Vow of Sanctity (18 page)

‘Nevertheless, I wondered if you needed any help about funeral arrangements, but I suppose that will be seen to?’

‘The priest over in Aberdeen will conduct the service,’ Dolly said. ‘He and I hadn’t any family to speak of, so it’ll be quiet. Have you seen that inspector?’

‘Earlier. It was he who told me there’d been a positive identification.’

‘Rory offered to take a look to spare me,’ Dolly said. ‘I didn’t need anyone to spare me. Rory wasn’t fifteen when his dad went off, so it was more fitting for me to take a look. It was Alasdair all right.’ Her tone had roughened slightly and she darted a resentful look.

‘You were able to recognize him at once?’ Sister Joan finished her tea.

‘You mean after the face was bashed about during the storm? I was married to him, so of course I knew him. They said the body was very well preserved. I reckon it was caught in an undertow somewhere the water couldn’t get. Funny things do happen sometimes. You haven’t seen Rory, I suppose?’

‘No. Not today anyway.’

Dolly McKensie’s suggestion concerning the preservation of the body was manifestly absurd. Apparently nobody had pressed her on the point.

‘And at least I’ll be able to get my pension,’ Dolly said contentedly.

‘Well, if there’s nothing I can do…?’ Suddenly she longed to leave.

‘You’ve been very kind, Sister,’ Dolly McKensie said abruptly. ‘Makes a nice change for me to have company. Rory doesn’t want to spend all his time cooped up with me. Young men don’t.’

‘I suppose it’s very quiet round here for a youngster.’

‘I’m thinking of selling up and going to Glasgow,’ Dolly said. ‘Once I get my pension I’ll feel more free – I’ll have my rights. And Rory still hankers after Morag Sinclair. I know that even though he never talks about her these days. It would be better for him to get right away and find a nice girl of his own age, someone without bad blood.’

‘You can’t possibly mean that,’ Sister Joan began.

‘Yes I do.’ The other’s face looked pinched and stubborn. ‘Catherine Sinclair was having an affair with my husband. If there was murder done then she did it and then killed herself. I’ll not have my son involved with the same family.’

There was no sense in trying to argue with such prejudice. And Morag Sinclair apparently agreed with her though for different reasons. Only Rory was trapped in the middle. In the long run his going to Glasgow might be a good thing.

‘I have to go. Thank you for the tea.’

She was glad to be out of the flat, walking down the hill through the cool dark. Dolly McKensie was an embittered woman, unconcerned about her dead husband except where her precious pension was concerned. Sister Joan had the uncomfortable suspicion that she had seized upon her
suspicions
in order to justify her opposition to the relationship between her son and Catherine Sinclair’s daughter. If Morag hadn’t brought it to an end then Dolly would have found some way of doing so.

She crossed the road and the bridge and descended into the gully, switching on her torch briefly and then switching it off again. The moon had emerged and the stars had increased; the torchlight merely separated her from the shining of the natural world around her. Walking on to the shore, her feet now accustomed to the direction that had been unfamiliar to her only a short time before she felt as if she had melded into the dark landscape.

When someone called her name she thought at first it was her imagination. Then someone loped towards her, raising his voice as he approached.

‘Don’t be scared, Sister. It’s only me.’

‘Rory, good evening. Were you coming to see me?’ she asked.

‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said.

People talked to her all the time, she thought resignedly, and then waved her out of their lives as if the confidences they had imparted had had no effect upon her at all.

‘Shall we walk along the shore for a little while?’ she said. They walked in silence for a few yards. When he began talking he did so abruptly, as if the words had built up inside him and
had to be expelled rapidly like pellets.

‘I’ve decided to leave Loch Morag. Now that my father’s been found there isn’t any reason to go on living here. I’m nearly twenty-one, not a child. It’s time I stopped dreaming about someone who doesn’t care tuppence for me and made a future for myself. I can’t spend the rest of my life doing odd jobs and helping my mother in the store.’

‘Perhaps your mother will leave too,’ Sister Joan suggested.

‘Now that she can be sure my father’s really dead? Yes, she might, but I can’t hang around and wait. If I make something of my life then I can stand on equal terms with anyone.’

By anyone she supposed he meant Morag Sinclair. It would be so easy to say – but Morag still cares about you. She’s only avoiding you because she doesn’t want to marry the son of a man who betrayed her father with an affair with her mother. It wasn’t her place to say anything, however, and they crunched on over the tiny pebbles.

‘I won’t just leave without saying anything,’ he said after a moment. ‘That would fret my mother. No, I’ll see her settled and her pension paid – find someone to help out in the shop, before I leave. Then I’ll go south. I’ll likely train for something, hotel work has always interested me. Morag – we thought once of opening an hotel here – extending the manse. Anyway I won’t just slope off and leave my responsibilities behind.’

‘I hope your mother appreciates that she has a good son,’ Sister Joan said, unable to keep a certain dryness out of her tone.

‘I hope she does leave,’ he said. ‘She never made any friends here. She always liked the city best. Sometimes I think that she and my father weren’t suited at all. He was scarcely ever home, you know. I used to wish he’d stay home more often so we could do things together but we never did.’

‘After six years – it must still be hard to learn that he’s dead.’

‘I wanted to see the body,’ Rory said. ‘My mother was very much against it so I didn’t insist. She said it was better for me to remember him alive, but the truth is that we saw so little of him that it’s quite difficult to call his face to mind. We’re going to bury him in Aberdeen – a Catholic funeral. The priest there is a decent fellow. Not that I believe in any of it.’

His last sentence was spoken defiantly, with a sidelong
glance.

‘If I were you,’ said Sister Joan, refusing to rise to the bait, ‘I wouldn’t rush into anything. Talk to your mother about your plans. She may have some of her own to discuss. I certainly wish you both luck.’

‘You can pray for us if you like,’ he said with the air of one conferring a great favour.

‘Thank you, I will,’ she responded promptly.

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ He had stopped and was staring out across the loch. ‘That my father should end up finally in the water, I mean. He never liked the loch. At least he and my mother had that in common. They both preferred the city, but I daresay it suited him to have his wife here so that he could come and go at his leisure. The inspector mentioned that his body was very well preserved. That seems very strange, don’t you think? After six years. Unless he’s died more recently. I’ve thought of that too. If someone killed him – the problem is that we really don’t know much about his life when he wasn’t here. We don’t know who his friends or his enemies were.’

‘Perhaps it’s best not to dwell on such things,’ she said.

‘Probably. When he was around he was quite amiable,’ Rory said, turning to retrace his steps. ‘I mean he never beat Mum or lifted his hand to me, though he could have felled us both with one hand if he’d had a mind to it. People used to tell him that he ought to have taken up tossing the caber, but he never took any interest in sports. Mum was the one who used to watch the football with me when there was a big match on television. She tries hard, Sister.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Sister Joan said.

They had reached the slopes below the retreat. Rory held out his hand, his voice suddenly shy.

‘I wasn’t very polite to you when we first met,’ he said. ‘I’ve never reckoned much to the church since I lost my faith, and I don’t want to have anyone nagging me back into the fold, but you haven’t tried to do that, Sister.’

‘Nagging people back into belief never worked anyway,’ she said, shaking hands cordially. ‘I’m sure we’ll meet again before I leave, but I do wish you every good fortune. Goodnight, Rory.’

When she reached the bottom of the steps she looked down and saw that he still stood there, looking out over the starlit waters. A decent young man, trying to deal with the first heartbreak of youth, she reflected, and felt glad that her first youth was behind her.

The walk had done her good, blown away the cobwebs that had threatened to spoil the clarity of her thinking. Rory McKensie wouldn’t allow himself to be overwhelmed by his mother. He’d make his own way in the world. He might even find his own way back into the faith. Without nagging, she added with an inward grin.

The cave was cold and dry and dim. She switched on her torch until she had rekindled one of the candles. Her coat was much warmer than the oilskins she had borrowed. Oilskins. Now why did the very ordinary word stand out so clear and sharp in her mind? She sat down thoughtfully on the edge of the bed. Oilskins she had borrowed and worn while her own garments were drying out. They had belonged to Alasdair McKensie – Dolly had kept them, presumably because they were too good to throw out. She had kept nothing else as far as she had told Sister Joan, but she had kept the oilskins. Oilskins that had been slightly too big for her, Sister Joan recalled. They had flapped around her ankles and the sleeves had covered her hands – understandable since they had belonged to a man and she herself was small and slight.

Rory’s voice echoed in her head.

‘He could have felled us both if he’d a mind to it – ought to have taken up tossing the caber.’

Alasdair McKensie had been a big man, much bigger than the man who had worn the oilskins she’d borrowed. Men who tossed the caber were large men, often over six feet tall and powerfully built. The oilskins ought to have been even more unsuited to her own dimensions then. And that could only mean that they had belonged to someone else – someone bigger than herself but most certainly not a prospective caber tosser. Why had Dolly McKensie lied about them?

‘And why,’ said Sister Joan in exasperation, ‘don’t You let me get on with my devotions instead of giving me puzzles that I can’t hope to solve?’

‘You look tired, Sister,’ Brother Cuthbert said as he helped her into the boat the next morning. ‘You’re not overdoing the penances, are you? It’s none of my business, of course, but I know how easy it is to get over-enthusiastic about that kind of thing.’

‘Not for me,’ Sister Joan said ruefully. ‘I am more unenthusiastic about penance than you’d believe. No, I didn’t sleep very well.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Sister. I’m very lucky because I can drop off anywhere, but then –’

‘If you’re going to remark that at my age I don’t need so much sleep,’ she begged, ‘I do wish you won’t.’

‘Sorry, Sister. I won’t say one more word.’ He bent obediently to the oars, allowing a full minute to pass before he said, ‘Have you heard any more about the poor man found in the loch?’

‘There’s to be an inquest,’ she evaded. ‘I have to make a statement since I was the one who found him – and that reminds me – I have to explain to Morag Sinclair how I came to lose her father’s boat. Oh dear, that will cost something, I’m sure.’

‘Money is an awful nuisance, isn’t it?’ he sympathized.

‘Especially when you haven’t got any,’ she sighed. ‘Perhaps the Sinclairs will let me pay off bit by bit. Anyway I won’t worry about it now.’

‘Yes, God always sorts things out,’ he said comfortably.

It was almost impossible to imagine on this bright, glittering morning that on the previous day the mist had been a cold white shroud enfolding the loch. Today the sun was shining brightly and motes of gold danced in the spray from the oars.

When they reached the wharf she climbed out with conscious nimbleness and waited for Brother Cuthbert to tie up the boat.

‘Will you be wanting to see the abbot today?’ he enquired, falling into step beside her as she started up the track.

‘I – no, I don’t think I’ll need to trouble him. I want to finish the second painting. After that it will be a few days before both canvasses are ready for the varnish. I shall be here for mass, of course.’

He nodded, gave her a cheerful wave and turned off in the direction of the beehives. She continued on past the church, past the kitchens towards the scriptorium. She would complete her work and then try to make some sense of the handwriting on the piece of paper she had found. If she could get hold of a sample that was indisputably by the abbot then at least her own curiosity would be satisfied – partly satisfied, she corrected herself, and pushed open the door.

The huge chamber was cold and sunlit, light arching down onto the illuminated manuscript with its rich colours. Her cloth covered paintings were propped up near the long table – one on the easel, the other leaning against the table leg. She picked up the latter, leaned it on the table against the wall and took off the cloth. She had been right in thinking it a good painting. There was a spring glow about it, the tiny flowers like the enamelled blooms in the margin of a Book of Hours, the church rooted in the grass like the flowering rose bush that grew against the wall. It was a happy picture, she decided, and in the same instant was gripped by something cold and fearful that caught her breath as she gazed. The little figure she had added to the picture at Brother Cuthbert’s suggestion was no longer there. For a moment she wondered if by some mischance it had simply soaked into the background, but when she held the canvas up to the light that flooded through the window she saw the darker grey where someone – who, for heaven’s sake? – had carefully painted the figure out, dissolving it into the church wall again. No habited figure stood, head partly turned to gaze out of the canvas, face alight with the beauty of what lay around him. The paint where the figure had been obliterated was still slightly tacky.

She put the picture down again, covered it carefully, and counted ten backwards very slowly, a remedy that she had been advised, in childhood, stopped her from losing her temper. It had never worked very well and it wasn’t working now. The cold, sick feeling was giving way to hot waves of anger. Nobody had the right to meddle with the work of an artist, even if the alteration improved it. Nobody had the right to add or alter a word in a book or a poem because when that was done the original intention of the artist was twisted, something of their own individual personalities stolen away.

There was no sense in rushing out to accuse anyone. She sat down on one of the high stools placed at intervals down the length of the table and took out her sketch pad, doodling while her mind enumerated events. She had been watched when she knelt at mass, spied on while she waited in the antechamber for the abbot to arrive, watched when she knelt at the altar rail, had her hand grasped in the darkness of the crypt. Someone had hoped to frighten her away. Someone hadn’t been pleased at the notion of any stranger, even a nun, being rowed over to the island. And that same person had, delicately, taking care not to spoil the whole, painted out the little monk standing in the spring sunshine outside the church.

Her pencil moved rapidly, sketching, scribbling out, doodling. She stared down at the sketch pad, catching her breath as she saw what her subconscious had produced. Was it possible? She added another touch, a light stroke of the pencil and felt the anger drain out of her, leaving only bewilderment.

At least she could do one thing. She tore out the page and crumpled it up, thrusting it deep into her pocket. Then she went purposefully to the door and out into the clear, bright air.

From the kitchen came a scent of cooking. She sniffed appreciatively and walked past, heading for the square mass of granite that housed parlour and antechamber. The possibility that the outer door might be locked except when visitors were expected occurred to her, but it yielded to her touch and she went in.

The parlour door was open and the small chamber empty.
No fire burned in the hearth and the table was bare save for the vase of dried grasses someone had put on the table. She walked over to the window where some papers were scattered on the sill – the same notes she had seen the previous day. She took them up and leafed through them, looking for a signature, something to tell her who had written them. There was no signature. Sermons were not, after all, very often signed and these were only notes for a sermon, one probably already delivered. The actual content might tell her more. She began to read assiduously and at the top of the third page found the reference she had feared to find.

To
be
abbot
of
a
monastic
community,
dedicated
to
the
rule,
is
no
easy
task,
my
brothers.
I,
at
least,
have
always
been
too
conscious
of
my
human
failings
…

She didn’t want to read any further; she didn’t want to think about that tall, aristocratic old priest rowing silently across the night dark loch and meeting the young woman with the long dark hair who went with him into the trees. The handwriting on the torn-off piece of paper in her pocket was exactly the same as the hand that had penned the notes for the abbot’s sermon.

Laying the papers down on the sill again she turned to leave and gave a violent start as the abbot’s eyes surveyed her from the doorway.

‘Did you wish to see me, Sister?’ His voice held only mild curiosity, but her cheeks burned as if she had just caught him
in
flagrante
delicto
– or he her.

‘I have almost completed the two paintings,’ she said, hastily pushing the torn section of love letter with which she had been comparing the sermon notes even deeper into her pocket. ‘I will have to varnish them in a day or two, but after that I won’t be troubling you further.’

‘It’s no trouble, Sister. Even those brothers who regarded the comings and goings of a young religious as a dangerous infringement of the rule have been impressed by your tact so far.’

Was there a faint emphasis on the last two words? She felt a guilty pang as if she were the one more at fault.

‘Well, then …’ Her voice sounded unconvincing even to herself, but he seemed not to notice. ‘Back to work then.
Thank you, Father Abbot.’

She wasn’t sure why she was thanking him save for not enquiring what she was doing in the parlour in the first place.

He gave a slight bow and she got herself out of the parlour and into the open air again without daring to glance back. What the abbot was doing was a matter for his own conscience, but when one religious broke the moral code it cast a shadow over all the rest. Her anger at having had her picture altered, her embarrassment at having been found in the parlour, gave way to a sadness as if something fine and noble had broken to pieces in her hands and revealed corruption at the core.

She walked with bent head towards the church. She had no heart to work on the second painting now. What she needed was silence and the warm reassurance of the sanctuary lamp.

In the church there was, to her dismay, no silence at all. A monk with a broom as high as himself was vigorously sweeping and cast such a look of alarm in her direction that she genuflected to the altar and hastily withdrew.

‘Are you ready to leave so soon, Sister?’ Brother Cuthbert came galloping up.

‘I think I’ll leave the final touches and the varnishing for another day,’ she said.

‘Brother Brendan was just making some hotpot,’ Brother Cuthbert said. ‘He’ll have made enough for you.’

‘I think I ought to go back. I must go to the manse and explain about the loss of the Sinclair boat.’

‘I can take you across,’ he said obligingly. ‘We just sail past the enclosure and land at the wharf on the other side. If you wait one moment – maybe two – I’ll just run and get permission from Father Abbot. We usually don’t go to that shore.’

He went off at a run, leaving her to pick up her things from the scriptorium. She gathered them up swiftly, feeling for the first time an unease at the extreme quietness of the great chamber with all the memories of long dead monks to crowd the empty spaces. It was better to be out in the open air. When she emerged she raised her voice, glimpsing the lay brother at the kitchen window.

‘I won’t be staying for lunch today but thank you for
making extra.’ If he heard her he gave no sign but merely turned away, his mouth pulled tight with disapproval. She walked on, joined by Brother Cuthbert as she neared the water’s edge again.

‘Father Abbot has given me leave to row to the other shore,’ he said. ‘It’ll make a nice change. I’ve seen the terraces leading up to the big house. Makes you think of levels of prayer, doesn’t it?’

‘Not especially,’ said Sister Joan sadly. The sad
disillusionment
still held her in thrall, and the anger and bewilderment were both returning.

‘Saint Teresa, the Spanish one, puts it awfully well, don’t you think?’ he was persisting. ‘About the four stages of prayer?’

‘Yes. Yes she does.’ And I, she thought, am no Saint Teresa to look at the world with clear eyed compassion.

‘Lovely big house, isn’t it?’ her companion remarked, leaning briefly on the oars as they neared the further wharf. ‘When I was out in the world I often used to go round stately homes and imagine I was rich enough to buy them. I made a lot of alterations to Hampton Court Palace. It looks as if someone’s coming to meet us.’

The ‘someone’ had just emerged from a car and was crossing the road to the water’s edge, her long tail of dark hair bouncing against her back.

‘Good morning, Sister Joan.’ Morag spoke briskly. ‘Were you coming to see me or eloping with the lad?’

‘The lad is Brother Cuthbert and elopements are frowned upon,’ Sister Joan said, refusing to be provoked by the insolence of the younger woman’s tone.

‘So you were coming to see me. You too, Brother Cuthbert?’

The insolence had become teasing. Morag stood, high breasts outlined beneath her sweater, one hip thrust forward, in an attitude that made Sister Joan want to slap her.

‘Meeting with an attractive young lady like yourself would be very pleasant,’ Brother Cuthbert said, ‘but I’ve got a girlfriend already.’

‘What?’ Sister Joan, in the act of climbing out of the boat, almost stumbled.

‘Our Blessed Lady,’ Brother Cuthbert said smilingly. ‘I’ve been crazy about her for years and nobody else could ever measure up. Take care, Sister. God bless to you both.’

Innocence was not ignorance. She had forgotten that and felt a little pang of pity for Morag who stood, still in her pose of blatant sexuality, looking rather foolish.

‘Well,’ she said slowly. ‘Well, that puts me in my place. What can I do for you, Sister?’

‘It’s about the boat,’ Sister Joan began.

‘You lost it.’ Morag shot her an amused look. ‘This is a small place. I don’t mix much but the tale about you has begun to rival the tales about Grace Darling and Flora MacDonald.’

‘Oh dear!’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Morag said with what sounded like genuine friendliness. ‘The boat isn’t important. We were thinking of scrapping it anyway. And you might have done your bit in the cause of religious toleration. Even my father’s parishioners are saying it was very brave of you to get to shore.’

‘I’ll pay for the boat, of course, though it may take some time.’

‘No you won’t. My father says that you’re not to bother your head about it,’ Morag said energetically.

‘That’s extremely kind of him.’

‘He’s a kind man.’ Morag hesitated, then said, ‘You know one of the reasons I stay here is because he really is a nice person. That’s why I can’t possibly let him find out that Mother was having an affair with Alasdair McKensie. Father adored her. If he ever suspected that she hadn’t been faithful – let alone that her death wasn’t an accident – he really wouldn’t be able to take it.’

‘You’ll have heard that Alasdair McKensie’s body has been identified?’

Morag nodded, pulling the tail of hair over her shoulder and pulling at it nervously. ‘Have you seen Rory?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Yes I have. He’s leaving the district, going south to do hotel training.’