Part 44 (2/2)

Belgium, and the anguished waiting and hoping for orders to return to London, and the growing certainty that those orders would not come, had culminated in the rush of relief and joy that heralded Mother Gertrude's unexpected transfer to the Mother-house. After that, her first vows, taken for a term of two years, had inaugurated the long probationary period at the end of which a final and irrevocable pledge would bind her for ever to the way of the chosen few. Those perpetual vows were held out to her as the goal and crown of life itself, and her mind had speculated not at all on what should follow.

She was twenty-six before she was allowed to become a professed religious--according to conventual standards, no longer a very young woman. The delay had inflamed her ardour very much. It was characteristic of Alex to believe implicitly in an overwhelming transformation which should take place within her by virtue of one definite act, so long antic.i.p.ated as to have acquired the proportions of a miracle.

It sometimes seemed to her that ever since the embracing of those perpetual vows, she had lived on, waiting for the transformation to operate. There was nothing else to wait for. The supreme act in the life of a religious, to the accomplishment of which her whole being had hitherto been tending, impelled at once by precept and by example, had taken place.

The next initiation could only be obtained through death itself, yet Alex was still waiting.

She would tell herself that she was waiting for the children's summer holidays for the beginning of the new term, then for the season of Advent and the Christmas festival, for the long stretch of Lenten weeks, with its additional fastings and fatigue, and still as each year slipped by the sense of unfulfilment remained with her, dormant but occasionally stirring.

In the last four years she had become additionally sensible of a growing exhaustion, that seemed to sap her spirit no less than the strength of her body. She had waited for her weariness to culminate in a breakdown of strength that should send her to the convent infirmary, when the rest that her body craved would be imposed upon her as an obligation, but no such relief came to her.

It sometimes struck her with a feeling of wonder that such utter la.s.situde of flesh and spirit alike could continue with no apparent and drastic effect upon her powers of following the daily rule. But she had no time in which to think, for the most part, and the example of Mother Gertrude's unflagging energy could always shame her into un-complaint.

Her devotion to the elder nun had inevitably increased by the very restrictions that the convent rules placed upon their intercourse.

Even now, after so many years spent beneath the same roof, the thought that she was summoned to a private interview with Mother Gertrude could still make her heart beat faster. Since the days of her novitiate, there had been few such opportunities, and those for the most part hurried and interrupted.

Sister Alexandra went downstairs with a lightened heart.

The bell from the chapel rang out its daily summons, and she mechanically took off her black-stuff ap.r.o.n, folded and put it away, and turned her steps down the long pa.s.sage.

Her hands were folded under her long sleeves and her head bent beneath her veil, in the att.i.tude prescribed.

Barbara's letter lay in the depths of her pocket, already forgotten.

Her thoughts had flown ahead, and she was hoping that the Superior would allow her to send Sister Agnes in her stead to the children at five o'clock.

In the chapel, she raised her eyes furtively to the big, carved stall on a raised das where the a.s.sistant Superior had her place during the frequent absence of the Superior-General.

Mother Gertrude was very often claimed in the parlour or elsewhere, even during the hours of recital of the Office, and Alex was always aware of a faint but perceptible pang of jealousy when this was the case.

Tonight, however, the stately black-robed figure was present. She was always upright and immovable, and her eyes were always downcast to her book.

Alex went through the Psalms, chanted on the accustomed single high note, and was hardly conscious of a word she uttered. Long repet.i.tion had very soon dulled her appreciation of the words, and her understanding of even Church Latin had never been more than superficial.

She had come to regard it as part of that pervading and overwhelming fatigue, that she should bring nothing but a faint distaste to her compulsory religious exercises.

Towards the close of Vespers she saw a lay-sister come on tiptoe into the chapel, and kneeling down beside Mother Gertrude's das, begin a whispered communication.

Immediately a feverish agony of impatience invaded her.

No doubt some imperative summons to an interview with the parents of a nun or a child, or consultation in the infirmary, where two or three little girls lay with some lingering childish ailment, had come to rob the Superior of her antic.i.p.ated free time.

Alex, in nervous despair, saw her bend her head in acquiescence.

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