St. Peter's Finger

chapter 6

nuns

“These iiij figures, combyned into one,

Sette on thy mind for a memorial;

Erthe and iren, foure trees, and the stone

To make us fre, whereas we were thral.”

john lydgate: Let devoute peple kepe observance.

« ^ »

I want to know all the details,” said Mrs. Bradley. Mother Ambrose, buxom, black-browed and tall, her meek habit declining to look, upon her, anything but militant, gazed straight ahead without a glance for little, apple-cheeked, dimple-chinned Mother Jude, and then said in a deep voice resonant as an organ:

“Bessie came to me in the ironing-room and asked me to go over to the guest-house immediately. I rebuked her for her state of mind, which seemed to me an unnecessarily excited one, and then hastened to this landing with her. When I discovered what had happened I sent Bessie off again for Sister Saint Jude.”

“You say ‘when I discovered what had happened.’ What did you think had happened?”

“I could see that the child was dead.”

“You felt certain of that?”

“Yes. Illogically, however, I bent over the water and raised the child’s head.”

“Was the head completely submerged when you saw the child first?”

“Yes, indeed. The water was very deep—almost up to the top of the bath.”

“What was the temperature of the water?”

“I could not say, except that it was quite cold.”

“When you say that—?”

“I mean that it was a shock to me when I plunged my hands into the cold water. I suppose I had taken it for granted, subconsciously, that the water would be warm.”

“Yes… thank you.”

“Sister Saint Jude arrived very soon after I had sent for her,” Mother Ambrose continued, “and came into the bathroom. She said: ‘Oh, poor little Ursula!’ Then we lifted the child out of the water and I had to call to the two girls, Bessie and Annie, to bring some towels from the airing cupboard, as I could not see any in the bathroom, although, later on, one was found beneath the bathroom stool. It was wet, as though it had fallen into the water by accident, and had been wrung out.”

“At first, did you not think it very odd to find no towel?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

“I should have found it incredible,” Mother Ambrose replied, in her deep voice, “if children were reasoning beings. I doubt whether they are. The apparent absence of towels did not surprise me. When we had rolled the child in the towels that were brought, we carried her into the nearest bedroom, and, leaving Miss Bonnet and Sister Saint Jude to attempt artificial respiration, I telephoned for the doctor.”

“May I have his name and address?”

Mother Ambrose gave them, and continued:

“All efforts to resuscitate the child failed. Miss Bonnet then volunteered to acquaint Sister Saint Francis with what had happened, but Sister Saint Jude and I thought it better that the news should be delivered by one of us. In the meantime, Annie, acting on my instructions, had cleared up in the bathroom, and had found a saturated towel.”

She closed her lips and indicated by her bearing that nothing else presented itself to her mind as having any immediate bearing upon the subject under scrutiny. Mrs. Bradley finished writing and then turned to Mother Jude, who had stood by, silent as a Rubens’ picture, as clear, as fair, as motionless, whilst the other nun had been speaking.

“I must ask you, Mother Saint Jude,” she said, “to corroborate or contradict what Mother Saint Ambrose has said.”

The little nun beamed.

“I can corroborate every word,” she said, “except with regard to the towels. As soon as Bessie came into the kitchen I knew that something was wrong. I thought it was the dining-room fireplace again, and I was vexed, because we had it done in the autumn and it was very, very expensive. We had to instal the portable gas-fire while the work was being carried on. I did not see how the guest-house was going to balance its books if the fireplace had to be done again so soon. All Bessie would say was ‘Come!’ So I gathered up my habit and I flew!”

Mrs. Bradley grinned sympathetically. It was easy and pleasant to imagine little, rotund Mother Jude, with her full skirts gathered in her hand, sprinting from the kitchen to the gatehouse, and through the archway round to the guest-house door.

“There’s just one other thing,” she said, “before we come to the towels. Was the window open, Mother Saint Ambrose, when you first went in?”

“Indeed it was. Wide open. I was startled. It seemed immodest.”

“Ah, yes. And talking of that—is it true that you get the children to cover themselves with a sheet or shift, or such, when they take a bath?”

“It is the custom,” replied Mother Ambrose. “There was no such covering on the child, or visible in the bathroom,” she added immediately.

“The people who stay in the guest-house—”

“I cannot say. Coverings are provided, and are always served out by the maids. Whether they are always used I cannot tell. They are usually wetted to make it appear that they have been used.”

“Tactful,” said Mrs. Bradley. “People have very nice natures, more’s the pity.”

The nuns made no verbal reply to this remark, although Mother Jude’s eyes twinkled. Mrs. Bradley wrote again, and then asked:

“Can either of you tell me anything about the dead child herself? I take it that such an exploit as stealing into the guest-house during school hours and taking a bath would be regarded by the girls as a highly daring proceeding?”

“It would be so regarded,” Mother Ambrose agreed, after a moment’s thought.

“It has been done once before, and once only, so far as we know,” supplemented Mother Jude. “A girl called O’Donovan did it in 1925, when the guesthouse was one-third its present size. She did it because she was dared, but she was found out because she was obliged to call for help. The key broke off in the lock, and the girl, having had the bath, could not get out of the bathroom again.”

She broke off to laugh. Mrs. Bradley regarded her with affection.

“It has been a permanent ‘dare’ in the school since then,” Mother Ambrose contributed after a pause. “It grieves me to have to tell you these things,” she added, with a fleeting glance of immense disapproval directed towards Mother Jude, “but we are all under obedience to assist this enquiry in any way that presents itself. Your questions guide me to tell you that the girl in question was expelled.”

“She is now,” Mother Jude interpolated neatly, “a Franciscan nun, doing missionary and medical work in South India.”

“What is the nature of the ‘dare’?” enquired Mrs. Bradley. “Merely to take the bath?”

“There is a condition attached. The girl who dares another must first have performed the feat,” replied Mother Jude.

“You throw new light, so far as I am concerned,” said Mrs. Bradley, “upon the mentality of children educated in convent schools.”

“Children vary very little,” said Mother Jude, with her blissful, charitable smile.

“I suppose that the child’s clothing was found in the bathroom,” Mrs. Bradley observed.

“Oh, yes. And in such a state! Tops torn out of both her good black woollen stockings, one suspender broken, the neck of her vest torn and the tape knotted and broken. Sister Geneviève, who acts as matron to the boarders, was horrified when she saw the state the clothes were in. She said that she had never known Ursula Doyle to be so careless and destructive, and would not have believed she could tear and damage her clothes, and soil her good tunic.”

“Interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley.

“Of course, if the unfortunate child was breaking the rules by being in a guest-house bathroom, I suppose she would naturally tear off her clothes in a hurry,” Mother Ambrose observed.

“I wonder whether it would be possible for me to examine the clothing at some time? I must see Sister Geneviève about it. And now, Mother Saint Jude, I must ask you to let me have, at your convenience, a list of all the guests who were here when the death occurred. I should like to be able to find out exactly where they were, and what they were doing during that afternoon.”

“I will write you a list and I can tell you what they were doing,” said Mother Jude promptly. “They took the youngest orphans to the cinema, and they and the children had lunch very early. The cinema at Hiversand Bay charges at a cheaper rate until three o’clock in the afternoon, and the guests, including the priest from Bermondsey, Father Thomas, had arranged to leave the convent at half-past twelve so as to arrive for the commencement of the performance, which was at half-past one. One of the contractors at Hiversand Bay had lent a lorry, in which the party travelled, and Sister Saint Ambrose and I, and the older orphans, saw them upon their way before we had our own meal.”

“And every guest went with the children?”

“Every one. I will write you the list. ”

“It was the day before Shrove Tuesday, was it not?” said Mrs. Bradley. “I see. So that means that none of the guests would have been using the bathrooms, and nobody will be able to give any information about the movements and operations of the child.”

“That is so. It was because I knew that the bathrooms would not be required that afternoon that I was able to tell Miss Bonnet that she might use one, after the game.”

“That brings me to my next question. It was unusual, I take it, for the guest-house to be completely denuded of guests?”

“It was most unusual,” said Mother Ambrose vigorously, and almost as though Mother Jude was in some way to blame. “I do not declare that it has never happened before, but I do not recollect its having happened.”

“Nor I,” said Mother Jude, with matter-of-fact placidity.

“Now, then: to how many people, besides the guests themselves, was it known that the guest-house would be empty that afternoon? And for how many days beforehand had it been known?”

“The younger orphans, those who were given the treat, had the news on the previous Thursday, at the end of morning school. The guests had made all the plans, and then had sent the invitation half-way through Thursday morning. I do not know which other people had information that the guest-house would be empty, although I see the purport of your question. You want to know, I think, whether the children of the private school could have known?”

“Yes, but I see that you cannot tell me. Perhaps Mother Saint Francis would know that. It is indeed kind of you to have been so patient in answering my questions. I think I had better see Mother Saint Francis next.”

“There is one more thing,” said Mother Ambrose, determined, it seemed, to find Mother Jude somewhere in fault. “Did lay-sister Bridget go to the cinema that day?”

“No, she did not.” Mother Jude turned to Mrs. Bradley, who was writing hasty hieroglyphics in a notebook. “This Sister Bridget is a poor, afflicted woman who is staying in our guest-house. She was not told about the outing because, for one thing, she does not go to the cinema, and, for another, because she is tiresome, poor thing. We take her out ourselves, but we do not let strangers go with her. It is embarrassing for them. You will understand when you see her.”

“I wonder,” said Mrs. Bradley, “whether we might go downstairs to the parlour?” When they were seated— the nuns bolt upright on the straightest-backed chairs they could find—she added, “That is extremely interesting. Did Sister Bridget remain in the guesthouse, then, whilst the others were out with the children?”

“Not all the time. It would have been dull for her. She loves company. She went into the Orphanage,” Mother Jude explained. “And washed currants,” said Mother Ambrose, taking up the tale. “She is quite good, and does not eat the fruit.”

“She says,” observed Mother Jude, “that all dried fruit belongs to the good Saint Paul. She has heard, at some time, I think, that currants take their name from the city of Corinth.”

“She came over at twenty-past twelve—”

“I did not want her to see the others go—”

“And she had her dinner with the older children, and then washed currants until a little before two o’clock.”

“From two until half-past two she was with us at Vespers, and when we resumed our duties after Vespers she had her afternoon sleep in her bedroom here.”

The nuns, concluding this triumphant duologue, closed their mouths and modestly dropped their eyes.

“In her bedroom here in the guest-house?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

“Yes,” said Mother Jude, for the guest-house was her province.

“Did the noise made by Miss Bonnet, when she discovered the child’s body, disturb Sister Bridget, do you know?”

“I do not know. Her room is on the same floor, but I saw nothing of her. I did not think of her. There was so much to be done, and the whole affair was so dreadful that my mind was filled completely.”

“And you, Mother Saint Ambrose?”

“I saw nothing of Sister Bridget. I did think of her, though. I hoped that she would not come out upon us because we were so much occupied.”

“Can you tell me anything more about her? I labour the point because it seems as though she must have been the only person in the guest-house, except for the girls in the kitchen, when the child entered the bathroom. Is she usually left by herself?”

“Oh, no!” said both the nuns immediately. Mrs. Bradley looked mildly surprised.

“We never leave Sister Bridget entirely alone anywhere, except in her bedroom,” Mother Jude explained, “and even then there is a lay-sister or one of the other orphans within call, and often I am here, too, with Sister Saint Cyprian, who teaches needlework to both orphans and private-school children. On the afternoon in question Kitty and Bessie were on duty together here, Mother Saint Ambrose was supervising laundry work in the laundry (a separate building with its drying-ground just behind this guest-house). I was in the kitchen—the Community kitchen, that is, which adjoins the frater on the south side of the cloister— and Sister Saint Cyprian was taking a needlework class at the school. But you must not think of Sister Bridget as usually being alone and left to her own devices.”

“That is quite clear. Is it likely or unlikely that Kitty and Bessie would have seen the child when she came to the guest-house for the bath?”

“It is quite likely they would be unaware that anybody had come in. Generally we use only one door, and that is in the front of the house, and the wall along the end of the guest-house garden is far too high to climb. If Kitty and Bessie were sitting in the kitchen doing some mending or getting on with their compulsory reading, they might not know that the house had been entered from the front. We do not lock the front door until sunset or after.”

“Is the entrance to the convent grounds also kept open during the daytime, then? I mean, would the child have experienced any difficulty in getting past Sister Magdalene at the gate?”

“It depends upon the time. The gate is left unlocked from about eight o’clock in the morning until the late afternoon, and the portress is nominally in charge of it. But, of course, she has other duties, and it would not be difficult for a child to slip through the unlocked gate without being seen. If she went through while the portress was at Vespers, she certainly would not be seen.”

“I see. Thank you.” She made another note. “And now about Miss Bonnet. What was she doing, Mother Saint Ambrose, when first you saw her that day?”

“Taking off her trousers,” was Mother Ambrose’s startling reply.

“Taking—?” Mrs. Bradley looked nonplussed.

“Miss Bonnet described to me once how essential it is, if one wishes to succeed in sports or games, to keep the limbs warm,” said Mother Jude.

“She was going to play netball with the orphans—”

“She always played games in shorts—”

“And over the shorts she wore trousers.”

“These she took off at the moment that play commenced.”

“She is quite a modern young woman.”

“I understand, I think,” said Mrs. Bradley, not knowing whether to admire most the quick comedy-patter of the duologue, or the self-control with which, having said their say, the nuns switched off, as it were, an electric current, and lapsed into immobile silence. “Pardon me for having put my question so ambiguously. I meant, what was she doing when you came into the bathroom that day?”

“She was on the landing, just outside the door.”

“Doing nothing?”

“Nothing at all, so far as I remember. She looked very pale, as though she might be going to faint or turn bilious,” said Mother Ambrose.

“What was she wearing then?”

“She was wearing her drill tunic and a jersey.”

“Not her trousers?”

“She had her trousers with her, but for going about the school she always, at the special request of Reverend Mother Superior, put something over her shorts for modesty.”

“Were the trousers actually in her hand when you saw her first?”

“No, on the bathroom floor, as though she had dropped them and forgotten them in the shock of seeing the dead child.”

“And the window, you say, was wide open.”

“Quite wide open.”

“Miss Bonnet, Annie thinks, had opened it.”

“And had dropped what she was carrying to do so?”

“That would be my inference.”

“Very sensible of her, I should say. I suppose she wanted to let out the smell of gas.”

“Did you smell gas, Mother Saint Ambrose?”

“Certainly. Not strongly, because, of course, the open window must have dispersed the fumes, but strongly enough to be noticeable, and to make obvious the cause of death.”

“Yet Annie declares that she could smell no gas.”

“Then her sense of smell must be defective.”

“Did you smell gas, Mother Saint Jude?”

“Certainly. I looked to see whether the pilot light of the geyser had been turned off.”

“Had it?”

“Yes, quite securely.”

“But had not the guest-house fence been coated with creosote?”

“Oh!” said both nuns, as though this point had escaped them.

“Tell me, please,” said Mrs. Bradley, as though she had decided not to labour it, “about the guest-house towels.”

“The guest-house towels are distinctive,” said Mother Jude, “and the wet towel seems to have come from one of the rooms. The towels are striped in blue and white, and carry the name of the convent, ‘Sisters of St. Peter in Perpetuity,’ embroidered in red across the corner.”

“Was the wet towel mentioned at the inquest?”

“It seemed of no importance.”

“No? Yet surely that towel might have changed the verdict from suicide to accident? Would a suicide take a towel?”

“I don’t believe it would have helped to get the verdict altered,” Mother Jude sadly interposed. “People do so many things from habit.”

“Yet Mother Saint Ambrose said, a short while ago that she was not astonished to find no towels in the bathroom. That, in her opinion and according to her experience, children were feckless beings whose common sense could never be relied on. Perhaps, however, you are right. The towel makes a small point only, although an interesting one. There is one thing more; what happened when you found that it was impossible to resuscitate the child?”

“Miss Bonnet and the doctor went to have another look at the bathroom, which Annie, by then, had tidied. Sister Saint Ambrose and I went together to Sister Saint Francis to let her know what had occurred. Annie and Bessie were told to remain in the kitchen until they received other instructions, and on no account to let anyone know what had happened.

“Did you speak to the doctor again before the inquest?”

“Yes, he returned with the police.”

“That seems an extraordinary thing.”

“He was frank with us. He said that, although he could smell gas when he went into the bathroom with Miss Bonnet—although, now you have mentioned the creosote, it might have been that—he could detect nothing wrong with the water-heater—he is quite a practical man—and that the circumstances needed explaining.”

“He refused to sign the death certificate, then?”

The two nuns bowed their heads.

“And what view did the policeman take?” asked Mrs. Bradley. Mother Jude smiled.

“He did not confide in us. He took notes, and was exceedingly nervous, and addressed Reverend Mother Superior throughout the conversation as ‘Your Worship.’ He wiped his boots, too, which we thought was nice of him.”

“And when did the demonstration take place?”

“On Saturday night,” Mother Ambrose answered. “We were disturbed after dark by a number of wild young men from neighbouring villages.”

“Were the gates locked?”

“Fortunately they were. Bessie very bravely volunteered to go for help. She has good qualities although she lacks self-control.”

“You did not let her go?”

“We did,” replied Mother Jude. “I myself assisted in helping her over the west wall so that she could get past the attackers without being seen.”

“It was thought best,” said Mother Ambrose, “that she shoud go with our assistance and permission rather than that she should be led into the sin of disobedience.”

“When once the idea had occurred to her, she would have gone in any case,” said Mother Jude, simplifying the other nun’s statement.

“I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And did she obtain assistance?”

“No. No one would come to our help. It proved impossible to wake the village policeman.”

This was not news to Mrs. Bradley, who had heard as much from the chambermaid at the inn, and she remarked: “So the policeman who wiped his boots was not the village policeman?”

“No. He was a man from Kelsorrow. The doctor lives in Kelsorrow, and telephoned from here to the police station. He knows the inspector there.”

“I see. Thank you, both of you. You have been most kind and patient.”

“You will doubtless, as you suggested, go next to see Sister Saint Francis,” Mother Ambrose suggested.

“I think so. Are you going that way? Shall we all three walk together?”

The nuns were bound respectively for the Orphanage and for the convent kitchen, so, Mother Ambrose stately as a cassowary, Mother Jude like a cheerful, plump little robin, and Mrs. Bradley a hag-like pterodactyl, they proceeded, at the religious pace, to the gatehouse to enter the grounds.