Murder in an Orchard Cemetery

by Cora Harrison

  ‘I won’t,’ said the Reverend Mother. There was, she thought, a bleak note in her voice and she reproached herself for it. She had long schooled herself against the sin of despair and had concentrated on achieving the possible and shelving the impossible. Almost sixty years, she thought, and there have been many failures, but some small successes and it was on them that she needed to focus.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘These things upset me still – even after all of those years. Odd, isn’t it?’

  The Reverend Mother thrust her hands into her long sleeves and gazed unseeingly down at the valley where the city of Cork had spread its tentacles of streets and rivers across the original marsh. There was another question that she needed to ask Dr Scher, another service, perhaps, that he could arrange, but now, she felt, was not the moment to ask that boon of him. ‘Thank you for telling me, and thank you for all you do,’ she said quietly and then turned back as she saw a nun emerge from the door and beckon to her.

  ‘A phone call, Reverend Mother. Your cousin, Mrs Murphy.’ The voice called out the message from a distance and was reassuring and kindly, knowing perhaps that the Reverend Mother might have expected bad news from the sickroom.

  ‘Sorry to get you out of bed at this unearthly hour of the morning.’ Lucy’s voice was blissfully normal and relaxed. The Reverend Mother smiled. This was an old joke between the two of them.

  ‘Now that I am out of bed,’ she said good-humouredly.

  ‘Well, interesting news. I meant to call you yesterday evening when Rupert came back from work and told me but didn’t get the chance. Guess what – one of the Musgrave boys, Peter, apparently, has turned up, just back from Australia. Arrived in Cobh on Thursday. Rupert wants to bring him up to the convent to see his sister. Is she well enough?’

  The Reverend Mother felt sad. A few days earlier, before this deadly disease had taken grip of the girl, perhaps her brother’s presence would have been hugely cheering for her, and who knows what decisions she might have taken for the future.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Lucy,’ she said. ‘Apart from the question of infection, she is very seriously ill and drifting in and out of consciousness. She would not know him.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Lucy was silent. There had been a catch in her voice and the Reverend Mother guessed that she was holding back the tears with difficulty. Nellie Musgrave, she guessed, was very dear to Lucy, had lived next door, to her, had played with Lucy’s daughters, And when she had lost her mother in such tragic circumstances, Lucy would have been concerned for the girl as she made the difficult transition from a child to an adult.

  ‘I’ll tell Rupert,’ she said after a minute. ‘He’ll be disappointed.’

  The Reverend Mother wondered why Rupert should have been disappointed, but she asked no questions. Lucy’s voice had a cautious note in it and everyone in Cork knew that the ladies in the telephone exchange were prone to listen in to any conversation which promised to be of interest, and then to spread their knowledge among the eager gossips of the city. She was not surprised when after a brief pause, Lucy said, ‘I’ll pop up and see you. Be with you in half an hour. Have most people gone now? And the bishop?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘It’s a tranquil and calm place again now.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lucy. ‘I need not bother wearing my best new black silk stockings to do honour to the bishop. I’ll just come in my old rags.’

  And with that she rang off. The Reverend Mother, wondering a little about what prompted this visit, as Lucy had been warned of the sickness and that the Reverend Mother could no longer leave, went to promise Dr Scher that she would go for a walk when her cousin arrived, but in the meantime, she would relieve the lay sister from her vigil over the dying girl.

  However, she had only spent ten minutes in the sick room when footsteps sounded on the corridor outside the door.

  ‘Inspector Cashman would like a word,’ was the message from the lay sister and she handed over her patient and went down to see him.

  Patrick looked at her in a concerned way when she came through the door and she guessed that her elderly face showed the signs of strain and anxiety.

  ‘You’ve heard the news,’ she said to forestall any enquiries, and she took a few steps back as he stepped towards her.

  ‘Yes. Will she be well enough to see her brother? He could stand at a distance. Just perhaps to say his name.’ He read her expression and grimaced, pulling absent-mindedly at the middle fingers of his left hand. ‘I’ve been to see Mr Murphy, Mr Rupert Murphy,’ he said. And then continued, speaking slowly and carefully, ‘He’s a bit worried about the situation.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother, and she did, in fact, see, in a sudden flash of enlightenment. Lucy, also, had mentioned Rupert. A death. A wealthy man. She shook her head and Patrick nodded.

  ‘That was yesterday, when I talked to him, yesterday morning …’ Patrick hesitated for the moment but then seemed to make up his mind to share his perplexities. ‘Apparently,’ he said, ‘the dead man, Mr Musgrave, did not make a valid will; in fact, a will has not been found. He withdrew his previous will from Mr Murphy, his solicitor, with the intention of drafting a new will, in the light of changed circumstances, children growing up, one in the convent, the lessening of certain family ties, etc. And so, he had made an appointment in order to have the new will drawn up and witnessed.’

  ‘But he died, and now, I suppose,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘all will go to the eldest son.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Patrick, looking at her respectfully. ‘I would have thought that since they were twins, that the money would have been shared between them. But you’re right, it goes to the older even if there are only a few hours in the difference. You know more about the law than I do,’ he added rather ruefully, and she hastened to reassure him.

  ‘I remember reading a book by a French author named Dumas, when I was young, called The Man in the Iron Mask and it was all about Louis XIV of France and his twin brother, identical twin – all fiction, of course, but very gripping. So, yes, the heir to all will be the elder of the two boys. Which one has arrived?’

  ‘It’s the eldest boy, or so he says,’ said Patrick, ‘but that’s not my affair. I wanted to talk to you about something different. It’s just that I was talking to Eileen …’

  The Reverend Mother turned an interested eye upon the flush of colour which came to his cheeks but waited in discreet silence while he gathered his thoughts.

  ‘Well,’ he said with a visible effort, ‘you see she asked me to call in and to have dinner with herself and her mother, but, well, I couldn’t spare the time, and so I dropped in when I had finished working at about nine o’clock and there was a neighbour there, talking to Eileen’s mother, so Eileen and I went for a walk, up to the top of Barrack Street.’ He smiled a little then. ‘Funny the way everyone in Barrack Street goes up that hill for a walk. You can see the whole city and the rivers and the bridges; it’s a great sight, Reverend Mother.’

  The Reverend Mother bowed her head and thrust her hands into her sleeves, making sure she did not go too near to him. Six-foot distance, Dr Scher had said, and six-foot distance was, she reckoned, her normal communication space with all, except her cousin Lucy.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly; and reassured, he went on. He was not, she thought, a very articulate person, but he drew quite a picture of the busy city, of the gas lamps and of glitter on the dark waters of the river and movement of the people crossing and recrossing the many bridges and she could see how he was reliving the time spent there, shoulder to shoulder with Eileen, looking down over the streets and rivers of Cork. She experienced a moment’s pride in them both. Eileen for the quick wits which had jumped to conclusions about the presence of the northerner Willie Hamilton in east Cork and his possible connection with several murders of Catholics in the area, and Patrick who had connected the story with the recent violent desecration of the orchard cemetery. She told him what li
ttle she knew for certain and then turned the conversation.

  ‘I hear that Eileen gave young Mr Musgrave a lift back from Cobh to Cork the other day. How did she like him?’

  ‘Not much,’ he said, and there was a note of satisfaction in his voice. ‘She had some story about him being rude to an old lady from that nursing home near the harbour who was just telling him how much better he looked without that beard. Poor old thing: Eileen said that she looked quite taken aback. Odd fellow. I didn’t like him much, either.’

  ‘Do you suspect him of having anything to do with his father’s death?’ Patrick, she thought, was perhaps a bit harsh. The Musgrave children had a complicated upbringing. Both. Patrick and Eileen had been deserted by a father, but both had a devoted mother, immensely proud of their only child.

  Patrick shook his head at her comment. ‘No, I don’t suspect him of being involved. He couldn’t have been. He definitely arrived a few days after his father’s death. Joe’s been down to Cobh and seen the harbour master records and the ship records before it sailed back. He will be returning to Australia to wind up his affairs and to endeavour to get in contact with his brother; indeed, he had probably already left to join the liner at Cobh,’ he said. ‘We checked and double checked on his arrival.’

  ‘No reason for you to ask him to stay, then,’ said the Reverend Mother, suppressing a smile. Patrick, she thought, would always check and double-check.

  Lucy’s car was just coming through the gate, so she turned her interested gaze from Patrick’s face and went forward to meet her cousin.

  ‘Don’t come too near,’ she said, raising a warning hand as the chauffeur helped his mistress from the car. ‘Perhaps you could make your handkerchief into a mask.’

  ‘I never catch anything,’ said Lucy. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late. I was calming down Rupert. He’s in a state and I annoyed him by saying that it was like The Man in the Iron Mask.’

  ‘Yes, I was telling Patrick just now about the iron mask, welded to the shape of the man’s head, meant that Louis XIV and his identical twin could never be confused,’ said the Reverend Mother. There was strong link of shared memories between herself and Lucy and she was not surprised that her cousin, too, had thought of this fictional case of identical twins.

  ‘Oh, bother,’ said Lucy. ‘Why need you always be three steps ahead of everyone else? I suppose you know all about the twins, do you?’

  ‘I guessed Rupert had a reason to be disappointed to hear that the Musgrave boy could not be identified by his sister,’ said the Reverend Mother placidly. Unobtrusively, she had tucked her veil across her nose and mouth. She would never forgive herself if she gave the infection to Lucy. ‘Are they really so alike?’ she added.

  ‘I told Rupert that it’s no good asking me, as I never could tell them apart when I was seeing them every day, years ago, not even when they were standing side by side.’

  ‘And now it is important. No will,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘so all goes to the eldest son. Perhaps they should have been marked at birth – not anything as drastic as an iron mask, of course. Is there really nothing, no birthmark or anything?’ Her eyes were on Patrick who had accosted the young gardener. Sister Agnes had emerged from the kitchen and for once was not bustling about but standing quite still and looking across at the two figures. And then the woman’s eyes went to Lucy and she disappeared quickly back into her kitchen.

  It would be a long time before the shadow of murder was lifted and the convent regained its pious tranquillity.

  TWENTY

  The Reverend Mother looked around the almost empty room. Under her direction, the young gardener, suitably gloved and masked, had removed the surplus beds and chests of drawers, had cut through excess paint so that the two windows opened easily and had, at her request, removed the blinds one night and returned them the following morning showing proudly how he had darkened their pale cream by a light wash of a deep brown wood stain. Now though the windows were open, the light was filtered. The floor and the remaining chest were wiped down every morning by the obliging lay sister who shared the nursing duties and the room was as cool and clean smelling as she could possibly make it.

  But nothing helped. Step by step, the deadly disease took possession of the frail body, and by now there was no hope left in the Reverend Mother, only a determination to ensure a happy and peaceful death. She had seen enough of death to know that the moment had come. As soon as she woke from her doze in the chair, she had heard the unmistakable sound of altered breathing. Short periods of silence were followed by a few rapid breaths, and then another silence. The Reverend Mother took her watch from her pocket and checked the time. Nine o’clock. Dr Scher was due within the next half hour but she was sure enough of her diagnosis to go to the door and then to whisper to the lay sister a request that the chaplain be ready to give the last sacraments.

  Nature was merciful in the last hours, she thought, looking down at the sleeping girl. The terrible, heart-rending struggle for breath had died away. Now there was nothing but tiny, shallow, almost inaudible whispers of an inhalation interspersed with long silences. Dr Scher arrived, barely listened to his stethoscope, and shook his head sadly. He took out his syringe, then looked at her, nodded and put it away again.

  ‘Not long now,’ he said with a warning note in his voice.

  ‘I’ve sent for the chaplain,’ said the Reverend Mother. She spoke in a low voice, but to her surprise, the eyelids of the dying girl snapped open. There was a look of fear in them and the breathing became louder, more raucous, just as though a struggle had awoken the senses of the body. The Reverend Mother bent over and took the thin, cold hand within her own. She knelt beside the bed so that her mouth was close to the girl’s ear.

  ‘Don’t worry, Nellie,’ she said. ‘Your mother has gone before you, but she will be there for you.’

  She remembered a book she had as a child where all the angels and saints and those who had gone to heaven were sitting around in a sea of deep, deep blue, more blue than any sky in Cork could possibly be. And each was perched upon a fluffy white cloud, holding a celestial harp. Meant for little children, of course, but the face on the pillow before her was that of the young child who had haunted her mother’s footsteps and so she went on with the story, hoping that all she had learned and had taught was, in fact, true and that those who had gone before would be reunited with those they had loved. But whether it was true or not, now was the moment to speak comfort to the dying girl and remind her of her long-lost mother.

  And so, she spoke on, drawing on scraps of information from Lucy and recalling her own memories of the magnificent garden made by the woman who had died so tragically, leaving two small sons and a daughter to mourn her. Dr Scher carefully injected something into the bone-thin arm and after a few minutes, the girl’s breathing relaxed again. Her eyes opened wide, moved around the room, and then went back to the Reverend Mother.

  ‘I want to see the policeman and the priest,’ she whispered, her voice a mere thread of sound. ‘I must, I must, please, please! Now!’

  ‘Dr Scher will fetch them,’ said the Reverend Mother reassuringly. She gave an appealing look at the doctor. He would make sure that Patrick came. Sister Catherine was willing, but very diffident and likely to be put off by an officious constable. She could go herself to the phone, but the thin fingers clutched her hand so desperately that she vowed not to move while the child still needed her presence.

  ‘I’ll be back in two minutes,’ said Dr Scher, and she heard him pound down the corridor and, faintly in the distance, his descent on the uncarpeted staircase. The girl’s eyes had closed. There was an almost unbearable tension until the loud sighing breath came again. The Reverend Mother prayed for the grace of a happy death until Dr Scher returned.

  ‘Sleeping,’ he said, with a finger on the girl’s pulse. He bent down, gently pulled an eyelid, placed his stethoscope on the neck and then stood back. ‘A couple of hours,’ he said softly. ‘Go down to the kitchen. Siste
r Mary Agnes will have tea and toast ready for you on a little table outside the kitchen, she told me to tell you that you will not be disturbed. Keep your strength up. Bring up Patrick when he comes. She will die peacefully once she has told all.’

  The Reverend Mother followed his instructions. It was very thoughtful of him to arrange that she did not have to enter the kitchen or engage in conversation. The table was placed under a tree, laid with a linen cloth, the toast was in a covered dish and the teapot warmly clad in a cosy. She sat upon the cushioned chair, poured the tea, and forced a finger of toast down before swallowing a refreshing cupful. Her mind was busy. She had no memory of Nellie’s mother, Eleanor Musgrave, but she sensed her presence. What was it that Lucy had said about her? Married very young, more of a companion to her children than a traditional mother, loved to garden, amused by the boys, adoring and adored by the youngest child, her little girl.

  Thoughtfully, she finished her toast, drank her tea, called in a message of thanks at the kitchen door. Sister Mary Agnes looked up, tears running down her face. ‘Nellie?’ she said, her voice cracking on a heartbroken sob; she asked no question, just turned away. The Reverend Mother shook her head, but she, also, said nothing. Was it the presence of this woman that had influenced Nellie’s decision to join the Sisters of Charity?

  Seeing the police car sweep in through the gate, the Reverend Mother went to join the elderly chaplain outside the church door. His face, she noticed, was very grave, and there were stains of tears on the cheeks which he had just mopped with the handkerchief in his hand. She honoured him for that. A man she could trust, she thought, as he listened carefully to what she had to say and nodded his understanding. She was, she thought gratefully, supported by men who could be trusted. No need for any explanations to Dr Scher who had instantly done her bidding. Patrick, also, had come instantly, and alone, and this chaplain could be relied upon for compassion and understanding.