Against the far wall was a big, heavy chest with a stout-looking iron lock; oak, it might be, but varnished with a heavy hand over the years, so that its surface seemed sticky and repelled the light. I wonder what is in that chest, thought Fludd. Nuns’ requisites; now what would they be?
Tired of waiting, he shifted on his chair. The chest tempted him; his eyes were drawn to it, back and back again. He got up, froze in mid-movement as the chair creaked; then took courage, and crept across the room. He tested the lid of the chest, gingerly; it didn’t give. He shifted it an inch, to see how heavy it was: very.
There was a footstep behind him. He straightened up, smiling easily. Mother Perpetua cleared her throat—too late to give a friendly warning, but just in time to make a point—then crossed to the tall, narrow windows and drew the curtains. “Night’s drawing in,” she observed.
“Mm,” Fludd said.
“Our clothes,” Purpit said. She indicated the chest. “It is our clothes that we brought with us when we left the world. I keep the key.”
“About your person?”
Purpit declined to answer. “It is a responsibility,” she said, “overseeing the welfare of so many souls.”
“So you are both headmistress and superior of the convent, are you?”
Purpit tossed her veil, as if to say, who else could do it? Father Fludd studied the chest. “Could I look into it, do you think?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Is there some rule to forbid it?”
“I should think there is.”
“Is it your nature to assume so?”
“I must. Suppose the bishop were to find out?” Mother Perpetua came up behind him and stooped over the chest, proprietorially. Then she cast an eye up at him, sideways, from behind the jutting edge of her headdress. It was as if a blinkered horse had winked. “Still, Father, I suppose I might make an exception. I suppose I might be prevailed upon.”
“After all,” Fludd said, “there cannot be any harm in looking at empty clothes. And there must be some curious modes in that box.”
Perpetua patted the lid of the chest; she had a large hand, with prominent knuckles. “I could gratify you,” she said. “Your curiosity. After all …” She eased herself to the vertical, and let her eyes wander over him. “I suppose the bishop’s not likely to hear of it. If you don’t tell him, and I don’t.” She slid a hand into the folds of her robes, below the waist, and fumbled there, and presently drew out a large, old-fashioned iron key.
“It must be a weight for you to carry about,” Fludd observed.
“I can assure you, Father, it is the least of my burdens.” Mother Perpetua fitted the key into the lock. “Allow me,” Fludd said.
He wrestled with the lock. At first, no success. “It is not often opened,” Perpetua said. “Once a decade is as much. There are not many vocations these days.” Fludd knelt, and applied force; there was a grind, scrape, click, and it gave at last. He raised the lid of the chest with a slow reverence, as if he might find human remains within; which indeed, he thought, you might say that I do, for in this chest are the remains of all worldly vanities. Did not Ignatius himself compare those in religion to the dead, when he enjoined on them obedience, each to their very own Mother Perpetua? “Each one,” said the saint, “should give himself up into the hands of his superiors, just as a dead body allows itself to be treated in any way whatever.”
At once a powerful smell of mothballs rose up. “I’m not sure why we bother to preserve them whole,” Perpetua said. “It’s not as if anyone is going anywhere in them.”
Fludd reached into the chest and lifted up the topmost garment, letting it fall out of its folds. It was a little white muslin frock with a sailor collar, its wide skirt meant, he thought, just to clear the ankle. “Whose would this be?”
“I dare say Sister Polycarp’s. She always claimed a fondness for the Senior Service.”
The nun plunged her hand into the chest and brought out a pair of navy-blue shoes, with two-bar straps and waisted heels. Next came a navy-blue serge suit, of similar vintage, with a fitted waist and a bell-shaped skirt. “Who’s to know which is whose? Three came in together, more or less. They’re of an age. Now then—what about this hat?”
Father Fludd took it from her and stroked the felt, and pricked his fingers on the bunch of stubby, fierce-looking grey feathers.
“I can picture Sister Cyril in that. Or Sister Ignatius Loyola, either one. Oh, dear God.” Purpit gave a whoop of laughter. “Here’s their underthings all wrapped up. Here’s their corsets.”
There were three pairs of corsets rolled together: one Twilfit, two Excelsior. Fludd held them up, like a map of the world, and let them unroll with a clatter. Purpit giggled. “Oh, Father,” she said. “This is not for your eyes, I’m sure.”
She plunged her arm into the chest, ferreting around at the bottom. “Dear God,” she said, “a hobble skirt. Well, that takes care of the three of them.”
Father Fludd picked out a straw boater and turned it in his hands. It had a dark-blue ribbon.
“That must belong to Sister Anthony. She’s the oldest of all. This will be her tweed suit. Her summer tweed.” Purpit held it up against herself. “Well now, will you look at the size she was? Almost what she is now.”
He imagined Sister Anthony, a healthy creature with flushed cheeks, jumping down from a pony and trap, on the carriage-drive; the year, 1900. Mother Perpetua shook out a pair of silk combinations, with lace-trimmed legs and buttons down the front. “She must have fancied herself in these.”
“What happens,” Fludd asked, “if you are sent to another convent of the Order? Do your effects follow you about? Do you pack a case?”
