"I don't know," replied her informant. "I suppose they find themselves better off here. Besides, it may not be clean inside; nobody knows, for no one is allowed further than the parlour. I daresay awful things go on, for they are said to be a very severe order. I have heard that they sleep on plank beds, and hardly ever speak, and live on bread and water...."
"And cabbage!"
"Yes, I suppose so. Anyhow it is a fact that no meat ever goes in there. And they do nothing but pray—I mean, they don't embroider, or make lace, or anything useful, but just pray all day long. But Henry says it isn't tedious to them because, of course, after a few months of it, they go out of their minds."
"What do they pray for?" asked Horatia.
A shade of enjoyable horror appeared on the fair face under the beaver bonnet. "They call it Perpetual Intercession. That means praying for wicked people. I know they pray for the dead too—think of that, Horatia! Henry says it's worse than idolatry."
And on this theological dictum of Mr. Strangways they turned through a wide gateway and saw before them, through a fading glory of beech-trees, a large Elizabethan house of mellowed brick. To its left stood the chapel, an incongruous late Georgian building, and up to the main entrance led an ugly covered way of still more modern construction, topped by a statue of the Virgin and Child. Along this way Emilia preceded her guest, for it was barred only by a low oaken gate, which at the moment stood open, perhaps because a novice was scrubbing the stone floor within. Horatia glanced curiously as she passed at the grey-clad figure on its hands and knees, noticing that the hands in question were very small and white, and seemed to have had no past connection with bristles or soapsuds. She would rather have liked to see what sort of a face went with those hands.
The aged portress who took the note from Emilia revealed, as she opened the door, a glimpse of the square Tudor hall that had once known song and carousing but was now lamentably bare and empty. Facing all who entered, and stretching up from the floor against the whitewashed panelling, was a gigantic crucifix in relief, rather more than life-size, of the most startling realism, a realism that had gone so far as to suggest that the base of the cross was sunk in the floor of the hall, for it appeared to be fixed there with large wedges. A skull lay at its foot.
"Is it not horrible?" whispered Emilia as the door shut once more. "The first time I saw it I had nightmare.... I think it is so wrong to remind oneself like that ... Oh, merci, ma soeur!"
For the novice, who had now reached the middle of the passage had risen from her knees, and, removing her bucket out of their way, stood aside with downcast eyes for them to pass. And so Horatia's idle wish was gratified, and she saw her face—the face of Laurence de Vigerie.
CHAPTER VII