Young Denis Kelly, thought the Reverend Mother, sobbed as though he had lost a wife or a mother. How close had they been? Worked closely with each other, the aunt had said. The older sister had worked in a prestigious position, worked in a man’s world, while the younger girl, Betty, just had a job as a nursemaid, something that was often handed over to a girl from an orphanage. What was it that the aunt had said? She had hinted at a certain amount of tension, jealousy, perhaps. They weren’t that close, the two of them. A bit of jealousy between them always. These had been the words of a woman who knew both girls very well, had probably been a mother to them during childhood and through their adolescent years, after the death of their own mother. Patsy, Sister Gertrude, the clever one, the favourite of her father and Betty the pretty one. Would that have been the first time that a young man had favoured Betty over her elder sister? Or was the elder sister used to giving into her appealing younger sister. She scrutinized the young man carefully, and hoped that her silence was sufficient to calm the atmosphere.
‘I’m sorry, Reverend Mother. I’m sorry. It’s just … Well, it’s just come over me that I’ll never see her again. I just can’t believe it.’ The young man was struggling for control, his handsome face distorted, blotched dark red and white, his eyes still streaming.
‘Don’t make any apologies.’ The Reverend Mother purposely made her voice matter-of-fact and slightly detached. Nevertheless, she offered no condolences. It was time for him to pull himself together. After all, he couldn’t sit there and cry for ever. He would have to go and break the terrible news to his wife. Presumably that was why Mrs O’Sullivan had sent for him.
‘You would have known Sister Gertrude very well, of course,’ she added. ‘Now tell me what you would wish to know. I don’t want to detain you too long. There is, in fact, little that I can tell you,’ she went on as he still sobbed and still wiped his eyes. ‘As I said to Mrs O’Sullivan, we here at the convent are mystified as to the reason for Sister Gertrude’s death. She had complained of feeling unwell last night, of feeling dizzy and nauseous but she had no temperature and the sister in charge of the novices felt that there was little more than a good night’s sleep needed to restore Sister Gertrude to her usual happy and healthy self. Unfortunately, there must have been something more wrong with her and at the moment I am awaiting the examination by the convent’s doctor.’ She rose decisively to her feet and was glad to see that he followed her example.
‘I’ll send a message over to your house as soon as I have more positive information,’ she said briskly. ‘In the meantime, I can only convey my most sincere condolences to Sister Gertrude’s sister and I hope that you will assure her that she, as well as her sister, will be remembered in the community’s prayers today.’
He gulped a little, shook his head sadly, but said nothing while she rang the bell to summon Sister Bernadette. She didn’t feel up to showing him out herself. There was something about this almost unbridled show of sorrow which slightly alarmed her.
Even after the young man had silently followed Sister Bernadette to the door, she did not take up her paper knife and deal with the correspondence which had been neatly piled on her desk. Two things stuck in her mind and made her feel uneasy. She hoped that the young man managed to master his excessive grief by the time that the burial of Sister Gertrude took place and she hoped that there had been nothing significant about Mrs O’Sullivan’s recollection of the bridesmaid question.
But then Patsy wouldn’t wait, after all the fuss and the bother. Had to rush into the convent before the wedding took place. Never understood it myself.
Nor I, she had commented at the time, but really, it was not difficult to understand. What if the original love affair had been between Denis Kelly and the older daughter of John Donovan? What if it had been only temporarily terminated by the pretty face of the younger sister? Perhaps, after a few months, he had reverted to his first love and the eldest sister had fled to the convent in order to avoid breaking the heart of Betty.
And then she remembered something else.
Betty had visited her elder sister on the afternoon before she became ill. The Reverend Mother had a sudden vision of the two of them walking in the garden. They had seemed friendly enough. She had heard a peal of laughter as Sister Gertrude had displayed the hens which were her special responsibility, bestowed upon her by Sister Mary Immaculate who had not wanted the young novice to get above herself because of all the time she spent in the holy of holies, the Reverend Mother’s own room. They had seemed friendly enough then, but had there been any hidden dislike, any memory of passionate words spoken by that handsome young man to the wrong sister? Was he, wondered the Reverend Mother, one of those people who like to load their sins, whether sins of commission or sins of desire, on to the shoulders of others? Had he confessed to his young wife? And if so, what had Betty thought about her husband’s feelings for her cloistered sister?
The Reverend Mother thrust the image of the two sisters walking in the convent garden from her mind and rang the bell once more.
‘I’m sorry to keep disturbing you, Sister Bernadette,’ she said apologetically, ‘but I wonder whether you could send someone to find Sister Joan and Sister Brigid and ask them to come here. I want to have a word with them.’
The fact that Sister Catherine was an attention-seeking nuisance did not absolve her superior from enquiring about a threat to kill a girl who died shortly after the reported quarrel. She did, at least, need to ask the two young novices about the reasons for the quarrel.
They had entered the novitiate on the same day, Sister Joan and Sister Brigid. Had been born in the same hospital to mothers who were near neighbours, had known each other in their prams. Had gone to school on the same day and had been friends right through their school life.
Two nice girls, the Reverend Mother had thought. Fond of the children, interested in the theories of teaching, willing to expand their own education.
A certain fanaticism about the resurrection of the Irish language, a tendency to exclude older nuns by happily chattering in Gaelic to each other, well, the Reverend Mother had been willing to tolerate this. After all, she was old and probably very out-of-date, and perhaps it was important for a new country to disinter a language which had not been spoken by most Corkonians for many generations, even if it had been still in use in remote districts in the west of Ireland. Moreover, if jobs in the future were to depend on a fluency with the Irish language, then she was all for her new teachers to be drilled in this. Even if it meant a certain amount of head-tossing from Sister Mary Immaculate who resented the number of evenings when the girls were missing Benediction because they had gone to attend an Irish class on the other side of the city.
They came quietly and demurely into the room and stood waiting.
The Reverend Mother looked at them. Something very tense about both of them.
‘You’ve heard the news?’ They both nodded. Sister Brigid half-suppressed a sob. Her very sensitive mouth quivered. She took out her handkerchief and dabbed her cheeks. But above the snowy whiteness of the linen, her dark brown eyes were fixed upon her friend. Tentative, unsure, waiting for a lead.
‘We heard that she may have eaten something. That she might have been poisoned.’ Sister Joan, like her namesake, St Joan of Arc, was courageous and forthright. The Reverend Mother appreciated this quality. She would have preferred to say nothing until after Dr Scher had seen the body and had given his opinion, but doubtless the convent was seething with rumours sparked off by the loud and tactless observations voiced by the young doctor from Northern Ireland. Sister Joan would have to be answered and would have to have as full an answer as she could provide. Not pretty like her friend, nevertheless, Sister Joan had a pair of forthright, honest, pale blue eyes that compelled a similar honesty from her superior.
‘I don’t know yet; I’m waiting to see Dr Scher, but that was said,’ admitted the Reverend Mother. Odd, she thought, how faces can differ. The two girls si
tting opposite to her, same age, in what way did the arrangement of mouth, nose, cheekbones and eyes ensure that one was strikingly pretty while the other was downright plain?
‘But we all eat the same food. And the same amount of it.’ The pale blue eyes opposite hers were intent upon her. ‘I just don’t understand, Reverend Mother. How could just one person in a convent be poisoned and no one else show any signs of illness?’
‘I think that we are all puzzled, all in the dark at the moment,’ said the Reverend Mother and added pointedly, ‘I won’t speculate until I’ve spoken with Dr Scher. At the moment, none of us knows why poor Sister Gertrude died.’
‘She was ill after supper yesterday.’ Sister Joan was refusing to take the hint. The thin lips had firmed and the blue eyes were staring ahead, with a hint of belligerence. ‘She got up in the middle of the night and I heard her vomit. She went to the window and threw it open and I heard her vomit through the window, right down the ivy.’
The Reverend Mother sat up very straight. This was unexpected. Surely Sister Mary Immaculate, in her role as Mistress of the Novices, should have known if one was ill during the night. She said nothing, but saw her thoughts mirrored in the face opposite. Sister Brigid gave a slight whimper but there was no surprise in those childlike brown eyes. Apprehension, perhaps, but certainly not surprise. She, too, had known of this attack of vomiting.
‘Anyone else disturbed in the night?’ she asked. Currently there were just four novices, but the divisions between the novices’ dormitory and Sister Mary Immaculate’s room was only marked by heavy curtains. It was pointless, she thought, to ask the competent Sister Joan why she had not summoned the mistress of novices. The Reverend Mother tried hard to be fair to the young and not to ask them stupid questions. After all, if she were ill, she acknowledged to herself, the last person that she would want to see would be Sister Mary Immaculate who would pass from exclamations to cross-examinations.
‘No, no one,’ said Sister Joan. ‘Sister Catherine slept through and no one else heard. Sister Gertrude and I have the two beds nearest to the window, and I probably disturbed Sister Brigid when I jumped out of bed, to see what was wrong.’ The girl’s lips were very firm, rather compressed, accentuating the length of the over-long upper lip but her eyes were anxious. Sister Brigid slid her eyes between her friend and her superior and then looked towards the door. Convent life was ruled by bells and soon the summons to the midday dinner table would sound and would release the two from further questioning. And why was she questioning them in the first place? A novice had died. Quite unexpectedly. A brash and rather ignorant young doctor had declared his opinion that she had died from alcohol poisoning. That, most surely, must be incorrect. But why had Sister Gertrude fallen ill yesterday, vomited in the night and then died the following morning? All novices in her care had a three-monthly check-up. And a full medical examination before they were allowed to enter the convent. The dreaded tuberculosis disease was rife among the population of this wet and foggy city and the Reverend Mother guarded against allowing it entry to her flock.
‘Did Sister Catherine tell you that we, Sister Brigid and I, had a quarrel with Sister Gertrude?’ Never one to shirk her fences, Sister Joan faced her courageously.
‘Did you? Have a quarrel with Sister Gertrude?’ The Reverend Mother disliked betraying confidences and resolved not to be stampeded by this confident young lady. A very steady gaze met hers. Sister Joan was trying to decide whether Sister Catherine had said anything or not. Beneath the heavy, dark brows the blue eyes were speculative and then became hard. The pair of lines that ran from nostrils to upper lip flattened out as the mouth tightened.
‘Well, I suppose that she did. It wouldn’t be like her not to.’ The words were addressed more to herself than to either the Reverend Mother or to her friend, but Sister Brigid flinched noticeably. Sister Joan, however, did not look at her. She stood very straight and there was a determined lift of her head and the firm chin jutted forward. ‘She told you that I had threatened to kill Sister Gertrude.’
‘Sister Gertrude made no complaint to me,’ observed the Reverend Mother.
‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she? She’s … she wasn’t stupid; bossy, yes, but not stupid.’
‘And you would prefer not to tell me what it was all about …’ The Reverend Mother allowed her unfinished observation to hang in the air. Sister Brigid fastened her pearl-white teeth on her lower lip and looked up apprehensively at her taller friend.
‘Just schoolgirl stuff.’ The words were decisive, but Sister Joan’s rigidity betrayed her unease.
‘School.’ The Reverend Mother seized on the word. ‘Something to do with the classes that you two attend at St Ita’s, at Scoil Ide?’
And that had been an inspired guess. Tears brimmed Sister Brigid’s brown eyes and she turned so pale that for a moment she looked as though she would faint. Sister Joan’s face whitened also, but courage came to her rescue and she lifted her head and stared blankly at the Reverend Mother.
‘Scoil Ide?’ she queried.
‘Yes.’ The Reverend Mother allowed the monosyllable to stand without explanation or modification. There was something very odd about both girls’ reactions.
St Ita’s School, Scoil Ide, in Irish, was a small, private school for girls, run for the monied children of rich and liberal-minded families with republican leanings. It had been opened about eight years ago by the two sisters of Terence MacSwiney, former Lord Mayor of Cork, who had died of a hunger strike in an English prison. Mary MacSwiney had been a teacher in St Angela’s Convent, a fee-paying Cork school for girls, but had been dismissed from her post due to her notoriety in Republican matters. She and her sister, Annie, had set up a school in their own house where the instruction of the pupils was carried on completely in Irish. A very successful school, so the Reverend Mother had heard. Mary and her sister were well-educated, well-qualified, had both been trained as teachers in a college at Cambridge. The pupils were well taught; they were, she had heard, carefully educated with an unusual degree of respect for their opinions and priority was put on learning for interest rather than by rote or through fear of punishment.
So far as her school was concerned, the Reverend Mother had a respect for Mary MacSwiney, but on a personal basis she found her shrill and dogmatic, one whose opinions were very black and white and never did admit the slightest shades of grey. The woman bitterly opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which despite its limitations had brought a certain measure of peace to the troubled country of Ireland, calling it ‘the grossest act of betrayal that Ireland ever endured’. Her speeches were among the most powerful in the Irish parliament, calling on the members in the Dáil not to commit ‘the one unforgivable crime that has ever been committed by the representatives of the people of Ireland’ by accepting a treaty which required an oath of allegiance to the British monarchy, and which divided the country of Ireland, placing a border that made six counties from the nine counties of Ulster to belong to Britain. She may well have right on her side, but she had, suspected the Reverend Mother, little thought for the young lives that were still being lost amongst those who followed her dogma.
Nevertheless, Mary MacSwiney had been one of the founder members of the Gaelic League and was passionate in her love for the ancient language, so when two of her novices expressed an earnest desire to attend evening classes at Scoil Ide, the Reverend Mother instantly gave permission, despite Sister Mary Immaculate’s whispered confidences about young men attending these lessons. It was no part of her philosophy to immure these novices within the convent walls. Better for them to see as much of the world as possible before they made the decision to take their final vows. After all Mary and Annie MacSwiney were middle-aged women in their forties who should be able to ensure decorous behaviour among a crowd of young people. As a precaution she had persuaded Sister Gertrude to accompany the two younger girls.
But perhaps she had been mistaken, perhaps it had been a bad idea. The late Sister Gertrud
e had been no prude, no convent schoolgirl. She had been out in the world, had held her own in the very masculine atmosphere of Ford’s Factory and had forced men there to accept her ability and her status. Had been, by all accounts, very happy at her workplace. She would not have issued a threat to report the girls to the Reverend Mother unless she had felt something serious was going on.
‘So why do you think Sister Gertrude was worried about you two?’ she queried.
Sister Brigid’s brown eyes overflowed with tears and Sister Joan was white-lipped, almost looking like her namesake, St Joan of Arc, when faced by the flames. Something was badly wrong.
‘I don’t know.’ The tone was almost rude, but the Reverend Mother decided to ignore this.
‘I’d prefer to know all that had been said, rather than hearing from a third party,’ she said in a detached manner. This, she hoped, gave a non-judgemental opportunity for a confession. Some silly flirtation, giggles on the road back from Wellington Street, possibly young men assisting the two young novices on those break-neck steps descending the steep hill to Patrick Street.
But why and how had the older and more sophisticated Sister Gertrude come to be so concerned about that. And would she have been even interested? The Reverend Mother thought not. Sister Gertrude, the one-time Patsy Donovan, had been interested in figures, in puzzles, but not particularly in people. She had shown bare tolerance of the other novices who were all four or five years younger than she, had not appeared to be friendly with any of them.
‘But you’re not a schoolgirl, either of you, are you? And yet you used that very extreme expression. That is correct, is it not? You threatened to kill Sister Gertrude.’ The Reverend Mother slid her eyes sideways to look at the silent Sister Brigid. The girl was very white and there was a bead of blood glistening on the deep pink of her lower lip.
‘She was interfering in something that was none of her business.’ Sister Joan faced her superior bravely, but her eyes were beginning to look frightened.
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