Emma Higson was even more tiresome to listen to than Nurse Barrow, for Emma was of Welsh parentage, reared in London, whose Cockney speech was variegated by a Welsh lilt, the whole rendered more formidable by a veneer of Devonian idiom, picked up in eleven years’ association with Devonians.
“Her fell while her was watching water, that’s how ’twas,” said Hannah Barrow, sucking her false teeth back into place. “Her was unaccountable fond o’ that bridge, a thing I don’t rightly understand,” she went on, “but then Sister was a proper saint, not common earth such as you and me.” Her glance indicated that saintliness was very remote from the police force. “Herd pray for hours,” said Hannah reminiscently. “Terrible taken up with praying for us sinners was Sister.”
Peel got the conversation back to the topic of Sister Monica’s habit of wandering in the park after dark. “Iss, many a night she’d go out,” said Hannah. “Her said her could meditate proper when the world was all still and dark and nought to come between her and ‘her thoughts. ’Twas then she wrestled for righteousness,” she added, “and there’s no knowing the good she did a-communin’ with spirits and souls of the righteous, and if her was took in the midst of ’oly thoughts, it was all for the likes of us.”
“That’s as may be,” said Peel, and transferred his attention to the three young serving maids—Alice, Bessie, and Dot. Here he found the same unanimity of purpose. They had all heard Sister fall on the stairs and had rushed to see what had happened. She had been sitting with her head in her hands by the time they got into the hall, and she wouldn’t hear of having a doctor, like Nurse said she ought. “No, I’m not hurt, just shaken a little,” she said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t looking where I was going, and my foot slipped.”
“And I don’t wonder at it,” said Dot, who was the talkative one of the three abigails. “Look at the way Sister made us polish them stairs, fair glassy they are, and the lino’s old anyway and been polished for lifetimes. Then she wore them flat shoes about the house, soft shoes, so’s you never could hear her coming. But there, she was a saint, so it’s no use wondering she wasn’t like the rest of us.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Peel, and she looked at him for a second with a bright and unregenerate eye.
“Fifteen months. I shall be eighteen come Christmas.”
Peel knew what that meant. When she was eighteen Dot would be independent and able to choose her own job. “Are you girls happy here?” he asked.
It was a false move. Dot lowered her eyelids and clasped her hands and became a virtuous automaton again. “Ever so happy,” she said smugly. “Sister Monica was wonderful. It’ll never be the same again.”
It was Nurse Barrow who took Peel over the house, pointing out again and again how spotless it was, and frowning over the marks made on the polished linoleum by Peel’s damp and heavy boots. He knew the layout: the two dormitories where the children slept, with Sister Monica’s bedroom opening out of one dormitory and Nurse’s bedroom opening out of the other. Peel stood and stared at Sister Monica’s room: it was like a nun’s cell apart from its clutter of holy pictures and plaster angels. Whitewashed walls, a narrow iron bedstead, a chair, a little prayer desk, and a washstand and chest of drawers combined. That was all. He glanced into cupboard and drawers with Nurse’s disapproving eye upon him.
“Where did she do her writing?” he asked.
“In the office, downstairs. Sister said bedroom was for sleeping in, and her bedroom’s the same as ours. Same beds, same bedding. Never no luxuries for her.”
Peel saw again the rooms where the maids slept: two rooms, opening out of one another: the senior maid had a room to herself, the other two shared one, and Emma Higson’s room was next door, she being in control of the domestic staff. Peel remembered the maids’ rooms. They had narrow casement windows, with a stone mullion between the lights. At one time they had been barred, but orders had been given to remove the bars in case of fire, and a fire-escape ladder had been fixed at Sister Monica’s window. The room in which Nancy Bilton had been locked had a very narrow window, and Sister Monica had said in evidence that she had thought the window was too small for anybody to get out of. She had had little knowledge of the athletic abilities of girls today. Again and again Emma Higson gave voice to her own opinion about Sister Monica’s end. “Her turned dizzy, poor soul: fell backwards maybe and knocked herself silly and rolled into water.”
Peel sent her away after she had shown him the office, and he sat down and went through the contents of the desk, using the keys which had been on a ring in the pocket of Sister’s cloak. Everything was tidy and businesslike and in order. Neatly written books gave detailed descriptions of children who had been or were now
