"...I shall soon be in disgrace with Augustina and Mr. Helbeck, about the Masons--worse disgrace, that is to say. For now that I have found a pony of my own, I go up there two or three times a week. And really--in spite of all those first experiences I told you of--I like it! Cousin Elizabeth has begun to talk to me; and when I come home, I read the Bible to see what it was all about. And I don't let her say too bad things about Mr. Helbeck--it wouldn't be quite gentlemanly on my part. And I know most of the Williams story now, both from her and Augustina.
"Imagine, my dear!--a son not allowed to come and see his mother before she died, though she cried for him night and day. He was at a Jesuit school in Wales. They shilly-shallied, and wrote endless letters--and at last they sent him off--the day she died. He arrived three hours too late, and his father shut the door in his face. 'Noa yo' shan't see her,' said the grim old fellow--'an if there's a God above, yo' shan't see her in heaven nayder!' Augustina of course calls it 'holy obedience.'
"The painting in the chapel is really extraordinary. Mr. Helbeck seems to have taught the young man, to begin with. He himself used to paint long ago--not very well, I should think, to judge from the bits of his work still left in the chapel. But at any rate the youth learnt the rudiments from him, and then of course went far beyond his teacher. He was almost two years here, working in the house--tabooed by his family all the time. Then there seems to have been a year in London, when he gave Mr. Helbeck some trouble. I don't know--Augustina is vague. How it was that he joined the Jesuits I can't make out. No doubt Mr. Helbeck induced them to take him. But _why_--I ask you--with such a gift? They say he will be here in the summer, and one will have to set one's teeth and shake hands with him.
"Oh, that droning in the chapel--there it is again! I will open the window and let the howl of the rain in to get rid of it. And yet I can't always keep myself away from it. It is all so new--so horribly intimate. Every now and then the music or a prayer or something sends a stab right down to my heart of hearts.--A voice of suffering, of torture--oh! so ghastly, so _real_. Then I come and read papa's note-books for an hour to forget it. I wish he had ever taught me anything--strictly! But _of course_ it was my fault.