Vow of Chastity (3 page)

If, at some future date, the devil’s advocate came looking for reasons why Sister Joan wasn’t suitable to be raised to the altars he’d find lots of evidence here, she thought.

The bell rang again. She picked up the journal and descended the stairs, sliding into her place as the rest of the community filed in, all except prioress and novice mistress clutching their books. The two senior members of the convent were excluded from general confession lest anything they felt constrained to say denigrate their standing in the eyes of the others. A prioress was elected for five years after which she returned into the body of the community and took her place at general confession with the rest. Sister Joan wondered if it was worth wasting any hopes on the unlikely chance of her ever being elected prioress or put in charge of any novices and decided not to waste her time.

Mother Dorothy, hunched and plain, rimless
spectacles
perched on a nose that was nearly as sharp as her tongue, came in. Sister Joan, kneeling with the rest, wondered gloomily what penance this little lot was going to earn her. About two hundred Hail Mary’s and salt in her coffee for a month probably. Mother Dorothy belonged to the old school of discipline and hadn’t yet decided if she was going to accept Vatican Two.

I accuse myself of levity and uncharitable thoughts about my dear Sister, Sister Joan thought, rising, beginning the Confiteor. She would save those two for the following week. A thin shaft of sunlight broke free from the prism of stained glass and dyed the daffodils in the vase on the Lady Altar a sinister red.

Daffodils are strumpets, Sister Joan’s mind whispered the phrase as her lips shaped Latin.

Monday morning had come as a relief. Usually Sister Joan cherished the slow, quiet hours of the Sabbath. On Sunday only the bare minimum of secular work was done; in addition to the two extra hours of prayer there were two hours of recreation instead of one, and stretches of spare time when it was possible to read and write letters.

Sister Joan, however, had been constrained, after general confession, to spend the whole day in chapel.

‘With your faults so heavy on your conscience you will not wish to partake of the pleasures of the Sabbath‚’ Mother Dorothy had said. ‘Your meals you may take in the kitchen. I am sure you will want to spend the day fasting, however.’

Sister Joan was equally sure that she wouldn’t want to spend the day fasting, but she controlled the rebellious flash of her dark blue eyes and bowed submissively.

‘What a treat,’ Sister Margaret whispered in passing, ‘to spend the whole day in chapel with no distractions.’

Her own breaking of the grand silence had been met with shocked gasps from the two postulants and an icy lecture from Mother Dorothy. Sister Gabrielle had been told to set her own penance. That she would apply a harsh one to herself went without saying.

The day had crawled on leaden feet, through the morning meditation, the mass, the long hours of solitude. Today the companionship of the Unseen was entirely fled; Sister Joan knelt alone, combatting cramp by making the Stations of the Cross at regular intervals, unhappily aware that true contrition still lay a long way
off. Towards late afternoon her stomach had started growling discontentedly.

No, it was a relief to wake up on Monday and start the week afresh. On Wednesday Father Malone came to hear confession and she would have to tell her sins all over again. Father’s penances, however, were light compared with those inflicted by Mother Dorothy.

She had just mounted the placid Lilith for the ride to the schoolhouse when Mother Dorothy had appeared unexpectedly at the stable gate, her pinched face emphasized by the sunlight.

‘Good morning, Sister Joan.’ Her dry voice had held neither praise nor blame.

‘Reverend Mother Dorothy.’ Sister Joan hastily pulled down the skirt of her habit, apt to ride up when she was in the saddle.

‘I believe that it would be quite consistent with the rule if you were to wear a pair of – long trousers beneath your skirt when you ride to and from school,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘More comfortable and less likely to give rise to scandal. I shall tell Sister Margaret to purchase two pairs in your size.’

‘Thank you, Reverend Mother.’ Sister Joan had smiled her gratitude.

‘I used to ride myself when I was a girl,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘A most enjoyable exercise but only when suitably clad. Good morning, Sister.’

‘Good morning, Reverend Mother.’

Sister Joan had watched the small, hunched figure turn and walk back towards the kitchen quarters. Generosity of spirit manifested itself in strange guises.

Now, mistress of her own domain, she sat at the large desk in the single classroom that comprised the local school and let her eyes rove over her pupils. There were only ten who came now to the school on the moor, and at eleven or twelve years old they would move on into the State school at Bodmin, catching the bus every morning, returning at teatime. At least the farmers’ children would do that; the Romanies, she suspected, would find excuses to stay away.

The farming children – represented by three boys and two girls sat in one block, in an instinctive drawing away from the gypsies that Sister Joan deplored but hadn’t yet succeeded in combatting. Madelyn and David Penglow sat together, faces scrubbed clean, fair hair and blue eyes making them look like twins drawn in a child’s storybook. The polite manners and pleasant smiles couldn’t really compensate for the fact that the Penglows were dreadful little prigs, Sister Joan thought. She had a softer spot for Billy Wesley who was as mischievous as a cartload of monkeys but had twice the Penglows’ intelligence. Next to him Timothy Holt was already fidgeting, his eyes wandering to the clock on the wall. Tim considered any lessons that didn’t have a direct connection with agriculture to be a waste of time. The odd one out in the ‘farming’ group, as Sister Joan thought of them, was the newcomer, Samantha Olive. She had been scarcely a month in the school and still sat slightly apart, shifting her desk slightly before she sat down in the morning as if to emphasize her isolation. A plain child, though not so plain that her face became interesting, only the cat-green eyes alive as they watched from a curtain of thick, pale lashes. Sister Joan realized there was something unnerving about that unwavering, eleven-year-old scrutiny.

The Romanies sat across the aisle, though ‘sat’ was a relative word, since they preferred to slide down on to the floor or squirm their legs around their chairs as if they were poised for instant flight. For a wonder the five of them were present, even thirteen-year-old Conrad sitting upright with shining morning face. His sister, Hagar, jet pigtails touching the desk before her, sat next to him. Hagar ought to start going to the Bodmin school, Sister Joan thought. She was twelve and looked older, her breasts already well developed, a certain knowing look in her eyes that deepened when they were turned on any of the boys. Hagar, however, was devoted to her brother and certainly wouldn’t attend regularly at any establishment where he refused to go.

The Lees, cousins and rivals of the Smiths, completed her small quota of pupils. Petroc sprawled at his desk, already yawning – the result, probably, of a night’s illicit rabbit snaring; Edith and Tabitha huddled side by side, looking like two of the rabbits that Petroc regularly hunted. At six and seven they were still greatly in awe of anything to do with education – a happy state of affairs that Sister Joan knew from experience wouldn’t last long.

She drew the homework books towards her and gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

‘I asked you to write about your favourite flowers,’ she began, ‘and the work that was handed in pleased me on the whole. Petroc, you’ll have to copy yours out again, I’m afraid, because you got the inkwell muddled up with the paper. Conrad, it was thoughtful of you to explain why you didn’t hand in any work, but the explanation won’t do. This week I shall be telling you about Sir Philip Sidney who was a very brave soldier and a poet – also married. Madelyn, your work was very neat but you copied the poem from a book, didn’t you?’

‘No, Sister.’ The blue eyes were limpid. ‘David copied it and then he read it to me.’

‘You both copied the same poem? Then where is David’s work?’

‘We didn’t want to hand in two the same, Sister, in case you got bored,’ David said pedantically, ‘so I tore the pages out of my book.’

‘Logical, I suppose,’ Sister Joan said, ‘but in future I’d like you both to work by yourselves and try to compose something of your own.’

The twins, unable to contemplate a separate mental existence, stared back at her blankly.

‘Timothy, your drawing was very good though it wasn’t quite what I’d asked for.’ Sister Joan nodded at the child pleasantly. He had drawn what he saw, neatly and unimaginably dully, but she had a soft place in her heart for those who expressed themselves in paint rather than words. Tabitha had also sent in a drawing – less neat and accurate but infinitely more colourful.
Edith hadn’t sent anything in. She told her gently that she must try to do the homework, aware that any harsher scolding would bring the tears flooding to the little girl’s sloe-black eyes, and spoke rather more sharply to Hagar about her failure to do the set task, knowing that her words were making no impression upon the girl at all. Hagar merely smiled, one side of her full mouth curving in mute contempt, as Conrad said quickly and loyally, ‘Hagar don’t mean to be lazy, Sister. She has lots to do at ’ome – washing and cooking and the like, and she needs time to enjoy.’

To enjoy what? Sister Joan thought, her eye measuring the jut of budding breasts. There was something in Hagar’s scornful little smile that hinted at pity for herself. She wanted to shake the child, to inform her roundly that the religious life didn’t unsex anyone, but Hagar wouldn’t have understood.

‘Try to enjoy doing a little homework occasionally,’ she advised. ‘Billy, one of these days you are going to astonish us all by actually doing some homework. Could you make it soon?’

‘Can we write about something else next time?’ Billy asked promptly.

‘This coming week you can all write – write not draw – a few sentences about the person you admire most – admire means wanting to be like them, Edith. Just a few words, of your own and not copied.’

‘Alive or dead?’ Billy enquired with as much interest as if he were actually going to do the homework.

‘Whichever you like,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Samantha, did you read the poem you sent somewhere in a book?’

‘No, Sister.’ The voice was neat and precise.

‘It was – unusual,’ Sister Joan said cautiously. ‘Nicely written and spelled, if a bit – morbid. Perhaps you should try to write happier pieces?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ The green eyes held her own blue ones for a moment and then were lowered.

‘So!’ Mentally resolving to look more closely into the child’s home background Sister Joan spoke brightly, telling herself that cheerfulness was contagious. And
that, she realized abruptly, was the trouble. Her pupils who generally exasperated her for half of the time were simply too quiet, too solemn, too attentive. She held the realization at the back of her mind while she outlined the week’s projects. One of her most difficult tasks lay in welding together a group of children between the ages of six and thirteen into a class following roughly the same curriculum. Nature walks, talks about events that the older ones would have read in the newspapers, opportunities for them to express themselves in drawing or singing, all these took precedence over formal lessons though she took care to include some of those too. Sister David who had helped out as her assistant was now full time convent librarian and there were times when Sister Joan missed her help exceedingly.

She thrust aside the selfish desire for less work and talked on enthusiastically about the project she had dreamed up just before going to bed.

‘A history of the district with a coloured map and drawings of the animals and the plants that are found here and pictures of the houses, and then bits about the people who lived here long ago. We can make a series of folders or even an exhibition for your parents to come and see.’

‘For fifty pence‚’ David suggested.

‘Well, I’m not sure about that – we’ll see. Now we’d better do some arithmetic,’ she said firmly, and prepared to wrestle with the multiplication tables. Apparently nobody learned them these days but it was the only way she knew of fixing numbers in youthful heads.

When break came she dismissed the children, a slight frown creasing her brow as she saw how obediently they rose, girls filing out ahead of boys. It was what she was always trying to instil into them but the lack of the usual scramble to the door was unnerving.

‘Conrad, one moment, please.’ Her voice and beckoning finger detained her eldest pupil.

‘Yes, Sister? The boy turned back, looking at her
expectantly. Tall and broad for his age, she judged, with little of the wiry slenderness of the other Romany children. There were rumours that his mother had been less than particular about her partners and that Conrad’s father was not the thin, stooped Jeb Smith who had deserted his family some months before but a travelling man, a tinker with whom she’d briefly taken up in the years when she had still been pretty.

‘Everybody seems very good these days,’ she hazarded. ‘I was wondering why?’

‘Ain’t we supposed to be good then?’ Conrad demanded.

‘Yes, of course. Of course you are. It merely occurred to me that you were all being very good,’ she said, keeping the look of enquiry on her face.

‘Reckon we just caught it,’ Conrad said after a moment’s thought.

‘Well, if it’s only goodness that you catch then we ought to be grateful, I suppose.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ He gazed at her steadily from under his cowlick of dark hair.

‘Yes, well – thank you, Conrad.’

The dismissal, she knew, sounded feeble but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Perhaps the unnaturally good behaviour, which she realized had been going on for some time, was merely a sign that they were growing up, becoming more responsible. She collected up the arithmetic exercises, wiped the blackboard and went out of the room, past the small cloakroom to the outside where neither wall nor quadrangle separated the building from the moor.

The school had originally been endowed by the Tarquin family for the children of the tenants. It was still administered by a Trust that provided books and paid for the repair and upkeep of the building. But the number of pupils was steadily diminishing; in another year or two there would no longer be any reason to keep it open. She tried to explore her own feelings, to decide whether or not she would regret it. She wasn’t a trained teacher, but the work was interesting and she’d
established a rapport with some of the children. Too close a rapport, perhaps? There was always the danger of losing the detachment that was part of the religious life. These children were not her own children and the teaching was only secondary to her life, the modest salary paid out of the Trust going directly to the convent.

The children were split as usual into two groups, Romanies and farmers’ offspring. Usually they
scampered
about, young voices echoing over the moor, but this morning the two small groups clustered together, talking quietly, eating the bags of crisps and sweets provided from home. One or two of the little ones had already started on their lunchtime sandwiches. There were no facilities for the provision of a midday meal apart from a kettle where one could boil water for a hot drink or a packet soup.

Not all the children were joined into the groups. The new child, Samantha Olive, had wandered off a little way to where a solitary beech spread protecting branches over the mossy turf. She stood with her back to the others, staring out across the waves and dips of the moor.