Ironically
enough, the first real trouble between them came from his desire
to build a Roman Catholic chapel at Branshaw. He wanted to do it
to honour Leonora, and he proposed to do it very expensively.
Leonora did not want it; she could perfectly well drive from
Branshaw to the nearest Catholic Church as often as she liked.
There were no Roman Catholic tenants and no Roman Catholic
servants except her old nurse who could always drive with her. She
had as many priests to stay with her as could be needed--and even
the priests did not want a gorgeous chapel in that place where it
would have merely seemed an invidious instance of ostentation.
They were perfectly ready to celebrate Mass for Leonora and her
nurse, when they stayed at Branshaw, in a cleaned-up outhouse.
But Edward was as obstinate as a hog about it. He was truly
grieved at his wife's want of sentiment--at her refusal to receive
that amount of public homage from him. She appeared to him to
be wanting in imagination--to be cold and hard. I don't exactly
know what part her priests played in the tragedy that it all
became; I dare say they behaved quite creditably but mistakenly.
But then, who would not have been mistaken with Edward? I
believe he was even hurt that Leonora's confessor did not make
strenuous efforts to convert him.
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