Our Lady of Pain (6 page)

Lady Polly was seated at her dressing table creaming her face. “I was thinking, my dear, that’s it’s very cold in London, and with Rose gone and in safe hands, we really do not want to stay here. What about Monte Carlo?”

“Great idea. I’ll get Jarvis to make the arrangements.”

Rose, being undressed for bed by her maid, stiffened as she heard her father’s voice raised in song echoing along the corridor outside.

“
As I walk along the Bois Bou-long
,

With an independent air
,

You can hear the girls declare
,

‘
He must be a millionaire
’;

You can hear them sigh and wish to die
,

You can see them wink the other eye

At the man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
.”

She had never felt so alone in all her life.

Daisy read a great number of cheap romances. Unlike Rose, she had comforted herself with the thought that the captain would ride to the rescue. Even when their luggage was loaded into the carriage, even when the carriage moved off, she was sure they would be saved at the last minute.

It was only when the great iron gates of the convent were shut behind them and she saw the stern figure of the mother superior standing on the steps did she realize there was no hope at all and began to cry with noisy abandon.

“Pull yourself together,” hissed Rose.

“Welcome,” said the mother superior, Lady Janus. “What a great deal of luggage!”

Daisy scrubbed her eyes defiantly with a handkerchief and asked, “Will I have to dress like a bleedin’ penguin?”

“I will have to talk to you later, young lady, about your very bad manners. Follow me.”

The mother superior led the way along several dark corridors. It was evident to Rose, from what she could see of the architecture, that the convent had been built in the Gothic style in the middle of the last century. She remembered reading that there had been some opposition to Oxford Anglicanism, claiming it was too “high” and drifting back to the Catholic Church.

“You will share a room,” said the mother superior, opening a heavy oak door. “As laywomen, you will not wear the habit, but you will select from your luggage your plainest clothes. I will leave you to unpack. Sister Agnes will be your mentor. She will be with you shortly to take you an a tour of the convent and explain your duties to you.”

She retreated. Rose and Daisy looked at each other and then around the narrow room. It was furnished with two hard narrow beds. Between the beds was a table on which lay a large Bible. The latticed window let in very little light. Against one wall was a tall narrow wardrobe. “No fireplace,” muttered Daisy miserably. “And it’s freezing.”

“We may as well sort out our clothes and pick out the warmest things we have,” said Rose. She looked gloomily at the trunks piled one on top of the other and the hatboxes lying on the floor.

The door opened and a nun stood surveying them. She was dressed in traditional robes. She had a long white face, pale eyes under heavy lids and her thin-lipped mouth was shadowed by a moustache.

“You have far too many clothes. I am Sister Agnes. I will fetch Sister Martha to help you.”

When she had closed the door behind her, Rose said urgently, “We must hurry. They may frown on furs, so we must take out two fur coats and hide them under our bedding. We will need them at night or we will freeze.”

Rose pulled out a sable coat and hid it under the thin blankets on one of the beds and Daisy put her precious squirrel coat under the blankets on the other one.

They had just finished when Sister Martha came in. She was small, plump and cheerful. She shook hands with both of them and then helped them pack away the fine dresses, blouses and hats that she considered unsuitable.

When they were finished at last, Sister Martha said, “We’ll drag the trunks outside and the oddman will take them down to the storage room in the cellar. We must hurry. We are to go along to dinner. You have missed Vespers but allowances must be made on your first day.” She looked uneasily at them. “Do you wish me to retire so that you may change into something more suitable?”

“We will wear what we have on,” said Rose firmly. “We are not yet accustomed to the cold of this place.”

Sister Agnes looked uneasily at Rose. Rose was wearing a coat trimmed with black Persian lamb and a black Persian lamb hat. Daisy had a frogged military-style coat also trimmed with fur and a sort of shako on her head.

“Very well. Follow me.”

The dining room was blessed with a roaring fire. Rose and Daisy were told to take seats at the end of a long refectory table. Grace was said. The food was plain but with generous helpings. The nuns and novices ate in silence. Rose wondered whether they were usually silent or whether the presence of two strangers in their midst had made them shy.

After dinner, Sister Agnes came up to them and bent her head as a signal that they were to follow her. She led them to an austere office and sat down behind a huge desk, indicating two hard chairs in front of it.

“You have been sent here for correction,” she began. “You will attend all prayers. The convent owns six homes for fallen women. You will come with me tomorrow. Part of your duty will be to talk to these women and impress on them the folly of their ways.

“The order of your days will be as follows: You will rise at five. Five-twenty to six-fifteen, matins; six-fifteen to six forty-five, private devotions; six forty-five until seven, make beds and clean up rooms; seven to seven-thirty, prime; seven-thirty to eight-thirty, service in church; eight-thirty to eight fifty-five, breakfast; eight fifty-five to nine-ten, terce; nine-ten to twelve-thirty, visiting the poor …”

Rose had heard enough. She stood silently while the description of their daily programme went on and on. When Sister Agnes finished with a long lecture to which neither of them paid any attention, she then led them on a bewildering tour of the convent.

When they were finally left alone in their cell-like room, Daisy blurted out, “We’ll die here. Why didn’t the captain or Becket try to do something to stop this?”

“I don’t know,” said Rose. “Can you remember where the bathroom is?”

“About a mile to the left,” said Daisy and burst into noisy tears.

If you become a nun, dear,
A friar I will be.
In any cell you run, dear,
Pray look behind for me.

—
JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT

Rose awoke with a start the next morning to the sound of a bell. Then she could hear a quick step coming along the corridor as someone knocked sharply at each cell door and called out, “Benidicamus Domino!” Sleepy voices called in return, “Deo gratias!”

When the sharp knocking came at their door and the voice called, “Benedicamus Domino,” Rose huddled farther down under the bedclothes and her fur coat covering and pretended not to be there.

“Rose,” the voice then called. “It’s time to get up.”

“Daisy,” hissed Rose, leaning across and shaking her. “It’s time to get up.”

“Shan’t.”

“We’ll miss matins.”

“I could kill Harry,” brooded Rose as they made up their beds. “My knees are already sore with praying.”

I could run away, thought Daisy. I kept a bit of the earl’s money back. Matthew will have assumed it was money we’d already spent. If Rose won’t go, I’ll go myself.

Another bell rang, summoning them to breakfast. The banisters outside the chapel were festooned with white aprons, the nuns having taken them off before going into chapel.

The sisters filed in, followed by Rose and Daisy. Each stood behind her seat until the reverend mother had said grace. Breakfast consisted of two thick slices of bread and butter each. Cups in front of each plate were already filled with steaming coffee.

“Where’s the sugar?” demanded Daisy.

“Silence!” ordered Sister Agnes. “No sugar and no talking.”

The silence was only broken by a nun reading from the Bible in a low voice.

After breakfast, the sisters went about their duties. Sister Agnes said to Rose and Daisy, “You will both meet me in the hall after the service of terce dressed to go out.”

The walk to the home for fallen women that Sister Agnes had selected them to visit was just outside the convent walls.

It was a plain Georgian building, which, Rose guessed, had at one time been a private house. The windows, she noticed, were all barred.

Sister Agnes knocked. A curtain at a narrow window twitched and then they could hear the sound of bolts being drawn back and a key turned in the lock.

They entered a stone-flagged hall. Four women were down on their knees scrubbing the floor. Despite the cold, they were wearing plain blue cotton gowns and aprons and their hair was bound up in blue scarves.

They did not look up and Sister Agnes led Rose and Daisy round them and up the stairs. “We have selected three women for you to counsel. You will impress on them the sin they have brought upon themselves.”

She pushed open a door. The women sat on chairs, their heads bowed.

“I will return for you later,” said Sister Agnes.

“Thank God, the penguin’s gone,” said Daisy. “Let’s get the introductions over with. I’m Daisy, this here is Rose. Who are you?”

They shyly volunteered their names—Freda, Cissy and Louise. They were in various stages of pregnancy.

“You first, Louise,” said Daisy. “What happened?”

“Daisy,” said Rose urgently, “we’re supposed to be giving them spiritual advice.”

“Pooh! Go on, Louise.”

She clasped and unclasped her swollen red hands in her lap. Too much scrubbing, thought Rose.

“I was working for a very harsh mistress. She used to beat me. I was a kitchen maid. Then one day, madam said she was going to visit her sister. The master gave the other servants—there were only five of us—the day off but said I had to stay. When they had all gone, he … he forced me to pleasure him. It didn’t happen again but when I began to show the mistress called me a slut and dragged me round here.”

The other two had similar stories. Rose listened in horror.

“But did not the nuns confront the fathers of your children?”

“That’s not their way,” said Cissy. “The women always get the blame. They work us like slaves and then, after the babies are taken away from us for adoption, the nuns find us places as servants. We either put up with it or we’re out on the street.”

Their sad stories had taken up most of the rest of the morning. Just before Sister Agnes appeared, Daisy said, “I’m going to give those nuns a piece of my mind.”

“Don’t,” said Rose. “They’ll punish you.”

“What? That bunch o’ crows?”

On the road back, Rose listened with growing apprehension as Daisy sounded off to Sister Agnes about the state of the unmarried mothers.

In the convent, Sister Agnes turned to Rose, “Go to your cell. You, Daisy, come with me.”

She marched Daisy up to a wide landing. The community room was on one side and the bakery on the other, and on the wall was a great black crucifix.

“Kneel down and kiss the floor,” commanded Sister Agnes.

“No, I won’t.”

Sister Agnes opened the bakery door. “Sister Monica! Come here.”

A large burly nun emerged. “Daisy is in disgrace and refuses to kiss the ground. She must take her penance.”

Daisy found herself grabbed by strong arms and her face was thrust down towards the floor. She fought and kicked and struggled but her face was pressed down on the wooden landing.

“Hold her there for an hour,” said Sister Agnes calmly.

Daisy wriggled and fought but Sister Monica appeared to be as strong as a stevedore. At last all the fight went out of Daisy and she lay on the floor sobbing. After an hour, she was marched down to the chapel and ordered to pray.

When she was finally allowed to go back to her cell, she found Rose darning socks. Rose listened in horror as Daisy described her punishment.

The usually cocky Daisy looked broken. “Let’s try to get out of here,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea at the moment,” said Rose. “They will be watching our every move. I think we should behave like model ladies until their fears are laid to rest. Then, when they feel secure, we shall find a way to leave here.”

Daisy began to cry. “Hush,” said Rose, hugging her. “We’ll find a way.”

As the end of March approached, Harry’s relief at having Rose somewhere he knew she was safe began to ebb. His brief infatuation for Dolores seemed like a bad dream. He felt guilty at having paraded her at the opera. He had employed a new secretary with impeccable credentials. Her name was Miss Fleming. She was in her forties and worked like a machine. He called on Kerridge periodically, but the man who had followed Rose to Thurby-on-Sea appeared to have disappeared into thin air.

Kerridge said he had contacted the French police but they had been of no help whatsoever. Dolores Duval’s lovers had been very powerful men. But they did volunteer the information that Dolores Duval had left a will, leaving everything to a certain Madame De Peurey.