Seven pairs of eyes looked at her expectantly.
‘Brother Cuthbert returned to his community today,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘He must report to his prior and spend some time with his brothers. However I gave him a letter for his superior, warmly urging that he be permitted to extend his sabbatical. I feel that his presence in the neighbourhood is of immense spiritual benefit to the whole community. I understand that Father Malone has added his own pleas.’
‘I forgot about the—’ Sister Joan began but was interrupted by Mother Dorothy’s sharp voice.
‘Sister Joan, do my eyes deceive me or are you still wearing jeans under your habit?’
‘I forgot to take them off,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Wearing jeans when you ride Lilith is a concession to preserve your modesty,’ Mother Dorothy said severely, ‘but to continue to wear them in the enclosure is quite wrong, and shows a lamentably frivolous attitude to our customs, Sister. Go and change and use your discipline with particular force tomorrow evening.’
‘Yes, Mother Dorothy.’
She’d mention the key that Brother Cuthbert had handed to her at a later time when she was more in favour. Meanwhile it was water all day and an extra helping of the discipline the following evening. Not, she thought gloomily, the jolliest of prospects.
‘You don’t really intend to join a group of hysterical women who flagellate themselves on Thursdays?’ Jacob had exclaimed when she had first told him that since their separate faiths precluded marriage she had decided to join the Daughters of Compassion.
‘It’s more a matter of form these days,’ she had argued.
‘It’s medieval!’ Jacob’s dark Semitic features had lengthened in distaste. ‘Why not study Hallacah and dip yourself in the mikve like a nice little Jewish convert? It’s a whole lot more civilized!’
‘I wish I could,’ she had answered sadly, ‘but it wouldn’t mean anything to me. I’d be going through the motions in order that we might get married and that’s no foundation for a life together.’
‘Then go and pick yourself out a Christian and marry him instead. I can’t say I’ll cheer you off on your honeymoon but it’s a damned sight more natural!’
No, Jacob hadn’t understood. She had hoped they might part friends but he had gone away with a bitter jest on his mouth and there had been no last-minute softening of his attitude. Nine years ago. Hers had been a late vocation. Nine years since she had packed away her chance of marriage and children and a career and come into the Order.
‘Dreaming again, Sister Joan?’ Mother Dorothy enquired. ‘I said we will proceed to chapel.’
‘Yes, Mother Prioress.’ Sister Joan fell into line, hands clasped within the wide sleeves of her habit, eyes fixed on the floor.
‘Eyes must be lowered to the ground save when engaging in necessary conversation or at recreation or in a situation which requires physical alertness such as crossing a busy road’ the rule stated – that rule that was imposed on every member of the Order. Sister Joan, whose dark-blue eyes still flew upward whenever anything excited her interest, contemplated the shining, polished floor. Just ahead of her Sister Martha’s black-stockinged ankles moved smoothly forward.
‘Custody of the eyes is a great aid to adoration of God, allowing us to disregard all worldly affairs,’ ran the rule.
Sister Martha’s soles were worn and there was a small tear in the side of her shoe. She would require to have them mended soon. What on earth had made her notice Sister Martha’s shoes all of a sudden? Sister Joan hastily transferred her gaze to the polished floor and waited until her mind had adjusted to holier matters.
Two hours later, kneeling for the final blessing of the day, feeling the cold drops of water sprinkle her, she was ashamed to find herself thinking of Sister Martha’s shoes again.
Five in the morning was marked as it always was by the whirring of the wooden rattle as Sister Teresa climbed the stairs and entered the dormitory wing, pausing before each door to call in her strong young voice, ‘Christ is risen!’
‘Thanks be to God!’ Sister Joan replied, launching heself out of bed on to her knees and vainly stifling a yawn.
The morning meditation and low mass took two hours. Today it was Father Stephen, tall, handsome and certain to make bishop one day, who offered the mass, his beautiful voice creating poetry out of the ancient words, though he never stayed for a bit of a gossip over breakfast as Father Malone liked to do.
In the refectory she sipped cold water and ate the bread and the pear that comprised each portion. The day loomed ahead. Having no regular job within the community she was expected to help out where help was needed. That meant gardening, she decided. Sister Martha ran the gardens with only spasmodic help from Luther, who was simple-minded and lived over with his cousin in the Romany camp. Sister Martha would be glad of a little help.
She went downstairs and through to the kitchen to hunt out a pair of Wellingtons and was caught short by the shrilling of the telephone bell.
‘Yes?’ She lifted the receiver. ‘The Convent of the Daughters of Compassion.’
‘Is that Sister Joan?’ Constable Petrie’s voice replied.
‘Speaking.’
‘We just got the forensic report, Sister. Death was due to natural causes – heart attack, so no mystery this time I’m afraid.’
‘Do they know who the man was?’
‘Apparently not. His pockets were empty and he’d no other identification on him.’
‘Surely someone must know who he is!’ Sister Joan exclaimed.
‘We’ll go through the missing persons file and see if we have a match,’ Constable Petrie said. ‘Oh, he’ll be buried at public expense the day after tomorrow. I don’t know if he was a Catholic or not, but Mother Dorothy might like to send a representative.’
‘I’m sure she will. Thank you again, Constable Petrie.’
She replaced the receiver and went on into the kitchen, to be greeted rapturously by Alice, the young German Shepherd dog presented to the community by Detective Sergeant Mill as a potential guard dog.
‘You’re a good girl!’ Sister Joan said, pulling on the Wellingtons and going out into the yard to see to Lilith before making her way into the enclosure garden which stretched over three-quarters of an acre towards the little cemetery where past sisters slept.
Sister Martha was already at work, grubbing up weeds, and humming to herself. She broke off as Sister Joan reached her, her delicate little face brightening.
‘You’ve come to help me, Sister Joan! That’s very kind of you.’
‘Where can I make myself useful?’ Sister Joan enquired.
‘The weeds are flourishing,’ Sister Martha said. ‘The recent rain encouraged them, I think. The ground elder is being particularly troublesome. It’ll have to come out.’
‘With Alice helping,’ Sister Joan said with a grin as Alice began enthusiastically burrowing into the soft earth.
Sister Martha laughed and resumed her humming. The sound was both soothing and melodic as they worked together, long trails of ground elder being torn out and flung on to the pile.
Towards lunch-time a lanky figure shambled into view, pushing back a greasy cap perched on drooping locks and waving.
‘Good morning, Luther. Have you come to help me?’
Sister Martha rose, brushing dirt off the coarse apron she wore.
‘Just passing, Sister.’ Luther brought his free hand from behind his back and held out an early rose. ‘I got this, Sister. I pulled off the thorns.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Luther.’ Sister Martha took the flower. ‘Can you help me this afternoon? The garden’s in a sad state.’
‘This afternoon,’ Luther repeated, lifted his cap to Sister Joan and mooched off.
‘That’s a lovely bloom,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Isn’t it though!’ Sister Martha contemplated it. ‘I’ve been mounting guard over this particular rose for weeks. It’s a new strain and I wasn’t sure if it would t
ake or not. Well, picking it gave Luther pleasure. I’ll put it on Our Lady’s altar so we can all enjoy it. Thank you for your help this morning, Sister. I’d never have managed to do so much without you.’
‘You’d’ve done more,’ Sister Joan said, heaving the last straggle of ground elder on to the pile and pulling off her gardening gloves.
Sister Martha shook her head, smiling, and went off, still humming, her neat ankles moving her away in smooth, rhythmic steps. The tear in her shoes was wider. As she hadn’t worn her boots then presumably they were beyond repair.
What was it about shoes that suddenly occupied her spare thoughts? Sister Joan walked thoughtfully back to the kitchen to wash up and change out of the Wellingtons. Boots. Shoes. The man in the old chapel had worn a long overcoat, its surface thick with dust. She had moved away quickly, revolted by the sickly sweet scent of encroaching decay. His shoes had been dusty too. She recalled the upturned toes with the last traces of polish on their caps. That was it! A tramp seeking shelter in an old building, lying down on a wormeaten bench and dying there of a heart attack was hardly likely to be wandering through the countryside with his shoes carefully polished.
‘And it’s nothing to do with me,’ Sister Joan lectured herself as she went up for the mug of soup and salad sandwich and piece of fruit that lunch always consisted of.
‘Sister, are you exercising Lilith this afternoon?’ Mother Dorothy asked as the meal drew to a close.
‘Unless I’m needed elsewhere, Mother Dorothy.’
‘I think it would be a nice gesture if you were to ride over to the house from where you telephoned yesterday afternoon. Pay for the calls and tell the lady to whom you spoke what transpired, will you?’
‘Oh, Constable Petrie rang earlier today,’ Sister Joan remembered. ‘He said that the dead man died of a heart attack and is to be buried the day after tomorrow.’
‘Since you discovered the body you had better attend the funeral,’ Mother Dorothy said.
‘Thank you, Mother.’
The prospect of another gallop had cheered the day considerably. She went briskly to her cell to pull on the modest jeans, made a mental note to change them in time, and went down to saddle Lilith.
Mother Dorothy, appearing from a nearby doorway as was her wont, said, ‘If you are offered a cup of tea or coffee, Sister, it would be very impolite to refuse it. Here is the money for the telephone calls. I’m sure it will be sufficient.’
‘Thank you, Reverend Mother.’
A few minutes later she was riding through the front gates and heading across the moor. The sight of the small school building, with the old car with which Brother Cuthbert loved to tinker at the side, reminded her of the key still in her pocket. She must give it to Mother Dorothy when the opportunity arose. Meanwhile she sent a hearty good wish after Brother Cuthbert who, by now, would be back with his community in the Highlands of Scotland, and rode on, the landscape becoming wilder, rising and dipping until it sloped into the hollow of tall grasses and bracken where the old chapel stood.
It was as peaceful and deserted as it had been before the nameless tramp chose to seek shelter there and been overtaken by death. Sister Joan dismounted, tethered Lilith and went inside, treading carefully over the small piles of refuse heaped on the earth floor. The high door of the pew where the unknown man had lain was swinging open. The bench had been wiped and the surrounding floor given a cursory examination. Constable Petrie had done the expected things but hadn’t used his instincts to note the polished shoes.
She scuffed her shoes musingly in the thick layer of dirt and dust convering the floor. Something white gleamed by the toe of her shoe and she bent to pick it up. It was the torn half of a piece of paper, folded up several times into a small rectangle. She unfolded it carefully, blowing off the dust as she did so, disliking the feeling of the gritty subsoil on her fingers. One side of the unfolded piece of paper was blank. On the other, a name and telephone number were scrawled.
‘Michael Peter,’ Sister Joan said aloud, her brow furrowing.
The telephone number was almost certainly his number too. She bit her lip, refolded the piece of paper which looked as if originally it had been torn off the lower edge of a notepad, and thrust it into her pocket.
There was no telling how long the piece of paper had been there but, apart from the surface muck, it was still pristine, the black writing on it in a bold, black hand. There was nothing to prove that the dead tramp had ever handled it, but its position so near to where he had died led her mind along an inevitable pathway. He had come in here to rest and perhaps taken the folded paper out of his pocket to check on a name or a number? Then he would have felt the intense pain in his right arm, the tightening band round his chest, the sweating and dizziness. Had he scuffed the paper with his feet as he rose in that panic of approaching death before he had laid himself painfully along the bench, telling himself he’d rise in a moment? He had never risen and the dirt had shifted and settled with each gust of wind that blew through the open door – no, that wasn’t right! The pew door had been closed when she’d found the body. Would a man suffering from a fatal heart attack take the trouble to scuff a small piece of paper beneath the earth or would his instinctive action have been to thrust open the pew door in a last vain attempt to draw air into his lungs.
Whatever the answer the police had almost certainly covered the paper more completely when they entered the pew. Since it was a death due to natural causes there’d been no reason to make a thorough search of the surrounding area. Detective Sergeant Mill would have made such a close search natural causes or not, but Constable Petrie hadn’t considered it necessary.
She had wasted time. That folded paper might have nothing to do with the dead man whose funeral she’d be attending the next day.
She went out, mounted up and rode across the fields with their ripening grain until the long, low house with its terraced rock garden came into view.
Today Mrs Rufus was at the door before she’d finished tethering Lilith.
‘Good afternoon, Sister.’ She sounded almost cheerful. ‘I’ve just put on the kettle for a cup of tea, so you’ve picked the right time.’
‘I must be psychic,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Is Lilith all right here?’
‘The animal’ll likely do no harm but your shoes will have to come off again,’ Mrs Rufus said severely.
Sister Joan meekly removed them and followed Mrs Rufus into the kitchen.
‘I’ll just get another cup,’ the housekeeper said. ‘Did they find out who the dead body was?’
‘A tramp apparently who died of a heart attack,’ Sister Joan said, accepting a chair. ‘Oh, Mother Dorothy gave me money for the two phone calls I made. Is it sufficient?’
‘I’m sure it is. They were only local calls.’ Pocketing the money Mrs Rufus asked, ‘Don’t you have any money of your own then?’
‘We each of us get five pounds a month pocket money. Everything else goes into the general kitty,’ Sister Joan explained. ‘Of course, when we need new habits or shoes then Mother Dorothy – she’s our prioress – gives us the money.’
‘There can’t be much if nobody works,’ Mrs Rufus sniffed, passing the tea. ‘I suppose you get dole money?’
‘Afraid not!’ Sister Joan grinned, drinking her tea with relish. ‘The rule forbids us from taking from the State. But we can work if work’s available and doesn’t interfere with our religious duties. Sister David does translations from the Greek and Latin and Sister Katherine makes wedding dresses and communion frocks and Sister Martha sells our surplus fruit and vegetables in the market. I used to teach at the little school on the moor until the council closed it down and provided a bus for the children to the schools in town.’
‘Dirty gyppos most of them,’ Mrs Rufus said. ‘If it was up to me I’d run them off.’
Sister Joan drank her tea and kept strict custody of her eyes, trying not to think about Padraic Lee who reared his two daughters and kept his caravan sparkling
despite the alcoholic binges of his wife, and of simple Luther, trying to give pleasure to little Sister Martha with the offer of a forbidden rose. She wanted this woman on her side and starting a furious argument about the rights of minority groups wasn’t the wisest way to go about it.
‘Brother Cuthbert lodges there now,’ she said mildly when she had beaten down her surge of temper. ‘Perhaps you’ve seen him?’
‘Big young chap with bright red hair and a brown sacking thing on?’
‘That’s Brother Cuthbert.’
‘Saw him at the front of the house one day,’ Mrs Rufus said. ‘Standing by the wall with a mazed look on his face. He called to me something about its being a wonderfully refreshing day. I couldn’t see it myself since it was pouring with rain at the time, but I figured he was either a monk or a serial killer and came in and locked all the doors. So they don’t know who the dead man was? Who’s going to bury him then?’
‘He’s to be buried tomorrow,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Mrs Rufus, I don’t suppose you’ve had any tramps calling here recently?’
‘Indeed I haven’t!’ Mrs Rufus said. ‘They know better than to expect anything from here!’
‘And Mr Peter wouldn’t have—?’
‘Mr Peter picks me up at a quarter to eight every weekday, drops me off here and goes to his shop,’ Mrs Rufus said. ‘He drives back around seven-thirty in the evening, gives me a lift home, and comes back here. If anyone like that had come he’d have mentioned it.’
‘And Mrs Peter?’ Sister Joan glanced round the shiny kitchen. ‘Does she help her husband in the antique shop?’
‘Her!’ Mrs Rufus elevated her heavily pencilled eyebrows to an alarming level. ‘That one never did a hand’s turn in shop or house! Just sits around all day painting her nails and demanding eight glasses of water to keep her figure trim. Many’s the time I’ve felt like telling her that a bit of scrubbing and polishing’d be wonderful for trimming her figure, but I know my place.’
‘She’s not in at the moment?’
‘Went on holiday at Easter,’ Mrs Rufus said.
Vow of Adoration/Vow of Devotion/Vow of Fidelity Page 3