Tales of the Cloister/The Surrender of Sister Philomene
The Surrender of Sister Philomene
The Surrender of Sister Philomene
HE whole matter dated from the arrival of the baby.
He was brought to the convent in the form of a large and feverishly active bundle, which, being unrolled, revealed to the eyes of the Mother Superior and her secretary a small boy.
He was about two years old, and had blue eyes, yellow curls, and a constant and radiant smile which disclosed six absurdly small teeth. He had also very fat legs, a large dimple in each cheek, and a manner which was familiar to the last degree.
Having thrown aside his wrappings and pushed them out of the way with the toe of his buttoned boot, he calmly walked over to the Mother Superior, climbed into her lap, laid his yellow head against the stiff linen that covered her bosom, and, with a smile of sweet content, dropped into a restful slumber.
This incident led to his acceptance as an inmate of the institution. Notwithstanding the pathos of his position, so young an orphan, and the fact that the mother who had just died had herself been brought up in the convent, the nuns had decided that they could not take him even for the few months during which his guardian wished him to remain with them. They had intended to convey this information to the trained nurse who had brought him, but the ease and assurance of his manner, his little black dress, and his air of having reached home after a weary journey, checked the words upon their lips. The Mother Superior hastily deposited her unusual burden on a hair-cloth "sofa" that stood in the corner, but she was observed to turn a fascinated gaze upon it even while she retired to the other end of the reception-room for a hurried consultation with her secretary.
The nurse glanced from the sleeping child to the two black-veiled heads so close together, and smiled to herself. She knew full well the fascinations of Frederick Addison Malcolm, aged two. Had he not turned the battery of them upon her since his mother's death, and was not her heart even now wrung at the prospect of parting from him? Of course the nuns would keep him. Who could help it? She rose to her feet as the Superior came towards her.
"You may leave him," said the nun, gravely—"for a time, at least; we can do no less in memory of his mother."
The nurse kissed the sleeping baby and went away with tears dimming her brown eyes.
The secretary bent and lifted the sturdy figure in her thin arms. It was no light weight, and the effort she made woke Frederick Addison Malcolm from his slumbers. He turned one sleepy blue eye on her, then the other, and a look of supreme discontent settled upon his brow. He sat up with a ruffled countenance, and beat his small heels upon the secretary's stomach. She put him hastily on the floor.
"Fweddie tan yalk hisself," he remarked, with dignity. He toddled over to the door where the Superior stood surveying him with interest and awe. He looked up into her face and bobbed his head with ingratiating friendliness.
"Fweddie tan yalk," he repeated. Then he slid his dimpled hand into her soft cool one, buried his curls in her black robe, and thought better of his proposition. "But Fweddie would like oo to cawwy him," he added, with a little gurgle of delight over the happy thought.
A slow pink flush stole up to the nun's forehead. She glanced uneasily at her secretary and down at the small autocrat whose hands held her a prisoner. He removed them and lifted his arms to her with a shade of surprise in his blue eyes. Never before had any one held out against them. The baby's little world for a moment reeled under his feet. Then the dignified woman above him bent and lifted him gently.
He tucked his head under her chin, and his dimpled hand stole up and rested against her cheek. She laid her head against his for an instant, and an inarticulate sound passed her lips—the sound every baby knows and every true woman makes when she feels a little body nestling against her heart. The two left the room together, and the secretary followed them down the long dim corridor to the refectory, her eyes twinkling behind her glasses.
In exactly one week Frederick Addison Malcolm was the head of the institution. He decided no questions and he signed no papers, but he gave orders freely to high and low alike, and there was in the land the sound of footsteps hastening to do his bidding. The nuns were not at all sure that this was right. They had many theories on the training of children, and were anxious to demonstrate them on the 
"'YOU MAY LEAVE HIM,' SAID THE NUN, GENTLY"
They knew he should not be carried from place to place; he was large enough to walk. Yet when he sat down in a flower-bed or in the middle of the chapel and announced that he was tired, it was obviously impossible to leave him there. At the suggestion of Sister Philomene they tried this plan once or twice. But as young Frederick had immediately fallen into a pleasant slumber, the experiment could hardly be called a success, especially as half the nuns in the institution were unable to concentrate their minds on anything else while it was in progress.
Another point which greatly disturbed them was his insistence on being rocked to sleep. This was a highly improper performance. They all knew that, and each could have quoted excellent authority for the conviction. The thing to do, without question, was to put the child in his crib, tell him he must go to sleep, and leave him there to do it. There could, of course, be no objection to one's remaining outside the door and listening until all was quiet. But Frederick's conduct made this course impossible. It was not that he cried; if he had they might have summoned strength to leave him. He did not cry. His air was one of pathetic surprise at desertion, mingled with a beautiful submission and an abnormal wakefulness. He lay in the dim room, talking softly to himself, or making a queer humming sound which he seemed to think was pleasingly musical. Occasionally he sat up, and the anxious watchers outside, their ranks constantly augmented by others as anxious, heard a scramble, or the sound of a falling toy or pillow.
Once the thump was so very loud that prompt investigation was made, and the fat body of Frederick was discovered reposing on the floor. He had fallen out of his crib, but he showed no bitterness over the incident. After the baby had been rocked and crooned over for five or ten minutes he was off to the Land of Nod.
This solution of the problem was so simple and so humane that he was thereupon rocked, and there was a spirited rivalry as to who should perform the kindly service. Every nun volunteered but one—Sister Philomene. She was observed to shun the company of Frederick Addison.
Sister Philomene was not sentimental. She was absolutely just, but very cold, and a little hard. She had no favorites, and had not even the quasi-intimates that are all conventual life permits. She secretly prided herself on her unbending nature. Had he shared her in difference all would have been well, but right here the fine, subtle irony of the situation was manifest. With the perverseness of Fate, it was on Sister Philomene that the Light of the Convent had fastened his youthful affections.
No one could understand it, and certainly the baby could not explain it. Perhaps May Iverson, a pupil at the institution, came the nearest to the kernel of the situation.
"It is the contrariness of man," she said, positively. "The infant is a flirt, even at this tender age. He is tired of the cloying sweets he is getting on all sides, so he is making love to unresponsive Sister Philomene by way of variety."
Making love he certainly was. At the first glimpse of the austere face of the nun, whose eyes were the only eyes that looked at him coldly, whose lips were the only ones that did not curve into smiles under his, the baby started for her as fast as his chubby legs could carry him. Through the convent corridors and along the garden walks he pursued her, his curls standing on end with joyful excitement, his six teeth shining, his voice cooing appeals to her to "wait for Fweddie."
She never did. Unexpected doors swallowed her up, dark and unexplored corners wrapped her in mystery, and on the edge of the abysses into which she had seemingly dropped Frederick Addison was wont to pause in wide-eyed wonder. There was comedy in the little drama, but there was tragedy too.
The summer came and went, and Frederick continued on his sunny way. He spent the long days in the garden, rolling his little wheelbarrow up and down the path and over the flower beds, leaving devastation in his wake, to be freely forgiven. His orbit could be traced by crumbs of the seed-cake he was usually eating, which was fortunate, for he fell asleep in out-of-the-way corners, and had to be discovered by rescue bands. He had for each of his favorite Sisters some weird and mysterious name by which he called her, and to which she proudly answered. The ease and startling familiarity of his manner became intensified as time passed. He demanded songs and "tories" from the Mother Superior, and took the pins out of her veil and showed a feverish interest in the question of her ears—which, of course, her coif concealed. It was rumored that on one occasion he refused to be comforted until she had unfastened the linen bands and exhibited her ears to his inspection—but this story was never verified.
When the chilly days of autumn came he still dug in the garden, enveloped in a little tightly buttoned reefer and woollen "leggings," and wearing on his head a hood in which his face shone like a red apple. Frederick Addison believed in fresh air, and got it by his usual method of quietly taking what he wanted.
When the winter snow began to fall and the flower-beds were covered and the birds spread their wings and left him, dreary days began for the infant. He became a "shut-in," and all the attractions of the play-room fitted for him failed to compensate for the loss of the birds and the flowers he loved.
Friends of the young mother who slept under the deepening snows thought of her baby behind the convent walls, and brought him gifts and playthings. The nuns developed a marvellous talent for games of which they had never before heard, and their repertoire of songs and stories adapted to the amusement of small boys grew like a rolling snowball. But the baby was bored and showed it. He turned again to Sister Philomene, but found her as of yore—as frosty as the outside air. Intrepid as he was, he shook in his little shoes when she turned her cold glance upon him; but her fascination still held and his allegiance to her did not waver.
Then one night he fell ill.
He had not been wholly well for several days. His red cheeks were more flushed than usual, and the hand that lay so confidingly on the faces of his friends was dry and feverish. Unskilled in the meaning of these infantile symptoms, the nuns were still sufficiently alarmed to fill him with simple remedies they used for colds, and to keep him more closely than ever in his play-room. Once each day he was bundled up like an Indian papoose and taken for a turn around the garden walks, but that was all, and when the outing was over they toasted him before the fire until he was warmed through. Notwithstanding these attentions, he continued feverish, and showed an unusual langour and drowsiness. When, added to these symptoms, he developed another, which in any one but Frederick Addison would have been rated irritability, the awe-struck and anxious Mother Superior directed Sister Rodriguez, the convent infirmarian, to take him in hand, watch him carefully and restore him to his usual condition of robust health.
It was a congenial duty, and Sister Rodriguez entered upon it with much zeal. For purposes of observation she remained in the baby's nursery at night, and that pleasant room, so unusual in such an institution, became the Mecca to which the feet of the nuns turned each day during the short intervals in which these busy women could leave the manifold duties connected with their vocation. Sister Philomene alone did not call. Even when she was told that the baby had on several occasions asked for "Chicker Menie" (his name for her), she did not find time to drop in upon him. She would go at once, she explained, if he were really ill; but as the trouble seemed to be only a slight cold, and as he was receiving the attention of the entire community, she thought he would not need her.
One night, toward morning, Sister Rodriguez was aroused by a long-drawn, strangling cough from the crib. She was beside it in an instant. It did not need the child's labored breathing, flushed cheeks, and shining eyes to show her that something was seriously wrong. She recognized the enemy, and with a sinking heart prepared for the battle. She rang for help, and within a few moments half a dozen of the Sisters were with her, and everything was being done in behalf of the strangling baby on whom the croup had fastened so relentless a grip. They at once sent across the street for the old doctor who came in consultation over serious cases in the convent, and he arrived after some delay.
He entered the room cheerfully, with the evident conviction that there was nothing serious the matter with the youngster who seemed to be upsetting the quiet life of the cloister. But after one look his face grew grave. He set to work at once, with the assistance of Sister Rodriguez, giving hurried directions right and left. Then he glanced round the little circle of anxious faces and spoke.
"There are too many here," he said, brusquely. "You can do nothing, Sisters; take your rest, and we will remain with the child. Sister Rodriguez and I will do what is necessary, with the assistance of—well" he hesitated, glancing from one face to another—"Sister Philomene."
The Sisters looked round in surprise. They had not known she was there. But the austere nun came forward with the coolness and unruffled calm that, by contrast to the anxiety of her associates, had attracted the doctor's attention and decided his choice of an assistant. The others went out reluctantly, leaving the doctor, the convent infirmarian, and the Mistress of the Novices to do battle together for the life that had grown so dear to the sisterhood.
"THEY HAD NOT KNOWN SHE WAS THERE"
It was a long, hard fight. Sister Rodriguez was exhausted before it was won, and the old doctor, whose age told in such a strain as this, looked gray in the early morning light. Sister Philomene alone was fresh and ruddy-hued, showing no effect of sleeplessness or physical effort. The doctor looked at her approvingly as he picked up his hat.
"I will run over to the house now," he said, "and get a nap. My years turn upon me, Sister, and remind me that I am at their mercy. I hope the crisis is passed, but if the child grows worse again send for me. I will be ready to come at a moment's notice. Get Sister Rodriguez to lie down and sleep a little, if you can. She needs it, too. Unless you send for me before, I will come again at eight o'clock. Can you keep watch until then? You know the conditions and the treatment, and I do not like to leave him in other hands."
The nun replied with a quiet smile. He gave her a few more directions and left the convent. She tucked Sister Rodriguez in her little cot at the other side of the room, and, in spite of her protests, made her remain there.
Sister Rodriguez had once been a "novice" under this stern mistress, and the habit of obedience was strong. The child she loved seemed out of danger, and she felt weary and relaxed. Soon her regular breathing showed that she was asleep.
Sister Philomene sat in a chair at the foot of the crib, facing the small patient. She had never before taken a really appraising look at him. She did it now, as he lay in a seeming stupor before her. The deep flush of the night had given place to pallor, and the little face was almost as white as the pillow on which it lay. Against this whiteness the baby's tumbled yellow curls were very attractive. So were the blue veins in his temples and the pathetic droop of his lips, and the long golden lashes on the cheeks that somehow seemed to have lost all their plumpness in this short time.
Sister Philomene recalled his face as she had always seen it, with the blue eyes dancing, the tiny teeth flashing, the dimples all in evidence, while the baby voice gurgled to her in the pure delight of living. It seemed impossible that this was the same child. Verily Frederick Addison Malcolm, master of all he surveyed at two, had been suddenly overthrown, and his downfall was a tragic one.
Sister Philomene mentally reviewed what she had heard of his history. His father had died within a year of his birth, and his young mother had followed in ten months. She had been a convent girl, and an especial protégée of the Mother Superior. She had no near relatives; she had herself been brought up in the institution, and her last prayer had been that her baby might find a refuge there for a time among the nuns who had been so good to her.
Dying as she was, she had realized what his place would be among them all. Who could fail to love Frederick? She had been right. Only one had resisted his charm, and that was she herself—Sister Philomene. Self-reproach stirred in the woman's soul. If he had died she would have found it hard to forgive herself—she knew that. She made a mental plea in her own defence.
"If he had been a poor or unattractive child," she reflected, honestly, "I would, I think, have felt more interest in him. But he will be rich and is lovely."
She studied him silently. His breathing had become less labored, and the drawn lines in his forehead had relaxed when the pain ceased. As Sister Philomene looked and pondered Frederick Addison suddenly opened his blue eyes full upon her. For a moment there was no expression in them save a deep drowsiness, but as she rose and went to the head of the crib the old bright light flashed in them, and the baby's lips parted in one of his irresistible smiles.
He lifted both arms with a sigh of perfect content.
"Chicker Menie," he said, hoarsely.
She bent over him with one of the rare smiles which so softened her stern face.
"Sister Philomena is here," she said, gently. "Frederick must be a good boy and keep very quiet, or the doctor will have to come again and give him more medicine."
He sat up, his croupy cough filling the room. Sister Rodriguez heard it and ran to him, but he turned from her whom he loved dearly to the sombre eyes of the nun who stood beside him.
"Fweddie yants to be yocked by Chicker Menie," he announced. He leaned towards her, his arms outstretched, his lips quivering, his blue eyes full of the love which the aloofness of the woman had never killed in his baby soul.
"Fweddie chick," he repeated. "Fweddie yants Chicker Menie to yock him."
Sister Rodriguez turned away, her eyes dim.
"If she rebuffs him now," she thought, "I am afraid I can never feel quite the same to Sister Philomene.
She did not. He thought she had, and the big tears fell on the thin cheeks, for Frederick Addison sick lacked some of the sturdy 
"CROONING THE LITTLE LULLABY HE HAD DEMANDED"
The Sisters, coming in the early morning to see how he had fared, checked their steps on the threshold and gazed in awe.
For the first time since the croupy alarm of the night before the baby slept a natural sleep, his damp curls clinging to his brow, his lips parted in his old-time smile, his small hand under the nun's linen neck-band guarding the citadel he had stormed.
And over him hung the transfigured face of his "Chicker Menie," her softened eyes fastened on him with the "mother look" they had never held before, her willing arms holding him in a close embrace, and her voice crooning the little song he had royally demanded before he drifted out on the sea of childish dreams.