‘Goodbye, I’m leaving now,’ I said, and was unable to say any more. How I detested my awkwardness! Why did I have to be this stultified, tongue-tied Dutch clod of a person, the opposite of Irish sociability?
Alice took my hand politely. There was no sign on her face of any special recognition. She was distressed at losing another friend, Sister Imelda, a Canadian, who, like herself, was blessed with the gift of the gab. Standing before Alice, I felt I could read her mind, her feelings, and a realisation swept over me like a betrayal. Alice had felt nothing more for me than occasional pity. She had not shunned me just because my love for her was against the rules, but because she simply didn’t appreciate me. She wasn’t beyond strong attachment herself, for someone more inclined to her own ways. It was a bitter moment of clarity, draining away any hope I had ever entertained of being loved by her in return.
How was it possible that great love did not produce love in return?
I ran outside to say goodbye to the magenta rhododendron bush, hoping against hope that it would have some flowers on it in June, but of course it didn’t.
My years at Sedgley, then, had been the years of my absorption with Alice. When I finally stepped in front of a classroom in 1965, I might as well have come straight off the street, so useless had my training been to my preoccupied mind.
SILENT MADNESS
STELLA MARIS, ‘Star of the Sea’, the mother house near Broadstairs. I was sent back there for a refresher course as a Faithful Companion of Jesus, an intensive year or more of relearning obedience and practising silence.
I was not alone. All of us six Australians who had arrived in England three years ago travelled south together. We left sooty Manchester to emerge onto the glorious green fields of England, and then to London, where we were met once more by our streetwise nun-guide and stayed overnight.
Off again at the crack of dawn to avoid the crowds. I had time to admire the magnificent old ceilings of Victoria Station filling with steam; enjoy the thunderous clatter of incoming trains, the dignified whistle of others announcing their way out. I revelled in the beauty of the old-world wrought-iron gates and seats, the detail of the paintwork on the trains and, after we were ushered into our sequestered first-class carriage, the luxurious comfort of the leather-padded seats.
We left the train after many hours and boarded a bus. The double-decker wended its way through small villages built well before the time of motor cars, lurching through their narrow streets and allowing the passengers close-up views of quaint crocheted curtains in the upstairs windows.
From Broadstairs town we were chauffeured to North Foreland, a patch of coastline that was mostly owned by the order. At last we had arrived.
It was as if I was seeing the place for the very first time. I had forgotten how long it took to walk from one end of the property to the other, and that a public road ran right through the middle of the complex of gardens and buildings.
‘We welcome our Australian sisters to Stella Maris! Have you travelled well?’ The choreographed welcome came from the ancient nun who had greeted us at the door three years earlier. She was the Vicar, the second-in-command, a bit like royalty, and she knew how to quickly make us feel at ease. The old dame had been a grand duchess once, and had been allowed to keep her graces.
The Vicar’s house was a former mansion which retained the feel of English country homeliness. We were shown our sleeping quarters: large rooms made into upstairs dormitories. The building was close to the convent’s exclusive little primary school, and from our dorm window we had the exquisite pleasure of hearing the Kentish children reciting their prayers at assembly. Their accents were so pure and song-like that it brought tears to my eyes.
Our duchess-Vicar ordered high tea for us, after which we were shown through the orchards and gardens to the main residence. Although we would sleep at the vicarage, we were to study, work and eat in the main house.
It was the height of summer and espaliered pear, apple and peach trees were in fruit along the south walls of the vegetable garden. Roses of all colours climbed up every available wall, ramblers and large-flowered cultivars. Wallflowers graced the sunny bay windows along the front of the main house, their perfume luscious in the late afternoon. Ivy crept up the red-brick walls, trying to enter the open upstairs windows, reaching right over the chimneys.
We were shown around the creaking complex: the study rooms, the linen room, the kitchen, the bright convening room and, in a separate building, the laundry. An enclosed wooden passage joined the two main houses. There were odd little rooms and useless spaces, and the toilets were in a row of five. These were new: the pine cladding still gave off a refreshing scent. We weren’t shown the parlours at the front of the house, nor the sleeping quarters of the resident nuns, or the General’s quarters. The General lived in a secluded part of the complex (she was expected to arrive back from a journey the following week).
I so wanted this to be a good place. It was beautiful: such precision in the garden, contrasting with the crumbling grandeur of the old mansions. It all promised the possibility of homeliness, of comfort, even of friendliness. All this turned out to be true at times, and yet the place was dominated entirely by the influence of one stern woman: Margaret Winchester, the Reverend Mother General. She was treated with extraordinary reverence, not only because of her position but because of her force of character—something I was to experience first-hand.
She was very tall, with a wide broad face and staring eyes made larger by the many circles of sagging wrinkles around them. She reminded me strongly of an orang-utan. I smiled at her when she met us upon her return to the convent, thinking that she was deliberately trying to create a funny impression, but was soon stared down by her steady eyes. Neither feminine nor masculine, she had a power bestowed by enigma. While she was imposing, she walked with a humble gait on feet that always ached with gout, head bowed, watching her step. Her hands flailed beside her swaying body to keep balance as she walked, typically orang-utan-like; something we would never dare do ourselves, no matter how unbalanced we might feel, because it would look too ostentatious, or out-of-control.
The General had a very poor constitution by the time I knew her. She burped constantly and her devoted personal attendant took infinite pains to find recipes and cook her meals that might suit her stomach. The General took her job extremely seriously. In time I would find out that this woman, to whom I had sent loving letters during my postulancy and novitiate, believed that her main mission in life was to make sure nobody had a swollen head, that we all remained humble.
To be humble meant being slavishly submissive, never speaking up, and never complaining or arguing. We were also to be obedient without question, and our obedience was measured by the degree of self-abnegation or mental, emotional or physical suffering we could endure in the execution of orders. We were frequently given contradictory orders to confound and confuse us, and publicly humiliated whenever we failed to carry out these orders based on impossible expectations.
The General got away with it because her subjects willingly bestowed a sort of infallibility upon her as the mouthpiece of God—although it takes English stoicism (which I did not share) fortified with heavy doses of religious fervour (which I did share) to ascribe a special holiness to the whimsical madness of an ageing, eccentric woman—and because Stella Maris was a testing place anyway. It was a place where the wayward were pulled into line, and the as-yet unshaped—or perhaps crookedly-shaped, like us college graduates, influenced by lay studies—were moulded in the true spirit of the order. She also got away with it because of her mad sincerity and her innovative flair. Her innovations were cruel, but their shock value drew respect. Lastly, and incredibly, she had a sense of humour, and sometimes a kindness in her eyes that belied her madness. She may once have been an especially gifted woman, but she had become a victim of her own institution and her own convictions. The General was often with us in chapel, and gave us talks at least once a week, yet she remained
a terrifying mystery because she hardly ever conversed with us on an individual level.
The nun in charge of tertiary novices was Mother Mary John; she was about sixty-five years old, rotund and serious but with a little smile close to her brown eyes. Her olive skin gave her an Italian or Spanish look and tiny, dark whiskers grew above her lips. She was a tower of stability and kindness, but steadfastly refused to become a mother figure of the consoling kind, which might have been her natural tendency. She was stern whenever she thought it necessary, not habitually like the General. She sat at the head of the long narrow L-shaped table at which novices and lay sisters sat in the refectory. There was hardly enough room for so many of us.
Conversation, when it was allowed, was supposed to go around the corner of the L shape, to people who couldn’t actually see each other. This peculiar arrangement encouraged witty asides that were tolerated by Mother Mary John if they did not too obviously reach her ear. She appreciated laughter, and that was our saving grace. It was like balm to our young adult souls to be allowed this indulgence in high spirits at table and at recreation time. Her large body would shake when she laughed; her eyes would close up and her lips would soften and she would lift up a serviette to hide her mouth. I loved the way she could not control her mirth; she was obviously enjoying our company. She had a way of sending us into stitches too, with unexpected moments of dry wit, but mostly she was quiet, keeping aware of the group dynamics, checking that each of her charges was there and seemed to be all right.
It was Mother Mary John’s job to bring to our notice directives from the General, to coordinate household tasks, to hold monthly interviews with each of us to check on our progress or otherwise, and to correct us when necessary and impose punishments. She also presided over some of our afternoon recreation sessions. I had the distinct impression that although she was thorough in carrying out the punishing chore, it went against the grain for her. Somehow that made receiving punishment from her more palatable—and more hurtful. The question arose: ‘Why punish if it feels wrong?’ and the answer had to be, ‘God’s ways (meaning the General’s rules and ways) are mysterious, and we are here not to question but to make a sacrifice of our obedience.’ Mother Mary John had compassion, but her sense of devotion took absolute precedence.
Since space at Stella Maris was terribly cramped, we Australians often did our morning meditation in the Vicar’s chapel to reduce crowding in the main chapel. It was a small stone building, set apart in a garden, with tiny archaic windows at just above head height. The wicker prie-dieux were only two deep on each side of the aisle, and there were about eight rows of them. The windows were usually open, winter and summer, and the sweetest fresh air would drift in. At six o’clock in the morning even the dew had a smell, and many a meditation of mine was but a pure appreciation of the roses and wallflowers and the song of the birds. The air was like a pure angel, cool to the brain, bringing on a kind of euphoria.
I would let my poetic nature have its head and joy filled my heart. I would remember some line from Gerard Manley Hopkins, like ‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God…’ or something else I’d read. This little stone chapel was a precious jewel, as still as stillness itself, exuding a rare atmosphere that the darker and larger chapel at Stella Maris did not, even with its wonderfully carved and polished wooden sanctuary rails and pulpit, beautifully architraved ceiling, wooden pews and parquetry floors. There, the smells were all traditional—of wood and the remains of incense. The Reverend Mother General knelt at the back—a vantage point for her watchful eye.
STELLA MARIS EMPLOYED a professional groundsman who knew how to grow vegetables and flowers all year round. He would often get disgruntled when he received contradictory orders from week to week and ended up doing a lot of work for nothing. Early that autumn he gave up and left. This was something quite unexpected from a mere servant! The nuns forgot that he had not made a vow of obedience. ‘He loves his garden, and he has a great respect for his work. He’ll come back,’ I heard them say, but they were wrong. The weeds accumulated in the vegetable patch and still he didn’t come back. That’s when we were asked to fulfil one of the General’s unforgettable crazy orders—about ten of us were told to pull up nettles with our bare hands. We were not to stop until the last nettle was gone.
If you have ever been stung by an English nettle, whose barb lodges in the skin, you will know that the pain can stay for quite some time. Getting stung feels like a tiny—or not so tiny—electric shock, depending on your sensitivity. We hesitated, but only to make sure what was expected of us.
I grabbed a nettle with both hands and was, of course, shocked by the sudden stings, but decided that the best policy was to proceed with a will. The nettles grew high and thick over a couple of large patches, as if especially cultivated. Soon the stings reddened our arms as well as our hands. We worked for about two hours, until the last weed came down. Then we tried to wash the pain out of our hands—and couldn’t. Water was a cool blessing on the raging heat, but the raw stinging would not go away. I couldn’t sleep that night from the burning and throbbing sensations, and found that nobody else could either.
‘Why did we pull out all those nettles without gloves on?’ The question came from a small Irish nun and was spoken gently at recreation time.
All of us were interested in a reply and we listened expectantly. Mother Mary John heard the question, but because there was no rational answer she gave none at all and looked steadfastly down at her needlework.
WE OFTEN HAD to listen to words about the value of suffering. The thought of getting closer to Jesus through pain held an immense attraction for our collective ego. Life at Stella Maris was intense; suffering seemed to be on the menu daily.
In the main chapel, I always had the feeling that it was better to stay quite still, to avoid attracting attention. It was bad enough that, being so tall with a straight back I was sometimes mistaken for Mother Clare, the General’s personal assistant. She had a ramrod back and very square shoulders. We were both slim and nearly six feet in our shoes. The resemblance ended there, except when I did a deliberate and very naughty impersonation of the way she walked, holding my shoulders very straight.
Mother Clare had a classic face; she was a dark, stern beauty, with eyes that sparkled behind her large glasses, giving an inkling of her brilliant mind. She had a great intellect and had been a marvellous disciplinarian and organiser in her day. I imagine that she was sadly missed by her school. Mother Clare’s phenomenal ability was now shackled to working out how to make the General more comfortable throughout her many discomforts.
In the chapel it could be very disturbing to feel eyes trained on you most of the time. If I sat down when I was expected to be kneeling, I could expect an enquiry as to why. It wouldn’t do to explain that you were menstruating rather heavily and felt a bit weak in the tummy. The General walked up and down the aisles to see who was awake and who was not, and to gauge what the quality of our meditation might be. She preferred that we used no book to prompt our meditation other than the one read out in chapel, though written reminders were not forbidden altogether. When I used my missal one morning to prod my brain, she kept walking agitatedly past me. I was usually at the end of the pew, beside the aisle, so I wouldn’t obstruct the others’ view of the altar. The swish-swish of her habit went back and forth, and I kept my eyes down. She rattled her rosary beads with flailing arms, to see if that would make me notice her. I pretended not to, daring her to rip the book out of my hand. She didn’t, but it must have been a close thing.
Later that day, we were called together in the convening room for a talk by the General. Seats were arranged in rows in a room barely large enough for us all to breathe together, and a table and chair were set up in front. As usual, I was at the end of the row, this time on the far side away from the door, beside the large expanse of latticed window.
The General began by challenging some individuals about their practice of the rules and their religious
life. Sister Bridget, a brilliant history teacher, was well known for her innovative chart-making and her students were achieving particularly good results. This Irish nun in her mid-thirties was the coordinator of studies in her school and obviously frantic that she had been forced to leave her department and classes suddenly unattended. I saw her distress as her charts were ripped up at the General’s command and she was ordered not to return to the school at all. Sister Bridget was beside herself with confusion, unable to make head or tail of this.
The General’s attention suddenly turned to me. ‘Sister Mary Carla,’ came the voice, interrupted by little burps of indigestion, ‘what do you think about when you meditate?’
My reply was immediate, panic-driven. ‘Nothing,’ I replied, turning scarlet at the attention I was getting and the silliness of my answer. I had given it instinctively, the kind of classic denial used in TV soapies, though I had never seen one.
The General seized on the error. ‘I thought as much,’ she retorted, producing a giggle in the audience.
I kept my head down, determined not to say another word. I was so overwhelmed by the sudden attack that my mind went numb anyway and I couldn’t have responded even if I’d wanted to. It wasn’t any fun for the General to keep on talking to a moron, so I was left alone and a dissertation on meditation followed.
After that, I became acutely aware of the questionable nature of the trances I spontaneously fell into. For example, I might be reading a book and a passage would so inspire me that I would become oblivious to my surroundings. This could last for some time, and it might take a bell to wake me up.
One summer afternoon I walked to the end of a pathway that finished at a fence with a wheatfield on the other side. Being tall I could look over the fence easily. I was in rapture at the soft winds rippling the wheat and the sight of red poppies and blue cornflowers that I used to know as a child in Holland. On this day, a lark was singing. The little creature seemed to be tireless. Whenever it dropped back into the wheatstalks for a breather, it wasn’t long before it was up in the sky again, singing as if its lungs would give up at any moment, chirping to…what? Its creator? An invisible mate? I chose to imagine that it sang to praise God, and my heart joined in with the music.
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