At last I wrote another letter, and forced myself into my Superior’s presence (for she had now forbidden me to go near her), and asked her to allow the letter to go by this post. I told her that it was to my sister, and that I had written for journey money, as I intended to leave. At this she quite raved, saying:
“Go out of my room this instant! I shall not allow your letter to go to your sister. You write so badly that it is a disgrace to the convent; and your other sister has written asking me not to let you write to her, as your letters worry her so.”
This was not true, as my sister has since told me that she wrote to the Superior requesting her kindly to give me a few details about my mother’s death. I had often written to my sister asking for a piece of my mother’s hair, and it worried her so, as my darling mother was burnt to death, and there was nothing left of her but a charred coal. I had been told only that she was dead, and, very naturally, I wanted to know all about it, and continually asked for the circumstances of her death, and a piece of her hair.
The reverend Mother knew all about it, my sister having written it in the first letter announcing my mother’s death, and yet she never told me what had taken place. My sister had now again written to the Superior asking her to tell me all about it, so that I should not be always asking the same question, which so worried my sister to have repeated unnecessarily as she thought.[13] My brothers, I learnt afterwards, had sent me their photographs, but they had been returned, after which they never wrote to me again, and I had meanwhile been wondering why I never heard from them.
I now felt utterly desolate to think I could not write to my sister, and I was in terror what would happen to me next: somehow I did not like to run away, as it then seemed to me dishonourable, so I said to a young sister, who I knew would report it:
“You know, I have asked over and over again to be allowed to go, and the reverend Mother will not let me. Now I am determined to watch my opportunity and run away; I shall stop at the first house I come to, and send some one up here to ask for money to pay my fare.”
An hour after this, the Novice-mistress came with a sun-bonnet, a black and white shawl, and a sovereign, saying: