Sister Teresa Part 20

"But living in this flat with her, Merat, you must feel lonely. Do you never wish for your own country?"

"But I am with mademoiselle, Sir Owen; and if I were to leave her, no one else could look after her--at least, not as I can. You see, we know each other so well, and everything belonging to her interests me. Perhaps you would like to see her, Sir Owen?"

"I'd like to see her, but what good would it do me or her? I'll see her in the evening, when I can speak to her. To see her lying there unconscious, Merat--no, it would only put thoughts of death into my mind; and she will have to die, though she didn't die last night, just as we all shall have to die--you and I, in a few years we shall be dead."

"Your thoughts are very gloomy, Sir Owen."

"You don't expect me to have gay thoughts to-day, do you, Merat? So here is where you live, you and she; and that is her writing-table?"

"Yes; she sits there in the evening, quite contented, writing letters."

"To whom?" Owen asked. "To no one but priests and nuns?"

"Yes, she is very interested in her poor people, and she has to write a great many letters on their behalf."

"I know--to get them work." And they walked round the room. "Well, Merat, this isn't what we are accustomed to--this isn't like Park Lane."

"Mademoiselle only cares for plain things now; if she had the money she would spend it all upon her poor people. It was a long time before I could persuade her to buy the sofa you have been sitting on just now; she has not had it above two months."

"And all these clothes, Merat--what are they?"

"Oh, I have forgotten to take them away." And Merat told him that these were clothes that Evelyn was making for her poor people--for little boys who were going upon a school-treat, mostly poor Irish; and Owen picked up a cap from the floor, and a little crooked smile came into his face when he heard it was intended for Paddy Sullivan.

"All the same, it is better she should think about poor people than about religion."

"Far better, Sir Owen, far better. Sometimes I'm afraid she will bring back things upon her. She comes back tired and sleeps; but when she spends her time in churches thinking of her sins, or what she imagines to be sins, Sir Owen, I hear her walking about her room at night, and in the morning she tells me she hasn't slept at all."

"What you tell me is very serious, Merat. All the same, all the same-- jackets and coats for Paddy Sullivan's children. Well, it is very touching. There never was anybody quite so good, do you think there was, Merat?"

"That is the reason why we all love her; and you do, too, Sir Owen, though you pretend to hate goodness and to despise--"

"No, Merat, no. Tell mademoiselle, if she wakes, that I am coming back to see her this evening late--the later the better, I suppose, for she is not likely to fall asleep again once she awakes."

Merat mentioned between nine and ten o'clock, and, to distract his thoughts, Owen went to the theatre that evening, and was glad to leave it at ten, before the play was over.

"Is she awake?"

"She has been awake some time. I think you will be able to have a little talk with her." And Owen stole into the room with so little noise that Evelyn did not hear him, and all the room was seen and understood before she turned: the crucifix above the bedstead, the pious prints, engravings which they had bought in Italy--Botticelli and Filippo Lippi. She lay in a narrow iron bed, and all the form that he knew so well covered in a plain nightgown such as he had never seen before, but in keeping, he thought, with the rest of the room, and in conformity--such was his impression, there was no time for thinking--with her present opinions. The smallness of the chest of drawers surprised him. Where did she keep her clothes? It might be doubted if she possessed more than two or three gowns. Where were they hanging? The few chairs and the dressing-table, on which he caught sight of some ivory brushes he had given her, seemed the only furniture in the room.

"Evelyn!"

"Oh, it is you, Owen. So you have come to see me. You are always kind."

"My dear Evelyn, there never can be any question of kindness between you and me. You will always be Evelyn, and I am only thinking now of how glad I am to have found you again."

"Found me again!" And her thoughts seemed to float away, her mind not being strong enough yet to think connectedly. "How did you hear about me?" Before he could answer she said, "I suppose Ulick--" And then, with an effort to remember, she added, "Yes, Merat told me he had come here," and the effort seemed to fatigue her.

"Perhaps it would be better if you didn't talk."

"Oh, no," she said, taking his hand, detaining it for a moment and then losing it; "tell me."

And he told her, speaking very gently so that his voice might not tire her, that Ulick had called at Berkeley Square.

"He told me you weren't going away with him."

A slight shudder pa.s.sed through Evelyn's face, and she asked, "Where is Ulick?"

"He has gone away. If he had stayed he would have lost his post as secretary to the opera company."

Evelyn did not appear to hear the explanation, and it was some time before she said:

"He has gone away. I don't think we shall see much of him again, either you or I, Owen."

Owen did not resist asking if she regretted this, and she answered that she did not regret it at all. "And now you understand, Owen, what kind of woman I am; how hopeless everything is." In spite of herself, a little trace of her old wit returning to her, she added, "You see what an unfortunate man you are in your choice of a mistress."

Owen could not answer; and a moment after he remembered that it is only those who feel as deeply as Evelyn who can speak as lightly, otherwise they would not be able to resist the strain; and the strain was a very terrible one, he could see that, for she turned over in bed, and a little later he perceived that she had been crying. Turning suddenly, she exclaimed:

"Owen, Owen, I am very frightened!"

"Frightened of what, dear one?"

"I don't know, Owen, I can't tell you; but I am very frightened, for he seems not to be very far away and may come again."

"And who is 'he'?"

"It is impossible to tell you--a darkness, a shadow that seems always by me, and who was very near me last night. A little more chloral and I should not be here talking to you!"

"It is terrible, Evelyn, terrible! And how should I have lived?"

"You lived before me and you will live after me. Suicide is a mortal sin, so Monsignor would tell me. We are forbidden to kill ourselves even to escape sin, and that seems strange; for how shall I ever believe that G.o.d would not have forgiven me, that he would not have preferred me to kill myself than to have--?" And her voice died away, Owen wondered whether for lack of strength or unwillingness to express herself in words.

"My dear Evelyn! my dear Evelyn!"

"You don't understand, Owen; I am so different from what I was once.

I know it, I feel it, the difference, and it can't be helped."

"But it can be helped, Evelyn. You've been living by yourself, spending whole days and nights alone, and you've been suffering from want of sleep--something had to happen; but now that it has happened you will get quite well, and if you had only done what I asked you before--if we had been married--I"

"Don't let us talk about it, Owen; you don't understand how different I am, how impossible--I--don't want to be unkind, you have been very good to me always; and, understanding you as I seem to understand you now, I am sorry you should have made such a bad choice, and that I was not more satisfactory."

"But you are perfectly satisfactory, Evelyn. If I am satisfied, who should have the right to grumble? The pain of losing you is better than the pleasure of winning anybody else.... So you think, Evelyn, you will never return to the stage?"

She did not answer, and, with dilated eyes, she looked through the room till Owen turned, wondering if he should see anything; and he was about to ask her if she saw the shadow again which she had spoken of a while ago, but refrained from speaking, seeing that the time was not one for questions.

"Evelyn," he said, "I will come to see you to-morrow. You are tired to-night."

XV