Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (22 page)

Chapter Ten

Neccessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants: it is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt,
Speech to the House of Commons, 1783

The Abbotsford convent was impressive. The wall was suitable for a medium-sized castle and the gate was in the familiar dread portal style. Someone had scrawled in chalk on the wall beside it Lasciate ogni speranza, voi
…

Ch’entrate, she finished the quote. All hope abandon, ye who enter here. A very educated graffitist. Dante might have found a lot of material here, Phryne thought. The gatekeeper inspected the bishop’s letter, opened the gate and allowed her to guide the Hispano-Suiza though. He directed her onward with a scowl. So there were some men here, she thought. She parked the car and got out.

Knowing that she might be facing formidable opposition, Phryne had armoured herself in very stylish clothes. A navy suit, grey stockings, grey shoes and a very fetching hat, in a strong shade of teal blue, with cock’s feathers. She was liberally sprinkled with Jicky, an exotic and disturbing scent, redolent of Paris and chypre and chestnut blossoms. She had left Dot at home, because Dot gave at the knees when she saw nuns. A relic of her childhood. Phryne’s childhood, though poverty-stricken and stringent and sordid, had not included nuns. Besides, in some situations, Phryne felt stronger when she was alone, with no one to shock but herself. And she seldom shocked herself.

A plump nun rushed up to her, took her hand and exclaimed, ‘What a beautiful car! Hello, welcome to the Good Shepherd, I’m Sister Perpetua, Mother Aloysius is waiting for you. Come this way?’

Phryne followed. Sister Perpetua kept talking.

‘We take on everyone, you see,’ she said. ‘Orphans, the infirm, aged, the cretins, the demented, the lost women.’

‘And the bad girls?’ asked Phryne.

‘Oh, yes.’ Sister Perpetua’s smile broadened. ‘Awful things might happen to them if they didn’t have us for a refuge.’

Phryne suppressed the thought that awful things might happen to them if they did. Meanwhile, the walk was interesting. The gardens were well tended and blooming despite the heat. Buildings were clustered all around the central courtyard. Presumably when the sisters took on a new cause they just constructed a new building.

‘From here,’ Sister Perpetua directed Phryne’s gaze, ‘you can see the gardens and the farm. Goes right down to the river. We grow most of our own food, you know—eggs and milk and vegetables.’

‘Commendable,’ murmured Phryne. It all looked very bucolic; the sheep might have been freshly shampooed, the rows of cabbages were bright green, the low sheds had opened their doors and let all the chickens out. They scattered through the yards, doubtless pecking and clucking and gossiping in the manner of chickens and humans. Phryne could see them, like moving dots on the background. People in blue smocks were attending to them. The people seemed small. Phryne said so.

‘Orphans from St. Euphrasia’s,’ said Sister Perpetua. ‘It’s our duty to teach them skills. They love the animals and the chickens. They learn how to milk and churn butter and bake bread. They will need employment when they leave us.’

‘And do you teach them to read and write as well?’

‘Of course,’ replied the sister, surprised. ‘They do school in the afternoon and farm tasks in the morning. And we are lucky, of course, to have a river frontage and unlimited water. That’s why the gardens are so green in this drought.’

Phryne had not noticed that there was a drought.

‘And the bad girls? What do you teach them?’ she asked idly.

‘Oh, they don’t go to school,’ said the sister. ‘Not with the orphans. We keep them apart.’

‘Of course.’

‘They work for their keep, and we hope for their repentance,’ said Sister Perpetua.

‘For the keep of the whole convent, actually,’ murmured Phryne.

‘Yes, we really need the income we get from the laundry. We have some very good contracts. The bishop is always interested in our work. And the laundry people are so envious. They say we are undercutting their prices.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Phryne. ‘You don’t actually pay your workers union wages, do you? And you get your water for free, from the river frontage.’

‘We’re exempt,’ said Sister Perpetua, nettled at last. ‘There was an act of parliament. Do have a look at our statue, and then I will take you to Mother.’

Phryne looked at a large statue of St. Joseph, for whom she had always had an admiration. It can’t have been easy, managing a girl with an inexplicable pregnancy. But he had accepted the word of the Lord and not put her away. Later generations had not been so forgiving.

‘Very nice,’ she said, and was led through several doors into a waiting room. It had a fireplace in Art Décoratif curlicues. It had stained-glass windows. The floor was tiled and cool. On a hot day, it was pleasant. On a cold day it must be icy.

Sister Perpetua, looking flustered, escorted Phryne into a parlour. Heavy plush drapes, Victorian furniture and another tiled floor, now covered with Turkish rugs. Mother Aloysius rose to meet her.

‘Miss Fisher,’ she said creakily.

‘Mother Aloysius,’ said Phryne, taking the old, fragile, dry hand.

‘The bishop instructs me to allow you to ask my sisters questions,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I am, of course, under obedience. Whom shall I summon?’

‘Those involved with the running of the laundry,’ said Phryne. ‘And I would like to look at the laundry, if you please.’

‘No,’ said the nun, still without raising her voice. ‘I do not please. Nowhere does it say that I have to allow you a free run of my convent. You may speak to the sisters you have requested. Here. With my attendance, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Phryne. She had expected nothing else. Her chances of getting anything even mildly secret out of the sisters was nil. But she had to try. This was a drama, with a beginning, a middle and an end. This was just the first act.

Mother Aloysius summoned Sister Perpetua and sent her with a note to the laundry. Tea was not served. Homemade biscuits were not offered. Phryne sat in composed silence. She had come armed for combat in her teal-blue hat. She did not expect courtesy under those circumstances.

Poor Jack, she thought. This is how he must feel all the time. I wonder how long it takes to get used to it?

After perhaps ten minutes, Mother Aloysius said, ‘Do you think that those girls have come to harm?’

‘I fear so,’ said Phryne.

‘Dead?’ she asked.

‘Perhaps.’

‘Or worse?’ asked Mother Aloysius.

‘Possibly. If there is anything worse than death.’

‘Oh, there is,’ said the nun. ‘There is damnation.’

‘That, too,’ said Phryne, thinking of an Egyptian brothel full of terrified, captive blonde girls; unable to escape, unable even to make themselves understood. That would be a fair definition of damnation.

Sister Perpetua came back and announced that the laundry sisters were waiting. They came in and lined up before the desk.

Phryne looked at them. A tough lot, she considered. The smallest was carrying what Phryne identified from her youth as a pot stick—a yard-long, flat, two-inch-wide piece of seasoned timber used (in civilised households) for stirring the copper. The sister saw Phryne looking at it and tried to hide it behind her back. She received a glare fom Mother Aloysius which ought to have scorched her wimple. It was not the presence of the pot stick which was damning. It was the attempt to hide it.

Thereafter the interview went as Phryne had suspected it would. The three nuns identified themselves as Sister Dolour (who carried the pot stick), Sister Dominic and Sister de Sales. The missing girls, they told Phryne, were wilful and rebellious. They had been lazy and disobedient. Ann Prospect, here called 4781, had quoted the Factory and Shop Acts and said that the working conditions were against the award. She had refused to work and had stood, apparently, on a slab of concrete all day, to consider her sins. Number 4782, Mary O’Hara, had wept and fainted out of sheer impudence, while 4783, Julie Reilly, had had the nerve to burn her hand and make herself unfit for labour for a week. In all it was a relief, said Sister Dolour, when the time had come for them to deliver themselves of their children of shame and they had been sent to the pious widow, Mrs. Ryan. Thereafter nothing had been heard of them, and if they came back to the convent to beg forgiveness it might go hard with them.

‘Did they have any friends among the other girls?’ asked Phryne.

‘Friends! We don’t encourage friendships,’ snorted Sister Dolour, who probably lived up to her name, sorrow.

‘But nevertheless?’ persisted Phryne.

‘I never noticed any,’ replied the nun.

‘When Julie—I mean 4783—was in the infirmary with her hand, I recall her talking to her nurse,’ offered Sister de Sales.

‘Who was it?’ demanded Mother Aloysius.

The sister winced. ‘One of the auxiliaries, I believe. But I’m probably wrong. In any case, nurses do talk to patients, you know.’

‘Who?’ demanded Mother Aloysius, in the same tone.

‘I believe it might have been Agnes,’ said Sister de Sales.

Phryne got up and walked over to the sisters. Close up, they smelt of starch and sweat. The laundry must be hell on a day like this, she thought. She inspected them as if she were a visiting dignitary and they were soldiers. Mother sent Sister Perpetua for Agnes, and while they waited no one spoke.

Phryne sat down again as the black-clad woman was ushered in.

‘Did you become friends with number 4783?’ demanded Mother Aloysius.

The woman paled. ‘I spoke to her a little; I was attending to her burnt hand. That steam presser really ought to have a guard.’

‘It had one. I took it off,’ said Sister Dolour. ‘It made the work too slow.’

So much for Factory or any other Acts, thought Phryne.

‘Did she say anything about an escape?’ she asked.

‘No, just how she would like to get away, be someone else. Everyone wants that,’ said Agnes. ‘Don’t they?’

The faces turned on her were blank with displeasure.

‘No idea of where she was going?’ asked Phryne.

‘Didn’t know she was,’ said Agnes. ‘But I’m not surprised. She said she hadn’t committed any sin—in her condition! She said she would go to her young man as soon as she could. So I expect that’s what she’s done.’

‘Name of young man?’ asked Phryne.

‘Frank,’ said Agnes. ‘Forrest, I think. Some name which reminded me of trees.’