realise that on the other side of these four walls cholera was raging.
Sister St. Joseph had an unconcern which conveyed itself to Kitty.
She had a naïve curiosity about the world and its inhabitants. She
asked Kitty all kinds of questions about London and England, a country,
she thought, where so thick was the fog that you could not see your hand
at midday, and she wanted to know if Kitty went to balls and whether she
lived in a grand house and how many brothers and sisters she had. She
spoke often of Walter. The Mother Superior said he was wonderful and
every day they prayed for him. How lucky Kitty was to have a husband who
was so good and so brave and so clever.
_li_
But sooner or later Sister St. Joseph returned to the subject of the
Mother Superior. Kitty had been conscious from the beginning that the
personality of this woman dominated the convent. She was regarded by all
that dwelt there with love certainly and with admiration, but also with
awe and not a little dread. Notwithstanding her kindliness Kitty herself
felt like a schoolgirl in her presence. She was never quite at her ease
with her, for she was filled with a sentiment which was so strange that
it embarrassed her: reverence. Sister St. Joseph with an ingenious
desire to impress, told Kitty how great the family was to which the
Mother Superior belonged; she had among her ancestors persons of
historic importance and she was _un peu cousine_ with half the kings in
Europe: Alphonso of Spain had hunted at her father's, and they had
châteaux all over France. It must have been hard to leave so much
grandeur. Kitty listened smilingly, but not a little impressed.
"_Du reste_, you have only to look at her," said the Sister, "to see
that, _comme famille, c'est le dessus du panier._"
"She has the most beautiful hands that I have ever seen," said Kitty.
"Ah, but if you only knew how she had used them. She is not afraid of
work, _notre bonne mère._"
When they had come to this city there had been nothing. They had built
the convent. The Mother Superior had made the plans and supervised the
work. The moment they arrived they began to save the poor little
unwanted girls from the baby-tower and the cruel hands of the midwife.
At first they had had no beds to sleep in and no glass to keep out the
night air ("and there is nothing," said Sister St. Joseph, "which is
more unwholesome"); and often they had no money left, not only to pay
the builders, but even to buy their simple fare; they lived like
peasants, what was she saying? the peasants in France, _tenez_, the men
who worked for her father, would have thrown to the pigs the food they
ate. And then the Mother Superior would collect her daughters round her
and they would kneel and pray; and the Blessed Virgin would send money.
A thousand francs would arrive by post next day, or a stranger, an
Englishman (a Protestant, if you please) or even a Chinaman would knock
at the door while they were actually on their knees and bring them a
present. Once they were in such straits that they all made a vow to the
Blessed Virgin that they would recite a _neuvaine_ in her honour if she
succoured them, and, would you believe it? that funny Mr. Waddington
came to see us next day and saying that we looked as though we all
wanted a good plate of roast beef gave us a hundred dollars.
What a comic little man he was, with his bald head and his little shrewd
eyes (_ses petits yeux malins_) and his jokes. _Mon Dieu_, how he
murdered the French language, and yet you could not help laughing at
him. He was always in a good humour. All through this terrible epidemic
he carried himself as if he were enjoying a holiday. He had a heart
quite French and a wit so that you would hardly believe he was English.
Except for his accent. But sometimes Sister St. Joseph thought he spoke
badly on purpose to make you laugh. Of course his morals were not all
one could wish; but still that was his business (with a sigh, a shrug
and a shake of the head) and he was a bachelor and a young man.
"What is wrong with his morals, ma sœur?" asked Kitty smiling.
"Is it possible that you do not know? It is a sin for me to tell you. I
have no business to say such things. He lives with a Chinese woman, that
is to say, not a Chinese woman, but a Manchu. A princess, it appears,
and she loves him to distraction."
"That sounds quite impossible," cried Kitty.
"No, no, I promise you, it is everything that is most true. It is very
wicked of him. Those things are not done. Did you not hear, when you
first came to the convent and he would not eat the _madeleines_ that I
had made expressly, that _notre bonne mère_ said his stomach was
deranged by Manchu cooking? That was what she meant and you should have
seen the head that he made. It is a story altogether curious. It appears
that he was stationed at Hankow during the revolution when they were
massacring the Manchus and this good little Waddington saved the lives
of one of their great families. They are related to the Imperial Family.
The girl fell violently in love with him and--well, the rest you can
imagine. And then when he left Hankow she ran away and followed him and
now she follows him everywhere, and he has had to resign himself to keep
her, poor fellow, and I daresay he is very fond of her; they are quite
charming sometimes, these Manchu women. But what am I thinking of? I
have a thousand things to do and I sit here. I am a bad religious. I am
ashamed of myself."
_lii_
Kitty had a queer feeling that she was growing. The constant occupation
distracted her mind and the glimpses she had of other lives and other
outlooks awakened her imagination. She began to regain her spirits; she
felt better and stronger. It had seemed to her that she could do nothing
now but weep; but to her surprise, and not a little to her confusion,
she caught herself laughing at this and that. It began to seem quite
natural to live in the midst of a terrible epidemic. She knew that
people were dying to the right and left of her, but she ceased very much
to think of it. The Mother Superior had forbidden her to go into the
infirmaries and the closed doors excited her curiosity. She would have
liked to peep in, but could not do so without being seen, and she did
not know what punishment the Mother Superior would inflict upon her. It
would be dreadful to be sent away. She was devoted to the children now
and they would miss her if she went; in fact she did not know what they
would do without her.
And one day it occurred to her that she had neither thought of Charles
Townsend nor dreamt of him for a week. Her heart gave a sudden thud
against her ribs: she was cured. She could think of him now with
indifference. She loved him no longer. Oh, the relief and the sense of
liberation! It was strange to look back and remember how passionately
she had yearned for him; she thought she would die when he failed her;
she thought life thenceforward had nothing to offer but misery. And now
already she was laughing. A worthless creature. What a fool she had made
of herself! And now, considering him calmly, she wondered what on earth
she had seen in him. It was lucky that Waddington knew nothing, she
could never have endured his malicious eyeing and his ironical
innuendoes. She was free, free at last, free! She could hardly prevent
herself from laughing aloud.
The children were playing some romping game and it was her habit to look
on with an indulgent smile, restraining them when they made too much
noise and taking care that in their boisterousness none was hurt; but
now in her high spirits, feeling as young as any of them, she joined in
the game. The little girls received her with delight. They chased up and
down the room, shouting at the top of their shrill voices, with
fantastic and almost barbarous glee. They grew so excited that they
leaped into the air with joy. The noise was terrific.
Suddenly the door opened and the Mother Superior stood on the threshold.
Kitty, abashed, extricated herself from the clutches of a dozen little
girls who with wild shrieks had seized her.
"Is this how you keep these children good and quiet?" asked the Mother
Superior, a smile on her lips.
"We were having a game, Mother. They got excited. It is my fault, I led
them on."
The Mother Superior came forward and as usual the children clustered
about her. She put her hands round their narrow shoulders and playfully
pulled their little yellow ears. She looked at Kitty with a long, soft
look. Kitty was flushed and she was breathing quickly. Her liquid eyes
were shining and her lovely hair, disarranged in all the struggling and
the laughter, was in adorable confusion.
"_Que vous êtes belle, ma chère enfant_," said the Mother Superior.
"It does the heart good to look at you. No wonder these children adore
you."
Kitty blushed deeply and, she knew not why, tears suddenly filled her
eyes. She covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, Mother, you make me ashamed."
"Come, do not be silly. Beauty is also a gift of God, one of the most
rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to
possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our
pleasure."
She smiled again and as though Kitty were a child too gently patted her
soft cheek.
_liii_
Since she had been working at the convent Kitty had seen less of
Waddington. Two or three times he had come down to the river bank to
meet her and they had walked up the hill together. He came in to drink a
whisky and soda, but he would seldom stay to dinner. One Sunday,
however, he suggested that they should take their luncheon with them and
go in chairs to a Buddhist monastery. It was situated ten miles from the
city and had some reputation as a place of pilgrimage. The Mother
Superior, insisting that Kitty must have a day's rest, would not let her
work on Sundays and Walter of course was as busy then as usual.
They started early in order to arrive before the heat of the day and
were carried along a narrow causeway between the rice fields. Now and
then they passed comfortable farm-houses nestling with friendly intimacy
in a grove of bamboos. Kitty enjoyed the idleness; it was pleasant after
being cooped up in the city to see about her the wide country. They came
to the monastery, straggling low buildings by the side of the river,
agreeably shaded by trees, and were led by smiling monks through
courtyards, empty with a solemn emptiness, and shown temples with
grimacing gods. In the sanctuary sat the Buddha, remote and sad,
wistful, abstracted and faintly smiling. There was about everything a
sense of dejection; the magnificence was shoddy and ruined; the gods
were dusty and the faith that had made them was dying. The monks seemed
to stay on sufference, as though they awaited a notice to quit; and in
the smile of the abbot, with his beautiful politeness, was the irony of
resignation. One of these days the monks would wander away from the
shady, pleasant wood, and the buildings, crumbling and neglected, would
be battered by fierce storms and besieged by the surrounding nature.
Wild creepers would twine themselves about the dead images and trees
would grow in the courtyards. Then the gods would dwell there no longer,
but evil spirits of darkness.
_liv_
They sat on the steps of a little building (four lacquered columns and a
high, tiled roof under which stood a great bronze bell) and watched the
river flow sluggish and with many a bend towards the stricken city. They
could see its crenellated walls. The heat hung over it like a pall. But
the river, though it flowed so slowly, had still a sense of movement and
it gave one a melancholy feeling of the transitoriness of things.
Everything passed, and what trace of its passage remained? It seemed to
Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in
that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far
apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a
time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men,
attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make
themselves and one another so unhappy.
"Do you know Harrington Gardens?" she asked Waddington, with a smile in
her beautiful eyes.
"No. Why?"
"Nothing; only it's a long way from here. It's where my people live."
"Are you thinking of going home?"
"No."
"I suppose you'll be leaving here in a couple of months. The epidemic
seems to be abating and the cool weather should see the end of it."
"I almost think I shall be sorry to go."
For a moment she thought of the future. She did not know what plans
Walter had in mind. He told her nothing. He was cool, polite, silent and
inscrutable. Two little drops in that river that flowed silently towards
the unknown; two little drops that to themselves had so much
individuality and to the onlooker were but an undistinguishable part of
the water.
"Take care the nuns don't start converting you," said Waddington, with
his malicious little smile.
"They're much too busy. Nor do they care. They're wonderful and so kind;
and yet--I hardly know how to explain it--there is a wall between them
and me. I don't know what it is. It is as though they possessed a secret
which made all the difference in their lives and which I was unworthy to
share. It is not faith; it is something deeper and more--more
significant: they walk in a different world from ours and we shall
always be strangers to them. Each day when the convent door closes
behind me I feel that for them I have ceased to exist."
"I can understand that it is something of a blow to your vanity," he
returned mockingly.
"My vanity."
Kitty shrugged her shoulders. Then, smiling once more, she turned to him
lazily.
"Why did you never tell me that you lived with a Manchu princess?"
"What have those gossiping old women been telling you? I am sure that it
is a sin for nuns to discuss the private affairs of the Customs
officials."
"Why should you be so sensitive?"
Waddington glanced down, sideways, so that it gave him an air of
shyness. He faintly shrugged his shoulders.
"It's not a thing to advertise. I do not know that it would greatly add
to my chances of promotion in the service."
"Are you very fond of her?"
He looked up now and his ugly little face had the look of a naughty
schoolboy's.
"She's abandoned everything for my sake, home, family, security and
self-respect. It's a good many years now since she threw everything to
the winds to be with me. I've sent her away two or three times, but
she's always come back; I've run away from her myself, but she's always
followed me. And now I've given it up as a bad job; I think I've got to
put up with her for the rest of my life."
"She must really love you to distraction."
"It's a rather funny sensation, you know," he answered, wrinkling a
perplexed forehead. "I haven't the smallest doubt that if I really left
her, definitely, she would commit suicide. Not with any ill-feeling
towards me, but quite naturally, because she was unwilling to live
without me. It is a curious feeling it gives one to know that. It can't
help meaning something to you."
"But it's loving that's the important thing, not being loved. One's not
even grateful to the people who love one; if one doesn't love them, they
only bore one."
"I have no experience of the plural," he replied. "Mine is only in the
singular."
"Is she really an Imperial Princess?"
"No, that is a romantic exaggeration of the nuns. She belongs to one of
the great families of the Manchus, but they have, of course, been ruined
by the revolution. She is all the same a very great lady."
He said it in a tone of pride, so that a smile flickered in Kitty's
eyes.
"Are you going to stay here for the rest of your life then?"
"In China? Yes. What would she do elsewhere? When I retire I shall take
a little Chinese house in Peking and spend the rest of my days there."
"Have you any children?"
"No."
She looked at him curiously. It was strange that this little bald-headed
man with his monkey face should have aroused in the alien woman so
devastating a passion. She could not tell why the way he spoke of her,
notwithstanding his casual manner and his flippant phrases, gave her the
impression so strongly of the woman's intense and unique devotion. It
troubled her a little.
"It does seem a long way to Harrington Gardens," she smiled.
"Why do you say that?"
"I don't understand anything. Life is so strange. I feel like someone
who's lived all his life by a duck-pond and suddenly is shown the sea.
It makes me a little breathless, and yet it fills me with elation. I
don't want to die, I want to live. I'm beginning to feel a new courage.
I feel like one of those old sailors who set sail for undiscovered seas
and I think my soul hankers for the unknown."
Waddington looked at her reflectively. Her abstracted gaze rested on the
smoothness of the river. Two little drops that flowed silently, silently
towards the dark, eternal sea.
"May I come and see the Manchu lady?" asked Kitty, suddenly raising her
head.
"She can't speak a word of English."
"You've been very kind to me, you've done a great deal for me, perhaps I
could show her by my manner that I had a friendly feeling towards her."
Waddington gave a thin, mocking little smile, but he answered with good
humour.
"I will come and fetch you one day and she shall give you a cup of
jasmine tea."
She would not tell him that this story of an alien love had from the
first moment strangely intrigued her fancy, and the Manchu Princess
stood now as the symbol of something that vaguely, but insistently,
beckoned to her. She pointed enigmatically to a mystic land of the
spirit.
_lv_
But a day or two later Kitty made an unforeseen discovery.
She went to the convent as usual and set about her first work of seeing
that the children were washed and dressed. Since the nuns held firmly
that the night air was harmful, the atmosphere in the dormitory was
close and fetid. After the freshness of the morning it always made Kitty
a little uncomfortable and she hastened to open such windows as would.
But to-day she felt on a sudden desperately sick and with her head
swimming she stood at a window trying to compose herself. It had never
been as bad as this before. Then nausea overwhelmed her and she vomited.
She gave a cry so that the children were frightened, and the older girl
who was helping her ran up and, seeing Kitty white and trembling,
stopped short with an exclamation. Cholera! The thought flashed through
Kitty's mind and then a deathlike feeling came over her; she was seized
with terror, she struggled for a moment against the night that seemed
agonisingly to run through her veins; she felt horribly ill; and then
darkness.
When she opened her eyes she did not at first know where she was. She
seemed to be lying on the floor and, moving her head slightly, she
thought that there was a pillow under it. She could not remember. The
Mother Superior was kneeling by her side, holding smelling salts to her
nose, and Sister St. Joseph stood looking at her. Then it came back.
Cholera! She saw the consternation on the nuns' faces. Sister St. Joseph
looked huge and her outline was blurred. Once more terror overwhelmed
her.
"Oh, Mother, Mother," she sobbed. "Am I going to die? I don't want to
die."
"Of course you're not going to die," said the Mother Superior.
She was quite composed and there was even amusement in her eyes.
"But it's cholera. Where's Walter? Has he been sent for? Oh, Mother,
Mother."
She burst into a flood of tears. The Mother Superior gave her hand and
Kitty seized it as though it were a hold upon the life she feared to
lose.
"Come, come, my dear child, you mustn't be so silly. It's not cholera or
anything of the kind."
"Where's Walter?"
"Your husband is much too busy to be troubled. In five minutes you'll be
perfectly well."
Kitty looked at her with staring, harassed eyes. Why did she take it so
calmly? It was cruel.
"Keep perfectly quiet for a minute," said the Mother Superior. "There is
nothing to alarm yourself about."
Kitty felt her heart beat madly. She had grown so used to the thought of
cholera that it had ceased to seem possible that she could catch it. Oh,
the fool she had been! She knew she was going to die. She was
frightened. The girls brought in a long rattan chair and placed it by
the window.
"Come, let us lift you," said the Mother Superior. "You will be more
comfortable on the _chaise longue_. Do you think you can stand?"
She put her hands under Kitty's arms and Sister St. Joseph helped her to
her feet. She sank exhausted into the chair.
"I had better shut the window," said Sister St. Joseph. "The early
morning air cannot be good for her."
"No, no," said Kitty. "Please leave it open."
It gave her confidence to see the blue sky. She was shaken, but
certainly she began to feel better. The two nuns looked at her for a
moment in silence, and Sister St. Joseph said something to the Mother
Superior which she could not understand. Then the Mother Superior sat on
the side of the chair and took her hand.
"Listen, _ma chère enfant_ . . ."
She asked her one or two questions. Kitty answered them without knowing
what they meant. Her lips were trembling so that she could hardly frame
the words.
"There is no doubt about it," said Sister St. Joseph. "I am not one to
be deceived in such a matter."
She gave a little laugh in which Kitty seemed to discern a certain
excitement and not a little affection. The Mother Superior, still
holding Kitty's hand, smiled with soft tenderness.
"Sister St. Joseph has more experience of these things than I have, dear
child, and she said at once what was the matter with you. She was
evidently quite right."
"What do you mean?" asked Kitty anxiously.
"It is quite evident. Did the possibility of such a thing never occur to
you? You are with child, my dear."
The start that Kitty gave shook her from head to foot, and she put her
feet to the ground as though to spring up.
"Lie still, lie still," said the Mother Superior.
Kitty felt herself blush furiously and she put her hands to her breasts.
"It's impossible. It isn't true."
"_Qu'est ce qu'elle dit?_" asked Sister St. Joseph.
The Mother Superior translated. Sister St. Joseph's broad simple face,
with its red cheeks, was beaming.
"No mistake is possible. I give you my word of honour."
"How long have you been married, my child?" asked the Mother Superior.
"Why, when my sister-in-law had been married as long as you she had
already two babies."
Kitty sank back into the chair. There was death in her heart.
"I'm so ashamed," she whispered.
"Because you are going to have a baby? Why, what can be more natural?"
"_Quelle joie pour le docteur_," said Sister St. Joseph.
"Yes, think what a happiness for your husband. He will be overwhelmed
with joy. You have only to see him with babies, and the look on his face
when he plays with them, to see how enchanted he will be to have one of
his own."
For a little while Kitty was silent. The two nuns looked at her with
tender interest and the Mother Superior stroked her hand.
"It was silly of me not to have suspected it before," said Kitty. "At
all events I'm glad it's not cholera. I feel very much better. I will
get back to my work."
"Not to-day, my dear child. You have had a shock, you had much better go
home and rest yourself."
"No, no, I would much rather stay and work."
"I insist. What would our good doctor say if I let you be imprudent?
Come to-morrow, if you like, or the day after, but to-day you must be
quiet. I will send for a chair. Would you like me to let one of our
young girls go with you?"
"Oh, no, I shall be all right alone."
_lvi_
Kitty was lying on her bed and the shutters were closed. It was after
luncheon and the servants slept. What she had learnt that morning (and
now she was certain that it was true) filled her with consternation.
Ever since she came home she had been trying to think; but her mind was
a blank, and she could not collect her thoughts. Suddenly she heard a
step, the feet were booted so that it could not be one of the boys; with
a gasp of apprehension she realised that it could only be her husband.
He was in the sitting-room and she heard herself called. She did not
reply. There was a moment's silence and then a knock on her door.
"Yes?"
"May I come in?"
Kitty rose from her bed and slipped into a dressing-gown.
"Yes."
He entered. She was glad that the closed shutters shadowed her face.
"I hope I didn't wake you. I knocked very, very gently."
"I haven't been asleep."