She was just finishing writing up her conclusions and thinking gloomily that few Daughters of Compassion filled up their notebooks of private faults as fast as she did when she heard from below her name being called.
Going out to the steps she beheld Brother Cuthbert at the foot of them, his aureole of red hair plastered to his head.
‘I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you, Sister,’ he called cheerfully, ‘but I wondered in case you wanted to come over to the island today.’
‘In this rain?’ She tilted her face skywards and blinked.
‘There’s a bit of a haar this morning,’ he agreed, ‘but Father Abbot thought you might want to work on your painting in the scriptorium seeing the weather’s a bit miffish.’
‘Exceedingly miffish,’ she agreed wryly, ‘but how kind of you to come.’
‘Will you be needing transport then?’ he enquired.
At that moment her cave looked temptingly cosy and warm despite its lack of heating, but Brother Cuthbert’s kindness ought not to be unrewarded.
‘Can you wait a moment or two while I get my things?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course. I’ll see you at the boat.’ He turned and plunged down through the pines.
Sister Joan completed her final sentence, shook her head frowningly over the long list of trivial sins that cluttered up her soul, and pulled on her coat. Like her ankle-length habit it was a serviceable grey, with a high collar into which she tucked the ends of her short veil. Prioresses wore a habit of rich purple during their five-year term of office and afterwards a purple ribbon sewn on the sleeve of their grey habit – one for each term during which they had held the post. It wasn’t likely, she thought, that she would ever attain to those dizzy heights.
The steps and the slopes below them were slippery with rain. She negotiated them with care and crunched along the shale to where Brother Cuthbert waited, apparently oblivious to the pouring rain.
‘I’ve got the plastic groundsheet for you, Sister,’ he announced. ‘It will keep your clothes dry.’
‘Thank you. This is marvellous.’ Sister Joan got herself into the boat without wetting her stockings and wrapped herself gratefully into the thick plastic.
‘Actually that was a bit of a brainwave of mine,’ Brother Cuthbert confided, settling vigorously to the rowing. ‘The plastic’s used for corpses until we can get the shrouds sewn.’
‘Oh dear.’ Sister Joan looked doubtfully at her shiny covering.
‘They’re always so much tidier in plastic,’ Brother Cuthbert said. ‘At least that’s Father Abbot’s opinion.’
‘Do you – is the, er – plastic used very frequently?’ she enquired.
‘Hardly ever. Monks live to a ripe old age usually – like nuns, I guess. I suppose it’s the lack of stress.’
‘So you haven’t witnessed many deaths yourself?’ As she asked the question, she wondered if the other would find it a morbid one, but Brother Cuthbert was apparently blessed with a non-analytical mind, answering brightly, ‘Only old Brother Laurence who was nearly ninety. In a way it’s a pity because death is such a splendid affair if one has the right send-off. Don’t you think so?’
‘I haven’t thought much about it. Was Brother Laurence buried in the crypt?’
‘Oh no, there haven’t been any interments down there for the last couple of hundred years,’ he replied promptly. ‘And only abbots were placed there, as a mark of honour, you know.’
And the body she had seen fleetingly had been much younger at the time of death than ninety, she reminded herself.
They had reached the further shore and, clutching the plastic which seemed rather less agreeable since she had learned its actual purpose, she clambered ashore and waited while her boatman tied up the small vessel.
‘I have to run. Examination of conscience day,’ he said, joining her. ‘If you hang the plastic over the end of the wall near the beehives I can get it wiped down before we go back.’
‘Yes, fine.’ She spoke somewhat absently, her eyes on the broad, retreating back. What sins would Brother Cuthbert find to confess in the notebook that only the abbot would ever see? She couldn’t imagine that anything too serious could ever cloud that lively young soul.
Where the wall dipped low just before the scriptorium she peeled off the clinging plastic, draped it over the stone and went at a run into the building, shivering as she entered. The whole place was probably slightly damp and her imagination sympathized with any long dead monk crouched over his studies with knotted joints complaining at the cold. In their way they had been heroes those long forgotten scribes.
The manuscript had been turned over a page. She walked up and down past it several times.
Sooner or later she would have to go down into the crypt again and take a closer look at the body with the modern shoes on. The thought of doing that was unpleasant no matter how firmly she told herself that death held no intrinsic horror. Only when she was completely satisfied that the matter needed further investigation would she take action of some kind.
Deciding upon a course of action, she thought, was almost as satisfying as carrying it out. With the resolve firmly fixed in her head she took the cloth from the easel on which her picture of the church was fixed and settled down to her work.
The main picture had been done in the sweeping brush strokes she enjoyed. Now the small details – the tiny flowers clustering at the foot of the walls, the sunlight haloing the square tower, the carved gargoyles at each side of the door. She used the smaller brushes for that, standing back every few minutes to observe the effect. She was as near being pleased with what her hand had shaped as she could ever be.
The outer door opened quietly and the tall figure of the abbot came in, paused for a moment, then trod softly towards her.
‘Do I disturb you, Sister?’ he enquired.
‘Of course not, my lord,’ she began.
But he held up a hand as delicately moulded as an El Greco, saying, ‘We never use the formal term of “my lord” here, Sister. Father Abbot is the only title necessary.’
‘Father Abbot.’ She corrected herself with a smile. ‘I hope that you will be good enough to accept the two paintings of the chapel I’m going to complete while I’m here.’
‘Good enough?’ he echoed, returning her smile. ‘I consider it a most generous offer and I won’t scruple to take advantage of it. May I look? Oh, but you have talent, Sister! The painting has a lovely serene glow about it.’
‘It won’t take very long to finish,’ she told him. ‘Then, if you don’t mind, I would like to come over for a few more times to work on a companion piece, the church in winter.’
‘By all means, but won’t your own order wish to receive some sample of your work?’
‘I hope to paint the retreat as a gift for my own convent,’ she said.
‘Yes, of course.’ He nodded understandingly, adding with a delicate air of diffidence, ‘But I trust your artistic work isn’t interfering with your spiritual retreat? It is, of course, none of my business.’
‘I am trying to balance the two, Father Abbot.’
‘Of course.’ He nodded again. ‘We all live between the saddle and the ground. I am sure you young people manage it beautifully. Brother Cuthbert was telling me that he showed you the crypt.’
Sister Joan mentally thanked Brother Cuthbert for not having blurted out her trespass, and said demurely, ‘It was most interesting, Father Abbot. I hope it was all right for me to go down there?’
‘In general we don’t,’ the abbot said. ‘It is important to keep the air as little disturbed as possible down there. My own feeling is rather against such mausoleums; the dead should return to the dust from whence they came in my opinion; however one hesitates to disturb them further. We leave them in peace.’
Which means, she thought with a mixture of relief and dismay, that I can scarcely go blundering down there again.
Something of her thought must have shown on her face because the abbot said,
‘Of course while you are visiting us you must feel free to go down there if you wish to pray or have a period of meditation. To a young girl like yourself with the prospect of dissolution many years ahead it is sometimes a very useful discipline to contemplate it at close quarters.’
‘Brother Cuthbert would say that I was much closer to my own dissolution than I’d care to admit,’ Sister Joan said and chuckled.
‘Brother Cuthbert,’ said his superior tolerantly, ‘is very young for his age – and his age is also young. He is one of the fortunate ones who was called early to the religious life. Have you everything you require here, Sister?’
‘Everything, and I am very grateful for your kindness,’ she assured him.
‘I am afraid that you are not likely to receive much hospitality from the local people,’ he said.
‘That’s true, but the McKensies have been very obliging.’ She had taken up her brush again and dabbed sunlight on to a leaf. ‘Dolly McKensie and her son?’
‘Ah yes, the woman whose husband left her and never returned. We get a newspaper here occasionally through the kindness of the parishioners, and at the time there was something about it.’
‘Things like that aren’t usually reported in the Press, are they?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so, but Mrs McKensie made quite a fuss about it at the time, I understand. Of course I never met the family personally. I am afraid that neither Mr McKensie nor his son kept up the practice of the faith. There is no local parish priest who might have kept them up to the mark and, of course, it is not for me to seek to mend matters. My only concern must be the community here.’
‘Did Mrs McKensie think something had happened to him?’
‘She insisted that he would never have walked out with no word of his intention. The truth is that gentlemen are not always gentle when it comes to abandoning a wife. The son still lives with her?’
‘He helps out in the shop.’
She decided that Rory’s loss of faith had been a confidence intended for her alone, not to be divulged to anyone else no matter how well intentioned. And it would only distress the elderly abbot to learn of something about which he could do nothing practical.
‘That is good to hear.’ He looked pleased.
‘I also had dinner at the manse,’ she informed him.
‘Do you think that was wise?’ He frowned slightly. ‘I understand the minister is a widower and I do wonder if he knows the respect with which we in the faith regard our religious – and you are still very young.’
Sister Joan tried to picture herself as a tempting morsel for the minister to nibble at and choked back a giggle. It was rather flattering in a way, she supposed, but it was also irritating since it seemed to prove that the last bastion of male chauvinism could be found in the monastery.
‘Well, I must leave you to your task,’ he said after a moment. ‘Today is a fast day for us – Wednesday, but I can have a cup of tea provided for you.’
‘Water will suit me fine,’ she assured him. ‘I ate well at the manse last night. Mr Sinclair mentioned that you had invited him here once but that he was obliged to refuse because of what his congregation might say.’
‘That was many years ago, just before his wife died. A very sad accident.’
‘Her daughter, Morag, resembles her greatly judging from the portrait I saw,’ Sister Joan said.
‘She acts as housekeeper for her father, I understand?’
‘Very efficiently,’ Sister Joan said dryly.
‘Ladies are frequently so, I believe.’ He gave a deprecating little cough and turned away, saying genially as he departed, ‘And please feel free to visit the crypt if you wish. Thank you again for offering me and the community such a generous gift. We will hang it in a place of honour, I promise you.’
When she had worked another half-hour on her painting she laid down her brushes and stood back, head tilted to examine her work. It wasn’t as good as the picture in her head but it would pass muster, with a charm and warmth about the picture that conveyed the sense of welcome she had hoped to capture. The companion picture would be the one set in the winter season, with the church darkly glowing in the imagined snow. She would use the first study as model for the second one.
Meanwhile there was the crypt to be visited and she felt a stab of unease at the thought of descending again into that vault.
‘When we feel it our duty to undertake a certain course of action,’ her novice mistress had said, ‘always be sure that we do not confuse our personal wishes with our sense of responsibility. Sometimes the two may march together, but when they do not then duty must always take precedence.’
In this case it was certainly no personal desire of her own that urged her down into the crypt again. If her observation hadn’t been coloured by her imagination then she would have to inform the authorities of her discovery. Once she did that then she would set in motion events that might have far-reaching consequences. At the very least her own spiritual retreat would be set at risk.
She covered the painting and washed her hands in the little washroom. As she left the scriptorium, walking swiftly through the diminishing rain, she glimpsed the disapproving face of the lay brother who had brought her something to eat before. He stood at the kitchen door, frowning out into the dampness, and before she could give him a polite greeting had closed it firmly. Perhaps he enjoyed cooking and found fast days boring or, more likely, was tired of seeing a female about the place.
In the church two brothers knelt in their stall, evidently finishing the penances imposed on them after the general examination of conscience. She went to one of the benches at the other side and knelt down herself, allowing herself the luxury of ten Aves to give the monks time to finish their prayers and leave, and her own heart time to stop thumping.
The soft padding of two pairs of sandalled feet and the closing of a door told her she was alone again. It would have been far pleasanter to linger here, but Brother Cuthbert would be coming to collect her soon, and she wanted to do her small piece of investigation alone.
Rising, she approached the altar, passed within the rail and went into the sacristy. The door was closed but not locked and within all was in order, cassocks and stoles hanging limply along the wall, Prayer Books piled neatly on a shelf. She crossed to the door of the crypt, opened it and switched on the light.
Not a mote of dust moved in the empty stillness. She went down the stone steps, found and lit the half burnt candle and held it high as she went on along the tunnel until she rounded the corner and came into the vaulted chamber where the long dead abbots sat in lonely contemplation.
‘And now to find out,’ she said under her breath.
She walked forward to where the seated figure was – had been. Her hand shook violently and hot wax from the candle dripped hurtingly on to her flesh as she stared at the empty alcove.
A dead body, no matter how well preserved by the dry air, couldn’t just get up and walk away. Her common sense told her that. Which meant that someone had removed it – up the stairs into the church when the rest of the community was occupied elsewhere? Or up the further steps into the enclosure itself? She bent, squatting close to the stone floor, the candle flame picking out the faint scratches as of shoes sliding over the ground. Too faint to constitute proof of anything at all, she thought, and shivered as the electric light went out and her tiny flame became her own defence against the darkness.
She rose, fighting down a sudden, completely irrational terror, that if she looked behind her she would see, shadowless in the flickering light, the figure of the robed man in the modern shoes with empty eyesockets glaring.
She turned to face the emptiness she knew was there, and made her way to the wall where the second light switch was, pressing it down and scolding herself for the relief that flooded her.
‘If you could only talk.’
Even as her lips shaped the wistful thought and her eyes ranged over those other seated figures she felt the last ra
gs of primitive superstition tug at the neat hem of her civilized self.
If one of them were to speak, to point her in a particular direction with skin-shrouded bone fingers – she crossed herself as a barrier against stupid fears and went with slow, measured steps towards the tunnel again. She left the candle on its ledge, blew out the flame, checked that the light from the bulb would last a little while longer by pressing down on the switch again, and then went steadily on up the steps and into the church again.
The body had gone which meant that in practical terms she had nothing to report. There should have been relief in that but she felt inside herself the slow burning of anger. Someone was playing tricks and she suspected that the tricks were directed at her – or possibly employed to drive her away from the island, to discourage her curiosity. She knelt down by the altar rail and buried her face in her hands while thoughts threaded themselves like beads on a rosary along the loom of her mind. The body was that of a man who had died fairly recently – how recently she couldn’t possibly tell since the natural process of decomposition had been arrested; someone had placed the body in the crypt, reckoning on its not being noticed among the others since the vault was so seldom visited; someone had spied on her during mass and later, when she had waited for the abbot to escort her into the parlour; someone had crept into the scriptorium and turned the pages of the illuminated manuscript to the section dealing with the legend of Black Morag; someone had grasped her hand in the darkness of the crypt. Someone, someone. But who?
She crossed herself and rose.
Brother Cuthbert was waiting outside, though waiting which suggested impatience was scarcely applicable to the cheerful and casual manner in which he leaned against the wall, his eyes fixed on the grey sky with as much pleasure as if he beheld a blue one with scudding white clouds.
‘I didn’t like to interrupt your devotions, Sister,’ he said as she emerged from the church. ‘The rain’s easing but it might be wise to wrap the plastic around yourself.’
Vow of Sanctity Page 10
