Part 37 (1/2)
The shrill whisper came from Sister Cleophee. The Mother-Superior made a sign in a.s.sent. Beyond words, her heart was crying--Oh, misery and joy in one mingled draught to have won such love as this from Richard's child!
But her face was impa.s.sive and stern, and her eyes, looking over Saxham's great shoulder as he stood silently watching at the bottom of the ladder stairway, imposed silence on the busy, observant, tactful Sisters, who continued their labours without a break, as the sewing hand went diligently to and fro, and the recurrent convulsive shudders shook the girl's slight frame, and the irrepressible cry of anguish was wrung from her at each ear-splitting sh.e.l.lburst. And yet, with all her agony of love intensifying her gaze, the Mother did not see as much as Saxham, who took in every detail and symptom with skilled, consummate ease, realizing the desperate effort that strove for self-command, noting the exhaustion of suspense in the dropped lines of the half-open, colourless mouth, the incipient mental breakdown in the vacant stare of the dilated eyes, the mechanical action of the st.i.tching needle-hand, the convulsive shudder that rippled through the slight figure at each boom, or crash, or fusillade of rifle-fire that drifted over the shrapnel-torn veld and through the battered town. He threw a swift whisper over his shoulder presently, that only reached the ear of the Mother-Superior, standing behind him, her tall shape concealed from the sufferer's sight by his great form.
”How long has this been going on?”
She whispered back: ”I am told ever since the bombardment began. Every day, and at night too, should duty detain me at one or another of the Hospitals.”
He added in the same low tone:
”She has a morbid terror of death under ordinary circ.u.mstances?”
The Mother-Superior murmured, a hand upon the ache in her bosom:
”Not of death for herself. For--another.”
His purely scientific att.i.tude must have already abandoned him when he knew gladness that Self was not the dominant note in this dumb threnody of fear. But he wore the professional mask of the physician as he ordered:
”Let one of the Sisters speak to her.”
The Mother-Superior glanced at the nun who was ironing, and then at the figure on the stool. The Sister was about to obey when the Boer Maxim-Nordenfelt on the southern position rattled. There was a hissing rush overhead, and as a series of sharp, splitting cracks told that a group of the s.h.i.+ning little copper-banded sh.e.l.ls had burst, and that their splinters were busily hunting far and wide for somebody to kill, the st.i.tching hand dropped by the girl's side. A new wave of shuddering went over the desolate young figure, pitiable and horrible to see. Dull drops of sweat broke out upon her temples in the shadow of her red-brown hair.
”How are you getting on with your work, dearie?”
Sister Tobias had spoken to her gently. She moved her head and her fixed eyes in a blind way, and the st.i.tching hand resumed its mechanical task, but she gave no answer, except with the shudderings that shook her, as a lily is shaken in an autumn blast.
Then Saxham stepped backwards noiselessly, climbed the steep ladder stairway, and stood waiting for the Mother-Superior in the blazing yellow suns.h.i.+ne, beside the post to which his horse was. .h.i.tched. The Mother followed instantly. He was making some pencil memoranda in a shabby notebook, and kept his eyes upon his writing, and made a mere mask of his square, pale face as he began:
”It--the case presents a very interesting development. The subject has at one time or other--probably the critical period of girlhood--sustained a severe physical and mental shock?”
The great grey eyes swam in sudden tears that were not to be repressed, as the Mother-Superior remembered the finding of that lost lamb on the veld seven years before. She bowed her head in silent a.s.sent.
”You would wish candour,” Saxham said, looking away from her emotion. ”And I should tell you that this is grave.”
”I know it,” her desperate eyes said more plainly than her scarcely moving lips. ”But so many others are suffering in the same way, and there is nothing that can be done for any of them.”
He answered with emphasis that struck her cold. ”Some measures must be taken in the case, and without delay. This state of things must not go on.” He saw that the Mother-Superior caught her breath and wrung her hands together in the loose, concealing sleeves as she said, with a breath of anguish:
”If she only had more self-control.”
”She has self-control.” He echoed the word impatiently. ”She is using every ounce she has for all she is worth. She has used it too long and too persistently.”
”I will say then, if she only had more faith!”
”I know nothing of faith,” Saxham said curtly; ”I deal in common-sense.”
She could have asked if it were commonly sensible for a creature made by G.o.d, and existing but by His will, to live without Him? But she put the temptation past her. No cordial flame of mutual esteem and liking ever sprang up between these two, often brought together in their mutual work of help and healing. She recognised Saxham's power, she admitted his skill. But, as his practised eye had diagnosed in the beloved of her heart the signs of physical and mental crisis, so her clear gaze deciphered in his face the story written by those unbridled years of vice and dissipation, and knew him diseased in soul. She may have been fully acquainted with all Gueldersdorp had learned of him, going here, there, and everywhere, as was her wont, in obedience to her Spouse's call. But if so, she never betrayed Saxham. There was no resentment, only delicate irony in the curve of her finely-modelled lips as she queried:
”Am I so deficient in the quality of common-sense?”
”Madam,” he said, ”you have manifested it in each of the many instances where I have been brought in contact with you. But in your solicitude for this young girl you have shown, for the first time in my experience of you, some lack of good judgment, and have inflicted, and do inflict, severe suffering on her.”
Her eyes flashed grey fire under her stern brows as she demanded: