Quiet as a Nun (15 page)

I concentrated for a moment on the will of Rosabelle Powerstock, the late Sister Miriam. Or rather the two wills of Rosabelle Powerstock. One, a simple testament made at the time of her final vows, which all the nuns made, leaving her effects and modest possessions to the community. The vast Powerstock Estate, of course, long ago placed in trust and excluded. The other, written many years later, the product of an anguished mind.

The missing will.

A will leaving the lands to the poor, Margaret had hinted. But even a mentally distressed nun would hardly phrase her intentions in the language of the Bible - 'Give all to the poor' in this day and age would probably end up by giving all to the government, not the same thing at all. Or at least not in the way Rosa had intended. The poor in this case were therefore ably represented by the Powers Estate Project. I could safely assume the Project to be the beneficiary of the missing will.

Yet even here there was a mystery within the mystery. Why had Rosabelle bothered to conceal her new will before her death? Who did she wish to conceal it from? A will was there to express her intentions when she was no longer there to make them clear herself. Yet she had apparently gone to great pains to hide this will. Unless of course someone else had hidden it - after her death.

The will. Will. I continued to propound to myself these problems.

'Wilful,' said Sister Boniface. She was handling her rosary by my bed. Her chest wheezed and the fingers clutching the beads were as twisted as ever. I thought of Keats: 'Numb were the Beadsman's fingers . . . and while his frosted breath etc., etc' St Agnes's Eve: Sister Elizabeth was beginning to have an effect on me. But Sister Boniface's tongue was still vigorous.

'Wilful. That's Tessa Justin for you.' Sister Boniface seldom let a subject go. 'Now she wants to have a private interview with you, Jemima. Those were her exact words. If you please! The little madam. Says she has some private information to tell you. I said: be off with you and don't bother Miss Shore when she's sick. Besides, you were sleeping. She said: but I've got to tell her what I know. I said: you can tell her tomorrow, all in good time. And off she's gone, sulkily, to bed.'

For once I was listening with rapt attention to Sister Boniface.

'I could see her first thing tomorrow,' I suggested quickly.

'Oh she'll keep, she'll keep,' replied Sister Boniface. Her tone was comfortable. 'You still need to take things easily. Besides, she's got a busy day tomorrow. We all have. Her mother's coming down to open the school bazaar. Why don't you wait and talk to her when the excitement's all over?'

At the time I saw no great harm in the delay.

12

Worse than death

It was characteristic of the prudence of Mother Ancilla that Blessed Eleanor's Christmas bazaar took place in early November. That way, she reckoned, no-one of any decency could possibly have begun their Christmas shopping. The parents' entire financial outlay could therefore be plunged into the giddy whirlpool of the school bazaar. Mother Ancilla was in no doubt that given a choice of Harrods and the school bazaar, any sensible parent would choose the latter.

The school hall, when I poked my head rather nervously round the door, did for a moment resemble Harrods in the pre-Christmas rush. Exhausted adults were milling to and fro, many with small children attached to their hands. In other ways, however, it was remote from the great Knightsbridge store. The nuns, unlike shop assistants, spent most of the time exclaiming and clucking over the old girls, particularly those with babies.

Mother Ancilla was everywhere, kissing and clasping hands, until her fingers finally became permanently entangled with those of a handsome, rather plump, middle-aged woman with black hair in a knot, and a great deal of gold jewellery. I was surprised. She had surrendered the hand of another well-dressed parent, rumoured to be an Austrian baroness 'related to absolutely everybody in Europe'. But when she pounced on me, hand in hand with her new protegee, the mystery was explained:

'Jemima, you remember the dear princess, you remember Pia.' How satisfied my mother would have been to learn that Pia had allied herself in marriage to an Italian prince of even more exalted birth than her own!

'Geemima! So wonderful! I'm telling you.' Pia embraced me ecstatically, taking me into her warm bosom, where the softness of her cashmere jersey contrasted with the sharp imprint of her myriad gold chains. She smelt delicious. She was charming.

'Gianni! Gianni! 'Ere, 'ere.' Pia's English had not improved. And Gianni, whoever he was, husband, lover, son, chauffeur, was not attending. 'Look 'ere, last night I'm sitting in Claridge's and I'm watching television, because we don't go to Annabel's, really so boring every night, and I
see
you!'

She was a fan. I wondered just which repeat she had seen in her luxurious suite: not the Powers Estate Investigation, that would be too ironic. Yet it was due to be repeated sometime. I was beginning to think of that as a lethal programme. Perhaps Princess Pia would now become infected and sell all that she had? Looking at her chains I decided that like the centurion she probably had a great deal to sell.

Mother Ancilla beamed.

'Isn't it wonderful to think of dear Pia watching you on television?' she cried. I only wished my mother could have survived to hear the news. She too would have thought it quite wonderful.

I edged away in the direction of Sister Elizabeth. At least she remained sublimely indifferent to the occasion in hand. We managed to have a quick exchange on the nature of Christian pantheism as expressed by Shelley in 'The Skylark' before a parent claimed Sister Liz to discuss the somewhat lesser literary matter of his daughter's essays.

At the secondhand book stall Sister Hippolytus was presiding grumpily. The books comprised a mixture of lives of the saints and extremely worn paperback Agatha Christies. The Agatha Christies were doing a brisk trade. I could see no way of avoiding my former history mistress; Sister Agnes, whom I wished formally to thank for rescuing me in the chapel, was nowhere around.

'You haven't bothered to come and see
me,
Jemima, with your questions about convent life,' said Sister Hippolytus, who made no pretence of being other than cross at her exclusion. 'Yet no-one else here knows anything at all about the history of this place. No-one else here even
cares
about history.'

'Tomorrow, Sister Hippolytus,' trying to sound as apologetic as I could.

'Tomorrow, tomorrow. Today belongs to God, tomorrow may well belong to the Devil. As Blessed Eleanor said to Dame Ghislaine when she was dying and Dame Ghislaine wrote it down. I've written it down too, you know. A new life of our foundress is sadly needed, don't you agree? Besides, I'm making a major historical revelation—'

I began to edge away to another stall. I could not honestly regard a new life of the Blessed Eleanor as one of the crying needs of modern publishing.

'God granted me an extra long spell in the infirmary last winter,' said the old nun, deserting crossness temporarily for complacency, 'and I was able to get on with it wonderfully well. I was able to help one or two of the Sisters to a speedier recovery by telling them stories of bygone times at Blessed St Eleanor's. They had never heard such tales before.'

I believed her, including the miraculous recoveries of those Sisters condemned to the Hippo's historical revelations .. .

'Anyway history makes much the best television.' That was Sister Hippolytus' parting shot. 'The past. Towers, ancient foundations, secret hiding-places, old buildings, that's what the public likes. You'll see. Not a lot of foolish women talking about themselves.'

The implication was: to another foolish woman. But for all her crotchety temper, Sister Hippolytus had cleared up at least one matter in my investigations.

I helped myself to some of Sister Clare's excellent coffee. Sister Clare was presiding behind an urn, aided by Blanche Nelligan and Imogen Smith. Blanche rolled her eyes to indicate how far this coffee would fall below my standards.

At a nearby stall Sisters Damian and Perpetua had arranged a series of bottles ranging from Worcester sauce to something mysterious and unlabelled in a vast black bottle. For a handsome sum of money, people were entitled to throw hoops over these bottles in an attempt to secure them. As I arrived, the little hedgehog was plucking nervously at her companion's sleeve.

'Sister, Sister,' I heard her say. 'One of these bottles is alcoholic. What happens if a child wins it?'

'Ah, never worry, Sister,' replied Sister Perpetua happily. 'They won't win anything at all, and that's a promise. These hoops are all far too small to go over the stands. That's the way we used to do it at home in Ireland,' she explained to me, without a trace of shame. 'You make so much more money that way. After all, it's all for charity isn't it? The poor little black children.'

The other stalls were run on rather less ruthless lines. The prize goods - clothes and napkins exquisitely embroidered by the nuns themselves - quickly vanished. Whereas a quantity of logs and leaves and ferns sprayed in silver by the junior school still lurked to trap the unwary visitor.

I even bought one of these festive pieces of nature myself.

'Miss Shore, can we have your autograph?' A group of giggling juniors, bored with the rest of the proceedings, surrounded me. Some proffered autograph books, others scraps of paper. The last girl lingered. She was tiny, with huge goggling eyes and hair scraped into a thick pony tail.

'Will you put: For Mandy, Miss Shore?' It was done.

'And that's my toothbrush holder.' She pointed to a large besilvered log, in which three very small holes had been bored. 'Nobody's bought it. And I took so much trouble—' A frightful expression of woe which did not convince me for a moment: I bought the toothbrush holder. After all, there were unlikely to be two like it in existence. Triumph succeeded woe on the small face.

'Mandy Justin,' said the voice of Mother Ancilla sharply, 'you should be getting ready to hold the bouquet. Your mother's just going to make her speech. And if you see Tessa tell her to go to the platform too.'

So yet another member of the Justin family was an adept at improving the shining hour. My attention was caught by a cortege of what were evidently more Justins, shuffling uneasily onto the platform. Another prudent move on the part of Mother Ancilla was to have the so-called opening ceremony performed as a closure when the stalls were more or less empty. This meant that the distinguished visitor, in this case Lady Polly Justin, had to stay to the bitter end, buying for all she was worth. And so did all but the most brazen of the other visitors. It was a bold parent who ran the gauntlet of Mother Ancilla's disapproval by leaving before the speech.

I studied the Justins.

I recognised Sir Charles Justin. He was a Conservative MP, enormously stout, very much looking the part of authority. He had once given a drink to Tom and myself on the terrace of the House of Commons when his right wing and Tom's left wing views had somehow brought them into agreement over some matter of individual liberty (Tom), freedom from state control (Sir Charles Justin). He looked remote and intensely gloomy sitting there on the platform.

I deduced that the proximity of Lady Polly Justin was responsible for much of this catatonic state. Lady Polly looked pretty as a picture in exactly the right furry hat and soft frilly blouse. Her looks, strong nose, heart-shaped face, reminding me of Romney's Lady Hamilton, gave one hope for her daughters. Perhaps Mandy and Tessa would one day turn into swans like this. Nevertheless Lady Polly succeeded in making a speech of quite exceptional incompetence. As a Tory MP's wife, she must surely have become accustomed to such things. Of course the ever-protective Tom never forced his constituency on Carrie - her nerves would never allow her to make a speech. But he was Labour.

Tories were known to be different and demanded far more from their wives.

Yet Lady Polly not only read her speech but lost her place and dropped her notes. She even made a hash of that hoary old play on words - 'a fete worse than death'. This came out as: 'I am sure this is not a death worse than a fete, even though my fate may be, trying to open it, I mean close it.' Quite. Perhaps she did it on purpose to try and gain her husband's attention? If it was a manoeuvre, it failed. Sir Charles showed absolutely no interest in the proceedings whatsoever.

The lanky young man yawning beside Lady Polly was, I guessed, Jasper Justin of Eton College, Windsor, Berks. There was a miniature version of him sitting beside Sir Charles, equally spindly, in the uniform of some doubtless impeccable prep school. It was difficult to believe that Sir Charles had ever looked quite like that. But perhaps Justins put on weight, with responsibility, as they got older. Mandy Justin duly presented the bouquet to her mother, looking like a little doll, and giving a truly magnificent display of bashfulness. There was no sign of Tessa Justin.

'You must come and meet Polly,' purred Mother Ancilla in my ear. 'She's such a dear.' Like Lady Polly herself, Mother Ancilla was quite unabashed by the platform performance.

Not so every member of the audience.

'Honestly, Miss Shore, did you ever hear such rot?' hissed an indignant voice beside me. It was Dodo Sheehy. Dodo and Margaret had not been much in evidence during the bazaar. No doubt they disdained such things as being both time wasting and class ridden. It was a point of view one could share.

'Sir Charles Justin is a fascist beast,' she went on. Blanche and Imogen, standing rather languidly by, having abandoned the coffee stall, nodded as though well versed in the horrors of Sir Charles Justin's politics.

Margaret Plantaganet was standing by herself, over by the door. Her arms were folded. Her face wore its habitual stern expression in repose, what I called her crusader's look. Lady Polly, platform surrendered, stood quite close to her, twittering away and gesturing. I could not hear what she was saying, but the two of them could hardly have presented a more complete contrast in style and looks. I could not imagine Margaret opening a bazaar such as this in ten years' time, any more than she might marry a Conservative MP. That for her would truly constitute a fate worse than death. I had long ago abandoned my fantasy of Margaret among the brides in the Nuns' Parlour arrayed in white.