LITMIR.BIZ

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was the one flaw in Michelle’s vast contentment at having married a man as wealthy and easygoing as James Vernon.

      Which, of course, was why she was here at the convent where Michelle herself had been educated. Her friend Vanessa, both of whose parents had embarked on other marriages, had explained it succinctly.

      ‘It’s “being got out of the way”. If I’d been a baby or a three-year-old my stepmother could have dressed up for photographs with bows in my hair, it might have been O.K. At our age, we’re just a pain in the neck. Della said it made her feel old just to look at me.’

      As it was, Lacey had grown accustomed to being ‘out of the way’. She had learned that it was not always convenient for her to go home for her vacations, but as the alternatives had included carefully selected parties for skiing, sailing and sightseeing, she could not feel too hard done by.

      But now she had to face the fact that her schooldays were strictly numbered, and that her future was by no means clear cut. Her father was being over-optimistic, she thought, in envisaging any role-sharing between Michelle and herself, and yet what else was there, if she was not to be allowed to work for her living?

      Lacey sighed and leaned her forehead against the cold glass for a moment. There was an alternative which she had come to consider with increasing seriousness as the weeks had passed. She could ask Reverend Mother to allow her to enter the novitiate of the order. It was not an ideal solution, and there were immediate snags. Lacey was not yet eighteen or indeed a Roman Catholic, but none of these obstacles seemed as insuperable as the prospect of being an unwanted third in her stepmother’s home. She knew too that the nuns considered a sense of vocation as essential for the religious life, but she also knew from books she had read in the convent library that in bygone times many girls had become nuns because they were unwanted by their families and had become excellent religious. Lacey supposed, rather dubiously, that this could happen to her in time.

      She looked again at the high wall, which as Sister Thérèse had often commented, was not to keep the nuns from the world but the world from the nuns.

      Lacey sometimes wondered what this ‘world’ was like that had to be kept at bay, but she had never shared with the other boarders any burning desire to come to terms with it as soon as possible. She knew that many of the other girls were already sexually experienced, although she was rarely invited to join the little groups that gathered secretly late at night to discuss boy-friends and sex, and she realised wryly that she would have had little to contribute if she had been.

      Lacey had never had a boy-friend, unless she counted Alan Trevor, the son of neighbours of theirs in the country, whom she had known since her early childhood. Lacey rode with him sometimes in the holidays and found him attractive with a sense of humour, but he had never attempted even to kiss her, and Lacey was secretly relieved that he had not. But it did not prevent her from speculating on how she would cope if and when that momentous occasion ever came about.

      The worldly-wise Vanessa had told her that it was rarely the kiss that counted—more what men expected to follow it, but Lacey had never been able to apply any of this information to herself. Her body was something that she bathed and clothed and which obeyed the demands she put upon it without effort. The realisation that there were demands that others might make of it was utterly alien to her. At the convent her studies and her music filled her life. At home, usually in the country, she enjoyed the open air, often in Alan’s relaxed company or that of his sister Fran.

      Convent life, she supposed vaguely, would go on in much the same way, except that Alan would not be there, and if she was honest that would be no great deprivation although she was fond of him.

      She wandered back to the piano and perching on the stool began to pick out a melody with one finger. What, she wondered, was it like to be in love? Her cheeks flushed as she recalled some of the more lurid discussions she had heard from the others, but what had that to do with love?

      And this was where one province where even her usual mentor, Sister Thérèse, would not be able to help her, she thought, then started guiltily as Sister herself suddenly spoke from the doorway.

      ‘So you are here, Lacey. Reverend Mother has asked to see you, and I guessed where you might be.’

      Lacey closed the piano and rose bewilderedly, shaking out her skirt.

      ‘Reverend Mother? But why? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’

      Sister Thérèse gave a slight smile. ‘Now why should you all imagine that Reverend Mother only sends for you when you have been in some kind of mischief?’ she asked chidingly. Then, after a slight hesitation, ‘You have a visitor, Lacey.’

      ‘A visitor?’ Lacey stared at the older woman with sudden joyous disbelief. ‘It’s Father. It must be,’ she blurted out, and regardless of Sister Thérèse’s restraining ‘Lacey!’, she ran out of the room and along the spacious panelled corridor to the main staircase.

      The door of Reverend Mother’s study was slightly ajar, but Lacey still knocked and waited for the word to enter in spite of her inner excitement. Then she slid through the door and dropped a slight curtsey to Reverend Mother, her eyes turning eagerly to see who else was in the room.

      Her hands clasped involuntarily in front of her and she stood quite still with all the joy and laughter fading from her piquant little face as Michelle rose from a high-backed chair, a formal smile barely curving her exquisitely made up mouth.

      Questions were beating and tearing at Lacey’s brain as she forced herself to reply to Michelle’s polite greeting and pecked obediently at one scented cheek. One that had to be answered forced its way into speech. ‘Father—he is all right?’

      Michelle’s brows rose. ‘Perfectly, but very busy, as he no doubt explained in his last letter. That is why he asked me to perform this errand for him.’ She glanced at her wristwatch, then turned to Reverend Mother who was standing, her usually calm face a little troubled. ‘If the child’s things could be packed, ma très révérende mère.’

      ‘Mais oui, ma chère enfant. I will give the necessary instructions and leave you to talk.’

      She moved past Lacey as she spoke and the girl with great daring touched her sleeve.

      ‘But why must my things be packed, Reverend Mother?’

      The nun hesitated, sending a swift glance towards Michelle.

      ‘Because the time has come for you to leave us, my child,’ she replied. ‘Your stepmother will explain all to you now, sans doute.’ She looked down into Lacey’s stricken face and her own softened perceptibly. ‘It is not the end of the world, ma petite,’ she said gently, and moved to the door.

      ‘But it is!’ Lacey cried, almost hysterically. ‘I—I don’t want to leave, Reverend Mother. I was going to see you and ask if I could stay here always——’

      ‘How would that be possible, my child?’ Reverend Mother stared at her. ‘Unless you obtained some teaching qualification, and even then …’

      Lacey shook her head, almost pleadingly. ‘I didn’t mean that, Reverend Mother. I intended to ask you to accept me as a novice—to permit me to become a nun.’

      There was a stunned silence for a moment, then Michelle exclaimed furiously ‘Quelle bětise!’ only to be halted by Reverend Mother’s upraised hand. Her calm eyes bored into Lacey’s flushed, unhappy face.

      ‘So you think you are called to the religious life, my child. Sit down and we will discuss the matter.’

      ‘Reverend Mother,’ Michelle protested, and the nun gave her a faint smile.

      ‘If you would be good enough to wait in the parlour, ma chère. Sister Monique will bring you some coffee and cakes.’

      Michelle hesitated, but Reverend Mother’s authority was still absolute and after a moment she left the room with obvious ill grace. Reverend Mother gave an almost imperceptible sigh, then moved briskly back to her large desk and

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