Complete works of hall c.., p.498
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 498
“Go to bed yourself, and don’t speak to me like that, or you’ll pay for your presumption.”
“Pay? Presumption? You insolent thing, you are corrupting the whole school and are an utter disgrace to it. I warned you that I would tell the Reverend Mother what you are and now I’ve a great mind to do it.”
“Do it. I dare you to do it. Do it to-night, and to-morrow morning I will do something.”
“What will you do, you brazen hussy?” said Sister Angela, but I could see that her lip was trembling.
“Never mind what. If I’m a hussy I’m not a hypocrite, and as for corrupting the school, and being a disgrace to it, I’ll leave the Reverend Mother to say who is doing that.”
Low as the light was I could see that Sister Angela was deadly pale. There was a moment of silence in which I thought she glanced in my direction, and then stammering something which I did not hear, she left the dormitory.
It was long before she returned and when she did so I saw her creep into her cubicle and sit there for quite a great time before going to bed. My heart was thumping hard, for I had a vague feeling that I had been partly to blame for what had occurred, but after a while I fell asleep and remembered no more until I was awakened in the middle of the night by somebody kissing me in my sleep.
It was Sister Angela, and she was turning away, but I called her back, and she knelt by my bed and whispered:
“Hush! I know what has happened, but I don’t blame you for it.”
I noticed that she was wearing her out-door cloak, and that she was breathing rapidly, just as she did on the night she came from the chaplain’s quarters, and when I asked if she was going anywhere she said yes, and if I ever heard anything against Sister Angela I was to think the best of her.
“But you are so good. . . .”
“No, I am not good. I am very wicked. I should never have thought of being a nun, but I’m glad now that I’m only a novice and have never taken the vows.”
After that she told me to go to sleep, and then she kissed me again, and I thought she was going to cry, but she rose hurriedly and left the room.
Next morning after the getting-up bell had been rung, and I had roused myself to full consciousness, I found that four or five nuns were standing together near the door of the dormitory talking about something that had happened during the night — Sister Angela had gone!
Half an hour afterwards when full of this exciting event, the girls went bursting down to the Meeting Room they found the nuns in great agitation over an incident of still deeper gravity — Father Giovanni also had disappeared!
A convent school is like a shell on the shore of a creek, always rumbling with the rumour of the little sea it lives under; and by noon the girls, who had been palpitating with curiosity, thought they knew everything that had happened — how at four in the morning Father Giovanni and Sister Angela had been seen to come out of the little door which connected the garden with the street; how at seven they had entered a clothing emporium in the Corso, where going in at one door as priest and nun they had come out at another as ordinary civilians; how at eight they had taken the first train to Civita Vecchia, arriving in time to catch a steamer sailing at ten, and how they were now on their way to England.
By some mysterious instinct of their sex the girls had gathered with glistening eyes in front of the chaplain’s deserted quarters, where Alma leaned against the wall with her insteps crossed and while the others talked she smiled, as much as to say, “I told you so.”
As for me I was utterly wretched, and being now quite certain that I was the sole cause of Sister Angela’s misfortune, I was sitting under the tree in the middle of the garden, when Alma, surrounded by her usual group of girls, came down on me.
“What’s this?” she said. “Margaret Mary crying? Feeling badly for Sister Angela, is she? Why, you little silly, you needn’t cry for her. She’s having the time of her life, she is!”
At this the girls laughed and shuddered, as they used to do when Alma told them stories, but just at that moment the nun with the stern face (she was the Mother of the Novices) came up and said, solemnly:
“Alma Lier, the Reverend Mother wishes to speak to you.”
“To me?” said Alma, in a tone of surprise, but at the next moment she went off jauntily.
Hours passed and Alma did not return, and nothing occurred until afternoon “rosary,” when the Mother of the Novices came again and taking me by the hand said:
“Come with me, my child.”
I knew quite well where we were going to, and my lip was trembling when we entered the Reverend Mother’s room, for Alma was there, sitting by the stove, and close beside her, with an angry look, was the stout lady in furs whom I had seen in the carriage at the beginning of the holidays.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the Reverend Mother, and drawing me to her side she asked me to tell her what I had told Alma about Sister Angela.
I repeated our conversation as nearly as I could remember it, and more than once Alma nodded her head as if in assent, but the Reverend Mother’s face grew darker at every word and, seeing this, I said:
“But if Sister Angela did anything wrong I’m sure she was very sorry, for when she came back she said her prayers, and when she got to ‘Father of all mankind, forgive all sinners . . .’”
“Yes, yes, that will do,” said the Reverend Mother, and then she handed me back to the Mother of the Novices, telling her to warn me to say nothing to the other children.
Alma did not return to us at dinner, or at recreation, or at chapel (when another chaplain said vespers), or even at nine o’clock, when we went to bed. But next morning, almost as soon as the Mother of the Novices had left the dormitory, she burst into the room saying:
“I’m leaving this silly old convent, girls. Mother has brought the carriage, and I’ve only come to gather up my belongings.”
Nobody spoke, and while she wrapped up her brushes and combs in her nightdress, she joked about Sister Angela and Father Giovanni and then about Mildred Bankes, whom she called “Reverend Mother Mildred,” saying it would be her turn next.
Then she tipped up her mattress, and taking a novel from under it she threw the book on to my bed, saying:
“Margaret Mary will have to be your story-teller now. By-by, girls!”
Nobody laughed. For the first time Alma’s humour had failed her, and when we went downstairs to the Meeting Room it was with sedate and quiet steps.
The nuns were all there, with their rosaries and crosses, looking as calm as if nothing had occurred, but the girls were thinking of Alma, and when, after prayers, during the five minutes of silence for meditation, we heard the wheels of a carriage going off outside, we knew what had happened — Alma had gone.
We were rising to go to Mass when the Reverend Mother said,
“Children, I have a word to say to you. You all know that one of our novices has left us. You also know that one of our scholars has just gone. It is my wish that you should forget both of them, and I shall look upon it as an act of disobedience if any girl in the Convent ever mentions their names again.”
All that day I was in deep distress, and when, night coming, I took my troubles to bed, telling myself I had now lost Alma also, and it was all my fault, somebody put her arms about me in the darkness and whispered:
“Mary O’Neill, are you awake?”
It was Mildred, and I suppose my snuffling answered her, for she said:
“You mustn’t cry for Alma Lier. She was no friend of yours, and it was the best thing that ever happened to you when she was turned out of the convent.”
SIXTEENTH CHAPTER
A child lives from hour to hour, and almost at the same moment that my heart was made desolate by the loss of my two friends it was quickened to a new interest.
Immediately after the departure of Sister Angela and Alma we were all gathered in the Meeting Room for our weekly rehearsal of the music of the Benediction — the girls, the novices, the nuns, the Reverend Mother, and a Maestro from the Pope’s choir, a short fat man, who wore a black soutane and a short lace tippet.
Benediction was the only service of our church which I knew, being the one my mother loved best and could do most of for herself in the solitude of her invalid room, but the form used in the Convent differed from that to which I had been accustomed, and even the Tantum ergo and the O Salutaris Hostia I could not sing.
On this occasion a litany was added which I had heard before, and then came a hymn of the Blessed Virgin which I remembered well. My mother sang it herself and taught me to sing it, so that when the Maestro, swinging his little ivory baton, began in his alto voice —
“Ave maris stella,
Dei Mater alma—”
I joined in with the rest, but sang in English instead of Latin Of all appeals to the memory that of music is the strongest, and after a moment I forgot that I was at school in Rome, being back in my mother’s room in Ellan, standing by her piano and singing while she played. I think I must have let my little voice go, just as I used to do at home, when it rang up to the wooden rafters, for utterly lost to my surroundings I had got as far as —
“Virgin of all virgins,
To thy shelter take us—”
when suddenly I became aware that I alone was singing, the children about me being silent, and even the Maestro’s baton slowing down. Then I saw that all eyes were turned in my direction, and overwhelmed with confusion I stopped, for my voice broke and slittered into silence.
“Go on, little angel,” said the Maestro, but I was trembling all over by this time and could not utter a sound.
Nevertheless the Reverend Mother said: “Let Mary O’Neill sing the hymn in church in future.”
As soon as I had conquered my nervousness at singing in the presence of the girls, I did so, singing the first line of each verse alone, and I remember to have heard that the congregations on Sunday afternoons grew larger and larger, until, within a few weeks, the church was densely crowded.
Perhaps my childish heart was stirred by vanity in all this, for I remember that ladies in beautiful dresses would crowd to the bronze screen that separated us from the public and whisper among themselves, “Which is she?” “The little one in the green scarf with the big eyes!” “God bless her!”
But surely it was a good thing that at length life had began to have a certain joy for me, for as time went on I became absorbed in the life of the Convent, and particularly in the services of the church, so that home itself began to fade away, and when the holidays came round and excuses were received for not sending for me, the pain of my disappointment became less and less until at last it disappeared altogether.
If ever a child loved her mother I did, and there were moments when I reproached myself with not thinking of her for a whole day. These were the moments when a letter came from Father Dan, telling me she was less well than before and her spark of life had to be coaxed and trimmed or it would splutter out altogether.
But the effect of such warnings was wiped away when my mother wrote herself, saying I was to be happy as she was happy, because she knew that though so long separated we should soon be together, and the time would not seem long.
Not understanding the deeper meaning that lay behind words like these, I was nothing loath to put aside the thought of home until little by little it faded away from me in the distance, just as the island itself had done on the day when I sailed out with Martin Conrad on our great voyage of exploration to St. Mary’s Rock.
Thus two years and a half passed since I arrived in Rome before the great fact befell me which was to wipe all other facts out of my remembrance.
It was Holy Week, the season of all seasons for devotion to the Sacred Heart, and our Convent was palpitating with the joy of its spiritual duties, the many offices, the masses for the repose of the souls in Purgatory, the preparations for Tenebrae, with the chanting of the Miserere, and for Holy Saturday and Easter Day, with the singing of the Gloria and the return of the Alleluia.
But beyond all this for me were the arrangements for my first confession, which, coming a little late, I made with ten or twelve other girls of my sodality, feeling so faint when I took my turn and knelt by the grating, and heard the whispering voice within, like something from the unseen, something supernatural, something divine, that I forgot all I had come to say and the priest had to prompt me.
And beyond that again were the arrangements for my first communion, which was to take place on Easter morning, when I was to walk in procession with the other girls, dressed all in white, behind a gilded figure of the Virgin, singing “Ave maris stella,” through the piazza into the church, where one of the Cardinals, in the presence of the fathers and mothers of the other children, was to put the Holy Wafer on our tongues and we were to know for the first time the joy of communion with our Lord.
But that was not to be for me.
On the morning of Holy Wednesday the blow fell. The luminous grey of the Italian dawn was filtering through the windows of the dormitory, like the light in a tomb, and a multitude of little birds on the old tree in the garden were making a noise like water falling on small stones in a fountain, when the Mother of the Novices came to my bedside and said:
“You are to go to the Reverend Mother as soon as possible, my child.”
Her voice, usually severe, was so soft that I knew something had happened, and when I went downstairs I also knew, before the Reverend Mother had spoken, what she was going to say.
“Mary,” she said, “I am Sorry to tell you that your mother is ill.”
I listened intently, fearing that worse would follow.
“She is very ill — very seriously ill, and she wishes to see you. Therefore you are to go home immediately.”
The tears sprang to my eyes, and the Reverend Mother drew me to her side and laid my head on her breast and comforted me, saying my dear mother had lived the life of a good Christian and could safely trust in the redeeming blood of our Blessed Saviour. But I thought she must have some knowledge of the conditions of my life at home, for she told me that whatever happened I was to come back to her.
“Tell your father you wish to come back to me,” she said, and then she explained the arrangements that were being made for my journey.
I was to travel alone by the Paris express which left Rome at six o’clock that evening. The Mother of the Novices was to put me in a sleeping car and see that the greatest care would be taken of me until I arrived at Calais, where Father Donovan was to meet the train and take me home.
I cried a great deal, I remember, but everybody in the Convent was kind, and when, of my own choice, I returned to the girls at recreation, the sinister sense of dignity which by some strange irony of fate comes to all children when the Angel of Death is hovering over them, came to me also — poor, helpless innocent — and I felt a certain distinction in my sorrow.
At five o’clock the omnibus of the Convent had been brought round to the door, and I was seated in one corner of it, with the Mother of the Novices in front of me, when Mildred Bankes came running breathlessly downstairs to say that the Reverend Mother had given her permission to see me off.
Half an hour later Mildred and I were sitting in a compartment of the Wagon-Lit, while the Mother was talking to the conductor on the platform.
Mildred, whose eyes were wet, was saying something about herself which seems pitiful enough now in the light of what has happened since.
She was to leave the Convent soon, and before I returned to it she would be gone. She was poor and an orphan, both her parents being dead, and if she had her own way she would become a nun. In any case our circumstances would be so different, our ways of life so far apart, that we might never meet again; but if . . .
Before she had finished a bell rang on the platform, and a moment or two afterwards the train slid out of the station.
Then for the first time I began to realise the weight of the blow that had fallen on me. I was sitting alone in my big compartment, we were running into the Campagna, the heavens were ablaze with the glory of the sunset, which was like fields of glistening fire, but darkness seemed to have fallen on all the world.
SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER
Early on Good Friday I arrived at Calais. It was a misty, rimy, clammy morning, and a thick fog was lying over the Channel.
Almost before the train stopped I saw Father Dan, with his coat collar turned up, waiting for me on the platform. I could see that he was greatly moved at the sight of me, but was trying hard to maintain his composure.
“Now don’t worry, my child, don’t worry,” he said. “It will be all ri. . . . But how well you are looking! And how you have grown! And how glad your poor mother will be to see you!”
I tried to ask how she was. “Is she . . .”
“Yes, thank God, she’s alive, and while there’s life there’s hope.”
We travelled straight through without stopping and arrived at Blackwater at seven the same evening. There we took train, for railways were running in Ellan now, and down the sweet valleys that used to be green with grass, and through the little crofts that used to be red with fuchsia, there was a long raw welt of upturned earth.
At the station of our village my father’s carriage was waiting for us and a strange footman shrugged his shoulders in answer to some whispered question of Father Dan’s, and from that I gathered that my mother’s condition was unchanged.
We reached home at dusk, just as somebody was lighting a line of new electric lamps that had been set up in the drive to show the way for the carriage under the chestnuts in which the rooks used to build and caw.
I knew the turn of the path from which the house could be first seen, and I looked for it, remembering the last glimpse I had of my mother at her window. Father Dan looked, too, but for another reason — to see if the blinds were down.
Aunt Bridget was in the hall, and when Father Dan, who had grown more and more excited as we approached the end of our journey, asked how my mother was now, poor thing, she answered:
