Vow of Sanctity (9 page)

‘Your secular job,’ Sinclair said. ‘Your main job is praying, I suppose.’

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ A little surprised at his understanding she
smiled.

‘It has always been my custom,’ he said, with the glint of humour she had noticed before, ‘to size up the opposition.’

‘We don’t need them here,’ Morag said in a low, tense voice, stabbing a pear with her fruit knife. ‘Catholics are all liars and hypocrites.’

‘Morag, that is patently untrue and very rude to our guest.’ Her father spoke sharply.

‘I’m afraid that Morag isn’t alone in her opinion,’ Sister Joan said lightly. ‘There are some very worthy sisters I have met who would use a very long spoon were they required to sup with someone of a different faith. And in the village when I went shopping the welcome wasn’t exactly overwhelming.’

‘Prejudice dies hard,’ Sinclair agreed.

‘And we don’t need that clutch of monks on the island,’ Morag muttered. Sister Joan bit hastily into an apple to prevent herself from enquiring if Morag were trying to break up the community by the simple expedient of seducing one of its members.

‘They do no harm,’ her father said. ‘There have always been monks on that piece of land. The land itself used to provide a refuge in the days when the Vikings came raiding. And the cave was once a look-out point.’

‘Yes, so I understand. I’m painting a couple of exteriors of the church and so Brother Cuthbert, one of the community, rows me across and keeps me up to date with ecclesiastical history.’

‘I’ve never been across to the place,’ Sinclair said. ‘The abbot invited me for dinner once but my congregation practically threatened to leave in a body were I so unwise as to accept. So I declined with thanks, but one day I may seek to renew the offer of acquaintanceship.’

‘What are your parishioners going to say about my coming here?’ Sister Joan asked.

‘It is close on fifteen years since the abbot issued his
invitation
,’ Sinclair said. ‘We had not long resettled in the area and I was more dependent on the approval of my congregation then. Nowadays I would use my own judgement.’

‘It’s getting late,’ Morag said hintingly. ‘I’ve some letters to write so if I’m to row you back …?’

‘I’ll row Sister Joan back myself,’ her father said. ‘If you want to go and write letters then we will both excuse you. Morag has many friends from her schooldays and sends them such long letters that I am at a loss to understand what on earth she can find to say. Since she acquired a typewriter her correspondence has become enormous.’

‘I like to keep in touch,’ Morag said, scowling. ‘Excuse me, Sister.’ She swept out of the room with the offended air of Lady Macbeth who has just been informed that Banquo’s ghost has turned up.

‘My daughter was educated at a boarding-school,’ Sinclair said when the door had closed. ‘She should have gone on to university eventually, but my wife died six years ago and Morag elected to come home and take her mother’s place. She is not an easy person to know but once known she has a very attractive personality.’

Not wanting to argue with a fond father Sister Joan held her peace.

‘She used to be quite friendly with young Rory McKensie,’ Sinclair was continuing, ‘but I believe they don’t see as much of each other as formerly.’

‘You don’t object?’ Sister Joan couldn’t help asking.

‘Because he is her junior? That doesn’t signify, and though he’s nominally a Catholic he hasn’t practised his faith in my recollection. However Morag tells me that she has no interest in him.’

But Morag was obviously seeing somebody, Sister Joan mused, and Rory McKensie’s mother clearly suspected it was her son. And disapproved of it, she recalled. The tides of prejudice ran in odd channels here with the minister who might have been expected to disapprove being unexpectedly tolerant and yet his daughter betraying her dislike of anything to do with Catholics openly. If that was true then what was she doing, meeting a cowled figure coming from the island late in the evening? Perhaps her apparent intolerance was a cloak to cover a relationship that would be disapproved of by everybody.

‘You look tired, Sister.’

Her host’s voice broke into her thoughts and made her jump.

‘I am used to plain food and early hours in the convent,’ she apologized.

‘And find company tiresome?’

‘No, my problem is that I like company very much indeed, and that often interferes with my contemplative life,’ she said ruefully. ‘I was very glad to be offered this opportunity to get right away and refresh myself spiritually – but please don’t think that I haven’t enjoyed myself. The meal and the company have both been delightful.’

‘And now I will row you back across the loch,’ he said cordially. ‘There is a promise of rain in the air so we had better get you ashore again before it begins. I have enjoyed this evening, Sister. I suppose it will be of no use to hope that it may be repeated?’

‘I’m afraid not but it isn’t because I wouldn’t want to come,’ she said regretfully.

‘Then thank you again for coming.’

They had both risen and he put out his hand, shaking hers firmly for the first time. An intensely reserved rather than a prejudiced man, she thought, and stood waiting as, saying something about fetching her coat, he left the room.

There was a fire burning here too but the corners of the room were chilly. Evidently the minister’s stipend didn’t provide central-heating.

She moved over to the high mantelshelf and looked up at the portrait of Morag hanging over it. It was a vivid rendering of Morag’s dark loveliness but in the portrait at least there was no trace of the sulkiness she displayed in real life.

‘My late wife,’ said Sinclair, coming in with the coat.

‘Your wife!’ Sister Joan hastily rearranged her ideas. ‘They are very much alike.’

‘In appearance but Catherine was of a very gentle, timid disposition. She was very much younger than I was when we married – only sixteen and a very immature sixteen whereas I was a somewhat elderly twenty-three. But we were happy together. Very happy.’

‘She died young then?’ Sister Joan put on her coat and fastened it.

‘Only thirty-four,’ Sinclair said. ‘Morag was seventeen. She was in her last year at boarding-school when it happened. A
tragic accident.’

‘Oh?’

‘Catherine suffered from insomnia,’ he said heavily. ‘She tried to cut back on the sleeping tablets her doctor had prescribed; like myself she felt the habit was addictive, but she needed them if she were to get any sleep at all. She tried very hard and naturally I encouraged her in her efforts, but after several weeks without touching the tablets she took her regular dose. Unfortunately she took some double-strength tablets that had been prescribed for an emergency and they were too strong for her. She died.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ Sister Joan said. ‘How tragic that something intended to alleviate her complaint should have – it must have been a very great shock.’

‘Six years takes the edge off one’s grief,’ he said. ‘Morag was very deeply affected but I am hopeful that one day the right young man will come along, and she will stop feeling that it’s her duty to bury herself here.’

Sister Joan murmured something vague. Morag Sinclair had impressed her as a self-willed young woman who only stayed in the manse because it suited her. Then she reminded herself that she had, at first meeting, taken Sinclair to be a harsh, intolerant man. Clearly her first impressions were not very accurate.

There was no sign of Morag or of Jeannie as they crossed the icy hall. Sinclair paused to take down a heavy jacket from a hook. He had, she noticed, already changed his shoes for knee high boots.

Outside the wind blew more strongly and she felt a decided qualm at the prospect of being rowed across the loch in a small boat, but Sinclair, snapping on a torch to illumine the stepped terraces, said cheerfully, ‘It may get a bit rough later on. Watch your step, Sister.’

She watched the step and reached the jetty where the boat bounced threateningly at its moorings. To her right she could see a mass of tangled barbed wire and fallen masonry.

‘The spur of land that joins this side of the loch to the island,’ Sinclair said, noting the direction of her glance.

‘Hardly a right of way,’ she observed dryly.

‘No indeed. During the Second World War there was a
look-out tower erected to keep an eye out for submarines. After the war the buildings were demolished, but since
technically
speaking the land belongs to the community it was their right to leave the way blocked which the abbot at that time insisted on doing. It’s been left like that.’

‘It further isolates the community, I suppose,’ she said, settling down in the boat.

‘Surely you would approve of that?’ He cast off the mooring ropes and took up the oars.

‘In any enclosed order,’ Sister Joan said, ‘the keys are on the insides of the doors. A barrier that prevents either access or egress doesn’t meet with my approval. It must be quite an eyesore in the daylight.’

‘Fortunately most of it is overgrown with weeds and
brambles
,’ he said, ‘and the numbers of tourists have dropped off in recent years. People prefer to go to Spain or down to the south coast where they can be sure of warm weather. You had better hold on tightly, Sister. The water is a mite choppy.’

Exaggeration was not apparently among the minister’s failings. Sister Joan hung on to the seat grimly as a wave splashed up into her face.

‘You don’t,’ she spluttered, ‘have any monsters in this loch, I hope?’

‘Not as far as I know.’ His short bark of laughter was muffled by the wind.

She gasped as another shower of icy droplets blew into her face. Getting uncomfortably wet seemed to be a penance thrust upon her rather than one she had chosen for herself.

They were approaching the wharf and she heaved a sigh of relief, as he jumped ashore and waded through the boiling shallows, dragging the boat after him.

‘Give me your hand, Sister. There you are!’

She was on wet and shifting shale but at least she hadn’t been expected to wade to land as he had done.

‘Get yourself something hot to drink as soon as you reach the cave,’ he ordered in his brusque manner. ‘I’ll bid you good evening, Sister.’

He was already turning to push the boat into the heaving water again. Sister Joan contented herself with calling a goodnight and turned to hurry along the shore to where she
must climb the slope and gain the steps leading to the retreat. It was unfortunate that she had forgotten to bring her own torch. Once or twice she stumbled and regained her balance with some difficulty.

The wind was stronger now and it was beginning to rain. The pines were deep rooted but their needles made the ground treacherous and once, as she struggled up the slope, she found herself on hands and knees.

‘A very suitable position for a Daughter of Compassion,’ she said aloud, and pulled herself upright again, bending towards the slant of the land and grimacing as the wind tugged her backwards. With intense relief she seized the iron handrail and began to mount the steps, trying not to think of the increasing distance between herself and the pebbled lochside.

She had left the door on the latch and with a feeling of homecoming she stumbled within. It was cold here but at least the wind and the sea spray were banished. Her bed with its coarse blankets looked inviting, and once she had lit her candle the shadows retreated to the back of the cave.

She brewed some tea and drank it milkless and scalding until her chilled frame was warm again and she could pay due attention to her evening devotion. She made it longer than usual, adding thanks for the pleasant meal she had enjoyed, remembering to pray for the soul of Catherine Sinclair and for the well-being of her widower and daughter. There had been no opening in the conversation to enable her to introduce any questions about the crypt. In any case the minister had never visited the community.

Not until she was in bed, the blankets wound round her and a second cup of tea warming her insides did she find herself thinking about the events of six years before. In that quiet district the normal tenor of life had been interrupted twice – by the disappearance of Dolly McKensie’s husband and the death from an overdose – accidental? – of Sinclair’s wife.

Was there, she wondered, burrowing deeper into the blankets, a connection between the two events? And who sat in the crypt with a monk’s habit and modern shoes? If a crime had been committed then it was her duty to do something about it, but she fell asleep still wondering what.

In the morning the wind had dropped but a fine curtain of needle-sharp rain obscured the loch. Sister Joan, having ventured out to take a look, decided that nobody would be coming over to collect her that day and she might safely remain within and catch up on her examination of conscience.

She was just finishing writing up her conclusions and thinking gloomily that few Daughters of Compassion filled up their notebooks of private faults as fast as she did when she heard from below her name being called.

Going out to the steps she beheld Brother Cuthbert at the foot of them, his aureole of red hair plastered to his head.

‘I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you, Sister,’ he called cheerfully, ‘but I wondered in case you wanted to come over to the island today.’

‘In this rain?’ She tilted her face skywards and blinked.

‘There’s a bit of a haar this morning,’ he agreed, ‘but Father Abbot thought you might want to work on your painting in the scriptorium seeing the weather’s a bit miffish.’

‘Exceedingly miffish,’ she agreed wryly, ‘but how kind of you to come.’

‘Will you be needing transport then?’ he enquired.

At that moment her cave looked temptingly cosy and warm despite its lack of heating, but Brother Cuthbert’s kindness ought not to be unrewarded.

‘Can you wait a moment or two while I get my things?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course. I’ll see you at the boat.’ He turned and plunged down through the pines.

Sister Joan completed her final sentence, shook her head
frowningly over the long list of trivial sins that cluttered up her soul, and pulled on her coat. Like her ankle-length habit it was a serviceable grey, with a high collar into which she tucked the ends of her short veil. Prioresses wore a habit of rich purple during their five-year term of office and afterwards a purple ribbon sewn on the sleeve of their grey habit – one for each term during which they had held the post. It wasn’t likely, she thought, that she would ever attain to those dizzy heights.

The steps and the slopes below them were slippery with rain. She negotiated them with care and crunched along the shale to where Brother Cuthbert waited, apparently oblivious to the pouring rain.

‘I’ve got the plastic groundsheet for you, Sister,’ he announced. ‘It will keep your clothes dry.’

‘Thank you. This is marvellous.’ Sister Joan got herself into the boat without wetting her stockings and wrapped herself gratefully into the thick plastic.

‘Actually that was a bit of a brainwave of mine,’ Brother Cuthbert confided, settling vigorously to the rowing. ‘The plastic’s used for corpses until we can get the shrouds sewn.’

‘Oh dear.’ Sister Joan looked doubtfully at her shiny covering.

‘They’re always so much tidier in plastic,’ Brother Cuthbert said. ‘At least that’s Father Abbot’s opinion.’

‘Do you – is the, er – plastic used very frequently?’ she enquired.

‘Hardly ever. Monks live to a ripe old age usually – like nuns, I guess. I suppose it’s the lack of stress.’

‘So you haven’t witnessed many deaths yourself?’ As she asked the question, she wondered if the other would find it a morbid one, but Brother Cuthbert was apparently blessed with a non-analytical mind, answering brightly, ‘Only old Brother Laurence who was nearly ninety. In a way it’s a pity because death is such a splendid affair if one has the right send-off. Don’t you think so?’

‘I haven’t thought much about it. Was Brother Laurence buried in the crypt?’

‘Oh no, there haven’t been any interments down there for the last couple of hundred years,’ he replied promptly. ‘And
only abbots were placed there, as a mark of honour, you know.’

And the body she had seen fleetingly had been much younger at the time of death than ninety, she reminded herself.

They had reached the further shore and, clutching the plastic which seemed rather less agreeable since she had learned its actual purpose, she clambered ashore and waited while her boatman tied up the small vessel.

‘I have to run. Examination of conscience day,’ he said, joining her. ‘If you hang the plastic over the end of the wall near the beehives I can get it wiped down before we go back.’

‘Yes, fine.’ She spoke somewhat absently, her eyes on the broad, retreating back. What sins would Brother Cuthbert find to confess in the notebook that only the abbot would ever see? She couldn’t imagine that anything too serious could ever cloud that lively young soul.

Where the wall dipped low just before the scriptorium she peeled off the clinging plastic, draped it over the stone and went at a run into the building, shivering as she entered. The whole place was probably slightly damp and her imagination sympathized with any long dead monk crouched over his studies with knotted joints complaining at the cold. In their way they had been heroes those long forgotten scribes.

The manuscript had been turned over a page. She walked up and down past it several times.

Sooner or later she would have to go down into the crypt again and take a closer look at the body with the modern shoes on. The thought of doing that was unpleasant no matter how firmly she told herself that death held no intrinsic horror. Only when she was completely satisfied that the matter needed further investigation would she take action of some kind.

Deciding upon a course of action, she thought, was almost as satisfying as carrying it out. With the resolve firmly fixed in her head she took the cloth from the easel on which her picture of the church was fixed and settled down to her work.

The main picture had been done in the sweeping brush strokes she enjoyed. Now the small details – the tiny flowers clustering at the foot of the walls, the sunlight haloing the
square tower, the carved gargoyles at each side of the door. She used the smaller brushes for that, standing back every few minutes to observe the effect. She was as near being pleased with what her hand had shaped as she could ever be.

The outer door opened quietly and the tall figure of the abbot came in, paused for a moment, then trod softly towards her.

‘Do I disturb you, Sister?’ he enquired.

‘Of course not, my lord,’ she began.

But he held up a hand as delicately moulded as an El Greco, saying, ‘We never use the formal term of “my lord” here, Sister. Father Abbot is the only title necessary.’

‘Father Abbot.’ She corrected herself with a smile. ‘I hope that you will be good enough to accept the two paintings of the chapel I’m going to complete while I’m here.’

‘Good enough?’ he echoed, returning her smile. ‘I consider it a most generous offer and I won’t scruple to take advantage of it. May I look? Oh, but you have talent, Sister! The painting has a lovely serene glow about it.’

‘It won’t take very long to finish,’ she told him. ‘Then, if you don’t mind, I would like to come over for a few more times to work on a companion piece, the church in winter.’

‘By all means, but won’t your own order wish to receive some sample of your work?’

‘I hope to paint the retreat as a gift for my own convent,’ she said.

‘Yes, of course.’ He nodded understandingly, adding with a delicate air of diffidence, ‘But I trust your artistic work isn’t interfering with your spiritual retreat? It is, of course, none of my business.’

‘I am trying to balance the two, Father Abbot.’

‘Of course.’ He nodded again. ‘We all live between the saddle and the ground. I am sure you young people manage it beautifully. Brother Cuthbert was telling me that he showed you the crypt.’

Sister Joan mentally thanked Brother Cuthbert for not having blurted out her trespass, and said demurely, ‘It was most interesting, Father Abbot. I hope it was all right for me to go down there?’

‘In general we don’t,’ the abbot said. ‘It is important to keep
the air as little disturbed as possible down there. My own feeling is rather against such mausoleums; the dead should return to the dust from whence they came in my opinion; however one hesitates to disturb them further. We leave them in peace.’

Which means, she thought with a mixture of relief and dismay, that I can scarcely go blundering down there again.

Something of her thought must have shown on her face because the abbot said, ‘Of course while you are visiting us you must feel free to go down there if you wish to pray or have a period of meditation. To a young girl like yourself with the prospect of dissolution many years ahead it is sometimes a very useful discipline to contemplate it at close quarters.’

‘Brother Cuthbert would say that I was much closer to my own dissolution than I’d care to admit,’ Sister Joan said and chuckled.

‘Brother Cuthbert,’ said his superior tolerantly, ‘is very young for his age – and his age is also young. He is one of the fortunate ones who was called early to the religious life. Have you everything you require here, Sister?’

‘Everything, and I am very grateful for your kindness,’ she assured him.

‘I am afraid that you are not likely to receive much
hospitality
from the local people,’ he said.

‘That’s true, but the McKensies have been very obliging.’ She had taken up her brush again and dabbed sunlight on to a leaf. ‘Dolly McKensie and her son?’

‘Ah yes, the woman whose husband left her and never returned. We get a newspaper here occasionally through the kindness of the parishioners, and at the time there was something about it.’

‘Things like that aren’t usually reported in the Press, are they?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so, but Mrs McKensie made quite a fuss about it at the time, I understand. Of course I never met the family personally. I am afraid that neither Mr McKensie nor his son kept up the practice of the faith. There is no local parish priest who might have kept them up to the mark and, of course, it is not for me to seek to mend matters. My only concern must be the community here.’

‘Did Mrs McKensie think something had happened to him?’

‘She insisted that he would never have walked out with no word of his intention. The truth is that gentlemen are not always gentle when it comes to abandoning a wife. The son still lives with her?’

‘He helps out in the shop.’

She decided that Rory’s loss of faith had been a confidence intended for her alone, not to be divulged to anyone else no matter how well intentioned. And it would only distress the elderly abbot to learn of something about which he could do nothing practical.

‘That is good to hear.’ He looked pleased.

‘I also had dinner at the manse,’ she informed him.

‘Do you think that was wise?’ He frowned slightly. ‘I understand the minister is a widower and I do wonder if he knows the respect with which we in the faith regard our religious – and you are still very young.’

Sister Joan tried to picture herself as a tempting morsel for the minister to nibble at and choked back a giggle. It was rather flattering in a way, she supposed, but it was also irritating since it seemed to prove that the last bastion of male chauvinism could be found in the monastery.

‘Well, I must leave you to your task,’ he said after a moment. ‘Today is a fast day for us – Wednesday, but I can have a cup of tea provided for you.’

‘Water will suit me fine,’ she assured him. ‘I ate well at the manse last night. Mr Sinclair mentioned that you had invited him here once but that he was obliged to refuse because of what his congregation might say.’

‘That was many years ago, just before his wife died. A very sad accident.’

‘Her daughter, Morag, resembles her greatly judging from the portrait I saw,’ Sister Joan said.

‘She acts as housekeeper for her father, I understand?’

‘Very efficiently,’ Sister Joan said dryly.

‘Ladies are frequently so, I believe.’ He gave a deprecating little cough and turned away, saying genially as he departed, ‘And please feel free to visit the crypt if you wish. Thank you again for offering me and the community such a generous gift. We will hang it in a place of honour, I promise you.’

When she had worked another half-hour on her painting she laid down her brushes and stood back, head tilted to examine her work. It wasn’t as good as the picture in her head but it would pass muster, with a charm and warmth about the picture that conveyed the sense of welcome she had hoped to capture. The companion picture would be the one set in the winter season, with the church darkly glowing in the imagined snow. She would use the first study as model for the second one.

Meanwhile there was the crypt to be visited and she felt a stab of unease at the thought of descending again into that vault.

‘When we feel it our duty to undertake a certain course of action,’ her novice mistress had said, ‘always be sure that we do not confuse our personal wishes with our sense of responsibility. Sometimes the two may march together, but when they do not then duty must always take precedence.’

In this case it was certainly no personal desire of her own that urged her down into the crypt again. If her observation hadn’t been coloured by her imagination then she would have to inform the authorities of her discovery. Once she did that then she would set in motion events that might have far-reaching consequences. At the very least her own spiritual retreat would be set at risk.

She covered the painting and washed her hands in the little washroom. As she left the scriptorium, walking swiftly through the diminishing rain, she glimpsed the disapproving face of the lay brother who had brought her something to eat before. He stood at the kitchen door, frowning out into the dampness, and before she could give him a polite greeting had closed it firmly. Perhaps he enjoyed cooking and found fast days boring or, more likely, was tired of seeing a female about the place.

In the church two brothers knelt in their stall, evidently finishing the penances imposed on them after the general examination of conscience. She went to one of the benches at the other side and knelt down herself, allowing herself the luxury of ten Aves to give the monks time to finish their prayers and leave, and her own heart time to stop thumping.

The soft padding of two pairs of sandalled feet and the
closing of a door told her she was alone again. It would have been far pleasanter to linger here, but Brother Cuthbert would be coming to collect her soon, and she wanted to do her small piece of investigation alone.