“What charges did he bring against you?” Dunoisse asked, controlling as best he could the contempt and anger that burned in his black eyes, and vibrated in his voice.
“He said I had revenged myself for the withdrawal of his patronage, and my removal from his service,” gulped poor Smithwick, “by poisoning the mind of his only child! He complained that you refused to touch a franc of his money—preferring to work your way upwards under heavy disadvantages, rather than accept from him, your father, any portion of the fortune he had always meant should be yours. And”—she put her handkerchief away and nodded her head in quite a determined manner—“I wrote back and told him, Hector—that I esteemed your course of conduct, though my counsels had not inspired it; and that your mother, when she learned of your determination, would be proud of her noble son!”
Dunoisse would have spoken here, but Smithwick held up her thin hand and stopped him.
“For it seems to me, dear child of my dearest mistress, that to take what has been given to God, is the way to call down the just judgment of Heaven upon the heads of those who are guilty of such deeds,” said Smithwick, nodding her mild gray head emphatically. “And, rather than live in gilded affluence upon those funds, wrested from the coffers of the Carmelite House of Charity at Widinitz, I would infinitely prefer to carry on existence—as I have done, dear Hector—until my health failed me in my attic room at Hampstead, on a penny roll a day. And she would uphold me and agree with me.”
“Who is she, dear friend?” asked Hector, smiling, though his heart was sore within him at the picture of dire need revealed in these utterances of the simple lady.
“I speak of our Lady Superintendent.... A remarkable personality, my dear Hector, if I may venture to say so.... It was she who, finding this benevolent charity suffering from mismanagement and lack of funds, endowed it with a portion of her large fortune, induced other wealthy persons to subscribe towards endowing the foundation with a permanent income, and, finding no trustworthy person of sufficient capacity to fill the post, herself assumed the duties of Resident Matron. Imagine it, my dear!” said gentle Smithwick. “At her age—for she is still young—possibly your senior by a year or two, certainly not more—to forego Society and the giddy round of gilded pleasure to be found in London and dear, dear Paris!— for the humdrum routine of a Hospital; the training and management of nurses; the regulation of prescriptions, diets, and accounts!”
“Indeed! A vocation, one would say!” commented Dunoisse.
“She would ask you,” returned Miss Smithwick, “must one necessarily be a nun to work for the good of others?”
The words stirred a dim recollection in Dunoisse of having heard them before. But the image of the Lady Superintendent of the Hospice for Sick Governesses formed itself within his mind. He saw her as a plain, sensible, plump little spinster, well advanced towards the thirties, resigned to exchange hopeless rivalries with other young women, not only rich, but pretty, for undivided rule and undisputed sway over a large household of dependents.... preferring the ponderous compliments of Members of Visiting Committees to the assiduities of impecunious Guardsmen and money-hunting detrimentals. He said, as the picture faded:
“This lady who has been so kind to you——”