Chapter 3

"But, Mother, I thought I should be able to bring you three thousand pounds, and pay off a great part of your mortgage."

"God, my child, seems to have thought differently."

The door opened.

"Now who is this? Ah! Sister Mary John."

"May I come in, dear Mother?"

"Certainly."

"You see, I was so anxious to see Miss Innes, to hear about the concert tour--"

"Which wasn't a success at all, Sister Mary John. Oh, not at all a success."

"Not a success?"

"Well, from an artistic point of view it was; I brought you some of the notices," and Evelyn took out of her pocket some hundreds of cuttings from newspapers. It had not occurred to her before, but now the thought passed through her mind, formulating itself in this way: "After all, the mummeress isn't dead in me yet; bringing my notices to nuns! Dear me! how like me!" And she sat watching the nuns, a little amused, when the Prioress asked Sister Mary John to read some passages to her.

"Now I can't sit here and hear you read out my praises. You can read them when I am gone. A little more money and a little less praise would have suited me better, Sister Mary John."

"Would you care to come into the garden?" the nun asked. "I was just going out to feed the birds. Poor things! they come in from the common; our garden is full of them. But what about singing at Benediction to-day? Would you like to try some music over with me and forget the birds?"

"There will be plenty of time to try over music."

The door opened again. It was the porteress come to say that Monsignor had just arrived and would like to speak with the Prioress.

"But ask him to come in.... Here is a friend of yours, Monsignor. She has just returned from--"

"From a disastrous concert tour, having only made four hundred pounds with six concerts. My career as a prima donna is at an end. The public is tired of me."

"The artistic public isn't tired of you," said Sister Mary John. "Read, Monsignor; she has brought us all her notices."

"Oh, do take them away, Sister Mary John; you make me ashamed before Monsignor. Such vanity! What will he think of my bringing my notices to read to you? But you mustn't think I am so vain as that, Monsignor; it was really because I thought the nuns would be interested to hear of the music--and to excuse myself. But you know, Mother, once I take a project in hand I don't give it up easily. I have made up my mind to redeem this convent from debt, and it shall be done. My concert tour was a failure, but I have another idea in my head; and I came here to tell it to you. I don't know what Monsignor will think of it. I have been offered a good deal of money to go to America to sing my own parts, for Wagner is not yet dead in America."

"But, Miss Innes, I thought you intended to leave the stage?"

"I have left the stage, but I intend to go back to it. That is a point on which I will have to talk to Monsignor." Evelyn waited for the prelate to speak.

"Such determination is very unusual, and if the cause be a good one I congratulate you, Mother Prioress, on your champion who, to defend you, will start for the New World."

"Well, Monsignor, unless you repudiate the motives of those who went to Palestine to fight for the Holy Sepulchre, why should you repudiate mine?"

"But I haven't said a word; indeed--"

"But you will talk to me about it, won't you? For I must have your opinion before I go, Monsignor."

"Well, now I think I shall disappear," said Sister Mary John. "I'm going to feed the birds."

"But you asked me to go with you."

"That was before Monsignor came. But perhaps he would like to come with us. The garden is beautiful and white, and all the birds are waiting for me, poor darlings!"

The nuns, Evelyn and Monsignor went down the steps.

"There is a great deal of snow in the sky yet," said Sister Mary John, pointing to the yellow horizon. "To-night or to-morrow it will fall, and the birds will die, if we don't feed them."

A flock of speckled starlings flew into a tree, not recognising Evelyn and Monsignor, but the blackbirds and thrushes were tamer and ran in front, watching the visitors with round, thoughtful eyes, the beautiful shape of the blackbird showing against the white background, and everybody admiring his golden bill and legs. The sparrows flew about Sister Mary John in a little cloud, until they were driven away by three great gulls come up from the Thames, driven inland by hard weather. A battle began, the gulls pecking at each other, wasting time in fighting instead of sharing the bread, only stopping now and then to chase away the arrogant sparrows. The robin, the wisest bird, came to Sister Mary John's hand for his food, preferring the buttered bread to the dry. There were rooks in the grey sky, and very soon two hovered over the garden, eventually descending into the garden with wings slanted, and then the seagulls had to leave off fighting or go without food altogether. A great strange bird rose out of the bushes, and flew away in slow, heavy flight. Monsignor thought it was a woodcock; and there were birds whose names no one knew, migrating birds come from thousands of miles, from regions where the snow lies for months upon the ground; and Evelyn and the prelate and the nuns watched them all until the frosty air reminded the prelate that loitering was dangerous. Sister Mary John walked on ahead, feeding the birds, forgetful of Monsignor and Evelyn; a nun saying her rosary stopped to speak to the Prioress; Evelyn and Monsignor went on alone, and when they came towards St. Peter's Walk no one was there, and the moment had come, Evelyn felt, to speak of her project to return to the stage in order to redeem the convent from debt.

"You didn't answer me, Monsignor, when I said that I would have to consult you regarding my return to the stage."

"Well, my dear child, the question whether you should go back to the stage couldn't be discussed in the presence of the nuns. Your motives I appreciate; I need hardly say that. But for your own personal safety I am concerned. I won't attempt to hide my anxiety from you."

"But it is possible to remain on the stage and lead a virtuous life."

"You have told me yourself that such a thing isn't possible; from your own mouth I have it."

Evelyn did not answer, but stood looking at the prelate, biting her lips, annoyed, finding herself in a dilemma.

"The motive is everything, Monsignor. I was speaking then of the stage as a vanity, as a glorification of self."

"The motive is different, but the temptations remain the same."

"I'm afraid I can't agree with you. The temptation is in oneself, not in the stage, and when oneself has changed... and then many things have happened."

"You are reconciled to the Church, it is true, and have received the Sacraments--"

"More than that, Monsignor, more than that." But it was a long time before he could persuade her to tell him. "You don't believe in miracles?"

"My dear child, my dear child!"

After that it was impossible to keep herself from speaking, and she told how, at Thornton Grange, in the middle of the night, she had heard the nuns singing the _Veni Creator_.

"The nuns told me, Monsignor, their prayers would save me, and they were right."

"But you aren't sure whether you were dreaming or waking."

"But my experience was shared by Sir Owen Asher, who told me next morning that he had thought of coming to my room and was restrained."

"Did he say that he, too, heard voices?"

She had to admit that Owen had not said that he had heard voices, only that a restraint had been put upon him.

"The restraint need not have been a miraculous one."

"You think he didn't want to come to see me? I beg your pardon, Monsignor."

"There is nothing to beg my pardon for. I am your confessor, your spiritual adviser, and you must tell everything to me; and it is my duty to tell you that you place too much reliance upon miracles. This is not the first time you have spoken to me about miraculous interposition."

"But if God is in heaven and His Church upon earth, why shouldn't there be miracles? Moreover, nearly all the saints are credited with having performed miracles. Their lives are little more than records of miracles they have performed."

"I cannot agree with you in that. Their lives are records of their love of God, and the prayers they have offered up that God's wrath may be averted from a sinful world, and the prayers they have offered up for their souls."

"What would the Bible be without its miracles? Miracles are recorded in the Old and in the New Testaments. Surely miracles cannot have ceased with the nineteenth century? Miracles must be inherent in religion. To talk of miracles going out of fashion--"

"But, Miss Innes, I never spoke of miracles going out of fashion. You misunderstand me entirely. If God wills it, a miracle may happen to-morrow, in this garden, at any moment. Nobody questions the power of God to perform a miracle, only we mustn't be too credulous, accepting every strange event as a miracle; and you, who seemed so difficult to convince on some points, are ready enough to believe--"

"You mean, Monsignor, because I experienced much difficulty in believing that the sins I committed with Owen Asher were equal to those I committed with Ulick Dean."

"Yes, that was in my mind; and I doubt very much that you are not of the same opinion still."

"Monsignor, I have accepted your opinion that the sin was the same in either case, and you have told me yourself that to acquiesce is sufficient. You don't mind my arguing with you a little, because in doing so I become clear to myself?"

"On the contrary, I like you to argue with me; only in that way can you confide all your difficulties to me. I regret that, notwithstanding my opinion, you still believe you are not putting yourself in the way of temptation by returning to the stage."

"I know myself. If I didn't feel sure of myself, Monsignor, I wouldn't go to America. Obedience is so pleasant, and your ruling is so sweet--"

"Nevertheless, you must go your own way; you must relieve this convent from debt. That is what is in your mind."

"I am sorry, Monsignor, for I should have liked to have had your approval."

"It was not, then, to profit by my advice that you consulted me?"

Evelyn did not answer, and the singer and the prelate walked on in silence, seeing Sister Mary John among her blackbirds and thrushes, sparrows and starlings, accepting her crumbs without fear, no stranger being by. The starlings, however, again flew into a tree when they saw Evelyn and Monsignor, and some of the other birds followed them.

"The robin follows her like a dog; and what a saucy little bird he is! Look at him, Monsignor! isn't he pretty, with his red breast and black, beady eyes?"

"Last winter, Monsignor, he spent on the kitchen clock. He knows our kitchen well enough, and will go back there if a thaw does not begin very quickly. But look," continued Sister Mary John, "I have two bullfinches following me. Aren't they provoking birds? They don't build in our garden, where their nests would be safe, stupid birds! but away in the common. I'd like to have a young bird and teach him to whistle."

Evelyn and Monsignor stayed a moment watching the birds, thinking of other things, and then turned into St. Peter's Walk to continue their talk.

"The afternoon is turning cold, and we can't stop out talking in this garden any longer; but before we go in I beg of you--"

"To agree that you should return to the stage?"

"For a few months, Monsignor. I don't want to go to America feeling that you think I have acted wrongly by going. The nuns will pray for me, and I believe in their prayers; and I believe in yours, Monsignor, and in your advice. Do say something kind."

"You are determined upon this American tour?"

"I cannot do otherwise. There is nothing else in my head."

"And you must do something? Well, Miss Innes, let us consider it from a practical point of view. The nuns want money, it is true; but they want it at once. Five thousand pounds at the end of next year will be very little use to them."

"No, Monsignor, the Prioress tells me--"

"You are free to dispose of your money in your own way--in the way that gives you most pleasure."

"Oh, don't say that, Monsignor. I have had enough pleasure in my life." And they turned out of St. Peter's Walk, feeling it was really too cold to remain any longer in the garden.

"Well, Miss Innes, you are doing this entirely against my advice."

"I'm sorry, but I cannot help myself; I want to help the nuns. Everybody wants to do something; and to see one's life slipping away--"

"But you've done a great deal."

"It doesn't seem to me I have done anything. Now that I have become a Catholic, I want to do something from the Catholic point of view, or from the religious point of view, if you like. Will you recommend to me some man of business who will carry out the sale of my house for me, and settle everything?"

"So that you may hand over to the nuns the money that the sale of your pictures and furniture procures at Christie's?"

"Yes; leaving me just sufficient to go to America. I know I must appear to you very wilful, but there are certain things one can only settle for oneself."

"I can give you the address of my solicitor, a very capable and trustworthy man, who will carry out your instructions."

"Thank you, Monsignor; and be sure nothing will happen to me in America. In six months I shall be back."

Evelyn went away to Mr. Enterwick, the solicitor Monsignor recommended, and the following month she sailed for America.

IV

Her pictures and furniture were on view at Christie's in the early spring, and all Owen's friends met each other in the rooms and on the staircase.

The pictures were to be sold on Saturday, the furniture, china, and enamels on the following Monday.

"The pictures don't matter so much, although her own portrait is going to be sold. But the furniture! Dear God, look at that brute trying the springs of the sofa where I have sat so often with her. And there is the chair on which I used to sit listening to her when she sang. And her piano--why, my God, she is selling her piano!-- What is to become of that woman? A singer who sells her piano!"

"My dear friend, I suppose she had to sell everything or nothing?"

"But she'll have to buy another piano, and she might have kept the one I gave her. It is extraordinary how religion hardens the heart, Harding. Do you see that fellow, a great nose, lumpy shoulders, trousers too short for him, a Hebrew barrel of grease--Rosental. You know him; I bought that clock from him. He's looking into it to see if anything has been broken, if it is in as good condition as when he sold it. The brutes have all joined the 'knock-out,' and there--"

As he said these words young Mr. Rowe, who believed himself to be connected with society, and who dealt largely in pictures, without, however, descending to the vulgarity of shop-keeping (he would resent being called a picture-dealer), approached and insisted on Sir Owen listening to the story of his difficulties with some county councillors who could not find the money to build an art gallery.

"But I object to your immortality being put on the rates."

"You write books, Mr. Harding; I can't."

As soon as he left them, Harding, who knew the dealer kind, the original stock and the hybrid, told an amusing story of Mr. Rowe's beginnings; and Owen forgot his sentimental trouble; but the story was interrupted by Lady Ascott coming down the room followed by her attendants, her literary and musical critics.

"Every one of them most interesting, I assure you, Sir Owen. Mr. Homer has just returned from Italy--"

"But I know Mr. Homer; we met long ago at Innes' concerts. If I am not mistaken you were writing a book then about Bellini."

"Yes, 'His Life and Works.' I've just returned from Italy after two years' reading in the public libraries."

Lady Ascott's musical critic was known to Owen by a small book he had written entitled "A Guide to the Ring." Before he was a Wagnerian he was the curator of a museum, and Owen remembered how desirous he was to learn the difference between Dresden and Chelsea china. He had dabbled in politics and in journalism; he had collected hymns, ancient and modern, and Owen was not in the least surprised to hear that he had become the director of a shop for the sale of religious prints and statues, or that he had joined the Roman Church, and the group watched him slinking round on the arm of a young man, one who sang forty-nine songs by all the composers in Europe in exactly the same manner.

"He is teaching Botticelli in his three manners," said Lady Ascott, "and Cyril is thinking of going over to Rome."

"Asher, let us get away from this culture," Harding whispered.

"Yes, let's get away from it; I want to show you a table, the one on which Evelyn used to write her letters. We bought it together at the Salle Druot."

"Yes, Asher, yes; but would you mind coming this way, for I see Ringwood. He goes by in his drooping mantle, looking more like an umbrella than usual. Lady Ascott has engaged him for the season, and he goes out with her to talk literature--plush stockings, cockade. Literature in livery! Ringwood introducing Art!"

Owen laughed, and begged Harding to send his joke to the comic papers.

"An excellent subject for a cartoon."

"He has stopped again. Now I'm sure he's talking of Sophocles. He walks on.... I'm mistaken; he is talking about Molière."

"An excellent idea of yours--'Literature in livery!'"

"His prose is always so finely spoken, so pompous, that I cannot help smiling. You know what I mean."

"I've told you it ought to be sent to the papers. I wish he would leave that writing-table; and Lady Ascott might at least ask him to brush his coat."

"It seems to me so strange that she should find pleasure in such company."

"Men who will not cut their hair. How is it?"

"I suppose attention to externals checks or limits the current of feeling... or they think so."

"I am feeling enough, God knows, but my suffering does not prevent me from selecting my waistcoat and tying my tie."

Harding's eyes implied acquiescence in the folding of the scarf (it certainly was admirably done) and glanced along the sleeves of the coat--a rough material chosen in a moment of sudden inspiration; and they did not miss the embroidered waistcoat, nor the daring brown trousers (in admirable keeping withal), turned up at the ends, of course, otherwise Owen would not have felt dressed; and, still a little conscious of the assistance his valet had been to him, he walked with a long, swinging stride which he thought suited him, stopping now and again to criticise a friend or a picture.

"There's Merrington. How absurdly he dresses! One would think he was an actor; yet no man rides better to hounds. Lady Southwick! I must have a word with her."

Before leaving Harding he mentioned that she attributed her lapses from virtue, not to passionate temperament, but to charitable impulses. "She wouldn't kiss--" and Owen whispered the man's name, "until he promised to give two thousand pounds to a Home for Girl Mothers."

"Now, my dear Lady Southwick, I'm so delighted to see you here. But how very sad! The greatest singer of our time."

"She was exceedingly good in two or three parts."

A dispute arose, in which Owen lost his temper; but, recovering it suddenly, he went down the room with Lady Southwick to show her a Wedgewood dessert service which he had bought some years ago for Evelyn, pressing it upon her, urging that he would like her to have it.

"Every time you see it you will think of us," and he turned on his heel suddenly, fearing to lose Harding, whom he found shaking hands with one of the dealers, a man of huge girth--"like a waggoner," Owen said, checking a reproof, but he could not help wishing that Harding would not shake hands with such people, at all events when he was with him.

"These are the Chadwells, whom--" (Harding whispered a celebrated name) "used to call the most gentlemanly picture-dealers in Bond-street." Harding spoke to them, Owen standing apart absorbed in His grief, until the word "Asher" caught his ear.

"Of whom are you speaking?"

"Of you, of Sir Owen Asher." And Harding followed Owen, intensely annoyed.

"Not even to a gentlemanly picture-dealer should you--"

"You are entirely wrong; I said 'Sir Owen Asher.'"

"Very strange you should say 'Sir Owen Asher'; why didn't you say Sir Owen?"

Harding did not answer, being uncertain if it would not be better to drop Asher's acquaintance. But they had known each other always. It would be difficult.

"The sale is about to begin," Asher said, and Harding sat down angry with Asher and interested in the auctioneer's face, created, Harding thought, for the job... "looking exactly like a Roman bust. Lofty brow, tight lips, vigilant eyes, voice like a bell.... That damned fellow Asher! What the hell did he mean--"

The auctioneer sat at a high desk, high as any pulpit, and in the benches the congregation crowded--every shade of nondescript, the waste ground one meets in a city: poor Jews and dealers from the outlying streets, with here and there a possible artist or journalist. As the pictures were sold the prices they fetched were marked in the catalogues, and Harding wondered why.

Around the room were men and women of all classes; a good many of Sir Owen's "set" had come--"Society being well represented that day," as the newspapers would put it. All the same, the pictures were not selling well, not nearly so well as Owen and Harding anticipated. Harding was glad of this, for his heart was set on a certain drawing by Boucher.

"I would sooner you had it, Harding, than anybody else. It would be unendurable if one of those picture-dealers should get it; they'd come round to my house trying to sell it to me again, whereas in your rooms--"

"Yes," said Harding, "it will be an excuse to come to see me. Well, if I can possibly afford it--"

"Of course you can afford it; I paid eighty-seven pounds for it years ago; it won't go to more than a hundred. I'd really like you to have it."

"Well, for goodness' sake don't talk so loud, somebody will hear you."

The pictures went by--portraits of fair ladies and ancient admirals, landscapes, underwoods and deserts, flower and battle pieces, pathetic scenes and gallantries. There was a time when every one of these pictures was the hope and delight of a human being, now they went by interesting nobody....

At last the first of Evelyn's pictures was hoisted on the easel.

"Good God!" isn't it a miserable sight seeing her pictures going to whomsoever cares to bid a few pounds. But if I were to buy the whole collection--"

"I quite understand, and every one is a piece of your life."

The pictures continued to go by.

"I can't stand this much longer."

"Hush!"

The Boucher drawing went up. It was turned to the right and to the left: a beautiful girl lying on her belly, her legs parted slightly. Therefore the bidding began briskly, but for some unaccountable reason it died away. "Somebody must have declared it to be a forgery," Owen whispered to Harding, and a moment after it became Harding's property for eighty-seven pounds--"The exact sum I paid for it years ago. How very extraordinary!"

"A portrait by Manet--a hundred pounds offered, one hundred," and two grey eyes in a face of stone searched the room for bidders. "One hundred pounds offered, five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, fifty," and so on to two hundred.