A Vow Of Chastity

by Veronica Black

  Mounting up, thinking of the trousers that had been promised with renewed gratitude, she rode back to the convent. Around her the moors were quick and green, with the wild harebells that carpeted them already dancing in the breeze and the berries of the rowan tiny rubies against the darker green.

  The convent had been a stately home for the local squires. She never tired of that first gracious view of the mullioned windows sparkling in the grey, ivy clad stone, the high enclosure wall where honeysuckle hung its yellow-cream fingers with their tips of scarlet. Her Mother House, where she had done her postulancy, her novitiate, been received for first temporary and then final vows, had stood in a narrow street. From the garden at the back she had seen only the sky with no open vistas. With luck she would spend the rest of her life here, be laid finally to rest in the convent cemetery where other nuns slept their deep and dreamless slumbers.

  Dismounting at the main gates, always held hospitably open, she looped Lilith’s rein over her arm and walked up the drive, trying to attain the happy medium between unseemly haste and idle loitering. After her recent shocking transgressions it behoved her to move carefully. Her mouth quirked into an irrepressible grin as she recalled the shock on the other faces as she made her confession. Her faults had certainly put everybody else’s in the shade — which was certainly no cause for self-congratulation.

  ‘Did you have a good day, Sister Joan?’

  The Prioress again. Mother Dorothy, despite her age, was not the sort of woman who sat in her own quarters, and letting the even tenor of convent routine flow around her was clearly inimical to her nature. She preferred to bustle round with it — unless she had decided to keep a close eye on Sister Joan for fear she take it into her head to do something really scandalous.

  ‘A very good day, thank you, Mother Dorothy.’

  ‘Don’t forget to get yourself measured for the riding trousers.’ The sharp face peered up at her from between the rounded shoulders.

  ‘No, Mother. Thank you, Mother.’

  ‘They are for modesty’s sake,’ Mother Dorothy said severely, ‘not a personal indulgence.’

  ‘Of course not, Mother.’

  ‘Lilith enjoys her outings, I think.’ The other stroked the velvety nose. ‘Of course her name is most unfortunate — but then as she was named a long time ago I daresay she would not respond to anything new.’

  ‘She doesn’t always respond to her own name,’ Sister Joan said, with a grin. ‘This old mare can be obstinate when she’s a mind.’

  ‘Then you must suit each other very well,’ Mother Dorothy said, the dryness of her tone indicating a joke.

  ‘Mother, would it be possible for me to visit the parents of my pupils?’ Sister Joan took advantage of the momentary relaxation.

  ‘For what reason?’

  Sister Joan explained carefully about the project she had in mind.

  ‘Rather ambitious, don’t you think?’ The Prioress frowned. ‘Will it advance their education?’

  ‘I believe so, Mother. To learn something about local history will make them use their eyes and ears more alertly, and of course as there will be some extra work involved — some of the children will require some help from their parents. And if there is to be a Parents’ Day, naturally I would appreciate the co-operation of the adults.’

  ‘If it doesn’t interfere with your religious life, Sister, then I have no objection,’ her superior said. ‘In fact the idea appeals to me. So few children come to the school now and the value of the original trust fund has not kept pace with modern inflation, that within the year I may close the school altogether.’

  ‘Yes, Mother Dorothy.’

  Though it was news she had expected she was unable to summon a smile.

  ‘We shall find some other useful occupation for you, Sister,’ the Prioress said.

  ‘Thank you, Mother.’ Sister Joan led Lilith into the stable.

  Feeding the mare, rubbing her down, washing her own hands took up the next half hour. It was past 4.30. At this hour the sisters were generally in their cells, examining their consciences. Sister Joan turned instead in the direction of the chapel. She hadn’t lied to Mother Dorothy about the reason she wished to visit the parents but she had certainly withheld a part of the truth, if it was truth and not merely her own overstrained imagination. Remembering her dream of the previous night she feared that some very odd things were going on in her subconscious.

  The chapel was quiet and sunlit. Slipping into her pew, kneeling with bowed head, she felt her own restless thoughts slow and mellow. Perhaps she had allowed her keen interest in the school to override her detachment. The dismay with which she had heard the pronouncement that it might close sooner than she had expected had been out of proportion to the effect it ought to have had on her. When the school closed the pupils would move on and quickly forget her, and she would be given work commensurate with her talents and the needs of the order.

  But please not sorting the laundry, her lips moved silently.

  She raised her head to the sunlit altar and stared at the empty space on it. Not spiritually empty as it had seemed during her penance but physically denuded of the heavy silver crucifix that stood between the twin candlesticks. Behind it was the locked cupboard where the Host was kept. At mass Father Malone moved the crucifix to one side in order to unlock the door. Sister David cleaned and polished everything in the chapel twice a week — on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Today was Monday and there was no reason for anything to be missing.

  She rose from her knees and went rapidly across to the unlocked side door which gave access to the visitors’ side of the parlour and thence into the side yard through which one gained the bridle path beyond the wall. The doors were kept open from early morning until the grand silence. Though the order was semi-cloistered any member of the public who felt the need to pray in the chapel was free to do so. Very few availed themselves of the privilege since the parish church was more conveniently reached.

  She would have to tell someone what had happened before someone else came in and discovered the loss. The thought that Sister Hilaria might have borrowed the crucifix while in one of her ecstasies occurred to her and was as swiftly dismissed. Sister Hilaria was delicately made, incapable of lifting anything heavy without help.

  She hurried back into the main hall in time to see the door of Mother Dorothy’s room close firmly. The merest whisper of voices reaching her through the oak panels reminded her that at this hour the Prioress instructed the postulants who were escorted from the separate building they occupied beyond the disused tennis court for an hour’s spiritual consent. Nothing short of fire or sudden death was allowed to interfere with that. She stood irresolutely for a few moments, then turned back. The crucifix was missing and nothing was likely to make any difference to the situation if she waited an hour. An hour’s wait would also be good discipline for her. Sister Joan, who knew only too well that she was apt to rush in where no self-respecting angel would venture, drew a long breath and walked slowly the length of the chapel corridor into the chapel again, genuflecting to the altar, raising her head to see the sunlight beaming down on the large crucifix which shone as brightly as if it had never been missing at all.

  Three

  ‘If you occasionally stopped to think,’ she had been told more than once by her novice mistress in the days before her final profession, ‘you would find life easier, Sister.’

  So think! Daffodils taken from the Lady Altar and not returned, too many candles being used, a heavy crucifix taken and put back. For what possible reason? Go on thinking! Schoolchildren who suddenly begin to behave like angels, a verse written by an eleven-year-old that has about it a miasma of — don’t let that imagination of yours run away with you, Sister Joan.

  ‘You cannot possibly expect to get round all the parents in one evening,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘It would be far too tiring for Sister Margaret.’

  ‘Sister Margaret?’ Sister Joan looked surprised.

  ‘Sist
er Margaret will naturally accompany you.’ The Prioress looked surprised in her turn. ‘My dear child, you didn’t fancy that you were going to gallop alone round the neighbourhood like some latter-day Paul Revere, did you?’

  Sister Joan, who had fancied something of the sort, blushed.

  ‘Sister Margaret will drive you wherever you wish to go, but I would advise splitting the visits into two evenings or you will never be back by eight o’clock.’

  ‘Nuns,’ Jacob had once said, ‘go everywhere in pairs, like cruets.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to inconvenience Sister Margaret,’ she said.

  ‘Sister Margaret will be very pleased,’ Mother Dorothy said firmly. ‘She loves driving the car and a round of visits will be a real treat for her. Just check with her as to when it will suit her best. I would advise as soon as possible. When one has envisaged a somewhat ambitious project it is always sensible to get the basic details fixed firmly as quickly as is practical.’

  Resigned to being one half of a cruet Sister Joan duly consulted Sister Margaret whose round face beamed with pleasure.

  ‘What a treat! The little bits and pieces you tell us about the children are so interesting that it will be a real delight to meet the parents. And driving at night is such an adventure, isn’t it? When I took my test the instructor said that everybody ought to get some experience of twilight driving, so this is a marvellous opportunity.’

  ‘You’d have done better to suggest that I drive you,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘That way you’d be sure of getting there and back in one piece. However, I shall have a tot of brandy for shock ready in the infirmary when you get back.’

  Her freckled white face flushed with laughter as she presented her witticism. Sister Joan, refraining from reminding everybody that she was a perfectly competent driver, also refrained from warning any of her pupils about the intending visit. She had a fancy to see the parents of Samantha Olive before they had composed their faces into the expression with which most lay people greeted nuns.

  ‘Where are we to go first, Sister Joan? I am entirely at your disposal.’ Sister Margaret beamed at her as they sat in the shabby old jalopy that did duty as convent car.

  Sister Joan glanced at the list she had made.

  ‘I thought we might go to the Lees and the Smiths first,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, that will be very pleasant. Such a nice drive over the moors in the late afternoon.’

  Sister Margaret bent eagerly to the ignition and an instant later the car shot backwards.

  ‘Wrong gear,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘So fortunate there wasn’t anybody standing behind us. Our Dear Lord is so good in little matters like that.’

  Sister Joan hoped fervently that He would continue to be good as Sister Margaret drove with gay abandon down the drive and turned on to the track. How she had passed her test was a miracle in itself.

  The Romanies camped, when they were not on their annual travelling, on a high, flat stretch of ground past which an unexpected river meandered lazily to lose itself in a deep quiet pool fringed with willow. The camp itself was rather less romantic, being a mélange of cooking smells and barking dogs and piles of old tin cans, spring mattresses, kettles, iron rails and similar junk, all due to be sorted, loaded and sold to scrap merchants.

  ‘Why, how nice! Here is Padraic,’ Sister Margaret said, drawing up with a fine flourish that sent half a dozen chickens squawking wildly in several directions.

  ‘Who?’ Sister Joan asked, puzzled.

  Her query was answered, not in words, but by the arrival of Mr Lee who loped over to open the door and assist Sister Margaret out with as much ceremony as if she were a visiting duchess.

  ‘Well now, ain’t this a treat! Two holy ladies at once and just in time for a mug of tea. Children not been getting up to anything, I hope?’

  ‘No, on the contrary,’ Sister Joan said quickly. ‘They’ve been very good recently. I came to discuss a school project I have in mind to do for which I may need some help from the parents.’

  ‘Any help I can give.’ But he looked slightly uneasy. ‘Not that I was ever very much at the education. I says to my two girls — “Get education and then the world’s your own”. Doing all right then, are they?’

  ‘Tabitha is starting to read very prettily,’ Sister Joan assured him, ‘and Edith has a lovely singing voice. Of course they’re both still very young but I have high hopes of them. Even though they’re little I’m sure that they can contribute to the project. I thought perhaps they could make some little raffia baskets, dried flower posies, traditional Romany crafts. The project is to be a history of the district, you see.’

  ‘We buy plastic bags in the supermarket,’ Padraic said, looking alarmed. ‘More modern, you see.’

  ‘Perhaps their mother—?’ Sister Joan began.

  ‘Well now, the wife isn’t too grand these days.’ He looked more uncomfortable. ‘Not up to doing the chores or taking the interest she should. But if you want dead flowers and raffia baskets then those you shall have. Ain’t nothing too good for them dear Sisters.’

  ‘As I well know,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘I have so much cause to be grateful to you, Padraic.’

  ‘What’s a bit of fish between friends, eh, Sister Margaret?’ He dug her in the ribs with his elbow, a gesture that would have been intensely painful had not her ribs been so well cushioned.

  ‘We all enjoyed it very much,’ she assured him. ‘I served it with a nice caper sauce.’

  ‘Would that,’ Sister Joan enquired, ‘have been the salmon we had last week? On the occasion that Mother Dorothy said she didn’t know how you contrived to stretch the housekeeping allowance so far?’

  ‘Oh, that was Mother Dorothy’s little jest, Sister,’ her companion said. ‘She knows very well that Padraic sometimes brings a little present over — so kind of him.’

  ‘Very.’ Sister Joan wondered whether it would be tactless to enquire as to whether Padraic Lee had a salmon fishing licence and decided that it would be.

  They had reached a large caravan, its door closed. As Padraic hesitated Sister Margaret said, ‘There really isn’t any need to disturb Mrs Lee. There is nothing nicer than a drink of tea in the open air.’

  ‘Coming right up, Sisters. Also two good solid chairs, none of your canvas rubbish. The girls are playing somewhere. Petroc! Go and get Tabby and Edie and then come along yourself. I’m about to brew up so it’ll be good and hot.’

  Also strong, Sister Joan thought, choking slightly over the mug. There must have been several spoonfuls of sugar in it but the milk carton had scarcely been tilted.

  ‘Now this gives one energy‚’ Sister Margaret said happily. ‘Are these your little girls, Padraic? How pretty they are.’

  Tabitha and Edith, approaching shyly, were duly introduced. Sister Joan talked about raffia baskets and dried flower posies; Petroc slouched up and volunteered to collect different sorts of rocks from all round the district; the caravan door stayed firmly closed.

  ‘Are your parents around?’ Sister Joan enquired of Petroc.

  ‘Mum’s gone north and Dad’s inside,’ Petroc said, with no particular emotion.

  ‘My brother,’ said Padraic sadly, ‘was framed. An innocent, Sisters. A true innocent, but given to hitting policemen when he’s wrongfully accused. It don’t do to get on the wrong side of the law. I tell Petroc here that if you ever get picked up you act polite. That’s right, ain’t it, Sister?’

  ‘Manners maketh man,’ Sister Joan quoted.

  ‘A rare way of putting it! You hear that, Petroc?’ He frowned towards his nephew.

  ‘It wasn’t actually my quot—’ Sister Joan began.

  ‘Shakespeare,’ Padraic said. ‘Lovely way with words that man had. My wife can read that kind of thing something lovely.’

  ‘Actually it comes from—’ Sister Joan jumped violently as the caravan door was suddenly flung open and a figure wrapped in a brilliantly patterned bedspread swayed on to the threshold, yelling in far fro
m dulcet accents, ‘Padraic, where the bloody hell are you? My stomach’s sticking to my backbone.’

  ‘Just seeing to supper, Madge.’ He had risen to move between the door and the two sisters. ‘Five minutes, my sweetheart. Petroc, take the girls over to your place. I’ll be along later. I’m terribly sorry, Sisters. I figured as how Madge’d sleep longer, but when the sickness is on her it’s not so certain. Reads lovely she does when she’s feeling herself. Bit of a comedown for her really, getting wed to a man without education. I tell my girls — I tell them constant — get an education and get a man with education so you won’t have cause to feel ashamed.’

  ‘I am sure that your girls will grow up to be very proud of their father‚’ Sister Joan said awkwardly.

  ‘Jesus, no! — begging your pardons. I’m reliant on them having better taste than that‚’ Padraic said in alarm. ‘You’ll be wanting Ginny Smith now, I daresay. Last wagon on the right. Nice little woman but she can’t cope. Just coming, Madge.’

  ‘Wonderful tea.’ Sister Margaret rose, lifting a hand in farewell as he darted up the steps. ‘Wonderful man too. Sorely afflicted, which is always a sign of grace.’

  They walked away, Sister Joan at least being uncomfortably aware of peering eyes, of an old woman smoking a pipe outside her wagon who circled finger and thumb in the ancient sign of protection against the evil eye.

  ‘So interesting to see where they live.’ Sister Margaret avoided a suspicious looking puddle. ‘I often feel that Our Dear Lord would have felt very much at home with Romanies. Is this the Smith caravan, Sister?’

  ‘Last in the line. It must be.’ Sister Joan hesitated as the door opened and a tiny woman came out, peering down at them uncertainly.