‘We’d love to but we really haven’t time,’ Sister Joan said with what she hoped sounded like real regret. ‘As long as you think the project might be interesting—?’
‘Oh, I’m sure. Yes indeed, Sister. I’m afraid everything’s a bit untidy right now. I really can’t think where Hagar can have got to.’
She looked round again as if she expected her daughter to materialize along with the tea.
‘As long as we can count on you,’ Sister Joan said with equal vagueness.
‘I was scared you was the attendance man,’ Ginny Smith confided, coming almost to the bottom of the steps. ‘Conrad’s been coming regular, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, very regularly,’ Sister Joan assured her, ‘but we shall have to talk some time about his going to the Bodmin School. Petroc will be going there next term so he won’t be alone. And Hagar of course is twelve now and also ought to be going into Bodmin.’
‘I thought as how you wanted to talk about the project,’ Ginny Smith said.
‘Yes, that’s the main thing. But the other—’
‘I’d not dream of doing anything without my Jeb’s approval,’ the other said firmly. ‘When he gets home, Sister, then we’ll see about Bodmin.’
‘Yes.’
There was no point in arguing, Sister Joan decided. Mrs Smith was obsessed with the hope that her errant husband would come wandering home, and couldn’t be bothered with anything else, It was possible that he might, of course, but if he had any instincts of fastidiousness at all the inside of his caravan would soon send him off again.
‘Nice talking to you, Mrs Smith,’ she said brightly. ‘We’d better be going now.’
‘Yes, well — if you call again my Jeb’ll likely be home,’ Ginny Smith said, with a desperate little clutch at her sagging dress. ‘Goodnight, Sister.’ She had turned back up the unpainted wooden steps before there was time for a reply.
‘That seems to be that,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Yes indeed.’ Sister Margaret’s round face was shadowed. ‘How fortunate we are, Sister Joan, not to love where love is not returned. Did you want to see anyone else?’
‘That’s the lot. I would like to have had a word with Hagar though. She ought to be given a nice, absorbing interest,’ Sister Joan answered thoughtfully.
‘You want no truck with young Hagar. Old Hagar can tell you what you want to know.’
The old, pipe smoking woman who had made the sign against the evil eye in their direction had left the steps of her wagon and approached them. Close to she was even older than at first appeared, her face monkey wrinkled, what showed of her scant hair from beneath the coloured scarf a dirty white. On her hands a number of very beautiful and incredibly dirty rings gleamed in the setting sun.
‘Are you also named Hagar?’ Sister Joan asked, resisting the temptation to take a step backwards.
‘Hagar Boswell,’ the old woman nodded. ‘The Boswells was royalty once — Romany royalty. You heard of the Boswells?’
‘Yes indeed. My name is Sister Joan and this is Sister Margaret. We are from—’
‘I knows where you’m from,’ the old woman interrupted impatiently. ‘That convent place where them old maids is locked up.’
‘On the contrary we choose the life.’ Sister Joan prepared to argue.
‘More fools you then,’ Hagar Boswell said contemptuously. ‘Young Hagar Smith’s off again, preparing herself for a bad end — she’s her dad in her that one. Feckless. We’ve troubles enough without a couple of nuns bringing bad luck here. Evil we’ve got. Evil crawling and creeping.’
‘Oh, I hardly think so,’ Sister Margaret began.
‘Oh, I hardly think so.’ The other mocked her in a high, bitter voice. ‘Wrapped in cottonwool like babes come afore their due date you lot be. There’s evil here. Black evil, my fine ladies. If you don’t believe me then walk on to the willows and you’ll see.’
Muttering angrily she drew her shawl about her and went off, her scarved head bobbing up and down.
‘She is possibly a little touched in the head,’ Sister Margaret said in a low voice.
‘Possibly.’ Sister Joan stared after the retreating figure for a moment, then added, ‘All the same I think we ought to stroll on towards the willows.’
‘To seek out evil?’ Sister Margaret looked nervous. ‘Dear Sister Joan, do you think that entirely wise? We are taught that evil seeks us constantly.’
‘Then perhaps we ought not to flee but turn and face it,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Of course you are right.’ Sister Margaret looked unhappy. ‘Or perhaps we may find the poor old lady is a little lacking in her wits. So sweet of her to bless us.’
‘Bless us?’ As they continued their walk Sister Joan looked at her companion in some perplexity.
‘That curious gesture she made with finger and thumb — a Roman blessing, I suppose, and all the while being really rather discourteous.’
‘A Romany blessing — yes,’ Sister Joan said.
They were approaching the circle of willow trees that screened the pool from any casual glance. The setting sun still made a glory of the sky but their shadows were long and thin behind them on the trampled grass, and the trees seemed to lean together, the young cages of their scarcely leaved branches stark against the landscape. Behind them lights had glowed forth in the windows of several caravans and the smell of cooking had grown stronger.
By mutual consent they had both fallen silent, their shoes quiet on the grass as it grew longer, starred with the pale lace of meadowsweet. At a little distance the splashing of water came to their ears. Sister Joan stepped on to a narrow path that wound down between the willows. At this point the trees were mixed with sturdy oak and ash, the latter trembled slightly as the rising wind caught its silvery leaves.
In the pool two figures were
