THE SUMMONS
Seated amid the dahlias, Teresa, from speculation as to what had
recalled Gordon to the casa, drifted into a long day-dream from which a
sudden sound awoke her.
Several troopers passed along the roadway; following were two closed
carriages. While she listened the wheels seemed to stop.
“It is the Mother Superior come from Bagnacavallo,” she thought. As she
sprang up, she heard old Elise calling. Slipping the “Romeo and Juliet”
into her pocket, she went hastily into the house.
Five minutes later she stood dumb and white before three persons in
the villa parlor. Two were nuns wearing the dress of the order of St.
Ursula. The other she had recognized--he had visited her father in his
illness--as chaplain to the Cardinal of Ravenna. A letter bearing the
papal arms, dropped from her hand, lay at her feet. What it contained
but one other in Ravenna besides the cardinal knew: that was the
military commandant who had furnished the ecclesiastic his escort of
troopers disposed outside the villa, and who at that moment was walking
on another errand, straight toward a musket, filed half down, waiting
on a casa roof.
“We must start without delay, Contessa.” The clerical’s voice fell
half-compassionately. “The villa and its servants remain at present
under the vice-legate’s care. By direction, nothing may be taken with
you save suitable apparel for the journey. We go only as far as Forli
to-night.”
Teresa scarcely heard. Haste--when such a little time before she had
been so happy! Haste--to bid farewell _now_ to the world that held
_him_? In her father’s death she had met the surpassing but natural
misfortune of bereavement. This new blow brought a terror without
presage or precedent, that seemed to grip her every sense. The convent
of Saint Ursula! Not a home such as she had known at Bagnacavallo, a
free abode of benignant phantom-footed monitors, but a forced retreat,
a prison, secret and impregnable.
What could she do? What could she do? The question pealed in her brain
as she answered dully, conscious all the time of a stinging sense of
detail: the chaplain facing her; the silent _religieuses_ beside him;
the wrinkled face of Elise peering curiously from the hall; out of
doors goldening sunlight, men’s voices conversing and the stamping of
horses’ hoofs. Not even to see him--to tell him!
As she climbed the stair mechanically, a kind of dazed sickness in her
limbs, she pictured Gordon’s returning at the hour’s end to find her
gone forever. She sat down, her hands clenched, the nails striking
purple crescents in the palms, striving desperately to think. If she
could escape!
She ran to the window--a trooper stood smoking a short pipe at the
rear of the villa. She went to the staircase and called: “Elise!”
A nun ascended the stair. “The servants are receiving His Eminence’s
instructions,” she explained. “Pray let me help you.”
Teresa began to tremble. She thanked her with an effort and
automatically set about selecting a few articles of clothing. The
apathy of hopelessness was upon her.
The chaplain stood at the foot of the stair when they descended. Seeing
him waiting, the sharper pain reswept her. Only to bridge that time--to
see Gordon again, if but for an instant, before she went. She stopped,
searching his face.
“I should like a little while alone before I go. There is time for
that, is there not?”
His grave face lighted, the authoritative merged instantly in the
fatherly solicitude of the shepherd of souls. He thought she longed for
the supreme consolation of prayer.
“A half-hour if you wish it, my daughter. The chapel--shall it not
be?” He led the way. Elise sat weeping in a chair; as they passed she
snatched Teresa’s hand and kissed it silently.
From the side steps a tunnelled yew walk curved to a door in one of the
villa’s narrow wings. This wing, which had no connection with the rest
of the house, had been added by Count Gamba as a chapel for Teresa’s
mother. It was scrupulously kept, and during all the years since her
death bowls of fresh flowers had scented it daily and two candles had
been kept burning before the crucifix over its cushioned altar. The
attic above Count Gamba had used as a laboratory for his unending
chemical experiments. It was there the message had found him which had
brought so cruel a result.
The churchman paused at the chapel door, and Teresa entered alone. He
closed it behind her.