Madelon overhears a Conversation.
Amidst the springing flowers, the twitter of pairing birds,
and the bursting of green leaves through the brown, downy
husks, in the bounteous April weather, Madelon began to
recover rapidly. She was nursed with kindness and care, if not
exactly with tenderness, by Soeur Lucie; but tenderness our
little black sheep had long since learnt not to expect in the
convent, and she hardly missed it now. It was in the first
days of her convalescence that she heard of the death of her
aunt Thérèse, through some chance remark of one of the Sisters
who came into her cell. Had it not been for this, they would
have kept it from her longer; but the news scarcely affected
her at all. Her aunt had shown her no affection in these last
two years that they had lived under the same roof, and, on the
few occasions on which Madelon had come in contact with her,
the pale, cold face, and severe manner of the nun had inspired
her niece with a dread, which only lacked opportunity to
become a more active dislike. She heard the news then with
apathy, and was still too languid and weak to think of the
loss in reference to herself, or to realise that, so far as
she knew, she had now no relation in the world. Nor did such
realization come at once, even when she grew stronger; her
aunt had counted for so little in her present mode of life,
that it did not occur to her that her death might bring any
possible change into it; indeed, as we have said, she had
ceased to look for any immediate change. Monsieur Horace had
brought her to the convent, and Soeur Lucie took care of her
there, and so she supposed matters would go on for the
present.
If, however, the news of her aunt's death affected her but
little, it was quite otherwise with another conversation that
she overheard a few days later, and which, indeed, was not
meant for her ears either. She had awakened one evening from a
long, sound sleep, and was lying quietly in the dusk, dreamily
wondering how soon she should make up her mind to arouse
herself and take the medicine that she knew awaited her as
soon as she should declare herself awake, when Soeur Ursule
entered the room. She had come with some message to Soeur
Lucie, and when it was delivered, stood chatting a few minutes
by the window where Soeur Lucie sat knitting. She was a gaunt,
brisk, elderly woman, who had been governess in a large
school, before an opportune legacy had enabled her to fulfil
her dearest wish and enter the convent, where, with fresh zeal
and energy, she resumed the duties most congenial to her, as
teacher and superintendent of the school. Thoroughly devout
and conscientious, and with a kind heart _au fond_, she
nevertheless brought with her into her new sphere all the
habits and modes of thought acquired during a long struggle
with a very hard, secular world--a practical turn of mind,
verging on hardness, a dictatorial manner, a certain opinion-
activeness, which still showed itself now and then in oddest
contrast with the habitual submission demanded of a nun.
"She looks better this evening," she said now, nodding towards
the bed where Madelon lay with her eyes still closed.
"Yes, yes, she is getting on; I shall have her up to-morrow, I
hope," answered Soeur Lucie, with some natural pride in this
specimen of successful nursing.
"Ah, well--she could have been better spared though, than some
that are gone," answered the other; "but no doubt it is all
for the best. Not but that I am glad that the child is
recovering--still we shall certainly find her a great burthen
on our hands."
"It is true, then," cried Soeur Lucie, "what I heard Soeur Marie
saying--that our sainted mother had bequeathed her to the care
of the convent, and left directions that she is to take the
veil as soon as she is old enough."
"Yes, it is true enough, and, as I was saying, all is no doubt
for the best; otherwise it is really a great charge for us to
have a child of that age on our hands to bring up."
"But that was just my case," replied Soeur Lucie simply. "I
have not been out of the convent for more than six months
since I was ten years old, as you know, Soeur Ursule."
"You, _ma Soeur!_ That was quite a different matter; every one
knows what a marked vocation you had even in your childhood,
and how willingly you devoted your fortune, and resigned all
worldly hopes--whereas this little one has always been the most
tiresome child in the class, and, moreover, will have to live
at the expense of the convent."
"That is true," said Soeur Lucie reflecting; "I never heard
that she had any money, and of course people cannot live for
nothing."
"She has not a sou--you may depend upon it," said Soeur Ursule
emphatically; "she brought nothing with her when she came."
"Nothing!" cried Soeur Lucie.
"Or so little, that it must all be gone by this time. I really
do not see how it can be arranged--Soeurs Marie and Catherine
settled it with our late sainted Superior, and I think even
they are beginning to repent a little, for they were talking
only this morning of all the expense we have had lately."
"Poor child," murmured Soeur Lucie, who had no unkindly
feelings towards her little charge, "there is surely enough
for one more."
"That is all very well, _ma Soeur_, but an extra person is an
extra person, as we all know. We might keep the child for a
time out of charity, but when there is a question of her
taking the vows, and living here always, it is another matter
altogether. It has not been the custom in our house to receive
sisters without _dots_, and it will never do--never; but of
course our sainted mother knew best, and my opinion was not
asked, though it might have been as well worth having as that
of some others."
"Poor child," said good little Soeur Lucie again, looking
towards the bed; "and she has improved very much lately, don't
you think so, _ma Soeur?_"
"Oh, yes, she has improved, no doubt; it would be astonishing
if she had not, after being here more than two years; but that
is not the question. However, I must be going," she added, "I
have a hundred things to do before vespers. And the border for
that altar-cloth will be ready by the end of the month, you
think?"
"I hope so," answered Soeur Lucie. "Madelon shall help me as
soon as she is strong enough again; she can embroider quite
nicely now."
"So much the better; she will have to do plenty by-and-by, and
make herself useful if she is to stay here."
Soeur Ursule left the room as she spoke, and Soeur Lucie, with
her knitting in her lap, sat meditating in the darkness.
Presently a restless movement in the bed roused her. "Are you
awake, Madelon?" she said softly.
No answer, only another toss, and a sort of long sigh. Soeur
Lucie rose, lighted a candle, measured out some medicine, and
then with the glass in one hand, and the light in the other,
she came to the bedside. Madelon was lying with her back
towards her, her arms flung over her head, her face buried in
the pillow. She did not move, and Soeur Lucie touched her
gently.
"It is time to take your medicine, mon enfant," she said.
Madelon turned round then, and taking the glass, drank off the
contents without a word; as she gave it back to the nun,
something in her face or expression, fairly startled the
little sister.
"Why, whatever is the matter, _mon enfant?_" she cried, "you
must have been dreaming, I think."
"No, I have not been dreaming," answered Madelon; and then, as
the nun turned away to put the glass and candle on the table,
she caught hold of her gown with all the strength of which her
feeble fingers were capable.
"Don't go, please don't go, Soeur Lucie," she said, "I want to
speak to you."
"In a moment; I am not going," answered the sister. "Well,
what is it, _ma petite?_" she added, coming back to the bedside.
"What--what was it Soeur Ursule was saying to you just now?"
asks Madelon.
"Just now!" cried Soeur Lucie, taken aback; "why, I thought you
were asleep."
"No, I was not asleep," Madelon answered, "I only had my eyes
shut."
"But that is very naughty, _mon enfant_, to pretend to be asleep
when you are awake."
"I didn't pretend," said Madelon aggrieved, "only I hadn't
opened my eyes, and I could not help hearing what you said."
"Ah well, if you heard, there is no use in my telling you,"
says Soeur Lucie, who was not at all above using that
imperfect, but irrefragable, logic familiar to us from our
nurseries; "so you had better go to sleep again, for I cannot
stop here any longer. Let me smoothe your pillow."
"No," said Madelon, escaping from her hands with an impatient
toss. "Ah, don't go away yet," she added piteously. "Was it
true what Soeur Ursule said about me?"
"About you, _mon enfant?_"
"Yes, about me--that I was to become a nun."
"Ah!" said Soeur Lucie, with the air of being suddenly
enlightened, "yes--yes, I suppose so, since she said it. Now I
must go, and do you go to sleep."
"No, no," cried Madelon, raising herself in the bed and
stretching out both arms after Soeur Lucie's retreating figure.
"Ah, Soeur Lucie, don't leave me. I can't be a nun; don't let
them make me a nun!"
There was something so pitiful and beseeching in her accent,
something so frail-looking in the little, white, imploring
hands, that Soeur Lucie's heart was touched. She came back
again.
"_Ecoute_, Madelon," she said, "you will be ill again to-morrow
if you talk so much; lie down now, and tell me what it is you
want. No one is going to make you a nun now, you know."
"No, not now, but by-and-by. Is it true that Aunt Thérèse said
I was to be made one?"
"Yes, that is true enough, I believe; but there is nothing to
be unhappy about in that," answered Soeur Lucie, who naturally
looked at things from a different point of view than
Madelon's. "There are many girls who would be glad of such a
chance; for you see, _mon enfant_, it is only because nothing
could be refused to our late sainted Superior, that it has
been arranged at all."
"Soeur Ursule said I should be a burthen," answered Madelon. "I
don't want to be a burthen; I only want to go away. Ah! why do
you keep me? I am miserable here; I always have been, and I
always shall be--always."
"But that is foolish," replied Soeur Lucie, "for you will be
very happy--far happier than you could ever be out in the
world, _ma petite;_ it is full of snares, and temptations, and
wickedness, that never can come near us here. Look at me; I
was no older than you when I first came here, and never has
girl been happier, I believe. No, no, Madelon," she went on,
with a good-natured wish to make things pleasant, "you will
stay with us, and be our child, and we will take care of you."
"I don't want you to take care of me!" cries Madelon, the
burning tears starting painfully to her eyes. "I hate
convents, and I hate nuns, and it is wicked and cruel to keep
me here!"
"Am I cruel and wicked? Do you hate me?" said Soeur Lucie,
rather aggrieved in her turn.
"No, no," cried Madelon, with compunction, and throwing her
arms round Soeur Lucie's neck; "you are very kind, Soeur Lucie,
and you won't let them make me a nun, will you? You will tell
them all that I should be miserable--ah! I should die, I know I
should!"
"Well, well, we will not talk about it any more to-night. As
for me, I have nothing to do with it--nothing; but I cannot
have you make yourself ill with chattering; so now let me put
your pillow straight, and then you must go to sleep as fast as
you can."
With a final shake of the pillow and arrangement of the bed-
clothes, Soeur Lucie went away, leaving Madelon, not to sleep,
but to lie broad awake, framing the most dismal little
pictures of the future. And was this to be the end of it all,
then?--the end of her vague dreams, her undefined hopes, which,
leaping over a dim space of intervening years, had rested on a
future of indefinite brightness lying somewhere outside these
convent walls? Ah, was all indeed at an end? Never to pass
these dull walls again, never to see anything but these dreary
rooms,--all her life to be one unvarying, relentless routine,
day after day, year after year--to be forced to teach stupid
children, like Soeur Ursule, or to make jam and embroider
alter-cloths, like Soeur Lucie, to say such long prayers, and
to wear such ugly dresses, thinks poor Madelon, with a queer
jumble of the duties and obligations of a nun's life. Ah! what
would be the use of getting well and strong again, if that
were all that life had in store for her? "Why did I not die?"
thinks the poor child, tossing restlessly from side to side.
"I wish I was dead! Ah! why did I not die? I wish I had never
been born!" To her, as to all inexperienced minds, life
appeared as a series of arbitrary events, rather than as a
chain of dependent circumstances ceaselessly modifying each
other, and she could not conceive the possibility of any
gradual change of position being brought about in the slow
course of years. The long succession of grey, weary days,
which she had lately taught herself to consider as a path that
must be traversed, but which would still lead ultimately to a
future of most supreme happiness, suddenly seemed to terminate
in a grave black as death itself, from which there could be no
escape. "If papa were here," thinks Madelon, "he would never
allow it; he would never leave me in this horrible place, he
would take me away. Oh! papa, papa, why did you die?" And
burying her face in the pillow, she began to sob and cry in
her weakness and despair.
But this last thought of her father had suggested a new set of
ideas and memories to Madelon, and by-and-by she stopped
crying, and began to think again, confusedly at first, but
presently with a more definite purpose gradually forming
itself in the darkness of her bewildered thoughts. Has she not
promised her father never to become a nun? Perhaps he had
thought of something like this happening, and that was why he
had made her promise, and of course she must keep her word.
But how is she to do that? wonders Madelon. If Monsieur Horace
were here, indeed, he might help her. Ah, if Monsieur Horace
was but here! Should she write to him, and tell him how
unhappy she was, and ask him to come and take her away? He had
given her his English address, and told her to be sure and let
him know, if she were in any trouble, or wanted any help. "But
then," thinks our foolish little Madelon, with the most
quixotic notions busy in her tired little brain, "I have not
done what I said I would, and he will think, perhaps, I want
to break my word." Alas, must that grand surprise that was to
have been prepared for him, all those fine schemes, and plans,
and projects, must they all fall to the ground? Was she never,
never to show him how much she loved him? And yet, if they
made her a nun, how could she do it all? He would never have
his fortune made then, though she had promised to do it, and
he would think she had forgotten him, and cared nothing about
him. So wearily did Madelon's mind revolve, dwelling most of
all on that promise made so long ago; and as she realized the
possibility of her never being able to fulfil it at all, she
became possessed with a feverish desire to get up that very
moment and set about it. If--if--ah, supposing she were to run
away--Aunt Thérèse is not here now, and she would not be afraid
of the other nuns finding her, she would hide herself too well
for that--supposing she were to run away, go to Spa, make the
fortune, and then write to Monsieur Horace? Would not that be
an idea?
When Soeur Lucie came in an hour later, to look after Madelon,
she found her fast asleep; the traces of tears were still on
her cheeks, and the pillow and bedclothes were all disarranged
and tossed about again, but she was lying quite quietly now.
Soeur Lucie stood for a moment, looking down upon the child's
white face, that had grown so small and thin. Her hair had
been all cut off during her illness, and curled in soft brown
rings all over her head, as when she was a little child, and
indeed there was something most childlike in the peaceful
little face, which had a look of repose that it seldom wore
when the wistful brown eyes were open, with their expression
of always longing and seeking for something beyond their ken.
Somehow Soeur Lucie was touched with a sudden feeling of
unwonted tenderness for her little charge. "_Pauvre petite_,"
she murmured, gently raising one hand that hung over the side
of the bed, and smoothing back a stray lock of hair. Madelon
opened her eyes for a moment; "Monsieur Horace," she said, "I
have not forgotten, I--I will----" and then she turned away and
fell sound asleep again.