A Vow Of Chastity

to look more closely into the child’s home background Sister Joan spoke brightly, telling herself that cheerfulness was contagious. And that, she realized abruptly, was the trouble. Her pupils who generally exasperated her for half of the time were simply too quiet, too solemn, too attentive. She held the realization at the back of her mind while she outlined the week’s projects. One of her most difficult tasks lay in welding together a group of children between the ages of six and thirteen into a class following roughly the same curriculum. Nature walks, talks about events that the older ones would have read in the newspapers, opportunities for them to express themselves in drawing or singing, all these took precedence over formal lessons though she took care to include some of those too. Sister David who had helped out as her assistant was now full time convent librarian and there were times when Sister Joan missed her help exceedingly.

She thrust aside the selfish desire for less work and talked on enthusiastically about the project she had dreamed up just before going to bed.

‘A history of the district with a coloured map and drawings of the animals and the plants that are found here and pictures of the houses, and then bits about the people who lived here long ago. We can make a series of folders or even an exhibition for your parents to come and see.’

‘For fifty pence‚’ David suggested.

‘Well, I’m not sure about that — we’ll see. Now we’d better do some arithmetic,’ she said firmly, and prepared to wrestle with the multiplication tables. Apparently nobody learned them these days but it was the only way she knew of fixing numbers in youthful heads.

When break came she dismissed the children, a slight frown creasing her brow as she saw how obediently they rose, girls filing out ahead of boys. It was what she was always trying to instil into them but the lack of the usual scramble to the door was unnerving.

‘Conrad, one moment, please.’ Her voice and beckoning finger detained her eldest pupil.

‘Yes, Sister? The boy turned back, looking at her expectantly. Tall and broad for his age, she judged, with little of the wiry slenderness of the other Romany children. There were rumours that his mother had been less than particular about her partners and that Conrad’s father was not the thin, stooped Jeb Smith who had deserted his family some months before but a travelling man, a tinker with whom she’d briefly taken up in the years when she had still been pretty.

‘Everybody seems very good these days,’ she hazarded. ‘I was wondering why?’

‘Ain’t we supposed to be good then?’ Conrad demanded.

‘Yes, of course. Of course you are. It merely occurred to me that you were all being very good,’ she said, keeping the look of enquiry on her face.

‘Reckon we just caught it,’ Conrad said after a moment’s thought.

‘Well, if it’s only goodness that you catch then we ought to be grateful, I suppose.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ He gazed at her steadily from under his cowlick of dark hair.

‘Yes, well — thank you, Conrad.’

The dismissal, she knew, sounded feeble but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Perhaps the unnaturally good behaviour, which she realized had been going on for some time, was merely a sign that they were growing up, becoming more responsible. She collected up the arithmetic exercises, wiped the blackboard and went out of the room, past the small cloakroom to the outside where neither wall nor quadrangle separated the building from the moor.

The school had originally been endowed by the Tarquin family for the children of the tenants. It was still administered by a trust that provided books and paid for the repair and upkeep of the building. But the number of pupils was steadily diminishing; in another year or two there would no longer be any reason to keep it open. She tried to explore her own feelings, to decide whether or not she would regret it. She wasn’t a trained teacher, but the work was interesting and she’d established a rapport with some of the children. Too close a rapport, perhaps? There was always the danger of losing the detachment that was part of the religious life. These children were not her own children and the teaching was only secondary to her life, the modest salary paid out of the trust going directly to the convent.

The children were split as usual into two groups, Romanies and farmers’ offspring. Usually they scampered about, young voices echoing over the moor, but this morning the two small groups clustered together, talking quietly, eating the bags of crisps and sweets provided from home. One or two of the little ones had already started on their lunchtime sandwiches. There were no facilities for the provision of a midday meal apart from a kettle where one could boil water for a hot drink or a packet soup.

Not all the children were joined into the groups. The new child, Samantha Olive, had wandered off a little way to where a solitary beech spread protecting branches over the mossy turf. She stood with her back to the others, staring out across the waves and dips of the moor.

Sister Joan strolled towards her, attitude casual.

‘It is a lovely view, isn’t it?’ she said, reaching the child’s side. ‘When I am troubled I like to stand and look out over the grass and the heather to where the land meets the sky. It makes my own worries seem very small.’

‘Does it, Sister?’ A polite, indifferent little voice, the profile unyielding.

Sister Joan sighed, saying, ‘You are still settling in here, I daresay. In a few weeks it will feel as if you’ve always lived here. Let me see. Your parents took over Farren Farm, didn’t they?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘Do your parents like the district? It must seem very