Part 15 (1/2)
”I have not worked for peace or happiness,”--she said and there was a thrill of sadness in her voice--”because to my mind neither peace nor happiness exist. From all we can see, and from the little we can learn, I think the Maker of the universe never meant us to be happy or peaceful. All Nature is at strife with itself, incessantly labouring for such attainment as can hardly be won,--all things seem to be haunted by fear and sorrow. And yet it seems to me that there are remedies for most of our evils in the very composition of the elements--if we were not ignorant and stupid enough to discourage our discoverers on the verge of discovery. My application of a certain substance, known to scientists, but scarcely understood, is an attempt to solve the problem of swift aerial motion by light and heat--light and heat being the chiefest supports of life. To use a force giving out light and heat continuously seemed to me the way to create and command equally continuous movement. I have--I think and hope--fairly succeeded, and in order to accomplish my design I have used wealth that would not have been at the service of most inventors,--wealth which my father left to me quite unconditionally,--but were I able to fly with my 'White Eagle' to the remotest parts of the Milky Way itself, I should not look to find peace or happiness!”
”Why?”
The priest's simple query had a note of tender pity in it. Morgana looked up at him with a little smile, but her eyes were tearful.
”Dear Don Aloysius, how can I tell 'why'? n.o.body is really happy, and I cannot expect to have what is denied to the whole world!”
Aloysius resumed his slow walk to and fro, and she kept quiet pace with him.
”Have you ever thought what happiness is?” he asked, then--”Have you ever felt it for a pa.s.sing moment?”
”Yes”--she answered quickly--”But only at rare intervals--oh so rare!...”
”Poor little rich child!” he said, kindly--”Tell me some of those 'intervals'! Cannot they be repeated? Let us sit here”--and he moved towards a stone bench which fronted an ancient disused well in the middle square of the cloistered court,--a well round which a crimson pa.s.sion-flower twined in a perfect arch of blossom--”What was the first 'interval'?”
He sat down, and the suns.h.i.+ne sent a dazzling ray on the silver crucifix he wore, giving it the gleam of a great jewel. Morgana took her seat beside him.
”Interval one!” he said, playfully--”What was this little lady's first experience of happiness? When she played with her dolls?”
”No, oh no!” cried Morgana, with sudden energy--”That was anything but happiness! I hated dolls!--abominable little effigies!”
Don Aloysius raised his eyebrows in surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt.
”Horrid little stuffed things of wood and wax and saw-dust!” continued Morgana, emphatically--”With great beads for eyes--or eyes made to look like beads--and red cheeks,--and red lips with a silly smile on them!
Of course they are given to girl-children to encourage the 'maternal instinct' as it is called--to make them think of babies,--but _I_ never had any 'maternal instinct'!--and real babies have always seemed to me as uninteresting as sham ones!”
”Dear child, you were a baby yourself once!”--said Aloysius gently.
A shadow swept over her face.
”Do you think I was?” she queried meditatively--”I cannot imagine it! I suppose I must have been, but I never remember being a child at all. I had no children to play with me--my father suspected all children of either disease or wickedness, and imagined I would catch infection of body or of soul by a.s.sociation with them. I was always alone--alone!--yet not lonely!” She broke off a moment, and her eyes grew dark with the intensity of her thought ”No--never lonely! And the very earliest 'interval' of happiness I can recall was when I first saw the inside of a sun-ray!”
Don Aloysius turned to look at her, but said nothing. She laughed.
”Dear Father Aloysius, what a wise priest you are! Not a word falls from those beautifully set lips of yours! If you were a fool--(so many men are!) you would have repeated my phrase, 'the inside of a sun-ray,'
with an accent of scornful incredulity, and you would have stared at me with all a fool's contempt! But you are not a fool,--you know or you perceive instinctively exactly what I mean. The inside of a sun-ray!--it was disclosed to me suddenly--a veritable miracle! I have seen it many times since, but not with all the wonder and ecstasy of the first revelation. I was so young, too! I told a renowned professor at one of the American colleges just what I saw, and he was so amazed and confounded at my description of rays that had taken the best scientists years to discover, that he begged to be allowed to examine my eyes! He thought there must be something unusual about them. In fact there IS!--and after his examination he seemed more puzzled than ever.
He said something about 'an exceptionally strong power of vision,' but frankly admitted that power of vision alone would not account for it.
Anyhow I plainly saw all the rays within one ray--there were seven. The ray itself was--or so I fancied--the octave of colour. I was little more than a child when this 'interval' of happiness--PERFECT happiness!--was granted to me--I felt as if a window had been opened for me to look through it into heaven!”
”Do you believe in heaven?” asked Aloysius, suddenly.
She hesitated.
”I used to,--in those days. As I have just said I was only a child, and heaven was a real place to me,--even the angels were real presences--”
”And you have lost them now?”
She gave a little gesture of resignation.
”They left me”--she answered--”I did not lose them. They simply went.”