Sister Josepha
Sister Josepha told her beads mechanically, her fingers numb withthe accustomed exercise. The little organ creaked a dismal "OSalutaris," and she still knelt on the floor, her white-bonnetedhead nodding suspiciously. The Mother Superior gave a sharpglance at the tired figure; then, as a sudden lurch forwardbrought the little sister back to consciousness, Mother's eyesrelaxed into a genuine smile.The bell tolled the end of vespers, and the sombre-robed nunsfiled out of the chapel to go about their evening duties. LittleSister Josepha's work was to attend to the household lamps, butthere must have been as much oil spilled upon the table to-nightas was put in the vessels. The small brown hands trembled sothat most of the wicks were trimmed with points at one cornerwhich caused them to smoke that night."Oh, cher Seigneur," she sighed, giving an impatient polish to arefractory chimney, "it is wicked and sinful, I know, but I am sotired. I can't be happy and sing any more. It doesn't seemright for le bon Dieu to have me all cooped up here with nothingto see but stray visitors, and always the same old work, teachingthose mean little girls to sew, and washing and filling the sameold lamps. Pah!" And she polished the chimney with a suddenvigorous jerk which threatened destruction.They were rebellious prayers that the red mouth murmured thatnight, and a restless figure that tossed on the hard dormitorybed. Sister Dominica called from her couch to know if SisterJosepha were ill."No," was the somewhat short response; then a muttered, "Whycan't they let me alone for a minute? That pale-eyed SisterDominica never sleeps; that's why she is so ugly."About fifteen years before this night some one had brought to theorphan asylum connected with this convent, du Sacre Coeur, around, dimpled bit of three-year-old humanity, who regarded theworld from a pair of gravely twinkling black eyes, and only tooka chubby thumb out of a rosy mouth long enough to answer inmonosyllabic French. It was a child without an identity; therewas but one name that any one seemed to know, and that, too, wasvague,--Camille.She grew up with the rest of the waifs; scraps of French andAmerican civilization thrown together to develop a seeminglyinconsistent miniature world. Mademoiselle Camille was a queenamong them, a pretty little tyrant who ruled the children anddominated the more timid sisters in charge.One day an awakening came. When she was fifteen, and almostfully ripened into a glorious tropical beauty of the type thatmatures early, some visitors to the convent were fascinated byher and asked the Mother Superior to give the girl into theirkeeping.Camille fled like a frightened fawn into the yard, and was onlyunearthed with some difficulty from behind a group of palms.Sulky and pouting, she was led into the parlour, picking at herblue pinafore like a spoiled infant."The lady and gentleman wish you to go home with them, Camille,"said the Mother Superior, in the language of the convent. Hervoice was kind and gentle apparently; but the child, accustomedto its various inflections, detected a steely ring behind itssoftness, like the proverbial iron hand in the velvet glove."You must understand, madame," continued Mother, in stiltedEnglish, "that we never force children from us. We are ever gladto place them in comfortable--how you say that?--quarters--maisons--homes--bien! But we will not make themgo if they do not wish."Camille stole a glance at her would-be guardians, and decidedinstantly, impulsively, finally. The woman suited her; but theman! It was doubtless intuition of the quick, vivacious sortwhich belonged to her blood that served her. Untutored inworldly knowledge, she could not divine the meaning of thepronounced leers and admiration of her physical charms whichgleamed in the man's face, but she knew it made her feel creepy,and stoutly refused to go. Next day Camille was summoned from atask to the Mother Superior's parlour. The other girls gazedwith envy upon her as she dashed down the courtyard withimpetuous movement. Camille, they decided crossly, received toomuch notice. It was Camille this, Camille that; she was pretty,it was to be expected. Even Father Ray lingered longer in hisblessing when his hands pressed her silky black hair.As she entered the parlour, a strange chill swept over the girl.The room was not an unaccustomed one, for she had swept it manytimes, but to-day the stiff black chairs, the dismal crucifixes,the gleaming whiteness of the walls, even the cheap lithograph ofthe Madonna which Camille had always regarded as a perfectspecimen of art, seemed cold and mean."Camille, ma chere," said Mother, "I am extremely displeased withyou. Why did you not wish to go with Monsieur and Madame Lafayeyesterday?"The girl uncrossed her hands from her bosom, and spread them outin a deprecating gesture."Mais, ma mere, I was afraid."Mother's face grew stern. "No foolishness now," she exclaimed."It is not foolishness, ma mere; I could not help it, but thatman looked at me so funny, I felt all cold chills down my back.Oh, dear Mother, I love the convent and the sisters so, I justwant to stay and be a sister too, may I?"And thus it was that Camille took the white veil at sixteenyears. Now that the period of novitiate was over, it was justbeginning to dawn upon her that she had made a mistake."Maybe it would have been better had I gone with thefunny-looking lady and gentleman," she mused bitterly one night."Oh, Seigneur, I 'm so tired and impatient; it's so dull here,and, dear God, I'm so young."There was no help for it. One must arise in the morning, andhelp in the refectory with the stupid Sister Francesca, and goabout one's duties with a prayerful mien, and not even let a sighescape when one's head ached with the eternal telling of beads.A great fete day was coming, and an atmosphere of preparation andmild excitement pervaded the brown walls of the convent like adelicate aroma. The old Cathedral around the corner had stood ahundred years, and all the city was rising to do honour to itsage and time-softened beauty. There would be a service, oh, butsuch a one! with two Cardinals, and Archbishops and Bishops, andall the accompanying glitter of soldiers and orchestras. Thelittle sisters of the Convent du Sacre Coeur clasped their handsin anticipation of the holy joy. Sister Josepha curled her lip,she was so tired of churchly pleasures.The day came, a gold and blue spring day, when the air hung heavywith the scent of roses and magnolias, and the sunbeams fairlylaughed as they kissed the houses. The old Cathedral stood grayand solemn, and the flowers in Jackson Square smiled cheerybirthday greetings across the way. The crowd around the doorsurged and pressed and pushed in its eagerness to get within.Ribbons stretched across the banquette were of no avail torepress it, and important ushers with cardinal colours could dolittle more.The Sacred Heart sisters filed slowly in at the side door,creating a momentary flutter as they paced reverently to theirseats, guarding the blue-bonneted orphans. Sister Josepha,determined to see as much of the world as she could, kept her bigblack eyes opened wide, as the church rapidly filled with thefashionably dressed, perfumed, rustling, and self-consciousthrong.Her heart beat quickly. The rebellious thoughts that will arisein the most philosophical of us surged in her small heavilygowned bosom. For her were the gray things, the neutral tintedskies, the ugly garb, the coarse meats; for them the rainbow, theethereal airiness of earthly joys, the bonbons and glaces of theworld. Sister Josepha did not know that the rainbow is elusive,and its colours but the illumination of tears; she had never beentold that earthly ethereality is necessarily ephemeral, nor thatbonbons and glaces, whether of the palate or of the soul,nauseate and pall upon the taste. Dear God, forgive her, for shebent with contrite tears over her worn rosary, and glanced nomore at the worldly glitter of femininity.The sunbeams streamed through the high windows in purple andcrimson lights upon a veritable fugue of colour. Within theseats, crush upon crush of spring millinery; within the aisleserect lines of gold-braided, gold-buttoned military. Upon thealtar, broad sweeps of golden robes, great dashes of crimsonskirts, mitres and gleaming crosses, the soft neutral hue of richlace vestments; the tender heads of childhood in picturesqueattire; the proud, golden magnificence of the domed altar withits weighting mass of lilies and wide-eyed roses, and the longcandles that sparkled their yellow star points above the reverentthrong within the altar rails.The soft baritone of the Cardinal intoned a single phrase in thesuspended silence. The censer took up the note in its delicateclink clink, as it swung to and fro in the hands of a fair-hairedchild. Then the organ, pausing an instant in a deep, mellow,long-drawn note, burst suddenly into a magnificent strain, andthe choir sang forth, "Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison." Onevoice, flute-like, piercing, sweet, rang high over the rest.Sister Josepha heard and trembled, as she buried her face in herhands, and let her tears fall, like other beads, through herrosary.It was when the final word of the service had been intoned, thelast peal of the exit march had died away, that she looked upmeekly, to encounter a pair of youthful brown eyes gazingpityingly upon her. That was all she remembered for a moment,that the eyes were youthful and handsome and tender. Later, shesaw that they were placed in a rather beautiful boyish face,surmounted by waves of brown hair, curling and soft, and that thehead was set on a pair of shoulders decked in military uniform.Then the brown eyes marched away with the rest of the rear guard,and the white-bonneted sisters filed out the side door, throughthe narrow court, back into the brown convent.That night Sister Josepha tossed more than usual on her hard bed,and clasped her fingers often in prayer to quell the wickednessin her heart. Turn where she would, pray as she might, there wasever a pair of tender, pitying brown eyes, haunting herpersistently. The squeaky organ at vespers intoned the clank ofmilitary accoutrements to her ears, the white bonnets of thesisters about her faded into mists of curling brown hair.Briefly, Sister Josepha was in love.The days went on pretty much as before, save for the one littleheart that beat rebelliously now and then, though it tried sohard to be submissive. There was the morning work in therefectory, the stupid little girls to teach sewing, and theinsatiable lamps that were so greedy for oil. And always thetender, boyish brown eyes, that looked so sorrowfully at thefragile, beautiful little sister, haunting, following, pleading.Perchance, had Sister Josepha been in the world, the eyes wouldhave been an incident. But in this home of self-repression andretrospection, it was a life-story. The eyes had gone their way,doubtless forgetting the little sister they pitied; but thelittle sister?The days glided into weeks, the weeks into months. Thoughts ofescape had come to Sister Josepha, to flee into the world, tomerge in the great city where recognition was impossible, and,working her way like the rest of humanity, perchance encounterthe eyes again.It was all planned and ready. She would wait until some morningwhen the little band of black-robed sisters wended their way tomass at the Cathedral. When it was time to file out theside-door into the courtway, she would linger at prayers, thenslip out another door, and unseen glide up Chartres Street toCanal, and once there, mingle in the throng that filled the widethoroughfare. Beyond this first plan she could think no further.Penniless, garbed, and shaven though she would be, otherdifficulties never presented themselves to her. She would relyon the mercies of the world to help her escape from thistorturing life of inertia. It seemed easy now that the firststep of decision had been taken.The Saturday night before the final day had come, and she layfeverishly nervous in her narrow little bed, wondering withwide-eyed fear at the morrow. Pale-eyed Sister Dominica andSister Francesca were whispering together in the dark silence,and Sister Josepha's ears pricked up as she heard her name."She is not well, poor child," said Francesca. "I fear the lifeis too confining.""It is best for her," was the reply. "You know, sister, how hardit would be for her in the world, with no name but Camille, nofriends, and her beauty; and then--"Sister Josepha heard no more, for her heart beating tumultuouslyin her bosom drowned the rest. Like the rush of the bitter salttide over a drowning man clinging to a spar, came the completesubmerging of her hopes of another life. No name but Camille,that was true; no nationality, for she could never tell from whomor whence she came; no friends, and a beauty that not even anungainly bonnet and shaven head could hide. In a flash sherealised the deception of the life she would lead, and the cruelself-torture of wonder at her own identity. Already, as if inanticipation of the world's questionings, she was asking herself,"Who am I? What am I?"The next morning the sisters du Sacre Coeur filed into theCathedral at High Mass, and bent devout knees at the generalconfession. "Confiteor Deo omnipotenti," murmured the priest;and tremblingly one little sister followed the words, "Jeconfesse a Dieu, tout puissant--que j'ai beaucoup peche parpensees--c'est ma faute--c'est ma faute--c'est ma tres grandefaute."The organ pealed forth as mass ended, the throng slowly filedout, and the sisters paced through the courtway back into thebrown convent walls. One paused at the entrance, and gazed withswift longing eyes in the direction of narrow, squalid ChartresStreet, then, with a gulping sob, followed the rest, and vanishedbehind the heavy door.
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