Vow of Chastity (8 page)

‘One hopes so, which is a very ungrateful thing to say‚’ the other replied, ‘seeing that without rain the flowers wouldn’t grow. But it is terribly bad for poor Sister Mary Concepta’s rheumatism, and the worst of it is that she never complains. I can feel every twinge of her pain in my own joints – oh, what a grumbler I sound today! You must forgive me, Sister. This is poor thanks for the delightful visits we have paid.’

‘You probably got out of bed the wrong side this morning. I know that I did.’

‘I’m sure you’re right. Gadding about isn’t conducive to a quiet mind, is it? Well, as I have to drive into town at least I can get some more of Sister Mary Concepta’s embrocation at the same time. Have a pleasant day, Sister.’

Something, thought Sister Joan, saddling the horse and mounting up, had ruffled the clear stream of the
lay sister’s spirits. Surely not the weather or the
unaccustomed
visiting? Perhaps the evil that William Holt had so startlingly mentioned had reached out to affect even Sister’s tranquil spirit. She wished that her former
prioress
were here. Mother Agnes with her El Greco profile, her air of timeless aristocracy, had understood subtleties, half-formed fears, uncertainties in a way that the brisk Mother Dorothy could not. For the latter there were no greys, no shadows, only plain black and white. She was perfect when it was a matter of dealing with would be saints in the postulancy or a nun uncertain of a particular aspect of the rule, but she couldn’t deal with spiritual cobwebs.

Once riding across the moor her spirits lifted even though the rain was becoming heavier. The air up here was clean and sharp and heathery and the faint pain that had been gripping her temples when she awoke was lifted. This morning there would probably be absentees. Contrary to popular belief the Romanies hated rain, huddling like cats in their wagons when it was wet. For the children who did turn up she would light the
old-fashioned
oil stove in the corner of the classroom and brew up hot soup.

As she had expected none of the Romanies were there. The Penglows were, clad in identical mackintoshes and sou’westers and conscientiously scraping their shoes on the iron mat outside the door; Billy Wesley arrived in the pick-up with Mr Holt and Timothy; the car dropped Samantha closer to the school than usual and sped off, the beautiful young man at the wheel. Considering the weather fifty percent attendance was excellent.

Having only half the school present also meant they could pull their chairs into a semicircle around the
glowing
stove while she abandoned the formal curriculum in favour of story-telling, first relating the Hans Christian Anderson story of the Ugly Duckling and then inviting the children to make their own contributions.

‘I know Cinderella,’ Madelyn volunteered, after some prompting from her brother.

‘Fine. You tell it then.’ Sister Joan frowned at Billy
Wesley who had audibly groaned and rolled his eyes up to heaven.

Madelyn, with David supplying at least half the narrative, launched into a long and meticulous and infinitely boring retelling of the old tale. Sister Joan allowed her mind to wander.

Someone – and she doubted if it was one of the nuns unless someone was quietly going mad without anybody else noticing – someone was helping themselves fairly liberally to candles, flowers and holy water from the chapel. All those things were readily available elsewhere, but would not of course be blessed. Someone needed candles, flowers and water that had been blessed. Why?

The big crucifix had been removed from the altar and put back again within a few minutes. She cast her mind back to the sequence of events. She had gone to the chapel and found the altar bare save of candlesticks. She had hurried into the hall and stood there, debating with herself whether or not to interrupt Mother Dorothy’s session with the postulants. Then she had returned to the chapel and seen the crucifix back in its place. Either the thief had found it was too heavy to steal or – or the thief hadn’t been a thief at all, merely someone who had wanted her to notice the crucifix was missing.

In that case they must have been hiding nearby. The confessional. That box with its closed door, its secret darkness where sins were whispered into Father Malone’s ear every Wednesday afternoon – that would have held person and crucifix. She hadn’t stopped to search.

‘And they lived happy after ever,’ Madelyn said.

‘Thank you, Madelyn. That was very nice,’ Sister Joan said, pulling her mind back. ‘Now who is going to be next? She smiled round expectantly.

The others looked at one another.

‘I know about Robin Hood,’ Billy said unexpectedly.

‘Good. You tell us the story about him then.’

‘He lived in Sherwood Forest and he took things from
the poor – no, that’s wrong. He took things from the rich and give ’em to the poor and everybody loved him very much, except the Sheriff of Nottingham but he went out and stuck a sword through the Sheriff of Nottingham and then pricked him all over with arrows and then cut off his head,’ Billy said with relish.

‘That’s a horrid story, isn’t it, Sister?’ Samantha said primly.

‘No, it’s jolly good,’ Timothy began and stopped dead, uncertainty in his face. After a moment he said lamely, ‘I guess it is horrid too, more horrid than good.’

‘Do you know a story, Samantha?’ Sister Joan asked.

‘There was once a lady and a gentleman and they got married and had a little baby girl and lived in a very nice house and lived happily afterwards until they were all a hundred years old and then they all went straight to Heaven,’ Samantha said.

‘What happened to them before they went to Heaven?’ Billy enquired.

‘Nothing,’ said Samantha serenely. ‘Nothing ever happened to them at all.’

‘Wasn’t that a bit dull for them?’ Sister Joan asked cautiously.

‘Oh, no, Sister, it was just lovely!’ The child’s green eyes blazed suddenly, lighting up the plain, pale little face. ‘It was just lovely.’

‘I think that was a very nice story,’ Madelyn said.

‘Yes, but –’ Sister Joan broke off at the sound of an approaching lorry. ‘Excuse me for a few moments, children. I think the others may have arrived.’

When she went out to the front, however, where the drizzling rain had lessened to a wet mist hanging on the air, only Padraic Lee alighted, jumping down from the driver’s seat and squelching towards her through the wet grass.

‘Good morning, Sister. Sorry to interrupt but I was wondering if Petroc had turned up at school,’ he greeted her.

‘None of the Romany children are here. You should know since you drive them.’

‘It was raining.’ He gave her a reproachful look.

‘The children won’t melt in the rain,’ she said irritably, aware of a nasty, sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach. ‘And Petroc isn’t here.’

‘Then I reckon he’s nipped off to try and see his dad,’ Padraic said. ‘Funny though, not to leave word with someone. He knows that I’d try to argue him out of it but I’d never stop him if he’d fixed his mind.’

‘Mr Lee, your nephew is twelve years old,’ she
reminded
him. ‘He’s a child. You can’t let children do whatever they fix their minds on.’

‘Petroc’s a sensible lad,’ his uncle argued. ‘I didn’t take much note last night when I went by his wagon and he wasn’t there. I figured he’d gone off to do a bit of –’

‘Poaching,’ Sister Joan said severely.

‘Nature watching,’ he substituted with a grin. ‘Anyways this morning seeing it was wet and all was peaceful-like, I figured we’d sleep in and I let him be, but then I minded myself that I’d some scrap to pick up in Bodmin so I went over to see if he’d a fancy to come and he wasn’t there. Bunk not slept in. So I wondered if he’d hightailed it over to school.’

‘None of your children came this morning,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Mr Lee, if Petroc is missing shouldn’t you get the police?’

It was, of course, entirely the wrong suggestion. She knew it even before his face closed against the idea of authority and he said defensively, ‘No need to bring the law in on this, Sister. Before you know it we’ll have them social workers down about our necks like fleas. My good lady would be very upset about that.’

Sister Joan doubted if his ‘good lady’ would recognize either policeman or social worker through the alcoholic haze in which she dwelt but it would have been unkind to say so. Instead she said, ‘Has Petroc ever done this before?’

‘Not stayed away all night, Sister. He likes his bed that lad and it came on to rain around midnight, so he’d have come home for sure.’

‘Have you asked around the camp? – yes, of course
you’ll have done that. Had he taken anything with him?’

‘I had a quick look round, but I couldn’t see anything gone though I didn’t look close.’

‘Had he money on him?’

‘A couple of pounds. Never any more.’

‘That wouldn’t get him very far on a train or bus,’ she began but he interrupted, ‘He wouldn’t go that way, Sister. He’d likely walk until he could pick up a hitch.’

‘But surely that’s terribly dangerous?’

‘Suicidal these days with all the rogues and criminals about,’ he agreed, ‘and Petroc knows enough not to do it. But he were that upset about his dad being framed though he never let on – has his pride that lad. But he might have took it into his head.’

‘If you will wait a few moments, Mr Lee, I’ll ask the children.’

Going back inside she met the curious gaze of five pairs of eyes.

‘Aren’t the others coming, Sister?’ Timothy enquired.

‘Not today. Children, have any of you seen Petroc since last evening? He seems to be missing.’

Five heads hesitated and then were shaken.

‘Has he been stolen away?’ Madelyn asked, her blue eyes round.

‘No, of course not. He’s simply run off for a piece of mischief, just to be naughty,’ Sister Joan said. ‘He’ll turn up later, I’m sure.’

‘Who’d want to steal Petroc away anyhow?’ Billy asked scornfully. ‘He’s just a gyppo.’

‘A Romany boy,’ Sister Joan corrected, ‘and one who pays more attention to his lessons than you do, Billy Wesley. Look, if you have seen him then it would be much better if you said.’

‘But we haven’t,’ David said stolidly. ‘Dad and Mum won’t let Madelyn and me go near the Romany camp, and you were in our house yourself last evening, Sister Joan. We were both there.’

‘I was out at the pictures,’ Billy said, adding hastily as Sister Joan’s eye fell on him, ‘and I didn’t see him. You can ask my mum.’

‘Thank you, children.’ Sister Joan turned and went out again to where Padraic Lee waited, shifting from one leg to the other and scowling at the sky as if he dared it to rain on him.

‘No luck?’ He gave her an anxious look.

‘The children haven’t seen anything of him, and I was in most of their homes last evening,’ she answered, ‘so it’s pretty certain they don’t know. Mr Lee, I know you have to collect scrap from Bodmin but in view of what’s happened I think I’ll close school for today. The trouble is that I don’t have a telephone and I can’t put them all on Lilith’s back and take them to their respective homes.’

‘I’ll drop them off for you, Sister, and then drive into Bodmin and make a few inquiries same time as I’m picking up the scrap,’ Padraic said obligingly.

‘That would be very kind of you, Mr Lee. I am truly grateful. Children! Children, get your boots and coats on quickly. I’ve decided to give you a holiday.’

Raising her voice cheerfully she went back to her pupils, aware that she was suddenly in the grip of one of those impulses to action that occasionally gripped her.

‘It’s because Petroc isn’t here, isn’t it, Sister?’ Madelyn’s rosy face was troubled.

‘That and the rain. Your parents will be in?’

There were murmurs of assent.

Drawing on her neat white plastic mackintosh and tying her hair back under its hood, Samantha said thoughtfully, as if she were testing a new idea in her mind, ‘He went away just like Kiki did. Vanished, just like her. Isn’t it funny, Sister?’

The temptation to rush off in several directions at once was strong. Sister Joan resisted it, helped Padraic to cram the children into the front of his small lorry, and went back into the school to damp down the fire in the stove and put the chairs back into place. These practical actions kept at bay a fear that had started in the pit of her stomach and was threatening to spread. Normally the absence of one of the Romany children would have occasioned in her nothing worse than irritation since it meant someone would have fallen behind the others when they returned to the class. But this was different. The feeling that it might be the culmination of all the small puzzling incidents that had recently occurred gripped her mind and refused to be silenced.

At least she had most of the day left before she was due to return to the convent. That, having dismissed her pupils, she might be expected to return immediately was a consideration she did succeed in putting aside. There was nothing in the rule that stated she must return at once if, for any reason, school closed early.

‘Remember always,’ Mother Agnes had cautioned, ‘that to obey the letter of the rule while ignoring the inner spirit that gives it coherence is as bad as downright disobedience. Poverty does not mean only relinquishing material possessions. It means an emptying of the self that the Divine may enter and make us richer than any millionaire who has only material possessions to shield him against the dark. Obedience is never a slavish following of the rule. It is making the rule part of oneself so that if all writings were lost they could be
rewritten simply by watching your behaviour.’

And what does one do, Sister Joan enquired in her mind of her former prioress, when obeying the spirit of the rule might lead to an injustice, to a lack of charity?

Charity must come before everything, Mother Agnes replied – or perhaps it was only her own mind malting noises.

She locked the door and brought Lilith out of the shed. The rain was still a fine mist on the morning air, but there were flashes of sunlight that coloured the drops of water hanging on the grasses, and the wind had the fugitive sweetness of spring.

And please God, let Petroc Lee be sitting contrite in his wagon when I get to the Romany camp, she prayed silently, mounting up.

With the ceasing of the rain the camp had come to life, windows being opened, the inevitable smell of cooking already drifting over the trampled ground. There was no sign of Tabitha or Edith but Conrad walked to meet her, his broad face sullen.

‘I was going to come to school but Padraic was looking for Petroc and there wasn’t no transport,’ he began defensively.

‘School’s closed for the day anyway. Has Mr Lee been back here?’ She slid to the ground, wishing the promised jeans had materialized.

‘He took Tabby and Edie off with him. Me and Hagar are supposed to stay here in case Petroc comes back.’

‘When did you see Petroc last?’ Looping the reins over her arm she began to stroll towards the Lee wagon, keeping her tone casual.

‘After school yesterday. He went off somewhere.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’

‘I didn’t ask, did I? He just went off and I stayed around, helping Mum tidy the wagon.’

‘So you were here all evening?’

‘Most of it. I might have taken a bit of a walk.’

‘By yourself?’ Sister Joan looked surprised.

‘Hagar and me went for a bit of a walk. We was arguing.’

‘Oh?’ Sister Joan gave him an enquiring look.

‘The point is that it’s not fair, not fair at all, that I help Mum and do an evening job three times a week while Hagar sits on her ass – sorry, Sister, while Hagar never washes a cup. She’s twelve and a girl and she ought to help out.’

‘Indeed she ought and it is very good of you to do so‚’ Sister Joan said warmly.

‘Well, it ain’t appreciated‚’ Conrad said, pronouncing the word with a kind of gloomy pride. ‘I’m thirteen and a man and I ought not to be doing female jobs. I’ve got to be the man of the house now that Dad’s run off, and I can’t do everything.’

‘So you told your sister that she ought to be doing more to help. What did Hagar say?’

‘She argued‚’ Conrad said. ‘She thinks she’s going to be a model or something daft like that. I told her she’d end up
mochte
.’

He used the Romany word for dirty with great vigour. Sister Joan who had hopefully read a book about the Romany tongue with some idea of getting closer to the children looked at him thoughtfully. She had abandoned the idea when she realized that everybody spoke English anyway, but she had noticed that in moments of stress they came out with the ancient words.

‘Where’s Hagar now?’ she asked.

‘Gone shopping with Mum. Mum took her part in the end. Said Hagar might go far because she’s so pretty. A pair of twerps both of them.’

‘Not a very respectful way to talk about your mother‚’ Sister Joan said mildly. ‘Do you think anyone would mind if I took a look inside Petroc’s wagon? He might have left a clue.’

‘You’re not working for the police, are you?’ Conrad looked at her suspiciously.

‘No, of course not. I’m just here to help.’ She spoke reassuringly and, after a few seconds, he nodded.

‘Over there. It ain’t locked. I’ll wait outside.’

Inside everything was neat, shabby and reasonably
clean. Evidently Padraic took care of his nephew as well as his own small daughters. There was a hooked rag rug on the floor and a coloured poster of the Princess of Wales on the wall alongside a mirror and a clumsily embroidered text that stated confidently, ‘God is Love’. The double bed had been neatly made as had the low bunk pushed beneath it, and there were dishes in a draining rack on a plastic tray. Garments were hung on a steel frame and bulged out of two large plastic bags. She pulled them out and went through them swiftly but there was nothing to give the smallest clue except for a leather money box stuffed in the bottom of one bag. When she took it it rattled and from its weight she guessed it to be almost full. If Petroc had been running off to try to see his father surely he’d have taken his money with him.

Pushing money box and garments back in the bags she stood up and looked round in some perplexity. There was absolutely nothing here to suggest that Petroc hadn’t simply gone off for a ramble. Gone off and not yet returned.

When she came outside again she stood for a moment, watching the other members of the camp as they moved about their daily chores, women pegging out washing with anxious glances skyward, a small group of men lifting pieces of scrap iron on to a pick-up truck. A twelve-year-old boy was missing and nobody seemed to care. By now they ought to have organized a search party.

‘You’m finished poking and prying then?’

Old Hagar had approached, black eyes inimical, finger and thumb rounded in the sign against the evil eye.

‘Someone besides his uncle has to care,’ Sister Joan said curtly.

‘They’ll be looking later.’ The old woman jerked her shawled head towards the others.

‘Why not now?’ Sister Joan demanded. ‘He might have had an accident on the moors, be lying with a broken leg or something on the wet grass.’

‘There’s men already out checking. The rest have their work to do,’ old Hagar said. ‘It ain’t no use anyways. There’s evil here – I’ve felt it since the night afore last when you and the other one came – no, I’m not saying it came with you so don’t bridle up at me. It was here already, creeping and crawling.’

‘Do you mean someone was here? A prowler?’ She spoke sharply.

‘Evil,’ said the old woman provokingly, ‘looking for something to feed on. Go and pray about that.’

‘You leave Sister Joan alone, you hear?’ Conrad came loping up, his fists clenched. ‘You don’t want to take no notice of her, Sister. Half crazy she is ever since her old man died.’

‘At least I had a man,’ the old woman said slyly and shuffled away with one last vindictive look at Sister Joan’s trimly belted waist at which her rosary hung, its beads cool drops of ebony wood, its crucifix of polished copper. Every Daughter of Compassion had an exactly similar rosary presented when she made her final profession. The old woman’s taunt had said clearly. Other females carry babes on their hips. You have a string of beads and a little instrument of torture that you twist into something holy.’

Instinctively Sister Joan crossed herself and saw Conrad staring at her.

‘She don’t really mean any harm,’ he said, correctly divining her agitation with unchildlike shrewdness. ‘She’s a crazy old bat always going on about doom and death and evil. She doesn’t like house dwellers. Come to that she doesn’t like travelling people much either.’

He laughed, inviting her to lighten the moment with him. She managed a wry smile and went to where Lilith was placidly cropping the grass.

‘It Petroc comes back will you ask someone to come up to the convent to let me know?’ she asked. ‘If he isn’t back soon then the police will have to be told. You can’t not report a missing child.’

‘We don’t like the police here,’ Conrad said, becoming suddenly all Romany, big hands clenching.

‘It isn’t always possible to have what we like‚’ Sister Joan said, suddenly impatient with the narrow secretiveness of them all. ‘You stay here and send me word as soon as Petroc gets back. And go on helping your mother until your father gets home.’

‘That’ll be for ever then,’ Conrad said, ‘for he isn’t coming back – not ever.’

There was no point in arguing especially since she suspected that he was right. From now on Conrad would have to grow fast into manhood, burdened with a precociously sexual sister and a mother who couldn’t cope.

Remounting, pulling down the skirt of her habit as one of the men loading scrap turned to give her a long, insolent look, she raised her hand to wave what she trusted looked like a cheerful goodbye to Conrad and rode away from the camp. Rode towards the circle of willows that fringed the pool beyond the noisy wagons and the smell of cooking and urine and damp clothes all mixed up together. It was quite illogical since obviously the first place anyone would have thought of looking was the pool but she rode there anyway.

At twilight it had been an enchanted place, a fragment of Eden with the boy and girl beautiful in their awakening sexuality. Mid morning it was a dark pool, smaller than she had believed, surrounded by the wicker cages of the willows and the dark foliage of the evergreens. There was nothing here, nobody except herself. But when she had stood here with Sister Margaret there might have been another watcher, someone who also had hidden in the blackness of the shadows and watched avidly as the young bodies turned and twisted beneath the surface of the water.

There was no proof of anything at all. Sister Joan chided herself for having an over-active imagination and turned Lilith homeward. For the moment there was nothing more she could do.

‘You re home very early, Sister.’ Mother Dorothy looked up from the letter she was reading as Sister Joan tapped on the parlour door and entered.

The parlour had been a double drawing-room in the days when the Tarquins owned the house. It retained its polished floor, its gilded cornices, even the panels of embroidered silk on the walls, but the great mirrored cabinets, the huge sofas and velvet seated wing chairs had gone. A functional desk and straight backed chairs now furnished the huge, chilly room and no Aubusson carpets softened her footsteps on the polished floor.

‘I decided to close school early, Mother‚’ Sister Joan said, briefly kneeling for the customary blessing. ‘The Romany children hadn’t turned up and then Mr Lee came by to tell me that Petroc had been missing since last night. He offered to take the other children home and I rode over to the camp to see if I could make any sense out of it all. I’m afraid I went there without permission, but I thought it important to begin enquiries as quickly as possible.’

‘And you would naturally want first-hand
information
.’ Mother Dorothy spoke with a certain dryness. ‘I believe your action was quite justified in the
circumstances
. What did you find out?’

‘That nobody’s laid eyes on Petroc since he went out last evening. He didn’t take any money with him, and he obviously didn’t return – not even at midnight when it started to rain.’

‘But surely a child would be expected home before midnight?’ the prioress said.

‘Romany children grow up fast, Mother, and Petroc’s parents aren’t with him. His mother ran off and his father’s in gaol for receiving stolen goods,’ Sister Joan explained. ‘His uncle, Padraic Lee is doing his best but he has two daughters of his own and his wife – she has a drink problem. Petroc’s twelve and very self-reliant, so his going missing wouldn’t cause an immediate outcry.’

‘But the police are now handling it, I assume?’

‘Not yet, Mother. Mr Lee went into Bodmin after he’d taken the other children home, so he might find out something there, and some of the other men in the camp went to search the moors, but they distrust the authorities. However if Petroc doesn’t turn up within
the next couple of hours I’ve insisted that his disappearance be reported.’

‘Quite right, Sister. What feckless beings they must be,’ Mother Dorothy said, hunching her shoulders in disapproval.

‘I asked Conrad – he’s another of my pupils – to make sure that someone sends word here as soon as Petroc is found. I hope that was all right?’

‘Very sensible, Sister. You obviously cannot go running round looking for him yourself but you are bound to feel a certain responsibility in the matter. I will tell Sister Margaret to expect a telephone call and I will go myself to the chapel after the midday meal to pray that all is well. You might consider having a word with the local social worker at some future date if conditions at the camp continue to be unsatisfactory. So you have the afternoon free which is most fortunate.’

‘Yes, Mother?’ Sister Joan looked dutifully expectant.

‘Sister Hilaria has lost a filling out of her tooth which is causing her considerable discomfort and may lead to more problems with her other teeth. I rang up the dentist in Bodmin and he very obligingly agreed to fit her in at 2.30 this afternoon. I intended to ask Sister Margaret to drive her in but Sister Margaret already went over to the presbytery this morning to get more holy water from Father Malone, so I hesitate to send her off again. You drive, don’t you, Sister Joan?’