FOUR

The clanging of the rising-bell woke Sister Joan at five. One of the lay sisters, Sister Felicity she realised as the sleep mists cleared from her brain, was striding past the cells, her voice raised above the ringing.

‘Christ is risen.’

‘Thanks be to God,’ came in a ragged chorus of voices. A series of soft bumps indicated knees hitting the linoleum.

Sister Joan’s knees hit the linoleum with the rest. She had not slept well. The train journey, the unfamiliar surroundings, the questions buzzing in her brain had all conspired to keep her wakeful until the clock had chimed one.

The water in the ewer was cold. She splashed her face and hands, blinked the grittiness out of her eyes, reached for a towel. Five years of practice had made her expert at cleaning her teeth while on her knees. Rising, she stripped off nightgown and mobcap and donned the sensible cotton underwear deemed suitable for a professed sister. Her grey habit was one of two that she possessed, to be worn month and month about so that one could be regularly cleaned.

‘I fear that in the old days the odour of sanctity was less than savoury in hot weather,’ Reverend Mother Agnes had said.

This Prioress smelled of lavender, not the faint perfume that might result from her laying her clothes with bags of the flowers in the folds, but the stronger essence that comes from a bottle of cologne.

Sister Joan fastened her belt and pinned her veil, her hands moving competently in the absence of mirrors.

‘You look awfully well‚’ her parents always said on their twice yearly visits, as if they had expected otherwise.

‘You get more like your mum every day‚’ her father always commented.

She saw herself therefore not in mirrors but in memories of the photographs of her mother she had seen down through the years, the slim figure, the rosy cheeks and vivid blue eyes, the upturned nose and the mouth that quirked upwards in amusement at everything strange and spare.

The nuns were emerging from their cells, walking with folded hands and lowered eyelids along the corridor and down the main stairs to the lower passage that led to the chapel lamps burned at intervals to remind them that dawn was not yet come. There would be private devotions and meditation until six thirty when the priest would arrive to offer Mass. On the previous evening she had been too shaken by Sister Perpetua’s revelation to notice more than that Father Malone was small and elderly with the expected accents of County Cork in his voice.

In the chapel she conscientiously ploughed through five decades of the rosary and then, her Missal open at the Office of the day, composed in her mind the letter she would later write to Reverend Mother Agnes and slip into a postbox without first submitting it for inspection.

‘In the Name of Our Blessed Lord.

‘Dear Reverend Mother Agnes,

‘Knowing your anxiety in this matter I am writing at once, first to inform you of our comfortable journey and safe arrival at the Cornwall House. We were met at the station by Sister Felicity, one of the lay sisters, and warmly welcomed. This is a mansion house, built in varying styles and at varying periods added to though not always happily from an aesthetic viewpoint.

‘The only information of any consequence that I have yet discovered is that Sister Sophia who taught in the school here until her death six months ago took her own life, a circumstance not advertised to the other Houses of our Order. She was twenty-four years old and had been professed for only three months. This tragedy is not discussed among the sisters but the infirmarian, Sister Perpetua, confided it to me.

‘I am also told by Sister Perpetua that Mother Frances was deeply respected here and was in command of her faculties almost to the end.

‘Reverend Mother Ann is a charming and cultured woman who is obviously well liked by the sisters. The atmosphere here is congenial. I begin my teaching duties tomorrow and hope that I can carry them out to the satisfaction of all.

‘Please convey my love to the other sisters and to yourself,

‘Your loving daughter in Christ,

‘Sister Joan.’

To mention the pink nail polish and the scented habit smacked of pettiness. Even the most religious of nuns occasionally flouted small rules and the Prioress of each House had, within her sphere, considerable latitude.

The letter written in her mind she turned her attention back to her devotions. To be perfectly recollected during these daily devotions was a goal to be aimed at, but she feared it would take years before she could so lose herself in prayer as to be unconscious of the small sounds and shufflings of her companions.

Sister Lucy had risen and gone into the sacristy, presumably to greet Father Malone. Through her linked fingers Sister Joan marked her progress, a trifle self-important in its bustling. The sacristan was responsible for the upkeep of the chapel. This one clearly took pride in her position. Too much pride? And what business was it of hers? Sister Joan closed her eyes firmly and began on a silent Salve Regina.

The bell tinkled and she rose with the rest as Sister Lucy slipped back into her place and Father Malone trotted up to the altar.

When Sister Joan went into the dining-room for the breakfast of coffee, cereal and a piece of fruit to be eaten standing according to custom she saw the priest there, drinking a cup of coffee. The Prioress beckoned her.

‘Father Malone, this is our new sister, Joan.’ She smiled at them both.

‘Welcome to Cornwall, Sister.’ He shook hands, peering at her comically over the tops of his half-moon glasses. ‘Would this be your first visit to this part of the country then?’

‘Yes, Father. I was born in Yorkshire and made my profession at the London House.’

‘Ah, Yorkshire is a fine county too,’ he said tolerantly.

‘I’m taking over the teaching at the Moor School,’ she told him. ‘In place of Sister Sophia, God rest her soul.’

‘And the souls of all the faithful departed,’ he said, sketching a cross in the air. ‘Ah, that was a sad accident. Poor soul.’

‘An accident?’ She let her voice rise up into a question.

‘Sister Sophia fell when we were testing the fire-safety apparatus,’ the Prioress put in.

‘The rope which should have been looped round her arm slipped and tightened about her neck instead. Sister Felicity and I were below watching her descent, and by the time we reached her – a great loss to the Community.’

‘But now you have a new daughter, Reverend Mother,’ Father Malone said cheerfully, with an air of drawing a black line under the past. ‘Also a new recruit, I understand?’

‘Veronica Stirling,’ the Prioress nodded. ‘A very sweet girl, Father. I have high hopes of her.’

‘Under your guidance and that of Sister Hilaria she will surely flourish,’ he said.

‘One can only pray to Our Blessed Lady,’ the Prioress murmured. ‘The number of vocations decreases in every Order.’

‘I tell myself that the Good Lord wants quality instead of quantity,’ said Father Malone, putting down his coffee-cup. ‘Well, I must be away back to my sinners and saints. I left my new curate to offer the parish mass. Nice boy but ambitious. One year ordained and has his eye on a Bishopric. Sister Joan, you are in good hands here. I wish you luck in your schoolwork. If you need any advice you know where to come.’

He trotted out, tying his scarf as he went. A man content in the life he had chosen, Sister Joan said to herself, watching him. The old type of parish priest who knows what theology he has studied in the Seminary and has retained an innocence of outlook that gains the trust of his parishioners.

Turning she caught the flash of amused scorn in the dark eyes of the Prioress, the slight curl of the mobile mouth.

‘A pleasant little man,’ the Prioress said. ‘His parish is quite widely scattered. In these parts Protestant Nonconformity is still dominant. It will be easier for him now that he has a curate. Go and eat your breakfast, Sister. Perhaps you would like to introduce yourself to our old sisters in the infirmary then. They have been looking forward to seeing a new face.’

‘Yes, Reverend Mother Ann.’ Sister Joan hurried to her cooling coffee.

The clock chimed the half-hour. The lamps had been extinguished and a weak ray of sunlight was struggling through the overcast sky.

The quiet ordered routine of the day had begun in earnest. The Prioress was withdrawing to her own quarters with Mother Emmanuel at her heels. Two of the sisters with gardening aprons over their habits went purposefully towards the enclosure. Sister Katherine was glimpsed at the end of a corridor, half buried under a pile of clean sheets. Sister Joan went conscientiously to her cell, picking up brush and wash leather on the way from the cupboard on the landing where other sisters were also taking cleaning materials. One’s cell had to be left clean before one began the daily routine. By daylight she could see the upper corridor had three large rooms at each side, five of them split into two cells each. Her own cell was the second on the left. A card slid into a narrow frame on the door read ‘Sister Joan’. Sister David was on one side of her and Sister Katherine on the other. Three cells beyond stood empty with doors opened wide. She guessed that the three old ladies now in the infirmary had previously occupied them. She wondered as she made her bed, emptied slops, ran the wash leather over her window if her cell had been where Sister Sophia had slept. If so the nun had left no trace of anguish.

‘If you’re ready, Sister, we can go down to the infirmary,’ said Sister Perpetua as she came out on to the main landing again. ‘Reverend Mother Ann says you are to relax today, get to know us better, go over to the school.’

It didn’t sound much like relaxation but she let it pass, following the other down the stairs and through a door near the back of the hall just beyond the lowest steps of the staircase.

They were underneath the sleeping-quarters, she realised, in a short corridor with a door on the left and a door opposite.

‘The kitchen,’ Sister Perpetua said, nodding towards the latter. ‘The lay sisters have their cells just beyond it. This is the infirmary and my old ladies.’

The room into which she ushered Sister Joan must once have been the servants’ hall, with a row of bells still on the wall and the same brown linoleum as had been laid above. There were lockers against one wall with lace-curtained windows above them that looked into the tangled foliage of the green tinted conservatory. Against another wall three beds were placed, but the three old nuns sat in basket chairs at a low table on which there were workboxes.

It was a curious circumstance, thought Sister Joan, as introductions were made, how after years in a system where the expression of the personality had to be sublimated those who grew old in the discipline of the faith became in their last years more strongly individualistic than old ladies in the world. It would have been impossible to mistake Sister Andrew, with the lines of remembered pain etched deeply into her face, for the twisted and delicately made Sister Mary Concepta, while Sister Gabrielle with her hearing-aid and sharp, clever face was different again. Old and sick as they were there was still a vitality burning in them.

‘Sit down, Sister Joan.’ Sister Andrew was evidently spokeswoman for the others. ‘We have looked forward to seeing you. You’re from the London House?’

‘I did my novitiate and was professed there,’ Sister Joan said, pulling up a stool.

‘How long have you been in the religious life?’ Sister Gabrielle asked, turning up her hearing aid.

‘I was professed two years ago, Sister.’

‘She’s just a baby in the Order,’ Sister Gabrielle said with a little giggle.

‘Everybody seems like a baby to me now,’ Sister Mary Concepta said wistfully. ‘Would you believe that I am the youngest of these three? Seventy-eight. Sister Andrew is a year older than I am and Sister Gabrielle is – how old are you, Sister?’

‘Going on eighty-three as you well know,’ Sister Andrew said. ‘You’ve come to take over the school, haven’t you?’

‘In place of Sister Sophia,’ said Sister Joan, deliberately.

Sister Perpetua had gone out and she sat alone with the three veiled figures, the ivory of their skin yellowed, their eyes hooded.

‘God rest her soul.’ Sister Mary Concepta’s twisted hand fluttered into a cross. ‘Such a sad accident.’

‘What I would like to know,’ Sister Andrew said, ‘is what possessed them to test the fire-escape apparatus so late at night?’

‘Was it?’ Sister Joan looked from one to the other.

‘Eleven at night in December if you please,’ Sister Gabrielle said looking as if it didn’t please her. ‘Dark and wet.’

‘So wet that any fire would have gone out anyway,’ Sister Andrew said.

‘That apparatus hadn’t been tested in years,’ Sister Mary Concepta added. ‘Sheer foolish nonsense. Mother Frances said –’

‘Mother Frances, God rest her soul, had a vivid imagination,’ Sister Andrew said.

‘What did she say?’ Sister Joan looked from one to the other, but the three old faces had closed up.

‘Gossip is a bad habit in a nun,’ Sister Gabrielle said and giggled again. ‘That was a pun. I was very good at making puns when I was a girl.’

‘Have you met Father Malone?’ Sister Mary Concepta asked.

‘This morning after Mass.’

‘A pious nincompoop,’ Sister Andrew said with a savage little smile, or it might have been a grimace of pain. No, not pain. Sister Perpetua had said she was in remission.

‘Does he come every morning to offer Mass?’ Sister Joan asked.

‘He wouldn’t trust his curate loose inside the convent,’ Sister Gabrielle said naughtily.

‘Don’t be so bold, or you will shock Sister Joan,’ Sister Andrew reproved. ‘Yes, he comes every morning and on a good day we go to the chapel, but today we are not having a good day. We were far too excited about your coming. You brought a novice with you?’

‘Veronica Stirling.’

It was unlikely they would get the opportunity to meet Veronica since for the first twelve months the novice was kept segregated from the professed nuns with the exceptions of the Prioress and Novice Mistress. In this case they would presumably have some truck with Mother Emmanuel too since Sister Hilaria was apt to become prayer-bound.

‘She will not have to change her name since she already bears the name of a saint,’ Sister Mary Concepta said.

‘Not like Sister Magdalen,’ Sister Gabrielle said, and was frowned at by her companions.

‘It is not etiquette to speak of those who leave us,’ Sister Andrew said severely.

‘Sister Magdalen was the novice who left? Did you meet her then?’ Sister Joan asked in surprise.

‘She was here for six months,’ Sister Gabrielle said, evidently bent upon gossip. ‘She came last September. There was a great deal of influenza in the convent that month and both the lay sisters went down with it, so the novices had to take over some of the duties.’

‘Including us,’ said Sister Mary Concepta.

‘It was very pleasant to have such bright young things running in and out,’ Sister Andrew said. ‘Such good, kind girls.’

‘And one of them left?’

‘A very pretty girl,’ Sister Mary Concepta said. ‘Blue eyes and a very delicate complexion. What we used to call a typical English rose.’

‘Is this Veronica pretty?’ Sister Gabrielle asked.

‘Very pretty.’ Sister Joan felt bewilderment creeping over her. She had never heard that the outward appearance of an intending nun mattered one way or the other.

‘I have always felt that brides of Christ ought to be beautiful on the outside as well as the inside,’ Sister Andrew said. ‘Only think of the many plain spinster types who used to be thrust into convents because they couldn’t catch a husband.’

‘We none of us speak from experience,’ Sister Gabrielle said archly.

‘Such a pity she changed her mind and went away again,’ Sister Mary Concepta mourned. ‘We were sure that she had a very genuine vocation. Mother Frances was quite put out when we were told she had left. She had been sure that the child had a future in the Order.’

‘Perhaps she was upset by the accident to Sister Sophia,’ Sister Joan suggested.

The three old ladies looked at her and then, almost in concert, shook their heads.

‘Sister Sophia died at the beginning of December,’ Sister Andrew said. ‘Magdalen didn’t leave until the middle of February.’

And she would not have gone round to say goodbye. Anyone who left the novitiate went with no fanfare, but was given her train fare and allowed one brief telephone call if she so wished to her family. The notice of her leaving would be given out to the Community without any reasons being attached. If it took courage to enter the religious life it took twice as much courage to leave.

‘You ask a lot of questions,’ Sister Gabrielle said with a sharp look.

‘I was interested,’ Sister Joan said hastily. ‘In convents things always seem to me to go along in exactly the same manner.’

‘If this is only the second convent you’ve ever been in then you haven’t much basis for comparison!’ said Sister Andrew with the air of one scoring a point.

‘You’re right, Sister. I talk a lot of nonsense sometimes,’ said Sister Joan. ‘And here is Sister Perpetua to remind me that I have other duties.’

Rising as Sister Perpetua entered, she continued cheerfully,

‘I’m afraid I am a sad disappointment to the sisters. I am a mere baby in the Order.’ Sister Joan spoke lightly as she rose.

‘We are very glad to have you with us nevertheless,’ Sister Andrew said as if she were smoothing over a social gaffe. ‘I hope you will come again to visit.’

‘We are always at home,’ Sister Gabrielle added with her high giggle.

‘Wonderful, aren’t they?’ Sister Perpetua said as they went out. ‘I am very fond of my old ladies.’

‘Sister, do you have a few moments to spare?’ Sister Joan said abruptly.

‘I’m going to pick some mint from the garden,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘Sister Mary Concepta fancies that mint tea helps her rheumatic condition. It does not, of course, but it does no harm.’

They passed through a side door and were next to the stable. Sister Joan would have liked to go in and make the acquaintance of the horse she would be riding to and from the school but she would do that later. For now she walked with her companion to where borders of herbs confined the vegetable beds.

‘Sister Martha is always happy when someone picks her mint,’ the other said. ‘She complains that it spreads everywhere.’

‘Sister, you told me that Sister Sophia killed herself,’ Sister Joan said, having decided to pounce without warning. ‘Reverend Mother Prioress told me it was an accident.’

The pounce had no effect. Sister Perpetua merely said calmly,

‘Well, she would, wouldn’t she?’

‘Then what makes you think –?’

‘Nobody in their senses has a fire drill with only three people present at eleven at night.’

‘I was told she was testing the apparatus.’

‘Testing it or whatever – it makes no difference. When you test equipment you do it in daylight.’

‘Was it faulty?’

‘Oh, completely inadequate,’ Sister Perpetua said, kneeling to snip the mint. ‘More risky to use that than to take one’s chances with a fire, I would imagine.’

‘Then surely –?’

‘Sister Sophia was worried about something,’ Sister Perpetua said, still cutting the herbs. ‘She wasn’t sleeping well and she came to see if I could give her something. Not that I have any medical training but I’ve been infirmarian for the last twelve years and my knowledge is fairly extensive. Used in the right quantities herbs are beneficial and gentle in their effects. Anyway I gave her some herbal tea and she went away again.’

‘Did she say she was worried?’ Sister Joan persisted. ‘There can be other reasons for not sleeping.’

‘She said she had something to think over,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘Look, I knew Sister Sophia. She was a very practical, sensible young woman. Her vocation was very strong. Sister Hilaria told us she was the most promising of the novices. When she made her final profession she was radiant, Sister. She was where she wanted to be. That was last September. There was an outbreak of influenza shortly afterwards and most of the sisters went down with it. The novices had to help out and Sister Sophia helped out too. Neither she nor I succumbed and she used to come over to the infirmary when she had finished her school work and give me a hand there. Anyway I suppose I was so busy that I didn’t notice when she began to change.’

‘In what way?’ Sister Joan had also crouched down. The scent of the mint was exquisite.

‘She lost her radiance,’ Sister Perpetua said, her voice low. ‘Oh, we all come down to earth once the ordinary routine of the religious life closes about us. But we still retain some part of that – ecstasy that carried us into a convent in the first place. Sister Sophia didn’t. She was suddenly very quiet and yet, at the same time, restless and irritable. It was completely unlike her. I didn’t press her however. I gave her the herb tea and she went away. A few days later she died.’

‘Were you there?’

Sister Perpetua shook her head.

‘I was in my cell. Sister Felicity came and woke me up. She said there had been an accident. She and the Prioress were returning from late meditation in the chapel and were taking a stroll round the entire building when they saw Sister Sophia hanging out of the window of her cell. I went at once and helped Sister Felicity to haul her back through the window. The Prioress had hoped that being infirmarian I might be able to help her, revive her, but it was far too late. The fall had hanged her instantly.’

‘But surely the police were called?’

‘There was no note,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘Nobody else seemed to have noticed she was depressed or having difficulty sleeping. Reverend Mother Ann told us that Sister Sophia had been examining the fire-escape apparatus and complaining that it was out of date. She was quite sure that she had taken it into her head to test the thing.’

‘Surely the police were called?’

‘Of course. Also the local doctor. Reverend Mother Ann told them there had been a test made of the apparatus and that Sister Sophia had fallen.’

‘She lied,’ Sister Joan said bluntly.

‘She told Sister Felicity and me that she wanted to protect Sister Sophia’s reputation. It would have hurt her family terribly and prevented her burial in consecrated ground. She felt no good could be served by telling the exact truth.’

‘Was there an inquest?’

Sister Perpetua nodded, rising somewhat stiffly from her knees.

‘And?’

‘Death by Misadventure. The Coroner added a rider about the foolishness of testing faulty equipment without an expert present. I must go back to my ladies.’

‘Sister, why are you telling me all this?’ Sister Joan caught at the edge of the other’s habit. ‘Why are you telling a complete stranger?’

‘Mother Frances told me that a sister would be coming – that was no news since Sister Sophia had to be replaced, but Mother Frances said the new sister would bring a breath of fresh air into the convent.’

‘Did Mother Frances know –?’

‘No indeed.’ Sister Perpetua looked startled. ‘She was a shrewd old lady though. Right to the end she was very shrewd. And anyway –’ She hesitated, the reddish eyebrows working up and down as if each one had an independent life of its own.

‘Anyway?’

‘Look, I was never a mystic or a dreamer,’ said Sister Perpetua. ‘I’ve always been down-to-earth, practical. I don’t imagine things, Sister. But I can feel evil here. Don’t laugh but I can feel evil all round me. I had to tell someone, that’s all.’