Free Blue Moon by James King Page B

that I was little better than an idiot. Proof of this could be found, it was hinted, in my academic record at Loretto. This is not true. To be sure, my performance there was mediocre. There were extenuating circumstances, the indifferent teaching and snobbery of the nuns being the chief claim I can make to excuse myself. Yet, there was the afternoon Mother St. John called me aside.
    This was the only time I ever saw her hands, beautifully shaped but marred by a myriad of tiny bright pink eruptions that had permanently invaded them. She was exchanging one pair of gloves—covered with chalk dust—for the much cleaner pair she kept in reserve. She was seated at her desk and motioned for me to sit down at the student desk closest to hers. For once, she seemed lost for words.
    Hesitantly, she began. “Your academic work is not very good, Evelyn. Do you study at home? I know you do the work assigned, but do you actually study?” I assured her I did my best to comply with everything I was asked to do.
    â€œYes, yes. I thought that was the case. You are one of the strangest girls I have ever taught. You write like an angel, and in your essays you show considerable understanding of what you read.” She stopped a bit abruptly, looking into my face to see if she could discover its secrets. “And yet, your exams display none of that talent. Do you have any idea why this is so?”
    I, too, was puzzled by the discrepancy. Quite often, I was simply bored when I did my assigned tasks. At other times, they seemedfutile pursuits, as if I were trying to catch trains that always pulled out of stations just as I arrived to board them. If I wrote an essay, I could bring my entire consciousness to bear, actually get lost in the enterprise. If I had to memorize something, I became easily and often permanently distracted. It was not simply, I increasingly realized, that I could not do the work: I did not wish to do the work. I shrugged my shoulders, unable to muster a suitable response to the kindly concern bestowed upon me.
    The nun did not seem offended by my perfunctory response. In fact, a small, bright smile crossed her face. “Never mind, my dear, you possess some wonderful gifts. Eventually, they will see you through.”
    My mother and the Mothers. At times, this seemed the sum total of my teenage world. How could I be any kind of success when I frustrated all their expectations? None of the few Catholic boys I encountered had the slightest interest in me. I obviously was not a worthy niece of the great Lady MacLean, who must have been both baffled and aggrieved, the nuns imagined, when she read my school reports.

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    Towards the end of my time at Loretto, my mother became increasingly worried that I had not met a good Catholic boy whom I could marry. One day, she summarily informed me: “You’re a very attractive young woman, Evelyn. I have no idea why you do not have streams of boyfriends in attendance.”
    My large, dark doe eyes gave me the look, Mother told me, of a young Bette Davis. This may have been so, but Rosie and I were segregated from the other students at Loretto—and from the young men who courted them. There was an invisible line that placed the two of us into a limbo of unacceptableness. We looked and acted like our peers, but there was something different. We did not take ridinglessons, we could not afford to go to Europe during the summer. Our clothing was not from the finest shops in Toronto. Moreover, we were Protestants, the sworn enemies of Papists. Rosie, anxious to please, finally found a male friend. I did not.
    Not someone to say no to adversity, my mother tried to find a way around a difficult situation. I was not invited to any events at the Catholic homes in Hamilton, and we certainly could not invite my schoolmates to our drab little house with its drab furnishings. The drapes and carpet were in shades of olive green, and the guts of the dark brown chesterfield