Free The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark Page B

any nuns —’
    ‘Not in my Abbey,’ says the Abbess. ‘My nuns are above suspicion. All
     but Felicity and Bathildis who have been expelled. Felicity, indeed, is excommunicated.
     I won’t have it said that my nuns are so notoriously available that a couple of
     Jesuit youths could conceivably enter these gates with profane intent.’
    ‘They got in by the orchard gate,’ says Mildred thoughtlessly, ‘that
     Walburga left open for Father Baudouin.’
    ‘That is a joke,’ says the Abbess, pointing to the Infant of Prague wherein
     resides the parlour’s main transmitter.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ says Walburga, smiling towards the Infant of Prague with
     her wide smile in her long, tight-skinned face. ‘Nobody knows we are bugged except
     ourselves and Winifrede never quite takes in the whole picture. Don’t
     worry.’
    ‘I worry about Felicity,’ says Mildred. ‘She might guess.’
    Walburga says, ‘All she knows is that our electronics laboratory and the labourers
     therein serve the purpose of setting up contacts with the new missions founded
     throughout the world by Gertrude. Beyond the green lines to Gertrude, she knows nothing.
     Don’t worry.’
    ‘It is useless to tell me not to worry,’ the Abbess says, ‘since I
     never do. Anxiety is for the bourgeoisie and for great artists in those hours when they
     are neither asleep nor practising their art. An aristocratic soul feels no anxiety nor,
     I think, do the famine-stricken of the world as they endure the impotent extremities of
     starvation. I don’t know why it is, but I ponder on starvation and the starving.
     Sisters, let me tell you a secret. I would rather sink flesh less to my death into the
     dry soil of some African or Indian plain, dead of hunger with the rest of the dying
     skeletons than go, as I hear Felicity is now doing, to a psychiatrist for an
     anxiety-cure.’
    ‘She’s seeing a psychiatrist?’ says Walburga.
    ‘Poor soul, she lost her little silver thimble,’ says the Abbess.
     ‘However, she herself announced on the television that she is undergoing
     psychiatric treatment for a state of anxiety arising from her excommunication for living
     with Thomas in sin.’
    ‘What can a psychiatrist do?’ says Mildred. ‘She cannot be more
     excommunicated than excommunicated, or less.’
    ‘She has to become resigned to the idea,’ the Abbess says. ‘According
     to Felicity, that is her justification for employing a psychiatrist. There was more
     clap-trap, but I switched it off.’
    The bell rings for Vespers. Smiling, the Abbess rises and leads the way.
    ‘It’s difficult,’ says Mildred as she passes through the door after
     Walburga, ‘not to feel anxious with these stories about us circulating in the
     world.’
    The Abbess stops a moment. ‘Courage!’ she says. ‘To the practitioner of
     courage there is no anxiety that will not melt away under the effect of grace, however
     that may be obtained. You recite the Psalms of the Hours, and so do I, frequently giving
     over, also, to English poetry, my passion. Sisters, be still; to each her own source of
     grace.’
    Felicity’s stall is empty and so is Winifrede’s. It is the Vespers of the
     last autumn Sunday of peace within the Abbey walk. By Wednesday of next week, the police
     will be protecting the place, patrolling by day and prowling by night with their dogs,
     seeing that the press, the photographers and the television crews have started to go
     about like a raging lion seeking whom they may devour.
    ‘Sisters, be sober, be vigilant.’
    ‘Amen.’
    Outside in the grounds there is nothing but whispering trees on this last Sunday of
     October and of peace.
    Fortunate is the man who is kind and leads:
    who conducts his affairs with justice.
    He shall never be moved:
    the just shall be in everlasting
     remembrance.
    He shall not fear sad news:
    his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
    The pure cold air of the chapel ebbs, it flows and ebbs, with the