Men On White Horses

by Pamela Haines

  ‘What do you do on Christmas Day, Fanny?’ Edwina had asked, speaking just as the thought came to her.

  ‘Open Christmas presents, silly, the same as everyone else.’ She looked surprised, a thin cress stem caught on her chin. ‘Except that I probably get more of them than other people.’ She looked round at her minions.

  ‘I meant goose. Pheasant, turkey – you know.’

  Fanny pursed her mouth up. Her eyes looked very small. ‘I eat them of course. You’re the goose.’ The others all tittered.

  It was like that a lot of the time. She didn’t think Fanny or indeed any of them meant to be unkind. That was just how it was. She felt like a piece of the furniture.

  Any time or place when Mother Anselm wasn’t around, Fanny seemed to be in charge. In French classes she would amuse herself drawing little sketches on her cahier, leaning back and admiring them afterwards. She sat in the front row but one. Exasperated one afternoon, Mademoiselle, the tears hovering as usual, protested: ‘Mais voyons, Franqoise – c’est un peu fort.’

  ‘That word “fort”,’ Fanny said, putting down her pencil, ‘it means “strong” usually, doesn’t it? “Fort” too, like there was a Roman fort here once. And then there’s forte, pianoforte in Italian, isn’t there?’ She smiled sweetly, a dimple showing.

  Mademoiselle was placated. But when the class was over she asked Fanny to stay behind and clean the blackboard for her. Edwina hung around and then as Fanny came out to begin the walk along the cloisters, she ran after her. Alongside, she said casually but in quite a loud voice: ‘I have an uncle who’s married to an Italian lady. She has a title and they live in Florence, and she has relations who live in a big palace in Rome.’

  Fanny turned round. Oh, but how ripping. Oh, but lucky you.’ She tossed her head: ‘Have you been there?’

  ‘No. I shall though.’

  Fanny said, ‘I shall go everywhere.’ She looked ahead of her. ‘Anywhere I want. I shall do everything–’ She turned to Edwina: ‘Sometimes-don’t you feel, don’t you want to get out?’ She waved her arms, over in the direction of the grounds, the cliffs. ‘I just want to get out. Over there –’

  Over there was what Edwina longed for. ‘The sea,’ she began.

  Oh, the sea,’ Fanny said scornfully. ‘That’s nothing. The sea, it’s just there? Then she said suddenly, companionably, putting an arm round Edwina, ‘Is your aunt a princess? Tell me all about her…’

  It was letter-writing day again. She sat at her desk in the main hall: Mother Guthbert presiding, hawk-eyed with her funny beaky nose and darting eyes and, sometimes, kind smile.

  Carefully she wrote, her new Waterman pen obstinately blobbing (her blotting-paper was speckled all over): ‘Dear Uncle Frederick, I like it here… Mother has forgotten to arrange piano lessons but I play in my head a lot. You can hear the sea sometimes in the dormitery…’ Then she added a postscript: ‘Please send me a photograph of yourself.’ She shook her pen. A great blot appeared like a tear.

  ‘See you in Switzerland,’ called Fanny in passing. It worried Edwina all morning. ‘She must have meant during afternoon break,’ Vita said, ‘because she’s got a special drawing lesson now.’ But: ‘Switzerland?’

  It turned out to be only a circle of trees, grassy in the middle with rocky mounds all about, and further out in the grounds than you were meant to go during break. When she arrived there, panting, Fanny was already scrambling up and down the mounds. Luckily there was a screen of trees further back so that they couldn’t really be seen from the building. ‘I thought that was really interesting – about your aunt. Your uncle too. Let’s talk about what we’d do if we had all the money, all the time, all the – everything. Let’s talk about it. What would you do?’

  Edwina caught the mood. She ran up a hillock, scuffing her shoe on a rock. She was on the tallest of the mounds: hand on forehead forming a peak, she gazed out to sea.

  ‘I’d buy a grand piano. The largest in the world – the grandest in the world. And a great marble hall to play it in. And then I’d play it all day. Every day, all day –’

  ‘You are assy. No, but really you are. I’ve noticed you – it’s all going on in your head, isn’t it?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’d hate to learn the piano. I told them I wouldn’t. They mostly do what I say, like being a vegetarian – I just decided when we had tubes in the meat. They said “of course” and wrote to Reverend Mother. I shall stop when I’m tired of it.’ She came down and stood in the circle. ‘By the way,’ she went on, hands thrust in pockets, ‘I’m adopted. That’s very private of course. You mustn’t tell a soul.’

  Edwina shook her head. ‘How terrible. Have you known a long time?’ She tried to imagine finding out suddenly that Mother wasn’t Mother.

  ‘Always actually. Lots of people know about it.’ She pointed northwards: from where they stood you could see little of the curving coastline, misty already in the afternoon light. ‘Bay. Robin Hood’s Bay. I’ve an aunt there I go and see. She’s my mother’s sister and she’s married to a fisherman. You aren’t really meant to know that. My mother came from Whitby. She died having me.*

  ‘What about your father?’ Edwina was open-eyed.

  ‘He came from Whitby too. He was lost at sea. Before I was born.’

  It had been mild when they first came out but now a wind was getting up from off the sea. Edwina shivered, hunched her shoulders. ‘Let’s go back,’ she said. She could not bear to think about ‘lost at sea’. How could Fanny just stand there, idly kicking at a loose stone? ‘It’s cold. And they might find us. Mother Anselm might find us.’

  ‘Oh, her,’ Fanny said. She made a funny sign, hands lined up, thumb to nose, little finger to thumb. ‘So,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ Edwina asked.

  ‘It means what it means.’ She made a series of rabbit hops. ‘Anyway, we hadn’t finished saying what we’d do. You did all the talking. I think – I want – 1 think if I could choose I’d marry a very very rich man, with a title. I shall marry a rich man – probably a foreigner, and then live in some simply splendid way.’ In the distance they could just hear the bell for afternoon classes.

  ‘Hurry,’ Edwina said.

  ‘I shall have my boiled egg every morning in a gold egg-cup on a little gold dish with a gold egg-spoon. Queen Victoria did that. Did you know?’

  She had settled into a routine now. That was the way you coped with life. She had always been at the convent: home was another world. Already it was the sixth week and it was Meresia’s turn now to wake them all in the morning, to go through the dormitories parting the white curtains of the cubicles, saying ‘Vigilate et adorate.’ The sound growing less as she passed down, then loud again: ‘Vigilate et adorate.’

  ‘What’s it mean?’ Edwina asked Babs.

  ‘I don’t think it means anything,’ Babs said, giggling. ‘It’s just Latin.’ So Edwina asked Meresia when next she saw her. It was a chance to talk to her because she never had anything to say when Meresia asked her, as she did now, ‘Are you all right, is everything all right?’

  ‘It comes out of the psalms, darling,’ Meresia said. ‘It says “take care, watch out. And adore”, pray, you know. It’s rather lovely, isn’t it?’

  The days were long though, very long. But dark and short too at the same time. It was November. The month you prayed a lot for the souls in Purgatory that they might get to Heaven quicker. Every time she said, ‘Jesus Mary Joseph!’ or ‘Most Sacred Heart of Jesus I love you’ or ‘May Jesus Christ be praised!’ she could gain an Indulgence and make their wait a little shorter.

  It rained and rained and a gale blew so that there was no question of a walk by the sea. The trees in the grounds swayed in the harsh wind, losing the last of their leaves, their branches bent to and fro, only the trunks staying firm. She thought of her father and longed for him. If she could lean against him and be comforted. What would he do if she were to run to him and ask? ‘Father – Daddy (as some people said) can I
lean against you?’

  Once when they were outside for recreation she ran off and stood very still, her whole body pressed against the trunk of an alder tree. She didn’t think she could be seen. She wanted to clasp it and after a while, taking off her gloves, she felt the rough bark on her fingertips. Perhaps she could feel it with her lips too.

  Mother Scholastica found her. ‘Whatever, my dear?’ And as Edwina stood away red in the face, fumbling for her gloves: ‘Some girl must prefer pagan gods?’ Her eyebrows were raised and she wore the expression, somewhere between laughter and surprise, which could be seen when she read to them on Saturday mornings. But she didn’t say anything more and just walked on. Edwina felt quite sick, certain that she would tell Clare (or would she?) and imagining that the superior Clare would mock her in front of Fanny.

  Nothing came of it though. The days just went on, and on. The next week when the gales had risen so that the sea and the wind could be heard all night she lay in bed and turned the sound into music. In her mind it thickened and grew all interwoven. There was a tune and yet not a tune. Beautiful patterns of sound: her fingers itched for them.

  Mother had arranged for her to go to the dancing classes. She wrote to Edwina about it. Madge asked: ‘Who’s your letter from? Father didn’t write this week – Of course he has a lot of business letters to write always. Has your father?’

  ‘He has no business,’ Edwina said. It sounded odd (mind your own business, people said).

  ‘I shall leave the white of my egg,’ Fanny announced. ‘Any takers? Quis?’

  ‘Ego,’ said Marion.

  ‘You are a hoot,’ said Babs. ‘Really.’

  Meresia had a letter. Edwina saw her reading it, intent, little finger at corner of mouth, hair catching the light.

  She finished her letter from Mother. She was to go to the dancing classes, starting immediately. Mother had forgotten to deal with it before. ‘Dancing is important. As is deportment. You will need both, Edwina.’ She had written to Reverend Mother, she said.

  Nobody enjoyed the classes and she soon understood why. They were given by one of the Maycock twins: bachelors who lived in a big house about five miles away and came over once a week. Osbert and Cecil. Osbert taught the piano.

  Cecil was short and a little stout with crinkly hair which bushed out and protruding slightly pointed ears. His manner was rather prim. Vita said they sometimes called him ‘Miss Maycock’. Edwina wanted to laugh when he stood with his back view to them as he pirouetted – oh lovely word – showing them how it was done. The funny stiff way he moved, elbows crooked, dancing with an imaginary partner. He seemed reluctant to touch the girls. That first class: ‘Next time,’ he said, ‘we could do something a little more daring, I think? Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘if we are all very very good then I shall show how the tango is done.’

  ‘As if we didn’t know,’ Marion said afterwards. ‘And anyway – it’s a sin.’

  Madge said to Edwina as they were coming out of embroidery, ‘Of course the one that teaches dancing’s all right. It’s the other one –’

  ‘How? What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t say. It’s just something I heard. It’s not something you exactly say.’ Fanny was just behind and she asked: ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, when she’d heard what Edwina had asked. ‘Oh, that. Personally I never allow it.’ She walked on past them.

  Madge went very red. ‘That girl. She thinks she owns Whitby…’

  But when Edwina asked Fanny later what it was all about she said, ‘My dear, I’ve no idea. I just made it up. To spite her. She’s so assy.’

  Two days later she said to Edwina: ‘Will you be my friend?’

  ‘I might,’ Edwina said. ‘If you’re nice to me. And pay attention to me at mealtimes.’

  Excitement, anticipation. Babs said: ‘Have you heard? Her mother’s coming to see her – Meresia’s mother. She’s in something in York, and she’s motoring over for the afternoon.’

  Edwina knew what she looked like because of the photograph. It hung incongruously in the hall amidst St Joseph, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and the Adoration of the Magi. She’d spotted it the first week. ‘Love and best wishes’ scrawled at the bottom in thick black ink, ‘Lydia Merri-wether’. Jewelled and befeathered: ostrich feathers, she was nearly buried in them. Meresia’s eyes gazed out, but they didn’t smile and the mouth was smaller, the fair hair tighter curled. She looked a little proud, Edwina thought. A little teasing too.

  She was to come on a Sunday and in the afternoon they were sent for a walk on the sands. They were all of them afraid they would miss her. Fanny in the infirmary with a sore throat, had to.

  Madge was Edwina’s partner for the walk. She talked all the time, full of grumbles. Edwina let it flow over her, like the sea rippled over the little hillocks near the water’s edge. ‘… and then Father says’ or well it’s Mother who says, you can’t expect servants to care, can you, they’re only servants –’

  The motor, it must be the motor, was just drawing up to the front door as they came in crocodile with Mademoiselle, up through the grounds to the Girls’ entrance. But it was possible by needing to go to the dormitory to be just on the balcony corner above the hall. Madge and Edwina, Vita, Babs.

  She was all furs today. But white, like the ostrich feathers. Her face could scarcely be seen. And she was tiny: in the photograph she had seemed not only plump but large, a blown-up Meresia. Behind her hovered an even smaller, ball-like man with a face like a monkey. He was rubbing his gloved hands. Two nuns were there and the bell had already rung for Reverend Mother. Meresia, in her Child of Mary ribbon, came hurrying over the slippery parquet floor. Edwina thought that she looked anxious.

  Babs whispered, ‘That little man, that’s her agent –’

  ‘What agent?’ hissed Edwina, who had feared that it was Meresia’s father. Reverend Mother was to be seen approaching from the right. The girls put their heads out once more and then fled. ‘Agent!’ How exciting that sounded – in her mind it was associated with foreign adventures, the sort they read in the library on Sunday afternoons. And it was to see them in the library (or just to see the library?) that Lydia Merriwether came on her conducted tour.

  It was hard to see who had intended to come through the door first but in fact it was Lydia Merriwether who burst in, burst through, a nun almost flattened at either side. She was followed by Reverend Mother and then, closely, by the small Mark man, bowing and smiling, rubbing his hands, looking round at all the girls. They sat neatly, library books open on their knees.

  And then suddenly her voice, loud, clear, thrilling: ‘Reverend Mother dear – could they have tomorrow as a holiday? I should so like to give them that.’ The sun of her smile shone on them all. Meresia, hovering, smirked.

  ‘Of course,’ Reverend Mother replied, a little drily. How could she say otherwise? Mother Aelred told them that they must all say thank you.

  Like royalty Lydia Merriwether moved amongst them. A smile here, a word there. The little monkey man smiled at each one of them but didn’t speak. Edwina smiled back.

  As Lydia Merriwether came by, her scent which had seemed to fill the room made Edwina gasp. As it wafted by on her furs, now thrown back on to her shoulders, she seemed to eclipse Meresia as some tropical plant would push from view an English hedgerose. She will not do, Edwina thought, picking up words she had heard her mother use. She really will not do.

  It came very suddenly, the feeling of Christmas. It was for her a feeling of happiness because when it came, then soon, only three weeks now, she would be home. She could feed Macouba with sugar lumps, ask him if he had missed her, bury her face in his neck, hope that she hadn’t grown too big for him.

  It was Advent and she must make sacrifices. She could not make too many. Thus she could help the sailors at sea, the fishermen, the pagans in Africa, people in mortal sin that they might come back to God.

  A jar of wheat stood on a tray outside the cl
assroom. Another empty jar beside it. If she made a sacrifice (and it could be something very small, like eating up semolina without saying ugh – and without telling anyone you hadn’t) then you might move a grain from one jar to the other. You could do it too by saying those same indulgenced prayers: ‘My Jesus, mercy! Mary, help!’ (100 days each time) or ‘Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like to thy Heart’ (300 days once a day).

  Fanny moved grains by the handful. Yawning in the dormitory at night. ‘My dears, I’m just worn out with ejaculating…’

  They had finished praying for the souls in Purgatory. Edwina had not had to pray for Grandma Illingworth because, as it was explained, it didn’t apply to her. She had been a Protestant. But if Edwina wished, she might pray for her; there was no harm in trying. It was a confused idea. Wanting exact answers she floundered in a sea of misunderstandings. What of the small brother who had died, un-baptized? He could not be of the Kingdom of Heaven. She asked Clare who would be sure to know since her aunt was a nun.

  ‘He’s in Limbo, you goose. How could he go to Heaven if he wasn’t baptized?’ Perhaps, Edwina thought, they had done it secretly, hurriedly; perhaps when he’d been born he hadn’t been quite dead? But she could never ask her mother. ‘It’s really no good you praying about it,’ Clare had said. ‘Anyway, Limbo’s quite nice – it’s just that it isn’t Heaven. I mean, they’re all naturally happy there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Not super naturally, of course. Goose,’ she added.

  Because she seemed to know so much, Edwina mentioned Grandma Illingworth and Clare said: ‘Oh, Protestants. They can go to Heaven. But only of course if they really thought being a Protestant was right. They have to be invincibly ignorant.’ Those didn’t sound the words to describe Grandma Illingworth. Clare had looked fierce suddenly: ‘Are you sure she never thought perhaps Catholics are right?’