"I haven't thought."
In the old days she said carelessly whatever came into her head; it
never occurred to her to think before she spoke; but now she was afraid
of him; she felt her lips tremble and her heart beat painfully.
"I went to the convent this afternoon."
"So I heard."
She forced herself to speak though she could hardly frame the words.
"Did you really want me to die when you brought me here?"
"If I were you I'd leave well alone, Kitty. I don't think any good will
come of talking about what we should do much better to forget."
"But you don't forget; neither do I. I've been thinking a great deal
since I came here. Won't you listen to what I have to say?"
"Certainly."
"I treated you very badly. I was unfaithful to you."
He stood stock still. His immobility was strangely terrifying.
"I don't know whether you'll understand what I mean. That sort of thing
doesn't mean very much to a woman when it's over. I think women have
never quite understood the attitude that men take up." She spoke
abruptly, in a voice she would hardly have recognised as her own. "You
know what Charlie was and you knew what he'd do. Well, you were quite
right. He's a worthless creature. I suppose I shouldn't have been taken
in by him if I hadn't been as worthless as he. I don't ask you to
forgive me. I don't ask you to love me as you used to love me. But
couldn't we be friends? With all these people dying in thousands round
us, and with those nuns in their convent . . ."
"What have they got to do with it?" he interrupted.
"I can't quite explain. I had such a singular feeling when I went there
to-day. It all seems to mean so much. It's all so terrible and their
self-sacrifice is so wonderful; I can't help feeling it's absurd and
disproportionate, if you understand what I mean, to distress yourself
because a foolish woman has been unfaithful to you. I'm much too
worthless and insignificant for you to give me a thought."
He did not answer, but he did not move away; he seemed to be waiting for
her to continue.
"Mr. Waddington and the nuns have told me such wonderful things about
you. I'm very proud of you, Walter."
"You used not to be; you used to feel contempt for me. Don't you still?"
"Don't you know that I'm afraid of you?"
Again he was silent.
"I don't understand you," he said at last. "I don't know what it is you
want."
"Nothing for myself. I only want you to be a little less unhappy."
She felt him stiffen and his voice was very cold when he answered.
"You're mistaken in thinking I'm unhappy. I have a great deal too much
to do to think of you very often."
"I have wondered if the nuns would allow me to go and work at the
convent. They are very short handed and if I could be of any help I
should be grateful to them."
"It is not easy work or pleasant work. I doubt if it would amuse you
long."
"Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?"
"No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself."
_xlvii_
It was after dinner. As usual Walter sat by the lamp and read. He read
every evening till Kitty went to bed and then went into a laboratory
which he had fitted up in one of the bungalow's empty rooms. Here he
worked late into the night. He slept little. He was occupied with she
knew not what experiments. He told her nothing of his work; but even in
the old days he had been reticent on this: he was not by nature
expansive. She thought deeply of what he had just said to her: the
conversation had led to nothing. She knew him so little that she could
not be sure if he was speaking the truth or not. Was it possible that,
whereas he now existed so ominously for her, she had entirely ceased to
exist for him? Her conversation which had entertained him once because
he loved her, now that he loved her no longer might be merely tedious to
him. It mortified her.
She looked at him. The light of the lamp displayed his profile as though
it were a cameo. With his regular and finely-cut features it was very
distinguished, but it was more than severe, it was grim: that immobility
of his, only his eyes moving as he perused each page, was vaguely
terrifying. Who would have thought that this hard face could be melted
by passion to such a tenderness of expression? She knew and it excited
in her a little shiver of distaste. It was strange that though he was
good-looking as well as honest, reliable and talented, it had been so
impossible for her to love him. It was a relief that she need never
again submit to his caresses.
He would not answer when she had asked him whether in forcing her to
come here he had really wished to kill her. The mystery of this
fascinated and horrified her. He was so extraordinarily kind; it was
incredible that he could have had such a devilish intention. He must
have suggested it only to frighten her and to get back on Charlie (that
would be like his sardonic humour) and then from obstinacy or from fear
of looking foolish insisted on her going through with it.
Yes, he said he despised himself. What did he mean by that? Once again
Kitty looked at his calm cool face. She might not even be in the room,
he was so unconscious of her.
"Why do you despise yourself?" she asked, hardly knowing that she spoke,
as though she were continuing without a break the earlier conversation.
He put down his book and observed her reflectively. He seemed to gather
his thoughts from a remote distance.
"Because I loved you."
She flushed and looked away. She could not bear his cold, steady and
appraising gaze. She understood what he meant. It was a little while
before she answered.
"I think you do me an injustice," she said. "It's not fair to blame me
because I was silly and frivolous and vulgar. I was brought up like
that. All the girls I know are like that. . . . It's like reproaching
someone who has no ear for music because he's bored at a symphony
concert. Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities I
hadn't got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I
wasn't. I was just pretty and gay. You don't ask for a pearl necklace or
a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy
balloon."
"I don't blame you."
His voice was weary. She was beginning to feel a trifle impatient with
him. Why could he not realise, what suddenly had become so clear to her,
that beside all the terror of death under whose shadow they lay and
beside the awe of the beauty which she had caught a glimpse of that day,
their own affairs were trivial? What did it really matter if a silly
woman had committed adultery and why should her husband, face to face
with the sublime, give it a thought? It was strange that Walter with all
his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion. Because he had
dressed a doll in gorgeous robes and set her in a sanctuary to worship
her, and then discovered that the doll was filled with sawdust he could
neither forgive himself nor her. His soul was lacerated. It was all
make-believe that he had lived on, and when the truth shattered it he
thought reality itself was shattered. It was true enough, he would not
forgive her because he could not forgive himself.
She thought that she heard him give a faint sigh and she shot a rapid
glance at him. A sudden thought struck her and it took her breath away.
She only just refrained from giving a cry.
Was it what they called--a broken heart--that he suffered from?
_xlviii_
All the next day Kitty thought of the convent; and the morning after,
early, soon after Walter had gone, taking the amah with her to get
chairs, she crossed the river. It was barely day and the Chinese
crowding the ferry boat, some in the blue cotton of the peasant, others
in the black robes of respectability, had a strange look of the dead
being borne over the water to the land of shadow. And when they stepped
ashore they stood for a little at the landing-place uncertainly as
though they did not quite know where to go, before desultorily, in twos
and threes, they wandered up the hill.
At that hour the streets of the city were very empty so that more than
ever it seemed a city of the dead. The passers-by had an abstracted air
so that you might almost have thought them ghosts. The sky was unclouded
and the early sun shed a heavenly mildness on the scene; it was
difficult to imagine, on that blithe, fresh and smiling morn, that the
city lay gasping, like a man whose life is being throttled out of him by
a maniac's hands, in the dark clutch of the pestilence. It was
incredible that nature (the blue of the sky was clear like a child's
heart) should be so indifferent when men were writhing in agony and
going to their death in fear. When the chairs were set down at the
convent door a beggar arose from the ground and asked Kitty for alms. He
was clad in faded and shapeless rags that looked as though he had raked
them out of a muck-heap, and through their rents you saw his skin hard
and rough and tanned like the hide of a goat; his bare legs were
emaciated, and his head, with its shock of coarse grey hair (the cheeks
hollow, the eyes wild), was the head of a madman. Kitty turned from him
in frightened horror, and the chair-bearers in gruff tones bade him
begone, but he was importunate, and to be rid of him, shuddering, Kitty
gave him a few cash.
The door was opened and the amah explained that Kitty wished to see the
Mother Superior. She was taken once more into the stiff parlour in which
it seemed a window had never been opened, and here she sat so long that
she began to think her message had not been delivered. At last the
Mother Superior came in.
"I must ask you to excuse me for keeping you waiting," she said. "I did
not expect you and I was occupied."
"Forgive me for troubling you. I am afraid I have come at an
inconvenient moment."
The Mother Superior gave her a smile, austere but sweet, and begged her
to sit down. But Kitty saw that her eyes were swollen. She had been
weeping. Kitty was startled, for she had received from the Mother
Superior the impression that she was a woman whom earthly troubles could
not greatly move.
"I am afraid something has happened," she faltered. "Would you like me
to go away? I can come another time."
"No, no. Tell me what I can do for you. It is only--only that one of our
Sisters died last night." Her voice lost its even tone and her eyes
filled with tears. "It is wicked of me to grieve, for I know that her
good and simple soul has flown straight to Heaven; she was a saint; but
it is difficult always to control one's weakness. I am afraid I am not
always very reasonable."
"I'm so sorry, I'm so dreadfully sorry," said Kitty.
Her ready sympathy brought a sob into her voice.
"She was one of the Sisters who came out from France with me ten years
ago. There are only three of us left now. I remember, we stood in a
little group at the end of the boat (what do you call it, the bow?) and
as we steamed out of the harbour at Marseilles and we saw the golden
figure of Saint-Marie la Grace, we said a prayer together. It had been
my greatest wish since I entered religion to be allowed to come to
China, but when I saw the land grow distant I could not prevent myself
from weeping. I was their Superior; it was not a very good example I was
giving my daughters. And then Sister St. Francis Xavier--that is the
name of the Sister who died last night--took my hand and told me not to
grieve; for wherever we were, she said, there was France and there was
God."
That severe and handsome face was distorted by the grief which human
nature wrung from her and by the effort to restrain the tears which her
reason and her faith refused. Kitty looked away. She felt that it was
indecent to peer into that struggle.
"I have been writing to her father. She, like me, was her mother's only
daughter. They were fisher folk in Brittany, and it will be hard for
them. Oh, when will this terrible epidemic cease? Two of our girls have
been attacked this morning and nothing but a miracle can save them.
These Chinese have no resistance. The loss of Sister St. Francis is very
severe. There is so much to do and now fewer than ever to do it. We have
Sisters at our other houses in China who are eager to come, all our
Order, I think, would give anything in the world (only they have
nothing) to come here; but it is almost certain death; and so long as we
can manage with the Sisters we have I am unwilling that others should
be sacrificed."
"That encourages me, _ma mère_," said Kitty. "I have been feeling that
I had come at a very unfortunate moment. You said the other day that
there was more work than the Sisters could do, and I was wondering if
you would allow me to come and help them. I do not mind what I do if I
can only be useful. I should be thankful if you just set me to scrub the
floors."
The Mother Superior gave an amused smile and Kitty was astonished at the
mobile temperament which could so easily pass from mood to mood.
"There is no need to scrub the floors. That is done after a fashion by
the orphans." She paused and looked kindly at Kitty. "My dear child, do
you not think that you have done enough in coming with your husband
here? That is more than many wives would have had the courage to do, and
for the rest how can you be better occupied than in giving him peace and
comfort when he comes home to you after the day's work? Believe me, he
needs then all your love and all your consideration."
Kitty could not easily meet the eyes which rested on her with a detached
scrutiny and with an ironical kindliness.
"I have nothing whatever to do from morning till night," said Kitty. "I
feel that there is so much to be done that I cannot bear to think that I
am idle. I don't want to make a nuisance of myself, and I know that I
have no claim either on your kindness or on your time, but I mean what I
say and it would be a charity that you were doing me if you would let me
be of some help to you."
"You do not look very strong. When you did us the pleasure of coming to
see us the day before yesterday it seemed to me that you were very pale.
Sister St. Joseph thought that perhaps you were going to have a baby."
"No, no," cried Kitty, flushing to the roots of her hair.
The Mother Superior gave a little, silvery laugh.
"It is nothing to be ashamed of, my dear child, nor is there anything
improbable in the supposition. How long have you been married?"
"I am pale because I am naturally pale, but I am very strong, and I
promise you I am not afraid of work."
Now the Superior was complete mistress of herself. She assumed
unconsciously the air of authority which was habitual to her and she
held Kitty in an appraising scrutiny. Kitty felt unaccountably nervous.
"Can you speak Chinese?"
"I'm afraid not," answered Kitty.
"Ah, that is a pity. I could have put you in charge of the elder girls.
It is very difficult just now, and I am afraid they will get--what do
you call? Out of hand?" she concluded with a tentative sound.
"Could I not be of help to the Sisters in nursing? I am not at all
afraid of the cholera. I could nurse the girls or the soldiers."
The Mother Superior, unsmiling now, a reflective look on her face, shook
her head.
"You do not know what the cholera is. It is a dreadful thing to see. The
work in the infirmary is done by soldiers and we need a Sister only to
supervise. And so far as the girls are concerned . . . no, no, I am
sure your husband would not wish it; it is a terrible and frightening
sight."
"I should grow used to it."
"No, it is out of the question. It is our business and our privilege to
do such things, but there is no call for you to do so."
"You make me feel very useless and very helpless. It seems incredible
that there should be nothing that I can do."
"Have you spoken to your husband of your wish?"
"Yes."
The Mother Superior looked at her as though she were delving into the
secrets of her heart, but when she saw Kitty's anxious and appealing
look she gave a smile.
"Of course you are a Protestant?" she asked.
"Yes."
"It doesn't matter. Dr. Watson, the missionary who died, was a
Protestant and it made no difference. He was all that was most charming
to us. We owe him a deep debt of gratitude."
Now the flicker of a smile passed over Kitty's face, but she did not say
anything. The Mother Superior seemed to reflect. She rose to her feet.
"It is very good of you. I think I can find something for you to do. It
is true that now Sister St. Francis has been taken from us, it is
impossible for us to cope with the work. When will you be ready to
start?"
"Now."
"_À la bonne heure._ I am content to hear you say that."
"I promise you I will do my best. I am very grateful to you for the
opportunity that you are giving me."
The Mother Superior opened the parlour door, but as she was going out
she hesitated. Once more she gave Kitty a long, searching and sagacious
look. Then she laid her hand gently on her arm.
"You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in
pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul."
Kitty gave a little start, but the Mother Superior passed swiftly out.
_xlix_
Kitty found the work a refreshment to her spirit. She went to the
convent every morning soon after sunrise and did not return to the
bungalow till the westering sun flooded the narrow river and its crowded
junks with gold. The Mother Superior gave into her case the smaller
children. Kitty's mother had brought to London from her native Liverpool
a practical sense of housewifery and Kitty, notwithstanding her air of
frivolity, had always had certain gifts to which she referred only in
bantering tones. Thus she could cook quite well and she sewed
beautifully. When she disclosed this talent she was set to supervise the
stitching and hemming of the younger girls. They knew a little French
and every day she picked up a few words of Chinese so that it was not
difficult for her to manage. At other times she had to see that the
smallest children did not get into mischief; she had to dress and
undress them and take care that they rested when rest was needed. There
were a good many babies and these were in charge of amahs, but she was
bidden to keep an eye on them. None of the work was very important and
she would have liked to do something which was more arduous; but the
Mother Superior paid no attention to her entreaties and Kitty stood
sufficiently in awe of her not to be importunate.
For the first few days she had to make something of an effort to
overcome the faint distaste she felt for these little girls, in their
ugly uniforms, with their stiff black hair, their round yellow faces,
and their staring, sloe-black eyes. But she remembered the soft look
which had transfigured so beautifully the countenance of the Mother
Superior when on Kitty's first visit to the convent she had stood
surrounded by those ugly little things, and she would not allow herself
to surrender to her instinct. And presently, taking in her arms one or
other of the tiny creatures, crying because of a fall or a cutting
tooth, when Kitty found that a few soft words, though in a language the
child could not understand, the pressure of her arms and the softness of
her cheek against the weeping yellow face, could comfort and console,
she began to lose all her feeling of strangeness. The small children,
without any fear of her, came to her in their childish troubles and it
gave her a peculiar happiness to discern their confidence. It was the
same with the older girls, those to whom she taught sewing; their
bright, clever smiles and the pleasure she could give them by a word of
praise, touched her. She felt that they liked her and, flattered and
proud, she liked them in return.
But there was one child that she could not grow used to. It was a little
girl of six, an idiot with a huge hydrocephalic head that swayed
top-heavily on a small, squat body, large vacant eyes and a drooling
mouth; the creature spoke hoarsely a few mumbled words; it was revolting
and horrible; and for some reason it conceived an idiot attachment for
Kitty so that it followed her about as she changed her place from one
part of the large room to another. It clung to her skirt and rubbed its
face against her knees. It sought to fondle her hands. She shivered with
disgust. She knew it yearned for caresses and she could not bring
herself to touch it.
Once, speaking of it to Sister St. Joseph, she said that it was a pity
it lived. Sister St. Joseph smiled and stretched out her hand to the
misformed thing. It came and rubbed its bulging forehead against it.
"Poor little mite," said the nun. "She was brought here positively
dying. By the mercy of Providence I was at the door just as she came. I
thought there was not a moment to lose, so I baptized her at once. You
would not believe what trouble we have had to keep her with us. Three or
four times we thought that her little soul would escape to Heaven."
Kitty was silent. Sister St. Joseph in her loquacious way began to
gossip of other things. And next day when the idiot child came to her
and touched her hand Kitty nerved herself to place it in a caress on the
great bare skull. She forced her lips into a smile. But suddenly the
child, with an idiot perversity, left her; it seemed to lose interest in
her, and that day and the following days paid her no attention. Kitty
did not know what she had done and tried to lure it to her with smiles
and gestures, but it turned away and pretended not to see her.
_l_
Since the nuns were busy from morning till night with a hundred duties
Kitty saw little of them but at the services in the bare, humble chapel.
On her first day the Mother Superior, catching sight of her seated at
the back behind the girls on the benches according to their ages,
stopped and spoke to her.
"You must not think it necessary for you to come to the chapel when we
do," she said. "You are a Protestant and you have your own convictions."
"But I like to come, Mother. I find that it rests me."
The Mother Superior gave her a moment's glance and slightly inclined her
grave head.
"Of course you will do exactly as you choose. I merely wanted you to
understand that you are under no obligation."
But with Sister St. Joseph Kitty soon became on terms not of intimacy
perhaps but of familiarity. The economy of the convent was in her charge
and to look after the material well-being of that big family kept the
Sister on her feet all day. She said that the only time she had to rest
was that which she devoted to prayer. But it pleased her towards evening
when Kitty was with the girls at their work to come in and, vowing that
she was tired out and had not a moment to spare, sit down for a few
minutes and gossip. When she was not in the presence of the Mother
Superior she was a talkative, merry creature, fond of a joke, and she
did not dislike a bit of scandal. Kitty stood in no fear of her, her
habit did not prevent Sister St. Joseph from being a good-natured,
homely woman, and she chattered with her gaily. She did not mind with
her showing how badly she talked French and they laughed with one
another over Kitty's mistakes. The Sister taught her every day a few
useful words of Chinese. She was a farmer's daughter and at heart she
was still a peasant.
"I used to keep the cows when I was little," she said, "like St. Joan of
Arc. But I was too wicked to have visions. It was fortunate, I think,
for my father would certainly have whipped me if I had. He used often to
whip me, the good old man, for I was a very naughty little girl. I am
ashamed sometimes when I think now of the pranks I used to play."
Kitty laughed at the thought that this corpulent, middle-aged nun could
ever have been a wayward child. And yet there was something childlike in
her still so that your heart went out to her: she seemed to have about
her an aroma of the countryside in autumn when the apple trees are laden
with fruit and the crops are in and safely housed. She had not the
tragic and austere saintliness of the Mother Superior, but a gaiety that
was simple and happy.
"Do you never wish to go home again, _ma sœur_?" asked Kitty.
"Oh, no. It would be too hard to come back. I love to be here and I am
never so happy as when I am among the orphans. They're so good, they're
so grateful. But it is all very well to be a nun (_on a beau être
religieuse_) still one has a mother and one cannot forget that one drank
the milk of her breasts. She is old, my mother, and it is hard never to
see her again; but then she is fond of her daughter-in-law, and my
brother is good to her. His son is growing up now, I should think they
will be glad of an extra pair of strong arms on the farm; he was only a
child when I left France, but he promised to have a fist that you could
fell an ox with."