Читать книгу The Dop Doctor - Richard Dehan - Страница 14

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The great of soul are not slow to find each other out. These two recognised each other at meeting. Before he had explained his errand, she had thanked him cordially, directly, and simply, for his timely interference of the previous day.

"One of the lesser reasons of my visit, which I must explain is official in character," he said, "was to advise you that your pupils and the ladies in charge of them will not henceforth be safe from insult except in those parts of the town most frequented by our countrymen, and rarely even there. It would be wise of you under existing circumstances, which I shall explain as fully and as briefly as I may, to send your pupils without delay to their homes."

"All that have not already left," she assured him, "with the exception of those whose parents reside in the town, or who have no living relatives, and therefore do not leave us, go North and South by early trains to-morrow."

"Ma'am," he said, "I am heartily glad to hear it." He added, as she invited him to be seated: "Thank you, but I have been in the saddle since five this morning, and if you have no objection I should prefer to stand. And for another reason, I explain things better on my legs. But you will allow me to find you a seat, if—any of these may be moved?" His glance, with some perturbation in it, reviewed the stiff ranks of chairs severely marshalled in Convent fashion against the varnished skirting-board.

"They are not fixtures," she said, with quiet amusement at his evident relief, and he got her a chair, the largest and most solid that the room offered, and planted himself opposite her, standing on the hearthrug, with one hand resting on the corner of the high mantelshelf, and the toe of a spurred riding-boot on the plain brick kerb.

"I may as well say … "—he ran a finger round the inside of the collar that showed above the khâki jacket—"that, though I have often had the pleasure, and I will add, the great advantage, of meeting ladies of—of your religious profession before, this is the first time that I ever was inside a Convent."

"Or a boarding-school?" she asked, and her rare, sudden smile irradiated her. His hand dropped from his collar. He looked at her with a sudden warmth of admiration there was no mistaking. But her beauty went as suddenly as it had come, and her arched, black brows frowned slightly as she said, in tones that were very cold and very clear, and rather ironical:

"Sir, you are good enough to waste valuable time in trying to break, with due consideration for the nerves of a large household of unprotected women, the news we have expected daily for months. You have come here to announce to us the bursting of the cloud of War. Is it not so?"

He was taken aback, but hid it like a diplomat.

"Ma'am, it is so. The public notice was posted in the town this morning. Forces of Boers are massed on the West Natal and East Baraland borders, waiting until the British fire a shot. Their secret orders are to wait that signal, but some unlooked-for event may cause them to anticipate these. … And we shall be wise to prepare for eventualities. For myself, having been despatched by the British Government on special service to report to the Home Authorities upon our defences in the North—it is an open secret now—I have been sent down here to put the town into a condition to withstand siege. And frankly, without apology for necessary and inevitable bluntness, one of the most important of those conditions is—that the women and children should be got out of it."

The blow had been delivered. The angry blush that he had expected did not invade the pale olive of her cheeks.

He added:

"I hope you will understand that I say this because it is my duty. I am not naturally unsociable, or bearish, or a surly misogynist. Rather the contrary. Quite the contrary."

She remembered a slim, boyish, young lieutenant of Hussars with whom she had danced in a famous London ball-room more than twenty years back. That boy a woman hater! Struggle as she would the Mother-Superior could not keep Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne from coming to the surface for an instant. But she went under directly, and left nothing but a spark of laughter in the beautiful grave eyes.

"I understand," she said. "Woman in time of peace may add a certain welcome pleasantness to life. In time of war she is nothing but a helpless incubus."

"Let me point out, ma'am, that I did not say so. But she possesses a capacity for being killed equal in ratio to that of the human male, without being equally able to defend herself. In addition to this, she eats; and I shall require all the rations that may be available to keep alive the combatant members of the community."

"Eating is a habit," agreed the Mother-Superior, "which even the most rigid disciplinarians of the body have found difficult to break."

His mouth straightened sternly under the short-clipped brown moustache. Here was a woman who dared to bandy words with the Officer Commanding the Garrison. He drew a shabby notebook from a breast-pocket, and consulted it.

"On the eleventh, the day after to-morrow, a special train, leaving No. 2 platform of the railway-station, will be placed by the British Government at the disposal of those married women, spinsters, and children who wish to follow the example of those who left to-day, and go down to Cape Town. Those who prefer to go North are advised to leave for Malamye Siding or Johnstown, places at a certain distance from the Transvaal Border, where they will be almost certain to find safety. Those who insist upon remaining in the town I cannot, of course, remove by force. I will make all possible arrangements to laager them safely, but this will entail heavy extra labour upon the forces at my command, and inevitable discomfort—possibly severe suffering and privation—upon themselves. To you, madam, I appeal to set a high example. Your Community numbers, unless I am incorrectly informed, twelve religious. Consent to take the step I urge upon you, retreat with your nuns to Cape Town while the opportunity is yours."

He folded his arms, having spoken this curtly and crisply. The Mother-Superior rose up out of her chair. It seemed to him as though she would never have done rising, but at last she stood before him, very straight and awfully tall, with her great stern eyes an inch above the level of his own, and her white hands folded in her black serge sleeves.

"Sir," she said, "we are here under the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese. We have received no order from His Eminence to quit our post—and until we receive it, give me leave to tell you, with all respect for your high official authority, that we shall remain in Gueldersdorp."

Their looks crossed like swords. He grew crimson over the white unsunburned line upon his forehead, and his moustache straightened like a bar of rusty-red iron across his thin, tanned face. But he respected moral power and determination when he encountered them, and this salient woman provoked his respect.

"Let us keep cool——" he began.

"I assure you that I have never been otherwise," she said, "since the beginning of this interview."

"Ma'am," he said, "you state the fact. Let me keep cool, and point out to you a few of the—peculiarities in which the present situation unfortunately abounds."

He laid down, with a look that asked permission, his hat and cane and the odd glove upon the round, shining walnut-table that stood, adorned with mild little religious works, in the geometrical centre of the Convent parlour, and checked the various points off upon the fingers of the gloved hand with the lean, brown, bare one.

"I anticipate very shortly the outbreak of hostilities." He had quite forgotten that he was talking to a member of the squeaking sex. "I have begun immediately upon my arrival here to prepare for them. The nucleus of a sand-bag fort-system has been formed already, mines are being laid down far in the front, and every male of the population who has a pair of capable hands has had a rifle put into them."

She looked at him, and approved the male type of energy and action. "If I had been a man," she thought, "I should have wished to be one like this." But she bent her head silently, and he went on.

"We have an armoured train in the railway-yard, with a Maxim and a Hotchkiss. We have a Nordenfeldt, a couple of Maxims more, four seven-pounder guns of almost prehistoric date, slow of fire, uncertain as regards the elevating-gear, and, I tell you plainly, as dangerous, some of 'em, to be behind as to be in front of! One or two more we've got that were grey-headed in the seventies. By the Lord! I wish one or two Whitehall heads I know were mopping 'em out this minute. Ahem! Ahem!"

He coughed, and grew red under his sun-tan. Her eyes were elsewhere.

"Ma'am, you must try to recollect that the Boer forces are armed with the newest Krupps and other guns, and that it is more than possible they may attempt to shell the town. In that case artillery of tremendous range, and a flight almost equal to that of sound itself—I won't be too technical, I assure you!—will be mustered against our crazy pieces, only fit for the scrap-heap, or for gate ornaments. Understand, I tell you what is common knowledge among our friends—common jest among our enemies. And another thing I will tell you, ma'am. Those enemies shall never enter Gueldersdorp!"

She was radiant now, with that smile upon her lips, and that glow in the great eyes that met his with such frank approval. Confound it, what business had a nun to be anything like so beautiful? Would she pale, would she tremble, when he told her the last truth of all?

"Your Convent, ma'am, unluckily for your Community, happens to be, if not the biggest, at least the most conspicuously situated building in the place, lying as it does at a distance of four hundred yards from the town, on the north-east side. Like the Hospital, of course, it will be under the protection of the Red-Cross Flag. But the Boer is not chivalrous. He does not object to killing women or sick people, nor does he observe with any standing scrupulousness the Geneva Convention. Any object that shows up nicely on the skyline is good enough to pound away at, and the Red-Cross Flag has often helped him to get a satisfactory range. If they bombard us, as I have reason to believe they will, you'll have iron and lead in tons poured through these walls."

She said:

"When they fall about our ears, Colonel, it will be time to leave them!"

He adored a gallant spirit, and here was one indeed.

"Ma'am, I am disarmed, since you take things in this way."

"It is the only way in which to take them," she said. "There should be no panic in the hearts of those who wait on the Divine Will. Moreover, I should wish you to understand in case of siege, and an extra demand upon the staffs of the Town and Field Hospitals, that we are all—or nearly all—certificated nurses, and would willingly place our services at your disposal. Let me hope that you will call upon us without hesitation if the necessity should arise."

He thanked her, and had taken leave, when he asked with diffidence if he might be permitted to see the Convent chapel. She consented willingly, and passed on before, tall and stately, and moving with long, light, even steps, her flowing serge draperies whispering over the tiled passages. The chapel was at the end of a long whitewashed corridor upon the airy floor above. His keen glance took in every feature of the simple, spotless little sanctuary as the tall, black-clad figure swept noiselessly to the upper end of the aisle between the rows of rush-seated chairs, and knelt for an instant in veneration of the Divine Presence hidden in the Tabernacle.

"Unfortunately situated!" he muttered, standing stiffly by the west door. Then he glanced right and left, a thumb and finger in the breast-pocket of his jacket, feeling for a worn little pigskin purse. As he passed out before her at the motion, and she mechanically dipped her fingers in the holy-water font, and made the Sign of the Cross before she closed the chapel door, she saw that he held out to her a five-pound note.

"Ma'am, I am not a Roman Catholic, but … "

"There is no box for alms," she said, pausing outside the shut door, while the lay-Sister waited at the passage end, "as this is only a private chapel."

"I observed that, ma'am. I am, as I have said, a Protestant. But in the behalf of a dear friend of mine, a British officer, of your own faith, who I have reason to believe died without benefit of his clergy, perhaps with this you would arrange that a service should be held in memory of the dead?"

"I understand," said the Mother-Superior. "You suggest that Holy Mass should be offered for the repose of your friend's soul? Well, I will convey your offering to our chaplain, Father Wix, since you desire it."

"I do desire it—or, rather, poor Mildare would."

An awful sensation as of sinking down through the solid floors, through the foundations of the Convent, into unfathomable deeps possessed her. Her eyes closed; she forced them open, and made a desperate rally of her sinking forces. Unseen she put out one hand behind her, and leaned it for support against the iron-studded oak timbers of the chapel door. But his eyes were not upon her as he went on, unconsciously, to deal the last, worst blow.

"I said, ma'am, that my dead friend … the name is Richard Mildare, Captain, late of the Grey Hussars. … You are ill, ma'am. I have been inconsiderate, and over-tired you." He had become aware that great dark circles had drawn themselves round her eyes, and that even her lips were colourless. She said, with a valiant effort:

"I assure you, with thanks, that you have been most considerate, and that I am perfectly well. Are you at liberty to tell me, sir, the date of Captain Mildare's death? For I know one who was also his friend, and would"—a spasm passed over her face—"take an interest in hearing the particulars."

"Ma'am, you shall know what I know myself. About twenty years ago Captain Mildare, owing to certain unhappy circumstances, social, and not pecuniary ones, sent in his papers, sold his Commission, and left England."

She waited.

"I heard of him in Paris. Then, later, I heard from him. He was with her here in South Africa. She was a woman for whom he had given up everything. They travelled continually, never resting long anywhere, he, and she, and—their child. She died on the trek and he buried her."

"Yes?"

The voice was curiously toneless.

"Where he buried her has only recently come to my knowledge. It was at a kind of veld tavern in the Orange Free State, a shanty in the grass-country between Driepoort and Kroonfontein, where travellers can get a bad lodging, and bad liquor, and worse company. 'Trekkers Plaats' they call the place now. But when my friend was there it was known as the 'Free State Hotel.'"

Her lips shut as if to keep out bitter, drowning waters; her face was white as wax within the starched blue-white of the nun's coif; his slow sentences fell one by one upon her naked heart, and ate their way in like vitriol. Quite well, too well, she knew what was coming.

"He dug her grave with his own hands. He meant to have a clergyman read the Burial Service over it, but before that could be arranged for he also died—of fever, I gather, though nothing is very clear, except that the two graves are there. I have seen them, and have also ascertained that whatever property he left was appropriated by the scoundrel who kept the hotel, and afterwards sold it, and cleared out of South Africa; and that the child is not to be found. God knows what has become of her! The man who robbed her father may have murdered or sold her—or taken her to England. A man bearing his name was mixed up in a notorious case tried at the Central Criminal Court five years ago. And the case, which ruined a well-known West End surgeon, involved the death of a young woman. I trust the victim may not have been the unhappy girl herself. My solicitors in London have been instructed to make inquiries towards the removal of that doubt. … "

If those keen eyes of his had not been averted, he must have seen the strong shuddering that convulsed the woman's frame, and the spasm of agony that wrung the lips she pressed together, and the glistening damps of anguish that broke out upon the broad white forehead. To save her life she could not have said to him, "She whom you seek is here!" But a voice wailed in her heart, more piercingly than Rachel's, and it cried: "Richard's daughter! She is Richard's daughter! The homeless thing, the blighted child I found upon the veld, and nursed back to life and happiness and forgetfulness of a hideous past; whom I took into my empty heart, and taught to call me Mother. … She is the fruit of my own betrayal! the offspring of the friend who deceived and the man who deserted me!"

The visitor was going on, his grave gaze still turned aside. "Of course, the age of the unhappy girl whose death brought about the trial I speak of—everything depends upon that. Mildare's daughter was a child of three years old when she lost father and mother. If alive to-day she would be nineteen years of age. I wish it had been my great good fortune to trace and find her. She should have had the opportunity of growing up to be a noble woman. In this place, if it might have been, and with an example like yours before her eyes … ma'am, good-afternoon."

He bowed to her, and went away with short, quick, even steps, following the lay-Sister who was to take him to the gate.

She tottered into the chapel, and sank down before the altar, and strove to pray. Her mind was an eddying blackness shot with the livid glare of electric fires. Her faith rocked like a palm in the tempest; her soul was tossed across raging billows like a vessel in the grip of the cyclone. Being so great, she suffered greatly; being so strong, she had strong passions to wrestle with and to subdue. Awhile, like that other Mary, who, unlike her, was a fleshly sinner, she strove, rent as it seemed to her, by seven devils. And then she fell down prone at her Master's nail-pierced Feet, and found there at last the healing gift of tears.