Vow of Chastity Read Free Page B

had set them a short composition on their favourite flowers. The task had been completed and handed in by six out of her ten pupils, which wasn’t too bad when she remembered the groan the boys had sent skywards. Two of the entries could scarcely be classified as homework, however. One was smudged with so much ink that it was impossible to read; the other contained a statement of rebellion.
    I cant make up stuff about flewers becaus I am NOT QUEER ,
    Yurs respectful ,
    Conrad Smith.
    Conrad was thirteen and should have been sent regularly to school years before. He came from the less law-abiding branch of the large Romany family camped out on the moor, and only sat in her classroom now because of the threats of his mother who was sick of being chased by the school inspector. Conrad, thought Sister Joan, showed a pleasing spirit of independence, and turned with less enjoyment to Madelyn Penglow’s book in which she had carefully copied the over familiar lines by Wordsworth, apparently under the serene misapprehension that her teacher would regard them as her own invention.
    Two of the others had drawn pictures of rather stylized-looking birds – or perhaps they were meant to be flowers? The remaining piece of work was also about daffodils, which at this season was hardly surprising. What was surprising was its content.
    They say daffodils are trumpets.
    I say daffodils are strumpets,
    And lads are bad and girls black pearl ,
    And little roses full of worms  
    Neatly written, properly spelt, and not from any poetry collection that Sister Joan had ever seen. Samantha Olive’s book. She was new to the district, her parents having just moved here. A slim child of eleven or twelve with bright green eyes in an otherwise ordinary little face. Sister Joan hadn’t paid much heed to her, deeming it better to let the child settle in before she started assessing her. The doggerel rhyme was not what she would have expected.
    She put the books aside, drew the copy of the timetable towards her and began to jot down ideas for the coming week – a nature ramble, a spelling bee, a talk about Philip Sidney to get across the idea that not all poets were effeminate – the bell for private study rang. Time to get out the journal that every Sister kept and note down her sins, her meditation thoughts, her private heart – all useful evidence in the unlikely event of the cause for canonisation being introduced for any of them in the future.
    I accuse myself ,Sister Joan wrote neatly in the thick, black-covered notebook, of having dreamed erotically – was a dream a sin? Had it ever been erotic? More frightening and embarrassing, she considered. Not erotically then. She inked out the work, apple-pied the offending letters as the prioress was sometimes constrained to do, writing the words ‘apple pie’ over parts of letters and books that might prove disturbing or unsuitable for more susceptible nuns to read.
    I accuse myself of not taking sufficient time to consider my sins and thus of being forced to cross out words, wasting space and defacing the book. I accuse myself of dwelling overmuch on a nightmare concerned with things quite irrelevant to my present situation –
    ‘I never thought I’d end up as an irrelevancy,’ Jacob said inside her head, his eyes tenderly mocking.
    She rubbed him out of her head and wrote on.
    I accuse myself of having left my sleeping quarters, gone  down to the kitchen, and drunk a mug of milk without permission and of having broken the grand silence and of having incited two of my Sisters in Christ to have followed my example – not strictly true since Sister Gabrielle had broken silence first, but she was old and might be excused on the grounds of forgetfulness.
    I accuse myself of spiritual pride and aridity, and pray God and you , my dear Sisters , to forgive and understand these my faults.
    If, at some future date, the devil’s advocate came looking for reasons why Sister Joan wasn’t suitable to be