I suppose she might be doing the kind of Good Works appropriate to a Catholic wife and spouse of an MP. Though one also gets the sense that Merrick mere is far less invested in faith issues than either her husband or her son: witness her remark over the fish on Friday, no longer required, ruling, about it making dinner parties much easier to organise. I am perhaps pruriently intrigued as to why there is only one offspring of this marriage, especially as Mrs Merrick is presented as pretty healthy (not lying on a sofa suffering from women's complaints), compared to the philoprogenitive Marlowe parents (I am also pruriently trying to work out how this ever happened, given the amount of time Commander M seems to spend at sea).