The ceremony of Frances’ reception into the Catholic Church took place quietly in the convent chapel a day or two later.
Only Bertha Tregaskis and one or two members of the Community were present, but before the brief ceremony was over Mrs. Mulholland creaked in, with elaborate gestures of silence, sank upon her knees in the bench beside Bertha, and turned upon her a smile in which triumph and compassion were strangely blended.
“The deed is done,” wrote Bertha that evening, in a hasty scrawl addressed to Miss Blandflower. “The child seems happy, and I hope she’ll settle down after this. Everyone goes through some sort of youthful crisis, and I have a great belief in getting it over early. We shall be back on Friday, after a night spent with Hazel in London. One hint, Minnie, before I finish this scribble—treat Frances just as though nothing had happened, won’t you? The excitement is over now, and I don’t want her to go on brooding over it, and thinking her own little affairs of enormous importance to the world in general. The best thing now is to let her settle quietly down to everyday life again.”
In the days that immediately ensued, however, Mrs. Tregaskis saw with satisfaction that this aspiration appeared likely to be realized.
Frances was calmly, silently happy.
She was more affectionate towards her guardian than she had ever shown herself before, as though to demonstrate that no added difference should join itself to that new, deeper one of which she was more conscious than was Bertha.
There was also much less exaggeration in her devotion to her new creed than Mrs. Tregaskis had expected. Beyond attending the daily Mass, as did all the lady boarders, and spending a little while in the chapel every evening, Frances appeared willing to spend the whole of the day in Bertha’s company, a certain radiant serenity of outlook that now encompassed her making her a charming companion.
She was delighted at the prospect of staying for one evening with Hazel before the return journey to Cornwall, and when, on the eve of departure, Bertha asked rather curiously whether she minded leaving the convent, Frances replied with a surprised look:
“No, not really. Not a bit. I hope I shall see them again one day, and you won’t mind my writing to Mère Pauline from time to time, will you, Cousin Bertie?”
Bertha looked at her sharply.