Thunder On The Right (8 page)

She stood rooted, staring.

Basically, the chapel was the same as the rest of the convent buildings; the walls were whitewashed, the arches of doors and windows simple, the stonework plain.

The pillars stood sturdy and unadorned, and the Stations of the Cross lurked, dim and inoffensive, between the windows. The only statue was a small one of Our Lady on the single side altar. But there austerity ended. Up the length of the nave, cutting the white simplicity in two with one arrogant crimson slash, a deep-red carpet ran like a river of blood, drawing the eye swiftly on toward the chancel as the stroke on a flower's petal guides the bee straight into the gold. Past the sturdy pillars, between the plain benches, up the chancel steps, into the shadowy cave of the apse where the sanctuary lamp glimmered above the high altar. . . .

Jennifer went quickly up the aisle and mounted the chancel steps. She paused at the low rail, beautifully carved of some dark wood, and stood, again to gaze.

It was gold, sure enough,, that the crimson arrow led to; the seven-branched sanctuary lamp was of gold, and so were the heavy twin arms of the candlesticks, but it was not these that caught and held the eye. Behind and above the high altar, away from the wall, but acting as reredos and east window at once, was a great triptych, its three paintings heavily framed in gray and blue. And here, in the towering rush of flames and wings and the ecstasies of saints, even Jennifer's half-educated eye could trace the hand of a master whose work was not commonly shrined in such places as this. Those soaring visionary gestures, the angular robes, the slashing diagonals of silver and purple and acid yellow . . . who on earth, she thought confusedly, had hidden one of the world's El Grecos in this comparative oblivion?

Was there not someone—here her thoughts became, if possible, vaguer yet—were there no museums, galleries, the great churches of his own Toledo, who might stop this burying of masterpieces alive?

She pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes, and then blinked up at the picture again. Masterpiece? El Greco? It was absurd, of course. This couldn't possibly be an El Greco. Not here. It was some trick of memory, no more. But the impression persisted. Surely she could not be wrong? Of all painters, El Greco was the least mistakable. And could a copy or an imitation rouse in the onlooker that queer breathless mixture of exaltation and humility with which we find ourselves studying the best things men have made with their hands? Even as she stared at the picture, Jennifer recognized this as a fallacy; to an inexperienced eye like hers a good copy would doubtless speak as loudly of beauty as the master's own handiwork. No, she had no means of telling. But whether this was a first-rate copy, or the thing itself, it was surely sufficiently surprising to find it here in a community that elsewhere seemed to underline its poverty?

She peered at the corners of the darkening paint, in the slender hope of some closer identification, but could see no name. Then with some confused memory of painters who marked their canvases on the back, she stepped past the altar, and peered at the back of the left-hand panel, where the side of the triptych stood clear of the wall.

The frame was solidly backed, and the reverse of the canvas, in consequence, hidden. Jennifer, peering in the dim light, ran a disappointed finger down the joint of the frame. It encountered something, a paper or fragment of soft wood, sticking out between frame and backing. Pressing her head closer to the wall, and exerting her eyes in the gloom, she could just see what looked like the graying edge of a paper whose corner was escaping from its hiding place. She plucked at it carefully with her nails, and presently, with some excitement, drew it out.

Just what she expected to see she had no idea; if she had stopped to think, she would have known how remote were the chances of finding an identifying paper tucked into a frame at least three centuries younger than the canvas. But she carried the paper to the chancel steps, where the light was better, and smoothed it out with slightly unsteady fingers. It was yellowed and dirty, and tore a little along the crease as she unfolded it. It appeared to be a letter, or part of a letter, written in French:

"—C'est alors après avoir regu l'assurance de notre ami mutuel que j'ai osé
vous approcher. . .."

With rapidly dwindling interest she read on:

"—So it was with the assurance of this mutual friend that I approached you. I am relieved to hear that you are willing, and

I suppose it inevitable in the circumstances that you should set your terms so high.

This, then, finally:—I shall come as

arranged on the night of the sixth September, and I will pay you three million francs, this being the sum agreed upon previously.

I note your instructions about baggage. In the circumstances they are not exactly necessary.

ISAAC LENORMAND

That was all; a modern idiom, an unmistakably modern hand, a signature that meant nothing. Jennifer knitted her brows over it for a moment; should she attempt to restore it to its hiding place? Probably in any case, she thought, not strictly a "hiding place"—the letter had undoubtedly been pushed in merely to wedge the frame, which gaped a little at that point. It could hardly matter. But perhaps . .

A movement, a slight sound from the dim aisle of the Lady chapel, set her heart unaccountably scudding. She thrust the already-forgotten scrap of paper into her pocket, and descended the chancel steps, annoyed that the hush and mystery of the chapel should, apparently, have brought back all the tremors she had been trying to put aside. She glanced into the Lady chapel and saw that what had alarmed her was only a girl in a blue cotton dress, who was kneeling at the edge of the little pool of light that bathed the Virgin's statue; it was one of the orphans, who had crept in quietly to pray while Jennifer had been in the chancel.

She glanced curiously at the smaller altar, to see that here, too, the lavish hand had been at work, for the little statue was finely made of bronze and ivory, and tiny jewels winked on the hilt of the sword that pierced the Virgin's heart.

Notre-Dame-de-Douleur
. . . an odd choice, surely, for a children's chapel? Jennifer turned to hurry down the nave, chiding herself for having wasted so much time, but as she moved away, the kneeling girl crossed herself and stood up. It was Celeste.

Jennifer, elated at the luck which had sent the girl across her path before the bursar had had a chance to see her, stopped at the back of the chapel and waited. Celeste genuflected deeply in front of the statue, then came swiftly down the aisle and turned toward the north door.

She checked when she saw the other waiting there.

"Ah, Celeste," said Jennifer, gently, "I was hoping to see you again."

"But—but mademoiselle, I thought you had gone!"

"No doubt. But I am still here, as you see. If you will be so good as to answer one or two questions------"

The uneasiness was flickering again, unmistakable, in the lovely eyes. "I don't think—I must not------" began the girl nervously.

Jennifer said, roundly, "Were you telling me the truth this afternoon, Celeste, when you said that Madame Lamartine had never once mentioned her English relatives, even when you asked her?"

The girl's eyes widened. "But yes, mademoiselle! Of course! If she had told us------"

"Quite. But it seems to me quite impossible that she should not have done so, if, as you say, she was conscious and lucid at all. But if she did not—it did occur to me that there might be an explanation for this."

"Mademoiselle?"

Jennifer said, directly, "Supposing she had mentioned me, and asked you—you and Doña Francisca—to write, and you had neglected to do so. Supposing------"

But Celeste, flushing scarlet, interrupted her with patent indignation.

"But she did
not
tell us! I have told you, mademoiselle —she did not! What you're suggesting is wicked! Monstrous!"

"No," said Jennifer evenly, "not wicked. Merely negligent. Enough to make you as reluctant as you apparently are to answer questions. What are you frightened of, Celeste?"

"I? Frightened? That is absurd, mademoiselle!" And indeed she looked, now, not frightened so much as angry. "Why should I be afraid of you?"

"I wondered that. And you weren't at first. It was only when I asked you why you'd gone to get the gentians."

The girl's eyes fell, once again her face went blank. She said nothing.

"Was it because you knew you'd made a mistake?"

The dark eyes lifted. "Mistake? I don't understand. What sort of mistake?"

"Never mind. But why should you mind my asking you about them?"

"I don't," said Celeste, and, surprisingly, smiled.

"Very well," said Jennifer. "Then tell me this—and I think I shall know if it's the truth: why
did
you take my cousin gentians?"

Celeste stared, perplexed. "I told you. I was—I was fond of her."

"Yes, I know. But why gentians?"

"She liked them."

"Did she say so?"

Bewilderment showed still in the girl's eyes, with, behind it, a kind of relief. As if, thought Jennifer, these, at least, were easy questions to answer.

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

Celeste lifted her hands a little, helplessly.

"Mademoiselle, I do not understand."

Jennifer was patient. "When she said she liked the gentians, what did she say? Did you bring them to her, and did she just say thank you, and how pretty they were, or what? Try to remember for me, Celeste; after all, she was my cousin, and any little thing she said—I could bring gentians, too, tomorrow. . .."

Celeste, being too young and too accustomed to the symbolic trappings of everyday convent life to see the sentimental absurdity of this, gave Jennifer a still bewildered but softer glance, and knitted her brows. Jennifer waited, her throat suddenly conscripted with excitement.

"No," said the girl at length, "it was not like that. I remember how I got the idea that they were her favorite flowers. It was soon after she came. I had brought in a big bunch of flowers—all sorts—and I was putting them beside her bed. She lay watching me and then she put out her hand—oh, so slowly" -- her own hand moved out in a remembered gesture —"and touched the gentians. She said "The blue ones, Celeste, what are they? I said gentians. She said "They are so beautiful. I never saw such a blue. Put them closer where I can see them. So after that I brought them every day."

"Thank you," said Jennifer, on a long breath, and Celeste, seeing the look in her face, drew back with some of her former alarm.

"Is that all, mademoiselle?"

"That's all," said Jennifer, and laughed, an excited, breathless little laugh. "And please forgive me for having suggested that you were lying before!"

"It is nothing. And now, mademoiselle, if you'll excuse me------"

"Of course. You have to see Doña Francisca, haven't you?" Jennifer fought hard to keep her voice even. "Would you be good enough to show me the way to the Reverend Mother's room, please?"

"I—Yes, of course." And Celeste, with a return of her old nervousness, threw Jennifer a strangely wary look as she passed her to lead the way out of the chapel.

Jennifer, following her hurrying guide across the hall and up the wide staircase, tried vainly to compose her churning thoughts into some semblance of order. What she had just listened to had certainly been the truth: the story had begun to hang together, even if, in so doing, it became more deeply a mystery. The dying woman had actually asserted that she had no relatives—and the dying woman had not been color-blind.

She had not, in sober fact, been Gillian Lamartine.

And where, thought Jennifer, jubilant and desperate at once, as Celeste led her into the light of the upper corridor —where do we go from here? Where, in God's name, do we go from here?

For the second time that day she met the bright brown gaze of St. Anthony, staring at her over his cactus bristle of candles. A lot of candles, a lot of answered prayers.

. .
Rejoice with me, for I have found that which was lost.

She put out a hand, and lightly touched one of the wreaths of everlastings on the saint's pedestal, then turned as her guide stopped in front of the nearest door and raised a hand to knock.

"No!" said Jennifer sharply. The girl stopped, her hand still raised.

Jennifer's face was flushed and her eyes were dark with annoyance. "I asked you to take me to the Mother Superior, That's not her room, is it?"

"Why, I------"

"That's Doña Francisca's room, isn't it?"

"Yes. I only thought------"

Jennifer's eyes and voice were cold. Mrs. Silver would have had to look twice to recognize her gentle daughter. She said, "You were asked to take me to the Mother Superior. Kindly do so at once."

Celeste's hand fell to her side. With lowered eyes she sidled past Jennifer and led her to the door at the far end of the corridor.

"This is the Reverend Mother's room, mademoiselle."

"Thank you." As the girl stood aside, Jennifer knocked. There was a gentle "Come in."

As she obeyed, she had a confused impression, behind her, of Celeste whisking away, back down the corridor. The Reverend Mother's door closed behind her.

Farther down the corridor, like a soft echo, another door shut, too.

The first thing that met Jennifer, as she advanced into the Mother Superior's room, was the sunlight. Through the tall undraped window it poured, and beat back in tangible waves of bright heat from the cream-washed walls and ceiling and from the white boarded floor, where a single narrow rug emphasized the fact that here, too, the rule of Spartan poverty was upheld. The two straight chairs, the plain wood table, the uncarved faldstool, bare even of a kneeling pad, bore this out. There was nothing to mitigate the shining bareness but one plaque on the wall, a plate-shaped affair in high relief depicting the Virgin and Child. Remembering the chapel, Jennifer glanced at this with interest as she entered, then with surprise; it was a crude affair of the cheapest, a Brummagem Delia Robbia, bought probably in Lourdes.