Vow of Obedience Read online

  The postulancy was unlocked as it always was until its occupants were within for the night. Pushing open the door she wondered if that was such a good idea. In the old days the usually unlocked exits and entrances had signified trust in the general public and in the members of the community. But unlocked doors were not always wise.

  Sister Elizabeth and Sister Marie went noiselessly up the narrow stairs to their cells. The former had learnt custody of the eyes well. The latter shot a brief anxious glance towards Sister Joan as if she longed to break the grand silence before trailing after her companion. Well, whatever she wanted to say would have to wait until morning.

  Sister Hilaria’s cell was at the end of the upper passage. It was marginally larger than the other cells as befitted her position as novice mistress, but it was completely austere. The walls, bare save for a crucifix, the narrow bed with its hard mattress and grey blanket, the basin and jug in the corner, the hooks behind the door on which her change of habit hung, the box in which a change of linen was laid – nothing had been added to this perfect model of a cell. The vase in which professed sisters were allowed to place no more than three flowers was empty. On the bookshelf a Bible and missal were the only volumes.

  Something was missing. Sister Joan stood in the middle of the room and gazed round, knitting her brows. Something that ought to have been in the room wasn’t there. She had kindled the paraffin lamp automatically as she entered and its light revealed every corner, every crack in the whitewashed wall.

  Sister Hilaria’s spiritual diary wasn’t on the shelf. Every sister, professed or not, kept a spiritual diary, used as the basis for private devotions, as a check on the progress she believed she was making in the religious life. Only she ever read her entries. Not until after her death did the prioress read the record and use it as the source of the obituary notice that would be sent round the other houses of the order. Sometimes, when she thought of her own entries, Sister Joan permitted herself a wry grin at the thought of the prioress who would, one day, be called upon to decipher them.

  But Sister Hilaria’s diary wasn’t here. And Sister Hilaria who, despite her fits of absent-mindedness, never bent a single rule, would certainly not have kept it elsewhere.

  Feeling a complete fool, Sister Joan lowered herself to the floor and looked under the bed.

  The thick, black-covered volume lay on the floor, in shadow but unmistakable. She stretched out her arm and drew it out.

  Spiritual diaries were sacredly private. The fact they were always kept in full view made them paradoxically more private. To open one, to read the struggles of a fellow soul, was an invasion of privacy almost beyond forgiveness.

  She scrambled up, still clutching the notebook, and went over to the shelf to replace the book. It teetered for a moment and then, as if endowed with an energy of its own, toppled to the floor again.

  Bending to pick it up, grimacing at her own clumsiness, she saw without meaning to see that nearly half the pages had been ripped out, leaving long margins of torn paper.

  It wasn’t for her to investigate further, though her fingers itched to explore. She would take the book to Mother Dorothy in the morning and ask for her superior’s advice. Laying the book down on its side she began to undress, turning her eyes resolutely away from temptation.

  When she had extinguished the light and knelt to say her last prayers, her lips moving silently in accordance with the rules, she hoped for weariness. A good sleep would set her up for whatever the next day would bring.

  It was impossible. She lay beneath her blanket; she lay on top of her blanket; she sat on the edge of the bed while half-formed images danced through her head. The veiled figure glimpsed briefly on two occasions, Sister Perpetua not having received Lilith back from the constable, Sister Perpetua in the driveway not many yards ahead, something Sister Marie had begun to say – outside a stone crunched under an unwary foot.

  On her own feet, every nerve quivering, Sister Joan groped for the torch, but by the time she felt its heavy weight in the palm of her hand the sound had ceased.

  There was no rule to prevent her from investigating an attempted break-in. Switching on the torch she opened the door and went softly along the corridor, her bare feet curling up against the cold boards.

  ‘At least have the sense to put on some slippers and your dressing gown.’ She could hear Mother Dorothy’s voice as clearly as if the prioress stood in the passage with her.

  It took only a minute to obey that unspoken command, but it was a delay all the same. She gripped the torch tightly, directing its beam downwards, and made her way to the tiny kitchen out of which a door led into the alley that ran between postulancy and boundary wall. The noise had come from the front of the building. She walked softly to the corner and peered round it, her torch stabbing the dark. The courtyard was apparently deserted. Gaining a little courage she switched off the torch and moved on into the small courtyard.

  The front door was closed, bolted from within as she had left it. She stared at it, one hand flying to her mouth. In luminous capitals across the wood were the words I’M COMING. Just that and nothing more.

  Eight

  ‘Detective Sergeant Mill is on his way here,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘Sister Joan, you will be the one most fitted to answer any questions he has. I’m afraid he will expect to be shown inside the postulancy in order to look for signs of an illegal entry. Sister Elizabeth and Sister Marie, you will remain in chapel until the detective has gone, though he may also wish to question you in which case you will be sent for to the parlour.’

  Her voice was as calm as if a member of the community came every morning to tell her that a threatening message had been left in luminous paint, but her hands were tense.

  Father Stephens had been and gone, bound for a clerical meeting somewhere or other. Saturday, marked out from other days by the general confession in the evening, unfolded rapidly from a cold, grey dawn into a cold, sparkling forenoon.

  The two novices knelt and went docilely towards the chapel. The prioress looked at Sister Joan.

  ‘You did well to wait until morning before you informed me of what had occurred,’ she said with rare approval. ‘Of course it was impossible to hide it from the novices, but there is no need to alarm the rest of the community. Ah, there is the car now.’

  She went into the hall and opened the door, Sister Joan at her heels. On the step Detective Sergeant Mill lowered his hand from the bell rope.

  ‘Good morning, Mother Dorothy.’ He shook hands politely. ‘Your message was very clear. Sister Joan, good morning. You haven’t washed out the paint?’

  ‘Not yet. Sister Joan will show it to you. I have kept it from most of the community but the two novices in the postulancy couldn’t avoid seeing it. If it’s absolutely necessary to question them they can be summoned from chapel.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll try to avoid it. My driver will be taking fingerprints though I have no hopes in that direction. We will need to enter the building.’

  ‘Sister Joan will accompany you. Perhaps you will take a coffee with me when you have completed your business – your – er, driver too, of course.’

  ‘Wilcox will be more at ease in the kitchen,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said with a grin. ‘He’s a rabid Methodist and terrified of being converted.’

  ‘Whatever you both wish.’ If she was amused she didn’t show it.

  Walking round the side of the main house, the constable trailing at a little distance, he commented, ‘Your prioress seems marginally less prickly this morning.’

  ‘She understands the importance of co-operating with the police. There is something more which I haven’t yet mentioned but may well be linked.’

  ‘Yes?’ He slowed pace, turning an interested face towards her.

  ‘On my first evening back I received leave from Mother Dorothy to walk for twenty minutes in the enclosure. I had discovered that poor girl’s body and I was more shaken than I realized. I saw – caught a fleeting gl
impse …’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of what I took to be one of the other sisters. I assumed at the time that Mother Dorothy had given one of the others leave to walk too. Then the police officer – Constable Stephens? – anyway the one who rode Lilith back for me, he mentioned that he’d handed over the pony to one of the sisters and that she’d simply led the animal away without even offering him a cup of tea. That was so unlike Sister Perpetua that I mentioned the return of the pony to her in a casual manner, but she said she hadn’t seen any constable. And then last night, when the others were in chapel praying for Sister Hilaria I had the dishes to wash and Lilith to feed. She hadn’t been properly exercised and she was skittish and got out of the stable and into the enclosure garden. I went after her.’

  ‘The gate was open?’

  ‘Yes, which is unusual. Sister Martha has charge of the garden and she is very meticulous about closing the gates. This one was open and the gate at the further end was also ajar. I saw someone flit past over the rough ground – it was again the most fleeting of glimpses but whoever it was wore habit and veil. By the time I reached the gate the figure had gone. I took Lilith back to her stall and then went to join the others in chapel.’

  ‘They were all present?’

  ‘And looked as if they’d been there all the time. This is the old tennis court. We keep saying that we’re going to do something with it, but there’s never quite sufficient money.’

  ‘The story of my life,’ he said with a grin. ‘How the devil do you all manage?’

  ‘Sister David publishes translations from the Latin and Greek; Sister Martha sells fruit and vegetables; Sister Katherine sells the loveliest lace and embroidery work, and when I was teaching at the Moor School there was my salary. And none of it,’ she added chidingly, ‘with the help of the devil. That’s the postulancy.’

  Something inside her had denied the reality of that stark threat. When she went back the front door would be innocent oak again.

  I’M COMING. It glared out still, only faintly muted by daylight.

  ‘Photographs, fingerprints if any, a close look at the surrounding ground and then you can scrub it off,’ he instructed the constable.

  ‘Right, sir.’ The officer gave the impression of rolling up his sleeves.

  ‘We can boil hot water on the primus stove,’ Sister Joan said. ‘For the scrubbing, I mean. There’s no electricity.’

  ‘Very quaint and medieval. No lock either, I see.’ He watched her open the front door.

  ‘We draw the bolt last thing at night. There’s nothing here to steal.’

  ‘Was anything taken?’ he asked as they stepped into the passage.

  ‘Didn’t Mother Dorothy say? Sister Hilaria’s spiritual diary had been pushed under her bed and nearly half the pages in it torn out.’

  ‘Well take a look round. There seems a decided lack of home comforts.’

  ‘Home comforts are not regarded as particularly desirable in the postulancy,’ she said demurely. ‘This is the recreation room – for the first two years the novices join the main community only for chapel and meals. This is the study. This is the meditation room where they examine their consciences, attempt to come to grips with a Reality greater than the reality we know, and this is the kitchen. The door leads into the alley and, as far as I know, is never locked.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with the constable. Give me a moment.’ He opened the back door using only the tips of his fingers and went out.

  It seemed odd, unnatural to see a man, to hear a male voice in this virgin sanctuary. For all his friendly tact the detective was out of place. And his being here at all was due to the malicious, faceless person who had intruded. A slow, quiet anger was building in her, quite different from the usual bubbling indignation that could be relieved by a short burst of temper.

  ‘I’ll have to take a look round upstairs,’ he said, returning. ‘No obvious signs of entry anywhere so far, but your community’s idea of security makes me shudder. When this is cleared up I’m sending our security officer here to teach you a bit about crime prevention.’

  ‘Mother Dorothy won’t let him within a mile of the place,’ she warned, starting up the narrow stairs.

  ‘Trust is a fine quality,’ he argued, ‘but times change, Sister. Even here in this quiet place there are burglaries, break-ins …’

  ‘And murders,’ she finished. ‘We’re not fools, Detective Sergeant Mill, but if we have to start surrounding ourselves with burglar alarms and spyholes and trip-wires and the Lord knows what else then we lose something from our communal life, something precious. Don’t you see?’

  ‘You’re talking about naïvety.’

  ‘I’m talking about innocence. These are the six cells for the novices, with Sister Hilaria’s cell at the end next to the bathroom.’

  Entering, he stood for a moment in silence, looking round. Then he said, ‘I take it that the cells are all furnished in the same way?’

  ‘Yes they are. A few are slightly larger than others.’

  ‘And you were deputizing for Sister Hilaria here last night?’

  ‘I’ve been doing lay sister duties since my return,’ she explained, ‘but as Sister Hilaria is in hospital I took her place.’

  ‘Lay duties?’ One eyebrow jerked upward. ‘Does that mean you’ve been demoted?’

  ‘It means that now that the school has been closed I have no regular uses so I get moved about a bit. I suppose that makes for a bit of excitement.’

  ‘Scintillating,’ he said dryly.

  ‘Anyway, I brought the two novices over here last evening after the final blessing and we went straight to our cells. Shortly afterwards I noticed that Sister Hilaria’s spiritual diary wasn’t on the shelf – we all keep our diaries there. On the shelf in our own cells, I mean. I looked round for it and found it under the bed. After I took it up I realized that nearly half the pages had been ripped out.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know what they might have contained, I suppose?’

  ‘Of course not. Spiritual diaries are very personal things. Sometimes the diary of a novice might be read, as an example to others perhaps, but of a professed nun, never.’

  ‘So you took it to the prioress?’

  ‘This morning,’ Sister Joan said, ‘and she won’t allow you to read it. Sister Hilaria will be able to help you when she regains consciousness.’

  ‘And meanwhile “someone” is coming,’ he said without expression.

  She shivered, her blue eyes clouding.

  ‘I heard a stone crack beneath someone’s foot just below my window. I found the torch and went into the passage and then I turned back to put on my dressing-gown and slippers. Then I went downstairs.’

  ‘To the front door?’

  She shook her head. ‘To the kitchenette and then through the back door and along the alley to the front. I switched on my torch and held the beam low and then I saw the luminous paint on the front door.’

  ‘And what time would that be?’

  ‘The grand silence begins at 9.30. It would have been a few minutes after ten. I’m afraid I neglected to look at my watch.’ She indicated the neat fob pinned to her grey scapular.

  ‘And you didn’t run to the main house to inform anyone?’

  ‘It was the grand silence,’ she said. ‘Nobody was in danger of death or anything like that. I couldn’t leave Sister Elizabeth and Sister Marie here by themselves and I couldn’t have woken them and frightened them for so little reason. I came back into the postulancy.’

  ‘All very commendable and in accordance with the rules,’ he said. ‘It never entered your head that someone might have crept back and murdered the three of you in your beds?’

  ‘Oh no they wouldn’t,’ she said triumphantly, ‘because I sat at the top of the stairs all night with the heavy torch.’

  For the first time since she had known him he put back his head and roared with laughter. Hearty, unashamed, masculine laughter that made the prim walls dance
and shimmer.

  ‘I may be small,’ she said with dignity, ‘but I’m really quite tough.’

  ‘Exceedingly tough,’ he agreed, grinning broadly. ‘Yes, Sister, I can see that.’

  ‘Is there anything else you need to know, Detective Sergeant Mill?’ she asked, concealing her own mirth.

  ‘Not at the moment, Sister. We’ll leave the constable to finish off here and walk back to the main building. I was promised a cup of tea.’

  ‘And I have my own duties to perform.’ She led the way downstairs.

  ‘We’ll need prints taken from Sister Hilaria’s cell,’ he said when they were outside again. ‘Not that I expect any joy. I’ll get through on the car radio and have them send an extra man along to get the job done. Excuse me, Sister.’

  He went over to the constable who was scrubbing vigorously at the paint. Flakes of it clung to his uniform and his face was scarlet with exertion.

  Sister Joan folded her hands within the wide cuffs of her sleeves and walked on across the waste ground and into the tennis court. It was cold with the coming of winter on the wind. Somehow it chimed with the chill that had gripped her mood. Someone had strangled two young girls. Someone had knocked down Sister Hilaria and torn up part of her spiritual diary and then sneaked back to paint a warning on the door. What exercised her mind was whether or not the same person was involved in all these actions. On the face of it there was no connection at all, but the alternative – that more than one person lived in the vicinity and was sufficiently unbalanced to perform such acts – was a terrifying one. Suddenly the enclosure seemed not a refuge but a place as vulnerable as anywhere else.

  ‘Have you any word of Sister Hilaria?’ Detective Sergeant Mill asked, catching her up. ‘I haven’t rung the hospital this morning. I was about to do so when your prioress rang.’

  ‘Mother Dorothy rang up and they said she was still unconscious.’ Her tone held pain.