(TO S.M.A.)
Two, three, five Dedicated Virgins. They stood before their Reverend
Mother, ponderous black folds of serge sweeping the boards round each
flat-soled pair of black list slippers.
“The orphans must go to the dentist,” said Reverend Mother, mournfully,
yet with determination. “Here we are in a Protestant country. We must
adapt ourselves to the conditions of our exile. The orphans will have
to be taken to the dentist’s house.”
The nuns looked at one another, and at Reverend Mother, and solemnly
nodded.
It was an innovation, but if Reverend Mother said so, it must be right.
“Sister Clara and Sister Dominic, you will take three orphans to the
dentist to-morrow.”
Sister Clara drew herself up a little. Her throat swelled beneath the
white swathings that bound her head and neck, and her double chin
momentarily became three.
“Yes, Mother dear,” she said proudly.
Her Irish voice was rich and deep, compared with the thin, nasal tones
of the Frenchwomen.
“Shall I order a cab for them, Mother?”
That was Sister Caroline, the _sœur econome_.
“No, no. They must walk ... holy poverty.... You will put on the heavy
travelling veils, Sisters, and the big cloaks, just the same as for a
journey.”
The heat of that would be stifling, in this weather and on foot! An
unmortified thought.... Sister Clara stuck a pin in her sleeve. She
would remember to confess a slight yielding to sensuality of thought.
There had been similar yieldings, once or twice, within the last year.
“Yes, Mother dear. Sister Dominic’ll sit in the waiting-room with two
of the dear orphans, and I’ll be looking after the one that’s in with
the dentist. I’ll not take an eye off of her, on any pretext whatever.
I quite understand, Mother dear, that’s the way it’ll be. Make your
mind easy.”
One had to be knowing, and careful, going out into the world.
There was a sense of adventure in setting out, the additional veil
hanging swart, and straight, and heavy, pulling a little so that one’s
head jerked slightly backwards every now and then.
Sister Dominic held a stout umbrella in one black-cotton-gloved
hand, whilst the other one grasped the wrist of the youngest orphan.
The other two orphans, obscured in blue serge and hard, dark, straw
hat-brims, each held on to a fold of Sister Clara’s habit.
One thing, Reverend Mother had promised that the community should
recite the Litany of Loretto after office just as they did to ensure
anyone from the convent a safe journey.
So they’d be protected, even scurrying, a row of five, holding on to
one another, across the streets, in front of those frightful honking
motor-cars, that looked like they’d take the heads off of you, give
them a chance.
“This’ll be it, Dominic dear. No. 3.”
A maid in a cap and apron to open the door--and the smartness of her!
All grey-and-white, and showing her shape the way a modest convent-bred
girl would never have done.
And the waiting-room, with a carpet, and padded chairs, and a fine
pot-plant--putting worldly ideas into the orphans’ heads, as likely as
not. As for the pictures and books on the table....
“Don’t be casting your eyes about that way, children dear. Sit quiet
now. Dominic, the hats’ll have to come off of them, we may be sure of
that. We’ll pile them this way, on the chair, and you’ll keep an eye
on them, for fear someone else’ll be coming in and perhaps making off
with them. It’s not as though we were in a good Catholic country.”
The hats of the orphans were stacked upon a chair, and Sister Dominic
sat upon the edge of another chair, facing them. She held her umbrella.
“If he does well by the children, the sisters’ll go to him. The
Infirmarian says there’s some of them with teeth in a terrible state.”
Sister Clara’s tongue sought familiar cavities, and her hand went to
the particular fold of serge sleeve in which were imbedded two large
pins, one of which was taken out at the end of meals, and replaced
after use in the exact same place, so as to save making a fresh hole.
“If you’ll step this way, Sister----”
Mother of Mercy! What a start she’d got! It was the man himself, and
smiling, too, standing holding the door open. Awfully young-looking,
with dark eyes that might have been Irish, and a queer white coat on
him.
And the gentleness of him, when he’d got the orphan into that chair of
his! She’d only to stir, and him stopping the machine, and saying, with
that smile, that he was afraid it was hurting her.
As if one didn’t go to the dentist to be hurt, and the pain to be
offered up for all Reverend Mother’s intentions!
Look at the hands of him!
She watched them, moving softly and skilfully. Presently he talked to
her, at first friendly, joking, little questions, then at more length,
telling about himself. He was a stranger in the town, too.
“It’ll be the grand thing for you, if Reverend Mother sends the orphans
regularly. I’ll put in a good word for you,” she ventured, and he
looked at her, screwing-up his eyes, and laughing.
She’d not spoken to any man, not counting the good holy priests which
was a different thing altogether, for many years.
But if they were all like this, where would be the harm in them at all?
She’d make the orphans start a novena for his conversion to the Faith,
that very night.
“Now the next child, please.”
He spent half an hour on each orphan, and the last one, he said, would
have to come again.
“I’ll be bringing her along.”
He entered the appointment in a little book.
“I’ve no secretary, you see, Sister--can’t afford one yet!” and then he
shook hands with her. “Good-bye.”
The feel of his hand was just what she’d imagined it’d be, gentle, and
yet strong. There were funny little dark hairs all down the back of it
and along the wrist. And although it was such a hot day, the palm of
him was cool and dry.
Sister Dominic spoke to her, humbly, on the way home.
“Well, you’re a wonderful woman of the world, Sister Clara dear,
getting us all safe there and back and talking to the man just as
though it was the gardener at dear old Noisy-le-Grand. It won’t be so
hard, next time, if Reverend Mother sends us again.”
Reverend Mother did send them again, with relays of orphans, and then
Sister Clara alone, with old Mother Seraphina who spoke no English and
whose cheap _râtelier_ appeared to need endless adjustments.
And he was always kind, and he always smiled, with that screwing-up of
his eyes, and talked to Sister Clara.
One day she said that she had toothache, and received Reverend Mother’s
leave to make an appointment for herself after Mother Seraphina’s
session. She had, for days, been devoured by an intense curiosity to
know what it would feel like to have those hands hovering about one’s
face. Once, he had had to put his arm right round the back of Mother
Seraphina’s old head....
“No, it’s not hurting me at all, at all.” She smiled up at him; a smile
that she felt to be beatific, half-hypnotised.
“Would you like to see what I’ve been doing?”
“I would.”
“There--on the left--that big molar----”
He put a little mirror into her hands. And she that hadn’t looked in a
glass, hardly, since the day of her final vows, twelve years ago!
Gracious, what a colour she had! Plum-colour, that was her face. And
the smile that had felt beatific, looking foolish and uncertain, as
though she were ashamed of something. The glass turned dim as her heavy
breathing struck it.
Would she perhaps have been breathing into his face that way all the
time, and she never thinking of such a thing?
The face in the glass looked redder than ever. Mother of Mercy, this
weather! The heat of it! And the holy habit no less than five smelly
thicknesses of serge, and not wearing thin yet, though on the back of
her year in and year out.
“That’s the last stopping, Sister. I shan’t have to trouble you again.”
“Amn’t I to come to you any more then?”
“It won’t be necessary. What I’ve done should last you for a long
while. But if you have pain, come to me at once. Any time.”
What’d it be like, at all, not seeing him any more? Could it be that
she’d become inordinately attached, the way the Imitation said was so
wrong? And to a man, too.
She was a wicked creature, not worthy of the holy vocation.
“Is there nothing more needs doing?”
“Nothing at all. You have excellent teeth, Sister. There’ll be no more
trouble, now those fillings are in.”
The smile he gave her! So that one hardly heard what he was saying....
“If the Reverend Mother wants anyone else seen to, I shall be very
pleased to do what I can. Good-bye, Sister. I should like to have
persuaded you that there’s plenty of good work to be done outside, too.
Take a capable woman like yourself, now. It seems a shame you should be
shutting yourself up inside four walls. Why, you--you might have been
my secretary, if I could only afford to have one!”
That was a grand laugh of his, it made one want to laugh too, only that
one might start crying somehow.
It seemed there’d be nothing left to look forward to in the whole world
after the shake of the hand meaning good-bye. There was still that....
It was the queer way to feel entirely, and her forty years old.
Touching the hand of him for the last time, and it strong and yet
gentle at one and the same time, quite different to the hand of any
woman....
It was over now, and one hurried away, scared that old Seraphina’d see
something strange in the face of one.
“Will any more of the sisters be going to him, Mother Seraphina?”
“No.”
“Nor any of the dear children?”
“No.”
* * * * *
Mother of Mercy, there was no sleeping in this heat! But it wasn’t the
heat. It was the way one was fretting and crying after what couldn’t
be. Though what for couldn’t it be, when he’d said himself that it was
a sin and a shame for the like of her to be shut up inside four walls,
and himself wanting a secretary and not able to pay one? There’d be
some glad enough to work for him without any pay.
Day after day it went on, and night after night, till the pain in one’s
head was past bearing, and still there was no getting to sleep.
The things one thought of!
There was the door, giving right on to the street, and then only a bit
of a walk, and oneself knowing every step of the way, and then the
sight of him, and the feel of those hands of his--it was that would put
everything right, and take the spell off of one.
On the hottest night of all, Sister Clara made up her mind. She’d break
her holy vows, that were already broken in the heart of her, and go
back into the world.
In the morning she dressed and went downstairs.
She’d not be taking anything with her. After Mass the nuns’d be going
to the refectory, and they’d not be missing her for awhile, and they
keeping the custody of the eyes the way the Holy Rule enjoined.
Oh, it was the fine nun she was, to talk about the Holy Rule.
The door was unlocked. Once outside on the pavement, there was nothing
to do but pull it to again.
The slam of it!
There’d be no getting in again now, without a great ringing of the
bell, and the portress coming to answer it, and the giving of scandal
to the whole of them.
If it hadn’t been for that slam of the door....
The weather had broken. It wasn’t hot any more, but raw and chilly.
The way he’d laugh, and look at you, so interested in any little thing
you said! It was wonderful.
What time did people in the world get up and start their day? Later
than this, no doubt. But there’d be the waiting-room, where she’d sat
with Sister Dominic and the orphans that first time of all. (Maybe
she’d never set eyes on Dominic again.)
What for did that maid of his take so long to come to the door?
But it wasn’t the maid who opened the door at last.
It was a person in a blue apron, with a man’s cap pulled down over her
eyes, and her sleeves rolled up, and a bucket with a mop in it at her
down-at-heel feet.
“’E ain’t come yet. Won’t be ’ere, not for a hower, but if it’s the
toothache, you can come in and wait.”
“Does he not live here, then?”
“Ho no,’e don’t live ’ere. But ’e comes reg’lar, and ’e’ll be along
by-and-by. You go in and sit down. You won’t mind me going on with the
cleaning-up? Turned cold all of a sudden, ain’t it?”
The rolled-back carpet in the waiting-room, the chairs piled, seat
against seat, round the walls, the broom that presently chased into all
the corners, made it seem colder.
It grew colder and colder as the hour went by.
That was the sound of a key in the lock outside.
“’Morning, Mrs. Hatch. A nasty change in the weather, isn’t it?”
Mumble, mumble, mumble.
“Oh Lord, already!”
He came into the room where Sister Clara shuddered and cowered inside
her folds of enveloping black serge.
Look at the face of him! Different, somehow.
You could see how he felt the sudden chilliness in the air, and he was
rubbing his hands together, hard. They were different, too--all mottled
with cold.
“You in pain, Sister?”
“I--I’ve come.”
“M’m? I don’t attend to anyone till nine o’clock, you know, as a rule,
but if it’s a question of pain.... Well, what can I do for you? By the
look of you, it’s an abscess, isn’t it?”