Maria and the Bellasis Family 26

1891

I was so pleased when I was sent a note by Sister Aloysia (Cecelia Bellasis) to invite me to rejoin the convent as an annuitant. There were two of us, and the other was a girl, Miss Nugent who is only 25.   Mother Eugenie Ryan is the Head of the Convent now. She is very Irish. I only recognise three of the women from two years ago at the other building - Sisters Jones and Donegan and McNamara. 

The new buildings ( 11-12 Cavendish Square) are quite a contrast to our old home.  This was the house built for George Tufnell, of a very posh family, and it was designed  with no expense spared.  The buildings are made with facades of Portland Stone, They are in the five bay Paladian style. There are large Georgian style windows, very high ceilings, much decorated, and beautiful chandeliers. Hardly the sort of home you expect for a convent.  The two houses were joined together with doorways  on each floor to connect them  and plans were soon in hand to expand the number of pupil teachers being trained. There is a third house as part of this complex, which is currently being lived in, but I have heard that it will be bought  as and when it becomes available. 

The bedrooms are of course much smaller and less decorated. Being one who is paying my way (and more expensive than the last house) I have a room that is more than generous. I moved back my furniture which I had taken from home originally and which my brother John Charles had been storing for me on his property.  

Sister Aloysia was there to welcome me.  I had not met her previously, but of course, we knew that we were connected through her sister being married to my brother.  She got me up to date on all the Bellasis family.  Mary (Mother Francis) is still in the motherhouse in Essex, but there is talk of her going to the Birmingham convent.  Monica (Sister Mary Edward ) is teaching art at the Essex convent school at St. Leonard on Sea.  

All the rest are well.  William Bellasis, whose first wife, Mary Walmesley was a distant relative of mine,  remarried, and has taken on the name of his new wife’s family. He married a widow, who wanted her first husband’s name to continue, so William added his name to make his Dalgleish-Bellasis.  He is the director of the Cornbrook Brewery Company. 

All is pretty much as it was in Birmingham Oratory, since the death of Cardinal Newman.  He left a vast fortune in his will, and Rev. Richard Bellasis, being one of his closest friends and also an executor, had the job, along with the other executors, to decide how the money should be spent.  As expected it was all used for the increase in  local  Catholic  education that the Cardinal would have wanted. 

Sister Aloysia is very shy and quiet - and has no interest in being in charge.  She teaches music, and when I told her I used to run the choir at the other building, she was very happy to have me get involved with this new group.  I told Sister Aloysia  that my sister, Emily, had also chosen that as her nun name.  She said she had known that, and it was part of her reason for choosing it. 

I arrived back in London in time for a family wedding. It was Beattie Cubbitt getting married to  William Archibald Calvert. Beattie is a cousin of Edgar’s children from his first wife, Sophia.  His second wife, Ellen, also a Cubbitt and the cousin of his first wife, asked me to go with her. She says the family has never forgiven her for marrying Edgar so soon after the death of Sophia. And part of the problem was that she didn’t want to take on the children of the first marriage, so they were cared for by various family members over the years, but saw little of their father. 

The wedding was in Ronmare in Surrey, the home of Beattie’s father who is the 1st Baron Ashcombe.  So it was a very posh affair. I wore my blue dress - the only appropriate thing I still owned - and I did my best to represent my brother, Edgar, who as I have mentioned before has mental issues, and is currently staying with a doctor and his family in Norfolk.  He comes back to London when he feels better, but before long, he is back to having to be cared for.

The wedding was at St. Barnabas Church in Dorking, Surrey, and officiated by none other than the Archbishop of Canterbury.  I didn’t know many at the wedding, but met up with Rev. Canon Edgar Francis Bowring, my nephew, who is now the Rector of Fancombe and a cousin of the bride.  And his half brother, Victor Bowring was also there, and we sat with him during the service. 

At the breakfast, which was at The Denbies, Mr. Cubitt’s seat near Dorking,  I managed to talk to my nephew, Francis Bowring, who I noticed was quite considerably inconvenienced by his bad leg. I  made a huge mistake in asking after his sister Margaret.  “She died three years ago, in the Isle of Wight, and none of you Bowrings came to the funeral.” 

“I didn’t know. I am so sorry. Was she ill long?”

“She and I were both treated like unwanted children and shuffled from one place to another. She was pretty much ill all her life. I will never forgive my father for how he neglected us, and particularly her.”

“You know that he is suffering from a mental illness now, I assume,” I put in.

“That might excuse him for now, but not for the 30 years that he ignored us for,” he said, and walked away from me. 

My other nephew, Victor had been educated at Cambridge and was a  bachelor living with his mother at 30 Eaton Place, London, as well as owning a country house near Brighton.  He was thought somewhat ‘eccentric’ – the press enchanted at his aptitude for embroidery and his ability to make curtain hangings for his mother’s home.

Ellen told me that her other son, Algernon, was a barrister. He became a Roman Catholic and now was the Privy Chamberlain of the Cape and Sword to the Pope and Knight commander of St Gregory. 

I noticed that on the wedding gift list, Francis had given an embroidered table cloth, and Ellen had given two Indian china vases.  Victor gave a wedgewood Flower vase. 

I was very relieved when it was over, and I could return to the quiet of the convent.