“You did not fear theft, though, did you? The chalice and paten are too well known, I should have thought, for thieves to take the risk of stealing them, and to sell the melted-down metal would not be worth while.”
“Every private collector knows them, and so do all the museums. Nevertheless, there are some private collectors who are really, one supposes, a little mad, and will run any risk to obtain possession of something which they covet.”
Mrs. Bradley agreed.
“I like, too, Mother Saint Cyprian’s embroidered bookbindings, and Mother Saint Benedict’s paintings,” she said, to change the direction which the conversation was taking.
“Yes. They are beautiful, both. It is good to use great talents entirely to the glory of God.”
“Are not all great talents so used? It seems to me that, whether consciously or not, all good work is done to the glory of God. But, Reverend Mother, I wish you would indulge a whim of mine.”
“I will if I can. What is it?”
“When are your experts coming down?”
“On Monday or Tuesday.”
“Not to-morrow?”
“No one is coming to-morrow. I thought, as it is a half-holiday, the school-children could see the work then.”
“Could they not wait until Wednesday? That also is a half-holiday.”
“Yes, they could.”
“Will you let me have my own way?”
“Willingly. It cannot make very much difference. I will speak to Sister Saint Simon-Zelotes about it.”
“Thank you very much. I have good reason for asking.”
“I am sure you have,” said the Superior, and blessed her before she let her go.
chapter 17
disappearance
“I then arithmetic suspect
And on the past again reflect.
To number not by days but sins
My soul begins.”
thomas ken: Days Numbered.
« ^ »
Saturday was a fine bright morning which later turned to rain. Mrs. Bradley interviewed Ulrica Doyle before morning school, and arranged that she should be driven to Wandles by George. Ulrica protested, and demanded to be sent to Mother Francis. Mother Francis in effect shrugged her shoulders, and Ulrica went to her first lesson, Geography with Mother Timothy, in tears.
By half-past eleven it was pouring with rain, and Mrs. Bradley was loth to allow a message to be taken to George. He drove over to the convent, however, a few minutes after twelve, to ask for instructions, and, while he was waiting, helped Miss Bonnet to change a wheel, she having punctured the right hand back tyre on a sharp flint somewhere on the coast road between Hiversand Bay and the convent. Both got extremely wet, for the work was done in the open. George was soaked to the skin by the time he had done. Miss Bonnet was no better off. Her last class should not have finished until half-past twelve, but Mother Patrick and Mother Gregory, who did not happen to teach on Saturday mornings, and who, therefore, were free to supervise the Physical Training lesson, took charge whilst the wheel of the car was being changed. Owing to the rain, the lesson was in the gymnasium—actually the school hall—and the girls played some games and practised high jumping.
Both Miss Bonnet and George were asked into the guest-house and offered hot baths whilst their clothes were being dried. Miss Bonnet, obviously reminded of the last time she had been offered a bath at the convent, pointed out that she “only had to change”—she was wearing shorts and a blouse, both of which were clinging to her sturdy, well-developed frame whilst runnels of water chased each other down her large, muscular, ugly legs and on to the polished wooden flooring—but George remarked that he would be much obliged. So Mrs. Bradley herself conducted him, under a large umbrella (loaned for the occasion by Mother Francis, who used it on wet days in getting from the school to the refectory), over to the guest-house, and ushered him into a bathroom with orders to cast his clothes outside the door as he took them off so that they could be dried.
George, who was an only child and who was accustomed to be mothered, obeyed with alacrity and cheerfulness, and afterwards was provided with the dressing-gown allotted to penurious infirmary patients, and a spare pair of pants, much darned, provided by the old priest, Father Garnier.
“I suppose you know, madam,” he remarked, as, the dressing-gown draped modestly and his wet hair plastered neatly to his head, he presented himself to Mrs. Bradley in the parlour, “that somebody’s been and used pipe-grips in that bathroom?”
“But that’s not the bathroom, George.”
“No, madam. There might be such a thing as practice making perfect.”
“I looked for indications in both bathrooms that pipe-grips had been used to open a joint, but could find no special indication, beyond the marks that any gas-fitter might leave.”
“No gas-fitter left these marks, madam, that I do know. They look inexperienced to me.”
“Thank you very much, George. That accounts for the unconscious mouse, at any rate. Are you quite warm? Don’t take cold. Ought you to plaster your hair so close to the head?”
George rumpled his hair obediently with a dry towel which Kitty, giggling shyly, came forward and presented.
“He’ll be having his clothes back soon, ma’am,” she remarked to Mrs. Bradley, avoiding any direct communication by word of mouth with George.
“When they are dry, George, I want you to take a girl from the school back to Wandles,” said his employer. “I suppose I had better come with you. The nuns won’t care for her to travel alone. It’s a nuisance, but cannot be helped. You must bring me back here to-morrow.”
“Very good, madam.”
The midday meal was served, and George sat down beside Mrs. Bradley. Bessie and Annie waited at table, the former with demure exemplariness, the latter with her usual good sense.
By half-past two George’s clothes were dry; by three they were pressed and ready. He was grateful and tried to say so, but Mother Jude cut him short.
“You did good service to poor Miss Bonnet,” she said. “She has a special engagement at Kelsorrow School this afternoon. They are having a Parents’ Day, and she has to be there to conduct a display of physical training. Sister Saint Francis let her have her last lesson to make the repairs to the car, and she said she would not have been able to get away in time, even then, had she lacked your kind assistance.”
“The young lady hadn’t any petrol, either, madam, so I gave her enough to get her twenty-five miles. We found, when we changed the wheel, she’d got a gash like you might expect she’d get if she’d run over an up-ended scythe or something. I’ve never seen such a gash, bar once, when I was in the States, and a tough slashed a tyre on a hold-up.” He smiled reminiscently. “Did I plug that baby!”
“George,” said Mrs. Bradley, “you’re a marvel.” She had no time to say more, for the front-door bell rang, and Kitty came in to announce that Sir Ferdinand Lestrange was at the door and would like to speak to his mother. “Although who in the name of the holy angels she is,” said Kitty, “unless it would be yourself?”
“It is myself,” said Mrs. Bradley. “If he’s not wet, show him in here.”
“He is only after having walked from his car, and it a large one, up to the door of the house,” said Kitty, who had the Irish talent for sociability with its resultant liking for conversation at all times.
“Bring him in, then. George, this is luck! Sir Ferdinand can go with you to accompany the girl. That leaves me free to stay here. By the way, I do hope Miss Bonnet got to the school in time. I suppose, George, you could pick her up and get her there, even now, if by chance she has broken down again?”
Ferdinand, all smiles, looking even taller than usual by the side of little Mother Jude, came in on the heels of Kitty.
“Come for the week-end, mother,” he announced. “Staying at Hiversand Bay to get some golf. Going back on Tuesday.”
“Going back on Saturday afternoon,” said Mrs. Bradley austerely. “And it�
��s no use to grumble, and protest,” she added, with a good deal more urbanity. “You dragged me into this affair, and you’ll have to help me out.”
Nothing would please Mother Jude, made acquainted with all the circumstances, but that Ferdinand should have a meal in the guest-house before he went back to Hiversand Bay to let his friends know about the change in his immediate plans, and off she went to see about it. Mrs. Bradley waited until the door was shut and then drew nearer to her son.
“I want these Doyle and Maslin children got rid of,” she said.
“But, mother, where are they to go?”
“You will have to take Ulrica back with you and put her in charge of Célestine at my house in Wandles Parva, dear child, that’s all.” She grinned ingratiatingly—a horrible grimace which made him laugh— but she added immediately: “I am serious, Ferdinand. The other child was murdered, and I cannot take any more risks. It’s bad enough that they’ve been left here so long, and now that Sister Bridget is on the road to recovery—a fact which cannot very well be kept secret since the nuns see no reason for secrecy—I am really and horribly anxious.”
“Very well, mother. I suppose I may come back here to-morrow, when I’ve unloaded the girl on to Célestine? And I suppose you can depend upon her to guard the young woman from enemies?”
“I shall write to Célestine and Henri. I have it on unimpeachable authority that Henri has a veritable gun, and is as good’s a gangster.”
“Very well. I’ll be ready to start as soon as George gets back.” George, in obedience to a mysterious summons from Mother Jude, had left them. “There’s a telegraph office in the village. I’d better wire Célestine to expect us. I might as well have the solace of eating one of Henri’s dinners, since my week-end is to be ruined.”
“You are very kind, dear child,” his mother fondly replied. She liked him not so much on his own account as because she had liked his father, her first husband. Her son by her second marriage was really the apple of her eye, but he was, most of the time, in India, and she did not see very much of him. He was an authority on tropical diseases, and she had paid for his training, during her second brief widowhood, by writing her famous popular book on hereditary tendencies towards crime. Ferdinand, an unbiassed, entirely self-sufficient man, admired his mother’s taste in sons, and fostered what he called “the romantic attachment,” playing off the Freudian Oedipus complex against her with a delicate and admirable wit.
A little later Mother Jude appeared, followed by Annie and Kitty, and compelled Ferdinand to sit at table. She gave him two poached eggs for his tea, raspberry jam and some wine, which she insisted was strengthening and perfectly safe, as George, not Ferdinand, would be driving. She delighted Ferdinand, who kept her in conversation whilst Mrs. Bradley went across in the rain to obtain permission to place Ulrica Doyle in his charge on the journey to Wandles.
The Mother Superior listened sympathetically, and gave the required permission more readily than Mrs. Bradley had expected.
“I myself will speak to Sister Saint Francis,” she said. “Do you get the child to ask Sister Geneviève to pack such things as are required. What of the other little one, I wonder? Do you suppose she is safe?”
“She is in the care of her stepmother,” Mrs. Bradley replied.
“By the mercy of God, lay-sister Bridget is going to get well, the doctor tells me,” the Mother Superior continued. “By the way, I have been wondering why you were perfectly sure that she was attacked in mistake for you. Now I should have thought that she could only have been mistaken for one of the religious.”
“Not one of the religious.”
“But the habit—and in the darkness—”
“Sister Bridget was not in her habit when she was attacked.”
“But—of course, poor soul, she is not responsible. I had not understood, though, that she was not fully habited.”
“Had you not? She had put on her nightdress over all her underclothes. The fire in her room was started to get the occupant running out into the open. Of that I am fairly certain.”
“How truly dreadful this is! You do not think, then, that Sister Bridget herself set light accidentally to her bed?”
“No, I don’t think she did. When we have the children safe I shall investigate. The room remains locked for the present, so that if any evidence is there I shall expect to find it—probably on Monday.”
She went to the boarders’ playroom to find Ulrica Doyle, and discovered her playing chess with an oval-faced child of eleven whose father, a Spaniard, was a master of the game.
“I give up and retire,” Ulrica was saying as Mrs. Bradley came in. Both girls got up and curtsied at her entrance, and Ulrica gravely introduced her companion.
“This is Maria Gartez, Mrs. Bradley. She always beats me at chess, as you can see.”
“Ulrica is good at chess,” the Spanish child answered, “but I play like my father—very well.”
“You are to find Sister Geneviève, Ulrica,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and ask her to pack a suitcase for you. Your school holidays have begun a little earlier than usual. I have permission for you to go and stay at my house.”
The girl looked at her with a mixture of amusement and defiance in her eyes, and said immediately: “I want some money to cable to my grandfather in New York. Will you lend it to me, please?”
“Yes, on Monday,” Mrs. Bradley promised.
“And am I really to be taken away from here?”
“I am afraid so, yes. It may not be for very long.”
“May I go and say good-bye to Mary? I suppose my aunt will take her away on Monday? I suppose we are both to go?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Will you let me come back as soon as they find out who did it?”
“Did what?”
“Hit Sister Bridget on the head, and killed poor little Ursula.”
“But it may not be the same person who did both.”
“Oh, I should think it must be.” She turned, in her grave and courteous way, to the other child. “Goodbye, dear Maria,” she said. “God bless you and all your family. I shall see you again very soon.”
She sauntered out, but turned at the door and came back to Mrs. Bradley.
“Where would you like me to meet you with my suitcase?” she asked, with another sketchy little curtsy.
“At the entrance gate, I should think. I will send my chauffeur to receive the case from Sister Geneviève. Where, I wonder, should he wait?”
“At the entrance to the nuns’ garden. That will not be very far for us to carry the suitcase. It need not be heavy. I shall soon be coming back here, I expect. I do not wish to go away, and shall cable my grandfather so, and request his permission to return. I am not at all convinced that he would approve of my staying with strangers, but I know that it is being done for what you all imagine must be the best.”
So saying, she left them. The Spanish child raised her eyebrows, gave Mrs. Bradley a pensive little smile, and remarked, as though to herself: “Ella tiene dolor de cabeza.” [She has a headache.]
“I am not surprised,” Mrs. Bradley said. “She carries it off very bravely, but she must be having a very worrying time.”
“She is troubled since the death of the little cousin.”
“Yes. She looks strained and ill. ”
“She is ill. She is never like this, so not polite. You must please to forgive her this time.”
“I do not regard her as not polite. I do not think of it that way. She has protested, as she has the right to do, against being taken away.”
Before they could say any more, Ulrica herself came back.
“I cannot find Mary to say good-bye,” she said. “If she should come in here whilst I am packing, dear Maria, ask her to wait, or come up to my cell, if you please.”
“Cell?” said Mrs. Bradley, when Ulrica had disappeared again.
“She has hopes of entering the religious life,” Maria reminded her. “Más valdría no dec
ir nada más,” [It would be better not to say anything more.] she added, glancing towards the door.
“Possibly you are right,” Mrs. Bradley agreed, so they said no more, and Mrs. Bradley, sitting on the floor where Ulrica had sat, and brooding over the chessboard like a crumpled bird of prey, waved a skinny claw to invite the black-haired child to continue the game which Ulrica had abandoned.
Nearly an hour later, Ulrica came down, not expecting, it was obvious, to discover Mrs. Bradley still there. She watched in absolute silence, while Mrs. Bradley moved on slowly to victory. Then she gave a little sigh, and the victor and the vanquished both looked up.
“This lady could beat my father,” said the Spanish child, picking up a castle in slender, olive-brown fingers. Ulrica nodded, and asked:
“Did she continue the game from the point at which I left it?”
“Yes, she did, and you left it at very bad,” Mrs. Bradley’s opponent observed with considerable candour.
“Sister Geneviève has taken my suitcase to the top of the stairs, and Bessie is coming to carry it out to your chauffeur,” said Ulrica, smiling to show that she felt no resentment of Maria’s frank opinion.
In less than a quarter of an hour, she and Ferdinand had been driven away by George from the convent guest-house. George had just returned with a report of having seen Miss Bonnet’s car in the grounds of Kelsorrow School.
Mrs. Bradley and Bessie watched Ferdinand, George and Ulrica out of sight, then turned to one another with the mutual congratulation of those who are left behind while others take themselves off. Bessie even wiped her hands on her apron. Her opinion of Ulrica Doyle was soon made clear.
“Snitchy little tripe-hound,” she observed. “Don’t half fancy herself, I reckon. Ask me, she knowed what she was doing when t’other poor nipper conked out.”
“I fear that your remark is highly actionable, dear child,” said Mrs. Bradley, in gently remonstrative tones. Bessie grinned and spat. Then she said good night, and watched, bright-eyed, whilst Mrs. Bradley re-entered the guest-house doorway. She herself returned to the Orphanage for supper, which consisted of thick bread and butter, milk pudding and cocoa. It was greatly relished by the orphans, and got finished to the very last crumb; this to the perennial mystification of Mother Ambrose, who could not understand how children could be so hungry when, not many hours before, they had made a generous tea.
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