Quiet As A Nun Part 11

'My parents were. I was brought up as such. Until I saw the error of their ways - very early indeed in my existence, I can a.s.sure you. The country where I was born is one of those where ignorance and superst.i.tion is so deeply rooted in the hearts of the stupid peasants that nothing, not even communism, can get rid of it. Poland.'

'Poland. I didn't realise you were Polish.'

'I came here as a refugee when I was very young, ironically from the new state after the war. Because I was officially a Catholic, the do-gooders here even sent me to a convent school at first - until I ran away.' It explained many things.

'So you see I know what I'm talking about when I say that you would have made a charming nun. By the way, what a pretty colour your hair is.' He put out his hand and touched it. I flinched. 'And your face. There is still something child-like, untouched, about your face. In spite of that incredibly severe expression you are trying to a.s.sume.'

He held my chin and looked at me. I turned my head away. The light, almost yellow eyes were like those of an animal. A hunting animal. Not an animal in the zoo. Of the two of us, I was the captive animal. I saw him glancing at the veil.

'I wonder how it would bea"' he said suddenly. 'Do you fancy dressing up as a nun?' And he bent his head and pressed his lips hard to mine. I struggled and tried in vain to press myself further back into the grille. I was profoundly horrified.

'No,' I cried, when at last he released me.

'Blasphemy? Sacrilege? You can't believe that,' he said, smiling.

'But you do.'

'I must remind you that there is no G.o.d. Hence no blasphemy. All the same, it might have been interesting. For us both. I a.s.sure you, Jemima, I'm not interested in unwilling victims. No-one was unwilling.'

'Pathetic s.e.x-starved women,' I said. 'What splendid conquests!'

'Oh, quite. Conquests weren't the point. Surely you understand that.' He lit another cigarette. 'That was all purely for the good of the cause. It meant nothing to me whatsoever. Beatrice O'Dowd is a nice woman but an awful fool, not at all my type. In any case it was not necessary to seduce her, she simply exchanged one love or pa.s.sion for another, in both cases strictly platonic. As for those girls, that fat little blonde with the absurd name, Dodo, and Blanche and Imogen.' He mimicked their enthusiastic upper-cla.s.s voices. "Working for the poor in the holidays from their smart fee-paying school. Writing us eager letters, imagining they have actually joined us on the other side of the barrier. Hero-wors.h.i.+p was what they wanted, not s.e.x.' 'And their leader, Margaret?'

'She's different. At least she knows how to keep her mouth shut. An interesting girl. She's more like you.' 'And Rosabelle?' I had to ask.

'Ah, your friend. The heiress. A strange woman. Even for a nun. So many different impulses: no wonder she had a nervous breakdown.'

'Beatrice O'Dowd thought all that happened because Mother Ancilla got her away. They were of course great friends.' Even now I refused to use the term 'particular friends'.

'Nonsense. Rosabelle had many secrets from Beatrice, I can tell you. Including where she hid her will. Beatrice always exaggerates her importance in every situation. It makes her h.e.l.l to work with at times at the Project. The others complain. It was Rosabelle Powerstock who first contacted us, I can a.s.sure you. Afterwardsa"' He seemed to have nothing more to say on that subject. I did not know whether to be glad or sorry. Just as I did not altogether know whether to be glad or sorry at the unexciting truth about the relations.h.i.+p between Rosa and Beatrice. Glad that it had been innocent. Sorry that Rosa had not even been granted the comfort of one real confidante in her last months.

'The brides of Christ indeed!' he went on angrily. 'Most of them would be a great deal better off as proper brides, bourgeois white finery, veils, orange blossom and all. At least they would perform one useful function in society; wife followed rapidly by mother. I prefer the intelligent,' he repeated. 'That's why it's a pity that you're not more accommodating. Tom Amyas is your chap, isn't he? Oh, don't worry. We make it our business to know that sort of thing about MPs who don't exactly love us. Just in case the information comes in useful. An awful a.s.s, isn't he, always grinding on about his conscience. Does he bleat about it in bed as well?'

I did not deign to answer. Skarbek fished something out of his pocket.

'Which reminds me. We can't have this hanging about, alas. That would never do.'

It was my note to Tom. Skarbek lit a match and put the flame to the corner. The black fragments floated down to the floor to join the cigarette stubs.

I was no longer so hopeful that nothing terrible was going to happen to me. Skarbek was robing himself in the wimple and veil again. Then he took up my two candles.

'Your candles I'll leave you,' he said. 'Out of reach. But alight. No funny stuff burning the ropes. You will be like a saint, Jemima, with two candles burning to you. Your own particular shrine.'

So saying, he moved the prie-dieu across the crypt until it faced me. He placed one candle on either side. Then he switched off the crypt light.

'Very charming.' An elaborate roll of the 'R' again. I was certain he was putting it on. 'Saint Jemima of the coffins.' To me the whole crypt, now lit only by the flicker of two small candles, looked less charming than horrifyingly eerie.

And roped to the grille, in my own particular shrine as he called it, I no longer believed Skarbek in his protestations about blasphemy. In some corner of his being, however remote, he still believed in the possibility.

'I promise I won't be long,' he said, 'we have so many interesting things to talk about. Later. But there's someone I just have to see. Another intelligent female, as a matter of fact. I really do have a taste for them. And I must deal once and for all with that wretched child. Something natural, what was it I said, something natural but unfortunate.'

Tessa! In my fear and confusion I had forgotten all about Tessa Justin. And what on earth had happened to my old but stout-hearted sentinel, Sister Boniface, last seen departing to pray in the chapel? Why had Sister Bonnie not raised the alarm? Tessa Justin, in her filthy and hysterical state was surely sight enough to promote a dozen search parties.

'Tessa will have woken the whole convent by now,' I answered. 'I doubt if you will find it quite so easy to deal with her.' My words were bold. But I was worried by the lack of extraordinary sounds from above. In fact, no sound at all. 'Sister Boniface was there anda"'

'Oh, she's been dealt with already.'

Not Bonniea"

'Nothing sinister in this case. Purely natural, dear Jemima. Not even unfortunate. Lured away from the chapel. A story that Mother Ancilla needs her. After that she will be given an a.s.surance that you are safe. That Tessa is safe too. That you both returned through the chapel while she was absent. She won't interfere with our plans.'

Our plans. That was it. I had to face the fact - that Skarbek had an accomplice within the convent itself. A highly efficient accomplice or as he himself described her, an intelligent female. Someone who had nightly opened the crypt door to let in the Black Nun. Not Beatrice O'Dowd, who was no longer an inmate of the convent, free to come and go as she pleased. Besides, I believed Skarbek when he said that Beatrice, foolish clothes and all, was still in her own way animated by love, or at least idealism. "Very easily led,' Mother Ancilla had said. In more ways than one, I was beginning to think that the Reverend Mother's opinions represented the most solid canon of common sense in this unquiet convent.

'And so Jemima, I must leave you. I must go once more among the brides of Christ.'

I watched the Black Nun depart. His figure in its habit soon melted into the darkness of the crypt staircase. At least he left the lower door open. The candles flickered. I prayed - yes, prayed to something or someone - that they would not go out. And leave me alone and helpless in the darkness. No smoking, no praying, where now were the principles of a lifetime, I asked myself. Come on, Jemima. It was a grim attempt at humour. At least it might help me to survive.

I had many reasons to wish to survive. For one thing, I now knew where the last will and testament of Rosabelle Powerstock was hidden.

16.

Healing hands He was gone. I was alone in the crypt with the coffins - and the statue of the Blessed Eleanor - for company. I heard the upper sacristy door shut. I was entombed. There was silence.

Only minutes later, it could not have been more, there was a noise. It sounded like that same sacristy door opening. Yes, and now footsteps down the stairs again. Why? Had Skarbek forgotten something, or had he perhaps thought better of leaving me in the crypt? Was I destined for the tower straight away ... All these questions thronged through my mind, none of them arousing very pleasant images, as the light footsteps descended the stairs.

A nun stood framed in the doorway. It was not, I thought, Skarbek. So far as I could be sure against the limited light of the candles. The crypt light flicked on.

'Why Miss Sh.o.r.e' said a familiar voice. 'Whatever are you doing here?'

It was Sister Agnes.

A lesser woman might have screamed. Or amplified her question. At least she might have cried out: whatever are you doing there tied up with ropes, with two candles beside you, confined to a grille in a crypt, backing onto a mult.i.tude of ancient coffins. Not so, Sister Agnes.

'Oh dear, oh dear,1 was all she said, moving swiftly across the crypt to my side. 'Poor Miss Sh.o.r.e. Poor dear Miss Sh.o.r.e.' From her tone she might have been sympathising with a child who had fallen over and cut her knees.

'Free me, Sister Agnes, free me please.'

'Of course, Miss Sh.o.r.e, of course I'll free you.' Her delicate strong fingers were already plucking at the rope.

'There's a knife somewhere. On the floor over there.' Sister Agnes bent down and came up with a cigarette stub. She wrinkled her nose. Then she found the knife. She straightened and held it towards me - for a moment, I even thoughta"

But Sister Agnes quickly and competently cut the rope. I was free. Dusty, stiff, still terrified, but free. She put the knife down on the prie-dieu.

'You must have help,' she said.

'We must both have help,' I replied earnestly. 'Tell me, first of all, is Tessa all right?'

'Tessa? But she ran away. You remembera"'

'No, no, she didn't run away. Anyway she's back. Oh, G.o.d, don't tell me he's got Tessaa"'

'There's no sign of Tessa Justin upstairs in the dormitory, I a.s.sure you. But we can deal with that later. First, I must help you upstairs. Why, you're in the most distressing state.'

Once more Sister Agnes began to cluck, and dust my clothes. I felt her healing hands cross my brow for the second time; she had rescued me before, and was experienced in how to soothe me. Then carefully and I thought disapprovingly, Sister Agnes blew out the candles which had const.i.tuted my shrine.

'How dreadful,' said Sister Agnes. It wasn't clear whether she meant the whole enterprise or just the candles themselves.

'Now I shall help you back up the stairs.'

I thought: we've done this before too, as the young nun put her arm round my shoulders and began to aid me back up the winding stair to the sacristy. Once inside, there was no light on. That was odd. Perhaps Sister Agnes, like Sister Boniface, had not wanted to alarm the whole convent. But in my opinion, growing rapidly in urgency, the sooner the whole convent was alarmed, the better.

Where was the switch? I felt round to the door, found it. The sacristy flooded with light. Sister Agnes moved quickly round after me and switched it off again.

'Please Miss Sh.o.r.e,' she said. 'Not yet. Here's your torch. I found it on the floor. Use that if you like. We nuns can see in the dark, you know.' As Sister Boniface had observed to me earlier. Sister Boniface. Surely the old nun would have sent someone by now to my rescue.

'I left Sister Boniface here in the chapela"' I began.

'Hush, hush, Miss Sh.o.r.e. Don't worry about Sister Boniface. If she was praying here, and has gone, she was probably needed by Mother Ancilla. Our Reverend Mother is gravely ill and Sister Boniface is by convent tradition her deputy. Until the new Reverend Mother is chosen.'

She sounded amazingly matter-of-fact about the prospect of her superior's imminent death. But one expected nuns to be matter-of-fact about death. It was Sister Agnes's calm approach to my own predicament which confused me. To say nothing of the missing child.

'But Tessa Justin, I found her. And now what's happened to her? You don't understand what's going on here, Sister Agnes.'

By way of answer Sister Agnes opened the sacristy door to the chapel. We were once more in the religious light of the sanctuary and its candles. Candles in their proper place in front of a proper shrine. It was a great relief to me to find myself back in the ornate Victorian chapel, away from that mediaeval nightmare of crypts, secret pa.s.sages and towers.

The chapel, so far as I could see, was empty. I devoutly hoped - not quite the cliche the phrase usually was - that no-one was lurking behind the far pillars. No Black Nun within the distant shadows.

Sister Agnes paused by the first pew.

'No, Miss Sh.o.r.e,' she said. 'I think it is you who doesn't understand quite what is going on here.' Then she guided me out of the chapel by the visitors' door. 'Come, we must go to your room.'

There was great authority in her low voice. I felt mesmerised by her. Far more mesmerised than I had felt while in the power of Alexander Skarbek. Her personality was hypnotic. In her mixture of tranquillity and strength, combined with her physical resemblance to my dead friend, I found all the qualities I had once sought, and sought in vain, in Rosabelle.

I tried once more a feeble protest.

'Don't you think the infirmary - Tessaa"'

'No.'

We went in silence up the stairs. Sister Agnes opened the door of my room. She settled me in my chair, taking my coat, dusting the skirt of it again, and finally placing it on the bed. It look dishevelled, and as I felt, forlorn as a result of its experiences in the pa.s.sage.

'Listen to me, Miss Sh.o.r.e. I have to leave you here for a while. There is something I have to do. Someone I have to see. Please stay here.' She paused and placed one hand on mine. It was a clasp whose warmth and firmness reminded me not so much of Rosabelle as of Mother Ancilla.

'Promise me that whatever you do, you won't leave this room until I return. Is there a key? Good. Then lock your door. And don't let anyone in.'

I was only too delighted at the idea of locking my door. I had absolutely no wish to admit any of the sinister nocturnal ramblers at Blessed Eleanor's. Above all, not the Black Nun. Still roaming somewhere loose in the corridors, the rooms, the pa.s.sages. Maybe even in the empty guest room next to mine. I s.h.i.+vered. I would lock my door all right.

'Trust me, Miss Sh.o.r.e,' concluded Sister Agnes solemnly. 'It won't be for very long. I shall come back. Later. We have so much to talk about.' She was the second person that evening to use those same words.

I ought to warn hera"

'The Black Nuna"' I began desperately.

'Later. Lock your door.' Sister Agnes departed. I was abandoned to the three holy pictures on the walls, where the Botticelli Virgin still looked at me with her expression of detached pity, the t.i.tian Madonna still offered cherries to her child, and an Angel was, as ever, arrested in mid act of announcing impending pregnancy to the maiden Mary. Then there was the Treasury of the Blessed Eleanor, described by Alex Skarbek as intolerably dull. I could do with a little dullness, I decided. I picked it up. No white marker this time to mark my place. I turned a few pages, was guiltily inclined to agree with Skarbek, then went to the brief life at the back of the book.

'Of all the holy women under her care, Dame Ghislaine le Tourel was the one for whom our foundress had the most tender love,' I read. 'Blessed Eleanor loved in Dame Ghislaine le Tourel the blessed reflection of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, which she loved in duty bound wheresoever she found it, and most of all she found it in Dame Ghislaine le Tourel.'

The reflection of Christ - who was I to say that was not the truth of their relations.h.i.+p? It was, as we all agreed, a very long time ago. The anonymous author of this charitable nineteenth-century life was just as likely to be right as a later historian. A non-believer. And a man. His insights into the mentality of mediaeval nuns were as likely to be limited as mine were. The relations.h.i.+p of Rosabelle and Beatrice O'Dowd had turned out to be an innocent one. Why not then give the benefit of the doubt to Blessed Eleanor and Dame Ghislaine?

I read on.

Then I saw the handle of my door turning. It turned and did not give. There was a little rattle. My visitor seemed to be disconcerted to find the door was locked.

I heard a voice, very low but not whispering, outside the door: 'Miss Sh.o.r.e, Miss Sh.o.r.e, are you there?'

'Yes, I'm here. Who is it?'

'Oh thank G.o.d you're all right. Thanks be to G.o.d. I've been so worried. I didn't know where you were. I didn't know what to do. Tessa Justin came rus.h.i.+ng to the infirmary in the most ghastly statea"'

It was Sister Lucy.

With a great sigh of relief, I jumped up and unlocked the door. Sister Lucy was outside, panting. She came in, and recovered her breath.

'You're safe. Thank Heaven. I haven't known what to think. You see Tessa Justin reappeared a while ago, running to me with some extraordinary story about Black Nuns and secret pa.s.sages and the tower, and kept saying "Save her, save her" meaning youa"'

Admirable little Tessa Justin.