“And were you lousy?”
“Yes, I was. Think they can get me clean, sending me to that old bitch at that bloody clinic!”
“But you’re clean here, Bessie, aren’t you?”
“Ain’t no louses, that’s why.”
“Have you ever taken an oath in a court of law?”
“Course I have. Didn’t me step-father do a seven-year stretch?”
“And are you prepared to tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what happened here?”
“About the little nipper?”
“Yes.”
“I dunno.”
“Bessie, did Miss Bonnet shut the window?”
“No, that was Annie, I tell you.”
“Miss Bonnet then, neither shut nor opened the window, as far as you yourself know? Don’t answer for Annie, please.”
“O.K. Suit yourself what she did. Don’t matter to me.”
“I will suit myself. Ask Annie to come in here.”
“I suppose you know you’re keeping Mother Saint Ambrose waiting,” said Bessie, with a last impudent fling as she went outside. Annie came almost immediately.
“Annie, was the bathroom unlocked, then, so that Miss Bonnet could walk in?”
“Why, yes, madam, certainly it was.”
“Was it usual, do you know, for the children to leave the bathroom door unlocked when they had a bath? I know it is sometimes done.”
“I couldn’t say about the boarders, madam. Us orphans never lock the door, but it’s different in the Orphanage from here. It’s all our own place. There’s no strangers.”
“Now, Annie, one more thing. You say that Miss Bonnet asked you to go for help. Why didn’t you do as she told you, instead of shouting for Bessie?”
“Miss Bonnet clutched a-hold on me and said, ‘Don’t go! Don’t leave me, Annie! There will have to be witnesses of this!’ ”
“What did she mean? Do you know?”
“I think she was just took a-back, madam, finding the little girl dead.”
“Did you see the dead girl?”
“Well, yes. She looked kind of peaceful, in a way. But her head was right under the water, and I never see such a lovely colour on anybody.”
“What colour was she, then?”
“Ever so pink. I only ever saw one other dead person, and they was as white as death. That’s what you say, madam, ain’t it?—as white as death.”
“Quite right, Annie. Go on.”
“Yes, well, she wasn’t, see? And her little eyes shut, and her little mouth just a bit open, as though she might be asleep. I don’t think she suffered much, madam, really I don’t. She had gone to join the blessed saints, I’m sure.”
“So you don’t believe in the suicide theory, Annie?”
“What, kill herself? That little dear? Oh, madam, I’m certain she never. It must have been an accident. She could never have looked so peaceful, lying in mortal sin.”
“Perhaps not. Thank you, Annie. And you heard Miss Bonnet close the window?”
“Open the window, madam. She said because of the gas, but I think as how she felt faint. I’m sure I couldn’t smell gas, let Mother Saint Ambrose persuade me how she will, not until I went in to clean up. But they’d all had a fidget with the pilot light, I reckon, before then. I know the doctor did later. And then that stink of creosote off of the fence.”
Mrs. Bradley stepped on to the landing and apologised to the nuns for keeping them waiting.
chapter 6
nuns
“These iiij figures, combyned into one,
Sette on thy mind for a memorial;
Erthe and iren, foure trees, and the stone
To make us fre, whereas we were thral.”
john lydgate: Let devoute peple kepe observance.
« ^ »
I want to know all the details,” said Mrs. Bradley. Mother Ambrose, buxom, black-browed and tall, her meek habit declining to look, upon her, anything but militant, gazed straight ahead without a glance for little, apple-cheeked, dimple-chinned Mother Jude, and then said in a deep voice resonant as an organ:
“Bessie came to me in the ironing-room and asked me to go over to the guest-house immediately. I rebuked her for her state of mind, which seemed to me an unnecessarily excited one, and then hastened to this landing with her. When I discovered what had happened I sent Bessie off again for Sister Saint Jude.”
“You say ‘when I discovered what had happened.’ What did you think had happened?”
“I could see that the child was dead.”
“You felt certain of that?”
“Yes. Illogically, however, I bent over the water and raised the child’s head.”
“Was the head completely submerged when you saw the child first?”
“Yes, indeed. The water was very deep—almost up to the top of the bath.”
“What was the temperature of the water?”
“I could not say, except that it was quite cold.”
“When you say that—?”
“I mean that it was a shock to me when I plunged my hands into the cold water. I suppose I had taken it for granted, subconsciously, that the water would be warm.”
“Yes… thank you.”
“Sister Saint Jude arrived very soon after I had sent for her,” Mother Ambrose continued, “and came into the bathroom. She said: ‘Oh, poor little Ursula!’ Then we lifted the child out of the water and I had to call to the two girls, Bessie and Annie, to bring some towels from the airing cupboard, as I could not see any in the bathroom, although, later on, one was found beneath the bathroom stool. It was wet, as though it had fallen into the water by accident, and had been wrung out.”
“At first, did you not think it very odd to find no towel?” asked Mrs. Bradley.
“I should have found it incredible,” Mother Ambrose replied, in her deep voice, “if children were reasoning beings. I doubt whether they are. The apparent absence of towels did not surprise me. When we had rolled the child in the towels that were brought, we carried her into the nearest bedroom, and, leaving Miss Bonnet and Sister Saint Jude to attempt artificial respiration, I telephoned for the doctor.”
“May I have his name and address?”
Mother Ambrose gave them, and continued:
“All efforts to resuscitate the child failed. Miss Bonnet then volunteered to acquaint Sister Saint Francis with what had happened, but Sister Saint Jude and I thought it better that the news should be delivered by one of us. In the meantime, Annie, acting on my instructions, had cleared up in the bathroom, and had found a saturated towel.”
She closed her lips and indicated by her bearing that nothing else presented itself to her mind as having any immediate bearing upon the subject under scrutiny. Mrs. Bradley finished writing and then turned to Mother Jude, who had stood by, silent as a Rubens’ picture, as clear, as fair, as motionless, whilst the other nun had been speaking.
“I must ask you, Mother Saint Jude,” she said, “to corroborate or contradict what Mother Saint Ambrose has said.”
The little nun beamed.
“I can corroborate every word,” she said, “except with regard to the towels. As soon as Bessie came into the kitchen I knew that something was wrong. I thought it was the dining-room fireplace again, and I was vexed, because we had it done in the autumn and it was very, very expensive. We had to instal the portable gas-fire while the work was being carried on. I did not see how the guest-house was going to balance its books if the fireplace had to be done again so soon. All Bessie would say was ‘Come!’ So I gathered up my habit and I flew!”
Mrs. Bradley grinned sympathetically. It was easy and pleasant to imagine little, rotund Mother Jude, with her full skirts gathered in her hand, sprinting from the kitchen to the gatehouse, and through the archway round to the guest-house door.