As the meal drew towards a close two or three of the girls began to
push back their chairs, murmuring to their neighbours: “Well--if
you’ll excuse me,” and left the room after a rapid Sign of the Cross,
apparently directed at the centre of the table. Mrs. Mulholland
inclined her monumental bulk over her empty plate for a few seconds,
crossed herself devoutly two or three times, and then said rather
majestically to Nina Severing:
“If you care to go over the house and garden a little later on, you
must come to my room. On the ground floor, the first door you see at
the end of that passage. It’s been my room for eighteen years. It’s
a great joke in the community that I’ve been here longer than Mère
Pauline has--several years longer. I was here in the time of Mère
Alphonsine--a great saint, Mère Alphonsine--ah, yes, indeed. Not that
I mean to say Mère Pauline isn’t a saint in her own way, you know,
but of course there it is. I remember her arrival here as a young nun
who’d not yet taken her final vows. I was here for her profession
fifteen years ago. I often chaff her about it, you know, ‘Ah, notre
Mère,’ I say, ‘remember I was here before you were.’ It’s quite a
household joke, I assure you. ‘Mrs. Mulholland was here before you
were,’ the nuns say. I believe it’s quite a catchword at the community
recreations. Now let me show you my room, Mrs. Severing; you must learn
to find your way here, you know. _La mère des Dames--pensionnaires_,
the lay-sisters call me. That’s right, Miss Grantham--come right in.”
Mrs. Mulholland waved a hospitable hand at Frances, who accepted the
invitation with the more diffidence that the small room appeared
strangely crowded already.
A little table in the window was laden with books grouped at the foot
of an immense crucifix, devotional pictures, and slender brackets on
which were balanced perilously-poised statuettes plastered the wall, a
holy-water stoup slung with rosaries decorated the door, and fragments
of dried palm tied with red ribbon hung crosswise over the bed.
Below this came yet another crucifix and a large framed scroll-work
announcing the reception of Mary-Theresa Aloysia Leaky into the
Sodality of the Children of Mary some fifty odd years ago. A bulging
curtain in an angle of the wall evidently sheltered Mrs. Mulholland’s
wardrobe, of which the surplus appeared to be housed in variously
shaped and sized card-board boxes with defective lids, that could be
seen under the bed and stacked in corners.
“Sit down,” cried the owner of the room cordially, and thrust upon
Mrs. Severing’s notice the small rush chair which was the only one she
appeared to possess.
“Miss Grantham won’t mind a seat on the bed.”
“I’m afraid we really mustn’t stay,” began Nina, who had been wearing
her celebrated resemblance to a hothouse flower buffeted by rude winds
for some time, and was not best pleased at its utter absence of effect.
A bell clanged two strokes and then three. Mrs. Mulholland, who had
just sunk heavily on to the foot of the bed, heaved herself up again
with an air of startled attention and stood listening.
“There! What did I tell you?” she peremptorily inquired of Frances.
“That’s Mother Juliana’s bell, and she won’t be able to hear it. I
happen to know that she’s in the chapel at this very moment. I suppose
she’s wanted for the parlour again, but evidently the sister doesn’t
know she’s in the chapel.”
The bell, regardless of Mrs. Mulholland, inexorably clanged out a
second summons similar to the first.
“What’s the use of ringing like that? She _can’t_ hear it if she’s in
the chapel. I see what it is--I shall have to go and tell her myself.
Dear, dear, this _is_ a business,” said Mrs. Mulholland, opening the
door with a careworn expression of importance.
Nina instantly took the opportunity of escaping, and imperatively
signed to Frances to do likewise. They followed Mrs. Mulholland down
the passage, still listening to the confidences which she imparted over
her shoulder in a hoarse, sibilant whisper.
“Mother Juliana is the infirmarian--regular as clockwork as a rule--one
always knows just where to find her at this hour. But I happen to
know that to-day’s an exception. I happen to know she’s had to make
her spiritual reading now, instead of at four o’clock. Nothing very
serious, you know, but just a little alteration in the routine, of
which I happened to know. Just hark at that bell! Evidently no one
knows where to find her. Fortunately, as it chanced, I just happen to
know she’s here....”
Mrs. Mulholland paused with evident enjoyment outside the green baize
door leading to the chapel, gathered her ample black skirts tightly
round her with one hand, and advanced with elaborate creakings, on the
tips of her toes, leaving the swing-door open behind her.
Frances and Nina both gazed into the pretty softly-lighted chapel, with
the low carven stalls where knelt an occasional black-robed figure.
Rows of light oak benches occupied the back half of the little church,
and were evidently destined for the occupation of visitors to the
convent.
Mrs. Mulholland, on the threshold, startled them both by wheeling
abruptly round and proffering a liberally-splashed finger from the
marble shell containing holy water at the door.
Neither Nina nor Frances had presence of mind to avail themselves of
the opportunity thus suddenly thrust upon them, and Mrs. Mulholland,
erecting her eyebrows with an expression of regret, resumed her
cautious progress in the direction of a devoutly-bent form kneeling in
the first stall.
As she sank heavily on her knees on to the floor and began a rapid and
hoarsely whispered conversation, which the black veil punctuated by an
occasional inclination, Nina murmured hastily to Frances:
“Come upstairs again before she gets out. I can’t stand any more of
this!”
They fled noiselessly.
“Well!” said Nina in the sanctuary of her own room, which now appeared
to her as a veritable haven of refuge, “if this is what they call the
peace of convent life....”
“It will be silence after to-morrow,” said Frances consolingly.
“I long for it,” murmured Mrs. Severing, who had never before made the
aspiration with such perfect sincerity.
“You look so tired. Do lie down and let me unpack for you.”
“Darling child!” cried Nina, sinking on to the bed, “I shouldn’t dream
of letting you do such a thing. Why should you? Oh, don’t pull at the
straps like that, dearest. My keys are in that little bag there.”
Frances unpacked.
Towards the close of this operation there was a knock at the door, and
a smiling old lay-sister remarked triumphantly:
“Mère Pauline is waiting to see you in the little parlour downstairs,
dear. Come along.”
Nina rose with languid grace.
“No, no, dear,” said the lay-sister, still smiling. “It’s this child.”
She laid her hand on Frances’ arm. “You’re the little one that’s to be
received into Holy Church after Easter, aren’t you?”
“I hope so,” stammered Frances.
“Come along, dear, then. I dare say,” she added consolingly over her
shoulder to Nina, “that Mère Pauline will be able to spare you a little
while of her time during the Retreat, you know.”
The outraged Mrs. Severing was left to her own reflections for the next
two hours.
“What _have_ you been doing?” she demanded plaintively of Frances on
her return.
Frances’ colour was heightened and her eyes shining.
“Mère Pauline stayed with me in the parlour for quite a long time, and
was so very kind and understanding--I’d never met anyone who understood
things so well--and then she took me into the chapel. And then, just
as I was coming up again, a sister told me that Father Anselm Windsor
was here, and had asked to see me. You know I met him at the Twickenham
Monastery when Lady Argent took me there, and he is instructing me.”
“So you had an extra catechism lesson!”
“It wasn’t exactly that,” said Frances simply. “He just talked to me
very kindly, and explained a little about the Retreat, and I asked him
if I couldn’t be received into the Church now. I think they will let
me, at the end of the Retreat.”
Frances went to her own room that evening in a sort of dreamy happiness
that was yet more poignant than any her short life had yet known. A
sense of security, of having found some long-sought atmosphere of rest,
pervaded her.
She was only roused from the lengthy and ardent thanksgiving which she
was offering upon her knees when Mrs. Severing softly opened the door,
retreating again as she perceived Frances’ attitude of devotion, but
murmuring as she went:
“A most amusing thought has just struck me, Francie. These sweet nuns
live so much out of the world, and are so much wrapped up in their
prayers and things, that I dare say poor Mère Pauline doesn’t even know
_who I am_.”
If Mrs. Severing, however, supposed that the revelation of her identity
with the composer of the “Kismet” series would operate a startling
change in Mère Pauline’s outlook, she was doomed to disappointment.
That imperturbable woman, when confronted next day with the casual
announcement that Nina had composed “a certain amount of church music,
as well as the more or less well-known songs, which had really made
one’s name, of course,” merely replied with perfect placidity, and a
smile that was rather encouraging than admiring:
“_Aha? C’est gentil!_”
“That dear nun is really positively medieval!” was Mrs. Severing’s
exasperated inward ejaculation after receiving this commentary upon her
life-work.
But it was not Nina’s way to leave any possible stone unturned in the
direction of obtaining that sympathetic admiration which she felt her
nature to require.
“I came here to seek a little peace--a little forgetfulness,” was her
next effort, this time in the vein of resigned pathos. “Ah, mother, you
who live such a sheltered life--so free from trouble and temptation,
can hardly guess what sorrows there are in the world.”
“Every life has its trials,” rather austerely replied Mère Pauline, not
improbably reckoning the dissection of Mrs. Severing’s soul amongst
these latter.
“I married very, very young--a child--and was left alone so early, with
another child to guide and bring up. I have a son, you know.”
“Indeed? That must be a great consolation to you, madame.”
“Not altogether,” sighed Nina truthfully. “There are sorrows of which a
mother does not speak.”
Mère Pauline appearing more nearly disposed to conform to this axiom
than was altogether desirable, Nina was obliged to add hastily:
“But you will let me speak freely to you? Mine is a terribly reserved
nature, and for so many years I have kept everything to myself.”
“Speak, madame, speak. Tell me all that you will,” said Mère Pauline
in accents which custom and virtue alike prevented from sounding too
markedly resigned.
Nina embarked upon the story of her grief. Morris was the prodigal
son--wild, undisciplined, ungrateful, straying in far foreign lands and
leaving an adoring--and still youthful--parent to deplore his want of
affection and of consideration in the solitude of a country retreat.
Only Mrs. Severing’s Creator shared with her the knowledge of what such
a desertion meant to the heart of a mother.
“_Il faut prier._”
Pray! Did not Nina spend the long, lonely watches of the night in
prayers and supplications for the erring one? Was not this very Retreat
to be the occasion of further petitions on his behalf? Mère Pauline
would join with her in storming Heaven for this object?
“But certainly.” Mère Pauline’s tone was gravely compassionate. She
spoke of trust, patience, and sacrifices to be offered, and the little
homily was accompanied by a pressure of the hand and softened glance
that caused Nina inwardly to retract, or at least modify as far as she
herself was concerned, the accusation of medievalism.
“After all,” she told herself, retiring in some satisfaction from the
interview, “she is beginning to understand that one came here from a
_motive_. It’s probably a relief to listen to something, _real_, after
the endless chatter of that terrible Mulholland woman.” A heavy step
hastening up the stairs behind her caused Mrs. Severing to glance round
with an apprehension that proved to be only too well founded.
“Mrs. Severing! Mrs. Severing! Just wait one minute. The stairs try me
a little, you know, but I was determined to catch up with you,” panted
Mrs. Mulholland. “I just want to say one word.”
Nina paused reluctantly, one foot upon the step above that on which she
was standing, and one hand determinedly grasping the banisters. Mrs.
Mulholland stood just below, heaving from her exertions, and evidently
only pausing for sufficient breath to continue the ascent.
“You escaped me somehow at the chapel door yesterday, and I’ve been
looking for you ever since--just one word I wanted to say, before we
all go into silence. I looked for you this morning, but I don’t join
the ladies at breakfast, you know, I just have a cup of tea at seven
o’clock. A cup of tea--that’s all I ever take. The fact is, I always
go to the Community Mass at six o’clock. It isn’t the custom for all
the ladies to hear Mass then--they have their own Mass, at a later
hour, as you know. But I always go to the six o’clock, and stay on for
Office afterwards. And then I have just a cup of tea. Doesn’t give any
real trouble to anyone, you know, not if it’s done regularly.”
“No,” said Nina in tones which hitherto had invariably proved
sufficient, from the talented Mrs. Severing, to discourage any attempt
at over-familiarity on the part of her social inferiors. “Do I
understand that you want to speak to me, Mrs.--er----?”
But even the transparent and insulting manœuvre of appearing to find
Mrs. Mulholland’s name beneath her powers of recollection, served Mrs.
Severing nothing.
“Not here--not here,” said Mrs. Mulholland rebukefully. “Talking on
the stairs is quite against our convent rules, you know. Mère Pauline
doesn’t like it at all. One or two of the French girls now, you know--I
sometimes find them chattering to one another as they go up or come
down--and I always say, ‘Not here, my dears. Not here,’ I say. ‘Talk as
much as ever you like in the parlour or the dining-room, but not here.
Not on the stairs. Mère Pauline doesn’t like it,’ I say. But of course
you’re a stranger here, and can’t be expected to know all our little
regulations. That’s why I am making an exception of you. But it doesn’t
do if we make a practice of it, or give a bad example.”
Nina was so far from wishing to make a practice of conversing on the
stairs with Mrs. Mulholland, that she was goaded into saying faintly:
“Perhaps we could come into one of the parlours for a moment--if you
wish to speak to me. I don’t want to break any rules, and if it would
annoy Mère Pauline to find anybody talking on the stairs----”
“That’s right, Mrs. Severing, that’s right. Why, you’re quite an
example to our younger generation!” was the unfortunate comment
selected by Mrs. Mulholland to express her admiration for this
docility. “But you’re all right under my wing, you know--Mère Pauline
wouldn’t say a word if she found you with me. Now come along into the
parlour. I think there’s one vacant.”
Mrs. Mulholland, hurrying downstairs again, consulted her watch.
“Let me see--Office won’t be over for another twenty minutes--we’re
safe till then. Mère Pauline is pretty sure to be called to the parlour
after that, you know--poor thing, she sometimes hasn’t a minute to
call her own all day, and I happen to know she’s very tired just
now--very tired indeed. Of course, she never spares herself, and one
isn’t supposed to say anything much about it, but I’m a little bit in
the know, as they say, and she’s very tired just at present, is Mère
Pauline. I wish we could spare her more--but there it is! The life of a
religious is a hard one, and this is a strict order, Mrs. Severing, as
you may have found out.”
“Indeed?”
“Oh, very strict!” cried Mrs. Mulholland breezily, apparently supposing
that Nina’s frozen ejaculation intimated a desire for further
information. “A lot of people in the world rather fancy we aren’t so
very severe, you know, when they see Mère Pauline and Mother Juliana
and all of them so frequently in the parlour--but that’s all part of
the spirit of the order. To help those in the world, and bring souls to
God, Mrs. Severing.” Mrs. Mulholland’s bass voice thickened a little
with earnest feeling, and her rather hard black eyes grew ardent.
“But I mustn’t stay. I haven’t said Office yet. Oh, I always follow the
Office, Mrs. Severing, though I generally take my breviaries out into
the garden, at midday. Now what was it I wanted to say to you?--oh,
about Mother Juliana it was. Nothing very much, you know, but I thought
I’d better give you the least little hint.” She lowered her tones
mysteriously. “Don’t say anything about Mother Juliana’s having made
her Spiritual Reading at a different hour yesterday.”
Nina looked wholly bewildered.
“You know I told you she was in the chapel, yesterday, when the bell
was ringing, because there’d been a little alteration,” pursued Mrs.
Mulholland earnestly. “It’s better not to have any talk about these
things. People don’t always quite understand--outside people, you
know--they think it sounds like irregularity. One doesn’t want to give
occasion for that sort of talk, you know. You don’t mind my telling
you, Mrs. Severing? I know you’re new to our convent ways. _Not_ a
Catholic, are you?”
“No.”
“Not a Catholic,” assented Mrs. Mulholland with unabated cheerfulness.
“Well, well, well. You must let me say a little prayer for you now and
then. Now I’m going to give you a _special_ intention in my Office.”
She gave the paralyzed Mrs. Severing a couple of friendly little taps
on the shoulder, and hurried away, opening her large black book of
devotions as she went, and Nina, still rooted to the spot, presently
saw her from the window, a large, unwieldy figure, pounding steadily
round and round the small garden, her black skirts pinned up over a
black stuff petticoat, her spectacled gaze fixed upon her manual, and
her lips moving rapidly.
“Oh, here you are!” said Frances, entering the parlour to find Mrs.
Severing fixedly contemplating this spectacle from the window.
“I was brought here by the Mulholland woman,” said Nina bitterly.
“There seems to be no escaping her. Does she run the whole convent, may
I ask?”
Frances wisely declined to become controversial on the point. “I think
she means to be very kind to us.”
“I must say, I can’t help being very much amused,” said Nina in
infuriated accents, “at the absurd tone of patronage she adopts towards
me. It really makes me laugh.”
Laughter was not the predominant emotion discernible in Mrs. Severing’s
voice, but Frances was in a state of spiritual exaltation that rendered
her completely oblivious of outward impressions.
In all the absolute novelty of her surroundings the singleness of
mind which was characteristic of Frances led her to seek and find
that penetration into detail, that individual discipline, which she
had instinctively asked from the Catholic Church. The convent world,
where religion, and the outward and inward practice of religion, were
the only admitted goals, brought to her mind that singular sense of
completeness which is only achieved in an atmosphere where the scale
of relative values held by our surroundings is identical to that which
we have long borne in our own inner consciousness. She wrote long and
happy letters to Rosamund.
Far otherwise was it with the unfortunate Nina Severing, who had
already written to Morris, with whom she maintained a desultory
correspondence that alternated between indignant denunciations and
affectionate confidences, that “it really was too bad of Bertie to
persuade me into this trip, simply because she wouldn’t undertake it
herself. The nuns are very happy and peaceful in their narrow little
world, but it is a narrow and _borné_ outlook, and naturally a woman of
my temperament, who has seen a great deal of life, is altogether out of
her element here.”
Nina generally wrote with greater frankness to her son than to anyone
else. The mental affinity between them was a strong one, and each was
more agreeably aware of it when away from the other’s immediate society.
This aspect of her relations between herself and her prodigal, however,
was not presented by Nina to Mère Pauline.
Morris served, as it were, as the _point d’appui_ on which Mère
Pauline’s interest in Mrs. Severing’s spiritual perambulations rested.
It was painfully evident that in the eyes of the whole community the
event of the Retreat was to be Miss Grantham’s reception into the
Church--Mrs. Severing was merely an accessory, and one of considerably
less importance, moreover, than even that unknown quantity, the family
of the young convert who had, it was understood, given so generous a
consent to her admission into the fold.
It grew hourly more imperatively evident to Nina that in Morris, and
Morris alone, lay her sole claim to distinction.
“Ah, la pauvre! Elle a un fils qui la fait bien souffrir. Il faut
prier, n’est-ce-pas?”
Such murmurs, from one to another of the community, might add faint
lustre to Mrs. Severing’s name.
“Very interesting your little friend is, very interesting,” said Mrs.
Mulholland to the reluctant Nina on the evening when the Retreat was
about to begin. “We shall none of us forget her in our prayers, I’m
sure--but I shall remember you too, Mrs. Severing. You have your
troubles, I know--who hasn’t--but I shan’t forget yours during this
holy time--no, indeed. I declare there’s the bell--we must go to the
chapel. Well, well, pray for me and I’ll pray for you.”
Mrs. Mulholland adjusted her veil, stuffed a monstrous pile of small
books and devotional-looking little black notebooks under her arm,
grasped her long string of black rosary-beads, and hastily joined the
stream of devout and thronging ladies now making towards the open door
of the chapel.
It was on the day following that Morris Severing violently disconcerted
his parent and rejoiced the hearts of those who had been devoutly
praying for his return into the paths of filial devotion, by suddenly
arriving in a small motor at the convent door and charming the old
lay-sister who opened it by his eager and affectionate announcement
that he had come in order to surprise his mother.