Chapter 14

Madelon overhears a Conversation.

Amidst the springing flowers, the twitter of pairing birds, and the bursting of green leaves through the brown, downy husks, in the bounteous April weather, Madelon began to recover rapidly. She was nursed with kindness and care, if not exactly with tenderness, by Soeur Lucie; but tenderness our little black sheep had long since learnt not to expect in the convent, and she hardly missed it now. It was in the first days of her convalescence that she heard of the death of her aunt Thérèse, through some chance remark of one of the Sisters who came into her cell. Had it not been for this, they would have kept it from her longer; but the news scarcely affected her at all. Her aunt had shown her no affection in these last two years that they had lived under the same roof, and, on the few occasions on which Madelon had come in contact with her, the pale, cold face, and severe manner of the nun had inspired her niece with a dread, which only lacked opportunity to become a more active dislike. She heard the news then with apathy, and was still too languid and weak to think of the loss in reference to herself, or to realise that, so far as she knew, she had now no relation in the world. Nor did such realization come at once, even when she grew stronger; her aunt had counted for so little in her present mode of life, that it did not occur to her that her death might bring any possible change into it; indeed, as we have said, she had ceased to look for any immediate change. Monsieur Horace had brought her to the convent, and Soeur Lucie took care of her there, and so she supposed matters would go on for the present.

If, however, the news of her aunt's death affected her but little, it was quite otherwise with another conversation that she overheard a few days later, and which, indeed, was not meant for her ears either. She had awakened one evening from a long, sound sleep, and was lying quietly in the dusk, dreamily wondering how soon she should make up her mind to arouse herself and take the medicine that she knew awaited her as soon as she should declare herself awake, when Soeur Ursule entered the room. She had come with some message to Soeur Lucie, and when it was delivered, stood chatting a few minutes by the window where Soeur Lucie sat knitting. She was a gaunt, brisk, elderly woman, who had been governess in a large school, before an opportune legacy had enabled her to fulfil her dearest wish and enter the convent, where, with fresh zeal and energy, she resumed the duties most congenial to her, as teacher and superintendent of the school. Thoroughly devout and conscientious, and with a kind heart _au fond_, she nevertheless brought with her into her new sphere all the habits and modes of thought acquired during a long struggle with a very hard, secular world--a practical turn of mind, verging on hardness, a dictatorial manner, a certain opinion- activeness, which still showed itself now and then in oddest contrast with the habitual submission demanded of a nun.

"She looks better this evening," she said now, nodding towards the bed where Madelon lay with her eyes still closed.

"Yes, yes, she is getting on; I shall have her up to-morrow, I hope," answered Soeur Lucie, with some natural pride in this specimen of successful nursing.

"Ah, well--she could have been better spared though, than some that are gone," answered the other; "but no doubt it is all for the best. Not but that I am glad that the child is recovering--still we shall certainly find her a great burthen on our hands."

"It is true, then," cried Soeur Lucie, "what I heard Soeur Marie saying--that our sainted mother had bequeathed her to the care of the convent, and left directions that she is to take the veil as soon as she is old enough."

"Yes, it is true enough, and, as I was saying, all is no doubt for the best; otherwise it is really a great charge for us to have a child of that age on our hands to bring up."

"But that was just my case," replied Soeur Lucie simply. "I have not been out of the convent for more than six months since I was ten years old, as you know, Soeur Ursule."

"You, _ma Soeur!_ That was quite a different matter; every one knows what a marked vocation you had even in your childhood, and how willingly you devoted your fortune, and resigned all worldly hopes--whereas this little one has always been the most tiresome child in the class, and, moreover, will have to live at the expense of the convent."

"That is true," said Soeur Lucie reflecting; "I never heard that she had any money, and of course people cannot live for nothing."

"She has not a sou--you may depend upon it," said Soeur Ursule emphatically; "she brought nothing with her when she came."

"Nothing!" cried Soeur Lucie.

"Or so little, that it must all be gone by this time. I really do not see how it can be arranged--Soeurs Marie and Catherine settled it with our late sainted Superior, and I think even they are beginning to repent a little, for they were talking only this morning of all the expense we have had lately."

"Poor child," murmured Soeur Lucie, who had no unkindly feelings towards her little charge, "there is surely enough for one more."

"That is all very well, _ma Soeur_, but an extra person is an extra person, as we all know. We might keep the child for a time out of charity, but when there is a question of her taking the vows, and living here always, it is another matter altogether. It has not been the custom in our house to receive sisters without _dots_, and it will never do--never; but of course our sainted mother knew best, and my opinion was not asked, though it might have been as well worth having as that of some others."

"Poor child," said good little Soeur Lucie again, looking towards the bed; "and she has improved very much lately, don't you think so, _ma Soeur?_"

"Oh, yes, she has improved, no doubt; it would be astonishing if she had not, after being here more than two years; but that is not the question. However, I must be going," she added, "I have a hundred things to do before vespers. And the border for that altar-cloth will be ready by the end of the month, you think?"

"I hope so," answered Soeur Lucie. "Madelon shall help me as soon as she is strong enough again; she can embroider quite nicely now."

"So much the better; she will have to do plenty by-and-by, and make herself useful if she is to stay here."

Soeur Ursule left the room as she spoke, and Soeur Lucie, with her knitting in her lap, sat meditating in the darkness. Presently a restless movement in the bed roused her. "Are you awake, Madelon?" she said softly.

No answer, only another toss, and a sort of long sigh. Soeur Lucie rose, lighted a candle, measured out some medicine, and then with the glass in one hand, and the light in the other, she came to the bedside. Madelon was lying with her back towards her, her arms flung over her head, her face buried in the pillow. She did not move, and Soeur Lucie touched her gently.

"It is time to take your medicine, mon enfant," she said.

Madelon turned round then, and taking the glass, drank off the contents without a word; as she gave it back to the nun, something in her face or expression, fairly startled the little sister.

"Why, whatever is the matter, _mon enfant?_" she cried, "you must have been dreaming, I think."

"No, I have not been dreaming," answered Madelon; and then, as the nun turned away to put the glass and candle on the table, she caught hold of her gown with all the strength of which her feeble fingers were capable.

"Don't go, please don't go, Soeur Lucie," she said, "I want to speak to you."

"In a moment; I am not going," answered the sister. "Well, what is it, _ma petite?_" she added, coming back to the bedside.

"What--what was it Soeur Ursule was saying to you just now?" asks Madelon.

"Just now!" cried Soeur Lucie, taken aback; "why, I thought you were asleep."

"No, I was not asleep," Madelon answered, "I only had my eyes shut."

"But that is very naughty, _mon enfant_, to pretend to be asleep when you are awake."

"I didn't pretend," said Madelon aggrieved, "only I hadn't opened my eyes, and I could not help hearing what you said."

"Ah well, if you heard, there is no use in my telling you," says Soeur Lucie, who was not at all above using that imperfect, but irrefragable, logic familiar to us from our nurseries; "so you had better go to sleep again, for I cannot stop here any longer. Let me smoothe your pillow."

"No," said Madelon, escaping from her hands with an impatient toss. "Ah, don't go away yet," she added piteously. "Was it true what Soeur Ursule said about me?"

"About you, _mon enfant?_"

"Yes, about me--that I was to become a nun."

"Ah!" said Soeur Lucie, with the air of being suddenly enlightened, "yes--yes, I suppose so, since she said it. Now I must go, and do you go to sleep."

"No, no," cried Madelon, raising herself in the bed and stretching out both arms after Soeur Lucie's retreating figure. "Ah, Soeur Lucie, don't leave me. I can't be a nun; don't let them make me a nun!"

There was something so pitiful and beseeching in her accent, something so frail-looking in the little, white, imploring hands, that Soeur Lucie's heart was touched. She came back again.

"_Ecoute_, Madelon," she said, "you will be ill again to-morrow if you talk so much; lie down now, and tell me what it is you want. No one is going to make you a nun now, you know."

"No, not now, but by-and-by. Is it true that Aunt Thérèse said I was to be made one?"

"Yes, that is true enough, I believe; but there is nothing to be unhappy about in that," answered Soeur Lucie, who naturally looked at things from a different point of view than Madelon's. "There are many girls who would be glad of such a chance; for you see, _mon enfant_, it is only because nothing could be refused to our late sainted Superior, that it has been arranged at all."

"Soeur Ursule said I should be a burthen," answered Madelon. "I don't want to be a burthen; I only want to go away. Ah! why do you keep me? I am miserable here; I always have been, and I always shall be--always."

"But that is foolish," replied Soeur Lucie, "for you will be very happy--far happier than you could ever be out in the world, _ma petite;_ it is full of snares, and temptations, and wickedness, that never can come near us here. Look at me; I was no older than you when I first came here, and never has girl been happier, I believe. No, no, Madelon," she went on, with a good-natured wish to make things pleasant, "you will stay with us, and be our child, and we will take care of you."

"I don't want you to take care of me!" cries Madelon, the burning tears starting painfully to her eyes. "I hate convents, and I hate nuns, and it is wicked and cruel to keep me here!"

"Am I cruel and wicked? Do you hate me?" said Soeur Lucie, rather aggrieved in her turn.

"No, no," cried Madelon, with compunction, and throwing her arms round Soeur Lucie's neck; "you are very kind, Soeur Lucie, and you won't let them make me a nun, will you? You will tell them all that I should be miserable--ah! I should die, I know I should!"

"Well, well, we will not talk about it any more to-night. As for me, I have nothing to do with it--nothing; but I cannot have you make yourself ill with chattering; so now let me put your pillow straight, and then you must go to sleep as fast as you can."

With a final shake of the pillow and arrangement of the bed- clothes, Soeur Lucie went away, leaving Madelon, not to sleep, but to lie broad awake, framing the most dismal little pictures of the future. And was this to be the end of it all, then?--the end of her vague dreams, her undefined hopes, which, leaping over a dim space of intervening years, had rested on a future of indefinite brightness lying somewhere outside these convent walls? Ah, was all indeed at an end? Never to pass these dull walls again, never to see anything but these dreary rooms,--all her life to be one unvarying, relentless routine, day after day, year after year--to be forced to teach stupid children, like Soeur Ursule, or to make jam and embroider alter-cloths, like Soeur Lucie, to say such long prayers, and to wear such ugly dresses, thinks poor Madelon, with a queer jumble of the duties and obligations of a nun's life. Ah! what would be the use of getting well and strong again, if that were all that life had in store for her? "Why did I not die?" thinks the poor child, tossing restlessly from side to side. "I wish I was dead! Ah! why did I not die? I wish I had never been born!" To her, as to all inexperienced minds, life appeared as a series of arbitrary events, rather than as a chain of dependent circumstances ceaselessly modifying each other, and she could not conceive the possibility of any gradual change of position being brought about in the slow course of years. The long succession of grey, weary days, which she had lately taught herself to consider as a path that must be traversed, but which would still lead ultimately to a future of most supreme happiness, suddenly seemed to terminate in a grave black as death itself, from which there could be no escape. "If papa were here," thinks Madelon, "he would never allow it; he would never leave me in this horrible place, he would take me away. Oh! papa, papa, why did you die?" And burying her face in the pillow, she began to sob and cry in her weakness and despair.

But this last thought of her father had suggested a new set of ideas and memories to Madelon, and by-and-by she stopped crying, and began to think again, confusedly at first, but presently with a more definite purpose gradually forming itself in the darkness of her bewildered thoughts. Has she not promised her father never to become a nun? Perhaps he had thought of something like this happening, and that was why he had made her promise, and of course she must keep her word. But how is she to do that? wonders Madelon. If Monsieur Horace were here, indeed, he might help her. Ah, if Monsieur Horace was but here! Should she write to him, and tell him how unhappy she was, and ask him to come and take her away? He had given her his English address, and told her to be sure and let him know, if she were in any trouble, or wanted any help. "But then," thinks our foolish little Madelon, with the most quixotic notions busy in her tired little brain, "I have not done what I said I would, and he will think, perhaps, I want to break my word." Alas, must that grand surprise that was to have been prepared for him, all those fine schemes, and plans, and projects, must they all fall to the ground? Was she never, never to show him how much she loved him? And yet, if they made her a nun, how could she do it all? He would never have his fortune made then, though she had promised to do it, and he would think she had forgotten him, and cared nothing about him. So wearily did Madelon's mind revolve, dwelling most of all on that promise made so long ago; and as she realized the possibility of her never being able to fulfil it at all, she became possessed with a feverish desire to get up that very moment and set about it. If--if--ah, supposing she were to run away--Aunt Thérèse is not here now, and she would not be afraid of the other nuns finding her, she would hide herself too well for that--supposing she were to run away, go to Spa, make the fortune, and then write to Monsieur Horace? Would not that be an idea?

When Soeur Lucie came in an hour later, to look after Madelon, she found her fast asleep; the traces of tears were still on her cheeks, and the pillow and bedclothes were all disarranged and tossed about again, but she was lying quite quietly now. Soeur Lucie stood for a moment, looking down upon the child's white face, that had grown so small and thin. Her hair had been all cut off during her illness, and curled in soft brown rings all over her head, as when she was a little child, and indeed there was something most childlike in the peaceful little face, which had a look of repose that it seldom wore when the wistful brown eyes were open, with their expression of always longing and seeking for something beyond their ken. Somehow Soeur Lucie was touched with a sudden feeling of unwonted tenderness for her little charge. "_Pauvre petite_," she murmured, gently raising one hand that hung over the side of the bed, and smoothing back a stray lock of hair. Madelon opened her eyes for a moment; "Monsieur Horace," she said, "I have not forgotten, I--I will----" and then she turned away and fell sound asleep again.