Hazel had not changed.
That much was evident in the first instant, and even after Frances
had seen her, laughing and triumphant, playing with her baby son or,
securely radiant, seated at the head of her husband’s table, she
still felt Lady Marleswood to be very much one with the little Hazel
Tregaskis of Porthlew days.
Her relations with Bertha, even, were singularly unaltered. Frances
knew that her guardian’s imperious rule had weighed far more lightly
on Hazel, in their nursery days, than on either of her wards. She had
opposed to it a certain joyous pagan insensitiveness, for the most
part too indifferently good-humoured to resist, but quite capable of
overruling, lightly, merrily, yet more or less decisively, her mother’s
most trenchant bidding by her own calm quality of self-reliance.
Now, in such security of happiness as Frances had never dreamed of, her
own way so amply justified as to need no further explanation, Hazel
could afford to listen with the smiling surface docility that had
always been hers, to Bertha’s dictatorially-worded counsels for the
welfare of Dickie and her tempered approval of his nursery arrangements.
But Frances did not think that Hazel meant to follow Cousin Bertie’s
wise advice about not spoiling the little darling, and making him
learn at once that he must go to sleep at the proper times without
being coaxed. Hazel only shook her tawny curls, and said in a tone of
comical resignation that she was sure Dickie was going to be dreadfully
spoiled, and she only hoped he would have a little brother to help keep
him in order, and not an adoring sister.
Sir Guy was very polite to Mrs. Tregaskis, and very kind to Frances. It
was he, Hazel eagerly told her cousin, who had suggested that Frances
should stay with them in the summer and be taken through her first
season by Lady Marleswood.
Frances was impressed and almost overawed by such kindness. Sir Guy
had hardly appeared to notice her existence at Porthlew, but he seemed
quite different now, under his own roof, with no atmosphere of strain
and disapproval to contend against.
“Does he know about me?” Frances asked Hazel rather timidly that
evening.
Hazel had come into her cousin’s bedroom in a blue silk négligée and
sat on the floor, just as she used to do in her blue cotton kimono at
Porthlew.
“What about you, except that you’re a darling, and just like my very
own sister?” demanded Lady Marleswood.
“Being a Catholic.”
“Oh yes, of course, and we both think it perfectly splendid,” declared
Hazel lightly.
Frances felt relief at the very lightness of her tone.
“Was there a lot of difficulty about it? Were they all very vexed?”
asked Hazel sympathetically.
“Rather vexed. Cousin Bertie was very, very kind, of course--and
Rosamund understood, and didn’t think I wanted to be separate or--or
different or anything--you know what I mean, though I can’t explain it
at all well. But, of course, they didn’t like it. Naturally.”
“Now why ‘naturally’? What had it got to do with anyone but yourself?
If it makes you any happier, why on earth shouldn’t you be a Roman
Catholic to-day and a Primitive Methodist to-morrow, if you want to?
I’ve no patience with this never letting people run their own show,”
declared Lady Marleswood.
“It was very difficult to know what to do,” rather solemnly said
Frances.
“That’s so like you, Francie dearest. _I_ shouldn’t have seen the
least difficulty in it. Do whatever you want to do, and whatever you
think best. Then you take your own risks and have nobody but yourself
to blame if things go wrong. But I don’t believe they do go wrong. Look
at me!”
Frances looked--at the radiant blooming face of little Dickie’s mother.
“I’ve never,” said Hazel earnestly, “never for one single minute,
regretted that I took my own way, Frances. I’m happier than I’ve ever
been in my life, and even if I lost Guy and the baby to-morrow, I
should still think it had been worth while.”
Frances looked at her.
“You’ve not changed a bit, Hazel. I feel just as if you and Rosamund
had been to some grown-up party and then you’d come into my room at
Porthlew to tell me all about it.”
“I’m so glad,” cried Hazel delightedly. “I should hate it if you all
thought I’d changed and become quite different just because I’m so
happy. Francie, I _do_ want Rosamund and you to be as happy as I am.
It seems unfair that you shouldn’t be, when you’re both so much better
than I am. Is Rosamund going to marry Morris Severing?”
“Oh no, I don’t think so.”
“That’s all right. He’s not nearly good enough for her. We’ll find
someone much nicer--a very clever man who writes books or something, I
think--and when they’re married you can live with her most of the time,
till you marry yourself. Oh, Francie, I can’t help it--I want to see
_all_ the people I love married now--it’s so much the nicest thing to
be!”
“It depends,” faltered Frances, colouring.
Hazel looked at her with her shrewd, sympathetic gaze. She had that odd
degree of intuition that the most frankly self-absorbed natures often
display.
“Francie,” she said slowly, “do you want to become a nun?”
Frances coloured helplessly under the unexpected bit of penetration.
“I don’t know--oh, Hazel--what made you think that? I haven’t said one
word--not for a long time yet,” she stammered incoherently.
“I’m not exactly surprised,” remarked her cousin calmly. “You were
always much too good for this world, darling; but do you think you’d be
happy in a convent?”
“_Of course_ I should be happy. But I don’t know if--if they’d even
have me. Oh, Hazel, it makes it all seem so much more real when we talk
about it like this. I’ve not told anybody at all--not even Rosamund.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” promised Hazel. “I don’t know anything about
convents at all, but there are some sisters who call for subscriptions
sometimes at Marleswood, and they always look very nice and happy.”
“Nuns are always happy,” said Frances seriously.
“Are they? I wish I knew more about them, and what sort of life they
have to lead. I suppose it’s nice and peaceful and holy, if you like
that sort of thing. Do you feel as though you had a vocation, or
whatever it is, Frances?”
Frances said nothing, only looked at Hazel with large, distressed eyes.
“I’m talking of what I know nothing about,” declared Lady Marleswood,
kissing her affectionately. “I won’t bother you about it, but if they
worry you at Porthlew, when they know, you can come to us just whenever
you like and for as long as you like. Nobody shall say anything to you,
and you can go to church all day if you want to.”
“Oh, Hazel, how nice you are!”
“Good-night, Francie darling. Do remember that the only thing is
to follow one’s own convictions _quite_ regardless of anything and
everyone. I know it sounds dreadful, but look at me! I’m a living
example of the advantages of self-will. Now I must go and say
good-night to mother.”
Hazel left Frances to the realization that her hitherto unspoken desire
had gained the strangest degree of life and substance from the mere
facts of having been put into words, and received almost as a matter of
course.
“Hazel seemed to think it quite natural, and not at all dreadful,”
Frances thought to herself. “Perhaps Cousin Bertie won’t mind as much
as I think she’s going to. I know I’m a moral coward, because I’m more
afraid of telling her, for fear she should be angry, than of telling
Rosamund, who’ll only be dreadfully unhappy. But I needn’t think of it
yet. Father Anselm said I was not to think of the future at all, or to
make plans....”
She lost herself in surmises, that almost amounted to certainties, as
to the interpretation her confessor had put upon her timidly vague
references to her own future. That the shrewd little French Superior
had penetrated her scarcely apprehended secret, Frances felt hardly any
doubt.
“They’ll tell me what to do when the time comes,” she thought with
a quickly beating heart, and remembered thankfully her new-found
allegiance.
The day following, Mrs. Tregaskis and Frances went down to Cornwall.
Frances felt as though she had been away for a lifetime, and had
to combat an unreasonable tendency to astonishment at finding her
surroundings utterly unchanged.
It was a relief to her that no allusion was made at first to that
change in herself of which she felt so acutely conscious.
Frederick, rather as though the words were dragged out of him under
protest, asked for news of Hazel, and Miss Blandflower squeaked
ecstatic inquiries about the baby.
“Is the dear little man like Hazel?”
“Not very like her,” said Bertha rather slowly. “His eyes are dark
blue, for one thing.”
Everyone remembered Sir Guy’s remarkably dark blue eyes, with the
apparent exception of the unfortunate Minnie, who exclaimed in a
high-pitched key of astonishment:
“Now where can he get that from? Yours are so very brown, dear Mrs.
Tregaskis, and Hazel’s, as we know, match her name.”
“By some extraordinary coincidence,” said Frederick’s disagreeable
voice, “the child has inherited his father’s eyes.”
Miss Blandflower looked confused, laughed a good deal in a nervous way,
and made a characteristic attempt to retrieve her verbal footing by
embarking upon a disastrous quotation:
“Ah well, it’s a wise child that----”
“Give me a bun, Minnie,” said Bertha in loud, commanding tones. “I be
starvin’ for my tay. Why, Francie and I haven’t had a blow-out like
this for I don’t know how long. Tea at the convent consisted of stewed
twigs and a Marie biscuit, eh, Frances? that is to say, when we got any
all.”
“There wasn’t very much,” Frances admitted reluctantly, and without
smiling.
“There was not indeed! And that Mrs. Mulholland has the appetite of a
cormorant, positively.”
Few feminine indictments can be much more virulent than the charge of
“having an appetite,” and there was a distinct quality of venom in Mrs.
Tregaskis’ tone.
“Is that the one Mrs. Severing talked about?” asked Rosamund.
“Yes, as though she were her dearest friend. Poor Nina’s gush is
sometimes apt to be misleading,” laughed Bertha tolerantly. “Has she
been over here, Rosamund?”
“She came yesterday, to see if you were back.”
“Any news?”
“There’s to be a concert at Polwerrow on the twentieth, and she wants
to take us all. She’ll call for us in the car and bring us back.”
“Excellent. A deep draught of music is just what I want. Anyone good
coming down? I suppose so, or Nina wouldn’t condescend.”
“Some violinist--I can’t remember his name.”
“You wouldn’t!” laughed Bertha. “Well, my dear, that’ll be very jolly.
I love an outing, and there’ll be plenty of room in the car for all of
us.”
“Mrs. Severing was kind enough to suggest my coming too--room for a
small one,” said Minnie agitatedly. “Of course I said it wasn’t to be
thought of for a moment.”
“Minnie, you know you like music, and you always go with us to any
decent concert at Polwerrow,” said Bertha patiently. “Of course you’ll
come.”
Under cover of the protests, incoherent objections, and final yielding,
which were always part and parcel of any invitation issued to and
accepted by Miss Blandflower, Rosamund and Frances made their escape.
Their long talk together left Frances very happy. She gave Rosamund no
such confidence as that sudden, unpremeditated one which had been drawn
from her by Hazel’s matter of fact suggestion, but nevertheless she was
all but unconscious of any reticence.
It was to Rosamund that she could best pour out the story of her new
experiences, and the fullness of Rosamund’s sympathy gave no hint of
any sense of exclusion.
If a division of the ways had been reached neither was conscious of it.
To Rosamund, her sister’s happiness, in itself unintelligible, became
merely a subject for rejoicing, and the ready congratulations she gave
out of her affection needed no deeper source to fill Frances with
tender gratitude.
They drew nearer together in the very difference that might have
separated them for a time.