Whatever Lady Argent’s strictures on the length of time that Mrs.
Severing might entertain a hypothetical director in the confessional,
she did not herself hesitate to inflict upon the Prior at Twickenham an
epistle which covered the better part of six pages.
Ludovic watched his mother’s pen hurrying over her paper with an uneasy
sense of knowing what she was about, and presently asked her gently:
“Mother dear, you won’t try and persuade Mrs. Tregaskis into allowing
that little girl to do anything in a hurry, will you?”
“Not for the world, dear,” said Lady Argent, colouring guiltily. “I
quite see what you mean--it would seem very interfering, and besides,
I do not think it would move Bertie in the least. She is much cleverer
than I am, and would not dream of asking my advice, far less of taking
it. But I am just sending a few lines to Father Anselm, on a--a little
matter of conscience, dear.”
Ludovic knew the peculiar expression of self-conscious guilt which
meant that his mother was embarked upon some pious course of which she
felt certain that her son would disapprove, and was far from reassured
by this simple explanation.
Lady Argent’s mysteries were so transparent, however, that he felt
confident of a speedy enlightenment, but a few days later she announced
that she thought of making a few days stay in London and of taking
Frances with her.
“But why, dear? You know London never suits you. Is it really
necessary?”
“My teeth really do need attention, Ludovic,” faltered his mother
with an intonation which betrayed plainly that however much her
teeth might require attention they were not solely responsible for
her sudden resolution, even if she had not immediately added in
conscience-stricken accents:
“Not that I want you to think it is only my teeth, though I have made
an appointment with Mr. Fanshawe, because it seemed such waste not to
go there when one was actually _in_ London, but I do rather want to do
one or two other things besides.”
Ludovic perceived that his mother did not wish him to have a more
intimate knowledge of the one or two other things, for which he felt
sure that the singular number would have sufficed, and forbore to
inquire further.
She took Frances to London the following week, and from there wrote to
her son:
“We went to Twickenham for the day on Sunday, as Frances was most
anxious to see the monastery, and I could not help longing that she
should know Father Anselm. I left them to have a little talk together
while I paid my visit to the chapel, and the dear child was so very
much pleased with all he said to her.”
Lady Argent, like the majority of women, was always at her most valiant
on paper, and Ludovic rightly conjectured that she hoped thus to render
further allusion to the Twickenham visit unnecessary. It was therefore
not without some amusement, on the evening that she and Frances
returned, that Ludovic listened to the conversational manœuvres by
which his mother strove to forestall any inconvenient inquiries.
“And what about Twickenham, dear?” he firmly inquired.
“Oh, my dear boy, it was the most freezing day you can imagine--that
very cold Sunday--and altogether so unlike what one always associated
with Twickenham--Twickenham Ferry, you know, though it’s a song one
never hears nowadays--such a pity, I always think. It makes one think
of straw bonnets and crinolines and so many delightful things of
that kind, which one never meets with now--not that I can remember
crinolines myself.”
“I suppose not, dear, but I want to hear about the monastery,” said
Ludovic inexorably. “What did you think of the Prior, Miss Frances?”
“I liked him very much. I never saw a monk before, and he was so much
more human and cheerful than I had expected, somehow.”
“It would not be at all surprising if they were the most melancholy
creatures on earth,” Lady Argent agitatedly broke in, “at least from
a human point of view, because, of course, want of food and sleep are
most dreadfully trying, and they never have enough of either.”
Frances sat with an awestricken expression in her eyes.
“It’s extraordinary to realize that that sort of thing actually goes on
now, at the same time as one’s own ordinary everyday life,” she said
slowly. “I never knew before that it--religious life, I mean--went on,
in that sort of way, in England nowadays. It always seemed, somehow, so
remote--belonging to medieval times.”
“Like the Inquisition, etc.,” unkindly remarked Ludovic, with a glance
at his mother, whom the allusion always roused to eloquence.
“That was only a political institution, dear, as you very well know,
and had nothing to do with the Church--at least the worst part of it
hadn’t, and naturally _autres temps autres mœurs_, and, besides, it was
in Spain, which I never think is quite the same as other countries, in
spite of having kept the Faith in that marvellous way all these years,
which I believe is the reason they have no days of abstinence there,
but look at the bull-fights and things. Their ideas must be different
to ours, I feel certain.”
“Very different indeed,” dryly remarked Ludovic. “But please go on
about Twickenham. Did you spend the whole day there?”
“Yes,” said the unconscious Frances. “They gave us lunch and tea in
the guest-house, and showed us all over the grounds, and we stayed to
Benediction in the evening. It was so nice.”
“Such good music, my dear boy,” said Lady Argent in a pleading tone of
extenuation.
Ludovic refused to attribute the visit to any music, good or otherwise,
but he said no more until he found himself alone with his mother, who
faced him with a mixture of deprecation and resoluteness in her gaze.
“I know you don’t approve, darling,” she said bravely, “but the fact
was that that poor little dear really _requires_ some spiritual
direction, and I had already written to Father Anselm about her, and he
was so very anxious that I should put her into the way of being taught
something about the Faith, that it really seemed one’s duty. You see
she will be dreadfully cut off from everything when she gets back to
Porthlew.”
“And what is the Prior going to do? Lend her books?” said Ludovic,
with a most unenthusiastic intonation, and a vivid recollection of the
innumerable devotional manuals of suggestive titles that were strewn
about his mother’s bedroom and boudoir.
“Yes, dear,” meekly returned Lady Argent; “and--I am really afraid
you won’t approve at all, Ludovic--but she is most anxious to be
instructed--and really when one remembers that her mother was a
Catholic and everything----” She paused helplessly.
“You can’t have had her turned into a Catholic already?”
“No--they wouldn’t receive her until she knew more about it--but Father
Anselm is going to give her a course of instruction by post.”
“Mother, you really are not acting fairly by Mrs. Tregaskis.”
“Do you think she would mind so very much? After all, Frances is not
her daughter.”
“The point is that she has not been asked. I really think she has a
right to be told, before there is any question of anything so definite
as receiving regular instructions.”
“Oh, Ludovic, my dear boy! I wish I could get you to look at it as I
do. The gain of a soul, you know.”
“The end justifies the means,” quoted Ludovic, shaking his head and
unable to help laughing. “Mother dear, may I talk to her about it?”
“To Frances? Oh yes, dear, I wish you would. I assure you that it’s
most edifying to see the graces that child has already been given--she
seems to believe by instinct, as it were. Perhaps,” said Lady Argent
with a sort of melancholy hopefulness, “she may be able to show you
things in quite a new light.”
Ludovic was inclined to think this contingency a remote one, and it did
not deter him from seeking a conversation with Frances Grantham.
Something unexpectedly flintlike in the quality of her determination
came upon him as a surprise.
“I am going to tell Cousin Bertie all about it,” she said quietly. “She
and Cousin Frederick have the right to be told, but they have not the
right to stop me from following my own conscience. I am going to become
a Catholic as soon as Father Anselm thinks me sufficiently instructed.”
“And when will that be?”
“He thought in about six or eight months, perhaps. But he wants to see
me again before then.”
“How can you manage that?” asked Ludovic wonderingly.
“I should have to go away, anyhow, to be received. There is no Catholic
Church anywhere very near Porthlew. And Father Anselm suggests that
I should stay at a convent where they take lady boarders, somewhere
between us and London, as he will be coming down there to give a
Retreat, which I should make.”
She spoke with all the decision of which her gentle tones were capable,
and Ludovic realized that she had very definitely made up her young
mind. He wondered whether the instinct which he divined to be as
strong in her now as in her twelfth year, of childish obedience and
submission, would revive under contact with the masterful will of
Bertha Tregaskis.
“Surely your guardian will at least want you to wait until you are of
age?”
“Why should I? Hazel did not wait to be of age to get married.”
Her voice held defiance and Ludovic said gently:
“I am not venturing to condemn your decision. But my mother has had
something to do with furthering it, and she would be very sorry, as you
know, if it meant distress and difficulties for Mrs. Tregaskis.”
“Oh,” cried Frances, “I can’t bear to think of it. She has always
been so very good to us, and you know Hazel’s marriage was a dreadful
blow to her--it is still, because Guy doesn’t let Hazel see much of
her--they’ve only been to Porthlew once, and Cousin Bertie hasn’t even
seen the baby yet. But how can I help it?”
“It isn’t quite the same thing as though she were really your mother,
perhaps,” Ludovic said kindly.
Frances coloured, and the lines of her soft mouth hardened again.
“It isn’t that. God comes before one’s father or mother. It would be
just as much my duty to become a Catholic now if all my nearest and
dearest were against it. I must do what I think right.”
In the implacable self-righteousness which Frances mistook for
principle, Ludovic saw his mother’s best ally.
“I do not suppose that she will ever yield, when it comes to what she
thinks is a question of conscience,” he told Lady Argent that evening,
who replied with surprise:
“I am so delighted that you think so, Ludovic. I always thought she
was so very gentle and submissive that perhaps it would be only too
easy for anyone to influence her, which would be so dreadful, now that
she has really had light given her. Not that I want to judge dear
Bertie rashly, but I am afraid it is quite possible that she may raise
difficulties.”
“Quite possible,” Ludovic dryly assented.
It was not altogether without amusement that he foresaw Mrs. Tregaskis
engaged in a contest of wills with the youngest and hitherto most
easily dominated of her charges. That Frances herself anticipated just
such a contest was evident, and Ludovic, almost in spite of himself,
wondered whether she did not view the approaching conflict with more
complacency than she knew.
As her long visit to the Wye Valley drew towards its close, Frances
lost her shyness with Ludovic. Twice he took her across the valley to
the cottage where the earlier years of her childhood had been spent,
and marvelled at the gentle detachment of the looks she cast round her.
Insensitive Frances could not be, but Ludovic realized afresh that
reality, for her, would never lie on the material planes where most of
us turn instinctively to seek it.
Her reserve once broken, she and Lady Argent would gently and
interminably discuss the subject of conversion with a soft disregard
for his presence and prejudice alike which almost involuntarily caused
Ludovic a good deal of amusement.
“It would be such a help to you, dear child,” Lady Argent said on
the eve of Frances’ return to Porthlew, “if you only had some friend
quite near, to whom you could talk, because writing is never quite
the same thing, as I found with Mother Serafina--you know, dear, the
nun who did so much towards my conversion--when she said it was quite
out of the question for her to come and stay here, and I must write
to her instead. Which, of course, I did, and I still do at Christmas
and Easter and any sort of Feast, but it was a most unsatisfactory
correspondence--really most unsatisfactory.”
“Did the Superior have to read the letters?”
“Yes, dear, all of them, but she’d told me about that, and I didn’t
mind so much, though it made one a little bit careful, perhaps, as to
what one said. But it wasn’t really so much what _I_ wrote--though that
was awkward enough sometimes, between not knowing whether one ought to
send one’s love to Reverend Mother, or only ask for her prayers--but
what _she_ wrote. She always signed herself ‘Yours affectionately in
Christ,’ which used to puzzle me dreadfully. (I was still a Protestant
in those days),” said Lady Argent in an explanatory parenthesis.
“And I used to wonder so very much whether she expected me to sign
myself ‘Yours affectionately in Christ’ back again. It seemed so very
unnatural if I did, and yet so very marked if I didn’t, as though my
affection for her was quite a worldly sort of thing. And then, dear,
she always had a long string of letters after her signature--Mary
Serafina, and then ‘Mother’ in brackets and a little cross and
P.R.O.S.A., which I used to think for a long time must be Latin, you
know--something like ‘Prosit,’ whatever that may mean, only feminine,
because it ended with _a_.”
“And what was it really?” asked Frances, evidently rejecting this
plausible hypothesis.
“My dear, I believe it stands for Professed Religious of the Order of
St. Anthony. I quite see that it was very stupid of me not to have
thought of it at once, but little things like that puzzle one so much
at the beginning, and one doesn’t like to ask. That is why I was
suggesting,” said Lady Argent, ingeniously finding her way back to her
original point of departure, “that it would be a help to you if only
you had some Catholic friend to whom you could go--or, if that is quite
impossible, to whom you could write.”
“There is always Mrs. Severing,” suggested Frances rather faintly.
Lady Argent looked markedly unenthusiastic, but only remarked in tones
of forbearance that Mrs. Severing was not a Catholic.
“I think she will become one, don’t you?” said Frances, but there was
no conviction in her voice.
“No doubt it is as it will be, dear,” Lady Argent replied with cryptic
charitableness. “But what I had thought of for you, was to put you
in touch with the Superior of the Convent at Plymouth. She is a dear
friend of mine, and is particularly fond of girls. They have a big
school there, I dare say you have heard of it.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s very well known, dear, because the girls there always distinguish
themselves in all the Oxford locals and examinations and things in the
most remarkable manner. It is really very curious indeed, when there is
such a prejudice against a convent education, but the girls always do
better than the high-school girls. The Superior told me so herself.”
“How nice!” cried Frances in perfect sincerity.
“Yes, dear, and it really is wonderful, because I know the dear
children always wear a special medal of the Holy Ghost when they go to
their examinations, so it really is quite wonderful,” repeated Lady
Argent, who, in common with many other devout souls, would frequently
issue meticulous and childlike petitions to Heaven, and then express
the greatest astonishment when these requests were acceded to.
“And you see, dear, if you could write quite freely to the Superior it
seems to me it would be such a very great help to you, and you needn’t
feel that the letters wouldn’t be quite private, because, being the
Superior, of course nobody else reads her letters.”
“Thank you very much for thinking of it,” said Frances gratefully. “If
Cousin Bertie lets me, I should like it very much. You see, I don’t
want to vex her more than I can help, and I don’t think she’ll like
my writing to Father Anselm much--but that, of course, is a matter of
conscience.”
It seemed to Ludovic that those three words, as uttered by Frances,
would probably be responsible for more numerous and deeper dissensions
than any that the house of Tregaskis had yet known.
The next morning he drove Frances to the station. Lady Argent kissed
her guest very affectionately as she bade her good-bye, gave her a
rosary which had been blessed first by Father Anselm and eventually by
Pope Leo XIII., and said earnestly:
“Good-bye, my dearest child, and do write to me and let me know how
you get on, and what dear Bertie thinks, though kind and understanding
I _know_ she’ll be, and the grace of God will do the rest, I feel
certain. You must come again whenever you like, for we love having you,
though I know it’s a most awkward journey for you, dear, and I only
hope you’ll not have too long a wait when you change at Bristol. Have
you got your sandwiches, dear?”
Ludovic cut short his parent’s farewells, knowing from experience that
they were apt to result in a narrow escape from missing the train
altogether, and Frances drove away from the Wye Valley.
“I shall be interested to hear of further developments at Porthlew,”
Ludovic said to his mother that evening. “That little girl is a curious
mixture of timidity and determination. I wonder what her sister will
think of this?”
“There is only one thing anyone can think, darling,” serenely returned
Lady Argent, “and that is how very good God has been to that dear
child, and I feel sure that He has a number of graces in store for her,
for she is so wonderfully good and holy already.”
“I am sure of it,” gently replied Ludovic.
“I shall miss her,” wistfully said Lady Argent, and added after a
silence:
“My dearest boy, I do wish you would find some nice Catholic girl and
marry her.”
Ludovic had heard this aspiration before, and felt no desire to comply
with it.
“I’m quite happy as I am, mother darling,” he told her gently.
“Besides, I don’t believe any nice Catholic girl would have me--a
bald-headed heretic with a crutch. Now I must do a little writing, and
you can say a rosary for my conversion. You know that’s what you always
_do_ say it for.”
“Yes, dear, it is, and one of these days when you least expect it,
that prayer will be answered,” predicted his mother triumphantly.
“We shall see. You’d better be content with your latest conversion, for
the time being. I’m sure it will knock at least five hundred years off
your purgatory, as soon as it’s a _fait accompli_.”
But that the reception of Frances Grantham into the Catholic Church was
not to become a _fait accompli_ without some previous difficulty, soon
became abundantly evident.
Frances did not prove to be a good correspondent, but Lady Argent
received one or two letters from her, of which she imparted the
contents to Ludovic, and then came a lengthy epistle from Bertha
Tregaskis.
“Dearest Sybil, you have been such an angel to my little girl that I
make no apology for thrusting her affairs--and my own--upon you. The
fact is, the child is perfectly _entichée_ with matters religious at
the moment, and declares that only the Roman Catholic faith will do
for her. You won’t misunderstand me if I confess that, if Frances
were my own child, I should take away all her little holy books and
ornaments in the midst of which she sits like a young virgin-martyr,
and forbid her to speak of the subject again for at least a year. We
should then see how much of it was an emotional craze, and how much
genuine stuff. But the facts that she is not _quite_ my own flesh
and blood, and that her own mother did, in actual point of fact,
belong to your Faith, make rather a difference. As Frederick says, we
have no actual authority over the child, and one hesitates as to how
far coercion may be desirable in such a case. Frederick, man-like,
refuses to discuss the subject with anybody--what cowards men are!
‘’Usbands be proper fules for the most part, and us dü arl the yead
work for both,’ as one of my old women said to me the other day!
“Well, my dear, the upshot of it all is, am I to let the child
go to this convent at Easter, where she wants to make a Ladies’
Retreat--whatever that may be--and, I suppose, eventually be
received into the Catholic Church? Can you tell me anything about
this convent, what sort of a woman the Reverend Mother is, and what
sort of people she will come across there? I shall send poor Minnie
Blandflower with her, if I let her go at all.
“This is a proper ole yarn, isn’t it, but I rely on you to understand
that I only want what is best for Francie, and am writing to you,
since I know you’re fond of the child, and can probably advise me as
to the convent and other particulars.”
“Dear Bertie is most kind-hearted and charitable, isn’t she?” said Lady
Argent, “and of course I can write and tell her anything she wants to
know about the convent. How very glad I am that dear little Frances is
going there! but I wish Bertie would send her sister with her, as well
as Miss Blandflower.”
“I don’t think Miss Rosamund is at all inclined to be interested in
religion for its own sake, somehow,” returned Ludovic, rightly divining
that his mother viewed Miss Blandflower and Rosamund alike in the light
of possible fish for the convent net.
Lady Argent murmured that the grace of God was very wonderful, and you
couldn’t tell at all, and then returned to her correspondence.
“Father Anselm writes that he is very much pleased with her
dispositions,” she presently observed, looking up from a letter.
“H’m!” said Ludovic, feeling oddly out of charity with the members of
religious orders generally, and the Prior of Twickenham in particular.
He speculated often during the next few months as to events at
Porthlew, and their effect upon Rosamund and Frances Grantham, but he
was much in London and heard little news of them.
It was just before Easter-time that his mother triumphantly told him
that the date for Frances’ visit to the convent was arranged for the
following week.
“And I can’t tell you, my dear boy, what a relief it is to me after all
the correspondence there has been with dear Bertie, and Father Anselm,
and the poor child herself, who never wavered at all, but one couldn’t
help feeling that at any moment she might begin to wonder whether
it wasn’t her duty to do as Bertie advised, and wait. So fatal in a
question of religion, I always think. And it would have been dreadful
to see dear little Frances one of those shilly-shallying souls, never
either quite in or quite out of the Church,” said Lady Argent, in
a voice which had become, to Ludovic’s perceptions, charged with
reminiscences of Nina Severing.