Chapter 22
chapter twenty two of consequences by e m delafield this librivox recording is in the public domain rome the crisis passed as all such must pass and alex found herself in the position openly recognized as that of waiting for the dissolution of her religious vows it was as father farrell had said neither a short nor an easy business nor was she allowed to pass the months of her waiting at the liege mother-house they sent her to a small house in the order in rome thinking with the curious convent instinct for misplaced economy to save the petty cost of incessant passing to and fro of correspondence and documents between the convent in belgium and the papal secretariat at the vatican alex went to italy in a dream it struck her with a faint sense of irony that she and barbara long ago had entertained an ambition to visit italy standing for all that was romantic and picturesque in the south after all she was to be the first to realize that girlish dream the fulfillment of which brought no elation at first she lived amongst the nuns and led their life but when it became evident beyond question that she was eventually to obtain release from her vows the community held no place for her any longer
her religious habit was taken away and a thick voluminous black stuff dress substituted which the nuns thought light and cool in comparison with their own weighty garments but of which the hard stiff cuffs and high collar unrelieved by any softening of white made alex suffer greatly the house was too small to admit of a pensionnat but the nuns took in an inconsiderable number of lady boarders and an occasional pupil alex however was not suffered to hold any intercourse with these after her six months spent in community life a final appeal was made to her and when it failed of its effect she passed into a kind of moral ostracism she had a small bedroom where her meals were served by the lay sister who waited on the lady boarders and a little pridia was put in a remote corner of the chapel for her use neither to be confounded with the choir-stalls nor the benches for visitors nor the seats reserved for the ladies living in the house the librarian's sister in charge of the well-filled bookcase of the community rooms had instructions to provide her with literature beyond that her existence remained unrecognized she often spent hours doing nothing gazing from the window at the corso far below so curiously instinct with life after the solitude of the liege grounds encompassed by high walls on every side
she did not read very much the books they gave her were all designed to one end that of making her realize that she was turning her back upon the way of salvation when she thought about it alex believed that this was in truth what she was doing but it hardly seemed to matter her room was fireless and the old-fashioned house as most roman ones had no form of central heating she shivered and shivered and in the early days of february fell ill one abscess after another formed inside her throat an unspeakably painful manifestation of general weakness one evening she was so ill that there was talk of sending for the chaplain the doctor had never been suggested but that same night the worst abscess of all broke inside her throat and alex saw that there was no hope of her being about to die the bright winter cold seemed to change with incredible rapidity into glowing summer heat and a modicum of well-being gradually returned to her she even crept slowly and listlessly about in the shade of the great borghese gardens in the comparative freshness of the pincio height and wondered piteously at this strange realization of her girlhood's dream of seeing italy
she never dared to go into the streets alone nor would the nuns have permitted it her difficult letters to england had been written cedric had replied with courteous brevity a letter so much what sir francis might have written that alex was almost startled and her father's man of business had written her a short kind little note rejoicing that the world was again to have the benefit of miss clare's society after her temporary retirement the only long letter she received was from barbara Hampstead, March 30th, 1908. Dearest Alex, your letter from Rome was, of course, a great surprise. I had been wondering when I should hear from you again, but I did not at all guess what your news would be when it came, as we had all quite grown to think of he was completely settled in the
convent. I am afraid that, as you say, there may be complications and difficulties about your vows, as I suppose they are binding to a certain extent, and they are sure not to let you off without a fuss. Your letters aren't very explicit, my dear, so I'm still somewhat in the dark as to what you are doing and when you mean to come to London, as I suppose you will eventually do. And why Italy? If you're going to get out of the whole thing altogether, it seems funny that the convent
people should trouble to send you to Italy, when you might just as well have come straight to England. However, no doubt you know your own affairs best, Alex dear, and perhaps you're wise to take advantage of an opportunity that may not come again. Travelling has always been my dream, as you know, but except for that time I had at Neuilly when you came out, heavens what ages ago, and then our honeymoon in Paris which was so terribly broken into when dear mother died,
I've never had any chance at all, and I suppose now I never shall have. Everything is so expensive, and I'm really not a very good traveller unless I can afford to do the thing comfortably. Otherwise I should simply love to have run over to Rome for Easter and got you to show me all the sights. I suppose your time is quite your own now? Of course, when you really do leave the sisters, I hope you'll come straight to my wee cottage here. At any rate, while you look about
you and think over future plans. Cedric has written to you, I know, and if you feel you'd rather go to Clevedon Square, needless to say, my dear, I shall more than understand, please yourself absolutely. But of course, one's always rather chary of unknown sisters-in-law, and Violet quite rules the roost nowadays. She and Cedric are a most devoted couple and all that sort of thing but as she's got all the money one rather feels as if it was her house. I dare say
you know the kind of thing I mean. She's quite a dear in many ways but I don't go there tremendously. Pamela adores her and lives in her pocket. Pam tells me she hasn't seen you since she was about fifteen. I could hardly believe it. My dear I don't know what you'll think of her. She's quite appallingly modern to my mind and makes me feel about a hundred years old. When I think of the way we were chaperoned and sent about everywhere with a maid and only allowed the dullest of dinner
parties and tea parties and then those stiff solemn balls, Pamela is forever being asked to boy and girl affairs and dinner dances and theatre parties. I must say she's a huge success. Everyone raves about her and she goes in for being tremendously natural and jolly and full of vitality, and she's had simply heaps of chances already, though I dare say some of it has to do with being seen about everywhere with Violet, who simply splashes money out like water. She paid all
Archie's debts, poor boy, I will say that for her. The result is that he's quite good and steady now, and everyone says he'll make a first-rate guardsman. I'm writing a long screed, Alex, but I really feel you ought to be posted up in all the family news, if you're really going to come and join forces with us again after all these years. It seems quite funny to think of. So many things have happened since you left home for good, as we thought it was going to be.
Do write again and tell me what you think of doing and when you're coming over. My tiny spare room will be quite ready for you any time you like. Your loving sister, Barbara McAllister. Barbara's letter was astounding. Even Alex, too jaded for any great poignancy of emotion, felt amazement at her sister's matter-of-fact acceptance of a state of affairs that had been brought about by such moral and physical upheaval.
Had Barbara realised none of it, or was she merely utterly incurious? Alex could only feel thankful that no long explanatory letter need be written. Perhaps when she got back to England it would be easier to make her explanation to Barbara. She could hardly imagine that return. The affair of the release from her vows dragged on with wearisome indefiniteness. Documents and papers were sent for her signature, and there were one or two interviews, painful and humiliating enough. None of them,
however, hurt her as that interview in the parlour at Liège with Father Farrell had done, for to none of them did she bring that faint shred of hope that had underlain her last attempt to make clear the truth as she knew it. She knew that money had been paid, and Cedric had written a grave and short note, bidding her leave that side of the question to his care and to that of her father's lawyers. Then, with dramatic unexpectedness, came the end. She was told that all the necessary
formalities had been complied with, and that her vows were now annulled. It was carefully explained to her that this did not include freedom to marry. The Church would sanction no union of hers. Alex could have laughed. She felt as though marriage had been spoken of for the first time to an old, old woman who had never known love, and to whom passion and desire alike had long been her strangers. Why should that, which had never come to her eager, questing youth,
be spoken of in connection with the strange, remote self which was all that was left of her now? She reflected how transitory had been the relations into which she had entered, how little any intimacy of spirit had ever bound her to another human being. her first love marie angelle i love you for your few caresses i love you for my many tears where was marie angelle now alex knew nothing of her no doubt she had married had born children and somewhere in her native soissons was gay and prosperous still alex dimly hoped so queenie torrance
her thoughts even now dwelt tenderly for a moment on that fair irresponsive object of so much devotion on queenie is a pale demure schoolgirl her fair curls rolled back from her white open brow in her black stuffed dress and apron on queenie the blue ribbon for good conduct lying across her gently curving breast serenely telling fibs or surreptitiously carrying off the forbidden sweets and dainties procured for her by alex or gazing with cold vexation on some extravagant demonstration of affection that had failed to win her approval in retrospect alex could see queenie again the white voluminous ball-dresses she had worn the tiny wreath of blue forget-me-nots once condemned as bad form by lady isabel on queenie goldstein her thoughts dwelt little she had heard long ago from barbara of queenie's divorce in an action brought by her husband which had afforded the chief scandal of the year eighteen ninety nine and then no one had heard or even seen anything of queenie for a long while and barbara had said that she was reported to be abroad with her father five years later barbara had written excitedly you remember that awful queenie goldstein and how full the papers were of her pictures when that dreadful divorce case of hers was on and the five correspondents and everything
you will hardly believe it but she's in london again having succeeded in marrying an american whom every one says is the coming millionaire i saw her at the theatre myself in a box absolutely slung with diamonds she's taken to making up her face tremendously but she hasn't altered much and she's received everywhere they say her husband simply adores her alex still remembered the rebuke with which mother gertrude had handed her that letter bidding her remind her sister that things of the world worldly had no place in the life of a nun nevertheless although she had put the thought from her she knew that in her heart she had felt a certain gladness that her erstwhile playmate given over though she might be to the world the flesh and the devil had yet not found those things that she coveted to have failed her queenie at least had known what she wanted and alex's thoughts of her held no condemnation from queenie her mind went to the memory of noel cardew and she was faintly surprised at the unvivid presentment of him which was all that she could evoke noel had held no real place in her life at all nothing that would endure had ever passed between him and her
it was years since she had thought of their ill-starred engagement and then it had always been in connection with sir francis and lady isabel their brief pride and pleasure in it and the sudden downfall of their hopes of noel himself she had scarcely a recollection perhaps her clearest one was that of the earnest young egoist only made attractive by a certain simplicity who had taken her to sit in a disused ice-house one hot summer day and had talked about photography of the later noel alex was astounded to find that she retained no impression at all she could not even remember whether it was he or his brother eric who had married red-haired marie monroe in the same year that she herself had taken her first vows as a nun perhaps it was noel at all events he had probably married long ago and alex could believe that some corner of land in devonshire was the better for the earnest supervision that he would accord to it both in his own person and in that of the generation that would doubtless succeed him mother gertrude at the last and most worshipped of the shrines before which alex had offered the sad futile unmeasured burnt-offerings of her life her thoughts lingered least it had all been a mistake
she had given recklessly foolishly squandering her all because life had cheated her of any outlet for a force of the strength of which she had had no measure given her and now she had to pay the bitter penalty for a folly which had not even been met by answering human affection she wrote no letter to mother gertrude and received no word from her as the days crept on alex without volition of her own found that her journey to england had been arranged for that money was to be advanced to her for her expenses that she was expected to supplement with it her utter penury of worldly possessions one day she went out frightened and at a loss and entered some of the first shops she saw in a street that led down from the pincio gates they were not large shops and she had difficulty in making herself understood but she purchased a ready-made blue serge skirt with a coat that she called a jacket and an ugly black toque that most resembled in shape those that she remembered seeing in london ten years earlier
she wore these clothes with a white cotton blouse that fastened at the back and came high up under her chin for some days before she left rome so as to grow accustomed to them and to lose the sense of awkwardness that they produced in her the heavy boots and a pair of black cotton gloves that she had bought from belgium still served her the day of her departure was fixed and she wrote to barbara but she knew neither by what route she was going nor how long the journey would take her companions selected by the superior of the convent proved to be an old lady and her daughter who were going to paris evidently they knew her story for they looked at her with scared curious faces and spoke to her very little both were experienced travellers and on the long hot journey in the train when it seemed as though the seats of the railway carriage were made of molten iron they extended themselves with cushions and little paper fans and slept most of the way at genoa the daughter timidly but with kindness pressed alex to eat and drink and after that she spoke to her once or twice and gave her a friendly invitation to join them at the small pension in paris to which they were bound for a night's halt before she proceeded to boulogne and thence to england
alex accepted with bewildered thankfulness she was weak and exhausted and the old lady and her daughter were pitiful enough and saw her into the train next day and gave her the provision of sandwiches which she had not thought to make for herself the train sped through flat green country with tall poplars shading the small narrow french houses that dotted the line on either side her eye dilated as she gazed on the sea when at last boulogne was reached she remembered the same gray expanse of rolling waves tipped with foam on the morning eight years ago when the girl alex clare had crossed to belgium tearful indeed and frightened but believing herself to be making that new beginning which should lead to the eventual goal which life must surely hold in store for her only eight years and the bitterness of a lifetime's failure encompassed her spirit chapter twenty two
