Free Vow of Obedience by Veronica Black Page A

without incident. Floors were swept, brasses polished and dishes washed. At five the sisters retired to their cells for private study and the writing up of their spiritual diaries. The two postulants, escorted by Sister Hilaria, came to the parlour for instruction from Mother Prioress. Only the rustling of pages and the scribbling of pens broke the silence.
    What, thought Sister Joan, have I learned from my recent retreat? What have I learned in six years of convent life? Certainly not to be a living rule. If all the written rules were lost no novice would be able to discern them from the way I carry on.
    Her own shortcomings seemed to her magnified like a fly under the microscope. In the Order of the Daughters of Compassion an extra rule, that of compassion itself, was added to the usual three of poverty, chastity and obedience – all spelt with capital letters, she remembered, making hasty alterations in her notebook – as if the rules themselves were sanctified, intrinsically holy.
    Poverty wasn’t so difficult, she thought wryly, when one lived in a large house in the countryside, assured of bed and board for the rest of one’s life. The days when she’d dreamed of roast turkey and Eggs Benedict and strawberries thick with cream and soaked in wine! Chastity and celibacy – she reminded herself that the two were not mutually dependent – were disciplines only slightly shaken by a whisper of longing, a half remembered dream. Obedience seemed to be the rock against which she constantly stubbed her spiritual toes. Not out and out rebellion, but the impulsive action that sent her off on some quest of her own, the stretching of an hour’s freedom into two. The little foxes that ate up her grapes before they were ripe. And Mother Dorothy, instead of imposing more discipline, had virtually given her carte blanche to come and go more or less as she felt necessary. Which meant self-discipline. She made a note and underlined it, heard the chapel bell ringing and rose, going to benediction with a pleasant feeling of resolution.
    Father Stephens was officiating though it wasn’t his turn. Probably Father Malone was still with the Pendons. She bowed her head, the curate’s mellifluous phrases floating above her, and prayed for the bustling woman with the swollen eyes and the bewildered father who had stood, automatically stroking a stuffed toy and spoken of his good, quiet daughter.
    Father Stephens wafted himself away, and the community settled into silent meditation. Outside night waited on the threshold of a magnificent twilight.
    Someone was tugging gently at her sleeve. She came back to earth with a start and saw Sister Teresa giving her a look of apologetic questioning.
    O dear Lord, the lay sisters leave early to prepare supper, was her first flustered thought. While she had been indulging in prayer her companions were risking a late supper. Rising, avoiding Mother Dorothy’s eye, she left the chapel.
    ‘I do apologize for interrupting you, Sister Joan,’ Sister Teresa said as they traversed the hall together.
    ‘You did right, Sister. I had completely forgotten the duties of a lay sister. I really must get my head together.’
    ‘But it must have been most painful to have to go to the scene of a crime,’ the other said. ‘The world is a cruel place, Sister.’
    ‘Lit by flashes of beauty and kindness. Shall we get on with supper and then my conscience will be eased?’
    ‘Yes, Sister.’
    Being a novice in the third year of one’s training was difficult, Sister Joan reflected with sympathy. One had left the cocoon of the postulancy and was in but not yet entirely of the community, distinguished by the wearing of one’s blue habit instead of the grey of the fully professed, knowing that at the end of the year came the two years of silence and virtual solitude as laid down by the founder.
    ‘I am most grateful for your help, Sister,’ she said warmly. ‘I was worried as to how I was going to manage alone.