Mary Ann Shaughnessy - The Devil And Marianne Part 8

being handed oveMo Lola.

"There you are then. There you are, that's over. You see? Now, up to the dormitory. Get your necessary

things put in your drawers, then bring all the rest down to the stores. Leave your cases empty. Away now, then come to me and bring your money to be looked after. OS you go." Not until they had reached the corridor leading to the dormitory did Mary Ann speak, and then she asked, "Do you really get your money back?"

"Yes, of course, when we go out on half-day, or to the beach."

Mary Ann was again silent-she didn't want to part with her money, any of it. She was glad now that Mr.

Wilson had stuffed the notes in her locket. She touched her chest and felt a sense of comfort. Her hand was still flat on her chest when she entered the dormitory, but it was immediately doubled into a fist as Beatrice's voice, which, at this moment, sounded strangely like her own, hit her, saying, "I'm from Jarr ... aa ... no, in the coun . . . tree. Pee . . . laa."

Beatrice was standing in the middle of the dormitory and causing a great deal of amus.e.m.e.nt with her imitation, but as Mary Ann slowly advanced towards her the laughter died away leaving a strained silence.

By her own bed and within a yard of Beatrice, Mary Ann stopped. Her face screwed up to a b.u.t.ton, she glared at Beatrice. She knew now who she reminded her of-it was Sarah Flannagan.

Schools may be housed in elaborate country mansions with extensive grounds and terraces and playing fields; awe-inspiring nuns and Sisters might float through their richly-furnished interiors; rich men's daughters could be packed in dozens in airconditioned dormitories; yet what were these girls after all but exactly the same types that filled the schools in Jarrow and such like towns. The only difference was they talked sw.a.n.ky. This would have summed up Mary Ann's thoughts had she been able to define them, but all she was aware of at the moment was the feeling that had ousted both loneliness and fear. It was a feeling that was not uncommon to her, and now it was telling her that this Beatrice was a cheeky thing, a cheeky beast -even a cheeky b.i.t.c.h !

"Who you makin' game of?"

Was there anything awe-inspiring or electrifying in that question? It would undoubtedly seem so, for never before had anything happened in the school lives of the ten spectators to call for such expressions as were now very much apparent on their faces. This new girl had dared to cheek a prefect, and such a prefect. She must be mad. The mouths were agape and hanging, the eyes stretched wide and bulging. Had Sister Alvis been present she would have supposed that nothing short of the second Pentecost, which alone she was for ever prophesying would be required to arouse them, had actually taken place. It is almost certain to say that to them something of equal importance had happened, for only a visitation by the Deity Himself could possibly have called forth the gasp that rose to the ceiling.

"You're a cheeky beast! And if you keep on I'll write and tell me da about you, so I will ! "

The situation was quite beyond all recognized bounds. It was undoubtedly the first of such that had happened to Beatrice, and, as smart as she was, she could call up no move to counter it. All the unwritten rules on behaviour between prefectsalthough her real power would not begin until 6.45 a.m. tomorrow morning-and the crawling subservient sycophants known as pupils had been swept away by this-this The word "common" leapt to Beatrice's rescue, and using it in a way that would turn defeat into victory, she lifted her nose as if detecting a vile smell, slowly raised her head on high, and turning away gave her authoritative sentence to the audience: "Common individual!"

The spring Mary Ann was about to make was abruptly checked by Lola's hand, and so painful was the grip on her arm that sanity returned to her, and with it deflation. Shrugging off the guiding hand of Lola she went to her bedside and, kneeling down with a thud beside her cases, she turned the key in the lock of the largest one and lifted up the lid. Then sitting back on her heels, she gazed through misted eyes at the neatly folded clothes her mother had packed away only yesterday, and, her heaoWrooping lower to hide her raining tears, she cried silently, "Oh ! Ma, Ma, I want to come home. Oh ! Ma."

5.

Was it seven days or seven years or seven lifetimes that Mary Ann had been in the Convent of the Holy Child of Bethlehem ? If you had asked her she would have pondered, refusing to believe that all the many different things that had been pushed into her head had taken only seven days to accomplish.

This time last week she had been a small creature of another world, but now the doings of that world had become vague, and to remind her that it had ever existed there remained only a few people. Her da-always her da; her ma-when she was in bed at night; their Michael at odd times; Mr. Lord, when she was in cla.s.s; Father Owen when she was in church; Mrs. McBride rather funnily enough when she saw Sister Alvis; and Sarah Flannagan whenever her eyes alighted on Beatrice, which unfortunately, even with the disparity in their ages, was often, for Beatrice was the allocator of marks-black ones. If nothing else had stuck in her mind the sources from which these were derived were firmly fixed. Dearly was she paying for cheeking a prefect. Although you acquired only one mark for being late, already her score in this section was four. But if you were skilfully manoeuvred to the last wash basin, and even there were the last to use it, what could you do? Only finish your dressing running along the corridor. Well, she had done that twice. The first time, encountering Mother St. Bede, she had been helped into her things, but the second time Mother St. Bede had not only sent her back to dress but had added two to her score. Then this same Mother St. Bede, who took English, a language quite different from any Mary Ann had previously listened to, had yesterday yelled at her, right at the top of her voice which was of some surprising height. "Child! child! child!" she had yelled, "it is not the BOO . . . CHER, it is the BUT . . . CHER.

81 Say after me, the BUT-CHER, the BAY-KER, the CANDLESTICK MAY-KER."

Dutifully she had repeated the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and the laughter this oration in her own language had evoked had aroused her fighting spirit, yet at the same time made her want to cry. The whole place, in her estimation, was daft, with a daftness that went on in an intermittent neverceasing whirl from seven-thirty a.m. till eight forty-five p.m.

On Mondays and Wednesdays the daftness was, if anything, intensified, for these were early Ma.s.s days when you were hoiked out of bed at a quarter to seven by Sister Monica, who slept behind a curtain at the end of the dormitory, and who brought you to life by slapping your bottom, and not just a little slap either, and at the same time calling, in a surprisingly cheerful voice at that unearthly hour, "Arise, arise. Arise to the glory of G.o.d. Come on now, up with yous."

Mary Ann was of the opinion that Sister Monica never slept. How could she, when even before that time she had said an hour's Office.

Having experienced as yet only one Monday and Wednesday, Mary Ann had alr/ady decided that she hated Mondays and Wednesdays. Back home she had liked going to Communion on ^Friday and church at any time, but here church was different. It was inside the grounds, and the four houses, cornprising children of seven to young ladies of seventeen, marched there in straggling, silent crocodiles. If you dared to open your mouth it was ten-to-one that somebody would pounce on you and up would go your score. You wouldn't think they would have bothered at that time in the morning, but they did.

This scoring of marks was not an individual thing either. Through them you apparently carried on your shoulders the honour of your house, for one girl's misdemeanours could prevent her house from getting the cup, and already Mary Ann knew just to what pitch of fervour each house could reach in their struggle to obtain this cup. Only yesterday it had been made clear to her by a spontaneous deputation, surrounding her on the playing field, that the attainment of the prize did not lie with her, but the loss of it did, and she had to stop getting black marks-or else.

For once in her life she had found nothing to say, but had stood near to tears in the corner of the field thinking, Oh ! Da. Oh ! Da. Then an odd thing had happened which took her mind oS her troubles for a few moments. Over the railings in another field where the big girls were playing hockey she saw a strange sight. Her mind seemed to suggest that it was even a sacrilegious sight, for there, with her gown tucked up, was Mother St. Jude, and she was running, flying and shouting as she bashed out with a hockey stick as if she were throwing the hammer. Mary Ann knew very well now that nuns had legs, but this was the first time she had ever seen them, even a bit of them, and it didn't seem right. She was sure that none of the nuns in the North would ever run like that. Nuns should walk-and walk slowly.

Then there was Sister Agnes Mary. She couldn't get over Sister Agnes Mary. Sister Agnes Mary could take a car right to bits-she had seen her doing it yesterday in the yard-^and she bred mice, called hamsters; and she laughed. She was laughing all the time, except when she said her Office; and when saying that she would go round muttering to herself with a very straight face, being sorry, Mary Ann supposed, for all die laughing she had done.

This saying of "the Office" business both interested and puzzled Mary Ann. In all odd places she would come across a nun saying this Office. Sister Alvis had really startled her one day, for when pa.s.sing her, and she apparently deeply engrossed in her reading, she had suddenly heard her exclaim, and loudly, "Jesus!" It had sounded so like Mrs. McBride that she had looked at the Sister and exclaimed, "Eeh!" before being pushed in die back by Lola.

And then there was the timetable. Oh! the timetable. It was the axis of the daftness. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sat.u.r.days, you rose at seven-thirty, washed and dressed, and got down to breakfast, if no impediment, by eight o'clock, and not until after the meal were you allowed to open your mouth. This compulsory silence was a great trial to Mary Ann. Between eight-twenty and nine o'clock you were expected to do various things, which included making your bed, going to Mother St. Francis for your letters, toothpaste, soap, and salts if you couldn't go to the lavatory, and to Sister Catherine if you had b.u.t.tons off or things like that. Then nine o'clock was upon you before you knew where you were. From nine o'clock till half-past you had religious instruction. It was like the Bible history she used to have in Jarrow, and she didn't mind that in the least. But from nine-thirty to ten it was science.

Now Mary Ann knew nothing whatever about science, and she didn't want to know, for science was all about frogs and tadpoles and she was repulsed by both, even before they were cut up. From frogs she went into French and Mother St. Matthew. Un, deux, trois, quatre. . . . The first four she could remember quite easily, for she resorted to a little unconscious Pelmanism and thought of the four figures as "under two cats". Le and la was another business entirely. Did it matter whether you knew they were males or females as long as you said Mr. or Mrs. That's all that mattered, surely. But apparently not to Mother St. Matthew.

Then followed milk; then gym. She liked gym-she could jump and skip bette&than some of the bigger girls, and "cowp her creels". This statement for turning a somersault had caused quite a dr^rsion, but n.o.body was going to make her believe it should be "head over heels" . . . they were daft, all of them. Following gym, innocently arranged, was the visit to the infirmary and Matron who dealt with toothache, spots, and blisters. If you didn't have any of these things you had fifteen minutes to yourself.

From the infirmary you were pitchforked into history. Mary Ann thought of it as being pitchforked. She knew the word for her da used it a lot at one time. "I was pitchforked into the s.h.i.+pyard," he used to say, and now it seemed to describe the entry into the room where they took history. The room was at the end of a long corridor, and to Mary Ann that particular corridor was lined with prefects who pushed you along if you were speaking and pushed you along if you weren't, and at the cla.s.sroom door, a week's experience had taught Mary Ann, Mother St. Bede would be waiting-as if she didn't have enough of her in English-to fling you into your seats. The only consolation she felt was that here she wasn't the only one to experience the nun's treatment for tardiness.

Mother St. Bede was identified to Mary Ann by three things. She yelled in her English cla.s.s, she pushed in her history cla.s.s, and, thirdly, she was known privately as "Mother Fear-o'-G.o.d," for at the height of exasperation she was known to fling her arms wide and cry, "Nothing but the fear of G.o.d will knock it into you. It's past me, it's past me ! "

The only thing to be remembered during history was that it would be followed by geography and Mother Mary Divine. Oh, Mother Mary Divine was nice . . . she was lovely. She loved Mother Mary Divine. Mother Mary Divine patted her cheek and called her "Dear child", and she had won Mary Ann's heart forever by asking, and in the proper voice, "And how is canny Jarrow?"

At twelve-fifteen she reluctantly left Mother Mary Divine and went tearing with the rest of her cla.s.s in the scramble for letters. If you were lucky and there was one for you you took it into the General Study and there devoured it. If you weren't you went out into the playground or into the fields where Sister Agnes Mary usually was. But you couldn't get near her, everybody wanted to be with Sister Agnes Mary 'cos she made you laugh. If you iiked you could go and feed the rabbits or the mice, or the budgerigars. These latter were bred by an old Sister, so old that Mary Ann was fascinated by her wrinkles. She had little apples on her cheeks and her eyes were blue and sunk far into her head. Her name was Sister Prudence, but she was known, even to her face, as Sister Gran-Gran.

Dinner was a further trial to Mary Ann, for whether you liked it or not you had to eat it; if you didn't one of the Sisters stood over you until you did. Mary Ann didn't like cabbage. She hated cabbage and she had said so. This was another thing that had caused a diversion and, indeed, even some smothered chortling from the servers.

The afternoons hadn't been too bad at first. There was art and botany and games, followed three times a week by a bath. And no fire to sit at after you were dry either, Then yesterday she had been told that one lesson had to be missed every afternoon to be replaced by elocution. At first she had been excited and thought, Now I'll show Sarah Flannagan, but that was before the lesson. Bas-kets. .. bill-iards. . . batter-ies, and bluebot-ties. . . . Cas-kets, cam-els and castles, and sticking her tongue all over the place to try and talk sw.a.n.ky.

Following tea at four-fifteen there was twenty minutes' recreation, before the most trying part of the day. Whereas at home after school she could, and had, run wild, now she had to go and sit with her house in the study, and after the first ten minutes a bell would ring which meant "no talking". This was a foretaste of purgatory. It was no use trying to slip a word in, for at the high desk near the window sat first one study mistress and then another. Every half-hour they changed, and no matter who they were silence was the order of the day. The only diversion was the signal to leave the room, but even her courage failed at anything more than two requests.

From six-thirty to seven you could write your letter, that is if you had done all your homework, but they didn't call it homework. At seven o'clock you knelt and said the Angelus, and it was always wonderful to Mary Ann to hear the sound of her own voice again. Yet when, following this, they went to supper, she seemed'to have very little to say to anyone-the inactivity of sitting always seemed to dry her up. After the meal, for one full hour the time was her own, to go out to play, weather permitting, or to write or read. The only thing you couldn't do was-moon. Nuns seemed to drop from the ceiling, appear through the walls, or up through the floorboards should you show the least suspicion of mooning.

Following on this hour was chapel for fifteen minutes. And here began another trial, because from the moment you stepped into line you were as good as gagged until breakfast the following morning. You could talk, oh! yes, if you were one of those people who were clever enough not to be caught, but Mary Ann had not yet learned the trick, so she was as good as dumb.

But tonight, the beginning of this particular trial was a good half-hour away. It was only eight o'clock and she was hugging three letters to her breast. They had all come at once, one each from her da, her ma and their Michael. This was only the second letter she'd had from her da, and it wasn't very long, but it was lovely, all about the farm. And then he said he missed her and was ticking off the days to the summer holiday. Her ma's letter was nice, but her ma's letters and everything about her ma were always nice. Her ma brought no worry to her mind, she could always be relied upon to be the same. She laughed at their Michael's letter. It was the first he'd written to her and it was funny, so different from when he talked. He said such things as "Up the school!" and "Miss La-de-da Mary Ann Shaughnessy". Then he had told her some bits of news that made her homesick in a different way. "You should have been home," he said, "on Wednesday. Mr. Polinski hit Mrs. Polinski and she came running to our house, and there was a to-do. And what do you know? The new hand is going to stay with us. I like him, so does me da-my father. Sorry, Miss Shaughnessy." Oh, their Michael was funny.

As it was raining the recreation room, if not crowded, was well filled and Mary Ann, lucky for once, had bagged a little table near the window and was busy, between chews at her pen and glances out of the window on to a view whose beauty was entirely lost on her, writing to her ma and da. Only the heading on the paper did not say "Ma and Da," it said, "Dear Mother and Father." Her first letter had been confiscated not only for beginning with "Ma and Da" but because she had gone on to give graphic details of meals, at which there was cabbage, marks, of which she was acquiring a burden, Mother St. Bede, who was awful, and last but by no means least Beatrice. Now her gazing out of the window was a concentrated effort to formulate her news in such a way that it would get through. As the time was beginning to ebb away and her mind would suggest nothing in the nature of a code, she continued her letter by saying, "I am lerning to talk proply every afternoon and say bas-kets, bil-li-ards, bat-ter-ies and bluebottles. Cas-kets, cam-els and castles. Tell Mr. Lord and I will write him the morrtomorrow. I had a pain in me stomach this morning cos I had a pill, and oh it was awful, and then I had to eat " She had been going to say cabbage, but remembering that this slip might mean the rewriting of the whole letter she subst.i.tuted instead a kindness she had received from the very Sister who had stood over her and made her stuff the cabbage down her throat, thereby bringing censure on the poor woman who had been trained to show no discrimination among the children. She scratched out "I had to eat" and wrote "Sister Mary Martha slipped me three sweets cos I ate me dinner. I wish I could see you. I have got to go to bed now. I think of you in bed and say Hail Marys for you. The Holy Family in the church here isn't like ours in Jarrow, they are cut out of wood and haven't any colours on them, and haven't got nice faces. It's confession tomorrow, I wish Father Owen was here. Will our Michael tell him about me on Sunday? I've got to go, they're clearing up. Oh Ma. Goodnight Mother and Father and our Michael, and twenty million kisses, Mary Ann."

There, that was done. Just as she folded up the letter and placed it on top of the envelope ready for Mother St. Francis's inspection Marian came up and sat on the window seat.

"You writing again? You are always writing." She sounded slightly offended, and Mary Ann said, "Well, I like to write to me ma and da."

"Why do you always say ma and da?"

"Well, cos they are."

"You're funny." This statement was given as a criticism, but Maf^'Ann took it in good part and looked at her new friend, whose face was very straight and whose mouth was tight and who, Mary Ann knew from a week's experience, could burst into tears at any moment.

"Why don't you write to your da ... father?"

Marian turned away, breathed on the window and drew a pattern with the point of her finger. "He's always travelling, he'd never get my letters."

"Then why don't you write to your ma then?"

"I do, every week."

"But why don't you every day?"

"Oh, that would be silly." With a swift movement of her hand Marian wiped out the pattern. "What's your father like?"

This was the first time anyone had asked after her da. Mary Ann closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them wide as she began on the subject that forever filled her heart. "He's wonderful. He's big-oh, ever so big, and he's got a lovely face." At this point, before she had even got warmed up, her discourse was broken into by Marian's voice saying abruptly, "Oh, all right. What's your mother like?"

Mary Ann blinked. "Oh, me ma? She's lovely an' all. Her hair's like gold and she's got ma.s.ses and ma.s.ses of it." Then, looking at Marian's tight face, she asked, merely out of politeness and not because she wanted to know, "Is your ma nice?"

"Yes, she's lovely, she's wonderful." Quite lively now, Marian gave Mary Ann all her attention and described for her in glowing detail the wonder that went to make up her mother, and this description of a most glamorous being went on until Mother St. Francis's inspection interrupted it.

Mary Ann's letter having been pa.s.sed with only her English at fault, which was nothing to worry about, at least in her opinion, the bell alone brought Marian's oration to a final stop. But she went to the chapel with her face aglow, and even later, when she was finis.h.i.+ng her undressing under her nightie, as they all did, she smiled brightly across at Mary Ann. So it was surprising that some time later Mary Ann should wake in the faintly illuminated dark to hear the sound of m.u.f.fled sobbing coming from Marian's bed. As she lay listening to it, it saddened her and made her want to join in, and she thought, Oh ! Da. Oh! Ma.

When, after what seemed to her a long, long time, Marian was still crying, she raised herself up and peered towards her.

In the glow from the night-light at the end of the dormitory all she could make out was a contorted heap, and so it was the most natural thing in the world that she should get out of bed and creep over to Marian.

"Marian, what's the matter?"

Marian raised her head. "I-I want my-my Mummy and Daddy."

It was only a whisper, and Marv Ann whispered back, "So do I."

"n.o.body loves me."

This statement stumped Mary Ann for a moment, then putting her arm around Marian's shoulder, she whispered, "Yes they do-I do, and Lola."

"Do you?" Their faces were close, their breaths fanned each other.

Mary Ann, s.h.i.+vering with the cold, at this point said, "Move over, and I'll come in with you."

Within a second she was well under the clothes and lying close to Marian, and, as if she were the elder,

she put her arms about her and comforted her, saying, "Don't cry, Marian."

"I've no one to talk to," said Marian. "Lola won't listen, she says I'm to forget it."

Mary Ann did not enquire what she had to forget, but said, "Why don't you talk to the priest? I used to

tell Father Owen everything."

"Did you?"

"Yes."

"I don't like to."

"Why not? They don't know who's telling them."

"They don't know?" There was a sound of amazed enquiry in Marian's voice; and after a couple of

sniffs, she asked, "What do you mean?" ,"

"Why, cos priests are blind when they are hearing confession" Mary Ann spoke with authority. "I know

cos Father Owen is in Jarrow; I used to tell him everything and he never knew it was me, cos G.o.d strikes them all blind once they get in the box. But they're all right when they come out again."

"That's silly!"

" 'Tisn't, Marian, honest."

"Who told you?"

"I've always known."

"Is it the truth, honest? I've never heard it before."

"Yes, it's the truth. Honest. . . . You go and tell everything to the priest-Father Hickey, he's not bad. But

he's not like Father Owen. Oh, Father Owen was lovely. . . . Will you go and tell him what you're crying for?"

"Yes."

"Well, what are you crying for?" This was diplomacy at its worst.

There was a silence, during which Mary Ann became aware that she was being nearly smothered beneath the quilt, and she came up for air. And as she did so she had the terrifying impression that someone was moving about at the end of the dormitory. Then Marian said, "It's about my Mummy-my Mummy and Daddy don't live together."

"What!" Mary Ann brought her attention back to her bedmate.

"They're separated. . . . I-I've only seen Daddy once inoh, once in a long, long time."