The White Sister Part 7

'It was for you that I meant to stay,' he said. 'Hard as it is to leave you, it would have been harder to refuse the appointment. I will go.'

A little silence followed, and Madame Bernard, no longer hearing their voices, and having said everything she had to say to her parrot, judged that it was time for her to come back and play chaperon again.

She was careful to make a good deal of noise with the latch before she opened the door.

'Well, Monsieur,' she asked, on the threshold, 'has Donna Angela persuaded you that she is right? I heard her making a great speech!'

'She is a firebrand,' laughed Giovanni, 'and a good patriot as well!

She ought to be in Parliament.'

'You are a feminist, I perceive,' answered Madame Bernard. 'But Joan of Arc would be in the Chambers if she could come back to this world.

The people would elect her, she would present herself in the tribune, and she would say, "Aha, messieurs! Here I am! We shall talk, you and I." And our little Donna Angela is a sort of Joan of Arc. People do not know it, but I do, for I have often heard her make beautiful speeches, as if she were inspired!'

'It takes no inspiration to see what is right,' Angela said, shaking her head. 'The only difficulty is to do it!'

'Even that is easy when you lead,' Giovanni answered thoughtfully, and without the least intention of flattering her.

He had seen a side of her character of which he had not even suspected the existence, and there was something about it so large and imposing that he was secretly a little ashamed of feeling less strong than she seemed. In two successive meetings he had come to her with his own mind made up, but in a few moments she had talked him over to her point of view without the least apparent difficulty, and had sent him away fully determined to do the very opposite of that which he had previously decided to do. It was a strange experience for a young man of great energy and distinctly exceptional intelligence, and he did not understand it.

He stayed barely half-an-hour, for Madame Bernard showed no disposition to leave the room again, and he felt the difficulty of keeping up an indifferent conversation in her presence, as well as the impossibility of talking freely to Angela of what was uppermost in her thoughts and his own. It was true that the governess knew all about it, and there are excellent women of that sort whose presence does not always hinder lovers from discussing their future; but either Madame Bernard was not one of these by nature, or else the two felt the difference of her nationality too much. The French are perhaps the only civilised nation whom no people of other nations can thoroughly understand, and who, with very few individual exceptions, do not understand any people but themselves. They have a way of looking at life which surprises and sometimes amuses men of all other nationalities; they take some matters very seriously which seem of trivial consequence to us, but they are witty at the expense of certain simple feelings and impulses which we gravely regard as fundamentally important, if not sacred. They can be really and truly heroic, to the point of risking life and limb and happiness, about questions at which we snap our fingers, but they can be almost insolently practical, in the sense of feeling no emotion while keenly discerning their own interest, in situations where our tempers or our prejudices would rouse us to recklessness. In their own estimation they are always right, and so are we in ours, no doubt; but whereas they consider themselves the Chosen People and us the Gentiles, or compare themselves with us as the Greeks compared themselves with the Barbarians, we, on our side, do not look down upon their art and literature as they undoubtedly do on ours, and a good many of us are rather too ready to accept them as something more than our equals in both. When I say 'we,' I do not mean only English-speaking people, but other Europeans also. I have overheard Frenchmen discussing all sorts of things in trains, on steamers, in picture-galleries, in libraries, in the streets, from Tiflis to London and from London to the Pacific, but I have never yet heard Frenchmen admit among themselves that a modern work of art, or book, or play was really first-rate, if it was not French. There is something monumental in their conviction of their own superiority, and I sincerely believe it has had much to do with their success, as a nation, in the arts of peace as well as in war. A man who is honestly convinced that he is better than his opponent is not easily put down in peaceful compet.i.tion, and will risk his life in action with a gallantry and daring that command the admiration of all brave men; and it is a singular fact that German soldiers did not call Frenchmen cowards after the great war, whereas it was a very common thing to hear Frenchmen inveigh against 'those dirty, cowardly Prussians' who had got the better of them. Men who can take such a point of view as that must be utterly unlike other people.

This little digression should explain why Angela and Madame Bernard never quite understood each other, in spite of the elder woman's almost motherly love for the girl and the latter's devoted grat.i.tude.

They talked about Giovanni when he was gone, of course, but neither said all she thought about him, because she feared that the other would think a little differently. The cheerful Frenchwoman had gone through life with the belief that it is better, on the whole, to make oneself comfortable in this world, if it can be managed on honest principles, than to worry oneself about heroics, and in the calm recesses of her practical little soul she was sure that, in Angela's place, she would have told Giovanni to resign as soon as possible and find some pleasant and well-paid occupation for his married life. All Angela's talk about a man's duty to his country would be very well in time of war, when there was glory to be got; but it was nonsense in ordinary times, where one man would do as well as another, to risk his life in a small expedition, and when it was distinctly advisable not to be that one. But she knew also that she had better not try to explain this to Angela, who was evidently a little mad on the point, most probably because she was an Italian. For Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Englishmen, and Americans were all completely insane; there was some little hope for Austrians and a good deal for Russians, in Madame Bernard's opinion, but there was none for the rest, though they might be very nice people. The safest thing was to humour them. She had given lessons in Roman families that were half Austrian and even half Russian, for the Romans have always been very cosmopolitan in their marriages, but Angela was quite Italian on both sides, and so was Giovanni. It was therefore pretty certain that they would behave like lunatics, sooner or later, the good lady thought; and they apparently were beginning already.

It is needless to dwell long on what followed, since what has been narrated so far is only the introduction to Angela's story and the exposition of the circ.u.mstances which determined her subsequent life.

As in most cases, it happened in hers that the greatest events were the direct consequences of one very small beginning. If she had not urged Giovanni to wait some time before leaving the army, he would not have been obliged to remain in the service almost as a matter of honour, yet it had seemed very sensible to advise him to do nothing in a hurry. Everything else followed logically upon that first step.

It was the inevitable, and it was therefore already in nature tragic, before active tragedy took the stage. Yet Angela did not feel its presence, nor any presentiment of the future, when she bade Giovanni farewell ten days after he had first been to see her in Madame Bernard's apartment.

What she felt was just the common pain of parting that has been the lot of loving men and women since the beginning; it is not the less sharp because almost every one has felt it, but it is as useless to describe it as it would be to write a chapter about a bad toothache, a sick headache, or an attack of gout. Angela was a brave girl and set herself the task of bearing it quietly because it was a natural and healthy consequence of loving dearly. It was not like the wrench of saying good-bye to a lover on his way to meet almost certain death.

She told herself, and Giovanni told her, that in all probability he was not going to encounter any danger worse than may chance in a day's hunting over a rough country or in a steeple-chase, and that the risk was certainly far less than that of fighting a duel in Italy, where duelling is not a farce as it is in some countries. He would come back within a few months, with considerable credit and the certainty of promotion; it was a hundred to one that he would, so that this was merely a common parting, to be borne without complaint. He thought so himself, and they consoled each other by making plans for their married life, which would be so much nearer when he came home.

Madame Bernard left them alone for an hour in the sitting-room and then came in to say good-bye to Giovanni herself, bringing Coco perched upon her wrist, but silent and well-behaved. Angela was pale, and perhaps her deep mourning made her look paler than she was, but her face was as quiet and collected as Giovanni's. He took leave of the governess almost affectionately.

'Take care of her, Madame,' he said, 'and write me some news of her now and then through the War Office. It may reach me, or it may not!'

He kissed Angela's hand, looked into her eyes silently for a moment, and went out.

'Marche! 'cre nom d'un nom!' screamed the parrot after him, as if he were going too slowly.

But this time Angela could not speak of him with her friend just after he was gone, and when Madame Bernard tried to talk of other things with the idea of diverting her attention, she went and shut herself up in her own room. It was distracting to know that he was still in Rome, and that until nearly midnight, when the train left for Naples, it would be possible to see him once more. If she had insisted, Madame Bernard would have consented to go with her in a cab to find him. It was hard to resist, as she sat by the window, listening to the distant sound of wheels in the street; it was the first great temptation she had ever felt in her life, and as she faced it she was surprised at its strength. But she would not yield. In her own gentle womanliness she found something she recognised but could not account for; was it possible that she had some strength of character, after all? Could it be that she inherited a little of that rigid will that had made her father so like her idea of a Puritan? He had always told her that she was weak, that she would be easily influenced by her surroundings, that her only hope must be to obtain Divine aid for her feeble, feminine nature. She had believed him, because he had taught her that she must, even in the smallest things, and this was a great one.

But now something cruelly strong was tearing at her, to make her go into the next room and beg Madame Bernard to help her find Giovanni, if only that she might see his face and hear his voice and say good-bye just once more. She laid her hands on the window-sill as if she would hold herself down in her chair, and she refused to move; not because it looked foolish, for that would not have mattered, but because she chose not to yield. Perhaps she was too proud to give way, and pride, they told her, was always a sin, but that did not matter either. There was an unexpected satisfaction in finding one thin strand of steel among the pliant threads of her untried young will.

Besides, she would have much to bear, and if she did not begin at once, she would never grow used to the burden. That was another reason for not following her instinct, and a very good one.

To help herself, she began to say one of those prayers of which she knew so many by heart. To her surprise, it disturbed her instead of strengthening her determination, and while her lips were moving she felt an almost overwhelming impulse to do what she was determined not to do at any cost. The sensation startled her, and in a moment she felt that tide of darkness rising to drown her which had almost overwhelmed her while she was kneeling beside her dead father. Her hand pressed the stone window-sill in terror of the awful presence.

It is familiar to those few who have knowingly or unwittingly tried to penetrate the darkness to the light beyond. It has been called the Guardian, the Dweller on the Threshold, the Wall, the Destroyer, the Giant Despair. Many have turned back from it as from death itself, some have gone raving mad in fighting their way through it, some have actually died in it, of failure of the heart from fright. Some come upon it unawares in their reasoning, some in the hour of profound meditation; some know by long experience where it is and keep away from it; some are able to pa.s.s through it with unshaken mind and unbroken nerves. Scarcely one in a million even guesses that it exists; of those who do, ninety-nine in a hundred turn from it in horror; of the remaining score of those who face it in a whole generation of men, more than half perish in mind or body; the last ten, perhaps, win through, and these are they that have understood the writing over the temple door, the great 'Know thyself,' the precept of the Delphic Oracle and of all mystics before Trophonios and since.

Angela's lips ceased moving, and very soon she was herself again, quietly sitting there and wondering what had frightened her so badly, and whether there might not be something wrong with her heart, because she remembered how it had beat twice quickly in succession and then had seemed to stand still while she could have counted ten, quite slowly.

What she called her temptation left her at peace till she knew that Giovanni's train had started. In imagination she could hear the engine's whistle, the hissing of the steam from the purge-c.o.c.ks at starting, the quickening thunder of the high-pressure exhaust, the clanking noise as the slowly moving train pa.s.sed over the old-fas.h.i.+oned turn-tables, and the long retreating rumble as the express gathered speed and ran out of sight.

Then it was over, for good and all; Giovanni was gone beyond the possibility of seeing him again and the strain relaxed. Angela put out her light, and when she fell asleep a quarter of an hour later, drops she did not even feel were slowly trickling from her lids to the pillow; for there are women who do not easily cry when they are awake, but when they are sleeping their tired eyes shed the pent-up tears and are refreshed by them.

Angela was not left alone with Madame Bernard as much as she had expected after the first few days, nor even as much as she might have wished. The feeling against the Princess Chiaromonte was strong, and as soon as it became known that Angela had found a safe refuge with her former governess, she received several invitations from more or less distant connections to spend some time with them in the country during the coming summer. At the present juncture, in the height of the season, it was natural that no one should want a forlorn young girl in deep mourning to make a town visit. She would have been a killjoy and a wet blanket in any house, that was clear, and nothing could be more thoroughly respectable and proper than that she should spend the first weeks under Madame Bernard's roof and protection.

Some of Angela's friends of her own age came to see her by and by and offered to take her to drive in their mothers' carriages or motor cars, but she would not go, and though she thanked them with grateful words for thinking of her, most of them thought, and told each other, that she had not been very glad to see them and would rather be left alone. They supposed that she was still too much overcome to wish for their society, and as young people who drop out of the world after being in it a very short time are soon forgotten, they troubled themselves very little about her. If she ever chose to come out of her solitude, they said, she would be welcome again, but since she wished to be left to herself it was very convenient to humour her, because the Princess Chiaromonte had as good as declared that there were 'excellent reasons' for her own apparently heartless conduct. No one knew what that meant, but when she spoke in that way it was more blessed to accept her statement than to get her enmity by doubting it.

The Chiaromonte family were at liberty to settle their own affairs as seemed best in their own eyes, and as the law could not interfere, no one else felt inclined to do so. Angela had no near relations on her mother's side to protect her or take her in.

Six weeks pa.s.sed away without incident after Giovanni had left, and she had received three letters from him--one from Naples, written before going on board the steamer, one from Port Said, and one from Ma.s.sowah after his arrival there. The expedition was to start in three days, he said; it had been waiting for him and the officer who was to take the command, and who had gone with him.

A short time after receiving this last letter Angela was reading the news from an evening paper to Madame Bernard, translating the paragraphs offhand into French, by force of habit, because her old governess had often made her do it for practice.

Suddenly her eyes became fixed, the colour left her face, and she dropped the newspaper with a short, loud cry, falling back in her chair at the same moment.

Madame Bernard s.n.a.t.c.hed up the sheet and glanced at the place where the girl had last been reading.

The expedition had fallen in with hostile natives a week after starting and had been ma.s.sacred to a man. The names of the dead were given, and Giovanni's was the second on the list.

CHAPTER VI

Angela lived for weeks in a state of sleepless apathy, so far as her companion could see. She scarcely spoke, and ate barely enough to keep herself alive. She seemed not to sleep at all, for two or three times during every night Madame Bernard got up and came to her room, and she always found her lying quite motionless on her back, her eyes wide open and staring at the tasteless little pattern of flowers stencilled in colours on the ceiling. Once Madame Bernard proposed to take away the night-light that burned in a cup on the floor, but Angela shook her head almost energetically. She never opened a book either, nor occupied herself in any way, but seemed content to sit still all day and to lie awake all night, never complaining, and never even speaking unless her friend asked her a direct question. Every morning at sunrise she put on her hat and went to the ancient church of San Crisogono, which is served by Trinitarian monks. Sometimes Madame Bernard went with her, but more often she was accompanied by the one woman-servant who cooked and did the housework.

The unhappy girl found neither consolation nor hope in the daily service; she went to it because, somehow, it seemed to be the only thing she could do for the dead. She knelt down every day on the same spot, and remained kneeling till after the priest and the acolyte were gone; she took her missal with her, but never looked at it, and her lips never moved in prayer; she felt no impulse to go to confession, nor any devotional craving for the Communion. The ma.s.s was a mere form to her, but she attended it regularly, as if she expected that much of herself and would not do less than the least that seemed to be her duty. That was all. Prayer in any form of words frightened her, for it soon brought her near to that blinding darkness which she had already met twice and had learned to dread; her present misfortune was incomparably greater than those that had gone before, and she was sure that if the outer night rose round her again it would take her soul down into itself to eternal extinction. If she had been physically stronger, she might have tried to call this a foolish delusion; weak as she was, and growing daily weaker, it seemed as certain as that her body must perish instantly if she walked over a precipice. The past was distorted, the present had no meaning, and there was no future; she vaguely understood Dante's idea that the body may be left on earth, apparently alive, for years after the soul has departed from it, for the evil Alberigo's spirit told the poet that his own body and Branca d'Oria's were still animated by demons when their souls were already in the torment of the eternal ice. But Angela felt rather as if her living self were a mere senseless sh.e.l.l, uninhabited by any spirit, bad or good, and moved by the mechanics of nature rather than by her own will or another's.

Madame Bernard watched her with growing anxiety as the days and weeks brought no change. The little lodging in Trastevere was very silent, and Coco sat disconsolately drooping his wings on his perch when his mistress was out, as she was during more than half the day, giving the lessons by which she and Angela lived. The girl sometimes did not move from her chair throughout the long morning any more than if she had been paralysed, or at most she tried to tend the flowers. The roses were blooming now, and on fine days, when the windows were open, the aromatic perfume of the young carnations floated in with the sunbeams.

Angela did not notice the scent, and for all the pleasure the blossoms gave her they might have been turnips and potatoes. But there was a feeble underlying thought of duty in plucking off a small withered leaf here and there, and in picking out the tiny weeds that tried to grow round the flower-stems. From very far away she heard Madame Bernard telling her, an age ago, that she could tend the flowers and take care of the parrot by way of helping in the house.

Coco regarded her efforts with melancholy contempt, and turned his back on her when she came near him, and even when she changed the water in his tin cup. As he only drank three or four drops in a day, it probably seemed to him a work of supererogation. While his mistress was out he rarely uttered a sound; but when he heard her footstep in the short pa.s.sage outside, he gave vent to his feelings and hailed her return with boisterous shouts and unearthly whistling of old French military tunes. Even the noise he made did not disturb Angela; she hardly heard him, for her nerves were not overwrought, but deadened almost to insensibility.

Madame Bernard consulted a young doctor, a man of talent, who was taking lessons of her for the sake of his practice among foreigners.

She used to say that between her pupils, and their friends and relations, she could get the best advice on any matter without paying a penny for it. The young physician answered that he could not help her much without seeing the patient, but that the best thing for Angela would be to eat and sleep well and not to fret.

Some such idea had probably occurred to the little Frenchwoman, for she laughed gaily in the doctor's face, and he, not being paid to look serious, joined in her laughter.

'You cannot say it is bad advice,' he said, 'and you wanted me to say something. Let me see the young lady, and I will tell you honestly whether I know of anything that will do her good, as I would tell a colleague.'

They agreed that he should call one evening on pretence of taking an extra lesson in a leisure hour; he came at the appointed time, and watched Angela narrowly during the short time she remained in the room. When she was gone, he gave his opinion without hesitation.

'The best thing for her would be a good illness,' he said. 'You look surprised! I will try to explain. That young lady is stronger than you think. It would do her a world of good to shed tears, but she cannot because her unconscious power of resistance has been exercised till it has grown rigid. You have heard of Hindu devotees who hold up one arm till it stiffens in that position, so that they could not move it if they tried. That is an image of what I mean, unless it is the thing itself. After learning the terrible news Donna Angela unconsciously steeled herself against her natural impulse to break down. She has a strong will, and the result is what you see. The strain of resisting was so great that it deadened her to all sensation in a few hours. If she could fall ill, the tension would relax; in my opinion it will do so when her physical strength is worn out by starvation and lack of sleep, but a simple specific malady, like the whooping-cough or the measles, would be better for her. If you cannot break up her present condition, and if she has any organic weakness of the heart, it may stop beating one of these days. That is what is called dying of a broken heart, my dear Madame Bernard. There is no medicine against that like a broken leg!'

'Fie!' cried Madame Bernard. 'You have no human feeling at all!'