Thunder On The Right (7 page)

Of course all these things can be naturally explained. Tomorrow, perhaps------"

Sister Louisa seized on the word as if it were a magic formula. "Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. You go back to your hotel now, child, and see you get a good meal tonight— with wine, mind you, to make you sleep—and have a good night's rest.

Then if you're still worried, you come and see us again. We've nothing to hide!" She managed a ghost of her old chortle at the absurdity of this idea, and Jennifer smiled with her. "It'll be quite easy to sort out of all this nonsense," said the old nun. "Dona Francisca and Celeste will be only too glad to tell you everything they can."

The smile was wiped from Jenny's lips. She said quickly, "You won't tell them what I've been saying? I—I wasn't myself. I said some very silly things: please won't you forget them, and say no more?"

"All forgotten," said Sister Louisa stoutly. "Don't worry, child, I'll not tell." She cast a shrewd and still bothered eye at Jennifer. "If you've any more worries, you know, you ought to take them where they belong—to the Reverend Mother. You ought to see her anyway."

"Of course," said Jennifer. "Of course that's what I should do. I'll certainly go and talk to her."

"You do. Everything'll be cleared up in no time. And now I must hurry, or I shall be late for chapel." She twinkled at Jennifer in almost her old manner. "You'd think I'd be a very holy woman, wouldn't you, with the amount of kneeling I do, instead of an earthy old sinner who thinks about apples and roses a good deal more than she ought? But you'll forget anything I said that I shouldn't have said?"

Jennifer smiled and echoed, "All forgotten."

"Bless you, child. Can you find your own way out?"

"I think so, thank you."

"Then I must leave you.
Au revoir, mon enfant.
"

"
Au revoir, ma soeur.
"

The old Sister vanished through the wrought-iron gateway, and Jennifer was left alone in the graveyard.

But only for a moment, for, as she paused irresolute by the gentian-covered grave, the door in the outer wall opened without a sound, and a girl slipped through. She closed the door quietly behind her, then, as she turned, she saw Jennifer and stopped dead, her lips parted, her breast rising and falling as if she had been running.

She was young, dark, and very lovely; even the faded blue cotton of her orphan's garb could not deny the eager grace of her body. Her hair hung loosely over her shoulders, as if the wind of her running had tossed and ruffled it out, and her cheeks were flushed. Her hands were full of flowers.

She hesitated for a moment, looking at Jennifer, then she crossed the grass swiftly toward her, and knelt down by the new grave. She pulled the fading gentians out of the bowl, and began, rather hurriedly, to arrange the fresh ones in their place.

"Are you Celeste?"

The girl shot her a shy upward look and nodded. Jennifer said, "I am Madame Lamartine's cousin. I came to visit her today, and was told of her death. Sister Louisa tells me that you helped to nurse her. I'm very grateful to you."

Celeste had sat back on her heels and was regarding Jennifer with wide eyes. "Her cousin?" Her look was both puzzled and distressed. "I—I am sorry, madame. It must have been a great shock to find—to hear—I am so very sorry, madame...."

"Yes," said Jennifer, "it was." She was watching the girl, but the beautiful eyes held nothing but compassion, and a growing bewilderment. "I did not know she had a cousin," said Celeste. "If we had known, madame, that there were relatives------"

"You would no doubt have informed them of her illness, or at least of her death?"

said Jennifer gently.

"But of course!" cried Celeste. With a quick gesture she pushed the hair back from her face, and stared up at Jennifer. "Is it not strange, madame, that she should not have told us?"

Jennifer looked at her. "Yes. Very strange. That is, if she was not too ill to tell you, Celeste."

The girl shook her head. "There were times—several times —when she was quite herself, when she could have told us anything. Indeed, we asked her ourselves if there was anyone we should get in touch with."

"Did you indeed?" said Jennifer softly.

"It's usual," said Celeste, and turned back to the bowl of gentians. "And now, madame, I must go. I'm a bit late already." She pushed the last flowers into place, and got to her feet, but Jennifer put out a hand.

"Just one more thing ... I should have thanked you, too, for bringing these flowers for my cousin."

"It was nothing."

"It was a great deal, that you should have nursed her and—and comforted her."

Jennifer hesitated, wondering how to go on.

The girl flushed and looked at her feet. "It was nothing," she said again. "I—I liked her." She looked up at Jennifer, and the lovely eyes were swimming with tears. "I am sorry, madame, indeed I am. And that you should have found it out—in this way------" She made a little gesture, and bit her lip.

In the face of what was, patently, quite genuine distress, Jennifer hesitated again.

And in that moment someone spoke from behind her.

"Celeste!"

It was Dona Frandsca's voice, and at the sound the girl started and spun around, and the red ebbed from her cheeks as the foam blows from the wave. Jennifer was conscious of a slight constriction in her own breathing as she turned her head to watch the tall black figure of the bursar approaching across the grass. Annoyed at herself, she shook her uneasiness from her, and said, calmly, "I hope I haven't made Celeste late for chapel, Doña Francisca. Sister Louisa told me how she helped you nurse my cousin, and I was thanking her."

The hooded eyes met hers briefly. The Spaniard bent her head, then turned her gaze on the girl. "You should have been in your room half an hour ago, Celeste. Where have you been?"

The girl's voice was low. "Gathering flowers for our Sister Lamartine's grave." She did not look at Doña Francisca. Her hands were nervously pleating the front of her dress.

There was a flash of something that might have been irritation in the woman's eyes, but she spoke smoothly enough.

"A kind thought, Celeste, but it should not have made you late. You must not let even a good impulse tempt you into neglect of what is your duty."

"No, señora." Celeste's face was quite pale now, and she stared miserably at the ground.

"Go at once and get ready for chapel." Doña Francisca looked blandly at Jennifer across the girl's bent head. "And come and see me immediately after your meal, Celeste."

"Yes, señora."

"There's just one thing------" began Jennifer. Her voice was tight and a shade overloud, but Doña Francisca's clipped patrician command cut easily across it.

"At once, Celeste."

Jennifer's cheeks flamed, but her voice held no hint of anger as she said calmly, "If you please, señora. . . . Wait, Celeste!" The bursar looked considerably taken aback, and the girl hesitated even as she turned to go. It could not be very often that Doña Francisca was answered back, thought Jennifer with a certain relish. She said quickly, almost humbly, "I should like to come back tomorrow, señora, if I may, to visit my cousin's grave again, and say good-by. I thought I might bring her some flowers."

Doña Francisca was watching her steadily. "Of course. When you have got over the shock you have had today, you will perhaps think of more that you wish to know from us. Ask for me when you come."

Royal permission and royal command. . . . Yes, I'm likely to, thought Jennifer.

Aloud, she said, "Thank you, señora," and then, swiftly, to Celeste, "Why did you go out just now to get these gentians? I'd have thought the rambler roses were just as------"

But the girl stepped back a pace with a small, shrinking movement. Her face, still pale, went blank, almost stupid, and in the lovely eyes flickered the unmistakable shadow of fear. She said hurriedly, "I'm—I'm allowed to go. Doña Francisca knows. She said I could."

The bursar had not glanced at her. She was watching Jennifer, the dark eyes unreadable and unwavering in her still face.

She said, almost under her breath, "Go, Celeste."

The girl turned and ran into the shadow of the chapel door just as, overhead, the bell in the tower began to ring for service. Jennifer turned to meet Doña Francisca's dark intent gaze.

"I'd better go, too," she said. "
Au revoir, señora."

"Au revoir, mademoiselle
. And you will come tomorrow?"

"Oh, yes," said Jennifer. "I'll come tomorrow."

"C'est bien,"
said Doña Francisca expressionlessly, as she turned to make her noiseless way across the grass after the girl. She vanished into the blackness of the chapel door.

Jennifer let herself quickly out through the wrought-iron gate into the spicy air of the garden. It shut behind her with a clang. The narrow shade of the archway dropped a band of coolness across the hot afternoon, and she paused inside it, leaning back against the bars of the gate. She found she was shaking all over; wave after wave of excitement, anger and apprehension beat upon her mind, breaking with bewildering force across the emptiness left by the first numbing shock of grief. That had been a deadening blow; this, the reaction back toward a fearful and fantastic hope was, oddly enough, more terrible. Her whole body trembled uncontrollably; her hands clung to the bars behind her, pulling her back against the gate until the iron seemed to grow into her flesh; her heart, beating high and fast, seemed to tumble and thump anyhow through her body, now choking in her throat, now knocking against her ribs, now twisting with sickening little driving motions of deep pain in her stomach. And still she clung, her hands icy on the bruising bars. Her knees felt loose. She bit her lips to stop them from shaking, and she shut her eyes and held them shut.

And presently the tumult of mind and body began to subside. She leaned more naturally against the gate, muscle by muscle relaxing under the caress of the fragrant air. She opened her eyes and immediately, in a healing wash of warmth, the color and scent of the garden swept up to her and engulfed her—catmint and crushed thyme, and the sharp sweet smell of apricots globed among glossy leaves; the homely friendliness of lavender and sage over whose silver leaves poppies dangled their sleep-drugged scarlet heads. A cicada, hidden in a peach tree, purred softly. Jennifer let go of the gate, straightened up slowly, rubbing her hands together, and began, reasonably enough, to think.

And her first thought was the sufficiently overwhelming one that she had been right.

What had started as premonition, grown through uneasiness into downright suspicion, had flowered now, unmistakably, as fact. There was something wrong.

Whether or not her wild, hope-driven guess had been right, whether or not the business of the gentians could be explained away, the demeanor of Doña Francisca at the second interview, no less than Celeste's patent fear, showed that there was, indeed, something wrong. And she must find out what it was. That the bursar had no intention of letting her interview Celeste alone was certain: what was equally certain was Jennifer's determination to do that very thing.

The chapel bell had stopped. She glanced toward the archway that gave on to the tunnel to the courtyard. The bell rope was looped up, and still swung slightly. The tunnel was empty. Everyone would be in chapel, and, afterwards, Doña Francisca would talk to Celeste and warn her to answer no questions. It was also possible that, forewarned as she was, the Spaniard might be able to prevent Jennifer from seeing the Reverend Mother at all tomorrow.

Jennifer bit her lips again, this time in thought. Then she made her decision. For her own peace of mind, as much as for any other reason, she must make what inquiries she could today. She would stay here, hidden in the garden, until the service was over, and then, if it were possible, she would seek out the Mother Superior straight away, and question her frankly. Quite frankly—because, said Jennifer firmly to herself, I refuse flatly to believe that the whole convent can be implicated in these lies. Sister Louisa is as honest as a daisy and as simple as God, and even Celeste seemed genuine up to a point; until, in fact, I asked her about the gentians. No, the Reverend Mother can't be in it whatever it is —that would be pure Mrs. Radcliffe. . .

. I'll see her after service, and find out what she has to say. At least she can let me see the "papers" and whatever else Gillian is said to have brought with her. . ..

The chanting from the chapel had stopped now, and the organ was weaving its way through something massive and slow, which reached the garden only in a series of vibrations surging through the ranked richnesses of herb and vine. Jennifer flattened herself once more against the gate as a shuffle of footsteps in the tunnel told of the worshipers going quietly across from the chapel to the refectory. She bent her head forward to peer through a masking vine. There were the blue-clad orphans; there were the white novices and the somber nuns, filing across the tunnel in an orderly silence. The refectory door shut on the last nun. The watcher in the garden heard the children's voices singing grace, and then the scrape of chairs as the company sat down to table.

She slipped quietly back through the gate into the graveyard, and made her way over the grass to the chapel door. If she went through the chapel, she had every chance of gaining the upper corridor without being seen, and she was sure that the big door she had noticed at the end of that corridor must be that of the Mother Superior's room.

It seemed likely that the Reverend Mother would come out of the refectory first, and once Jennifer had approached her even the ubiquitous and apparently powerful bursar could hardly prevent an interview.

What exactly she hoped to gain by that interview was by no means certain, but, in her present state of bewilderment and suspicion, any sort of plan was better than none. It was with a lifting feeling of excitement that Jennifer softly opened the chapel door and passed in out of the sunlight.

As she plunged from the heat of the close into the dark censed air of the chapel, she found time to wonder, half-idly, what sort of a shrine for worship the convent's characteristic austerity would have made. The door, swinging shut behind her, lopped off its shaft of light abruptly, and for a few seconds she was blinded by the dimness. Then to her dazzled gaze the nave took shape ... a side aisle, with its little altar . . . the tiny transepts . . . the raised chancel ... the high altar....