Vow of Sanctity

by Veronica Black

  So she had followed her son, Sister Joan thought. And she doubted if Dolly had been interested in checking on his fishing. She was sure of it by the red that dyed the other woman’s sallow cheeks when she said, ‘I’m afraid that I haven’t. I met another local person though – Morag Sinclair? She said she was the minister’s daughter.’

  ‘So I believe. I’ve never met her personally.’ Dolly McKensie spoke with a different air – constrained and sharp. Her hands were clenched at her side and her mouth had thinned.

  ‘She was riding her horse along the shore,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Rather an abrupt young woman, I thought.’

  ‘Sly,’ said Dolly McKensie. ‘Or so I’ve heard tell. Her father’s a widower and cannot do a thing with her. Behaves as if she owns the loch. Not that I know her personally.’

  ‘Does Rory?’ Sister Joan asked the question impulsively before she could remind herself that it was none of her business.

  ‘Rory has more sense!’ his mother said angrily. ‘Anyway she’s three years older than he is – and as stuck up a fine piece as you’d find anywhere north of the border. Well, if you’ll excuse my chatter, you’ll be wanting to get on, Sister.’

  Without any further farewell she turned and scrambled awkwardly down to the level ground again, taking off at a rapid pace without looking back.

  Definitely a case of the Capulets and the Montagues, Sister Joan decided, watching her go. It would be interesting to meet Morag’s father and find out his views.

  She turned and went on up the steep hill, framing her mind to prayer again. The lives of those she met were not her business.

  Not her business but they intruded on her spiritual disciplines. For the rest of the afternoon she struggled unavailingly to lose herself in contemplation. It was useless. No sooner had she fixed her mind upon a particular aspect of the Divine when questions jostled for supremacy in her mind. What jealous instinct had led Dolly McKensie to walk along the shore in search of her son, and why did she clearly believe that Morag Sinclair wasn’t a suitable friend for him? The age difference didn’t seem to be so very wide. And why did Morag herself behave like a spoiled brat and an intolerant one at that? Sister Joan remembered. Had she learnt her bigotry from her father? And why should anyone in the monastic island follow Sister Joan herself and try to frighten her?

  Impatiently she rose from her knees and went outside, leaning against the outer side of the cave and letting her gaze rove over the loch. The sun in sinking had dyed the loch crimson and already a faint Jacob’s ladder traced its silvery path across the water. She couldn’t see the village from this side of the cliff but on the opposite shore of the loch a light sprang up. There was, she saw for the first time, a large house there, its dark stone blending into rock and pine. From this vantage point it was the only sign of habitation, since it was necessary to walk a little way along the shore before one glimpsed the island with the narrow spur joining it to the opposite shore and the hidden causeway of fossilized tree trunks hidden under the water between the near shore and the wooden wharf.

  On impulse she descended the steps, feeling the chill of the approaching night and telling herself firmly that a brisk walk would chase away the cobwebs and put her in a more receptive mood. Mother Dorothy was a great advocate of exercise in moderation to balance the activity of the mind. Sister Joan wondered if it would work in her case. Unless she could find answers that satisfied her the spiritual benefits of the retreat would be lost for her.

  She reached level ground and crunched her way along the shingle. When she reached the spot where her meditations had been interrupted earlier she sat down, her back against the rock. Overhead a nightjar cried a warning, and she caught the glint of the first moonray on its wings. Beauty was all around her if one had eyes to see. Humour too, she mused, as a plumy-tailed squirrel landed only a few feet away from her and sat up on its haunches to nibble at a supper snack of hazel-nuts. Soon the creature would be seeking the warm womb of the earth as protection against the cold. God must have enjoyed creating squirrels.

  A sound caused the squirrel to bound nervously away. Not from Sister Joan herself for she had sat as quiet as stone, but a slithering noise from further along the beautiful, night-purpled shore.

  Cautiously she turned her head and saw that someone was pulling a boat out of the shallows on to the shore. She must have lost herself more fully than she realized in thoughts of creation since she had heard no splash of oars as the boat approached the shore.

  Her first thought had been that it must be some fisherman out late in pursuit of his supper, but the figure bent over the prow was cowled and hooded, too far off to be identified. Some instinct held her motionless as from the pines further along the cliffs another figure stepped quickly and with a nervous glance over her shoulder. Then both figures walked side by side into the pines together and the moon rayed on an empty boat.

  She discovered she was shivering violently. Rising and treading with caution on what patches of rough grass she could find between the stones she put a safe distance between herself and the others – Morag Sinclair with her long hair unmistakable and her tall companion, concealed in the habit of his order.

  When she gained the section beneath the retreat she went up scree and steps as rapidly as if it were still full light, feeling as if, in some way, by her very presence she shared in whatever sin might be.

  Five

  She had slept badly, her dreams full of dark, running figures who alternately chased her and were chased along a never-ending shore. When she finally slept without waking the dawn was streaking the walls of the cave with narrow, tentative fingers. She woke with a little yelp of dismay, her senses telling her it was almost nine o’clock even before she squinted at her fob watch.

  ‘No breakfast for you, lazybones,’ she castigated herself, stumbling to the back of the cave to splash her sleep-blurred eyes with cold water.

  By the time she had finished her prayers and tidied the disordered blankets, mute evidence of her restless night, the pale dawn had become mellow gold.

  She climbed down the steps and gained the shore, feeling the warmth of the day like a benediction. She would begin the first of the paintings she had planned today – an exterior of the church in summer. It would be presented to the abbot, she resolved, as a small return for the kind hospitality she had been shown.

  Brother Cuthbert was already waiting, whistling cheerfully as he chose flat stones and skimmed them across the water.

  ‘Good morning!’ Sister Joan greeted him cheerfully as she approached.

  ‘Good morning, Sister.’ He ceased whistling and gave her a somewhat embarrassed grin. ‘Sorry about the noise. Father Abbot would be shocked at such levity.’

  ‘I used to whistle myself,’ Sister Joan admitted, accepting a guiding hand into the boat. ‘Not since I entered the religious life though – save in moments of great stress.’

  ‘I whistle because I enjoy it,’ Brother Cuthbert said simply, looking as if stress was a foreign word to him.

  ‘Yes,’ Sister Joan said with equal simplicity. Enjoyment, she had always thought, should be accounted as one of the virtues.

  ‘Excuse my mentioning it, Sister, but you look tired this morning.’ He shot her a glance from under reddish brows.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well. I thought that – I suppose some people go night fishing on the loch?’

  ‘I suppose so. I never thought about it,’ he said with a faint air of surprise. ‘We go to bed at nine in the monastery so I’ve never really seen. Why?’

  ‘No particular reason,’ Sister Joan said vaguely. ‘It must be lovely to go for a moonlight sail, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not when one is doing the rowing,’ he said, with another grin. ‘No, I look forward to my bedtime, Sister.’

  Then it hadn’t been Brother Cuthbert who had pulled his boat up to the shore and vanished into the woods. On the other hand he would hardly admit it if it had been him. The nasty little suspicion wound its way into her t
hinking.

  ‘Watch your step, Sister.’

  They had reached the wharf and she jerked herself back into the moment, but some echo of her troubled thinking must have reached her companion. As they walked up the track between the high walls he said hesitantly, ‘Sister, I’ve been thinking about Sunday. I mean your being in the crypt.’

  ‘Where I had no business to be.’

  ‘You said something about someone else being there?’

  ‘When I was in the church,’ Sister Joan told him, ‘I was convinced that somebody was watching me through the sacristy door – it was partly ajar. It was an unpleasant sensation and I went into the sacristy to find out if – and blundered into the crypt.’

  ‘You know, Sister.’ Brother Cuthbert’s face had reddened almost as brightly as his hair. ‘Do forgive me for saying this, but sometimes – when a lady reaches a certain period of life – she starts thinking that maybe she’s being followed. My mum had a neighbour who went quite – quite …’

  ‘Dotty?’ Sister Joan suggested, and found herself laughing helplessly.

  ‘It was most irregular of me to have mentioned it,’ Brother Cuthbert said unhappily.

  ‘How young you are!’ She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. ‘Oh, forgive me for laughing. It was at myself as much as at you. Perhaps I am going peculiar, but I promise you it has nothing to do with my time of life. No, I am certain that someone was watching me when I was in the church. I had had the same feeling earlier during mass, and when I was in the anteroom waiting for the abbot I thought that someone looked down from the peep-hole in the wall.’

  ‘Sister, you can’t mean that!’ He was as white now as he had been red before. ‘That someone from the community should spy on you – I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Perhaps I was mistaken,’ Sister Joan said kindly. It was a shame to spoil the clear crystal of his boyishness.

  ‘Some of the older brothers,’ he confided, ‘were actually a bit uneasy when they were told that you’d be coming over to do some sketching and painting. They felt that having the lay community here for mass on Sundays was quite sufficient. Brother Alphonsus saw you as the thin end of the wedge, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’ll try not to get in the way,’ she promised gravely.

  ‘And I’ve my duties to do. I’ll see you later, Sister.’

  He turned and strode away, clearly still a trifle embarrassed at the direction the conversation had taken. No, it couldn’t have been Brother Cuthbert who had gone into the pine trees with Morag Sinclair.

  She walked on round to the scriptorium. The door was open and nothing seemed to have been disturbed since the previous day. She walked over to the podium, noting that the illuminated manuscript had been turned forward by one page. Moving to the long table against the wall she collected her things, hitching the easel under her arm and carrying the folding-stool somewhat awkwardly in the other hand.

  The church had a mellow kindliness about it this morning. It looked, she thought, like a place that had grown up of itself out of the surroundings. Along the base of the walls tiny wild flowers sang their last song of summer.

  Within a few minutes she was immersed in the task of transferring the sketch she had made into a faint outline on canvas. Then there were the oils to be mixed and that first heart-thrilling moment when she touched the bristles of her colour laden brush to the outlines traced on the canvas. She took a deep breath and a tiny flower in the lefthand corner sprang into life.

  The morning flew by on wings. When she finally raised her head at the sound of footsteps the sun was directly overhead.

  ‘There’s a bite ready for you,’ said the newcomer. It was the disapproving monk who had brought in water and biscuits the previous day. This morning he looked, if anything, ever more frowning.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Brother …?’ She hesitated.

  ‘Brendan,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Brendan the Voyager,’ Sister Joan said impulsively. ‘It is most kind of you, but I really don’t expect to be fed every day.’

  ‘It’s little enough,’ she was surprised to hear him say. ‘I’ll carry the easel if you like. If you’ve finished painting, that is.’

  ‘For today.’ She added hastily, ‘It’s still wet,’ as he bent to pick it up.

  ‘I’ll take care. Give me the stool. Right then.’

  Having apparently exhausted his conversational range for the time being he strode ahead without waiting for her. Sister Joan picked up what was left and followed him meekly to the scriptorium where he deposited his burdens, jerked his head towards the tray and went out again.

  Today there were oat cakes thinly smeared with honey, a large pear and a mug of distressingly weak tea. After a fasting morning everything tasted delicious.

  When she had finished she damped down a cloth and hung it carefully over the half-completed painting, checked that her belongings were stowed neatly to one side and went out into the sunshine again. The door to the kitchen was pointedly closed and she made a small grimace as she passed. Brother Brendan evidently considered her a dangerous temptation.

  She walked back slowly to the church and stood for a few minutes looking at its ancient façade. To go inside and spend a few precious moments in worship was too good an opportunity to miss, and she pushed open the door, dipping her fingers into the holy water stoup, blessing herself and moving on into the dim light that filtered through the leaded windows. Apart from the sanctuary lamp only a couple of candles burned on the altar. She slipped to her knees, feeling the straw prickle them, feeling that in this place straw was more fitting than deep-pile carpet.

  The sacristy door was open again. She came slowly out of her prayer to feel a slight draught on the side of her face, to hear the faint click as the door closed again. An unreligious indignation bubbled up in her. This really was intolerable. To be followed, watched and spied on was ruining this period of contemplation and spiritual renewal on which she was embarked. She was on her feet again in a moment, passing within the altar rail, opening the door, her voice calling ahead of her into the empty room, ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

  The door leading to the crypt softly closed. She stared at it for too long a moment, then, with a suppressed exclamation of annoyance at her own nervousness, stepped across and wrenched the door open again.

  Echoing back to her were the slow footsteps she had heard before though the stone steps were deserted. The light bulb burned dimly and the air was still. Her desire to follow warred with the cold chill of unease that rippled through her. It was foolish and she despised herself for it but for several moments superstitious fear held her in a vice. The light went out and she looked down into a dark void only faintly lightened by the daylight in the room where she stood.

  She could close the door, go back into the church and wait for Brother Cuthbert to come and fetch her for the short journey to the opposite shore. Then she would spend the rest of the day blaming herself for cowardice.

  She pressed down the light switch on the wall and without allowing herself to create any more monsters went swiftly down the steps into the tunnel. Some part of her had registered the position of the light switches and she walked rapidly, turning the corner where the tunnel widened and became the crypt proper. She had steeled herself for the alcoves with the seated figures and this second view of them was less horrific than her imaginings. The flesh had long since dwindled from their bones and the tight stretched skin was brown and leather like. Yet it was still possible to see traces of the men they had been in the arch of eyesockets and the curve of a proud, medieval nose. She located the second light switch and pressed it down hard, hoping to capture the light for a few more minutes.

  A half-burned candle standing on a narrow ledge attracted her attention. It had been wedged into a tin holder and the box of matches on its rim placed it as belonging firmly in the twentieth century. She lit the candle hastily and felt calmer. That primitive part of herself which feared the dark was stilled and she found
herself breathing more easily. Even when the bulb went out she wouldn’t be floundering about in obscurity.

  The bodies, she now saw, were seated on stone and iron with straps holding them in position. They were no more than shells after all. Men who had once been abbots ruling the community above through periods that were now history. She walked more slowly, looking for an exit. She had felt no draught blowing the other way but the man she had followed must have left by some means or other.

  The light went out and the flame of the candle she was holding streamed up high. She gave herself no time to fear the shifting shadows but raised the candle higher and pressed the switch again. It was at that moment she saw the door – a slab of oak weathered to the consistency of stone at the corner of the far wall. It had neither bolt nor keyhole but when she inserted her fingers into the depression at the side she was able to pull it open without too much effort. A further flight of stone steps wound upwards, leading to the covered passage that connected the church to the main building, she reckoned. So whoever came and went, watching her movements, would now be among the other members of the community. She pushed the door shut again and looked round at the silent, seated figures.

  Shells. Mere shells with life, vitality, personality and soul long since fled. She made a mental note to pray for them later though she doubted if they were still in need of prayer, and found herself observing them with more compassion and less timidity. It was even possible to hazard a guess as to their ages. One or two had the contours of youth. It was a pity their names had not been scratched into the stone, but probably they had sought a modest anonymity.

  As the light went out again her hand suddenly shook, sending her shadow trembling across the wall. What she had just noticed, she told herself, groping for the switch again, must be a figment of her imagination. She groped for the switch again and took a closer look, her breath coming raggedly.

  No, she hadn’t imagined anything. The figure who sat motionless in cowl and habit at her left hand had the tip of a leather shoe poking out from the hem of the skirt. The other bodies wore sandals or the remains of sandals. She bent down, lifting the garment higher and saw that both feet were encased in extremely dirty but undeniably modern shoes with laced fronts and what looked like matted woollen socks underneath.