II

Lady MacMillan of Linlochtry Castle, who was a devout Catholic, came

often from her place in the neighbourhood to see her half-sister, Mother

Superior at the Convent of St. Ursula-of-the-Lake. Mary Grant's only

knowledge of the world outside the convent had been given her by Lady

MacMillan, with whom when a schoolgirl she had sometimes spent a few

days, and might have stopped longer if she had not invariably been

seized by pangs of homesickness. Lady MacMillan's household, to be sure,

did not afford many facilities for forming an opinion of the world at

large, though a number of carefully selected young people had been

entertained for Mary's benefit. Its mistress was an elderly widow, and

had been elderly when the child saw her first: but occasionally, before

she became a postulant, Mary had been taken to Perth to help Lady

MacMillan do a little shopping; and once she had actually stayed from

Saturday to Tuesday at Aberdeen, where she had been to the theatre. This

was a memorable event; and the sisters at the convent had never tired of

hearing the fortunate girl describe her exciting experiences, for theirs

was an enclosed order, and it was years since most of them had been

outside the convent gates.

Lady MacMillan was a large, very absent-minded and extremely

near-sighted lady, like her half-sister, Mary's adored Reverend Mother;

but neither so warm-hearted nor so intelligent. Still, Mary was used to

this old friend, and fond of her as well. It was not like going away

irrevocably from all she knew and loved, to be going under Lady

MacMillan's wing. Still, she went weeping, wondering how she had ever

made up her mind to the step, half passionately grateful to Reverend

Mother for not being angry with her weakness and lack of faith, half

regretful that some one in authority had not thought it right to hold

her forcibly back.

There was no railway station within ten miles of the old convent by the

lake. Lady MacMillan came from her little square box of a castle still

farther away, in the old-fashioned carriage which she called a

"barouche," drawn by two satin-smooth, fat animals, more like tightly

covered yet comfortable brown sofas than horses.

It was a great excitement for Lady MacMillan to be going to London, and

a great exertion, but she did not grudge trouble for Mary Grant. Not

that she approved of the girl's leaving the convent. It was Reverend

Mother who had to persuade her half-sister that, if Mary had not the

vocation, it was far better that she should read her own heart in time,

and that the girl was taking with her the blessings and prayers of all

those who had once hoped to keep their dear one with them forever. Still

it was the greatest sensation the convent had known, that Mary should

be going; and Reverend Mother would not let her half-sister even

mention, in that connection, the name of the other Mary--or

Marie--Grant, who also had gone away sensationally. The eldest of the

"three Maries," the three prettiest, most remarkable girls in the

convent school, had left mysteriously, in a black cloud of disgrace. She

had run off to join a lover who had turned out to be a married man,

unable to make her his wife, even if he wished; and sad, vague tidings

of the girl had drifted back to the convent since, as spray from the sea

is blown a long way on the wind.

Reverend Mother would not hear Lady MacMillan say, "Strange that the two

Mary Grants should be the only young women to leave you, except in the

ordinary way," the ordinary way being the end of school days for a girl,

or the end of life for a nun.

"I want dear Mary to be happy in the manner that's best for her,"

answered the good woman, whose outlook was very wide, though her orbit

was limited, "If it had been best for Mary to stay with us, she would

have stayed; or else some day, when she has learned enough to know that

the world can be disappointing, she will return. If that day ever comes,

she'll have a warm welcome, and it will be a great joy to us all; but

the next best thing will be hearing that she is happy in her new life;

and she promises to write often." Then the clever lady proceeded to ask

advice about Mary's wardrobe. Should the girl do such shopping as she

must do in Aberdeen, or should she wait and trust to the taste of Mrs.

Home-Davis, the widowed aunt in London, who had agreed to take charge of

her?

The question had fired Lady MacMillan to excitement, as Reverend Mother

knew it would. Lady MacMillan believed that she had taste in dress. She

was entirely mistaken in this idea; but that was not the point. Nothing

so entranced her as to give advice, and the picture of an unknown aunt

choosing clothes for Mary was unbearable. She made up her mind at once

that she would escort her young friend to London, and stay long enough

at some quiet hotel in Cromwell Road to see Mary "settled." Mrs.

Home-Davis lived in Cromwell Road; and it was an extra incentive to Lady

MacMillan that she would not be too far from the Oratory.

It was evening when the two arrived at King's Cross Station, after the

longest journey Mary had ever made. There was a black fog, cold and

heavy as a dripping fur coat. Out of its folds loomed motor-omnibuses,

monstrous mechanical demons such as Mary had never seen nor pictured.

The noise and rush of traffic stunned her into silence, as she drove

with her old friend in a four-wheeled cab toward Cromwell Road. There,

she imagined, would be peace and quiet; but not so. They stopped before

a house, past which a wild storm of motor-omnibuses and vans and

taxicabs and private cars swept ceaselessly in two directions. It seemed

impossible to Mary that people could live in such a place. She was

supposed to stay for a month or two in London, and then, if she still

wished to see Italy, her aunt and cousin would make it convenient to go

with her. But, before the dark green door behind Corinthian pillars had

opened, the girl was resolving to hurry out of London somehow, anyhow,

with or without her relatives. She decided this with the singular,

silent intensity of purpose that she did not even know to be

characteristic of herself, though it had carried her through a severe

ordeal at the convent; for Mary had never yet studied her own emotions

or her own nature. The instant that the Home-Davises, mother and

daughter, greeted her in their chilly drawing-room, she lost all doubt

as to whether she should leave London with or without them. It would be

without them that she must go. How she was to contrive this, the girl

did not know in the least, but she knew that the thing would have to be

done. She could not see Italy in the company of these women.

Suddenly Mary remembered them both quite well, though they had not met

since a visit the mother and daughter had made to Scotland when she was

seven years old, before convent days. She recalled her aunt's way of

holding out a hand, like an offering of cold fish. And she remembered

how the daughter was patterned after the mother: large, light eyes, long

features of the horse type, prominent teeth, thin, consciously

virtuous-looking figure, and all the rest.

They had the sort of drawing-room that such women might be expected to

have, of the coldest grays and greens, with no individuality of

decoration. The whole house was the same, cheerless and depressing even

to those familiar with London in a November fog, but blighting to one

who knew not London in any weather. Even the servants seemed cold,

mechanical creatures, made of well-oiled steel or iron; and when Lady

MacMillan had driven off to a hotel, Mary cried heartily in her own

bleak room, with motor-omnibuses roaring and snorting under her windows.

At dinner, which was more or less cold, like everything else, there was

talk of the cousin who had left Mary a legacy of fifty thousand pounds;

and it was easy to divine in tone, if not in words, that the

Home-Davises felt deeply aggrieved because the money had not come to

them. This cousin had lived in the Cromwell Road house during the last

invalid years of her life, and had given them to understand that Elinor

was to have almost, if not quite, everything. The poor lady had died, it

seemed, in the room which Mary now occupied, probably in the same bed.

Mary deeply pitied her if she had been long in dying. The wall-paper was

atrocious, with a thousand hideous faces to be worried out of it by

tired eyes. The girl had wondered why the money had been left entirely

to her, but now she guessed in a flash why the Home-Davises had had none

of it. The years in this Cromwell house had been too long.

"We've always imagined that Cousin Katherine must have been in love with

your father, Uncle Basil, before he married," said Elinor, when they

had reached the heavy stage of sweet pudding; "and when the will was

read, we were sure of it. For, of course, mother was just as nearly

related to her as uncle Basil was."

It was difficult for Mary to realize that this Aunt Sara could be a

sister of the handsome, dark-faced man with burning eyes whose features

had remained cameo-clear in her memory since childhood. But Mrs.

Home-Davis was the ugly duckling of a handsome and brilliant family, an

accident of fate which had embittered her youth, and indirectly her

daughter's.

"How shall I get away from them?" Mary asked herself, desperately, that

night. But fate was fighting for her in the form of a man she had never

seen, a man not even in London at the moment.

In a room below Mary's Elinor was asking Mrs. Home-Davis how they could

get rid of the convent cousin.

"She won't do," the young woman said.

"She reminds me of her mother," remarked Mrs. Home-Davis. "I thought she

would grow up like that."

"Yet there's a look in her eyes of Uncle Basil," Elinor amended,

brushing straight hair of a nondescript brown, which she admired because

it was long.

"With such a combination of qualities as she'll probably develop, she'd

much better have stayed in her convent," the elder woman went on.

"I wish to goodness she had," snapped Elinor.

"You are--er--thinking of Doctor Smythe, dear?"

"Ye-es--partly," the younger admitted, reluctantly; for there was

humiliation to her vanity in the admission. "Not that Arthur'd care for

that type of girl, particularly, or that he'd be disloyal to me--if he

were let alone. But you can see for yourself, mother--_is_ she the kind

that will let men alone? At dinner she made eyes even at the footman. I

was watching her."

"She can't have met any men, unless at that old Scotchwoman's house,"

replied Mrs. Home-Davis. "Perhaps even their Romish consciences would

have forced them to show her a few, before she took her vows--Catholic

young men, of course."

"Perhaps one of them decided her to break the vows."

"She hasn't really broken them, you know, Elinor. We must be just."

"Well, anyhow, she hasn't the air of an engaged person. And if she's

here when Arthur gets back to London, I feel in my bones, mother,

there'll be ructions."

"Arthur" was Doctor Smythe, a man not very young, whom Elinor Home-Davis

had known for some time; but it was only lately that she had begun to

hope he might ask her to marry him. She valued him, for he was the one

man she had ever succeeded in attracting seriously, and though she knew

he would not think of proposing if she had not some money which would be

helpful in his career, she was eager to accept him. Had she realized

sooner that there was a chance with Arthur Smythe, she would not have

let her mother make that promise concerning Italy, for she could not be

left alone in London all winter. Arthur Smythe would think that too

strange; yet now she would not go out of England for anything. He was in

Paris attending a medical congress, and planned afterward to visit the

châteaux country with a friend; but he would be back in two or three

weeks. Now that Elinor had seen Mary, she felt that changes must be made

quickly. In other circumstances, it would have been pleasant to loiter

about Italy, stopping at the best hotels at Mary's expense, on money

that ought to have been the Home-Davises; but as it was, Elinor could

think of nothing better to do than to send Mary off by herself, in a

hurry. Or, as Mrs. Home-Davis said, "some one suitable" might be

travelling at the right time, and they could perhaps find an excuse for

stopping at home themselves.

"You can be ill, if necessary," suggested Elinor.

"Yes, I can be ill, if necessary--or you can," replied her mother.

Mary had not known that there could be such noise in the world as the

noise of London. She did not sleep that night; and the fog was blacker

than ever in the morning. Shopping had to be put off for three days; and

then Lady MacMillan was too near-sighted and too absent-minded to be of

much use. She was telegraphed for from her box of a castle, at the end

of the week, because her housekeeper was ailing--an old woman who was

almost as much friend as servant. Mary would have given anything to

return with her, even if to go back must mean retiring into the convent

forever; but the gate of the past had gently shut behind her. She could

not knock upon it for admittance, at least not until she had walked

farther along the path of the future.

When Lady MacMillan had gone, Mrs. Home-Davis and Elinor showed no

interest in the convent cousin. They went about their own concerns as if

she did not exist, leaving her to go about hers, if she chose. They were

both interested, they explained, in the Suffragist movement; also they

had charities to look after. There was no time to bother with Mary's

shopping, but of course she could have their maid, Jennings, to go out

with: in fact, she must not attempt to go alone. Consequently, Mary

bought only necessaries, in the big, confusing shops that glared white

in the foggy twilight, for Jennings as a companion was more depressing

than the cold. She was middle-aged, very pinched and respectable in

appearance, with a red nose, always damp at the end; and she disapproved

of lace and ribbons on underclothing. Mrs. Home-Davis and Miss Elinor

would never think of buying such things as Miss Grant admired. Jennings

would have pioneered Miss Grant to the British and South Kensington

museums if Miss Grant had wished to go, but Mary had no appetite for

museums in the dark and forbidding November, which was the worst that

London had known for years. Her aunt never suggested a theatre, or the

opera, or anything which Mary was likely to find amusing, for a plan

decided upon with Elinor was being faithfully carried out. The convent

cousin was to be disgusted with Cromwell Road, and bored with London, so

that she might be ready to snatch at the first excuse to get away. And

once away, Mrs. Home-Davis promised Elinor to find some pretext for

refusing to receive her back again.

The plan succeeded perfectly, though, had the ladies but guessed, no

complicated manoeuvres would have been necessary, Mary having determined

upon escape in the moment of arrival. She was shut up in her room for a

few days with a cold, after she had been a week in Cromwell Road, and

when she was let out, after all danger of infection for her relatives

had passed, she dared to propose Italy as a cure for herself.

"I know you have important engagements," Mary said, hastily, "and of

course you couldn't go with me at such short notice; but I don't feel as

if I could wait. I may be ill on your hands. I feel as if I should be,

unless I run away where it's warm and bright."

Mrs. Home-Davis, much as she wanted to take the girl at her word, could

not resist retorting: "It's not very bright and warm in Scotland at this

time of year, yet you don't seem to have been ill there."

Mary could have replied that in the convent she had had the warmth and

brightness of love, but she merely mumbled that she had often taken

cold in the autumn.

"It will be impossible for us to leave home at present," her aunt went

on. "If you're determined to go, I must get you some one to travel with,

or you must have an elderly maid-companion. Perhaps that would be best.

One can't always find friends travelling at the time they're wanted."

"Mary isn't such a baby that she ought to need looking after," said

Elinor. "She's nearly twenty-five--as old as I am--and you don't mind my

going to Exeter alone."

Elinor was twenty-eight. When she was a child she had assumed airs of

superiority on the strength of her age, Mary remembered, but now she and

her cousin seemed suddenly to match their years. Mary was glad of this,

however, and bolstered Elinor's argument by admitting her own maturity.

"I don't want a companion-maid, please," she said, with the mingling of

meekness and violent resolution which had ended her novitiate. "It will

be better for my Italian, to get one in Italy. I shall be safe alone

till I arrive. You see, Reverend Mother has given me a letter to the

Superior in the mother-house, and other letters, too. I shall have

friends in Florence and Rome, and lots of places."

"But it wouldn't look well for you to travel alone," Mrs. Home-Davis

objected.

"Nobody will be looking at me. Nobody will know who I am," Mary argued.

Then, desperately, "Rather than you should find me a companion, Aunt

Sara, I won't go to Italy at all. I----"

She could have chosen no more efficacious threat; though if she had been

allowed to finish her sentence, she would have added, "I'll go back to

Scotland to Lady MacMillan's, or stay in the convent."

Thus the sting would have lost its venom for the Home-Davises, but

Elinor, fearing disaster, cut the sentence short. "Oh, for mercy's sake,

mother, let Mary have her own way," she broke in. "You can see she means

to in the end, so why disturb yourself? Nothing can happen to her."

Elinor's eyes anxiously recalled to her mother a letter that had come

from Doctor Smythe that morning announcing his return at the end of the

week. It was providential that Mary should have proposed going, as it

would have been awkward otherwise to get her out of the house in time;

and Elinor was anxious that she should be taken at her word.

"It's more of appearances than danger that I'm thinking," Mrs.

Home-Davis explained, retiring slowly, face to the enemy, yet with no

real desire to win the battle. "Perhaps if I write Mrs. Larkin in

Florence--a nice, responsible woman--to find a family for you to stay

with, it may do. Only in that case, you mustn't stop before you get to

Florence. I'll buy your ticket straight through, by the Mont Cenis."

"No, please," Mary protested, mildly. "Not that way. I've set my heart

on going along the Riviera, not to stop anywhere, but to see the coast

from the train. It must be so lovely: and after this blackness to see

the blue Mediterranean, and the flowers, and oranges, and the red rocks

that run out into the sea; it's a dream of joy to think of it. I've a

friend who has been twice with her father. She told me so much about the

Riviera. It can't be much farther than the other way."

So it was settled, after some perfunctory objections on the part of Mrs.

Home-Davis, who wished it put on record that she had been overruled by

Mary's obstinacy. If undesirable incidents should happen, she wanted to

say, "Mary _would_ go by herself, without waiting for me. She's of age,

and I couldn't coerce her."