SEA MEW ABBEY
BY
FLORENCE WARDEN
AUTHOR OF
“THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH,” “NURSE REVEL’S MISTAKE,” “MISSING--A
YOUNG GIRL,” ETC., ETC.
UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY,
SUCCESSORS TO
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY,
142 TO 150 WORTH STREET, NEW YORK.
[IMPRINT]
Copyright, 1891,
BY
UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY
CONTENTS.
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
Chapter XVI.
Chapter XVII.
Chapter XVIII.
Chapter XIX.
Chapter XX.
Chapter XXI.
Chapter XXII.
Chapter XXIII.
Chapter XXIV.
Chapter XXV.
Chapter XXVI.
Chapter XXVII.
Chapter XXVIII.
Chapter XXIX.
Chapter XXX.
Chapter XXXI.
Chapter XXXII.
Chapter XXXIII.
Chapter XXXIV.
SEA-MEW ABBEY.
CHAPTER I.
About a quarter of a century ago, under a bright May morning sun,
the English Channel Squadron steamed into the harbour of the French
town of Harbourg, with flags half-mast high. The Captain of one of the
vessels had lost his young wife that morning.
Until the very hour of her death, the poor fellow had persisted in
believing that she was getting better, that the weakness which had
been growing for months on the fragile little lady, the paleness of
her delicate cheeks, the feebleness of her sweet voice would pass
away. And now they had indeed passed away--into waxen death, and the
twenty-year-old wife lay peacefully in the little state cabin, while
her husband, stunned by uncomprehending grief, stood beside her with
her baby in his arms, not hearing its soft babble of inarticulate
sounds, not seeing anything but that horrible, agonising, still image
of the woman he had frantically loved.
“Speak to mamma, baby, wake her, wake her!” he had cried when,
noticing how still and white his wife had grown, and refusing to own
the truth, he had rushed out of the cabin, snatched the child from its
nurse, and held out its little warm arms towards its mother. But the
white, thin arms had lost their tenderness, and lay still; the cold
mouth met that of the child with no loving kiss; and as the great
brown eyes stared fixedly and without meaning at the ceiling, where
the reflection of the sparkling blue water outside danced and
shimmered, the man’s heart was torn by a pang of maddened
comprehension, and a black pall was cast for ever, for him, upon the
whole world.
Six hours later, when the sun was declining, and a fresh breeze was
blowing from the sea, and the angelus was sounding from the chapel of
the grey-walled convent, whose turrets rose up high upon the cliffs
above the town, a stranger rang for admission at the convent-gate. The
little sister who peeped at him through the wicket and then slowly
opened the door, was rather alarmed by his appearance, and found the
foreign accent in which he asked to see the Mother-Superior difficult
to understand. But she would not have dared deny him admittance, for
there was something in his curt tone and manner which would have made
refusal of any demand of his impossible to the meek nun.
As the Gothic-pointed outer door clanged to behind them, and the
stranger stepped in out of the shining sunlight into the darkness of
the white-washed cloisters, a little cry rose up from the burden he
carried in his arms, and the woman’s heart went out in an instant to
the hidden morsel of humanity.
“Holy mother!” cried she, “it’s a child! Let me see it, monsieur.”
The stranger’s hard features did not soften, but a light came into his
eyes as he drew aside the shawl which covered the child and showed a
weird, pale little face, with great frightened dark eyes.
“She has no mother?” whispered the sister, with quick apprehension and
sympathy.
“God help her! no,--unless,” and the man’s hoarse voice
trembled,--“unless she finds one here.”
The sound of sweet singing from the little chapel began to be heard,
muffled, through the cloister walls, and then it swelled louder as the
chapel door opened, and another dark-robed woman peeped out, hearing
the strange footsteps and a man’s voice.
“Come,” said the portress briskly, “this way, monsieur, you shall see
the Mother-Superior yourself.”
The smell of the white lilac came in from the quiet garden as they
passed through the cloister, and entered a great, square, bare-looking
room, with a floor polished like glass, high white-washed walls, a
round table, and a regiment of rush-bottomed chairs placed stiffly
against the wainscoting. A very large plain bookcase containing
brightly-bound religious and devotional works, a gloomy-looking
oil-painting of a former Mother-Superior, and a black stove standing
out from the wall, completed the furniture of the convent visitors’
room.
After some delay, the Mother-Superior came in. She was an elderly lady
with a face of intellectual type, to which the habit of her Order gave
a look of some severity. The stranger took in every detail of her
appearance with a searching look, and opened his business abruptly.
“I am in great trouble, madam,” he began, in a harsh voice, “where to
find a home for my little girl. And as I was wondering, down in the
harbour there, what I should do with her, I saw your walls looking
down over the water, and heard your bells, and I thought perhaps she
might find a shelter here. I am a sailor, and I have--no one to trust
her with.”
His voice got out of his control on the last words. The Superior
looked perplexed, but not yielding. As he unfolded the shawl which was
wrapped round the child, she gently shook her head.
“We couldn’t undertake the care of a child as young as that,” she
said, not unkindly. “She can’t be more than two.”
“That’s all,” said her father.
“Her mother----” began the Superior gently.
“Died this morning,” said he hoarsely.
“Oh!” The lady uttered this exclamation in a low voice, and bent at
once over the child, taking its little hand tenderly. “I am afraid my
sombre robe may frighten her,” she said.
But the child did not draw back, only looked wonderingly at the lined
face, at the snowy linen and the thick black veil.
“Is she of our religion?”
“No.”
“But you of course wish her to be brought up a Catholic?”
“No.”
The good Mother looked up in surprise.
“Then what induced you to bring her here?”
“Where women are I expected to find kindness and mercy for my
motherless child.”
“You are English, monsieur?”
“Yes.”
“And you would trust Catholics, Frenchwomen, as much as that?”
“I have been a traveller, madam, and I am no bigot.”
The Superior, with her face wrinkled up with deepest perplexity,
looked from him to the child, who had stretched out her tiny fingers
for the rosary.
“You see this omen. Does not that frighten you?”
The stranger hesitated, and looked down upon his little daughter, who
was clasping the crucifix with delight. Like most sailors, of high and
low degree, he was superstitious.
“One must risk something,” he said at last bluntly. “And if I’m ready
to risk that, surely you might give way.”
“I would if I could. My heart yearns to the poor little creature. But
she would be very unsuitably placed here. Have you no friends, no
relations, who would take charge of her?”
He laughed shortly.
“Plenty. I am not a poor man, madam; I did not use that as an
inducement to you, for it’s not money-bought kindness I want for
my--my poor wife’s child. But you could name what sum you like for her
keep, education, anything.”
“I had not thought of that, monsieur,” said the Superior, with more
dignity. “We take older girls to educate, but----”
“But not my poor lame baby. Very well.”
He was wrapping the child up quickly, when the Superior stopped him by
one word uttered in a different tone.
“Stop!”
The stranger, without pausing in his work, looked up.
“_Lame_, did you say?”
“Yes, I said lame,” he answered shortly. “I had forgotten that further
disqualification. A d----, I mean a fool of a nurse dropped her on the
deck when she was seven months old, and--and she’s lame, will always
be so. Come, Freda, we’ll get out in the sunshine and warm ourselves
again.”
The great room was cold, and the child’s lips and nails began to look
blue. But before he could reach the door, he saw the black garments
beside him again, and with a quick, strong, peremptory movement the
child was taken out of his arms.
“Lame! Poor angel. You should have told me that before.”
The heavy veil drooped over the little one, and the father knew that
she had found a home.
“God bless you, and all the saints too, madam, if it comes to that!”
he said with a tremor in his voice. And he cleared his throat two or
three times as, with uncertain, fumbling fingers, he searched for
something in his pockets.
At last he drew out a soiled envelope, which he placed upon the table.
It was directed simply “To the Mother-Superior, Convent of the Sacred
Heart.” The lady read the direction with surprise.
“You were pretty sure of success in your mission, then, when you came
up here?”
“Yes, madam, I have always believed I could succeed in
everything--until--this morning.”
His harsh voice broke again.
“You will find in that envelope an address from which any
communication will be forwarded to me. It is an old house on the
Yorkshire coast, which has been shut up now for many years. But there
is a caretaker who will send on letters.”
“And some day you will open the place again, and want your daughter to
keep house for you?”
He shook his head.
“It’s a lonely place, and would frighten a girl. The birds build their
nests about it. I believe the towns-folk have named it Sea-Mew Abbey.
Good-bye, madam, and thank you for your goodness. Good-bye, Freda.”
He printed one hasty kiss on the pale baby face of his daughter, and
the next moment his heavy footsteps were echoing down the cloister.
The Mother-Superior heard the outer door clang behind him and shut him
out into the world again, and then, still clasping the child in her
arms, she opened the envelope which the stranger had left. It
contained English bank-notes for fifty pounds, and a card with the
following name and address on it:
“Captain Mulgrave, R. N.,
“St. Edelfled’s, Presterby, Yorkshire.”
As she read the words, the child in her arms began to cry. At the
sound of the little one’s voice, one of the many doors of the room
softly opened; and secure from observation, as they thought, two or
three of the sombrely clad sisters peeped curiously in.
But the good Mother’s eyes had grown keen with long watchfulness; she
saw the white-framed faces as the door hurriedly closed.
“Sister Monica, Sister Theresa!” she called, but in no stern voice.
And the two nuns, trembling and abashed, but not sorry to be on the
point of having their curiosity satisfied even at the cost of a
rebuke, came softly in.
“We have a new little inmate,” said the Superior in a solemn voice, “a
tender young creature whom God, for His own all-wise purposes, has
chastened by two severe misfortunes, even at this early age. She is
lame, and she has lost her earthly mother.”
A soft murmur of sympathy, low, yet so full that it seemed as if other
voices from the dim background took it up and prolonged it, formed a
sweet chorus to the kindly-spoken words. The Superior went on:
“I have promised the father of this child that, so far as by the help
of God and His blessed saints we may, we will supply the place of the
blessings she has lost. Will you help me, all of you? Yes, all of
you.”
And again the soft murmur “Yes, yes,” of the two nuns before her was
taken up by a dimly-seen chorus.
“Come in, then, and kiss your little sister.”
They trooped in softly, the dark-robed nuns, their rosaries jangling
on the bare boards as they knelt, one by one, and kissed the tiny soft
face of the child in the Superior’s arms. Bending close to the baby in
the dim twilight which had now fallen on convent and garden, until the
snowy linen about their calm faces fell with cold touch on the tiny
hands, they scanned the childish features lovingly, and rose up one by
one, bound by holy promises of tenderness and sympathy to the little
one.
And so, before the evening primroses in the convent garden had shut up
their pale faces for the night, and the cattle had been driven to
their sheds on the hill, Freda Mulgrave was no longer motherless.