13 
The Sisters of the Chalet

Three days had passed since Amanda’s arrival.

All nine of the sisters kept busy at their various duties about the place. Amanda was provided for, waited on, served meals, her bed made up, her room cleaned, her clothes washed, her every need attended to. It was like having nine servants waiting on her.

All was done with happy cheeriness, without expectation or obligation. Each one went out of her way to make sure Amanda knew that the sister enjoyed doing whatever she could for her. More than a mere guest, Amanda was treated as an honored guest.

It was obvious that these ladies relished in the deeds of ministration. Every word to Amanda was spoken with the utmost graciousness, courtesy, and respect. She felt like a princess, and as if they were her loyal and devoted subjects. Yet a great change had come upon her since her childhood. Now she did not expect it, or even feel deserving of such treatment.

Circumstances had humbled her, with the result that Amanda now received all that was done for her with the simplicity of a grateful heart. She was appreciative of the smallest kindness. Her eyes were being opened to many things, not the least of which was that she had not always been particularly nice to those around her. The realization somehow elevated the simple kindnesses of others to a new level of importance in her eyes.

She could hardly believe the sisters treated everyone who came in such a manner. And yet why not? She was no more special than anyone else, cast adrift by the fortunes of war, caught in difficult circumstances away from home, with no money and nowhere to turn. She represented nothing more to them than anyone they might meet, unlike with the Pankhursts, who regarded Amanda as a societal trophy to gain for their cause.

Had each of the sisters come in some similar circumstance, Amanda wondered, been welcomed as she, and found it so homey and wonderful that they simply decided to stay? Had they learned to be kind from the kindness they had each received during their own time of need?

Amanda found herself wondering about each of the women—whose ages ranged from about twenty-five to fifty. What were the circumstances that originally brought each one here to this out-of-the-way place?

In an environment of kindness and selflessness, it could hardly be helped that eventually Amanda would begin to look for ways to join in with the activities around her. Such was only natural. Gradually she observed the routine of one, now another of the women, and began to offer her assistance, following them about, taking a basket of clothes into the house, or a bucket of milk from the barn to the pantry.

Before a week was out, she was making up her own bed and helping to set the table or wash the dishes in the kitchen. No better way exists to learn ministration than by observation and practice. What Amanda had been incapable of seeing through the eyes of her childhood, she now began to apprehend through the eyes of her emerging adulthood. And her soul responded accordingly. The remarkable change that slowly stole over her was so gradual that Amanda herself scarcely saw it.

Accompanying this subtle shift in outlook—from being served to wanting to serve—two things began to happen.

Hands of service always bring lightness to the step and a song to the heart. Amanda found unexpected bursts of joy springing up within her heart. She had, of course, had moments of what she might have called happiness in her life. But not like this. These were sensations she had never felt before. Never had she truly desired to do for others above what she wanted for herself. Without realizing it, such was exactly the effect of the sisters’ kindness. The greatest transformation of human life was occurring within her—the transition out of the dungeon of self into the sunlight of selflessness. It simply made Amanda happy to help, to smile, to lend a hand. Work itself became enjoyable. It filled her with a fatiguing kind of pleasure to have hands and muscles busy, even with chores she once might have looked upon as a drudgery.

At the same time, she found now one, now another memory arising out of her past. Yet they did not bring with them a flood of confusing emotions such as had stirred within her for the last five or six years, but rather were tinged by the quiet glow of nostalgic fondness. As her past gradually came to life again within Amanda’s memory, its reminders were sadly pleasant, rousing no anger as before, but instead calling forth vague longings she could not define.

The first morning she joined Sister Marjolaine in the chicken shed gathering eggs, she happened to glance up after a minute or two. Marjolaine was watching her curiously.

Amanda smiled in puzzlement.

“You’ve collected eggs before,” said Marjolaine in answer to Amanda’s wrinkled expression. “You handle them like an expert.”

“Why do you say that?” laughed Amanda.

“I’ve been watching you,” replied the small woman in her characteristic high voice. “You pick each one up gently, then brush or blow away the loose dirt, and then set them gently onto the straw in your basket. And you’re careful they don’t roll into one another. You look like one who has gathered eggs all your life. Where did you learn it?”

Amanda returned her question with a curious expression of her own spreading over her face.

“I . . . I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever . . .”

Slowly a memory dawned from years before.

She paused, an egg still clutched between her thumb and two fingers. Amanda’s mind drifted back.

The image of a child filled her mind. The little girl was eagerly tromping out to a chicken hut alongside a stout woman dressed in a blue-and-white frock.

“Can I get the eggs? Let me get the eggs, Sarah!” the little girl was saying in an importune voice that rang out in that debatable region between question and command.

“Eggs are easily broken, Miss Amanda,” replied Sarah Minsterly.

“I’ve watched—I can do it.”

“Then I shall show you again,” said the lady as they entered the hut. “If you are careful, you may place the eggs in the basket. Now watch very closely, Miss Amanda. You must pick them up one at a time, with very gentle fingers,” Sarah went on, taking out a single brown egg, carefully brushing it off and blowing upon it. “When it is clean, lay it gently inside the basket.—There, you see. Just like that. Each one . . . very slowly. Now it is your turn, Miss Amanda.”

Amanda smiled and glanced again at Sister Marjolaine, who was so tiny that beside Amanda she almost appeared as a child herself.

“Yes . . . now that you remind me,” she said, “I have done this before. But it was many years ago, when I was a girl.”

“I was sure of it. I could tell,” replied Marjolaine, laughing sweetly.

Amanda placed the egg in the basket, remembering Sarah Minsterly’s words clearly now. They continued on until all the eggs had been gathered, then returned to the house together.

The following afternoon, Amanda approached as Sister Clariss was hanging out the day’s laundry. She picked out a few items from the basket and began pinning them to the line. The activity, the clothespins in her hand, the smell of fresh linens, and the gentle breeze on her face gradually put Amanda in a quiet mood. Her subconscious was being pricked, though again she did not realize it at first.

A minute or two went by as both young women worked side by side. It was Sister Clariss who spoke first.

“What is that tune you’re humming?” she asked.

Amanda stopped abruptly. “I . . . I don’t know,” she replied. “I didn’t realize I was humming. I suppose I was daydreaming.”

“It sounded like a pretty song,” said Clariss. “I haven’t heard it before.”

They returned to their work. Again Amanda began to hum, conscious of it now. As the tune found its way through the ridges of her brain, she began to think of a day several years before—she was probably fourteen. She and her mother and Sarah were outside at Heathersleigh hanging out linens and towels.

Her mother was singing. In the ear of her memory Amanda could hear her voice so clearly now:

“Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross

To see an old lady upon a white horse. . . .”

Catharine was bustling about trying to help but was hardly tall enough to reach the line. The sun was shining, it was a pleasant day, and everyone was happy.

Everyone but Amanda. Her own attitude was far from cheerful. She was irritated at being made to help. A sour disposition clouded her entire countenance, and she made certain the towel she was pinning to the line took long enough that the basket would be empty before she was done with it. She might have to be out here, but she didn’t have to enjoy it. She was determined to make sure her mother knew she hated it, and equally determined to do as little as she could get away with.

Her mother continued to sing and chat with Sarah, then paused to teach the rhyme to Catharine. After the brief explanation, her mother began singing again.

“Rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,

She shall have music wherever she goes.”

All the while Amanda stewed silently. Even the memory made her stomach churn—not, however, from irritation at her mother, but from the uncomfortable feeling of remembering what an irritable child she had been. How had her mother put up with it!

She shook away the memory. This one was far from happy. It was too painful to look back on the incident with the new eyes of her awakening conscience.

What could account for the change? she thought. Today she was doing the very same thing and enjoying it as she had rarely enjoyed anything in years. What was the difference? Why was this work here actually fun?

Was it something about this place . . . or had she really changed so much?