Book II

XIX

Belgium

"Sister Alexandra, I have put a letter in your cell. And will you go to

Mother Gertrude's room after Vespers?"

"Thank you, Sister. I wonder if Mother Gertrude remembers that I have to

go down to the children at five o'clock, though?"

"Oh, I dare say not. Perhaps you could get some one to replace you

there. Shall I see if Sister Agnes is free?"

"Thank you, I will speak to Mother Gertrude first."

The nuns separated, the lay-sister returning to her eternal task of

polishing up the brasses and gilt candlesticks of the chapel perpetually

dimmed by the rain and mists of the Belgian climate, and Alexandra

Clare, professed religious, wearily mounted the steep, narrow stairs to

the tiny cubicle in the large dormitory, designated a "cell." There

would just be time to fetch the letter and put it into the deep pocket

of her habit before the bell rang for Vespers, otherwise they would have

to wait till next morning, for she knew there would be no spare instant

for even a momentary return to the cell until she went to bed that

night, far too tired for anything but such rest as her pallet-bed could

afford. She felt little or no curiosity as to her correspondence.

Nobody wrote to her except Barbara, who had kept her posted in all the

general family news with fair regularity for the past nine years.

She recognized without elation the narrow envelope with the thin black

edge affected by Barbara ever since she had become the widow of Ralph

McAllister, during the course of the war in South Africa. It all seemed

to her very remote. The fact that Mother Gertrude had sent for her after

Vespers was of far more importance than any news that Barbara might have

to give of the outside world that seemed so far away and unreal.

Sister Alexandra had not been very greatly moved by any echoes from

without, since the sudden shock of hearing of her mother's death, while

she herself was still a novice preparing to take final vows.

Alex still remembered the bewilderment of seeing a black-clad, sobbing,

schoolgirl Pamela in the parlour, and the frozen rigidity of grief which

had masked her father's anguish.

Barbara and Ralph McAllister had been recalled from their honeymoon--he

still rapturous at a marriage which had been deferred for nearly two

years owing to Sir Francis' objection to his profession, and Barbara

drowned in decorous tears, through which shone all the self-conscious

glory of her wedding-ring, and her new position as a married woman. Alex

had been thankful when those trying interviews had come to an end--she

had been sent to Liège just before her religious profession. It had

mitigated the wrench of a separation from her Superior, although the

first months spent away from Mother Gertrude had seemed to her

unutterably long and dreary. But less than a year later Mother Gertrude

had come to the Mother-house as Assistant Superior, and the intercourse

between them had been as unbroken as the rule permitted.

It was eight years since Alex had left England, but, except for the

extreme cold of the winter, which told upon her health yearly, she had

grown to be quite unaware of the surroundings outside. The wave of

rather febrile patriotism that rolled over England at the time of the

Boer War, left her quite untouched, and no description of Barbara's

conveyed anything to her mind of the astoundingly wholesale demolition

of old ideals that fell with the death of Victoria, and the succession

of Edward VII to the English throne.

For Alex there was no change, except the unseen progress of time itself.

She only realized how far apart she had grown from the old life when the

news of her father's death reached her in the winter of 1902, and woke

in her only a plaintive pity and self-reproachful wonder at her own

absence of any acute emotion.

No one came to see her in the parlour after Sir Francis' death. For one

thing, she was in Belgium and too far away to be easily visited, and the

South African casualties, amongst whom had numbered Barbara's young

husband, had familiarized them all with the ideas of death and parting,

so that there was little of the consternation and shock that Lady

Isabel's death had brought to her children. The house in Clevedon Square

knew no more big receptions and elaborate At Home days, but Cedric,

already of age, had taken over the headship of the household, and Alex

had been conscious of a vague relief that she could still picture the

surroundings she remembered as home for the boys and Pamela. Even that

picture had become dim and strangely elusive, three years later, at the

thought of Cedric's marriage.

Alex had accepted it, however, as she accepted most things now, with a

passivity that carried no conviction to her mind. What her outer

knowledge told her was true, failed to impress itself in any way upon

her imagination, and consequently left her feelings quite untouched. To

her inner vision, the life outside remained exactly as she had last seen

it, in that summer that she still thought of as "Diamond Jubilee year."

Inside the convent, things had not changed. Looking back, she could

remember a faint feeling of amusement when she had returned to the house

at Liège at twenty-two years old, believing herself to be immeasurably

advanced in years and experience since her schooldays, and had found

that scarcely any alteration or modification in the rule-bound convent

had taken place. She now sat among the other nuns at the monthly

_réclame_ and watched the girls rise one by one in their places, their

hands concealed under the ugly black-stuff pèlerine, their hair tightly

and unbecomingly strained back, their young faces demurely made heavy

and impassive, as they listened to the record read aloud just as

unrelentingly as ever by old Mère Alphonsine.

Sister Alexandra very rarely contributed any words of praise or blame to

the judgment. At first she had been young, and therefore not expected to

raise her voice amongst the many dignitaries present, but even now, when

by convent standards she had attained to the maturity of middle age, her

opinion would have been of little value.

She was seldom sent among the children, although she gave an English

lesson to the _moyennes_ on two evenings a week. In her first year at

Liège, there had been an American girl of fourteen who had taken a

sudden rapturous liking to her, which had never proceeded beyond the

initial stages, since Alex, without explanation, had merely been told to

hand over the charge of the child's English and French lessons hitherto

in her hands, and had herself been transferred to other duties. Since

then, she had been kept on the Community side of the house, and employed

principally by Mother Gertrude to assist with the enormous task of

correspondence that fell to the share of the Assistant Superior. She was

taught to sew, and a large amount of mending passed through her hands

and was badly accomplished, for Lady Isabel Clare's daughter had learned

little that could be of use to her in the life she had selected. She was

not even sufficiently musical to give lessons in piano or organ playing,

nor had she any of the artistic talent that might be utilized for the

perpetration of the various pious _objects d'art_ that adorned the walls

of the parlours or the class-room.

Nevertheless, Sister Alexandra was hard-worked. No one was ever anything

else at the convent, where the chanting of the daily Office alone was a

very considerable physical strain, both in the raw cold of the early

morning and at the close of the ceaselessly occupied day. Many of the

nuns said the Office apart, owing to the numerous duties that called

them from the chapel during the hours of praise and supplication, but

Sister Alexandra had so few outside calls upon her time that she was one

of the most regular in attendance.

At first her health had appeared to improve under the extreme regularity

of the life, and later, when her final vows had been made, it was no

longer a subject for speculation. She was not ill, and therefore need

never reproach herself with being a burden to her Community. Anything

else did not matter--one was tired, no doubt--but one had made the

sacrifice of one's life.... Thus the conventual creed.

Time had sped by, with strange, monotonous, unperceived rapidity. It was

all a matter of waiting for the next thing. At first, Alex Clare had

waited eagerly and nervously to be taught some mysterious secret that

would enable her to become miraculously happy and good at home in

Clevedon Square. Then she had gradually come to see that there would be

no return--that her home thenceforward would be with Mother Gertrude,

and in the convent. Her novitiate days had come next--strange, trying

apprenticeship, that had been lightened and comforted by the woman whose

powerful and magnetic personality had never failed to assert itself and

its strength.

Belgium, and the anguished waiting and hoping for orders to return to

London, and the growing certainty that those orders would not come, had

culminated in the rush of relief and joy that heralded Mother Gertrude's

unexpected transfer to the Mother-house. After that, her first vows,

taken for a term of two years, had inaugurated the long probationary

period at the end of which a final and irrevocable pledge would bind her

for ever to the way of the chosen few. Those perpetual vows were held

out to her as the goal and crown of life itself, and her mind had

speculated not at all on what should follow.

She was twenty-six before she was allowed to become a professed

religious--according to conventual standards, no longer a very young

woman. The delay had inflamed her ardour very much. It was

characteristic of Alex to believe implicitly in an overwhelming

transformation which should take place within her by virtue of one

definite act, so long anticipated as to have acquired the proportions of

a miracle.

It sometimes seemed to her that ever since the embracing of those

perpetual vows, she had lived on, waiting for the transformation to

operate. There was nothing else to wait for. The supreme act in the life

of a religious, to the accomplishment of which her whole being had

hitherto been tending, impelled at once by precept and by example, had

taken place.

The next initiation could only be obtained through death itself, yet

Alex was still waiting.

She would tell herself that she was waiting for the children's summer

holidays for the beginning of the new term, then for the season of

Advent and the Christmas festival, for the long stretch of Lenten weeks,

with its additional fastings and fatigue, and still as each year slipped

by the sense of unfulfilment remained with her, dormant but occasionally

stirring.

In the last four years she had become additionally sensible of a growing

exhaustion, that seemed to sap her spirit no less than the strength of

her body. She had waited for her weariness to culminate in a breakdown

of strength that should send her to the convent infirmary, when the rest

that her body craved would be imposed upon her as an obligation, but no

such relief came to her.

It sometimes struck her with a feeling of wonder that such utter

lassitude of flesh and spirit alike could continue with no apparent and

drastic effect upon her powers of following the daily rule. But she had

no time in which to think, for the most part, and the example of Mother

Gertrude's unflagging energy could always shame her into un-complaint.

Her devotion to the elder nun had inevitably increased by the very

restrictions that the convent rules placed upon their intercourse.

Even now, after so many years spent beneath the same roof, the thought

that she was summoned to a private interview with Mother Gertrude could

still make her heart beat faster. Since the days of her novitiate, there

had been few such opportunities, and those for the most part hurried and

interrupted.

Sister Alexandra went downstairs with a lightened heart.

The bell from the chapel rang out its daily summons, and she

mechanically took off her black-stuff apron, folded and put it away, and

turned her steps down the long passage.

Her hands were folded under her long sleeves and her head bent beneath

her veil, in the attitude prescribed.

Barbara's letter lay in the depths of her pocket, already forgotten.

Her thoughts had flown ahead, and she was hoping that the Superior would

allow her to send Sister Agnes in her stead to the children at five

o'clock.

In the chapel, she raised her eyes furtively to the big, carved stall on

a raised daïs where the Assistant Superior had her place during the

frequent absence of the Superior-General.

Mother Gertrude was very often claimed in the parlour or elsewhere, even

during the hours of recital of the Office, and Alex was always aware of

a faint but perceptible pang of jealousy when this was the case.

Tonight, however, the stately black-robed figure was present. She was

always upright and immovable, and her eyes were always downcast to her

book.

Alex went through the Psalms, chanted on the accustomed single high

note, and was hardly conscious of a word she uttered. Long repetition

had very soon dulled her appreciation of the words, and her

understanding of even Church Latin had never been more than superficial.

She had come to regard it as part of that pervading and overwhelming

fatigue, that she should bring nothing but a faint distaste to her

compulsory religious exercises.

Towards the close of Vespers she saw a lay-sister come on tiptoe into

the chapel, and kneeling down beside Mother Gertrude's daïs, begin a

whispered communication.

Immediately a feverish agony of impatience invaded her.

No doubt some imperative summons to an interview with the parents of a

nun or a child, or consultation in the infirmary, where two or three

little girls lay with some lingering childish ailment, had come to rob

the Superior of her anticipated free time.

Alex, in nervous despair, saw her bend her head in acquiescence.

The lay-sister retired as noiselessly as she had come, and Mother

Gertrude closed her book.

The concluding versicles and prayers were spoken kneeling, and Alex was

compelled to turn towards the High Altar.

She was quivering from head to foot, and gripped the arms of her stall

in order to restrain herself from turning her head. Every nerve was

strained in her attempt to hear any movement at the back of the chapel,

but she could distinguish nothing.

The few minutes that elapsed before the bell sounded for rising, seemed

to her interminable.

She had grown accustomed lately to the grip of these nervous agonies, to

which she became a prey for the most trivial of causes.

The modern exploitation of hysteria, however, was still in its embryo

stage, half-way between the genteel hysterics of the 'sixties and the

suppressed neuroticism of the new century. She did not diagnose her

complaint. With the sensation, familiar to her, of blood pumping from

her heart to her head, making her face burn, while her hands and feet

remained dead and cold, she rose from her knees.

Although she had expected nothing else, a feeling of sick disappointment

invaded her as she saw that the Superior's place had been noiselessly

vacated.

With leaden feet, she moved out of the chapel and slowly resumed the

black apron and the stuff sleeves that protected her habit.

In the absence of any direct order to the contrary, she knew that she

must take her accustomed place in the class-room of the _moyennes_, and

that the English lesson must proceed as usual.

"A vos places."

She had long ago learnt to speak French fluently, but never without an

unmistakable British accent and intonation.

Subconsciously she was always rather relieved, on that account, when the

preliminaries were done with, and the lesson could be given, according

to the rules, in the English tongue.

"Simone! Begin, please."

Sister Alexandra, seated at the desk, held the book open in front of

her, and her eyes rested upon the page, but her mind took in neither the

meaning of the printed words nor the sense conveyed by Simone's droning,

inexpressive voice.

She wondered whether some one would come to take her place at the desk

and tell her that Mother Gertrude was waiting for her downstairs.

A sudden, stealthy opening of the class-room door made her look up with

a flash of hope, but it was only a little girl late for her lesson and

sidling in, hoping to escape notice.

Alex did not even trouble to give her the accustomed bad mark.

It would have meant opening her desk, and pulling out the mistress's

note-book, and looking for a pencil, and she felt too tired. In her

earlier days at the convent she would have felt ashamed at the thought

of yielding to such slothful unconcern, and would have magnified the

omission into a sin, to be confessed with shame to Mother Gertrude.

Now, she was too tired to care, and besides, she never saw Mother

Gertrude. Even the poor little half-hour that had been held out to her

was not to be hers, after all. She brooded in resentment over the

thought.

A titter going round the room roused her.

"What are you saying, Simone?"

Simone stared back at her stupidly, but another keen-faced girl in the

front row of desks spoke eagerly:

"She's said nearly all through the lesson, there's nothing left for any

one else to say."

"You can repeat it afterwards," said Alex coldly.

She was vexed that her inattention should have been betrayed to the

class, and presently she gave her full attention to the recital.

Just as it was over, the young novice, Sister Agnes, came into the room

and, approaching the desk, spoke to Alex in a lowered voice:

"Mother Gertrude sent me, Sister. Will you go down to her and wait in

her room? She will come in a moment. I am to take the children back to

the study-room for you."

"Thank you," said Alex, trembling. The revulsion of feeling was so

strong that she felt the chords tightening in her throat, which denoted

approaching tears, such as she often shed for no adequate reason. She

left the room.

The Assistant Superior's room on the ground floor was vacant.

Alex sat down on the low, rush-bottomed chair drawn close to the

Superior's table, and closed her eyes. Now that her agony of suspense

was ended, she became even more overwhelmingly conscious of fatigue, and

began to wonder, almost against her will, whether Mother Gertrude would

not notice it, and perhaps tell her that she was to go to bed after

supper and not come to the recital of Office in the chapel.

She wondered whether she looked tired. There were no looking-glasses in

the convent, but sometimes she had seen her own reflection in the big,

full-length mirror of the sacristy, and she knew that she had lost her

colour, and that her face had grown thin, with heavy, black circles

underneath her eyes. She knew, too, that her step had lost any

elasticity, and that she stooped far more than in the days when Lady

Isabel had implored her to "hold up" so that her pretty frocks might be

seen to advantage.

Waiting in the small room, with its carefully-closed window, and the big

writing-table stacked with papers, and a great crucifix standing upright

in the midst of them, she began for the first time to speculate as to

the reason of her summons.

It occurred to her, with a slight sense of shock, that such a summons,

in the case of nun or novice, had very often been the prelude to an

announcement of bad news, such as the death of a relative at home.

Hastily she pulled out Barbara's letter and glanced through it.

There was no hint of approaching disaster in the rather set little

phrases, and the four small sheets were mostly concerned with the fact

that Barbara was finding it necessary to move into a still smaller house

than the one that she and Ralph had taken at Hampstead after their

improvident marriage.

Pamela was at Clevedon Square with Cedric and his wife. She was going to

heaps of parties, and every one thought her very pretty and amusing.

There was no mention of Archie, and Alex hastily ransacked her memory as

to his whereabouts.

Since the first year of her novitiate in London she had never seen her

youngest brother, and although she felt a fleeting sorrow at the thought

of harm having befallen him, her tenderness was for the little,

curly-haired boy in a sailor suit with whom she had played and

quarrelled in the Clevedon Square nursery, and not for the unknown youth

of later years.

As she speculated, the well-known tread of the Assistant Superior

sounded down the corridors--a hasty, decisive footstep. Alex sprang to

her feet as the door opened.

"Oh, what is it?" she cried, at the first sight of the Superior's face.

The strong, lined countenance, suffused with agitation, bore every mark

of violent disturbance.

Her deep voice, however, was as well under control as ever, although

strong emotion underlay its vibrant quality.

"My little Sister, you have a big sacrifice before you. I cannot pretend

to think that it will not cost you dear, as it will me. But we know Who

asks it of us."

"What?" gasped Alex again, utterly at a loss, but feeling the blood ebb

from her face.

"Our Mother-General has appointed me as Superior to the new house in

South America. The boat sails at the end of this week."

XX

Aftermath

Alex could not believe the extent of the calamity that had befallen her,

nor did she realize at first that the very mainspring of her life in the

convent was attacked.

It astounded her to perceive that to the rest of the community the news

brought no overwhelming shock.

Such sudden uprootings and transfers were not uncommon, and the notice

given was generally a twenty-four hour one. Mother Gertrude had nearly a

week in which to make her few preparations for an exile that almost

certainly was for life, and to prepare herself as far as possible for

new and heavy responsibilities.

The Superior-General was herself proceeding to South America with the

little band of chosen pioneers, representative of almost every European

house of the Order, and after inaugurating the establishment of the new

venture, was to return to Liège, with one lay-sister only as companion.

In the general concern for her welfare and admiration of her courage in

undertaking such a journey on the eve of her sixty-third birthday, it

seemed to Alex that all other considerations were overlooked or ignored

entirely.

She was aware that the convent spirit of detachment, so much advocated,

and the consciousness of that vow of obedience made freely and fully,

would alike preclude the possibility of any spoken protest or

lamentation over the separation.

The severing of human ties was part and parcel of a nun's sacrifice, and

her life was in the hands of her spiritual superiors.

There was no discussion possible.

Mother Gertrude, although the look of strain was deepening round her

eyes and mouth, went steadily about her duties and spared herself in

nothing.

Her place was to be taken temporarily by a French nun who had been for

many years at Liège, and the charge was handed over with the least

possible dislocation.

It was on a Tuesday night that Mother Gertrude had been told of the

destiny in store for her, and on the following Saturday she was to

proceed with her Superior to Paris, and thence to Marseilles to the

boat.

Wednesday and Thursday Alex never saw her.

She had expected it, and was, moreover, far too much stunned to realize

anything beyond the immediate necessity for taking her habitual place in

the Community life without betraying the sense of utter despair that was

hovering over her.

On Friday afternoon Mother Gertrude said to her:

"I have not had one spare moment to give you, my poor child. But I think

you know everything that I would say to you? Be very, very faithful,

Sister, and remember that these separations may be for life, but all

Eternity is before us."

Alex could capture nothing of the rapt assurance that lay in the

upraised eyes and vibrant voice.

"What shall I do without you?" she asked despairingly, feeling how

inadequate the words were to voice her sense of utter deprivation.

The light, watchful eyes of the Superior seemed to pierce through her.

"Don't say that, dear child. You do not depend in any sense upon another

creature. I have been nothing to you but a means to an end. It was given

to me to help you a little, years ago, to find your holy vocation. You

know that human friendships in themselves mean nothing."

Something in Alex seemed to be crying and protesting aloud in

heart-broken repudiation of the formula to which her lips had so often

subscribed, but her own tacit acquiescence of years rose to rebuke her,

and the dread of vexing and alienating the Supervisor at this eleventh

hour.

Dumbly she knelt down on the floor beside the Superior's chair.

Mother Gertrude looked at her compassionately enough, but with the

strange remoteness induced by the long cultivation of an absolutely

impersonal relation towards humanity.

"My poor little Sister, sometimes lately I have wondered whether I have

been altogether wise in my treatment of you, and whether I have not

allowed you to give way to natural affection too much. Perhaps this

break has come in time. You must remember that you have renounced _all_

earthly ties, even the holiest and most sacred ones, and therefore you

must be ready to make any sacrifice for the sake of your one, supreme

Love. There is so much I should like to say to you, but time is getting

short now, and there is a great deal to be done. God bless you, my

child."

The Superior laid her hand on Sister Alexandra's bent head.

Alex clasped it desperately.

"I shall still be your child always?" she almost wailed, with a weight

of things unspoken on her heart, and in a last frantic attempt to carry

away one definite assurance.

The slightest possible severity mingled in Mother Gertrude's clear gaze,

bent downwards as she rose to her full height, her carriage as upright

and as dignified as it had been ten years before.

"No, Sister," she said very distinctly. "You will be the child of

whatever Superior God may send you in my place."

"You know that we in the convent have no human ties, only spiritual

ones. You will see your Divine Master, and Him only, in the person of

your Superior in religion. Remember that, little Sister. You must learn

detachment if you are to be truly faithful. That is my last and most

earnest counsel to you. I shall pray daily that you may be given

strength to follow it."

"Don't go!" gasped Alex, hardly knowing what she said, as she saw the

Superior's hand upon the door. "Don't go away like that. Oh, Mother,

Mother, how shall I bear it? I've only got you and now you're going away

for ever."

She broke into tearless sobs.

"Sister Alexandra! Has it come to this? I am indeed to blame if you are

still so undisciplined and so weak as to cling to a mere creature--you

that have been chosen by God to love Him, and Him only! I could not have

believed it." Mother Gertrude's tone held bitter remorse and shame.

Alex' old, pitiful instinct of propitiating the being she loved best

sprang to life within her.

"No, no, I didn't really mean it. I know I mustn't."

The nun gazed at her in compassionate perplexity.

"You are overstrung, and tired; you don't know what you are saying. When

you come to yourself, my poor child, you will hardly believe that you

could have proved so disloyal, even for a moment."

"Now calm yourself, and do not attempt to join the recreation tonight.

You are not fit for it. I will tell our Mother-General that I have told

you to go to your cell as soon as supper is over. Good-night, and again

good-bye."

Sheer terror at the bare thought of being left there alone forced Alex

to her feet, although she could scarcely stand, and was trembling

violently. "You won't forget me?" she entreated almost inaudibly.

"I shall always remember you in my prayers, as I do all those who have

been under my direction. Indeed, you will have a special place in them,"

said the Superior gravely, "since I can never forget that, by the grace

of God, I was instrumental in bringing you into His holy house. But

never forget that _no_ human relation, however precious it may be, can

have any completeness in itself. It all has to lead on to the one

supreme thing, Sister, the 'one thing necessary.'

"Now you must detain me no longer." She freed herself from the

convulsive grasp that Alex had unconsciously fastened on to the folds of

her habit and moved unhesitatingly to the door.

Alex followed her with eyes that stared blankly from a blanched face.

She felt as though she was under a spell and could neither move nor

speak. She could not believe that Mother Gertrude would really leave her

in that way. The Superior opened the door and passed out, closing it

behind her without pausing or looking back.

Alex heard her steps receding, rapid and measured, along the uncarpeted

corridor outside.

She stayed on and on in the little cold room, the winter dusk deepening

rapidly outside, the silence only broken by the occasional clanging of a

bell, to the sound of which she was so much inured that it hardly struck

upon her senses. She thought that Mother Gertrude would come back to

her.

There must be some other last words between them than those few

impersonal counsels of perfection, that repudiated any more intimate

link such as Alex' exclusive jealousy, stifled, but never stronger than

after those ten years of repression, now claimed with such frantic

yearning.

She waited, scarcely moving. She grew colder and colder, but she was

unconscious of her icy feet and leaden hands. She was not even aware of

consecutive thought.

Her whole body was absorbed in the supreme act of awaiting the

Superior's return for the word, the look, that should at least break the

dreadful darkness that encompassed her soul at the sudden deprivation of

that one outlet which had, unaware, served as a safety-valve for the

whole craving dependence of her spirit.

Mother Gertrude did not come back.

Dusk turned rapidly to night, and the distant cries and laughter of the

children's evening recreation fell into a quiet that was only shattered

by the single note of the deep-toned bell that proclaimed the hour of

silence and the final gathering of the Community for the last recital of

the Office in the chapel.

There was the flicker of a light along the passage outside, and the door

opened at last.

Alex did not move.

She turned anguished eyes, that held scarcely any comprehension in the

immensity of their fatigue, towards the entering figure.

It was that of the old Infirmarian, who put down the lighted candle and

threw up her hands of dismay as her gaze met that of the younger nun.

Mindful of the hour of silence, she asked no question, but she took Alex

away to the convent infirmary, and placed her in a bed of which the

mattress seemed strangely and wonderfully soft after the _paillasse_ in

her cell, and gave her a hot, sweet, strongly scented _tisane_ and bade

her sleep.

"Mais demain?" whispered Alex.

She was thinking of the early departure in the raw morning cold, when

the convoy that was leaving for South America would be driven away from

the convent. But the Infirmarian shook her head and shuffled slowly

away, leaving the room in darkness.

She was old and very tired, and for her there was no _demain_, except

the glorious dawn that should herald the day of Eternity.

Alex lay awake in the merciful darkness and envisaged the culmination of

long years of stifled repression and self-deception.

She knew now, as she had never let herself know before, what had

sustained her through the dragging years after the final objective of

her vows had been left behind.

She knew that she had thought herself to be answering to a call of God,

when she had been hearing only the voice of Mother Gertrude, and had

been craving only for Mother Gertrude's tenderness and approbation.

Physical pangs of terror shot through her and shook her from head to

foot as she realized to what she had bound herself, which now presented

itself to her overstrung perceptions only in the crudest terms.

To live without earthly affection, to relinquish love as she understood

it, in terms of human sympathy, for an ideal to which she knew, with

tardy and unerring certainty, that nothing within her would ever

conform.

She knew now, with that appalling clear-sightedness to which humanity is

mercifully a stranger until or unless the last outposts of sanity are

almost reached, that the vocation of which they all spoke so glibly had

never been hers.

She had entered a life for which her every instinct declared her to be

utterly unfitted, in search of that which her few short years in the

outside world had denied her. The convent instinct, engrained in her at

last, added to the anguish of startled horror at the wickedness of her

own state of mind.

_God is not mocked_, she thought. Alex had tried to cheat God, and for

ten years He had stayed His hand and had allowed her deception to go on.

And now it had all fallen on her--shame and punishment and despair, and

nowhere any human help or consolation to turn to. She prayed frenziedly

in the darkness, but no comfort came to her. She stifled in the pillow

the imploring crying aloud of Mother Gertrude's name that sprang to her

lips, but with a pang that sickened her, she recalled the Superior's

parting from her that evening, her undeviating fidelity to an austere

ideal which should also have been Alex'.

There was nothing anywhere.

And with that final certainty of negation came a rigidity of despair

that no terms of time or space could measure.

Alex fell into exhaustion, then into a state of coma that became heavy,

dreamless sleep enduring far into the next day. She woke to instant,

stabbing recollection. It was a grey, leaden day, with rain lashing the

window-panes, and at first Alex thought that it might be still early

morning, but there was all the far-away, indescribable stir that tells

of a household when the day's work is in full swing, and presently she

realized that it must be the middle of the morning.

"They have gone," she thought, but the words conveyed no meaning to her.

The Infirmarian came in to her and spoke, and asked whether she felt fit

to get up, and although on the day before Alex had so craved for rest,

she heard her own voice replying indifferently that she thought she was

quite well, and that she was ready to rise at once.

"You are sure you have taken no chill? You must have been there in

Mother Gertrude's room for a long time after you were taken faint....

Can you remember?" The nun looked at her, puzzled and anxious.

"Did I faint?"

"I think so, surely. You were almost unconscious when I came in, quite

by chance, and found you there, almost frozen, poor little Sister! Now

tell me--?" The old Infirmarian put a few stereotyped questions such as

she addressed to all those of her patients whose ailments could not be

immediately diagnosed at sight.

Alex' matter-of-fact replies, for the most part denials of the suggested

ills, left her no wiser. Finally she decided on a _refroidissement_.

"Put a piece of flannel over your chest," she said gravely, "and you

had, perhaps, better spend recreation indoors until the spell of cold is

over."

"Thank you," said Sister Alexandra lifelessly. "What time is it?"

"Nearly eleven. Have you any duties for which you should be replaced

this morning?"

"There are a lot of things, I think," said Alex vaguely, "but I can get

up."

"Very well," the Infirmarian acquiesced unemotionally. "There is much

work to be done, as you say, and we nuns cannot afford to be ill for

long."

Alex did not think that she was ill--she was quite able to get up and to

dress herself, although her head was aching and her hands shook oddly.

She reflected with dull surprise that all the poignant misery of the

days that had gone before seemed to have left her. Evidently this was

what people meant by "getting over things." One suffered until one could

bear no more, and then it was all numbness and inertia.

She felt a sort of surprised gratitude to God at the cessation of pain,

as one who had undergone torture might feel towards the torturers for

some brief respite.

Her thankfulness made tears come into her eyes, and she forced them back

with a sort of wonder at herself, but that odd disposition to weep still

remained with her.

As she went downstairs, rather slowly and cautiously, because her knees

were shaking so strangely, she met a very little girl, the pet and baby

of the whole establishment, climbing upwards. She was holding up the

corners of her diminutive black apron with both hands, and after looking

at the nun silently for a moment, she showed her that it contained two

tiny, struggling kittens. "Les petits enfants de Minet," she announced

gravely, and went on climbing, clasping her burden tenderly.

Alex could never have told what it was that struck her with so

unbearable a sense of pathos in the sight of the little childish figure.

Quite suddenly the tears began to pour down her face, and she could

neither have checked them nor have assigned any reason for them.

She went on downstairs, wiping the blinding tears from her sight, and

amazed at the violence of the uncontrollable sobs that were noiselessly

shaking her.

Something had suddenly given way within her and passed far beyond her

own control.

It was as though she could never stop crying again.

XXI

Father Farrell

For what seemed a long while afterwards--a period which, indeed, covered

three or four weeks--Alex learnt to be intensely and humbly grateful for

the convent law that would not allow any form of personalities in

intercourse.

She was utterly unable to cease from crying, and in spite of her shame

and almost her terror, the tears continued to stream down her face in

the chapel, in the refectory, even at the hour of recreation.

Nobody asked her any questions. One or two of the nuns looked at her

compassionately, or made some kindly, little, friendly remark; a

lay-sister now and then offered her an unexpected piece of help in her

work, and the Infirmarian occasionally sent her a cup of _bouillon_ for

dinner, but it was nobody's business to offer inquiries, and had any one

done so, the rule would have compelled Sister Alexandra to reply by a

generality and to change the conversation without delay.

Only the Superior was entitled to probe deeper, and at first the

Frenchwoman who was temporarily succeeding Mother Gertrude was too much

occupied by her new cares to see much of her community individually.

Alex was relieved when the Christmas holidays began, and she had no

longer to fear the notice of the sharp-eyed children, but in the

reduction of work surrounding the festive season, it became impossible

that her breakdown should continue to pass unnoticed. She did not

herself know what was the matter, and could scarcely have given a cause

for those incessant tears, except that she was unutterably weary and

miserable, and that they had passed far beyond her own control.

The idea that that continuous weeping could have any connection with a

physical nervous breakdown never occurred to her.

It was with surprise, and very little thought of cause and effect, that

she one night noticed her own extraordinary loss of flesh. She had never

been anything but thin and slightly built, but now she quite suddenly

perceived that her arms and legs in the last two months had taken on an

astounding and literal resemblance to long sticks of white wood. All the

way up from wrist to armpit, her left hand, with thumb and middle finger

joined, could span the circumference of her right arm.

It seemed incredible.

Her mind went back ten years, and she thought of Lady Isabel, and how

much she had lamented her daughter's youthful angularity.

"If she could have seen this!" thought Alex. "But, of course, it only

mattered for evening dress--she wouldn't have thought it mattered for a

nun."

Instantly she began to cry again, although her head throbbed and her

eyes burned and smarted. There was no need now to wonder if she looked

tired. Accidentally one day, her hand to her face, she had felt the sort

of deeply-hollowed pit that now lay underneath each eye, worn into a

groove.

She had ceased to wonder whether life would ever offer anything but this

mechanical round of blurred pain and misery, these incessant tears, when

the Superior sent for her.

"What is the matter with you, Sister? They tell me you are always in

tears. Are you ill?"

Alex shook her head dumbly.

"Sister, control yourself. You will be ill if you cry like that. Don't

kneel, sit down."

The Superior's tone was very kind, and the note of sympathy shook Alex

afresh.

"Tell me what it is. Don't be afraid."

"I want to leave the convent--I want to be released from my vows."

She had never meant to say it--she had never known that such a thought

was in her mind, but the moment that the words were uttered, the first

sense of relief that she had felt surged within her.

It was the remembrance of that rush of relief that enabled her, sobbing,

to repeat the shameful recantation, in the face of the Superior's grave,

pitiful urgings and assurance that she did not know what she was saying.

After that--an appalling crisis that left her utterly exhausted and with

no vestige of belief left in her own ultimate salvation--everything was

changed.

She was treated as an invalid, and sent to lie down instead of joining

the community at the hour of recreation, the Superior herself devoted

almost an hour to her every day, and nearly all her work was taken away,

so that she could walk alone round the big _verger_ and the enclosed

garden, and read the carefully-selected Lives and Treatises that the

Superior chose for her.

Gradually some sort of poise returned to her. She could control her

tears, and drink the soups and _tisanes_ that were specially prepared

and put before her, and as the year advanced, she could feel the first

hint of Spring stirring in her exhaustion. She was devoid alike of

apprehension and of hope.

No solution appeared to her conceivable, save possibly that of her own

death, and she knew that none would be attempted until the return of the

Superior-General from South America.

As this delayed, she became more and more convinced, in despite of all

reason, of the immutable eternity of the present state of affairs.

It shocked her when one day the Superior said to her:

"You are to go to the Superior of the Jesuits' College in the parlour

this afternoon. Do you remember, he preached the sermon for your

Profession, and I think he has been here once or twice in the last year

or two? He is a very wise and clever and holy man, and ought to help

you. Besides, he is of your own nationality."

Alex remembered the tall, good-looking Irishman very well. He had once

or twice visited the convent, and had always told amusing stories at

recreation, and preached vigorous, inspiring sermons in the chapel, with

more than a spice of originality to colour them.

The children adored him.

Alex wondered.

Perhaps Father Farrell, the clever and educated priest, would really see

in some new aspect the problem that left her baffled and sick of soul

and body.

She went into the parlour that afternoon trembling with mingled dread,

and the first faint stirrings of hope that understanding and release

from herself and her wickedness might yet be in store for her.

Father Farrell, big and broad-shouldered, with iron-grey, wavy hair and

a strong, handsome face, turned from the window as she entered the room.

"Come in, Sister, come in. Sit down, won't you? They tell me ye've not

been well--ye don't look it, ye don't look it!"

His voice, too, was big and bluff and hearty, full of decision, the

voice of a man accustomed to the command of men.

He pushed a chair forward and motioned her, with a quick, imperious

gesture that yet held kindness, to sit down.

He himself stood, towering over her, by the window.

"Well, now, what's all the trouble, Sister?"

There was the suspicion of a brogue in his cultivated tones.

Alex made a tremendous effort. She told herself that he could not help

her unless she told him the truth.

She said, as she had said to the French Superior:

"I am very unhappy--I want to be released from my vows as a nun."

The priest gave her one very quick, penetrating look, and his thick

eyebrows went up into his hair for an instant, but he did not speak.

"I don't think I have ever had any--any real vocation," said Alex,

whitening from the effort of an admission that she knew he must regard

as degrading.

"And how long have ye thought ye had no real vocation?"

There was the slightest possible discernible tinge of kindly derision in

the inquiry.

It gave the final touch to her disconcertment.

"I don't know."

She felt the folly of her reply even before the priest's laugh, tinged

with a sort of vexed contempt, rang through the room.

"Now, me dear child, this is perfect nonsense, let me tell ye. Did ye

ever hear the like of such folly? No real vocation, and here ye've been

a professed religious for--how long is it?"

"Nearly four years since I was finally professed, but--"

"There's no _but_ about it, Sister. A vow made to Our Blessed Lord, I'd

have ye know, is not like an old glove, to be thrown away when ye think

ye're tired of it. No, no, Sister, that'll not be the way of it. Ye'll

get over this, me dear child, with a little faith and perseverance. It's

just a temptation, that ye've perhaps been giving way to, owing to

fatigue and ill health. Ye feel it's all too hard for ye, is that it?"

"No," said Alex frantically, "that's not it. It's nothing like that.

It's that I can't bear this way of living any longer. I want a home, and

to be allowed to care for people, and to have friends again--I _can't_

live by myself."

She knew that she had voiced the truth as she knew it, and covered her

face with her hands in dread lest it might fail to reach his

perceptions.

She heard a change in Father Farrell's voice when next he spoke.

"Ye'd better tell me the whole tale, Sister. Who is it ye want to go

back to in the world?"

She looked up, bewildered.

"Any one--home. Where I can just be myself again--"

"And how much home have ye got left, after being a nun ten years? Is

your mother alive?"

"No."

"Your father?"

"No," faltered Alex.

"They died after ye left home, I daresay?"

"Yes."

"Then, in the name of goodness, who do ye expect is going to make a home

for ye? Have ye sisters and brothers?"

"Yes." Alex hesitated, seeing at last whither his inquiries were

tending.

"Yes, and I'm thinking they're married and with homes of their own by

this time," said the priest shrewdly. "Let me tell ye, ten years sees a

good many changes in the world, and it isn't much of a welcome ye'd get

by breaking your holy vows and making a great scandal in the Church, and

then planting yourself on relations who've lost touch with ye, more or

less, and have homes of their own, and a husband or wife, as the case

may be, and perhaps little children to care for. A maiden aunt isn't so

very much thought of, in the best of circumstances, let me tell ye.

"Now isn't there reason in what I'm saying, Sister?"

Sick conviction shot through her.

"Yes, Father."

"Well, then, ye'll just give up that foolish notion, now."

He looked at her white, desperate face, and began to take long strides

up and down the room.

"Have ye confidence in your Superior? Do ye get on with her?" he asked

suddenly.

"Our present Superior has only been here a little while--the one before

that--"

"I know, I know," he interrupted impatiently. "It's the Superior-General

I mean, of course--everything must come to her in the long run,

naturally. Have you full confidence in her, now?"

Alex felt as incapable of a negative reply as of an affirmative one. She

knew that she did not understand the term "full confidence" as he did,

and she temporized weakly.

"But our Mother-General is away in South America--she keeps delaying,

and that's one reason why nothing has been settled about me. She hasn't

even left America yet."

"I'm well aware of that. Don't waste time playing with me that way,

Sister, ye'll get no further. Ye know very well what I mean. Now, tell

me now, will it do for ye if I arrange for your transfer to another

house--maybe to the one in London, or somewhere in your own country?"

The instinct of the imprisoned creature that sees another form of the

same trap offered it under the guise of freedom, made her revolt.

"No," she cried. "No! I want to get right away--I want to stop being a

nun."

The priest suddenly hit the table with his clenched fist, making it

rock, and making his auditor start painfully.

"That's what you'll never do, not if ye got release from the holy vows

ten times over. Once a nun always a nun, Sister, although ye may be

false and faithless and go back into the very midst of the world ye've

renounced. But ye'll find no comfort there, no blessing, and God'll

remember it against ye, Sister. A soul that spurns His choicest graces

need expect no mercy, either here or hereafter. I tell ye straight,

Sister, that ye'll be deliberately jeopardizing your immortal soul, if

ye give in to this wicked folly. Ye've to choose between God and the

Devil--between a little while of suffering here, maybe, and then

Eternity in which to enjoy the reward of the faithful, or a hideous

mockery of freedom here, followed by Hell and its torments for ever and

ever. Which is it to be?"

Alex was terrified, but it was the priest's anger that terrified her,

not the threats that he uttered. At the back of her mind, lay the dim

conviction that no Hell could surpass in intensity of bitterness that

which her spirit was traversing on earth.

Father Farrell looked at her frightened, distorted face, and his voice

sank into persuasiveness.

"This'll pass, me dear child. Many a poor soul before ye has known what

it is to falter by the wayside. But courage, Sister, ye can conquer this

weakness with God's help. You're in no trouble about your faith, now are

ye?"

Had Alex been able to formulate her thoughts clearly, she might have

told him that it had long since become a matter of supreme unimportance

to her whether or no she still possessed that which he termed her faith.

As a fact, the beliefs which could alone have made the convent life

endurable to her, had never struck more than the most shallow of roots

into her consciousness. Perhaps the only belief which had any real hold

upon her was the one that she had gradually formed upon her experience

of the living--that God was a Superior Being who must be propitiated by

the sacrifice of all that one held dear, lest He strike it from one.

She looked dimly at Father Farrell, and shook her head, because she was

afraid of his anger if she owned to the utter insecurity of her hold

upon any religious convictions.

"That's right, that's right," he said hastily. "I felt sure ye were a

good child at bottom. Now would ye like to make a good general

Confession, and I'll give ye absolution, and ye can start again?"

Some hint of inflexibility in the last words roused Alex to a final,

frantic bid for liberty.

"It's no use--it won't do for me to begin again. I can't stay on. If I

can't get released from my vows I'll--I'll run away."

Then there was a long silence.

When the priest spoke again, however, his voice held more of meditative

speculation than of the anger which she feared.

"Supposing I could arrange it for ye--I don't say I could, mind, but it

might be done, if good reasons were shown--what would ye say to another

religious order altogether? It may be that this life is unsuited to

ye--there have been such cases. I know a holy Carmelite nun who was in

quite another order for nearly fifteen years, before she found out where

the Lord really wanted her. Are ye one of those, maybe?"

"No," spoke Alex, almost sullenly. The conflict was wearing her out, and

she was conscious only of a blind, unreasoning instinct that if she once

gave ground, she would find herself for ever bound to the life which had

become unendurable to her.

"What d'ye mean, _No_?"

"I want to go away. I want to be released from my vows."

The formula had become almost mechanical now. The Jesuit for the first

time dropped the brusqueness of manner habitual to him.

Pacing the length of the big parlour with measured, even strides, his

hands clasped behind his shabby cassock, he let his deep, naturally

rhetorical voice boom out in full, rolling periods through the room.

"Why did ye come to me at all, Sister? It wasn't for advice, and it

wasn't for help. I've offered both, and ye'll take neither. Having put

your hand to the plough, you've looked back. Ye say that sooner than

remain faithful ye'll run away--ye'll make a scandal and a disgrace for

the Community that's sheltered ye, and bring shame and sorrow to the

good Mothers here. What did ye expect me to answer to that? If your

whole will is turned to evil, it was a farce and a mockery to come to

me--I can do nothing.

"But one thing I'll tell ye, Sister. If ye do this thing--if it goes up

to Rome, and the vows ye took in full consciousness and free will on the

day ye were professed, are dissolved--so far as they ever can be, that

is, and let me tell ye that it's neither a quick nor an easy

business--if it comes to that, Sister, _there'll be no going back_. No

cringing round to the convent afterwards, when ye find there's no place

and no welcome for ye in the world, asking to be taken back. They'll not

have ye, Sister, and they'll be right. If ye go, it's for ever."

It seemed to Alex that he was purposely seeking to frighten her--that he

wanted to add fresh miseries and apprehensions to those already piled

upon her, and a faint resentment flicked at her in questioning

acceptance of such an assumption.

The shadow of spirit thus restored to her, just enabled her to endure

the seemingly endless exposition hurled at her in the priest's powerful

voice.

When it was all over, she crawled out of the room like a creature that

had been beaten.

Stunned, she only knew that yet another fellow-creature had entered the

league of those who were angered against her.

XXII

Rome

The crisis passed, as all such must pass, and Alex found herself in the

position openly recognized as that of waiting for the dissolution of her

religious vows.

It was as Father Farrell had said, neither a short nor an easy business,

nor was she allowed to pass the months of her waiting at the Liège

Mother-house.

They sent her to a small house of the Order in Rome, thinking, with the

curious convent instinct for misplaced economy, to save the petty cost

of incessant passing to and fro of correspondence and documents, between

the convent in Belgium and the Papal Secretariat at the Vatican.

Alex went to Italy in a dream. It struck her with a faint sense of irony

that she and Barbara, long ago, had entertained an ambition to visit

Italy, standing for all that was romantic and picturesque in the South.

After all, she was to be the first to realize that girlish dream, the

fulfilment of which brought no elation.

At first she lived amongst the nuns, and led their life, but when it

became evident beyond question that she was eventually to obtain release

from her vows, the Community held no place for her any longer.

Her religious habit was taken away, and a thick, voluminous, black-stuff

dress substituted, which the nuns thought light and cool in comparison

with their own weighty garments, but of which the hard, stiff cuffs and

high collar, unrelieved by any softening of white, made Alex suffer

greatly.

The house was too small to admit of a _pensionnat_, but the nuns took in

an inconsiderable number of lady boarders, and an occasional pupil.

Alex, however, was not suffered to hold any intercourse with these.

After her six months spent in Community life a final appeal was made to

her, and when it failed of its effect she passed into a kind of moral

ostracism.

She had a small bedroom, where her meals were served by the lay-sister

who waited on the lady-boarders, and a little _prie-dieu_ was put in a

remote corner of the chapel for her use, neither to be confounded with

the choir-stalls, nor the benches for visitors, nor the seats reserved

for the ladies living in the house. The librarian Sister, in charge of

the well-filled book-case of the Community-rooms, had instructions to

provide her with literature. Beyond that, her existence remained

unrecognized.

She often spent hours doing nothing, gazing from the window at the

_Corso_ far below, so curiously instinct with life after the solitude of

the Liège grounds, encompassed by high walls on every side.

She did not read very much.

The books they gave her were all designed to one end--that of making her

realize that she was turning her back upon the way of salvation. When

she thought about it, Alex believed that this was, in truth, what she

was doing, but it hardly seemed to matter.

Her room was fireless, and the old-fashioned house, as most Roman ones,

had no form of central heating. She shivered and shivered, and in the

early days of February fell ill. One abscess after another formed inside

her throat, an unspeakably painful manifestation of general weakness.

One evening she was so ill that there was talk of sending for the

chaplain--the doctor had never been suggested--but that same night the

worst abscess of all broke inside her throat, and Alex saw that there

was no hope of her being about to die.

The bright winter cold seemed to change with incredible rapidity into

glowing summer heat, and a modicum of well-being gradually returned to

her.

She even crept slowly and listlessly about in the shade of the great

Borghese gardens, in the comparative freshness of the Pincio height, and

wondered piteously at this strange realization of her girlhood's dream

of seeing Italy. She never dared to go into the streets alone, nor would

the nuns have permitted it.

Her difficult letters to England had been written.

Cedric had replied with courteous brevity, a letter so much what Sir

Francis might have written that Alex was almost startled, and her

father's man of business had written her a short, kind little note,

rejoicing that the world was again to have the benefit of Miss Clare's

society after her temporary retirement.

The only long letter she received was from Barbara.

"_Hampstead,_

"_March_ 30, 1908.

"DEAREST ALEX,

"Your letter from Rome was, of course, a great surprise. I had been

wondering when I should hear from you again, but I did not at all

guess what your news would be when it came, as we had all quite

grown to think of you as completely settled in the convent.

"I am afraid that, as you say, there may be complications and

difficulties about your vows, as I suppose they are binding to a

certain extent, and they are sure not to let you off without a

fuss.

"Your letters aren't very explicit, my dear, so I'm still somewhat

in the dark as to what you are doing and when you mean to come to

London, as I suppose you will eventually do. And why Italy? If

you're going to get out of the whole thing altogether, it seems

funny that the convent people should trouble to send you to Italy,

when you might just as well have come straight to England. However,

no doubt you know your own affairs best, Alex, dear, and perhaps

you're wise to take advantage of an opportunity that may not come

again!

"Travelling has always been my dream, as you know, but except for

that time I had at Neuilly, when you came out--Heavens, what ages

ago!--and then our honeymoon in Paris, which was so terribly broken

into when dear mother died, I've never had any chance at all, and I

suppose now I never shall have. Everything is so expensive, and I'm

really not a very good traveller unless I can afford to do the

thing _comfortably_, otherwise I should simply love to have run

over to Rome for Easter and got you to show me all the sights.

"I suppose your time is quite your own now? Of course, when you

really do leave the Sisters, I hope you'll come straight to my wee

cottage here--at any rate while you look about you and think over

future plans.

"Cedric has written to you, I know, and if you feel you'd rather go

to Clevedon Square, needless to say, my dear, I shall more than

understand. Please yourself _absolutely_.

"But, of course, one's always rather chary of unknown

sisters-in-law, and Violet quite rules the roost now-a-days. She

and Cedric are a most devoted couple, and all that sort of thing,

but as she's got all the money, one rather feels as if it was _her_

house. I daresay you know the kind of thing I mean.

"She's quite a dear, in many ways, but I don't go there

tremendously.

"Pamela adores her, and lives in her pocket. Pam tells me she

hasn't seen you since she was about fifteen--I could hardly believe

it. My dear, I don't know what you'll think of her! She's quite

appallingly modern, to my mind, and makes me feel about a hundred

years old.

"When I think of the way _we_ were chaperoned, and sent about

everywhere with a maid, and only allowed the dullest of

dinner-parties, and tea-parties, and then those stiff, solemn

balls! Pamela is for ever being asked to boy-and-girl affairs, and

dinner dances and theatre-parties--I must say she's a huge success.

Every one raves about her, and she goes in for being tremendously

natural and jolly and full of vitality and she's had simply heaps

of chances, already, though I daresay some of it has to do with

being seen about everywhere with Violet, who simply splashes money

out like water. She paid all Archie's debts, poor boy--I will say

that for her. The result is that he's quite good and steady now,

and every one says he'll make a first-rate Guardsman.

"I'm writing a long screed, Alex, but I really feel you ought to be

posted up in all the family news, if you're really going to come

and join forces with us again, after all these years. It seems

quite funny to think of, so many things have happened since you

left home for good--as we thought it was going to be. Do write

again and tell me what you think of doing and when you're coming

over. My tiny spare-room will be quite ready for you, any time you

like.

"Your loving sister,

"BARBARA MCALLISTER."

Barbara's letter was astounding.

Even Alex, too jaded for any great poignancy of emotion, felt amazement

at her sister's matter-of-fact acceptance of a state of affairs that had

been brought about by such moral and physical upheaval.

Had Barbara realized none of it, or was she merely utterly incurious?

Alex could only feel thankful that no long, explanatory letter need be

written. Perhaps when she got back to England it would be easier to make

her explanation to Barbara.

She could hardly imagine that return.

The affair of the release from her vows dragged on with wearisome

indefiniteness. Documents and papers were sent for her signature, and

there were one or two interviews, painful and humiliating enough.

None of them, however, hurt her as that interview in the parlour at

Liège with Father Farrell had done, for to none of them did she bring

that faint shred of hope that had underlain her last attempt to make

clear the truth as she knew it.

She knew that money had been paid, and Cedric had written a grave and

short note, bidding her leave that side of the question to his care, and

to that of her father's lawyers.

Then, with dramatic unexpectedness, came the end.

She was told that all the necessary formalities had been complied with,

and that her vows were now annulled. It was carefully explained to her

that this did not include freedom to marry. The Church would sanction no

union of hers.

Alex could have laughed.

She felt as though marriage had been spoken of, for the first time, to

an old, old woman, who had never known love, and to whom passion and

desire alike had long been as strangers. Why should that, which had

never come to her eager, questing youth, be spoken of in connection with

the strange, remote self which was all that was left of her now?

She reflected how transitory had been the relations into which she had

entered, how little any intimacy of spirit had ever bound her to another

human being.

Her first love--Marie-Angèle:

"I love you for your few caresses,

I love you for my many tears."

Where was Marie-Angèle now? Alex knew nothing of her. No doubt she had

married, had borne children, and somewhere in her native Soissons was

gay and prosperous still.

Alex dimly hoped so.

Queenie Torrance.

Her thoughts even now dwelt tenderly for a moment on that fair,

irresponsive object of so much devotion. On Queenie as a pale, demure

schoolgirl, her fair curls rolled back from her white, open brow, in her

black-stuff dress and apron. On Queenie, the blue ribbon for good

conduct lying across her gently-curving breast, serenely telling fibs or

surreptitiously carrying off the forbidden sweets and dainties procured

for her by Alex, or gazing with cold vexation on some extravagant

demonstration of affection that had failed to win her approval.

In retrospect Alex could see Queenie again, the white, voluminous ball

dresses she had worn, the tiny wreath of blue forget-me-nots, once

condemned as "bad form" by Lady Isabel.

On Queenie Goldstein her thoughts dwelt little. She had heard long ago

from Barbara of Queenie's divorce, in an action brought by her husband,

which had afforded the chief scandal of the year 1899, and then no one

had heard or even seen anything of Queenie for a long while, and Barbara

had said that she was reported to be abroad with her father.

Five years later Barbara had written excitedly:

"You remember that awful Queenie Goldstein? and how full the papers were

of her pictures, when that dreadful divorce case of hers was on, and the

five co-respondents and everything? You'll hardly believe it, but she's

in London again, having succeeded in marrying an American whom every one

says is _the_ coming millionaire. I saw her at the theatre myself, in a

box, absolutely slung with diamonds. She's taken to making up her face

tremendously, but she hasn't altered much, and she's received

everywhere. They say her husband simply adores her."

Alex still remembered the rebuke with which Mother Gertrude had handed

her that letter, bidding her remind her sister that things of the world,

worldly, had no place in the life of a nun.

Nevertheless, although she had put the thought from her, she knew that

in her heart she had felt a certain gladness that her erstwhile

playmate, given over though she might be to the world, the flesh and the

Devil, had yet not found those things that she coveted to have failed

her.

Queenie, at least, had known what she wanted, and Alex' thoughts of her

held no condemnation.

From Queenie, her mind went to the memory of Noel Cardew, and she was

faintly surprised at the unvivid presentment of him which was all that

she could evoke.

Noel had held no real place in her life at all.

Nothing that would endure had ever passed between him and her. It was

years since she had thought of their ill-starred engagement, and then it

had always been in connection with Sir Francis and Lady Isabel--their

brief pride and pleasure in it, and the sudden downfall of their hopes.

Of Noel himself she had scarcely a recollection. Perhaps her clearest

one was that of the earnest young egoist, only made attractive by a

certain simplicity, who had taken her to sit in a disused ice-house one

hot summer day, and had talked about photography. Of the later Noel,

Alex was astounded to find that she retained no impression at all.

She could not even remember whether it was he or his brother Eric who

had married red-haired Marie Munroe in the same year that she herself

had taken her first vows as a nun.

Perhaps it was Noel.

At all events, he had probably married long ago, and Alex could believe

that some corner of land in Devonshire was the better for the earnest

supervision that he would accord to it, both in his own person and in

that of the generation that would doubtless succeed him.

Mother Gertrude.

At the last and most worshipped of the shrines before which Alex had

offered the sad, futile, unmeasured burnt-offerings of her life, her

thoughts lingered least.

It had all been a mistake.

She had given recklessly, foolishly, squandering her all because life

had cheated her of any outlet for a force of the strength of which she

had had no measure given her, and now she had to pay the bitter penalty

for a folly which had not even been met by answering human affection.

She wrote no letter to Mother Gertrude, and received no word from her.

As the days crept on, Alex, without volition of her own, found that her

journey to England had been arranged for--that money was to be advanced

to her for her expenses, that she was expected to supplement with it her

utter penury of worldly possessions. One day she went out, frightened

and at a loss, and entered some of the first shops she saw, in a street

that led down from the Pincio Gates.

They were not large shops, and she had difficulty in making herself

understood, but she purchased a ready-made blue-serge skirt, with a coat

that she called a jacket, and an ugly black toque, that most resembled

in shape those that she remembered seeing in London ten years earlier.

She wore these clothes, with a white cotton blouse that fastened at the

back and came high up under her chin, for some days before she left

Rome, so as to grow accustomed to them, and to lose the sense of

awkwardness that they produced in her.

The heavy boots and a pair of black-cotton gloves that she had brought

from Belgium, still served her. The day of her departure was fixed, and

she wrote to Barbara, but she knew neither by what route she was going

nor how long the journey would take.

Her companions, selected by the Superior of the convent, proved to be an

old lady and her daughter who were going to Paris. Evidently they knew

her story, for they looked at her with scared, curious faces and spoke

to her very little. Both were experienced travellers, and on the long,

hot journey in the train, when it seemed as though the seats of the

railway carriage were made of molten iron, they extended themselves with

cushions and little paper fans, and slept most of the way. At Genoa the

daughter, timidly, but with kindness, pressed Alex to eat and drink, and

after that she spoke to her once or twice, and gave her a friendly

invitation to join them at the small _pension_ in Paris to which they

were bound, for a night's halt before she proceeded to Boulogne and

thence to England. Alex accepted with bewildered thankfulness.

She was weak and exhausted, and the old lady and her daughter were

pitiful enough, and saw her into the train next day, and gave her the

provision of sandwiches which she had not thought to make for herself.

The train sped through flat, green country, with tall poplars shading

the small, narrow French houses that dotted the line on either side. Her

eye dilated as she gazed on the sea, when at last Boulogne was reached.

She remembered the same grey expanse of rolling waves tipped with foam

on the morning, eight years ago, when the girl Alex Clare had crossed to

Belgium, tearful, indeed, and frightened, but believing herself to be

making that new beginning which should lead to the eventual goal which

life must surely hold in store for her.

Only eight years, and the bitterness of a lifetime's failure encompassed

her spirit.

XXIII

N.W.

Alex got off the boat at Folkestone, dazed and bewildered. She had been

ill all through the crossing, and her head was still swimming. She

grasped her heavy, clumsy suit-case and was thankful to have no luggage,

when she saw the seething crowd of passengers, running after uniformed

porters in search of heavy baggage that was being flung on to trucks to

an accompaniment of noise and shouting that frightened her.

She made her way to the train and into a third-class carriage, too much

afraid of its starting without her to dare to go in search of the hot

tea which she saw the passengers drinking thankfully. It was a raw, grey

day, and Alex, in her thin serge coat and skirt, that had been so much

too hot in Italy, shivered violently. Her gloves were nearly thread-bare

and her hands felt clammy and stiff. She took off her little black-straw

toque and leant her head against the back of the seat, wishing that she

could sleep.

It seemed to her that the other people in the carriage were looking at

her suspiciously, and she closed her eyes so as not to see them.

After a long while the train started.

Alex tried to make plans. In the shabby purse which she had clasped in

her hand all the way, for fear of its being stolen, was a piece of paper

with Barbara's address. She would not go to Clevedon Square, for fear of

Cedric's unknown wife. Cedric with a wife and child! Alex marvelled, and

could not believe that she might soon make the acquaintance of these

beings who seemed to her so nearly mythical.

The thought of Barbara as a widow living in a little house of her own in

Hampstead, seemed far less unfamiliar. Barbara had always written

regularly to Alex, and had twice been to see her when she was in the

English house and once in her early days in Belgium.

Barbara had often said in her letters that she was very lonely, and that

it was terrible having to live so far out of town because of expenses.

Ralph, poor dear, had left her very, very badly off, and there had been

very little more for her on the death of Sir Francis. Alex supposed that

Downshire Hill must be a very unfashionable address, but she did not

connect "N.W." with any particular locality.

She was always very stupid at finding her way about, and, anyhow, her

bag was heavy. She decided that she would take a cab.

At Charing Cross it was raining, and the noise was deafening. Alex had

meant to send Barbara a telegram from Folkestone, but had not known

where to find the telegraph office, and she now realized with a pang of

dismay that her sister would not be expecting her.

"How stupid I am, and how badly I manage things," she thought. "I hope

she won't be out."

The number of taxis at the station bewildered Alex, who had only seen

one or two crawling about the streets in Rome, and had heard of them,

besides, as ruinously expensive. She found a four-wheeled cab and put

her bag on the floor. The man did not get down from his box to open the

door for her, as she expected. He leant down and asked hoarsely.

"Where d'you want to go, Miss?"

"Downshire Hill," said Alex. "No. 101."

"Downshire 'Ill? Where's that?"

"I don't know," said Alex, frightened. She wondered if the man was

drunk, and prepared to pull her bag out of the cab again.

"'Alf a minute."

He called out something unintelligible to another driver, and received

an answer.

"Downshire 'Ill's N.W.," he then informed her. "Out 'Ampstead w'y."

"Yes," said Alex. "Can't you take me there?"

He looked at her shabby clothes and white, frightened face.

"I'd like to see my fare, first, if _you_ please," he said insolently.

Alex was too much afraid of his making a scene to refuse.

"How much will it be?"

"Seven and sixpence, Miss."

She pulled two half-crowns out of her purse. It was all she had left.

"This is all the change I have," she told him in a shaking voice. "They

will pay the rest when I get there."

He muttered something dissatisfied, but put the coins into his pocket.

Alex climbed into the cab.

It jolted away very slowly.

The rain was falling fast, and dashing against the windows of the cab.

Alex glanced out, but the streets through which they were driving were

all unfamiliar to her. It seemed a very long way to Downshire Hill.

She began to wonder very much how Barbara would receive her, and how she

could make clear to her the long, restless agony that had led her to

obtain release from her vows. Would Barbara understand?

Letters had been very inadequate, and although Barbara had written that

Alex had better come to her for a while if she meant to return to

England, she had given no hint of any deeper comprehension.

"We must make plans when we meet," she had written at the end of the

letter.

Alex wondered with a sense of apprehension what those plans would be.

She had for so long become accustomed to being treated as a chattel,

without volition of her own, that it did not occur to her that she would

have any hand in forming her future life.

Presently she became conscious that the rain had stopped, and that the

atmosphere was lighter. She let down the glass of the window nearest

her, and saw, with surprise, that there was a rolling expanse of green,

with a number of willow-trees, on one side of the road. It did not look

like London.

Then the cab turned a corner, and Alex saw "Downshire Hill" on a small

board against the wall.

This was where Barbara lived, then.

The little houses were small and compact, but of agreeably varying

height and shape, with a tiny enclosure of green in front of each,

protected by railings and a little gate. No. 101, before which the cab

drew up, had a bush that Alex thought must be lilac, and was covered

with ivy. There were red blinds to the windows.

She got out, pulling her heavy bag after her, and timidly pushed open

the little gate, glancing up at the windows as she did so.

There was no one to be seen.

Still clutching at her suit-case, Alex pulled the bell faintly.

"There's half my fare owing yet," said the cabman gruffly.

Thus reminded, Alex rang again.

An elderly parlour-maid with iron-grey hair and a hard face opened the

door.

"Is--is Mrs. MacAllister at home?" faltered Alex.

"I'll inquire," said the maid, with a lightning glance at the suit-case.

She left the door open, and Alex saw a little flight of stairs. A

murmured colloquy took place at the top, and then Barbara, slight and

severely black-clad, came down.

"Alex, that's not you?"

"Yes. Oh, Barbara!"

"My dear--I've been expecting to hear from you every day! I've been

imagining all sorts of awful things. Why didn't you wire? Do come

in--you must be dead, and have you been carrying that huge bag?"

"I came from the station in a cab."

"A cab!" echoed Barbara in rather a dismayed voice. "What a long way to

come, when you could have done it so easily by the underground

railway--but I suppose you didn't know?"

"No," repeated Alex blankly. "I didn't know."

"What's he waiting for? Will he carry your trunk upstairs?"

"That is all the luggage I have, and I can carry it up quite well, and

it isn't heavy. But I hadn't quite enough money for the fare--he ought

to have another half-crown."

"Oh, dear," said Barbara. "Wait a minute, then, Alex."

She disappeared up the stairs, leaving Alex alone with the severe

parlour-maid, who still held open the front door.

She leant against the wall in the tiny passage, wondering what she had

expected of her actual arrival, that the reality should give her such a

sense of misery.

If only she had telegraphed to Barbara from Folkestone!

"Here's two shillings. Ada, have you got a sixpence, by any chance?"

"There's sixpence in the kitchen, 'm," said Ada, and fetched it.

"There!" said Barbara. "Pay him then, please, Ada. Now, Alex, come

upstairs and sit down. You look dreadfully ill and worn-out, my dear."

Alex lifted the suit-case again.

"Oh, Ada will see to that. Your room is all ready, Alex. It's very

small, but then the house is a perfect doll's house, as you see. This is

my tiny drawing-room."

"It's very pretty," said Alex, sinking into a chair.

"It's not bad--the things are nice enough. Ralph had some exquisite

things--but, of course, the house is too hateful, and I hate living all

the way out here. No one ever comes near me. Cedric's wife can't get her

chauffeur to bring her--he pretends he doesn't know where it is. The

only person who ever comes is Pamela."

"I thought she was to live with you?"

"Pam! Oh, she wouldn't bury herself out here, for long. Pam's very much

in request, my dear. She's been paying visits all over the place, and

can go on indefinitely, I believe. She makes her headquarters with

Cedric and Violet in Clevedon Square, you know, but of course she'll

marry. Pam's all right."

"Last time I saw Pam she was in short frocks and a pigtail."

"She's come out in the most extraordinary way. Every one says so. Not

exactly pretty, but frightfully taking, and most awfully attractive to

men. They say she's so full of life. I must say, when _we_ came out,

Alex, we didn't have nearly such a good time as she has. Men seem to go

down like ninepins before her. She's always bringing them out here to

tea, and to look at the view of London from the Heath. One always used

to look on Hampstead Heath as a sort of joke--Phil May's drawings, and

that kind of thing. I certainly never expected to live here--but lots of

artists do, and Ralph had a big studio here. And it's very inexpensive.

Besides, if you know you way about, it's quite easy to come in and out

from town. Pamela always brings her young men on the top of a 'bus.

Girls can do anything now-a-days, of course. Fancy father, if one of

_us_ had done such a thing!"

"Who looks after her?" asked Alex, rather awe-struck.

"She looks after herself, my dear, and does it uncommonly effectively.

She could marry tomorrow if she liked--and marry well, too. Of course,

Cedric is her guardian in a sort of way, I suppose, but he lets her do

anything she like--only laughs."

"Cedric!" spoke Alex wistfully. "Do you know, I haven't seen Cedric

since--I left Clevedon Square."

"My dear, that's ten years, isn't it? Cedric's grown exactly like

father. He's got just his way of standing in front of the fire and

shaking his spectacles up and down in his hand--you remember father's

way? Of course, he's done extraordinarily well--every one says so--and

his marriage was an excellent thing, too."

"Is--Violet--nice?"

Barbara laughed rather drily.

"She's got a lot of money, and--yes, I suppose she is nice. Between

ourselves, Alex, she's the sort of person who rather aggravates me.

She's always so prosperous and happy, as though nothing had ever gone

wrong with her, or ever could. She's very generous, I will say that for

her--and extraordinarily good-natured. Most people adore her--she's the

sort of woman that other women rave about, but I must say most men like

her, too. Her people were rather inclined to think she could have done

better for herself than Cedric. Of course, he isn't well off, and she's

two years older than he is. But it's answered all right, and they were

tremendously in love with one another."

"Is she very pretty?"

"She's inclined to be fat, but, of course, she is pretty, in her own

style--very. And the little girl is a perfect darling--little Rosemary.

"But, Alex, here am I talking you to death when you must be dying for

tea. What sort of a crossing did you have?"

"Not very bad, but I was ill all the way."

"Oh, no wonder you look so washed out," said Barbara, as though

relieved, but she went on eyeing her sister uneasily through the rapidly

increasing dusk.

When Ada came in with the tea appointments, Barbara told her to bring

the lamp.

"Yes'm. And your bag, 'm--may I have the key?"

Alex looked bewildered, then recollected that the maid was offering to

unpack for her, and pulled out the key from her purse.

"Isn't there your trunk still to come?" asked Barbara.

"No. You see, I hadn't much to bring--only just one or two things that I

got in Rome."

Alex wondered if Barbara understood that until a few months ago she had

been a nun, living the life of a nun. She thought of the apprehension

with which she had viewed making an explanation to Barbara, and almost

smiled. It appeared that no explanation would be required of her.

But presently Barbara said uneasily:

"It seems extraordinary, your having no luggage like this, Alex. I don't

know what Ada will think, I'm sure. I told her that you'd been living

abroad for a good many years--I thought that was the best thing to say.

But I never thought of your having no luggage."

"I hadn't got anything to bring, you see. I must get some things,"

repeated Alex forlornly.

"You see," said her sister half apologetically, "Ada's been with me ever

since I married. She was Ralph's mother's maid, and perfectly devoted to

him. I couldn't ever get that sort of servant to live out here, if it

wasn't for that--she waits at meals, and maids me, and does everything,

except the actual cooking. I know she's rather disagreeable in her

manner, but she's a perfect treasure to me."

When Ada had brought in the lamps and filled the little room with

cheerful light, drawing the blinds and curtains, Barbara looked again

hard at her sister.

"Good heavens, Alex, how thin you are! and you look as though you hadn't

slept for a month."

"Oh, but I have," said Alex eagerly, and then stopped.

She did not feel able to explain to Barbara the insatiable powers of

sleep which seemed as though they could never be satisfied, after those

ten years of unvarying obedience to a merciless five o'clock bell.

"I am glad to hear it," Barbara replied in a dissatisfied voice. "But I

never saw any one so changed. Have you been ill?"

"Rather run down," Alex said hurriedly, with the convent instinct of

denying physical ills. "I had two or three very troublesome abscesses in

my throat, just before Easter, and that left me rather weak."

"My dear, how awful! You never told me. Did you have an operation? Are

you scarred?"

"No. They broke of themselves _inside_ my throat, luckily."

"Oh--don't!" cried Barbara, and shuddered.

The sisters were very silent during tea. Alex saw her sister looking

hard at her hands, and became conscious of contrast. Barbara was thin,

but her hands were slender and exceedingly white. She wore, besides her

wedding-ring, a sapphire one, which Alex thought must have been her

engagement-ring. On her wrist was a tiny gold watch, and a gold

curb-chain bracelet. Her own hands, Alex now saw, were more than thin.

They were almost emaciated, with knuckles that shone white, and a sharp

prominence at each wrist-bone. They were not white, but rough and

mottled, with broken skin round each finger-nail. She wondered if her

whole person was in as striking a contrast to her sister's. When she had

put on the serge skirt and white muslin shirt, the sensation had

overwhelmed her, accustomed to the heavy religious habit, of being

lightly, almost indecently clad. But Barbara's dress was of soft, silky

material, with a low, turned-down collar, such as was just beginning to

come into fashion. Her hair was piled into a shining knot of little,

sausage-shaped curls, and parted in front. Though she was only

twenty-eight, the grey in Barbara's hair was plentiful, but her small

face looked youthful enough, and had none of the hard lines and shadows

that Alex knew to lie round her own eyes and lips. Her little, slight

figure was very erect, and she wore black suède shoes with sparkling

buckles. Alex looked down at her own clumsy, ill-made boots, which had

already begun to hurt her feet, and instinctively put up her hands to

the cheap black toque, that felt heavy on her head.

"Why don't you take off your hat?" Barbara asked her kindly. "I am sure

it would rest you."

She was too much used to obedience not to comply instantly, pushing back

with both hands the weight of untidy hair that instantly fell over her

eyes.

"Oh, Alex! Your hair!"

"It's growing very fast. I--I've not been cutting it lately. There's

just enough to put it up, Barbara."

"It's much darker than it used to be, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's nearly black now. Do you remember how light the ends used to

be? But I think it lost its colour from being always under the veil, you

know. The worst of it is that it's not growing evenly, it's all short

lengths."

"Yes. That's very awkward," said Barbara dispassionately. "Especially

when it's so straight."

Alex reflected that her sister was just as self-contained as ever.

"Wouldn't you like to come to your room and rest till dinner, Alex?"

Alex got up at once.

"You ought to take Plasmon, or something of that sort, and try to get a

little fatter. There's simply nothing of you, Alex--you're all eyes,

with rings like saucers round them."

After Barbara had left her in the tiny, pretty bedroom, that Alex

thought looked wonderfully luxurious, she went straight to her

looking-glass.

"Good heavens, how ugly I am!" she said to herself involuntarily.

Her face was sallow, with sunken cheeks, and the Roman sun had powdered

her skin all over with little, pale freckles. Her eyes, as Barbara had

said, had rings like saucers round them, and looked oddly large and

prominent, from the slight puffiness of the under-lids.

Her teeth had, perhaps, suffered most of all. She had had one or two

taken out, and the gaps were visible and unsightly. They had never been

very good teeth, and she remembered still all that she had suffered at

the hands of an unskilled Brussels dentist in Belgium. For the last few

years she had endured intermittent toothache, sooner than submit to

further torture, and she saw now that a small black patch was spreading

between the two front teeth. Barbara, with the grey mingled freely in

her light hair, and her severe widow's weeds, might look more than

twenty-eight but Alex, at thirty-one, bore the semblance of a woman of

forty.

She hid her face in her disfigured hands.

Presently she saw that there was hot water in a little brass can on the

washing-stand, and she thankfully made use of it.

Ada had unpacked everything, and Alex saw the brush and comb that she

had hastily purchased, on the dressing-table. Beside them was the packet

of hair-pins that she had remembered to get at the last moment, and that

was all.

"There ought to be something else, but I've forgotten," thought Alex.

She wondered if Barbara would expect her to dress for dinner. The idea

had not occurred to her. She had one other blouse, a much better one,

made of black net, so transparent as to show glimpses of her coarse,

white-cotton underwear, with its high yoke and long sleeves.

Her hair, of course, was impossible. Even if it had not been so short

and of such an intractable, limp straightness. Alex had forgotten how to

do it. She remembered with dim surprise that at Clevedon Square Lady

Isabel's maid had always done her hair for her.

She brushed it away from her face, and made a small coil on the top of

her head, after the fashion which she remembered best, and tried to

fasten back the untidy lengths that fell over her ears and forehead.

The hair-pins that she had bought were very long and thick. She wished

that they did not show so obviously.

"Alex?" said Barbara's cool voice at her door.

Alex came out, and they went downstairs together, Alex a few steps

behind her sister, since the stairs were not broad enough for two to

walk abreast. She tried awkwardly not to step on the tail of Barbara's

black lace teagown. Ada waited upon them, and although the helpings of

food seemed infinitesimal to Alex, everything tasted delicious, and she

wondered if Barbara always had three courses as well as a dessert of

fruit and coffee, even when she was by herself.

"You don't smoke, I suppose?" Barbara said. "No, of course not--how

stupid of me! Let's go up to the drawing-room again."

"Barbara, do you smoke?"

"No. Ralph hated women to smoke, and I don't like to see it myself,

though pretty nearly every one does it now. Violet smokes _far_ too

much. I wonder Cedric lets her. But as a matter of fact, he lets her do

anything she likes."

"I can't realize Cedric married."

"I know. Look here, Alex, he'll want to see you--and you'll be wanting

to talk over plans, won't you?"

"Yes," said Alex nervously. "I--I don't want to have a lot of fuss, you

know. Of course I know it's upsetting for everybody--my coming out of

the convent after every one thought I was settled. But, oh, Barbara! I

_had_ to leave!"

"Personally, I can't think why you ever went in," said Barbara

impersonally. "Or why you took ten years to find out you weren't suited

to the life. That sounds unkind, and I don't mean to be--you know I

don't. Of course, you were right to come away. Only I'm afraid they've

ruined your health--you're so dreadfully thin, and you look much older

than you've any right to, Alex. I believe you ought to go into the

country somewhere and have a regular rest-cure. Every one is doing them

now. However, we'll see what Cedric and Violet say."

"When shall I see them?" asked Alex nervously.

"Well," said her sister, hesitating, "what about tomorrow? It's better

to get it over at once, isn't it? I thought I'd ring them up this

evening--I know they're dining at home." She glanced at the clock.

"Look here, Alex, why don't you go to bed? I always go early myself--and

you're simply dead tired. Do! Then tomorrow we might go into town and do

some shopping. You'll want some things at once, won't you?"

Alex saw that Barbara meant her to assent, and said "Yes" in a dazed

way.

She was very glad to go to her room, and the bed seemed extraordinarily

comfortable.

Barbara had kissed her and said anxiously, "I do hope you'll feel more

like yourself tomorrow, my dear. I hardly feel I know you."

Then she had rustled away, and Alex had heard her go downstairs, perhaps

to telephone to Clevedon Square.

Lying in bed in the dark, she thought about her sister.

It seemed incredible to Alex that she could ever have bullied and

domineered over Barbara. Yet in their common childhood, this had

happened. She could remember stamping her foot at Barbara, and

compelling her to follow her sister's lead again and again. And there

was the time when she had forced a terrified, reluctant Barbara to play

at tight-rope dancing on the stairs, and Barbara had obediently

clambered on to the newel-post, and fallen backwards into the hall and

hurt her back.

Alex remembered still the agonized days and nights of despairing remorse

which had followed, and her own sense of being all but a murderess. She

had thought then that she could never, never quarrel and be angry with

Barbara again. But she had gone away to school, and Barbara had got

well, and in the holidays Alex had been more overbearing than ever in

the schoolroom.

And now Barbara seemed so infinitely competent--so remote from the

failures and emotional disasters that had wrecked Alex. She made Alex

feel like a child in the hands of a serious, rather ironical grown-up

person, who did not quite know how to dispose of it.

Alex herself wondered what would happen to her, much as a child might

have wondered. But she was tired enough to sleep.

And the next morning Barbara, more competent than ever, came in and

suggested that she should have her breakfast in bed, so as to feel

rested enough for a morning's shopping in town.

"Though I must say," said Barbara, in a dissatisfied voice, "that you

don't look any better than you did last night. I hoped you might look

more like yourself, after a night's rest. I really don't think the

others will know you."

"Am I going to see them?"

"Oh, I talked to Violet last night on the telephone, and she said I was

to give you her love, and she hoped we'd both lunch there tomorrow."

"At Clevedon Square?" asked Alex, beginning to tremble.

"Yes. You don't mind, do you?"

"No, I don't mind."

It was very strange to be in the remembered London streets again,

stranger still to be taken to shops by Barbara and authoritatively

guided in the choice of a coat and skirt, a hat that should conceal as

much as possible of the disastrous _coiffure_ underneath, and a pair of

black suède walking-shoes, that felt oddly light and soft to her feet.

"There's no hurry about the other things, is there?" said Barbara, more

as though stating a fact than asking a question. "Now we'd better take a

taxi to Clevedon Square, or we shall be late."

A few minutes later, as the taxi turned into the square, she said, with

what Alex recognized in surprise as a kind of nervousness in her voice:

"We thought you'd rather get it all over at once, you know, Alex. Seeing

the family, I mean. Pam is staying there anyway, and Violet said Archie

was coming to lunch. There'll be nobody else, except, perhaps, one of

Violet's brothers. She's always got one or other of them there."

Alex felt sick with dismay. Then some remnant of courage came back to

her, and she clenched her hands unseen, and vowed that she would go

through with it.

The cab stopped before the familiar steps, and Barbara said, as to a

stranger: "Here we are."

XXIV

All of Them

The well-remembered hall and broad staircase swam before Alex' eyes as

she followed Barbara upstairs and heard them announced as:

"Mrs. McAllister--and Miss Clare!"

In a dream she entered the room, and was conscious of a dream-like

feeling of relief at its totally unfamiliar aspect. All the furniture

was different, and there was chintz instead of brocade, everywhere. She

would not have known it.

Then she saw, with growing bewilderment, that the room was full of

people.

"Alex?" said a soft, unknown voice.

Barbara hovered uneasily beside her, and Alex dimly heard her speaking

half-reassuringly and half-apologetically. But Violet Clare had taken

her hand, and was guiding her into the inner half of the room, which was

empty.

"Don't bother about the others for a minute--Barbara, go and look after

them, like a dear--let's make acquaintance in peace, Alex. Do you know

who I am?"

"Cedric's wife?"

"Yes, that's it." Then, as Barbara left them, Violet noiselessly stamped

her foot. "You poor dear! I don't believe she ever told you there was to

be a whole crowd of family here. That's just like poor, dear Barbara!

I'm sure she never had one atom of imagination in her life, now had she?

The idea of dragging you here the very day after you got back from such

a journey." The soft, fluent voice went on, giving her time to recover

herself, Alex hardly hearing what was said to her, but with a sensation

of adoring gratitude gradually invading her, for this warm, unhesitating

welcome and unquestioning sympathy.

She looked dumbly at her sister-in-law.

In Violet she saw the soft, generous contours and opulent prettiness of

which she had caught glimpses in the South. The numerous Marchesas who

had come to the convent parlour in Rome had had just such brown, liquid

eyes, with dark lashes throwing into relief an opaque ivory skin, just

such dazzling teeth and such ready, dimpling smiles, and had worn the

same wealth of falling laces at _décolleté_ throat and white, rounded

wrists. Violet was in white, with a single string of wonderful pearls

round her soft neck, and her brilliant brown hair was arranged in

elaborate waves, with occasional little escaping rings and tendrils.

Alex thought her beautiful, and wondered why Barbara had spoken in

deprecation of such sleepy, prosperous prettiness.

She noticed that Violet did not look at her with rather wondering

dismay, as her sister had done, and only once said:

"You do look tired, you poor darling! It's that hateful journey. I'm a

fearfully bad traveller myself. When we were married, Cedric wanted to

go to the south of France for our honeymoon, but I told him nothing

would induce me to risk being seasick, and he had to take me to Cornwall

instead. Cedric will be here in a minute, and we'll make him come and

talk to you quietly out here. You don't want to go in amongst all that

rabble, do you?"

"Who is there?" asked Alex faintly.

"Pam and the boys--that's my two brothers, you know, whom you needn't

bother about the very least bit in the world, and here's Archie," she

added, as the door opened again.

Alex would have known Archie in a moment, anywhere, he was so like their

mother. Even the first inflection of his voice, as he came towards

Violet, reminded her of Lady Isabel.

She had not seen him since his schooldays, and wondered if he would have

recognized her without Violet's ready explanation.

"Alex has come, Archie. That goose Barbara went and brought her here

without explaining that she's only just got back to England, and is

naturally tired to death. I'll leave you to talk, while I see what's

happened to Cedric."

"I say!" exclaimed Archie, and stood looking desperately embarrassed.

"How are you, Alex, old girl? We meet as strangers, what?"

"I should have known you anywhere, Archie. You're so like Barbara--so

like mother."

"They say Pam's exactly like what mother was. Have you seen her?"

"No, not yet. She--Violet--brought me in here."

"I say, she's a ripper, isn't she? Cedric didn't do badly for

himself--trust him. Wonder what the beggar'll be up to next? He's done

jolly well, all along the line--retrieved the family fortunes, what? It

only remains for me to wed an American, and Pamela to bring off her

South African millionaire. She's got one after her, did you know?"

He spoke with a certain boyish eagerness that was rather attractive, but

his rapid speech and restless manner made Alex wonder if he was nervous.

"Couldn't you ask Pamela to come to me here, so that I could see her

without all those people?"

"What people? It's only old Jack Temple, and Carol. Harmless as kittens,

what? But I'll get Pam for you in two twos. You watch."

He put his fingers into his mouth and emitted a peculiar low whistle on

two prolonged notes. The signal was instantly answered from the other

room, but quaveringly, as though the whistler were laughing.

Then in a minute she appeared, very slim and tall, in the opening

between the two rooms.

"I like your cheek, Archie!"

"I say, Pam, Alex is here."

"Oh, Alex!"

Pamela, too, looked and sounded rather embarrassed as she came forward

and laid a fresh, glowing cheek against her sister's.

"Barbara telephoned last night that you'd come, and seemed awfully

seedy," she said in a quick, confused way. "She ought to have made you

rest today."

"Oh, no, I'm all right," said Alex awkwardly. "How you've changed,

Pamela! I haven't seen you since you were at school."

Looking at her sister, she secretly rather wondered at what Barbara had

said of the girl's attractiveness.

Pamela's round face was glowing with health and colour, and she held

herself very upright, but Alex thought that her hair looked ugly,

plastered exaggeratedly low on her forehead, and she could not see the

resemblance to their mother of which Archie had spoken, except in the

fairness of colouring which Pamela shared with Barbara and with Archie

himself.

"You've changed, too, Alex. You look so frightfully thin, and you've

lost all your colour. Have you been ill?"

"No, I've not been ill. Only rather run down. I was ill before

Easter--perhaps that's it."

Alex was embarrassed too, a horrible feeling of failure and inadequacy

creeping over her, and seeming to hamper her in every word and movement.

Pamela's cold, rather wondering scrutiny made her feel terribly unsure

of herself. She had often known the sensation before--at school, in her

early days at the novitiate, again in Rome, and ever since her arrival

in England. It was the helpless insecurity of one utterly at variance

with her surroundings.

She was glad when Violet came back and said: "Here's Cedric. Go down to

lunch, children--we'll follow you."

Cedric's greeting to his sister was the most affectionate and the least

awkward that she had yet received. He kissed her warmly and said, "Well,

my dear--I'm glad we've got you back in England again. You must come to

us, if Barbara will spare you."

"Oh, Cedric!"

She looked at him for a moment, emotionally shaken. That Cedric should

have grown into a man! She saw in a moment that he was very

good-looking, the best-looking of them all, with Sir Francis' pleasantly

serious expression and the merest shade of pomposity in his manner. Only

the blinking, short-sighted grey eyes behind his spectacles remained of

the solemn little brother she had known.

"Come down and have some lunch, dear. What possessed Barbara to bring

you here, if you didn't feel up to coming? We could have gone to

Hampstead. Violet says she's been most inconsiderate to you."

"Yes, _most_," said Violet herself placidly. "Dear Barbara is always so

unimaginative. Of course, it's fearfully trying for Alex, after being

away such ages, to have every one thrust upon her like this."

Alex felt a throb of gratitude.

"Barbara thought it had better all be got over at once," she said

timidly.

"That's just like her! Barbara is being completely ruined by that

parlour-maid of hers--Ada. I always think Ada is responsible for all

Barbara's worst inspirations. She rules her with a rod of iron. Shall

you hate coming down to lunch, Alex? Those riotous children will be off

directly, they're wild about the skating-rink at Olympia. Then we can

talk comfortably."

She put her hand caressingly through Alex' arm, as they went downstairs.

Alex felt that she could have worshipped her sister-in-law for her easy,

pitying tenderness.

The consciousness of it helped her all through the long meal, when the

noise of laughter and conversation bewildered her, after so many years

of convent refectories and silence, and her solitary dinners in Rome.

Violet had placed her between Cedric and Pamela, and the girl chattered

to her intermittently, without appearing to require any answer.

"Are you boys ready?" she cried, just as coffee was brought in. "We

can't wait for coffee--come on! My instructor will be engaged."

"How are you going, Pam?" asked Violet.

"Underground. It's the quickest."

"Oh, no, Pam. Take a taxi. Archie, you must!"

Between laughter and admonition, they were dispatched--Pamela, Archie

and the two Temple boys, all laughing and talking, and exchanging

allusions and references unintelligible to Alex.

The room seemed much quieter and darker when the hall-door had finally

slammed behind them. Alex looked round her.

At the head of his own table, Cedric sat reflective. Violet lounged,

smoking a cigarette and laughing, where Lady Isabel's place had always

been. Opposite Alex, Barbara, in her prim black, was leaning forward and

speaking:

"What's the attraction about this roller-skating? Pamela seems to do

nothing else, when she isn't dancing."

"Every one's doing it, my dear. I want to take it up myself, so as to

reduce my figure, but it's such an impossible place to get at. I've only

been to Olympia for the Military Tournaments. But Pam has a perfect

passion for getting about by the underground railway. Alex, isn't Pam a

refreshing person?"

Alex felt uncertain as to her meaning, and was startled at being

addressed. She knew that she coloured and looked confused.

"My dear," said Barbara impressively, "your nerves must simply have gone

to pieces. Imagine jumping like that when you're spoken to! Don't you

think she ought to do a rest-cure, Violet? There's a place in Belgrave

Street."

"No, no," said Violet's kind, soft voice. "She's coming to us. You must

let us have her, Barbara, for a good long visit. Mustn't she, Cedric?"

"Of course. You must have your old quarters upstairs, Alex."

The kindness nearly made her cry. She felt as might a child, expecting

to be scolded and punished, and unexpectedly met with smiles and

re-assurance.

"Come up and see Baby," said Violet. "She's such a little love, and I

want her to know her new auntie."