The Painted Veil (13 page)

45

But after all it was the nuns that had most deeply touched her. Sister St. Joseph, with her merry face and apple red cheeks; she had been one of the little band that came out to China with the Mother Superior ten years before and she had seen one after another of her companions die of disease, privation and homesickness; and yet she remained cheerful and happy. What was it that gave her that naive and charming humour? And the Mother Superior. Kitty in fancy stood again in her presence and once more she felt humble and ashamed. Though she was so simple and unaffected she had a native dignity which inspired awe, and you could not imagine that any one could treat her without respect. Sister St. Joseph by the way she stood, by every small gesture and the intonation of her answers, had shown the deep submission in which she held herself; and Waddington, frivolous and impertinent, had shown by his tone that he was not quite at his ease. Kitty thought it unnecessary to have told her that the Mother Superior belonged to one of the great families of France; there was that in her bearing which suggested ancient race, and she had the authority of one who has never known that it is possible to be disobeyed. She had the condescension of a great lady and the humility of a saint. There was in her strong, handsome and ravaged face an austerity that was passionate; and at the same time she had a solicitude and a gentleness which permitted those little children to cluster, noisy and unafraid, in the assurance of her deep affection. When she had looked at the four new-born babies she had worn a smile that was sweet and yet profound: it was like a ray of sunshine on a wild and desolate heath. What Sister St. Joseph had said so carelessly of Walter moved Kitty strangely; she knew that he had desperately wanted her to bear a child, but she had never suspected from his reticence that he was capable with a baby of showing without embarrassment a charming and playful tenderness. Most men were silly and awkward with babies. How strange he was!

But to all that moving experience there had been a shadow (a dark lining to the silver cloud), insistent and plain, which disconcerted her. In the sober gaiety of Sister St. Joseph, and much more in the beautiful courtesy of the Mother Superior, she had felt an aloofness which oppressed her. They were friendly and even cordial, but at the same time they held something back, she knew not what, so that she was conscious that she was nothing but a casual stranger. There was a barrier between her and them. They spoke a different language not only of the tongue but of the heart. And when the door was closed upon her she felt that they had put her out of their minds so completely, going about their neglected work again without delay, that for them she might never have existed. She felt shut out not only from that poor little convent, but from some mysterious garden of the spirit after which with all her soul she hankered. She felt on a sudden alone as she had never felt alone before. That was why she had wept.

And now, throwing back her head wearily, she sighed: ‘Oh, I’m so worthless.’

46

That evening Walter came back to the bungalow a little earlier than usual. Kitty was lying on the long chair by the open window. It was nearly dark.

‘Don’t you want a lamp?’ he asked.

‘They’ll bring it when dinner is ready.’

He talked to her always quite casually, of trifling things, as though they were friendly acquaintances, and there was never anything in his manner to suggest that he harboured malice in his heart. He never met her eyes and he never smiled. He was scrupulously polite.

‘Walter, what do you propose we should do if we get through the epidemic?’ she asked.

He waited for a moment before answering. She could not see his face.

‘I haven’t thought.’

In the old days she said carelessly whatever came into her head; it never occurred to her to think before she spoke; but now she was afraid of him; she felt her lips tremble and her heart beat painfully.

‘I went to the convent this afternoon.’

‘So I heard.’

She forced herself to speak though she could hardly frame the words.

‘Did you really want me to die when you brought me here?’

‘If I were you I’d leave well alone, Kitty. I don’t think any good will come of talking about what we should do much better to forget.’

‘But you don’t forget; neither do I. I’ve been thinking a great deal since I came here. Won’t you listen to what I have to say?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I treated you very badly. I was unfaithful to you.’

He stood stock still. His immobility was strangely terrifying.

‘I don’t know whether you’ll understand what I mean. That sort of thing doesn’t mean very much to a woman when it’s over. I think women have never quite understood the attitude that men take up.’ She spoke abruptly, in a voice she would hardly have recognised as her own. ‘You know what Charlie was and you knew what he’d do. Well, you were quite right. He’s a worthless creature. I suppose I shouldn’t have been taken in by him if I hadn’t been as worthless as he. I don’t ask you to forgive me. I don’t ask you to love me as you used to love me. But couldn’t we be friends? With all these people dying in thousands round us, and with those nuns in their convent . . .’

‘What have they got to do with it?’ he interrupted.

‘I can’t quite explain. I had such a singular feeling when I went there to-day. It all seems to mean so much. It’s all so terrible and their self-sacrifice is so wonderful; I can’t help feeling it’s absurd and disproportionate, if you understand what I mean, to distress yourself because a foolish woman has been unfaithful to you. I’m much too worthless and insignificant for you to give me a thought.’

He did not answer, but he did not move away; he seemed to be waiting for her to continue.

‘Mr. Waddington and the nuns have told me such wonderful things about you. I’m very proud of you, Walter.’

‘You used not to be; you used to feel contempt for me. Don’t you still?’

‘Don’t you know that I’m afraid of you?’

Again he was silent.

‘I don’t understand you,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t know what it is you want.’

‘Nothing for myself. I only want you to be a little less unhappy.’

She felt him stiffen and his voice was very cold when he answered.

‘You’re mistaken in thinking I’m unhappy. I have a great deal too much to do to think of you very often.’

‘I have wondered if the nuns would allow me to go and work at the convent. They are very shorthanded and if I could be of any help I should be grateful to them.’

‘It is not easy work or pleasant work. I doubt if it would amuse you long.’

‘Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?’

‘No.’ He hesitated and his voice was strange. ‘I despise myself.’

47

It was after dinner. As usual Walter sat by the lamp and read. He read every evening till Kitty went to bed and then went into a laboratory which he had fitted up in one of the bungalow’s empty rooms. Here he worked late into the night. He slept little. He was occupied with she knew not what experiments. He told her nothing of his work; but even in the old days he had been reticent on this: he was not by nature expansive. She thought deeply of what he had just said to her: the conversation had led to nothing. She knew him so little that she could not be sure if he was speaking the truth or not. Was it possible that, whereas he now existed so ominously for her, she had entirely ceased to exist for him? Her conversation which had entertained him once because he loved her, now that he loved her no longer might be merely tedious to him. It mortified her.

She looked at him. The light of the lamp displayed his profile as though it were a cameo. With his regular and finely-cut features it was very distinguished, but it was more than severe, it was grim: that immobility of his, only his eyes moving as he perused each page, was vaguely terrifying. Who would have thought that this hard face could be melted by passion to such a tenderness of expression? She knew and it excited in her a little shiver of distaste. It was strange that though he was good-looking as well as honest, reliable and talented, it had been so impossible for her to love him. It was a relief that she need never again submit to his caresses.

He would not answer when she had asked him whether in forcing her to come here he had really wished to kill her. The mystery of this fascinated and horrified her. He was so extraordinarily kind; it was incredible that he could have had such a devilish intention. He must have suggested it only to frighten her and to get back on Charlie (that would be like his sardonic humour) and then from obstinacy or from fear of looking foolish insisted on her going through with it.

Yes, he said he despised himself. What did he mean by that? Once again Kitty looked at his calm cool face. She might not even be in the room, he was so unconscious of her.

‘Why do you despise yourself?’ she asked, hardly knowing that she spoke, as though she were continuing without a break the earlier conversation.

He put down his book and observed her reflectively. He seemed to gather his thoughts from a remote distance.

‘Because I loved you.’

She flushed and looked away. She could not bear his cold, steady and appraising gaze. She understood what he meant. It was a little while before she answered.

‘I think you do me an injustice,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair to blame me because I was silly and frivolous and vulgar. I was brought up like that. All the girls I know are like that . . . It’s like reproaching some one who has no ear for music because he’s bored at a symphony concert. Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities I hadn’t got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I wasn’t. I was just pretty and gay. You don’t ask for a pearl necklace or a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy balloon.’

‘I don’t blame you.’

His voice was weary. She was beginning to feel a trifle impatient with him. Why could he not realise, what suddenly had become so clear to her, that beside all the terror of death under whose shadow they lay and beside the awe of the beauty which she had caught a glimpse of that day, their own affairs were trivial? What did it really matter if a silly woman had committed adultery and why should her husband, face to face with the sublime, give it a thought? It was strange that Walter with all his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion. Because he had dressed a doll in gorgeous robes and set her in a sanctuary to worship her, and then discovered that the doll was filled with sawdust he could neither forgive himself nor her. His soul was lacerated. It was all make-believe that he had lived on, and when the truth shattered it he thought reality itself was shattered. It was true enough, he would not forgive her because he could not forgive himself.

She thought that she heard him give a faint sigh and she shot a rapid glance at him. A sudden thought struck her and it took her breath away. She only just refrained from giving a cry.

Was it what they called – a broken heart – that he suffered from?

48

All the next day Kitty thought of the convent; and the morning after, early, soon after Walter had gone, taking the amah with her to get chairs, she crossed the river. It was barely day and the Chinese crowding the ferry boat, some in the blue cotton of the peasant, others in the black robes of respectability, had a strange look of the dead being borne over the water to the land of shadow. And when they stepped ashore they stood for a little at the landing-place uncertainly as though they did not quite know where to go, before desultorily, in twos and threes, they wandered up the hill.

At that hour the streets of the city were very empty so that more than ever it seemed a city of the dead. The passers-by had an abstracted air so that you might almost have thought them ghosts. The sky was unclouded and the early sun shed a heavenly mildness on the scene; it was difficult to imagine, on that blithe, fresh and smiling morn, that the city lay gasping, like a man whose life is being throttled out of him by a maniac’s hands, in the dark clutch of the pestilence. It was incredible that nature (the blue of the sky was clear like a child’s heart) should be so indifferent when men were writhing in agony and going to their death in fear. When the chairs were set down at the convent door a beggar arose from the ground and asked Kitty for alms. He was clad in faded and shapeless rags that looked as though he had raked them out of a muck-heap, and through their rents you saw his skin hard and rough and tanned like the hide of a goat; his bare legs were emaciated, and his head, with its shock of coarse grey hair (the cheeks hollow, the eyes wild), was the head of a madman. Kitty turned from him in frightened horror, and the chair-bearers in gruff tones bade him begone, but he was importunate, and to be rid of him, shuddering, Kitty gave him a few cash.

The door was opened and the amah explained that Kitty wished to see the Mother Superior. She was taken once more into the stiff parlour in which it seemed a window had never been opened, and here she sat so long that she began to think her message had not been delivered. At last the Mother Superior came in.

‘I must ask you to excuse me for keeping you waiting,’ she said. ‘I did not expect you and I was occupied.’

‘Forgive me for troubling you. I am afraid I have come at an inconvenient moment.’

The Mother Superior gave her a smile, austere but sweet, and begged her to sit down. But Kitty saw that her eyes were swollen. She had been weeping. Kitty was startled, for she had received from the Mother Superior the impression that she was a woman whom earthly troubles could not greatly move.

‘I am afraid something has happened,’ she faltered. ‘Would you like me to go away? I can come another time.’

‘No, no. Tell me what I can do for you. It is only – only that one of our Sisters died last night.’ Her voice lost its even tone and her eyes filled with tears. ‘It is wicked of me to grieve, for I know that her good and simple soul has flown straight to heaven; she was a saint; but it is difficult always to control one’s weakness. I am afraid I am not always very reasonable.’

‘I’m so sorry, I’m so dreadfully sorry,’ said Kitty.

Her ready sympathy brought a sob into her voice.

‘She was one of the Sisters who came out from France with me ten years ago. There are only three of us left now. I remember, we stood in a little group at the end of the boat (what do you call it, the bow?) and as we steamed out of the harbour at Marseilles and we saw the golden figure of Saint-Marie la Grace, we said a prayer together. It had been my greatest wish since I entered religion to be allowed to come to China, but when I saw the land grow distant I could not prevent myself from weeping. I was their Superior; it was not a very good example I was giving my daughters. And then Sister St. Francis Xavier – that is the name of the Sister who died last night – took my hand and told me not to grieve; for wherever we were, she said, there was France and there was God.’

That severe and handsome face was distorted by the grief which human nature wrung from her and by the effort to restrain the tears which her reason and her faith refused. Kitty looked away. She felt that it was indecent to peer into that struggle.

‘I have been writing to her father. She, like me, was her mother’s only daughter. They were fisher folk in Brittany, and it will be hard for them. Oh, when will this terrible epidemic cease? Two of our girls have been attacked this morning and nothing but a miracle can save them. These Chinese have no resistance. The loss of Sister St. Francis is very severe. There is so much to do and now fewer than ever to do it. We have Sisters at our other houses in China who are eager to come, all our Order, I think, would give anything in the world (only they have nothing) to come here; but it is almost certain death; and so long as we can manage with the Sisters we have I am unwilling that others should be sacrificed.’

‘That encourages me,
ma mère;
said Kitty. ‘I have been feeling that I had come at a very unfortunate moment. You said the other day that there was more work than the Sisters could do, and I was wondering if you would allow me to come and help them. I do not mind what I do if I can only be useful. I should be thankful if you just set me to scrub the floors.’

The Mother Superior gave an amused smile and Kitty was astonished at the mobile temperament which could so easily pass from mood to mood.

‘There is no need to scrub the floors. That is done after a fashion by the orphans.’ She paused and looked kindly at Kitty. ‘My dear child, do you not think that you have done enough in coming with your husband here? That is more than many wives would have had the courage to do, and for the rest how can you be better occupied than in giving him peace and comfort when he comes home to you after the day’s work? Believe me, he needs then all your love and all your consideration.’

Kitty could not easily meet the eyes which rested on her with a detached scrutiny and with an ironical kindliness.

‘I have nothing whatever to do from morning till night,’ said Kitty. ‘I feel that there is so much to be done that I cannot bear to think that I am idle. I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself, and I know that I have no claim either on your kindness or on your time, but I mean what I say and it would be a charity that you were doing me if you would let me be of some help to you.’

‘You do not look very strong. When you did us the pleasure of coming to see us the day before yesterday it seemed to me that you were very pale. Sister St. Joseph thought that perhaps you were going to have a baby.’

‘No, no,’ cried Kitty, flushing to the roots of her hair.

The Mother Superior gave a little, silvery laugh.

‘It is nothing to be ashamed of, my dear child, nor is there anything improbable in the supposition. How long have you been married?’

‘I am very pale because I am naturally pale, but I am very strong, and I promise you I am not afraid of work.’

Now the Superior was complete mistress of herself. She assumed unconsciously the air of authority which was habitual to her and she held Kitty in an appraising scrutiny. Kitty felt unaccountably nervous.

‘Can you speak Chinese?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ answered Kitty.

‘Ah, that is a pity. I could have put you in charge of the elder girls. It is very difficult just now, and I am afraid they will get – what do you call? Out of hand?’ she concluded with a tentative sound.

‘Could I not be of help to the Sisters in nursing? I am not at all afraid of the cholera. I could nurse the girls or the soldiers.’

The Mother Superior, unsmiling now, a reflective look on her face, shook her head.

‘You do not know what the cholera is. It is a dreadful thing to see. The work in the infirmary is done by soldiers and we need a Sister only to supervise. And so far as the girls are concerned . . . no, no, I am sure your husband would not wish it; it is a terrible and frightening sight.’

‘I should grow used to it.’

‘No, it is out of the question. It is our business and our privilege to do such things, but there is no call for you to do so.’

‘You make me feel very useless and very helpless. It seems incredible that there should be nothing that I can do.’

‘Have you spoken to your husband of your wish?’

‘Yes.’

The Mother Superior looked at her as though she were delving into the secrets of her heart, but when she saw Kitty’s anxious and appealing look she gave a smile.

‘Of course you are a Protestant?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Dr. Watson, the missionary who died, was a Protestant, and it made no difference. He was all that was most charming to us. We owe him a deep debt of gratitude.’

Now the flicker of a smile passed over Kitty’s face, but she did not say anything. The Mother Superior seemed to reflect. She rose to her feet.

‘It is very good of you. I think I can find something for you to do. It is true that now Sister St. Francis has been taken from us, it is impossible for us to cope with the work. When will you be ready to start?’

‘Now.’

‘A la bonne heure
. I am content to hear you say that.’

‘I promise you I will do my best. I am very grateful to you for the opportunity that you are giving me.’

The Mother Superior opened the parlour door, but as she was going out she hesitated. Once more she gave Kitty a long, searching and sagacious look. Then she laid her hand gently on her arm.

‘You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.’

Kitty gave a little start, but the Mother Superior passed swiftly out.