"Father Giovanni? That serious old cross-bones?"
I said he was not always serious, and that on Christmas Day he had come
to tea and kissed me under the mistletoe.
"Kissed you under the mistletoe!" said Alma, and then she whispered
eagerly,
"He didn't kiss Sister Angela, did he?"
I suppose I was flattered by her interest, and this loosened my tongue,
for I answered:
"He kissed her hand, though."
"Kissed her hand? My! . . . Of course she was very angry . . . wasn't
she angry?"
I answered no, and in my simplicity I proceeded to prove this by
explaining that Sister Angela had taken Father Giovanni down to the
door, and when he was ill she had nursed him.
"Nursed him? In his own house, you mean?"
"Yes, at night, too, and she stayed until he was better, and caught a
cold coming back."
"Well, I never!" said Alma, and I remember that I was very pleased with
myself during this interview, for by the moonlight which was then
shining into the room, I could see that Alma's eyes were sparkling.
The next night we recommenced our conferences in bed, when Alma told us
all about her holiday, which she had spent "way up in St. Moritz," among
deep snow and thick ice, skating, bobbing, lugging, and above all riding
astride, and dragging a man on skis behind her.
"Such lots of fun," she said. And the best of it was at night when there
were dances and fancy-dress balls with company which included all the
smart people in Europe, and men who gave a girl such a good time if she
happened to be pretty and was likely to have a dot.
Alma had talked so eagerly and the girls had listened so intently, that
nobody was aware that Sister Angela had returned to the room until she
stepped forward and said:
"Alma Lier, I'm ashamed of you. Go back to your bed, miss, this very
minute."
The other girls crept away and I half covered my face with my
bed-clothes, but Alma stood up to Sister Angela and answered her back.
"Go to bed yourself, and don't speak to me like that, or you'll pay for
your presumption."
"Pay? Presumption? You insolent thing, you are corrupting the whole
school and are an utter disgrace to it. I warned you that I would tell
the Reverend Mother what you are and now I've a great mind to do it."
"Do it. I dare you to do it. Do it to-night, and to-morrow morning _I_
will do something."
"What will you do, you brazen hussy?" said Sister Angela, but I could
see that her lip was trembling.
"Never mind what. If I'm a hussy I'm not a hypocrite, and as for
corrupting the school, and being a disgrace to it, I'll leave the
Reverend Mother to say who is doing that."
Low as the light was I could see that Sister Angela was deadly pale.
There was a moment of silence in which I thought she glanced in my
direction, and then stammering something which I did not hear, she left
the dormitory.
It was long before she returned and when she did so I saw her creep into
her cubicle and sit there for quite a great time before going to bed. My
heart was thumping hard, for I had a vague feeling that I had been
partly to blame for what had occurred, but after a while I fell asleep
and remembered no more until I was awakened in the middle of the night
by somebody kissing me in my sleep.
It was Sister Angela, and she was turning away, but I called her back,
and she knelt by my bed and whispered:
"Hush! I know what has happened, but I don't blame you for it."
I noticed that she was wearing her out-door cloak, and that she was
breathing rapidly, just as she did on the night she came from the
chaplain's quarters, and when I asked if she was going anywhere she said
yes, and if I ever heard anything against Sister Angela I was to think
the best of her.
"But you are so good. . . ."
"No, I am not good. I am very wicked. I should never have thought of
being a nun, but I'm glad now that I'm only a novice and have never
taken the vows."
After that she told me to go to sleep, and then she kissed me again, and
I thought she was going to cry, but she rose hurriedly and left the
room.
Next morning after the getting-up bell had been rung, and I had roused
myself to full consciousness, I found that four or five nuns were
standing together near the door of the dormitory talking about something
that had happened during the night--Sister Angela had gone!
Half an hour afterwards when full of this exciting event, the girls went
bursting down to the Meeting Room they found the nuns in great
agitation over an incident of still deeper gravity--Father Giovanni also
had disappeared!
A convent school is like a shell on the shore of a creek, always
rumbling with the rumour of the little sea it lives under; and by noon
the girls, who had been palpitating with curiosity, thought they knew
everything that had happened--how at four in the morning Father Giovanni
and Sister Angela had been seen to come out of the little door which
connected the garden with the street; how at seven they had entered a
clothing emporium in the Corso, where going in at one door as priest and
nun they had come out at another as ordinary civilians; how at eight
they had taken the first train to Civita Vecchia, arriving in time to
catch a steamer sailing at ten, and how they were now on their way to
England.
By some mysterious instinct of their sex the girls had gathered with
glistening eyes in front of the chaplain's deserted quarters, where Alma
leaned against the wall with her insteps crossed and while the others
talked she smiled, as much as to say, "I told you so."
As for me I was utterly wretched, and being now quite certain that I was
the sole cause of Sister Angela's misfortune, I was sitting under the
tree in the middle of the garden, when Alma, surrounded by her usual
group of girls, came down on me.
"What's this?" she said. "Margaret Mary crying? Feeling badly for Sister
Angela, is she? Why, you little silly, you needn't cry for her. She's
having the time of her life, she is!"
At this the girls laughed and shuddered, as they used to do when Alma
told them stories, but just at that moment the nun with the stern face
(she was the Mother of the Novices) came up and said, solemnly:
"Alma Lier, the Reverend Mother wishes to speak to you."
"To me?" said Alma, in a tone of surprise, but at the next moment she
went off jauntily.
Hours passed and Alma did not return, and nothing occurred until
afternoon "rosary," when the Mother of the Novices came again and taking
me by the hand said:
"Come with me, my child."
I knew quite well where we were going to, and my lip was trembling when
we entered the Reverend Mother's room, for Alma was there, sitting by
the stove, and close beside her, with an angry look, was the stout lady
in furs whom I had seen in the carriage at the beginning of the
holidays.
"Don't be afraid," said the Reverend Mother, and drawing me to her side
she asked me to tell her what I had told Alma about Sister Angela.
I repeated our conversation as nearly as I could remember it, and more
than once Alma nodded her head as if in assent, but the Reverend
Mother's face grew darker at every word and, seeing this, I said:
"But if Sister Angela did anything wrong I'm sure she was very sorry,
for when she came back she said her prayers, and when she got to 'Father
of all mankind, forgive all sinners . . .'"
"Yes, yes, that will do," said the Reverend Mother, and then she handed
me back to the Mother of the Novices, telling her to warn me to say
nothing to the other children.
Alma did not return to us at dinner, or at recreation, or at chapel
(when another chaplain said vespers), or even at nine o'clock, when we
went to bed. But next morning, almost as soon as the Mother of the
Novices had left the dormitory, she burst into the room saying:
"I'm leaving this silly old convent, girls. Mother has brought the
carriage, and I've only come to gather up my belongings."
Nobody spoke, and while she wrapped up her brushes and combs in her
nightdress, she joked about Sister Angela and Father Giovanni and then
about Mildred Bankes, whom she called "Reverend Mother Mildred," saying
it would be her turn next.
Then she tipped up her mattress, and taking a novel from under it she
threw the book on to my bed, saying:
"Margaret Mary will have to be your story-teller now. By-by, girls!"
Nobody laughed. For the first time Alma's humour had failed her, and
when we went downstairs to the Meeting Room it was with sedate and quiet
steps.
The nuns were all there, with their rosaries and crosses, looking as
calm as if nothing had occurred, but the girls were thinking of Alma,
and when, after prayers, during the five minutes of silence for
meditation, we heard the wheels of a carriage going off outside, we knew
what had happened--Alma had gone.
We were rising to go to Mass when the Reverend Mother said,
"Children, I have a word to say to you. You all know that one of our
novices has left us. You also know that one of our scholars has just
gone. It is my wish that you should forget both of them, and I shall
look upon it as an act of disobedience if any girl in the Convent ever
mentions their names again."
All that day I was in deep distress, and when, night coming, I took my
troubles to bed, telling myself I had now lost Alma also, and it was all
my fault, somebody put her arms about me in the darkness and whispered:
"Mary O'Neill, are you awake?"
It was Mildred, and I suppose my snuffling answered her, for she said:
"You mustn't cry for Alma Lier. She was no friend of yours, and it was
the best thing that ever happened to you when she was turned out of the
convent."