Elizabeth looked out of the window at the celebrated Mr. Martin, and saw that here was an opportunity for saying what she felt she must say to her aunt before Sunday morning. The talk she had had with her father on the reality of religious beliefs to her had been renewed before she left India, and, with his consent, she had made up her mind not to go to church while the reason for so doing remained inconclusive to her. To attend public worship seemed to her a symbolical act, an outward sign of something that, in truth, was non-existent.... It was like a red Socialist joining in the National Anthem. But she had promised him—and, indeed, the promise was one with the desire of her heart—to pray, not to let neglect cement her want of conviction.
"Aunt Julia," she said, "I want to tell you something. It is that I don't want to go to church. It—it doesn't mean anything to me. Oh, I'm afraid you are shocked!"
It seemed a justifiable apprehension.
"Elizabeth!" said Mrs. Hancock. "How can you say such wicked things?"
This roused the girl.
"They are not wicked!" she said hotly. "It is very cruel of you to say so. I had a long talk, two talks, with daddy about it. He agrees with me. He was very sorry, but he agrees."
It is hard to convey exactly the impression made on Mrs. Hancock's mind. If Elizabeth had confessed to a systematic course of burglary or murder she would not have been more shocked, nor would she have been more shocked if her niece had announced her intention of appearing at dinner without shoes and stockings. The conventional outrage, in fact, was about as distressing to her as the moral one. She knew, of course, perfectly well that even in well-regulated Heathmoor certain most respectable inhabitants, who often sat at her table, were accustomed to spend Sunday morning on the golf-links instead of at public worship, but she never for a moment thought of classing them with Elizabeth. She could not have explained that; it was merely matter of common knowledge that grown-up men did not seem to need to go to church so much. Similarly it was right for them to smoke strong cigars after dinner, whereas the fact that Elizabeth had consumed one of Mr. Beaumont's cigarettes, had she been cognizant of that appalling occurrence, would have seemed to her an almost inconceivable breach of decency. Girls went to church, and did not smoke; here was the statement of two very simple fundamental things.
"I hardly know what to say to you," she said. "Talking to Mr. Beaumont is nothing to this. I must ask you to be silent for a little while, Elizabeth, while I collect my thoughts, and on our first drive too, which I hoped we should enjoy so much, although your being late made it impossible for us to go round by the mill as I had planned."
The poor lady's pleasure was quite spoiled, and not being accustomed to arrange her thoughts in any order, except when she was forming careful plans for her own comfort, she found the collection of them, which she desired, difficult of attainment. But very quickly she began to see that her own comfort was seriously involved, and that gave her a starting-point. It would be known by now throughout Heathmoor that her niece from India had come to stay with her for the summer, and it would be seen that no niece sat with her in the pew just below the pulpit. Almost all the seats in the church faced eastwards; this, with one or two others, ran at right angles to them, and was thus in full view of the congregation. It followed that unless she explained Elizabeth's absence, Sunday by Sunday, when there was always a general chat—except on the first Sunday of the month—at the gate into the churchyard, by a cold or some other non-existent complaint (and this was really not to be thought of), her circle of friends would necessarily come to the most shocking conclusion as to Elizabeth's non-appearance. Certainly Mr. Martin would notice it, and it would be his duty to inquire into it. That would be most uncomfortable, and if inquiries were made of her she could not imagine herself giving either the real reason or a false one. No doubt if Mr. Martin talked to Elizabeth he could soon awake in her that sense of religious security, of soothed, confident trust—a trust as complete as that with which any sane person awaited the rising of the sun in the morning, which to Mrs. Hancock connoted Christianity, but that he should talk to her implied that he must know what ailed her. And in any case the rest of Heathmoor would notice Elizabeth's absence from church.... It was all very dreadful and puzzling, and was no doubt the result of a prolonged sojourn in India, where heathens, in spite of all those missions to which she did not subscribe, were still in such numerical preponderance. But the cause of Elizabeth's proposed absence did not in reality so greatly trouble her. What spoiled her pleasure, in any case, was the uncomfortableness of the situation if Elizabeth was seen to be consistently absent from the eleven o'clock service.
Then the light began to break, and conventional arguments flocked to the assistance of her beleaguered conventionality.