THE ESCAPED NUN.
Sister Claire sat in her office the next afternoon awaiting Louis as the
gorged spider awaits the fly, with desire indeed, but without anxiety.
Her office consisted of three rooms, opening into one another within,
each connected by doors with the hall without. A solemn youth kept guard
in the antechamber, a bilious lad whose feverish imagination enshrined
Sister Claire and McMeeter on the same altar, and fed its fires on the
promises of the worthy pair some day to send him on a mission as
glorious as their own. The furnishings had the severe simplicity of the
convent. The brilliant costume of the woman riveted the eye by the very
dulness of her surroundings. At close view her beauty seemed more
spiritual than in her public appearances. The heavy eyebrows were a
blemish indeed, but like a beauty-spot emphasized the melting eyes and
the peachy skin.
The creamy habit of the nun and the white coif about her head left only
her oval face and her lovely hands visible; but what a revelation were
these of loveliness and grace! One glance at her tender face and the
little hands would have scattered to the winds the slanders of Colette.
Success had thrilled but not coarsened the escaped nun. As Grahame had
surmised, she was now the hinge of Livingstone's scheme. The success of
her book and the popularity of her lectures, together with her discreet
behavior, had given her immense influence with her supporters and with
the leaders. Their money poured into her lap. She did not need it while
her book sold and her lectures were crowded.
The office saw come and go the most distinguished visitors. Even the
English historian did not begin to compare with her in glory, and so far
his lectures had not been well attended. Thinking of many things with
deep pride, she remembered that adversity had divided the leisure of
her table with prosperity. Hence, she could not help wondering how long
this fine success would last. Her peculiar fate demanded an end to it
sometime. As if in answer to her question, the solemn youth in the
antechamber knocked at her door, and announced with decorum Mr. Richard
Curran.
"I have made the inquiries you wanted," Curran said, as he took a chair
at her bidding. "Young Everard is a special pet of Dillon. This boy is
the apple of his eye. And Everard, the father, is an ardent supporter of
Livingstone. I think you had better drop this affair, if you would
escape a tangle--a nasty tangle."
"If the boy is willing, where's the tangle, Mr. Curran?" she answered
placidly.
"Well, you know more about the thing than I can tell you," he said, as
if worried. "You know them all. But I can't help warning you against
this Dillon. If you lay your hand on anything of his, I'm of opinion
that this country will not be big enough for you and him at the same
time."
"I shall get him also, and that'll put an end to his enmity. He's a fine
fellow. He's on my track, but you'll see how enchantment will put him
off it. Now, don't grumble. I'll be as tender and sweet with the boy as
a siren. You will come in only when I feel that the spell doesn't work.
Rely on me to do the prudent thing."
That he did not rely on her his expression showed clearly.
"You have made a great hit in this city, Sister Claire," he began----
"And you think I am about to ruin my chances of a fortune?" she
interrupted. "Well, I am willing to take the risk, and you have nothing
to say about it. You know your part. Go into the next room, and wait for
your cue. I'll bet any sum that you'll never get the cue. If you do, be
sure to make a quick entrance."
He looked long at her and sighed, but made no pretense to move. She
rose, and pointed to the third room of the suite. Sheepishly, moodily,
in silent protest, he obeyed the gesture and went out humbly. Before
that look the brave detective surrendered like a slave to his chains.
The door had hardly closed behind him, when the office-boy solemnly
announced Louis, and at a sign from Sister Claire ushered in the friend
of Arthur Dillon. She received him with downcast eyes, standing at a
little distance. With a whispered welcome and a drooping head, she
pointed to a seat. Louis sat down nervous and overawed, wishing that he
had never undertaken this impossible and depressing task. Who was he to
be dealing with such a character as this dubious and disreputable woman?
"I feared you would not come," she began in a very low tone. "I feared
you would misunderstand ... what can one like you understand of sin and
misery?... but thank Heaven for your courage ... I may yet owe to you my
salvation!"
"I was afraid," said the lad frankly, gladdened by her cunning words. "I
don't know of what ... but I suppose it was distrust of myself. If I can
be of any service to you how glad I shall be!"
"Oh, you can, you can," she murmured, turning her beautiful eyes on him.
Her voice failed her, and she had to struggle with her sobs.
"What do you think I can do for you?" he asked, to relieve the suspense.
"I shall tell you that later," she replied, and almost burst out
laughing. "It will be simple and easy for you, but no one else can
satisfy me. We are alone. I must tell you my story, that you may be the
better able to understand the service which I shall ask of you. It is a
short story, but terrible ... especially to one like you ... promise me
that you will not shrink, that you will not despise me----"
"I have no right to despise you," said Louis, catching his breath.
She bowed her head to hide a smile, and appeared to be irresolute for a
moment. Then with sudden, and even violent, resolve, she drew a chair to
his side, and began the history of her wretched career. Her position was
such, that to see her face he had to turn his head; but her delicate
hands rested on the arm of his chair, clasped now, and again twisted
with anguish, and then stretched out with upward palms appealing for
pity, or drooping in despair. She could see his profile, and watch the
growing uneasiness, the shame of innocence brought face to face with
dirt unspeakable, the mortal terror of a pure boy in the presence of
Phryne. With this sport Sister Claire had been long familiar.
Her caressing voice and deep sorrow stripped the tale of half its
vileness. At times her voice fell to a breath. Then she bent towards him
humbly, and a perfume swept over him like a breeze from the tropics. The
tale turned him to stone. Sister Claire undoubtedly drew upon her
imagination and her reading for the facts, since it rarely falls to the
lot of one woman to sound all the depths of depravity. Louis had little
nonsense in his character. At first his horror urged him to fly from the
place, but whenever the tale aroused this feeling in him, the cunning
creature broke forth into a strain of penitence so sweet and touching
that he had not the heart to desert her. At the last she fell upon her
knees and buried her face in his lap, crying out:
"If you do not hate me now ... after all this ... then take pity on me."
* * * * *
Arthur sauntered into the hall outside the office of Sister Claire about
half-past four. He had forgotten the momentous interview which bid so
fair to end in the conversion of the escaped nun; also his declaration
to be within hailing distance in case of necessity. In a lucky moment,
however, the thought of Sister Mary Magdalen and her rainbow enterprise,
so foolish, so incredible, came to his mind, and sent him in haste to
the rescue of his friend. Had Louis kept his engagement and received the
vows and the confession of the audacious tool of Livingstone? No sound
came from the office. It would hardly do for him to make inquiry.
He observed that Sister Claire's office formed a suite of three rooms.
The door of the first looked like the main entrance. It had the
appearance of use, and within he heard the cough of the solemn
office-boy. A faint murmur came from the second room. This must be the
private sanctum of the spider; this murmur might be the spider's
enchantment over the fly. What should the third room be? The trap? He
turned the knob and entered swiftly and silently, much to the
detective's surprise and his own.
"I had no idea that door was unlocked," said Curran helplessly.
"Nor I. Who's within? My friend, young Everard?"
"Don't know. She shoved me in here to wait until some visitor departed.
Then we are to consider a proposition I made her," said the calm
detective.
"So you have made a beginning? That's good. Don't stir. Perhaps it is as
well that you are here. Let me discover who is in here with the good
sister."
"I can go to the first room, the front office, and inquire," said
Curran.
"Never mind."
He could hear no words, only the low tones of the woman speaking; until
of a sudden the strong, manly voice of Louis, but subdued by emotion,
husky and uncertain, rose in answer to her passionate outburst.
"He's inside ... my young man ... hopes to convert her," Arthur
whispered to Curran, and they laughed together in silence. "Now I have
my own suspicion as to her motive in luring the boy here. If he goes as
he came, why I'm wrong perhaps. If there's a rumpus, I may have her
little feet in the right sort of a trap, and so save you labor, and the
rest of us money. If anything happens, Curran, leave the situation to
me. I'm anxious for a close acquaintance with Sister Claire."
Curran sat as comfortably, to the eye, as if in his own house
entertaining his friend Dillon. The latter occasionally made the very
natural reflection that this brave and skilful man lay in the trap of
just such a creature as Sister Claire. Suddenly there came a burst of
sound from the next room, exclamations, the hurrying of feet, the crash
of a chair, and the trying of the doors. A frenzied hand shook the knob
of the door at which Arthur was looking with a satisfied smile.
"Locked in?" he said to Curran, who nodded in a dazed way.
Then some kind of a struggle began on the other side of that door.
Arthur stood there like a cat ready to pounce on the foolish mouse, and
the detective glared at him like a surly dog eager to rend him, but
afraid. They could hear smothered calls for help in a woman's voice.
"If she knew how near the cat is," Arthur remarked patiently.
At last the key clicked in the lock, the door half opened, and as Arthur
pushed it inwards Sister Claire flung herself away from it, and gasped
feebly for help. She was hanging like a tiger to Louis, who in a gentle
way tried to shake her hands and arms from his neck. The young fellow's
face bore the frightful look of a terrified child struggling for life
against hopeless odds--mingled despair and pain. Arthur remained quietly
in the entrance, and the detective glared over his shoulder warningly at
Claire. At sight of the man who stood there, she would have shrieked in
her horror and fright, but that sound died away in her throat. She
loosened her grip, and stood staring a moment, then swiftly and
meaningly began to arrange her disordered clothing. Louis made a dash
for the door, seeing only a way of escape and not recognizing his
friend. Arthur shook him.
"Ah, you will go converting before your time," he said gayly.
"Oh, Arthur, thank God----" the lad stammered.
"Seize him," Claire began to shriek, very cautiously however. "Hold him,
gentlemen. Get the police. He is an emissary of the papists----"
"Let me go," Louis cried in anguish.
"Steady all round," Arthur answered with a laugh. "Sister Claire, if you
want the police raise your voice. One harlot more on the Island will not
matter. Louis, get your nerve, man. Did I not tell you I would be in the
hall? Go home, and leave me to deal with this perfect lady. Look after
him," he flung at Curran, and closed the door on them, quite happy at
the result of Sister Magdalen's scheme of conversion.
He did not see the gesture from Curran which warned Sister Claire to
make terms in a hurry with this dangerous young man. The fury stood at
the far end of the office, burning with rage and uncertainty. Having
fallen into her own trap, she knew not what to do. The situation had
found its master. Arthur Dillon evidently took great pleasure in this
climax of her making. He looked at her for a moment as one might at a
wild animal of a new species. The room had been darkened so that one
could not see distinctly. He knew that trick too. Her beauty improved
upon acquaintance. For the second time her face reminded him that they
had met before, and he considered the point for an instant. What did it
matter just then? She had fallen into his hands, and must be disposed
of. Pointing to a chair he sat down affably, his manner making his
thought quite plain. She remained standing.
"You may be very tired before our little talk is concluded----"
"Am I to receive your insults as well as your agent's?" she interrupted.
"Now, now, Sister Claire, this will never do. You have been acting" ...
he looked at his watch ... "since four o'clock. The play is over. We are
in real life again. Talk sense. Since Everard failed to convert you, and
you to convert Everard, try the arts of Cleopatra on me. Or, let me
convince you that you have made a blunder----"
"I do not wish to listen you," she snapped. "I will not be insulted a
second time."
"Who could insult the author of the _Confessions_? You are beyond
insult, Claire. I have read your book with the deepest interest. I have
read you between every line, which cannot be said of most of your
readers. I am not going to waste any words on you. I am going to give
you an alternative, which will do duty until I find rope enough to hang
you as high as Jack Sheppard. You know what you are, and so do I. The
friends of this young man who fell so nicely into your claws will be
anxious to keep his adventure with you very quiet."
A light leaped into her eyes. She had feared that outside, in the hall,
this man might have his hirelings ready to do her mischief, that some
dreadful plot had come to a head which meant her ruin. Light began to
dawn upon her. He laughed at her thoughts.
"One does not care to make public an adventure with such a woman as
you," said he affably. "A young man like that too. It would be fatal for
him. Therefore, you are to say nothing about it. You are not eager to
talk about your failure ... Cleopatra blushes for your failure ... but a
heedless tongue and a bitter feeling often get the better of sense. If
you remain silent, so shall I."
"Very generous," she answered calmly, coming back to her natural
coolness and audacity. "As you have all to lose, and I have all to gain
by a description of the trap set for me by your unclean emissary, your
proposition won't go. I shall place the matter before my friends, and
before the public, when I find it agreeable."
"When!" he mocked. "You know by this time that you are playing a losing
game, Claire. If you don't know it, then you are not smart enough for
the game. Apart from that, remember one thing: when you speak I shall
whisper the truth to the excitable people whom your dirty book is
harrying now."
"I am not afraid of whispers, quite used to them in fact," she drawled,
as if mimicking him.
"I see you are not smart enough for the game," and the remark startled
her. "You can see no possible results from that whisper. Did you ever
hear of Jezebel and her fate? Oh, you recall how the dogs worried her
bones, do you? So far your evil work has been confined to glittering
generalities. To-day you took a new tack. Now you must answer to me. Let
it once become known that you tried to defile the innocent, to work harm
to one of mine, and you may suffer the fate of the unclean things to
which you belong by nature. The mob kills without delicacy. It will tear
you as the dogs tore the painted Jezebel."
"You are threatening me," she stammered with a show of pride.
"No. That would be a waste of time. I am warning you. You have still the
form of a woman, therefore I give you a chance. You are at the end of
your rope. Stretch it further, and it may become the noose to hang you.
You have defiled with your touch one whom I love. He kept his innocence,
so I let it pass. But a rat like you must be destroyed. Very soon too.
We are not going to stand your abominations, even if men like
Livingstone and Bradford encourage you. I am giving you a chance. What
do you say? Have I your promise to be silent?"
"You have," she replied brokenly.
He looked at her surprised. The mask of her brazen audacity remained,
but some feeling had overpowered her, and she began to weep like any
woman in silent humiliation. He left her without a word, knowing enough
of her sex to respect this inexplicable grief, and to wait for a more
favorable time to improve his acquaintance. "Sonia's mate," he said to
himself as he reached the street. The phrase never left him from that
day, and became a prophecy of woe afterwards. He writhed as he saw how
nearly the honor and happiness of Louis had fallen into the hands of
this wretch. Protected by the great, she could fling her dirt upon the
clean, and go unpunished. Sonia's mate! He had punished one creature of
her kind, and with God's help he would yet lash the backs of Sister
Claire and her supporters.