The Sisters of St. Croix

by Diney Costeloe

  Adelaide stared at her for a moment. “You mean I’ve another aunt alive that I knew nothing about?”

  Sarah nodded and rose to her feet. “Sister St Bruno. Your Great-Aunt Anne. Come and meet her.”

  Together they went through the convent, past the common room where Adelaide heard several of the nuns gathered for their hour of recreation and upstairs to a small room on the first floor. Sarah tapped on the door and then opened it, peeping round before going in.

  “Are you awake, Sister?” she asked softly.

  “Of course, Mother, please come in.”

  Sarah opened the door wide and ushered Adelaide into the room. An elderly woman was sitting up in bed, a shawl over her head and another round her thin shoulders. Glasses were perched on her nose and she had an open Bible on the bed beside her.

  “I’ve brought Adelaide to see you, Sister. You know, Freddie’s daughter. Adelaide, this is your Great-Aunt Anne.”

  “Freddie’s daughter… Charlotte’s granddaughter.” The voice was so soft that Adelaide could hardly hear the words, but she crossed the room to the old woman’s bedside and reached for her hands. Thin and papery though they were, they gripped hers fiercely as the old nun peered up into her face. “You have the look of Charlotte,” she said.

  “Sarah… Reverend Mother… says I look like Freddie,” said Adelaide.

  “She may be right,” agreed her aunt, “but I hardly knew him. No, you have Charlotte’s eyes, though your colouring is not quite the same.” She patted the bed and said, “Will you sit with me for a few minutes? Mother, I’m sure you can spare her.”

  “Of course,” Sarah said. “I’ll come and collect you just before compline.” She smiled at her aunt. “Now don’t tire yourself, Sister, Adelaide will come and see you again tomorrow, I promise. She’s staying with us for three days.”

  Adelaide sat on the bed as directed and smiled at the old lady. “It must be very strange to call your niece ‘Mother’,” she said.

  “Not really,” replied Sister St Bruno. “There is always a reverend mother, just now it happens to be my niece. She has only just been elected, but I think she will make a good job of it. She is well respected by the sisters, despite the fact that she’s English. Most of them have forgotten that by now anyway. She is strong and stands up for what she believes.” The old lady laughed. “She wouldn’t be here at all if she hadn’t stood up to her father on more than one occasion. No, I think the convent is in good hands while she is Reverend Mother, and that is how I address her… in public.”

  Adelaide smiled. “And she calls you Sister.”

  “She has done so ever since she took the veil. It is as it should be.” The old lady gave a conspiratorial smile. “Except when we’re alone, then we’re Sarah and Aunt Anne.”

  “Will you tell me about my grandmother, your sister, Charlotte?”

  “Ah, Charlotte, she was another very strong-minded one…”

  When Sarah came back to collect her, Adelaide could hardly believe she had been sitting by the old nun’s bedside for nearly half an hour.

  “She’ll come and see you again tomorrow, I promise,” Sarah said as she took her aunt’s hand and tucked it under the covers. “God bless you, Sister.”

  That night Adelaide lay in the narrow bed in the room her aunt had shared with her maid Molly all those years ago and thought about all she had learned that day. What a day! Two new relations, both full of stories about their family… her family. Telling her of Freddie, her father, the man with dark hair and dark eyes so like her own; whose smile matched her own.

  Sarah had shown her a faded snapshot of Freddie, not in his uniform, but in comfortable country clothes in the garden of his own home, petting his dog and grinning up at the camera. Even Adelaide could see the likeness between them, and she felt an ache in her heart that she had never known this laughing man, her father.

  She heard of a man with all his life before him, who had led his men into the trenches and beyond. Of the war; of the courage of two young women, setting off to a foreign hospital to “do their bit” for King and country; of the horrors they had found and the wounded they had nursed. Adelaide was amazed by their courage, their stamina, their devotion to duty. She wondered as she drifted off to sleep, could she have ever done something like that?

  The next two days Adelaide spent exploring the village and surrounding countryside. Although it was November and the days were short, it was relatively mild and the wintry sun still probed the drifting clouds. She walked along the riverbank, and drank coffee in the little café called Le Chat Noir on the village place. She attended several services in the convent chapel. She talked to the orphans when they came home from the village school, playing ludo and snakes and ladders and telling them stories. After the midday meal she spent some time with Sister St Bruno, her Great-Aunt Anne, and heard childhood stories of her grandmother. During recreation she sat with Sarah and listened to tales of her father, his exploits as a boy, his experiences in the trenches, his brief courtship of her mother, and wished that she had had the chance to know them all. It was on such an evening as this that she brought up the question of the money she had inherited.

  “I’ve seen the will,” she told Sarah, “and it worries me. There’s no mention of you in it. Surely your father should have left half what he had to you.”

  Sarah took her hand. “Bless you,” she said, “but there’s no need to worry about that. My father provided for me when he was still alive.” And she told Adelaide about her trip to London at the end of the war. “He was determined that the money should come to you and that no one else should have any control over it once you were of age. So, my dear, have it, enjoy it, use it for good. That’s what he really wanted for you. Remember, he was a charitable man. Follow in his footsteps and he would be proud of you.”

  On the last morning, when she was due to leave the convent, Adelaide sat with Sarah for the last time.

  Sarah opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a box. Inside it was the photo of Freddie that Adelaide had already seen. Sarah held it out to her niece.

  “You must take this,” she said. “It is important that you have a picture of your father to keep.”

  Adelaide didn’t take the snapshot, but shook her head. “No, thank you. You must keep it,” she insisted. “It’s yours.”

  “No,” Sarah said firmly. “I can remember what he looked like very well. You must have it… and this, too.” She took something else out of the box and held it out to Adelaide. It was a silver pendant on a chain. Sarah placed it in Adelaide’s hand and closed her fingers over it.

  “Freddie gave it to me on the last day that I saw him,” she said. “I would like you to have it now.” And, as Adelaide began to protest, she went on, “I can’t wear it, Adelaide, it is a waste for me to keep it in a box. It gave me great pleasure when he gave it to me, and I wore it all the time, but since I can’t wear it and enjoy it anymore I would like you to wear it for me. See, the pendant is a St Christopher… to keep you safe.”

  “Sarah… what can I say?” Adelaide looked at the photo and the pendant, all she had left of her father, all Sarah had left of her brother.”

  “They’re yours,” Sarah said firmly. “And don’t worry,” she added with a twinkle, “I’ve kept the one of my parents… and that’s as it should be.”

  As Adelaide went down the steps to the waiting taxi, she turned back to see her aunt, the reverend mother of the convent of Our Lady of Mercy, watching her go. Her final words still rang in Adelaide’s ears. “Remember, my dearest girl, that though we may see very little of each other, you are very dear to me and will be in my prayers. Write to me, Adelaide, and tell me of your life. Let me know when Freddie has grandchildren.”

  Adelaide had laughed at that. “That’s a long way off, I’m afraid,” she said.

  “Even so, keep in touch so that I have news of you and can pass it on to Sister St Bruno.”

  As the taxi drew away Adelaide found she had tears in her
eyes. She dashed them away. How stupid to cry, she thought. I’ve found a new family. That’s nothing to cry about!

  4

  All day long there had been the distant sound of aeroplanes, the thunder of artillery and the rattle of machine guns from the advancing armies of the Reich combined with the last desperate efforts of the allied armies to hold them at bay.

  The sound of gunfire reverberated across the countryside, and on every road there were retreating troops, ambulances carrying the wounded, and adding to the confusion of the retreat were the civilian refugees. These straggled along the roads, a slow-moving stream of humanity heading westward, pushing their worldly goods in prams, wheelbarrows and handcarts. Mothers wheeled small children perched on the saddles and crossbars of ancient bicycles; older children carried babies or led their younger brothers and sisters by the hand as they struggled along the road. The very old and the very young, the most vulnerable, trudging together in the vain hope of outrunning the invading Germans. The air was alive with Heinkels, harrying those in retreat, so that the retreating soldiers and the fleeing refugees continually had to dive in panic for the scant cover of hedge or ditch at the roadside. With no opposition, the planes screamed out of the sky, their machine guns strafing the columns winding slowly along the roads, tracer ripping through civilians and military alike.

  Dead and wounded littered the road. The dead left to lie where they had fallen, the wounded struggling on as best they could, supported by their comrades or their friends. Few had any doubts as to the outcome of the German advance; many had already tasted their merciless brutality as they had torn through towns and villages, the Panzers advancing, clearing the road in front of them with indiscriminate shells.

  The Leon family was among the refugees. They were making for Bordeaux where Mathilde Leon had cousins. Her husband, Marc, was in the army, but she hadn’t heard from him for weeks and didn’t even know if he were alive or dead. As the Germans flooded over the border, she had decided that they must leave their home, taking only what they could pile into the baby’s pram and try to get to what she hoped was the safety of her cousin Jacques’ home. She had heard what had been happening to the Jews in Germany, and she knew that if they remained where they were, they would be in the most desperate danger when the Germans arrived. Already their little shop had had its windows broken and daubed with paint, and that wasn’t even by Germans but by one of their French neighbours. Mathilde didn’t know who had done it, none of her neighbours had appeared to care before that the Leons were Jews, but now? She decided it was a sign of the times, and the times to come, and for the children’s sake she felt that they should try and get away to safety. She could only hope that they would be safer with Jacques, but in any case she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

  They had tried to stay off the main roads. Mathilde didn’t want her little family to become mixed up with the columns of soldiers who seemed to be in full retreat before the oncoming German tanks. She would have preferred to have travelled at night, but it was hard enough to keep moving in the daylight along roads they didn’t know, through villages where they were greeted with hostile stares. David, her eldest, was doing his best to be the man of the family, but he was only nine and could do little to help except hold his younger sister, Catherine’s, hand and sing her songs to keep her going. Mathilde herself had baby Hannah hoisted on her hip in a sling, and was pushing the pram that contained their scant supply of food and water and a few clothes for each of them.

  When they reached the town of Albert, they found it seething with refugees like themselves, and Mathilde decided that they might do better to travel in a larger group. There were other Jewish families and, even in the crowd, there was mutual recognition. They huddled together, aware that they were being eyed suspiciously by those around them. That night they all slept together in the bus station. There were no buses, but at least it gave them some shelter from the drizzle that had been drenching them all day.

  Mathilde gave her children some bread and a sliver of cheese each, and tried to beg some milk for the baby. The little she had been able to bring with her had soon run out, for Hannah had a healthy appetite.

  One woman, who seemed to be alone, took pity on her and poured a little milk into a cup.

  “Here you are,” she said as she handed it over. “It’s all I can spare, but it’ll give the poor little mite something in her stomach.”

  “Thank you, you are so kind,” said Mathilde. “Let me give you this in return.” And she passed over the crust of bread that would have been her own supper.

  The other woman took it, thanking her gravely. “We must hope we can find more food tomorrow,” she said. “Albert is quite big. There must be some shops that still have food to sell.”

  Very early in the morning, with hunger gnawing at her insides, Mathilde took the children away from the others into a small park. Here she told David to sit with his sister and not to move while she went to try and find some food.

  The little boy nodded solemnly and sat on the ground with his back against a wall, Catherine on the grass beside him. Mathilde dare not leave the pram in the sole charge of a nine-year-old boy, anyone might take it from him, so with some misgivings she placed Hannah in the pram on top of their worldly goods, and made ready to push it ahead of her as she went in search of food.

  “Whatever happens, don’t move,” Mathilde told him. “Stay here until I get back. Promise me now. I shan’t be long.”

  David promised and, with an anxious glance over her shoulder, Mathilde set off into the town to find them something to eat.

  She was gone the best part of an hour, but when she returned there was a loaf of bread tucked into the pram beside Hannah. This she tore into pieces and gave to the two older children. For Hannah she tore the crumb out from the crust and soaking it in a little of their precious water, made it into a soggy pap that Hannah could suck from her mother’s fingers. The crust she ate herself.

  The town was awake now and people were going about their business. Many of the other refugees had already moved on, and Mathilde was anxious to leave as well. While searching for food she had become aware of the sidelong glances people were giving her, not exactly open hostility, but obvious mistrust. It was time to get out of this terrified town. She knew they had to travel westwards, so with the sun at her back she took the road out of town. The going was slow, the road uneven and very bumpy for the pram. With Hannah on her hip, she let the other children take turns riding in the pram, and that way they moved a little faster than the previous day. Even so, she knew that they had to keep stopping to rest or the children would never keep going.

  Once they heard planes high overhead, and Mathilde looked round wildly for some cover, but there was none. The land stretched away in all directions, flat and almost featureless except for a line of poplar trees away in the distance and the occasional straggling farm buildings. However, the planes were quite high and droned away into the clouds to the north of them. She could hear intermittent gunfire from that direction too, and once there was a big boom as if something had blown up, but it seemed some distance away and she tried not to think about it.

  As the morning progressed they began to catch up with other refugees who had set out earlier than they had. Old men and women, young mothers like her with children at their skirts, all plodding along the same straight road. Far ahead they could see the roofs of a village, above which towered a tall, grey stone building with a turret on one end, a chateau perhaps.

  We’ll stop there for a proper rest, Mathilde thought, and try to get something else to eat. Maybe there’s a farm that will be able to sell us a little milk for Hannah. But it would be at a price, she knew that, and her small supply of cash was dwindling at an alarming speed. Everything cost so much… and the price tended to rise when the person who was selling knew you were desperate.

  They were travelling in a much larger group now, about forty or fifty people strung out along the lane leading into the village. The
road was edged with shallow drainage ditches, and above these were low hedges on either side to keep the cattle safely in their fields.

  Thank God, Mathilde thought fervently. If there are cattle in the fields there must be milk to buy.

  Suddenly the air seemed to explode around them and from nowhere two planes screamed out of the sky, guns blazing as they dived low, skimming the hedgerows and strafing the meandering line of refugees. With a scream Mathilde grabbed Catherine from her place in the pram, and, shrieking David’s name, flung herself to the ground, rolling towards the illusory shelter of the hedge. Tracer bullets, bouncing, fiery red, ricocheted off the road, ripping through the panicking people. The planes roared up and away, spiralling into the sky, only to turn again and make another murderous pass low over the people scattered in the road. The rattle of the guns and the howl of the engines created a terrifying blast of sound, drowning the shrieks and cries of their victims below. Mathilde had rolled onto Hannah who had been riding on her hip and the baby, now beneath her in the ditch, was screaming. Catherine fell from her mother’s arms landing head first in the hedge, and David, who had been walking a little way ahead, had turned to stare up at the planes, until his mother’s agonised scream had made him too dive for cover. The planes came in low, spraying their helpless victims with gunfire, the shriek of their engines almost more terrifying than the barrage of bullets. This time when they were clear, they did not come back, but thundered off into the sky leaving chaos on the ground behind them. In less than two minutes they had reduced the line of refugees to a confused mass of dead, dying and wounded.