“‘Mrs. Mulholland,’ Mère Pauline said, ‘I should be very much distressed indeed to think of your moving. Please stay where you’ve always been, and remember that we look to you to raise the tone of conversation and render it all it should be.’ Now, after that, Mrs. Severing, do you wonder that I look upon my place here as a duty—as a positive responsibility?”
“No, indeed,” said Nina rather faintly.
“We’ve always been very careful, of course, as to the ladies we receive here,” continued Mrs. Mulholland, as usual identifying herself with the community. “There’s never any question of gossip, you know—anything of that sort. But, of course, with so many young people—foreigners too—one must keep a lookout—just a lookout. There’s sometimes a little criticizing—a remark or two passed: ‘I don’t like Mother So-and-So’—‘Sister this or Sister the other is too sharp in her manner for me.’ Now that’s what I am here to stop. ‘That’ll do, my dear,’ I say. ‘That’s enough.’ Never more than that, you know—only ‘That’ll do, my dear,’ just like that. ‘We don’t find fault with the nuns here,’ I say. ‘You must go somewhere else if you want a spirit of disloyalty. We don’t stock it here.’ Passing it off, you see, with a joke. That’s all I ever say, and I assure you it’s always been efficacious.”
“I’m sure it has,” began Nina again. “Do you——”
“We’re quite a large party here for the moment owing to the Retreat, but, of course, at other times it’s more like a family—there’s not the same necessity,” pursued Mrs. Mulholland, warming to her theme, “for keeping a sharp eye open—or perhaps I ought to say a sharp ear.” She paused to laugh heartily. “I don’t want to give you the impression that I am a sort of policeman, waiting to pounce, Mrs. Severing, or you’ll be afraid to open your lips. We’re all very glad, on the contrary, to see a new face now and then, and hear something fresh. Though I always tell Mère Pauline that I think we ladies ought to have a rule of silence at meals, just as the community has. That’s what I should like.”
The fervour of this aspiration was only equalled by the intensity with which it was inwardly echoed by Mrs. Severing.
XIV
AS the meal drew towards a close two or three of the girls began to push back their chairs, murmuring to their neighbours: “Well—if you’ll excuse me,” and left the room after a rapid Sign of the Cross, apparently directed at the centre of the table. Mrs. Mulholland inclined her monumental bulk over her empty plate for a few seconds, crossed herself devoutly two or three times, and then said rather majestically to Nina Severing:
“If you care to go over the house and garden a little later on, you must come to my room. On the ground floor, the first door you see at the end of that passage. It’s been my room for eighteen years. It’s a great joke in the community that I’ve been here longer than Mère Pauline has—several years longer. I was here in the time of Mère Alphonsine—a great saint, Mère Alphonsine—ah, yes, indeed. Not that I mean to say Mère Pauline isn’t a saint in her own way, you know, but of course there it is. I remember her arrival here as a young nun who’d not yet taken her final vows. I was here for her profession fifteen years ago. I often chaff her about it, you know, ‘Ah, notre Mère,’ I say, ‘remember I was here before you were.’ It’s quite a household joke, I assure you. ‘Mrs. Mulholland was here before you were,’ the nuns say. I believe it’s quite a catchword at the community recreations. Now let me show you my room, Mrs. Severing; you must learn to find your way here, you know. La mère des Dames—pensionnaires, the lay-sisters call me. That’s right, Miss Grantham—come right in.”
Mrs. Mulholland waved a hospitable hand at Frances, who accepted the invitation with the more diffidence that the small room appeared strangely crowded already.