‘She isn’t very practical,’ Sister Joan said, startled into candour.
‘Sister Hilaria lives already half in the next world,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘It is of inestimable benefit to the postulants to be exposed to such holiness early in their religious lives. It is also of benefit to Sister Hilaria to have the company of lively young girls whose problems and personalities tie her more closely to earth. She has the gift of reading souls, Sister Joan, a rare and valuable accomplishment in the religious life. Stand a postulant — stand anyone in front of Sister Hilaria and she will tell you the innermost heart of that person. And she is completely modest about it, believing that any of us could do the same with a little effort. So an essay from you will help her in her duties. Now you had better get to your studies. Tomorrow is Saturday so you will have the weekend in which to concentrate on your spiritual duties.’
‘Yes, Reverend Mother. I was wondering—’ Sister Joan hesitated. ‘Is Petroc to be buried on Monday? If so then it would be a mark of respect to close the school.’
‘I have already asked Detective Sergeant Mill to inform the parents there will be no school on Monday, the day of the funeral. You and I will attend the requiem — also Sister David who has connections with the school since she was the teacher there before you joined us. Father Stephen is very kindly giving us a lift as Father Malone will be conducting the service. Oh, the child’s father will be there. Detective Sergeant Mill informed me that he had, as he termed it, pulled a few strings and the man’s sentence is to be commuted immediately on compassionate grounds.’
‘That was very nice of him!’
‘As I said we ought not to judge a book by its cover. Thank you, Sister.’
Sister Joan collected some paper from the library and went to her cell. Writing an essay for the benefit of the postulants was a daunting task. How could she honestly explore her own thoughts and feelings when whatever she wrote would end up as instruction for the postulants? Her fingers ached for brush and palette, for the means to express her thoughts in vivid, living colours and shapes that leapt from the canvas.
‘If I can’t be the best then I won’t settle for mediocrity,’ she had told Jacob.
‘I’d say that made more sense than burying your talents completely in a convent‚’ he’d answered.
‘They won’t be buried. Our skills will be used in the service of the community.’
‘If the Mother Superior so decrees. So give up any idea of marrying me but don’t stifle everything else in yourself.’
‘I would marry you, Jacob, but you want your children to be Jewish and I’d want them to be baptised.’
‘I want you to be happy,’ he’d said with the disarming gentleness that shook her resolve.
But her resolve had held, right through her lonely and doubt-ridden postulancy to the moment when, clad in white, she had lain spread-eagled before the flower-filled altar, making her vows, and not known until hours later that in the joy of that bonding she had not even paused to wonder if Jacob were present.
Chastity she wrote swiftly, is not confined to the celibate though the vow of chastity we take when we enter the religious life includes celibacy. But that celibacy need not be a barren denial of life. It can be the raising of our instincts into a freer, wider, more universal loving. Other women vow to love one man. We vow to love all mankind through the merits of —
Mankind was Petroc, playing in the water, of the innocence of an adolescence that had been cruelly cut short. Mankind was someone who had arranged to meet that little boy and coldly, callously, given him his death potion. Her written words seemed glib and facile when she read them over.
Filing into chapel with the rest of the community at the end of the study period she noticed that Sister David was back. Evidently nothing untoward had happened in school. Indeed the day’s activities and the long walk across the moor had brought a pink glow to the other’s cheeks. It would be a courtesy to ask if Sister David might help out more often in the future. A way too of distancing herself from the children in preparation for the time when the school would finally be closed down and the pupils be allotted to schools in Bodmin.
Father Stephen had come to give Benediction. He was a tall, thin young man with, according to Father Malone, ambitions to end up as a bishop.
‘Or a cardinal, God save us all!’ Father Malone had said in his dry manner. ‘And the boy only just ordained. Optimism is a wonderful thing.’
Father Stephen was reputed to be clever. Sister Joan reflected that it was more fitting that little Father Malone would be offering the requiem mass. Father Malone hadn’t learned any new theology since his training in the seminary as a young man, but his inarticulate sympathy with the bereaved and troubled savoured of more true godliness. Hastily she reminded herself that it wasn’t her place to criticize the local curate and bowed her head again.
Father Stephen departed, looking faintly relieved as he always did. She suspected that the overwhelmingly female aura of the convent discomposed him, unlike Father Malone who liked a bit of a gossip when the service was over.
When this is all over, she decided, I will ask permission to spend the summer holidays in retreat.
Supper was spaghetti, a dish she had never much liked unless it were consumed in a trattoria with a bottle of good red wine. She wound the slippery strands around her fork and imagined lashings of pesto sauce while Sister Katherine finished the
