Vow of Obedience

by Veronica Black

  ‘This would be a working dog.’

  ‘Working dog or pet, could it be trained not to dig up all my vegetables?’ Sister Martha pursued.

  ‘Has anyone ever trained a dog?’ Mother Dorothy looked brightly around.

  ‘When I was a girl I taught our canary to say “God bless you”,’ Sister Mary Concepta volunteered.

  ‘One cannot train a dog to do that, Sister,’ Sister Gabrielle snubbed. ‘I can’t see what canaries have to do with anything.’

  ‘It was a very pretty one,’ Sister Mary Concepta said wistfully. ‘But a dog would be very nice too. It would be a lady dog?’

  ‘It would certainly be more fitting,’ Sister Perpetua said, the corners of her mouth quivering slightly.

  ‘Am I to take it that we’re agreed a dog might be a good idea?’ Mother Dorothy cast her bright glance round again.

  ‘Who would do the training?’ Sister David asked.

  ‘There are classes to which one can take dogs – obedience training,’ Sister Katherine said.

  ‘That might serve, if the budget will run to it.’ Mother Dorothy shifted her gaze to Sister Joan. ‘Since you are assisting with enquiries, Sister, perhaps you will ask Detective Sergeant Mill to look out for a good dog – a lady dog – for us? You must make it clear that we shall be willing to pay for one from a good litter.’

  Sister Joan nodded docilely, not expressing her opinion that Detective Sergeant Mill had more urgent matters to attend than the finding of a guard dog for the Daughters of Compassion.

  ‘There remains the unfortunate business at the postulancy,’ Mother Dorothy was continuing.

  She had evidently acquainted the rest of the community with the facts during Sister Joan’s absence since nobody looked puzzled.

  ‘You’ve heard nothing further?’ Sister Perpetua enquired.

  ‘Nothing at all. In my opinion it may have been a practical joke, but one cannot be at all sure. I suggest that Sister Marie and Sister Elizabeth therefore move their things over to the main house for the time being. Better safe than sorry.’

  Glancing down the table Sister Joan saw relief on Sister Elizabeth’s face, a flash of disappointment on Sister Marie’s more piquant features.

  ‘If it isn’t a joke,’ she ventured, ‘and somebody is coming wouldn’t it be better not to discourage them?’

  ‘Are you suggesting, Sister, that I set up our novices as bait?’

  ‘Only if they were willing and of course certain precautions could be taken.’

  ‘Out of the question.’ Mother Dorothy’s tone was flat and firm. ‘These girls are my personal responsibility and I have no right to expose them even to the threat of danger or unpleasantness. Of course if any of the professed sisters is mad enough to go and sleep over in the postulancy at this time then the results must be on her own head, but I hope none of us is sufficiently featherbrained.’

  But it was not, Sister Joan reflected, actually forbidden. Not that she had any intention …

  ‘Sister Perpetua will go with the novices to help them pack what they need and to ensure that the postulancy is locked,’ Mother Dorothy was saying. ‘Shall we continue with the reading, Sister Martha? These Roman martyrs offer such a wonderful example to the rest of us.’

  The reading continued, Sister Martha speeding up since it was her meal that was getting cold at the end of the table.

  ‘There will be recreation this evening,’ Mother Dorothy announced as they rose. ‘The last bulletin I received from the hospital informed me that Sister Hilaria is greatly improved. She has been sleeping most of the day but the doctors are pleased with her progress.’

  It was Sister Gabrielle who asked the question that hovered on the tip of Sister Joan’s tongue.

  ‘Has she said what happened?’

  ‘Apparently she is suffering from a slight degree of amnesia, not uncommon in the circumstances,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘She may remember everything in a few days.’

  And that, thought Sister Joan, beginning to pile up plates, was something that someone wouldn’t be able to risk.

  ‘You look tired, Sister,’ Sister Teresa had paused to say.

  ‘Old age is creeping on,’ Sister Joan said vaguely.

  Her disturbed night’s sleep was catching her up. It would be sheer folly to try and achieve anything useful before she had enjoyed her customary slumber. What was gratifying to recall was that Mother Dorothy had not forbidden any of the professed to go over and sleep in the postulancy. Neither had she actually forbidden any of them to turn somersaults all the way round the enclosure, she reminded herself, and felt a chuckle rising in her throat.

  ‘Shall I see to this, Sister?’ Sister Teresa was asking. ‘It isn’t any bother, and I like to keep busy. It stops me thinking about all the dreadful things that are happening.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister. I’ll go and check on Lilith.’ Sister Joan slipped from the room and went downstairs towards the kitchen quarters.

  Above her she could hear the subdued murmur of voices as the sisters took up their sewing and knitting and settled themselves in the recreation room off the refectory. Sister Perpetua had already led the two novices out to collect what they would need for a night in the main house.

  Lilith was docile tonight, not troubling to make a run for it. Sister Joan fed her, checked there was fresh water, promised herself that come Monday morning she’d muck out the stable properly, and walked on through the yard past the shelter under which the convent car was lodged.

  Ahead of her a foot struck against stone and she froze, aware of darkness and the piercing wind that blew the bushes in the garden.

  Not any of the nuns now settled at recreation, nor Sister Teresa whose shape blocked the uncurtained, lighted kitchen window when she glanced back to see. And not Sister Perpetua and her charges.

  Her mind having rapidly discounted all these possibilities she took a cautious step sideways which took her into the deepest shadow of the enclosure wall, and began to tread softly along its length to the gate. Her fingers found the latch and lifted it quietly.

  Another step and she was in the garden with its maze of paths and winter bare beds and gaunt shapes of fruit trees stripped of their autumn bounty.

  Whoever walked here had also stopped. For an instant she fancied that she heard breathing but it was only the wind soughing through the branches that spread like black lace against the paler grey of the walls.

  ‘Who is it?’ She kept one hand on the gate, raising her voice in what she hoped might sound like a commanding tone.

  A bulk of darkness detached itself from the trees and moved towards her.

  ‘Good evening, Sister.’ The voice was undeniably masculine.

  Relief, sweeping over her, made her tetchy.

  ‘Sergeant Barratt, what on earth do you think you’re doing, trespassing in the enclosure?’ she demanded crossly. ‘I thought you were an intruder – which, of course, you are. Unless you have permission?’

  ‘Not from your prioress, I’m afraid.’ Sergeant Barratt didn’t sound particularly regretful. ‘However, in view of the circumstances surrounding the attack on Sister …’

  ‘Hilaria.’

  ‘Sister Hilaria, yes. In view of that it is as well to check the grounds now and then.’

  ‘Not without letting someone know!’

  ‘The police are under no obligation to reveal their methods, Sister.’ His voice was irritatingly chiding.

  ‘Even so, there is a certain code of etiquette,’ she persisted. ‘Please ask Mother Prioress in future if you wish to – to stake out the enclosure. This is a most private part of the convent.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of it, Sister.’ He actually had the gall to sound amused as if he were humouring her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Perhaps it would be more sensible if you didn’t wander about in your own time in the dark,’ he went on to say.

  ‘I heard you walking here and came to investigate,’ she returned. ‘
I am not very far from the house.’

  ‘And Sister Hilaria was not very far from the gate,’ he countered. ‘She is improving, I understand?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, thank God.’

  ‘And remembers nothing of the accident. Perhaps she will recall details in a day or two.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Sister Joan said, frowning slightly, trying to bring his face into clearer focus in the dark. The moon had hidden herself and she was trying to talk to a uniformed pillar with a faint shine of fair hair barely discernible in the gloom. But it was certainly Sergeant Barratt; she knew the cold, clipped, unattractive tone of his voice.

  ‘My apologies then, Sister, for startling you,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose you’re only doing your job,’ she relented. ‘The truth is that we’re all feeling jumpy. Have you – has there been any further developments?’

  ‘Nothing for public consumption, Sister. Shall I walk back with you to the house?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  So she was now a member of the public. So much for vanity. She felt an unexpected surge of amusement.

  ‘You’re quite right, Sergeant. The police have every right to keep their methods to themselves,’ she said briskly. ‘But Mother Dorothy would appreciate it if she were told when our grounds were being patrolled.’

  ‘I’d just completed my inspection,’ he said woodenly. ‘You’ll not be troubled again tonight.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ Some impulse caused her to linger, to add, ‘I had the pleasure of drinking a cup of coffee with your wife, Daisy. Did she mention it?’

  ‘Yes, I believe she did. That was kind of you, Sister.’

  ‘Moving to a strange part of the country where one hasn’t any friends can’t be very easy,’ she sympathized.

  ‘My career makes it difficult to have close friends,’ he said. ‘It was kind of you to take an interest in Daisy, but I’ve no doubt she will settle down eventually. She has the house and garden to attend.’

  ‘That must be very fulfilling for her,’ Sister Joan said with delicate malice.

  ‘Fulfilment lies in doing one’s duty,’ he said sententiously. ‘At least I’ve always found it so, haven’t you?’

  Sister Perpetua was coming into the garden, followed by the two novices. Her cheerful voice boomed across the dark. ‘Come along, Sisters. We must get your things into the cells before we go into chapel. Keep close behind now.’

  ‘Good evening, Sister.’ Sergeant Barratt spoke briefly to Sister Joan and was gone before she could reply.

  She frowned after him, then went through the gate into the yard again just as Sister Teresa opened the back door and peered out nervously.

  ‘Is that you, Sister?’

  ‘Right here, Sister. You go into recreation and I’ll finish up here.’ She spoke calmly, pleasantly, stepping into the arc of light thrown from within. ‘I was just checking on the gates. Sister Perpetua’s on her way with Sister Elizabeth and Sister Marie.’

  ‘Everything’s done, Sister. Thank you.’ Sister Teresa untied her apron and hung it neatly on its hook, hesitating as she reached the passage door to say, ‘Are we going to lock the back door early tonight?’

  ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll see to it,’ Sister Joan said.

  She waited while Sister Perpetua bustled through with her charges, then looked out again across the yard. No footstep sounded; nothing moved.

  Locking the back door and taking off her own apron she stood for a moment, irresolute.

  Then before she could give herself time to think she went into the passage and lifted the telephone receiver.

  Her call was answered at once.

  ‘Police station. May I help you?’

  ‘Would that be Constable Stephens?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Is that …?’

  ‘Sister Joan from the Daughters of Compassion. I was wondering if Sergeant Barratt was available.’

  ‘Let me have a look at the duty roster, Sister. No, no tonight he has time off. He doesn’t come on duty again until Monday morning. Did you want to leave a message?’

  ‘No message,’ said Sister Joan and replaced the receiver gently.

  Eleven

  On Sundays manual work was kept to a minimum so that in the morning before High Mass there was time for longer private devotions. In the afternoons there was leisure to read, to write letters, to catch up on work left unfinished during the week. Sister Joan enjoyed the Sabbath seeing it as a blank page on which she could write her plans for a week ahead which she hoped to make perfect. That she hadn’t yet succeeded in her aim didn’t spoil the possibility that one day she might do so.

  On this Sunday it was Father Malone who came to offer the mass, and joined the community for coffee afterwards in the refectory. There was something infinitely reassuring about the small, elderly priest in his shabby cassock, Sister Joan thought, sipping her own coffee and watching the two oldest nuns giggling like teenagers as he joked with them.

  Catching her eye he excused himself and came over to her.

  ‘Good morning, Sister. You will have heard that Sister Hilaria is making good progress?’

  ‘Yes, Father. It’s good news.’

  ‘Apparently she recalls nothing of the accident. Shock, I daresay. The mind puts up a protective shield. I am giving Mother Dorothy a lift to the hospital and then she will have lunch with Father Stephens and myself at the presbytery.’

  ‘It will do her good to have a break for an hour or two,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Indeed it will. Being the prioress carries heavy responsibilities. The two girls are to be buried tomorrow. One funeral following another. I understand that a representative will attend from this convent.’

  ‘Mother Dorothy hasn’t said.’

  ‘Mother Dorothy hasn’t said what?’ The prioress had joined them.

  ‘Who is to represent the Daughters of Compassion at the funerals tomorrow,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘I will be sending you and Sister David,’ Mother Dorothy informed her. ‘As you already know both sets of parents slightly you seem to be the obvious choice.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘And Sister Perpetua will be in charge while I am lunching at the presbytery. If you have time this afternoon, Sister, you could take Lilith out for some exercise.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  She had planned to spend an hour sorting out her thoughts on the two murders and on Sister Hilaria’s accident, but she could think as well on horseback as in a chair.

  Even so it was past three before she had finished washing up and clearing away. Saddling up the pony she glanced skywards, noting the scudding grey clouds lit by an occasional ray of sunlight. Winter was drawing in steadily. In the spring she would be thirty-seven. Thirty-seven in years and about six years old in common sense, she reflected with wry humour, mounting up and waving her hand to Sister Teresa who had settled herself at the kitchen table with a couple of vegetarian recipe books, presumably in the hope of creating some new and tasty dish for the community to relish.

  Hope, she thought, springs eternal and set Lilith at a trot for the main gates. At this end of the year the moors lost their colours, blending into grey and brown with only the occasional red-berried holly bush to remind the world that Christmas was on the way. It would be a sad time for the Pendon and Davies families. Could any parent ever come to terms with the murder of a child?

  She took the narrower track that led to the school, partly because Lilith had swerved automatically in that direction, partly because she wanted to talk to Luther Lee again and thought he was more likely to follow her in that direction. To seek for him in the Romany camp probably would be useless, since he would avoid her and Padraic Lee would erect a protective screen for his cousin to hide behind.

  The school door yielded to her tentative push and her blood chilled. The police had locked up when they had completed their investigations. Bending to the lock she saw the telltale scratches where force had been applied.

 
With an overwhelming sense of déjà vu she pushed the door wider and stepped into the passage. On her left, empty hooks and the washbasins and lavatory met her gaze; on the right, the door into the classroom stood ajar. The empty desks and the bare blackboard reminded her of the pupils she had taught here, now scattered into the ‘big’ school, and probably forgetting her rapidly in the way of children.

  Someone had entered the room behind her. She heard hurried breathing and slowly turned, pinning a casual smile to her face though her heart had begun to race.

  ‘Good afternoon, Luther. How are you today?’

  ‘Not doing no harm,’ Luther said whiningly.

  ‘Of course not. Why should you be?’ She sat down in the seat from which she had, so recently, surveyed her young pupils and studied him thoughtfully.

  ‘It were hard to get in,’ Luther said, ‘but I broke the lock. I can break any lock into any place.’

  ‘If you had asked me I could have lent you the key,’ she told him.

  ‘Then they’d know I was here,’ Luther said. ‘I don’t plan on anyone knowing. If I stay here they won’t find me.’

  ‘They? Who are they?’

  ‘Police,’ he muttered. ‘Bobbies asking questions – always bloody asking questions.’

  ‘If you know anything that can help them,’ she began, but it was evidently the wrong thing to say.

  He shook his shaggy head vehemently, saying in a tone blended from fear and obstinacy, ‘I don’t know nothing and I don’t see nothing. You tell them that, Sister. You tell them that.’

  ‘But you did see who knocked Sister Hilaria over, didn’t you? You were – behind the wall? And Sister Hilaria went through the gate and Padraic’s pick-up van came and knocked her over, and drove off as you ran out to help. Was that how it was?’

  ‘I never saw,’ Luther repeated. ‘You tell them now when they ask you. I never saw. And you never saw me, Sister. You never did.’

  ‘If you’re hiding from someone this isn’t a good place to be,’ she argued. ‘In camp you’d be with your people. Padraic wouldn’t let anyone bother you.’

  She was wasting her breath. He merely fixed glittering black eyes on her, said in a threatening tone, ‘Don’t you tell on me, Sister. Don’t you dare!’