Life With Mother Superior (11 page)

“The test was the same day?”

“Oh, yes,” I breathed, grateful for this break.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think I’d win,” I said.

Mother Superior gave me one of her long, calculating looks.

“I wish I could say I was proud of you, but I’m not.”

I had had the same conversation with Mother so many times before, it was like a recording.

“You are not what I would call the girl I’d like most to represent St. Marks, but what is done is done.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Does your family know?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I assume they will be just as surprised as I am. What kind of a test was it?”

“Easy.”

“I do wish, young lady, that I could feel you won this with honor.”

“I didn’t cheat,” I said defensively.

“That’s not what I mean. It’s the very secretive methods you employ with everything you do.”

There was nothing to say.

Ramona had already made headlines by winning a $4,000-a-year scholarship anywhere in the world. Florence had won a two-year scholarship, Lillian had won a one-year scholarship, which went to the next highest since Lillian had announced her firm intentions to go into the convent the next year. To join my name, with those of the honor students was like sleeping out of holy wedlock. It just simply stuck in Mother’s craw, but there was little she could do about it Where the triumphant triumvirate had competed in local events, I had won a National Scholarship. Consequently, I began to get national publicity. It was simply too much for Mother when a handsome lady, who led the Camp Fire Girls in the nation, appeared to have her photo taken with me. Mother Superior was supposed to be in the picture, but she took refuge in ancient rules and said she really couldn’t. Truth was, she really wouldn’t. The thought of looking happy with me in a permanent photograph was more than she could bear.

Mama and Daddy were so shocked, they wrote to the national road company of Camp Fire Girls to be absolutely sure they had not made a mistake. This, plus Mother’s letter, must have seemed as if I was not the ideal Camp Fire Girl, but they received very nice notes saying that I was definitely in the Top Ten. I was delighted. After all my contests over the years, at last I had hit the jackpot.

Chapter Sixteen: Cum Diploma

What was left of the year seemed to race by. Spring arrived wet and green and we acted like olive-sided fly catchers about to leave the nest. Ginger announced her engagement, the first one, and everyone began to make plans for the summer and for life. Most of our classes dawdled by, most of our free time was spent practicing for Graduation.

The ceremony was to be held on the convent grounds. A large canopy was erected to cover the speaker and the guests. We sat on a platform to the side of the speaker. I was to sit in my regular place and then return to a special chair for the reading of awards, honors, and scholarships. I fitted in with this crowd like a bum at Ascot. They simply couldn’t believe it.

I gave Lillian a shove as she modestly sat down. She already walked and talked and cast her eyes piously downward like a nun.

She shoved me back. I was delighted that Mother Superior saw only her elbow fly and not mine. I looked hurt.

“Lillian Quigley,” Mother said, shocked, “please stop shoving her.”

Lillian practically fell to the grass in abject remorse. It had been the only time in four years that a nun had spoken to her crossly.

She glared at me. I smiled back.

I missed sitting near Mary and waved over to her. She just hadn’t been herself lately. I couldn’t figure out if she was unhappy with my winning the scholarship, or because I hadn’t told her about it, or whether she was sorry to leave St. Marks. She seemed remote and quiet.

Mother got us all into place and we ran through our paces twice. She played the Bishop, Sister Portress played the helping Father.

“Now, girls, under no circumstances are you to look to the right or to the left. If the girl next to you on the platform faints, you keep your eyes straight ahead. If the girl behind you falls off the platform; you keep your eyes straight ahead.” I’m sure that if the platform collapsed, the fire department would find twenty-five girls with their eyes staring straight ahead.

Lillian was to be Valedictorian and Ramona was to give the Introduction. Florence was to give the Welcome and I was to keep my mouth closed. So went the instructions.

After practice was over, I looked for Mary. She had gone off with Sister Polycarp. Sister Polycarp was our special Sister that year. She worried with you if you were sick, spoke to you if you were behind, and looked after our religious and temperal welfare. She was a peppery nun and we all rather liked her. But Mary seemed to spend an unnecessary amount of time with her.

“What are you hanging around Poly for?” I asked Mary at lunch.

“Shut up,” she answered.

“You know what will happen to you if you don’t watch out. She’ll rope you.” I laughed. The thought of Mary being roped killed me—only people like Lillian ended up in the convent.

One day, I casually announced to Mother Superior that I thought I would join the convent. She looked amused and said, “If you do, I leave.” I assumed she felt this way about Mary, too.

Graduation breakfast was not a joyous event at all. We all toyed nervously with our food and Mother Superior was nowhere in sight. She was running to and from her office, greeting the Bishop, getting him his coffee (he would have probably vastly preferred a stiff drink), and making our parents and relatives comfortable. Graduation was scheduled for 11 a.m.

We got into our Renaissance outfits—Sister Polycarp gave us our final instructions.

“Fix your hair, Florence.”

“Straighten your hat.”

“Stand up straight.”

When the orchestra began to play the March, we knew that our life at St. Marks was on its last leg. The orchestra sounded much this way too.

Under no circumstances were we to recognize our family. We marched in, eyes straight ahead, looking like twenty-five Jeanette MacDonalds under the influence of hypnosis.

We all took our seats. Florence rose and stumbled her way to the platform. With a quivering voice, she welcomed all. She shook so much, she had to hang onto the lectern. The Bishop nodded kindly and settled down into his chair, it was not the kind of chair one could ever get comfortable in, but he too stared straight ahead. After attending a hundred of these events, he had undoubtedly learned to tune out the voice and leave the picture.

Florence stumbled her way back to her chair and Ramona stood up and confidently headed toward the lectern. I’m convinced she is probably standing some where just like it today. She gave a very concise, well thought-out introduction and introduced Lillian.

I wondered how well she would do. I had taken a quick look at her typewritten speech just before we filed in. When Lillian had made a final trip to the bathroom, all I did was take two pages out. This left her with four rather unrelated ideas. She read the first
page beautifully and sailed right into the second. The odd transition didn’t seem to bother the audience too much—if they were at all like my father, they were undoubtedly not listening. However, I did watch the Bishop cock his head as she sprung into the third page., I thought she might notice that the ideas which she was promoting didn’t make too much sense, but she was simply intent on delivering the written words. By luck, we left her with the last page and she finished thanking the good Sisters for all they had done for us.

Tears came to her large brown eyes as she said:

“And so we bid St. Marks good-bye, but good-bye only in the physical sense. Each of us,” she tearfully pledged, “will be here always, and St. Marks will always be with us.”

The audience gave her a very warm hand, which she accepted as her just due. I wondered when it would dawn on her that she had read only two-thirds of her speech. As I figured, no one but the religious side of our life had noticed it. I didn’t dare look at Mary.

Then, the Bishop gave one of his rambling “Life is like a ship going out to sea” speeches, which could have done with the same kind of editing.

My father, who had attended my sister’s graduation, said it was the same speech, he had merely put a different year on it. When he finished, there was a general stir. People didn’t clap for the Bishop. He retired to his place and his assistant got up and said, “We will now hand out the diplomas,” and he proceeded to read the names in alphabetical order, while each girl went up to the Bishop to receive it.

The dance step went like this. We left our seats, our eyes straight ahead. We marched to the middle of the platform where we made a very complicated dipping bow; we then turned to the Bishop and made another one, only this bow was much trickier, as we were to kiss his ring on the way down. The idea was to kiss his hand without getting the ring clanked in your teeth. You then rose, took your diploma from his holy hands, retired to the middle of the stage and bowed again. This time the bow was directed toward the nuns. You then returned to your chair. It took about one minute per student to do this dance. It was not easy, however, with a good gusty wind blowing up, to do the dip, keep your organdy garden hat from sailing off, get your diploma and get back—especially, keeping your eyes at West Point attention.

When they got to the T’s I got ready. When they hit Teresa Tiernan, I adjusted my dress so I wouldn’t step on it. When they called Marguerite Webb, I thought I had fainted and missed out on my name. They had simply skipped me. What on earth had happened? In the second allotted, I tried to see, out of the corner of my organdy hat, if Marguerite Webb was as startled as I was. She was. She nudged me to get going and I made my way up to the front of the platform, where I curtsied and headed for the Bishop.

Marguerite Webb was to be the last one to get her diploma and the Bishop did some tricky calculating to realize that he had one diploma too many—mine. I dipped in front of him and kissed his ring and reached for the diploma. I suppose the only people who knew, or cared about the difference between Marguerite Webb and myself, were my family and the Webbs. There was a general stir in the audience and my father got out his glasses to take a look at me.

I tugged at my diploma and the Bishop tugged back. The diploma-pulling contest continued another full second, then the Bishop turned to the assistant and asked, “Who is this?”

“Marguerite Webb,” he answered.

I wanted so much to say, “I’m not Marguerite Webb,” but I tried to think of Mother Superior, and how she would feel if I ruined Graduation, too. I kept my eyes straight ahead.

The Bishop didn’t get to be Bishop for nothing and he leaned over, still hanging on to the diploma, and said:

“Are you Marguerite Webb?”

I shook my head. “No, your Highness.”

This last accolade was too much for him. He laughed and turned to the assistant. “Read the name before Webb.”

“There’s been some mistake,” said the handsome young priest. “This is Jane Trahey, not Marguerite Webb.”

The Bishop let go of my diploma so suddenly, I almost fell. But I quickly got back to my final curtsy. The applause was rewarding for both Marguerite Webb and myself.

After this, the Scholarship Awards were read and, even though Mother Superior had been cool up till now on the subject, she applauded when they read mine.

To climax the whole event, Mother Superior made a little announcement about the prizes she considered the most valuable.

“Prizes, scholarships and honors are all well and good,” she said, “but with them, of course, goes the responsibility to live up to the great expectations.” But there were other honors in life that were not material. These were bestowed on the fortunate few and it was the gift of a religious vocation. She said, “I am delighted to tell you that three graduates from this very class will join our Order here next September.”

Three. . . . I knew about Lillian and Rosemary Lenahen, but who could the third one be?

“Lillian Quigley,” she said, “one of our best students, a Scholarship winner, a four-year honor student; Rosemary Lenahen, ranking in the top five in grades, captain of our winning basketball team; and Mary Clancey, one of our most high-spirited students, fun-loving and top debater.”

It was as if someone had socked me. I could not believe my ears. Mary, my friend, my pal, my right arm, my accomplice, going in the awful nunnery. It was too much. I gave up the eyes front and stared at her.

She stared back.

The orchestra began the school song and we all stood up and sang “Faithful Forever St. Marks,” and then we began to march, two by two, for the last time, down the stone walk toward the Main Building.

Mother Superior was mingling with the parents, and when I saw her heading for mine I joined them. I was still speechless from the announcement and I steered clear of Mary and her parents.

Mother Superior was saying how proud she was of all of us. This was her evasive way of saying not one word about me.

“That was some Valedictorian speech,” my father said.

I hopelessly tried to shut him up.

“She must have gotten her papers mixed up.”

Mother Superior glared at me and said, “Yes, it looked to me as though she had misplaced one or two pages, but all in all, I thought it was the most beautiful graduation we’ve ever had.”

Father continued in his usual blundering way, “And what did you think of
this one
winning a scholarship?”

“Very surprising, indeed,” Mother Superior admitted.

“It was either the easiest test ever given, or she was under a lucky star that day.”

No one ever gave me a credit line.

“By the way,” Mother Superior queried, “how is your sister in China?”

I could have fainted as I watched my father’s face turn toward her.

Someone tapped Mother Superior on the shoulder and she turned away. She was needed, so she excused herself with an, “I’ll be back, I want to hear all about her.”

“She must have the wrong family,” Papa said to Mama. “A sister of mine in China!”