After the evening visits we took supper in the kitchen. This was a meal prepared by ourselves, because we all came in at different times. We were looking the worse for wear, particularly Chummy, who couldn’t hold her drink but did not want to admit it, and had been protesting all day that she thought she had a touch of flu. Chummy was, in addition, torn by a feeling of guilt because she was supposed to have been on first call that night and it had been Cynthia who had gone out at the bleakest hour before dawn, 3 a.m. We sat down around the kitchen table, eating our peanut-butter sandwiches.
“They’ve gone,” I whispered, in case any of the Sisters were in the hallway.
“What’s gone?”
“The jewels, they’ve gone. They are not in the drawer.” Trixie eyed me dubiously. “Are you sure they were there in the first place? After all, we’ve only got your word for it. Perhaps you dreamed the whole thing. Sister Evangelina calls you Dolly Daydream, and not without reason.”
“I did not dream it. I tell you, I saw them and now they’ve gone.”
“Well she must have hidden them somewhere else, the cunning old—”
Cynthia stopped her. “Don’t you two start on that again. I’m too tired to put up with you squabbling like a couple of children. Pack it in.”
Chummy groaned and spoke in a weary voice: “I second that motion, Chairman. My poor bally head feels like a suet pudding that’s gone cold and been warmed up again for the servants. Did I hear you say that the jewels have gone?”
“Yes.”
“Well strike me pink.”
Trixie was quick off the mark. “She’s hidden them. It’s as clear as daylight. She knows she’s been rumbled, so she’s hidden them again. You can’t tell me she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Of course she does.” Trixie cut another slice of bread and dug her knife into the jar.
Cynthia was less emphatic. “Well, this does throw rather a different light on things. I still don’t think she knows what she’s doing.”
“Oh, go on with you. She pulls the wool over everyone’s eyes. But she doesn’t fool me for a moment,” said cynical Trixie.
Chummy was licking the peanut butter off the knife.
“Premeditation. That’s what the constabulary will be after. Were her actions premeditated or were they not? If we’re going to protect Sister Monica Joan, Counsel for the Defence, that’s what we’ve got to prove. But at the moment, my poor bally head aches so much I can’t think straight. I’m going to bed. Who’s on first call?”
“You are.”
“Groan, groan and thrice groan. That settles it. I must get in a bit of the old sweet slumber before that accursed bell pitches me out onto the floor. Nighty-night all. Sweet dreams.”
Cynthia stood up. “And I’m going to bed too. Don’t you two start quarrelling as soon as you’re alone.”
Trixie looked at me when they had gone. “I reckon there’s not much more to say. Chummy hit the nail on the head. Was it, or was it not, premeditated? Come on, let’s do the washing up.”
RECREATION HOUR
Recreation in a convent is a time when the nuns can let their hair down – metaphorically, of course. Usually the recreation hour lasts from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. With the morning work completed, lunch taken and no religious duties to perform until Vespers at 4.30 p.m., the nuns are free. But “free” only within the discipline of the order. At Nonnatus House, during the recreation hour, the nuns withdrew collectively to their sitting room, where they would engage in needlework and polite conversation.
How these reverend ladies found time for it defeats me to this day. Each of the nuns seemed capable of packing forty-eight hours of work into every twenty-four and each of them did it with serenity and grace. Sister Julienne, for example, who was Sister-in-Charge, was not only the senior nurse and midwife with overall responsibility for the practice, but she was also in charge of the smooth running of the house. She was accountable for maintaining the monastic tradition of religious observance, instructing the novices, teaching the student midwives, acting as hostess to numerous house guests, handling convent finances and keeping the accounts. She took her fair share of district visits, including night calls, as well as finding time to engage in needlework and polite conversation during her brief hours of recreation when most people would want to lie horizontal with their feet up.
It was their practice, as I have said, for the nuns to retire to their sitting room after lunch. But occasionally Sister Julienne would say at lunch time, “I think we will take recreation in the nurses’ sitting room today,” whereupon the Sisters would look with a particular benevolence upon us girls, as though they were granting us some special favour. The nuns would then go to their cells (nuns sleep in cells, not bedrooms) to collect their work, and we would rush to our sitting room to clear away dirty plates, mugs, ashtrays, magazines, glasses, empty chocolate boxes, biscuit tins, hairbrushes, medical books (yes, occasionally, we put in a bit of study), and all the paraphernalia essential to the life of the average young girl.
The Sisters entered and we smiled sweetly, as though we hadn’t been frantically clearing things away for the past five minutes. Sister Evangelina, not famous for her tact, glared around her, growling, “Well, Nurse Browne, I believe your mother is coming to visit you at the weekend. You had better tidy the place up before she comes.”
“Oh, but we have just had a thumping good tidy up for you, Sister.” Chummy was not offended, simply puzzled.
Trixie gave a shrill laugh and was about to speak, but Cynthia, the peacemaker, retorted, “We’ll get out the Hoover, the polish and the dusters before the weekend, Sister.”
Sister Evangelina snorted her disapproval and opened her workbox. Everyone did the same except Trixie and me. Neither of us owned a workbox; we did not sew or knit for recreation.
Sister Julienne was concerned. “Oh, my dears, perhaps you could each make a little tea cosy for the Christmas Fayre. Tea cosies always go down well. People buy them for Christmas presents.”
Material, stuffing, scissors, needles and cotton were provided and conversation centred on the desirability of a large number of tea cosies to boost the convent’s finances for the coming year. As well as everything else, the Sisters not only organised and ran a sale each year, but made a large number of the items to be sold. For many decades the finance for supporting the midwifery practice had, to some extent, depended on the monies collected at the Christmas Fayre.
The Sisters were making many small items considered to be useful or necessary in those days, such as handkerchief sachets, glove folders, pincushions, cushion covers, tray cloths, tablecloths, pillowcases and virtually anything else onto which a bird or a daisy-chain could be embroidered. Conversation centred on the saleability of each item for the Christmas Fayre. The need for a large number of chair-back covers puzzled me and, even more, the name by which they were called – ‘antimacassars’ – until I learned that they were intended to protect the back of a chair from the grease on men’s hair. Many men plastered their hair with Brylcreem in those days and the oil used in Victorian times was Macassar.
I looked around me with pleasure. It was all very genteel and sweet; it could have been a scene from any period in history when ladies had almost nothing else to do. Sister Julienne was making rag dolls with great speed and efficiency, creating tiny waistcoats and shoes, fixing button eyes and snipping wool hair. Sister Bernadette was an expert in golliwogs. Children are not allowed to have such toys today, nor even to use the word, but in those days they were all the fashion. Sister Evangelina was hemming handkerchiefs, and Novice Ruth – what on earth was she doing? Novice Ruth had a wooden object rather like a large cotton reel. Four nails, without heads, had been hammered into the top. The Novice was plying heavy linen thread round and round the nails with a small blunt instrument and pulling the thread over the nails at each turn. Through the centre of the wooden reel a woven band emerged. It was already a yard or two long, but still Novice Ruth continued plying the thread and weaving.