to be.
As she made her way to the refectory, Hope shivered a little, her eyes, a soft dove-grey, pensive. Sex was something only to be discussed in hushed, excited whispers in the dormitories at night, and Hope, who had not spent so much as a few days outside the convent walls since she had entered them, had no knowledge of this activity bar that passed on by the Sisters during biology lessons, and what she had gathered from the other girls’ whispered confidences.
From her reading she knew of the ecstasy two people could experience together, but how this ecstasy was to be equated with the dismal facts of procreation described by the nuns, and the fumbling intimacies of her friends, she did not know.
Today was a ‘French’ day, which meant that only French conversation was allowed, but Hope was fluent enough in this language not to mind. Indeed, she was fluent in most languages, and not simply the regulation French, Spanish and Italian taught at the school. German was another of her languages, and she had started to learn Russian. At the back of her mind was the idea that once she left the convent she would like to have a job—to train as a secretary perhaps, and use her languages in that capacity. Hope always did well at her lessons, but the convent set no conventional examinations for its pupils, so she had no real way of judging her ability.
Lunch was frugal as always, but the food was well prepared and attractively served. Any girl returning from her holidays spotty and plump soon found both spots and extra weight disappearing under the convent’s strict regime.
‘Summer holidays soon, what bliss,’ the girl on Hope’s right said dreamily. ‘My parents have a villa on Capri and we’re going there.’ She was a kind girl, who had known Hope since they were both fourteen, and she bit her lip self-consciously, not wanting to hurt Hope’s feelings. Many of the girls had invited Hope to share their holidays, but Hope’s father had always refused permission.
‘It is almost as though he wants to keep you locked up behind these walls for ever,’ one friend had remarked rebelliously when yet another refusal had been received, and although she had smiled the comment aside, a tiny sliver of fear had lodged deep in Hope’s heart.
But now she was eighteen and surely her own mistress? In law perhaps, she admitted inwardly, but although she was equipped to choose menus for fifty guests and upwards without blinking an eye; although she knew exactly what vintage wine to serve with what dish, and how to cope with staff, she had very little idea of how to take care of herself in a world which she sensed she might find alarming and even hostile after the cushioned protection of the convent.
Hope might be naïve, but she was no fool. The convent had an excellent library and Hope had made good use of it, but all her knowledge of the past could not compensate for her lack of knowledge about the present. Newspapers, other than those permitted by the Church, were not allowed. The convent possessed no television and the girls were not permitted to have radios. In the past this had not bothered Hope unduly, but lately … She frowned as she tried to analyse the cause for her recent discontent, the strange restlessness that pursued and possessed her.
‘Hope? Hope, you are daydreaming again!’ The exasperated tones of Sister Catherine’s voice penetrated her thoughts and Hope flushed guiltily.
‘The Reverend Mother wishes to see you,’ Sister Catherine told her, watching not unkindly as the colour came and went in Hope’s face. ‘Run along child—you must not keep her waiting.’
Keep the Reverend Mother waiting? It was unthinkable! Hope didn’t believe she had been summoned to the lady’s room on more than half a dozen occasions during her school life and her heart started to thud as she wondered why she had been sent for now. It couldn’t have been because her father had refused her permission to spend her holidays with yet another schoolfriend—this year she had known better than to ask.
The Reverend Mother had a suite of rooms separated from the main school building by a long cloistered walk, and normally Hope would have enjoyed admiring the enclosed garden the Reverend Mother’s rooms looked out on, but today she felt inexplicably nervous, searching her conscience for any sin which might have merited this summons. Skipping tennis hardly seemed worthy of the Reverend Mother’s intervention—and surely, omnipotent though she was, she had not read her charge’s rebellious and resentful thoughts, Hope wondered nervously.
Outside the study door she knocked and waited to be told to enter. The Reverend Mother was only small, barely five foot two to Hope’s five foot seven, but possessed of such a presence, such an aura of calm peacefulness, that it was Hope who felt dwarfed.
‘Sit down, child,’ the Reverend Mother commanded with a smile. She had been the head of the Convent School for nearly thirty years, and she knew her charges better than they knew themselves.
Hope was her only English pupil and the Reverend Mother had been startled at first when the child’s father had told her his wishes. Hope was to be kept cloistered in a way she herself would not even have recommended for a proposed novice. The Reverend Mother was no romantic—those who wished to forsake the world must first experience it. But while she might deplore what she secretly thought of as Sir Henry’s lack of feeling for his only child, with one or two exceptions Hope had been brought up largely as he had wished.
In these enlightened times it was neither wise nor practical to keep young girls ignorant of sexual matters. The Reverend Mother had been of a generation where in Spain this ignorance had been the norm, but it was like trying to hold back the tide to keep mentally innocent, young girls whose families were as wealthy and powerful as those to whom her pupils belonged. Indeed, she herself had had to fight against considerable opposition to have sex education included in the curriculum, and what she knew of Sir Henry made her wonder rather cynically at the double-standards operated by the world. Which made her all the more relieved about today’s turn of events.
Sir Henry had not been in touch with her before Hope’s eighteenth birthday, as she had expected. Most of her pupils left at seventeen, and it grieved her that Hope, who was one of her brightest pupils, would never go on to university. Indeed, it was her own personal view that Hope would fare better in the life she suspected Sir Henry planned for her, if her intelligence was less, and she eyed her sympathetically. In a school comprised of mainly Latin races, Hope’s silvery blondeness was unique. Her bone-structure differed from the other girls, too; like her body it was far more fragile and delicate, betraying her Anglo-Saxon ancestry.
‘Don’t look so worried, Hope. I’ve got some good news for you. You are to leave us and join your father, who apparently is in France at the moment. A friend of your father’s, the Comte de Serivace is calling to collect you tomorrow and he will escort you to your father.’
She busied herself kindly with some papers on her desk, well aware of the changing emotions and turmoil churning Hope’s stomach and mind. If anything, she wished that Hope was less vulnerable, more equipped to deal with the vagaries of life outside the convent, but it was not up to her to question the dictates of her pupils’ families. Sir Henry had been most adamant that Hope was not to be ‘contaminated’ by any contact with the outside world. A strange desire for a man who … Sternly the Reverend Mother suppressed the uncharitable thought, turning her attention to the girl standing before her.
‘I know this has come as something of a shock, Hope. Indeed, we could have wished for your father to give us more notice, but you are eighteen and it is time that you took your place in the world. Remember, child, we will always be here if you should need us.’ It was something she said to all the girls when they left, but some deep instinct told her that Hope was more likely to stand in need of the shelter offered by the convent than any other pupil.
Like someone in a dream Hope made her way back to her room. At sixteen, girls were promoted from sleeping in a dormitory to sharing a room with three other girls. The girls who shared with Hope had all left at Christmas and she had been alone ever since. Not that she minded. Solitude was something one came to appreciate, living in such a busy community. But it had happened at last—her father had sent for her!
In her room, Hope sank down on the narrow bed, staring unseeingly through the window down into the convent grounds. Strange how, after she had longed for something like