Part 11

Ludovic wondered whether the cordiality sprang from a certain weariness which he thought that he could detect in his parent’s expression. It seemed to him that one might weary rather speedily in Mrs. Severing’s company. But when she was seated before the Erard, a load of rings removed from her white supple fingers, and the sound of one of her own “Preludes” filling the room, Ludovic felt inclined to change his mind.

Nina Severing at the piano interested him. He felt that “meretricious” was still the word that he would apply to her talent, but her rendering of her own inspirations struck him as an odd bit of self-revelation.

The “Prelude” was a rapid, highly-technical _tour-de-force_ of muscular agility, with the merest and most disconnected thread of melody possible in the treble, and in syncopated time. Ludovic divined that Nina regarded it as her masterpiece. She played with great self-confidence and an amount of force that was rather surprising.

Afterwards, at Lady Argent’s request, she played a Chopin Polonaise and the too well-known Minute-Waltz. Her rendering of neither satisfied Ludovic’s taste, but he listened with an interest that was almost profound.

“She is only sincere when she is dealing with her own compositions,” was his final verdict. “As an interpreter she fails altogether. She does not attempt to give us Chopin’s Chopin, but Nina Severing’s Chopin--the Chopin of the author of the ‘Kismet’ songs. And so the polonaise becomes trivial, almost a little vulgar--it is utterly above and beyond her personality.” He gave himself up to interested musings, and listened to Nina’s subsequent performances with his outward ear only.

But Frances and Lady Argent gave the popular musician her full meed of applause and congratulation.

“How you can ever have time to practise all those things, and learn them by heart, I can’t imagine,” said Lady Argent admiringly. “When I think what difficulty I had as a girl in memorizing a very pretty thing called ‘The Maiden’s Prayer,’ which I believe is quite out of date nowadays--but then I was never considered particularly musical. Ludovic gets it all from his father.”

“Celtic blood,” said Nina, pronouncing the _C_ as though it had been _S_. “No--memorizing has never been of much difficulty to me. Things just seem to _come_, you know. As a child I used to spend hours and hours in an old organ-loft, just playing to myself, you know--always alone, but never lonely so long as I could make music.” Her eyes deepened and grew introspective over this pathetic sketch, which happened to be a fancy one, and it was with a perceptible effort that she presently shook off her slight appearance of absorption and once more begged to be shown the chapel.

“Frances will take you, and show you all that there is to be seen. I know you will forgive me for not undertaking the stairs oftener than I can help,” said her hostess with a little hesitation.

“But of course!”

Nina followed her guide with a graceful gesture expressive of complete understanding.

“Ludovic!” cried Lady Argent in a distraught manner, as soon as he had carefully closed the door. “I am afraid it was really very wrong of me to tell such a shocking untruth, though I did not say in so many words that it would bring on my asthma if I went upstairs to the chapel, but I am sure that is what she understood me to mean, and the worst of it is that I _meant_ her to take it that way, and that is really just the same thing as telling a downright lie. Because of course stairs never affect me in the least, as you very well know, only damp, which the chapel is far from being, especially with that dear little radiator put in under Our Lady’s statue. Oh, my dear boy, do you think it was very wrong of me?”

“Not in the least. Why should you have taken her to the chapel yourself, tiresome woman that she is?”

“Oh, hush,” said his mother, looking delighted. “Pray don’t call her names, Ludovic, my dear, it really is most uncharitable. But I am dreadfully afraid that I have taken a terrible dislike to her.”

“What! When she is so much interested in Catholicism?” asked Ludovic, with a shade of derision in his tone.

“I did not like her manner about the Church at all,” said Lady Argent with melancholy emphasis. “I really did _not_, Ludovic. I have no doubt that it is very uncharitable of me, but it positively struck me once or twice that she was almost posing about it all. So unlike dear little Frances, who is so much in earnest.”

“I believe it was Mrs. Severing who first put the idea of Catholicism into her head, all the same,” said Ludovic rather maliciously.

“My dear boy, how can you say such a thing! It was the grace of God, neither more nor less, and when you consider that Mrs. Grantham was a Catholic herself, by birth!--though I’m sure I had no idea of such a thing till just the other day: but then one was so dreadfully apt to look upon all foreigners as belonging to some odd fancy religion, or even nothing at all, in those days. And, of course, poor thing, she must have given up her religion altogether, or those children would never have been baptized Protestants, poor little things, when you think of the promises the non-Catholic party to a marriage always has to make--but I suppose Mr. Grantham was never even told about them, let alone asked to make them.”

“Probably not,” agreed her son placidly.

“Dreadful to think of! And so poor Mrs. Grantham died without the Last Sacraments or anything at all. If one had only known in those days! However,” said Lady Argent, wisely putting the past away from her, “God has His own ways of doing things, and I have no doubt that Frances is His chosen instrument for many things--perhaps she may even bring dear Bertie herself into the Church, one of these days.”

“And Mrs. Severing, mother?”

“Ludovic! I can’t bear to think of that woman’s first Confession. I can see her, keeping the poor priest for hours in the confessional, while she forced all her fancies down his throat,” said Lady Argent, with the energy that only a really good woman can put into denunciation.

“Mother!”

“Well, my dear boy, I dare say it is very wrong of me to say so, and if I am giving you scandal I am sorry for it. You know very well that I would never say such a thing before the servants or anybody, though what Charles must have thought of her at luncheon, calling the turbot symbolical and everything, I really don’t know. She will have to have tea before driving all that way back, but pray ring the bell and let me order it half an hour earlier.”

This inhospitable manœuvre had hardly been put into execution before Frances and Nina reappeared. The latter laid her slender, gloveless hand for a moment on Lady Argent’s sleeve, the blackness of which formed an admirable foil to extreme whiteness and the flash of diamonds, and said in tones which almost suggested an emotional _tremolo_:

“I can’t thank you enough. It’s been a revelation--_Coram sanctissimum!_”

Ludovic, with some perspicacity, divined that Mrs. Severing supposed her fragment of Latinity to be some recondite version of “_sanctum sanctorum_,” and tried to look proportionately gratified, the more so as his mother’s expression denoted considerable distrust mingled with a most perfunctory politeness.

“I’m so glad,” she murmured doubtfully. “Do pray let me give you some tea--they are just bringing it.”

“The little shrine!” said Nina with a sort of soft rapture. “It reminded me so much of those little wayside shrines one saw everywhere in Italy. I have always loved them.”

“Do you know Italy well?” asked Ludovic.

“I was there years ago--with my husband. I remember,” said Nina determinedly turning to Lady Argent, “that we had a private audience with the Pope--so interesting, and he was the dearest old man. I shall never forget kneeling there--I was a mere child, I married very, very young--to receive his blessing, and how impressive it all was. He gave me some beads, too, that I am sure have all sorts of beautiful Indulgences attached to them, even for a poor little heretic. Frances knows them--they always hang over my bed at home. I really could hardly sleep without them.”

Even Frances felt no regret when Mrs. Severing took her departure.

Neither she nor Lady Argent alluded to the visit that evening, and Ludovic, on his return from conducting Nina to the Towers, spent the evening in reading aloud an article on French literature.

But when his mother rose to go to bed, and he handed her the small heap of miscellanies without which she seldom moved, she looked almost coldly at the polished brown rosary that crowned the little pile.

“Thank you, my dear boy,” she said rather faintly, taking them from him, and added, as soon as Frances was out of earshot, “I assure you that that absurd woman has really almost put me off saying my rosary for the evening.”

XII

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.