Although she had expected nothing else, a feeling of sick disappointment invaded her as she saw that the Superior’s place had been noiselessly vacated.
With leaden feet, she moved out of the chapel and slowly resumed the black apron and the stuff sleeves that protected her habit.
In the absence of any direct order to the contrary, she knew that she must take her accustomed place in the class-room of the moyennes, and that the English lesson must proceed as usual.
“A vos places.”
She had long ago learnt to speak French fluently, but never without an unmistakable British accent and intonation.
Subconsciously she was always rather relieved, on that account, when the preliminaries were done with, and the lesson could be given, according to the rules, in the English tongue.
“Simone! Begin, please.”
Sister Alexandra, seated at the desk, held the book open in front of her, and her eyes rested upon the page, but her mind took in neither the meaning of the printed words nor the sense conveyed by Simone’s droning, inexpressive voice.
She wondered whether some one would come to take her place at the desk and tell her that Mother Gertrude was waiting for her downstairs.
A sudden, stealthy opening of the class-room door made her look up with a flash of hope, but it was only a little girl late for her lesson and sidling in, hoping to escape notice.
Alex did not even trouble to give her the accustomed bad mark.
It would have meant opening her desk, and pulling out the mistress’s note-book, and looking for a pencil, and she felt too tired. In her earlier days at the convent she would have felt ashamed at the thought of yielding to such slothful unconcern, and would have magnified the omission into a sin, to be confessed with shame to Mother Gertrude.
Now, she was too tired to care, and besides, she never saw Mother Gertrude. Even the poor little half-hour that had been held out to her was not to be hers, after all. She brooded in resentment over the thought.
A titter going round the room roused her.
“What are you saying, Simone?”
Simone stared back at her stupidly, but another keen-faced girl in the front row of desks spoke eagerly:
“She’s said nearly all through the lesson, there’s nothing left for any one else to say.”
“You can repeat it afterwards,” said Alex coldly.
She was vexed that her inattention should have been betrayed to the class, and presently she gave her full attention to the recital.
Just as it was over, the young novice, Sister Agnes, came into the room and, approaching the desk, spoke to Alex in a lowered voice:
“Mother Gertrude sent me, Sister. Will you go down to her and wait in her room? She will come in a moment. I am to take the children back to the study-room for you.”
“Thank you,” said Alex, trembling. The revulsion of feeling was so strong that she felt the chords tightening in her throat, which denoted approaching tears, such as she often shed for no adequate reason. She left the room.
The Assistant Superior’s room on the ground floor was vacant.
Alex sat down on the low, rush-bottomed chair drawn close to the Superior’s table, and closed her eyes. Now that her agony of suspense was ended, she became even more overwhelmingly conscious of fatigue, and began to wonder, almost against her will, whether Mother Gertrude would not notice it, and perhaps tell her that she was to go to bed after supper and not come to the recital of Office in the chapel.
She wondered whether she looked tired. There were no looking-glasses in the convent, but sometimes she had seen her own reflection in the big, full-length mirror of the sacristy, and she knew that she had lost her colour, and that her face had grown thin, with heavy, black circles underneath her eyes. She knew, too, that her step had lost any elasticity, and that she stooped far more than in the days when Lady Isabel had implored her to “hold up” so that her pretty frocks might be seen to advantage.
Waiting in the small room, with its carefully-closed window, and the big writing-table stacked with papers, and a great crucifix standing upright in the midst of them, she began for the first time to speculate as to the reason of her summons.
It occurred to her, with a slight sense of shock, that such a summons, in the case of nun or novice, had very often been the prelude to an announcement of bad news, such as the death of a relative at home.
Hastily she pulled out Barbara’s letter and glanced through it.
There was no hint of approaching disaster in the rather set little phrases, and the four small sheets were mostly concerned with the fact that Barbara was finding it necessary to move into a still smaller house than the one that she and Ralph had taken at Hampstead after their improvident marriage.
Pamela was at Clevedon Square with Cedric and his wife. She was going to heaps of parties, and every one thought her very pretty and amusing.
There was no mention of Archie, and Alex hastily ransacked her memory as to his whereabouts.
Since the first year of her novitiate in London she had never seen her youngest brother, and although she felt a fleeting sorrow at the thought of harm having befallen him, her tenderness was for the little, curly-haired boy in a sailor suit with whom she had played and quarrelled in the Clevedon Square nursery, and not for the unknown youth of later years.
As she speculated, the well-known tread of the Assistant Superior sounded down the corridors — a hasty, decisive footstep. Alex sprang to her feet as the door opened.
“Oh, what is it?” she cried, at the first sight of the Superior’s face.
The strong, lined countenance, suffused with agitation, bore every mark of violent disturbance.
Her deep voice, however, was as well under control as ever, although strong emotion underlay its vibrant quality.
“My little Sister, you have a big sacrifice before you. I cannot pretend to think that it will not cost you dear, as it will me. But we know Who asks it of us.”
“What?” gasped Alex again, utterly at a loss, but feeling the blood ebb from her face.
“Our Mother-General has appointed me as Superior to the new house in South America. The boat sails at the end of this week.”
XX
Aftermath
Alex could not believe the extent of the calamity that had befallen her, nor did she realize at first that the very mainspring of her life in the convent was attacked.
It astounded her to perceive that to the rest of the community the news brought no overwhelming shock.
Such sudden uprootings and transfers were not uncommon, and the notice given was generally a twenty-four hour one. Mother Gertrude had nearly a week in which to make her few preparations for an exile that almost certainly was for life, and to prepare herself as far as possible for new and heavy responsibilities.
The Superior-General was herself proceeding to South America with the little band of chosen pioneers, representative of almost every European house of the Order, and after inaugurating the establishment of the new venture, was to return to Liège, with one lay-sister only as companion.
In the general concern for her welfare and admiration of her courage in undertaking such a journey on the eve of her sixty-third birthday, it seemed to Alex that all other considerations were overlooked or ignored entirely.
She was aware that the convent spirit of detachment, so much advocated, and the consciousness of that vow of obedience made freely and fully, would alike preclude the possibility of any spoken protest or lamentation over the separation.
The severing of human ties was part and parcel of a nun’s sacrifice, and her life was in the hands of her spiritual superiors.
There was no discussion possible.
Mother Gertrude, although the look of strain was deepening round her eyes and mouth, went steadily about her duties and spared herself in nothing.
Her place was to be taken temporarily by a French nun who had been for many years at Liège, and the charge was handed over with the least possible di
slocation.
It was on a Tuesday night that Mother Gertrude had been told of the destiny in store for her, and on the following Saturday she was to proceed with her Superior to Paris, and thence to Marseilles to the boat.
Wednesday and Thursday Alex never saw her.
She had expected it, and was, moreover, far too much stunned to realize anything beyond the immediate necessity for taking her habitual place in the Community life without betraying the sense of utter despair that was hovering over her.
On Friday afternoon Mother Gertrude said to her:
“I have not had one spare moment to give you, my poor child. But I think you know everything that I would say to you? Be very, very faithful, Sister, and remember that these separations may be for life, but all Eternity is before us.”
Alex could capture nothing of the rapt assurance that lay in the upraised eyes and vibrant voice.
“What shall I do without you?” she asked despairingly, feeling how inadequate the words were to voice her sense of utter deprivation.
The light, watchful eyes of the Superior seemed to pierce through her.
“Don’t say that, dear child. You do not depend in any sense upon another creature. I have been nothing to you but a means to an end. It was given to me to help you a little, years ago, to find your holy vocation. You know that human friendships in themselves mean nothing.”
Something in Alex seemed to be crying and protesting aloud in heart-broken repudiation of the formula to which her lips had so often subscribed, but her own tacit acquiescence of years rose to rebuke her, and the dread of vexing and alienating the Supervisor at this eleventh hour.
Dumbly she knelt down on the floor beside the Superior’s chair.
Mother Gertrude looked at her compassionately enough, but with the strange remoteness induced by the long cultivation of an absolutely impersonal relation towards humanity.
“My poor little Sister, sometimes lately I have wondered whether I have been altogether wise in my treatment of you, and whether I have not allowed you to give way to natural affection too much. Perhaps this break has come in time. You must remember that you have renounced all earthly ties, even the holiest and most sacred ones, and therefore you must be ready to make any sacrifice for the sake of your one, supreme Love. There is so much I should like to say to you, but time is getting short now, and there is a great deal to be done. God bless you, my child.”
The Superior laid her hand on Sister Alexandra’s bent head.
Alex clasped it desperately.
“I shall still be your child always?” she almost wailed, with a weight of things unspoken on her heart, and in a last frantic attempt to carry away one definite assurance.
The slightest possible severity mingled in Mother Gertrude’s clear gaze, bent downwards as she rose to her full height, her carriage as upright and as dignified as it had been ten years before.
“No, Sister,” she said very distinctly. “You will be the child of whatever Superior God may send you in my place.”
“You know that we in the convent have no human ties, only spiritual ones. You will see your Divine Master, and Him only, in the person of your Superior in religion. Remember that, little Sister. You must learn detachment if you are to be truly faithful. That is my last and most earnest counsel to you. I shall pray daily that you may be given strength to follow it.”
“Don’t go!” gasped Alex, hardly knowing what she said, as she saw the Superior’s hand upon the door. “Don’t go away like that. Oh, Mother, Mother, how shall I bear it? I’ve only got you and now you’re going away for ever.”
She broke into tearless sobs.
“Sister Alexandra! Has it come to this? I am indeed to blame if you are still so undisciplined and so weak as to cling to a mere creature — you that have been chosen by God to love Him, and Him only! I could not have believed it.” Mother Gertrude’s tone held bitter remorse and shame.
Alex’ old, pitiful instinct of propitiating the being she loved best sprang to life within her.
“No, no, I didn’t really mean it. I know I mustn’t.”
The nun gazed at her in compassionate perplexity.
“You are overstrung, and tired; you don’t know what you are saying. When you come to yourself, my poor child, you will hardly believe that you could have proved so disloyal, even for a moment.”
“Now calm yourself, and do not attempt to join the recreation tonight. You are not fit for it. I will tell our Mother-General that I have told you to go to your cell as soon as supper is over. Good-night, and again good-bye.”
Sheer terror at the bare thought of being left there alone forced Alex to her feet, although she could scarcely stand, and was trembling violently. “You won’t forget me?” she entreated almost inaudibly.
“I shall always remember you in my prayers, as I do all those who have been under my direction. Indeed, you will have a special place in them,” said the Superior gravely, “since I can never forget that, by the grace of God, I was instrumental in bringing you into His holy house. But never forget that no human relation, however precious it may be, can have any completeness in itself. It all has to lead on to the one supreme thing, Sister, the ‘one thing necessary.’
“Now you must detain me no longer.” She freed herself from the convulsive grasp that Alex had unconsciously fastened on to the folds of her habit and moved unhesitatingly to the door.
Alex followed her with eyes that stared blankly from a blanched face. She felt as though she was under a spell and could neither move nor speak. She could not believe that Mother Gertrude would really leave her in that way. The Superior opened the door and passed out, closing it behind her without pausing or looking back.
Alex heard her steps receding, rapid and measured, along the uncarpeted corridor outside.
She stayed on and on in the little cold room, the winter dusk deepening rapidly outside, the silence only broken by the occasional clanging of a bell, to the sound of which she was so much inured that it hardly struck upon her senses. She thought that Mother Gertrude would come back to her.
There must be some other last words between them than those few impersonal counsels of perfection, that repudiated any more intimate link such as Alex’ exclusive jealousy, stifled, but never stronger than after those ten years of repression, now claimed with such frantic yearning.
She waited, scarcely moving. She grew colder and colder, but she was unconscious of her icy feet and leaden hands. She was not even aware of consecutive thought.
Her whole body was absorbed in the supreme act of awaiting the Superior’s return for the word, the look, that should at least break the dreadful darkness that encompassed her soul at the sudden deprivation of that one outlet which had, unaware, served as a safety-valve for the whole craving dependence of her spirit.
Mother Gertrude did not come back.
Dusk turned rapidly to night, and the distant cries and laughter of the children’s evening recreation fell into a quiet that was only shattered by the single note of the deep-toned bell that proclaimed the hour of silence and the final gathering of the Community for the last recital of the Office in the chapel.
There was the flicker of a light along the passage outside, and the door opened at last.
Alex did not move.
She turned anguished eyes, that held scarcely any comprehension in the immensity of their fatigue, towards the entering figure.
It was that of the old Infirmarian, who put down the lighted candle and threw up her hands of dismay as her gaze met that of the younger nun. Mindful of the hour of silence, she asked no question, but she took Alex away to the convent infirmary, and placed her in a bed of which the mattress seemed strangely and wonderfully soft after the paillasse in her cell, and gave her a hot, sweet, strongly scented tisane and bade her sleep.
“Mais demain?” whispered Alex.
She was thinking of the early departure in the raw morning cold, when the convoy that was leaving for South America would be driven aw
ay from the convent. But the Infirmarian shook her head and shuffled slowly away, leaving the room in darkness.
She was old and very tired, and for her there was no demain, except the glorious dawn that should herald the day of Eternity.
Alex lay awake in the merciful darkness and envisaged the culmination of long years of stifled repression and self-deception.
She knew now, as she had never let herself know before, what had sustained her through the dragging years after the final objective of her vows had been left behind.
She knew that she had thought herself to be answering to a call of God, when she had been hearing only the voice of Mother Gertrude, and had been craving only for Mother Gertrude’s tenderness and approbation.
Physical pangs of terror shot through her and shook her from head to foot as she realized to what she had bound herself, which now presented itself to her overstrung perceptions only in the crudest terms.
To live without earthly affection, to relinquish love as she understood it, in terms of human sympathy, for an ideal to which she knew, with tardy and unerring certainty, that nothing within her would ever conform.
She knew now, with that appalling clear-sightedness to which humanity is mercifully a stranger until or unless the last outposts of sanity are almost reached, that the vocation of which they all spoke so glibly had never been hers.
She had entered a life for which her every instinct declared her to be utterly unfitted, in search of that which her few short years in the outside world had denied her. The convent instinct, engrained in her at last, added to the anguish of startled horror at the wickedness of her own state of mind.
God is not mocked, she thought. Alex had tried to cheat God, and for ten years He had stayed His hand and had allowed her deception to go on.
And now it had all fallen on her — shame and punishment and despair, and nowhere any human help or consolation to turn to. She prayed frenziedly in the darkness, but no comfort came to her. She stifled in the pillow the imploring crying aloud of Mother Gertrude’s name that sprang to her lips, but with a pang that sickened her, she recalled the Superior’s parting from her that evening, her undeviating fidelity to an austere ideal which should also have been Alex’.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 113