The unpleasant business that had brought her to Cornwall House in the first place had been solved, neatly tidied up and sorted away in the method of convents.
‘Sometimes,’ said Sister Gabrielle, tapping her way to the table and sitting down on the chair there, ‘it helps to talk about things.’
‘This nightmare isn’t for talking about,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Then it probably concerns a member of the opposite sex,’ the old lady said. ‘In my young days the tribe caused me plenty of nightmares, I can tell you. It was a relief to be rid of the creatures. How old are you?’
Age was not important when one was no longer in the world. One counted the years from the time one made one’s profession.
‘Thirty-six,’ Sister Joan said meekly.
‘Too young for the menopause and too old for girlish moonings,’ Sister Gabrielle observed. ‘An old lover, was he?’
‘We thought about getting married,’ Sister Joan said, aware that in talking of her secular life she was breaking another strict rule.
‘And he jilted you,’ Sister Gabrielle said.
‘He did not!’ Sister Joan’s dark blue eyes flashed indignantly. ‘He was Jewish and he wanted his children to be Jewish which meant that I’d have to convert or there wouldn’t be any marriage.’
‘A difficult choice.’ The old nun spoke with a genuine sympathy. ‘Judaism is a fine and strong faith. Otherwise I am sure Our Blessed Lord would have chosen to be born into some other tradition. So you parted.’
‘I found out that I had a different vocation,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I think that I was finding it out even before Jacob and I split up. It wasn’t a case of rushing into a convent to hide a broken heart.’
‘It very seldom is,’ Sister Gabrielle said dryly, ‘though to hear some people talk you’d imagine convents were stuffed full of broken hearted women — those that weren’t perverts, that is.’
‘Sister Gabrielle!’
‘Oh, how the old can shock the young when they speak their minds,’ the other mocked gently. ‘I was twenty-three when I entered the religious life and I didn’t spend all the years before wrapped up in cotton wool. Though we weren’t as frank about things in those days. So now suddenly you begin to dream about your young man.’
‘I was standing on a railway platform and an endless train was rushing past with Jacob’s face at every window,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I wasn’t wearing my habit, Sister.’
‘You mean you were naked. Don’t be mealy-mouthed.’
‘Yes.’
‘In dreams trains can represent life itself moving on.’ Sister Gabrielle laced her fingers together over the Knob of her walking stick. ‘What happened to your Jacob after you split up?’
‘I don’t know. He went off and married someone else, I suppose.’
‘His life moved on without you. At your choice, but still—’
‘I was stark naked,’ Sister Joan said, blushing at the memory.
‘Without defences.’ The old woman pondered for a moment more, then said, ‘I think your subconscious is telling you something, something that frightens you, makes you vulnerable. Can you think of anything that’s happened recently to cause it?’
‘Not a thing.’ Sister Joan was frowning. ‘Everything is chugging along nicely at the moment. Even the children are being good — astonishingly so.’
‘A sure sign that something’s brewing. When you go into school on Monday have a closer look at your little angels. And pray for your old friend. Send him good thoughts.’
‘Thank you, Sister.’
She would have liked to reach out and hold the old hand for a moment but physical contact was forbidden save on public, ceremonial occasions.
‘Now I shall go back to bed,’ Sister Gabrielle said, rising heavily. ‘Between us we have broken almost every rule tonight, I imagine — include the grand silence.’ She went out again, her stick slowly tapping.
Sister Joan waited a moment, resisting the temptation to offer help that would be proudly rejected, and then went out herself into the hall. Sleep had fled, a rare occurrence since she generally slept like a log. A white night was best coloured in with prayer. She glided across the hall and opened the door which led into the chapel wing.
Here was the antechamber with a door leading into the nuns’ half of the visitors’ parlour. At the other side of the grille was space for the visitor and a side door. A corridor with windows along one side led past the parlour into the private chapel. Dim lamps burned at intervals and in the chapel itself the sanctuary lamp glowed with a steady blue flame. At the side, steps twisted up to the library and store rooms above. Sister David was combining the jobs of librarian and sacristan at the moment, scurrying from one task to the other with her rabbit nose twitching, enjoying every second of it.
Sister Joan went to her own place and knelt, fixing her eyes on the carved altar with its star-shaped monstrance, the twin candlesticks, and Communion-cup. The Tarquin family had been wealthy once, able to maintain their own chaplain. Now the chapel had come into its own again, lovingly polished by Sister David, with flowers arranged by Sister Martha whose delicate hands could not only work wonders with leaf and stem but also regularly wielded shovel and hoe and carted compost.
Balance, thought Sister Joan, is the essence of normality: yin and yang; silver and gold; night and day; man and woman. The religious life, by its very nature, was not balanced. She lived in a female atmosphere with only old Father Malone to supply a dash of masculinity when he chatted briefly with the Sisters over a cup of tea after Mass or Benediction. And Father Malone was no Rhett Butler. She bit back an irreverent grin and bowed her head, giving herself up to the silent companionship of the unseen that flowed through the quiet chapel. At least — at most
