it your home, my dear.”
But in reality they were not much nearer together than before the conference.
CHAPTER VII—SISTER AND SISTERS
“Have we not all, amid earth’s petty strife, Some pure ideal of a nobler life? We lost it in the daily jar and fact, And now live idly in a vain regret.”
Agatha was so much absorbed in her preparation for St. Robert’s that she did not pay very much heed to her younger sisters or their relations with Magdalen. She had induced them to submit to the regulation of their studies with her pretty much as if she had been Mrs. Best, looking upon her, however, as something out of date, and hardly up to recent opinions, not realising that, of late, Magdalen’s world had been a wide one.
Perhaps, in Agatha’s feelings, there was an undercurrent inherited from her mother, who had always felt the better connected, better educated step-daughter, a sort of alien element, exciting jealousy by her companionship to her father, and after his death, apt to be regarded as a scarcely willing, and perhaps censorious pay-master.
“Your sister might call it too expensive.” “I must ask your sister.” “No, your sister does not think she can afford it. I am sure she might. Her expenses must be nothing.” All this had been no preparation for full sisterly confidence with “Sister,” even when a sort of grudging gratitude was extracted, and Agatha had been quite old enough to imbibe an undefined antagonism, though, being a sensible girl, she repressed the manifestations, kept her sisters in order and taught them not to love but to submit, and herself remained in a state of civil coolness, without an approach beyond formal signs of affection, and such confidence.
It was the more disappointing to Magdalen, because Agatha and Paulina both showed so much unconscious likeness to their father, not only in features, but in little touches of gesture and manner. She longed to pet them, and say, “Oh, my dears, how like papa!” but the only time she attempted it, she was met by a severe, uncomprehending look and manner.
And Agatha went away to Oxford without any thawing on her part.
The only real ground that had been gained was with little Thekla, who was soon very fond of “Sister,” and depended on her more and more for sympathy and amusement. Girls of seventeen and sixteen do not delight in the sports of nine-year-olds, except in the case of special pets and protégées, and Thekla was snubbed when a partner was required to assist in doll’s dramas, or in evening games. Only “Sister” would play unreservedly with her, unaware or unheeding that this was looked on as keeping up the métier of governess. Indeed, Thekla’s reports of schoolroom murmurs and sneers about the M.A. had to be silenced. Peace and good will could best be guarded by closed ears. Yet, even then, Thekla missed child companionship, and, even more, competition, the lack of which rendered her dull and listless over her lessons, and when reproved, she would beg to be sent to school, or, at least, to attend the High School on her bicycle. Not admiring the manners or the attainments of the specimens before her, Magdalen felt bound to refuse, and the sisters’ pity kept alive the grievance.
She had, however, decided on granting the bicycles. She had found plenty of use for her own, for it was possible with prudent use of it, avoiding the worst parts of the road, to be at early celebration at St. Andrew’s, and get to the Sunday school at Arnscombe afterwards; and Paulina, with a little demur, decided on giving her assistance there.
At a Propagation of the Gospel meeting at the town hall, the Misses Prescott were introduced to the Reverend Augustine Flight, of St. Kenelm’s, and his mother, Lady Flight, who sat next to Magdalen, and began to talk eagerly of the designs for the ceiling of their church, and the very promising young artist who was coming down from Eccles and Beamster to undertake the work.
The church had not yet been seen, and the conversation ended in the sisters coming back to tea, at which Paula was very happy, for the talk had something of the rather exclusive High Church tone that was her ideal. She had seen it in books, but had never heard it before in real life, and Vera was in a restless state, longing to hear whether the promising young artist was really Hubert Delrio, and hoping, while she believed that she feared, that she should blush when she heard his name. However, she did not, though Mr. Flight unfolded his rough plans for the frescoes, which were to be of virgin and child martyrs, Magdalen hesitating a little over those that seemed too legendary; while old Lady Flight, portly and sentimental, declared them so sweet and touching. After tea, they went on to the church. Just at the entrance of the porch, Vera clutched at Paula, with the whisper, “Wasn’t that Wilfred Merrifield? There, crossing?”
“Nonsense,” was Paula’s reply, as she lingered over the illuminated list of the hours of services displayed at the door, and feeling as if she had attained dreamland, as she saw two fully habited Sisters enter, and bend low as they did so.
The church was very elaborately ornamented, small, but showing that no expense had been spared, though there was something that did not quite accord with Magdalen’s ideas of the best taste; so that when they went out she answered Paula’s raptures of admiration somewhat coldly, or what so appeared to the enthusiastic girl.
The next day, meeting Miss Mohun over cutting out for a working party, Magdalen asked her about the Flights and St. Kenelm’s.
“He is an excellent good man,” said Jane Mohun, “and has laid out immense sums on the church and parish.”
“All his own? Not subscription?”
“No. He is the only son of a very rich City man, a brewer, and came here with his mother as a curate, as a good place for health. They found a miserable little corrugated-iron place, called the Kennel Chapel, and worked it up, raising the people, and doing no end of good till it came to be a district, as St. Kenelm’s.”
“Very ornamental?”
“Oh, very,” said Jane, warming out of caution, as she felt she might venture showing city gorgeousness all over. “But it is infinitely to his credit. He had a Fortunatus’ purse, and was a spoilt child—not in the bad sense—but with an utterly idolising mother, and he tried a good many experiments that made our hair stand on end; but he has sobered down, and is a much wiser man now—though I would not be bound to admire all he does.”
“I see there are Sisters? Do they belong to his arrangements?”
“Yes. They are what my brother calls Cousins of Mercy. The elder one has tried two or three Sisterhoods, and being dissatisfied with all the rules, I fancy she has some notion of trying to set up one on her own account at Mr. Flight’s. They are both relations of his mother, and are really one of his experiments—fancy names and fancy rules, of course. I believe the young one wanted to call herself Sister Philomena, but that he could not stand. So they act as parish women here, and they do it very well. I liked Sister Beata when I have come in contact with her, and I am sure she is an excellent nurse. They will do your nieces no harm, though I don’t like the irregular.”
Of this assurance Magdalen felt very glad, when at the door of the parish room, where the ladies were to hold a working party for the missions, Carrigaboola Missions at Albertstown, she and her nieces were introduced to the two ladies in hoods and veils; and Paula’s eyes sparkled with delight as she settled into a chair next to Sister Mena. She looked as happy as Vera looked bored! Conversation was not possible while a missionary memoir was being read aloud, but the history of Mother Constance, once Lady Herbert Somerville, but then head at Dearport, and founder of the Daughter Sisterhood at Carrigaboola. To the Merrifields it was intensely interesting, and also to Magdalen; but all the time she could see demonstrations passing between Paula and Sister Mena, a nice-looking girl, much embellished by the setting of the hood and veil, as if the lending of a pair of scissors or the turning of a hem were an act of tender admiration. So sweet a look came out on Paula’s face that she longed to awaken the like. Vera meantime looked as if her only consolation lay in the neighbourhood of a window, whence she could see up the