Folly's Child (51 page)

It was a pity, Harriet thought, for there was an atmosphere of peace here which was very soothing and the very stones exuded that feeling of goodness that comes to a place that has been hallowed ground for many centuries.

She paused for a moment on the stairway looking down at the sea, grey and windswept today, far below, and wondering if her mother had once stood here. Had she been aware of her surroundings? Or had she gone too far into the nightmare world of the schizophrenic to know or care?

A sister came towards her down the steps carrying a large basket – going to the village for fresh fish for lunch, perhaps. She would have a long walk along the mule tracks – those same tracks that Harriet had just followed, winding around the hillside. She looked questioningly at Harriet, who was all too aware of her scant knowledge of Italian.

‘I would like to speak to someone who was here when the convent was a hospital,' she said.

The nun's expression was puzzled, her eyes piercing blue in her ageless unmade-up face.

‘Mi dispiacio, non capisco …'

Harriet struggled with her phrase-book Italian.

‘Parla qualcuno qui inglese?' (Does someone here speak English?)

She knew her pronunciation was suspect and the nun continued to look perplexed.

‘Non lo so …' Suddenly her unlined face lit up with a sweet, almost childlike smile. ‘Si! Si!' She turned back into the building, indicating that Harriet should follow, and then leading the way along a stone-flagged passage, through a cloister topped with what might have been a Norman gallery, and into the part of the building which Harriet guessed had once housed the hospital. The floors here were polished stone tiles, the walls white-painted. The nun tapped on a door, a solid chunk of some dark gnarled wood, and opened it when bidden.

The room was sparsely furnished with heavy old furniture that looked as if it might have been fashioned from the same wood as the door but on a pedestal in a corner a statue of Our Lady smiled serenely at the Holy Child in her arms and on the wall immediately facing the door an ancient and probably priceless triptych glowed with the rich colours that had survived down the centuries. At a huge cluttered desk a nun was working. She looked up, pushing her little round spectacles up her nose and straightening her veil as they came into the room and Harriet saw that although her face too was curiously unlined she was much older. The nun who had met her on the steps addressed the other in rapid Italian and Harriet waited. Then, to her utter amazement, the older nun spoke with an American accent.

‘You are looking for somebody who can speak English, I believe.' Her eyes twinkled mischievously behind her spectacles at Harriet's surprise. ‘I'm Sister Anne. How can I help you?'

Harriet held out her hand.

‘Harriet Varna. I was hoping to speak to someone who was here when the convent was a hospital – about twenty years ago. I'm led to believe my mother was a patient here. Were you …?'

Sister Anne shook her head. ‘I'm afraid I have only been here the last five years. In fact it is less than ten since I took my vows. I was a late convert, you might say – though I sometimes think God called me in order to make use of what few talents I had in the outside world – I was a book keeper with a firm of solicitors in Boston.'

‘Then perhaps you have heard of my mother,' Harriet said eagerly. ‘Paula Varna. And my father is Hugo Varna, the fashion designer.'

‘Varna, yes. I don't have much interest in fashion, of course …' another wicked twinkle, ‘… but I believe I have heard the name. And your mother was a patient here, you say?'

‘Twenty years ago, yes. She was suffering some kind of mental breakdown, I believe.'

‘Yes.' The nun's face saddened. ‘ She would have been. All the patients here came into that category. Some came looking for peace … I hope God was merciful and they found it. Some were brought here by their families – brushed under the carpet so to speak when they became a nuisance or an embarrassment. Very sad, but I believe we did a good job, providing them with every comfort and love and the peace of God. However, the authorities didn't think we were capable of running what amounted to an institution, even though we had been doing it very successfully for many years. They closed us down – I say ‘‘us'' but of course it all happened before my time.'

Harriet nodded. The nun's reference to relatives ‘sweeping sufferers under the carpet' had upset her again. Wasn't that exactly what Sally had done?

‘How is your mother now?' Sister Anne asked.

Harriet pressed her fingertips on to the surface of the huge old desk, staring down at them.

‘My mother is dead.'

‘Oh, I am so sorry …'

‘At least, I think she is. That is really what I've come here to try and find out.'

The nun tilted her head quizzically, waiting. Behind her spectacles her eyes were bright and sharp. Harriet pushed her hair behind her ear with a quick defensive movement.

‘It sounds silly, I know. And it's rather a long story.'

Sister Anne glanced at the first nun, spoke in rapid Italian, and smiled gently at Harriet.

‘I've asked her to rustle us up some coffee. I guess you'd like a cup. Won't you sit down, Miss Varna?'

Harriet sat, relieved.

‘Now, perhaps you'd like to tell me what all this is about and I'll see what I can do to help you.'

It was very peaceful in the room. Soft grey fight filtered in through the window and only the distant sound of a bell broke the stillness. It might have been a confessional, Harriet thought, and wished, for the first time in her life, that she had been brought up to a strong religious faith.

‘I was told when I was four years old that my mother was dead,' she began and the simple statement opened the way. It was easy, suddenly, to talk about Paula, a relief to be able to express her doubts and fears to this calm kindly woman. The other nun brought coffee in enormous breakfast-sized cups of plain white pottery but Harriet's remained untouched on the dark wood desk until she had finished.

She raised her eyes to see Sister Anne looking at her with compassion and sadness.

‘You poor child.'

Ridiculously Harriet felt like crying. It was years since anyone had spoken to her in such gentle tones and she could not remember anyone ever calling her ‘a poor child'.

‘Can you help me?' she asked. ‘I have to find out the truth, Sister, whatever it might be.'

The nun nodded thoughtfully.

‘All the old records will be filed away and I expect we could turn them up for you. But I've a notion I can do better than that. Most of the nursing sisters moved on when the hospital closed to carry out their duties elsewhere. But one or two were too old.' She smiled gently. ‘A nun never retires from being a nun, but the time comes when she can no longer be a nurse. They remained here.'

A nerve jumped in Harriet's throat.

‘Sister Maria Theresa?'

The small bright eyes sharpened.

‘Now how do you know that?'

‘It was she who wrote to my father. Is she still here?'

‘Yes, she is. I don't know how much help she will be to you. She tends to be a little forgetful – she is over eighty years old now. But there are times when her mind is as sharp and clear as yours and mine – and old people often remember events that occurred many years ago more clearly than what happened yesterday.'

A pulse was throbbing in Harriet's temple. She pressed on it with her fingers to still it.

‘Could I talk to he?'

‘Wait here, my dear. I'll see what I can do.'

Their return was heralded by the tapping of a stick on the stone-tiled passageway. Harriet turned as the door opened.

‘This is Sister Maria Theresa,' Sister Anne said.

Sister Maria Theresa was small and birdlike with a wizened face that reminded Harriet of a little brown monkey. Although she leaned heavily on her stick her movements were quick and jerky and her eyes were bright and alive. Sister Anne pulled up a chair for her but for a moment she stood staring at Harriet in almost disbelieving wonder.

‘So you are the daughter of Paula. Si, I can see it.' Her English was broken, spoken with a strong regional accent in a sharp querulous voice but totally comprehensible. ‘You are like her.'

‘Harriet wants to know about her mother,' Sister Anne said, quite loudly as if she knew the older woman's hearing was somewhat impaired. ‘You do remember Paula, then?'

‘Si … si… of course I remember. It was I, Maria Theresa, who cared for her, was it not? I speak a little English so she became my special charge. Though she would say little enough, and often I do not know if she hear what I say to her.'

‘Tell me about her, per favore,' Harriet said.

‘Hmm?' The old nun cocked her head questioningly and Sister Anne repeated more loudly: ‘Can you tell her?'

‘Inglese? My English is not good now. I am too old …'

‘Your English is as good as it has ever been. But speak in Italian if you prefer. I will translate', Sister Anne offered, adding quietly to Harriet: ‘It will be easier for her if she doesn't have to think of the words.'

‘When did you first meet my mother?' Harriet asked when Sister Anne had settled the old nun in her chair.

‘Quando? Oh, I don't remember the year but it was in the summer – June? July? I forget which. Some local fishermen brought her to us. She was in a bad way. Ah, what she had been through, the poor child! She was soaked through, hungry, thirsty, burned by the sun and the wind. We did what we could for her, made her comfortable and nursed her body back to health. But she would not speak – could not, or would not, tell us who she was. I do not think she wanted us to know. Sometimes when she was alone I could hear her talking, just as if she was having a conversation with someone she could hear and we could not, but she would not answer our questions. We thought it was best not to press her, for such questions only seemed to cause her distress and she was oh, so sick in her mind. Sometimes she tried to harm herself. We had to watch her night and day. I worried about her very much and prayed for her every night. Then one day it seemed my prayer had been answered. She seemed to come out of her dream world. ‘‘Why doesn't Hugo come to see me?'' she said, as clear as anything. ‘‘Who is Hugo?'' I asked her. ‘‘ He is my husband, of course. Don't you know that?'' ‘‘ I don't know anything'', I said, ‘‘unless you tell me.'' And she gave me an address in New York. I asked the Reverend Mother what I should do and she gave me permission to write to this Hugo, even though Paula seemed to have slipped back into that strange world she inhabited which none of us could see. I hoped when she saw her husband it would help her, though looking back now I don't think it would have made any difference. Anyway, he did not come. Instead a lady came – a very beautiful lady. She cried when she saw Paula. She said she was her sister. Paula just sat and stared. She wouldn't even speak to her. I asked the lady – what should be done? She said we should keep Paula here with us, where she was safe. She would send us money. This she did – every month, faithfully, until Paula died. Then she sent a generous donation to help us with our work. Since then we have heard nothing from her. That is all I can tell you.'

Harriet had sat motionless, her hands knotted in her lap, listening whilst Sister Anne translated. So, it was just as Sally had said. But still there were so many questions unanswered.

‘How did she die?' she asked,

‘It was pneumonia – though in her state it could have been anything. She wandered off one day, the wind was blowing as it does here so often, and it was cold and raining. By the time we found her she was soaked to the skin and chilled. She died a week later and we counted her lucky for at least her immortal soul had been saved.'

‘What do you mean?' Harriet's mouth was dry.

‘She had tried so many times to harm herself, poor lamb. If she had succeeded … ah, it is a mortal sin to take one's own life. Yes, I think the Good Lord in his mercy sent her out that day into the rain. He saw she had suffered enough and he put an end to her misery.'

There was an almost plaintive note to her voice as she said it, as if she too was waiting for the Good Lord to beckon her.

‘Is that all?' Sister Anne asked briskly. ‘There is nothing else you can tell Harriet?'

The old woman shook her head, her wizened face wistful. ‘ Well, well,' she said softly. ‘I never thought I'd live to see it. Dear Paula's little baby – here.'

‘Not such a baby,' Sister Anne said robustly. ‘Paula's daughter was four years old when her mother disappeared.'

‘Four years old?' The old woman looked puzzled, her mouth working as her mind clicked over almost visibly. ‘Then you're not …?'

‘Not who?' Sister Anne pressed her.

‘The baby. Our little baby.'

She is rambling, Harriet thought, wandering in a world of her own. But Sister Anne persisted genially: ‘What baby? What are you talking about, Maria?'

‘The baby!' Maria Theresa insisted querulously. ‘The baby who was born here, in our hospital. Didn't I say? When Paula came to us she was with child. We didn't know at first – it was early days. But when her belly began to swell we knew all right. And she knew, I'm sure she did, though she pretended not to. She seemed to hate it. Whenever she saw herself in a mirror it made her worse. She would scream and cry, trying to tear at her stomach. I was very frightened for her. I thought maybe when the poor wee bambino was born she might be better. But she wasn't. She was never any better. Not for long.'

Harriet's nails were digging deep crescents in her palms and she could hear the blood thundering in her ears. It couldn't be true! Yet why should this woman be mistaken? She had remembered everything else just as it had happened, as Sister Anne had said, probably more dearly than she remembered the events of just yesterday. But a
baby …?