Chapter 9

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_ CHAPTER IX

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. _

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