A child lives from hour to hour, and almost at the same moment that my
heart was made desolate by the loss of my two friends it was quickened
to a new interest.
Immediately after the departure of Sister Angela and Alma we were all
gathered in the Meeting Room for our weekly rehearsal of the music of
the Benediction--the girls, the novices, the nuns, the Reverend Mother,
and a Maestro from the Pope's choir, a short fat man, who wore a black
soutane and a short lace tippet.
Benediction was the only service of our church which I knew, being the
one my mother loved best and could do most of for herself in the
solitude of her invalid room, but the form used in the Convent differed
from that to which I had been accustomed, and even the _Tantum ergo_ and
the _O Salutaris Hostia_ I could not sing.
On this occasion a litany was added which I had heard before, and then
came a hymn of the Blessed Virgin which I remembered well. My mother
sang it herself and taught me to sing it, so that when the Maestro,
swinging his little ivory baton, began in his alto voice--
"_Ave maris stella,
Dei Mater alma--_"
I joined in with the rest, but sang in English instead of Latin Of all
appeals to the memory that of music is the strongest, and after a moment
I forgot that I was at school in Rome, being back in my mother's room in
Ellan, standing by her piano and singing while she played. I think I
must have let my little voice go, just as I used to do at home, when it
rang up to the wooden rafters, for utterly lost to my surroundings I had
got as far as--
"_Virgin of all virgins,
To thy shelter take us--_"
when suddenly I became aware that I alone was singing, the children
about me being silent, and even the Maestro's baton slowing down. Then I
saw that all eyes were turned in my direction, and overwhelmed with
confusion I stopped, for my voice broke and slittered into silence.
"Go on, little angel," said the Maestro, but I was trembling all over by
this time and could not utter a sound.
Nevertheless the Reverend Mother said: "Let Mary O'Neill sing the hymn
in church in future."
As soon as I had conquered my nervousness at singing in the presence of
the girls, I did so, singing the first line of each verse alone, and I
remember to have heard that the congregations on Sunday afternoons grew
larger and larger, until, within a few weeks, the church was densely
crowded.
Perhaps my childish heart was stirred by vanity in all this, for I
remember that ladies in beautiful dresses would crowd to the bronze
screen that separated us from the public and whisper among themselves,
"Which is she?" "The little one in the green scarf with the big eyes!"
"God bless her!"
But surely it was a good thing that at length life had began to have a
certain joy for me, for as time went on I became absorbed in the life of
the Convent, and particularly in the services of the church, so that
home itself began to fade away, and when the holidays came round and
excuses were received for not sending for me, the pain of my
disappointment became less and less until at last it disappeared
altogether.
If ever a child loved her mother I did, and there were moments when I
reproached myself with not thinking of her for a whole day. These were
the moments when a letter came from Father Dan, telling me she was less
well than before and her spark of life had to be coaxed and trimmed or
it would splutter out altogether.
But the effect of such warnings was wiped away when my mother wrote
herself, saying I was to be happy as she was happy, because she knew
that though so long separated we should soon be together, and the time
would not seem long.
Not understanding the deeper meaning that lay behind words like these, I
was nothing loath to put aside the thought of home until little by
little it faded away from me in the distance, just as the island itself
had done on the day when I sailed out with Martin Conrad on our great
voyage of exploration to St. Mary's Rock.
Thus two years and a half passed since I arrived in Rome before the
great fact befell me which was to wipe all other facts out of my
remembrance.
It was Holy Week, the season of all seasons for devotion to the Sacred
Heart, and our Convent was palpitating with the joy of its spiritual
duties, the many offices, the masses for the repose of the souls in
Purgatory, the preparations for Tenebrae, with the chanting of the
Miserere, and for Holy Saturday and Easter Day, with the singing of the
Gloria and the return of the Alleluia.
But beyond all this for me were the arrangements for my first
confession, which, coming a little late, I made with ten or twelve other
girls of my sodality, feeling so faint when I took my turn and knelt by
the grating, and heard the whispering voice within, like something from
the unseen, something supernatural, something divine, that I forgot all
I had come to say and the priest had to prompt me.
And beyond that again were the arrangements for my first communion,
which was to take place on Easter morning, when I was to walk in
procession with the other girls, dressed all in white, behind a gilded
figure of the Virgin, singing "Ave maris stella," through the piazza
into the church, where one of the Cardinals, in the presence of the
fathers and mothers of the other children, was to put the Holy Wafer on
our tongues and we were to know for the first time the joy of communion
with our Lord.
But that was not to be for me.
On the morning of Holy Wednesday the blow fell. The luminous grey of the
Italian dawn was filtering through the windows of the dormitory, like
the light in a tomb, and a multitude of little birds on the old tree in
the garden were making a noise like water falling on small stones in a
fountain, when the Mother of the Novices came to my bedside and said:
"You are to go to the Reverend Mother as soon as possible, my child."
Her voice, usually severe, was so soft that I knew something had
happened, and when I went downstairs I also knew, before the Reverend
Mother had spoken, what she was going to say.
"Mary," she said, "I am Sorry to tell you that your mother is ill."