Chapter IX: Sunday

Sunday at St. Pucelle was not such an uninteresting day as I had anticipated. On the first Saturday I spent there, I passed through the kitchen and detected Tessie, with a large holland apron and bib pinned over her serge dress, busily employed in making tartlets. How fair and gentle she looked—somehow after I had seen Ange I never could call Tessie pretty, although her sweet womanly face gained by the contrast with that of her lovely sister. There she stood with her sleeves rolled off her arms, and a smile dimpling every feature as I confronted her.

‘Making good things for to-morrow’s dinner?’ I asked.

‘Oh no! though I’ll keep some for you, Hilda, if you particularly wish it. These are for papa during the service.’

‘_For papa during the service!_’ I could not help re-echoing her words. There seemed something so intensely ludicrous in the idea of a minister of the Church consuming jam tarts between the Litany and the Communion.

‘Yes; he requires something to keep him up, you know. It is very fatiguing for an old man to read and preach for two hours at a time, so we always prepare him a little _goûter_ in the vestry.’

‘Has Mr. Lovett no help, then?’

‘A layman occasionally reads the lessons for him. Young Mr. Thrale has promised to do so to-morrow, but otherwise he has all the work on his own hands.’

‘And three services a day, I suppose?’

‘Oh no! only one in the morning. There are not enough Protestants to make it worth while. No one would come a second time. But I hope you will like our service, Hilda. It is nothing very grand, of course, but Ange and I try to make the singing as nice as we can, and nothing could exceed papa’s preaching. It is beautiful!’

When I had become acquainted with the Protestant service held in the schoolroom vacated by the little Romanists of St. Pucelle, I agreed with Tessie, that, considering all the disadvantages it laboured under, it was very nice, and it owed much of its success to the labours of herself and Ange. From the moment that Sunday dawned, these two girls were very important people indeed. They appeared to me to combine the offices of sacristan, clerk, organist and choir all in one. As soon as their breakfast was completed they ran over to the schoolroom to make sure that it was properly aired, dusted and swept: to arrange the Communion table, which was stowed away in a cupboard during the week: to see that the benches were properly placed; the tiny harmonium pulled into position, and the lessons and hymns for the day looked out ready for their father and themselves. They had the arrangements for all the music and chanting in their own hands, and merely placed a list of the hymns to be sung on the Communion table; which always bore a vase of flowers set there by Ange.

Of course they had secured me to take part in the singing, which I was willing enough to do. To sing praise to God and to sing songs to the piano were two different things. I felt I came nearer _her_ whilst engaged in the former practice, and that if my dull ears could only be opened, I might be able to distinguish her own sweet voice mingling with mine.

So at a few minutes before eleven, we three girls were established behind the harmonium; Tessie in front of it as accompanist, and Ange and I on either side, to take soprano and alto as lustily as we could, and induce the congregation to chime in.

It was difficult to divest one’s mind of the idea that we were only in a schoolroom, nor to help being amused by the remarks Ange made on the people as they filed in, one after another. There were the poor condemned Johnstones, looking handsomer and more stylish than anybody there: there were, of necessity, the giddy Sophia Markham, with young Thrale in close attendance: Mr. and Mrs. Carolus, dressed in their newest and best. Colonel Berwick, with his interminable family of girls and boys—a gentleman of such ultra-Protestant views that he would not permit his children to pass the Catholic church in their daily walks, for fear the Abbé Morteville should rush out and baptise them all in the middle of the road: Mrs. Dart, a handsome widow, of whose antecedents no one could find out anything; and a dozen or more stray men and women whose names I had been told, but who were not particularly intimate with the Lovetts. These naturally did not constitute the resident part of the population of St. Pucelle, who were all Catholics.

They were the English visitors only, who filled the two little primitive hotels of the town—the Hôtel de la Cloche and the Hôtel de l’Étoile—for three to six months in the year. They had scarcely settled down in their seats—Miss Markham having turned round first and nodded to us all in a manner which I thought most irreverent in a place of worship—when Mr. Lovett entered and ascended the temporary pulpit that was dragged out of the cupboard with the Communion-table every Sunday morning. As I saw the old man in his surplice and bands, I was ready to agree with all the admiration his daughters bestowed upon him; he looked so handsome, so venerable and so much like a saint, that he was what the nurses term ‘a perfect picture.’

As he knelt in prayer, with his finely-shaped hands clasped together, his beautiful blue eyes upraised to heaven, and his silver curls crowning a brow which must have befitted an Antinous in earlier days, he should have been painted for a prophet or an apostle, pleading with the Almighty for mercy on sins which he knew only through the weakness of others. And if I thought my guardian’s personal appearance striking on that occasion, I was still more delighted with his delivery. His elocution was remarkable. Each word fell from his lips with musical distinctness, and it was evident that the art had formed an important part of his studies. He read the lessons—young Thrale being too nervous to do so when it came to the point—as I had never heard them read before. Without any theatrical display, he gave the New Testament history for the day, as a history, not divided into so many monotonous verses badly punctuated, but strongly and energetically delivered, with an expression that must have riveted the attention of every one who was listening to him.

I felt at once that there stood before me a man of no common parts or learning, a man who should have been (as his daughter had fondly said) set in a high place to give light to the world. Nor was I disappointed by the sermon that followed the prayers. It was stirring—terse—to the point, and delivered with energy. The blue eyes flashed with anger or glowed with feeling as he denounced sin or invited to pardon, and when in a few words he described the horrors that awaited the impenitent, a thrill of terror ran through his congregation.

I felt it keenly, and glanced towards my companions to see what effect it had upon them. Tessie was looking like an ordinary mortal, quietly interested; but Ange had her whole attention riveted on her father’s words and face. Her eyes were filled with tears, her cheeks were glowing, her whole expression was one of adoring admiration. When Mr. Lovett had finished his sermon, which was so superabundantly superior to anything I had ever heard from a pulpit before, that I was quite surprised the congregation did not applaud him, she waked up from her reverie with a start and a long-drawn sigh, and had only time to whisper hurriedly to me, ‘Isn’t he perfect?’ before the harmonium struck up again, and we rose to sing the parting hymn.

The service, simply as it was conducted, had had such a solemn effect upon me that I was disgusted to see Miss Sophia Markham, before she left the schoolroom, approach the place where we were sitting, and to hear her ask Ange in a loud whisper if we would all go over to their hotel in the afternoon and have tea with them.

‘Arthur Thrale’s friend—the sporting man—my great admirer (you know who I mean), has promised to come over from Rille, if possible, and we can all go for a walk over the hills together. _You_ can come, can’t you, if the others won’t?’

I saw the crimson colour rush like a flood over Ange’s lovely face, but she shook her head determinately in answer to the invitation.

‘We make a rule of never going out on Sundays, Miss Markham.’

‘Oh, well! just as you like, you know; but I thought it would give you pleasure. What are you going to do to-morrow?’

‘Papa will be waiting for us in the vestry, Ange,’ whispered Tessie, who had put away the chant-books and did not appear to like this sort of conversation going on in church any more than I did.

Ange took the hint, and, rising without further ceremony, we walked up to the little room where Mr. Lovett robed and disrobed. But here I was rather startled by coming upon the reverend gentleman seated in his surplice before a small table on which, spread on an old newspaper, were some sandwiches, a flask of sherry, and the tartlets Tessie had made the day before. Yet she did not seem to see anything in the sight incongruous with the words we had just heard fall from those lips, now besmeared with _compôte de fraises_.

‘Are they good, papa?’ she inquired affectionately.

‘Very good, my dear!’ he replied, with his mouth full; ‘but your second hymn was so short, I had no time to eat them before. You must look out a longer one for next Sunday! You forget the work I have to do whilst you are singing a couple of verses. Four is the very least I can accomplish it under.’

‘He _shall_ have four—the dear old dad!’ exclaimed Ange, as she kissed the top of his head; ‘or six if he likes it better. Oh, papa! you were divine to-day. You made me cry so! How I wish we were all dead and safe in heaven together!’

‘Tut! tut! you silly little mouse!’ said her father, as he patted her rose-leaf cheek; ‘you mustn’t talk about being dead and buried just yet! You’ll have to put me under ground first, you know.’

‘Oh, papa! papa! _don’t!_’ she cried, in a voice of real pain.

‘Well, then, trot home and see after the dinner being got ready in time. We are obliged to dine early to-day, my dear Hilda, in consideration of the proceedings of our domestic tyrant Madame Marmoret, who insists upon attending three services at her own church every Sunday, and disregarding everything she hears there on the remaining six days of the week.’

‘A very common practice, Mr. Lovett, with people much better instructed than Madame Marmoret.’

‘Very true, my dear! I wonder how many of my congregation of to-day will even remember, let alone practise, the precepts I have just preached to them. But come, little people, clear out of my vestry, for I want to resume my usual garb.’

I thought Ange was uncommonly thoughtful that afternoon, and I could not help associating her mood with the information Mrs. Carolus had given me about the young man at Rille who had paid her so much attention, which had come to nothing.

Was it possible, I thought, as I watched her sitting on the ground with her hands folded idly on her lap, and her sunny head laid against her father’s knee, that her young heart could have suffered a disappointment, anything akin, in magnitude or bitterness, to that which had been experienced by my own? I could not believe it. The infidelity of Cave Charteris, whether it had been brought on by my credulous folly or his thoughtlessness, had left a mark upon me which I knew that nothing in this world could ever obliterate. I was not so young nor so blind as to imagine that I should never be happy again. I knew that men and women had sustained and conquered greater griefs and more crushing shames than mine. But I no more believed that I should ever forget the awful pain my first disappointment had caused me, than that I should replace the dear friend and mother whose death had left a vacancy in my bruised heart that no mortal could fill again.

Ange seemed to me too young to have suffered in proportion with myself; not too young in years, but in spirit. How I envied the youthful gaiety with which she enjoyed her walks and talks, and simple occupations, the fresh laughter that burst from her, with her will or against it, at anything that touched her sense of ridicule; and the innocent mischief which made her love to tease her father or her sister, or even Madame, until she was compelled to win their pardon by her kisses.

No! Ange could never have passed through the same valley of suffering as I had! Its shadows would have frightened her lightheartedness to death. Yet she was certainly very grave that afternoon, and very silent; but, when I taxed her with it, she replied that she was always tired on Sundays, and wanted rest after the exertion of singing, or, as she expressed it, of ‘bawling at the top of her voice, for two hours, without stopping.’ After which I was surprised, when tea was over, to see her come down into the sitting-room, robed for walking.

‘Are you going out again, Ange?’

‘Yes, to evening church.’

‘I thought there was only one service here.’

‘Papa has only one; but Monsieur l’Abbé has the regular number at his church. I always go there in the evening, the service is so beautiful. Will you come with me?’

‘I shall be delighted.’

It was nothing extraordinary in _me_ to consent to attend a Catholic service, because I was a very broad and muscular Christian indeed, bound, by my own conscience, to no creed nor church whatever, but ready to join in any prayers that satisfied my ideas of what religious worship should be, and to believe that the path that took him readiest to God was the right path for each man to walk in, irrespective of the pilot who led the way. But then I was not a minister of the Established Church of England, who had taken a very solemn oath to uphold her doctrines and protect her interests in every possible manner, and it seemed very strange to me that Mr. Lovett should like it to be known, in a little town like St. Pucelle, that his daughters attended the services of a Church whose doctrines were so diametrically opposed to those of his own.

‘Does your papa approve of your going to vespers at St. Marie?’ I said to Ange, as we walked there together.

‘Oh, Hilda! Do you suppose I should do so without his approval? Why, of course he does. And the Abbé Morteville is one of papa’s very best and most intimate friends.’

‘That may be. I see no reason whatever why a difference of religious opinion should have any effect upon the friendship of men. Still, I should have thought, as Mr. Lovett is a Protestant minister, that he would have been almost afraid to let you and Tessie attend the Catholic services.’

‘Why?’ she asked quickly.

‘For various reasons; the chief being, that you might be converted to Catholicism yourselves.’

‘I don’t think papa would object to it if we were! You don’t half know yet how good and generous and liberal-minded he is, Hilda. If he thought Tessie and I were fully persuaded that we should not be happy unless we became Catholics, he would never oppose our wishes. But he need have no fear; at all events on my account. I shall never leave the English Church so long as he is in it.’

I admired the beautiful childlike faith which she had in her father, and in everything which he believed to be right, but I could not join in it. To me it seemed the most culpable negligence to allow a girl with so unformed a mind as that of Ange to attend regularly the offices of a church to which she did not belong. However, it was no concern of mine, and I was silent.

As we approached the porch of St. Marie, we met the Baron de Nesselrode.

‘How do you do, M. le Baron?’ exclaimed Ange. ‘We are going to attend vespers this evening. Will you come with us?’

Armand de Nesselrode laughed uneasily.

‘I am afraid you must excuse me,’ he replied; ‘it is a very long time since I have seen the inside of a church, Mademoiselle Ange.’

‘Is that so? What a sad confession! What would Monsieur l’Abbé say were he to hear it?’

‘The truth, probably—that I am a lost sheep not worth the looking after.’

‘Indeed he would not. I can answer for that. Monsieur l’Abbé is far too good to say such a thing of any one.’

‘But he has given me up all the same, and he is wise to do so. He has too much occupation for his time to waste it upon a _vaurien_ like myself. No one remembers me, Mademoiselle Ange. I am an outcast, and alone.’

_Alone!_ The word struck painfully upon my ear. I had so often used it in reference to my own condition. And although Armand de Nesselrode laughed with apparent carelessness as he said it, I felt sure that he was suffering bitterly the while. I wished, at that moment, that I could speak French as fluently as Ange did—that I might assure him that I could sympathise in his sense of solitude. But a foolish timidity bound my tongue. The young Baron spoke with a pure Parisian accent, and I was ashamed to air my boarding-school French before him. Yet, as he raised his hat to me in parting, I ventured to say, in a very low voice:

‘Monsieur, when we pray to-night, we will not forget you.’

A gleam of pleasure and sudden interest lit up the dark eyes which he fixed upon me.

‘I thank you—I thank you much, mademoiselle,’ he replied fervently, as we passed into the church.

When we returned home that evening, we went at once into the little sitting-room where Tessie was sitting by herself, reading.

‘Where is papa, Tessie?’

‘He has gone over to the Hôtel de la Cloche to see Miss Markham. She sent up a note by Arthur Thrale to ask him to do so. I suppose the visitor they expected from Rille has arrived, and requires a little more amusement than can be extracted from poor old Mr. Carolus.’

Again that vivid burning blush on Ange’s cheek, but she did not make any remark upon her sister’s news. She only threw her hat and cape upon a chair, and, going up to the piano, sat down and commenced to play a hymn. It was a familiar one to all of us.

Tessie left her book and took a seat beside me, and put her arm round my waist, and we sang the words together. Amidst the noise which we made with our own voices, I could not distinguish if the little maid joined us or no. We had not finished the hymn, however, when the door from the _salle_ softly opened, and the tall figure of the Baron de Nesselrode stood upon the threshold. We would have stopped at once, but he motioned us to proceed, and stood there, with the door in his hand, until the hymn was concluded. Then he closed it behind him, and advanced into our midst.

‘Monsieur Lovett, I find, is not at home, so I ventured to come a little farther than the _salle_,’ he said to Tessie. ‘Will you continue your singing, Mademoiselle Ange? It is such a treat to me to listen to music. I never hear any now.’

‘You are fond of it, then, Monsieur le Baron?’

‘Passionately, mademoiselle. At one time I thought I could never live without it. But one is forced to learn hard lessons in this world. There is a fine organ up at my old château, but it has not been opened for years; and I conclude that, like its owner, it is ruined.’

‘What a pity! You should have it examined. Why not get the opinion of the organist of St. Marie upon it?’

‘I would rather have the opinion of you, demoiselles, if you would graciously accord it to me. Do you think Monsieur votre père would so far honour me as to bring you all up to the château some day, that you may see and pronounce on the merits of my poor old organ for yourselves?’

‘We will ask papa, Monsieur le Baron, but I do not think he will have any objection.’

‘Objection!’ cried Ange, wheeling round on her music-stool, ‘I should think not. I won’t let him have an objection. Tessie and I have so often longed to see your château, Monsieur le Baron—the dear old romantic tumbled-down place. I have peeped over the wall dozens of times, and picked all the roses within my reach, but of course I dared not venture within the gates, it would not have been _comme-il-faut_!’

‘A dear old romantic tumbled-down place,’ repeated the Baron, bitterly. ‘Yes! that is the fittest name for the only rest my folly has left for the sole of my foot. Bah! do not let us talk of it any more. Monsieur will bring you to visit me there, I trust, and old Denise shall receive you with all the reverence befitting your own position, if not with the luxury a De Nesselrode should be able to lavish upon his guests. Sing to me again, mesdemoiselles. Let me forget the memories this little conversation has provoked, in listening to your voices.’

So Ange struck up the plaintive air of ‘Sun of my soul,’ and we all joined in the evening hymn together. Its last chords were dying away, when Mr. Lovett’s footstep was heard entering the _salle_. The Baron rose at once to join him, but before he had time to leave the room, Tessie and Ange had flown past him to welcome their father home. Consequently, he and I were left for one brief moment together.

‘Did you forget your promise, mademoiselle?’ he asked me, in a low earnest voice.

‘I did not, monsieur.’

He made no answer, but he threw one long searching glance upon me before he left the room, and I sat there thinking what a pity it was that he was so careless and dissipated, and what a desirable husband he would make for Tessie, if he could only be converted to see the errors of his ways.