‘You cannot possibly expect to get round all the parents in one evening,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘It would be far too tiring for Sister Margaret.’
‘Sister Margaret?’ Sister Joan looked surprised.
‘Sister Margaret will naturally accompany you.’ The Prioress looked surprised in her turn. ‘My dear child, you didn’t fancy that you were going to gallop alone round the neighbourhood like some latter-day Paul Revere, did you?’
Sister Joan, who had fancied something of the sort, blushed.
‘Sister Margaret will drive you wherever you wish to go, but I would advise splitting the visits into two evenings or you will never be back by eight o’clock.’
‘Nuns,’ Jacob had once said, ‘go everywhere in pairs, like cruets.’
‘I wouldn’t want to inconvenience Sister Margaret,’ she said.
‘Sister Margaret will be very pleased,’ Mother Dorothy said firmly. ‘She loves driving the car and a round of visits will be a real treat for her. Just check with her as to when it will suit her best. I would advise as soon as possible. When one has envisaged a somewhat ambitious project it is always sensible to get the basic details fixed firmly as quickly as is practical.’
Resigned to being one half of a cruet Sister Joan duly consulted Sister Margaret whose round face beamed with pleasure.
‘What a treat! The little bits and pieces you tell us about the children are so interesting that it will be a real delight to meet the parents. And driving at night is such an adventure, isn’t it? When I took my test the instructor said that everybody ought to get some experience of twilight driving, so this is a marvellous opportunity.’
‘You’d have done better to suggest that I drive you,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘That way you’d be sure of getting there and back in one piece. However, I shall have a tot of brandy for shock ready in the infirmary when you get back.’
Her freckled white face flushed with laughter as she presented her witticism. Sister Joan, refraining from reminding everybody that she was a perfectly competent driver, also refrained from warning any of her pupils about the intending visit. She had a fancy to see the parents of Samantha Olive before they had composed their faces into the expression with which most lay people greeted nuns.
‘Where are we to go first, Sister Joan? I am entirely at your disposal.’ Sister Margaret beamed at her as they sat in the shabby old jalopy that did duty as convent car.
Sister Joan glanced at the list she had made.
‘I thought we might go to the Lees and the Smiths first,’ she said.
‘Oh, that will be very pleasant. Such a nice drive over the moors in the late afternoon.’
Sister Margaret bent eagerly to the ignition and an instant later the car shot backwards.
‘Wrong gear,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘So fortunate there wasn’t anybody standing behind us. Our Dear Lord is so good in little matters like that.’
Sister Joan hoped fervently that He would continue to be good as Sister Margaret drove with gay abandon down the drive and turned on to the track. How she had passed her test was a miracle in itself.
The Romanies camped, when they were not on their annual travelling, on a high, flat stretch of ground past which an unexpected river meandered lazily to lose itself in a deep quiet pool fringed with willow. The camp itself was rather less romantic, being a mélange of cooking smells and barking dogs and piles of old tin cans, spring mattresses, kettles, iron rails and similar junk, all due to be sorted, loaded and sold to scrap merchants.
‘Why, how nice! Here is Padraic,’ Sister Margaret said, drawing up with a fine flourish that sent half a dozen chickens squawking wildly in several directions.
‘Who?’ Sister Joan asked, puzzled.
Her query was answered, not in words, but by the arrival of Mr Lee who loped over to open the door and assist Sister Margaret out with as much ceremony as if she were a visiting duchess.
‘Well now, ain’t this a treat! Two holy ladies at once and just in time for a mug of tea. Children not been getting up to anything, I hope?’
‘No, on the contrary,’ Sister Joan said quickly. ‘They’ve been very good recently. I came to discuss a school project I have in mind to do for which I may need some help from the parents.’
‘Any help I can give.’ But he looked slightly uneasy. ‘Not that I was ever very much at the education. I says to my two girls — “Get education and then the world’s your own”. Doing all right then, are they?’
‘Tabitha is starting to read very prettily,’ Sister Joan assured him, ‘and Edith has a lovely singing voice. Of course they’re both still very young but I have high hopes of them. Even though they’re little I’m sure that they can contribute to the project. I thought perhaps they could make some little raffia baskets, dried flower posies, traditional Romany crafts. The project is to be a history of the district, you see.’
‘We buy plastic bags in the supermarket,’ Padraic said, looking alarmed. ‘More modern, you see.’
‘Perhaps their mother—?’ Sister Joan began.
‘Well now, the wife isn’t too grand these days.’ He looked more uncomfortable. ‘Not up to doing the chores or taking the interest she should. But if you want dead flowers and raffia baskets then those you shall have. Ain’t nothing too good for them dear Sisters.’
‘As I well know,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘I have so much cause to be grateful to you, Padraic.’
‘What’s a bit of fish between friends, eh, Sister Margaret?’ He dug her in the ribs with his elbow, a gesture that would have been intensely painful had not her ribs been so well cushioned.
‘We
