Death of a Novice

by Cora Harrison

  She coloured up then, but that could have been guilt about neglected housekeeping. ‘Well, I certainly didn’t put it there. I don’t even like treacle.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘But perhaps you intended to give it to someone else?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t.’ There was something very obstinate and belligerent about the girl this afternoon; quite unlike her usual childlike and pious demeanour, but perhaps that was to do with the prospect of a battle over the brooch.

  The Reverend Mother shelved the matter of the treacle for the moment and turned back to the immediate problem.

  ‘I’m afraid that I shall have to ask you to hand over that brooch, Sister Catherine,’ she said. ‘I will contact your parents. As you are still a novice it may be handed back to them, or if they wish, it will be sold and the proceeds will go towards our work here.’

  ‘No!’ The exclamation came without a second’s hesitation. ‘No! You can’t take it from me. I’ve had it all my life. I can’t live without it. I need to see it every day. I need to touch it, to watch its colours. I need it! I can’t live without it.’

  Her voice had risen to an alarming pitch and now all the colour faded from her face and she confronted her superior, white-faced and large-eyed. She clutched the brooch, her fingers hiding it and her eyes blazed with … fear … no, not fear, anger. Yes, thought the Reverend Mother. It’s anger. Something badly wrong with that girl. Not even the bishop, himself, was going to persuade her away from that view. She was not going to keep this particular novice. She would have to go.

  ‘There is a third possibility,’ she said evenly. ‘You may, if you wish, leave this congregation of your own free will. You have taken no final vows and you are free to go. Your health has not been of the best since you joined us. I have noticed that your colour is poor and I’m sure that you have lost weight. Dr Scher, I know, would be very willing to explain to your parents why you found it necessary to give up your noviciate.’ She watched a stubborn look come into the girl’s eyes and her heart sank. ‘And when you leave,’ she said, playing her trump card, ‘when you leave, you will, of course, take your diamond brooch with you.’

  For a moment she thought that she might have won. The girl was sitting directly beneath the gas lamp and from time to time she turned the brooch so that the stones caught the light. There was a batch of letters, turned upside down and awaiting envelopes, on the table in front of her and as the Reverend Mother watched, a perfect spectrum of colours, more gorgeous than any rainbow, splayed out from the brooch and onto the white page. The girl’s face lit up and became starry-eyed, almost as though she were seeing heavenly visions, like the peasant girl at Lourdes. The battle was lost.

  Or was it won? The Reverend Mother saw her way forward as Sister Catherine rose to her feet, shaking her head with a resolute air.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s mine. No one can take it from me. I won’t let them.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Reverend Mother calmly. ‘I suggest that you think about this matter until tomorrow morning. But if by tomorrow morning at ten o’clock I have not received that brooch from you, then I will telephone the bishop, tell him that I do not consider you a suitable candidate for our community. In the meantime, and before your parents come to fetch you home, I would beg you to take the utmost care of that very valuable brooch and do not let it become an occasion of sin for someone who might be tempted to steal it from you.’

  And with those words, the Reverend Mother picked up her pen and began writing a new letter. She kept her eyes fixed on the page, but heard the door click quietly as it was opened and then shut with great care.

  She put down her pen, then, and stared at the wall. She had failed. But that was of small importance. She was used to failure and had learned to push it aside and to get on with the next project. What was troubling her now was the fanaticism showed, the worship of that object less than two inches in width. Beautiful. Perhaps. Probably not as beautiful as a rose if viewed dispassionately. And yet Sister Catherine had made no protest, had not offered to give up her trinket when faced with the certainty that by retaining it, she would have to give up her lifetime dream of becoming a holy nun.

  There was something definitely unhinged about Sister Catherine. The Reverend Mother propped her chin on one hand and thought about the girl. She did not pick up her pen, but in her mind’s eye she formulated a list, each point preceded by a neatly bracketed number.

  (1) Sister Gertrude had been in the garden when Sister Catherine had been adoring her brooch.

  (2) Sister Gertrude had pin-sharp eyesight. Would have been curious, certainly …

  (3) Probably Sister Gertrude visited the hiding place later. Would have been clever enough to evaluate the quality of the object.

  (4) What if she had tackled Sister Catherine? Told her that she had no right to keep the brooch? Threatened, said Sister Bernadette, to tell the bishop. Sister Bernadette was a gossip, but she was a very truthful individual.

  (5) How would Sister Catherine react to that threat?

  (6) In desperation, Sister Catherine thinks of poison. Goes to the store cupboard. Takes out a scoop of shoe polish, perhaps, and mixes it with treacle. Possibly intending death, or hopefully just a bout of illness.

  (7) Sister Gertrude, loudly and unashamedly, informed the whole world of the convent about how much she missed sweet things, had discoursed freely on her love for sweets, chocolates and, on one occasion, had related in the corridor to the other novices of how she always stole some treacle when her sister was making cakes.

  (8) What if she had been tempted by the treacle?

  The Reverend Mother got to her feet. Her head ached and she felt as though a walk would do her good. The children were in their classrooms for another hour, all of her nuns were engaged in teaching or other duties. Sister Bernadette and her lay sisters were busy cleaning, polishing and washing linen. Her world was orderly. She could venture abroad.

  The fog had lifted by the time that she walked along Sullivan’s Quay. The river was, she thought, quite a beautiful sight in sunlight with the seagulls squawking and swooping, the sun glinting on the water and the noble ships waiting to be unloaded of their cargo. Only the immensely long line of men, all of them desperately hoping to be chosen for a job, broke into her appreciation of the scene. Freedom from England had changed little, she thought. Unemployment in Cork was just as bad as ever. Why did those men not have solid job offers? Why did they all not have contracts that said when they attended at the docks, they would get paid for a day’s work? Couldn’t some more industries be set up in order to employ the surplus men?

  By the time that she reached Dr Scher’s house on South Terrace, it was afternoon tea time. As the housekeeper opened the door for her, she smelled the fragrant incense of a well-made pot of tea and the hot flour aroma of freshly baked scones filled the air.

  ‘I’m being a nuisance,’ she said apologetically to the housekeeper and was conscious that it was a stupid thing to say. She had a vague feeling in the back of her mind that these mid-afternoon rituals between a hardworking man and his housekeeper should not be interrupted.

  ‘Not – at – all, Reverend Mother,’ said the housekeeper, her voice rising up the scale with the musical delivery of a typical Cork woman. ‘Inspector Cashman is here. He’ll be delighted to see you. They’ll both be delighted. You’ll be very welcome.’ And with those words, having dispersed all of the visitor’s doubts, she ushered her into the living room.

  ‘Reverend Mother, Dr Scher,’ she said and then closed the door behind her.

  The Reverend Mother was indeed somewhat reassured by the welcome that she received and more so by the fact that, although the small table in front of the fire had been laid out for afternoon tea, nevertheless the snack had not yet been served up and she had probably not caused any major upset.

  ‘Good evening, Dr Scher,’ she said politely, and then, ‘Patrick, I hope your mother is well. I saw her a couple of days ago.
She told me that you had bought a new griddle for her. She was delighted with it, was singing its praises.’

  And with that she took the proffered armchair by the fire and waited until tea was served and eaten before bringing forward the purpose of her visit.

  ‘I’m very worried about Sister Catherine,’ she said to Dr Scher, not addressing herself to Patrick, but conscious that he was listening carefully. ‘We have had a death in the convent. A young woman died of poison, and it behoves me, as superior of that convent, to be very sure that this poison was not administered by one of my community, possibly some shoe polish concealed in a spoonful of treacle. Sister Bernadette told me that Sister Catherine had a tin of treacle hidden under her bed.’ She looked from one to the other and saw, to her slight surprise, that Patrick was the one who gave her an understanding nod and a keen glance from alert eyes, whereas Dr Scher looked flustered and rather taken aback.

  ‘That girl, little Sister Catherine,’ he said. ‘Well, surely, Reverend Mother, you don’t actually believe that she had anything to do with Sister Gertrude’s death,’ he said.

  ‘The girl was neurotic and unstable, obsessed with strange notions about her vocation, about her sacred immunity from all wrongdoing,’ she said slowly. ‘I must say that I was very worried about it when I talked with her on the day when I found Sister Gertrude’s body in the hens’ shed.’ She looked at both men, felt that their eyes were on her, but still hesitated a little. It would be important to get things right, to be very sure of what the girl actually said. ‘What was it that she had said?’ She spoke those words aloud, more to be sure of her ground, rather than in an effort to convince them. ‘It was something about the Holy Ghost?’ she said. ‘I think that this was it. “I’ve felt for a long time that the Holy Ghost has put a shield around me, that a mantle has descended from heaven and that it wraps around me; something that keeps me isolated from all evil and wrongdoing. No matter what was going on among sinful souls, I was kept protected from it”.’

  ‘Strange,’ said Patrick, but his eyes were very alert. He had his notebook open, but had not made a note. Perhaps the metaphysical tone was a little too fantastical for him.

  Dr Scher scratched the few remaining hairs on his right temple and raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I don’t know much about your Holy Ghost, Reverend Mother, but I must say that he would be a very busy man if he has to keep rushing around the world and wrapping mantles and shields around neurotic young girls.’

  ‘She is neurotic, isn’t she?’ said the Reverend Mother soberly. ‘In some ways, I am pleased to hear you say that because it confirms my judgement and relieves me of faint feelings of guilt because, try as I can, I find her very hard work and I would be sorry to think that I just called her neurotic because I just don’t understand her type of religion. But …’

  ‘But …’ prompted Dr Scher.

  ‘But if she is neurotic, if she is dangerously out of touch with reality, then, of course, there must be a possibility that she would have killed someone because they threatened her choice of a lifestyle, because they, in her view, were frustrating the will of God.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that she had the gumption to do it, myself,’ said Dr Scher.

  ‘I think that you underestimate the power for evil that can fortify religious people,’ said the Reverend Mother. She suppressed a smile at Patrick’s expression. He looked greatly taken aback at her words. ‘Look back into history, Dr Scher. Think of your own people and how they have been persecuted and all in the name of a Christian god. Think of Spain and the Inquisition, think of the great wars of religion. As for whether she had the gumption, well, remember that poison is death at one remove. Sister Gertrude was not killed by being shot with a pistol, being strangled, being stabbed with a sword or a knife, by being burned alive by the flames of fire – all of these methods would require that the murderer would subdue all feelings of humanity, of compassion and of fellow-feeling. No, death by poison would, in comparison, have been a very easy process for a murderer. The victim administers the fatal dose to themselves. It’s all removed from the murderer. A pleasant taste. The dose is swallowed down. The agony and the death come, of course, but they come later on when the murderer is no longer around, and can no longer be made to feel remorse or compunction for their action. It is, I think, an ideal death to be inflicted by one who considers himself or herself primed by the Holy Ghost.’

  ‘And you think that it is possible that Sister Catherine might have felt herself so moved. But why now? I gather that they had already spent several months, a year, isn’t it, living together in the convent.’ Patrick glanced through his notes.

  The Reverend Mother nodded. ‘Well, there had been developments. Sister Gertrude, I gather, had found out that Sister Catherine had, utterly against all rules of the convent, retained a very valuable diamond brooch. She knew that it was completely forbidden to keep personal possessions like this and so she hid it in a hole in the bark, high in the trunk of an old willow tree beside the river in the convent garden. Sister Gertrude, it appears, did notice her communing with her treasure, and so aroused suspicion that she would report the matter to me,’ said the Reverend Mother, conscious, as she spoke, of the immensely juvenile sound of the whole business.

  ‘And that would be enough to trigger a murder! Surely not!’ Dr Scher, certainly, sounded extremely sceptical. Patrick, however, continued to write. How did one note down words such as ‘Holy Ghost’ in shorthand, wondered the Reverend Mother. She waited until her erstwhile pupil had finished, waited until he had closed his notebook, tucked it and the pencil back into his pocket before she spoke.

  ‘What do you think, Patrick?’ she asked and was conscious of a tremor of uneasiness in her voice.

  He didn’t rush to answer. She could see how the different aspect of this case of the poisoned novice nun shunted through his mind, could sense how he weighed up the facts as they were known. She liked and appreciated him and was proud to see how the little barefoot boy from a fatherless family had turned his life into such a success. Nevertheless, she often wondered whether he was able to appreciate the inner complexities of many of the minds involved in these murder cases.

  ‘I can see why you are worried, Reverend Mother,’ he said after the length of a couple of minutes. ‘On balance, though, I would feel that this is probably a Sinn Féin, Anti-Treaty crime. I’m afraid that your two young nuns, Sister Joan and Sister Brigid, were meddling with very dangerous matters when they accepted the task of taking those Foreign Missions collecting boxes to designated addresses, and of course, delivering letters to men who were being carefully watched, and, I may tell you in confidence, that the routine is that all of their correspondence was read at the post office before it was delivered. So the Sinn Féin leadership had to find an alternative motive of getting in touch and of conveying orders. And, of course, poor Sister Gertrude was meddling even deeper when she endeavoured to stop them. I think, Reverend Mother, we will find that the poor lady’s death was, in all probability, tied into the Spike Island assault. That was going to be a most successful piece of propaganda for these fellows. In one stroke, all that ammunition in Spike Island destroyed without the loss of a single life or liberty for any man fighting the Republican cause! Your Sister Gertrude, unfortunately for her, suspected that something was going on and she was known to be aware of the plot. These people, Reverend Mother, are no respecters of youth, religion or innocence. Once she crossed their path, once she threatened their security, well then, and I am very sorry to say this, Reverend Mother, and it doesn’t mean that we won’t do our utmost to find her killer, but I am afraid that once she was seen to be a threat to the enterprise, well then, her life was not worth a penny’s purchase.’

  And with that Patrick sat back, looking almost faintly surprised at his own eloquence. The Reverend Mother gave him an approving nod.

  ‘Thank you, Patrick, that’s very clear. You may well be right and if you are, well, it would be a weight off my shoulders.’
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  Once she was back in her room in the convent, though, she sat very still and considered the matter. A phrase lingered in her mind. Silly, school-girlish, it had just irritated her when she heard it first and had prompted a desire to talk to the bishop about setting the age of entry to a minimum of twenty-five years old, but now it came back to her with added significance. The reported words of Sister Gertrude to her sister, Betty Kelly. ‘Be careful, Betty, there’s Sister Mary Immaculate’s little pet over there and she will go tittle-tattling to the big white chief if we’re not careful.’

  What were the two sisters doing that could have been reported to the Mistress of Novices? She put aside a letter that she had begun and began a quick note.

  ‘Dear Mrs Kelly,’ she wrote, ‘Do forgive me for not writing before now to share our grief at the death of your sister and ours. I would like to see you and to discuss the funeral arrangements. Would it be possible for you to call into the convent? I shall be here all of tomorrow and the next day.’

  She signed her name, put the note in an envelope, and summoned Sister Bernadette.

  ‘Perhaps Sister Imelda could be spared from her duties to pop this into the post office in Bishop’s Street,’ she suggested. The post services in the city were very efficient and she would, she hoped, receive a visit from Betty Kelly tomorrow morning.

  FIFTEEN

  Thomas Aquinas

  Lex quaedam regula est et mensura actuum, secundum quam inducitur aliquis ad agendum, vel ab agendo retrahitur, dicitur enim lex a ligando, quia obligat ad agendum

  (The law is a rule and a measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting: for ‘lex’ [law] is derived from ‘ligare’ [to bind], because it binds one to act.)

  Betty Kelly arrived at an inconvenient time, just when the Reverend Mother was in the middle of an English class with her older girls. For a moment she thought of keeping the young woman waiting, of requesting Sister Bernadette to ply her with tea and cake and hand her a copy of the Cork Examiner to keep her occupied, but remembering the small baby at home, she cancelled that hasty thought. She set the class an essay, put the oldest girl in charge and swept down the corridor, thinking with irritation that it would not have hurt the woman to send a message. She clearly remembered seeing a post office across the road from the house in Turners Cross. A letter posted there yesterday afternoon would have been delivered to the convent that morning. And then she could have certainly arranged her timetable in order to be able to meet and greet the bereaved sister of her late novice.