The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women Part 12

"But I have the money to pay for a whole room. I would have paid for it at the office in Paris, but they told me it was not necessary."

"I know, Sister, and I'm very sorry, but it can't be helped now.

Steward, take Sister Teresa to Number 49." This last came as an order, and ended the discussion.

When the Steward pushed open the door Miss Jennings was sitting on the sofa berth reading, a long gray cloak about her shoulders. She had a quiet, calm face and steady eyes framed in gold spectacles. She looked to be a woman of fifty who had seen life and understood it.

"The officer says I am to share your room," began Sister Teresa in a trembling voice. "Don't think me rude, please, but I don't want to share your room. I want to be alone, and so do you. Can't you help me?"

"But I don't mind it, and you won't after you get used to it." The voice was poised and well modulated--evidently a woman without nerves--a direct, masterful sort of woman, who looked you straight in the eyes, was without guile, hated a lie and believed in human nature.

"And we ought to get on together," she continued simply, as if it were a matter of course. "You are a Sister, and from one of the French inst.i.tutions--I recognize your dress. I'm a nurse from the London Hospital. The First Officer told me you had the other berth and I was looking for you aboard the Cherbourg tender, but I couldn't see you for the smoke, you were so far below me. We'll get on together, never fear.

Which bed will you have--this one or the one curtained off?"

"Oh, do you take the one curtained off," she answered in a hopeless tone, as if further resistance was useless. "The sofa is easier perhaps for me, for I always undress in the dark."

"No, turn on the light. It won't wake me--I'm used to sleeping anywhere--sometimes bolt upright in my chair with my hand on my patient."

"But it is one of the rules of our order to dress and undress in the dark," the Sister pleaded; "candles are luxuries only used for the sick, and so we do without them."

"All right--just as you say," rejoined Miss Jennings cheerily. "My only desire was to make you comfortable."

That night at dinner Sister Teresa and Nurse Jennings found themselves seated next to each other, the Chief Steward, who had special orders from the First Officer to show Miss Jennings and her companion every courtesy, having conducted them to their seats.

Before the repast was half over, the two had attracted the attention of all about them. What was particularly noticed was the abstemious self-denying life of the Sister so plainly shown in the lines of her grave, almost hard, face, framed close in the tight bands of white linen concealing every vestige of her hair, the whole in strong contrast to the kind, sympathetic face of the Nurse, whose soft gray locks hung loosely about her temples. Their history, gleaned at the First Officer's table had also become public property. Nurse Jennings had served two years in South Africa, where she had charge of a ward in one of the largest field hospitals outside of Pretoria; on her return to England, she had been placed over an important case in one of the London hospitals--that of a gallant Canadian officer who had been s.h.i.+pped home convalescent, and who had now sent for her to come to him in Montreal. The good Sister was one of those unfortunate women who had been expelled from France under the new law, and who was now on her way to Quebec, there to take up her life-work again. This had been the fifth refugee, the officer added, whom the Line had cared for.

When the hour for retiring came, Sister Teresa, with the remark that she would wait until Miss Jennings was in bed before she sought her own berth, followed her companion to the stateroom, bade her good-night, and then, with her hand on the k.n.o.b, lingered for a moment as if there was still some further word on her lips.

"What is it?" asked the Nurse, with one of her direct, searching glances. "Speak out--I'm a woman like yourself, and can understand."

"Well, it's about the Hour of Silence. I must have one hour every day when I can be alone. It has been the custom of my life and I cannot omit it. It will be many days before we reach the land, and there is no other place for me to pray except in here. Would you object if I--"

"Object! Of course not! I will help you to keep it, and I will see, too, that the Stewardess does not disturb you. Now, is there anything else? Tell me--I love people who speak right out what they mean."

"No--except that I always rise at dawn, and will be gone when you wake.

Good-night."

The morning after this first night the two lay in their steamer chairs on the upper deck. The First Officer, noticing them together, paused for a moment on his way to the bridge:

"You knew, of course, Miss Jennings, that Hobson went back to Cherbourg on the tender. He left good-by for you."

"Hunting for somebody, as usual, I suppose?" she rejoined.

"Yes"--and he pa.s.sed on.

"A wretched life, isn't it," said Nurse Jennings, "this hunting for criminals? This same man, Mr. Hobson, after a hunt of months, found one in my ward with a bullet through his chest."

"You know him then?" asked Sister Teresa, with a tremor in her voice.

"Yes--he's a Scotland Yard man."

"And you say he was looking for some one on board and didn't find him?"

"No, not yet, but he will find him, he always does; that's the pity of it. Some of these poor hunted people would lead a different life if they had another chance. I tried to save the one Hobson found in my ward. He was quite frank with me, and told me everything. When people trust me my heart always goes out to them--so much so that I often do very foolish things that are apt to get me into trouble. It's when they lie to me--and so many do--making one excuse after another for their being in the ward--that I lose all interest in them. I pleaded with Hobson to give the man another chance, but I could do nothing. Thief as he was, he had told the truth. He had that quality left, and I liked him for it. If I had known Hobson was on his track I'd have helped him in some way to get off. He stole to help his old mother, and wasn't a criminal in any sense--only weak-hearted. The law is cruel--it never makes allowances--that's where it is wrong."

"Cruel!--it's brutal. It is more brutal often than the crime," answered Sister Teresa in a voice full of emotion. "Do you think the man your friend was looking for here on board will escape?"

"No, I'm afraid not. There is very little chance of any criminal escaping when they once get on his track, so Mr. Hobson has told me. If he is on this steamer he must run another gauntlet in New York, even if he is among the emigrants. You know we have over a thousand on board.

If he is not aboard they will track him down. Dreadful, isn't it?"

"Poor fellow," said Sister Teresa, a sob in her voice, "how sorry I am for him. If men only knew how much wiser mercy is than justice in the redemption of the world." Here she rose from her chair, and gathering her black cloak about her crossed to the rail and looked out to sea. In a few minutes she returned. "Let us walk out to the bow where we can talk undisturbed," she said. "The constant movement of the pa.s.sengers on deck, pa.s.sing backward and forward, disturbs my head. I see so few people, you know."

When they reached the bow, she made a place beside her for the Nurse.

"Don't misunderstand what I said about the brutality of the law," she began. "There must be laws, and brutal men who commit brutal crimes must be punished. But there are so many men who are not brutal, although the crimes may be. I knew of one once. We had educated his little daughter--such a sweet child! The man himself was a scene-painter and worked in the theatres in London. Sometimes he would take part in the play himself, making up for the minor characters, although most of his time was spent in painting scenery. He had married a woman who was on the stage, and she had deserted him for one of the actors, and left her child behind. Her faithlessness nearly broke his heart. Through one of our own people in London he found us and sent the child to the convent where we have a school for just such cases. When the girl got to be seventeen years old he sent for her and she went to London to see him. He remembered her mother's career, and guarded her like a little plant. He never allowed her to come to the theatre except in the middle of the day. Then she would come where he was at work up on the top of the painting platform high above the stage. There he and she would be alone. One morning while he was at work one of the scene-s.h.i.+fters--a man with whom he had had some difficulty--met the girl as she was crossing the high platform. He had never seen her before and, thinking she was one of the chorus girls, threw his arm about her. The girl screamed, the scene-painter dropped his brushes, ran to her side, hit the man in the face--the scene-s.h.i.+fter lost his balance and fell to the stage. Before he died in the hospital he told who had struck him; he told why, too; that the scene-painter hated him; and that the two had had an altercation the day before--about some colors; which was not true, there only having been a difference of opinion. The man fled to Paris with his daughter. The girl today is at one of our inst.i.tutions at Rouen. The detectives, suspecting that he would try to see her, have been watching that place for the last five months. All that time he has been employed in the garden of a convent out of Paris. Last week we heard from a Sister in London that some one had recognized him, although he had shaved off his beard--some visitor or parent of one of the children, perhaps, who had come upon him suddenly while at work in the garden beds. He is now a fugitive, hunted like an animal. He never intended to harm this man--he only tried to save his daughter--and yet he knew that because of the difficulty that he had had with the dead man and the fact that his daughter's testimony would not help him--she being an interested person--he would be made to suffer for a crime he had not intended to commit. Now, would you hand this poor father over to the police? In a year his daughter must leave the convent. She then has no earthly protection."

Miss Jennings gazed out over the sea, her brow knit in deep thought.

Her mind went back to the wounded criminal in the hospital cot and to the look of fear and agony that came into his eyes when Hobson stood over him and called him by name. Sister Teresa sat watching her companion's face. Her whole life had been one of mercy and she never lost an opportunity to plead its cause.

The Nurse's answer came slowly:

"No, I would not. There is misery enough in the world without my adding to it."

"Would you help him to escape?"

"Yes, if what you tell me is true and he trusted me."

Sister Teresa rose to her feet, crossed herself, and said in a voice that seemed to come through pent-up tears:

"Thank G.o.d! I go now to pray. It is my Hour of Silence."

When she returned, Nurse Jennings was still in her seat in the bow. The sun shone bright and warm, and the sea had become calm.

"You look rested, Sister," she said, looking up into her face. "Your color is fresher and the dark rings have gone from your eyes. Did you sleep?"

"No, I wait for the night to sleep. It is hard enough then."

"What did you do?"

"I prayed for you and for myself. Come to the stateroom--I have something to tell you."

"Tell it here," said Nurse Jennings in a more positive tone.

"No, it might hurt you, and others will notice. Come quick, please, or my courage will fail."

"Can't I hear it to-night--" She was comfortable where she was and remembered the narrow, steep steps to the lower deck.

"No! come now--and QUICK."

At the tone of agony in the Sister's voice Miss Jennings scrutinized her companion's face. Her trained ear had caught an indrawn, fluttering sob which she recognized as belonging to a certain form of hysteria.

Brooding over her troubles, combined with the effects of the sea air, had unstrung the dear Sister's nerves.