THE BEGINNING OF THE JUDGMENT.
Mother Felicitas grew strangely worse at Blackpool. She only stayed for
a week in the quiet convent, and neither rested nor slept till she was
back in her own place.
But if she had thought to find there a letter from the man she dreaded
she was mistaken. Three weeks went by, and instead of being reassured
by his silence she was more terrified as each day passed without a
letter.
She had known him well enough at the station. Sixteen years and more
had not changed a line in his face. If his son married the girl, her
history would have to come out--if she were to be a profitable bride.
And Erceldonne could tell it with such iniquitous cleverness that it
would not be he who should be involved in crime or shame.
Mother Felicitas would have liked to send out messengers to ransack all
England for Beryl Corselas--she had learned easily enough that they had
not taken her to Erceldonne--since, with the girl in her hands, she
could once more have dictated terms to the man who had been too clever
for her. But she had no one to send; would not have dared if she had
had the cleverest detective in England to let him try to get the girl
and fail.
And if Erceldonne did not write, the real Mrs. Fuller did: She assured
the reverend mother, with great gusto, that every effort was being made
to find the missing girl.
“It is no business of a stranger’s--an outsider’s!” Mother Felicitas
said, with stony calm that covered fury. “Why does this Fuller woman
make it hers?”
But even while she asked the question of the bare walls of her own
convent parlors she knew the answer.
Years ago there had been a hue and cry over the sudden death of a woman
and the disappearance of her child. It was Mrs. Fuller’s friend the
detective that was so hot upon the trail. To solve a mystery that
thirteen years ago had been given up by the whole force would make his
reputation.
The woman who said to herself that she never repented was perilously
near to repentance now. The dread of shame and disgrace distorted her
face where she sat alone.
“He means that son to marry her--for the Corselas millions that are
crying for their owners, for the succession that can be assured in no
other way. And the announcement of that marriage under her own name or
her mother’s will spring the mine under me! And I can’t stir a finger.
It’s a month since I saw them with her; it may be too late now. Every
one in England but me may know the missing girl is found.”
She could not keep her hands still nor her mouth steady. Retribution
was coming to her--punishment for those long years when her whole life
had been a blasphemous lie. She had no hope that Erceldonne would hold
his tongue when the announcement of his son’s marriage brought a stern
order for an explanation from the law of the land; from chancery, too,
that had the Corselas money in trust. There was one point where nothing
but the truth would clear Erceldonne himself, and there was no hope
that he would not tell it.
“If I could stop the marriage!” almost she said it aloud.
But she could think of no way that a dying woman in a convent could
balk the will of Erceldonne.
A sharp clang of the old bell that was just outside the parlor door
made her start. It was Tuesday--visiting-day. She drew herself together
to clap her hands for a lay sister and say that Sister De Sales must
see the anxious mothers of pupils--that she herself was too weary.
The portress was a new one and not used to her work. Before the
reverend mother had more than lifted her shaking hands a knock came
to her door--a stereotyped convent knock such as pupils gave--not a
visitor’s.
“Come in!” cried Mother Felicitas, and straightened up in her chair.
She was nearly ruined, and her power would soon be a byword; but at
least she could still crush a pupil who dared to come unsummoned to her
private room.
But it was no girl with a grievance who opened the door. On the
threshold there stood a tall and beautiful woman whose eyes were less
gentle than her mouth, and whose red-brown hair----
“Andria Heathcote!” said Mother Felicitas, who never forgot a face.
“Yes,” said the visitor, and involuntarily curtsied, as she had never
dared to enter that room without doing. Yet the next instant she had
coolly turned and shut the door behind her.
Old pupils often came back to visit the convent; there was no reason
for the return of this one to be more than ordinary, yet the Mother
Superior seemed to lack strength to hold out her hand. Andria, after
the first glance, could hardly look at her. She had been handsome once
in a hard, ascetic way; now her face was but skin drawn over bone, and
her sunken eyes like fires long burned out.
“You are surprised to see me, reverend mother?” she began gently. She
had never liked Mother Felicitas, but that might have been her own
fault, and the superior was her one hope now.
“I am not well. I see few visitors,” was the slow answer. “As you see,
there have been many changes even here since your day.”
“Poor Mother Benedicta!” said Andria, and could not go on. She had no
right to stand in this quiet convent parlor and play the hypocrite to a
woman who might be hard and cold, but was, nevertheless, a saint in her
way.
“Happy, happy Mother Benedicta,” her successor was thinking
passionately. “Free among the dead!” But she only said slowly.
“Surprised? No; many girls come back. They think of us sometimes. I
suppose you have married, Andria!” with perfunctory interest, wishing
the inopportune visitor would go.
“Married!” said Andria, who once had thought she was Andria Erle. “No!”
The words were almost a cry, and for the first time the Mother Superior
looked at her.
“Mother Felicitas,” she began, forcing herself to speak out under those
unfriendly eyes. “I have no right to be here, no right to force myself
on any one like you--but one. I am in great trouble. I have been a
wicked woman, but--I am in great trouble.”
“And you want to come back!” came the answer slowly. Trouble was the
only thing that ever brought them back--to stay!
“No,” said Andria, looking round her with a shudder; she would eat her
heart out here. “No! Mother Felicitas, I told you I had been wicked--a
fool----”
“They are the same,” said Mother Felicitas shortly.
“But I woke up from my dream. I tried to do faithfully the work that
was put into my hands, and--I failed! I have no one to turn to; I am in
despair, yet, perhaps, there is time to save my trust yet, if you will
help me. No one else can.” She held her hands clasped tight before her,
and spoke in a whisper. “Oh! reverend mother, who was Beryl Corselas?”
The quiet room heaved like a sea before her hearer’s eyes. The black
letters under the picture she dreaded seemed to spring into life, to
speak aloud:
“Death and the Judgment!”
Well, Death was coming, and here, against all canons, was the beginning
of the Judgment before it! Yet the superior managed to answer:
“Is that your trouble?” she said. “It is a very old one, and I know no
more about it than you.”
“Oh, Mother Felicitas, think! Try to remember,” with sudden gentleness
that was more dangerous than the other woman’s passion. “You knew once.
Long, long ago you told Beryl her mad temper came to her honestly--that
her mother was the same.”
“I!” The superior was, for an instant, staggered. “If I did I was much
to blame,” she went on lamely enough. “We thought at one time we had
a clue to her parentage, but it proved a wrong one. When she ran away
from us we knew it.”
“Mother, listen!” said Andria, more gently still. “You don’t know what
hangs on it. Even now that poor child may be trapped into a marriage
she hates--may be----”
“You know where she is?”
“If I did I would not come to you.” That quick cry had made her old
distrust wake armed. “But I know who has her. When you know, you may
perhaps remember--something--that may help me to find her.
“I have been a governess since December, and Beryl Corselas was my
pupil.”
Mother Felicitas leaned back and gripped the table in the old way. She
could not speak.