The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Three Read online

  In her nightly prayers she made it a secret between herself and God that she was the one novice who was most anxious that Doctor Stanton might sell his fine house to the convent. She prayed for almost an hour, kneeling on the floor in her long nightgown, her bare heels just touching, her eyes turned toward the long narrow window looking out over the brick wall into Doctor Stanton’s garden while the moonlight slanted down over her shoulders. At this time, she was convinced that her prayers would be heeded more readily if she followed the precepts of St. Theresa and tried to live the life the Little Flower lived when she had been a novice. But she didn’t ask that a shower of roses fall from heaven; she asked only that Doctor Stanton might sell his house to the convent.

  For many days, she prayed and fasted and was as much as possible like a little child and nearly always in a state of grace. When one of her relatives sent her a box of candies she at once gave it to the Mistress of the novices and would not take one for herself. But she got a little thinner. She was pale and her eyes were too big for her face, which was hardly round now. Then at midnight, when she was sitting in her stall in the choir, she fell forward on the floor, fainting.

  The Mistress, an elderly, severely kind, practical woman with a finely wrinkled face said, as she rubbed her wrists, “Sister Mary Rose, you haven’t been eating.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, still feeling dizzy, “I’ve been fasting to receive a favor.” She sat awkwardly in her straight-backed stall.

  The Mistress praised her admirable sincerity but explained it was not good for a novice to be too severe with herself. Sister Mary Rose, still weak and trembling, almost told her why she was fasting, but then, shaking her head twice, she determined to keep it a secret between herself and God.

  As soon as she was alone, she wondered if she might possibly be more effective following some other precept. After all, she was concerning herself with a very material affair, a transaction in property, and she wondered if the Spanish St. Teresa, a more worldly and practical woman, who, too, had been a nun, wouldn’t be more likely to assist her than little Theresa of Lisieux. So she began to think of talking, herself, to Doctor Stanton and had a kind of a vision of herself easily persuading the old man to be sensible about a business matter, and then modestly and shyly explaining to the joyful Mother Superior that she had only been an instrument because she so dearly loved the convent. But she heard that the doctor was sick, and anyway, he was supposed to be a harsh, domineering man.

  At the recreation hour one day she was walking by the high brick wall, past the statue of the Virgin. Some of the novices were playing catch with a tennis ball. Sister Magdalene of the Cross was tossing the ball to Sister Dolorosa, who turned and tossed it to Sister Mary Rose. It was in the forenoon before the sun began to shine too strongly and the three novices kept on tossing the ball to each other, laughing gleefully whenever one of them missed it, finding extraordinary delight whenever one had to assume a quaint or awkward posture. The Mistress encouraged them to do that; laugh readily and joyfully, for they had their long periods of silence which often left some of them moody and depressed. They were tossing the ball wildly and Sister Magdalene of the Cross, the plump girl, tossed it far over Sister Mary Rose’s head, over the brick wall into Doctor Stanton’s garden.

  The three young novices remained absolutely silent, looking at each other. Then, the ball came in an arc back over the wall again. Sister Mary Rose knew that the gardener, a man with a long brown moustache, who limped, and whom she had often seen from the window, bending down over Dr. Stanton’s flower beds, had returned it. At that moment, she got the idea she afterwards attributed to the goodness of her Spanish St. Teresa. She walked off by herself and would not catch the ball when it was thrown to her. It bounced away into the flowerbeds and Sister Dolorosa had to go and get it.

  Alone in her bedroom, she looked out the window at the doctor’s garden and saw the gardener bending over a flower bed, holding a rake upright with one hand, the other patting the earth at the base of a flower stem. The sun was shining brilliantly through the narrow window. The gardener was close to the iron fence between the street and the garden. Sister Mary Rose detached slowly from her neck a sacred medal and holding it in both hands closed her eyes, telling herself that if she carried out her plan she would be both deceitful and disobedient, but her excitement and determination only got stronger. So she assured herself earnestly, while holding the medal tightly, that her notion might be the cause of so much goodness the extent of her disobedience would be trifling compared with it. Then she said a long prayer, asking for St. Teresa’s help, and urging her to be an advocate for her, in case her trifling disobedience should be misunderstood.

  She asked permission to visit an aunt who lived in the city. Since she rarely asked for any kind of a favor, she readily received permission. She was told that Sister Magdalene of the Cross would go with her, for neither a novice nor a nun ever went any place alone outside the convent.

  The afternoon she was to go out she first of all looked nervously from the window into Dr. Stanton’s garden and sighed thankfully when she saw the gardener picking weeds by the fence. It was entirely necessary, if she was to be successful at all, that the gardener should be somewhere close to the street fence.

  Trembling and pale, but filled with an exhilarating excitement, Sister Mary Rose walked out sedately with Sister Magdalene of the Cross who was prattling gaily, glad of the opportunity to be walking in the city streets. They had come out the main entrance, down the steps, and were past the convent, almost to the iron fence, walking demurely, their hands folded under their little black capes, their eyes turned down to the sidewalk.

  The gardener did not even glance up at them as they passed. He was bending down, his back to the fence. He had on blue overalls and suspenders over a gray shirt. They were ten feet past him when Sister Mary Rose said suddenly to Sister Magdalene of the Cross, “Please, just a second, I want to ask the gardener if he found a tennis ball I lost the other day.”

  “Oh, you shouldn’t do that.”

  “Please, just a minute.”

  “But somebody will see you from the window.”

  Sister Mary Rose turned and before the startled girl could detain her, left her abruptly and walked over to the fence. The gardener, hearing her, straightened up, surprised, and said, “Good afternoon, Sister.”

  “Good afternoon,” she said timidly, hardly above a whisper, “How is the doctor?”

  “Poorly, Sister, very poorly.”

  “Would you do something for me,” she said shyly, smiling nervously. “I mean . . . Are you a Catholic?”

  “No, Miss. I’m sorry though.” She looked sweetly pretty with her round smooth face and her blue eyes and little black cape.

  “But just the same you’re a Christian, I’m sure of that,” she said.

  “Oh, I guess I can say that all right,” he said, smiling apologetically.

  “Will you take this?” she said cautiously, handing him her sacred medal, her back hiding it from Sister Magdalene of the Cross.

  “What’ll I do with it, Sister?”

  “Please bury it in the garden there. Please promise me.” Her cheeks began to flush a little.

  “It’ll be a pleasure to do it for you if it’ll amuse you,” he said, smiling.

  “Oh, thank you very much,” she said, smiling and flustered, turning away quickly. “I’ll say a prayer for you.”

  Sister Magdalene of the Cross, who had become impatient and a little offended, said, “What on earth were you talking about?”

  “He was saying he’d look especially for the ball, that’s all. To be polite I asked him about the doctor.”

  “The doctor isn’t a good man, and anyway, you know I’ll have to tell Mistress.”

  “Please, please promise me you won’t tell Mistress.”

  “But I ought to. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Please promise, little sister.”

  “All right,” the good natur
ed girl said reluctantly. “I’ll promise.”

  They went on talking seriously as they walked along the sidewalk, their heads held at the same angle, their hands hidden, their long black skirts swinging easily.

  A week and a half later, Doctor Stanton died. He was an old man and it was inevitable. The executors of his estate wished to dispose of his property quickly and the convent made much the most attractive offer. So they were assured of getting the property.

  Sister Mary Rose was ecstatically happy when she heard the convent would get the fine old house, and she was not bothered by the doctor’s death. At first she prayed fervently, thanking St. Teresa for interceding and obtaining her favor. She could hardly resist telling the other novices about her special prayers and how she had persuaded the gardener to bury the sacred medal in the doctor’s yard. She suffered the ecstasy of feeling she had been an instrument, but dared not tell the Mistress about it because she had been both sly and disobedient.

  It occurred to her at collation hour, when eating a thickly buttered slice of bread, that she might, in a way, have been responsible for the doctor’s death by wishing for it. Though she hadn’t actually wished the death, it amounted to the same thing. When she first had this thought she said, as she was sure her strong St. Teresa would have, that the good of the whole convent was more important than the life of one man. But suddenly she felt weak and left the other novices, and went up to the bedroom, depressed and disturbed, wondering about her guilt or innocence.

  All night she lay awake, tossing on her hard bed, rubbing her shoulders and elbows on the board till they were scraped and sore. She was wondering whether this feeling of depres-sion and sorrow wasn’t an intimation that she really had no vocation and ought to leave the convent, as two of the novices were doing at the end of the week. It was plainly her duty in this first period of her novitiate to be watchful of every circumstance indicating that she really did not have a vocation. First, she thought miserably she ought to leave the convent at the end of the week because she was a deceitful worldly woman interested only in material affairs. Then she thought uneasily just before she went to sleep that perhaps, if she waited a week, she might become reconciled to her own conscience, and then no one need ever know.

  The Two Brothers

  As she came along the lane in the dusk the little wind from the lake blew her thin dress against her body, and there was still enough light to show the eagerness that was in her face. She came up to the fence where he was leaning so dejectedly, and never before had he felt so sure that she wanted to be with him.

  “You’re early tonight, Peg,” he said.

  “I knew you’d be waiting here, Tom. I tried to finish the work early. I was restless. I thought we might walk.” Her voice was very soft in her eagerness to soothe him. Tonight she had made herself look more lovely than ever so that when he saw her he would think only of how much he liked her thick, light hair, her full mouth and the curve of her breast. Walking along in the dusk on the dirt road running up from the lake they had never felt so close together. They liked this new warmth of feeling between them. They were quiet, listening to the crickets in the grass. They watched the darker shapes of cows moving lazily in the pasture land, and they knew they were having the same thoughts: they were thinking of yesterday in town, and of the courthouse and of his brother Frank: they were thinking of the last thing Frank did after the white-haired judge, talking in a measured monotone, had sentenced him to a year and a half in jail for a drunken murderous assault on an officer. Frank had turned, smiling reassuredly at the crowd; and standing there in front of the big window that looked out over the lake he was young, dark and very splendid. Through the window behind him they could see the sweep of the blue lake with the sun on it and the thick bank of clouds overhead. When Tom and Peg went up to shake hands sorrowfully, Frank had said, teasing them, “You’d better marry Peg in a hurry, Tom, because I’ll be seeing you both shortly.” He was absolutely without shame, and was led away laughing.

  As they walked along silently Peg wanted to show Tom all the sympathy she felt for him. She knew that young Frank had always spent most of his time in town with the girls while Tom worked hard on the farm and worried about what his brother might do, with his wild way; Tom had carried around year after year a knowledge in his heart of something fearful impending. Peg could not bear to have Tom walking beside her with such dark, sad thoughts of his brother, and she said, “I know you’ll miss him. But a year and a half goes quickly, Tom.”

  “It’s what it may do to him I’m thinking of,” he said. “We were always together. You get used to being together no matter what happens.” He was ashamed of the way his words were breaking. “I mean it doesn’t matter really what he did. We’ve been a long time together, that’s all.”

  “I’ve been wondering all the time what he meant when he said, ‘I’ll be seeing you both shortly.’ What did he mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he said uneasily.

  “You don’t think he’d try to get away?”

  “Maybe he’d be just that crazy. It’s bad enough now and it would be worse for everybody then with everybody chasing him. Please Peg, let’s stop talking about him all my life. I want to stop.” His words came from him in such an agitated manner that she was afraid, and she was silent for a while, pondering, and then she brushed close against him, patting his arm, stirring him so he would think only of her.

  His troubled thoughts made his thin face haggard and she longed to comfort him and show him plainly that there was a depth of love in her for him that he had never known. She said simply, “Let’s go over there by the old elm and sit down.”

  Leaving the road he helped her over the wire fence, and when they sat in the thick grass by the tree the moon shone out on the fields and there were hardly any sounds. Tom began to think that the silence and the peace between them was beautiful. Peg, who was lying full length on the grass, was looking up at the sky with an expression of tender sadness on her face, content to be there with him. As he stared down at her so solemnly he marveled that she could have such a simple peace. After a long time he touched her thick hair timidly with his hand, brushing it back from her temple, and then he looked away over the field. “Look at the moonlight on the buckwheat, Peg,” he said. They both looked over there at the buckwheat, which in daytime in July was like a field of separate white flowers; now with the moonlight flooding it, it glistened like a field of bright snow in the sunlight, but so much softer, more like a bank of light just on the other side of the road. They were both full of wonder and in Tom there was an unexpected elation. “Isn’t it beautiful,” he heard her saying, and then her head was sinking back and she lay with the same light shining on her face, only there was a marvelous softness and willingness in it that he had never seen before. For two years he had been wanting her for his girl, but he had always been afraid that she would never in any way show that she completely accepted him: it had been hard for him to believe that she would ever want to marry him. Yet now she was smiling up at his sober face, glad of what was so surely in him. With his heart beating heavily he bent down and kissed her, feeling her hands holding his head tenderly as she drew his face close to her. Never in his life, which had been full of hard work and laconic ways, had he felt such happiness. But he did not know what to do, he was so afraid that she might move, or that something would happen to spoil it. There was such a little shadow on her eyelids. Then her eyes were open, watching him, and she waited. After a time the clouds, which were getting thicker, obscured the light.

  The fields were stirred by a strengthening wind from the lake. There was no longer a bank of light on the field of buckwheat.

  “It’s going to rain,” she said.

  “I don’t think it’s going to rain.”

  “Yes, it is. We’d better go,” she said, and she got up reluctantly. As they walked along the road she was swinging her body a bit and humming. She had picked up a blade of grass and kept holding the stem to her lip.
r />   “Would you love me, Peg? Would you love me always?” he asked.

  “It’s never seemed like this before, has it, Tom?”

  “What does it make you feel like?”

  “Just glad.”

  He didn’t know how to answer he was so excited, and they walked along the lane under the great elms with the leaves rustling loudly to the gate, hanging on one hinge, and there she said, “Good night, Tom. It was lovely.” She was very quiet, almost grave now.

  As he went away he felt like a happy excited child, he was so lucky. “She would have loved me very much tonight,” he thought.

  At the orchard he climbed the fence, and when he was passing under the apple trees and hearing the horses moving in the stalls in the barn, he began to think, “Her father’ll be in bed. She wanted more love than she got from me tonight. She’ll still be wanting, maybe.”

  For half an hour as he did whatever chores he had to do before going to bed he kept thinking of her being really alone in the house, unsatisfied with the little love he had offered. The eagerness to go back to her became too strong to resist.

  Hurrying along the lane he saw that there was no light upstairs where her father slept, just the one light downstairs where he was sure she waited. Tiptoeing to the door, he whistled softly, a signal, though he had never whistled for her before. The wind was blowing strongly from the lake now, blowing his hair back from his head, and he felt weak thinking what he might do. He tapped lightly on the door. When there was no answer he pushed the door open and looked in the big room. Near the window was a black leather couch and she was lying on the couch with her face pressed down against the leather. “Peg,” he whispered. “Peg.” She raised her head slowly and he saw that her face was sad and troubled, and though she was trying to smile, her eyes were wet.