‘The convent where our little Community lives was once the Tarquin family home,’ Sister Joan said, ‘but it’s not open to tourists I’m afraid. Bodmin itself is a very ancient town.’
‘I must catch up with my sightseeing. Thanks for your help, Sister.’
Johnny shouldered his backpack and strode off.
‘You really ought to be more careful, Sister,’ Grant Tarquin said, looking after him.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Sister Joan looked at him.
‘The times are pretty violent now, even in rural districts,’ he said. ‘This school is in an isolated spot too.’
‘Mr Tarquin, I really don’t think you have any cause for concern,’ Sister Joan said, sternly repressing a grin. ‘He was a perfectly respectable young man who happens to be on a holiday and wanted directions. I was never in the slightest danger.’
‘Unfortunately your habit may not always protect you,’ he warned. ‘You must excuse my interest. The truth is that I feel a kind of inherited responsibility for the sisters now living in the old family home. I keep a weather eye open for them whenever I can.’
‘Oh dear.’ The grin escaped, dimpling her cheek. ‘That makes me feel as if I were on probation or something.’
‘Not in the least, Sister.’ His smile matched hers. ‘I am simply always happier when all the sisters are tucked up at Cornwall House. It’s a family failing if you wish to call it a failing.’
‘Oh?’ She glanced at him curiously, seeing that the smile had faded and his dark eyes were sombre.
‘My wife was killed ten years ago,’ he said abruptly. ‘She was driving the car I’d given her for our second wedding anniversary. We weren’t living here then but in Taunton. Anyway she swerved to avoid a Sister of Mercy who was crossing the road and crashed into a wall. She died instantly and the child she was expecting with her.’
‘That was a terrible thing to happen.’
‘Thank you for not saying it was God’s Will,’ he said wryly. ‘Anyway I felt, probably illogically, that by avoiding that nun she had saved a valuable life. I’ve felt ever since that the life of a religious is somehow precious. Does that sound stupid?’
‘I would say that all life is precious,’ she answered cautiously, ‘but I’m sure that the sisters appreciate your concern.’
‘Unhappily I’m not always around,’ he said. ‘That poor girl who fell when they were having the fire drill — if I’d known what they were going to do I’d have offered to test it myself or send someone over. It was a foolhardy risk to take and it ended in tragedy.’
‘Did you know Sister Sophia?’
‘Yes, of course. She taught here,’ he reminded her. ‘Very nice person, lively and good-hearted, very good with the children. Her death was a shame, a great shame.’
‘Yes indeed.’ She spoke vaguely, hoisting herself to Lilith’s broad back.
Grant Tarquin believed, like everybody else, that the death had been an accident. She wondered how far his somewhat idealistic view of nuns would change if he were told that three of them had covered up a suicide to look like an accident.
‘I won’t keep you, Sister.’ He stood back. ‘In future just be a little more careful about giving directions to stray young men.’
The warning irritated her. There was patronage in it, the faint playfulness with which some people were apt to address nuns, as if people who chose to live in convents were half-witted. She bit back the sharp retort that hovered on her lips and said amiably, ‘I’ll take good care. Bye.’
She was late for lunch again, she realised, though it had been made clear to her that such tardiness would not be accounted a fault since she had to tidy away and lock up before riding back. Still she had better have some explanation ready if anyone else found out she was regularly seeing a young hiker. The prospect of having her reputation called in question brought a smile of pure mischief into her eyes. The mischief faded as she reconsidered the long talk she had had with both her visitors. Johnny Russell was in love with Brenda Williams and highly suspicious of the way she had left so suddenly and not returned home.
Sister Joan, being somewhat more mature than the pugnacious Mr Russell, had learned that people didn’t always act in character, but Brenda’s abrupt departure had been the prelude to her disappearance — unless she really was on a commune in Wales.
‘Have you eaten, Sister?’ The plump lay sister lay in waiting for her, bouncing out of the back door like a jack in the box. ‘Reverend Mother Ann said I was to be sure to see that you got something. I forgot the coffee this morning for you.’
‘I was so busy that I didn’t have time to eat or drink anything,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Children can be tiring,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘My mother always used to say that when the Good Lord sent the blessings of children He also sent each blessing wrapped up in a bundle of troubles. She knew what she was talking about too, poor woman, having borne nine with myself as the fifth. Come into the kitchen now and eat.’
Sister Joan hadn’t yet entered the kitchen which proved to be a cavernous place that looked as if it had been intended as a basement but had crept up to ground-floor level when nobody was looking. The walls were a light bilious green with rag matting covering the stone floor and the tiles cracked round the double sink and huge old-fashioned oven.
‘More homely than the rest of the house, isn’t it?’ Sister Margaret said happily.
‘A lot,’ Sister Joan said feelingly.
‘Holy poverty,’ Sister Margaret said, her round face beaming, ‘is much easier to hold to in a place like this than in a parlour.’
It was a delicately expressed criticism of the Prioress.
‘This looks delicious,’ Sister Joan said sitting down at one end of the long scrubbed wooden table.
‘My vegetable omelette is fit for a bishop,’ Sister Margaret said proudly. ‘Poor Sister Sophia was very fond of it, God rest her soul.’
‘It must have been a terrible shock to everybody when she died,’ Sister Joan said, spooning up the thick blend of vegetables and spices.
‘Not long before Christmas either,’ Sister Margaret said sadly, pouring two cups of coffee and taking a seat at the corner of the table. With her veil pushed back and her sleeves rolled up over her muscular arms she looked as if she were auditioning for the role of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, though she lacked the saltiness of the latter’s vocabulary.
‘You were not there?’ Sister Joan dunked her brown bread with blissful disregard for the conventions.
‘I was in bed,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘Sister Felicity and I sleep there. In the old larder and the old pantry. They make very suitable cells. And we are near to the infirmary so if one of the older sisters requires anything during the night or is taken ill we can fetch Sister Perpetua. Sister Felicity had gone to the chapel to complete her Advent meditation.’
‘At eleven at night?’ Sister Joan raised an eyebrow.
‘Sister Felicity has arduous duties,’ Sister Margaret said a trifle defensively. ‘It is often near midnight before she can get away to fulfil her religious duties.’
‘And she was doing that on the night Sister Sophia—?’
‘She and Reverend Mother Ann,’ Sister Margaret nodded. ‘Then they decided to test the fire-escape apparatus. Sister Sophia was doing penance in the chapel and offered to be the guinea-pig as she was younger and more agile — it was a great tragedy.’
‘I believe that Sister Sophia was very popular,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Oh, a very good girl,’ Sister Margaret said promptly. ‘She did wonders with the children, I believe. My own view is that she had a black-out.’
‘I thought the strap slipped.’
‘Yes, it did, but it seems odd she didn’t make a last-minute grab at it to prevent its looping round her neck. Of course she was holding on with both hands to the window-ledge to test the strength of the main straps but one would have thought it would have been instinctive. That’s what makes me think she could have had a momenta
ry black-out.’
‘Was she subject to them?’
‘She hadn’t been looking well,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘She was always very jolly, you see, lovely sense of humour and yet very serious about spiritual matters. You know how it is.’
Sister Joan nodded. A sense of humour often betokened a deeply spiritual nature.
‘Didn’t Saint Teresa say, “Lord defend me from sullen saints”?’ she said.
‘Indeed she did and quite correct too,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘Well, Sister Sophia was the kind of nun Saint Teresa would have approved. But a few weeks before she died — two or three weeks it was — she came into the kitchen after school one day, the way you’re here now. I think I’d made an omelette that day too. Yes, it was an omelette because she was pushing a bit of it round and round on her plate. She had a funny look on her face.’
‘What sort of funny?’
‘Funny peculiar, not funny comical,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘Like her mind had gone blank. I said something to her and she jumped and looked at me and then she gave a laugh — not a real sort of laugh. Strained more like.’
‘And?’
‘She excused herself and went out,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘I wondered at the time if she suffered from petit-mal. One of my sisters did — my blood sisters I mean. In the middle of a sentence she’d stop dead for a few seconds and a blank look would come over her face and then she’d carry on again as if her brain had missed a few beats.’
‘Did she do that often? Sister Sophia I mean?’
The other shook her head.
‘Only the one time as far as I saw. But after that she went round looking worried. No, not exactly worried, more pressured. I thought she was perhaps working too hard or doing too much penance.’
Sister Joan reflected. The Order of the Daughters of Compassion advocated moderate penance, but overenthusiastic sisters who carried penance to the threshold of masochistic delight were sternly cautioned. From all she had heard Sister Sophia had not seemed that type at all.
‘Did you mention this to anyone?’ she asked at last.
‘No.’ Sister Margaret shook her head. ‘I didn’t think of it until later. And of course I wasn’t called to the inquest. It’s only lately that I’ve thought — Mother Frances said something about the matter. Before her death, I mean.’
‘About Sister Sophia being ill?’
‘No, not that. She was very old, you know, apt to repeat herself occasionally but she was quite logical in her head. Wonderful for her age. On the other hand she now and then came out with something that weird that made you realise how old she was.’
There was no point in hurrying the other. Obviously Sister Margaret relished what she would have called a nice chat.
‘A couple of days before she died,’ the nun was continuing. ‘Before Mother Frances died, I mean. She had gone very frail. Very old but still quite sharp mentally, apart from one or two things she said that didn’t make much sense. I’d taken her a nice bowl of soup and she asked me why Sister Sophia hadn’t been to see her recently. Then she caught herself up before I could say anything and said, “I forgot. The poor girl died, didn’t she? Fell out of the window. If you ask me she found out there’s a gospel too many”.’
‘A gospel too many?’ Sister Joan repeated the phrase. ‘What did she mean?’
‘That’s exactly what I said,’ Sister Margaret said. “Whatever do you mean, Mother Frances?” I said. She shook her head and told me the soup smelled good.’
‘There are four gospels,’ Sister Joan said thoughtfully. ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.’
‘Well everybody knows that, Sister,’ the other said.
‘Maybe she was going a bit senile?’
‘Oh no,’ Sister Margaret said promptly. ‘She was apt to repeat herself now and then but she always made perfect sense.’
‘Did Sister Magdalen talk a lot with Mother Frances?’ Sister Joan asked abruptly.
‘Sister Magdalen?’ Sister Margaret looked slightly puzzled at the change of subject. ‘No, I don’t think so. The novices came to help when the influenza epidemic was on. Why?’
‘I was wondering why she left so suddenly.’
‘Oh, one can never tell with young girls,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘You think she might have been upset by the accident? She stayed on for three months if she was and Sister Hilaria said she seemed radiant. We really believed she had a strong vocation.’
Somewhere in the infirmary a bell tinkled.
‘That’ll be Sister Andrew,’ Sister Margaret said with obvious reluctance as she rose. ‘She can be difficult. A wonderful woman.’ She sighed slightly as she spoke.
‘And I must get on with preparing some lessons for tomorrow,’ Sister Joan said, also rising. ‘Oh, by the way, what did you say to Sister Sophia when she was looking so blank? You said she gave a strained sort of laugh.’
‘Well, it wasn’t very important,’ Sister Margaret said, thinking. ‘It was a little joke as far as I remember. I said something like — if the Archangel Gabriel came and blew his trumpet in your ear you wouldn’t hear him. Just a silly joke. Nothing more.’
TEN
Sister Joan was not preparing lessons. Seated cross legged on the floor with her habit bunched under her seat in the time-honoured practice of nuns she was writing out what in her own mind she thought of, somewhat self-consciously, as her detection notes. She laid down her pen now and turned back the pages of her pad to recapitulate.
Events: Brenda Williams entered the Novitiate on 2nd September, 1987.
Sister Sophia entered the Novitiate in September, 1984. Was fully professed in September, 1987 (same month Brenda entered Novitiate).
Sister Magdalen (Brenda) left the convent on 16th February, 1988.
People: Reverend Mother Ann, daughter of noted archaeologist, aged approx. 45. Professed 15 years ago and is now serving second term of office as Prioress. Very advanced theological notions. Wears nail polish and perfume.
Mother Emmanuel, mid-fifties, helps out with novices. Adores Prioress.
Sister Hilaria, Novice Mistress. Mystic or hysteric? Probably inefficient.
Sister Dorothy, Librarian. Intelligent white rabbit. Officious.
Sister Lucy, Sacristan. Tale-bearer and too sweet to be true.
Sister David, another white rabbit but shyer.
Sister Perpetua, Infirmarian, worried about situation here. Either lied at the inquest about circumstances surrounding Sister Sophia’s death or is lying to me about the whole thing. But why should she?
Sisters Martha, and Katherine. Nice but not intellectual.
Sisters Mary Concepta, Andrew and Gabrielle, elderly. Mother Frances evidently didn’t confide in them.
Sister Felicity, Lay Sister, efficient, was with Prioress in chapel on night of Sister Sophia’s death.
Sister Margaret, likes chatting. May be subconsciously worried hence her gossiping to me.
Observations: Rules here not exactly lax but not strictly enforced. Prioress likes her comfort and may have her favourites i.e. Sister Felicity, Mother Emmanuel, Sister Lucy?
Grant Tarquin seems to take a proprietary interest in convent and school. Sublimation of feelings for dead wife?
Much interest and emphasis on pagan goddess cults and their links with Our Lady.
Questions: Why did Sister Sophia give a strained laugh when Sister Margaret made a little joke about the Archangel Gabriel?
Why did Sister Sophia, immediately after her profession, lose her gaiety and become morose?
Did Sister Sophia hang herself or was it an accident?
If it was an accident why test the apparatus so late at night? Why did Sister Perpetua tell me it was suicide?
If it was suicide why did Sister Sophia kill herself?
Why did Brenda leave the convent so abruptly? If she was upset about Sister Sophia’s death she would surely have left at the time, not waited until the middle of February. If she was unhappy in the Novitiate why did nobody appear to
notice the fact?
Why didn’t she inform her parents that she had left?
Is she really on a commune in Wales? If not then why would the Prioress take the trouble of lying to us? She doesn’t know I have any interest in the girl.
What did Mother Frances mean when she talked about an extra gospel?
Having reached the end she heaved a sigh. As a detective, she decided ruefully, she made an excellent nun. And that wasn’t true either. No deeply religious nun would have marked all the faults and failings of her sisters, let alone set them down on paper. Feeling thoroughly ashamed of herself Sister Joan tore the thin sheets into tiny pieces and went along the corridor to flush them down the toilet. She would concentrate on her proper work and leave doubts and suspicions in that region of her mind where she had locked up all forbidden things.
To her relief the religious instruction period that preceded the Benediction was conducted by Sister Dorothy who stuck firmly to the Confessions of Saint Augustine and their relevance in the life of a modern religious.
At recreation the talk centred on the good and bad points of the local dentist who was regarded as a patron saint by Sister Martha and as first cousin to Torquemada by everybody else. It was all rather dull and very reassuring.
In bed that night for the first time in years Sister Joan dreamed of Jacob. He was driving a car and she sat beside him, stealing glances at his craggy profile, wondering how the genes of a third-generation refugee from somewhere beyond the Pale could have united with the genes of a Whitechapel tailor to produce that blending of flesh and bone that was unique, hers to savour in all its rough masculine beauty. Then she realised with a little shock that she was stark naked, and that the man driving the car was Grant Tarquin. She reached for the door-handle, having some idea in her mind of jumping out as the vehicle slowed to go round a corner, but as she turned her head Reverend Mother Ann suddenly leaned from the back seat and pinioned her with a lavender scented claw.
She sat bolt upright, sweat pearling her face. So much for custody of the mind. In sleep it went roving down Freudian byways.
A Vow Of Silence Page 11