‘Sisters in Christ, we are very happy to have Sister Joan back in our midst,’ Mother Dorothy was saying, with what sounded like absolute sincerity. ‘She has, as we all know, been on retreat in Scotland and we look forward to seeing the pictures she has painted while she was there. She has also agreed to take over the duties of lay sister for the time being until we can find one but Sister Teresa will be doing most of the cooking.’
A ripple of laughter ran round the community.
‘I have graver news.’ Mother Dorothy frowned as if she were marshalling her thoughts. ‘You may have heard of the recent disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl from the town. She has been found and it seems clear she was the victim of violence. This tragedy does not concern us directly, but Valerie Pendon was a Catholic and I know that all of you will wish to pray for her.’
There was a little murmur of assent, hands rising to sketch the sign of the cross. Sister Joan was aware of a few covert glances darted in her direction. Her absence from chapel and supper had been noted and conclusions drawn.
The prioress finished speaking, turned to the altar and genuflected. Then, she walked to the door, took the small lamp already burning there and raised it. With one accord, their physical actions perfectly co-ordinated, the sisters genuflected and filed out, each one kneeling before Mother Dorothy in order to receive the final blessing of the day which marked the start of the grand silence.
‘If you wish to take a short walk in the enclosure before you retire,’ Mother Dorothy said unexpectedly, ‘you may do so for twenty minutes, Sister Joan.’
‘Thank you, Mother.’
Sister Joan hoped she didn’t sound as surprised as she felt. Mother Dorothy was not one to bend any rules, but she seemed to have divined the need for fresh air and the healing silence of the outdoors that Sister Joan was feeling. It was good of her to make such a concession.
As she went out into the cool dark, she reminded herself that it was Mother Dorothy who had suggested she wear jeans under her habit when she rode out on the moor. Mother Dorothy, she decided, had more understanding than appeared on the surface.
Turning aside, her eyes growing accustomed to the dark, she unlatched the wicker gate that led into the enclosure garden.
Sister Martha worked wonders here – using the space with imagination, weaving narrow paths between beds of herbs whose fragrance haunted the air even in winter. In one corner white headstones glimmered, each one the last resting place of a sister of the order. If she remained in the Cornwall House her bones too would rest here one day.
The moon, rising, illuminated the flying remnants of roses clinging stubbornly to their thorny stems. Against the wind the high hedge of elderberry afforded more shelter and privacy. She walked through to the further gate and stood, leaning her arms on it, letting the breeze lift her short veil.
A young girl had been killed. She, Sister Joan, had found the body. She had no more personal connection with the tragedy than that. Yet within herself the desire to find out, to know, was becoming stronger. With slight shame she acknowledged to herself that part of her was angry that someone should have used the school where children had spent their days as a hiding place for the body. Not that it mattered to poor Valerie Pendon where she had been put, but the violence that had ended her young life was somehow insulting when it was carried out in a place where the innocence of children had reigned.
Surely the moor had been searched immediately after the news of her disappearance had been given, and the school building included as a matter of course? They would argue that the murder had been committed elsewhere and the body hidden after the searchers had gone away again.
She bit her lip, realizing that she was in danger of getting her thoughts involved in something which wasn’t her business.
‘This may be the hardest cross you ever have to bear,’ her novice mistress had once told her. ‘The Daughters of Compassion are only semi-enclosed which means there is always a fine balance between the life of the spirit and the duties of one’s more mundane life. You have lived as an independent woman for several years, have earned your own living, made your own decisions. I am not saying the life of the spirit was not of vital importance to you. I am saying that from the time you enter the religious life the spirit must order and illuminate every pursuit. Your life must become single pointed, with everything subordinated to the one ideal.’
How glibly she had responded, brushing aside the idea that she might find some difficulties in her chosen vocation. Even the word ‘chosen’ had meant something different from what she had first imagined.
‘We do not choose our vocation,’ Mother Agnes had said. ‘Our vocation chooses us and we forget that at our peril.’
Then why, Sister Joan asked silently, having chosen me does my vocation hide itself away, constantly thrusting me into situations where I have to face the mundane world again? Someone else could have found poor Valerie Pendon. Why did it have to be me faced with a problem that has to be solved by other people?
She was venturing dangerously close to self-pity, she decided, and with a small grimace at her own foolishness, opened the gate and went down the shallow mossed steps that led to the old tennis courts where the Tarquins had once played. They were unweeded now with the posts rusted and the nets gone. Sister Martha occasionally mourned over the wasted space and there had been some talk of playing the occasional game to provide physical recreation but nothing had come of it, and they stretched before her, echoing to the sound of her feet. At the far end a low wall divided the postulancy from the enclosure proper.
The small house had once been a dower house and served its present purpose admirably. For the first two years of their training the novices were segregated as strictly as if they all carried the bubonic plague, attending the services but not the general confession, taking the lowest place at table, helping with the manual work without exchanging a word with any professed nun except the prioress and their novice mistress, spending an enormous proportion of their time in meditation and lessons. Only those absolutely suited to the life managed to struggle through. She had often thought that if it were as hard to get married as to become a nun there would be fewer divorces.
Her thoughts were threatening to become full circle again. Valerie Pendon had obviously been unable or unwilling to announce her forthcoming wedding to her family. Or had her boy-friend been already married? Perhaps in her own, childish way she had tried to forget that, to go to him robed as a bride in the wistful hope that her sin might then be judged less harshly?
The fresh air had cleared her head and the twenty minutes were ticking away. Nevertheless it had been good of the prioress to grant her this respite. She cast a last look towards the postulancy with its shuttered windows where Sister Hilaria and her two charges slept.
Not everybody had settled for the night. A veiled and habited figure crossed her line of vision as she turned and began to walk back across the tennis court.
Someone else had received permission from Mother Dorothy to walk for a while. It was a pity the grand silence made it impossible for her to hail the other one, but even if it had been broad day the figure sped into the enclosure and was hidden by the thick hedge before Sister Joan could distinguish its identity.
Three
‘Have my fingerprints taken?’ Sister David gave an anguished gulp and nodded bravely. ‘Of course, Mother. When is it to be?’
She sounded like a French aristocrat enquiring when the guillotine would be set up.
‘It’s really a painless process, Sister,’ Sister Joan soothed. ‘Mother Dorothy, may we stay for coffee if it’s offered?’
‘I have been thinking that as you’re going to be in town anyway,’ Mother Dorothy said, ‘it might be a gesture of charity to call upon the Pendons with our sympathy, perhaps take some flowers? Do we have anything suitable, Sister Martha?’
‘I cut some very pretty dahlias yesterday,’ Sister Martha said. ‘I could make a pretty spray of them.’
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nbsp; ‘Go and do it at once, Sister.’ Mother Dorothy turned to the others. ‘I know we don’t usually supply flowers for every funeral, but this seems such a sad and needless tragedy that I feel we should make an exception. The parents will require every ounce of compassion that we can offer. Oh, and you may take coffee if it is offered.’
Breakfast, cooked by Sister Teresa, was over, the nuns dispersing to their various duties. Sister Joan had slept like a log despite the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar cell, though since every cell in the convent was furnished with pure and exactly similar austerity that hadn’t been too great a feat. What had been difficult was waking at 4.30 to the muffled vibrations of the alarm clock under her flat pillow and getting up at once, mindful that it was now her duty to rouse the other sisters at five with the cry of, ‘Christ Is Risen’.
She had achieved it but it would take a week or two before she could rely on waking under her own steam. As she had gone past the door of the infirmary a loud whisper had alerted her.
Sister Gabrielle, her nightcap slightly askew, popped her head up as Sister Joan put her own head round the door.
‘Christ is risen,’ she said.
‘Praise be to God,’ Sister Gabrielle said as fervently as if she were hearing the words for the first time. Perhaps at eighty-four each new morning was a joyous surprise stolen from eternity.
‘May I get you something, Sister?’ She approached the bed, keeping her voice low since only a series of gentle snores came from Sister Mary Concepta’s bed.
‘Sister Perpetua will be in soon enough to measure out medicines and get us both on our feet for mass, Sister,’ the other said. ‘What’s all this about a murder? Or did I dream it?’
‘Unfortunately you didn’t. A girl from the town has been – unlawfully killed and left in the Moor School.’
‘If you mean murdered,’ Sister Gabrielle said, giving her nightcap a ferocious tug, ‘then say so and don’t fall into the modern habit of being mealy-mouthed. It makes me laugh to hear people talking about the permissive society. We knew what was what in my day and we weren’t afraid to spell it out. Car stealing was theft and not joy riding, and a killer was a killer and not a disadvantaged member of an uncaring society. Who found her?’
‘I did.’
‘Two minutes back from retreat and the peace of the cloister is shattered.’ The old nun gave her a wry grin. ‘God bless you, girl, but you remind me of myself at your age, forever kicking against the pricks and not stopping to think that might be God’s purpose for us all along. Evil has to be fought in many ways. Come and tell me how things progress. What was her name?’
‘Valerie – Valerie Pendon.’
‘I’ll say a special prayer. Now go and wake up the rest.’
Talking to Sister Gabrielle was frequently uncomfortable but never dull. Sister Joan hurried out with a lighter step.
Now she went out to the car and checked the petrol level. Sister David came out and climbed meekly and heroically into the passenger seat, clutching a bouquet of tawny-hearted dahlias.
‘We had better go to the police station first, Sister.’ She turned the key in the ignition. ‘We can find out from them where the girl lived.’
‘It’s an awful thing to think about, isn’t it?’ Sister David sighed heavily.
‘It’s a tragedy,’ Sister Joan said bleakly. ‘I hope they catch the man who did it.’
‘Well, I’m only thankful that isn’t our task.’ Sister David glanced nervously at the speedometer which was hovering around forty. ‘You’ll be getting in some driving practice now that you’re on lay duties.’
‘Whizzing around Cornwall,’ Sister Joan answered cheerfully. There was no sense in sinking oneself in gloom because of what had happened. It wasn’t something that directly concerned any of them. Even as she thought that an inner voice contradicted her. All mankind was concerned in every single death, particularly when that death came soon and violently.
‘There’s Lilith.’ She forgot her preoccupation as they drew into the parking space and she spotted the pony being led out from the nearby garage. ‘Is she all right, Officer?’
‘Good as gold, Sister.’ The youthful policeman paused as she wound down the window. ‘I’m just going to ride her back to the convent for you.’
‘See Sister Perpetua. She’ll give you tea and a bun,’ she advised. ‘You’re not going to walk back?’
‘Sergeant Barratt’s picking me up, thanks,’ he informed her. ‘He was up nearly all night so he’s coming in later today. I’d better get on. Nice seeing you.’
‘Right, let’s get it over with then.’ Sister Joan gave her companion an encouraging smile as they got out of the car, with Sister David glancing nervously around as if she feared someone might arrest her for loitering.
‘You go first, Sister,’ she whispered as they went in, to be greeted by the desk sergeant with what Sister Joan was glad to see was unaffected friendliness.
Sister David who would have wilted under officialdom or died of embarrassment had he been over-hearty not only perceptibly relaxed but even ventured on a small joke as they were wiping their fingers after their prints had been taken.
‘I do hope those are destroyed afterwards. I may embark on a criminal career and your already having my fingerprints might be inconvenient.’
‘Don’t worry, Sister. We’ll make it easy for you.’ Detective Sergeant Mill, coming in, rubbing the cold out of his well-shaped, ungloved hands, smiled at her. ‘Sister Joan, good morning. You drove here by way of the school?’
‘I took the other track past Farrer’s Field,’ she said.
‘The area’s still cordoned off. I want the building and the moor immediately surrounding it combed inch by inch. I’ll be able to get out of your way in a week or so. I assume you’ll be using the building for something or other now that the school’s closed?’
‘Not until we find out the details of the Tarquin Trust. I don’t know what Mother Prioress has in mind.’
‘I got the list of pupils from the register in your desk,’ he said. ‘Has anyone offered you a cup of coffee yet?’
‘We didn’t expect it. You must be awfully busy.’ Sister David, suddenly aware that she was chatting to a member of the opposite sex, fluttered into silence.
‘Not too busy to thank you for coming in so promptly. Sergeant, bring an extra chair in, will you? And three coffees. Sisters.’
He held open his office door with a small show of gallantry.
‘Have there been any developments?’ Sister Joan asked, seating herself. ‘We’re going to call on the parents, just to leave flowers and express our sympathy if you can give us the address. Oh, have you met Sister David?’
‘Detective Sergeant Alan Mill, Sister. Do sit down.’ His manner changed slightly as he spoke to Sister David.
Sister David sat on the edge of the chair and accepted the coffee with a murmur of thanks.
‘You asked about progress.’ He seated himself at his desk and frowned down at the papers on it for a moment. ‘It’s early days yet as they say. The father identified his daughter late last night down at the morgue. Father Malone had already prepared the family. We just had the pathologist’s report. She was strangled with a wire; specks of metal embedded in her skin and then the wire was taken off. She wasn’t interfered with in any way. According to the doctor the girl was still a virgin. That was some slight comfort to the parents, though little enough. Now we’re trying to find out where the dress she was wearing came from.’
Sister David looked a question.
‘She was wearing a white wedding dress with a wreath of leaves on her head,’ Sister Joan said.
‘She must have obtained the dress from somewhere,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘There was no label in it but it was clearly new. Then there’s her dressing-gown, slippers and nightie – she must have taken those in a bag of some sort. The Pendons will have to be asked about that later on. I’m unwilling to intrude on them but it’s unfortunately necessary.’
‘Perhaps Sister David or I could mention it?’
‘In the course of conversation? That would be very helpful. Oh, you wanted the address. I have it here.’ He scribbled it on a piece of paper. ‘I’ve a couple of men rounding up your former pupils for fingerprinting. Merely for elimination but the Romany families may kick up a fuss. Funny, ironic, isn’t it? As soon as fingerprinting techniques are improved out of all recognition every criminal wears gloves.’
‘I hope you catch him,’ Sister Joan said.
‘We intend to catch him.’ He sounded quietly determined, shaking hands as they rose. ‘Thank you for coming in, Sisters. If you do hear anything of importance you will let me know?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Going out she glanced back and saw him frowning after them, his mind already returned to the solving of a murder.
‘Shall we visit the Pendons now and leave our flowers?’ She slid behind the wheel and glanced at her companion.
‘Yes, we must.’ Sister David looked unhappy. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever been on such a visit of condolence, Sister. May I leave you to do the talking?’
‘Yes, of course. We’ll only stay a few minutes.’
The street of terraced houses where the scribbled address led them was only five minutes walk. They reached it by car in a couple of minutes, parked as near to the house as possible and made their way with some difficulty through a crowd of people who had apparently nothing better to do than stand and stare at curtained windows and a closed front door. There were cars parked along the road, and a police constable at the gate by the pocket handkerchief garden.
‘Is it all right to take the flowers in?’ Sister Joan began.
She was interrupted by Father Malone who opened the front door at that moment and greeted them.
‘Good morning, Sisters. Come along in, won’t you? The family will be pleased to see you and to have the flowers. I have a sick visit to make so if you can stay until I can get back here it’ll be a great help.’
Vow of Obedience Page 4