“Yes. We’ve just come for the Retreat.”
“I have followed the Retreat here every year,” said Mrs. Mulholland triumphantly, “for the last eighteen years. I haven’t missed one of them. Poor Monseigneur Miller, who used always to give it, used to say that he couldn’t have given out the points for the meditations if he hadn’t seen me at my own prie-dieu, in my own corner of the Chapel. Did you ever meet Monseigneur Miller?”
“No, I’m afraid not. You see I’m not——”
“Ah well! he’s been dead more than ten years, and we’ve had several priests for the Ladies’ Retreat since then. Last year we had Father Aloysius Paxton—a Jesuit. His note was Repentance—the whole Retreat was Repentance—based on that, practically. Now I hear that this man, who is coming to-morrow, takes quite a different line. Wasn’t it you, Miss Benjafield, who told me that Father Anselm preaches his retreats altogether in the spirit of Hope?”
“So my sister tells me, Mrs. Mulholland,” replied an anæmic-looking woman from the other side of the table. “My Carmelite sister, you know, not the Poor Clare one. Pass the potatoes, if you please. Thank you. Yes, he gave them a Retreat which they liked very much, I believe.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Mulholland condescendingly. “The Carmelites make a longer Retreat than ours, I know. I dare say it’s quite in accordance with the spirit of the Order, but I must say, what’s good enough for our Order is good enough for me. I always tell Mère Pauline that an eight-day Retreat wouldn’t be at all too much for us—it’s what the nuns make themselves.”
“Oh, Mrs. Mulholland! I think five days is quite enough to keep silence for!” cried a merry-looking French girl, with an air of saying something audacious.
“Ah, we have to make allowances for you young things. But I always make up for it later in the year, by coming to the meditations in the chapel given for the nuns’ Retreat, you know. Of course,” said Mrs. Mulholland, slightly lowering her voice and turning towards Nina, “Mère Pauline doesn’t allow the ladies to follow the nuns’ Retreat at all as a rule; it’s quite an exception. But, of course, I’ve been here a number of years, and am almost like one of themselves in a way. I have a very regular rule of life—under direction, of course, under direction.”
The other ladies, who were evidently well used to the recital of Mrs. Mulholland’s spiritual privileges, resumed conversation briskly among themselves and speculations as to the coming Retreat mingled with the emphatically related anecdotes of the younger girls as to sudden and disconcerting encounters with Mère Pauline—“Just as I was saying that I didn’t think I’d go to Vespers to-day. Do you think she heard, my dear?”
“I must introduce you all round after supper,” said Mrs. Mulholland, looking amiably at Nina. “You see, I’m quite the oldest inhabitant here—in point of stay. I’ve sat at the head of this table, Mrs. Severing, for the past fifteen years—ever since poor old Miss O’Malley died. She used to sit here when I first came—she’d been here for twenty years, and was a sister of one of the old nuns—but she took to her own room some six months before she died, and I was asked to come to the head of the table in her place, and there I’ve been ever since. I was asked to take it, mind you. The Superior before this one, Mère Alphonsine, who was alive then, asked me herself to take the head of the table. ‘Vous dirigerez un peu la conversation,’ she said to me. I like the conversation at the ladies’ table to be edifying—as cheerful as you please—but edifying. No grumbling—no gossip—no uncharitable speaking. So that’s my little task—one of my little tasks—to keep up the tone of the conversation at meals. Now a few years ago, Mrs. Severing, we had Lady O’Hagan here—a very nice woman indeed—widow of Sir Patrick O’Hagan, of whom you may have heard—a very well-known Catholic family. Well, the lay-sister who waits on us here, put Lady O’Hagan at the head of the table, and moved my place to the side. An ignorant lay-sister, you see, very well-meaning, but thought that because of the title this good woman should be put at the head. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘Lady O’Hagan is only here for a few days’—just for a Retreat she’d come—‘and it doesn’t matter to me—I’ve got my position here, have had for years—it doesn’t matter to me. But it is what it ought to be? Mère Alphonsine asked me to take the head of the table—well and good—I took it. I’ve had it ever since. If you ask me, I don’t think I ought to give it up. Mère Alphonsine had her reasons for putting me there, and there I consider I ought to stay until I’m told otherwise. Of course, one word from the Superior and I move at once. That’s obedience. I’m not under vows, Mrs. Severing, but I consider myself just as much bound to obedience as any postulant in the house. Well, I spoke to Mère Econome—she’s by way of looking after the ladies—and she, being Spanish, didn’t quite understand the case. Thought it didn’t matter—only a question of a few days—and so on. ‘That’s not right,’ said I. ‘That’s not the point,’ I said. ‘The point is, what ought to be.’ So I went straight to Mère Pauline. Straight to the Superior—that’s my motto, Mrs. Severing. Always go straight to the Superior. I said: ‘It’s not a question of minding—I’ll move my place to-morrow if that’s what you think best,’ I said, ‘but let it be under obedience. A question of obedience,’ I said, ‘and you’re given the grace to carry it out.’ That’s all I said: ‘A question of obedience,’ I said.