Vow of Obedience Read Free Page A

point has been made by several other sisters,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘It may be time for us to consider another site, but that will be a matter for consultation among all our houses. You look well, Sister, despite the rigours you have undergone. Ready to begin your tasks in the community again?’
    ‘And glad to be home,’ Sister Joan said warmly. ‘How is Sister David managing at the school or did you decide to defer the opening?’
    ‘The school is closed.’
    ‘Then I’d like permission to spend a day cleaning out before we reopen. After such a long break there’ll be dust an inch deep.’
    ‘Permanently closed,’ said Mother Dorothy.
    ‘Perm … I don’t understand.’ Sister Joan looked at her blankly. ‘You always said the school fulfilled a real need.’
    ‘It wasn’t my decision, Sister,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘The new education rules, with the national curriculum and endless series of tests make schools like the Moor School superfluous – or so the education authorities inform me. The children are being bussed into Bodmin.’
    ‘Which is ridiculous!’ Sister Joan’s face flushed indignantly. ‘Don’t they understand that the Romany children will start truanting if they’re thrust into the Bodmin school? They come to me because we’ve built up a pleasant relationship. They get as much education in the Moor School as they’d getanywhere else, probably more because they get individual attention. We know the families, the way they think. Officialdom can be so – so …’
    ‘Officious?’ Mother Dorothy smiled slightly. ‘I agree with you, Sister, but we have no real grounds on which to make a stand. The number of pupils affected is very small indeed, and you know that when they get older they are already obliged to enter the larger schools.’
    ‘But what about the trust? The Tarquins founded it for a school.’
    ‘I am in touch with lawyers,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘It may be possible to convert the trust into something else that would benefit the community. The school building is sound and then there are the books and desks and teaching aids. Something can be worked out, I’m sure.’
    Sister Joan was silent. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she had enjoyed teaching, how close she had become to her pupils. Riding to school on Lilith, the placid pony, every morning she had relished the hours of freedom when she had been in charge of her little world. To have to give it up and submit herself to the cloistered life entirely was a blow for which she was unprepared.
    ‘You did some very good work there,’ Mother Dorothy was continuing. ‘You have every right to feel proud of that, Sister. I understand that you feel you have a responsibility to the children, but your first responsibility must be to God and the community. And you need not fear that we will leave you without occupation. After your retreat you will be ready for some practical work, I’m sure.’
    ‘Yes, of course, Mother.’ Sister Joan felt more cheerful.
    ‘My main concern is how to use you in the best possible way,’ the prioress was considering thoughtfully. ‘There is one area where you would be most useful but I wonder how you would feel about it yourself. You have been Mary. Perhaps it is time for you to be Martha for a while. I mean that as we have no lay sister at the moment you could fill that gap until we can obtain one.’
    The lay sisters did most of the cooking and shopping; they kept earlier hours and went to bed later than others in the convent. They slept in the two cells that led off the kitchen. At present there were no lay sisters at the Cornwall House.Women who chose the religious life generally preferred to enter the cloister proper in an order like the Daughters of Compassion.
    ‘It would not,’ said Mother Dorothy with delicate irony, ‘be a demotion. Sister Perpetua has been doing most of the work but she has her infirmary duties.’
    ‘I would be very happy to take over