“Want anything more!” Mrs. Tregaskis repeated rather derisively. “Are you afraid of her asking to join the Salvation Army next? Upon my word, Rosamund, I think better of the child than you do. She was very silly and wrong-headed about it, but at least it was all perfectly genuine, and she’s in earnest about the religious part of it.”
“Yes, I know she is. That’s just it.”
“My dear, don’t be a little goose. She’s ‘verted to the faith that your mother was born into, after all, and it’s perfectly natural that she should take the whole thing very much to heart and prove a trifle exaltee about it all. It’s a most wholesome symptom, I assure you, and one I’ve been watching for. Presently there’ll be a reaction, and then she’ll settle clown normally, I hope. But you’ll do her much more harm than good if you sit like a cat watching a mouse — waiting for every sign. It will only make her self-conscious.”
Under the flow of so much common-sense, such sound, kindly advice, Rosamund had nothing to say. A creeping sensation of numbness invaded her mind. She ceased to feel acutely unhappy or apprehensive.
Mrs. Tregaskis, solid, competent, looking at her with rather puzzled eyes, seemed a sufficient bulwark against any such ephemeral fears as those which lay at Rosamund’s heart.
“My dear little girl,” said Bertha earnestly, “don’t go looking for trouble. I’ll give you a piece of advice which has helped me over some very rough bits of ground, rougher than any you’re ever likely to meet with, please God: “‘Look up, and not down; Look out, and not in; Look forward, and not back, Lend a hand.’ That’s pretty well coloured my whole life, Rosamund. I wasn’t as old as you are now when I first read those words, and I’ve never forgotten them.”
There was a moment’s silence, and Mrs. Tregaskis’ fine eyes grew for once introspective.
Then she roused herself briskly and exclaimed: “Here are the others at last! Well, Nina, what happened to you?”
The drive home passed almost in silence. Mrs. Severing was annoyed at having been delayed, and replied coldly to all Bertha’s cheery assurances of enjoyment that much was lacking to the more modern interpreters of music. Had not Bertie felt it so? Ah well, perhaps not! Miss Blandflower, contrite and incoherent, was responsible for most of the conversation, such as it was.
That night Rosamund and Frances exchanged only a very few words. Rosamund indeed did not feel that words were needed to emphasize the unhappy certainty that was hers, and any discussion seemed to distress Frances, who said stammeringly and with tears in her eyes that nothing would be clone for a long, long time, and even Father Anselm and Mere Pauline didn’t know yet.
“Have you thought of what Cousin Bertie will say?”
“No,” said Frances, the suddening whitening of her face belying the courage of her tone. “It’s no use thinking about that until the time comes.”
“And when will it come?” Rosamund asked wonderingly.
“I don’t know. I suppose Father Anselm will settle that.
He is my director. Oh, Rosamund, it’s such a relief to know that one can’t do wrong as long as one is obedient. I just have to submit my own private judgment to what the Church teaches through her priests, and it’s such a comfort.”
Rosamund marvelled.
But she saw that Frances, in spite of the lurking apprehensions for the future which she so resolutely tried to put from her, was essentially happy.
It seemed to Rosamund now that the weeks were slipping by with incredible rapidity. She no longer thought of Morris Severing, and was occasionally ashamed of her own oblivion. But the honesty which in her was innate, did not allow her to falsify her own scale of relative values, and she knew that Morris was relegated to the unimportance of an episode.
After a little while she induced in herself a sort of surface sense of reassurance about Frances. No one else ever hinted at any thought of religious vocation, and Frances never spoke of it. Rosamund thought wistfully that perhaps she had abandoned the idea and sought to confirm the trembling hope that sometimes rose within her, in tiny ways that she strove to persuade herself would mean a great deal.
She sometimes spoke to Frances of “next winter,” or asked if she meant to get new frocks for going, later on, to stay with Hazel in London, and Frances always answered naturally and without demur. But Rosamund did not dare to make any allusion to their old plan of going back to live together in the Wye Valley.
It seemed as if life at Porthlow would always consist of the same uneventful routine, and Rosamund, far from feeling it tedious, found herself regarding each monotonous day as it slipped past in the light of a respite.
But the sword of Damocles fell at last, when her anxiety was almost dormant.
“Francie, my child, there’s quite a large mail for you to-day,” cheerily exclaimed Bertha, distributing the letters.
“Two fat envelopes.”
“I always say that Frances mustn’t expect to get many letters, because she seldom writes any,” said Miss Blandflower with an air of sapience.
Frances took her correspondence without saying anything, but something in her face brought Rosamund’s every apprehension to life again in one unreasoning rush of terror.
She restrained herself with difficulty from making inquiries of her sister when breakfast was over, but in the course of the morning Frances sought Rosamund in the garden of her own accord.
“I’ve heard from Father Anselm and from Mere Pauline,” she said gently. She looked nervous, but not at all agitated. It was as though she were stating the accomplishment of some long-expected project.
“I didn’t know you’d written to them,” said Rosamund dully.
“I thought it wasn’t any use to say anything till I had the answers,” Frances said apologetically. “They might have told me to put the whole thing out of my mind, you know.”
“They — they don’t do that, then?”
“No. I’ve brought the letters for you to read, Rosamund.”
The Prior of Twickenham’s letter was not a long one, and struck Rosamund as that of a peculiarly simple and unworldly man. He told Frances that he had long ago guessed the destiny which God held in store for her, and that he believed her vocation to the religious life to be a real one.
She must speak to her guardians and obtain their consent before taking any step. Meanwhile, she was to write freely and to count upon his prayers that her decision might be guided and blessed from above. There was little else in the letter, but something in its tone of matter-of-fact acceptance frightened Rosamund.
Mere Pauline wrote at much greater length. She congratulated Frances on “the great honour she had received” and promised her many prayers, but after that she became at once characteristically practical in her advice. If Frances’ director thought with her that she was suited to their own form of convent life, then Mere Pauline would be very glad to receive her, and meanwhile Frances must try and fit herself to be of great use. She must take care of her health, so as to be strong, and she must study, so as to be able to work, and above all, she must not neglect prayer and meditation. And, added Mere Pauline in a matter-of-fact postscript, it might be no bad plan to set about learning Latin, for greater facility in the recitation of the Holy Office. But she need not impress upon her dear child that, above all, must the feelings of that family, so soon to be called upon for so great a sacrifice, be tenderly considered.
“Frances!” said Rosamund aghast. “She writes as though the whole thing were settled.”
Her little sister looked at her with compassionate, loving eyes, and said nothing.
But Rosamund knew, more surely than any words could have told her, that in effect, the whole thing, as she had said, was settled.
The conviction remained with her even when it became obvious that the main conflict was yet to come.
“When are you going to tell them?” she asked later.
“Soon,” said Frances.
But that Frances’ courage had not yet proved equal to the avowal was made manifest
some weeks later when Rosamund, unnoticed in the window, heard part of a conversation between Frederick Tregaskis and his wife.
“I shall want the trap in the morning, Frederick. I’ve got to drive Francie into Polwerrow.”
“Why?”
“Church, my dear man, church. It’s some holy Roman feast or other, and I promised the child she should get in to Mass if possible.”
“Very unreasonable,” growled Frederick.
“I knew you’d say so, dear,” patiently replied Bertha, who was apt to display tolerance of her ward’s inconvenient religion in proportion as her husband grumbled at it. “I should have thought Sundays quite enough, myself.”
“As to that,” replied the disconcerting Frederick, “she pays for her own cab on Sundays and doesn’t inconvenience anyone but herself. I’m not saying anything to her Sunday expeditions.”
“Well, well — it’s something to have peace. The child is perfectly happy, and has looked much better since she stopped fretting. Thank goodness, the religious crisis, since apparently she had to have one, is safely over and done with.”
Rosamund wrung her hands together in silent anguish.
She did not know what Frances’ latest decision might portend, but there seemed to stretch before her a despairing vista of pain and separation, based on principles that appeared to her but as the shadow of a dream.
XX
IT was in a very little while that Mrs. Tregaskis became fully aware of the fallacy in her hopeful theory that the crisis was over for the younger of her two adopted daughters.
“I can’t think how I could ever have been so blind. Give children an inch and they’ll take an ell! I might have guessed that Frances would develop some fanatic notion of this kind. Why did I ever let her go to that wretched convent? She’s thought of nothing else ever since, and now she tells me that they’re ‘willing to receive her’ into the novitiate there. Willing, indeed! I should think they were!”
“Of course, Bertie dear, if you let her get under the influence of priests and nuns, what else can you expect?” inquired Mrs. Severing.
“You can’t reproach me more than I do myself,” said Bertha vehemently. “Though I must say, dearest, it’s rather laughable coming from you, since you were the very person who urged me to send the child to make that Retreat, and even insisted on going with her yourself, if you remember.”
Nina looked at her greatest friend for a moment in silence, and then said in the compassionate tones of a ministering angel: “My poor dear! I can see that you’re so much on edge about the whole thing, you simply don’t know what you’re saying. I am so sorry for you.”
“Thank you, Nina,” said Mrs. Tregaskis rather dryly.
“It would be more to the point, perhaps, if you knew what to say to Frances. Do you think you could put a little sense into her?” how inflexible was the determination that underlay her sobbing protests.
Miss Blandflower bleated frightened auguries and ejaculatory condemnations, and Rosamund upheld Frances passionately and told herself that it would only be an experiment, and that, of course, Frances would never, never stay at the convent for life.
“Will they let you come away if you want to?” she asked tensely. “Yes,” said Frances almost violently. “That’s what a novitiate is for.”
“Will you promise to come away if you find you’ve made a mistake?”
“I promise.”
“Then Cousin Bertie ought to let you go,” declared Rosamund, sick with misery. “If it’s the only thing that will make you happy.”
For answer Frances began to cry again, piteously and silently, as she used to cry when a child.
Rosamund, with the same despairing instinct of rebellion and impotent protection that had been hers in the days when she had resisted Bertha Tregaskis’ kindness to the little orphan sisters, put her arms round Frances.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered. “I’ll go to Cousin Frederick, and he must make Cousin Bertie give in. They’ve no real right to forbid you.”
She sought Frederick Tregaskis in the study which had become his almost permanent refuge from the strained atmosphere now prevalent at Porthlew.
He looked up angrily, and her heart failed her, but she began steadily enough.
“I’ve come to speak to you about Frances.”
“I don’t wish to hear you. Everyone comes to speak to me about Frances. When I come into this room, it is in order to avoid being spoken to about Frances.”
“I know it is,” said Rosamund desperately. “But I only want to say one thing, Cousin Frederick.”
“Then don’t say it in here. Come into some other part of the house.”
Rosamund followed the exasperated Frederick into the hall, where he made a sound expressive of disgust on seeing Miss Blandflower, wearing a large pair of yellow washleather gloves, arranging flowers. Rosamund, however, was not even aware of the governess’s presence.
“Frances is breaking her heart. She thinks that she is meant to be a nun and that she ought not to wait indefinitely.
Will you give her leave to go? I don’t believe she’ll stay there long.”
“I’ve told her already that I’m not in a position to give or refuse leave. She’s no daughter of mine.”
“It will satisfy her conscience if you will just say that she has your consent,” urged Rosamund.
Minnie, listening hard in the background, muttered frantically: “Conscience in truth makes cowards of us all; and how she can even speak of such a thing!”
“She can have my consent for what it’s worth,” said Frederick Tregaskis. “But she must fight it out for herself with your Cousin Bertha.”
“That’s the worst of it’ “Of course it’s the worst of it! And the sooner she puts an end to it the better. This house is like a — shambles,” said Frederick in tones which convinced Miss Blandflower, who did not know what the word meant, that a shambles must be some recondite form of impropriety. She became very red and uttered a shocked and protesting titter, which had the effect of drawing Frederick’s eye upon her for a searing moment before he again retreated to the impregnable study.
But Rosamund took comfort with her when she went back to Frances.
“If it’s only Cousin Bertie,” said Frances rather surprisingly, “I don’t mind so much. I know I’m frightened of her, though she’s so very, very kind, but Father Anselm says that my first duty is to God, and that it’s not as if she were really my mother. He thinks I ought to enter now.”
“It’s only an experiment,” cried Rosamund entreatingly, but with a sinking heart.
And Frances would not contradict her.
The days dragged by in an atmosphere of eternal discomfort.
Bertha’s face showed signs of wearing and of wakeful nights, but she remained determinedly normal and even cheerful. Miss Blandflower loyally supported her with chirping and obvious contributions to the lagging conversation at meals and in the evenings, and even Frances, pale-faced and with scared, sorrowful eyes, made her evident and rather piteous attempts to behave as usual in the face of a mental struggle that she felt to be only the strength-sapping preliminary to an impending crisis of upheaval.
Rosamund, supersensitive to atmosphere, and bearing the weight of her sister’s dumb unhappiness as well as that of her own rebellious, apprehensive misery, began to feel that the only hope of relief for any of them lay in the decisive cutting of the Gordian knot.
“This can’t go on, you know,” she said ruthlessly to Frances. “What are you waiting for?”
“Waiting for?”
“Yes. Do you think Cousin Bertie will ever give in?”
“No.”
“Then do you mean to put the whole thing out of your mind till you’re much older — say about twenty-five — and just submit, till then?”
Even as she spoke, Rosamund felt convinced that such a course had not presented itself to Frances.
“No,” said Frances with the inflexible note in her childish voice tha
t Porthlew was learning to dread. “It wouldn’t be right to do that. Father Anselm is a very wise priest and very holy, and he says I ought to be brave and go now.
If I am unfaithful to my vocation, it may be taken away from me.”
Rosamund, quite unconscious of humour, reflected on the extreme convenience of such a solution. She did not believe that any Divine call had come to her sister, but she felt convinced that Frances would know no rest until she had tested by experience the reality of her religious vocation.
“You’d better go, I think,” she said abruptly.
“Go now?” Frances whitened. “Then I should have to run away.”
“Oh no, Francie! If you say, definitely, that you’re going to the convent no one can stop you. They can’t lock you up or use brute force.”
The moral courage involved in such a course seemed unattainable to Frances. The psychological moment, however, for which we all, consciously or unconsciously, wait when on the brink of a vital decision, came at last.
There came an instant, unexpectedly even to herself, when Frances looked up from a letter received by the afternoon post, and said suddenly: “Cousin Bertie, Mere Pauline writes that I had better go to the convent some time next month, if I can get my things ready. I — I want you to let me fix a date.”
Her heart was beating so that she felt as though she must suffocate.
“I have already written to Mere Pauline, Frances, and she knows quite well that I do not think you old enough or strong enough or wise enough to take such a step as that, at any rate for the present.”
“When would you let me, then?”
“I don’t know, my child. When you’ve learnt to be less self-righteous and self-opinionated at home I shall think you better fitted to try and undertake a life of mortification and humility.”
Then Bertha suddenly relapsed into her normal tones of hearty kindness.
“My dear, I hate playing the heavy guardian and talking to you like this, but these people have worked you up into taking the whole thing au grand serieux, until one doesn’t know what other tone to adopt. Can’t you be content to trust me, Francie?”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 79