Outside the infirmary door she paused, struck by a sudden thought. It was nearly two years since she had first come to the Cornwall house. When she had been embarking on her twelve months of seclusion Sister Jerome would have been beginning her training as a prospective lay sister. Yet she had never seen her before nor heard the name.
‘Are you going to stand there all day, child?’ Mother Gabrielle demanded from within, ‘or are you bringing some more poisonous stuff to upset our digestions?’
‘I’m sorry, Sister.’ Sister Joan hurried into the pleasant whitewashed room where a fire burned and crocuses were spiking the bowls on the window sill. ‘There was a misunderstanding.’
‘Sugar instead of salt!’ Sister Gabrielle’s eagle-featured face expressed outrage.
‘I’m very sorry, Sisters. Shall I make you some fresh soup?’
‘Nothing at all,’ Sister Gabrielle said firmly. ‘I can’t speak for Sister Mary Concepta though.’
‘Sister?’ Sister Joan glanced over at the sweet-faced old nun who sat, delicate as an ageing flower, in her wheelchair.
‘Nothing, Sister. We’d not wish to be singular,’ Sister Mary Concepta said.
‘A dictum that the new lay sister might do well to observe,’ Sister Gabrielle said tartly. ‘What is the matter with that woman? I’d call her a long-faced saint if she hasn’t made it abundantly clear that she’s very far from being a normally polite human being!’
‘She has an unfortunate manner,’ Sister Mary Concepta said excusingly.
‘She comes from the London house. Did you know her?’ Sister Gabrielle asked.
‘No, not at all. It is one of the larger convents.’
‘Never more than fifteen sisters in one convent,’ Sister Gabrielle said. ‘Quality is better than quantity, I suppose. What’s all this about vandals getting in?’
‘Some damage was done to a tree,’ Sister Joan said reluctantly. ‘It really isn’t anything to worry about, Sister.’
‘In my mid-eighties I reserve the right to choose what to worry about,’ Sister Gabrielle said. ‘Lads from the town I daresay. No discipline these days. What’s the new priest like?’
‘You can ask Father Stephens about him,’ Sister Joan said, catching sight of the tall, fair-haired figure through the window, ‘for he’s on his way now. Excuse me.’
She made her escape followed by Sister Gabrielle’s mocking, ‘Lost your taste for gossip, girl? I’m astonished!’
She loved Sister Gabrielle dearly, but there were times when the latter traded on her age, and the little privileges that brought her, to be a thorn in the flesh, Sister Joan thought, hurrying through to the main hall to greet Father Stephens.
‘I came round from the postulancy,’ he said, entering with a nod. ‘Mother Dorothy telephoned me to inform me of the vandalism. Very disturbing indeed, Sister.’
‘Yes, Father. Yes, it is.’ Sister Joan, relieving him of his hat, found herself suddenly liking him a little better. Disturbing, she thought, was the right word to use, and there was something very human and fallible about the pained look on his handsome young face. Usually Father Stephens knew all the answers but this event had clearly puzzled and upset him.
She led him to the antechamber, tapped on the door to signal his arrival, and then tactfully withdrew, knowing that Mother Dorothy would have informed him of the vandalism more as an act of courtesy than because she thought he might be able to help.
At least she had a few minutes to herself again. She turned towards the chapel wing, padded down the short passage that led past the two parlours with their grilled division and went into the chapel. It was tempting to stay, to kneel for a few minutes and try to regain her peace of mind but she genuflected briefly and went up the narrow stairs by the Lady Altar to the library and storerooms above.
The newspaper cutting was where she had clipped it on to the requisite pile. She drew up the hard-backed chair and sat down to study it again. The item told her no more than when she had first glanced through it however. Twenty years before when the Tarquin family still lived in the great house and no Daughters of Compassion had yet come into Cornwall a number of trees in the grounds had been badly slashed and hacked about. There was no indication in the clipping as to whether or not anyone had been found guilty of the crime. Was it a crime? She bit her lip, considering. A misdemeanour, certainly, as was damage to any property, but there was something peculiarly unpleasant about the picture rising in her mind of a shadowy figure raising an axe to strike again and again in a frenzy of destruction at a living part of nature.
Certainly there seemed nothing tangible to connect one act with the more recent vandalism. Sister Joan pushed back her chair and went down into the chapel again. It was no longer empty. Sister Jerome, arms in the cruciform position, knelt bolt upright before the altar, head flung back so that it looked almost as if she was arguing with the Divine instead of joining herself with the Sacrifice.
As she hesitated the other crossed herself and rose in one fluid movement, turning to scour the space behind her with her deepset eyes.
‘Were you looking for me, Sister?’ Her voice was dry and passionless.
‘No, Sister Jerome.’ Sister Joan hesitated again, then said warmly, ‘Please don’t feel badly about the sugar in the soup. You were not to know.’
‘I am only sorry that a little extra penance during Lent is frowned upon here,’ Sister Jerome said coldly.
‘But Mother Agnes in the London house never encouraged excessive mortification either,’ Sister Joan was stung into replying, ‘unless, she has altered a great deal since I was there.’
‘I said I was accustomed to render my own food unpalatable,’ Sister Jerome said. ‘I never intimated it was general practice. However when I came here I thought the other sisters would like to share in what you are pleased to call excessive mortification.’
‘Only if we choose it ourselves, Sister. You were not in the London house when I was there? I don’t recall—’
‘There is no reason why you should,’ Sister Jerome said. ‘I try not to make myself conspicuous. However I may as well satisfy your curiosity by telling you that I did my initial training elsewhere and spent only eighteen months under Mother Agnes’s rule. Excuse me, please.’
She genuflected towards the altar and went past without any further word. Sister Joan let out her breath in a silent ‘whoo’. So Sister Jerome had come from another order. Such a procedure was unusual but not entirely unknown where lay sisters were concerned. There had always been a shortage of vocations for the Marys of the enclosed and semi-enclosed orders but lay sisters, who shared few of the perquisites of the fully professed but had to exist uneasily between the cloister and the world, were like gold dust, to be cherished when they arrived. It was going to be hard to cherish Sister Jerome, she reflected, as she went back to the kitchen where a pile of potatoes waited to be peeled.
From the infirmary she could hear Father Stephens talking to Sister Gabrielle and Sister Mary Concepta. Though he lacked Father Malone’s cosily confiding manner he did his best with the old ladies though he was rather too apt to go on about the twilight of one’s days. As Sister Gabrielle had once tartly observed she was at the age when she didn’t need reminding of it.
‘Sister Joan.’ He was tapping on the kitchen door.
‘I’m sorry, Father. I was just getting started on the vegetables. Please come in.’ Rinsing her hands hastily she opened the door wider.
It was so unusual for Father Stephens to honour the kitchen with a visit that she stared at him for a moment before remembering to offer him another cup of tea.
‘Thank you but no, Sister. The one I had with Mother Prioress was very refreshing. You are still working as lay sister then?’
‘I’ve been told to make myself useful wherever I can,’ Sister Joan said.
‘No doubt until Sister Jerome settles in properly. I looked in to thank you for showing Father Timothy to the presbytery this morning. I ought to have been there mys
elf but there was the hospital visit and we weren’t sure of the exact time of his arrival,’ Father Stephens said.
‘It was no bother,’ Sister Joan assured him. ‘Mrs Fairly was in anyway.’
‘Busy as ever.’ He sighed slightly as if the housekeeper’s busyness wearied him. ‘Father Malone will be well on his way now. Father Timothy has requested that he be permitted to share the ministry up here at the convent. I suspect that he feels more at ease with other religious, never having had a parish before.’
Sister Joan couldn’t imagine Father Timothy being much at ease anywhere but reminded herself that it wasn’t fair to judge on one meeting.
‘Well, I must get on.’ Father Stephens was consulting his watch. ‘Thank you again, Sister. No, no, I’ll see myself out. I won’t interrupt your labours.’
As he went out into the passage again she bit back a heartfelt wish that he would interrupt a task she had never much enjoyed. Preparing and cooking food wasn’t one of her favourite occupations. For an instant her fingers ached for the feel of a brush loaded with colour, the sight of a blank canvas balanced on its easel, and then the painful craving ebbed and she picked up the potato peeler again.
The afternoon grew stormier, clouds scudding across the pale grey of the horizon. The potatoes were boiling, ready to be mashed and used to cover the boiled cabbage in a cottage pie without meat. Sister Jerome was scrubbing the back steps, careless of the cold as it pierced through habit and veil. Probably she was glad of the chance to do a bit more penance, Sister Joan thought, and ordered herself to tack on an extra decade of the rosary to remind herself to be more charitable in her thoughts.
The telephone in the passage rang, startling the silence. She hastened to answer it lest the continued noise would disturb the old ladies who were having their afternoon sleep.
‘The Convent of Our Lady of Compassion. Sister Joan here.’
‘Sister, it’s Mrs Fairly — from the presbytery.’ The voice was distorted by a crackling line.
‘Mrs Fairly, what can I do for you?’ Sister Joan asked, crushing down a sense of impending anxiety.
The housekeeper was the last person to disturb the community with a non-urgent call.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Sister,’ Mrs Fairly’s voice apologized, ‘but I wondered if you were coming down into town this week.’
‘I have to come in tomorrow to stock up on a few things,’ Sister Joan said.
‘I wondered if we might have a coffee?’ Mrs Fairly said.
‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Fairly,’ Sister Joan began awkwardly, ‘but you know this being Lent—’
‘You cut down on visits. Yes, I do know, and I wouldn’t ask you but — if you could possibly meet me, Sister, I’d take your advice as to what exactly to do.’
‘I could call in at the presbytery,’ Sister Joan said.
‘No. Not the presbytery. Perhaps we could have a coffee at the café opposite the chemist. Do you know it?’
‘Sister Hilaria and I had a coffee there after she’d been to the dentist,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Mrs Fairly, is anything wrong?’
‘I hope not, Sister.’ The voice sounded doubtful, died into a crackle and came back, blurred by atmospherics. ‘New lay— remembered where— not willing to trouble Father with— ten tomorrow?’
‘Ten tomorrow then.’ Sister Joan heard the click of the receiver at the other end before she had finished speaking.
Mother Dorothy frowned slightly when her permission was sought.
‘Your reason for driving into town is a purely practical one, Sister,’ she said reprovingly. ‘I do think, particularly during Lent, that social contacts should be kept to an absolute minimum.’
‘Mrs Fairly sounded troubled, Mother. I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.’
‘She has two priests living in the same house if her trouble is a spiritual one,’ Mother Dorothy said.
‘Shall I telephone her and tell her that I can’t meet her then?’ Sister Joan asked meekly.
‘Since you seem to have made some kind of arrangement,’ Mother Dorothy said, her voice edged with thick frost, ‘then you had better go, I suppose. Certainly it’s not very sensible to start running up telephone bills. You’ll tell me if the matter concerns the community, of course.’
‘Yes, Mother Dorothy.’
‘If it does not then you really ought not to concern yourself with it,’ Mother Dorothy was continuing. ‘You are scarcely qualified to offer personal advice, Sister.’
‘No, Mother, I’ll make that clear to Mrs Fairly,’ Sister Joan said.
‘I was going to send Sister Jerome into town with you when you next went so that you could acquaint her with the shops we patronize. Apparently she has a current driving licence and will be able to take the burden of marketing off your shoulders, but if you are requested to meet Mrs Fairly you’d better go in alone.’
‘I don’t think,’ Sister Joan ventured, ‘that Sister Jerome would enjoy trips into town, Mother.’
‘Since you know nothing whatsoever about Sister Jerome’s likes and dislikes,’ Mother Dorothy said coldly, ‘you really are not in a position to pass an opinion, Sister Joan.’
‘No, Mother.’
‘You had better go and check that the correct seasonings have been added to our supper,’ Mother Dorothy said, dismissing her.
‘Yes, Mother.’
Feeling less chastened than she might have done Sister Joan withdrew, distinctly cheered by the faint twinkle in her superior’s eyes.
Supper was palatable despite the boiled cabbage. Whether Sister Jerome had added anything or not to her own was impossible to tell since she never altered the stony expression on her face.
‘You will all have heard by now,’ Mother Dorothy said at the conclusion of the meal, ‘about the act of vandalism perpetrated in the grounds. I have, naturally, asked if any of you heard or saw anything and I’ve talked over the problem with Father Stephens. He agrees with me that it would be useless to inform the police. By now the culprits are probably a long way off, and even reporting it would involve our local constabulary in a great deal of unnecessary paperwork, so for the moment we will keep it to ourselves. I would ask you to be vigilant, however. If you notice any strangers in the grounds do please inform either Sister Perpetua or myself.’
The community filed into recreation which, it being Lent, was more subdued than usual. Not, reflected Sister Joan, that recreation at any time was a riot of pleasure. Conversation was expected to be general with no personal details referred to and fingers were expected to keep busy with knitting or sewing.
She was tired by the time the last blessing had been given, the postulants speeded on their way with Sister Hilaria, Alice let out for the last time, the doors and the windows locked and checked, the few lights that remained burning in chapel and hall reduced to a dim red glow. The storm which had threatened seemed to have passed without breaking but the sky was a peculiar leaden shade with no trace of a moon. Perhaps it was the threat of storm that had given her this feeling of something overshadowing her, of something that hovered just out of sight.
She had moved her things back to the cell she had occupied before she became acting lay sister, leaving the two cells leading off the kitchen for Sister Jerome and Sister Teresa. The professed cells were tiny rooms opening off the narrow corridor which ran above the kitchen wing, each identical with its narrow bed, stool, hooks on the back of the door for clothes, basin and ewer. A shelf against the wall held her Missal and the book in which she noted her own spiritual progress. Since reading it made her feel somewhat miserable she seldom glanced back through the latter. The larger cell which was Mother Dorothy’s domain during her term as prioress was at one side of her own, a vacant cell at the other side. On the other side of the corridor Sisters Perpetua, Katherine, David and Martha slept. The empty cell would be fitted up for Sister Teresa during her year of seclusion. Sister Joan thought of her own year of silence and of solitude, when she spoke only to her priest an
d mistress of novices, ate alone, wore the dense black veil that cut her off from view and curtailed her own vision of the world. Never again would Sister Teresa be so alone, yet never would she feel less abandoned, buoyed up by the prayers and gentle glances of her sisters. It was when one came into the full community, balancing spiritual with the mundane, that the real loneliness could begin. At which point in her musing Sister Joan dropped into an uneasy sleep in which she walked veiled down endless corridors, hearing somewhere a crying voice seeking help and finding none.
She was relieved when she woke before her usual time and, seeing the first streaks of dawn outside the window, was justified in rising. By the time she had cleaned her teeth, washed, and donned her habit and veil, the threatening images of the night had withdrawn and she picked up the wooden rattle and began her morning rounds with relief.
‘Christ is risen!’
From one cell to the next she made the customary announcement, recalling how the loud whirring of the rattle had startled her from slumber in the early days. From each cell came the customary response, ‘Thanks be to God’, each utterance slightly different as each member of the community struggled into awareness of a new day.
When she entered the kitchen the other two sisters were already up, and there were signs of life from the infirmary. Sister Teresa sent a cheerful morning smile. Sister Jerome kept her head lowered as she drew water for the kettles.
By 5.30 the sisters were in the chapel for the hour of private devotions which preceded early Mass. Father Malone and Father Stephens drove up to the convent on a weekly rota basis to offer the Mass and occasionally were a few minutes late but this morning, promptly on the half-hour, Father Timothy emerged from the tiny room that served as sacristy and began the service. There was a tiny ripple of interest among the community as he mounted the altar steps and opened the Bible.
He offered the Mass with a fervour that surprised her. It was as if, outwardly passionless, he threw all the resources of his soul into the re-enactment of the Sacrifice. Somehow or other she had expected something more hesitant, more pedantic.
A VOW OF PENANCE an utterly gripping crime mystery Page 5