be a girl. A son and heir should live to inherit the estates. She
contributed a handkerchief for a christening robe; and Emily, who was
generous to a fault, insisted on giving a little new work-basket,
beautifully lined with blue satin, for a coffin. Lilly found a piece of
white ribbon for a sash. Tony gave advice, and Elizabeth her priestly
benediction. Beata Benedicta della Rovere ("That name shows she's
booked for Heaven," said Tony) was christened in the _bénitier_ at the
chapel door; Elizabeth performing the ceremony, and Tony and Lilly
unctuously renouncing in her behalf the works and pomps of Satan. It
was a more seemly service than our wedding had been, but it was only a
prelude, after all, to the imposing rites of burial. These were to take
place at the recreation hour the following afternoon; but owing to the
noble infant's noble kinsmen not having any recreation hour when the
afternoon came, the obsequies were unavoidably postponed.
It happened in this wise. Every day, in addition to our French classes,
we had half an hour of French conversation, at which none of us ever
willingly conversed. All efforts to make us sprightly and loquacious
failed signally. When questions were put to us, we answered them;
but we never embarked of our own volition upon treacherous currents
of speech. Therefore Madame Davide levied upon us a conversational
tax, which, like some of the most oppressive taxes the world has ever
known, made a specious pretence of being a voluntary contribution.
Every girl in the class was called upon to recount some anecdote, some
incident or story which she had heard, or read, or imagined, and which
she was supposed to be politely eager to communicate to her comrades.
We always began "Madame et mesdemoiselles, figurez-vous," or "il y
avait une fois," and then launched ourselves feebly upon tales, the
hopeless inanity of which harmonized with the spiritless fashion of the
telling. We all felt this to be a degrading performance. Our tender
pride was hurt by such a betrayal, before our friends, of our potential
imbecility. Moreover, the strain upon invention and memory was growing
daily more severe. We really had nothing left to tell. Therefore five
of us (Marie belonged to a higher class) resolved to indicate that our
resources were at an end by telling the same story over and over again.
We selected for this purpose an Ollendorfian anecdote about a soldier
in the army of Frederick the Great, who, having a watch chain but no
watch, attached a bullet--I can't conceive how--to the chain; and, when
Frederick asked him the hour of the day, replied fatuously: "My watch
tells me that any hour is the time to die for your majesty."
The combined improbability and stupidity of this tale commended it for
translation, and the uncertainty as to the order of the telling lent an
element of piquancy to the plot. Happily for Lilly, she was called upon
first to "réciter un conte," and, blushing and hesitating, she obeyed.
Madame Davide listened with a pretence of interest that did her credit,
and said that the soldier had "beaucoup d'esprit;" at which Tony, who
had pronounced him a fool, whistled a soft note of incredulity. After
several other girls had enlivened the class with mournful pleasantries,
my turn came, and I told the story as fast as I could,--so fast that
its character was not distinctly recognized until the last word was
said. Madame Davide looked puzzled, but let it pass. Perhaps she
thought the resemblance accidental. But when Emily with imperturbable
gravity began: "Il y avait une fois un soldat, honnête et brave, dans
l'armée de Frédéric le Grand," and proceeded with the familiar details,
she was sharply checked. "Faut pas répéter les mêmes contes," said
Madame Davide; at which Emily, virtuous and pained, explained that it
was _her_ conte. How could she help it if other girls chose it too?
By this time the whole class had awakened to the situation, and was
manifesting the liveliest interest and pleasure. It was almost pitiful
to see children so grateful for a little mild diversion. Like the
gratitude of Italian beggars for a few sous, it indicated painfully
the desperate nature of their needs. There was a breathless gasp of
expectancy when Elizabeth's name was called. We knew we could trust
Elizabeth. She was constitutionally incapable of a blunder. Every trace
of expression was banished from her face, and in clear, earnest tones
she said: "Madame et mesdemoiselles,--il y avait une fois un soldat,
honnête et brave, dans l'armée de Frédéric le Grand,"--whereupon
there arose a shout of such uncontrollable delight that the class was
dismissed, and we were all sent to our desks. Tony alone was deeply
chagrined. Through no fault of hers, she was for once out of a scrape,
and she bitterly resented the exclusion. It was in consequence of
this episode that Beata Benedicta's funeral rites were postponed for
twenty-four hours.
The delay brought no consolation to my heart. It only prolonged my
unhappiness. I did not love my doll after the honest fashion of a
younger child. I did not really fear that I should miss her. But, what
was infinitely worse, I could not bring myself to believe that Beata
Benedicta was dead,--although I was going to allow her to be buried.
The line of demarcation between things that can feel and things that
cannot had always been a wavering line for me. Perhaps Hans Andersen's
stories, in which rush-lights and darning needles have as much life
as boys and girls, were responsible for my mental confusion. Perhaps
I merely held on longer than most children to a universal instinct
which they share with savages. Any familiar object, anything that I
habitually handled, possessed some portion of my own vitality. It
was never wholly inanimate. Beata's little bisque body, with its
outstretched arms, seemed to protest mutely but piteously against
abandonment. She had lain by my side for months, and now I was going
to let her be buried alive, because I was ashamed to rescue her. There
was no help for it. Rather than confess I was such a baby, I would have
been buried myself.
A light fall of snow covered the frozen earth when we dug Beata's grave
with our penknives, and laid her mournfully away. The site selected
was back of the "Seven Dolours" chapel (chapels are to convent grounds
what arbours and summer-houses are to the profane), and we chose it
because the friendly walls hid us from observation. We had brought
out our black veils, and we put them on over our hats, in token of our
heavy grief. Elizabeth read the burial service,--or as much of it as
she deemed prudent, for we dared not linger too long,--and afterwards
reassured us on the subject of Beata's baptismal innocence. That was
the great point. She had died in her sinless infancy. We crime-laden
souls should envy her happier fate. We put a little cross of twigs
at the head of the grave, and promised to plant something there when
the spring came. Then we took off our veils, and stuffed them in our
pockets,--those deep, capacious pockets of many years ago.
"Let's race to the avenue gate," said Tony. "I'm frozen stiff. Burying
is cold work."
"Or we might get one of the swings," said Lilly.
But Marie--whose real name, I forgot to say, was Francesco--put her arm
tenderly around me. "Don't grieve, Beatrice," she said. "Our little
Beata has died in her baptismal"--
"Oh, come away!" I cried, unable to bear the repetition of this phrase.
And I ran as fast as I could down the avenue. But I could not run fast
enough to escape from the voice of Beata Benedicta, calling--calling to
me from her grave.
Reverend Mother's Feast
"Mother's feast"--in other words the saint's day of the
Superioress--was dawning upon our horizon, and its lights and shadows
flecked our checkered paths. Theoretically, it was an occasion of pure
joy, assuring us, as it did, a _congé_, and not a _congé_ only, but the
additional delights of a candy fair in the morning, and an operetta,
"The Miracle of the Roses," at night. Such a round of pleasures filled
us with the happiest anticipations; but--on the same principle that the
Church always prefaces her feast days with vigils and with fasts--the
convent prefaced our _congé_ with a competition in geography, and with
the collection of a "spiritual bouquet," which was to be our offering
to Reverend Mother on her fête.
A competition in anything was an unqualified calamity. It meant hours
of additional study, a frantic memorizing of facts, fit only to be
forgotten, and the bewildering ordeal of being interrogated before the
whole school. It meant for _me_ two little legs that shook like reeds,
a heart that thumped like a hammer in my side, a sensation of sickening
terror when the examiner--Madame Bouron--bore down upon me, and a mind
reduced to sudden blankness, washed clean of any knowledge upon any
subject, when the simplest question was asked. Tried by this process,
I was only one degree removed from idiocy. Even Elizabeth, whose legs
were as adamant, whose heart-beats had the regularity of a pendulum,
and who, if she knew a thing, could say it, hated to bound states and
locate capitals for all the school to hear. "There are to be prizes,
too," she said mournfully. "Madame Duncan said so. I don't like going
up for a prize. It's worse than a medal at Primes."
"Oh, well, maybe you won't get one," observed Tony consolingly. "You
didn't, you know, last time."
"I did the time before last," said Elizabeth calmly. "It was 'La
Corbeille de Fleurs.'"
There was an echo of resentment in her voice, and we all--even
Tony--admitted that she had just cause for complaint. To reward
successful scholarship with a French book was one of those
black-hearted deeds for which we invariably held Madame Bouron
responsible. She may have been blameless as the babe unborn; but it was
our habit to attribute all our wrongs to her malign influence. We knew
"La Corbeille de Fleurs." At least, we knew its shiny black cover, and
its frontispiece, representing a sylphlike young lady in a floating
veil bearing a hamper of provisions to a smiling and destitute old
gentleman. There was nothing in this picture, nor in the accompanying
lines, "Que vois-je? Mon Dieu! Un ange de Ciel, qui vient à mon
secours," which tempted us to a perusal of the story, even had we been
in the habit of voluntarily reading French.
As for the "spiritual bouquet," we felt that our failure to contribute
to it on a generous scale was blackening our reputations forever. Every
evening the roll was called, and girl after girl gave in her list
of benefactions. Rosaries, so many. Litanies, so many. Aspirations,
so many. Deeds of kindness, so many. Temptations resisted, so many.
Trials offered up, so many. Acts, so many. A stranger, listening to
the replies, might have imagined that the whole school was ripe for
Heaven. These blossoms of virtue and piety were added every night to
the bouquet; and the sum total, neatly written out in Madame Duncan's
flowing hand, was to be presented, with an appropriate address, to
Reverend Mother on her feast, as a proof of our respectful devotion.
It was a heavy tax. From what resources some girls drew their supplies
remained ever a mystery to us. How could Ellie Plunkett have found
the opportunity to perform four deeds of kindness, and resist seven
temptations, in a day? We never had any temptations to resist. Perhaps
when one came along, we yielded to it so quickly that it had ceased
to tempt before its true character had been ascertained. And to whom
was Ellie Plunkett so overweeningly kind? "Who wants Ellie Plunkett
to be kind to her?" was Tony's scornful query. There was Adelaide
Harrison, too, actually turning in twenty acts as one day's crop, and
smiling modestly when Madame Duncan praised her self-denial. Yet, to
our unwarped judgment, she seemed much the same as ever. We, at least,
refused to accept her estimate of her own well-spent life.
"Making an act" was the convent phraseology for doing without
something one wanted, for stopping short on the verge of an innocent
gratification. If I gave up my place in the swing to Viola Milton,
that was an act. If I walked to the woods with Annie Churchill, when
I wanted to walk with Elizabeth, that was an act. If I ate my bread
unbuttered, or drank my tea unsweetened, that was an act. It will be
easily understood that the constant practice of acts deprived life
of everything that made it worth the living. We were so trained in
this system of renunciation that it was impossible to enjoy even the
very simple pleasures that our convent table afforded. If there were
anything we particularly liked, our nagging little consciences piped
up with their intolerable "Make an act, make an act;" and it was only
when the last mouthful was resolutely swallowed that we could feel sure
we had triumphed over asceticism. There was something maddening in the
example set us by our neighbours, by those virtuous and pious girls who
hemmed us in at study time and at our meals. When Mary Rawdon gently
waved aside the chocolate custard--which was the very best chocolate
custard it has ever been my good fortune to eat--and whispered to me
as she did so, "An act for the bouquet;" I whispered back, "Take it,
and give it to me," and held out my plate with defiant greed. Annie
Churchill told us she hadn't eaten any butter for a week; whereat Tony
called her an idiot, and Annie--usually the mildest of girls--said
that "envy at another's spiritual good" was a very great sin, and that
Tony had committed it. There is nothing so souring to the temper as
abstinence.
What made it singularly hard to sacrifice our young lives for the
swelling of a spiritual bouquet was that Reverend Mother, who was to
profit by our piety, had so little significance in our eyes. She was as
remote from the daily routine of the school as the Grand Lama is remote
from the humble Thibetans whom he rules; and if we regarded her with a
lively awe, it was only because of her aloofness, of the reserves that
hedged her majestically round. She was an Englishwoman of good family,
and of vast bulk. There was a tradition that she had been married and
widowed before she became a nun; but this was a subject upon which we
were not encouraged to talk. It was considered both disrespectful and
indecorous. Reverend Mother's voice was slow and deep, a ponderous
voice to suit her ponderous size; and she spoke with what seemed to us
a strange and barbarous accent, pronouncing certain words in a manner
which I have since learned was common in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
and which a few ripe scholars are now endeavouring to reintroduce.
She was near-sighted to the verge of blindness, and always at Mass
used a large magnifying glass, like the one held by Leo the Tenth in
Raphael's portrait. She was not without literary tastes of an insipid
and obsolete order, the tastes of an English gentlewoman, reared in
the days when young ladies read the "Female Spectator," and warbled
"Oh, no, we never mention her." Had she not "entered religion," she
might have taken Moore and Byron to her heart,--as did one little girl
whose "Childe Harold" lay deeply hidden in a schoolroom desk,--but the
rejection of these profane poets had left her stranded upon such feeble
substitutes as Letitia Elizabeth Landon, whose mysterious death she was
occasionally heard to deplore.
Twice on Sundays Reverend Mother crossed our orbit; in the morning,
when she instructed the whole school in Christian doctrine, and at
night, when she presided over Primes. During the week we saw her only
at Mass. We should never even have known about Letitia Elizabeth
Landon, had she not granted an occasional audience to the graduates,
and discoursed to them sleepily upon the books she had read in her
youth. Whatever may have been her qualifications for her post (she
had surpassing dignity of carriage, and was probably a woman of
intelligence and force), to us she was a mere embodiment of authority,
as destitute of personal malice as of personal charm. I detested Madame
Bouron, and loved Madame Rayburn. Elizabeth detested Madame Bouron,
and loved Madame Dane. Emily detested Madame Bouron, and loved Madame
Duncan. These were emotions, amply nourished, and easily understood. We
were capable of going to great lengths to prove either our aversion or
our love. But to give up chocolate custard for Reverend Mother was like
suffering martyrdom for a creed we did not hold.
"It's because Reverend Mother is so fond of geography that we're going
to have the competition," said Lilly. "Madame Duncan told me so."
"Why can't Reverend Mother, if she likes it so much, learn it for
herself?" asked Tony sharply. "I'll lend her my atlas."
"Oh, she knows it all," said Lilly, rather scandalized. "Madame Duncan
told me it was her favourite study, and that she knew the geography of
the whole world."
"Then I don't see why she wants to hear us say it," observed Elizabeth,
apparently under the impression that competitions, like gladiatorial
shows, were gotten up solely for the amusement of an audience. It never
occurred to her, nor indeed to any of us, to attach any educational
value to the performance. We conceived that we were butchered to make a
convent holiday.
"And it's because Reverend Mother is so fond of music that we are going
to have an operetta instead of a play," went on Lilly, pleased to have
information to impart.
I sighed heavily. How could anybody prefer anything to a play? I
recognized an operetta as a form of diversion, and was grateful for
it, as I should have been grateful for any entertainment, short of an
organ recital. We were none of us surfeited with pleasures. But to me
song was at best only an imperfect mode of speech; and the meaningless
repetition of a phrase, which needed to be said but once, vexed my
impatient spirit. We were already tolerably familiar with "The Miracle
of the Roses." For two weeks past the strains had floated from every
music room. We could hear, through the closed doors, Frances Fenton,
who was to be St. Elizabeth of Hungary, quavering sweetly,--
"Unpretending and lowly,
Like spirits pure and holy,
I love the wild rose best,
I love the wild rose best,
I love the wi-i-ild rose best."
We could hear Ella Holrook announcing in her deep contralto,--
"'Tis the privilege of a Landgrave
To go where glory waits him,
Glory waits him;"
and the chorus trilling jubilantly,--
"Heaven has changed the bread to roses,
Heaven has changed the bread to roses."
Why, I wondered, did they have to say everything two and three times
over? Even when the Landgrave detects St. Elizabeth in the act of
carrying the loaves to the poor, his anger finds a vent in iteration.
"Once again you've dared to brave my anger,
Yes, once again you've dared to brave my anger;
My power you scorn,
My power you scorn."
To which the Saint replies gently, but tediously,--
"My lord they are,
My lord they are
But simple roses,
But simple ro-o-oses,
That I gathered in the garden even now."
"Suppose that bread hadn't been changed to roses," said Elizabeth
speculatively, "I wonder what St. Elizabeth would have done."
"Oh, she knew it had been, because she prayed it would be," said Marie,
who was something of a theologian.
"But suppose it hadn't."
"But it _had_, and she knew it had, because of her piety and faith,"
insisted Marie.
"I shouldn't have liked to risk it," murmured Elizabeth.
"_I_ think her husband was a pig," said Tony. "Going off to the
Crusade, and making all that fuss about a few loaves of bread. If I'd
been St. Elizabeth"--
She paused, determining her course of action, and Marie ruthlessly
interposed. "If you're not a saint, you can't tell what you would do if
you were a saint. You would be different."
There was no doubt that Tony as a saint would have to be so very
different from the Tony whom we knew, that Marie's dogmatism prevailed.
Even Elizabeth was silenced; and, in the pause that followed, Lilly
had a chance to impart her third piece of information. "It's because
Reverend Mother's name is Elizabeth," she said, "that we're going to
have an operetta about St. Elizabeth; and Bessie Treves is to make the
address."
"Thank Heaven, there is another Elizabeth in the school, or I might
have to do it," cried our Elizabeth, who coveted no barren honours;
and--even as she spoke--the blow fell. Madame Rayburn appeared at
the schoolroom door, a folded paper in her hand. "Elizabeth," she
said, and, with a hurried glance of apprehension, the saint's unhappy
namesake withdrew. We looked at one another meaningly. "It's like
giving thanks before you're sure of dinner," chuckled Tony.
I had no chance to hear any particulars until night, when Elizabeth
watched her opportunity, and sallied forth to brush her teeth while
I was dawdling over mine. The strictest silence prevailed in the
dormitories, and no child left her alcove except for the ceremony
of tooth-brushing, which was performed at one of two large tubs,
stationed in the middle of the floor. These tubs--blessed be their
memory!--served as centres of gossip. Friend met friend, and smothered
confidences were exchanged. Our gayest witticisms,--hastily choked by
a toothbrush,--our oldest and dearest jests were whispered brokenly
to the accompaniment of little splashes of water. It was the last
social event of our long social day, and we welcomed it as freshly
as if we had not been in close companionship since seven o'clock in
the morning. Elizabeth, scrubbing her teeth with ostentatious vigour,
found a chance to tell me, between scrubs, that Bessie Treves had been
summoned home for a week, and that she, as the only other bearer of
Reverend Mother's honoured name, had been chosen to make the address.
"It's the feast of St. Elizabeth," she whispered, "and the operetta is
about St. Elizabeth, and they want an Elizabeth to speak. I wish I had
been christened Melpomene."
"You couldn't have been christened Melpomene," I whispered back,
keeping a watchful eye upon Madame Chapelle, who was walking up and
down the dormitory, saying her beads. "It isn't a Christian name. There
never was a St. Melpomene."
"It's nearly three pages long," said Elizabeth, alluding to the
address, and not to the tragic Muse. "All about the duties of women,
and how they ought to stay at home and be kind to the poor, like St.
Elizabeth, and let their husbands go to the Crusades."
"But there are no Crusades any more for their husbands to go to," I
objected.
Elizabeth looked at me restively. She did not like this fractious
humour. "I mean let their husbands go to war," she said.
"But if there are no wars," I began, when Madame Chapelle, who had not
been so inattentive as I supposed, intervened. "Elizabeth and Agnes,
go back to your alcoves," she said. "You have been quite long enough
brushing your teeth."
I flirted my last drops of water over Elizabeth, and she returned the
favour with interest, having more left in her tumbler than I had. It
was our customary good-night. Sometimes, when we were wittily disposed,
we said "_Asperges me_." That was one of the traditional jests of
the convent. Generations of girls had probably said it before us. Our
language was enriched with scraps of Latin and apt quotations, borrowed
from Church services, the Penitential Psalms, and the catechism.
For two days Elizabeth studied the address, and for two days more she
rehearsed it continuously under Madame Rayburn's tutelage. At intervals
she recited portions of it to us, and we favoured her with our candid
criticisms. Tony objected vehemently to the very first line:--
"A woman's path is ours to humbly tread."
She said she didn't intend to tread it humbly at all; that Elizabeth
might be as humble as she pleased (Elizabeth promptly disclaimed any
personal sympathy with the sentiment), and that Marie and Agnes were
welcome to all the humility they could practise (Marie and Agnes
rejected their share of the virtue), but that she--Tony--was tired
of behaving like an affable worm. To this, Emily, with more courage
than courtesy, replied that a worm Tony might be, but an affable worm,
never; and Elizabeth headed off any further retort by hurrying on with
the address.
"A woman's path is ours to humbly tread,
And yet to lofty heights our hopes are led.
We may not share the Senate's stern debate,
Nor guide with faltering hand the helm of state;
Ours is the holier right to soften party hate,
And teach the lesson, lofty and divine,
Ambition's fairest flowers are laid at Virtue's shrine."
"Have you any idea what all that means?" asked Marie discontentedly.
"Oh, I don't have to say what it means," returned Elizabeth, far too
sensible to try to understand anything she would not be called upon to
explain. "Reverend Mother makes that out for herself."