St. Peter's Finger

“I should like to speak, not to Ulrica, but to somebody else in her form,” Mrs. Bradley said. Mother Cyprian nodded.

“An excellent idea,” she agreed. “I think it is time that Ulrica was cleared of all suspicion of knowing anything about her cousin’s death.”

At this Mrs. Bradley, who had supposed her secret thoughts to be hers alone, positively started with surprise. Mother Cyprian smiled very slightly.

“But, of course, we have all thought what you think,” she remarked. “Was she not the heiress, if her cousin should die? And, behold, her cousin did die.”

To say that Mrs. Bradley was taken aback by this candid statement would be to speak less than the truth. So the Community had considered murder! They had even put a name to the murderer, which was more than she herself so far had done.

Mother Cyprian smiled with seeming guilelessness. Mrs. Bradley had the helpless feeling that, even if she stayed in the convent for the rest of her life—and her parents had averaged eighty-seven point nine four years, and her grandparents, counting all four of them, just over fifty—she would never understand the workings of the minds of the religious, either individually or as a community.

She sat, and pondered, and scribbled, and Mother Cyprian took up needle and silks, and commenced another piece of embroidery, already backed, this time, because it was on velvet.

Until eight o’clock they sat there, and then Mother Cyprian put her work away, turned out the lamp and lighted the candles. Then she stood still beside the door as the Mother Superior, followed by most of the Community, entered the room. It was the hour of recreation before the De Profundis bell at nine.

Mrs. Bradley was interested to find out how the recreation hour would be spent by the nuns, but thought it incumbent upon her to leave them to their devices. They welcomed her presence, however, and asked her to stay, so she seated herself in a corner, took out her note-book and busied herself—or appeared to busy herself—while they took their places at the great, semicircular, deeply polished table and took out darning, mending and patching. This they had brought in calico bags tied with tape.

The fire glowed strongly and brightly red, the yellow candlelight doubly-lined the faces of the older nuns, and gave more than their due of beauty to the smooth soft cheeks of the younger. It pleased Mrs. Bradley to do nothing but sit there and watch them. They were a fine and comforting picture, for the older nuns had the largeness of aunts in her childhood; the beautiful nuns were like Virgins stepped out of their frames. They sat so still, except for their busy fingers, and their calm, fresh faces were so smooth, benign and comely, that they made a group for a painter, and Mrs. Bradley’s one regret was that her nephew Carey Lestrange could not be there. With keen pleasure, seated in the shadows, she watched them, aware of a faint nostalgia, aware of sadness and a most curious feeling of envy.

Then they talked with her—Mother Simon-Zelotes discussing Mendel’s theories, and the others (heads nodding, Mother Amrose’s long nose twitching with militant zeal, Mother Timothy’s false teeth gleaming more bone-like than whited bones under the moon), making good use, as they were expected to do, of the hour of recreation. Mrs. Bradley, discussing Mendel, the Spanish war, a bye-election in the Midlands, plain-song, electric fires, watched the age-sharpened, delicate profile of the gentle-voiced Mother Superior and Mother Francis’ sharp eyes; mused on the loveliness of Mother Benedict, the youthfulness of Mother Mary-Joseph, the cherubity of Mother Jude and the charitable brow and large, fine, craftsman’s hands of Mother Simon-Zelotes as she sketched swift diagrams of pea seeds, and talked about blue eyes in rabbits, and negroid characteristics as a Mendelian dominant.

There came a tap at the door, and, in response to a quiet reply from the Mother Superior, a little girl, about eight years old, came in and stood, with her hands behind her back, opposite the centre of the table.

“Well, Kathleen?” said Mother Francis, from the Mother Superior’s left. Kathleen, it appeared, was prepared to recite to the nuns, and, encouraged by the Mother Superior, began in a big, bold voice, got stuck half-way, was prompted by the young nun Mother Mary-Joseph, and finished gamely, rather fast, but remembering the rest of the words.

“Thank you, Kathleen,” said the Mother Superior, nodding. The child came round the table to her side, and the old woman kissed her gently, blessed her, and commended her for the night to the keeping of God.

This ritual was repeated six or seven times with different children, and apparently was a feature of school life to which the boarders were accustomed. When the children had all gone to bed, Mother Benedict read aloud, in a clear, grave voice, a chapter from the life of the founder of the Order.

Then the Mother Superior turned to Mrs. Bradley, who had long since put away her note-book.

“My friend…?” she said; and left the whole of the sentence a question. Mrs. Bradley rose, under the eyes of all the Community, and came to the centre of the table. Mother Mary-Joseph from the right-hand end of the semi- circular arc, brought up a straight-backed chair. Mrs. Bradley thanked her, and sat down. There was the kind of expectant hush to which she had grown accustomed, and scarcely noticed, but to a sensitive stranger it would have seemed as though the nuns were all holding breath, and that in the air was a tension as keenly stretched as the string of a violin; but Mrs. Bradley spoke briskly, and without hesitation or preamble.

“I have found out nothing of importance, but I think that both Mary Maslin and Ulrica Doyle should be sent to their homes,” she said.

“To their respective homes?” asked Mother Francis. “But Ulrica has no home, except with her aunt, Mrs. Maslin. She usually spends her holidays here, at the school. Otherwise there is the grandfather in New York.”

“They ought not to go together,” said Mrs. Bradley.

There was no movement among the nuns. They sat as still as carved wooden figures in their high-backed, uncushioned chairs, while the surface of the deeply polished table reflected the candle-light and the flashing of Mother Cyprian’s steel needles, for Mother Cyprian, alone of the Community, had continued her work after Mrs. Bradley had spoken. The atmosphere had changed, although not a sister had moved. It was as though she had shouted loudly, and they were all listening to the fading away of the echoes. Peace was gone, and she felt like a bird of ill-omen, and looked the part, too, with her yellow skin and brilliant eyes, and her mocking, crocodile grin. It was almost as though the devil had got into the Common Room. The candlelight accentuated her ugliness as it did the beauty of Mother Benedict and the white hands, made smaller by contrast with the wide heavy sleeves of their habits, of young Mother Mary-Joseph and red-lipped Mother Francis. The only one of the Community whom Nature permitted to keep Mrs. Bradley in countenance, was the old nun Mother Bartholomew, the ex-actress Rosa Cardosa, who retained, in the religious life, the marked features, the mobile, expressive mouth, the raddled complexion and the endearing, extravagant gestures of the profession she had outgrown. Discipline, however, had imposed its iron gag even upon Mother Bartholomew, and, although her eyes spoke clearly, her tongue made no remark. In fact, the dead silence, by its very continuation, soon became slightly uncanny, until, at a sign from the Superior, the black-