be free of St. Marks. We longed for summer days of lolling and tennis and sunning and yet, when the day arrived, we missed each other before we left school and all sum mer we missed the magic formula of being told what to do and when to do it.
“This is the summer to grow up,” Mother Superior announced to us confidently. “For next year you’ll be seniors.”
She looked us over like a French farmer looking over his stock. Prodding here, weighing there, wondering if she had given us the right diet for maximum growth.
There was no doubt about it, we had changed since our first interviews.
Mary’s hair had calmed down and she kept it brushed softly in a page-boy style that was quite the Ginger Rogers rage. Kathryn had turned from a scraggly, willowy little boy to a rather buxom well-developed girl. I was taller, not quite so pale, and I had completely given up candy, which was unkind to my skin, the day I fell in love with Robert Taylor.
“You don’t need all those trappings of the heretics,” Mother Superior lectured, “to be attractive.” She meant, of course, lipstick. We all owned lipsticks but wearing it was simply not allowed.
“It’s a pagan sign, a pagan sign.” We’d heard it over and over.
“Go right on living like you do here at St. Marks, praying as you do. It would behoove each and every one of you to attend daily Mass,” she added. “What a wonderful gift that would be to me, if each of you returned in September and told me that you had been to daily Mass.”
With one fell swoop, Mother had dissipated our year-long desire to never get up in the morning by asking for this little gift.
“Well, students, have a good Christian summer and come back recharged spiritually as well as physically.”
We were dismissed. Of course, we all had the rest of the day (depending on train or bus time) to bid good-bye to each other and finish up business of any kind within our own clique. At the moment our life centered around Sister Constance. She had been our major interest from the beginning of our junior year when she came to St. Marks from China. She, I might add, was our idol much against her will, but she had little choice. We adored her, bothered her, followed her, confided in her. There weren’t enough presents for her, there wasn’t enough of anything for her.
She had been returned to St. Marks from China, where she had been a missionary teacher for ten years. She probably was all of thirty when we met her. The rumors that preceded her arrival and stayed with her that whole year ranged from her having fallen in love with a Chinese overlord to the fact that she was dying of a rare disease.
She was the prettiest nun I had ever seen in my life. Slight, fragile, straight, Sister Constance had flawless beauty. Her eyes were violet, shadowed with the longest black lashes I ever saw. Her smile was made for a dental convention. Her skin was golden tinged with pink. She was not only the rage of the school but a great favorite with Mother Superior and the Sisters. The most interesting thing about her was the fact that she had lost one arm. The rumors about this mishap progressed from the story Lillian Quigley’s mother had heard from her cousin, a Chinese missionary also, that the Communists had cut it off when she was trying to save a girl baby from being thrown into the garbage pail, to the truth—that she had caught it in a mangle in the laundry room in the convent of the missions. Sister Constance never seemed to let the matter bother her at all, and was quite as deft with her one hand as most of us are with both.
She taught us religion and it was certainly the year of vocations for my group. Never before did the Faith get such a going-over for all concerned. Even Mary was reading Sister Constance’s own copy of St. Thomas More and quoting it to us for hours on end. If Sister Constance smiled at us our day was made. For my part she could do no wrong.
We walked her to the cloister door at prayer
“This is the summer to grow up,” Mother Superior announced to us confidently. “For next year you’ll be seniors.”
She looked us over like a French farmer looking over his stock. Prodding here, weighing there, wondering if she had given us the right diet for maximum growth.
There was no doubt about it, we had changed since our first interviews.
Mary’s hair had calmed down and she kept it brushed softly in a page-boy style that was quite the Ginger Rogers rage. Kathryn had turned from a scraggly, willowy little boy to a rather buxom well-developed girl. I was taller, not quite so pale, and I had completely given up candy, which was unkind to my skin, the day I fell in love with Robert Taylor.
“You don’t need all those trappings of the heretics,” Mother Superior lectured, “to be attractive.” She meant, of course, lipstick. We all owned lipsticks but wearing it was simply not allowed.
“It’s a pagan sign, a pagan sign.” We’d heard it over and over.
“Go right on living like you do here at St. Marks, praying as you do. It would behoove each and every one of you to attend daily Mass,” she added. “What a wonderful gift that would be to me, if each of you returned in September and told me that you had been to daily Mass.”
With one fell swoop, Mother had dissipated our year-long desire to never get up in the morning by asking for this little gift.
“Well, students, have a good Christian summer and come back recharged spiritually as well as physically.”
We were dismissed. Of course, we all had the rest of the day (depending on train or bus time) to bid good-bye to each other and finish up business of any kind within our own clique. At the moment our life centered around Sister Constance. She had been our major interest from the beginning of our junior year when she came to St. Marks from China. She, I might add, was our idol much against her will, but she had little choice. We adored her, bothered her, followed her, confided in her. There weren’t enough presents for her, there wasn’t enough of anything for her.
She had been returned to St. Marks from China, where she had been a missionary teacher for ten years. She probably was all of thirty when we met her. The rumors that preceded her arrival and stayed with her that whole year ranged from her having fallen in love with a Chinese overlord to the fact that she was dying of a rare disease.
She was the prettiest nun I had ever seen in my life. Slight, fragile, straight, Sister Constance had flawless beauty. Her eyes were violet, shadowed with the longest black lashes I ever saw. Her smile was made for a dental convention. Her skin was golden tinged with pink. She was not only the rage of the school but a great favorite with Mother Superior and the Sisters. The most interesting thing about her was the fact that she had lost one arm. The rumors about this mishap progressed from the story Lillian Quigley’s mother had heard from her cousin, a Chinese missionary also, that the Communists had cut it off when she was trying to save a girl baby from being thrown into the garbage pail, to the truth—that she had caught it in a mangle in the laundry room in the convent of the missions. Sister Constance never seemed to let the matter bother her at all, and was quite as deft with her one hand as most of us are with both.
She taught us religion and it was certainly the year of vocations for my group. Never before did the Faith get such a going-over for all concerned. Even Mary was reading Sister Constance’s own copy of St. Thomas More and quoting it to us for hours on end. If Sister Constance smiled at us our day was made. For my part she could do no wrong.
We walked her to the cloister door at prayer