A VOW OF DEVOTION an utterly gripping crime mystery

by Veronica Black

  ‘I’ll help with the dishes,’ Magdalen said.

  ‘Bernadette?’ Sister Joan looked at her.

  ‘I’ll be self-sacrificing tomorrow,’ Bernadette said brightly. ‘I’d like to go to recreation, Sister.’

  ‘Fine. Let’s go up to supper then.’

  Shepherding them up the stairs she wished that she could look forward to Magdalen’s prospective company a little more. The girl was unsure of herself, wanting to create a good impression, that was all.

  ‘Sister, can you take up the bread? I’ve done everything else but I have to help Sister Mary Concepta upstairs,’ Sister Martha asked as she approached.

  ‘Sister, I’m sorry! That was my responsibility.’ Sister Joan dived back through to the kitchen, thinking ruefully that she must be getting old if she couldn’t keep more than one thing in her head at a time, and picked up the bread basket and the jug of dressing.

  Alice growled suddenly, deep in her throat, raising her head from the basket where she was curled.

  ‘What is it, girl?’ Sister Joan put down the dishes and went to the kitchen window. In the courtyard a soft twilight was stealing in and the shadows were growing longer. Nothing moved but a restless whinny came from the stable.

  Standing at the window wasn’t going to achieve much. Sister Joan opened the door and said loudly, ‘Hello! is anybody there?’

  There was only the echo of her own voice. The breeze had freshened, blustering round the corner in a flurry of dust motes.

  ‘Is there someone there?’ She took another couple of steps forward, the breeze lifting the edge of her veil.

  Alice had put her head down again for a nap. Probably she had been chasing a stray rabbit in her sleep. Sister Joan retreated, closing the door with a little bang, and sliding the bolt.

  ‘Good dog, Alice.’ She patted the dog and took bread and dressing up the stairs.

  The community was in place at the long table, Sister Hilaria with her charges, the Prioress at the head of the table.

  The latter raised an eyebrow as Sister Joan panted in but refrained from reciting the grace until she was in her place. At the other side of the table the two visitors sat together, Magdalen still wearing her headscarf.

  ‘We are fortunate to have the opportunity of welcoming two visitors,’ Mother Dorothy said when Grace was done. ‘Bernadette and Magdalen have asked that we call them by their Christian names while they are here. Of course there is a possibility that one or both of them may join us later as fellow religious, but whether they do or not I know we’ll all do everything possible to make them feel at home. Sister Joan, though we have guests we must keep to the routine.’

  ‘Yes, Mother Dorothy,’ Sister Joan said.

  Nobody would be more pleased than herself when a full-time lay sister could be found. She did her best but it was a difficult position to hold between the demands of the spiritual and the duties of what amounted to a full-time housekeeper. There would never again be a lay sister like Sister Margaret, poised so delicately between heaven and earth.

  At supper one of the sisters read aloud from a book dealing with the spiritual. Sister Katharine was at the lectern this evening, her gentle face animated as she read the story of St Mary Magdalen — a compliment to her namesake who sat, steadily eating, her head bent, her slim shoulders hunched as if she awaited a blow.

  The reading drew to a close. Sister Katharine took her place at the end of the table. The rest of the community filed into the recreation room, apart from Sister Hilaria and the two postulants, who returned to the postulancy for their own period of relaxation before the final blessing of the day.

  ‘Here’s your salad, Sister Katharine.’ Sister Joan set it down and motioned towards the side table. ‘The pudding’s still nice and hot. I’ll clear away later. I enjoyed the reading tonight.’

  Sister Katharine’s delicately pretty face flushed becomingly.

  ‘It was Mother Dorothy’s idea,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow I’m to read something about St Bernadette of Lourdes.’

  ‘And steal Father Malone’s thunder? Shame on you!’ Sister Joan picked up the heavy tray and looked round. ‘Oh, where did Magdalen go?’

  ‘To recreation perhaps?’ Sister Katharine suggested.

  ‘She said she preferred to help me in the kitchen — oh well she’s entitled to change her mind.’

  Glancing towards the adjoining door, she decided not to interrupt. She would probably get on faster alone.

  Going down into the kitchen she unbolted the door and let Alice out for a run. Mother Dorothy had been adamant that pets had no place in a convent and had only allowed Alice to remain on condition that she was trained as a reliable guard dog. So far her training had been somewhat desultory and far from showing suspicion of any stranger she welcomed every comer as a long lost member of her pack.

  The evening had chilled. Sister Joan shivered slightly as she rolled up her sleeves and tackled the dishes, grateful for the hot water and the warmth still emitted from the cooker and the banked up fire that fed the boiler. For her one of the great deprivations of the religious life had been the complete absence of heating save in kitchen and infirmary. There were times even now when she thought wistfully of a sofa drawn up to a blazing log fire and a good novel and a box of chocolates to while away the time.

  Outside Alice began barking to be let in.

  ‘Alice! Here, girl!’ Sister Joan opened the back door and whistled.

  The dog came in like an arrow shot by a very competent archer and bounded round as if she had been exiled for days.

  ‘Silly girl! When you’re trained you’ll have to patrol the grounds at night.’ Sister Joan set down the dinner of biscuits and gravy to which Alice immediately applied herself as if she hadn’t been charming titbits out of Sister Perpetua all day.

  The dishes dried and the cloths scalded, she slipped across the yard to check on Lilith who greeted her with a nuzzling nose.

  ‘Here’s your supper.’ Sister Joan offered the nightly treat, checked on feed and water, and resolved that with the improvement in the weather she’d make time to exercise the pony more often.

  Lilith was no youngster but she still relished a good gallop from time to time.

  ‘And so do I?’ Sister Joan questioned aloud and laughed as she bolted the stable door, patted the old jalopy in the yard, and went back inside.

  There were still ten minutes of recreation left. It was Sister David’s task as sacristan to check on the chapel but, since she also combined the duties of secretary with her work as translator, recently she had allowed a few practical matters to slip her mind and Sister Joan had fallen into the habit of checking up without advertising the fact. The last thing that Mother Dorothy would welcome was the emergence of another sister as dreamy as Sister Hilaria.

  ‘She is a great soul and may be permitted a little wool gathering,’ she had once informed Sister Joan, ‘but we are not blessed with her particular gifts, Sister, so it behoves us to keep our feet on the ground.’

  She had not, of course, been talking about Sister David but scolding Sister Joan for absentmindedly putting bicarbonate of soda instead of cornflour in the sponge cake. The memory of that made her grin ruefully again as she bolted the back door and went across the main hall to the chapel wing.

  In the chapel the sanctuary light burned as it always burned with a steady, deep crimson flame that cast a rosy glow over the main altar above which the carved figure of Christ brooded, haloed by the first starlight piercing the circular window behind. A slender shape stood just beyond the Lady-Altar, looking up the narrow stairs as if deciding whether or not to mount. Magdalen had obviously gone exploring by herself, but there was something about her strained, listening attitude that seemed to beg for company.

  ‘Is there anything I can—?’ Sister Joan gulped as Magdalen swung round, her face alight with panic.

  That was ironic, Sister Joan thought. Why did Magdalen look so terrified when she was the one holding the open flick knife?r />
  Three

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister.’ The knife was withdrawn as swiftly as it had appeared. ‘You startled me.’

  ‘Evidently.’ Sister Joan took a grip on herself. ‘Isn’t it illegal to carry a flick knife these days?’

  ‘Sometimes one is followed,’ Magdalen said.

  ‘Even so.’ Sister Joan hesitated, wondering what on earth to do. There was nothing in the rule about carrying weapons. ‘In the city I imagine it can be quite dangerous for a lone woman but here there’s really nothing to worry about. The only person who’s liable to trail after you is Luther from the Romany camp. He’s a bit simple in the head but completely harmless. Perhaps you’d better let me take care of it?’

  ‘I feel safer with some protection,’ Magdalen said.

  ‘Look, we can go into town tomorrow and buy a personal alarm if you like,’ Sister Joan suggested. ‘One of those that screams if you press it. Believe me, but we’d all come running.’

  ‘I won’t come into town,’ Magdalen said, ‘but I’d be grateful for the alarm. I can give you the money for it now.’

  She dug in the pocket of her dress and thrust a number of notes into Sister Joan’s hand.

  ‘I’ll see you get a receipt,’ Sister Joan said, wondering what on earth she was letting herself in for. ‘Honestly you’ve no need to worry.’

  ‘Is the library up there?’ Magdalen indicated the stairs.

  ‘The library and the storerooms, yes. Did you want to borrow a book? We have lights out at nine-thirty but, of course, you may keep yours on to read if you wish.’

  ‘I’ll do as the community does. Are the windows up there locked?’

  ‘No, they don’t have locks,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Look, if you’re worried about any burglars there’s no need to be! We leave the outside door to the chapel open all the time because we like to feel that anyone in need of spiritual comfort can come in to pray at any hour of the day or night, but we lock the inner door that divides this wing from the hall last thing at night, and though anyone coming into the chapel could go up to the library the upper wing is blocked off from the main wing. They’d have to break down a brick wall in order to get through to the rest of us. Shall we go and start clearing up in the kitchen or would you like to join the others at recreation?’

  ‘I’ll help you, Sister.’

  The panic, the hint of violence were gone. Magdalen genuflected to the altar and went meekly out, pausing only to bless herself from the holy-water stoup.

  Something had frightened the girl, frightened her so badly that she carried a knife with which to defend herself. Her drab appearance, so much at variance with her delicate patrician colouring, her beautifully manicured nails, her refusal to contemplate a trip into town, her checking out of neighbouring buildings and of locks all pointed one way. Magdalen Cole was hiding. From an enemy or from the law? Sister Joan, wiping up dishes as the other washed them, was visited by doubt.

  Ought she to tell Mother Dorothy immediately about what had transpired or should she keep her own counsel for the moment, watch and wait? Magdalen might be having delusions or choosing a rather odd way in which to make herself seem interesting to the community. For the time being she would wait. She would also, she decided firmly, get hold of that flick knife as quickly as possible.

  The chapel bell rang the signal for the last prayers of the day. Magdalen wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and fell in behind Sister Joan as they returned to the chapel for the night office and the blessing that marked the start of the grand silence which lasted until Sister Joan, in her capacity as lay sister, heaved herself out of bed at 5 a.m. the next morning to wake the community with the cry of ‘Christ is risen’, repeated at the door of every cell. For the next few hours she could put the problem of the visitor at the back of her mind and sleep.

  Or not sleep! Two hours later she sat up in bed, thumped her pillow and decided that she must have been infected by Magdalen’s apprehension, since she needed to check that the locks were all secure. Pulling on her dressing-gown and slippers she padded into the kitchen, where Alice, asleep in her basket, opened one eye and promptly fell asleep again.

  The back door and window were firmly bolted as was the window of the empty cell adjoining her own. She went down the passage, hearing a rhythmic snoring from the infirmary where the two old sisters slept, past the dispensary with its bottles of coltsfoot cough mixture and jars of herbs, into the wide entrance hall.

  A low wattage bulb burned in the standard lamp in the corner. The door leading into the chapel wing was bolted as it customarily was. She stepped across and drew the bolt back softly. When one couldn’t sleep, something that happened only rarely to herself, a few minutes in church calmed one’s spirit. She opened the door, closed it and went along the unlit corridor towards the chapel door where the perpetual lamp threw a beam of comfort.

  Lowering herself into her usual seat she closed her eyes, letting the peace lap round her. Perhaps the wisest course of action at this stage was to keep silent, to persuade Magdalen to give up the knife, and trust that the conventual routine, the friendliness of the community, and the Presence in the chapel itself would remove the fear that clearly affected the young woman.

  Someone was walking about overhead. The soft tread of feet over bare boards beat a regular rhythm over her head. Sister Joan’s eyes flew open and she sat upright, the last faint desire for sleep disappearing. One of the other sisters? Surely not. When anyone found sleep impossible the chapel was the first recourse, not the darkened library and storerooms above.

  There was nothing worth stealing in the upstairs storey. The only items of value were here in the chapel. An ordinary thief could come in, load his bag with silver candlesticks and chalice, use the small key to unlock the monstrance with its star panels of silver and pearl hidden behind the curtain of the sanctuary. Not an ordinary thief, she corrected herself mentally. Only a man without sensitivity would rob a chapel. And this chapel hadn’t been robbed. Everything was in place, dim and shadowed by the night.

  Rising, her slippers making no noise on the carpet, she moved to the Lady-altar where the narrow staircase spiralled upwards into blackness. Had there been a door at the top she might have crept up and bolted it but the stairs came out on to a square landing with library and storerooms opening off it.

  If she went and woke up the rest of the community there would be general panic and if she tried to rouse Sister Perpetua who was the tallest and most vigorous of the sisters the infirmarian would make so much noise getting into the chapel that any intruder would be alerted.

  Sister Joan picked up an empty candlestick from the altar, breathed a silent prayer to Our Lady of Compassion whose plaster statue held a smiling Baby Jesus, and went up the spiral stairs, wishing she had confiscated the flick knife.

  A thin pencil of light moved across the landing past the open doors of the storerooms. Sister Joan hesitated, then stepped within the library and stood, close pressed against the half-open door, listening. The tread of the pacing feet was clear up here. She listened for some sound of breathing but there was none, though that was probably because her own heart was beating like a drum in her ears.

  Someone was coming closer. She heard the footsteps stop, held her breath as the pencil of light steadied, then moved slowly across the landing. A shadow, grotesque and bat-like, filled the wall, swelled and diminished. Someone — something? went past down the stairs in a swirl of blackness, and the light was gone before she could cry out.

  She took a couple of deep breaths and eased herself away from the door frame, the candlestick jerking nervously in her hand. Below a door closed softly, galvanizing her into action. Which way had the intruder gone? Through the door that led into the main hall and thence to the rest of the convent? Please God, no!

  In the chapel she stood for a fraction of a second, not sure which way to turn. Then she was opening the inner door just as the long pencil of light shone outside one of the windows, making the diamond panes glit
ter. Whoever had paced the storerooms had gone through the outer door. Sister Joan turned and ran down the narrow passage, her hand shooting home the bolt on the outer door. Should any poor soul need prayer or spiritual comfort this night they would have to sit on the doorstep until she came at dawn to unlock the entrance door.

  The candlestick was still in her hand. She looked at it stupidly before moving back into the chapel and replacing it on the Lady-altar. Her legs were shaking as if she had been running for miles. Lowering herself gingerly to the floor she rested her head against the wooden base of the altar and tried to collect her thoughts. Someone had been hanging round the convent earlier. She remembered Alice’s warning growl, the high snickering whinny of the pony. Whoever had been there had waited until all was quiet and then entered the chapel by way of the outside door and gone upstairs. Clearly they had found the inner door locked and sought another way into the convent. For the first time Sister Joan blessed the snobbishness of the Tarquin family who had blocked off the access between family rooms and staff quarters.

  She rose at last, fright giving way to weariness and made her way through the inner door, bolting it carefully, before padding across the hall into the antechamber beyond which was the Prioress’s parlour. The bay windows here were always locked at night but it would do no harm to check them. She did so, her eyes straying to the dark lawn outside, but no pencil of light pierced the gloom. The intruder had gone, swirled away into blackness as if they had been no more than the figment of a nightmare.

  By the time she had reached her cell again she was aching with weariness. If the intruder returned then at least every door would be bolted now. She pulled off her dressing-gown, stepped out of her slippers, and was asleep as her head hit the pillow.

  Habit woke her only a few minutes after time. She dressed hastily, splashed her face with cold water, tugged a comb through her short mop of black curls, pinned her short veil and went to open the inner and outer doors of the chapel. The early morning air had a soft grey quality like the inside of an oyster. Dew sparkled on the turf beyond the door and the trees that bordered the path rustled in a rising breeze. On the step lay a red rose, its petals still tightly curled, its stem stripped of thorns, only the little cluster of leaves holding a faint prickliness.