A Vow Of Silence

by Veronica Black

  ‘You must understand that you are preparing to leave the world,’ Mother Euphemia had told her on her own arrival five years before. ‘The dress of the novices sets them apart from the professed and from the laity. During your novitiate you will begin to learn how it feels to be different from the majority.’

  The blue habit reached to mid-calf, showing thick black stockings and rubber-soled black shoes. Under the white poke bonnet her head had been shaven. She had never felt more ridiculous, nor realised more clearly her vanity.

  The two years in the novitiate had been struggled through, to be followed by the vowing herself to poverty, chastity, obedience and compassion for one year. During that year her hair had been permitted to grow an inch, her poke bonnet exchanged for a white veil. At the end of the third year, despite a letter from Jacob, she had exchanged the blue habit for a grey one and taken perpetual vows.

  In five years she had not left the convent. In five years she had not entered a shop, ridden on public transport, spoken with any man save the priest in the confessional. In five years she had not watched television, or read a newspaper, or listened to the radio.

  ‘The two years after final profession must be years of solitude,’ the Prioress had said.

  ‘You have been planted in a rich, but alien soil. Now you must take root there. Your talents are artistic and in this order talents are to be employed and polished and perfected. What you must always do is to use those talents to the glory of God, always remembering that the religious life takes precedence. This is both an active and a contemplative order. Only when you are secure in contemplation will you be able to take your full part in the active side of your vocation.’

  The testing time was obviously considered to be over. In a couple of days she would be travelling down to Cornwall to join the Community there. Under Reverend Mother Ann Gillespie. The daughter of a brilliant archaeologist. Sister Joan tried to recall what she had read about him. He had made his name in the transcribing of Hittite inscriptions, had worked fairly intensively in the Near East, had been one of the experts called in to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls, and had died shortly before his seventieth birthday. Whereupon his daughter had entered the Order of the Daughters of Compassion, a late vocation like her own, though probably not for the same reasons.

  The star-shaped Monstrance containing the Holy Wafer was being lifted over the bowed heads of the congregation.

  Sister Joan hastily bowed her own head, concentrating fervently on the blessing. After Benediction the bell clanged twice, heralding the grand silence that would last, barring emergencies, until six the following morning. In the world it was ten o’clock. Whatever old Mother Frances had been anxious about must concern the Prioress of the Cornwall House, otherwise she would have discussed the matter with her instead of writing a letter full of nonsense to her former novice. That was not to leap to the conclusion that what bothered her had any validity. Quite rational-seeming old ladies sometimes imagined they were being poisoned or imprisoned. Such old dears usually came out and complained about it openly though.

  The Prioress stood at the door, asperging each exiting sister with a phial of holy water. Against the bare wall her shadow was thin and elongated, the padding of rubber-soled shoes the only sound.

  Sister Joan knelt, felt the cool drops of water on her closed eyelids, opened her eyes to meet the cool, hooded gaze of her Superior.

  Reverend Mother Agnes raised an eyebrow, looked an enquiry as clearly as if she had spoken it aloud.

  ‘Am I prepared to go to the Cornwall House, to risk a division of loyalties should I find out something inimical to the Prioress there? After these two years of solitary work, of silence save during the hour of recreation, of no external stimuli, am I sufficiently in touch with my own capabilities to do this?’

  She nodded her head almost imperceptibly, saw the wide thin mouth soften slightly, rose and filed out with the others.

  TWO

  Sister Mary Salome had made the announcement, it being her turn this week to read out the notices during supper.

  ‘Sister Joan has been appointed to our Cornwall House where Mother Frances recently passed over. Sister Joan will be teaching in the local school in addition to her religious duties. She will carry our good wishes and our prayers with her.’

  There was a murmur of approbation. Rather touching, Sister Joan thought, considering that they knew only the surface of her. Of the three novices who had entered with her two had left and the other gone to the mother House in Holland. What struggles of will and conscience she had endured were known only to Mother Euphemia and the Prioress. She doubted if her own experiences had been very different from all the other novices who had passed through their hands.

  One or two curious, covertly envious glances were cast in her direction. Some of the women listening to the announcement would remain here for the rest of their lives. Not for them the journey by train down to the south-west tip of England.

  ‘And I,’ Sister Joan thought, ‘will probably never come back here or see any of these people again.’

  The rule against making particular friendships was a sound one, breached at one’s peril. Yet she felt a twinge of regret when she knelt for the blessing of the Prioress. Reverend Mother Agnes was a woman of character. There had been a subtle flattery in her request for help. She had not referred to the matter again. It was not in her nature to labour a point.

  A taxi took her to the station. Had there been a local bus she would have been expected to take that in accordance with her vow of poverty. As it was she enjoyed the ride less than she had determined to do, because the well sprung plush interior startled a frame accustomed to stone floors and wooden benches, and the streets spun past too brightly coloured, too crowded with people. She supposed that someone emerging from prison might suffer from the same disorientation.

  ‘Need any help, Sister?’ The taxi-driver spoke in a self-consciously hearty way as if he were addressing a mental defective. Later he would go home and tell his wife that he’d taken one of the nuns to the station, and she’d seemed just like anybody else really.

  ‘Thank you, no. I am meeting somebody.’

  He had already been paid and tipped. In her purse was her own ticket and five pounds in cash. She smiled at the taxi-driver, picked up her large suitcase in which her entire wardrobe was packed and went through on to the platform.

  ‘Sister Joan?’

  The voice was young and breathless, the face distractingly lovely.

  ‘Veronica Stirling?’

  It had to be. Sister Joan’s blue eyes travelled swiftly over the blue coat and small hat pulled down over pale flaxen hair. The child had left off her make-up and elected to wear the most unbecoming garments she could find. She was still beautiful.

  ‘I’m not late, am I, Sister? My parents wanted to come with me to see me off but I insisted on coming alone.’

  Parents could be a nuisance. Even the most fervently religious were apt to oppose the entry of a cherished daughter into the religious life. In her own case it had not been her parents but Jacob who had set stumbling blocks in her path.

  ‘Very sensible of you, Veronica,’ she said briskly. ‘I see the train is in so we may as well find a couple of seats. Have you got your ticket?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Veronica produced it triumphantly.

  ‘Come along then.’

  Having Veronica with her helped enormously through those first nervous moments when she showed her ticket, hauled her suitcase up to the rack and sat down. The compartment was empty. Sister Joan guessed that it might remain so, since most people avoided sitting next to nuns for journeys that lasted any length of time. Some orders tried to circumvent this by updating the habit, shrinking the crucifix to the size of a lucky charm and trying to pretend there was no difference between nuns and laywomen. The Daughters of Compassion still wore the habits designed by their founder.

  ‘We don’t have to change, do we?’ Veronica was asking, though she must have k
nown the answer already. ‘I’ve never been to Cornwall, so it will be quite an adventure. Of course my family hoped that I could do my novitiate here, but I was told one of the novices in the Cornwall House left and there’s a vacancy there. It probably is better to start out completely alone — so far as family is concerned, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think we ought to relax as we have a four-hour journey ahead,’ Sister Joan said, hoping she didn’t sound stuffy. The child was nervous and overwrought and wanted to chatter, but she might as well begin learning that nobody made allowances for nerves in the religious life. Nobody made allowances for anything.

  ‘Is it all right if I read?’ Veronica said anxiously.

  ‘As long as it isn’t I Leap Over The Wall,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Oh no, Sister.’ Veronica looked shocked. ‘It’s St Teresa’s Journal of a Soul.’

  From the cover as she displayed it the journal was that of the Lisieux saint and not her Spanish namesake. The latter might prove strong meat for a wide-eyed romantic. She nodded approval, wondering if the girl would detect the sexual hysteria under the syrup, and decided that she probably wouldn’t. Veronica seemed a young nineteen. Undoubtedly still a virgin which might be some kind of record.

  The train screamed out. The other compartments had filled up, but the one in which they sat might as well have had a scarlet plague cross on the door. Sister Joan took out her Missal and, under cover of its closely written pages, let the miles slide past. April had drifted into a cool, wet May which boded ill for the summer ahead. She wondered what Bodmin would be like. There had been opportunities to go to Cornwall for artists’ workshops when she was in college, but Jacob had vetoed them.

  ‘Every fool who ever held a paintbrush rushes off to Cornwall. You and I are going to Sweden.’

  Cold, pearl-grey skies, white foam on green water, the light glinting on slippery fish-scaled cobblestones down at the quay, the sharp prow of a red fishing-boat. They had gone out together in one of the boats, huddling under a tarpaulin on deck while the rhythm of the work went on around them, instructions yelled in the sing-song of an unfamiliar tongue. She had never done better work than during that holiday nor felt more keenly the gap between talent and greatness.

  ‘Would it be all right if I got a cup of coffee from the refreshments bar?’

  She had forgotten that Veronica wouldn’t be accustomed to long periods of fasting.

  ‘Why not get two cups of coffee and some sandwiches?’ she suggested, bringing out her purse.

  ‘My treat,’ Veronica said brightly and whisked away.

  The coffee was barely drinkable, the sandwiches surprisingly good. Wasting food was a sin. Sister Joan drank the coffee unflinchingly and longed for some thirst-crazed beggar to arrive and give her the chance to exercise charity. Thirst-crazed beggars were, however, in short supply on the Cornish line.

  ‘Do you think I’ll be allowed to telephone my parents to let them know that I’ve arrived safely?’ Veronica asked, collecting the plastic and cardboard conscientiously.

  ‘Someone will do that for you,’ Sister Joan said. ‘The initial break has to be a clean one, you know.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  In the end she had made the break herself, but not cleanly. She had left parts of herself like tattered rags in the wind in every place where she and Jacob had been. Five years and she was still not sure if the healing was complete.

  Their compartment was no longer empty. A fat woman with a large shopping-basket got on the train and sat down two seats away from Sister Joan, her eyes roving over the other with ill-disguised curiosity. In a few minutes she would strike up a conversation, make some snide comment about women who locked themselves up to pray.

  ‘You’ll be going to the Daughters of Compassion, Sister.’ Her voice was rough but clear.

  ‘Yes.’ Sister Joan hid her surprise.

  ‘One or two of them used to visit the local hospital when I was having my veins done,’ the woman said. ‘Wonderful people. I’m not a Catholic myself but that made no difference. They always stopped by for a chat.’

  Sister Joan’s hand rose, brushing the symbolic chip off her shoulder. It was something she had often teased Jacob about.

  ‘He didn’t short-change you just because you’re Jewish. He probably cheats Moslems and Buddhists too.’

  They were coming at last into Bodmin. Slowing and stopping alongside a flower-bed edged with shells. The platform was slippery with rain.

  ‘Reverend Mother Agnes said we would be met,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘There’s a nun over there‚’ Veronica said in the excited tones of a visitor to the South Seas who has just spotted her first grass skirt.

  The sister flapped over to them, habit covered by a plastic cape and hood, Wellingtons on the long feet.

  ‘Our Lady be praised that you got here safely,’ a voice boomed from the depths of the plastic. ‘Perfectly foul weather. I’m Sister Felicity. Lay sister which gives me the chance to drive the car, though may I be forgiven for distinguishing it by that name. Give me your cases. Have you got your tickets? Right then, off we go.’

  All novices ought to be met by someone like Sister Felicity, Sister Joan thought, meekly following. In her presence introspection vanished. Anyone whose vocation consisted of romantic images of Audrey Hepburn looking impossibly beautiful would be speedily disillusioned by this cheerful normality.

  The car was not a new model but neither was it the jalopy she had expected. It was sparklingly clean and the engine sounded well-tuned. Sister Joan suspected that Sister Felicity spoke about it in the same way a proud mother often disparaged a clever child, to save both of them from the sin of pride.

  ‘We’re a fair way from the town,’ Sister Felicity was saying. ‘The House used to be the home of the local squire, you know. The family made their money in tin-mining. Then this century the family fortunes declined the way all fortunes decline, and the father of the present Tarquin — that’s the family name — sold the place to the order at a knockdown price. The son still lives here, built himself a more modern place. Still quite wealthy. Hold on.’

  The warning was unnecessary since she started up and accelerated smoothly away. She was obviously an excellent driver.

  Sister Joan obeyed a gesture and snapped shut her seat-belt, glancing towards the back where Veronica sat with a faintly bemused expression on her face. Her more romantic notions were clearly being rapidly eroded.

  ‘It’s a real pleasure to have two newcomers,’ Sister Felicity said heartily. ‘One becomes insular. Did you ever meet Mother Frances?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Marvellous old soul.’ Sister Felicity said, negotiating a bend. ‘We have rather more than our share of old dears actually. Sisters Mary Concepta, Andrew and Gabrielle total nearly two hundred years between them. It will be a shot in the arm to get some fresh blood here.’

  ‘With us your House has its full quota, hasn’t it?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘Fifteen professed, four novices,’ Sister Felicity nodded, spraying her passenger with raindrops from the brim of her plastic hood. Mid-forties, Sister Joan calculated, a gawky girl who had matured into a plain woman with intelligent eyes.

  ‘That’s the school where you’ll be teaching.’ She waved a hand to the right.

  Sister Joan had a glimpse of a low building set back from the narrow lane. Then they were past it, turning on to a broad track that made a wide, white parting on a low heath of short grass and tangled broom.

  ‘It will mean a mile’s walk twice a day,’ Sister Felicity said. ‘Do you like walking?’

  ‘I used to love it.’

  ‘Because of the walking involved you’re to be excused garden duty.’

  ‘Blessings never come singly‚’ Sister Joan said piously.

  ‘Here we are then.’ It was a shout of triumph as they sped off the track through open gates that led them on to a driveway bordered unexpectedly with sad-looking laurels.

&n
bsp; The house looked exactly like the kind of Victorian monstrosity that a rich man without any aesthetic sensibilities might build. Basically it was well proportioned in the Elizabethan E shape, with two wings sweeping back from the ivied facade. It had probably been at a later date that someone had added the cupolas and columns and the huge greenhouse that was stuck on at one end of the front, ruining the symmetry.

  ‘Marvellous old house, isn’t it?’ Sister Felicity said, drawing up before the double doors that marked the main entrance.

  She wasn’t trying to be funny. Her plain, strong face was glowing. She was as proud as if it were her own ancestral home.

  Sister Joan was spared a reply since the doors were opened at that precise second and another lay sister, as short and plump as Sister Felicity was tall and thin, came down the half-dozen steps.

  ‘Sister Joan? Veronica? Praise to Our Lady that you got here. One hears such tales of the dangers of travelling on the railway these days. Come along. Sister Felicity will see to your bags. I’m Sister Margaret.’

  They followed her into a cavernous hall in which a strip of red carpet looked uncannily like a tongue preparing to lick them up.

  ‘Reverend Mother Ann will see you first, Sister Joan. Veronica, you are to come with me to meet Sister Hilaria, the Mistress of Novices.’

  She indicated a small anteroom containing a carved wooden bench and bustled Veronica away.

  Sister Joan stepped obediently into the antechamber and sat down on the bench, folding her hands.

  The first meeting with one’s Superior was important, setting the tone of future relationships. A good first impression could make a difference between having some private space in which to grow or being constantly frustrated by every pettifogging little rule and restriction a Prioress could dream up.