Murder in an Orchard Cemetery

by Cora Harrison

  The Reverend Mother thought the moment had come when she needed to get rid of this wretched man. Lucy looked too exhausted to do her job forcibly enough.

  ‘I fear we must leave you now, Mr O’Connor,’ she said firmly. ‘Mrs Murphy and I need to see the mother superior of this convent.’

  He babbled on a minute, uttering some disjointed sentences, but she ignored him and, taking Lucy’s arm, marched her firmly in the direction of the convent.

  ‘Dreadful man,’ said Lucy in an undertone as the words ‘good discount’ came floating after them. Lucy gave a slight giggle and held her handkerchief to her lips. ‘No wonder he says Rupert looks harassed whenever he sees him. He’s been pestering the life out of him about this wretched conservatory. He managed to build one, at huge expense, for the Crosbies, and the wretched building is nothing but a nuisance to them. You know what winds we get up there on Montenotte, and every time there is a north-westerly, a pane or two of glass falls out and a few more plants die. An ugly-looking thing it is, too. Rupe dives back into the office every time he sees that wretched man coming!’

  ‘“Good discount” is interesting, though,’ said the Reverend Mother thoughtfully. ‘You know, Lucy, it strikes me that there must be a very considerable advantage, over and above any salary, to be got from this position of alderman. People seem to want to pay for the privilege.’

  ‘Well, a non-stop flow of bribes would come their way once they are in office, according to Rupert,’ said Lucy cheerfully.

  The Reverend Mother raised her eyebrows but decided that bribes were none of her business and she dismissed the subject of the builder from her mind. At least his loud voice had made Mother Teresa move well away. ‘I’m so glad that you managed to come, Lucy,’ she said. ‘That poor girl, James Musgrave’s daughter, is in a wretched state. The police, of course, will have to interview her, a very short interview Patrick assures me, but neither the mother superior here, nor the mistress of novices, seem to be on sympathetic terms with her and so I thought if you, as a neighbour and close friend of the family …?’

  ‘Yes, of course, poor little Nellie.’ Lucy was immediately concerned. ‘Yes, she was quite a friend of my youngest granddaughter. I was amazed when she entered the convent, but that is always the way. Those who seem the least suited for the life often surprise you by taking it all so seriously. Mind you, if she had been my daughter, or granddaughter, then I’d have got her to wait for a few years. Girls change their minds so quickly at that age! They go through these religious phases and then they’re boy-mad and then they want a career, and then they change their minds again and want to get married. You just have to keep an eye on them and know the moment when to talk sense to them. And, of course, that poor girl lost her mother at around eight years old. Missed her terribly, poor little thing.’

  ‘Here’s Mother Teresa, the superior of this convent,’ said the Reverend Mother. She would have liked to have had some time to brief Lucy, but her voice, she knew, held a warning note. She and Lucy knew each other well enough for that warning note to be picked up. She would not need to give any instructions. Lucy was always so adroit.

  Her cousin went forward now, both hands held out, her face filled with sympathy. ‘Oh, Mother Teresa,’ she said. ‘What a dreadful thing to happen! And on consecrated ground, also!’

  ‘My dear Mrs Murphy! How well you understand. That is what makes it all such a nightmare.’

  Would it, wondered the Reverend Mother wickedly, have been better if the bomb had exploded on unconsecrated ground, in a shop, or even on a road full of people? At least, with this bomb, only one life was lost, and she was thankful for that. She listened with admiration to Lucy’s flow of commiseration.

  Mother Teresa visibly thawed. She bowed her head with the air of a martyr and looked upon Lucy with favour. Nuns, thought the Reverend Mother, with a moment of exasperation, are such terrible snobs. She wondered whether she, also, was affected by the disease. Perhaps, she admitted, her courting of the well-off in the city, the smile of approval she bestowed on such who were liberal contributors to her school and its associated charities, or those who, she guessed, had the potential to be turned in that direction – perhaps that also was a form of snobbery. Lucy, as the wife of one of the wealthiest and the most esteemed citizens of Cork, was given the full sunshine of the mother superior’s smile.

  ‘Terrible, terrible,’ said Lucy with practised ease. ‘He was a neighbour of ours, of course. His poor wife, God have mercy on her, was one of my best friends. And, of course, the little girl, you have her here in your convent, I understand; well, she was in and out of our house so much during her years of growing up; went to school with one of my granddaughters. Her mother was dead, died when she was eight years old, and those brothers of hers were very wild, up to all sort of mischief, so, poor little thing, she would come in and play with the little girls in my garden whenever they visited. I must say that I was as fond of her as I was of my own,’ said Lucy with a sentimental sigh and a sharp sideways glance at Mother Teresa. It wasn’t working, thought the Reverend Mother. Her sister in Christ, the mother superior of the Sisters of Charity, had a stiff look about her. Not stupid. Beginning to suspect.

  Nevertheless, Lucy ploughed on bravely. ‘How fortunate it is to think that she is here under your care, with the other sisters to bear her company, instead of being left alone in that empty house. It brought tears to my eyes when I drove past it this morning. I had to stop and go in and tell the servants to lower all the blinds and to close the shutters. Worrying about whether they would get paid! That’s what they were doing! Would you believe it, Mother Teresa!’

  That worked! Mother Teresa gave a sigh at the wicked, self-seeking nature of lay servants as the Reverend Mother spared a moment’s compunction for the delinquents who were more interested in their weekly stipend than in closing curtains and lowering blinds. Who was looking after matters? she wondered. As far as she knew, the dead man did not have a partner; secretaries and other office workers, she supposed, but nobody to take charge automatically.

  ‘Such a dreadful thing to happen, and here in the most peaceful spot in Cork.’ Lucy, having established a common ground between herself and Mother Teresa, wisely went back to sympathy. ‘Now is there anything that I can do for you, Mother Teresa. My cousin, Reverend Mother Aquinas, tells me that you have the additional burden of the police hanging around and wanting to question everyone.’ Here Lucy threw a disdainful glance across at Patrick and Joe, conferring in low tones over shared notebooks. ‘You’d think that the police would move back down to the city, now,’ she said in lowered tones. ‘They must have seen everything that they need to and must have had enough time to interview everybody,’ she went on, and then gave an exasperated shake of her head. ‘Oh, I suppose that they haven’t been able to interview little Nellie yet. She has collapsed, has she? I remember her well. Used to alarm her poor father with these floods of tears. “Leave her to me, James,” I used to say to him, poor man. Of course, as you probably know, they were without a woman in the house, except servants, of course. “Leave her to me, James. I’ve had a lifetime of experience of girls of this age – what between all my daughters and all of their daughters, I could write a book on how to handle the tears and the hysteria. Stand back!” I used to say to him. “Take yourself off. Go for a walk, or better still, take your golf clubs and go off for a game.” And it will be no surprise to you, Mother Teresa, with your experience of young girls, but by the time that he came back, there she was, all the tears gone, good as gold, in my kitchen, baking him a little cake for his supper.’

  Mother Teresa was beginning to look impressed. ‘Of course,’ she said confidentially, addressing herself to the Reverend Mother as well as to Lucy, ‘at that age a lot of the tears and the hysteria are nothing but attention-seeking, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Just what I always say,’ said Lucy with the air of one who was vastly impressed by the sanity of the mother superior. ‘You’ve found out through experie
nce, of course. All those girls going through your hands and becoming calm and useful members of society, doing such wonderfully good work for the community.’

  ‘Well, I did allow her to go to bed, but now, I think—’

  ‘You’re so right,’ said Lucy admiringly. ‘The secret is to pick the right moment, isn’t it? Would it help if you said that I was here and would like to see her? Of course, as a lay person, I would not wish to intrude upon the inner sanctum of the convent …’ Lucy allowed her sentence to falter on a slightly indecisive note while the Reverend Mother held her breath. Either way, she thought, Lucy had probably won.

  Either Mother Teresa would have to admit that her convent was not sacred in any way and that any casual visitor could go tripping up the stairs to invade the young novices’ dormitory, or else, and certainly preferable, that Sister Mary Magdalen should be extracted from her bed, made to dress herself and to come downstairs and out into the open air. She thought that if gambling were not a sin, that she would like to put a most substantial bet upon the latter solution.

  ‘Yes, I thought I would give into her for just some time as she fainted while carrying out her duties, but by now …’ Mother Teresa said as she looked up at the clock on the convent wall. ‘Well, she has had an hour or so to recover – time for her to get up and come out into the fresh air. After all, she had already given up all family ties and therefore, though obviously she has had a shock, she should – well, I always say to my mistress of novices, “Teach the girls to have moderation in all things”.’ Mother Teresa beckoned to a lay sister who was picking some herbs from a pretty circular bed and said in her authoritative way, ‘Ask Mother Carmel to send Sister Mary Magdalene to me immediately.’ And then she relaxed with a self-satisfied manner.

  The Reverend Mother gave Lucy an appreciative glance and then lifted a beckoning finger towards Patrick, whose eyes had strayed in her direction quite a few times during the long conversation. He, she noticed, had a quick word with Joe but, she was glad to see, did not invite his assistant to come with him, just advanced bare-headed and alone to greet Mother Teresa in a quiet and restful tone before turning to Lucy and telling her to thank her husband for his message and that he would be going into the South Mall as soon as he had finished all of his interviews here at the convent. Lucy received his communication with an approving nod and the mother superior of the Sisters of Charity convent looked at him with the air of someone who had, perhaps, misjudged the importance of a visitor to her convent. It was obvious that Patrick, with his easy acquaintance of not just the wife of an important solicitor, but also with the Reverend Mother from St Mary’s of the Isle, had suddenly gone up in her estimation. She gave Patrick an approving glance which seemed to give him permission to question her further.

  At that point he opened his notebook and read out the names of all at the convent whom he had seen and invited Mother Teresa to mention any others whom she felt that he should interview.

  What a lot of trouble this ridiculous woman is causing, everyone is having to pussy-foot around her, thought the Reverend Mother impatiently, though she preserved a peaceful silence and knew from long experience that her rather-expressionless, pale face and heavily hooded green eyes, would reveal nothing of her thoughts.

  Her thoughts were mixed. There was sorrow for the unfortunate, doubly-orphaned girl, but also a pride in Patrick – thousands of children from the slum area of the south side of Cork city had gone through her hands. Some were memorable for a variety of reasons; some she had lost sight of; some she had continued to take an interest in, even when they were grandmothers; some, like Eileen, she had picked out, from the start, as being exceptionally clever, the only one that she could recollect, who had come to school already able to read and to write. Patrick, however, she remembered for his perseverance, his hard work, though he had not stood out in any way as being clever. It would have been difficult, she often thought, these days, with a certain measure of almost maternal pride, to have predicted the evolution of this calm, competent, quite well-spoken police inspector from the tear-stained, rather dirty and ragged little boy whom she remembered at the age of five as enduring a hard time from his teacher because of his persistence in accomplishing a self-appointed task of counting the number of ants going into a hole in the school playground before he obeyed her instructions to go back into the classroom. Now she watched with interest to see how he managed this unhelpful woman.

  ‘Ah, yes, Sister Mary Magdalene.’ Mother Teresa pronounced the name in a rather non-committal voice.

  ‘You would wish to be present?’ said Patrick, addressing her in a scrupulously polite fashion.

  Mother Teresa hesitated. Lucy made a sympathetic face. Such are the trials of high office, her expression seemed to say. And then a flash of inspiration came across her expressive face.

  ‘Could I help in anyway?’ she asked with a humble note in her voice. ‘You must be so busy. My cousin, Reverend Mother Aquinas, has often made use of me in lay situations. Of course, she knows how experienced I am with these young girls.’ Lucy bestowed a smile upon the Reverend Mother, who preserved a discreet silence and tucked her hands into her sleeves.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Mother Teresa, after a few moments of rather tense silence had elapsed, ‘I do believe, Mrs Murphy, that someone like you would be the right person to talk to this girl. In confidence, and between us three,’ she said, lowering her voice and turning her back to Patrick. ‘Yes, in confidence, I have to say that she has not been the most satisfactory of novices. If it were not for her father’s conviction that she had made the right decision, I would have hesitated to allow her to progress from the position of novice to professed sister. And of course, now, she is left upon our hands.’ Mother Teresa paused for a moment and then bestowed a smile upon Lucy. ‘Yes, well, it’s extremely kind of you, Mrs Murphy, and I think that given the fact that you have known the girl from an early age and will have been to a certain extent, like another mother to her, well, I do think that if Inspector Cashman is happy, that might well be the best solution. Not that I can see that the girl can have anything of use to say to you, Inspector,’ she finished in a slightly snappy fashion.

  Patrick was busy making a few small marks on a fresh page of his notebook and did not raise his head for a moment.

  ‘Sister Mary Magdalen did not speak to her father alone on any occasion, then?’ he said with a note of query in his voice.

  There was a moment’s silence and then Mother Teresa succumbed. ‘Now that you mention the matter, Inspector,’ she said, ‘well, no, that is not correct. Sister Mary Magdalene did speak alone with her father. It’s not usual, of course, but given the circumstances, given that Mr Musgrave was here as a guest of the bishop, well, I did consent to her being alone and not supervised in any way. She was coming near to the time when she would take her final vows, and so I always think it wise that, in certain circumstances, the families have private access to the girls in case there are any problems afterwards, any suggestion of undue coercion or influence by the convent. Their decision, their final vows, Inspector, need to be taken in full and certain knowledge that this is what they want and that it is their choice to devote their future lives to the service of God.’

  Patrick’s face did not change in any way and he made another note in his notebook. The Reverend Mother admired, in a detached way, how adept he was at shorthand and wondered rather mischievously whether those cryptic symbols were a blueprint for the stepping stones that a novice had to undergo before becoming a fully-fledged nun, or related to some quite different matter. She was pleased that permission had been granted, though. It was, after all, quite possible that James Musgrave, a man who lived alone and appeared to have no close friends, had expressed some worry, some threat even, to his daughter.

  The child looked terrible when she came hesitantly through the convent door and out onto the terrace, approaching her mother superior and companions with a face which, oddly, seemed to show an expression of intense fear
. Even alarmed at the sight of Lucy, whom she must have instantly recognized, because Lucy, in her cousin’s opinion, had not changed in any particle during the last the twenty years or so – the hair, tinted ash blond, the perfect make-up, the youthful figure clad in the most expensive clothes that could be purchased in Cork or Dublin, all of these things could not have changed during the months since the girl had left her father’s home.

  Lucy, on the contrary, did not hesitate for a moment. ‘My dear child,’ she said warmly. ‘Let me look at you.’ Impulsively, she bent forward and kissed the girl on the cheek, and then, with a swift movement which could have been forethought, she tucked her arm inside the girl’s and without a moment’s indecisiveness, marched her to where the sun shone over the four-foot-high wall between the convent grounds and the road leading down to the city.

  An excellent choice, thought the Reverend Mother. Standing side by side, neither needed to look at the other, no feeling of being scrutinized and enough random, unrelated objects to look at, such as horses pulling hay wains, countrymen walking from field to field; enough sounds to listen to such as bird-song and the distant mooing of cows separated from their calves, and the raucous squawks of a shouting match between two rival cuckoos – plenty of distractions to fill an awkward silence for a girl who did not know what to say. And, of course, by her side, a woman whom she had known for her entire home life.