Sister Teresa Part 6

"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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sure 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 ent.i.tled "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, c.o.c.kade.

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 Moliere."

"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, G.o.d 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 a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sionate 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 wis.h.i.+ng that Harding would not shake hands with such people, at all events when he was with him.