In her lodging over the Sacristy the seventy-five-year-old Reverend Mother Superior watched and prayed with her daughters. The blow had fallen sharply in its suddenness, inevitability and weight, and it had brought with it lesser shocks—newspaper comments, notoriety for the convent, serious allegations brought against the Community by an hysterically overwrought woman, Mary Maslin’s stepmother, the dead child’s aunt by marriage. Then there had been the local ill-will and rumours, and the terrifying attack, on the previous night, by a gang of village hooligans.
Worse than all, to the Mother Superior’s mind, was a nagging feeling of doubt. She was an intelligent and widely experienced woman; had lived a brilliant, worldly life before her acceptance of the veil; and had prayed, when Father Thomas first told her of Mrs. Bradley, for Mrs. Bradley to come and solve their problem. But what if Mrs. Bradley’s researches could not alter the coroner’s verdict? Or what if things were made worse instead of better? For, although she had mentioned it to no one, and although she prayed daily that it might not be the truth, the horrid thought of murder lay in her breast like lead.
There was everything to suggest it, and the Mother Superior, daughter of a royal house, was not the woman to shirk an unpalatable situation. The character of the dead child, the fact that she was heiress to a fortune, some peculiar features of time, place, opportunity, all put together, made a formidable array. She had thought and she had prayed, and, in the end, she had decided that, whatever the result of it, a further investigation must be made. But it had been a difficult decision, and she had made it heavily.
chapter 3
relatives
“For Dissections
For Sculptures in Brass,
For Draughts in Anatomy,
For the contemplation of the Sages.”
thomas traherne: A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God.
« ^ »
The funeral was over. Had been over, done with, and, from its ceremonial aspect, almost forgotten, and Mrs. Maslin, who had brought the child’s body from the convent, and looked, a fox-faced, quick-eyed, wiry little woman, her very worst in black, sat behind the tray and handed tea to her husband.
“But I don’t see why you want to go back there,” he said. “You can send for Mary if you want her. Personally I can’t see why she shouldn’t stay.”
“It must be morbid for her,” his wife, Mary’s stepmother, replied. “It makes an unhealthy atmosphere, a thing like that happening at a school. Mary was fond of Ursula.”
“It won’t make her any happier to bring her away from school, and so insist on what happened. Much better to let her stay there. The sisters are perfectly sensible women. The excitement will soon die down.”
“I see no reason for referring to the sudden death of your own relation as something exciting, Percival.”
“Isn’t it exciting? Don’t be a humbug, Nessa.”
At this plain speaking Mrs. Maslin cast a sharp glance behind her, and, lowering her voice, hissed at her husband to silence him. Mr. Maslin, however, refused to be advised, and continued, in his ordinary tone of voice.
“Well, face the facts, Nessa. Isn’t it?”
“Will you be quiet! It’s—well, it’s scarcely decent to take that attitude now.”
“But, Nessa, face the facts. We’ve always said that with Ursula out of the way—she was never a very good life, poor child—delicate, and with the family tendency, as we know—and Ulrica (according to Mary) bent on taking her vows as soon as she’s old enough —it would—it would be a very fine thing for us! Why try to pretend that you’re thinking of anything else?”
“Because I am thinking of something else.”
“Oh? What?”
Mrs. Maslin lowered her voice still further and replied, while her harsh-skinned, brown little hands picked restlessly at a fringe on the cushion beside her:
“I told you, didn’t I, that the Reverend Mother Superior had been trying to get hold of some private investigator or other, to try to prove that the death was not suicide, but simply an accident?”
“Well? What’s the matter with that?”
“Nothing… except that I don’t want Mary mixed up in it all, and questioned. It isn’t good for her. It’s morbid.”
“Well, I don’t see what you can do.”
“I want Mary home, that’s all. I don’t want her there, being got at.”
“Got at?”
“You never know what these unprincipled people will say. They ask the most innocent children dreadful questions.”
“A thing I’ve wondered,” said Mr. Maslin, suddenly lowering the paper, and again enunciating with the clearness which his wife was finding so embarrassing, “is…”
“Don’t,” said Mrs. Maslin, snapping him off. “I shall go down again to St. Peter’s as soon as I’ve had another talk with Grogan and Grogan. I want to know how we stand before I see the Mother Superior again.”
“I suppose you’ve cabled your father-in-law?”
“No, not yet. It can make no difference to him.”
“I thought he was fond of the child.”
“The Mother Superior cabled him, of course.”
“Oh, I see. He does know.”
Mrs. Maslin made no reply. Then she said:
“Of course it means that, if Ulrica enters, the money comes straight to Mary.”
“I don’t see that at all.”
“Timothy Doyle would never let all that money go to the Church!”
“We can’t tell what he will do. Do you mean you think he’ll disinherit Ulrica?”
“You must see to it that he does. In any case, I shall see that Grogan and Grogan fight the girl to a finish if she dares to claim the money on Timothy’s death! You will have to stand up for your own child’s rights in this! Her mother was Timothy’s daughter. I can’t do any more.”
“We had better go over and see the old boy, I fancy. Word of mouth is the best way of communicating some ideas. I don’t believe, any more than you do, that he’d like his money to go to the Church as the dowry of a nun. And go and take Mary away, Nessa, if you like. She can come to New York and we’ll let her make her impression on the old chap. He hasn’t seen her since she was quite a baby, and she’s not a bad sort of kid.”
“And, after all, her mother was his only daughter!” said Mrs. Maslin, emphasising the point.
“Yes,” said Mr. Maslin, dealing with this observation as briefly as possible. He had liked his first wife better than he liked his second. “But let me remind you, Nessa, that’s it’s no good to force the old boy. I met him once, and I know what I’m talking about. I don’t say there isn’t a chance, because, after all, Ursula was the kid he was really fond of. Her father, Michael Doyle, was the apple of the old chap’s eye, and he nearly pegged out when Mick was killed. He’s never thought for an instant of the money coming to Ulrica, or, for the matter of that, to Mary. I should say there’s an even chance to upset the will. But if once he gets the impression that you’re trying to get him to alter it in Mary’s favour, you might as well buy your ticket home and catch the next boat to Southampton, for he’s as obstinate as a mule. Look how he stuck to that Ming vase, when the police were after it as stolen property.”
“But he didn’t steal it, Percival. He knew he was perfectly safe. And over in New York, too. After all, it was only in England that all the fuss was made.”