Yours affectionately in J. C.
Sister Catherine.
Here was another wide turning out of that long lane, every bit as wide and important as the first, but leading in exactly the opposite direction.
Nancy looked at the contract from Mr. Plimmer and at the letter from Sister Catherine. Why was she hesitating which road to take? Was it the dread of parting with Letizia? A little. Was it the thought of the disappointment of Mr. Plimmer, who with all his absurdity had appreciated Letizia and thus endeared himself to her mother? A little. Was it the fancy that Mrs. Pottage might be hurt by the rejection of an offer that she would have supposed so welcome? A little. Or was it cowardice about her own immediate future? That most of all. It was the dread of tempting fortune by a refusal of this engagement. It was the dread of sending back that comfortably crackling five-pound note and having to pawn her last brooch before she could even pay for the registered letter in which it ought to be sent. It was dread of the tawny London sky louring at her through that curtainless window, of tumbledown wooden stairs in Maiden Lane and weary stone steps in Garrick Street, of seeing her wedding-ring appraised by a pawnbroker’s thick and grimy fingers, of loneliness, eternal, aching loneliness. There recurred the picture of that old lady framed by vermilion cushions, and the sound of her high thin voice repeating, “Educate your child. Educate her.” There came back the old lady’s confident interpretation of her grandson’s unuttered wish. Whatever the cost, Bram would surely choose the convent. Nancy was once more in that silent tunnel, listening to Sister Catherine’s voice plangent with the echoes of her passionate fled youth. She remembered how deeply fraught with significance that conversation had seemed. And the impulse that had drawn her footsteps to Blackboy Passage to inquire for letters she did not expect? Who should dare to say it was not Bram himself who had guided her thither? So that between Letizia and the future offered her stood nothing except her mother’s cowardice.
Nancy took her brooch to the pawnbroker’s and raised upon it the sum of fifteen shillings and sixpence. Of this she spent a shilling in sending this telegram.
Sister Catherine
5 Arden Grove.
N. W.
Your letter just received gratefully accept your kind offer will call and see you this afternoon
Nancy Fuller.
Then she bought a registered envelope and slipped the five-pound note inside it with a letter of apology to Mr. Plimmer.
Fourteen shillings and threepence in the world, but Letizia was safe. She found a Catholic church and spent the odd coppers lighting three penny candles to Our Lady of Victories.