Sister Teresa Part 46

"How little one knows about oneself!" But he wasn't sorry she had left the convent. A terrible result of time and travel it would be if his first feeling on opening her letter were one of disappointment.

He was sorry she had been disappointed, and thought for a long time of that long waste of life, five years spent with nuns. "We are strange beings, indeed," he said. And getting up, he looked out the place she wrote from, discovering it to be a Surrey village, probably about thirty miles from London, with a bad train service; and having sent a telegram asking if it would suit her for him to go down to see her next day, he fell back in his chair to think more easily how his own life had been affected by Evelyn's retreat from the convent; and again he experienced a feeling of disappointment. "A long waste of life, not only of her life, but of mine," for he had travelled thousands of miles... to forget her? Good heavens, no! What would his life be without remembrance of Evelyn? He had come home believing himself reconciled to the loss of Evelyn, and willing to live in memories of her--the management of his estate a sufficient interest for his life, and his thoughts were already engaged in the building of a new gatehouse; after all, Riversdale was his business, and he had come home to work for his successor while cheris.h.i.+ng a dream-- wasn't it strange? But this letter had torn down his dream and his life was again in pieces. Would he ever be at rest while she was abroad? Would it not have been better for them both if she had remained in her convent? The thought seemed odiously selfish. If she were to read his disappointment on hearing that she was no longer in the convent? ... Telepathy! There were instances! And his thoughts drifted away, and he seemed to lose consciousness of everything, until he was awakened by the butler bringing back her reply.

Now he would see her in twenty-four hours, and hear from her lips a story of adventure, for it is an adventure to renounce the world, the greatest, unless a return to the world be a greater. She had known both; and it would be interesting to hear her tell both stories--if she could tell her stories; she might only be half aware of their interest and importance.

"G.o.d only knows what she is like now! A wreck, a poor derelict woman, with no life to call her own. The life of an actress which I gave her, and which was so beautiful, wrecked; and the life of a nun, which she insisted on striving after, wrecked." A cold, blighting sorrow like a mist came up, it seemed to penetrate to his very bones, and he asked why she had left the convent--of what use could she be out of it?... only to torment him again. Twenty times during the course of the evening and the next morning he resolved not to go to see her, and as many times a sudden desire to see her ripped up his resolution; and he ordered the brougham. "Five years' indulgence in vigils and abstinences, superst.i.tions must have made a great change in her; utterly unlike the Evelyn Innes whom I discovered years ago in Dulwich, the beautiful pagan girl whom I took away to Paris." He was convinced. But anxious to impugn his conviction, he took her letter from his pocket, and in it discovered traces, which cheered him, of the old Evelyn.

"She must have suffered terribly on finding herself obliged after five years to retreat, and something of the original spirit was required for her to fight her way out, for, of course, she was opposed at every moment."

The little stations went by one by one: the train stopped nine or ten times before it reached the penultimate.

"In the next few minutes I shall see her. She is sure to come to the station to meet me. If she doesn't I'll go back--what an end that would be! A strange neighbourhood to choose. Why did she come here?

With whom is she living? In a few minutes I shall know."

The train began to slacken speed. "Why, there she is on the platform." The train rushed by her, the first-cla.s.s carriages stopping at the other end; and, calling to the porter to take his bag out of the carriage, he sprang out, tall and thin. "Like one who had never had the gout," she said, as she hurried to meet him, smiling, so intimately did his appearance bring back old times. "He is so like himself, and better dressed than I am; the embroidered waistcoat still goes in at the waist; and he still wears s.h.i.+rts with mauve stripes. But he is a good deal greyer... and more wrinkled than I am."

"So it is you, Evelyn. Let me look at you." And, holding both her hands, he stood looking into the face which he had expected to find so much changed that he hardly found it changed at all, his eyes pa.s.sing over, almost without notice, the white hairs among the red, and the wrinkles about the eyes and forehead, which, however, became more apparent when she smiled. His touch was more conclusive of disappointment than his eyes; her hands seemed harder than they used to be, the knuckles had thickened, and, not altogether liking his scrutiny, she laughed, withdrawing her hands.

"Where is your valet, Owen?"

It was then that he saw that her teeth had aged a little, yellowed a little; a dark spot menaced the loss of one of the eye-teeth if not attended to at once. But her figure seemed the same, and to get a back view he dropped his stick. No, the convent had not bent her; a tall, erect figure was set off to advantage by a dark blue linen dress, and the small, well-reared head and its roll of thick hair by the blue straw hat trimmed with cornflowers.

"Her appearance is all right; the vent must be in her mind," he said, preparing himself for a great disillusionment as soon as their talk pa.s.sed out of the ordinary ruts.

"My valet? I didn't bring him. You might not be able to put him up."

"I shouldn't."

"But is there any one to carry my bag? I'll carry it myself if you don't live too far from here."

"About a mile. We can call at the inn and tell them to send a fly for your bag--if you don't mind the walk."

"Mind the walk--and you for companions.h.i.+p? Evelyn, dear, it is delightful to find myself walking with you, and in the country," he added, looking round.

"The country is prettier farther on."

Owen looked round without, however, being able to give his attention to the landscape.

"Prettier farther on? But how long have you been here?"

"Nearly two years now. And you--when did you return?"

"How did you know I was away?"

"You didn't write."

"I returned yesterday."

"Yesterday? You only read yesterday my letter written six months ago."

"We have so much to talk about, Evelyn, so much to learn from each other."

"The facts will appear one by one quite naturally. Tell me, weren't you surprised to hear I had left the convent? And tell me, weren't you a little disappointed?"

"Disappointed, my dear Evelyn? Should I have wired to you, and come down here if--. It seemed as if the time would never pa.s.s."

"I don't mean that you aren't glad to see me. I can see you are. But admit that you were disappointed that I hadn't succeeded--"

"I see what you mean. Well, I was disappointed that you were disappointed; I admit so much." And, walking up the sunny road, he wondered how it was that she had been able to guess what his thoughts were on reading her letter. After all, he was not such a brute as he had fancied himself, and her divination relieved his mind of the fear that he lacked natural feeling, since she had guessed that a certain feeling of disappointment was inevitable on hearing that she had not been able to follow the chosen path. But how clever of her! What insight!

"I hope you don't misunderstand. I cannot put into words the pleasure--."

"I quite understand. Even if we turn out of our path sometimes, we don't like others to vacillate... conversions, divagations, are not sympathetic."

"Quite true. The man who knows, or thinks he knows, whither he is going commands our respect, and we are willing to follow--"

"Even though he is the stupider?"

"Which is nearly always." And they ceased talking, each agreeably surprised by the other's sympathy.

It was on his lips to say, "We are both elderly people now, and must cling to each other." But no one cares to admit he is elderly, and he did not speak the words for his sake and for hers, and he refrained from asking her further questions about the convent; for he had come to see a woman, loved for so many years, and who would always be loved by him, and not to gratify his curiosity; he asked why she had chosen this distant country to live in.

"Distant country? You call this country distant? You, who have only just come back--"

"Returned yesterday from the Amur."

"From the Amur? I thought I was _the_ amour."

"So you are. I am speaking now of a river in Manchuria."

'Manchuria? But why did you go there?"

"Oh, my dear Evelyn, we have so much to tell each other that it seems hopeless. Can you tell me why you--no, don't answer, don't try to tell why you went to the convent; but tell me why you came to live in this neighbourhood?"

"Well, the land is very cheap here, and I wanted a large piece of ground."

"Oh, so you've settled here?"

"Yes; I've built a cottage... But I haven't been able to lay the garden out yet."

"Built a cottage?"

"What is there surprising in that?"

"Only this, that I returned home resolved to do some building at Riversdale--a gate lodge," and he talked to her of the gate lodge he had in mind, until he became aware of the incongruity. "But I didn't come here to talk to you of gate lodges. Tell me, Evelyn, how do you spend your time?"

"I go to town every morning to teach singing; I have singing-cla.s.ses."

"So you are a singing-mistress now. Well, everything comes round at last. Your mother--"