St. Peter's Finger

chapter 18

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“That weary deserts we may tread

A dreary labyrinth may thread

Through dark way underground be led.”

richard chenevix trench: The Kingdom of God.

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Mrs. bradley, armed with all the facts that were known, quickly organised a search. The child had been taken ill on the previous afternoon at just after a quarter past three, because as soon as the form had had their afternoon break at the end of Mother Cyprian’s lesson, Mary, according to the evidence of certain members of the class, had complained of feeling sick, and had gone off alone, refusing the comradely help and companionship usually given to one another by schoolgirls under these circumstances, and they had not seen her again that afternoon.

Two of them had made a tour of the water closets towards the end of break, but those within had all announced their identity, and Mary, it seemed, had concluded her attempts at being sick—‘she wasn’t sick,’ they announced unanimously (this was the sort of information which, in a form of twelve-year-olds, could be relied on, Mrs. Bradley knew, for accuracy, and is always common property), ‘but she’d certainly come out before we called to her, because everyone else inside answered. ’

Mother Francis was sufficiently overcome by the shock of Mary’s disappearance to be incapable of delivering even the mildest homily upon the indelicacy of these proceedings, and received all the tidings with a curt nod and an order to ‘go to your places and get straight on with your extra preparation, and do not let me hear another word.’

This display of Old Adam had had the effect of crushing an incipient outbreak of general conversation, and, prompted by Mrs. Bradley, Mother Francis continued the exposition, but would not be hurried into missing out the smallest fact or most unimportant opinion.

After break, Mary’s form had gone to Mother Mary-Joseph for an English lesson, and here Mary Maslin had not appeared at all. An excuse had been brought by a girl named Ryan—Nancy Ryan—aged twelve. All she had said was that Mary felt sick, and would come into class as soon as she possibly could. Nobody added that Mary’s whereabouts at the time that the lesson began were unknown to the rest of the form, and Mother Mary-Joseph—very pale when Mrs. Bradley interviewed her—admitted that she had forgotten the child and had not sent out during the lesson to find out how she was.

“The children should have said something—little donkeys!” said Mother Francis, in a pardonable burst of asperity.

Mary, moreover, had not turned up at tea, had notified nobody of what she had been doing in the meantime, but had been sick twice during the night. She had gone into Saturday school—French with Mother Dominic, English with Mother Mary-Joseph (who asked her whether she felt better), and Geography with Mother Timothy. She had appeared at lunch, but had eaten without much appetite, and then had gone off with Nancy Ryan and some others of the day-girls, to play in the junior dayroom. She had not been seen since.

Unfortunately Nancy Ryan was a day-girl, but five of the boarders were girls in Mary’s form, and the first thing Mrs. Bradley did, after having set in motion a search of the buildings and grounds—nobody to lose touch with the rest of her search party, and no search party to number fewer than four people—was to interview separately all these girls. They could tell her no more than Mother Francis had already found out. They had heard Nancy Ryan give Friday’s message to Mother Mary-Joseph, and they had not been surprised when Mary Maslin did not appear at Friday tea. They assumed that she had gone to bed because she did not feel well, and had said so to Mother Cyprian, whose duty it was that day to supervise the boarders at table.

Mother Cyprian had paid very little attention, as she readily admitted. She was not the Infirmarian, and she had supposed that the child was being properly cared for. She had gone off to church at the usual time, and the boarders had enjoyed recreation. One girl, named Cynthia Parks, had broken rules, however, by sneaking up to the dormitory and peeping into Mary Maslin’s cubicle. She came down and told the others that Mary was not there. When preparation time came, and Mother Timothy, on duty that evening, saw and commented on Mary’s empty place, they told her that Mary had not been well, and Mother Timothy had taken it for granted that the child had been ordered to bed. She actually was in bed when the others all went upstairs, and then had been sick, but not violently so, twice during the night, and had been attended to by Mother Patrick, whose turn it was on duty in that dorter.

Mrs. Bradley could understand Mother Francis’ panic-stricken insistence upon the events of the previous day, but they seemed to her to have very little bearing upon the fact of the disappearance. She tried to get further information from the children, but it was not long before it became obvious that they all knew no more than they had said. She abandoned the interrogation, divided the boarders into five groups, and ordered a further extensive search of the house and grounds.

She herself tiptoed up the stairs to the children’s sleeping quarters. These had been a couple of very large rooms, but extra windows had been made, and these, together with thin wooden partitions and curtains, had made it possible to convert them into a dozen separate cubicles, each with half of a window for light and ventilation.

“Which is Mary’s?” Mrs. Bradley enquired. The Spanish girl, Maria Gartez, who, unbidden but overlooked, had attached herself to Mrs. Bradley, stepped forward and pointed to one of the curtained archways. Mrs. Bradley went in, but the narrow bed was empty.

About a hundred and fifty different thoughts had been passing through Mrs. Bradley’s mind. Two were paramount, and demanded most of her attention. One was common to all the searchers, both nuns and children: the highly dangerous nature of the purlieus of the convent: the high, steep cliffs; the rocks below; the sea; the wild moor; the wilder forest which encroached on it; the bogs, the pits, the paths that ended nowhere, the labyrinthine tracks through gorse and down steep gullies. The second thought, which was possibly hers alone, was that in all probability Ulrica Doyle had known, before she left, of her cousin’s disappearance. True, she had been to look for her, so that she could bid her good-bye, but it seemed incredible that, missing her in her usual haunts, she had not enquired of the members of her form to know where she might be found; and if she had done this, she must have learned of her disappearance from the recreation room during the second part of the afternoon. She probably knew, too, of her cousin’s illness of the previous afternoon and night, and ought to have made some attempt to find out how she was, and whether she had gone to bed again.

She turned to Maria Gartez.

“Did Ulrica know that Mary was lost?” she demanded.

“She said that somebody told her her cousin had been ill,” said Maria. “She went to find her directly after tea.”

“Did she find her?”

“I did not ask. We played chess.”

“Yes, I know you did. What did she say when she came back?”

“I think she said: ‘You have the board ready. I will have black. Black will win.’ I do not remember anything else that she said.”

“So you settled down to play, and were still playing when I found you?”

“Yes. It was almost time to go to preparation when you came. I was very glad you came. I do not like preparation.”

“I see. You ought to have been at preparation whilst you were playing with me?”

“Yes. Ulrica had an excuse. She was to get ready to depart. I made it an excuse to play with you. Thank you very much for a very enjoyable game.” She curtsied. Her dark eyes were grave. She seemed perfectly serious.

“And she didn’t say a word about her cousin?”

“No. But about the board.”

“I see. Thank you, Maria. That is all.”

The Spanish child curtsied and, this time, went away. Meanwhile the Mother Superior had sent Sister Geneviève, the boarders’ matron, and Sister Lucia, the assistant Infirmarian, for the police. They were to walk across the moor to the village and to telephone to Kelsorrow from there. They were not to use the guesthouse telephone for fear of alarming the stepmother of the child.

Pending the arrival of the police, other search parties were formed. Reverend Mother Superior herself went into the boarders’ dormitory to do night-duty, and the older nuns and lay-sisters Catherine and Magdalene were left behind. Old Sister Catherine, they thought, could not help in any way; Sister Magdalene was to open the convent gate to the police and explain to them, more fully than could be done in a telephone call, exactly what had happened.

Then one party headed by Mother Benedict and including Mrs. Bradley, and the other headed by Mother Simon-Zelotes and including Mother Francis, set out to search the neighbourhood. Mrs. Bradley’s party carried the convent handbells, five in all, and the other party had whistles used in games periods. It was expected that enough noise would be made to keep the searchers in touch with one another and to warn the missing child of the approach of friends if she had wandered away and got lost. Mrs. Bradley had her electric torch and two spare batteries, and Mother Benedict carried a hurricane lamp. The others in their party, following two by two as long as the nature of the country allowed of this conventual method of progress, were absolutely silent. They were to explore the cliff-top and the sea-shore, and Mrs. Bradley wondered, as she led the way with Mother Benedict, whether theirs or that of the other party, who were to comb the heights and hollows of the moorland, was the more unpleasant and dangerous task.

Soon it became impracticable to continue in the close and unproductive formation of the crocodile, and so, obeying orders, the searchers spread, half of them circling round Mrs. Bradley and her torch, the rest with Mother Benedict and her lamp.

Apart from almost frightening a tramp to death, their search of the cliff-top in the direction of Hiversand Bay had no result whatever. They went back along the path until they came to a place where steps had been cut to make a descent to the beach. Here the two groups separated completely, Mrs. Bradley and her followers to go down to the shore, the others to continue the search along the cliffs and to try the opposite direction.

All were tired but unflagging, and Mrs. Bradley, not for the first time, admired without stint the soldierly courage and cheerfulness of the religious, as, impeded, one would suppose, by their habits, stumbling often in the unevenness of the way, they carried out the thorough, patient search. The thought in her own mind was that all her theories had been false; that the mysteries bore another character from that with which she had been crediting them, and that Mary Maslin was dead, and through her negligence.

She could hear Mother Benedict praying as they went down the dangerous path, not for her own safety— although, in that wild search, and in the darkness, all of them risked their lives—but for the health, life and safety of the child.

The path kept turning on itself in sharp-angled bends. The steps were unevenly cut and were slippery with rain. Twice Mrs. Bradley saved Mother Benedict from falling, and twice Mother Benedict saved her. The sound of the sea grew louder. A table of tides had indicated that they would reach the shore on an outgoing tide, and soon they were walking on shingle and stumbling on great heaps of seaweed, wet, salt and sticky, and of hideous, fishy fleshiness, left high by the out-going sea.

The sea boomed on the rocks which it was gradually uncovering. They could see them as they approached— great black shapes like leviathans sleeping in the waters, up to the buttocks in the brine which leapt at their heads and fell back, foaming and streaming. Even by night the sky was pale above the water, but the towering cliffs shut out the heavens to the south, for the convent faced north to the sea, owing to the shape of the bay on which it was built.

Clanging their bells like lepers warning the unspotted, or like those in charge of the “dead cart” in time of plague, the untidy little procession, weary, wet-footed, wet-skirted, muddy and hoarse—for they called the child’s name in addition to ringing the bells—walked for four miles up the coast, until they were two miles beyond the convent. Here the cliff was lower, and farther on it disappeared in sand-dunes covered with rough, spiked grass. Their shoes were full of sand, and they sat down as soon as they came to firm ground, and shook out the sand before they continued their journey. About a mile farther on, they heard the sound of a bicycle bell. Its continuous ringing attracted their attention. It was to bring them news that the child was found. The young policeman who was riding the bicycle got off and walked back with them to the convent. They were almost too tired to rejoice. Nothing more could be done that night. Those who had been left in charge at the convent had food and hot drinks ready for the searchers, and the Reverend Mother Superior put everyone under obedience to eat and drink.

The child had been put to bed. The police had arrived in time to round up the searchers. The story, said Reverend Mother, must wait for the telling until morning.

Mrs. Bradley, whose constitution was of iron, nevertheless felt glad at the thought of bed. She protested against being escorted by Mother Ambrose and Mother Jude to the guest-house, but, tired as they were, they would not leave her until she reached the front door. In she went, and was asleep as soon as she lay down.

In the morning she heard from Mother Francis the story of the finding of the child. The second search party had set off across the mile and a half of moorland which led to the village. It had been rough, uneasy going in the darkness, and they had no idea whether the child, supposing she had crossed the moor, had travelled east, west or south. Willing to obtain any help which might be forthcoming, the nuns had asked for assistance from the villagers, and a number of men had joined in the search, for the village of Blacklock Tor was not the home of the youths who had attacked the convent after the death of Ursula Doyle. Some had made their way to the big pond known as Larn Bottom, on the south side of the village about two miles away from the inn, in case the child had got drowned.

Whilst the search was thus progressing, the police had arrived at the convent and had asked a good many questions. Old Sister Catherine, however, had been thinking matters over in the ruminating manner of the aged, and, just before they arrived, had asked Reverend Mother’s permission to call upon the people who lived in the two private houses adjoining the convent grounds. So she, accompanied by old Mother Bartholomew, called upon the builder who lived next door to the guest-house (which he himself had put up in the form, at first, of three private houses, making a row of five) and straightway proved herself to be the most sagacious of all the people who desired the child’s safety and well-being. She said to the man:

“Have you seen our little girl who ran away?”

“Sure,” replied the man. “She had a nasty fall, and mother put her to bed and we telephoned the doctor. We dropped you a note in the door, and been expecting somebody over ever since tea. Didn’t know how you was placed, but made sure she’d be missed before this.”

Mrs. Bradley, in the morning, in conversation with Mother Francis, said:

“But what happened to the note that they sent?”

“It was found in the guest-house letter-box by Annie, and as it was not addressed to anyone, but bore the superscription, ‘Urgent,’ she put it on Sister Saint Jude’s desk for her to see directly she came over from the convent kitchen. But the postman, later, called with a pile of accounts, and these were placed on top. Sister Saint Jude’s habit is to deal with all her business correspondence in the morning immediately after church, so, of course, we did not find the man’s note because it was hidden.”

“And where is Mary Maslin now? In bed still, I suppose?”

“In the infirmary, yes. The doctor had said she could be moved if someone was there to carry her. She is not very badly hurt, but is suffering, the doctor thinks, from shock. Apparently she fell off the roof.”

“I wish you would let me have a short talk with Sister Catherine.”

Sister Catherine talked to Mrs. Bradley in the nuns’ parlour, a small, bare chamber more like a dentist’s waiting-room than anything else that Mrs. Bradley could think of, except that there were no magazines, and that a crucifix, very large, and carved with Spanish care for sadistic detail, hung on the high east wall.

“What I said to myself was: ‘They’re all alike,’ ” old Sister Catherine began. “They will do it. What one will do, another will do, just like sheep, as Our Lord knew, too.”

She nodded and mumbled, and looked at Mrs. Bradley with a kind of good-humoured craftiness. “I’ve seen them! I’ve seen them! I know!”

“On the roof?”

“On the roof. And I’ve said to myself: ‘She’ll fall!’ But the tricks these children get up to nowadays remind me of the time when I was a very young girl, and he climbed the balcony railings. Nearly seventy years ago, that was; and he was killed in battle, and so I came to the convent.” She appeared to have fallen into a dream, and after a minute or two Mrs. Bradley roused her again with a gentle question.

“When did you last see somebody on the roof?”

“Not very long ago; no, not very long ago.” She could not wrinkle her brow, for all her earthy old face was a network of wrinkles already, but her rheumy eyes became vacant in concentrated thought. She shook her head slowly, and smiled, a toothless, happy smile of great serenity. “No, I’m a stupid old creature. I can’t remember. I know that when I heard of the other poor little one I said to myself: ‘And lucky not to have broken her neck.’ That’s what I said to myself.”

“That child would have been about the size of this one?”

“No, no, bigger. One of the older girls, surely.”

“Was she dressed for climbing on roofs?”

“She was dressed as they dress for their drill, in a short tunic of grey serge and the scarlet girdle. When I was a girl we should have been whipped for appearing in public like that. But times change, and perhaps it’s all for the best.”

This time Mrs. Bradley did not interrupt the old lay-sister’s thoughts, and they sat in companionable silence until Sister Lucia, the assistant Infirmarian, came in to tell Mrs. Bradley that the child was awake, had breakfasted, seemed much better, and, in short, with the doctor’s permission, could be interviewed.

Mrs. Bradley walked from the parlour to the infirmary, which was on the top floor of the Orphanage. The spring morning was windy, with bright sunshine except when, at intervals, the fast-moving clouds obscured for a moment the sun. The nuns’ garden was sheltered by its hedges and high wall, and in it the early daffodils were already in flower, and there were the last of the crocuses at the base of trees, among the grass, and the trim borders were brilliant with anemones of all imaginable colours.

The fruit trees in the orchard showed traces of Mother Patrick’s labours. Bulges of clay on the crown-grafted ancient trees, and neat criss-cross of bast on the younger ones, which had been tongue-grafted with delicate, precise insertions in T-shaped incisions, proved that her leisure had been employed as pleased her best. Mrs. Bradley nodded, reviewing her own assistance in these labours.