‘And what about you?’ she asks Rupert, having told him all her good news. ‘What will you do when you’ve finished here? What a shame that you couldn’t get your offer accepted on that cottage we saw.’
This is the one little flaw in her happiness: that Rupert won’t be nearby working on another cottage. He’s frowning a little, pursing his lips regretfully.
‘They keep telling us that it’s a buyers’ market but it’s not true,’ he says. ‘It was way over price but the old devil wasn’t giving an inch and I simply couldn’t risk it.’ He shakes his head, shrugs. ‘Something else will come along. It always does.’
‘And meanwhile you’ll stay here?’
‘Through this winter, probably. I shall finish it and then I might let it on a short-hold tenancy next spring. It hasn’t been a brilliant summer for holiday letting and I’m thinking that this might be the way to go forward.’
She nods. ‘It’s probably crazy going back into B and B-ing after a terrible summer like this but we’re lucky that we’ve got a long list of people who will be happy to come back to us. At least, that’s the theory.’
‘I feel absolutely certain you’ve made the right decision,’ he tells her. He smiles his sexy smile and grips her wrist for a moment and gives it a little encouraging shake. ‘I can just see you all. You and Mo and Pa. Sounds magic.’
‘You must come and meet them,’ she says lightly, heart knocking in her ribs. She’s made a little plan to move things along a bit and now she broaches it.
‘It’s Pa’s birthday at the end of the month,’ she says. ‘We’re having a tea party so that Jakey can come, and Sister Emily thought she’d rather like a little outing. There will be some of Pa’s friends too, and Clem, I hope. Perhaps you’d like to come along?’
He nods. ‘Sounds great.’
She is so relieved she feels quite faint. ‘Good. That’s good.’
They both turn at the sound of an engine: a van comes slowly down the lane and pulls into the verge. Rupert gets to his feet, a hand raised in greeting.
‘Damn. It’s the plumber,’ he says to Dossie. ‘Bloody awful timing. Sorry, love. I’m going to have to get on.’
‘It’s fine.’ She stands up, picking up her bag. ‘I ought be on my way. See you soon.’
‘Very soon, I hope. I’ll text you.’
She wonders if he might kiss her and he does, holding her tightly, though briefly. Then he is away across the little lawn to meet the man who’s climbing out of his van. Dossie hesitates and then calls, ‘’Bye then,’ and goes to her car. She drives away with a cheerful little hoot on the horn but Rupert is deep in conversation with the plumber and doesn’t seem to hear it.
Sister Emily and Janna are blackberry picking in the meadow below the house. Wasps crawl, heavy and slow, on the ripe fruit, drunk on the sweetness; thorny brambles trail over the grass, catching at the skirts of Sister Emily’s blue working habit. As they reach cautiously for the blackberries, stretching up as high as they can, other luscious globes dislodge and fall just beyond their grasp. Each time this happens Sister Emily cries out, vexed at losing even a single delicious berry.
Janna groans in sympathy. ‘Why are the best ones always out of reach? Look at those whopping great big ones up there on that bramble. Look, pull him down with your stick; easy now, nearly got them. Ooooh …’
And they cry out together in frustration as the blackberries drop into the thicket of thorn hedge. Picking up their big plastic containers, they move a little further along the hedge where clouded indigo-blue sloes ripen in the September sunshine.
‘Sloe gin?’ Janna suggests. ‘What d’you think?’
Sister Emily pauses, her eyes sparkling with the prospect of more gleaning.
‘But will you be here to share it with us?’ she wonders, and Janna turns quickly away as if she’s been stung by a sleepy wasp or pricked by one of the sharp thorns.
‘It’s going to be so exciting.’ Sister Emily drags a particularly clinging bramble from her skirt; the blue cloth is already snagged, threads pulled, from other past excursions. ‘Courses, workshops, Ignatian retreats. We’re getting feedback from other retreat houses now and there’s so much to learn and look forward to. We shall all be very busy. Is it being needed that frightens you?’
Janna is silent, trying to define her own feelings, and then speaks honestly.
‘I s’pose it does a bit. But it’s more than that. Sister Ruth and I just don’t get on and I can’t see it working at such close quarters.’
‘And have you always got on with the people you’ve worked with? If so you’ve been very lucky. Of course, there’s no place like a community for generating misunderstandings and quarrels but that’s simply a symbol of the general failing of one human person to understand another. Is it really all to do with Sister Ruth? I have seen great changes in you, Janna; a growth of confidence.’
‘Have you?’ She is pleased – and puzzled. ‘I’m not sure I feel it.’
‘Didn’t I see Sister Nichola wearing the shawl your mother gave you?’
‘Oh, that.’ Janna picks a few more berries. ‘Well, I wrapped it round her at that party we had for Stripey Bunny and she sort of went off with it. I haven’t had the heart to ask her for it back. She seems to wear it rather a lot.’
They both smile at the incongruity of the faded Indian shawl, with its glittering gold threads, wrapped about Sister Nichola’s ample shoulders over her sober habit.
‘But once,’ hazards Sister Emily, ‘I think that you’d have wanted it back, wouldn’t you? You cherished it and needed it. It was an important symbol.’
Janna does not answer immediately but continues to pick the fruit. The slanting afternoon sun is hot. Velvet-winged butterflies – meadow browns and tortoiseshells – flit and settle on the fruit, whilst shimmering clouds of midges dance in the still air; above them a pilgrimage of swallows cluster on the telephone wire, discussing routes in high sweet voices.
‘She seems to get some sort of comfort from it,’ Janna admits unwillingly at last. ‘Just now she needs it more than I do, that’s all.’
‘We all draw comfort from you, with the possible exception of Sister Ruth,’ says Sister Emily softly. ‘Commitment is hard, isn’t it? Commitment to God in a community can mean that we might be crucified by proximity or by loneliness, and so it is not to be undertaken lightly. But you need make no such undertaking. You can still walk away whenever you feel like it.’
‘I don’t want to walk away,’ Janna cries. ‘I love it here. If only we could have gone on as we were.’
‘What is the difference?’
Janna hesitates: what is the difference in living in the caravan or in the rooms Clem has shown her? Slowly she fumbles towards the truth.
‘When I first came to Chi-Meur you had Penny taking most of the responsibility for the cooking and that. I was happy just doing what was needed round the outside and helping her out, and then, when she was ill, it was like an emergency. You step in, don’t you? You cope somehow and then you find you’re OK with it. I’m used to that. Turning up for a job, filling in, helping out, moving on. That’s what I do. Now,’ she takes a breath, ‘now it’s got to be deliberate. There’s all these new ideas, new plans. And I’m part of it. I’ve got to take a proper role from the beginning. So, yeah, like it’s a total commitment to the future here and I don’t want to think that I can walk out on it. That’s not what it’s about, that I can go if I don’t like it. I’ve got to really want to do it, haven’t I? ’Tis like you said just now about being crucified. You chose that. You took a vow. Now, it’s like I’ve got to take a vow somewhere inside me and I don’t know if it’s right or if it’s what I want. I just don’t know!’
She looks suddenly as if she might cry, and Sister Emily puts an arm about her shoulders.
‘It’s never clear,’ she murmurs. ‘Sometimes it has to be a leap of faith. And it is never easy or perfect, just the best we can do at the time. But we are vouchsafed people on the j
ourney to sustain and encourage us. We value you and feel that you have a special role here with us so we are reluctant to let you go simply because, just at the moment, you can’t see clearly. That’s all.’
There is a cry, a shout of greeting, the wild ringing of a bell, and they see Jakey wobbling over the meadow on his bicycle with Stripey Bunny in the basket on the back and Clem striding behind. Janna swipes away the tears from her eyes and waves back.
Sister Emily chuckles. ‘Saved by the bell,’ she says.
MICHAELMAS
SISTER NICHOLA SQUEEZES THROUGH the half-open door and waits for a moment. If she were to sit here, right at the back, just inside the door, nobody will see her. She likes to do this; slipping into the chapel just as Compline begins and watching the Sisters at Night Prayer. The sanctuary light glimmers in its stone niche, and candles have been lit in the terracotta bowl at the feet of the statue of Our Lady.
Mother speaks the familiar opening words: ‘“The Lord grant us a quiet night and a perfect end.”’
There are owls calling and the faint scent of Michaelmas daisies mingles with the traces of incense. Sister Nichola breathes deeply, happily. How pure and sweet is the face of that young novice in her stall beside Our Lady, half hidden in the gathering shadows: how happy she looks and how clear the voices are as they begin to sing the evening hymn together.
‘Before the ending of the day, Creator of the world we pray,
That you with steadfast love would keep Your watch around us while we sleep.’
Sister Nichola closes her eyes and her thoughts drift. Memories shift like smoke: ‘I would never make a nun! I’m far too passionate, too greedy, too intolerant. But I should like to live in the little stone lodge by the gates at the end of the drive, working in the big, walled garden and helping in the kitchen. Simply living on the edge of the community: I might manage that much and, perhaps, some touch of grace would rub off on me. I could slip into the chapel, like this; sitting just inside the door, joining in with the psalm.’
That girl, that young novice, how wise she looks, how single-minded. How wonderful it must be to be so confident. She must be sure that she’s been chosen. God has touched her on the shoulder and said, ‘You are Mine!’ Watching her and listening to the owls remind Sister Nichola of Con; darling Con.
‘Live at the convent gates if you must, Nicky,’ he’d cried. ‘I don’t care where it is as long as we are together. I’ll work in the gardens, too. I’ll grow the best vegetables the nuns have ever tasted.’
Sister Nichola smiles, remembering as clearly as if it had been only yesterday. He would, too: he could do anything, could Con! He is so strong and cheerful and single-minded – and so good-looking. Yet there is some barrier between them: something holding her back.
I love Con, she thinks, confused. Of course I do. Who wouldn’t love Con? He’s so exciting – but there’s something I want even more than I want Con and the little lodge at the end of the drive.
The chapel is the heart of the convent. She loves the big, busy kitchen with the delicious smell of home-made soup simmering on the range and bread baking in the oven; and she loves the high, cold refectory, too, with its long polished table and a lectern set at every place. The library, with its shelves of books and mullioned windows facing south and west, always seems full of sunshine, but the chapel, simple and clean, with its plain stone altar, is the very heart of the community; drawing her back again and again to listen to the Word in the silence.
It is very strange but the novice in her shadowy stall has disappeared: quite gone.
She thinks: I must slip away now, quickly, quickly, before I am seen. How heavy the door is tonight. I can hardly push it closed behind me, but I must hurry now. Too late! I know this nun who approaches and takes me by the arm.
‘It’s very naughty of you, Sister Nichola,’ Sister Ruth says reproachfully. ‘You’re supposed to be in bed. You’ll catch a chill, just in your nightgown.’
And when she looks down she sees that indeed she is in her nightgown, though she has a soft, silk shawl too. Her hands are mottled with freckles, an old woman’s hands, and suddenly she feels shaky and frightened. Where is the young girl who loves Con but not quite enough to marry him; who can’t believe that she could become a nun but wants to live in the little lodge at the end of the drive so that she can come into the chapel and sit in the shadowy stall near the statue of Our Lady?
Sister Ruth puts an arm about her, wrapping her warmly in the pretty shawl, and they go out together.
‘We feel rather anxious about Sister Nichola,’ Mother Magda says.
She stands in Father Pascal’s room, looking about rather vaguely as though she is wondering why she is there. He notes the familiar lines of anxiety drawn in the thin face and remembers once again the much younger Sister Magda and how she feared the responsibilities of being Mother Superior. Even now she prefers to be called ‘Sister’ rather than ‘Mother’.
‘I don’t often see you here,’ he says warmly, taking her elbow in his hand and guiding her to an armchair. ‘Have you time for some coffee? Or tea?’
She subsides into the chair with a sudden sigh, as if she is abrogating all her worries.
‘I should love coffee,’ she says gratefully. ‘Yes, please. And I am here because I want to speak in complete privacy and confidence without anyone seeing us and jumping to conclusions.’
He goes to make coffee, calling back through the open door to her: ‘Sister Ruth?’
‘Yes.’ She sighs, almost guiltily. ‘I am anxious that Sister Nichola is getting too much for her but she simply won’t have it. She becomes defensive and angry if the subject is even broached. You heard how Sister Nichola came down to Compline in her nightgown? Well, what can one do? We can’t lock her into her room, after all, but it has been decided that it is simply too late for her to be up at night now. After all, she is ninety-two, and not strong.’
Father Pascal comes back into the room whilst the kettle boils. He leans against the doorjamb. ‘Now this is an instance where it would be better if you were in the Coach House with Janna. She could keep an eye sometimes, couldn’t she?’
‘She could,’ agrees Mother Magda. ‘In fact, she already does. Sister Ruth has her own work and duties, and then the rest of us step in, but she is like a hen with one chick. She feels that nobody is quite as capable as she is.’
‘Surely this little escapade has shown her that she must accept that she’s not quite managing?’
‘She was humiliated.’ Mother Magda gives an involuntary snort of amusement, remembering. ‘We heard a noise and there was Sister Nichola in her nightie and Janna’s shawl, wrestling with the chapel door. Poor Sister Ruth was almost apoplectic.’
Father Pascal makes a pot of coffee and carries it in. ‘Perhaps she’s aware of the excitement,’ he suggests. ‘Maybe it’s unsettled her. Next year she will be celebrating seventy years of her profession.’
Mother Magda watches him pouring the coffee, smiling a little. ‘And all of them here at Chi-Meur. She was born in Peneglos. She told me once how she was in love with a local farmer’s son and she wanted to marry him and live at the Lodge, but then she realized that she loved God more than the young man and she broke off the engagement. Apparently he took it very badly and went out to New Zealand. You probably know that? It isn’t a secret.’
He nods. ‘I know the story. It seems half the local people are related to her and were very hot under the collar at the prospect of her not ending her days here. They’re all thrilled that you’re staying on. They told me that he used to send her photographs of him with his new love and their children so as to underline what she was missing.’
‘And she used to show them to everyone so proudly. She was simply relieved that he was happy. “Yet I loved him so much,” she used to say, gazing at his picture. And, in a way, I think she still does.’
‘But not enough,’ says Father Pascal, passing her a mug.
Mother Magda shakes her head; she sip
s her coffee appreciatively: real coffee is a luxury in which the Sisters do not indulge.
‘So what is to be done?’ he murmurs. ‘We need a tiny crisis, not too serious, which will enable Sister Ruth to accept Janna’s help.’
‘That would indeed be a miracle.’
‘Surely Sister Nichola’s need is greater than Sister Ruth’s pride?’
‘Oh, yes, but it will take something more than this to help her acknowledge that it is her pride that is causing the barrier.’ She watches as Father Pascal pours his own coffee.
‘Then we must pray for another miracle.’
She smiles at him and raises her mug as if in some kind of toast or pledge. ‘After all,’ she says, ‘in our line of work it is our job to expect miracles. By the way, I’ve had another letter from Mr Brewster urging us to reconsider his offer. I think it’s quite in order for us to tell him that the retreat house is not just a hope but a very real possibility, don’t you?’
‘I think it will be quite in order,’ Father Pascal says. ‘It would have to be some very great disaster to stop us now.’
Sister Emily and Jakey are picking apples. Stripey Bunny is perched in the fork of a low branch, watching them. The higher branches have been shaken from a vantage point a few steps up on the ladder and now Jakey approaches each windfall cautiously, turning it with the toe of his shoe lest a wasp should be lurking. He places each apple carefully into Sister Emily’s basket whilst she reaches into the lower branches to pick any remaining ripe apple with a quick, deft twist of the wrist.
Janna, who has done the shaking – ‘Not too hard,’ cries Sister Emily, ‘we don’t want bruising’ – has retired to make refreshments for the workers and now appears at the caravan door to call them.
‘We’ve done thlee tlees,’ says Jakey contentedly as he climbs the steps. ‘There are lots and lots of apples. Can we be outside, Janna?’
‘Not today, my lover,’ she answers. ‘’Tis too wet after the rain last night.’
The Christmas Angel Page 20