Death of a Novice

by Cora Harrison

  TWELVE

  St Thomas Aquinas

  Quia parvus error in principio magnus est in fine

  (Because a small mistake in the beginning is a big one at the end.)

  The Reverend Mother was in her room with poor Kitty O’Callaghan, a former pupil, when Dr Scher arrived in answer to her summons. Sister Catherine had been so distraught on that morning that eventually the Reverend Mother had decided that bed was the best thing for her and then reluctantly telephoned for Dr Scher.

  ‘I’m so sorry to trouble you,’ she said when he arrived. She took him into one of the parlours but did not offer the usual refreshments. Her mind was on Kitty who needed her help. She did not want to leave the poor woman alone for too long. ‘It’s Sister Catherine. She became quite hysterical and just will not stop crying. These young girls are such a responsibility,’ she said and was conscious of a fretful, impatient note in her voice. ‘She is talking about suicide. She is convinced that Sister Gertrude’s death can be laid at her doorstep.’ Odd, she thought, how Sister Catherine, in her mind, was a young girl and Kitty O’Callaghan a woman. And yet they were of the same age. She remembered the day, fourteen years ago, when Kitty had come to school, running in through the gates ahead of her two elder sisters. A pretty little girl then, full of life and fun.

  ‘Suicide!’ Dr Scher raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Does she say why?’

  ‘She weeps when I ask her. I’d be grateful if you would see her.’ The Reverend Mother gave him a hasty nod and rang the bell to summon Sister Mary Immaculate to escort him to the novices’ dormitory before going back to Kitty. She saw his face look somewhat surprised at her abruptness and knew that he had noted the lack of sympathy in her voice. And, of course, her voice, she recognized, mirrored her inner feelings. She was not sympathetic towards Sister Catherine, although she tried to be understanding. Sitting in her room at the moment was a woman whose twin boys had died that morning of measles and who wanted the Reverend Mother to tell their four-year-old sister what had happened to her baby brothers. That woman, too, had been weeping, but her efforts to control herself, her thought for the little girl had wrung the Reverend Mother’s heart.

  ‘If you could just tell her,’ had said Kitty, between sobs. ‘You’ll do it better than I can. You’ll make a nice little story out of it, tell her about Baby Jesus and about the angels in heaven. I can only think of my two babies being put into the wet earth, and, and, and what happens next … I know I’d break down and upset her. Poor little mite. Don’t mind me, Reverend Mother, and don’t sympathize with me. I can’t bear anyone to say anything to me now. I can’t even face my own daughter. Give me an hour or two and I’ll be myself again.’

  These were her words, and the Reverend Mother was not surprised to find her room empty by the time she returned. Kitty had not wanted sympathy for herself, had thought only of her daughter, had entrusted that task to the Reverend Mother and now she had gone back to the dead bodies of her two little boys. Nineteen years old. The Reverend Mother remembered her so distinctly at the same age as her daughter was now, could picture Kitty O’Callaghan coming into the same classroom, being taught by the same nun. She had left less than ten years later, become pregnant, had hastily married and then been deserted once there were three small children to look after. The Reverend Mother sighed to herself, gathered her thoughts and then went in search of the remaining member of poor Kitty’s family.

  She had told her story, seen the little girl happily ensconced with a few best friends, drawing a picture of her baby brothers playing with a prettily crowned Jesus, using Sister Philomena’s special crayons, while one friend undertook to do the angels and the other, having said modestly that she was no good at drawing faces, had promised that she would do enough clouds for them all to bounce upon. By the time that she left the children, Dr Scher was back downstairs again, standing in the hallway, talking with Inspector Cashman.

  The Reverend Mother’s heart sank. This was an official police visit. A young girl, in her care, had died and it did appear as if her death were connected with the convent.

  ‘Go in, Patrick,’ she said. ‘I just want a word with Dr Scher.’ One matter at a time, she told herself as she turned an enquiring face towards him. ‘How is Sister Catherine?’ she asked, doing her best to keep a note of exasperation from her voice.

  ‘I’ve given her a mild sedative,’ he answered. ‘She seems very upset, but it’s hard to know with hysterics. It is often an attempt to gain sympathy. Once she’s had a sleep, I’d try to get her out of bed. Send her out to dig the garden, something like that. No praying or thinking about her sins, no discussing her feelings or having people be sorry for her.’

  ‘I don’t think that she would appreciate being made to dig the garden,’ said the Reverend Mother with a wry smile.

  ‘Convent life doesn’t suit everyone,’ said Dr Scher. To the Reverend Mother’s ear, he seemed to be picking his words with care. ‘Girls of that age, well, if you look at your young friend Eileen, out strolling on the quays with her young man, buying herself pretty clothes, riding her motorbike, having fun … Perhaps you could build a tennis court for your young novices. Get them some fresh air, some fun.’

  ‘I’ve enough urgent causes on which to spend my money,’ said the Reverend Mother curtly. Her thoughts went to poor Kitty O’Callaghan. Children got measles, it was part of childhood. Her cousin Lucy’s children and grandchildren had measles, she seemed to remember that all had measles, round about the same time, picked up at a children’s party. But none of them died of it. They were all attended by a doctor, given medicine, put to bed in warm rooms, cared for. The children of the poor did not have those privileges and yet, why not? Why should life and death be decided by the contents of a purse? Her heart hardened. Yes, Dr Scher was right. Convent life did not suit everyone. The problem that Sister Catherine posed would have to be faced sooner rather than later. The novice had no interest in the work that they did, shrank from dirty children, expressed open disgust for their unwashed smell, had little desire to teach; shuddered at caring for the sick old geriatric nuns, fainted at the sight of blood and so was quite unsuited to a nursing life. I’ll have to have a strong word with the bishop, she thought, mentally practising the phrase used by Dr Scher: Convent life doesn’t suit everyone, my lord. Our medical attendant feels that Sister Catherine is not suited to our kind of life. Perhaps a contemplative order. But in the meantime, an interval at home to allow her to regain her health and her spirits. Cheered by that decision she turned to Dr Scher.

  ‘Let’s join Patrick,’ she said. ‘I know that you are dying to poke up my fire and Sister Bernadette has left you some specially brewed tea.’

  As soon as the two men were supplied with refreshments, she wasted no time in procrastination. If this crime was to be located in the convent, she needed to know all of the facts as soon as possible.

  ‘How many hours between Sister Gertrude’s death and swallowing this poison, Dr Scher?’

  ‘It depends,’ he said cautiously. ‘She may not have swallowed it all at once, and she did have a good meal which complicates matters, but I’ll stick to my first guess. I’d say not earlier than about five o’clock on the day before her death, probably later.’

  The Reverend Mother thought about this. It was as he had first said. It seemed to pitch the ingesting of the poison firmly into something eaten in the convent, or else during the session at St Ita’s School, during the Gaelic League classes.

  ‘Perhaps you could give me an outline of Sister Gertrude’s last day, Reverend Mother?’ Patrick had seen the significance of Dr Scher’s answer. He had his notebook out and she did her best to remove the thoughts of poor Kitty and the two little dead boys from her mind for the moment.

  ‘Sister Gertrude spent most of the morning in here with me, sorting out my accounts, checking balances and doing something called a Standard Cost Accounting Sheet for the bishop’s secretary,’ she began. For a moment she could hardly go on. The girl had bee
n so cheerful, so competent, so full of life and youthful energy, joking about the bewilderment that the bishop’s secretary would experience when faced with a medley of accountancy jargon. ‘Efficiency variance, budget variances, overheads variance, reconciliations, we’ll hit him with some of that sort of stuff and he won’t have a word to say,’ she had said and the recollection of the alert face and confident voice brought the loss home to her with an unexpected poignancy. ‘She ate dinner with the rest of the congregation,’ she continued when she had control over her voice. ‘After dinner she did a spell of teaching in one of the classrooms, and then, when school was finished, her sister came to see her. They walked in the garden together for half an hour. I saw her again for just a few minutes after her sister left.’

  Odd that the sister, Betty, had not been to the convent since the news of the death, had not come to enquire about funeral arrangements. This thought suddenly popped into the Reverend Mother’s head and she frowned a little. Perhaps she was too upset, but it was a little strange. Was there some bad feeling? Was the husband’s excessive display of hysterical grief enough to cause jealousy, even of the dead, in his wife?

  ‘And what time did her sister leave the convent, Reverend Mother?’ Patrick’s quiet voice interrupted her thoughts and she cast her mind back to that day.

  ‘It would have been about four o’clock,’ she said. ‘The four novices had an early supper. Sister Joan, Sister Brigid and Sister Gertrude had to be at St Ita’s School for their Irish lessons by five o’clock and Sister Catherine had her supper with them.’ What did Sister Catherine do while the other three went off together, she wondered then? Prayed, probably. She should probably have insisted that she joined in with her fellow novices, but originally it had just been Sister Joan and Sister Brigid. Sister Gertrude had been a last minute addition, a sop to their Mistress of Novice’s scruples about unchaperoned young girls in the company of young men. Sister Catherine, she had thought at the time, would merely be another complication. ‘Yes,’ she said aloud. ‘They had their supper at about four o’clock and then they walked through the city. The classes finished at around seven in the evening and then they came back here.’

  ‘Did they have anything else to eat when they came back?’ asked Patrick.

  ‘Not officially,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘but I did notice one evening before prayers that the three of them emerged from the kitchen and that Sister Joan had traces of chocolate around her mouth. I suspect that Sister Bernadette may have had a mug of cocoa for them after their walk.’

  Dr Scher grinned appreciatively while Patrick solemnly made another note. Cocoa, of course, was sweet, if well sugared. Not as sweet as treacle, she thought then. She wondered whether to send for Sister Bernadette, but decided to leave the matter unless Patrick brought it up again. And if he did so, she would suggest that he popped into the kitchen. It would be best if he interviewed Sister Bernadette on her own territory and without the presence of her Reverend Mother and then she could remain officially unaware of this use for the cocoa which was supposed to be solely for the comforting of aged and senile nuns in the convent’s sick ward. She waited for him to finish his note and braced herself for the next question.

  ‘Do you know of anyone who might have had a motive to kill Sister Gertrude, Reverend Mother, or even to wish harm to come to her? Was anyone in the community angry with her, jealous of her, or afraid of her in any way?’ Dr Scher, too, was looking at her, but she did not answer Patrick’s question straightaway. Should Sister Catherine’s absurd self-recriminations be introduced at this stage?

  ‘You see,’ said Patrick apologetically, ‘I usually start thinking about who might have profited from a death, but in this case with Sister Gertrude as a nun, well, she would have no money, that’s right, isn’t it, Reverend Mother?’

  ‘That’s right. If a nun, or even a novice, inherits any money, then that becomes the property of the order to which they belong. On entering the convent, the postulants take a vow of holy poverty,’ confirmed the Reverend Mother, thinking, once again with a tinge of regret, of what half of Mr Donovan’s ‘tidy sum of money’ could have meant to the convent.

  ‘“There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face”,’ she said eventually. ‘You ask about emotions. Well, I can only tell you that despite the wimple and veil, we are ordinary women here and there may have been jealousy among the novices at the perceived privileges that Sister Gertrude had by working in here so closely with me. In addition, Sister Catherine …’ And here she paused, feeling somewhat disloyal. She looked towards Dr Scher thinking that he might finish her sentence, but then remembered that he would be bound by some oath not to reveal what a patient had said to him and so she continued, ‘In addition, Sister Catherine reported that Sister Joan and Sister Brigid had threatened to kill Sister Gertrude if she told me of how they had got involved in some Sinn Féin, anti-treaty activity. Sister Catherine feels guilty that she did not bring all of this to my notice …’ The Reverend Mother tailed off her sentence, thinking how very strange all of this was, in connection with a convent and its demure set of novices and then she thought of Mary MacSwiney. Anger lent her fluency and so she continued. ‘These are the facts, Patrick. Unfortunately, one of my novices, Sister Joan, fell under the spell of Miss Mary MacSwiney, who I understand is, during the absence of Eamon de Valera, now the head of Sinn Féin and at her bidding I understand that my two novices were despatched by her, supposedly collecting funds for the Foreign Missions, but in reality delivering letters to some who were under surveillance from the army and the police.’ She saw Patrick give a sudden start, but continued her story to its end. ‘I gather that Sister Gertrude found out what they were up to, threatened to tell me and in turn was threatened by them. The words were “I’ll kill you”, but I don’t suppose,’ said the Reverend Mother, hoping that she was right, ‘I don’t suppose that they were meant literally. Schoolgirls and -boys say that sort of thing all the time.’ She looked across at Patrick. ‘This means something to you, does it not, Patrick?’

  ‘Eileen MacSweeney asked me about the surveillance of houses of men under suspicion,’ he answered and she nodded, but did not comment. She wouldn’t tell him about Eileen’s information to her but he might well guess. Could Sister Joan and Sister Brigid possibly have carried out that schoolgirl threat? They were not schoolgirls after all, she reminded herself thinking of poor Kitty O’Callaghan, but grown women.

  ‘There is somebody else, whose name I should mention. Somebody else who might have been alarmed at the authorities hearing of this threat,’ she said, mentally sending an apology to Lucy’s granddaughter, Charlotte. ‘There is a young man called Raymond Roche, a young man who attends these Gaelic League classes at St Ita’s. I have heard that he leads the life of a very rich young man, but is a person who has little visible means of support. He is known to visit London very frequently and a source tells me that drug-taking is suspected.’ She added dryly, ‘And the question is where does he find the money to pay for these visits, for his drug habit and for the yacht that he keeps moored in Cork harbour.’

  ‘Yacht!’ Patrick looked up alertly. ‘He owns a yacht.’ He lifted his pencil and held it poised aloft for a few moments. ‘This Spike Island business. You’ve seen about that in the Cork Examiner. Some men landed on the island and set fire to an immense amount of ammunition. It was a miracle that nobody was killed,’ he said slowly, his face very concentrated. ‘And, of course, a yacht would have been a good way of dropping some men off at Spike Island. Especially if Mr Raymond Roche was in the habit of sailing around in that area. I wonder where he moors the yacht.’ He made a quick note on a different page of his notebook and then sat back. ‘Do you know,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘taking that in conjunction with the possibility that your novices had delivered letters to get a gang together, I think, Reverend Mother, that we might have a much better motive than schoolgirl jealousies. These people who carry out atrocities are utterly ruthless. Murder is nothing
to them. As to the young man, well, I’ve heard a mention of Raymond Roche’s name before. Just a mention. I must interview him.’

  ‘Belongs to a very good family, of course. Property everywhere. Trabolgan, Kinsale, Rathcormac, connected with many other good Cork families, of course. The Newenhams, of course and the …’ The Reverend Mother stopped herself abruptly. It was probably good for Patrick to know a little about the wealthy background to Cork’s merchant princes, but he didn’t need all of this just now. Let him do the practical work of investigating Raymond Roche.

  ‘But how could this Raymond Roche have given Sister Gertrude anything which would make her die from alcohol poisoning?’ asked Dr Scher. ‘He’d have needed to give her something to eat or something to drink. No matter how liberated your novices are, Reverend Mother, I don’t suppose that they would dare stop at a public house to have a drink with a young man. I’m afraid that it does look as though whatever killed Sister Gertrude was administered to her in this convent.’

  The Reverend Mother thought of the tin of treacle found beneath Sister Catherine’s bed, but pushed it to the back of her mind for the moment.

  ‘There is another possibility, Dr Scher. I did notice,’ she said slowly, ‘that there were three decanters of fruit cordials on the sideboard of Miss Mary MacSwiney’s sitting room. I observed them very carefully. All three were labelled in ornate copperplate lettering; her handwriting, I’m sure, as I noticed the same hand on the labelling of some drawers. The bottles were labelled Raspberry Cordial, Cherry Cordial and the third was Elderberry Cordial. The decanters matched exactly, except that the red liquid in the raspberry cordial and the cherry cordial reached right up as far as the stopper, but the purple syrup in the third decanter, the elderberry cordial, was barely at the shoulder of the glass container. Now fruit cordials are non-alcoholic drinks, normally made in the summer when there is a glut of such berries and then allowed to come to maturity and be served up several months later. Sister Bernadette makes them to serve to the community and their guests on Christmas day. They are non-alcoholic and, to my taste, almost unbearably sweet. The sugar, I suppose, acts as a preservative.’