I first made my way to the Oratory when my daughter Norah was baptized, and some little time afterwards one of the Fathers called on me. Finally Father —— undertook to call regularly to instruct me in the Catholic religion. He and the other priests lent me any books I wanted, and "The Threshold of the Catholic Faith," and one other I have now. That I never got beyond the "Threshold" was no fault of these good Fathers, who taught me with endless patience and uncompromising directness. But I had before me two types of Catholic in Willie and his mother and sister, and both were to me stumbling-blocks. The former was, as I knew, what they call a "careless Catholic," and I thought that if he who had been born in that faith that means so much made so little of it, perhaps it was more of a beautiful dream than a reality of life. Yet when I turned and considered those "good Catholics," his mother and sister, I found such a fierce bigotry and deadly dullness of outlook, such an immense piety and so small a charity, that my whole being revolted against such a belittling of God-given life. Now, I know that Mary and the Comtesse disliked me personally, and also that my temperament was antagonistic to theirs, as indeed to Willie's, though the affection he and I had for one another eased the friction between us; but youth judges so much by results, and my excursion into the Catholic religion ended in abrupt revolt against all forms and creeds. This feeling was intensified when my second little girl, Carmen, was born and christened at the Oratory. I would not go in, but stood waiting in the porch, where I had so often marked tired men and women passing in to pray after their hard and joyless day of toil, and I felt that my children were taken from me, and that I was very lonely.
My Uncle William, Lord Hatherley, was Lord High Chancellor at this time, and we were a good deal at his house, both at "functions" and privately. His great friend, Dean Stanley, was very kind to me; Dean Hook came, too, and many other Churchmen were continually in and out in their train. My cousin, William Stephens, who afterwards became Dean of Winchester, was then a very good-looking and agreeable young man; he followed my uncle about like a shadow, and my uncle and Aunt Charlotte were devoted to him. But my uncle gathered other society than that of Churchmen about him, and it amused me to watch for the pick of the intellectual world of the day as they swarmed up and down the stairs at the receptions, with the necessary make-weight of people who follow and pose in the wake of the great.
Willie insisted upon his wife being perfectly gowned on these occasions, and as he so often got out of going to those functions and insisted on my going alone, certain other relations of Lord Hatherley's would hover round me with their spiteful remarks of: "Dear Katie, alone again I poor dear girl, where does he go? How odd that you are so often alone—how little you know!" I was fond of my old uncle and he of me, but these little amenities did not make me like these social functions better, especially as his wife, my Aunt Charlotte, had a most irritating habit of shutting her eyes when greeting me, and, with her head slightly to one side, saying, "Poor dear! Poor lovely lamb!"
This winter, following the birth of my second girl, was bitterly cold, and my health, which had not been good for some time before her birth, caused much anxiety. After a consultation between Sir William Gull, Sir William Jenner, and my usual doctor, it was decided that we should go to Niton, Isle of Wight, as I was too weak to travel far. My dear old aunt, Mrs. Benjamin Wood, sent her own doctor to me, and he recommended me to inject opium—an expression of opinion that horrified Sir William Jenner into saying, "That man's mad, or wants to get rid of you!"
Our pecuniary affairs were again causing us considerable anxiety, but my dear aunt played the fairy godmother once more, and sent Willie a cheque so that we could go to Niton without worry or anxiety, and stop there until my health should be re-established. We were delighted with the summer warmth of the sun, and spent a happy Christmas basking in it. Since the hotel was very expensive, Willie established me in lodgings with the children and nurses in Ventnor, and, finding the place decidedly dull, returned to London.
The local doctor at Ventnor, who had been put in charge of my shattered health, was not satisfied that it was in any way improving, and, finding one day that I was in the habit of taking sleeping draughts, he snorted angrily off to the chemist and returned with a large tin of meat extract, with which he presented me, adding the intimation that it was worth a dozen bottles of my draught—which happened to be a powder—and that my London doctors were bereft of intelligence. I was too tired to argue the point and contented myself with the observation that all doctors save the one in attendance were fellows in intelligence—a sentiment he considered suspiciously for some moments before snorting away like the amiable little steam engine he was. His specific for sleeplessness was much more wholesome than drugs, and I have always found it so since then.
CHAPTER VI
CAPTAIN O'SHEA ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE
"D'un coeur qui t'aime,
Mon Dieu, qui peut troubler la tranquille paix?
Il cherche, en tout, ta volunté suprème,
Et ne se cherche jamais.
Sur la terre, dans le ciel même,
Est-il d'autre bonheur que la tranquille paix
D'un coeur qui t'aime?"—RACINE.