Part 28 (1/2)
It came to this, that Sister Ann Frances even had an exhibitor's pride in her, and Hilda knew the sensations of a barbarian female captive in the bonds of the Christians. But she could not afford to risk being cut off from those little garden teas. All told, they were few; ladies disturbed by ideas of social duties toward missionaries being so uncommon.
She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her with being so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a gravity which contained an element of satisfaction. ”It is, of course, a pleasure to us to meet,” he said, ”a pleasure to us both.” That was part of the satisfaction, that he could meet her candour with the same openness. He was not even afraid to mention to her the stimulus she gave him always and his difficulty in defining it, and once he told her how, after a talk with her, he had lain awake until the small hours unable to stop his excited rush of thought. He added that he was now personally and selfishly glad she had chosen as she did three months before; it made a difference to him, her being in Calcutta, a sensible and material difference. He had better hope and heart in his work. It was the last luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met with no grudging of grat.i.tude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable. His blood might have received some mysterious chemical complement, so much was his eye clearer, his voice firmer, and the things he found to say more decisive. Nor did any consideration of their relations disturb him. He never thought of the oxygen in the air he breathed, and he seldom thought of Hilda.
They were walking toward the Inst.i.tution together the day he explained to her his gratification that she had elected to remain. Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came behind. He had an errand to the Mother Superior--he would go all the way. It was late in May and late in the afternoon; all the treetops on the Maidan were bent under the sweep of the south wind, blowing a caressing coolness from the sea. It spread fragrances about and shook down blossoms from the gold-mohur trees. One could see nothing anywhere, so red and yellow as they were, except the long coat of a Government messenger, a point of scarlet moving in the perspective of a dusty road. The spreading acres of turf were baked to every earth-colour; wherever a pine dropped needles and an old woman swept them up, a trail of dust ran curling along the ground like smoke. The little party was unusual in walking; glances of uncomprehending pity were cast at them from victorias and landaus that rolled past. Even the convalescent British soldiers facing each other in the clumsy drab cart drawn by humped bullocks, and marked Garrison Dispensary, stared at the black-skirts so near the powder of the road. The Sisters in front walked with their heads slightly bent toward one another; they seemed to be consulting. Hilda reflected, looking at them, that they always seemed to be consulting; it was the normal att.i.tude of that long black veil that flowed behind.
Arnold walked beside his companion, his hands loosely clasped behind him, with the air of semi-detachment that young clergymen sometimes have with their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace of custom his satisfaction carried, the casual glance might easily have taken them for a married pair.
”There is a kind of folly and stupidity in saying it,” he said, ”but you have done--you do--a great deal for me.”
She turned toward him with a wistful, measuring look. It searched his face for an instant and came back baffled. Arnold spoke with so much kindness, so much appreciation.
”Very little,” she said mechanically, looking at the fresh footprints of Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret.
”But I know. And can't you tell me--it would make me so very happy--that I have done something for you too--something that you value?”
Hilda's eyes lightened curiously, reverie came into them, and a smile.
She answered as if she spoke to herself, ”I should not know how to tell you.”
Then scenting wonder in him she added, ”You were thinking of something--in particular?”
”You have sometimes made me believe,” Stephen returned, ”that I may account myself, under G.o.d, the accident which induced you to take up your blessed work. I was thinking of that.”
”Oh,” she said, ”of that!” and seemed to take refuge in silence.
”Yes,” Arnold said, with infinite gentleness.
”But you were profoundly the cause! I might say you are, for without you I doubt whether I should have the--courage--”
”Oh no! Oh no! He who inspired you in the beginning will sustain you to the end. Think that. Believe that.”
”Will He?” Her voice was neutral, as if it would not betray too much, but there was a listlessness that spoke louder in the bend of her head, the droop of her shoulder.
”For you perhaps,” Arnold said thoughtfully, ”there is only one a.s.surance of it--the satisfaction your vocation brings you now. That will broaden and increase,” he went on, almost with buoyancy, ”growing more and more your supreme good as the years go on.”
”How much you give me credit for!”
”Not nearly enough--not nearly. Who is there like you?” he demanded simply.
His words seemed a baptism. She lifted up her face after them, and the trace of them was on her eyes and lips. ”I have pa.s.sed two examinations, at all events,” she informed him, with sudden gaiety, ”and Sister Ann Frances says that in two or three months I shall probably get through the others. Sister Ann Frances thinks me more intelligent than might be expected. And if I do pa.s.s those examinations I shall be what they call a quick-time probationer. I shall have got it over in six months. Do you think,” she asked, as if to please herself; ”that six months will be long enough?”
”It depends. There is so much to consider.”
”Yes--it depends. Sometimes I think it will be, but oftener I think it will take longer.”
”I should be inclined to leave it entirely with the Sisters.”
”I am so undisciplined,” murmured Hilda, ”I fear I shall cling to my own opinion. Now we must overtake the others and you must walk the rest of the way with Sister Ann--no, Sister Margaret, she is senior.”
”I don't at all see the necessity,” Stephen protested. He was wilful and wayward; he adopted a privileged air, and she scolded him. In their dispute they laughed so imprudently that Sister Ann Frances turned her draped head to look back at them. Then they quickened their steps and joined the elder ladies, and Stephen walked with Sister Margaret to the door of the Inst.i.tution. She mentioned to the Mother Superior afterwards that young Mr. Arnold was really a delightful conversationalist.
CHAPTER XXVII
They talked a great deal in Plymouth about the way the time was pa.s.sing in Calcutta during those last three months before Laura should return, the months of the rains. ”Now,” said Mrs. Simpson, early in July, ”it will be pouring every day, with great patches of the Maidan under water, and rivers, my dear, RIVERS, in the back streets”; and Laura had a reminiscence about how, exactly at that time, a green mould used to spread itself fresh every morning on the matting under her bed in Bentinck Street. Later on they would agree that perhaps by this time there was a ”break in the rains,” and that nothing in the world was so trying as a break in the rains, the sun grilling down and drawing up steam from every puddle. In September, things, they remembered, would be at their very worst and most depressing; one had hardly the energy to lift a finger in September. Mrs. Simpson looked back upon the discomfort she had endured in Bengal at this time of year with a kind of regret that it was irretrievably over; she lingered upon a severe illness which had been part of the experience. She seemed to think that with a little judicious management she might have spent more time in that climate, and less in England. There was in her tone a suggestion of gentle envy of Laura, going forth to these dismal conditions with her young life in her hands all tricked out for the sacrifice, which left Duff Lindsay and his white and gold drawing-room entirely out of consideration. Any sacrifice to Mrs. Simpson was alluring, she would be killed all day long, in a manner, for its own sake.