Vow of Sanctity (5 page)

‘Father Abbot will be along in a minute, Sister. I’ll go and get my own lunch and row you back afterwards when I’m called.’

He indicated the bench and hurried out, almost catching the hem of his habit in the closing door.

Sister Joan sat neatly on the bench, feeling rather like a schoolgirl waiting to be scolded by the headmistress – or in this case, master. The antechamber was fiercely cold, the chill soaking through her garments and freezing her marrow.
She concentrated on controlling her shivering as well as she could. Something else was making her shiver. She looked up sharply and her eyes fastened on a peep-hole high in the opposite wall. A leper’s squint? Or a means whereby some long dead abbot had kept close watch on his community. The peep-hole was a lighter square in the darkness of the surrounding stone but she had the impression that someone had just stepped back noiselessly from the small aperture.

An inner door opened and she rose politely as the tall figure of the abbot who had removed his vestments and wore the plain habit of one of the brothers came in, his hand outstretched.

‘Sister Joan? Welcome to the community,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I appreciate your accepting my invitation. As Brother Cuthbert will have told you I do have the occasional visitor for Sunday luncheon, but those occasions are becoming few and far between. In the season a handful of tourists stop over at the hotel on the mainland for a day or two and then move on.’

‘I hope they buy your honey,’ Sister Joan said.

‘It’s wonderful honey,’ he assured her, ‘but we make such tiny profits on the sales that it’s hardly worthwhile. However one likes to keep up the old traditions though it isn’t a very efficient way of obtaining an income. This is the parlour. It is rather unusual for a parlour to be built in a monastery, but a century ago the laird’s lady, who contributed most generously to the expenses here, insisted on incorporating a parlour so that she could visit without disturbing the rest of the community – not that she was boisterous, you understand, but she was rather good-looking, so they say, and might have provided too much of a distraction.’

The room into which they had stepped was of moderate size, the original stone of the walls covered with panelling, the floor covered with a decidedly shabby red carpet but with a bright fire crackling in the fireplace and with variously hued cushions cheering up the dark furniture.

‘Only a simple repast, but one must avoid gluttony,’ the abbot said, with a humorous little sigh. ‘One of my greatest trials in the religious life has been my love of good food beautifully cooked. My father, God rest his soul, was by way
of being a master chef and I was brought up on nouvelle cuisine before the word had even been invented. Fortunately Brother James has a fine hand with the fish fryer – fresh trout, Sister, and new potatoes and salad, and in honour of my guest a glass of white wine. It is some considerable time since we had anyone in the retreat.’

‘Brother Cuthbert was very kind to me when I arrived,’ Sister Joan said, taking the chair he had pulled back from the gate-legged table.

‘An excellent young man,’ the Abbot said. ‘I wish more like him were attracted to the monastic life, but that seems to be the main problem in most communities these days.’

‘We have the same problem in our order.’

‘The world is too much with us, I suspect. Let me help you to the fish, Sister. I had the heads removed.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said frankly. ‘I hate to see my lunch looking back at me.’ The abbot shot her an amused glance and passed her the butter sauce. Monks, she reflected, still kept the old hospitable customs that made their cuisine far more varied and exciting than the dishes served up in her own convent. The wine he poured was an Alsatian, not too sweet. The glass was thin and delicate with a faint tracery of lead at its base.

‘To more vocations.’ He raised his own glass in a ceremonial little gesture.

He was a man, she thought, raising her glass in reply, who still craved the small luxuries of politeness. She wondered if he had been brought up in an hotel, had watched the guests coming and going, seen them off guard as they chatted and commented on the dish his father had just sent up from the kitchens. It was none of her business, however, she reminded herself sternly and setting down the glass, said brightly, ‘I was most interested in your church, Father Abbot. It must be very old.’

‘Seventh century – or to be more exact the original church stood on that site. It was of wood, but the Vikings had a nasty habit of invading at regular intervals and in the early ninth century the present stone structure was built and consecrated. Very little has been altered since then. We don’t even have a telephone line here.’

‘But surely in cases of sudden sickness?’

‘Which so far seldom happens, thank God. Should there be such an alarming incident it takes only five minutes to row to the mainland or even to use the stepping stones at certain times. And we have Brother Stephen who is a splendid infirmarian with several first-aid certificates. So we really don’t worry.’

‘How nice to hear someone say that,’ she said softly. ‘There’s so much strain in the world today.’

‘I suspect there always was,’ the abbot said, looking amused again. ‘It cannot have been very pleasant to have to live here knowing that at any time the carved prows of the dragon ships might round the cliffs into the loch. And of course I was referring only to health matters. There are other worries to beset us – a lack of vocations, shortage of funds – upon my word, if we allowed our novices to smoke hashish and have pop concerts we might get more takers.’

‘Gigs,’ said Sister Joan.

‘I beg your pardon, Sister?’ He gave her a puzzled look.

‘Pop concerts are known as gigs these days,’ she explained.

‘Are they really? How very interesting,’ he commented. ‘Not that I am thinking of holding one. A – gig. In my grandfather’s time that referred to a wheeled cart on which dashing young gentlemen escorted their lady friends. More salad?’

Sister Joan shook her head. ‘It’s delicious, but I don’t have a huge appetite,’ she said.

‘We’re largely self-supporting here,’ the abbot told her. ‘The climate can be harsh but the air is remarkably pure as we don’t have to contend with the noxious fumes emitted by cars and lorries, and fortunately one or two of our brothers have green fingers and could make roses grow on a rock. Now we will have a russet apple which is my favourite of all the apples and a cup of coffee. Are you managing in the retreat?’

‘I’m getting used to it,’ Sister Joan said cautiously, biting into a tart russet, ‘but I didn’t really expect to be comfortable. Hermits are supposed to rough it, I think.’

‘I take it you are not a natural hermit, Sister,’ he said, paring skin from the fruit he had selected with a small, silver knife. ‘Fortunately it is now being recognized that nearly everybody requires some form of human contact. Of course
there are the exceptions who may be honoured but seldom imitated. Your own convent is in Cornwall, is it not?’

‘High on the moors,’ Sister Joan said. ‘We too are largely self-supporting. I’ve only been there for a year. I went from the mother house in London.’

‘Where Mother Agnes is the prioress at present?’

‘Yes, she is. Do you know her?’ Sister Joan felt a surprise that she always felt when two people living far apart proved to be known to each other.

‘Many years ago,’ the abbot said. There was a slight twinkle in his eyes that made her long to ask under what circumstances they had known each other, but she ate her russet and sipped the rather weak coffee demurely.

‘You have sufficient in the way of literature with which to sharpen your mind while you are here?’ he was continuing.

‘Very little, but I hope to do some painting while I am here,’ she said. ‘It has always been a great interest of mine and my present mother Prioress, Mother Dorothy, suggested that I might spend some of the time painting local scenes. I keep reminding myself that I’m here to renew my spiritual life and not to enjoy myself doing what I like.’

Reaching the end of the sentence she blushed as she realized that she could have phrased it more neatly, but the abbot merely nodded.

‘The two are not incompatible,’ he said. ‘Was it not St John of the Cross who, being discovered playing with a duckling, said he was worshipping God? Have you thought of sketching the church here? It’s very ancient as I said and in certain lights quite breathtakingly atmospheric.’

‘Would you mind my doing that?’ Her face lit up. ‘I wouldn’t want to disturb the community but it would be marvellous to try to capture it with the enclosure stretching around it.’

‘Come over when you choose,’ he said kindly. ‘Arrange it with Brother Cuthbert. He can row you over in the boat on the mornings you wish to paint.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’

Privately she decided that her first task would be to make a sketch of the church as a small return to the abbot for his kindness.

He was beginning to rise, a flattering degree of disappointment on his strongly-marked features.

‘The brothers will have finished their luncheon by now,’ he said, ‘which means that duty calls me again. Except on the rare occasions when there are visitors I take all my meals with them. If you wish to have another look round the inside of the church please do so. Brother Cuthbert will row you back to the mainland when you’re ready.’

‘Thank you for a wonderful luncheon, Father Abbot.’ Shaking hands with him she surprised another flash of humour in his eyes.

‘Don’t go starving yourself while you’re here, Sister Joan,’ he said. ‘I know that even girls in convents these days cannot resist this foolish slimming craze.’

He really was rather an old duck, she decided, as she withdrew. Not many people referred to her as a girl these days though she wasn’t yet thirty-seven. She suspected that in his youth he must have been quite a charmer.

He had held the door open politely for her and she crossed the antechamber to the outside without remembering the peep-hole. The good food had restored her usually commonsense attitude. Now she was apt to think that she had imagined that someone was watching her in the church, spying on her as she waited for the abbot. The trouble with being a nun was that one grew accustomed to living in a community with someone constantly at hand in times of trouble. Probably a little loneliness would do her a great deal of good.

She followed the lines of the covered passage to the front of the church again and went in. The candles were still burning and the sweet, sharp perfume from the copper censor hung on the air. She walked slowly to the altar and stood looking up at the crucifixion window behind, its delicate yellow tones like dying sunlight in the gloom. So many generations had worshipped here; so many prayers were folded into the crevices of stone. It would be almost impossible to paint the interior unless one was a Rembrandt, but she reckoned she could do justice to the exterior.

A faint shuffling sound caused her to turn her head sharply in time to see the sacristy door at the left of the altar
softly closing. This was certainly no flight of the imagination. The idea of someone spying on her while she contemplated the sacred symbols struck her as peculiarly unpleasant. Before she had given herself time to think she had stepped over the altar rail and pulled open the side door.

A room with wall cupboards which held, she knew, the various vestments required for the feasts and services of the church met her gaze. There was a tiny modern window fitted at a slight angle into the wall, and a further door at her right. Sister Joan stepped across and opened it, frowning as her eyes fell on stone steps curving down steeply. There was an electric light bulb burning which surprised her for a moment until she saw the battery fixed on the wall.

Second thoughts might have caused her to hesitate. Sister Joan, who nearly always acted on her first thoughts, went swiftly down the steps with her hand sliding down the curving iron rail fixed as banister.

The steps curved round into a tunnel with a rough, concave roof and a floor formed from packed earth and stones melded by the centuries into a rough surface. By contrast the walls looked smooth, the blocks of stone gleaming faintly in the light from a second light bulb set high and jutting out at an angle.

‘Is someone there?’ She raised her voice as she strode forward and her words echoed back to her in a series of diminishing ‘here – here – here’. The air was dry and cold and the tiny stones under her feet crunched as she moved forward.

Within a few yards the tunnel curved to the left. She reached the corner, turned it and was plunged suddenly into darkness.

Some kind of time switch had evidently been rigged up. She paused abruptly, trying to work out where the nearest switch would be. Presumably there was one to enable the light to be switched on from both ends of the tunnel. She took a cautious step sideways and felt along the wall. Her fingers trailed smooth stone and then met empty space. She stumbled slightly to regain her balance and her outstretched hand touched flesh with the unyielding hardness of bone beneath. For an instant fright locked her tongue. Then she snatched
her hand away and backed down the tunnel again, feeling along the wall where she had just walked while her voice released itself into a jumble of words.

‘Stop playing stupid games. Who are you? Why are you watching me?’ Her words were cut off abruptly as she banged into the wall. The tunnel had become narrower or perhaps she had backed the wrong way. She stood still, her heart thumping, hearing suddenly a new sound. Footsteps were echoing through the darkness, echoing all round it; the soft padding bounced from wall to wall.

Dim light glowed again as someone pressed a switch. She opened her mouth to call again and was transfixed in a new kind of horror. Inches away from her a leathery brown face grinned sightlessly into her own.

‘Jolly looking chap, isn’t he?’ said Brother Cuthbert, walking into view. ‘He died in the eleventh century, I think. Father Abbot says the dry air has helped preserve them all, almost as if they’d been embalmed.’

‘All?’ Her voice emerged as a slight croak as she hastily moved further out of the shallow niche into which she had stumbled.