Vow of Obedience (15 page)

‘At least think about what I’ve said,’ she begged.

‘I’ll think about it and you’ll tell Detective Sergeant Mill that my pick-up was borrowed and there’s a dent in it. Just that, Sister.’

‘Very well. Unless it becomes absolutely necessary I’ll say nothing,’ she said. Being backed into a corner wasn’t a pleasant sensation but there was nothing she could do about it.

‘Shall I walk back with you?’ he was asking.

‘Stay and keep an eye on the pick-up,’ she advised. ‘I’ll get permission to phone the station and let Detective Sergeant Mill know about its having been taken and damaged. Thank you for the tea.’

It was only natural that he should wish to protect his relative from police questioning, but her manner was somewhat constrained as she parted from him. The burden of keeping silent in obedience to his wishes threatened to be a heavy one. She hoped he would change his mind and give her leave to speak.

Meanwhile she could at least point the detective in the direction of the pick-up. That might alert him into interviewing the newcomer to the Romany camp rather more thoroughly, but one couldn’t be sure. One couldn’t, she thought, gripped by the sense of unease that seemed to overhang her since her return, be absolutely sure of anything.

She had neglected to take the shorter track that would lead her to the front gates of the convent and, either by chance or subconscious design, found herself still on the path that curved towards the Moor School. If she left it now she would be forced to blunder through low bramble and bracken to reach the wider track. She hesitated a moment and then continued on her way, hastening her pace, thankful for flat heels and ankle-length skirt. In her pre-convent days she had sometimes worn high heels despite Jacob’s gibes.

‘You can’t stand being insignificant.’

‘Neither would you if you were only five feet two!’ she had retorted.

When she had decided – or something had decided for her – that she was going to be a nun she had eschewed the orders that clung still to their medieval costumes and approved the neat grey habit of the Daughters of Compassion with its
shoulder-length
white veil. Practical but without any risk of being mistaken for a district nurse, she had thought, feeling a slight guilt that such considerations should matter.

‘You’ll not last six months,’ Jacob had said sourly.

‘I’ll last for life,’ she had answered stubbornly.

Yet at that time he might have induced her to change her mind, might have agreed to lay his Jewishness aside instead of insisting that his wife, the mother of his future children, must convert to his faith. And this from a man who cheerfully broke the laws of kashrut and never went near a synagogue. In the end their separate ancestries had proved stronger than their mutual loving.

The schoolhouse had no attendant constable. She went up to the front door and tried it experimentally but someone had locked it and the blinds were drawn down over the windows.

Wasting time definitely wasn’t encouraged even though she had been granted a certain amount of freedom. She sighed briefly, recalling the happiness of young pupils spilling out to play on a sunny afternoon, and turned away.

In the high bracken that grew beyond the short,
feet-trampled
turf, something moved and was still. Sister Joan felt the short hairs at the back of her neck bristle with a knowledge of their own. Somebody watched her from the fastness of the bracken, someone who had ducked down as she moved.

Not a child, she told herself, willing her mind to calmness. A child cast a different aura, something more mischievous. Children didn’t watch with an intensity that burned up the space between.

She began to walk slowly towards the track, wishing she were mounted on Lilith or safely ensconced behind the wheel of a car. Out here, a small grey figure in the vastness of moors and sky, she was vulnerable.

Whatever watched her had moved again, was keeping pace still hidden by the tall bracken. Out of the corner of her eye she followed the undulating movement.

‘You had better come out.’

She had planned on sounding confident and brisk, but her voice wavered slightly as she flung her challenge into the air.

There was absolute stillness again, the bracken holding its breath, and then the tall figure, lank black hair falling in a cowlick over a sallow face, rose up and stood before her, arms hanging at his sides.

‘It’s Luther Lee, isn’t it?’

Oddly though her heart hammered with fright her voice was suddenly cool and steady.

‘I wasn’t doing no harm,’ he said in the curious flat accents of a Brummie.

‘I am Sister Joan from the convent. I believe I saw you the other evening?’

She had begun to walk on, sensing rather than seeing his loping gait at her side.

‘The coppers came,’ Luther said. ‘Asking questions. Always bloody questions.’

‘Yes, well, that’s their job,’ Sister Joan said.

‘Persecution,’ Luther said, and repeated the word with a certain pride as if he had just learned it off by heart. ‘Persecution.’

‘What were you doing at the school?’ she enquired, increasing her pace slightly, aware as she did so that his strides had lengthened too.

‘They found the other one there, didn’t they?’ He spoke with a dreadful, brooding excitement. ‘T’other lass?’

‘Yes. Yes, they did.’

‘Like a bride,’ Luther said. ‘I like brides in pretty dresses I do. All clean and shiny like apples you bite.’

He suddenly bared excellent white teeth in a wide and wolfish grin.

‘But she isn’t in the school now,’ Sister Joan said. ‘The police took her away. There isn’t anything interesting for you to see.’

‘There’s you,’ he said and gave a high-pitched giggle as unnerving as it was unexpected.

‘Oh, I’m not very interesting,’ she answered lightly. ‘I used to teach at the school, you know? Your cousin, Padraic’s children, were in my little school. Your cousin is a good friend of mine.’

‘Padraic’s a good ’un,’ he said. ‘Speaks up for me when they tell lies. They do tell lies. All the women gang up and tell lies. S’not fair they should take my character from me. S’not fair.’

‘No indeed, but here in Cornwall it will be different.’

‘Not likely, is it?’ He shot her a brief, bitter glance that held in its depths a flash of sanity. ‘Not when your name’s written down. Written down and the doctors taking notes about it. Not right, not fair. Not fair!’

His long arms, raised suddenly, thudded impotently against his sides.

The moor was empty still, the convent only a tiny shape in the distance, unreachable as a mirage. If a car would only come, a solitary walker …

‘Well, it must be nice to be back with your people again,’ she said inadequately.

‘Nice?’ He tasted the word and giggled again. ‘Fun,’ he amended.

‘I mean – there’s Padraic. And his pick-up.’

‘It got a dent,’ he said. ‘Padraic was mad. He’s going to do it up lovely.’

‘Paint it? Yes, he told me.’

‘I drew a picture once,’ he confided suddenly. ‘All coloured and singing. Big red flowers and green leaves, and brown leaves and red leaves and – dead leaves.’

‘It must have looked lovely.’

‘How d’ye know?’ His black brows lowered over his eyes. ‘You ain’t seen it.’

‘No, but you just described it and I paint and draw myself sometimes.’

‘And pray,’ Luther said.

‘Oh, that most of all,’ she agreed fervently.

‘That other one was praying,’ Luther said.

‘Other one?’ Sister Joan stopped short and turned to face him. ‘What other one?’

‘The tall one with the bulging eyes. On her knees, praying. Not pretty like you.’

‘Where was this?’ She forced herself to walk on, to speak casually.

‘By the gates. On her knees. Praying.’

He had moved a few steps ahead of her, stepping into the track, his long shadow barring her way.

‘You saw Sister Hilaria?’

‘On her knees. Praying is on your knees, isn’t it?’

‘Yes but not always.’ Not at this moment when inside I’m praying harder than I can remember praying for a long time. Without words. Without thought. Only a silent striving for help from anyone, anywhere.

‘Luther, have you told anyone about seeing Sister Hilaria?’ she asked aloud, moving to the side, skirting around him cautiously.

‘They’ll send me back to the hospital for following,’ he said. ‘It’s not right to follow them, you know. It makes them nervy like. But nuns aren’t women, are they? Not proper women in white dresses. Like brides.’

‘I think you ought to talk to Detective Sergeant Mill,’ she said carefully.

‘To the coppers? No, I’ll not, and you can’t make me.’ His tone had become petulant, the accents of a sulky child.

‘No, of course not. but Sister Hilaria was hurt. You wouldn’t want …’

‘I never meant to hurt her,’ he said on a high wail. ‘I put her under the branches. It was off the track away from the road. Safe in the bracken. Are we going to make a hat out of leaves for her like the others?’

‘No, we’re going to telephone Detective Sergeant Mill and ask him to come over for a chat,’ she said steadily. ‘He’s – he’s not like other policemen. He’ll listen.’

‘I’m not coming anywhere to no telephone.’ He had stopped, his hands rising, twitching. ‘Voices say bad things down telephones.’

‘You don’t have to talk on it. I’ll call the detec …’

‘Not your job,’ he said sullenly. ‘You pray instead. You go on praying. You let me be.’

He had curved his hands together and was staring at them thoughtfully as if some new thought had presented itself. Then he began to giggle on a high, meaningless note.

They were almost at the gates and beyond the gates lay the grounds, the walled enclosure, the main house.

‘Think about it,’ she said clearly and calmly. ‘Have a little think about it, Luther.’

Turning her back again, walking smoothly and swiftly without a backward glance, feeling no alien breath on the
back of her neck, no strangling grip, but with the high giggling sounding in her ears and blotting out all other sounds, she gained sanctuary, not daring to run, not daring to look round until she had reached the front door when a glance showed her open gates and empty moorland beyond and the last giggles echoing into the distance.

She felt as if she had been away for days, had lived through a lifetime of new experience, but the others were just filing up the staircase to the refectory. Sister Teresa, bringing up the rear, smiled to indicate that everything had been done. Sister Joan smiled back, composed her face to tranquillity and climbed the stairs.

Today was soup only. She was surprised to discover that her hand shook when she lifted the spoon. Mother Dorothy had already cast her an enquiring glance that demanded explanations later.

Lunch finished and Grace pronounced she began to collect the used dishes, piling them on to the trays, thinking how pleasant it was not to have to scrape wasted food off the china. The rule that demanded everything on the plate must be eaten was a blessing for the lay sister.

‘I’ll see to the dishes,’ she informed Sister Teresa. ‘You go and get on with your studies, Sister.’

With hands plunged into hot water it was easier to think. She would have to tell Detective Sergeant Mill about Luther. Not to do so would be tantamount to withholding information from the police. On the other hand by telling him she was breaking her promise to Padraic and might be exposing an innocent man to police harassment.

‘Something is worrying you, Sister?’

Mother Dorothy, pausing just within the kitchen door, gave her a sharp look.

‘Yes, Mother.’ Sister Joan reached for the hand towel. ‘I ought to telephone the police with some information that came to me after my visit to the hospital, but other people are involved. Sister Hilaria is better, by the by.’

‘I rang the hospital before lunch,’ Mother Dorothy said.
‘Sister, if you have information that may be helpful to the police then it is your duty to reveal it whatever the consequences to others. You may use the telephone.’

Sister Joan bit her lip. In Mother Dorothy’s world there were no uncertainties, very few shades of grey.

‘I want to make sure that Detective Sergeant Mill gets my message,’ she said.

‘He being discreet and tactful? Then telephone and find out if he’s there at the station.’

‘Thank you, Mother.’

‘If he isn’t,’ Mother Dorothy said, ‘surely there’s somebody else equally competent?’

‘Competent, yes, but not perhaps fitted by temperament to deal with a delicate situation.’

‘You, of course, being qualified to judge?’

‘Well, no, I suppose not.’ Sister Joan flushed.

‘Make your call.’

‘Thank you, Mother.’ Sister Joan frowned as the prioress went out.

She had been given permission to telephone the station, been implicitly rebuked for setting herself as judge, but she hadn’t actually been forbidden to do anything.

‘Obedience to the rule,’ Mother Agnes had said, ‘does not mean mere lip service to its outer aspects. It means following the spirit of the rule.’

She went out into the passage where a second telephone, installed for emergency use only, was on the wall and rang the station.

‘Detective Sergeant Mill isn’t in his office at the moment, Sister. May I take a message?’

She thought she recognized the tones of the constable who had ridden Lilith home.

‘Do you know where he is?’ she asked.

‘Up at the Romany camp, I think. I can try and get hold of him over the car radio.’

‘No need. I’ll go over there myself.’

Lilith, she reminded herself as she hung up, required exercise.

Lilith not only required it but was craving it. Saddling up and mounting, Sister Joan felt a pang of compunction. Lilith had grown accustomed to the regular trip to the school. It
would be unkind to deprive her now that the school was closed.

With the afternoon had come the eastern wind, flattening the grass and bending the bushes in one direction. She rode sedately down the drive, giving Mother Dorothy plenty of opportunity to forbid the short excursion, but no
bespectacled
face loomed at the parlour window.

Once out on the moor she gave Lilith her head, only checking her when the pony showed a tendency to take the path leading to the school.

‘Not that way, girl. We’re off to find the detective,’ she told her gaily. Too gaily? Was she perhaps in danger of seeking out Detective Sergeant Mill from motives of personal friendship? She examined the possibility as she rode.

There was no doubt that she both liked and respected him, and no doubt, if she were honest, that he, on his side, felt for her an emotion that would grow stronger were she to afford him the slightest encouragement. On the other hand she thought that he too was alert to the danger and in this particular instance, where it involved the breaking of a confidence and the peace of mind of a mentally disturbed individual, she could think of nobody to whom she would have preferred to confide beyond him.

As she reached the camp she was relieved to see Detective Sergeant Mill already in full view, talking to Padraic.

‘No need to come checking up on me, Sister,’ the latter said reproachfully, coming to help her dismount. ‘I thought over what you said and went and rang the police myself. They’re looking at the pick-up now.’

‘Though not with much expectation of fingerprints,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘However it means I can pull a couple of men off the task of inspecting all the garages within a fifty mile radius. That dent on the bumper certainly seems to correspond with the blow Sister Hilaria received to her head. I am fairly certain that she was trying to get out of the way, stumbled to her knees and was caught a glancing blow by the pick-up. What happened then is still unclear. She may have risen to her feet and stumbled dizzily into the bracken – what is it, Sister?’

‘I met your cousin, Luther, this morning,’ Sister Joan said to Padraic. ‘He – followed me.’

‘He’d never do any harm,’ Padraic said protestingly. ‘It’s just his way.’

‘To follow people?’ Detective Sergeant Mill spoke sharply.

‘Women,’ Padraic said, with a heavy shrug that indicated surrender. ‘Some of them complained – not that he ever did anything to them. Just followed. Shy like. He never got taken up for it, but he went for treatment – psychological treatment.’

‘Where?’

‘In the Black Country. Near Birmingham.’

‘I know where the Black Country is,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said, still sharply. ‘You should have informed me about this before.’

‘Put the finger on poor old Luther? Why the ’ell should I?’ Padraic’s ‘h’ was smothered in righteous indignation. ‘He don’t do any ’arm – harm. Just a bit mixed up mentally, that’s all. And he never took my pick-up neither. He wouldn’t.’

‘But he did put Sister Hilaria in the bracken and covered her over,’ Sister Joan said.

Both men stared at her. Then Detective Sergeant Mill said, ‘Very kind of you to tell me, Sister. You couldn’t have made it a bit sooner, I suppose? Rung the station for example? Or did you hope to combine it with a nice leisurely ride on that …’

‘I did ring the station. You were out here so I decided to come and tell you personally so that you could deal with it in a tactful manner,’ she flushed. ‘In future perhaps you ought to question prospective witnesses more closely, and then I’d be spared the job of doing your detecting for you.’

‘Hold it, Sister.’ He put up a restraining hand. ‘Look, my apologies if I lost my temper for a moment. You’re quite right, of course. This is obviously something that calls for tact – of which I seem to be woefully deficient at this moment. But you’re wrong about not questioning the people here. Sergeant Barratt made what looked like a pretty thorough job of it – not quite thorough enough, it seems, in the light of this new information. I’d better have a word with your cousin, Padraic, and the address of the sanatorium where he received treatment.’

‘Luther’s shy,’ Padraic objected.

‘Then he’ll have to get over his shyness, won’t he? Good Lord, man, I’m not arresting him. I daresay even you can see
that if he was in a position to lift Sister Hilaria up then he would probably have seen who caused the accident. That makes him valuable.’

‘And vulnerable,’ Sister Joan said before she could stop herself.

‘Possibly that too,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘Padraic, where’s Luther now?’

‘How d’ye expect me to know?’ Padraic demanded, with a brief return to belligerence.

‘You’re not your cousin’s keeper?’ the detective said, gently ironic.

‘He needs a bit of peace does Luther,’ Padraic said. ‘Time to settle down.’

‘While he’s settling he can talk to me,’ the other said with a touch of grimness. ‘Sister, you’ll excuse my ill manners but I have to get on. Thanks for bringing me the information personally. You ought to have done so immediately …’

‘I asked her to keep what I said quiet like, for Luther’s sake,’ Padraic interposed.

‘And the horns of a dilemma are not comfortable to have to perch upon, eh, Sister?’ He gave her a rueful look.

‘Not very.’

‘Then I’ll keep in touch. I hope that sensible plans have been made to keep the novices out of harm’s way.’

‘We shall do whatever Mother Dorothy decides. Good afternoon, Padraic.’

So much, she reflected as she remounted, for her illusion that she had a special place in the detective’s considerations. At the moment he thought of her as a somewhat uncooperative woman who fed him information in her own time and when she judged it expedient. Her mood as she turned Lilith’s head towards home was a sombre one.

She jogged home, keeping Lilith’s head firmly away from the direction in which the school lay. It was, of course, possible that Luther Lee was far more dangerous than he appeared to be, but her instincts told her a different story. What she needed was a little space in which to jot down the questions and conclusions jostling in her brain.

At this hour the convent was silent, the swishing of brooms and clatter of dishes replaced by the quiet work done usually
in isolation within each cell. She unsaddled Lilith and saw her safely into her stall, went into the kitchen where Sister Teresa had evidently dried the dishes and wrung out the cloths, padded down the corridor into the main hall. The parlour door was closed. Mother Dorothy used this period on Saturday afternoons to catch up on her correspondence. If anything further had been heard from the hospital no doubt she would tell it in her own good time. And I, Sister Joan resolved, had better take my judgemental attitudes and my hurt pride and offer it up on the altar of humility.

In the chapel she found, as she almost always did, the unquestioning, uncritical peace that was always there to be accepted or rejected as one chose. Kneeling, her hands feeling the coolness of her rosary beads, she sought peace.

How to set one duty against another and choose the right path to take? In the cloistered life it was easy because the rule was always there in its shining perfection, but when life flung one into the world outside then the choices began. The trick of it was to strike a balance between the two. Sister Joan sighed, as her fingers completed the fifth glorious mystery. She sat back on her seat and reached for one of the small missals always piled neatly at the ends of the pews. It fell open as she picked it up and her eye fell on the words printed there: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’. Was that her answer? It was, at any rate, sound advice. She sent up a grateful thank you and went back to the closed parlour door, hesitating for an instant before tapping at it.

‘Sister Joan?’ Mother Dorothy finished addressing an envelope and looked up.

‘Mother, I apologize for interrupting you, but I need advice,’ Sister Joan said.

‘Which I’ll give if I can.’ The other clasped her hands on her desk and gave her full attention.

‘You gave me permission to help the police with their investigations if I could be useful and provided that it didn’t interfere with my religious duties.’

‘Yes I did.’

‘I’ve reached the conclusion that I can’t be of much help to them without finding myself forced to break other people’s confidences to me and the help I do give – it has fed my own vanity too much.’

‘So you are opting out?’

The colloquialism sounded strange on Mother Dorothy’s lips.

‘I’m a religious, not a private detective or a police informer,’ Sister Joan said.

‘Or are you a little disappointed because you expected more appreciation for whatever help you have managed to do?’ Behind the spectacles the eyes were shrewd.

‘You must be psychic,’ Sister Joan said.

‘Unhappily I can lay no claim to any supernatural talents,’ Mother Dorothy said, ‘but I received a telephone call from Detective Sergeant Mill just a few minutes ago, giving me the latest news and asking me to apologize for his short temper. He feared that he had given the impression that he was taking your help for granted. I told him that you wouldn’t wish your assistance to be regarded in any other way than your social duty towards the community at large. So what is it you’re asking me to do? To confine you to the enclosure and remove from your shoulders any responsibilities your unusual measure of freedom affords you?’

‘Freedom,’ Sister Joan said wryly, ‘is a two-edged sword.’

‘Then use it wisely and don’t turn it against yourself,’ Mother Dorothy said briskly. ‘Two young girls have been murdered and one of your sisters in Christ attacked and injured. If you can be useful then be so and don’t muddle yourself up with scrupulosity.’

‘Yes, Mother. In that case may I take it that I can go into town over the next few days as and when I deem necessary?’

‘Provided it doesn’t interfere with your religious life. So far,’ said Mother Dorothy with delicate and malicious humour, ‘your duties as temporary lay sister have scarcely impeded you.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

And serve me right, she thought, as she went into the hall again for trying to wriggle out of everything when the going gets tough.

Somewhere a small bell rang, signal for the community to cease what they were doing and recite a silent Gloria. Mother Agnes had rung the bell back in the Mother House at regular intervals to create a pattern of tiny reminders; Mother Dorothy favoured the irregular method that kept one in a
constant state of alert. There was something to be said for both methods, she supposed.