Part 14

“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.

XV

Whether or no Morris was fully aware of the complete success which crowned this endeavour might remain open to question. He had recently, while in Paris, made an Italian friend who, a victim to home-sickness, had spoken much and eloquently of “_la famiglia_” in distant Rome. The impressionable Morris, rapidly becoming a dozen times more home-sick, if possible, than his friend, was soon finding it imperative that he should return to Pensevern, and his widowed mother. The reception, on the very morning of his departure, of Nina’s letter announcing her sudden descent upon the convent, had merely served to increase her son’s impetuous ardour for a meeting.

“I thought of you in uncongenial surroundings, as you wrote that you were, and probably lonely, and I felt I had to come,” said Morris, with the direct and manly air of simplicity that he always regarded as one of his achievements.

“And how many times during the last year have I written and told you that I was lonely, and implored you to come home, and you have turned a deaf ear, Morris?” asked Nina, with stern sadness.

His face hardened--intentionally.

“I have made a mistake, evidently. I thought that after all these months--but I might have known----” He broke off with a shrug, which he felt to be a distinct improvement on that of the Italian friend, who happened to be small and weedy.

“Might have known what? Don’t be so affected and ridiculous, Morris, giving mysterious hints that mean nothing.”

“I might have known,” said Morris slowly and sadly, “that you would hardly want to be interrupted in the midst of a new--enthusiasm.”

His deliberate gaze round the convent parlour gave great point to the description.

Nina, too much vexed at the moment to think of any repartee to this shaft, and considerably wrought upon by conflicting emotions, saw nothing for it but to burst into tears.

“Morris, darling!” she sobbed. “I can’t bear to welcome you like this. You know I’m glad to see you, my precious, precious boy. Haven’t I been longing and praying for your return day and night?--but why couldn’t you let me know? What is to become of you if you are always to act on impulse like this, never considering anyone or anything but yourself?”

The advantage now distinctly lay with Nina, who thus skilfully shifted the responsibility for her obvious discomposure into anxiety for her son’s moral welfare.

She rapidly blinked away the drops on her long eyelashes and regained her self-command, as a glance at Morris’s lowering face informed her that the shot had told.

“Well, darling, as you _have_ come, there’s nothing for it but to see what is convenient to these poor nuns. I don’t suppose for a moment they can take you in--it’s probably against all rules: and I don’t know what you would do here.”

“Good heavens, no!” ejaculated Morris. “I thought you’d like me to run you back in the little car, mother. You haven’t seen her yet--she’s a beauty.”

“I don’t know whether I ought to leave Frances, but”--Nina pressed her hand to her brow for a moment--“if you want me to come home, darling, I would leave it all in a moment, though as a matter of fact the Retreat is hardly begun.”

“The Retreat!” ejaculated her son in tones of contempt. “No wonder you were so bored, mother.”

“Yes, dear,” coldly said Nina, considerably exasperated by these continual references to the plaints which now served merely to discount any lustre of sacrifice which might have surrounded her departure from the convent. “You see the Retreat had not begun when I wrote, and naturally the sort of society here is not likely to prove particularly congenial to me. But I have to think about you now, and what is best.”

Morris contrived to insert a sound of amused incredulity into the low whistle with which he received this announcement of parental solicitude. Nina, with an air of being too deeply absorbed in her considerations to spare attention elsewhere, gazed thoughtfully and with compressed lips at the small, empty fireplace in front of her, and Morris strolled to the window with a markedly _insouciant_ demeanour.

Into this atmosphere of mental unrest Mère Pauline entered rapidly and noiselessly, as was her wont.

“Ah, madame!” she cried in tones of congratulation that verged upon the emotional, “quelle joie--what an answer to our poor prayers!”

Nina almost mechanically returned the pressure of Mère Pauline’s hand, and murmured in accents that confusion of mind rendered almost shamefaced:

“My son, Mère Pauline. Let me present him.”

“Ah!” said the nun gravely, and inclined her head in chastened recognition of the prodigal. “_Votre maman a beaucoup souffert_,” was the slightly unconventional greeting which she bestowed upon him.

Nina, avoiding glancing at her son, exclaimed with feverish presence of mind: “One cannot talk _à trois_ very well, can one? My plans are rather altered by this sudden arrival--you must let me discuss them with you.”

“But certainly. Would Monsieur care to inspect the garden?”

“May I see to my car? She’s just outside,” said Morris, with the boyish smile that added an extraordinary charm to his good looks and direct blue gaze.

“Yes, by all means,” said Mère Pauline, an answering smile almost involuntarily modifying the compassionate severity of her expression.

Morris made his exit.

The agitated Nina immediately burst into tears again, partly from a distinct feeling of relief, which unnerved her, and partly from a desire to gain time.

Mère Pauline said, “Ah! je comprends,” nodded her head slowly once or twice, and considerately turned her back upon the weeping Nina.

The extent of this comprehension of Mère Pauline’s soon became almost overwhelmingly apparent to Mrs. Severing. The nun held her hand gently and discoursed in rapid and feeling accents on the _changement de cœur_ which had evidently been operated on the returned wanderer, and of the difficult but salutary way of penance and atonement upon which he would now embark. Her references to St. Augustine and St. Monica were plentiful.

Nina, bewildered, but soothed, responded in suitably broken accents, and led the conversation round to the point of her own immediate departure.

To this Mère Pauline at once acceded. The duties of a mother came before other things, however good in themselves, and no doubt for monsieur the quiet of the country---- Mère Pauline left it to be inferred that a career of debauchery such as that of Nina’s son, was best expiated in as remote a corner of the earth as possible.

“I will myself explain to Father Anselm the situation,” said Mère Pauline gravely, and added an inquiry as to any possible desire for an interview with the good Prior on the part of Nina or her son. She did not, however, make the suggestion in any hopeful accents, and appeared in no way surprised when it was gracefully declined on the grounds that the Prior’s time must be much occupied with the Retreat.

“Then I will leave you, madame, to make your preparations of departure. Shall you require a cab?”

“My son wishes to take me back part of the way by motor--it is not such a long journey then,” said Nina.

“_Ah! les autos--les autos!_” said Mère Pauline, gravely shaking her head as she went from the parlour.

Morris’s recently acquired two-seater was evidently, in the eyes of Mère Pauline, responsible for much.

“Did Frances mind your going, mother?” inquired Morris an hour later, as he drove his mother rapidly away from the convent.

An almost imperceptible start from the slight veiled figure beside him confirmed his shrewd suspicion that his mother, thankfully hastening away from her cloistered solitude, had forgotten any formality of farewell.

But it was never Mrs. Severing’s way to place herself at a disadvantage in the eyes of others, and she replied with great presence of mind:

“I couldn’t make up my mind to disturb her, Morris. I know how _one_ jarring note vibrates in that kind of atmosphere.” An expressive turn of Nina’s head left small room for doubt as to the striker of the jarring note in her own case, and Morris immediately fixed his eyes upon space.

“Look what you’re doing, darling--you’re not driving _at all_ well,” said Nina suavely, as the little car swerved across the road.

But although victory might lie with Nina on this occasion, she remained a victim to some mental uneasiness.

Thankfully regaining the luxurious shelter of her own house, with blazing fires and carpeted spaces in consoling contrast to the scenes of her late experiment, Mrs. Severing yet lay back in her capacious armchair that evening, and murmured disconsolately:

“I suppose Bertie will understand that in all the circumstances I couldn’t very well stay on with Frances at the convent. Besides, she’s perfectly happy and absorbed in it all, and it’s ridiculous to suppose they can’t take care of her there. I spoke about her myself to Mère Pauline.”

“They’ll make a nun of her, I suppose,” remarked Morris.

“Well,” said Nina thoughtfully, “it’s a beautiful, sheltered, peaceful life--no trials, no temptations, no responsibilities. I’ve often wondered----” She broke off with a little sigh.

Morris poked the fire briskly, and carefully abstained from any inquiry into the subject of his mother’s wonder.

“If things had been otherwise,” Nina pursued with determination, “perhaps I might have sought that quiet, contemplative way myself. I have a great deal of the cloister element in me.”

Morris, not in the least amused, but distinctly irritated, by his parent’s pretensions to a temperament which he did not believe her to possess, assumed the appearance of one refraining from all but irrepressible mirth.

Nina compressed her lips, skilfully became several shades paler, and bade her son good-night in the low, self-controlled tones of one wounded to the quick.

The next day Mrs. Severing’s considerable dramatic abilities were again called into play by the necessity of explaining to Bertha Tregaskis her desertion of Frances.

“I knew you’d want news of your child, dearest,” she began fondly, “so I felt I had to come over and tell you all about everything at once.”

Mrs. Tregaskis did not appear to be in the least impressed by the smoothness of this address.

“What I _don’t_ understand, darling,” she returned with great directness, “is why _you_ are back here and Francie alone at this convent place. You distinctly said that you were staying for the whole week and making the Retreat too--otherwise, as you know, I should have sent Miss Blandflower with her.”

“Bertie dear,” said her friend with great earnestness, “let me speak quite frankly and openly to you--of course I know I may. Don’t you think it’s a pity you don’t _trust_ your girls rather more? Take Francie now--she’s perfectly well looked after where she is, and perfectly discreet and sensible. Why insist on sending someone to watch every movement and report on it? Oh, I know you don’t mean it for watching--or anything of that sort--but that’s probably what it looks like to the child, and it galls her. I’ve felt it every moment of the time that I’ve been with her.”

“Do you mean to tell me, Nina...?”

“Trust begets trust,” cried Nina, in impassioned tones that affected to ignore her friend’s interruption. “I’ve found it so with my own Morris. There’s always been perfect sympathy between us, and he’s never had a thought or wish that I haven’t shared. I know Morris as I do myself, I may say--simply because I’ve always trusted--blindly, implicitly, if you will, but----”

The trenchant accents of Mrs. Tregaskis, in tones very much deeper and louder than any at Nina’s command, broke definitely into this eloquent monologue.

“Now look here, my dear. You know that I’m nothing if not direct--sledge-hammer, if you like. I can’t stand shilly-shally.” She planted both hands on her hips, in her favourite attitude of determination.

“Out with it, Nina. Did you ever mean to make that Retreat affair at all?”

“Bertie! I don’t know what you mean by speaking to me in that magisterial tone. I am in the habit of meaning what I say. I don’t suppose any woman on this earth is more _childishly_ open and sincere than I am, as you very well know. Of course I meant to make the Retreat--it has been a most bitter blow to me that I was unable to finish it--but my boy’s need comes before anything.”

“His need of what?”

“Of me,” said Nina majestically.

“How can his need of you have sprung up like a mushroom in the night?” demanded her friend in highly unbelieving accents. “A week ago you were miserable because he was wasting time and money in Paris amongst all that wretched musical crowd”--Nina felt it due to her art to draw herself up tensely at the description--“and now you expect me to believe that he can’t wait quietly at Pensevern for four days till you come home.”

“If Morris has suddenly realized that he has only one true friend in all the world--his mother--and turned to her again--how could she fail him?” pathetically inquired Mrs. Severing, with a distinct recollection of Mère Pauline’s flights of fancy.

“Of course, my dear, if Morris has got himself into some silly scrape and come to you to be helped out, it’s another thing,” said Bertha unconvincedly. “I’m only too glad, for your sake, if he has turned to you at last. I know what a grief and mortification it’s always been to you that you hadn’t his confidence more--foolish boy!”

“Foolish indeed!” sighed Nina. “But the young like to fancy that the elder generation does not understand--little knowing that one has been through all, all, everything, that can come within their ken a hundred times over. And so my poor Morris has preferred to bestow his confidence elsewhere--and oh! how he will regret it some day.”

“As to that,” said Bertha negligently, “it’s really only a little natural kicking against the pricks of parental authority, you know. Morris used to talk to _me_ freely enough--we had some huge pow-wows together over that silly affair about Rosamund. Boys have a knack of confiding in me. I always say that I have more young men in my train than any girl I know!”

“Not more than Hazel,” cried Nina delicately. “I hear that everyone absolutely raves about her, and she’s looking too lovely for words. Do tell me, dearest, how, _how_ is the adorable grandson?”

If Mrs. Severing sought to repay her friend for various previous thrusts by thus alluding to the latest scion of the house of Marleswood, whose grandparents had not yet been privileged to behold him, disappointment was in store for her. Bertha did indeed reply briefly enough, “Oh, the infant flourishes magnificently, I believe,” but she added immediately, in tones that strove to be casual and not triumphant:

“Hazel is bringing him down to us next month. Her husband has to go to Holland about some property or other, and she’s coming to us while he’s away.”

“Dearest, _how_ glad I am!”

“It will be a great joy to my old man,” said Bertha rather wistfully. “The other two girls don’t fill Hazel’s place in any way. Of course, they’re not one’s own, either, but I do sometimes wish they had a little more of Hazel’s sunshine. She _was_ like a ray of sunshine in the house--it describes her exactly, somehow. Never out of spirits, and never had a day’s illness in her life.”

“Oh, how I envy her!” sighed Nina.

Bertie disregarded this gentle attempt to conduct the conversation into channels more interesting to Mrs. Severing.

“The house hasn’t been the same place without her laughter and fun. Poor old Minnie is always more or less in the doleful dumps, and the two girls can’t see a joke to save their lives--never could. Frances will be worse than ever now, I suppose. Tell me about this convent of hers, Nina, and what she’s doing there? You were hardly there long enough to find out, I suppose?”

“My dear Bertie,” said Mrs. Severing with dignity. “I really can’t discuss the matter with you if you will adopt this extraordinary _pose_ of thinking that I have failed you in some mysterious manner. I never undertook to do more than take Frances to the convent and settle her in, and _if_ circumstances allowed, make the Retreat with her. As it is, they--they haven’t allowed,” concluded Nina rather lamely.