Consequences (novel)
Encyclopedia
Consequences by E. M. Delafield
E. M. Delafield
Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture , commonly known as E. M. Delafield, was a prolific English author. She is best-known for her largely autobiographical Diary of a Provincial Lady, which took the form of a journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman living mostly in a...

 is a 1919 novel about a young woman entering a convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...

. Its heroine, Alex Clare, refuses to marry the only young man to make her an offer of marriage, and, finding herself regarded as a failure by society, must resort to convent life. E. M. Delafield herself entered a convent for a year, though was able to find freedom through working as a VAD
Voluntary Aid Detachment
The Voluntary Aid Detachment was a voluntary organisation providing field nursing services, mainly in hospitals, in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The organisation's most important periods of operation were during World War I and World War II.The...

. Alex is not afforded such emancipation and her tale ends tragically as a result. After the departure of the much-adored Mother Gertrude, Alex drowns herself in the bathing pond at Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London clay...

.

Consequences was republished in 2000 by Persephone Books
Persephone Books
Persephone Books is an independent publisher based in Bloomsbury, London. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone has a catalogue of 93 "neglected novels, diaries, poetry, short stories, non-fiction, biography and cookery books, mostly by women and mostly dating from the early to...

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