E. Delafield - The Collected Works of E. M. Delafield (Illustrated Edition)

Hitherto, Christmas to Zella had meant a general sense of holiday and extra enjoyment, and a liberal interchange of presents. That the 25th of December might be looked upon in any other way was somewhat of a revelation to her.

Tante Stéphanie religiously kept the fast ordained by her Church all through Advent, and Zella discovered, through the admiring comments of the loquacious manservant Hippolyte, who had accompanied his ladies from Paris to Rome, that she also rose daily to attend the successive Masses from five o'clock onwards at San Silvestro.

The Baronne spoke of Midnight Mass as a matter of course, in spite of the intense cold and her tendency to bronchitis, and Louis de Kervoyou was anxious that his daughter should see all the ceremonies so amply celebrated in the churches of Rome.

Zella began to feel that Christmas partook of the nature of her expeditions with her aunt—an artistic and educational progress that one could never own to be rather wearisome.

On Christmas Eve she received a letter from Mrs. Lloyd-Evans that again seemed to throw a different light on the approaching festival.

"One feels, Zella dear," wrote her aunt, in a large illegible hand, " that this can only be a very sad Christmas for you, the first without dear, dear mother—and for poor papa, too. You must try and be as much comfort to him as you can, though one cannot help thinking it is rather sad that you should be so far away from England and Villetswood, for Christmas is, after all, the season so especially associated with Home and all those whom one loves."

A reflective sadness was shed upon Zella as she read.

Last Christmas a party had assembled at Villetswood, and Zella tried to recall in mournful retrospect every pleasure that had been so joyously crowded into one festive week, although, as a matter of fact, she felt as though it had all happened in some far-distant past, too distant for any very poignant emotions of regret, however appropriate. She said tentatively to the Baronne: "I have a letter from Aunt Marianne: would you like to see it, Grand'mère?"

"Thank you, my dear, but you had better tell me what her news is," scrupulously replied the Baronne, who held that all personal correspondence should be treated as sacred.

"It is a long letter. It made me feel rather homesick," said Zella wistfully. She was always a little bit afraid that Grand'mère would think any display of emotion in bad taste, but the Baronne said very kindly:

"My poor Zella! It is very natural. You are away from England, and that is a long distance at your age. Do you wish to go back ?"

Zella did not like to say " Yes," as she was presumably in Rome in order to be near her grandmother and aunt, and felt that to say " No " would sound inconsistent.

She replied indirectly:

"I have not been home to Villetswood since October."

"Places do not run away," returned the Baronne with much common-sense. "Time passes, little one, and you will find yourself there again."

"But shall I? said Zella. "Does papa mean to take me back there, ever ?"

"Has he not told you so ?"

"He has never spoken to me about it, or—or about anything," mournfully said Zella, who meant, by the ambiguous word "anything," her dead mother.

"Then, child, you must respect his silence," replied the Baronne decisively. "I need not tell you that in such masters one doesn't ask questions: n'est se pas? Co ne se fait pas."

Zella, who would in this case undoubtedly have asked questions had she possessed sufficient moral courage to break through her father's reserve, replied meekly, "No, Grand'mère," and felt that the conversation was ended.

But she was acutely aware that the Baronne looked at her two or three times in the course of the day with great kindness, and shrewdly suspected that her little confidence had touched and interested the old lady.

At Midnight Mass in San Silvestro she willingly took her place in the crowded church between her father and grandmother. Tante Stéphanie knelt beyond the Baronne, a slight, devoutly bent figure, never moving from her knees throughout the long service, until the congregation rose together and filed, in rather aimless and very crowded procession, towards the Crib at a small shrine next to the High-Altar.

The Baronne got on to her knees on the stone floor with difficulty, and Zella knelt beside her, so tightly wedged on either side that it would have been impossible to move. She could just see the brilliantly lighted Crib, across a sea of heads, with the large wax figure of the Bambino, dwarfing all the other figures in the group, raised on a straw-decked manger. „

The organ pealed into the Adeste Fidelis, and the worshippers, with the shrill, nasal, and yet indescribably devotional intonation peculiar to an Italian congregation, began to sing.

The air was familiar enough to Zella, and vaguely recalled memories of carol-singers at Villetswood.

She hid her face in her hands, and was not ungratified to find tears trickling slowly through her slight fingers.

She felt that her grandmother was looking at her, and raised her wet eyes to the Crib with an unconscious expression, half expecting to feel the pressure of the hand which Aunt Marianne would certainly have deemed suitable to the occasion.

But the Baronne remained impassive, and, when Zella at last ventured to steal a look at her, her eyes were devoutly shut and her rosary beads slipping rapidly through her fingers.

It was nearly half-past two in the morning before they got back to the Via Gregoriana, where Zella and her father left the Baronne and Stéphanie, with a mutual interchange of "Bonnes fetes " and "Heureux Noels."

The next morning Zella's father gave her an amber necklace, and she received two or three letters from England; and the day was much the same as other days, except that Tante Stéphanie in the morning inquired whether she wished to attend the English Church.

Zella felt that it would be almost unendurable if she were expected to attend the services of both the Protestant and Catholic churches, and, moreover, conjectured that her grandmother and aunt would think none the worse of her for being contented with the Catholic edition of Christmas worship only; so she answered very prettily that she had loved going to the Midnight Mass, and wished for nothing further.

At which reply Stéphanie de Kervoyou appeared better pleased than her mother, who merely said:

"No doubt, if Louis wishes Zella to attend the English Church, he will himself take her there."

But Louis made no such suggestion.

Zella, always sensitive to every faint shade of alteration in the feelings with which she was regarded by her surroundings, thought that she discerned a slight lessening of the added warmth of manner which the Baronne had displayed towards her since their conversation on Christmas Eve.

An uneasy instinct made her wonder whether this might be attributed to her delicate display of emotion at the Midnight Mass. If so, thought Zella, it argued a degree of unfeelingness on the part of the Baronne that would certainly prevent her (Zella) from ever again indulging too freely in a demonstration of her deepest feelings that yet surely was so natural as to be almost commendable.

Zella's deepest feelings, accordingly, were not again allowed to come into play until the first warm days in March sent Zella and her father for a week's visit to Frascati.

There they stayed at the tall white convent of San Carlo, and went for daily drives and excursions that were to Zella a secret relief from the endless churches visited in Rome by her and Tante Stéphanie.

Her father appeared delighted with her companionship, and only when she received an occasional letter from her Aunt Marianne did it strike Zella as strange that he should have regained so entirely his old jovial good spirits.