Thunder On The Right (9 page)

"Come in." The gentle voice spoke again from the window seat, where, full in the sun, steeping in its rays, sat a very old nun. She did not turn her head, but gestured with one soft old hand toward a chair.

Jennifer took the chair. "I am Miss Silver, Madame Lamartine's cousin. I came up to see my cousin, and was told that she had died some days ago."

This time the old nun did turn toward her. Against the brilliant light Jennifer could not see her at all clearly, but she got the impression of a round, pale old face, softly wrinkled with age like a hand that has been in soapy water. The wrinkles were not so much the lines etched by character, as a gentle blurring of the features. The forehead under its black coif was quite smooth, and it was certain that the brows had not frowned for a very long time. The expression of the faded eyes could not be seen, but the line of the mouth was sweet.

"I heard that you had come, mademoiselle. I was sorry that you had to find such news awaiting you. It was a sad affair: it is always a sad thing for the friends of one who dies so young." She smiled. "It is not easy, I know, to regard death as a beginning rather than an end."

"No."

"You have seen your cousin's grave, child?"

"Yes,
ma mere
." She paused, wondering just how to begin asking her questions, shaken in spite of herself by the tranquil normality of the old woman's demeanor.

Suspicion and uneasiness seemed very far away. . . . Age lived with kindness in this bare and pleasant room.

Mistaking the reason for her silence, the old prioress began to talk, with gentleness but without sentiment, in a way which would have brought comfort to Jennifer had she felt herself truly bereaved, but which under the circumstances made it merely more difficult to begin her inquisition.

At length she approached the subject in what she felt to be a sufficiently roundabout way.

"I talked to Doña Francisca and Sister Louisa today," she said, "and I understand that my cousin had papers. . . ."

"Certainly." The Reverend Mother spoke readily.

"You must take them, of course. She managed to bring them with her, in a handbag that she tied to her wrist. Doña Francisca took charge ot the baggage that was brought up later from the car, but I have the papers here."

She rose and pulled open a drawer beside her groped in it for a moment then turned with a flat leather handbag in her hand. This she gave to Jennifer.

"This is just as she brought, my child. Take it with you. It's yours now."

"Thank you." Jennifer sat clutching the bag, her fingers a little unsteady on the clasp. "Do you mind if I open it,
ma mere?
"

"Of course not. Do as you wish," and the prioress, back in her seat by the window, bent her head over a rosary she was fingering, as if to give her guest an illusion of privacy. Jennifer thrust hasty fingers into the bag, pulling out its contents and laying them one by one on her lap . . . comb, powder, mirror, a Lancome lipstick, keys, a purse stuffed full of paper money, and a thick envelope similiarly full. Jennifer counted it, over a hundred thousand francs—a hundred pounds or so. She frowned at the bills. Yes, Gillian might easily have closed her banking account, and taken out what remained of her savings; she had half-intended to stay here forever, after all.

She turned over the envelope. Across the top corner was the printed sign of a Bordeaux bank, and the envelope was addressed, in a flowing French hand, to

"Madame Lamartine, 135 R. de la Pompe, Bordeaux." The little sheaf of identification papers bore the same legend.

There was nothing else in the bag.

She began, slowly, to put the things back. The prioress had turned toward her, her fingers stilled. She said now, gently, "There is something more, isn't there, child? It isn't only your cousin's death that is upsetting you? What else, child? Can you tell me?"

Jennifer raised her head, blinking a little into the level glare of the late afternoon sun.

"Yes, there is something more."

"Will you tell me what it is?"

"
Ma mere
------" She took a deep breath. "What I'm going to say must seem very queer to you, but I hope you will forgive me, and listen."

"I am listening."

So Jennifer told her. Not of her suspicions that Doña Francisca and Celeste might know more than they said, but of the difficulty she herself had in believing that the woman buried in the convent yard was Gillian; of the strange fact that, even in delirium, the dead woman had apparently never lapsed into English, nor spoken once of England or of her own family.

"But you," said Jennifer at length, "you would visit her yourself, of course. Was she conscious when you saw her? Did she really say nothing?"

"To me, nothing. When I was told that you had come this afternoon, I was shocked and grieved that you should find such news awaiting you. . . ." She hesitated, then said quietly, "I was sorry, too, that you were not brought straight to me.

But------" She appeared to hesitate once more, then reject what she had been about to say. "Doña Francisca was the one who was with your cousin most of the time, after all. Yes, mademoiselle, I was shocked, but also astounded at your coming, for nothing that your cousin said gave us to understand that she had relatives. I only hope you will forgive us for a fault we could not help committing. ..."

"Of course. Because it's as I thought! She said nothing of her relatives because she had none—this woman was
not
my cousin, of that I'm convinced!"

"Mademoiselle------"

"A moment," pleaded Jennifer. "Listen, ma mire. That is by no means the oddest thing about it. . . ."

And she told the prioress about the gentians, about the blue that the dead woman had recognized and loved, and that Gillian would never even have seen.

The Mother Superior listened without moving.

"So you see," finished Jennifer, "why I'm so convinced that it was somebody else, not my cousin, who came here that night. And, if that's the case,
where on earth is
my cousin?
"

There was a little silence.

"Yes," said the old nun at length. "I see. It is certainly odd. It is more than that, it is hard to believe that any mistake so serious could have been made...."

"I know that. But you can see that I don't feel I can let it rest there, and just go away?"

"Yes, I see that, too. But surely, mademoiselle, if you are right, and your cousin is alive, why does she not get in touch with you? Or with us? You say she knew you were coming here?"

"Yes, she knew. But something may have happened to her, and that's what's worrying me."

"But what can have happened to her? And why, if the dead girl was not Madame Lamartine, did she permit us to address her so; more, why did she carry Madame Lamartine's papers?"

"I can't imagine, but------"

"The car that crashed that night was also your cousin's car."

Jennifer said nothing.

"And if your suspicions are true," went on the prioress, quietly, inexorably, "we must not only ask
'Where now is Madame Lamartine?'
but also
'Who, then, was
the woman who died?'"

Another pause.

"This affair of the gentians," said the old nun at length. "It is this that really decides you, isn't it?"

"I think so. Yes, it is."

The Mother Superior nodded. "This way you could identify your cousin beyond mistake?"

"Only negatively. I mean, if the woman who died wasn't color-blind, she couldn't have been Gillian. But it could almost be a positive identification, too; women are very rarely color-blind, and the blue-yellow kind is very rare indeed." She broke off suddenly, her hand to her head. "What a fool I've been! Talking of positive identification, and all the time I've never tried the obvious thing! I was thinking about other things when I talked to Celeste, but I should have thought of it straight away."

"And that thing?" queried the nun gently.

"What she looked like!" cried Jennifer triumphantly. "This girl who died—
what did
she look like?
"

The old nun sat for a moment, quietly, while the little smile touched her lips again.

"My child, I can't tell you. I never saw her. Nobody here saw her but Doña Francisca and Celeste."

Jennifer stared at her in bewilderment. "Nobody saw her? But I thought you said you visited her."

"I did."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I mean," said the Reverend Mother, "that I am blind, my child."

And, with her back to the mocking glare of the sun, she smiled again, a little wistfully.

"I—I'm sorry," said Jennifer lamely.

The old nun smiled. "There's no need. I often think others are more conscious of my blindness than I am myself." Then she sat up and her voice took on the briskness of authority. "It seems to me, child, that the least we can do is to offer you our hospitality. I am, myself, certain that an error such as you are imagining is too bizarre to be at all likely. . . . I'm sorry, for your sake, but I am sure that your cousin is dead. When we have time to examine the facts a little more calmly, we shall without doubt find a simple explanation for everything."

Jennifer said nothing. Her hands were clasped together tightly in her lap, and she hardly heard the rest of what the nun was saying. To stay actually in the convent . . .

with infinite opportunities to watch, to inquire, to check with innocent bystanders the statements Doña Francisca had made . . . that was more than she had hoped for.

The prioress was still speaking. "But you must make what inquiries you think fit, and the place you will obviously wish to start is here. If you will come to us------"

"You're very good. But I feel that I should be abusing your hospitality if I did as you suggest."

"It's the least we can do. The convent is guilty—albeit through ignorance—of a fault, in letting you make this sad discovery in such a way. You must allow us to atone."

Jennifer smiled. "You don't have to atone. But I'd like to come. Thank you."

"Then come tonight."

"So soon,
ma mere?"

"The sooner your mind is put to rest, the better, mademoiselle. But if you feel your hotel might make difficulties------"

"I don't think they will. I made it clear that my booking was provisional. . . . My cousin had suggested I might come here, you see."

"Then we'll expect you tonight, if you can manage it. If not, tomorrow. We'll be glad to see you any time, child. Even if your inquiries only lead you back to the melancholy truth of your cousin's death, I'm sure that our quiet community here has something to offer you in the way of comfort."

It was time, Jennifer saw, to let her suspicions lapse into silence. "Thank you," she said simply. "I'll be glad to come. This is a beautiful place, and I imagine that if one can find peace anywhere, it is here."

The Reverend Mother's face lighted. "You feel that? I am so glad."

"I came through your chapel just now," said Jennifer. "It's quite wonderful, that altar—unexpectedly so, if I may say so, for such a little community, and one so isolated."

"Ah, yes. The place is simple, of course, but the plain style of building is in harmony with these high valleys. It would have been a mistake to build a St. Bertrand de Cominges in the Vallee des Orages. Here, in this stormy valley, we built sturdy white walls, and our chapel windows have no need of colored glass because they frame the mountains."

"And your pictures and lamps and carvings------"

"As to that," replied the Reverend Mother tranquilly, "I can't say. As you can imagine, I've been only too glad in recent years to put all our business affairs into Doña Francisca's most efficient hands. The furnishing of our chapel has been her affair for some time now. I know that she has put many things in the chapel, pictures and a carpet and some candlesticks. . . . Last year she had a workman up from Bordeaux who made an altar rail for us; but, although in former years I myself used to keep the chapel plain, I realize that some—most, indeed, of our members—are helped in their worship by the visible beauty of a statue or a lamp. So, though as a poor community we cannot spend a great deal on these things, I have allowed Doña Francisca to do as she wishes with the chapel, to please the younger sisters and"—

she smiled her wise old smile—"the children."

Jennifer thought of the great concourse of saints and angels, soaring on wings of flame above the altar; she thought of the sanctuary rail, which no "workman from Bordeaux" had ever touched; she thought of the candlesticks, hammered from Florentine gold "to please the children" . . . there was more than one mystery, it seemed, about the Convent of Our Lady of the Storms. And if it involved golden lamps and El Greco saints . . . she recollected all at once the letter she had found behind the triptych, with what now appeared its highly provocative mention of "three million francs." A nerve twisted like a tiny painful needle, deep in her stomach.

"I see." She was angry to find that her voice was shaking. "Well, it's very lovely.

And Doña Francisca does it all?"

Doña Francisca's voice said, softly, behind her chair, "Did you want me, Reverend Mother?"

"Ah, yes. . . ." The prioress gave no hint of surprise; with the extra sense vouchsafed to the blind, she must have been already aware of the presence of a third person. "I am glad you have come. Here's a matter that had better be cleared up straight away if possible. You have already met Mademoiselle Silver, of course."

"Yes."

"She has come—in some distress of mind—to see me, Francisca."

Doña Francisca did not look at Jennifer, but spoke still in that same colorless, composed voice. "Her grief is very natural."

"True. But it is not only a natural distress at her cousin's death that brings her to me." She turned to Jennifer, who sat frozen in her chair. "Doña Francisca is the person you should talk to, my child. Tell her what you have just told me—of your conviction that there's some mystery attached to your cousin's death."

Dofia Francisca's eyes moved, with an almost palpable jerk, to fix themselves on Jennifer's face. Something flashed in them like the flicker of light off a knife blade.