girls, Bessie and Annie, to bring some towels from the airing cupboard, as I could not see any in the bathroom, although, later on, one was found beneath the bathroom stool. It was wet, as though it had fallen into the water by accident, and had been wrung out.”
“At first, did you not think it very odd to find no towel?” asked Mrs. Bradley.
“I should have found it incredible,” Mother Ambrose replied, in her deep voice, “if children were reasoning beings. I doubt whether they are. The apparent absence of towels did not surprise me. When we had rolled the child in the towels that were brought, we carried her into the nearest bedroom, and, leaving Miss Bonnet and Sister Saint Jude to attempt artificial respiration, I telephoned for the doctor.”
“May I have his name and address?”
Mother Ambrose gave them, and continued:
“All efforts to resuscitate the child failed. Miss Bonnet then volunteered to acquaint Sister Saint Francis with what had happened, but Sister Saint Jude and I thought it better that the news should be delivered by one of us. In the meantime, Annie, acting on my instructions, had cleared up in the bathroom, and had found a saturated towel.”
She closed her lips and indicated by her bearing that nothing else presented itself to her mind as having any immediate bearing upon the subject under scrutiny. Mrs. Bradley finished writing and then turned to Mother Jude, who had stood by, silent as a Rubens’ picture, as clear, as fair, as motionless, whilst the other nun had been speaking.
“I must ask you, Mother Saint Jude,” she said, “to corroborate or contradict what Mother Saint Ambrose has said.”
The little nun beamed.
“I can corroborate every word,” she said, “except with regard to the towels. As soon as Bessie came into the kitchen I knew that something was wrong. I thought it was the dining-room fireplace again, and I was vexed, because we had it done in the autumn and it was very, very expensive. We had to instal the portable gas-fire while the work was being carried on. I did not see how the guest-house was going to balance its books if the fireplace had to be done again so soon. All Bessie would say was ‘Come!’ So I gathered up my habit and I
Mrs. Bradley grinned sympathetically. It was easy and pleasant to imagine little, rotund Mother Jude, with her full skirts gathered in her hand, sprinting from the kitchen to the gatehouse, and through the archway round to the guest-house door.
“There’s just one other thing,” she said, “before we come to the towels. Was the window open, Mother Saint Ambrose, when you first went in?”
“Indeed it was. Wide open. I was startled. It seemed immodest.”
“Ah, yes. And talking of that—is it true that you get the children to cover themselves with a sheet or shift, or such, when they take a bath?”
“It is the custom,” replied Mother Ambrose. “There was no such covering on the child, or visible in the bathroom,” she added immediately.
“The people who stay in the guest-house—”
“I cannot say. Coverings are provided, and are always served out by the maids. Whether they are always used I cannot tell. They are usually wetted to make it appear that they have been used.”
“Tactful,” said Mrs. Bradley. “People have very nice natures, more’s the pity.”
The nuns made no verbal reply to this remark, although Mother Jude’s eyes twinkled. Mrs. Bradley wrote again, and then asked:
“Can either of you tell me anything about the dead child herself? I take it that such an exploit as stealing into the guest-house during school hours and taking a bath would be regarded by the girls as a highly daring proceeding?”
“It would be so regarded,” Mother Ambrose agreed, after a moment’s thought.
“It has been done once before, and once only, so far as we know,” supplemented Mother Jude. “A girl called O’Donovan did it in 1925, when the guesthouse was one-third its present size. She did it because she was dared, but she was found out because she was obliged to call for help. The key broke off in the lock, and the girl, having had the bath, could not get out of the bathroom again.”
She broke off to laugh. Mrs. Bradley regarded her with affection.
“It has been a permanent ‘dare’ in the school since then,” Mother Ambrose contributed after a pause. “It grieves me to have to tell you these things,” she added, with a fleeting glance of immense disapproval directed towards Mother Jude, “but we are all under obedience to assist this enquiry in any way that presents itself. Your questions guide me to tell you that the girl in question was expelled.”
“She is now,” Mother Jude interpolated neatly, “a Franciscan nun, doing missionary and medical work in South India.”
“What is the nature of the ‘dare’?” enquired Mrs. Bradley. “Merely to take the bath?”
“There is a condition attached. The girl who dares another must first have performed the feat,” replied Mother Jude.
“You throw new light, so far as I am concerned,” said Mrs. Bradley, “upon the mentality of children educated in convent schools.”
“Children vary very little,” said Mother Jude, with her blissful, charitable smile.
“I suppose that the child’s clothing was found in the bathroom,” Mrs. Bradley observed.
“Oh, yes. And in such a state! Tops torn out of both her good black woollen stockings, one suspender broken, the neck of her vest torn and the tape knotted and broken. Sister Genevieve, who acts as matron to the boarders, was horrified when she saw the state the clothes were in. She said that she had never known Ursula Doyle to be so careless and destructive, and would not have believed she could tear and damage her clothes, and soil her good
