St. Peter's Finger

chapter 21

girls

“What brighter throne can brightness find

To reign on than an infant’s mind,

Ere sin destroy, or error dim

The glory of the Seraphim?”

john wilson: To a Sleeping Child.

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But the last thing we want,” said Mother Saint Francis, “is a lot of gossip going on among the girls.”

Mrs. Bradley agreed, but added that she supposed there was bound to be a certain amount of gossip, and that she thought her plan would lead to less of it, possibly, than might more secret measures. So the school, first thing on Monday morning, was surprised to have a little old woman with snapping black eyes and a terrifying, beautiful voice, step on to the platform beside Mother Francis, immediately prayers were over, and demand the writer of anonymous letters.

“Come here to me at once,” she said. There was a movement of the ranks, and out stepped Nancy Ryan.

“Come along,” said Mrs. Bradley, motioning her on to the platform. The child was so terrified that she added: “You have nobody but me to account to for your actions. I am Mother Saint Francis’ delegate.”

This did little to reassure Nancy, who stood, white-faced, and saw her surroundings through a mist, whilst her heart thumped horribly and she felt sure that if she were asked to say a single word she would be sick.

“How many letters did you write?” enquired Mrs. Bradley. There was no reply whilst Nancy struggled for control of her lips, which were dry with fright.

“One,” she replied at last.

“To whom did you send it?”

“To Mary Maslin. If you please, it was only in fun.”

“I believe that,” said Mrs. Bradley. “But it might have led to serious trouble, you know. As it is, it has been of considerable assistance to me, and so this is the last you will hear of it. Go away, child, and don’t write any more of the nasty, silly things. Get along with you.”

Nancy retired, and Mrs. Bradley addressed the assembled school.

“I want next all the girls who knew that Ursula Doyle was not in class on that Monday afternoon.”

There was barely a second’s hesitation; then the whole of the third form, seventeen of them, came forward, single file, and made a straight line in front of the platform. Most of them looked scared and guilty, as though they felt they were going to be blamed for what had happened.

“Where was she, then?” Mrs. Bradley enquired, whilst the school stood silent but excited. A girl wearing a badge stepped out of the line and said:

“We didn’t notice until we were ready for our lesson, and then we didn’t say anything, as her cousin wasn’t there either, and we thought they had both had special permission to be absent.”

“Ulrica Doyle, do you mean, was not in class either?”

“Yes. The two forms, ours and the fourth form, had music together that afternoon, and we thought— and we thought—”

“I see. Very well, girls, thank you. Now, the fourth form—where was Ulrica Doyle that afternoon?”

Thereupon ensued one of those dramatic interruptions which schoolgirls dream about, and of which schoolgirl literature is full. Ulrica Doyle herself, who had been driven to Mrs. Bradley’s home at Wandles Parva, came forward from the back of the hall, and looking even more pallid (from her self-inflicted injury, Mrs. Bradley supposed) than usual, said very calmly and distinctly:

“I spent that Monday afternoon in Church.”

“In Church?” Mrs. Bradley betrayed no surprise at her sudden appearance. It was almost as though she had expected it. Ulrica came up to the platform. Still very pale, she was, as usual, entirely self-possessed.

“Did anybody else know this?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

“No,” the girl replied, and a faint smile, such, Mrs. Bradley thought, in a moment of irritation, as martyrs probably wore, appeared at the corners of her mouth. “Oh, wait, though. One of the guest-house people came in. She saw me, I believe, and may remember.”

“But what made you go into Church?” Mrs. Bradley demanded, recollecting Mrs. Trust’s evidence.

“Saint Jeanne d’Arc,” the girl calmly replied.

“Voices?” said Mrs. Bradley sceptically, and with a considerable amount of distaste.

“You must believe what you choose,” said Ulrica, quietly and firmly, her pale face lifted and her nostrils quivering slightly. “I was under compulsion to spend the time in Church, and school rules no longer had meaning. I shall explain this to Mother Saint Francis as soon as the Voices give me leave.”

“Odd,” said Mrs. Bradley; but she was not referring to the girl’s last sentence, a fact which was patent to Ulrica but lost to the rest of her hearers, including Mother Francis. The nun, having promised to maintain a policy of rigid non-interference, was keeping silence, but her expression, to those who knew her—and even to Mrs. Bradley, who did not—boded no good to Ulrica, the embryo saint and martyr. Mother Francis was, in fact, as the girls remarked later on, positively seething with fury. At a nod from Mrs. Bradley she dismissed the school to their classrooms, but herself remained in the hall.

Mrs. Bradley fixed her black eyes on Ulrica.

“You will never make a nun if you disobey orders,” she said, “and your orders surely must be to attend lessons, and fit yourself, through education, for life. I have a certain amount of sympathy, always, with rebellion, but I shall be interested to know why you did not remain at my house until my son sent you over to your grandfather.”

“Saint Jeanne’s orders,” said the girl, speaking with a defiance none the less real because her voice remained quiet and her tone courteous, “were to disregard the orders of those who considered themselves her mental and spiritual superiors, and carry out orders from God. What would have happened to France if she had faltered?”

“How long did you stay in Church?” asked Mrs. Bradley. The abrupt question, cutting through an heroic daydream, apparently flustered the girl. She went very pale, turned suddenly crimson, and replied:

“I don’t know, exactly. The girls were not still in school when I came out, so I went to find Mother Saint Benedict to apologise to her for having missed her Latin lesson.”

“What about Mother Saint Gregory? Hadn’t you missed her music lesson as well?”

“I knew she wouldn’t have noticed I wasn’t there,” replied Ulrica, fixing a calm and fearless eye on Mother Francis. “Mother Saint Gregory is an artist. She is not conscious of other people, except in the mass and dimly. She also is very short-sighted.”

“What had Mother Saint Benedict to say?” asked Mrs. Bradley, amused to think that artistry and shortsightedness should appear to be the same thing.

“I discovered, before I could confess to my absence from her lesson, that she had not missed me, either. She had taken the double class, while Mother Saint Dominic was at the dentist’s, and had set some translation, and had gone round the class to help the slow ones.”

“You were never a slow one?”

“No. I was always top.”

“So she would not have come to you, probably, even if you had been in class?”

“I don’t think she would, unless I had come upon a doubtful reading, and had actually asked her advice.”

“What did she say when you went to her?”

“ ‘Not now, Ulrica. Go along and have your tea.’ The nuns were always kind to me about food.”

“She thought you had come for advice about your work?”

“She must have done. It was obvious that she did not know that I had come to make apology for absence.”

“I see. And you didn’t go again?”

“I saw no need. No harm was done by my non-attendance. The actual piece of translation which had been set I got from another girl and wrote out in my own time later. It would perhaps have grieved Mother to know that I had deliberately missed her lesson. It seemed kinder to let the whole thing drop.”

These sentiments seemed to Mrs. Bradley admirably sensible, although she found the manner of their expression supremely irritating. She was aware, however, that her opinion was not shared by Mother Francis, so she sent Ulrica to her formroom, and grinned at the headmistress, prepared to argue the point on behalf of the girl. Mother Francis forestalled her, however, by remarking:

“The enquiry seems doomed to end in a cul-de-sac. Nothing seems to lead anywhere.”

“I wonder why Ulrica left my house and came back here?” said Mrs. Bradley, determined not to be sidetracked.

“I can answer that. She came to me before school this morning, and said that there was no Catholic church within twelve miles of your house, and that your son had commandeered the car to go and play golf.”

“He is plus two,” said Mrs. Bradley, in explanation, Mother Francis gathered, of this selfishness. “That would be the old car,” she added. “I wonder he could get it to go. Even for George its response is not enthusiastic.”

Mother Francis made no reply to this statement, although she could think of several remarks which, to her mind, would have been in keeping.

“Ulrica is not a Catholic, though,” Mrs. Bradley went on pensively.

“It is only a question of time, and of receiving formal instruction,” Mother Francis said quickly. “Still, she should not have returned without permission, as I explained when I saw her this morning.”

“The temptation, probably, was strong. Where, by the way, are the originals from which Mother Saint Simon-Zelotes made her copies of the paten and chalice?”

Mother Francis betrayed no surprise at the sudden change of subject, but replied:

“Reverend Mother Superior was so much impressed by your evident fear for their safety, that she had them taken on Saturday morning to the Kelsorrow branch of the Exe and Wye bank. It is in the High Street, almost opposite the fire-station.”

“And the distinguished visitors?”

“They have all been put off, except the Bishop. He is to have a private view of the work on Wednesday morning.”

“But not with the originals for comparison?”

“That I cannot tell you. Reverend Mother seems greatly impressed, as I say, by your anxiety not to have the originals on show, but, on the other hand, Sister Saint Simon’s work loses interest if no comparison is made with what she copied.”

“Even so,” said Mrs. Bradley, “they should not, on any account, be shown publicly, even to the Bishop, until Thursday.” She glanced at the nun, and, yielding to an impulse similar to the one which once before had caused her to gratify what she felt must be the intense, but unexpressed curiosity of hot-blooded, energetic, repressed and self-controlled Mother Francis, she added, nodding: “Ulrica Doyle is to sail for New York on Wednesday. When she is gone, all will be well. Don’t, please, tell anybody that.”

“I will say nothing. You regard Ulrica, then, as the root of the troubles?” She did not sound at all surprised, Mrs. Bradley noticed.

“She will be much better out of the way,” Mrs. Bradley answered.

Nobody knew better than Mother Francis, who had given a good many similar answers in her time, how far from the point of the question this reply was. She folded her hands in her sleeves, bowed slightly, smiled with a warm red mouth which no training could make anything but sensuous and sadistic, and said nothing else at all, but walked beside Mrs. Bradley out of the hall and along the dim, cold corridor to her room.

“You will have Ulrica watched, will you not?” said Mrs. Bradley, before they parted, the one to deal with school stock required for the coming term, the other to telegraph her son that his charge was safe at the convent. “She ought to be under the supervision of at least two people all the time.”

George drove her to the Kelsorrow post-office.

“Letter follows,” she telegraphed to her son, after indicating that Ulrica was safe. Having sent off the telegram she obtained a letter-card, and wrote immediately, remaining in the post office to do so:

“dear ferdinand,

“This in a great hurry, as I do not want to be absent from the convent for a minute longer than I can help between now and Thursday. Ulrica came back on a milk train like Mr. Wodehouse’s heroes, and arrived here before the opening of morning school. Do not worry about her. I had overlooked the point that we have no Catholic church in the neighbourhood at home. I wish, if you can manage it, you would put Ulrica on to the boat at Southampton on Wednesday. I will send her in charge of two of the sisters, who will make certain that there is no hitch. It is absolutely essential that she should leave this country on Wednesday. A train gets into Southampton Docks at three, and the ship, the Swan of Avon, sails at a quarter to five. Do be there to meet the train. If you can’t do it, please wire me.”

She sealed the letter-card and dropped it in the post-box, then sent a second telegram to cover the information in it.

“Meet Ulrica 3 p.m. Wednesday Southampton Docks for s.s. Swan of Avon. Bradley.”

She prepaid a reply to this, and then went back to the car and told George to drive as fast as he could to the convent. They arrived at the gate-house at just after eleven o’clock. This suited Mrs. Bradley’s purpose admirably. She was admitted by the lay-sister portress, and Kitty, who loved excitement and did not mind running about, was sent to Mother Francis with notice of her arrival. This was a new arrangement, and everybody entering the convent grounds was to be subject to it.

It was a clear, bright day, fairly windy but not at all cold, and Mrs. Bradley strolled round the school gardens. Then, attracted by the sound of a voice giving crisp commands, she entered the school field and walked over to watch Miss Bonnet giving a physical training lesson to the sixth form. Miss Bonnet saw her, and waved. Mrs. Bradley waved back, but remained away from the class so as not to disturb the lesson. At a little distance stood the two nuns on supervisory duty. So it must all have looked, Mrs. Bradley reflected, on the Monday that the child was found dead. The setting, the time-table, the silent, black-robed observers—all would have been the same. She wondered at what point, and through what agency, the child could have received the urge to go to the guest-house. The nuns would have been out of the way—even the lay-sister portress had been at Vespers—the guests from the guesthouse had gone out, except for poor Sister Bridget, the orphans on duty in the guest-house had been shut away in the kitchen, even the old gardener, who might otherwise have been working in the grounds and so have seen the child sneak by, had been round at the front of the guest-house putting creosote on the fence.

It had been an ideal opportunity, and somebody had taken every advantage of the fact. Still brooding on this, Mrs. Bradley walked across to the metal-work shed. No one was there. Mother Simon-Zelotes was in the school laboratory teaching science, and all the girls who made a hobby of metal-work and woodwork were at lessons. The key was in the door, and Mrs. Bradley turned it and went in. The place was in workmanlike order, the floor clear of filings and shavings, the tools all put away or placed to hand on the racks above the benches. In a small, glass-fronted wall-cupboard stood the copies of the paten and chalice. Mrs. Bradley went up to them. The cupboard hung in a good light, and without opening the doors she could inspect the side of the chalice which presented itself, and the whole of the upper face of the paten. The work had been beautifully done. She could not have told, from looking at them, that they were not the original vessels. Mother Simon-Zelotes must be one of the cleverest craftsmen in England, she thought. She took a small lens from her pocket, opened the cupboard doors, and, without touching the objects, examined them through her little magnifying glass without revising her opinion. Mother Simon-Zelotes had done a first-class job, and Mrs. Bradley’s heart warmed fully towards her because of it.

The nun herself came in at the conclusion of morning school, her science overall voluminous over her habit, and found Mrs. Bradley still there.

“You like them?” she said.

“They are good beyond praise. ”

“I thank you. It is kind of you to say so. ”

“Tell me—would it be possible for you to confuse the pairs?”

“The new with the old? Me, no. Others—.” she smiled, and waved a large, finely-made hand—“I must not be guilty of the sin of pride, but I think perhaps they might, if they were not quite expert in these things.”

“Then you mean that if somebody were to play a little joke, and, when the things are exhibited, change the cards round, some people might be taken in?”

Mother Simon-Zelotes chuckled, a nice, fat, pleasant sound, but refused to answer. Entirely satisfied, Mrs. Bradley went over to the guest-house to have lunch. Ferdinand, to her astonishment, was one of the guests. Mother Jude herself hovered round him in the parlour before the meal was served, and informed his mother that he had had a long and tiring journey, and that she was going to make special arrangements for him to have a good afternoon sleep in one of the bedrooms after lunch.

“But what are you doing here, child?” Mrs. Bradley enquired, when the rotund little nun had gone to superintend the serving of the meal.

“Came to see my protégée whom I did not succeed in protecting,” he replied. “I’m awfully sorry about that, mother, but I’m afraid it never occurred to me that the girl would try to get back. For one thing I’d no idea that she’d got any money.”

“What was that about an attack on the car as you were going to Wandles that night?”

“Oh, that? Some form of hysteria, I imagine. Perhaps she thought we’d have to return to the convent if she was ill.”

“You’re quite sure she wasn’t attacked?”

“Oh, perfectly certain.”

“But you were asleep, George said.”

“Oh, well, yes, I may just have dozed off. I believe I did, now you mention it. But, mother, we were doing about fifty when it happened. She must have done it herself.”

“You are right, probably; but I’m keeping a watchful eye on her—or, rather, my deputies, two lynx-eyed sisters are. Come along; there’s the gong, and we mustn’t be late for grace.”

“Grace! Oh, yes, of course.”

This time it was the Jesuit, Father Clare, who sat at the head of the table. The short Latin grace he pronounced—two words—suited his soldierly figure and stern, hard, handsome face. He was a ruthless-looking young man, with an unsavoury grubbiness about him. She sat next to him. He talked well, chiefly about cattle-rearing in the Argentine. He had lived out there as a boy, he told Mrs. Bradley; had an Irish father and a Spanish-Indian mother.

“A good mixture,” he observed, without pride, but as one who stated a fact which none could controvert. Mrs. Bradley worked the conversation through Mexico to Colorado, and from Aztec civilisation and the Grand Canyon to New York and Timothy Doyle. She learned nothing new however, and got up from table disliking the priest but with no other positive feelings.

Ferdinand offered to go for a walk with her after lunch, but Mrs. Bradley, poking him in the ribs with a bony forefinger, told him to go and rest, as he had been invited to do.

“Mother Saint Jude’s word is law in this house, dear child. She is Hospitaller here, and if arrangements are made for your comfort, comfortable you must be,” she said lightly but firmly. She pushed him towards the little nun, who, with a grinning Bessie and a blushing Annie at her heels, was about to show him to his room.

It was the first hour of convent recreation. The time was just after one. Mrs. Bradley walked over to the school to watch the games, and then went along through the pleasant garden to the cloister, and tapped at the door of the frater. But no one was there except Sister Lucia, piling up wooden platters on which a few crumbs of bread and the bones of salt fish bore witness to a Lenten repast.

“The Community are all in the Common Room, except for those that are superintending the school-children’s meal,” she said, with a wide, calm smile and a little gesture towards the refectory door, “and those will be out in ten minutes.”

Mrs. Bradley smiled in response, and thanked the lay-sister. She had found out what she wanted to know, that, at the time the school-children finished their lunch, the frater was always empty. Sister Lucia would have done clearing by then.

“Are the children ever allowed in here?” she asked suddenly.

“There is nothing to prevent them from coming in, if they wish to do so. In wet weather, when the room is empty, some of them do.”

“Would it occasion any remark if in fine weather any came in?”

“Not from me, and most likely I would be the only person to see them, apart from old Sister Catherine, who helps me most days. But she has a liking for children, and never would drive them away.”

Mrs. Bradley nodded, and in a moment in came old Sister Catherine, picked up a glass in each hand, carried the glasses to the kitchen, came back for more, and so on until she had cleared the glasses from the great bare wooden board. Every time she passed in front of the Crucifix on the wall she genuflected profoundly; so, with less ostentation but perhaps, Mrs. Bradley thought, more piety, did the calm-eyed Sister Lucia.

“How is the consumptive girl?” she asked her.

“She has returned to the home of her English husband’s parents. They cannot go back to Spain. His business is ruined. She is not well. She cannot grow well in England.”

In a very few minutes the school-children came from their refectory, and walked along the cloister to their games. Mrs. Bradley followed, and caught up Ulrica Doyle, who was closely attended by her nuns. They smiled and bowed when they saw Mrs. Bradley. She returned both courtesies, and said:

“I should like to speak to Ulrica.” Obviously against the girl’s will she led her into the frater.

“When you helped Ursula with her Latin and her Science and other lessons, was it in here you used to come?” she asked gently.

“Yes—sometimes.”

“Did you bring her in here on the day of her death?”

The girl looked terrified.

“I don’t remember! Don’t look at me like that! Truly I don’t remember! How can you ask me to remember anything that happened on that day! As though I know now what I did, or where we went, or anything!”

“I see. But you came in here sometimes?”

“What does it matter? I’ve told you we came in sometimes! We’re allowed to. There’s nothing against it in the rules!”

“I know that, Ulrica. You told me, you remember, that your cousin did not kill herself. You want to know what killed her, don’t you? And that’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“It couldn’t be anything to do with this place. There’s no gas fire here, or anything! You don’t think —it couldn’t be here!”

“No, it couldn’t be here, gas fire or not,” said Mrs. Bradley. “But you did come here sometimes, you say. That’s all I wanted to know, just that it was possible for girls to come here, with permission, of course, in their recreation time.”

“Lots of the girls come,” said Ulrica. She remained staring after Mrs. Bradley when the little old woman went out. One of the guardian nuns came up and touched her on the arm.