by Sarah Rayne
There was not much conversation between the nuns, even outside the Great Silence, but Mother Superior sought Gina out and asked if she had settled in.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘We all of us take a wrong turning at times, Gina, and we all need to be helped back.’ She nodded, and went on her way, leaving Gina feeling rather unexpectedly comforted, although it sounded as if Mother Superior had been told about her sinful exploits with Chimaera. If so, it was likely to have been Father Joachim who had told her.
On the second day, during the midday meal, there was some discussion about the unrest in France, where monasteries and convents were being suppressed by the revolutionaries.
‘I hear that some Carmelite nuns from a convent at Compiègne were imprisoned last month,’ said Mother Superior.
‘That’s near to our own mother house,’ murmured one of the nuns.
‘Indeed, it is. And all for defying the revolutionary government and refusing to obey the new civil constitution of the clergy,’ said Mother Superior. She glanced at Gina, who was listening with interest, and said, ‘You see, Gina, that we are not so far away from the world that we do not know what happens in it.’
‘Mother Superior,’ said Sister Agnes, with pride, ‘often sends Dan – your own gardener at Chandos House – to procure a copy of the London Gazette.’
‘I do. And I don’t mind in the least that the Gazette comes by way of the Black Boar,’ said Mother Superior, serenely.
‘How could you tell that, Mother?’
‘Its pages have a strong smell of ale.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Sister Agnes, passing the vegetable dish down the table, remarked that the man, Robespierre, was nothing but the spawn of Satan. ‘I don’t care who hears me say it,’ she added, belligerently, ‘and nor do I make apology for using such a term at the dinner table. Cabbage, Sister Gabrielle?’
‘We shall include the Carmelite sisters in our prayers,’ said Mother Superior, and made a knot in the woollen cincture around her waist by way of an aide-mémoire. Gina found this small, homely action unexpectedly endearing.
From her place at the end of the table, the young novice, Anne-Marie, asked, hesitantly, what would happen to the imprisoned nuns.
‘They’re regarded as traitors because they defied the revolutionaries so persistently,’ said Mother Superior.
‘And because they refused to take the oath of allegiance to France,’ put in Sister Cecilia. ‘I’m afraid that very few people come out of the revolutionaries’ prisons alive.’
‘They would execute professed nuns?’ said Anne-Marie.
‘I’m afraid they would. They are doing.’
‘The martyr’s death,’ whispered Anne-Marie, her eyes huge with horror.
Sister Agnes, still spooning out vegetables, said that martyrdom was very admirable, but Anne-Marie would do better to pay attention to saying her daily office rather than dwelling on macabre events. And, said Sister Agnes, while she thought about it, Gina might kindly make sure tomorrow’s serving of potato did not contain bits of peel and the eyes.
Gina did her best to enter into the life of the convent, because if she had to be here for a time, she would try to behave as well as possible.
She attended the various services that took up so much of the convent’s day, liking the chapel, which was small but imbued with serenity and with the music the nuns made such a part of their lives. It appeared that Sister Cecilia, who was the convent’s bursar, had a particular interest in music. ‘One day,’ said little Anne-Marie, sounding awed, ‘she intends to write a treatise about the pathways of religious music – about how people used it for worship over the centuries.’
Gina told Sister Cecilia, a bit hesitantly, that she had herself been studying music.
‘Only in a very small way, of course.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it, though. Would you like to play the organ while you are here?’
‘I don’t know if I could manage it. I’d like to try. I was studying a Mozart piece,’ said Gina.
‘I’m not sure how much Mozart we have. There’s a good deal of Bach, of course.’ She got up to look along the carefully stacked rows of music at the side of the organ, then stopped suddenly, frowning.
Gina said, ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘It’s just that … it looks as if this section has been disturbed. As if someone has been looking for something.’ She frowned, then said, ‘It’s unusual – this is regarded as my province. But it’s of no importance. And I’ve found some Mozart for you.’
It was on the fourth night of Gina’s stay that she was woken by sounds outside her window. A kind of scraping, and then a faint, rythmic squeaking. Wheels on some kind of cart? But Gina could not think why a cart would be coming up to the convent in the middle of the night, and the window was too high for her to look out, even standing on tiptoe.
There was probably a perfectly ordinary explanation, but after a moment she slid her legs out of bed, and reached for the robe she had brought from Chandos House. The door of her room had been locked when the Great Silence commenced, but Gina had no idea if the key was left in the lock outside any of the rooms. She could not get out. But it was possible that someone could get in.
The scraping sounds had stopped, but other sounds had replaced them, and now the sounds were not coming from outside, they were coming from within. Footsteps. Firm, rather heavy footsteps were coming towards this room. There was no reason why anyone would come to her room at this hour, unless there had been word of something wrong at home. One of her parents taken ill, perhaps? But her mother would be at the dreary cousins’ house, which was a day’s journey away, and her father would not have wanted her woken in the middle of the night. Could it conceivably be Chimaera? Breaking into the convent by night and stealing along to her room was the kind of risky, romantic thing he might do. Gina hoped it was not Chimaera, because if he got into her room he would certainly expect to make love to her there and then. He would find the secrecy and the surroundings exciting, and the danger of discovery would add to it for him. Gina did not think it would be exciting at all; on the contrary she thought it would be a bit sordid, quite apart from worrying about one of the nuns finding them. The prospect of Mother Superior or Sister Cecilia coming in and seeing her with Chimaera was unthinkable.
The steps came all the way along the stone corridor, then stopped. No light showed through the small grille at the top, but Gina sensed someone’s presence. Did that mean that whoever it was had not wanted – not dared? – to bring a lantern or even a candle to see the way?
A voice said, in a hoarse whisper, ‘Gina? Gina – are you in there?’
Gina’s unease spiralled into outright fear. She shrank back against the wall, clutching the thin robe around her and, as she did so, there was the sound of the lock being turned from the other side of the door. It was pushed slowly open, and a shadow fell across the floor.
Father Joachim said, ‘Don’t scream, Gina. Even if you do, no one will hear you.’
He closed the door, and came towards her.
Chimaera thought rescuing Gina from the convent, and carrying her off to Italy, would make a splendidly dramatic adventure. It might even form the basis for a new and exciting opera – an opera in which Chimaera himself would play the leading role. This was an alluring prospect, and the only problem was how the staging could be afforded. The idea of Gina’s father came into his mind again. Was it possible that John Chandos might be prepared to hand over a suitable sum of money, to ensure that his wanton daughter was out of reach of gossip and scandal? Chimaera would not really have spread scurrilous stories about his beloved Gina, but Sir John would not know that. Lady Chandos would certainly not know it. And the result would be that Chimaera would have enough money to return to Italy, taking Gina with him, and stage his opera. The world would get a new and marvellous musical work and Chimaera himself would regain his former glittering life.
Careful thought would ha
ve to be given to the creation of such an opera. Since Mozart’s death there was no one who could be trusted to compose something so important. Could Chimaera turn his own hand to it, perhaps? He did not see why not. The plot was already there – the heroine yielding to the persuasions of the hero in her bedchamber … Then the ill-starred lovers discovered in flagrante delicto by the enraged papa. Chimaera might add one or two underlings at that point; they could wring their hands and wail in the manner of a Greek chorus. Then would come the spiriting away of the hapless heroine into captivity, from which the hero would rescue her. All very good. Supremamente buono, in fact.
As for the music – it should not be so difficult to compose some uplifting arias and to write the libretto. It would stage very well at Teatro alla Scala, for example. And his own career would take a new, and even more glittering direction than before.
The following morning, after a robust breakfast, Chimaera set off to explore the general area more fully than he had yet done. ‘Reconnoitring the terrain’, army officers called it. He was rather hoping he might meet Sir John Chandos during this foray. He did not dare go up to Chandos House, but if he could contrive a meeting with Sir John, he would not flinch from making his request for an appropriate sum of money to allow him to leave the area, taking Gina away from any incipient scandal and gossip. Sir John had threatened him with several undignified fates, but Chimaera was not very worried, because he thought John Chandos was a man of quick temper and that he would have cooled down now. Also, he thought Sir John was very fond indeed of his daughter.
But there was no sign of John Chandos anywhere, so Chimaera returned to his room at the Black Boar, and consoled himself by drafting out an opening scene (with full chorus) for his opera. This task occupied him for most of the next day, after which he felt he could spend a convivial evening in the taproom. You did not know what bits of useful information you might pick up, and also there was a serving wench who had cast several come-hither looks his way. Chimaera would be faithful to Gina, of course; well, he would be faithful in spirit. But a man had needs.
In the event, the beckoning-eyed lady was nowhere to be seen, and Chimaera found himself in conversation with several local people, including Cresacre’s builder, a person by the name of Alberic Firkin. Master Firkin was disgruntled with his lot, and did not scruple to say so to anyone who would listen, which meant most of the assembled company.
‘Cresacre Convent expecting me to do work for next to nothing yet again,’ said Alberic, puff-cheeked with indignation. ‘They’ve got the roof of that rubbishing old retreat house practically falling in, and Mother Superior saying they haven’t the money to pay large bills, and wanting me to reduce my charges. Me, a master builder, that has served my apprenticeship, and knowing exactly what needs doing and what building materials cost. Never mind finding a load of bricks and a tub of mortar going missing, which I did only this morning.
Several people said you could not trust anyone any longer.
‘It’s Sir John Chandos as’ll be at the root of the convent’s miserliness, you mark my words,’ observed an elderly carter from the chimney corner. ‘They call him a trustee or some such. I call him a pinchpenny.’
‘If you ask me,’ said Alberic, ‘it’s not so much Sir John as his lady. Mighty watchful of the money, that one.’
The landlord, who happened to be in the taproom mopping up spilt ale, said warningly that Sir John and Lady Chandos were very well respected. Very respectable.
‘Respected she might be, and so might he,’ said the carter. ‘As for respectable – well, Sir John might be respectable now, but it wasn’t always so. Very fond of the ladies in his youth was Sir John, so I always heard. Bit different now. Repented his sins, that’s what he’d have you believe.’
He made a disgusted noise, and the landlord told him to hush, and reminded him that Sir John was a justice of the peace and a trustee of St Chad’s as well as the convent, and he was not a man anyone wanted to cross.
‘Well,’ said the carter, who had attained venerable years and did not give a tinker’s curse about justices of the peace or trustees, ‘in my opinion, it’s the repented ones as are the worst when it comes to a bit of forbidden rogering.’ He glared round the bar, and was hastily provided with a tankard of cider by the landlord, with the hope that he might drink himself into insensibility and have to be taken home in Alberic Firkin’s wheelbarrow.
‘There’s no prude so great as a reformed rake,’ said Alberic. ‘Look how Sir John bundled that girl of his into the nuns’ hands. Faster than a rat up a drainpipe.’
‘Ask me, it was his lady at the back of that,’ put in someone. ‘Cold as charity, that one. And I’ll be bound all the little wench was about was a bit of mischief with a young man. Nothing wrong in that. What maiden of seventeen don’t enjoy a bit of a kiss and cuddle with a young man?’
Chimaera, listening closely, was immensely relieved that no one seemed to know any more on that topic. He remained unobtrusively in his seat, and his patience was rewarded a moment later when Alberic Firkin said that Gina Chandos had been taken along to the convent’s retreat house.
‘That very place where folk go for peace and serenity,’ he said. ‘Fat chance of that with the roof threatening to fall in and bury anyone unfortunate enough as to be beneath it.’
Chimaera had no interest in disintegrating roofs, but he had the information he had wanted, so he nodded a goodnight to the company, and went out.
In the small room in the retreat house, Gina tried to force down the rising panic, and to think that it was not so very unusual for Father Joachim to be here in the convent. Her heart was thudding, but she said, in as ordinary a voice as she could manage, ‘What are you doing here, Father? It must be midnight at least – I was asleep. How did you get in? I thought everywhere was locked up after Compline.’
‘I can come and go as I wish in this place,’ he said. His eyes flickered on her body, thinly covered by the silk robe. ‘The mother superior herself gave me a key to the side door that opens directly into the retreat house,’ he said. ‘I daresay she hasn’t made that known, though. She keeps her secrets, that one. You would be surprised at some of the secrets that she keeps.’
Gina said firmly, ‘Father, if you don’t mind, I don’t really want you here in my room in the middle of the night.’
‘I have no sinful intent towards you,’ he said, at once. ‘That’s not how I think of you, Gina – even seeing you that day with that man, that Italian fornicator … Both of you naked in a bed … That caused me great pain, you know. You had been so pure, so innocent, untouched; I wanted you to remain that way.’ He came closer, and said, ‘But with such a parent, perhaps it was to be expected.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Gina.
‘Don’t you? Were you never told who you really are, Gina?’ Without warning, he seized her wrist, and pushed her back onto the bed. Gina cried out, and resisted, but the girdle of her robe had come loose, and Joachim snatched it up and wound it tightly around her wrists, binding them together.
Gina kicked out at him for all she was worth, but her feet were bare and she landed only the lightest of blows. If she screamed would she really not be heard? As if this thought had reached him, Father Joachim took a large, folded handkerchief from a pocket. A sickly sweet smell rose up and Gina flinched, but he was already pressing the handkerchief over her lips, holding it firmly in place. The cloying scent smacked into her senses and the room began to spin around her. She tried to claw the smothering cloth away, but Joachim had knotted the handkerchief too tightly.
Through the dizzying waves, Gina was aware of being lifted and carried from the room into the stone corridor beyond. There was the sound of the door of her room being shut, and the key turning in the lock. That meant no one would realize she was missing until Matins. Five, six hours away?
Then came the sensation of cool night air on her face, and she thought they had come through the side door into the kitchen garden. A handca
rt was propped against the wall, and Father Joachim laid her in it, then reached for the long handle at the front and began to pull it away from the convent. It bumped over the uneven ground, and it was difficult to see where they were going, but they did not seem to be going very far, because before they reached the highway, he turned onto a narrow track. Low-branched trees thrust into Gina’s face, and the cart jolted and bounced even more wildly on the uneven surface. Once Joachim stumbled, and Gina felt a surge of hope because, if he fell, would that give her an opportunity to run away? But she was still so light-headed from whatever had been on the handkerchief that she did not think she could even stand up, let alone run anywhere.
Mist lay patchily on the ground, as if something just under the surface was smouldering.
The rotting-sweetness taste was still in Gina’s mouth, and the stench of whatever Joachim had given her was still in her nostrils. She was starting to think it might be laudanum, which her mother occasionally took. It would have been easy for Joachim, who was a frequent visitor to Chandos House, to take some from the bottle in her mother’s cupboard, especially since her mother would have left to visit the prim cousins. But why? What was the reason for this wild behaviour?
The trees thinned and she managed to twist her head around to look about her. The handcart had been brought to a small clearing, with a cottage directly ahead.
Joachim wedged the cart against one of the walls, and walked round to look down at her.
‘You’ll recognize that place, I expect,’ he said. ‘It’s Infanger Cottage. It’s on convent land – we aren’t far from the convent itself, of course. Sir John tries to insist it’s on the Chandos estate, but the convent insist it’s theirs. No one has ever been able to establish the truth, so it often stands empty for years at a time.’
Gina knew in a general way about Infanger Cottage and its tangled ownership. Father had once said it was a battle as to whether the convent paid Firkin’s account for work to stop the place falling down, or whether he did so himself. He said Mother Superior was a tartar to deal with, and Sister Cecilia, the bursar, was nearly as bad in her own quiet way.