II
Her aunt's presence at Monk's Eype scarcely affected Cecily Wake. The two had never become intimate; the girl's young eagernesses and enthusiasms disturbed Miss Wake, and even her sunny good temper and buoyancy were a source of irritation to one who had led so grey and toneless a life.
On the other hand, Miss Theresa Wake was really attached to the beautiful woman whom she called cousin.
She watched Penelope far more closely than the latter knew during those still, hot August days, when the thin, shrunken figure of the spinster lady, wrapped, in spite of the heat, in an old-fashioned cashmere shawl, sat back in one of the hooded chairs set on the eastern side of the terrace. When out in the open air Miss Wake always armed herself with one of the novels which had been thoughtfully provided by her kind hostess for her entertainment; but often she would lay the volume down on her knee, and gaze, her dim eyes full of speculation, at Mrs. Robinson's brilliant figure coming and going across the terrace, to and from the studio, sometimes—nay, generally—accompanied, shadow-wise, by the tall, lean form of Sir George Downing.
After watching these two for a while, Miss Wake would find her interrupted novel oddly uninteresting and dreary.
To Cecily these holiday days were not passing by as happily as she had thought they would. She felt for the first time in her short life disturbed, she knew not why; distressed, she knew not by what.
The hours spent with Mrs. Robinson, doing work she had looked forward to doing, seemed strangely dull compared with those briefer moments when Wantley strolled or sat by her side, looking down smiling into her eyes, asking whimsical questions concerning the Settlement, with a view—or so he said—of settling there himself, if Mr. Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret would accept him as a disciple!
Twice in those ten days he had gone with her to early Mass at Beacon Abbas; and oh, how pleasant had been the walks along the cliff path, how soothing the half-hours spent in the beautiful chapel, with Wantley standing and kneeling by her side. But on the second occasion of their return from Beacon Abbas Penelope had greeted the two walkers, or rather had greeted Cecily, with a questioning piercing look. Was it one of dissatisfaction, of slight jealousy, or simply of surprise? That one glance—and Wantley was well aware that it was so—put an end to any further joint expeditions to the monastery chapel.
During these same unquiet days, when Cecily's heart would beat without reason, when she seemed to be always waiting, she knew not for what, the girl became fond, in a shy, childish way, of Penelope's mother.
Perhaps because she was utterly unlike any other woman Cecily Wake had ever seen, or even imagined, Lady Wantley exercised a curious fascination over her heart and mind. The tall, stately figure, wrapped in sweeping black and white garments, was seen but seldom in the sunshine, out of doors. Since her widowhood she had lived a life withdrawn from the world about her, and she had occupied what had been a sudden and unwelcome leisure by writing two mystical volumes, which had enjoyed great popularity among those ever ready to welcome a new interpretation of the more esoteric passages of the Scriptures.
When staying at Monk's Eype, Lady Wantley would spend long hours of solitude in the Picture Room; and there Cecily would sometimes find her, absorbed in a strangely-worded French or English book of devotion, from which, looking up, she would make the girl read her short passages. At other moments Cecily would discover her engaged in writing long letters of spiritual advice to correspondents, almost always unknown to her, who had read her books, and who wished to consult her concerning their own spiritual difficulties and perplexities.
When not thus employed Lady Wantley sat idle, her long, delicately-modelled hands clasped loosely together, enjoying, as she believed, actual communion with her own dead—with the fine, true-hearted father, whose earthly memory was so dear to her; with the beloved mother, to whom as she grew older she felt herself to be growing more alike and nearer; with the husband who, however stern and awe-inspiring to others, had ever been fond and tender to herself. The little group of strangely assorted souls seemed ever gathered about her, and in no distant, inaccessible heaven.
Once, when Cecily Wake had come upon her in one of these strange companied trances, Lady Wantley had said very simply: 'I have been telling Penelope's father of her many perfections: of her goodness to those who, if they are the disinherited of the earth, are yet the heirs of the kingdom—those whom he himself ever made his special care. I think, dear child, that, if you would not mind my doing so, I will also some day tell him—my husband, I mean—of you, and of Penelope's love and care for you.' And she had added, as if to herself: 'But how could she be otherwise? Was she not, even before her birth, dedicated to the Lord in His temple?'
Lady Wantley was sometimes in a sterner mood, when hell seemed as near as—ay, nearer than—heaven. Evil spirits then appeared to encompass her, and she would feel herself to be wrestling with their dread master himself. When this was so, her delicate, bloodless face would become transfigured, and the large, heavy-lidded grey eyes would seem to flash out fire, while Cecily listened, awed, to strange majestic utterances, of which she knew not that their source was the Apocalypse.
That this convent-bred girl had a genuine belief in the Evil One, and a due fear of his cunning ways, was undoubtedly a link between Lady Wantley and herself; as was also the softer fact of her great affection for the one creature whom Lady Wantley loved with simple human devotion. After hearing the older woman talk, as she so often did talk, of her loved and admired daughter, Cecily would feel grieved, even a little perplexed, when next she perceived how lightly Penelope esteemed this boundless mother-love.
In no material thing did Mrs. Robinson neglect Lady Wantley. Every morning she would make her way into the Picture Room, ready with some practical suggestion designed to further her mother's comfort during the coming day; but to Penelope, much as she loved her, Lady Wantley never alluded to the matters which lay nearest to her heart. She found it easier to do so to the Catholic girl than to the creature she had herself borne, over whose upbringing she had watched so zealously, and, as she sometimes admitted to herself in moments of rare self-sincerity, with so little success.