Vow of Obedience

by Veronica Black

  ‘We can borrow it for a fortnight and take it back to the convent,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I think one fills in a form or something. Wait here and I’ll see to it for you.’

  Ten minutes later, with Saint Augustine tucked lovingly beneath her arm, they left the library, Sister David looking as pleased as if she had just managed to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  ‘This will be a real treat for me,’ she said confidingly as they made for the car. ‘Finding out what one never knew before is always an occasion for satisfaction, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it? I hope so, Sister. I certainly hope so,’ Sister Joan said. Her tone was sombre and, for an instant, her face had lost its brightness.

  Twelve

  Mother Dorothy took off her spectacles, wiped them carefully with a tissue, and fitted them neatly on her nose again. When she looked at Sister Joan her eyes, magnified by the shining glass, were shrewd and searching.

  ‘You want permission to speak with Sister Marie?’ she said. ‘You know that during the first two years of their training the novices speak only to the prioress and the novice mistress among the professed nuns save in cases of the gravest emergency.’

  ‘Two young girls have been murdered and Sister Hilaria run down and left for dead,’ Sister Joan said levelly. ‘Someone broke into the postulancy and destroyed part of Sister Hilaria’s spiritual diary and left a warning on the front door. I regard that as a case of grave emergency.’

  ‘You believe all these things are connected?’

  ‘Yes, Reverend Mother, I do.’

  ‘And Sister Marie can throw light on all this?’

  ‘It’s possible, Mother, but I can’t be sure until I speak to her.’

  ‘Very well, Sister. If you consider it absolutely necessary then you have my permission. You may speak to her alone.’

  Mother Dorothy, Sister Joan reflected, really had admirable traits of character. In her superior’s place her own curiosity would have prevailed.

  ‘I hoped to go over to the postulancy and do some cleaning there this morning,’ she said aloud. ‘Sister Katherine will want the pillowslips for the laundry.’

  ‘And Sister Marie can help you out. I’ll tell Sister Elizabeth to help Sister Teresa. Thank you, Sister.’

  For what? Sister Joan asked herself the question as she withdrew. For finding a killer before the police did? Or would she? Wouldn’t it be more sensible to go and see Detective Sergeant Mill and tell him of her discoveries? Was it mere pride that made her want to wrap up the solution in a neat little package and give it to him? She decided that her motives were basically good even if she didn’t care to examine them too closely and sought out Sister Marie who, on this Monday morning, she found washing the front step with a somewhat woebegone look on her grave young face.

  ‘Sister Marie, will you come with me over to the postulancy?’ she asked. ‘It ought to be cleaned even though it’s not occupied at the moment, and we have leave to converse.’

  The woebegone look vanished as the novice scrambled up, her eyes lighting.

  ‘I’ll get my cloak, Sister,’ she said promptly and was off at a speed that would have earned her a rebuke had Mother Dorothy come out of the parlour at that moment. Nobody came and she was back from the kitchen in double quick time, fastening her cloak and straightening the large straw bonnet which first and second year novices wore until they were promoted to the dignity of a white veil.

  ‘Did Mother Prioress really say we could talk?’ she enquired as they set off through the grounds.

  ‘Provided we say something to the purpose.’ Sister Joan cast her younger companion a sideways glance. ‘Mother wasn’t suggesting that we gossip.’

  ‘No, Sister.’ Sister Marie’s voice was appropriately respectful but her glance was mischievous. ‘What subjects are considered safe?’

  ‘Anything I choose to talk about,’ Sister Joan said, veiling the amusement in her own eyes.

  Something about Sister Marie reminded her of herself early in her own religious life. There was the same questioning of tradition, the same barely suppressed humour.

  ‘You’re not nervous about coming to the postulancy?’ she asked as they reached the farther side of the tennis court.

  ‘Because of the threat painted on the door? No, Sister. It’s only because I have your company though that I feel like that. Alone I’d be useless.’

  ‘Because you’ve been in the same situation yourself?’ Sister Joan turned as she stepped ahead and gave the other a steady look, noting the sudden paling of Sister Marie’s face.

  ‘How did …? Yes, in a way, Sister, though I wasn’t concerned directly.’

  ‘You come from Birmingham?’ Sister Joan asked directly, adding as the other hesitated, ‘I know that one must not talk about one’s previous life but when the situation is grave one may do so and Mother Dorothy has given her permission.’

  ‘Yes, Sister. Just north of Birmingham, actually. My family still lives there.’

  ‘I’m from the north myself,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Manchester originally.’

  ‘We never lose those flat vowels,’ Sister Marie said.

  ‘And nearly two years ago a girl died – she was found hanging by a wire loop from the bough of a tree in the school grounds of Saint Roc’s Catholic Secondary School.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Sister Marie gave a strangled little gasp.

  ‘Your old school?’

  ‘Yes, Sister. I’d left when the – the accident happened, of course, but I knew the girl who died. She was in the junior school when I was a senior but I did know her.’

  ‘You knew Carol Preston?’

  They had stopped at the front door of the postulancy whose door still bore traces of the scrubbing the constable had given it. Sister Joan took out the key and fitted it into the lock, letting them both into the narrow hallway.

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Sister Marie’s young face was very pale now as she followed into the bleak little recreation room. ‘She was a nice kid. I knew her because she had a small part in a play we put on in the sixth form.’

  ‘What play?’ Sister Joan asked, sitting down and motioning to the other to do likewise.

  ‘It was a play about Saint Bernadette of Lourdes,’ Sister Marie said. ‘Two of the teachers wrote it and I helped to produce it. Carol had a tiny part in the first scene as Bernadette when she was little. Of course she wasn’t very old when she had her visions of Our Blessed Lady but someone from the middle school played her then. It was a big success; we raised a lot of money for the Little Way Association. Carol was very good – it was only a little part, snowing Bernadette before the visions started, but she did it beautifully. She was a bit disappointed that she didn’t get to play the part right through the play. She told me about it. She thought she could act the whole part.’

  ‘And then later on when she was in her teens she started having visions herself.’

  ‘Not many people knew that she was one of the two girls,’ Sister Marie said, ‘but I met her while the fuss was going on and she told me about it. She said that she hadn’t been allowed to see visions during the school play but that Our Blessed Lady had come anyway. I ought to have told her she was talking nonsense, but she was so convinced and it seemed a shame to disappoint her, so I told her – I told her that she ought to keep anything else that happened to herself.’

  Sister Marie broke off abruptly, looking down at her hands.

  ‘And then she was found dead,’ Sister Joan said gently, ‘and you blamed yourself for not discouraging her more.’

  ‘She always looked up to me,’ Sister Marie said unhappily. ‘To tell the truth she had a bit of a crush on me, the way kids sometimes do. I think I could have influenced her. I didn’t and obviously something else must have happened and she – died. They said it was an accident but I never believed that. I never believed it because she’d never been the kind of girl to make silly experiments with wire nooses and trying to get a high.’

  ‘What about the girl who was
with her?’

  ‘Julie someone or other – I only knew her by sight. Carol told me her name and insisted that Julie’d tell me the same story but I never actually asked her about it. When Carol was found dead I felt – anyway soon after that I entered the Order of the Daughters of Compassion.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a rather severe penance to impose upon yourself?’ Sister Joan enquired.

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ Sister Marie said hurriedly. ‘I didn’t rush into a convent because I felt guilty; I don’t think anyone ever really does. I’d been considering it for some time but what happened – it was so – sad, so sad and ugly, that it made the world seem a terribly dangerous place – a place where innocence was mocked. I didn’t want any more of it, Sister.’

  ‘And now?’

  Sister Marie hesitated again. ‘When Reverend Mother told us what had happened to the two girls,’ she said at last, ‘it was as if something was starting here that I’d run away from already. I know that they weren’t hanging from trees but the wire loops round their necks – it brought back what had happened before – and then Sister Hilaria – she’s a mystic and she sees things the rest of us don’t see. She really does, Sister.’

  ‘And she was seeing Our Blessed Lady?’

  Sister Marie nodded. ‘She mentioned it to us – to encourage us in our vocations, but she told us not to chatter about it. She said that such experiences lost their flavour when they were exposed to public scrutiny.’

  Sister Joan bit her lip, considering. What Sister Marie had told her might have been mentioned before had the novice not been under obedience to remain silent.

  ‘Sister Hilaria is going to be all right, isn’t she?’ Sister Marie asked. ‘We are very fond of her, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure she is,’ Sister Joan said reassuringly. ‘Right then, Sister, let’s collect the linen and then we can give the place a quick clean-up. Between us we can get it done by lunchtime.’

  Now wasn’t the moment to question further. Sister Marie probably couldn’t tell her more than she had told her already and the novice was already fretting over her own small part in the Birmingham affair.

  Not until mid-morning when they stopped for a five-minute break and the permitted glass of water did she resume the conversation.

  ‘Do you miss your family in Birmingham?’

  It was a foolish question because everyone missed her family, but Sister Marie answered readily and politely, ‘Terribly, Sister. It does get easier as time goes on, but in the beginning I did wonder if I had any vocation at all.’

  ‘We all feel the same way,’ Sister Joan said, smiling at her memory of the acute homesickness that had gripped her during her own novitiate. ‘I soaked dozens of handkerchiefs, I can tell you.’

  ‘But it is getting better,’ Sister Marie repeated. ‘I was beginning to – well, to find my feet – and then these things started happening. I didn’t know what to do, whether or not to say anything or not. And then Sister Hilaria was so troubled that I didn’t want to burden her further.’

  ‘Troubled about what?’

  Sister Marie considered for a moment, then shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know, Sister,’ she said at last. ‘It was after she told us about her vision – a few days later. She never does talk very much but she hardly said anything at all. Sister Elizabeth asked if she was well.’

  ‘And?’ Sister Joan sipped her water.

  ‘She said she had something to work out, that was all. And then she was run over when she was beyond the gates. Sister Hilaria never went beyond the gates even for one yard. Something very important must have attracted her attention.’

  ‘It ought to have been a donkey.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Sister?’

  ‘It was something that Sister Hilaria said when she was coming round in the hospital. Did she ever go into details about her vision? Mother Dorothy would want you to tell what you know.’

  ‘She didn’t say very much about it at all,’ Sister Marie said, screwing up her face in an effort to remember. ‘She said that Our Blessed Lady had appeared in the black habit and veil of a nun with a crown of leaves on her head. She saw her for no more than a few seconds, and then the vision was gone. She only told us because she wanted to impress upon us that the most ordinary day can suddenly be touched by glory. That was all, Sister.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how it fits,’ Sister Joan said, ‘but it obviously does. We’d better get the linen made up for Sister Katherine.’

  They went up the narrow stairs and began stripping pillows and mattresses. The wind, which had risen, banged against the window panes. There was a greyness over the day.

  From the adjoining cell came a cry of alarm, quickly suppressed.

  ‘Sister Marie, what is it?’ Sister Joan whipped into the next cell.

  Sister Marie was standing by the window, the pillowcase she had been changing dangling limply from her hand.

  ‘I thought I saw …’ She broke off, her eyes turning to the window again.

  ‘Thought you saw what?’ Sister Joan demanded.

  ‘It must have been my imagination. It couldn’t possibly be – a man I used to know very slightly.’

  ‘Not an old boy-friend, I hope?’ Sister Joan tried to lighten the mood. ‘Mother Dorothy doesn’t encourage that sort of thing at all.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Sister Marie was too agitated to be amused. ‘About two years ago, no, less – a man, a gypsy, was scaring people in our district – not actually harming them but following the girls around, watching them and then running away. There were some complaints but I don’t know if anything was done.’

  ‘Luther,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘I don’t think I ever heard his name. But I’m sure it was the same man, looking up as I glanced out of the window and then he leaped over the wall and ran.’

  ‘Luther went into a mental home as a voluntary patient,’ Sister Joan said. ‘He came here recently to stay with his cousin.’

  ‘Then it was him?’ Sister Marie shivered. ‘He’s weird.’

  ‘A bit simple and terribly unsure of himself around women,’ Sister Joan said briskly. ‘There’s no harm in him at all. He’s supposed to be cured of his habit of following people. I hope he is.’

  ‘Then why was he here?’ Sister Marie asked.

  ‘It was probably coincidence,’ Sister Joan said, mentally crossing her fingers. ‘People do occasionally stray into the grounds without realizing they’re trespassing. Don’t worry about it. And don’t waste time gazing out of windows when you’re supposed to be changing the linen. Now, have you everything ready for the laundry bag? And did you take over everything you need to the main house? I imagine that you and Sister Elizabeth will be sleeping over there again tonight.’

  ‘I think so.’ Sister Marie cast a troubled look out of the window and bent to open the small locker by her bed. ‘No, I’ve remembered everything. Oh, I have some photos of my family in this big envelope – may I take them?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  The modest reminders of home that the novices were permitted to keep were precious.

  Sister Marie took out the envelope, then said impulsively as if the idea had just struck her, ‘I forgot all about it, but I have the programme for the Saint Bernadette play we put on. I kept it as a souvenir because I helped to produce it. Would you like to see it?’

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  Taking the neatly typed programme with its black and white sketch of the grotto at Lourdes, Sister Joan read it with interest. Here and there a name she had heard jumped out at her – Carol Preston as Bernadette Soubirous as a child … Marie Brown as co-producer … Flowers by courtesy of St Roc’s Convent …

  ‘Sister, may I borrow this for a while?’ She spoke abruptly, her eyes still on the typed page. ‘I promise to take good care of it.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Sister. It was a bit vain of me to keep it, I suppose, but I did enjoy working on the play. Is it important – the pro
gramme, I mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sister Joan said honestly. ‘It’s given me an idea, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you really helping the police with their investigations?’ Sister Marie asked curiously as they went down the stairs again.

  ‘In a strictly amateur capacity,’ Sister Joan assured her. ‘I happened to be the one who found Valerie Pendon and then Tina Davies was found while I was talking to the detective and I was needed to confirm whether or not she had been left in the same position as the other one. And now, well, with no school to teach I am not the most useful member of the community at the moment, so if I can help out with Mother Dorothy’s permission then I do so, of course.’

  ‘Under obedience,’ Sister Marie said. Her eyes were amused.

  ‘Under obedience,’ Sister Joan said, for once not returning the other’s smile.

  They went down the stairs together, and Sister Joan locked the front door. If anyone watched as they crossed the tennis court, carrying the laundry bag between them, she wasn’t conscious of it.

  ‘Am I to tell Reverend Mother what I told you?’ Sister Marie enquired.

  ‘If she asks you.’

  ‘And you really think that you know who’s doing these things?’

  ‘No, of course not, and it would be very wrong of me to start guessing out loud,’ Sister Joan said impatiently, and glancing at her companion’s face gave a reluctant chuckle. ‘Sister, you don’t think that I’m the one with the proof who gets murdered just as she’s about to pass it on to someone else, do you?’ she exclaimed. ‘Things don’t happen like that in real life.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Sister Marie looked marginally more cheerful. ‘Sister, I do feel easier in my mind since we talked. I have been wondering for ages if what I said to poor Carol encouraged her to go on believing that she had a vision – and all the time it must have been someone pretending to be one, mustn’t it?’

  ‘I doubt if anything you said or didn’t say would make any difference,’ Sister Joan said, robustly. ‘Take the laundry to Sister Katherine and then come to lunch.’