Quiet as a Nun

by Antonia Fraser

  'You know, Jemima,' went on Skarbek, ‘I thought last night that you would make a good nun. I don't mean all that—' he gestured to the veil and wimple with his cigarette. He looked so masculine to me now that I wondered even the children had been deceived. 'But your spirit. There is something nun-like about you, something pure, withdrawn, dedicated to service.'

  'The nuns you have known may have started pure and dedicated to service,' I retorted with an angry puff of my cigarette, 'but they soon became dedicated to something quite different.'

  'Nun, what nun?' he said sharply. 'Put that thing out. You have no idea how to smoke it.' He took the cigarette from my fingers and threw it on the floor to join the others, crushing it with his boot.

  'Rosabelle Powerstock, Sister Miriam, and Beatrice O'Dowd, Sister John, when you first knew her.'

  'Ah yes. Those most sincere ladies. I certainly changed the direction of their dedication, that is true. Or rather we changed it between us, did we not? Our programme, as I call it. From the service of God in heaven to the service of the poor on earth. Not a bad swap, I would say.'

  I said nothing. I was wondering, now that he was more relaxed, whether I could make a dash for the door. I put my hand casually into my pocket and closed it on the knife.

  Immediately Skarbek threw down his own cigarette, grabbed my wrist and pulled it out of my pocket, knife and all. He continued to hold it up, gazing at the blade. Then he laughed and with a twist made me turn the blade towards myself.

  'Don't be frightened, Jemima. A dagger to your heart? No, no, too crude. I don't work like that. Everything is natural that happens here. Natural - if unfortunate. A key breaks off in a lock. A sick nun starves to death as a result. It's all a mistake. Who is to question that?'

  'So - Sister Edward too?' I said bitterly. 'Her medicines out of reach. Struggling for breath. Natural if unfortunate.'

  'I did not kill Veronica O'Dowd,' replied Skarbek. 'I can assure you of that. That was - how shall I put it - purely unfortunate. She would not have lived long in any case. Asthma had weakened her heart. Her family knew that. For you, perhaps, another unfortunate incident in the tower. Jemima Shore, Investigator, is the victim of her own adventurous spirit. She investigates the passage, a door slams, too late. She can't get out. Like her friend Sister Miriam, she dies in the Tower of the Blessed Eleanor.'

  'Who told you about the passage? You can satisfy my curiosity about that.'

  'Ah, the passage. That was a bit of luck, wasn't it? The reminiscences, which would otherwise have been intolerably dreary, of a bad-tempered but historically-minded old nun.'

  I had no difficulty in recognising the description ... Sister Hippolytus. I wondered when he had met her: how he had fooled her. It would not be so easy to pull the wool over Sister Hippolytus's eyes.

  He opened my fist and the knife clattered to the floor. Then he put his hands in my pockets and brought out the rope, the candles and the matches.

  'How very thoughtful of you Jemima, to bring your own rope. I was wondering what I was going to use to tie you up. Perhaps you might be wearing an exciting belt under that thick and rather unexciting coat? Or perhaps my rosary? Quite thrilling that.'

  'What are you going to do?' I could not stop the apprehension from creeping into my voice.

  'I'm going to tie you up. To this convenient grille I think. Inside it or outside it? Shall it be inside with the coffins? Or outside with the statue of the Blessed Eleanor? Boring woman. I've looked at copies of her Treasury once or twice, searching for the will. Incredibly tedious, don't you think? I do hope her ghost doesn't come to call on you. For your sake. She might bore you to death. Forgive me, I didn't mean to make quite such a bad taste joke—'

  'Not inside. Please. Not with the coffins.

  'Surely you don't seriously believe in ghosts? They're all dead, you know. Bones and nothing else in those coffins.' 'What are you going to do?' I said again.

  'Just tie you up for a little while. That's all. Not forever. There's someone I have to go and see. And I don't want you to get away.' He busied himself with the rope, tying me deftly, quickly, to the outside of the grille. At least I was thankful for that. Perhaps this small mercy was some kind of good omen that he did not after all intend to deal too harshly with me. It was better to hope.

  'You might try saying a few prayers if you're lonely,' he said. 'You're not a Catholic, I know. Then I could teach you a few. A Hail Mary or two works wonders for the nerves.'

  'Are you a Catholic?' I asked incredulously.

  'My parents were. I was brought up as such. Until I saw the error of their ways - very early indeed in my existence, I can assure you. The country where I was born is one of those where ignorance and superstition is so deeply rooted in the hearts of the stupid peasants that nothing, not even communism, can get rid of it. Poland.'

  'Poland. I didn't realise you were Polish.'

  'I came here as a refugee when I was very young, ironically from the new state after the war. Because I was officially a Catholic, the do-gooders here even sent me to a convent school at first - until I ran away.' It explained many things.

  'So you see I know what I'm talking about when I say that you would have made a charming nun. By the way, what a pretty colour your hair is.' He put out his hand and touched it. I flinched. 'And your face. There is still something child-like, untouched, about your face. In spite of that incredibly severe expression you are trying to assume.'

  He held my chin and looked at me. I turned my head away. The light, almost yellow eyes were like those of an animal. A hunting animal. Not an animal in the zoo. Of the two of us, I was the captive animal. I saw him glancing at the veil.

  'I wonder how it would be—' he said suddenly. 'Do you fancy dressing up as a nun?' And he bent his head and pressed his lips hard to mine. I struggled and tried in vain to press myself further back into the grille. I was profoundly horrified.

  'No,' I cried, when at last he released me.

  'Blasphemy? Sacrilege? You can't believe that,' he said, smiling.

  'But you do.'

  'I must remind you that there is no God. Hence no blasphemy. All the same, it might have been interesting. For us both. I assure you, Jemima, I'm not interested in unwilling victims. No-one was unwilling.'

  'Pathetic sex-starved women,' I said. 'What splendid conquests!'

  'Oh, quite. Conquests weren't the point. Surely you understand that.' He lit another cigarette. 'That was all purely for the good of the cause. It meant nothing to me whatsoever. Beatrice O'Dowd is a nice woman but an awful fool, not at all my type. In any case it was not necessary to seduce her, she simply exchanged one love or passion for another, in both cases strictly platonic. As for those girls, that fat little blonde with the absurd name, Dodo, and Blanche and Imogen.' He mimicked their enthusiastic upper-class voices. "Working for the poor in the holidays from their smart fee-paying school. Writing us eager letters, imagining they have actually joined us on the other side of the barrier. Hero-worship was what they wanted, not sex.' 'And their leader, Margaret?'

  'She's different. At least she knows how to keep her mouth shut. An interesting girl. She's more like you.' 'And Rosabelle?' I had to ask.

  'Ah, your friend. The heiress. A strange woman. Even for a nun. So many different impulses: no wonder she had a nervous breakdown.'

  'Beatrice O'Dowd thought all that happened because Mother Ancilla got her away. They were of course great friends.' Even now I refused to use the term 'particular friends'.

  'Nonsense. Rosabelle had many secrets from Beatrice, I can tell you. Including where she hid her will. Beatrice always exaggerates her importance in every situation. It makes her hell to work with at times at the Project. The others complain. It was Rosabelle Powerstock who first contacted us, I can assure you. Afterwards—' He seemed to have nothing more to say on that subject. I did not know whether to be glad or sorry. Just as I did not altogether know whether to be glad or sorry at the unexciting truth about the relationship between Ros
a and Beatrice. Glad that it had been innocent. Sorry that Rosa had not even been granted the comfort of one real confidante in her last months.

  'The brides of Christ indeed!' he went on angrily. 'Most of them would be a great deal better off as proper brides, bourgeois white finery, veils, orange blossom and all. At least they would perform one useful function in society; wife followed rapidly by mother. I prefer the intelligent,' he repeated. 'That's why it's a pity that you're not more accommodating. Tom Amyas is your chap, isn't he? Oh, don't worry. We make it our business to know that sort of thing about MPs who don't exactly love us. Just in case the information comes in useful. An awful ass, isn't he, always grinding on about his conscience. Does he bleat about it in bed as well?'

  I did not deign to answer. Skarbek fished something out of his pocket.

  'Which reminds me. We can't have this hanging about, alas. That would never do.'

  It was my note to Tom. Skarbek lit a match and put the flame to the corner. The black fragments floated down to the floor to join the cigarette stubs.

  I was no longer so hopeful that nothing terrible was going to happen to me. Skarbek was robing himself in the wimple and veil again. Then he took up my two candles.

  'Your candles I'll leave you,' he said. 'Out of reach. But alight. No funny stuff burning the ropes. You will be like a saint, Jemima, with two candles burning to you. Your own particular shrine.'

  So saying, he moved the prie-dieu across the crypt until it faced me. He placed one candle on either side. Then he switched off the crypt light.

  'Very charming.' An elaborate roll of the 'R' again. I was certain he was putting it on. 'Saint Jemima of the coffins.' To me the whole crypt, now lit only by the flicker of two small candles, looked less charming than horrifyingly eerie.

  And roped to the grille, in my own particular shrine as he called it, I no longer believed Skarbek in his protestations about blasphemy. In some corner of his being, however remote, he still believed in the possibility.

  'I promise I won't be long,' he said, 'we have so many interesting things to talk about. Later. But there's someone I just have to see. Another intelligent female, as a matter of fact. I really do have a taste for them. And I must deal once and for all with that wretched child. Something natural, what was it I said, something natural but unfortunate.'

  Tessa! In my fear and confusion I had forgotten all about Tessa Justin. And what on earth had happened to my old but stout-hearted sentinel, Sister Boniface, last seen departing to pray in the chapel? Why had Sister Bonnie not raised the alarm? Tessa Justin, in her filthy and hysterical state was surely sight enough to promote a dozen search parties.

  'Tessa will have woken the whole convent by now,' I answered. 'I doubt if you will find it quite so easy to deal with her.' My words were bold. But I was worried by the lack of extraordinary sounds from above. In fact, no sound at all. 'Sister Boniface was there and—'

  'Oh, she's been dealt with already.'

  Not Bonnie—

  'Nothing sinister in this case. Purely natural, dear Jemima. Not even unfortunate. Lured away from the chapel. A story that Mother Ancilla needs her. After that she will be given an assurance that you are safe. That Tessa is safe too. That you both returned through the chapel while she was absent. She won't interfere with our plans.'

  Our plans. That was it. I had to face the fact - that Skarbek had an accomplice within the convent itself. A highly efficient accomplice or as he himself described her, an intelligent female. Someone who had nightly opened the crypt door to let in the Black Nun. Not Beatrice O'Dowd, who was no longer an inmate of the convent, free to come and go as she pleased. Besides, I believed Skarbek when he said that Beatrice, foolish clothes and all, was still in her own way animated by love, or at least idealism. "Very easily led,' Mother Ancilla had said. In more ways than one, I was beginning to think that the Reverend Mother's opinions represented the most solid canon of common sense in this unquiet convent.

  'And so Jemima, I must leave you. I must go once more among the brides of Christ.'

  I watched the Black Nun depart. His figure in its habit soon melted into the darkness of the crypt staircase. At least he left the lower door open. The candles flickered. I prayed - yes, prayed to something or someone - that they would not go out. And leave me alone and helpless in the darkness. No smoking, no praying, where now were the principles of a lifetime, I asked myself. Come on, Jemima. It was a grim attempt at humour. At least it might help me to survive.

  I had many reasons to wish to survive. For one thing, I now knew where the last will and testament of Rosabelle Powerstock was hidden.

  16

  Healing hands

  He was gone. I was alone in the crypt with the coffins - and the statue of the Blessed Eleanor - for company. I heard the upper sacristy door shut. I was entombed. There was silence.

  Only minutes later, it could not have been more, there was a noise. It sounded like that same sacristy door opening. Yes, and now footsteps down the stairs again. Why? Had Skarbek forgotten something, or had he perhaps thought better of leaving me in the crypt? Was I destined for the tower straight away ... All these questions thronged through my mind, none of them arousing very pleasant images, as the light footsteps descended the stairs.

  A nun stood framed in the doorway. It was not, I thought, Skarbek. So far as I could be sure against the limited light of the candles. The crypt light flicked on.

  'Why Miss Shore’ said a familiar voice. 'Whatever are you doing here?'

  It was Sister Agnes.

  A lesser woman might have screamed. Or amplified her question. At least she might have cried out: whatever are you doing there tied up with ropes, with two candles beside you, confined to a grille in a crypt, backing onto a multitude of ancient coffins. Not so, Sister Agnes.

  'Oh dear, oh dear,1 was all she said, moving swiftly across the crypt to my side. 'Poor Miss Shore. Poor dear Miss Shore.' From her tone she might have been sympathising with a child who had fallen over and cut her knees.

  'Free me, Sister Agnes, free me please.'

  'Of course, Miss Shore, of course I'll free you.' Her delicate strong fingers were already plucking at the rope.

  'There's a knife somewhere. On the floor over there.' Sister Agnes bent down and came up with a cigarette stub. She wrinkled her nose. Then she found the knife. She straightened and held it towards me - for a moment, I even thought—

  But Sister Agnes quickly and competently cut the rope. I was free. Dusty, stiff, still terrified, but free. She put the knife down on the prie-dieu.

  'You must have help,' she said.

  'We must both have help,' I replied earnestly. 'Tell me, first of all, is Tessa all right?'

  'Tessa? But she ran away. You remember—'

  'No, no, she didn't run away. Anyway she's back. Oh, God, don't tell me he's got Tessa—'

  'There's no sign of Tessa Justin upstairs in the dormitory, I assure you. But we can deal with that later. First, I must help you upstairs. Why, you're in the most distressing state.'

  Once more Sister Agnes began to cluck, and dust my clothes. I felt her healing hands cross my brow for the second time; she had rescued me before, and was experienced in how to soothe me. Then carefully and I thought disapprovingly, Sister Agnes blew out the candles which had constituted my shrine.

  'How dreadful,' said Sister Agnes. It wasn't clear whether she meant the whole enterprise or just the candles themselves.

  'Now I shall help you back up the stairs.'

  I thought: we've done this before too, as the young nun put her arm round my shoulders and began to aid me back up the winding stair to the sacristy. Once inside, there was no light on. That was odd. Perhaps Sister Agnes, like Sister Boniface, had not wanted to alarm the whole convent. But in my opinion, growing rapidly in urgency, the sooner the whole convent was alarmed, the better.

  Where was the switch? I felt round to the door, found it. The sacristy flooded with light. Sister Agnes moved quickly round after me and
switched it off again.

  'Please Miss Shore,' she said. 'Not yet. Here's your torch. I found it on the floor. Use that if you like. We nuns can see in the dark, you know.' As Sister Boniface had observed to me earlier. Sister Boniface. Surely the old nun would have sent someone by now to my rescue.

  'I left Sister Boniface here in the chapel—' I began.

  'Hush, hush, Miss Shore. Don't worry about Sister Boniface. If she was praying here, and has gone, she was probably needed by Mother Ancilla. Our Reverend Mother is gravely ill and Sister Boniface is by convent tradition her deputy. Until the new Reverend Mother is chosen.'

  She sounded amazingly matter-of-fact about the prospect of her superior's imminent death. But one expected nuns to be matter-of-fact about death. It was Sister Agnes's calm approach to my own predicament which confused me. To say nothing of the missing child.

  'But Tessa Justin, I found her. And now what's happened to her? You don't understand what's going on here, Sister Agnes.'

  By way of answer Sister Agnes opened the sacristy door to the chapel. We were once more in the religious light of the sanctuary and its candles. Candles in their proper place in front of a proper shrine. It was a great relief to me to find myself back in the ornate Victorian chapel, away from that mediaeval nightmare of crypts, secret passages and towers.

  The chapel, so far as I could see, was empty. I devoutly hoped - not quite the cliche the phrase usually was - that no-one was lurking behind the far pillars. No Black Nun within the distant shadows.

  Sister Agnes paused by the first pew.

  'No, Miss Shore,' she said. 'I think it is you who doesn't understand quite what is going on here.' Then she guided me out of the chapel by the visitors' door. 'Come, we must go to your room.'

  There was great authority in her low voice. I felt mesmerised by her. Far more mesmerised than I had felt while in the power of Alexander Skarbek. Her personality was hypnotic. In her mixture of tranquillity and strength, combined with her physical resemblance to my dead friend, I found all the qualities I had once sought, and sought in vain, in Rosabelle.