"Well, I shall hear you sing to-day. I've been wishing to go to St. Joseph's to hear Palestrina. You were brought up on music. You can sing at sight—in the key that it is written in?"
"Yes, I think so."
"But all prima-donnas can do that?"
"No; on the contrary, I think I'm the only one. Singers on the operatic stage learn their parts at the piano."
She could see that to Sister Mary John music was the temptation of her life, and she imagined that her confession must be a little musical record. She had lost her temper with Sister So-and-So because she could not, etc. But time was getting on. If she was to sing that afternoon, she must find something, and seeing that Sister Mary John lingered over some sheets of music, as if she thought that it presented some possibility, Evelyn asked her what it was. It was a Mass by Mozart for four voices, which Sister Mary John had arranged for a single voice.
"The choir and I sing the melody in unison, and I play the entire Mass on the organ."
Evelyn smiled, and seeing that the smile distressed the nun, she was sorry.
"To you, of course, it would sound absurd, it does to me too, but it was a little change, it was the only thing I could think of. We have some pieces written for two voices, but I can hardly get them sung. I have to teach the sisters the parts separately. Till they know them by heart, I can't trust them. It is impossible sometimes not to lose one's temper. If we had a few good voices, people would come to hear them, the convent would be spoken about, and some charitable people would come forward and pay off our mortgages. I've lain awake at night thinking of it; the Reverend Mother agrees with me. But in the way of voices we've been as unlucky as we could well be. I've been here eight years—there was one, but she died six years ago of consumption. It is heartbreaking. I play the organ, I beat the time, and, as I said to them the other day, 'There are five of you, and I'm the only one that sings.'"
Sister Mary John asked Evelyn if she composed. Evelyn told her that she did not compose, and remembering Owen's compositions, she hoped that Sister Mary John had not an "O Salutaris" in manuscript.
"Let me look through the music; we are talking of other things instead of looking."