The Abbess of Crewe (5 page)

Something crackles on the line. ‘Gertrude, are you there?’ says
Alexandra.

Something crackles, then Gertrude’s voice responds, ‘Sorry, I missed all
that. I was tying my shoelace.’

‘You should be here, Gertrude. The nuns are beginning to murmur that you’re
avoiding us. Felicity is saying that if she’s elected Abbess of Crewe she wants an
open audit of all the dowries and she advocates indiscreet sex. Above all, she has
proclaimed a rebellion in the house and it’s immoral.’

‘What is her rebellion against?’ Gertrude inquires.

‘My tyranny,’ says Alexandra. ‘What do you think?’

‘Is the rebellion likely to succeed?’ says Gertrude.

‘Not if we can help it. But she has a chance. Her following increases every
hour.’

‘If she has a chance of success then the rebellion isn’t immoral. A rebellion
against a tyrant is only immoral when it hasn’t got a chance.’

‘That sounds very cynical, Gertrude. Positively Machiavellian. Don’t you
think it a little daring to commit yourself so far?’

‘It is the doctrine of St Thomas Aquinas.’

‘Can you be here for the election, Gertrude? We need to consult you.’

‘Consult Machiavelli,’ says Gertrude. ‘A great master, but don’t
quote me as saying so; the name is inexpedient.’

‘Gertrude,’ says Alexandra. ‘Do bear in mind that

But Gertrude has hung up.

‘Will she come home?’ says Walburga when Alexandra turns from the
telephone.

‘I doubt it,’ says Alexandra. ‘She is having a great success with the
cannibals and has administered the Kiss of Peace according to the photograph in
today’s
Daily Mirror.
Meanwhile the vegetarian tribes have guaranteed to
annihilate the cannibals, should they display any desire to roast her.’

‘She will be in trouble with Rome,’ says Mildred, ‘if she absents
herself from the Abbey much longer. A mission takes so long and no longer according to
the vows of this Abbey.’

‘Gertrude fears neither Pope nor man,’ says Alexandra. ‘Call Sister
Winifrede on the walkie-talkie. Tell Winifrede to come to the Abbess’s
parlour.’ She leads the way into the parlour which is still furnished in the style
of the late Hildegarde, who had a passion for autumn tints. The carpet is figured with
fallen leaves and the wallpaper is a faded glow of browns and golds. The three nuns
recline in the greenish-brown plush chairs while Winifrede is summoned and presently
appears before them, newly startled out of a snooze.

Alexandra, so soon to be clothed in white, fetches from her black pocket a bunch of keys.
‘Winifrede, ’ she says, indicating one of the keys, ‘this is the key
to the private library. Open it up and bring me Machiavelli’s
Art of
War.’
Alexandra then selects another key. ‘And while you are about
it go to my cell and open my locked cupboard. In it you will find my jar of
pâté,
some fine little biscuits and a bottle of my
Le
Corton,
1959. Prepare a tray for four and bring it here with the
book.’

‘Alexandra,’ whines Winifrede, ‘why not get one of the kitchen nuns to
prepare the tray?’

‘On no account,’ says Alexandra. ‘Do it yourself. You’ll get your
share.’

‘The kitchen nuns are so ugly,’ says Mildred.

‘And such common little beasts,’ says Walburga.

‘Very true,’ says Winifrede agreeably and departs on her errands.

‘Winifrede is useful,’ says Alexandra.

‘We can always make use of Winifrede,’ says Mildred.

‘Highly dependable,’ says Walburga. ‘She’ll come in useful when
we really come to grips with Felicity.’

‘That, of course, is for you two nuns to decide,’ Alexandra says. ‘As a
highly obvious candidate for the Abbey of Crewe, plainly I can take no personal part in
whatever you have in mind.’

‘Really, I have nothing in mind,’ Mildred says.

‘Nor I,’ says Walburga. ‘Not as yet.’

‘It will come to you,’ says Alexandra. ‘I see no reason why I
shouldn’t start now arranging for this room to be newly done over. A green theme,
I think. I’m attached to green. An idea of how to proceed against Felicity will
occur to you quite soon, I imagine, tomorrow or the day after, between the hours of
Matins and Lauds, or Lauds and Prime, or Prime and Terce, or, maybe, between Terce and
Sext, Sext and None, None and Vespers, or between Vespers and Compline.’ Winifrede
returns, tall and handsome as a transvested butler, bearing a tray laden with their
private snack for four. She sets it on a table and, fishing into her pocket, produces a
book and Alexandra’s keys which she hands over.

They are seated at the table, and the wine is poured. ‘Shall I say grace?’
says fair-faced, round-eyed Winifrede, although the others have already started to scoop
daintily at the
pâté
with their pearl-handled knives. ‘Oh,
it isn’t necessary,’ says Alexandra, spreading the
pâté
on her fine wafer, ‘there’s nothing wrong with
my
food.’

Winifrede, with her eyes like two capital Os, leans forward and confides,
‘I’ve seen the print of that tele-photo of Felicity with Thomas this
morning.’

‘I, too,’ says Walburga. ‘I don’t understand these fresh-air
fiends when the traditional linen cupboard is so much better heated and
equipped.’

Alexandra says, ‘I glanced at the negative. Since when my spirit is impure. It does
not become them. Only the beautiful should make love when they are likely to be
photographed.’

‘The double monasteries of the olden days were so discreet and so well
ordered,’ Mildred says, wistfully.

‘I intend to reinstate the system,’ says Alexandra. ‘If I am the Abbess
of Crewe for a few years I shall see to it that each nun has her own private chaplain,
as in the days of my ancestor St Gilbert, Rector of Sempringham. The nuns will have each
her Jesuit. The lay brothers, who will take the place of domestic nuns as in the
eleventh century, will be Cistercians, which is to say, bound to silence. Now, if you
please, Walburga, let’s consult
The Art of War
because time is passing
and the sands are running out.’

Alexandra gracefully pushes back her plate and leans in her chair, one elbow resting on
the back of it and her long body arranged the better to finger through the pages of the
book placed on the table before her. The white coifs meet in a tent of concentration
above the book where Alexandra’s fingers trace the passages to be well noted.

‘It is written,’ says Alexandra with her lovely index finger on the margin as
she reads:

After you have consulted many about what you ought to do,
confer with very few concerning what you are actually resolved to do.

The bell rings for Matins, and Alexandra closes the book. Walburga
leads the way while Alexandra counsels them, ‘Sisters, be vigilant, be sober. This
is a monastery under threat, and we must pray to Almighty God for our
strength.’

‘We can’t do more,’ says Mildred.

‘To do less would be cheap,’ Walburga says.

‘We are corrupt by our nature in the Fall of Man,’ Alexandra says. ‘It
was well exclaimed by St Augustine, “O happy fault to merit such a Redeemer!
O
felix culpa!
”’

‘Amen,’ respond the three companions.

They start to descend the stairs. ‘O happy flaw!’ says Alexandra.

Felicity is already waiting with her assembled supporters and the anonymous files of
dark-shaped nuns when the three descend, graceful with Walburga in the lead, each one of
them so nobly made and well put together. One by one they take their capes and file
across the midnight path to their chapel.

Felicity slips aside, waiting with her cloak folded in the dark air until the community
has entered the chapel. Then, while the voices start to sound in the ebb and flow of the
plainchant, she makes her way back across the grass to the house quickly as a water bird
skimming a pond. Felicity is up the great staircase, she is in the Abbess’s
parlour and switches on the light. Her little face looks at the remains of the little
feast; she spits at it like an exasperated beggar-gipsy, and she breathes a cat’s
hiss to see such luxury spent. But soon she is about her business, through the door, and
is occupied with the apparatus of the green telephone.

At the end of a long ring someone answers.

‘Gertrude!’ she says. ‘Can that really be you?’

‘I was just about to leave,’ Gertrude says. The helicopter is
waiting.’

‘Gertrude, you’re doing such marvellous work. We hear —’

‘Is that all you want to say?’ Gertrude says.

‘Gertrude, this convent is a hotbed of corruption and hypocrisy. I want to change
everything and a lot of the nuns agree with me. We want to break free. We want
justice.’

‘Sister, be still, be sober,’ Gertrude says. ‘Justice may be done but
on no account should it be seen to be done. It’s always a fatal undertaking.
You’ll bring down the whole community in ruins.’

‘Oh, Gertrude, we believe in love in freedom and freedom in love.’

‘That can be arranged,’ Gertrude says.

‘But I have a man in my life now, Gertrude. What can a poor nun do with a
man?’

‘Invariably, a man you feed both ends,’ Gertrude says. ‘You have to
learn to cook and to do the other.’

The telephone then roars like a wild beast.

‘What’s going on, Gertrude?’

‘The helicopter,’ Gertrude says, and hangs up.

‘Read it aloud to them,’ Alexandra
says. Once more it is lunch time. ‘Let it never be said that we concealed our
intentions. Our nuns are too bemused to take it in and those who are for Felicity have
gone morbid with their sentimental Jesusism. Let it be read aloud. If they have ears to
hear, let them hear.’ The kitchen nuns float with their trays along the aisles
between the refectory tables, dispensing sieved nettles and mashed potatoes.

Winifrede stands at the lectern. She starts to read, announcing Ecclesiasticus, chapter
34, verse 1:

Fools are cheated by vain hopes, buoyed up with the fancies of
a dream. Wouldst thou heed such lying visions? Better clutch at shadows, or chase
the wind. Nought thou seest in a dream but symbols; man is but face to face with his
own image. As well may foul thing cleanse, as false thing give thee a true warning.
Out upon the folly of them, pretended divination, and cheating omen, and
wizard’s dream! Heart of woman in her pangs is not more fanciful. Unless it be
some manifestation the most High has sent thee, pay no heed to any such; trust in
dreams has crazed the wits of many, and brought them to their ruin. Believe rather
the law’s promises, that cannot miss their fulfilment, the wisdom that trusty
counsellors shall make clear to thee.

Winifrede stops to turn the pages to the next place marked with a
book-marker elaborately embroidered from the sewing-room. Her eyes remotely sweep the
length of the room, where the kitchen nuns are bearing jugs up the aisles, pouring water
which has been heated for encouragement into the nuns’ beakers. The forks move to
the faces and the mouths open to receive the food. These are all the nuns in the
convent, with the exception of kitchen nuns and the novices who do not count and the
senior nuns who do. A less edifying crowd of human life it would be difficult to find;
either they have become so or they always were so; at any rate, they are in fact a very
poor lot, all the more since they do not think so for a moment. Up pop the forks, open
go the mouths, in slide the nettles and the potato mash. They raise to their frightful
little lips the steaming beakers of water and they sip as if fancying they are partaking
of the warm sap of human experience, ripe for Felicity’s liberation. Anyway, the
good Winifrede reads on, announcing Ecclesiastes, chapter 9, verse 11. ‘Sisters,
hear again,’ she says, ‘the wise confessions of Solomon’:

Then my thought took a fresh turn; man’s art does not
avail, here beneath the sun, to win the race for the swift, or the battle for the
strong, a livelihood for wisdom, riches for great learning, or for the craftsman
thanks; chance and the moment rule all.

The kitchen staff is gliding alongside the tables now, removing
the empty plates and replacing them with saucers of wholesome and filling sponge pudding
which many more deserving cases than the nuns would be glad of. Winifrede sips from her
own glass of water, which is cold, puts it down and bends her eyes to the next book
marked with its elaborate markers, passage by passage, which she exchanges with the good
book on her lectern. She dutifully removes a slip of paper from the inside cover and
almost intelligent-looking in this company reads it aloud in her ever-keening voice:
‘Further words of wisdom from one of our Faith’:

If you suspect any person in your army of giving the enemy
intelligence of your designs, you cannot do better than avail yourself of his
treachery, by seeming to trust him with some secret resolution which you intend to
execute, whilst you carefully conceal your real design; by which, perhaps, you may
discover the traitor, and lead the enemy into an error that may possibly end in
their destruction …

In order to penetrate into the secret designs, and discover the condition of an
enemy, some have sent ambassadors to them with skilful and experienced officers in
their train, dressed like the rest of their attendants …

As to private discords amongst your soldiers, the only remedy is to expose them to
some danger, for in such cases fear generally unites them …

‘Here endeth the reading,’ Winifrede says, looking
stupidly round the still more stupid assembly into whose ears the words have come and
from which they have gone. The meal over, the nuns’ hands are folded.

‘Amen,’ they say.

‘Sisters, be vigilant, be sober.’