forgotten it? I am very much obliged to you for reminding me of the name
of that village. Perhaps you have been there?"
In answer to this question I received the least little bit of a nod, and
the nun's pen began gently to paw the paper, as if it wanted to go on.
I was now really excited. She had spoken. Why should I not do something
which should make her turn her face toward me,--something which would
take her off her guard, as my forgetfulness had just done? But no idea
came to my aid, and I felt obliged to begin to dictate the details of
the odd incident, when suddenly the door opened, Sister Sarah walked in,
and the morning's work was over.
I had not done much, but I had made that nun speak. She said "Eza." That
was a beginning, and I felt confident that I should get on very well in
time. I was a little sorry that my secretary had been on the Cornice
Road. I fancied that she might have been one of those elderly single
women who become Baedeker tourists, and, having tired of this sort of
thing, had concluded to devote her life to the work of the House of
Martha. But this was mere idle conjecture. She had spoken, and I should
not indulge in pessimism.
I prepared a very good remark with which to greet the sub-mother on the
next morning, and, although addressing Sister Sarah, I would be in
reality speaking to my nun. I would say how well I was getting on. I had
thought of saying _we_ were getting on, but reflected afterward that
this would never do; I was sure that the House of Martha would not
allow, under any circumstances, that sister and myself to constitute a
_we_. Then I would refer to the help my secretary had been to me, and
endeavor to express the satisfaction which an author must always feel
for a suggestion of this kind, or any other, from one qualified to make
them. If there was any gratitude or vanity in my nun's heart, I felt I
could stir it up, if Sister Sarah would listen to me long enough; and if
gratitude, or even vanity, could be stirred, the rigidity of my nun
would be impaired, and she might find herself off her guard.
But I had no opportunity of making my remark. At nine o'clock the door
of the secretary's room opened, the nun entered, and the door was then
closed and locked. Sister Sarah must have been in a hurry that morning.
Just as well as not I might have made my remark directly to my nun, but
I did not. She walked quickly to the table, arranged her paper, opened
her inkstand, and sat down. I fancied that I saw a wavy wriggle of
impatience in her shawl. Perhaps she wanted to know the rest of that odd
incident near Eza. It may have been that it was impatient interest which
had impaired her rigidity the day before.
I went on with the odd incident, and made a very good thing of it. Even
when on well-worn routes of travel, I tried to confine myself to
out-of-the-way experiences. Walkirk had been very much interested in
this affair when I had told it to him, and there was no reason why this
nun should not also be interested, especially as she had seen Eza.
I finished the narrative, and began another, a rather exciting one,
connected with the breaking of a carriage wheel and an exile from Monte
Carlo; but never once did curiosity or any other emotion impair the
rigidity of that nun. She wrote almost as fast as I could dictate, and
when I stopped I know she was filled with nervous desire to know what
was coming next,--at least I fancied that her shawl indicated such
nervousness; but hesitate as I might, or say what I might,--and I did
say a good many things which almost demanded a remark or answer,--not
one word came from her during the whole morning, nor did she ever turn
the front of her bonnet toward me.
XIII.
MY FRIEND VESPA.
I was very much disgusted at the present state of affairs. Three days
had elapsed, and I did not know what sort of a human being my secretary
was. I might as well dictate into a speaking-tube. A phonograph would be
better; for although it might seem ridiculous to sit in my room and talk
aloud to no one, what was I doing now? That nun was the same as no one.
The next day was Sunday, and there would be no work, and no chance to
solve the problem, which had become an actual annoyance to me; but I did
not intend that this problem should continue to annoy me and interfere
with my work. I am open and aboveboard myself, and if my secretary did
not choose to be open and aboveboard, and behave like an ordinary human
being, she should depart, and I would tell Walkirk to get me an ordinary
human being, capable of writing from dictation, or depart himself. If he
could not provide me with a suitable secretary, he was not the efficient
man of business that he claimed to be. As to the absurdity of dictating
to a mystery in a barrow bonnet, I would have no more of it.
I do not consider myself an ill-tempered person, and my grandmother
asserts that I have a very good temper indeed; but I must admit that on
Monday morning I felt a little cross, and when Sister Sarah and the nun
entered my antechamber I bade them a very cold good-morning, and allowed
the former to go without attempting any conversation whatever. The nun
having arrived, I would not send her away; but when the sub-mother came
at noon, I intended to inform her that I did not any longer desire the
services of the writing sister, and if she wished to know why I should
tell her plainly. I would not say that I would as soon dictate to an
inanimate tree-stump, but I would express that idea in as courteous
terms as possible.
For fifteen minutes I let the nun sit and wait. If her principles
forbade idleness, I was glad to have a crack at her principles. Then I
began to dictate steadily and severely. I found that the dismissal from
my mind of all conjectures regarding the personality of my secretary was
of great service to me, and I was able to compose much faster than she
could write.
It was about half past ten, I think, and the morning was warm and
pleasant, when there gently sailed into the secretary's room, through
the open window, a wasp. I saw him come in, and I do not think I ever
beheld a more agreeable or benignant insect. His large eyes were filled
with the light of a fatherly graciousness. His semi-detached body seemed
to quiver with a helpful impulse, and his long hind legs hung down
beneath him as though they were outstretched to assist, befriend, or
succor. With wings waving blessings and a buzz of cheery greeting, he
sailed around the room, now dipping here, now there, and then circling
higher, tapping the ceiling with his genial back.
The moment the nun saw the wasp, a most decided thrill ran down the back
of her shawl. Then it pervaded her bonnet, and finally the whole of her.
As the beneficent insect sailed down near the table, she abruptly sprang
to her feet and pushed back her chair. I advanced to the grating, but
what could I do? Seeing me there, and doubtless with the desire
immediately to assure me of his kindly intentions, my friend Vespa made
a swoop directly at the front of the nun's bonnet.
With an undisguised ejaculation, and beating wildly at the insect with
her hands, the nun bounded to one side and turned her face full upon me.
I stood astounded. I forgot the wasp.
I totally lost sight of the fact that a young woman was in danger of
being badly stung. I thought of nothing but that she was a young woman,
and a most astonishingly pretty one besides.
The state of terror she was in opened wide her lovely blue eyes, half
crimsoned her clear white skin, and threw her rosy lips and sparkling
teeth into the most enchanting combinations.
"Make it go away!" she cried, throwing up one arm, and thereby pushing
back her gray bonnet, and exhibiting some of the gloss of her light
brown hair. "Can't you kill it?"
Most gladly would I have rushed in, and shed with my own hands the blood
of my friend Vespa, for the sake of this most charming young woman,
suddenly transformed from a barrow-bonneted principle. But I was
powerless. I could not break through the grating; the other door of the
secretary's room was locked.
"Don't strike at it," I said; "remain as motionless as you can, then
perhaps it will fly away. Striking at a wasp only enrages it."
"I can't stay quiet," she cried; "nobody could!" and she sprang behind
the table, making at the same time another slap at the buzzing insect.
"You will surely be stung," I said, "if you act in that way. If you will
slap at the wasp, don't use your hand; take something with which you can
kill it."
"What can I take?" she exclaimed, now running round the table, and
stopping close to the grating. "Give me something."
I hurriedly glanced around my study. I saw nothing that would answer for
a weapon but a whisk broom, which I seized, and endeavored to thrust
through the meshes of the grating.
"Oh!" she cried, as the wasp made a desperate dive close to her face,
"give me that, quick!" and she stretched out her hand to me.
"I cannot," I replied; "I can't push it through. It won't go through.
Take your bonnet."
At this, my nun seized her bonnet by a sort of floating hood which hung
around the bottom of it and jerked it from her head, bringing with it
certain flaps and ligatures and combs, which, being thus roughly
removed, allowed a mass of wavy hair to fall about her shoulders.
Waving her bonnet in her hand, like a slung-shot, she sprang back and
waited for the wasp. When the buzzing creature came near enough, she
made a desperate crack at him, missing him; she struck again and again,
now high, now low; she dashed from side to side of the room, and with
one of her mad sweeps she scattered a dozen pages of manuscript upon the
floor.
The view of this combat was enrapturing to me; the face of my nun, now
lighted by a passionate determination to kill that wasp, was a delight
to my eyes. If I could have assured myself that the wasp would not sting
her, I would have helped him to prolong the battle indefinitely. But my
nun was animated by very different emotions. She was bound to be avenged
upon the wasp, and avenged she was. Almost springing into the air, she
made a grand stroke at him, as he receded from her, hit him, and dashed
him against the wall. He fell to the floor, momentarily disabled, but
flapping and buzzing. Then down she stooped, and with three great whacks
with her bonnet she finished the battle. The wasp lay motionless.
"Now," she said, throwing her bonnet upon the table, "I will close that
window;" and she walked across the room, her blue eyes sparkling, her
face glowing from her violent exercise, and her rich brown hair hanging
in long waves upon her shoulders.
"Don't do that," I said; "it will make your room too warm. There is a
netting screen in the corner there. If you put that under the sash, it
will keep out all insects. I wish I could do it for you."
She took the frame and fitted it under the sash.
"I am sorry I did not know that before," she said, as she returned to
her table; "this is a very bad piece of business."
I begged her to excuse me for not having informed her of the screen, but
I did not say that I was sorry for what had occurred. I merely expressed
my gratification that she had not been stung. Her chair had been pushed
away from the table, its back against the wall, opposite to me. She
seated herself upon it, gently panting. She looked from side to side at
the sheets of manuscript scattered upon the floor.
"I will pick them up presently and go to work, but I must rest a
minute." She did not now seem to consider that it was of the slightest
consequence whether I saw her face or not.
"Never mind the papers," I said; "leave them there; they can be picked
up any time."
"I wish that were the worst of it;" and as she spoke she raised her eyes
toward me, and the least little bit of a smile came upon her lips, as
if, though troubled, she could not help feeling the comical absurdity of
the situation.
"It is simply dreadful," she continued. "I don't believe such a thing
ever before happened to a sister."
"There is nothing dreadful about it," said I; "and do you mean to say
that the sisters of the House of Martha, who go out to nurse, and do all
sorts of good deeds, never speak to the people they are befriending, nor
allow them to look upon their faces?"
"Of course," said she, "you have to talk to sick people; otherwise how
could you know what they need? But this is a different case;" and she
began to gather up her hair and twist it at the back of her head.
"I do not understand," I remarked; "why is it a different case?"
"It is as different as it can be," said she, picking up her comb from
the floor and thrusting it through her hastily twisted knot of hair. "I
should not have come here at all if your grandmother had not positively
asserted that there would be nothing for me to do but to listen and to
write. And Mother Anastasia and Sister Sarah both of them especially
instructed me that I was not to speak to you nor to look at you, but
simply to sit at the table and work for the good of the cause. That was
all I had to do; and I am sure I obeyed just as strictly as anybody
could, except once, when you forgot the name of Eza, and I was so
anxious to have you go on with the incident that I could not help
mentioning it. And now, I am sure I don't know what I ought to do."
"Do?" I asked. "There is nothing to do except to begin writing where you
left off. The wasp is dead."
"I wish it had never been born," she said. "I have no doubt that the
whole affair should come to an end now, and that I ought to go home; but
I can't do that until Sister Sarah comes to unlock the door, and so I
suppose we had better go to work."
"We"! I would not have dared to use that word, but it fell from her lips
in the easiest and most conventional manner possible. It was delightful
to hear it. I never knew before what a pleasant sound the word had. She
now set herself to work to gather up the papers from the floor, and,
having arranged them in their proper order, she took up her bonnet.
"Do you have to wear that?" I asked.
"Certainly," she answered, clapping it on and pulling it well forward.
"I should think it would be very hot and uncomfortable," I remarked.
"It is," she admitted curtly; and, seating herself at the table, she
took up her pen.
I now perceived that if I knew what was good for myself I would cease
from speaking on ordinary topics, and go on with my dictation. This I
did, giving out my sentences as rapidly as possible, although I must
admit I took no interest whatever in what I was saying, nor do I believe
that my secretary was interested in the subject-matter of my work. She
wrote rapidly, and, as well as I could judge, appeared excited and
annoyed. I was excited also, but not in the least disturbed. My emotions
were of a highly pleasing character. We worked steadily for some twenty
minutes, when suddenly she stopped and laid down her pen.
"Of course it isn't right to speak," she said, turning in her chair and
speaking to me face to face, as one human being to another, "but as I
have said so much already, I don't suppose a little more will make
matters worse, and I must ask somebody's help in making up my mind what
I ought to do. I suspect I have made all sorts of mistakes in this
writing, but I could not keep my thoughts on my work. I have been trying
my best to decide how I ought to act, but I cannot make up my mind."
"I shall be delighted to help you, if I can," I ventured. "What's the
point that you cannot decide?"
"It is just this," she replied, fixing her blue eyes upon me with
earnest frankness: "am I to tell the sisters what has happened or not?
If I tell them, I know exactly what will be the result: I shall come
here no more, and I shall have to take Sister Hannah's place at the
Measles Refuge. There's nothing in this world that I hate like measles.
I've had them, but that doesn't make the slightest difference. Sister
Hannah has asked to be relieved, and I know she wants this place
dreadfully."
"She cannot come here!" I exclaimed. "I don't believe I ever had the
measles, and I will not have them."
"She is a stenographer," said she, "and she will most certainly be
ordered to take my place if I make known what I have done to-day."
"Supposing you were sure that you were not obliged to go to the Measles
Refuge," I asked, "should you still regret giving up this position?"
"Of course I should," she answered promptly. "I must work at something,
or I cannot stay in the House of Martha; and there is no work which I
like so well as this. It interests me extremely."
"Now hear me," said I, speaking perhaps a little too earnestly, "and I
do not believe any one could give you better advice than I am going to
give you. What has occurred this morning was strictly and absolutely an
accident. A wasp came in at the window and tried to sting you; and there
is no woman in the world, be she a sister or not, who could sit still
and let a wasp sting her."
"No," she interrupted, "I don't believe Mother Anastasia could do it."
"And what followed," I continued, "was perfectly natural, and could not
possibly be helped. You were obliged to defend yourself, and in so doing
you were obliged to act just as any other woman would act. Nothing else
would have been possible, and the talking and all that came in with the
rest. You couldn't help it."
"That's the way the matter appeared to me," said she; "but the question
would arise, if it were all right, why should I hesitate to tell the
sisters?"
"Hesitate!" I exclaimed. "You should not even think of such a thing. No
matter what the sisters really thought about it, I am sure they would
not let you come here any more, and you would be sent to the measles
institution, and thus actually be punished for the attempted wickedness
of a wasp."
"But there is the other side of the matter," said she; "would it not be
wicked in me not to tell them?"
"Not at all," I replied. "You do not repeat to the sisters all that I
tell you to write?"
"Of course not," she interrupted.
"And you do not consider it your duty," I continued, "to relate every
detail of the business in which you are employed?"
"No," she said. "They ask me some things, and some things I have
mentioned to them, such as not having a gold pen."
"Very good," said I. "You should consider that defending yourself
against wasps is just as much your business here as anything else. If
you are stung, it is plain you can't write, and the interests of your
employer and of the House of Martha must suffer."
"Yes," she assented, still with the steady gaze of her blue eyes.
"Now your duty is clear," I went on. "If the sisters ask you if a wasp
flew into your room and tried to sting you, and you had to jump around
and kill it, and speak, before you could go on with your work, why, of
course you must tell them; but if they don't ask you, don't tell them.
It may seem ridiculous to you," I continued hurriedly, "to suppose that
they would ask such a question, but I put it in this way to show you the
principle of the thing."
She withdrew her eyes from my face, and fixed them upon the floor.
"The truth of the matter is," she said presently, "that I haven't done
anything wrong; at least I didn't intend to. I might have crouched down
in the corner, with my face to the wall, and have covered my head and
hands with my shawl, but I should have been obliged to stay there until
Sister Sarah came, and I should have been smothered to death; and
besides, I didn't think of it; so what I did do was the only thing I
could do, and I do not think I ought to be punished for it."
"Now it is settled," I said. "Your duty is to work here for the benefit
of your sisterhood, and you should not allow a wasp or any insect to
interfere with it."
She looked at me, and smiled a little abstractedly. Then she turned to
the table.
"I will go on with my work," she said, "and I will not say anything to
the sisters until I have given the matter most earnest and careful
consideration. I can do that a great deal better at home than I can
here."
It was very well that she stopped talking and applied herself to her
work, for I do not believe it was ten minutes afterward when Sister
Sarah unlocked the door, and came in to take her away.
XIV.
I FAVOR PERMANENCY IN OFFICE.
As soon as my secretary had gone I went into her room and looked for my
friend Vespa. I found him on the floor, quite dead, but not demolished.
Picking him up and carrying him to my study, I carefully gummed him to a
card. Under his motionless form I wrote, "The good services of this
friend I shall ever keep in grateful remembrance." Then I pinned the
card to the wall between two bookcases.
During the rest of that day I found myself in a state of unreasonable
exaltation. Several times I put to myself the questions: Why is it that
you feel so cheerful and so gay? Why have you the inclination to whistle
and to dance in your room? Why do you light a cigar, and let it go out
through forgetfulness? Why do you answer your grandmother at random, and
feel an inclination to take a long walk by yourself, although you know
there are people invited to an afternoon tea?
I was not able to give an adequate answer to these questions, nor did I
very much care to. I knew that my high spirits were caused by the
discoveries the good Vespa had enabled me to make, and the fact that
this reason could not be proved adequate did not trouble me at all; but
prudence and a regard for my own interests made it very plain to me that
other people should not know I had been exalted, and how. If I desired
my nun to continue as my secretary, I must not let any one know that I
cared in the least to hear her voice, or to have the front of her bonnet
turned towards me.
At dinner, that day, my grandmother remarked to me:--
"Are you still satisfied with the House of Martha's sister? Does she do
your work as you wish to have it done?"
I leaned back in my chair, and answered with deliberation:--
"Yes, I think she will do very well, and that after more practice she
will do better. As it is, she is industrious and attentive. I place
great stress upon that point, for I do not like to repeat my sentences;
but she has a quick ear, and catches every word."
"Then," asked my grandmother, "you do not wish to make a change at
present?"
"Oh, no," I said; "it would be very annoying to begin again with a new
amanuensis. I am getting accustomed to this person, and that is a very
important matter with me. So I do not wish to make any change so long as
this sister does her work properly."
"I must say," resumed my grandmother, after a little pause, in which she
seemed to be considering the subject, "that I was not altogether in
favor of that young woman taking the position of your secretary. She can
have had but little experience, and I thought that an older and steadier
person would answer your purpose much better; but this one was
unemployed at the time, and wished very much to do literary work; and as
the institution needed the money you would pay, which would probably
amount to a considerable sum if your book should be a long one, and as
you were in a great hurry, and might engage some one from the city if
one of the Martha sisters were not immediately available, Mother
Anastasia and I concluded that it would be well to send this young
person until one of the older sisters, competent for the work, should be
disengaged. I thought you would be very anxious to have this change made
as soon as possible, so that you might feel that you had a permanent
secretary."
"Oh, no," said I, trying very hard not to appear too much in earnest.
"This person is very steady, and there is a certain advantage in her
being young, without much experience as a secretary. I wish any one who
writes for me to work in my way; and if such a person has been
accustomed to work in other people's ways, annoyance and interruption
must surely result, and that I wish very much to avoid. A secretary
should be a mere writing-machine, and I do not believe an elderly person
could be that. She would be sure to have notions how my work should or
should not be done, and in some way or other would make those notions
evident."
"I don't quite agree with you," said my grandmother, "but of course you
know your own business better than I do; and I suppose, after all, it
doesn't make much difference whether the sister is young or not. They
all dress alike, and all look ugly alike. I don't suppose there would be
anything attractive about the Venus de Milo, if she wore a coal-scuttle
bonnet and a gray woolen shawl."
"No," I answered, "especially if she kept the opening of her
coal-scuttle turned down over her paper, as if she were about to empty
coals upon it."