Read Online Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gail Godwin
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological, Psychological fiction, Historical, north carolina, Teacher-student relationships, Nineteen fifties, Nuns, Catholic schools, Women college graduates
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than always having to be the cherry on top”: that was Mother Ravenel’s thumbnail sketch of “the third mother” in the class of ‘34.
Noon—the hour of Sext—the Angelus
Five minutes before noon, Mother Finney turned off the gas oven, leaving the trays of macaroni and cheese inside to keep warm. She washed her hands under the tap, dried them on a fresh towel with the priestly care that precedes sacred duties, and set off, with her slight limp from a girlhood horse fall, down the trophy-lined hall to ring the Angelus.
The knotted end of the thick bell rope ended in a stairwell and was cordoned off by a circular wrought-iron gate, which Mother Finney now unlocked with a key from her deep pocket. The temptation of an accessible rope connected to the thundering peal of a bell that could be heard for miles around had proved too much for several generations of little girls—and even some older ones. In 1939 a senior had announced her engagement via the bell and narrowly escaped being expelled. The last unauthorized bell ringer, before the gate went up in 1944, was a fifth-grade boarder, overexcited by the Friday night movie, Arsenic and Old Lace . She had yanked and swung on the forbidden rope to the horror and delight of her fellow boarders and, while its wild peals were still echoing from the tower, had raced up the stairs screeching Cary Grant’s infamous lines: “Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops!”
Mother Finney often thought of that little girl when ringing the Angelus bell. The child hadn’t stayed at Mount St. Gabriel’s for long, though she hadn’t been expelled. There were always those comers and goers, the ones dropped off by out-of-town parents, then just as suddenly whisked away. Mother Finney kept a special place in her heart for the bolder, high-spirited girls. She hoped God would grant that little bell ringer enough suitable outlets for her energies and would help her to distinguish between exuberant mischief and what Mother Wallingford, who had supremely embodied it, had called “holy daring.”
Three rings and a pause; three rings and a pause; three rings and a pause. Hark, drop your tools, and remember you are inside the Eternal Presence. Followed by the nine consecutive peals heralding the hour of no shadows, the end of morning’s work: resonating through the building and billowing out into the valley below. If the wind was blowing the right way, jail prisoners on the tenth floor of the downtown courthouse could count the rings of the Mount St. Gabriel’s bell.
Mother Finney’s frail, curved body belied her still powerful arms. She rang the bell cleanly, with no irresolute half measures. As a young woman she had broken recalcitrant yearlings on her family’s horse farm in Galway. Now she was in her eighty-ninth year, having outlived Elizabeth Wallingford, her fellow adventurer and beloved foundress, by two long decades.
The afternoon interviews
Eight girls, from one-thirty to five, M through Y, followed by Vespers and dinner.
Mrs. Saul Meyer, a stylish woman with a piquant mix of guttural German and Carolina drawl, introduced herself as “Judy Meyer.” “Rebecca has been at Mount St. Gabriel’s since first grade, Mother Malloy. We emigrated here in forty-one. She loves this school, and so do we. Her father and I are observant Jews, and we’re raising Becky in our traditions. But, you know, in Vienna, both Saul and I attended Catholic gymnasia . The nun who taught me penmanship had us copy out the catechism, so I know it almost as well as I do the Torah!”
Rebecca Meyer: small for her age, with poised, old-world child’s manners. A thick flame-red braid descending to her waist. Spoke with a Carolina drawl, but said very little.
Ashley Nettle, new day girl, and her mother, Virginia Nettle, who spoke in haughty, theatrical phrases. Jumpy, nervous Ashley, flyaway hair the color of tinsel, swallowed her words; she jiggled her legs under the table and her eyes
Noon—the hour of Sext—the Angelus
Five minutes before noon, Mother Finney turned off the gas oven, leaving the trays of macaroni and cheese inside to keep warm. She washed her hands under the tap, dried them on a fresh towel with the priestly care that precedes sacred duties, and set off, with her slight limp from a girlhood horse fall, down the trophy-lined hall to ring the Angelus.
The knotted end of the thick bell rope ended in a stairwell and was cordoned off by a circular wrought-iron gate, which Mother Finney now unlocked with a key from her deep pocket. The temptation of an accessible rope connected to the thundering peal of a bell that could be heard for miles around had proved too much for several generations of little girls—and even some older ones. In 1939 a senior had announced her engagement via the bell and narrowly escaped being expelled. The last unauthorized bell ringer, before the gate went up in 1944, was a fifth-grade boarder, overexcited by the Friday night movie, Arsenic and Old Lace . She had yanked and swung on the forbidden rope to the horror and delight of her fellow boarders and, while its wild peals were still echoing from the tower, had raced up the stairs screeching Cary Grant’s infamous lines: “Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops!”
Mother Finney often thought of that little girl when ringing the Angelus bell. The child hadn’t stayed at Mount St. Gabriel’s for long, though she hadn’t been expelled. There were always those comers and goers, the ones dropped off by out-of-town parents, then just as suddenly whisked away. Mother Finney kept a special place in her heart for the bolder, high-spirited girls. She hoped God would grant that little bell ringer enough suitable outlets for her energies and would help her to distinguish between exuberant mischief and what Mother Wallingford, who had supremely embodied it, had called “holy daring.”
Three rings and a pause; three rings and a pause; three rings and a pause. Hark, drop your tools, and remember you are inside the Eternal Presence. Followed by the nine consecutive peals heralding the hour of no shadows, the end of morning’s work: resonating through the building and billowing out into the valley below. If the wind was blowing the right way, jail prisoners on the tenth floor of the downtown courthouse could count the rings of the Mount St. Gabriel’s bell.
Mother Finney’s frail, curved body belied her still powerful arms. She rang the bell cleanly, with no irresolute half measures. As a young woman she had broken recalcitrant yearlings on her family’s horse farm in Galway. Now she was in her eighty-ninth year, having outlived Elizabeth Wallingford, her fellow adventurer and beloved foundress, by two long decades.
The afternoon interviews
Eight girls, from one-thirty to five, M through Y, followed by Vespers and dinner.
Mrs. Saul Meyer, a stylish woman with a piquant mix of guttural German and Carolina drawl, introduced herself as “Judy Meyer.” “Rebecca has been at Mount St. Gabriel’s since first grade, Mother Malloy. We emigrated here in forty-one. She loves this school, and so do we. Her father and I are observant Jews, and we’re raising Becky in our traditions. But, you know, in Vienna, both Saul and I attended Catholic gymnasia . The nun who taught me penmanship had us copy out the catechism, so I know it almost as well as I do the Torah!”
Rebecca Meyer: small for her age, with poised, old-world child’s manners. A thick flame-red braid descending to her waist. Spoke with a Carolina drawl, but said very little.
Ashley Nettle, new day girl, and her mother, Virginia Nettle, who spoke in haughty, theatrical phrases. Jumpy, nervous Ashley, flyaway hair the color of tinsel, swallowed her words; she jiggled her legs under the table and her eyes
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