"Why has that woman a beard, Sue?" she asked cheerfully. Imagine my feelings! I did not dare look at Mary.
We went all through the school-rooms and she was most curious about the globes and blackboards and pianos. We stopped at the door of a tiny music room, and I smiled, as I always do, at the pretty little picture. The young girl with her Gretchen braids of yellow hair, straight-backed in front of the piano, the nervous, grey-haired little music master watchfully posted behind her, beating time, and in the corner the calm-faced Sister, pink-cheeked under her spreading cap, knitting, with constantly moving lips. The music rooms are so wee that the group seemed like a gracefully posed genre picture. Before we knew what she was about, Margarita had slipped in behind the music master and brought both hands down with a crash on the keys, so that the Chopin Prelude ended abruptly in an hysterical wail and the young lady half fell off the stool—only half, for Margarita pushed her the rest of the way, I regret to say. Fortunately Mary was able to get us out of it, but I fear there was no more Prelude that day! Why will women play Chopin, by the way? I never heard one who could—Aus der Ohe is masculine enough, heaven knows, but even that amount of talent doesn't seem to accomplish it. Do you remember Frederick's diatribes on the subject? He used to say that Congress should forbid Chopin to women, on pain of life imprisonment.
But you must hear the end of the visit. We went into Mary's room—perfectly bare, you know, with a great crucifix on the wall and below it, part of the woodwork, a little cup for holy water. As soon as she entered the room Margarita paused, and gave a sort of gasp—her hand, which I held tight in mine, grew cold as ice. She moved over slowly to the crucifix, with her eyes glued to it—she seemed utterly unconscious of us, or where she was; she stood directly under the crucifix, with Mary and me on either side of her shaking with excitement, and then she put out her hand in a wavering, unsteady way, like a blind person, dipped her fingers in the empty bowl and began to cross herself! She touched her forehead quickly, then moved her hand slowly down her chest, fumbled toward one side, then drew a long breath and stared at us, winking like a baby.
"I wish I had some food, Sue," she said, and actually yawned and stretched her arms, like a plow-boy, in our faces. "I think this room makes me hungry. Are you not hungry, Mary?"
Now, Jerry, what do you make of that? She cannot have seen a crucifix, can she? Nor anyone crossing themselves? She acted like a woman walking in her sleep. If I lived in Boston and were interested in that sort of thing I could swear that she had been a nun in her last incarnation!
Mary is, of course, much wrought up, and is going to set the whole convent praying for her, I believe. I told Roger about it, but you know what he is—it sounded rather silly as soon as I had it begun. He pointed out that there were plenty of chances for her to have seen the Sisters crossing themselves before crucifixes, and other sensible explanations. But really and truly, Jerry, I was with her every minute, and she did what she had not seen done.
What do you think of it?
Yours always,
Sue Paynter.
