A Vow Of Silence

by Veronica Black

  The translation began on the next page. Reading it slowly she was conscious within herself of an instinctive denial of the words that her eye scanned. It looked correct, but her beliefs and training rebelled against the implications.

  ‘Hear, good people, the witness of Miriam wife of Joshua and mother of the Lord. This witness I give to Lucas, a follower of the Lord.

  ‘When I was a child I danced and sang in the temple of the great mother and from that time was set apart to await the coming of the god. I alone among the maidens awaited the coming of the god in the person of the messenger, the Gabriel.

  ‘On the night appointed when Virgin and Scorpion changed places in the heavens the older women came for me and we descended into the cave of beginnings where only the high initiates might go. Then came the Gabriel with his horn of plenty and to that mystery was I made privy that the Holy Child might be conceived and born and die for the sake of the world. More I cannot say for these are forbidden things.

  ‘Then was I espoused to Joshua and my seat in the temple left vacant. This is the law.

  ‘Once in two thousand years is the great rite enacted. Blessed and cursed is she who is chosen to bear the flame. Cursed and blessed is she who meets the Gabriel.’

  The rest of the page was blank. Sister Joan forced herself to reread it and went on to the final page.

  ‘The foregoing Gospel was among my late father’s coded papers and has been translated by me. The original manuscript is also in my possession and will remain until the time when it is ripe to be given to the general public. That may not be for many years since in my experience the Church has always been slow to accept new evidence or to incorporate it into revealed doctrine. Indeed I incline more and more to the opinion that this knowledge did not fall into my hands by chance and that it was not through the workings of chance that I was drawn to enter the Order of the Daughters of Compassion.

  ‘It is now my task to choose those who will accept and translate into action that which is prophesied in the foregoing Gospel. I must bear in mind that through temperament and training most religious women are conservative, distrusting innovation save when sanctioned by a male-dominated ecclesiastical authority. I must also remember that it is no virtue to shirk a responsibility even if the consequences be heavy. In every organisation there is the inner court of those who know the reality behind the symbols.’

  The final pages were notes made on what Sister Joan surmised had been Reverend Mother Ann’s choice for her ‘inner court’.

  i) Mother Emmanuel. B. 1932. Entered the order 1952. Professed 1957. Novice Mistress 1968–73 when I had the honour of training under her. Prioress 1973–8 and 1978–9 when an attack of angina forced her to resign. A woman of strong and resolute character, aware of the low status afforded to women within the Church hierarchy.’

  Also in love with her former novice, Sister Joan supplied mentally, and quite willing to indulge any of her fantasies if it kept her in close proximity with her.

  ii) Sister Lucy. B. 1958. Professed 1983. A young woman of delicate and charming attributes. In the ancient temples such women would, I am convinced, have served the goddess. It is not, however among the professed nuns that the handmaid will be found.’

  Sly Sister Lucy with her false sweet smile and silent, gliding steps.

  iii) Sister Sophia. B. 1963. Professed 1987. Both Mother Emmanuel and I thought that she might be the chosen handmaid but her reaction to the suggestion was negative. She actually regarded it as a final test of faith. Certainly she cannot be relied upon completely though my requiring from her a vow of silence regarding the nature of the revelations made to her renders her harmless.’

  It looked more than ever as if Sister Sophia’s death had been the suicide that Sister Perpetua claimed it had been. Obviously she had been told something of the fifth Gospel, had rejected it, made her final profession and then discovered what? That the test she had regarded as academic was actually a course of action being carried out by her superiors? Had that been the motive for her suicide? The vow that prevented her from revealing the truth had made it impossible for her to prevent whatever was being planned. Had she told or hinted something to old Mother Frances in the days before her suicide that had led the old nun to write her letter to Reverend Mother Agnes?

  Sister Joan recalled Sister Margaret’s comment. ‘I told her that if the Archangel Gabriel came and blew his trumpet in her ear she likely wouldn’t hear him, but she didn’t laugh.’ The fourth name was that of Sister Felicity, born as the Prioress had noted in 1944, professed in 1972.

  ‘A loyal and devoted servant of the Holy Virgin and despite her lack of higher education possessing a mind able to understand the importance of the female in the role of creation,’ Reverend Mother Ann had noted.

  Sister Joan had reached the last page, obviously typed more recently than the others.

  The two names on it leaped out at her.

  ‘Sister Magdalen, B. 1968. Entered Novitiate 1987.

  ‘Sister Veronica, B. 1970. Entered Novitiate 1988.’

  No record of Brenda’s having left, no clue as to why the two names had been typed one below the other.

  On one level it was frustrating and inconclusive; on another it was deeply disturbing. What was very clear was that Reverend Mother Ann was a woman in the grip of an obsession, and that she had drawn others into her own idée fixe.

  ‘The problem with leading a celibate life,’ Reverend Mother Agnes had warned, ‘is that such a life is against nature. The natural, physical impulses must be channelled into other outlets, otherwise there is always the danger of hysteria or fanaticism. I am of the opinion that many who were named as saints would be regarded as mentally unstable if they were evaluated by psychologists today.’

  From time to time in the past there had been outbreaks of mass hysteria in certain convents, when nuns had declared themselves to be devil-possessed or had writhed in ecstasies that had nothing much to do with visionary experience and a great deal to do with sexual frustration. It was a danger against which every prioress worth her salt guarded zealously. It made sense of the apparently petty rules that discouraged personal friendships and made it obligatory in some orders for the sisters to undergo psychiatric examination at stated intervals.

  Sister Joan sat back on her heels, considering. The problem was that there was no Mother General of the Order of the Daughters of Compassion. Each prioress had, during her term of office, almost unlimited authority to interpret the rules as she chose. There was a higher court of appeal in the parish priest but the little she had seen of Father Malone convinced her that he was thoroughly charmed by the Prioress.

  She slid the typewritten pages into their transparent cover and looked round for some place where they might be secreted. It would have been safer to return them to the drawer in the base of the statue as soon as the chance afforded but her own inclination was to hang on to what might well be the only evidence she had.

  The huge packing-cases were nailed down but there was an infinitesimal space between their bottoms and the floor and the typescript could be slipped between the two. She slipped it there, mentally marked the particular packing-case and rose, dusting down her habit. Her next task must be to write a full and frank account of everything she had deduced to Reverend Mother Agnes and leave it to the other to take what action she deemed necessary. Having decided that she felt a rush of relief that made her feel positively light-hearted as she went along the corridor and down the stairs to kneel in the chapel.

  ‘Entering a convent can also be a way of avoiding responsibility for your own actions,’ Jacob had argued. ‘If anything goes wrong you can rush to your Superior and dump it on her.’

  ‘Not at all. One has to work through one’s problems as one does everywhere,’ she had argued.

  Now, thinking back over the events of the last few days, she wondered if there had been justice in his strictures. In the outer world had anyone vanished as Brenda seemed to have vanished she would have ca
lled in the police by now. It was only the impossibility of connecting the convent with violence that stayed her hand.

  Rising from her knees she made her way down the corridor to the main hall. The front door stood open and Grant Tarquin’s car was parked in the drive. Presumably he was visiting the Prioress since there was no sign of her as Sister Joan glanced in at the partly open door of the parlour and continued on into the infirmary wing.

  This was obviously a good day for the three old ladies within. They were all out of their beds and drinking coffee by the fire. She stood for a moment looking at them, sensing the weight of their experience.

  Sister Mary Concepta had entered the order shortly after its founding at the age of thirty-eight, a late vocation unless, like Mother Frances and Sister Perpetua, she had transferred from another order. Now, twisted by rheumatism, she was still alert and bright-eyed, her voice younger than the rest of her as she said,

  ‘Which makes no sense at all. I am not in favour of giving in to popular pressure even in the matter of holidays.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Sisters.’ Sister Joan went in briskly. ‘Are you speaking of holidays?’

  ‘Pagan nonsense,’ Sister Andrew said in her decided way. ‘Something called Solstice which has been revived locally by Mr Grant Tarquin and encouraged by Reverend Mother Ann.’

  ‘In our view a mistake,’ Sister Gabrielle said. ‘Our own feast days are quite numerous enough to satisfy the most ardent desire for gaiety.’

  ‘It is always a mistake,’ pronounced Sister Andrew, ‘to allow a lay person even if they are a benefactor to dictate the course of action in a religious house.’

  ‘Do you know Mr Tarquin well?’ Sister Joan enquired. ‘He seems to take a close interest in the welfare of the Community.’

  ‘Some might call it interference,’ Sister Andrew said, with a sniff that indicated she was among their number. ‘We got along very well up to the last couple of years.’

  ‘Hasn’t he always taken an interest?’

  ‘His father was the one who sold this property to the order and took a close interest in our welfare,’ Sister Gabrielle told her. ‘The son took no interest until the last year or so.’

  ‘Since when one notices,’ Sister Mary Concepta said sadly, ‘that many of the old disciplines have slackened quite remarkably.’

  ‘Perhaps the Prioress is moving with the times,’ Sister Joan suggested.

  Three elderly faces were turned to hers.

  ‘Moving with the times?’ Sister Gabrielle echoed. ‘That is the last thing one expects from a prioress.’

  ‘The strength of Holy Mother Church lies in the fact that She does not move with the times,’ Sister Andrew said. ‘Rome does not bow to every whim of fashion. I know that’s an out-of-date viewpoint. I am told that in some churches guitars are now twanged during the Mass. To attract the young back into the Church they say. I don’t agree with it.’

  ‘I always liked the sound of a guitar,’ Sister Mary Concepta said wistfully.

  ‘A Spanish guitar can be melodious,’ Sister Andrew allowed, ‘but these modern instruments are all dangerous trailing wires and twanging sounds. Sister Joan probably has a different opinion, being so young.’

  ‘Not entirely,’ Sister Joan said, charmed to be regarded as a mere child. ‘I have attended an occasional folk Mass and they can be wonderfully inspiring, but I rather tend towards tradition myself.’

  ‘Mother Frances would have approved,’ Sister Gabrielle said. ‘She was very troubled in the last days of her life, very troubled.’

  ‘About the modern Mass?’

  ‘Oh no, dear. Thank heavens we don’t have that here yet,’ the other said. ‘No, she fretted about the novices. Having been a Mistress of Novices so often herself she naturally took an interest. She was not happy about Reverend Mother Ann’s choice of Sister Hilaria — not that anyone can deny Sister Hilaria is a visionary. A most holy and dedicated nun.’

  ‘With her head up in the clouds three-quarters of the time,’ Sister Andrew pronounced.

  ‘I imagine Mother Emmanuel is a great help,’ Sister Joan murmured.

  ‘She would have made a more competent Mistress of Novices certainly,’ Sister Gabrielle said, ‘but her secretarial skills are so considerable that the Prioress was unwilling to lose them by confining her entirely to the Novitiate.’

  ‘We are gossiping in the most disgraceful manner,’ Sister Mary Concepta said, ‘but at our age the pleasures of gossip may be excused.’

  ‘But not at Sister Joan’s age,’ Sister Andrew said primly. ‘Have you had a satisfying week with us, Sister? Do you find the schoolwork hard? It is often difficult to strike a balance between the secular and religious duties of our vocations.’

  The old lady had deftly blocked any further gossip. Sister Joan lingered to give them some account of her week at school with one or two anecdotes concerning the pupils which she calculated would amuse them.

  At least she had elicited the pertinent fact that Grant Tarquin’s close interest in the Community had only started a couple of years before at about the time when she guessed Reverend Mother Ann had been translating the fifth Gospel. She wondered if there was a connection between the two events.

  ‘There you are, Sister!’

  Sister Margaret’s cheerful voice greeted her as she left the Infirmary.

  ‘I went to see the old ladies,’ Sister Joan paused to say.

  ‘They do so enjoy it when one of the younger sisters pops in.’ Sister Margaret beamed. ‘I sometimes think that the old go round in a circle back to childhood again.’

  It was scarcely an original thought but she looked as pleased as if it were.

  ‘I am only sorry that I missed meeting Mother Frances,’ Sister Joan said. ‘And Sister Sophia too. She sounds like an interesting person.’

  ‘Too clever for me, I’m afraid,’ Sister Margaret said deprecatingly, ‘but very kind. She is a great loss to the Community. But there! God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. Oh, I almost forgot. There was a telephone call enquiring after you.’

  ‘After me?’ Sister Joan stopped short as she turned.

  ‘The Prioress — from your old convent I mean. Sister Felicity usually takes the calls but she has been delayed in town, so I took it.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, I hope?’

  ‘Oh no, but Reverend Mother Agnes said she would be glad to hear from you when you have leisure.’

  ‘But I — leisure has been fairly limited. I will write to her tomorrow.’

  ‘She sounded rather strict,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘Not that I would complain. With a strict prioress one knows where one is.’

  Sister Margaret smiled and went back into the kitchen.

  If her letter had been posted the previous Monday it ought to have reached its destination within a few days. Either Grant Tarquin had neglected to post it or he had held it back for reasons of his own.

  Reminding herself that he was paying a visit to the Prioress she hurried into the main hall with some vague idea of waylaying him if she could do so discreetly, but she had delayed too long. Through the open door she glimpsed the tail end of his car disappearing down the drive.

  FIFTEEN

  For almost the first time since she had entered the religious life five years before Sister Joan found the long services of the following morning hard to endure. Always even when she had been troubled by the doubts concerning her vocation that were common to novices the Sunday services had refreshed her spirit and reinforced her dedication, but on this morning it was impossible to enter fully into the beauty and power of the devotions. Rising, kneeling, sitting with her companions the same questions were running over and over in her mind like a tape that someone had forgotten to switch off. Where was the link that tied together Reverend Mother’s translation of her father’s notes, the unexplained death of Sister Sophia and the disappearance of Brenda/Magdalen?

  The scenario building up in her imagination was one she didn’t want to e
xamine too closely because to do so would be to lay bare events that struck at the roots of her own personal creed.

  ‘I never understood how any intelligent and rational person could ever believe in the Christian myth,’ Jacob had said scornfully.

  He had rejected the Jewish ‘myth’ too, but in the end it had prevented him from marrying her.

  ‘If you have entered this order in the hope of falling out of love,’ her Novice Mistress had said, ‘you have come to the wrong place, Sister. You will probably love more deeply and more passionately in a higher and broader sense.’

  But if everything in which she believed were found to be inaccurate then her sacrifice had been for nothing. She wondered suddenly if that was how Sister Sophia had felt when she had been initiated into the inner circle headed and inspired by the Prioress. And in that despair had she gone up to her cell and committed the final act of self-hatred?

  ‘The Mass is ended. Go in peace,’ Father Malone said, sketching a large and quivering cross upon the air.

  Sister Joan rejoined automatically with the rest,

  ‘Thanks be to God,’ and filed out for the midday meal which, being the Sabbath one, was more elaborate than the weekday meals with fish to vary the eggs and cheese that normally accompanied the vegetables and rice.

  There had been occasions in the past when she had regretted the rule of silence maintained unless speech was absolutely necessary because it took an effort of will to save up some light-hearted remark or comment for recreation in the evening, but today the silence was welcome. She was certain she would have made only nonsensical replies had any remark been addressed to her.

  The afternoon was free. What that meant in practice was that one spent a frantic hour catching up on the offices postponed during the week before. There was mending to be done, letters to write, one’s stint of gardening to be fitted in, neglected prayers to be offered. Today she had only one object in view and slipped away the moment the final grace was said, pretending not to notice Sister David’s hopeful smile. Her co-teacher obviously looked forward to a discussion on the sharing of their school duties.