Vow of Silence

by Veronica Black

  ‘Don’t you think that might be wasting time?’ he said frowningly. ‘The police ought to be told if she vanished after she left the convent.’

  ‘Give me until tomorrow,’ she said recklessly. ‘I teach here every morning so you can come over at lunchtime and I’ll let you know how things stand. Oh, and be discreet, won’t you?’

  ‘I won’t say anything,’ he promised. ‘Sister, what do you think happened to Brenda?’

  ‘Probably nothing at all,’ she answered with an optimism she was far from feeling. ‘It is possible that she changed her mind about entering the religious life and slipped away without saying anything. She may have gone somewhere to think things over.’

  ‘For three months?’

  ‘I agree that it does seem a long time. Anyway, I’ll see what I can find out and you’ll be a tourist for a few days.’

  ‘You said that you were worried about one or two things that were happening,’ he detained her to say. ‘What things?’

  ‘One of the professed sisters died in December,’ Sister Joan said reluctantly. ‘She was testing some fire-escape apparatus and she apparently fell. It is possible that her death upset Sister Magdalen – your Brenda.’

  ‘Then why did she wait three months before she left?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Probably the two events aren’t connected.’

  And perhaps they were, she thought, shooing him ahead of her, locking the door carefully. It would be something to find out if she could.

  ‘Until tomorrow then,’ she said with professional brightness. ‘Try not to worry.’

  Advice she had better start following herself, she resolved, mounting the patient Lilith and trotting away with the persistent Johnny Russell gazing after her.

  SEVEN

  Sister Joan had missed the convent luncheon which didn’t matter too greatly since she had eaten the two apples and drained the flask of coffee. Accordingly she made no attempt to hurry Lilith but let her amble down the track. At each side the low moorland stretched, its sombre aspect intensified by the gleams of sunshine that gilded bracken and grass. When she reached the main gates she veered off the laurel-edged drive, trotting across the lawn that curved around the end of the building and became a paved walkway. On her right was the high wall of the enclosure and ahead of her steps leading down to a sunken and grass-grown tennis-court.

  The tennis-court brought home to her the full dilapidation of what had once been a prosperous family estate. The posts were still in position but they were thick with rust and the remnants of a net sagged sadly between them, gaping holes adding to the shabby appearance of this court where young men in blazers and girls in pleated dresses with low waists had once flirted and delivered long sweeping lobs and crisp back shots. If she stayed here long enough she would surely hear the echo of their laughter, stilled now by two world wars, the soft slap of the tennis balls against the racquets.

  Dismounting she went down the steps and walked across the court to the wicker gate set in an angle of the two further walls. At the other side of the gate a house, somewhat larger than a cottage, stood with lace-curtained windows hiding the rooms within. That must be the Dower House, now the Novitiate, where the four candidates would live in complete seclusion, coming up to the main house only for devotions, except when there were circumstances, like a serious outbreak of influenza, which forced a relaxation of the rules.

  One of the lace curtains twitched slightly. Sister Joan bit her lip, unwilling to be caught trespassing, but also unwilling to take flight like a naughty child. A moment later a side door opened and the thick-set figure of Mother Emmanuel emerged.

  ‘Good afternoon, Sister Joan.’ She greeted the intruder cheerfully. ‘Having a little wander?’

  ‘I think I strayed too far,’ Sister Joan said apologetically.

  ‘I don’t think the novices will come to much harm if they glimpse a professed nun out of the chapel,’ said Mother Emmanuel, coming to the gate and lifting the latch.

  ‘I just got back from school,’ said Sister Joan, and immediately scolded herself for sounding obsequious.

  ‘You missed lunch then?’ Mother Emmanuel glanced at her. ‘If you go to the kitchen Sister Margaret will make you a sandwich. In the religious life it is important you keep up your strength. Did you find the morning exhausting after so long without teaching?’

  ‘Rather like riding a bicycle. One never really loses the knack,’ said Sister Joan.

  ‘It is rather like riding a bicycle, isn’t it?’ the other said. ‘I mean in the religious life, the keeping a balance between the inner and outer world. We are fortunate here in our Prioress. She is bound to be elected for a second term. A true inspiration to all of us. You know I was Prioress here before her?’

  ‘I assumed so.’

  ‘I had two terms of office turn and turn about with Mother Frances. She had come from our Paris House. I believe she was Novice Mistress there.’

  ‘Reverend Mother Ann –’ Sister Joan began.

  ‘She was librarian here. Much of her time has been spent in collecting and transcribing her late father’s papers. He was a famous archaeologist, but I dare say you have been told.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. He left a considerable reputation behind him.’

  ‘She travelled with him all over the Near and Middle East before his death. It is my opinion,’ said Mother Emmanuel, ‘that she could have had a brilliant academic career herself, but she sacrificed it first to his comforts and then to the religious life.’

  ‘I was talking with Sister Hilaria this morning,’ Sister Joan said, becoming a trifle bored with this recital of the perfections of Reverend Mother Ann. ‘She seems a little vague.’

  ‘You are wondering why she was appointed as Novice Mistress,’ Mother Emmanuel said. ‘She is a genuine mystic, you know. Her religious experiences have reached a very high level of sanctity, of which she is modestly unaware. However Reverend Mother Ann felt that she required some position of responsibility in order to balance her. Unfortunately she is somewhat distrait at times, which is why I assist her in the task.’

  ‘May I ask how the novices are progressing?’ Sister Joan saw the opening and leapt in.

  ‘Very well on the whole.’ Mother Emmanual looked satisfied. ‘Teresa and Rose will be extremely efficient and dedicated members of the Community. Barbara is apt to think too much of her own will rather than the Will of God, but that is a fault from which we all suffer at times. Veronica is a charming girl, very eager and devout. Of course it is a little inconvenient that she entered later than the others. When they move into their second year she will still be in her first. However that is something to be considered later.’

  ‘You have no second-year novices yet?’

  ‘Reverend Mother Prioress decided to streamline everything by accepting novices only every two years, such a practical step to take.’

  ‘You must have been disappointed when Sister Magdalen left so abruptly.’

  ‘Yes indeed. She had seemed very happy with us, but one can never tell. She came to us last September, a few weeks before the others arrived. She would be embarking on her second year now, mingling more with the rest of us.’

  ‘She didn’t confide that she intended to go home?’

  ‘Not to me. Did you ever play tennis, Sister? I have often thought that it might be rather jolly to tidy up the court and use it at exercise time. Reverend Mother Ann used to play when she was a girl. I imagine that she would have been very good.’

  ‘I never played,’ said Sister Joan. ‘At our school we played hockey.’

  ‘The Prioress played hockey for the County when she was at school,’ Mother Emmanuel said proudly. ‘I would love to have seen that. Well, I must get on. I’m glad the teaching wasn’t too difficult. You must make good use of Sister David whenever you need her.’

  She nodded briskly and strode off. Sister Joan stood staring after her, wondering if either Mother Emmanuel or the Prioress were conscious of the exact feelings o
f the former for the latter. Probably not in Mother Emmanuel’s case. She guessed that the elderly nun had entered the religious life as a very young girl before she had worked her way through that period of getting violent crushes on members of one’s own sex. The Prioress, having entered later in life, might well be taking advantage of the other nun’s devotion. She debated whether or not to go and ask Sister Margaret for a sandwich and decided not to bother. It was now mid-afternoon, a period when the sisters were occupied with their work, either in their cells or elsewhere. It was a rule of the Order that each convent be self-supporting. Any money earned at an outside job went into the general fund. It might be interesting to find out who actually worked at what. There would be a list somewhere or other in the library. As she passed, trying to recall if she had been told its location, she spotted Sister Dorothy hunching herself along from the direction of the enclosure.

  ‘Sister Dorothy, is it all right if I have a look round the library?’ she greeted the other. ‘I will have work to mark in the future but today I am still finding my feet.’

  ‘It’s above the chapel,’ Sister Dorothy said, pushing her rimless spectacles higher on her snub nose and peering up at the other. ‘The room Reverend Mother Ann uses used to be the library, but the books were all moved. Come, I’ll show you.’

  She scuttled ahead towards the chapel, dipping into a hasty genuflection before taking a narrow staircase to the storey above. Sister Joan followed, twitching her nose as the unmistakable smell of dust and mould reached her nostrils.

  ‘These are all storerooms.’ Sister Dorothy jerked her veiled head towards the corridor with its closed doors at each side. ‘We keep promising ourselves we will clear them out but there is never enough time. These two rooms were turned into the library however and are in much better condition.’

  She opened the nearest door and went in, standing aside with what in a more extroverted woman might have passed for a flourish.

  A very creditable attempt had been made to create a traditional library, with a thick carpet muffling the sound of footsteps, sections of wall between the bookshelves papered in dark red, several small tables and chairs equipped with reading lamps. The door at the far end led into a smaller room full of filing cabinets. Long dark curtains were looped back from narrow arched windows and several pieces of rough pottery stood on the sills.

  ‘Those were some of the artefacts that Professor Gillespie brought back from his expeditions,’ Sister Dorothy said. ‘Did you want a particular book, Sister?’

  ‘I just wanted to browse,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I can borrow one book a week?’

  ‘And renew it when you need to do Sister Joan,’ said the other. ‘Just be sure to sign for it in the book here. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some cataloguing to do.’

  She gave her little, faintly self-important nod and went off into the inner room. Sister Joan walked slowly along the bookcases, pausing here and there to read a title. The Tarquin family had possessed a handsome collection of books, she thought, noting the bindings of calfskin and tooled leather, the sets of Victorian novels and plays, the volumes of Punch and The Spectator. Theology also held an important place as might be expected in a convent but there were numerous biographies and collections of poetry. One shelf held a number of large illustrated books of Art History. On another shelf The Golden Bough elbowed an atlas.

  The list of professed nuns hung on the wall in a neat frame. She paused to read the names, fitting names to faces in her own mind as she did so.

  ‘Reverend Mother Ann, Prioress.

  Mother Emmanuel, Secretary and Assistant Novice Mistress.

  Sister Hilaria, Novice Mistress.’

  Those three would not be expected to have any outside job. Her eyes moved on down.

  ‘Sister Dorothy, Librarian.

  Sister Perpetua, Infirmarian.

  Sister Lucy, Sacristan.

  Sister Katherine, Linen and Embroidery.

  Sister Martha, Garden.

  Sister David, Teacher.

  Sister Joan, Teacher.’

  Since her arrival a new list had been typed out then.

  ‘Sister Mary Concepta.

  Sister Andrew.

  Sister Gabrielle.’

  The three old ladies whose only duty was to live out the rest of their lives in peace and join in the activities of the convent when their health allowed.

  At the bottom were the two lay sisters,

  ‘Sister Felicity, Transport and Kitchen.

  Sister Margaret, Cook.’

  Apart from Sister David and herself only Sister Katherine was apparently earning any money from an outside source. Either some of the sisters had brought very large dowries or someone was financing the convent generously.

  It had nothing to do with her immediate problems. Shrugging slightly she turned aside and went back to her perusal of the books, thinking with amusement that some of the volumes inherited from the Tarquin family were scarcely required reading for nuns. The Golden Bough with its carefully detailed accounts of ancient fertility cults would have sent Reverend Mother Agnes’s eyebrows shooting skywards.

  On the shelf, prominently displayed, were a dozen thick volumes with titles ranging from Evidence for the Use of the Wheel in Ancient Peru to Hittite Influence in the Holy Land. These had ‘Laurence Gillespie’ scrawled in gold on the spines and a photograph of the author on the back cover. Sister Joan studied the handsome face with the weary eyes and tried to relate that person to the Prioress. Reverend Mother Ann had inherited the dark eyes, the faint, sweet curve of the lips. She wondered if she had loved her father and if his death had sent her into the religious life because she knew she would never find a man to compare.

  ‘Have you found a book, Sister?’ Sister Dorothy had returned.

  ‘This one about Peru looks interesting.’

  ‘Oh, Professor Gillespie broke new ground in archaeological analysis,’ Sister Dorothy said, her eyes lighting eagerly behind her spectacles. ‘He must have been a remarkable man. He died untimely, you might say. Reverend Mother Ann has devoted her leisure to transcribing and collating all the mass of unpublished work he left behind. Perhaps she will agree to its publication one day.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll take something lighter. I was looking at the list.’

  ‘I typed a new one as you have joined us.’

  ‘Not many of us seem to have outside jobs. It must make problems in the finances.’

  ‘We are fortunate,’ Sister Dorothy said. ‘Reverend Mother Ann brought a considerable inheritance from her late father into the Order and then the Tarquin family has been most generous. It enables us to concentrate more on the contemplative side of things. Which book will you take?’

  ‘I think I’ll stick with Jane Austen. Emma.’

  ‘I love Jane myself,’ Sister Dorothy said. ‘Sign for it in the book. Excuse me, but I must get on.’

  She scuttled away again rather like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.

  Sister Joan picked out the volume and went over to the flat desk where the book that had been indicated to her lay.

  Sister Dorothy had gone into the further room again and there was leisure in which to leaf through and find out what her fellow nuns had recently been reading. More particularly to discover what Sister Sophia had borrowed. Turning back the pages to the previous November she ran her finger swiftly down the names. Yes, there in a small neat hand was Isis in Palestine by Laurence Gillespie and the name of the borrower, Sister Sophia. Sister Joan turned back the pages, noting that Sister Sophia had been reading her way through the Gillespie volumes. She wondered why. Perhaps she would do better to take one of them rather than Emma. Suiting action to thought she replaced Emma, took out Isis in Palestine, and signed for it.

  As she emerged into the corridor the clock chimed the half-hour. At this time secular work was laid away and the nuns gathered for religious instruction and meditation.

  ‘Sister Joan, I found Lilith tethered near the tennis-court so I stable
d her for you.’ Little Sister Lucy of the slanting kitten eyes rose from her knees in the chapel as she came down the narrow stairs.

  ‘That was very kind of you, Sister, and quite unforgivable of me to neglect the poor animal,’ Sister Joan said gratefully.

  ‘I’ll not tell,’ Sister Lucy said with her little triangular smile.

  ‘When is general confession?’

  ‘Not until Friday evening,’ Sister Lucy told her. ‘The penances here are very light. Reverend Mother Ann believes the religious life should be a happy and satisfying one.’

  ‘If you imagine,’ Sister Joan’s own Novice Mistress had said, ‘that you will upon taking your perpetual vows enter at once into an existence of perpetual bliss, let me disillusion you forthwith. Being a nun is not automatically a happy situation to be in and your old faults will surface always when you least expect them. Penance is the discipline of the soul, a discipline that must not be carried to extreme, but must be carried out whenever the personal will threatens to overrule the Will of God.’

  ‘I will come with you to religious instruction,’ Sister Lucy said. ‘We meet in the Prioress’s parlour. The room that used to be the library? I told you.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Sister Joan hastened her step as the other went rapidly along the narrow corridor and across the hall.

  There had been some slight rearrangement of furniture in the parlour, the tapestry-covered sofas having been pushed back and some stools brought in. Reverend Mother Ann however still occupied a comfortable basket chair. Other members of the Community were filing in, save for the old ladies, the lay sisters and Sister Hilaria.

  ‘Are we all present then?’ The Prioress looked around expectantly at the eight attentive faces before her.

  ‘All present and correct, Reverend Mother Ann.’

  Another moment, Sister Joan thought, and Mother Emmanuel might start saluting.