Chapter 14

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_ CHAPTER XIV

It was raining when Giovanni and Monsignor Saracinesca rang at the door of the Convent. The Mother Superior had ordered two rush-bottomed chairs to be brought out of the hall and placed under the shelter of the cloister just on one side of the glass door; for Sister Giovanna was to receive a visit, as she explained, from an officer who had known her father and had business with her. Such things had happened before in the community, and the lay sister was not surprised. She carried the chairs out and set them in what she considered a proper position, about two yards apart and both facing the garden. The rain fell softly and steadily, the sky was of an even dove-grey, and the smell of the damp earth and the early spring flowers filled the cloister.

Giovanni was a soldier and would impose his military punctuality upon the prelate, who, like most churchmen, had a clearer idea of eternity than of definite time. As the Convent clock was striking, therefore, the Mother Superior and Sister Giovanna came down the narrow stairs, for they had been together a quarter of an hour, though they had scarcely exchanged half-a-dozen words. They walked slowly round under the vaulted cloister, the Mother on the right, the nun on the left, according to the rigid custom, and they had just turned the last corner and were in sight of the two chairs when the glass door opened.

Monsignor Saracinesca's voice was heard.

'Remember what I have said. I trust you, and you know that the cloister is open to every one.'

'Yes,' Giovanni answered, as both appeared on the threshold.

They saw the two nuns already near and made a few steps to meet them. Monsignor Saracinesca greeted the Mother, who bent her head as she answered him; Giovanni stood still, his eyes fixed on Angela's face. But she looked steadily down at the flagstones, and her hands were hidden under the broad scapular of white cloth that hung straight down from under her gorget to her feet.

There are no awkward silences when churchmen or nuns meet, still less if the meeting takes place by appointment, for each knows exactly what he or she is expected to say and says it, deliberately and without hesitation. In less than a minute after they had met, the Mother and Monsignor Saracinesca entered the hall together and closed the glass door after them. The soldier and the nun were face to face at last.

As soon as Giovanni heard the door shut he made one step forward and stretched out both his hands, thinking to take hers. She made no movement, but raised her eyes, and when he saw them, they were still and dull. Then she slowly held out her right hand, and it was cold and inert when he took it. She drew back at once and sat down, and he took the other chair, bringing it a little nearer, and turning it so that he could see her. He was cruelly disappointed, but he was the first to speak.

'I thought you were glad to know that I am alive,' he said coldly, 'but I see that you were only frightened, the other day. I am sorry to have startled you.'

She steadied herself before answering.

'Yes, I was startled. Your letter did not reach me till afterwards.'

The garden was whirling before her as if she were being put under ether, and the little twisted columns that upheld the arches of the cloister chased each other furiously, till she thought she was going to fall from her chair. She could not hear what he said next, for a surging roar filled her ears as when the surf breaks at an angle on a long beach and sounds one deep, uninterrupted note. He was explaining why the mail steamer had not reached Italy several days before him, but she did not understand; she only knew when he ceased speaking.

'It is the inevitable--always the inevitable,' she said, making a desperate effort and yet not saying anything she wished to say.

But her tone told him how deeply she was moved, and his fiery energy broke out.

'Nothing is inevitable!' he cried. 'There is nothing that cannot be undone, if I can live to undo it!'

That was not what she expected, if she expected anything, but it brought back her controlling self that had been dazed and wandering and had left her almost helpless. She started and turned her face full to his, but drawing back in her chair.

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'Angela!'

The appeal of love was in his voice, as he bent far forward, but she raised her hand in warning.

'No, "Sister Giovanna," please,' she said, checking him, though gently.

He felt the slight rebuke, and remembered that the place was public to the community.

'It was not by chance that you took my name with the veil,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'Did you love me then?'

'I believed that you had been dead two years,' answered the nun slowly.

'But did you love me still, when I was dead?'

'Yes.'

She did not lower her voice, for she was not ashamed, but she looked down. He forgot her rebuke, and called her by her old name again, that had meant life and hope and everything to him through years of captivity.

'Angela!' He did not heed her gesture now, nor the quick word she spoke. 'Yes, I will call you Angela--you love me now----'

She checked him again, with more energy.

'Hush! If you cannot be reasonable, I shall go away!'

'Reasonable!'

There was contempt in his tone, but he sat upright again and said no more.

'Listen to me,' said Sister Giovanna, finding some strength in the small advantage she had just gained. 'I have not let you come here in order to torment you or cheat you, and I mean to tell you the truth. You have a right to know it, and I still have the right to tell it, because there is nothing in it of which I am ashamed. Will you hear me quietly, whatever I say?'

'Yes, I will. But I cannot promise not to answer, when you have done.'

'There is no answer to what I am going to say. It is to be final.'

'We shall see,' said Giovanni gravely, though with no conviction.

But the nun was satisfied, for he was clearly willing to listen. The meeting had disturbed her peace even more than she had expected, but she had done her best during several days to prepare herself for it, and had found strength to decide what she must say, and to repeat it over and over again till she knew it by heart.

'You were reported to be dead,' she began--'killed with the rest of them. You had your share in the great military funeral, and I, and all the world, believed that you were buried with your comrades. Your name is engraved with theirs upon their tomb, in the roll of honour, as that of a man who perished in his country's service. I went there with Madame Bernard before I began my noviciate, and I went again, for the last time, before I took the veil. I had loved you living and I loved you dead.'

Giovanni moved as if he were going to speak, but she would not let him.

'No, hear me!' she cried anxiously. 'I offered God my life and my strength for your sake, and if I have done any good here in five years, as novice and nun, it has been in the hope that it might be accepted for you, if your soul needed it. Though you may not believe in such things, do you at least understand me?'

'Indeed I do, and I am grateful--most grateful.'

She was a little disappointed by his tone, for he spoke with an evident effort.

'It was gladly given,' she said. 'But now you have come back to life----'

She hesitated. With all her courage and strength, she could not quite control her memory, and the words she had prepared so carefully were suddenly confused. Giovanni completed the sentence for her in his own way.

'I have come to life to find you dead for me, as I have been dead for you. Is that what you were going to say?'

She was still hesitating.

'Was it that?' he insisted.

'No,' she answered, at last. 'Not dead for you--alive for you.'

He would have caught at a straw, and the joy came into his face as he quickly held out his hand to her; but she would not take it: hers were both hidden under her white cloth scapular and she shrank from him. The light went out of his eyes.

'I might have known!' he said, deeply disappointed. 'You do not mean it. I suppose you will explain that you are alive to pray for me!'

'You promised to listen quietly, whatever I might say.'

'Yes.' He controlled himself. 'I will,' he added, after a moment. 'Go on.'

'I am not changed,' said Sister Giovanna, 'but my life is. That is what I meant by the inevitable. No person can undo what I have done'--Giovanni moved impatiently--'no power can loose me from my vows.'

In spite of himself, the man's temper broke out.

'You are mad,' he answered roughly, 'or else you do not know that you can be free.'

'Hush!' cried the nun, trying once more to check him. 'Your promise--remember it!'

'I break it! I will not listen meekly to such folly! Before you took the vow, you had given me your word, as I gave you mine, that we would be man and wife, and since I am not dead, no promise or oath made after that is binding! I know that you love me still, as you did then, and if you will not try to free yourself, then by all you believe, and by all I honour, I will set you free!'

It was a challenge if it was not a threat, and Sister Giovanna defended herself as she could. But she was painfully conscious that something in her responded with a thrill to the cry of the pursuer. Nevertheless, she answered with a firm refusal.

'You cannot make me do what I will not,' she said.

'I can and I will!' he retorted vehemently. 'It is monstrous that you should be bound by a promise made in ignorance, under a wretched mistake, on a false report that I was dead!'

'We were not even formally betrothed----'

'We loved each other,' interrupted Giovanni, 'and we had told each other so. That is enough. We belong to each other just as truly as if we were man and wife----'

'Even if we were,' said the nun, interrupting him in her turn, 'if I had taken my vows in the belief that my husband had been dead for years, I would not ask to be released!'

He stared at her, his temper suddenly chilled in amazement.

'But if it were a mistake,' he objected, 'if the Pope offered you a dispensation, would you refuse it?'

Sister Giovanna was prepared, for she had thought of that.

'If you had given a man your word of honour to pay a debt you owed him, would you break your promise if you suddenly found that you could use the money in another way, which would give you the keenest pleasure?'

'That is quite different! How can you ask such an absurd question?'

'It is not absurd, and the case is not so different as you think. I have given my word to God in heaven, and I must pay my debt.'

Giovanni was indignant again, and rebelled.

'You used to tell me that your God was just!'

'And I have heard you say that your only god was honour!' retorted the nun.

'Yes!' he answered hotly. 'It is! Honour teaches that the first promise given must be fulfilled before all others!'

'I have been taught that vows made to God must not be broken.'

She rose, as if the speech were final. Though they had been talking only a few minutes, she already felt that she could not bear much more.

'Surely you are not going already!' he cried, starting to his feet.

Sister Giovanna turned so that she was face to face with him.

'What is there left to say?' she asked, with a great effort.

'Everything! I told you that I would answer when you had finished, and now that you have nothing left to say, you must hear me! You said you would----'

'I said that there could be no answer.' Nevertheless she waited, motionless.

'But there is! The answer is that I will free you from the slavery to which you have sold your soul! The answer is, I love you, and it is yourself I love, the woman you are now, not the memory of your shadow from long ago, but you, you, your very self!'

Half out of his mind, he tried to seize her by the arm, to draw her to him; but he only caught her sleeve, and dropped it as she sprang back with a lightness and maiden grace that almost drove him mad. She drew herself up, offended and hurt.

'Remember what I am, and where you are!'

Giovanni's manner changed so suddenly that she would have been suspicious, if she had not been too much disturbed to reason. She fancied that she still controlled him.

'You are right,' he said; 'I beg your pardon. Only tell me when I may see you again.'

'Not for a long time--not till you can give me your word that you will control yourself. Till then, we must say good-bye.'

He was so quiet, all at once, that it was easier to say the word than she had expected.

'No,' he answered, 'not good-bye, for even if you will not see me, I shall be near you.'

'Near? Where?'

'I am living in my brother's rooms at the Magazine. I am in charge till he gets well. I asked permission to take his place on the day I arrived, from the Minister himself.'

'You have taken his place!' She could not keep her anxiety out of her voice.

'Yes, and I hope to get a shot at the fellow who wounded Ugo. But the post suits me, for the upper part of this house is in sight of my windows. If you look out towards the river, you can see where I live.'

He spoke so gently that she lingered instead of leaving him at once, as she had meant to do.

'And besides,' he went on, in the same tone, 'I shall come here every day until my brother can go home. I may meet you at any moment, in going to his room. You will not refuse to speak to me, will you?'

He smiled. He seemed quite changed within a few moments. But she shook her head.

'You will not see me here again,' she answered, 'for my week's turn as supervising nurse will be over this evening and I am going to a private case.'

'To-night?' Giovanni asked, with a little surprise.

'Yes, to-night.'

'Do you mean to say that you do not even have a day's rest after being on duty a whole week? What a life! But they must give you a few hours, surely! What time do you go off duty, and at what time do you go to your new patient? I suppose they send for you?'

'Yes, at about eight o'clock. That is the usual time, but I never know long beforehand. Arrangements of that sort are all made by the Mother Superior.'

It did not seem unnatural that he should ask questions about her occupation, now that he was calmer, nor could she think it wrong to answer them. Any one might have listened to what they were saying.

'I daresay you do not even know where you are going this evening?' Giovanni said.

She thought that he was talking only to keep her with him a little longer. Overstrained as she had been, it was a relief to exchange a few words quietly before parting from him.

'It is true,' she answered, after a moment's thought. 'I daresay the Mother Superior mentioned the name of the family, but if she did I have forgotten it. I shall get my instructions before I leave the house, as usual. I only know that it is a new case.'

'Yes,' Giovanni said, as if it did not interest him further. 'All the same, it is a shame that you should be made to work so hard! Before I go, tell me that you have forgiven me for losing my head just now. I think you have, but I want to hear you say so. Will you?'

It seemed little enough to forgive. Sister Giovanna felt so much relieved by his change of manner that she was even able to smile faintly. If he would always be as gentle, she could perhaps ask leave to see him again in six months. Now that the storm was over, it was a pure and innocent happiness to be with him.

'You will not do it again,' she said simply. 'Of course I forgive you.'

'Thank you. It is all I can expect, since you have told me that I was asking the impossible. You see Madame Bernard sometimes, do you not?'

'Yes. Almost every week.'

'She will give me news of you. I suppose I must not send you a message by her. That would be against the rules!'

'The message might be!' Sister Giovanna actually smiled again. 'But if it is not, there is no reason why she should not bring me a greeting from you.'

'But not a letter?'

'No. I would not take it from her. It would have to be given to the Mother Superior. If she were willing to receive it at all, it would be her duty to read it, and she would judge whether it should be given to me or not.'

'Is that the rule?' Giovanni asked, more indifferently than she had expected.

'Yes. It is the rule in our order. If it were not, who could prevent any one from writing to a nun?'

'I was not finding fault with it. I must not keep you standing here any longer. If you will not sit down and talk a little more, I had better be going.'

'Yes. You have been here long enough, I think.'

He did not press her. He was so submissive that if he had begged permission to stay a few minutes more she would have consented, and she wished he would, when she saw him holding out his hand to say good-bye; but she was too well pleased at having dominated his wild temper to make a suggestion which might betray weakness in herself.

She took his hand and was a little surprised to find it as cold as hers had been when he came; but his face was not pale--she forgot that five years of Africa had bronzed it too much for paleness--and he was very quiet and collected. She went to the door of the hall with him and opened it before he could do so for himself.

They parted almost like mere acquaintances, he bowing on the step, she bending her head. The Mother Superior and Monsignor Saracinesca had been sitting by the table, talking, but both had risen and come forward as soon as the pair appeared outside the glass door. It all passed off very satisfactorily, and the Mother Superior gave a little sigh of relief when the churchman and the soldier went away together, leaving her and Sister Giovanna standing in the hall. She felt that Monsignor Saracinesca had been right, after all, in approving the meeting, and that she had been mistaken in thinking that it must endanger the nun's peace.

She said nothing, but she was quietly pleased, and a rare, sweet smile softened her marble features. She asked no questions about what had passed, being quite sure that all was well, and that if there had ever been anything to fear, it was gone.

The prelate and Giovanni walked along the quiet street in silence for some distance; then Severi stopped suddenly, as many Italians do when they are going to say something important.

'You will help me, I am sure,' he said, speaking impetuously from the first. 'Though I never knew you well in old times, I always felt that you were friendly. You will not allow her to ruin both our lives, will you?'

'What sort of help do you want from me?' asked the tall churchman, bending his eyes to the energetic young face.

'The simplest thing in the world!' Giovanni answered. 'We were engaged to be married when I left with that ill-fated expedition. She thought me dead. She must be released from her vows at once! That is all.'

'It is out of the question,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca, with supernal calm.

'Out of the question?' Giovanni frowned angrily. 'Do you mean that it cannot be done? But it is only common justice! She is as much my wife as if you had married us and I had left her at the altar to go to Africa! You cannot be in earnest!'

'I am. In the first place, there is no ground for granting a dispensation.'

'No ground?' cried Severi indignantly. 'We loved each other, we meant to marry! Is that no reason?'

'No. You were not even formally betrothed, either before your parish priest or the mayor. Without a solemn promise in the proper form and before witnesses, there is no binding engagement to marry. That is not only canonical law, but Italian common law, too.'

'We had told each other,' Giovanni objected. 'That was enough.'

'You are wrong,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca gently. 'The Church will do nothing that the law would not do, and the law would not release Sister Giovanna, or any one else, from a legal obligation taken under the same circumstances as the religious one she has assumed.'

'What do you mean?'

'This. If, instead of becoming a nun, Angela had married another man after you were lost, Italian law would not annul the marriage in order that she might become your wife.'

'Of course not!'

'Then why should the Church annul an obligation which is quite as solemn as marriage?'

Giovanni thought he had caught the churchman in a fallacy.

'I beg your pardon,' he replied. 'I was taught as a boy that marriage is a sacrament, but I never heard that taking the veil was one!'

'Quite right, in principle. In reality, it is considered, for women, the equivalent of ordination, and therefore as being of the nature of a sacrament.'

'I am not a theologian, to discuss equivalents,' retorted Giovanni roughly.

'Very true, but a man who knows nothing of mathematics may safely accept the statement of a mathematician about a simple problem. That is not the point, however. If you remember, I said that "under the same circumstances" the Church would not do what the law would not. The Church considers a nun's final vows to be as binding under its regulations as the law considers that any civil contract is. The "circumstances" are therefore exactly similar.'

Giovanni was no match for his cool antagonist in an argument. He cut the discussion short by a direct question.

'Is it in the Pope's power to release Sister Giovanna from her vows, or not?'

'Yes. It is--in principle.'

'Then put your principles into practice and make him do it!' cried the soldier rudely.

Monsignor Saracinesca was unmoved by this attack, which he answered with calm dignity.

'My dear Captain,' he said, 'in the first place, no one can "make" the Pope do things. That is not a respectful way of speaking.'

Giovanni was naturally courteous and he felt that he had gone too far.

'I beg your pardon,' he answered. 'I mean no disrespect to the Pope, though I tell you frankly that I do not believe in much, and not at all in his authority. What I ask is common justice and your help as a friend. I ask you to go to him and lay the case before him fairly, as before a just man, which I heartily believe him to be. You will see that he will do what you admit is in his power and give Sister Giovanna her dispensation.'

'If you and she had been married before your disappearance,' argued the churchman, 'His Holiness would assuredly not refuse. If you had been solemnly betrothed before your parish priest as well as legally promised in marriage at the Capitol, he might make an exception, though a civil betrothal is valid only for six months, under Italian law. But there was no marriage and no such engagement.'

Giovanni found himself led into argument again.

'We had intended to bind ourselves formally,' he objected. 'I have heard it said by priests that everything depends on the intention and that without it the most solemn sacrament is an empty show! Will you doubt our intention if I give you my word that it was mine, and if Sister Giovanna assures you that it was hers?'

'Certainly not! The Pope would not doubt you either, I am sure.'

'Then, in the name of all that is just and right, what is the obstacle? If you admit that the intention is the one important point, and that it existed, what ground have you left?'

'That is begging the question, Captain. It is true that without the intention a sacrament is an empty show, but the intention without the sacrament is of no more value than intention without performance would be in law. Less, perhaps. There is another point, however, which you have quite overlooked. If a request for a dispensation were even to be considered, it ought to come from Sister Giovanna herself.'

'And you will never allow her to ask for her freedom!' cried Giovanni angrily. 'That settles it, I suppose! Oh, the tyranny of the Church!'

Monsignor Saracinesca's calm was not in the least disturbed by this outbreak, and he answered with unruffled dignity.

'That is easily said, Captain. You have just been speaking with Sister Giovanna and I daresay you talked of this. What was her answer?'

'She is under the influence of her surroundings, of course! What could I expect?'

But the churchman had a right to a more direct reply.

'Did she refuse to listen to your suggestion that she should leave her order?' he asked.

Giovanni did not like to admit the fact, and paused a moment before answering; but he was too truthful to quibble.

'Yes, she did.'

'What reason did she give for refusing?'

'None!'

'Did she merely say, "No, I will not"?'

'You are cross-examining me!' Giovanni fancied that he had a right to be offended.

'No,' protested Monsignor Saracinesca, 'or at least not with the intention of catching you in your own words. You made an unfair assertion; I have a right to ask a fair question. If I were not a priest, but simply Ippolito Saracinesca, and if you accused me or my family of unjust dealings, you would be glad to give me an opportunity of defending my position, as man to man. But because I am a priest you deny me that right. Are you just?'

'I did not accuse you personally,' argued the younger man. 'I meant that the Church would never allow Sister Giovanna to ask for her freedom.'

'The greater includes the less,' replied the other. 'The Church is my family, it includes myself, and I claim the right to defend it against an unjust accusation. Sister Giovanna is as free to ask for a dispensation as you were to resign from the army when you were ordered to join an expedition in which you nearly lost your life.'

'You say so!' Severi was incredulous.

'It is the truth. Sister Giovanna has devoted herself to a cause in which she too may risk her life.'

'The risk a nurse runs nowadays is not great!'

'You are mistaken. If she carries out her intention, she will be exposed to a great danger.'

'What intention?' asked Giovanni, instantly filled with anxiety.

'She has asked permission to join the other Sisters of the order who are going out to Rangoon to nurse the lepers there.'

'Lepers!' Severi's features were convulsed with horror. 'She, nurse lepers! It is not possible! It is certain death.'

'No, it is not certain death, by any means, but you will admit the risk.'

Giovanni was beside himself in an instant.

'She shall not go!' he cried furiously. 'You shall not make her kill herself, make her commit suicide, for your glorification--that what you call your Church may add another martyr to its death-roll! You shall not, I say! Do you hear me?' He grasped the prelate's arm roughly. 'If you must have martyrs, go yourselves! Risk your own lives for your own glory, instead of sacrificing women on your altars--women who should live to be wives and mothers, an honour to mankind!'

'You are utterly unjust----'

'No, I am human, and I will not tolerate your human sacrifice! I am a man, and I will not let the woman I love be sent to a horrible death, to delight your Moloch of a God!'

'Captain Severi, you are raving.'

Giovanni's fiery rage leapt from invective to sarcasm.

'Raving! That is your answer, that is the sum of your churchman's argument! A man who will not let you make a martyr of the woman he adores is raving! Do you find that in Saint Thomas Aquinas, or in Saint Augustine, or in Saint Jerome?' He dropped his voice and suddenly spoke with cold deliberation. 'She shall not go. I swear that I will make it impossible.'

Monsignor Saracinesca shook his head.

'If that is an oath,' he said, 'it is a foolish one. If it is a threat, it is unworthy of you.'

'Take it how you will. It is my last word.'

'May you never regret it,' answered the prelate, lifting his three-cornered hat; for Giovanni was saluting, with the evident intention of leaving him at once.

So they parted. _

Read next: Chapter 15

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