Vow of Sanctity (3 page)

The cheese was strong tasting and buttery, the roll satisfyingly crisp. She drank the second cup of tea but it tasted bitter now that her immediate thirst had been quenched. She would find out if it was possible to buy milk from the monks when she went over to mass on the Sunday.

The door had a bolt on the inside which she hadn’t yet fastened, though it was hardly likely that anyone
unauthorized
would come visiting her in the middle of the night. Nevertheless she went to the door and, after a moment’s
hesitation opened it and stepped cautiously outside. An overhanging lintel of stone protected her from the wind and she stood in an oasis of calm, her gaze turning to the dark bulk of the cliffs under a sky wreathed now with night over a landscape from which all colour had fled.

Someone was moving along the shore of the loch. She heard from far down the pitter patter of iron-shod hoofs against pebble and saw in a brief glance the rider and steed, foreshortened by distance, between two clumps of pine.

A woman to judge from the long hair that had streamed behind her. Sister Joan had glimpsed no more than that before the tossing branches of the trees and the rapidly encroaching dark hid rider and horse from view. Then she stepped back within the door, closing it, sliding the bolt home. On this first night, she decided, she would leave the candles burning.

Six years of convent life had accustomed Sister Joan to dawn rising. A subdued grey light filtered through the lookout window and there was a fresh breeze. Habit got her out of bed and on her knees with the traditional ‘Christ is risen’, usually spoken by the lay sister who came round to waken the fully professed.

‘Thanks be to God,’ she answered herself and rose, resisting the impulse to crawl back under the blankets for an extra half-hour.

Cleaning one’s teeth, washing and dressing in a cave had a certain novelty value, she reflected. There were communal retreats held from time to time, usually on some particular theme, but a solitary retreat demanded more both physically and mentally. That one’s living space should be hollowed out of rock put one in tune with the hundreds of contemplatives down through the centuries who had sought God in silence and solitude.

She glanced at the neat fob watch pinned to her belt and saw it was not yet six. The most sensible course of action would be to tidy up the interior and then sit down and make a timetable for herself. Otherwise she was likely to spend too much time admiring the scenery and planning to pray for a longer period the day after. Sister Joan who was more clear-headed about herself than Mother Dorothy credited performed the few necessary chores and sat down with her notebook.

And let’s hope, she thought, regarding her itinerary, that I can keep all my own rules.

Sundays would be different with mass to attend in the monastery chapel and possibly a Benediction later in the day. This morning she would need to walk over to the village for a few supplies since it wasn’t fair to expect the monks to supply everything. Frowning slightly she turned over the page and began on a shopping list.

In the convent the lay sisters did the shopping as a rule though the fully professed were not strictly enclosed. Those who were obliged to earn a living beyond the enclosure had dispensation to do so. But living in a convent did to a certain extent cocoon one from the realities of everyday living. In six years of convent life Sister Joan hadn’t had to worry about paying rent or mortgage or budgeting for a week’s groceries.

She would need some flour – pancakes would be simple enough to make – eggs, a jar of coffee, a couple of lemons, some tuna fish – tin opener, since there wasn’t one here – milk until she found out if the monks kept a cow. Butter? Margarine. She wrote it down and chewed the end of her pencil. What on earth did one buy for oneself? Her order forbade the eating of meat save at Christmas and on Easter Day, but cheese, fish, fruit and vegetables were consumed in a variety of tasty dishes.

‘Fruit gums,’ she said aloud and wrote down the item.

‘A tiny treat now and then is very good for the soul,’ Sister Andrew had remarked during one of their chats.

Sister Andrew was in her eighties and entitled to occasional treats. Sister Joan wasn’t at all sure that she merited the same but she let the two words stand and carefully detached the page from the notebook. It was an extremely modest
shopping list to which she would probably add when she got to the shops. Meanwhile she had better get on her knees and do a little praying.

At 8.30, her prayers having lengthened into a full-blown meditation that took no account of timetables, Sister Joan emerged from the retreat and looked out over the loch. The sun was still only a pale disk in the sky but the breeze had the gentleness of spring rather than autumn. The screaming wind of the previous night had died away and the surface of the loch was only slightly ruffled by little, dancing waves. She closed the heavy door behind her and went cautiously down the steps, holding the guard rail. It wasn’t impossibly steep though she reckoned it would be tricky in wet or snowy conditions. On the other hand no prioress in her senses would permit one of her nuns to come to this remote retreat in the depths of winter.

She gained the lower slopes without difficulty and paused to get her bearings. Further along this ridge of high cliffs was the gully that cut through to the parallel track with the single gauge railway line beyond the bridge and the village sprawling over the slopes. There would be shops there, perhaps a Saturday market. She retraced the route along which Brother Cuthbert had guided her the previous day, not hurrying since she had allowed plenty of time for a walk. This morning the shoreline was deserted. No woman with long, flowing hair galloped a horse along the shingle.

She cut through the gully and walked towards the scatter of houses clinging to the slopes of the next range of hills. Close to she could see that the narrow, twisting lanes between the buildings were cobbled, the houses themselves built of granite-dark stone with roofs of sombre slate, almost every dwelling having between front door and lane a small yard, incongruously bright with vivid flowers in tubs or growing along the tops of low dividing walls.

She slowed her step, aware that her arrival had been instantly remarked. Not a soul came out to stare but she was conscious of the twitching of a curtain here, the part opening of a door there, a heightening of tension impossible to pinpoint but unmistakable. She walked more slowly, glancing about her. A small boy who had been swinging on a gate
jumped down as she neared him, alarm in his face, his thumb and little finger shooting out from his clenched fist in the age old sign of protection against the evil eye.

Sister Joan repressed a sigh. She had forgotten that in certain communities nuns were regarded as harbingers of bad luck, living omens to be avoided or jeered at. Brother Cuthbert had said there were few Catholics in the district but he had not mentioned there might be prejudice. Well, the only way to combat prejudice was to try to ignore it. She raised her chin in the manner her father had always called ‘Our Joan’s bulldog look’, and spoke clearly and pleasantly.

‘Good morning. I need some groceries. Can you tell me where the grocer’s shop is?’

The small boy stared at her wordlessly. At the same moment the door behind him opened suddenly and a voice called sharply, ‘Come away in, Dougal!’

‘Are you Dougal’s mother?’ Sister Joan stepped briskly to the gate. ‘I’m hoping to buy some groceries. If you would be so kind as to direct me to the shops?’

‘The store’s at the top of the hill.’

The owner of the voice had come to the open door and ventured as far as the front step. Sister Joan smiled across the yard at the thin young woman with her hair tied severely back and her garments covered by a large apron.

‘Thank you. That’s very kind of you. I’m Sister Joan –’

‘We don’t hold with being converted here,’ the young woman interrupted.

‘I’m not in the business of conversion,’ Sister Joan said mildly. ‘Good day to you.’

She turned and went on up the cobbled hill. Behind Dougal’s voice was raised shrilly.

‘Is she a witch, Mam? Is she?’

The answer was inaudible. Dougal had evidently been yanked indoors.

A double-fronted store which obviously sold a wide range of goods occupied a large corner building at the top of the hill. Sister Joan paused to look at the plate-glass windows crammed with merchandise. A couple of women emerging with laden baskets glanced at her curiously.

Where, she thought wryly, was the traditional friendliness
the travel brochures always talked about when they advertised the Highlands? Perhaps if she had not been clad in ankle-length grey habit and short veil over a white coif that hid her short dark hair people would have nodded and greeted her in the soft accent that was so attractive.

She entered the store which was as crowded with wares as the windows, sacks of potatoes vying with plastic pots of yoghurt and some brightly jacketed paperback books sharing a revolving stand with picture postcards depicting views of the loch. Towards the back of the store a long open-ended counter was presided over by a middle-aged woman who gave her a slightly startled look, then moved forward.

‘Ah, you’ll be come to stay up at the hermitage,’ she said.

‘At the retreat, yes.’

‘Not often anyone comes there these days. Out of fashion, I daresay. I’m Dolly McKensie.’

‘Sister Joan.’ Shaking hands Sister Joan added, ‘You’re not from this area?’

‘Carlisle, and why I ever left I’ll never know. Must have been meeting my late husband. Born and bred at Loch Morag he was and we spent our married life here until – but what can I get you, Sister?’

Here at least was someone who seemed friendly enough. Sister Joan handed over her list and watched Mrs McKensie run her eye down it.

‘I can supply all this, Sister,’ she said obligingly. ‘Were you wanting potatoes? The monks grow sufficient for their own needs, but it’d be better for you to take a small sackful from me. I can send Rory over with the lot as soon as he gets in.’

‘Your husband?’

‘My son. My husband – he’s been gone nearly six years now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Sister Joan’s hand rose to trace a cross just as Dolly McKensie said vigorously, ‘Oh, he’s not dead, Sister. No such luck for me! He ran off nearly six years ago and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him since. Not that he was the best husband in the world when he was around but still it’s hard to bring up a lad without a father. Rory turned out well though. I’m proud of him.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ Sister Joan said warmly, adding, ‘perhaps it would be a good idea to buy some potatoes from you. The brothers have been very generous but I don’t want to take advantage of them.’

‘I’ll have Rory bring the lot up,’ Dolly McKensie said. ‘Was there anything else you wanted while you were here, Sister?’

‘Nothing, thank you. You’ve been very helpful,’ Sister Joan said.

‘You’ll not find many so friendly in these parts,’ a voice said from the doorway. ‘We don’t take to outlanders hereabouts as a rule, especially if they’re Catholics.’

Turning, Sister Joan looked up at a tall, raw-boned young man whose reddish hair and long upper lip betokened the Celt.

‘Outlanders?’ she queried.

‘Anyone not born in Loch Morag,’ the newcomer said.

‘Sister Joan is come to buy some groceries for herself,’ Dolly said. ‘This is my son, Rory, Sister.’

No more than twenty, Sister Joan reckoned, shaking hands. He had grey eyes beneath shaggy brows and a fresh
complexion
with a faint stubble along the jaw.

‘Groceries?’ The shaggy brows lifted. ‘I thought you’d be fasting.’

‘Only on Fridays and on Tuesdays when the moon is full,’ Sister Joan said solemnly. ‘Why don’t people like Catholics and what are outlanders supposed to do to get accepted into the community?’

‘They don’t.’ He answered her last question first with a slight lifting of the lips that might have passed for a smile. Why, my mother’s been here for more than twenty years and she’s still regarded as an immigrant.’

‘And you’re not Catholic?’

The smile darkened into a scowl. ‘We are not,’ Rory said curtly.

‘But you don’t mind serving them. That’s a relief.’

‘We like to make a profit,’ Rory said in the same curt tone. ‘We don’t give credit either.’

‘I wasn’t asking,’ Sister Joan said mildly, bringing out her purse.

‘And it’s twenty-five pence extra for deliveries,’ he added,
ignoring his mother’s embarrassed frown.

‘Fine,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I’ll pay you when I see the goods outside the door of the retreat. Thank you, Mrs McKensie. I’m obliged to you. Mr McKensie.’

She nodded coolly and went out into the street again. Behind her, just before the door closed, she heard Dolly McKensie say angrily, ‘Will you never learn to behave like a civilized being, Rory? Is it her fault now that she’s a Papist?’

Papist! Sister Joan’s lips twitched as she walked down the hill. She hadn’t realized that the old term of insult was still used anywhere. Papist sounded vaguely threatening,
bringing
with it memories buried deep in the racial subconscious – the smashing of stained-glass windows and the execution of priests at Tyburn and the martyrdom of Margaret Clitheroe at York. Ancient times with a legacy of bitterness best forgotten.

Someone threw a stone.

It missed her, bouncing sharply on the cobbles as she swung round in time to see a towhead duck behind the nearest wall. Dougal’s house, Sister Joan thought,
remembering
the young woman’s anxious cry of ‘Come away in’.

She hesitated, not wanting to make more of the incident than it warranted, but feeling a distinct disinclination to turn the other cheek.

‘You come out here, Dougal Mackintosh!’

A voice that echoed her own suppressed wrath bellowed down the narrow street as Rory McKensie strode down past her, leaned over the wall, and hauled up the child by the lapels of his jacket, dangling him in the air threateningly.

‘I didna mean no harm,’ Dougal piped, looking less terrified than Sister Joan would have felt in the same situation.

‘Don’t you know that the sister here has the power to turn you into a frog?’ Rory demanded.

‘Oh no I haven’t,’ Sister Joan said coldly. ‘And if I had I wouldn’t try to improve on nature!’

‘Behave yourself or I’ll hand you over to the brothers,’ Rory said grimly, letting the child drop.

Dougal, released, uttered a shrill cry and fled within the safety of his gate.

‘You had no business to say such a thing,’ Sister Joan scolded. ‘How can we ever have mutual toleration and forgiveness if you go putting ideas into the child’s head?’

‘Your own remark wasn’t all sweetness and light,’ Rory commented, picking up a large sack which he had deposited in the road and hunching it over his shoulder as he fell into step beside her.

‘My besetting sin,’ she admitted, ‘is a too ready tongue. The Lord knows what dreadful trauma I’ve caused the poor child.’