Free Quiet as a Nun by Antonia Fraser Page A

children's wing and classrooms, together with the refectory, had been built in the late twenties in red brick, the nuns' wing and the chapel had been constructed in the throes of the Victorian gothic revival. From the outside the bland modern style contrasted with the heavily arched Gothic of the convent proper. I gathered that the nuns' cells, through their swing doors, had been recreated according to a Victorian notion of a mediaeval cloister.
    The walls were thick. Not as thick as the walls of Blessed Eleanor's Retreat perhaps. But the intention was the same. Noise, human noise, was not intended to intrude into the great silence of God.
    The Tower of the Blessed Eleanor was also an unexpected topic of conversation that night at supper. I had decided to eat my main meals in the refectory-cum-cafeteria with the girls. I did not fancy the solemn service of the Nuns' Parlour. Sister Damian continued to enchant me, but I found Sister Clare's portly figure, labouring along with her tray, an increasing trial. Besides, I was becoming interested in the girls themselves, the girls in general and Margaret Plantaganet in particular.
    Tom would like Margaret. The thought came to me, unspoken, that evening in the refectory. She was not unlike one of his devoted acolytes at the W.N.G ., a girl called Emily Crispin. Emily had come forward as a helper without pay - which was just as well as the W.N.G . were as fierce in their determination to keep all their funds for the poor as, say, the Powers Estate Projectors. It subsequently turned out that Emily could well afford the sacrifice, being the daughter of a rich man, although you would not otherwise have guessed it from her demeanour - or her clothes. Margaret had the same air of secrecy about her, an individuality which had nothing to do with her name or birth. It did have something to do with her physical appearance, the long crusader's face with its helmet of straight brown hair: and her silence. Emily Crispin, I once told Tom with irritation I did not bother to hide, sits for hours at your elbow without opening her mouth, like a dog asleep.
    'That explains why I always get the impression she agrees with every word I say,' Tom replied.
    Margaret Plantaganet herself never spoke much at meals. She left that to her chatterbox friend Dodo Sheehy.
    It was Dodo, at supper on the Feast of All Souls, who enquired: 'I wonder if anyone saw the black nun last night?' Her tone was rather-bright. Dodo was such a pretty plump little thing with fair curls and a Cupid's bow mouth, that nothing she said sounded completely serious.
    But I noted a wry expression on Margaret's face, a slight compression of the lips.
    'Aren't all nuns black?' I responded lightly. The death of Sister Edward had not cast a notable shadow on their spirits: she was too young to have taught them. But I wanted to get the conversation away from the events of the night before.
    'I'm talking about The - Black - Nun.' Dodo gave the three last words sepulchral emphasis. 'An apparition. Did you never see it when you were at the school?'
    'No - wait, I do remember something vaguely. Doesn't it haunt the chapel? Or is it the tower?'
    Margaret said: 'And the convent itself. Sister Miriam told us she actually saw the Black Nun when she was a girl at school.'
    'She didn't tell me. It must have only bobbed up after dark. I was a day girl. You tell me.'
    'Dodo, you tell.' Dodo was nothing loath. It transpired that the Black Nun was commonly held to appear shortly before or shortly after the death of a member of the community. Yes, of course, all nuns wore black, but the point of the Black Nun was that you suddenly came across a nun you didn't recognise, a nun you had never seen before. You imagined: a novice, a transfer from another convent. But the next day you heard of the death of a nun. And of course you never saw the Black Nun, that particular Black Nun again.
I burst out laughing.
    'You don't believe us,' said one of the other girls at