Alex

“ Human love has failed you, and you are left alone, with all your impulses of sacrifice and devotion to another thrown back upon yourself. But, Alex, there is One to whom all the love and tenderness of which you know yourself capable can be offered—and He wants it. Weak though you are, and all-perfect though He is, He wants you. ”

“ Alex felt a sort of dazed stupefaction at herself.
She was bad, she told herself, bad all through, and this was how bad people felt. Sick with disappointment, and utterly unavailing remorse, knowing all the time that there was no strength in them ever to resist any temptation, however base.
She wondered if there was a hell, as the convent teaching had so definitely told her. If so, Alex shudderingly contemplated her doom. But she prayed desperately that there might be nothing after death but utter oblivion. ”

“ There was a long silence, Alex watching the nun's fervent, flame-like gaze, in which her young idolatry detected none of the resolute fanaticism built up in instinctive self-protection from a temperament no less ardent than her own.
"So you have the story of God's great mercy to one poor soul," said the nun at last. "And the story of every vocation is equally wonderful. The more I see of souls, Alex—and a Superior hears many things—the more I marvel at the ways of God's love. ”

“ My Alex, I am sure you will be kindly glad to hear, is entirely well; and looks so blooming—no rose can be fresher. I am encouraging back his spouting propensity, to fit him for his royal interview with the sweet and gay young princess who has demanded him, who will, I know, be diverted with his speeches and gestures. We must present ourselves before Easter, as the Court then adjourns to Windsor for ten days. ”

“ Barbara's hair had grown, which annoyed Alex. It fell into one long, pale curl down her back, and no longer provoked a contrast with Alex' superior length of shining wave. Deprived of the supervision of Nurse, with her iron insistence on "fifty strokes of the brush every night, and Rowland's Macassor on Saturdays," Alex' hair had somehow lost its shine, and hung limply in a tangled, uneven pigtail. ”

“ A finite human love will never satisfy that restless heart of yours, Alex. Tell me, have you ever found full satisfaction in the love of any creature yet? Hasn't there always been something lacking—something to grieve and disappoint you?"
Alex looked back. She thought of the stormy loves of her childhood; of Queenie, on whom she had lavished such a passion of devotion; of her vain, thwarted longing to bestow all where the merest modicum would have sufficed; lastly, she thought of Noel Cardew. ”

“ We can hardly imagine it, Alex, with our little, limited understanding, but there is a love that satisfies the most exacting of us—asking, indeed all, and yet willing to accept so little, and, above all, giving with a completeness to which no human sympathy, however deep and tender, can ever attain. ”

“ Then determinedly gripping himself he reached forward, grasped the key, and sent,
“Do you know—”
“Orr! Orr! That’s he!” cried Alex.
With a shout the entire court-room was on its feet, women waving their handkerchiefs and men cheering wildly again and again. And equally disregarding the etiquette of the court, Alex tore the handkerchief from his eyes, and leaping down beside Jack, fell to shaking his hand as though he would never let go, while Jack vainly sought to express himself, and to keep back the tears that came to his eyes. ”

“ Alex said, not consciously insincere.
"Don't you have all sorts of ideas like that yourself?" he asked eagerly, filling her with a moment's anticipation that he was about to give the conversation a personal turn. "I think it makes life so much more interesting if one goes into things; not just stay on the surface, you know, but go into the way things are done."
Alex thought she heard some one coming towards their hiding-place, and wanted to tell Noel to stop talking, or they would be found, but she checked the impulse, fearful lest he should think her unsympathetic. ”

“ Can't you see, Alex? It's not this wretched cheque in itself; it's the principle of the thing."
Alex gazed at him quite hopelessly. The flickering spark of spirit died out and left her soul in darkness.
Cedric faced her.
"I couldn't believe that your letter really meant what it seemed to mean," he said slowly; "but if it does—as on your own showing it does—then I understand your leaving us, needless to say. Where are you living—what is this place, Malden Road?" ”

“ Therefore, my dear friend, not a word but in favour of Bath, if you love me. Our own finishing finale will soon take root here, or yonder; for Alex will take his degree in January, and then, his mind at liberty, and his faculties in their full capacity for meditating upon his lot in life, he will come to a decision what mountain he shall climb, upon which to fix his staff; for all that relates to worldly prosperity will to him be up-hill toil, and labour. ”

“ She despised herself secretly, both for her intense craving for affection and for her prodigality in bestowing it. She was like a child endeavouring to pour a great pailful of water into a very little cup.
Waste and disaster were the inevitable results.
The real love of Alex' young enthusiasm, fair-haired Queenie Torrance, was preceded by her inarticulate, unreasoned adoration for the Belgian postulante. But the Belgian postulante was never visible, save at a distance, so that even Alex' unreasonable affections found nothing to feed upon. ”

“ I am very sorry; it is too bad to tease poor Fred, cruel and wrong, and all that, only if he would not look absurd! It is too droll to see how provoked he is, when I take the least notice of Alex, and after all, I don’t think he cares for me half as much as Alex does, only it flatters his vanity. Those great boys are really quite as vain as girls, not Alex though, good downright fellow, who would do anything for me, and I have put him to a hard proof to-night. ”

“ He said to little Alex, in a tone So winning that the sound of it alone Had drawn a child more lothful to his knee:— "And, now-sir, I'll agree if you'll agree,— You tell us all a story, and then I Will tell one." "But I can't." "Well, can't you try?" "Yes, Mister: he kin tell one. Alex, tell The one, you know, 'at you made up so well, About the Bear. He allus tells that one," Said Bud,—"He gits it mixed some 'bout the gun An' ax the Little Boy had, an' apples, too."— Then Uncle Mart said—"There, now! that'll do!— Let Alex tell his story his own way!" ”

“ However much she might laugh, with the other children, or sometimes, even, in a superior way, with the grown-ups, when the children went into the drawing-room, at Cedric's slowness, and his curious fashion of harping upon one idea at a time, Alex was sub-consciously aware of Cedric as a force, and one which could, ultimately, always defeat her own diffused, unbalanced energies. If any one laughed at Alex, or despised one of her many enthusiasms, she would quickly grow ashamed of it, and try to pretend that she had never really been in earnest. ”

“ It's this nun now, I suppose."
"Who is this woman?"
"How should I know?" helplessly said Lady Isabel. "Alex?"
"The Superior—the Head of the house." Alex stopped. How could one say, "Mother Gertrude of the Holy Cross?" She did not even know what the Superior's name in the world had been, or where she came from.
"Go on," said Sir Francis inexorably.
They were all looking at her, and sheer desperation came to her help.
"Why shouldn't I have friends?... What is all this about?" Alex asked wildly. "It's my own life. I don't want to be undutiful, but why can't I live my own life? ”

“ Alex, in bitter bewilderment, remembered those words again and again in the days which followed.
No one reproached her, she heard hardly a word of blame, and the most severe censure spoken to her was in her mother's soft voice, far more distressed than angry.
"But, Alex, do you know what people say, about a girl who's behaved as you have? That she's a vulgar jilt, neither more nor less. To throw over a young man after being engaged to him for four weeks, with no reason except a capricious fit.... Oh, my darling, why couldn't you have asked me first? ”

“ I have seen for a long while what it was that God asked of you, Alex, and I believe the time has come when you will see it too. Your last letter, with its cry of loneliness, and the bitter sense of being unwanted, has made me almost sure of it.
"You are not unwanted—you need never be lonely again. 'Leave all things and follow Me!' If you hear that call, which I believe with all my heart to have sounded for you, can you disobey it? Will you not rather, forsaking all things, follow Him, and in so doing, find all things?" ”

“ She made the discovery then, less illuminating at the time than when viewed afterwards in retrospect, that she could not bear to read novels.
All of them, sooner or later, seemed to deal with the relations between a man and a woman in love, and Alex found herself reading of emotions and experiences of which her own seemed so feeble a mockery, that she was conscious of a physical pang of sick disappointment.
Was all fiction utterly untrue to life? or was hers the counterfeit, while the printed pages but reproduced something of a reality which was denied to her? ”

“ The peace and harmony of her surroundings fell on Alex' wearied spirit with an almost poignant realization of their beauty. The impression thus made upon her, striking with utter unexpectedness, struck deep, and to the end of her life the remembrance was to remain with her, of the sudden sense which had come upon her of entering into another world, when she stepped straight from the streets of London into the convent chapel, on Diamond Jubilee Day. ”

“ Violet looked at her and asked very gently:
"What makes you ask, Alex? You're not unhappy about the nonsense that child Pamela sometimes talks, are you?"
"No, not exactly. It's—it's just everything...." Alex looked miserable, tongue-tied.
"Oh, Alex, do try and take things more lightly. You make yourself so unhappy, poor child, with all this self-torment. Can't you take things as they come, more?" ”

“ And father always says that one grown-up daughter at a time is enough, so if Alex really doesn't want to come it seems a pity...."
So Alex, with an unreasonable sense of injury, that yet was in some distorted way a relief to her, as showing her not to be alone in fault, watched the procession from Grosvenor Place, with Archie flushed and shouting with excitement, and Pamela, in curly, cropped hair and Liberty silk picture frock, such as was just coming into fashion, breaking into shrill cheers of rather spasmodic loyalty, as she fidgeted up and down the length of the bunting-hung balcony. ”

“ Here, Alex,” he cried, “you make coffee, and I’ll run over and see Captain Joe. We’ll have to tell him about it.”
“If Frank Porter is going with us,” Clay declared, “he’ll have to be showing up.”
Alex busied himself making coffee and frying bacon and eggs and Clay stepped outside with Case.
“Now, don’t get a grouch on,” he advised, “and tell Jule that he came near defeating all our plans.
He mistook someone for me, but that wasn’t anything unusual. I’ve made mistakes about people before now myself. Just let it all go, and the kid won’t have the thing to worry over.” ”

“ If she were ever seen in her true colours, no one would love her, and Alex already knew dimly, and with a further sense of having strange, low standards of her own, that she wanted to be loved more than anything in the world. ”

“ Frank Porter and Alex had become fast friends. They bunked together and planned mischief together. In fact, Clay and Case were having rather a busy time with Alex, Jule, and Frank. Jule’s health was improving so fast, and he was so full of animal spirits because of his new lease of life, that he kept things moving pretty lively, while Frank and Alex were always engaged in some mischief, not necessarily vicious mischief, but just fantastic enough to keep the company stirred up most of the time. ”

“ Morbidity was a word which had no place in the vocabulary of her surroundings, but Lady Isabel said to her rather plaintively, "You must try and look more cheerful, Alex, dear, when I take you about. Your father is quite vexed when he sees such a gloomy face. You enjoy things, don't you?"
And Alex, in her complicated disappointment at disappointing her mother and father, answered hastily in the affirmative. ”

“ But she never told such stories before Alex, I noticed. I used to think sometimes that she did not like him, for though she made friends with Cathie in time, she never made friends with Alex, and never even altered her scornful way toward him. But that Alex liked her it was very easy to see. In his stay-at-home, careless life, he had seen very few women except the red-cloaked colleens who rode to market in their jaunting cars with butter and eggs to sell; and Fulvia Desmond's high-handed way was the very thing to take the fancy of my light-hearted, easy-natured Alex. ”

“ Even the memory of the great square verger, in the middle of gravelled alleys, brought to her mind for sole token of summer, only her horror of the immense pale-red slugs that crawled slowly and interminably out and across the paths in the eternal rains of the Belgian climate. Nothing mattered but people.
And of all the people in the world, only those whom one loved.
Thus Alex' sweeping, unformulated conviction, holding in it all the misapplication of an essential force, squandered for lack of a sense of proportion. ”

“ Those which lay deepest in her soul, she never examined. She was almost, though not quite, unaware of their existence, and to probe deeper into that faint, underlying questioning would have seemed a disloyalty equally to that intangible possession which she had begun to think of as her vocation, and to Mother Gertrude. The sense of closer companionship—of a more intimate spiritual union expressed, though never explicitly so in words, in her relation with the Superior, was unutterably precious to Alex. ”