St. Peter's Finger

“I dunno,” said the little maid cautiously, treating this date with respect. “But the name of the people is Waller, and they live in one of they little bungalows just this side of Hiversand Bay, and for why should they take their child away and send her to a school all that way off, if there wasn’t sommat nasty going on? More tea? I’ll pour it. Happen you might have an accident, awkward like, if you pours it out settin’ up in bed.” She poured out the tea with motherly good nature and then went to the window and looked out.

“Some of they lads over Brinchcommon way enjoyed theirself Saturday night when they had a couple of beers or so inside ’em,” she volunteered, turning her head.

“You mean they made a demonstration?”

“Ah, I should just say they did. Oh, it were a mess up there at the convent, too; and rude words writ on the gate, and dirt put into the letter-boxes, and songs sung and all of them yowling like wolves. Would a-frit me into a fit if I’d been there. We could hear it, too, from this house, and that’s a mile away, and see the sky rockets, nearly a hundred of ’em, all of ’em yowling like wolves,” pursued the little maid, composing the hooligans and the sky-rockets into an Elizabethan medley of fire and terror. “But then, come yesterday early morning, all the mess was cleared up, and you wouldn’t have known, bar a couple of windows broken, that anybody went there that night. Wonderful tidy the nuns are, and Tom Shillen asleep in his bed, and nobody able to wake him to put on his helmet and go and owst they lads. Be you going to eat that toast? Another cup? I’ll take it all off of you, then, and you can have a nice half-hour before you needs to get up. Breakfast don’t be before nine.”

Hiversand Bay, Mrs. Bradley discovered, exploring by car a little later, was reached by a secondary road which branched off north and a point by east across the moors and avoided the convent which was left away to the west. The small seaside resort was still in process of development, and most of the houses and bungalows not directly facing the sea were not finished or else still for sale. The shops, small, single-fronted lock-ups, were new, for the most part, too, and enquiry at the first of them, a butcher’s, produced the exact address of the Wallers.

Mrs. Waller was at home, and the little maid who opened the door left Mrs. Bradley on the front doorstep whilst she went in search of her mistress. In a minute both came to the door.

“Says she would be glad of a word,” Mrs. Bradley heard, as they came from the kitchen towards her. Then the little maid retreated, and Mrs. Bradley was left face to face with the lady of the house. Mrs. Waller was a large, benevolent woman in horn-rimmed glasses which, at the moment, were clouded by kitchen steam. She removed them, revealing kindly, protruding eyes.

“I can’t think who you are, but come in, do,” she said with brisk hospitality. “Everybody comes to see us now we live near the sea. You’ll have to excuse the house. You know what it is, Monday mornings.”

“I ought to tell you,” said Mrs. Bradley, “that I am not proposing to claim acquaintance with you, Mrs. Waller. In fact I can make no possible claim at all, either on your time or your hospitality.”

“Oh, I don’t want to buy anything,” said Mrs. Waller, looking disappointed.

“No, I have nothing to sell. I had hoped to get some information from you, that is all.”

“Oh—you mean about taking Ellie away from the convent?”

“It can’t be as easy as this,” thought Mrs. Bradley.

But it was. Mrs. Waller had had the reporters and she had loved them. Even when she knew that Mrs. Bradley did not write for the papers she was still interested in her visit, and took her into the drawing room and produced, with the little maid’s help, various “elevenses,” including a wine cocktail ready mixed and purchased in bottle, biscuits, chocolates, sherry, small home-made cakes and a bottle of ginger wine.

“Of course, I don’t say I welcome it, poor child, but if I’ve said to Stanley once that a convent wasn’t the place for Ellie, I’ve said so ninety-nine times. You see it isn’t though we’re Catholics, and she’ll learn all the deportment, and all the French, too, that she’s ever likely to need, at Kelsorrow High School. I said, too, that she needs her games, does Ellie, and although the convent grounds are very lovely, it’s hardly like hockey and cricket.”

“And so, when you heard of that poor child’s death, you removed your daughter from the school?”

“Well, what do you think? She came home full of it. ‘Oh, mother,’ she said, ‘whatever do you think? A girl called Doyle—not Ulrica Doyle, but her cousin, Ursula Doyle—has committed suicide at school, and Ulrica, who’s quite old—in the Fourth Form—had hysterics and had to be taken to the sick-room by Mother Francis.’ It was just like one of those horrid things in the papers. Well, of course, this has been in the papers. I gave five or six interviews myself. ‘You ought to be on the films, mother,’ Ellie said.”

“Are you sure that Ellie mentioned suicide on the very day it happened?“ asked Mrs. Bradley.

“That was the story that all the girls had got hold of. Strange it should turn out right. I always say to Stanley that children know more than we think. According to Ellie, this girl was never in trouble at school, and last week she had done something wrong—most unusual for her—and the nuns, or some of them, were angry. She was such a sensitive little thing, it seems—no parents, and her old grandfather in America with all that money to leave—it really does seem most sad. So Stanley withdrew all his arguments, and the High School had a place because a girl went back to India— a little Indian girl—always wore the native dress, so pretty, isn’t it, and graceful?—so down went Ellie, on their books, and this morning off she goes on her bicycle to Kelsorrow, just as pleased as Punch. ‘I’m sick of that old convent, mother,’ she said. ‘The nuns are ever so sweet, but we only have Miss Bonnet four half-days a week, and the Kelsorrow girls get her all the rest of the time; and another physical training mistress full time as well.’ Miss Bonnet takes the physical training, you know. Stanley doesn’t agree with so much of it for girls, but, as for me, I love it. I go to Kelsorrow every week myself, for the League of Health and Beauty. It keeps me cheerful, and Ellie and I do all our practice together. ‘Oh, mother!’ she said, the first time she saw me in shorts. But now she’s got quite used to it.”

“I’m interested to hear that the girls themselves concluded that Ursula Doyle committed suicide. Were the punishments at the convent very severe?” Mrs. Bradley said, as Mrs. Waller sat back and sipped her drink.

“Well, I shouldn’t call them anything at all, and Ellie always said they made her hoot. Of course, she’s very non-suggestible. I mean, it’s the atmosphere does it. I mean, actually, I believe, they just lose a badge which all the good girls are entitled to wear, but it’s the atmosphere. And not being allowed to be in the processions, I believe, that’s another thing; and not being asked in to sing and recite to the nuns while they do their mending. ‘Good Lord, I shouldn’t want to,’ said Ellie’s little cousin when she came down here for Christmas, but Ellie, who, mind you, as I said, is simply most non-suggestible, said, ‘Oh, yes, you would want to. They make you want to want to, whether you want to or not.’ And, of course, they do creep about, and that always gets on children’s nerves, I think. I’ve always said to Ellie, ‘Make a noise. When you’re making a noise I know what’s happening. If you’re quiet you’re probably in mischief.’ And I never found myself far wrong.”

There seemed nothing more to glean, but Mrs. Bradley felt that to take too early a departure would be unkind.