St. Peter's Finger

“How many letters did you write?” enquired Mrs. Bradley. There was no reply whilst Nancy struggled for control of her lips, which were dry with fright.

“One,” she replied at last.

“To whom did you send it?”

“To Mary Maslin. If you please, it was only in fun.”

“I believe that,” said Mrs. Bradley. “But it might have led to serious trouble, you know. As it is, it has been of considerable assistance to me, and so this is the last you will hear of it. Go away, child, and don’t write any more of the nasty, silly things. Get along with you.”

Nancy retired, and Mrs. Bradley addressed the assembled school.

“I want next all the girls who knew that Ursula Doyle was not in class on that Monday afternoon.”

There was barely a second’s hesitation; then the whole of the third form, seventeen of them, came forward, single file, and made a straight line in front of the platform. Most of them looked scared and guilty, as though they felt they were going to be blamed for what had happened.

“Where was she, then?” Mrs. Bradley enquired, whilst the school stood silent but excited. A girl wearing a badge stepped out of the line and said:

“We didn’t notice until we were ready for our lesson, and then we didn’t say anything, as her cousin wasn’t there either, and we thought they had both had special permission to be absent.”

“Ulrica Doyle, do you mean, was not in class either?”

“Yes. The two forms, ours and the fourth form, had music together that afternoon, and we thought— and we thought—”

“I see. Very well, girls, thank you. Now, the fourth form—where was Ulrica Doyle that afternoon?”

Thereupon ensued one of those dramatic interruptions which schoolgirls dream about, and of which schoolgirl literature is full. Ulrica Doyle herself, who had been driven to Mrs. Bradley’s home at Wandles Parva, came forward from the back of the hall, and looking even more pallid (from her self-inflicted injury, Mrs. Bradley supposed) than usual, said very calmly and distinctly:

“I spent that Monday afternoon in Church.”

“In Church?” Mrs. Bradley betrayed no surprise at her sudden appearance. It was almost as though she had expected it. Ulrica came up to the platform. Still very pale, she was, as usual, entirely self-possessed.

“Did anybody else know this?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

“No,” the girl replied, and a faint smile, such, Mrs. Bradley thought, in a moment of irritation, as martyrs probably wore, appeared at the corners of her mouth. “Oh, wait, though. One of the guest-house people came in. She saw me, I believe, and may remember.”

“But what made you go into Church?” Mrs. Bradley demanded, recollecting Mrs. Trust’s evidence.

“Saint Jeanne d’Arc,” the girl calmly replied.

“Voices?” said Mrs. Bradley sceptically, and with a considerable amount of distaste.

“You must believe what you choose,” said Ulrica, quietly and firmly, her pale face lifted and her nostrils quivering slightly. “I was under compulsion to spend the time in Church, and school rules no longer had meaning. I shall explain this to Mother Saint Francis as soon as the Voices give me leave.”

“Odd,” said Mrs. Bradley; but she was not referring to the girl’s last sentence, a fact which was patent to Ulrica but lost to the rest of her hearers, including Mother Francis. The nun, having promised to maintain a policy of rigid non-interference, was keeping silence, but her expression, to those who knew her—and even to Mrs. Bradley, who did not—boded no good to Ulrica, the embryo saint and martyr. Mother Francis was, in fact, as the girls remarked later on, positively seething with fury. At a nod from Mrs. Bradley she dismissed the school to their classrooms, but herself remained in the hall.

Mrs. Bradley fixed her black eyes on Ulrica.

“You will never make a nun if you disobey orders,” she said, “and your orders surely must be to attend lessons, and fit yourself, through education, for life. I have a certain amount of sympathy, always, with rebellion, but I shall be interested to know why you did not remain at my house until my son sent you over to your grandfather.”

“Saint Jeanne’s orders,” said the girl, speaking with a defiance none the less real because her voice remained quiet and her tone courteous, “were to disregard the orders of those who considered themselves her mental and spiritual superiors, and carry out orders from God. What would have happened to France if she had faltered?”

“How long did you stay in Church?” asked Mrs. Bradley. The abrupt question, cutting through an heroic daydream, apparently flustered the girl. She went very pale, turned suddenly crimson, and replied:

“I don’t know, exactly. The girls were not still in school when I came out, so I went to find Mother Saint Benedict to apologise to her for having missed her Latin lesson.”

“What about Mother Saint Gregory? Hadn’t you missed her music lesson as well?”

“I knew she wouldn’t have noticed I wasn’t there,” replied Ulrica, fixing a calm and fearless eye on Mother Francis. “Mother Saint Gregory is an artist. She is not conscious of other people, except in the mass and dimly. She also is very short-sighted.”

“What had Mother Saint Benedict to say?” asked Mrs. Bradley, amused to think that artistry and shortsightedness should appear to be the same thing.

“I discovered, before I could confess to my absence from her lesson, that she had not missed me, either. She had taken the double class, while Mother Saint Dominic was at the dentist’s, and had set some translation, and had gone round the class to help the slow ones.”

“You were never a slow one?”