daughters, the veil!”
‘“Never, sisters,” cried Alice. “Barter not the light and air of heaven,
and the freshness of earth and all the beautiful things which breathe
upon it, for the cold cloister and the cell. Nature’s own blessings are
the proper goods of life, and we may share them sinlessly together. To
die is our heavy portion, but, oh, let us die with life about us; when
our cold hearts cease to beat, let warm hearts be beating near; let our
last look be upon the bounds which God has set to his own bright skies,
and not on stone walls and bars of iron! Dear sisters, let us live and
die, if you list, in this green garden’s compass; only shun the gloom
and sadness of a cloister, and we shall be happy.”
‘The tears fell fast from the maiden’s eyes as she closed her
impassioned appeal, and hid her face in the bosom of her sister.
‘“Take comfort, Alice,” said the eldest, kissing her fair forehead.
“The veil shall never cast its shadow on thy young brow. How say you,
sisters? For yourselves you speak, and not for Alice, or for me.”
‘The sisters, as with one accord, cried that their lot was cast
together, and that there were dwellings for peace and virtue beyond the
convent’s walls.
‘“Father,” said the eldest lady, rising with dignity, “you hear our
final resolve. The same pious care which enriched the abbey of St
Mary, and left us, orphans, to its holy guardianship, directed that no
constraint should be imposed upon our inclinations, but that we should
be free to live according to our choice. Let us hear no more of this,
we pray you. Sisters, it is nearly noon. Let us take shelter until
evening!” With a reverence to the friar, the lady rose and walked
towards the house, hand in hand with Alice; the other sisters followed.
‘The holy man, who had often urged the same point before, but had never
met with so direct a repulse, walked some little distance behind, with
his eyes bent upon the earth, and his lips moving AS IF in prayer. As
the sisters reached the porch, he quickened his pace, and called upon
them to stop.
‘“Stay!” said the monk, raising his right hand in the air, and directing
an angry glance by turns at Alice and the eldest sister. “Stay, and
hear from me what these recollections are, which you would cherish above
eternity, and awaken--if in mercy they slumbered--by means of idle toys.
The memory of earthly things is charged, in after life, with bitter
disappointment, affliction, death; with dreary change and wasting
sorrow. The time will one day come, when a glance at those unmeaning
baubles will tear open deep wounds in the hearts of some among you, and
strike to your inmost souls. When that hour arrives--and, mark me, come
it will--turn from the world to which you clung, to the refuge which you
spurned. Find me the cell which shall be colder than the fire of mortals
grows, when dimmed by calamity and trial, and there weep for the dreams
of youth. These things are Heaven’s will, not mine,” said the friar,
subduing his voice as he looked round upon the shrinking girls. “The
Virgin’s blessing be upon you, daughters!”
‘With these words he disappeared through the postern; and the sisters
hastening into the house were seen no more that day.
‘But nature will smile though priests may frown, and next day the
sun shone brightly, and on the next, and the next again. And in the
morning’s glare, and the evening’s soft repose, the five sisters still
walked, or worked, or beguiled the time by cheerful conversation, in
their quiet orchard.
‘Time passed away as a tale that is told; faster indeed than many tales
that are told, of which number I fear this may be one. The house of the
five sisters stood where it did, and the same trees cast their pleasant
shade upon the orchard grass. The sisters too were there, and lovely as
at first, but a change had come over their dwelling. Sometimes, there
was the clash of armour, and the gleaming of the moon on caps of steel;
and, at others, jaded coursers were spurred up to the gate, and a female
form glided hurriedly forth, as if eager to demand tidings of the weary
messenger. A goodly train of knights and ladies lodged one night within
the abbey walls, and next day rode away, with two of the fair sisters
among them. Then, horsemen began to come less frequently, and seemed to
bring bad tidings when they did, and at length they ceased to come at
all, and footsore peasants slunk to the gate after sunset, and did their
errand there, by stealth. Once, a vassal was dispatched in haste to the
abbey at dead of night, and when morning came, there were sounds of woe
and wailing in the sisters’ house; and after this, a mournful silence
fell upon it, and knight or lady, horse or armour, was seen about it no
more.
‘There was a sullen darkness in the sky, and the sun had gone angrily
down, tinting the dull clouds with the last traces of his wrath,
when the same black monk walked slowly on, with folded arms, within a
stone’s-throw of the abbey. A blight had fallen on the trees and shrubs;
and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness
that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though
foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in
fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with
crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten
in the rain.
‘No longer were the friar’s eyes directed to the earth; they were cast
abroad, and roamed from point to point, as if the gloom and desolation
of the scene found a quick response in his own bosom. Again he paused
near the sisters’ house, and again he entered by the postern.
‘But not again did his ear encounter the sound of laughter, or his eyes
rest upon the beautiful figures of the five sisters. All was silent and
deserted. The boughs of the trees were bent and broken, and the grass
had grown long and rank. No light feet had pressed it for many, many a
day.
‘With the indifference or abstraction of one well accustomed to the
change, the monk glided into the house, and entered a low, dark room.
Four sisters sat there. Their black garments made their pale faces
whiter still, and time and sorrow had worked deep ravages. They were
stately yet; but the flush and pride of beauty were gone.
‘And Alice--where was she? In Heaven.
‘The monk--even the monk--could bear with some grief here; for it
was long since these sisters had met, and there were furrows in their
blanched faces which years could never plough. He took his seat in
silence, and motioned them to continue their speech.
‘“They are here, sisters,” said the elder lady in a trembling voice. “I
have never borne to look upon them since, and now I blame myself for my
weakness. What is there in her memory that we should dread? To call up
our old days shall be a solemn pleasure yet.”
‘She glanced at the monk as she spoke, and, opening a cabinet, brought
forth the five frames of work, completed long before. Her step was
firm, but her hand trembled as she produced the last one; and, when the
feelings of the other sisters gushed forth at sight of it, her pent-up
tears made way, and she sobbed “God bless her!”
‘The monk rose and advanced towards them. “It was almost the last thing
she touched in health,” he said in a low voice.
‘“It was,” cried the elder lady, weeping bitterly.
‘The monk turned to the second sister.
‘“The gallant youth who looked into thine eyes, and hung upon thy very
breath when first he saw thee intent upon this pastime, lies buried on
a plain whereof the turf is red with blood. Rusty fragments of armour,
once brightly burnished, lie rotting on the ground, and are as little
distinguishable for his, as are the bones that crumble in the mould!”
‘The lady groaned, and wrung her hands.
‘“The policy of courts,” he continued, turning to the two other sisters,
“drew ye from your peaceful home to scenes of revelry and splendour.
The same policy, and the restless ambition of--proud and fiery men, have
sent ye back, widowed maidens, and humbled outcasts. Do I speak truly?”
‘The sobs of the two sisters were their only reply.
‘“There is little need,” said the monk, with a meaning look, “to fritter
away the time in gewgaws which shall raise up the pale ghosts of hopes
of early years. Bury them, heap penance and mortification on their
heads, keep them down, and let the convent be their grave!”
‘The sisters asked for three days to deliberate; and felt, that night,
as though the veil were indeed the fitting shroud for their dead joys.
But, morning came again, and though the boughs of the orchard trees
drooped and ran wild upon the ground, it was the same orchard still. The
grass was coarse and high, but there was yet the spot on which they had
so often sat together, when change and sorrow were but names. There was
every walk and nook which Alice had made glad; and in the minster nave
was one flat stone beneath which she slept in peace.
‘And could they, remembering how her young heart had sickened at the
thought of cloistered walls, look upon her grave, in garbs which would