THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition). E. M. Delafield
She herself sat very upright, not leaning back, with hands folded under her wide black sleeves.
Louis knew her to have been a friend of the Baronne's forty years ago in Paris, and mentioned his stepmother's name.
Ah yes, Gisele de la Claudidre de Marincourt! Reverend Mother remembered her well. And this was her granddaughter?
She took Zella's hand in hers immediately. Not quite," said Louis apologetically—" step-granddaughter, perhaps we should say. You will perhaps remember that I wrote to you about bringing my daughter to school here, and mentioned that she is not a Catholic."
Poor Louis had composed the letter with so much care and anxiety, lest it should prove an obstacle to Zella's reception at the convent, that it came as somewhat of a shock to him when Reverend Mother returned with perfect placidity:
"Ah yes, no doubt. We are always very happy when the good God sends us a new child to take care of, even though she is not yet one of ourselves. But we get so many letters, and they must all pass through the hands of the Superior. You will understand that I do not remember all of them."
"You are doubtless much occupied," was all that Louis felt able to reply.
"We are all occupied in working for the greater glory of God," returned Reverend Mother impersonally, "from the smallest of our children to our Mother Provincial herself. You have heard of our dear Mother Provincial? So many people of the world keep up an intercourse, or at least a correspondence, with her."
Louis de Kervoyou was not one of these, and said so as delicately as he could.
"Ah well, perhaps your little daughter will have the joy of seeing her one day. She is in Spain now, but may be in England next year, and then what rejoicing for all our English houses!"
"Is that, perhaps, a portrait?" hazarded Louis, looking towards the solitary picture on the wall.
"That? Oh no! That is our Mother Foundress, who died nearly fifty years ago. She was very, very wonderful, and it is our great hope that one day the world may see her beatification. The Holy Father has already in his possession documents"
Reverend Mother lowered her voice and paused. Zella, astounded, saw that it was actual emotion that had choked her utterance.
Evidently the little she had heard or read of the semi-hysterical emotionalism of nuns was true. Zella felt contemptuous. But there was nothing emotional in the next words, briskly uttered by Reverend Mother:
"But you must forgive me, Monsieur de Kervoyou: I am forgetting your business. What are your wishes for this little one "
Louis explained as briefly as possible, while Zella tried . to compass the feat, at all times ungracious, and peculiarly so to youth, of looking as though she were not there.
"So," was Reverend Mother's summing up, "Zella will conform to our custom in the matter of going to the chapel with the other children, but will not follow the classes for religious instruction and catechism. I regret it, but we must follow your wishes, it goes without saying. Especial attention shall be paid to languages, as you wish, and to her music. Our music mistress in chief, M£re Marie Rose, will be pleased to have her. She is the most patient of teachers, a person of the highest virtue, sanctifying herself very rapidly, I can assure you."
Reverend Mother nodded her head once or twice emphatically at mention of the qualifications of her music mistress in chief. Then she turned to Zella, and said kindly:
"But you will feel hurt that I am robbing you of your last hour with your father. Would you not like to visit the garden with him? I can stay no longer now, but we shall meet again."
She patted Zella's hand, bowed to Louis, who rose to open the door for her, and said again:
"You must visit the garden. Look, through the front door and across the court, and then you will see it. Mind you pay a visit to our little Grotto of Lourdes."
Then she turned down the passage.
Louis and Zella obediently found their way across the gravelled court and into a shady alley beyond.
It was thickly bordered with shrubs, and the spring green of beech-trees met far above their heads. The alley led to a tennis-court, and there were two or three well-kept plots of grass, but there were no flowers to be seen.
The Grotto of Lourdes they could not have missed, even had they wished it. It stood out, in conspicuous blue and whiteness, at the far end of the alley, built up on a fair-sized erection of big stones and woodwork, with a tiny red lamp flickering at the feet of the plaster statue.
"It is like Italy," said Zella, remembering the wayside shrines at Frascati, and the Grotto of Lourdes was the first place in the convent where she felt at home.
They wandered about rather aimlessly, once or twice encountering a black-robed nun walking rapidly along one of the paths, for the most part reading as she went. And though the nun's head was always bent in intense absorption over her book or her rosary, she seemed miraculously to know, without for an instant raising her eyes, the precise moment when it became necessary to avoid meeting Louis and his daughter, by turning smartly round and walking in the opposite direction.
It seemed to Louis a baffling manoeuvre, and he said to Zella:
"I should like to have seen some more of your future mistresses, or one or two of the pupils, but I suppose their rule is to avoid the sight of a man whenever possible. I am afraid it is nearly time for me to start for the station, darling; but I won't leave you till we have found someone to look after you."
"Let's go back to the house," suggested Zella. "We can ask for Reverend Mother again, I suppose."
But her supposition, not being grounded on convent experience, was entirely wrong.
The lay Sister who opened the door to them shook her head at the mere suggestion that Reverend Mother should again be sent for.
"Reverend Mother's much occupied," she said reproachfully to Louis in a strong brogue. "For three days now she has had so many parlours that she has not even been able to attend Vespers at all. And her letters! If ye could see the great stack I take in to her every morning, poor Reverend Mother! And there she sits writing, with a hundred calls upon her time and an interruption every five minutes, though we spare her as much as we can. But, of course, it is the Superior who is called upon to decide every little thing."
"Perhaps we might see "began Louis, aware that he must walk to the station in less than twenty minutes if he wished to catch his train.
"Ah, and it's most patient she is—always ready to attend to everyone! And when I come in to fetch the post, sometimes half of that great pile of letters is not even opened yet! And Reverend Mother only says in her own bright way, 'Ah! me good angel must deal with those during the night, for it's not I that have the time.'"
"Yes," said Louis, smiling sympathetically, but too much occupied with the thought of Zella's forlornness to express the admiration, which the lay Sister obviously expected, at Reverend Mother's method of dealing with her correspondence.
"I have got to get back to London by the six o'clock train, and I should like to know with whom I can leave my daughter. I cannot leave her all alone in a place quite strange to her," said Louis rather apologetically.
The lay Sister's heart was immediately softened.
"Ah, the poor little dear! ye can't do that at all. But there's no need to, either. I'll be calling Mother Mary Veronica for ye."
She shuffled slowly away, pausing halfway across the hall to finger her rosary for a moment or two before a statue of St. Joseph
"Evidently our time is not so valuable as Reverend Mother'6," said Louis rather ruefully.
But Mother Mary Veronica proved to be no farther than the parlour they had recently left, and in another moment she came hurriedly up to them.
Zella, feeling bewildered, thought that it would never be possible to distinguish these black-veiled, black-robed women one from another.
Mother