Richard Dehan - The Dop Doctor

Lady Bridget-Mary took the tumbler away. Why should the humble property of the Sisters be broken because this kind, fussy woman chose to upbraid?

"You ask, Have I no pride?" she said. "Why should I have pride when Our Lord is so humble that He does not disdain to take for His bride the woman Richard Mildare has rejected?"

"You are incorrigible, dearest," said the sobbing Dowager-Duchess, as she kissed her, "and Castleclare must use all his influence with the Holy Father to induce the Comtesse de Lutetia to give you the veil. All of you think I am damned, and possibly I may be, but if so I shall be afforded an opportunity (which will not be mine in this life) of giving Captain Mildare a piece of my mind!"

So the Dowager-Duchess melted out of the story, and Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne became a nun.

This is what the Mother-Superior wrote to her kinswoman, with her mobile, eloquent lips folded closely together as she thought, and her grave eyes following the swift journey of the pen as it formed the sentences:

"Now let me speak to you of Lynette Mildare. I have never thought it necessary to make the slightest disguise of my great partiality for this, the dearest of all the many children given me by Our Lord since I resigned my crown of earthly motherhood to Him."

She stopped, remembering what another great lady, also a relative of hers, had remarked when it was first made public that she intended to enter the Novitiate:

"Indeed! It would seem, then, that you are devoid of ambition, my dear, unlike the other people of your house."

She had said, paraphrasing a retort previously made:

"Does it strike you as lack of ambition that one of our family should prefer Christ before any earthly spouse?"

What a base utterance that had seemed to her afterwards! How devoid of the true spirit of the religious, how hateful, petty, profane! But the great lady had been greatly struck by it, and had gone about quoting the words everywhere. She, who had spoken them, repented them with tears, and set the memory of them between her and ill-considered, worldly speech, for ever.

She wrote on now:

"She has no vocation for the life of a religious. I doubt her being happy or successful as a teacher here, were I removed from my post by supreme earthly authority, or by death, either contingency being the expression of the Will of God. She has a reserved, sensitive nature, quick to feel, and eager to hide what she feels, indifferent to praise or popularity among the many, anxiously desirous to please, passionately devoted where she gives her love…"

The firm mouth quivered, and a mist stole before her eyes. Being human, she took the handkerchief that lay amongst her papers and wiped the crowding tears away, and went on:

"I could wish, in anticipation of either eventuality named, that provision might now be made for her. Those who love me – yourself I know to be among the number – will not, I feel assured, be indifferent to my wish that she should be placed beyond the reach of want."

She wrote on, knowing that the implied wish would be observed as a command:

"We have never been able to trace any persons who might have been her parents – we have never even known her real name. – Those among whom her childhood was spent called her by none. As you know, I gave her in Holy Baptism one that was our dear dead mother's, together with the surname of a lost friend. She is, and must be always, known as Lynette Mildare."

Her eyes were tearless, and her hand quite steady as she continued:

"You must not be at all alarmed or shaken by this letter. I am perfectly well in health, be quite assured; I trust I may be spared to carry on my work here for many long years to come. But in case it should be otherwise, I write thus:

"The country is greatly disturbed, in spite of the reassuring reports that have been disseminated by the Home Authorities. I do not, and cannot, imagine what the official view may be in London at this moment, but it is certain that the Transvaal and Free State are preparing for war. Every hour the enmity between the Boers and the English deepens in intensity. It will be to many minds a relief when the storm bursts. The War Office may think meanly of the Africanised Dutchman as a fighting force, but the opinion of every loyal Briton in this country is that he is not a foe to be despised, and that he will shed the last drop of his own blood and his children's for the sake of his independence.

"Above the petty interests of greedy capitalists looms the wider question: Shall the Briton or the Dutchman rule in South Africa? Here in this insignificant frontier town we wait the sounding of the tocsin. The Orange Free State has openly allied itself with the Transvaal Government. There are said to be several commandos in laager on the Border. A public meeting of citizens of this town has been held, at which a vote of 'No confidence' in the Dutch Ministers has been passed, and an appeal for help has been made to the Government at Cape Town. It is not yet publicly known what the response has been, if there is any. I think it ominous that all of our Dutch pupils, save one, should have been hurriedly sent for by their parents before the ending of the term. Knowing my responsibility, I am sending all home, except the few who happen to be resident in this town, and the school will remain closed, at all events, until the outlook assumes a less threatening aspect. It is a relief to many that a Military Commandant has been appointed by the authorities at Cape Town, and that he arrived here a week ago. He is reported to be an officer of energy and decision, and as he has already set the troops under his command to work at putting the town into a condition of defence, and is organising the civil male population into a regiment of armed – "

There was a light knock at the door. She responded with the permission to enter, and a tall, slight girl, with red-brown hair, came in and closed the door, dropping her little curtsy to the Mother-Superior. She wore the plain black alpaca uniform of the Convent, with the ribbon of the Headship of the Red Class, to be resigned when she should become a pupil-teacher at the opening of the next term; and the rare and beautiful smile broke over the face of the elder woman as the younger came to her side.

"Are you busy, Reverend Mother? Do you want me to go away?"

"I shall have finished in another five minutes, and then there will be no more letters to write, my child. Sit where you choose; take a book, and be quiet; I shall not keep you waiting long."

The words were few; the Mother-Superior's manner a little curt in speaking them. But where Lynette chose to sit was on the cheap drugget that covered the beeswaxed boards, with her squirrel-coloured hair and soft cheek pressed against the black serge habit.

The Mother-Superior wrote on, apparently absorbed, and with knitted brows of attention, but her large, white, beautiful left hand dropped half unconsciously to the silken hair and the velvet cheek, and stayed there.

There is a type of woman the lightest touch of whose hand is subtler and more sweet than the most honeyed kisses of others. And the Mother-Superior was not liberal of caresses. When Lynette turned her lips to the hand, the face that bent over the paper remained as stern and as absorbed as ever. She went on writing, directed, closed, and stamped her letter, and set it aside under a pebble of white quartz, lined and streaked with the faint silvery green of gold.

"Now, my child?"

The girl said, flushing scarlet:

"Reverend Mother, I have told the Red Class the truth about me!"

The Mother-Superior started; dismay was in her face.

"Why, child?"

"I – I mean" – the scarlet flush gave place to paleness – "that I have no name and no family, and no friends except you, dearest, and the Sisters. That you found me, and took me in, and have kept me out of charity."