A Vow Of Silence

by Veronica Black

  Sister Martha laughed.

  ‘I could never teach in a school,’ she confided. ‘I was one of eight children and when I entered the religious life the only thing I could think was “Thank heavens, I won’t have to toilet-train any more little sisters and brothers”.’

  ‘Plants are more docile,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Don’t believe it.’ Sister Martha laughed again. ‘Some plants are exceedingly difficult to get along with. Have you ever tried to make friends with a very thorny rose bush or tried to persuade an ivy bush not to reach out and cling to the nearest wall?’

  ‘Don’t you have help in the garden?’ Sister Joan said. ‘The grounds here are very large.’

  ‘Well, each sister is supposed to lend a hand when she can spare time from her other duties, but too often that makes for a real muddle. Sister Sophia drew up a work plan that was very practical but we didn’t stick to it unfortunately.’

  ‘That was a sad accident.’ Sister Joan glanced at her companion but the other said only,

  ‘Very sad. In my opinion the apparatus ought to have been tested during the day with all the sisters present. However my opinion was not sought.’

  ‘Did you know Sister Magdalen?’ She risked asking the question since the other nuns were still drifting into the room and for a moment she and Sister Martha were side by side with nobody next to them in the semicircle of chairs.

  ‘I saw her occasionally. Why?’

  ‘It always interests me when a novice decides to leave. I recall my own doubts and fears.’

  ‘Do you? I never had any,’ Sister Martha said, looking faintly surprised. ‘No, I saw her once or twice, that’s all. She always looked very happy.’

  Outward appearances seldom told the full story but as far as Sister Joan could make out the novice had genuinely enjoyed her life, had given nobody the slightest reason to suspect that she was planning to leave.

  ‘I brought you a piece of pie.’ Sister Perpetua came up, holding the triangular wedge wrapped in a paper napkin. ‘Sister Lucy mentioned that you never went to get anything from Sister Margaret.’

  So much for not telling. Thanking her, Sister Joan took the pie and bit into it with relish. It was apple pie, faintly flavoured with cinnamon, and tasting even more delicious because she was starving.

  ‘Sister Joan was saying that she was interested in the reasons for novices deciding to leave the religious life,’ Sister Martha said. ‘We were speaking of Sister Magdalen.’

  ‘Oh, that was a great surprise,’ Sister Perpetua said promptly, sitting down. ‘She was always smiling. I was very surprised when she left.’

  ‘Did she say goodbye?’

  ‘Why, no. Those who leave the order never do.’

  ‘I only thought — she was helping out during the influenza epidemic, not as isolated as novices usually are.’

  ‘Those were exceptional circumstances,’ Sister Martha said primly. ‘When the illness had run its course the novices naturally returned to the Novitiate.’

  Clearly there was nothing to be gained by more questioning. The only ones who might know something were the three novices with whom Sister Magdalen had been in training, and there was no way of contacting them with Mother Emmanuel standing guard. It would be necessary to tell the pugnacious Johnny Russell that she had failed dismally. She finished off the slice of apple pie, wishing it were more, and reminding herself that now she must add greed to her general confession.

  A word amid the conversations going on broke through her distraction. She raised her head sharply. Solstice. That word again, spoken casually by Sister Katherine who was embroidering smocking on what looked like a baby’s dress.

  ‘What did you say, Sister?’

  Sister Katherine was young, in her mid-twenties, with an anonymous face. She answered at once in her calm low voice that matched the placid eyes.

  ‘I was just saying, Sister, that when I’ve finished this I must start on the Solstice costumes.’

  ‘Solstice is a pagan festival surely?’

  ‘To mark the longest day in the year,’ Sister Katherine nodded. ‘Oh, we don’t keep it as they did in the old days. Of course not. The local farmers keep up the tradition of having a picnic on that day and choosing a solstice queen. We hold a bazaar and help out with the costumes. The Catholic population in this area is small and scattered. This gives them a chance to get together and some of the Protestants join in, which is good for ecumenical relations.’

  Sister Joan wanted to argue that Christmas and Easter were surely the obvious festivals on which people could get together, but the Church had always made use of pagan feasts, building the new upon the old, turning local gods into obscure saints. There was nothing here to worry her save the feeling that, in her passion for the past, this Prioress was not merely looking back with nostalgia but actually regressing.

  ‘Evil is an absolute only in heaven,’ her own Novice Mistress had said. ‘Those people who sacrificed their children to Moloch were not evil. They were worshipping in the manner they believed would please their gods. The world has evolved since then. For us to turn back the clock would be evil because we would be closing our eyes to the deeper wisdom we have attained over the centuries. Evil is a turning back on the road to perfection.’

  ‘I’m sorry to come so late to Recreation.’

  Reverend Mother Ann had glided in, bringing with her the elegance and charm that made Sister Joan feel uncomfortable as if her Superior were playing the role of a model nun in some play or other.

  ‘We were talking about Solstice,’ Sister Perpetua said, adding defiantly, ‘Not that I agree it should still be encouraged.’

  ‘Sister Perpetua is the Puritan among us,’ Reverend Mother Ann said lightly. ‘She will be reminding us next that holly and mistletoe derive from the ancient Druid faith and were merely grafted on to Christmas. I was called away to the telephone.’

  ‘Not bad news, Reverend Mother?’ Sister Martha looked anxious.

  ‘No, no.’ The Prioress seated herself, the folds of her purple habit falling gracefully from her narrow waist. ‘It was from Sister Magdalen — Brenda Williams, I ought to say.’

  ‘She telephoned you?’ Sister Joan couldn’t repress the startled question.

  ‘Sister Felicity actually answered the phone. We were going over the supplies of aspirin and indigestion tablets she needs when she stocks up on her first-aid cupboard. How nuns can possibly suffer from indigestion! Where was I? Oh, yes. The child rang me up from some Commune somewhere or other. She wanted me to inform her parents that she has joined some cult or other, one of those free-love places where children and everything else are held in common. Quite shocking, but also unfortunately attractive to young people.’

  ‘Where is this commune?’

  Sister Joan was glad that Sister Perpetua had asked the question.

  ‘She wouldn’t be specific,’ Reverend Mother Ann said. ‘Somewhere in Wales, I believe. I felt very strongly that she ought to telephone them herself but she refused. She is probably afraid that they will persuade her to go home.’

  ‘Are you going to telephone them?’ Sister Perpetua asked.

  ‘To set their minds at rest,’ the other said. ‘Of course they have been imagining her still in the Novitiate and I was under the impression that she had returned home to Derbyshire. Our responsibility for her ended when Sister Felicity drove her to the station. The problem is that I still feel responsible though there’s no reason for it.’

  ‘You are too kind-hearted, Reverend Mother Ann,’ Sister Dorothy put in.

  ‘Is that a fault? I plead guilty then.’ The Prioress laughed softly, hand to her mouth.

  ‘I read once that when any virtue is carried to excess it becomes a vice,’ Sister Lucy said.

  ‘And what’s your virtue run to vice?’ Sister David asked her teasingly.

  ‘Arranging flowers,’ Sister Lucy said promptly. ‘I am apt to spend hours and hours on the flowers in the chapel until sometimes I forget t
o come to supper.’

  ‘I spend too much time writing up my spiritual diary,’ Sister David said. ‘I am always trying to express what I mean to say in the most perfect language possible, forgetting that it isn’t meant to be a masterpiece.’

  The talk, light and inconsequential, went on. Sister Joan, a vague pattern forming on the piece of canvas, thought of spiritual diaries. Every nun kept a private record of her spiritual struggles and progress or lack of it. When she died the diary was kept in the convent files for one never knew when evidence might be required in the event of a possible enquiry into the cause for canonisation of someone or other. She suspected that some diaries were written with an eye towards that possibility. Sister Sophia would have written such a diary. It would be in the private files, accessible only to the Prioress and to any Church officials who might later request it.

  ‘What of you, Sister Joan?’ Reverend Mother Ann spoke gaily. ‘What is your besetting virtue?’

  ‘Too much enjoyment of good food,’ Sister Joan said, neatly sidestepping what she sensed was a challenge.

  ‘One would never guess it from your figure.’

  ‘That’s because none of my virtues is excessive,’ she parried.

  ‘I don’t follow this at all. It’s far too clever for me,’ Sister Martha said humbly. The dark, smiling eyes flicked towards her.

  ‘Of course not, dear,’ the Prioress said with viperish gentleness. ‘Sister Perpetua, you have not told us your virtue yet.’

  ‘Truth,’ said Sister Perpetua. Her reddish brows were knitted and the crumples in her white skin sharp as pleats in linen. ‘I am never satisfied with less, Reverend Mother.’ Now why didn’t I have the courage to say that instead of evading the issue with clever talk? Sister Joan felt a pang of shame.

  ‘What is truth? said jesting Pilate,’ the Prioress said, rising. ‘Come, it is supper time which will give Sister Joan a chance to indulge her virtue to excess.’

  NINE

  It was too much to hope that Johnny Russell would decide not to come. Throughout the next morning while she taught the children, all of whom had returned, she wrestled with the problem of how to tell him. By the time twelve thirty came and her pupils had departed she was almost craven enough to mount up and ride back to the convent without waiting. She would not have got very far. The two Romany children had scarcely disappeared on the pony they jointly rode before he came striding towards her.

  ‘Come into the schoolroom.’ She led the way, feeling his impatience like a swelling wind. ‘Did you find good lodgings?’

  ‘Good enough. Did you find out anything, Sister?’

  ‘Entirely by chance. Sister Magdalen, Brenda that is, telephoned the Mother Prioress while we were at recreation last evening.’

  ‘Did she say where she was?’ His face had flushed with eagerness.

  ‘Apparently on a commune somewhere in Wales. It sounded like one of those peace and pot experiments left over from the sixties. She asked Reverend Mother Ann to tell her parents, which she will do this morning.’

  ‘On a commune in Wales?’ he echoed. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why not?’ Sister Joan sat opposite the young man on one of the small desks.

  ‘If she left the convent she’d have gone home; she’d have come back to me. She wouldn’t run off to Wales to live on a commune. That’s the craziest story I ever heard.’

  ‘Johnny, try to understand what it’s like to be a novice,’ she urged gently. ‘For six months she had lived in one small house. The Novitiate is separate from the convent proper. Apparently she helped out when there was an epidemic of influenza shortly after her arrival but after that she went back into seclusion. A two-year period of tough mental and physical and spiritual testing. She seemed happy enough according to everyone I’ve spoken to, but obviously she decided she’d made a mistake and she left. Sister Felicity, one of the lay sisters, drove her to the station. Now it’s the wrong way to look at it but some girls if they leave the Novitiate feel a sense of failure. They ought to feel proud that they had had the clear sight to realise the life wasn’t right for them and the courage to turn back, but some don’t see it like that. She may have met up with some members of the commune on the train and decided to go with them, to think over her next step.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Johnny said flatly. ‘Sorry, Sister, but that’s what you’re giving me. I knew I couldn’t rely on a nun to tell me straight.’

  ‘I am telling you straight.’ She bit back a sharp reply telling herself that he was too worried to remember his manners. ‘Why is it — why isn’t it possible that that’s exactly what happened?’

  ‘Because Brenda would have rung her mum and dad herself even if she had gone off to a commune. She had a good relationship with them and they’d have been quite pleased to hear she’d changed her mind about being a nun. I told you they always liked me. Who took this telephone call? You?’

  ‘I was at recreation. The Prioress came in and told us that Sister Felicity had actually answered the phone and then handed it to her. Johnny, you’re not suggesting that two professed nuns, one of them the Superior of the convent, concocted some tale that wasn’t true, are you?’

  ‘Do you reckon this Sister — Perpet?’

  ‘Perpetua.’

  ‘Do you reckon she was telling you the truth?’

  ‘She seemed to be.’

  But as she spoke Sister Joan hesitated, remembering the nervous grimaces, the hand clutching the crucifix. There were nuns who became hysterical, imagining all manner of strange happenings in their convents. She judged Sister Perpetua to be in her early fifties, perhaps experiencing a late and difficult menopause.

  ‘She seemed to be,’ she repeated. ‘I’m the new girl here. I don’t know anyone well enough yet to make a reasoned evaluation. But there is something else. One of the old sisters in the infirmary was anxious about something. Whatever it was she obviously didn’t want to tell the Prioress here.’

  ‘Have you asked her about it?’

  ‘Mother Frances died.’ Seeing the expression on his face she added hastily, ‘She was over ninety.’

  ‘Can’t you ask the Prioress?’ he suggested.

  ‘“Excuse me, Reverend Mother, have you and Sister Felicity covered up a suicide to look like an accident and lied about a novice who left here three months ago?” No, I couldn’t ask the Prioress, Johnny. She is my Superior and I don’t have the right to gossip about what are merely suspicions with anybody.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be talking to me then, should you?’ he said.

  ‘You haven’t given me much choice, have you?’ she said wryly. ‘Look, I can understand how you feel.’

  ‘How can you? You’re a nun,’ Johnny said.

  ‘I wasn’t born in this habit, you know,’ Sister Joan said, amused. ‘I was thirty years old before I entered the religious life. I stuck it out and I enjoy it, but that doesn’t automatically set me apart from the rest of the human race, you know.’

  ‘I think it does,’ Johnny said, adding, ‘Not in a nasty way perhaps.’

  ‘For small relief much thanks. I need more time if I’m to find out anything. I can’t spend all my time asking questions about two people I never even knew. I have my religious duties as well as my teaching. Can you stay on in the district for a few more days?’

  ‘I took a fortnight off,’ he said, ‘but I can’t hang round doing nothing.’

  ‘Are you still friendly with Mr and Mrs Williams?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Why not ring them up?’ she suggested. ‘They’re bound to let you know if the Prioress phoned up about Sister Magdalen — Brenda, that is.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Poke around,’ she said firmly. ‘There are records kept on all the novices and nuns. I have only seen the ones that everybody can see so far. If I bend the rules a little I can take a look at the others.’

  ‘Might you not get into trouble?’ For the first time he looked slightly
doubtful.

  ‘I might.’ She couldn’t repress a smile at the look on his face. ‘However, one thing I’ve learned that being a nun hasn’t altered is that people who aren’t willing to risk getting into trouble usually don’t get things done. Oh, and be discreet when you talk to the Williamses.’

  ‘I’m phoning from the Lake District,’ he said promptly.

  ‘I don’t want you telling deliberate lies,’ she said hastily.

  ‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘I’ll just bend the truth a bit. Is there anything else I can do?’

  ‘If there’s a newspaper office in town you might get hold of a copy of the inquest on Sister Sophia. She died in December.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ He looked more cheerful at the prospect of having definite action to take.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow and let you know if there’s anything to report,’ she said.

  ‘If it wasn’t so worrying,’ he said, standing up, ‘I’d quite enjoy this, you know. It’s a bit like Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said dryly. ‘I’ve never taken cocaine and I can’t play the violin.’ It was slightly disconcerting to emerge from the school building and find Grant Tarquin stroking Lilith, his smile becoming a questioning one as his eyes rested on Johnny.

  ‘Mr Tarquin, good morning.’ She winced inwardly at the heartiness of her tone. ‘This is Mr Russell who is hiking in the district.’

  ‘I thought he looked rather large to be one of your pupils, Sister.’ Grant Tarquin shook hands with Johnny amiably. ‘Are you planning to stay around for a while or move on south?’

  ‘I thought I’d stay on, take some walks on the moor,’ Johnny said.

  ‘In that case get yourself a good Ordnance Survey map if you haven’t already,’ Grant Tarquin advised. ‘The moor can be treacherous, bogs in places and the mist rolling in when you least expect it. Done much walking?’

  ‘Some. It’s a hobby of mine.’