Vow of Sanctity Read Free Page A

plastic containers of water which looked fresh and fit for drinking. Presumably Brother Cuthbert renewed the contents regularly. She bent to unscrew the lid, dipped a cup into the wide neck and was rewarded with a welcome, thirst quenching draught of cool water.
    ‘Much healthier than a cup of tea,’ Sister Joan admonished herself, and grinned as she realized she had spoken aloud. Five minutes in the retreat and she was talking to herself!
    She had carried up the lighter bag containing her nightclothes and change of underwear and toilet accessories. Brother Cuthbert had gone off with the bag containing her painting materials and the thick notebook in which she wrote up her meditations. Entries, she thought guiltily, had been sparse in recent months, but the schoolday took up so much of her time, demanded so much emotional energy – and there she went making excuses again. Mother Dorothy had known what she was talking about when she recommended a period of spiritual renewal.
    She stepped into the narrow passage again and went through the doorway to the broad, flat top step. Wider than the other steps it had a guard rail about it, a sensible modern precaution of which she heartily approved. She herself had an excellent head for heights but in wet weather the stone would be slippery and the cliffs were steep.
    From the top step she had a splendid view of the length of the loch as it curved into wider water and of the spur of land that jutted into it with its trees and long lines of grey stone wall. Colours were muted at this distance and only the sky flashed fire. There was a boat on the loch. She narrowed her eyes to bring it into focus and guessed rather than saw thatBrother Cuthbert was on his way with her other bag and, hopefully, something for supper. Sister Joan whose trim figure belied a hearty appetite trusted that the young Brother hadn’t picked up the notion that a retreat also meant extremes of fasting.
    ‘In the Order of the Daughters of Compassion extremes of devotion are not encouraged,’ her first prioress had said. ‘Excessive self-mortification is dangerous and silly. Please remember that.’
    Sister Joan had never had any idea of doing anything to excess, but now as she watched the boatman draw towards the shore she felt another uneasy pang of guilt. So far she had admired the scenery, thought cravingly of a cup of tea, and hoped she’d get a decent supper, and not one prayer of thankfulness for a safe journey had come into her head.
    Brother Cuthbert had moored the boat and was striding along the water’s edge with her larger bag in one hand and what looked like a picnic hamper in the other. He began to mount the lower path between the trees with the sure-footedness of a goat. Clearly he would ascend the steps with equal ease, not needing to hold on to the handrail. Sister Joan stepped back as his fringe of ginger hair appeared directly beneath her and retreated into the cave, leaving the door open.
    ‘Glad you’re settled in, Sister.’ He had inserted himself and his burdens through the narrow passage. ‘Quite a climb, isn’t it? Oh, Father Abbot just had the letter from your own convent to let us know someone was coming on retreat. The post never comes on time here.’
    ‘I’m surprised it ever arrives at all,’ Sister Joan said frankly. ‘It is pretty remote.’
    ‘The local postmistress comes on her bicycle,’ Brother Cuthbert explained, setting down his load, ‘and puts any letters for our community into a postbox on the near shore. Father Abbot has the largest post bag, quite a regular series of communications with lay workers in the field.’
    ‘The field?’ Sister Joan glanced at him enquiringly.
    ‘The mission field,’ Brother Cuthbert said. ‘We are the contemplative part of our Order but we have brothers and secular workers in the Third World. It is prayer that helps them to continue.’
    ‘And a few financial contributions,’ Sister Joan reminded him. Brother Cuthbert