Lesbia Newman (1889)/Chapter 50
CHAPTER L.
Before Westminster Abbey.
‘So you are going to be a vestal, mademoiselle,’ said Madame Pisa-Vitri, speaking in French, to our heroine as they sat together in the former’s private apartments at the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross, months after the conversation of the preceding chapter, on a raw and foggy afternoon in the beginning of December. ‘What, may I ask, will be the duties of the office?’
‘They are not onerous, madame la comtesse,’ she replied; ‘we shall have to sit as ‘orient’ above or near the altar in churches where we attend service, wearing the robe of our office and receiving by implication the reverences of all those who bow to the altar in entering or leaving church; also we shall hold the post of honour in every Catholic procession. But the office is not assumed under a vow of celibacy, like nunhood or sisterhood; it can be surrendered should a girl wish to marry, or otherwise feel that she is unfit for it. Nor does it necessarily entail abstinence from lay pursuits and distractions.’
‘How many of you are to be appointed for the Definition ceremony next week?’ asked the countess.
‘Twelve, including myself and my friend Lady Friga Hawknorbuzzard, all resident Ousians,’ answered Lesbia.
‘It was thought necessary thus to mark the adherence of the Church to the new régime in the education of girls.’
‘Very necessary,’ assented Madame Pisa-Vitri, with emphasis.
‘But you, madame, what a change in your attitude too!’ observed Lesbia. ‘Your impending ordination as a priestess, must have been a bitter leek for the papacy to eat.’
‘Well for them they had no bitterer,’ returned the Italian, with some sternness. ‘But let us not revive animosities: all that is past and gone. Moreover, they write to me that I am become very popular among the clergy at home and the seminarists, who are doing their two years’ military service in the uniform which I had the honour to design for them. It seems that they parade the streets shouting ‘Evviva Beatrice! Beatrice ed il dietro di San Pietro!’ And they have no idea of allowing the institution to drop. ‘They like it; the military duties are light, and it is two years’ refreshing holiday from the dull clerical career. And they make all the better clergy for having been men of the world for a space.’
‘What a droll creature you are, my dear countess! Excuse me, I can’t help laughing,’ said Lesbia, drawing her chair to the side of the other, and taking one of her hands, which was yielded readily enough.
‘Well, you in your way, my Lesbia—permit me to call you so—and I in mine, I think we have done our serious part,’ said Beatrice.
‘When will the return to Rome take place?’ Lesbia asked, after a pause.
‘As soon as this great ceremony is over, or rather after the Octave of the Immaculate Conception and the Definition,’ answered her friend. ‘You must bring the uncle of whom you say so much to visit me at this hotel; and afterwards I hope you will both be my guests in Rome. I will go with you and inspect your Ousebridge, and you must come and give your opinion and advice upon our Roman college.’
‘A thousand thanks, dear countess, I will do the first at once. I will bring him to-morrow, if that will suit.’
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A mild and sunny 8th of December saw a concourse of some fifty thousand persons gathered on the open space near Westminster Abbey. The inauguration of a new religious era had been opened in the forenoon with the celebration of high mass by the first ordained priestess, assisted by the Pope himself and the British Legate, a ceremony which virtually surrendered the chief priest’s office into woman’s hands. It was followed by the reception into the Church, by the same priestess, of the twelve girls, and their investiture with the order and insignia of vestals. But the crowning ceremony was to be the afternoon pontifical vespers, to be concluded with a solemn procession round the interior of the church, in honour of the Definition of the Dogma. Each vestal had her special colour assigned, the robe and train-mantilla being of white cashmere, the apron and fillet of the special colour. To our heroine was awarded the marine blue of the Sea-born, as a special honour for the active part she had taken in the cause. Friga, as the next in honour, had the colour of her University, blood-red crimson; a third had the green of spring, a fourth gold-yellow, and so on, a single colour being worn with the white by each vestal.
The procession was originally intended to go round the interior of the church merely, a choir of young girls in white leading it and singing the revised Litany of Our Lady, the vestals being seated on thrones borne aloft on the shoulders of the bishops, some eighty of whom had come to the Æcumenical Council; the train-mantilla of each vestal being supported behind by a cardinal, the British Legate holding up that of our heroine. The Chief Priestess and the supreme Pontiff would remain in their respective places at the high altar until the procession reached it again.
However, as the day approached, public interest became so keenly excited throughout the Catholic world—special trains and steamers being announced to run from all parts of the Continent—that eventually it was decided to have the procession, not only in the church but a it, from some convenient place of assembly, so that all spectators might witness it. An immense brass band, amalgamated from all the best of the country, was engaged to accompany the procession. The weather, of course, must count for much under the changed programme, and on the night of the 7th there was a heavy gale with torrents of rain, which continued until sunrise; then short smart showers succeeded at intervals, and it looked very doubtful for the outdoor part of the ceremony. But before eleven a.m. the clouds lifted, a lovely day succeeded, and in a very short time a great sea of heads spread over the open space and lined the approach to the Abbey. The families of the twelve vestals, with other privileged persons, had seats within the church, as well as a certain space reserved for them outside, in front of the main porch, so that they could see the procession as it came, and then follow it in to take their seats for the grand vespers.
‘Wonderful days, sir!’ observed the father of one of the vestals to Mr Bristley, who stood near him outside the porch. ‘Who would have believed that you and I should live to see the Roman Church re-enter Westminster Abbey, after so long an exclusion, and in this manner too!’
‘This manner, my dear sir?’ was the reply; ‘but don’t you see that this was the only manner possible? How could the papacy ever have got back the Abbey, how could it ever have kept its archaic head above water at all, except by boldly appealing to the deepest-seated of popular sentiments?’
‘And by boldly throwing Christianity overboard,’ added the other, with a grin.
‘If necessary,’ answered Mr Bristley, in a serious tone. ‘But it may not be necessary—time will show. Rendering Her due to the Mother of God, we shall not rob the Son of Man of that which is rightfully his. His interests are now Hers; his hour is come. But looking only to the Nazarene personally, I believe he would repudiate what we glibly call Christianity, and would say to its respectable and fashionable and orthodox professors, ‘Ye are of your father the devil, and the works of your father ye will do.’ While to those who seek the truth in sincerity, even though they be called heathen, his other words apply, ‘Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord’—not every one who is sprinkled with a rite and ticketed with a creed, is my true disciple, but he who, with or without any theological system, leads a humanitarian life. If circumcision and uncircumcision avail not, no more shall Christianity nor unchristianity. The thing needful is to become a New Man, the New Man of Divine Order.’
At this juncture, faithful little Fidge, who had implored her young mistress to get her taken with the family to London and to the ceremony, and who looked remarkably graceful in her simple cap and snow-white apron upon a dark blue frock, having left her over-wraps in the seat, touched Mrs Newman’s arm, saying excitedly,—
‘Please ’m, the procession’s coming; I’m sure I hear the music!’
‘I heard it before you spoke, Fidge,’ answered Mrs Newman, ‘and, God bless me! they’re playing the Priest’s March in Athalie!’
From that moment the whole scene appeared to Mrs Newman to float before her as if it were unreal. The gorgeous procession, the full pomp and panoply of the ancient Roman Church, aided by the wealth of English adherents, now came in sight; the tramp of the stirring music swelled louder, and the vast crowd knelt to the glorified vestals with a common impulse. As the twelve thrones, carried on high, passed through the portal, Lesbia’s rustic little maid, simpleton as she was in the things of this world, gazed up into her young mistress’s face with a rapt expression that was truly angelic, a gleam of the Divine Nature breaking forth even from such a very lowly type of it as she. The kneeling crowd rose as the last chords died away down the aisles of the interior, but there was more to see yet; for overhead the rainbow spanned the towers of the Abbey with a brilliancy probably never before known in smoky London, and indeed seldom seen anywhere. Certainly, the weather for the last few hours had been very exceptional; still the coincidence was impressive, even for the least imaginative and superstitious among that motley multitude.
Two hours afterwards, Mrs Newman clasped her daughter in her arms, while a burst of tears gave her oppressed brain relief.
‘Praised be God, my own darling Lesbie, for these most wonderful events! A weight, if an unreal one, is taken off my mind. The Dream is all fulfilled now, and still I have you safe.’
the end.
COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.