During the month of December the Princess Chiaromonte fell ill, much
to her own surprise and that of her children, for such a thing had
never happened to her since she had been a mere child and had caught
the measles; but there was no mistaking the fact that she now had a
bad attack of the influenza, with high fever, and her head felt very
light. During the first two days, she altogether refused to stay in
her room, which made matters worse; but on the third morning she
yielded and stayed in bed, very miserable and furiously angry with
herself. It had always been her favourite boast that she never caught
cold, never had a headache, and never broke down from fatigue; and
considering the exceedingly gay life she had led she certainly had
some cause to be vain of her health.
Her eldest daughter and her maid took care of her that day, and her
maid sat up with her during the following night, after which it became
quite clear that she must have a professional nurse. The doctor
insisted upon it, though the Princess herself flew into a helpless
rage at the mere suggestion; and then, all at once, and before the
doctor had left the room, she began to talk quite quietly about
ordering baby frocks and a perambulator, though her youngest boy was
already twelve years old and went to school at the Istituto Massimo.
The doctor and the maid looked at each other.
'I will telephone for one of the White Sisters,' the doctor said.
'They are the ones I am used to and I know the Mother Superior.'
It happened that the nurses of Santa Giovanna were much in demand at
that time, for there was an epidemic of influenza in the city, and as
they were almost all both ladies and Italians, society people
preferred them to those of other orders. Three-quarters of an hour
after the doctor had telephoned, one of them appeared at the Palazzo
Chiaromonte, a rather stout, grave woman of forty or more, who knew
her business.
She at once said, however, that she had come on emergency, but could
not stay later than the evening, when another Sister would replace
her; it would be her turn on the next morning to begin her week as
supervising nun in the Convent hospital, a duty taken in rotation by
three of the most experienced nuns, and it was absolutely necessary
that she should have her night's rest before taking charge of the
wards.
The Princess had fallen into a state of semi-consciousness which was
neither sleep nor stupor, but partook of both, and her face was
scarlet from the fever. Two or three times in the course of the
afternoon, however, she was evidently aware of the nurse's presence,
and she submitted without resistance to all that was done for her. The
maid, who had been in the sick-room all night and all the morning, was
now asleep, and the doctor had advised that the children should be
kept away from their mother altogether. When the doctor came again,
about six o'clock, the nun explained her own position to him, and
begged him to communicate with the Convent before leaving the palace,
as the Princess should certainly not be left without proper care, even
for an hour. He did what she asked, and the answer came back in the
Mother Superior's own voice. She said that she was very short of
nurses, and that it would be extremely inconvenient to send one, and
she therefore begged of him to get a Sister from another order.
He replied very crossly that he would do nothing of the sort, that he
believed in the White Sisters and meant to have a White Sister, and
that a White Sister must come, and a good one; and that if it was only
a matter of inconvenience, it was better that the Convent should be
inconvenienced for him than that he should be disappointed; and he
added so much more to the same effect, with so many emphatic
repetitions, that the Mother Superior promised to break all rules and
come herself within an hour if no other Sister were available. For she
had a very high regard for him, in spite of his rough tone and harsh
voice.
Her difficulty was a very simple one. The only nurse who was free that
evening was Sister Giovanna, who had returned just before mid-day from
a case that had ended badly, and she had been asleep ever since. But
the Mother Superior knew how the Princess had treated her niece and
robbed her of her fortune, and she could not foresee what might happen
if the young nun took charge of the case. After giving her somewhat
rash promise to the doctor, she sent for her, therefore, and explained
matters.
'I do not think that my aunt will recognise me,' said Sister Giovanna.
'She has never set eyes on me since I was a girl of eighteen in deep
mourning. Our dress changes us very much, and I must have changed,
too, in five years. Even my voice is not the same, I fancy.'
The Mother Superior looked at her keenly. She was very fond of her,
but it had never occurred to her to consider whether the young
Sister's appearance had altered or not. Yet her own memory for faces
was good, and when she recalled the features of the slim, fair-haired
girl in black whom she had first seen, and compared the recollection
with the grave and almost saintly face before her, closely confined by
the white wimple and gorget, and the white veil that bound the
forehead low above the serious brow, she really did not believe that
any one could easily recognise the Angela of other days.
'I suppose I never realise how changed we all are,' she said
thoughtfully. 'But do you not think the Princess Chiaromonte may
remember you when she hears your name?'
'Many Sisters have taken it,' Sister Giovanna answered. 'And, after
all, what harm can there be? If she recognises me and is angry, she
can only send me away, and meanwhile she will be taken care of, at
least for the night. That is the main thing, Mother, and one of the
Sisters will surely be free to-morrow morning.'
So the matter was settled. Sister Giovanna got her well-worn little
black bag, her breviary, and her long black cloak, and in half-an-hour
she was ascending the grand staircase of the palace in which she had
lived as a child.
She felt more emotion than she had expected, but no sign betrayed that
she was moved, nor showed the servant who led her through the
apartments and passages that she was familiar with every turn. Though
she went through the great hall and her feet trod upon the very spot
where the dead Knight of Malta had lain in state, not a sigh escaped
her, nor one quickly-drawn breath.
She was ushered to the very room that had been her father's, and stood
waiting after the servant had tapped softly at the door. The other nun
came out noiselessly and pulled the door after her without quite
closing it. She explained the case to Sister Giovanna, and said that
the Princess seemed to be asleep again. She probably knew nothing of
any relationship between the patient and Sister Giovanna; but if she
remembered anything of the latter's story, it was not her business to
comment on the circumstance, even mentally. Even in the nursing
orders, where the real names of the Sisters may often be known to
others besides the Mother Superior, the Sisters themselves
scrupulously respect one another's secret, though it may be almost an
open one, and never discuss the identity of a member of their
community. Where nuns are cloistered, actual secrecy is preserved as
far as possible, and though a Sister may sometimes talk to another
about her former life, and especially of her childhood, she never
mentions her family by name, even though she may be aware that the
truth is known.
Sister Giovanna entered the sick-room alone, as the other nurse seemed
to think that the unexpected sight of two nuns might disturb the
patient. If the Princess noticed the new face, when she next opened
her eyes, she made no remark and showed no surprise; so that Sister
Giovanna felt quite sure of not having been recognised. There was very
little light in the room, too, by the doctor's advice, and a high
screen covered with old Cordova leather stood between the bed and the
table on which the single shaded candle was placed.
The nun stood beside the pillow and looked long at the face of the
woman who had wronged her so cruelly and shamefully. After a few
seconds she could see her very distinctly in the shadow; the features
were flushed and full, and strangely younger than when she had last
seen them, as often happens with fair people of a certain age at the
beginning of a sharp fever, when the quickened pulse sends the hot
blood to the cheeks and brings back the vivid brilliancy of youth. But
the experienced nurse knew that and was not surprised. After taking
the temperature and doing all she could for the moment, she left the
bedside and sat down to read her breviary by the light on the other
side of the screen. The illness was only an attack of influenza after
all, and she knew how strong her aunt had always been; there was no
cause for anxiety, nor any necessity for sitting constantly within
sight of the patient. Twice an hour she rose, went to the sick woman's
side and gave her medicine, or drink, or merely smoothed the pillow a
little, as the case might be, and then came back to the table. The
Princess was not so restless as most people are in fever, and she did
not try to talk, but took whatever was given her like a model of
resignation. The delirium had left her for the present.
Reading slowly, and often meditating on what she read, Sister Giovanna
did not finish the office for the day and close her book till nearly
midnight. Her old watch lay on the table beside the candlestick, and
her eyes were on the hands as she waited till it should be exactly
twelve before taking the patient's temperature again. But it still
wanted three minutes of the hour when the Princess's voice broke the
profound silence. The words were spoken quietly, in a far-away tone:
'I stole it.'
Sister Giovanna started more nervously than a nurse should, and looked
straight at the screen as if she could see her aunt's face through the
leather. In a few seconds she heard the voice again, and though the
tone was lower, the words were as distinct as if spoken close to her
ear.
'I hid it on me, and left my little bag behind on purpose because the
footman would be sure to open that, to take my cigarettes. I knew he
often did. It was very clever of me was it not? He will swear that he
went back for the bag and that there were no papers in it.'
It was not the first time, by many, that Sister Giovanna had heard a
delirious patient tell a shameful secret that had been kept long and
well. She rose with an effort, pressing one hand upon the table. It
was plainly her duty to prevent any further revelations if she could
and to forget what she had heard; for a trained nurse's standard of
honour must be as high as a doctor's, since she is trusted as he is.
Yet the nun waited a moment before going round the screen,
unconsciously arguing that if the patient did not speak again it would
be better not to disturb her at that moment. To tell the truth, too,
Sister Giovanna had not fully understood the meaning of what her aunt
had said. She stood motionless during the long pause that followed the
last words.
Then, without warning, the delirious woman began to laugh, vacantly
and foolishly at first, and with short interruptions of silence, but
then more loudly, and by degrees more continuously, till the spasms
grew wild and hysterical, and bad to hear. Sister Giovanna went
quickly to her and at once tried to put a stop to the attack. The
Princess was rolling her head from side to side on the pillows, with
her arms stretched out on each side of her and her white hands clawing
at the broad hem of the sheet with all their strength, as if they must
tear the fine linen to strips, and she was shrieking with
uncontrollable laughter.
Sister Giovanna bent down and grasped one arm firmly with both hands.
'Control yourself!' she said in a tone of command. 'Stop laughing at
once!'
The Princess shrieked again and again.
'Silence!' cried the nurse in a stern voice, and she shook the arm she
held with a good deal of roughness, for she knew that there was no
other way.
The delirious woman screamed once more, and then gulped several times
as if she were going to sob; at last she lay quite still for a moment,
gazing up into her nurse's eyes. Then a change came into her face, and
she spoke in a hoarse whisper, and as if frightened.
'Are you going to refuse me absolution for taking the will?' she
asked.
The question was so unexpected that Sister Giovanna did not find
anything to say at once, and before any words occurred to her the
Princess was speaking hurriedly and earnestly, but still in a loud
whisper, which occasionally broke into a very low and trembling tone
of voice.
'I did it for the best. What could that wretched girl have done with
the money, even if the lawyers had proved the will good? Why did not
my brother-in-law get civilly married, instead of leaving his daughter
without so much as a name? There must have been a reason. Perhaps she
was not really his wife's child! It was all his fault, and the will
was not legal and would only have given trouble if I had let them find
it! So I took it away, and burned it in my own room. What harm was
there in that? It saved so many useless complications, and we had a
right to the fortune! The lawyers said so! I cannot see that it was
really a sin at all, Father, indeed I cannot! I have confessed it from
a scruple of conscience, and you will not refuse me absolution! How
can you, when I say I am sorry for it? Yes, yes, I am!' The voice rose
to a low cry. 'Since you say it was a sin I repent, I will--what? You
are not in earnest, Father? Make restitution? Give the whole fortune
to a nun? Oh, no, no! You cannot expect me to do that! Rob my children
of what would have been theirs even if I had not taken the will? It is
out of the question, I tell you! Utterly out of the question! Besides,
it is not mine at all--I have not got a penny of it! It is all my
husband's and I cannot touch it--do you understand?'
Sister Giovanna had listened in spite of herself.
'The nun expects nothing and does not want the money,' she said,
bending down. 'Try to rest now, for you are very tired.'
'Rest?' cried the Princess, starting up in bed and leaning on one
hand. 'How can I rest when it torments me day and night? I come to you
for absolution and you refuse it, and tell me to rest!'
She broke into a wild laugh again, but Sister Giovanna instantly
seized her arm as she had done before, and spoke in the same
commanding way.
'Be silent!' she said energetically.
The delirious woman began to whine.
'You are so rough, Father--so unkind to-day! What is the matter with
you? You never treated me like this before!'
She was sobbing the next moment, and real tears trickled through her
fingers as she covered her face with her hands.
'You see--how--how penitent I am!' she managed to cry in a broken voice.
'Have pity, Father!'
She was crying bitterly, but though she was out of her mind the nun
could not help feeling that she was acting a part, even in her
delirium, and in spite of the tears that forced themselves through her
hands and ran down, wetting the lace and spotting the scarlet ribbons
of her elaborate nightdress. Sister Giovanna put aside the thought as
a possibly unjust judgment, and tried to quiet her.
'If you are really sorry for what you did, you will be forgiven,' said
the nun.
This produced an immediate effect: the sobbing subsided, the tears
ceased to flow, and the Princess repeated the Act of Contrition in a
low voice; then she folded her hands and waited in silence. Sister
Giovanna stood upright beside the pillows, and prayed very earnestly
in her heart that she might forget what she had heard, or at least
bear her aunt no grudge for the irreparable wrong.
But the delirious woman, who still fancied that her nurse was her
confessor, was waiting for the words of absolution, and after a few
moments, as she did not hear them, she broke out again in senseless
terror, with sobbing and more tears. She grasped the Sister's arms
wildly and dragged herself up till she was on her knees in bed,
imploring and weeping, pleading and sobbing, while she trembled
visibly from head to foot.
The case was a difficult one, even for an experienced nurse. A lay
woman might have taken upon herself to personate the priest and
pronounce the words of the absolution in the hope of quieting the
patient, but no member of a religious order would do such a thing,
except to save life, and such a case could hardly arise. The Princess
Chiaromonte was in no bodily danger, and the chances were that the
delirium would leave her before long; when it disappeared she would
probably fall asleep, and it was very unlikely that she should
remember anything she had said in her ravings. Meanwhile it was
certainly not good for her to go on crying and throwing herself about,
as she was doing, for the fever was high already and her wild
excitement might increase the temperature still further.
Sister Giovanna took advantage of a brief interval, when she was
perhaps only taking breath between her lamentations, out of sheer
necessity.
'You must compose yourself,' the nun said with authority. 'You seem to
forget that you have been ill. Lie down for a little while, and I will
come back presently. In the meantime, I give you my word that your
niece has forgiven you with all her heart.'
She could say that with a clear conscience, just then, and gently
disengaging herself, she succeeded without much difficulty in making
the Princess lay her head on the pillow, for the words had produced a
certain effect; then, leaving the bedside, she went back to the table.
But she did not sit down, and only remained standing about a minute
before going back to the patient.
She went round by the opposite side of the screen, however, with the
hope that the Princess, seeing her come from another direction, would
take her for a different person. Very small things sometimes affect
people in delirium, and the little artifice was successful; she came
forward, speaking cheerfully in her ordinary voice, and at once put
her arm under the pillow, propping her aunt's head in order to make
her drink comfortably. There was no resistance now.
'You are much better already,' she said in an encouraging tone. 'Does
your head ache much?'
'It feels a little light,' the Princess said, quite naturally, 'but it
does not hurt me now. I think I have been asleep--and dreaming, too.'
Perhaps some suspicion that she had been raving crossed her unsettled
brain, for she glanced quickly at the nun and then shut her eyes.
'Yes,' she said, apparently satisfied; 'I have been dreaming.'
Sister Giovanna only smiled, as sympathetically as she could, and
sitting down by the head of the bed, she stroked the burning forehead
with her cool hand, softly and steadily, for several minutes; and
little by little the Princess sank into a quiet sleep, for she was
exhausted by the effort she had unconsciously made. When she was
breathing regularly, the nun left her side and went noiselessly back
to her seat behind the screen.
She did not open her breviary again that night. For a long time she
sat quite still, with her hands folded on the edge of the table,
gazing into the furthest corner of the room with unwinking eyes.
She had said that she forgave her aunt with all her heart, and she had
believed that it was true; but she was less sure now that she could
think of her past life, and of what might have been if she had not
been driven from her home destitute and forced to take refuge with
Madame Bernard.
In the light of what she had just learned, the past had a very
different look. It was true that she had urged Giovanni to join the
expedition, and had used arguments which had convinced herself as well
as him. But she had made him go because, if he had stayed, he would
have sacrificed his career in the army in order to earn bread for her,
who was penniless. If she had inherited even a part of the fortune
that should have been hers, it never would have occurred to him to
leave the service and go into business for her support; or if it had
crossed his mind, she would have dissuaded him easily enough. So far
as mere money went, he had not wanted or needed it for himself, but
for her; and if she had been rich and had married him, he could not
have been reproached with living on her. To persuade him, she had
urged that his honour required him to accept a post of danger instead
of resigning from the army as soon as it was offered to him, and this
had been true to some extent; but if there had been no question of his
leaving the service, she would have found him plenty of satisfactory
reasons for not going to Africa, and he had not been the kind of man
whom gossips care to call a coward. Reasons? She would have invented
twenty in those days, when she was not a nun, but just a loving girl
with all her womanhood before her!
If her aunt had not stolen the will and robbed her, she would have
hindered Giovanni from leaving Italy, and she would have married him,
that was the plain truth. He would have been alive now, in his youth
and his strength and his love for her, instead of having perished in
the African desert. That was the thought that tormented the guilty
woman, too: it was the certainty that her crime had indirectly sent
him to his death. So thought Sister Giovanna as she sat staring into
the dark corner through the hours of the night, and she wondered how
she had been able to say that she forgave, or had dared to hope that
she could forget. If it had been only for herself, it might have been
quite different; but her imagination had too often unwillingly
pictured the tragic death of the man she had loved so well to forgive
the woman who had caused it, now that she had revealed herself at
last.
So long as Angela had believed that her father had left no will,
because he had been in ignorance of the law, she had been able to tell
herself that her great misfortune had been inevitable; but since it
turned out that he had provided for her and had done his duty by her,
according to his light, the element of inevitable fate disappeared,
and the awful conviction that Giovanni's life had been wantonly
sacrificed to enrich Princess Chiaromonte and her children forced
itself upon her intelligence and would not be thrust out.
It seemed to Sister Giovanna that this was the first real temptation
that had assailed her since she had taken her vows, the first moment
of active regret for what might have been, as distinguished from that
heartfelt sorrow for the man who had perished which had not been
incompatible with a religious life. Recalling the Mother Superior's
words of warning, she recorded her failure, as the first of its kind,
and prayed that it might not be irretrievable, and that resentment and
regret might ebb away and leave her again as she had been before the
unforgettable voice had pierced her ears with the truth she had never
guessed.
It was a great effort now to go to the bedside and do what must be
done for the sick woman--to smooth the pillow for the head that had
thought such thoughts and to stroke the hand that had done such a
deed. She was tempted to take the little black bag and leave the house
quietly, before any one was up. That was not a very dreadful thought,
of course, but it seemed terrible to her, whose first duty in life was
to help sufferers and soothe those who were in pain. It seemed to her
almost as bad as if a soldier in battle were suddenly tempted to turn
his back on his comrades, throw down his rifle, and run away.
She felt it each time that she had to rise and go round the screen,
and when she saw the flushed face on the pillow in the shadow, the
longing to be gone was almost greater than she could resist. She had
not understood before what it meant to loathe any living thing, but
she knew it now, and if she did her duty conscientiously that night,
easy and simple though it was, she deserved more credit than many of
the Sisters who had gone so bravely to nurse the lepers in far
Rangoon.
She did not feel the smallest wish to hurt the woman who had injured
her, let that be said in her praise; for though vengeance be the
Lord's, to long for it is human. She only desired to be out of the
house, and out of sight of the face that lay where her father's had
lain, and beyond reach of the voice that had told her what she wished
she had never known.
But there was no escape and she had to bear it; and when the night
wore away at last, it had been the longest she remembered in all her
life. Her face was as white as the Mother Superior's and her dark blue
eyes looked almost black; even Madame Bernard would not have
recognised the bright-haired Angela of other days in the weary and
sad-faced nun who met the doctor outside the door of the sick-room
when he came at eight o'clock.
She told him that the patient had been delirious about midnight, but
had rested tolerably ever since. He glanced at the temperature chart
she brought him and then looked keenly at her face and frowned.
'What is the matter with all of you White Sisters?' he growled
discontentedly. 'First they send me one who cannot stay over night,
and then they send me one who has not been to bed for a week and ought
to stay there for a month! When did you leave your last case?'
'Yesterday morning,' answered Sister Giovanna submissively. 'I slept
most of the afternoon. I am not tired and can do my work very well, I
assure you.'
'Oh, you can, can you?' The excellent man glared at her savagely
through his spectacles. 'You cannot say anything yourself, of course,
but I shall go to your hospital to-day and give your Mother Superior
such a scolding as she never had in her life! She ought to be ashamed
to send out a nurse in your worn-out condition!'
'I felt quite fresh and rested when I left the Convent in the
evening,' said the Sister in answer. 'It is not the Mother Superior's
fault.'
'It is!' retorted the doctor, who could not bear contradiction. 'She
ought to know better, and I shall tell her so. Go home at once,
Sister, and go to bed and stay there!'
'I am quite able to work,' protested Sister Giovanna quietly. 'There
is nothing the matter with me.'
Still the doctor glared at her.
'Show me your tongue!' he said roughly.
The nun meekly opened her mouth and put out her little tongue: it was
as pink as a rose-leaf. The doctor grunted, grabbed her wrist and
began to count the pulse. Presently he made another inarticulate
noise, as if he were both annoyed and pleased at having been mistaken.
'Something on your mind?' he asked, more kindly--'some mental
distress?'
'Yes.' The word was spoken reluctantly.
'I am sorry I was impatient,' he said, and his large brown eyes softened
behind his round spectacles as he turned to enter the sick-room.
It was not his business to ask what had so greatly disturbed the peace
of Sister Giovanna.