Free Vow of Penance by Veronica Black Page B

by which time he may well have begun to wonder why he hasn’t heard anything from Mrs Fairly, Father Stephens will write and tell him what has occurred. If it were a death as the result of a sudden illness, an accident even, then one might not mind for him so much, but he will blame himself for not having realized the poor woman was so near desperation. It must have been a brainstorm surely.’
    ‘I don’t think Mrs Fairly did kill herself,’ Sister Joan said.
    There was a little silence. Mother Dorothy took off her spectacles, wiped them carefully, replaced them on her snub nose, and folded her hands on the flat-topped desk before her.
    ‘I assume you have a good reason for asserting that?’ she said.
    ‘Not really, Mother.’ Sister Joan flushed slightly. ‘I hadn’t exchanged more than a brief greeting with Mrs Fairly until yesterday morning and even then we only had a few words. She gave me a cup of tea while she was putting on some extra breakfast for Father Timothy, but she was so – so ordinary, and stolid, and cheerful. Even when she rang me up she didn’t sound in the least desperate, merely a little puzzled and perturbed—’
    ‘About what?’
    Sister Joan’s rosy cheeks grew rosier. To have told Mother Dorothy that Mrs Fairly believed she knew where she had seen Sister Jerome’s name before would be to focus attention on the newcomer which might be quite unjustified since what Mrs Fairly had rememberedmight have no bearing on her death.
    ‘She wasn’t very clear,’ she said at last, substituting the essence of truth for its literal meaning. ‘The line was crackling and so I said I would meet her if possible and she rang off.’
    ‘What makes you so certain that she didn’t take the drug overdose deliberately then?’ Mother Dorothy asked.
    ‘I don’t know, Mother.’ Sister Joan spread her hands helplessly. ‘I suppose that, like you, I find it painful to contemplate that someone could reach such a pitch of despair that they would throw away the life God gave them, but there’s something else. Mrs Fairly was a splendidly caring housekeeper – Father Malone used to joke that she fussed over him and Father Stephens too much, but he did appreciate her good qualities and – well, I just can’t believe that she would wait until Father Malone had just embarked upon a wonderful series of pilgrimages, and then run the risk of spoiling it all for him by killing herself. She wasn’t so selfish!’
    ‘Did you say this to Detective Sergeant Mill?’
    ‘Not really. I hadn’t thought it out properly then. I did say that I couldn’t believe that Mrs Fairly had killed herself but he said that there was no possibility of it having been an accident and no evidence that it had been anything else, so the inquest will be a virtual formality.’
    Mother Dorothy was frowning, not in displeasure but with a concentrated ferocity that intimated equally concentrated thought.
    ‘Father Stephens made a request of me,’ she said at last. ‘Until a new housekeeper can be appointed both he and Father Timothy will require someone to cook and clean for them. He wanted to know if I could spare one of the sisters for a week or so. I told him that I would consider the request and let him know my answer as soon as possible. It seems to me that it might be a goodidea to send you down to the presbytery as temporary housekeeper. Mind, I don’t order you to go. To have to leave the enclosure overnight especially during Lent is a great sacrifice, but this is the season of penance, so you may care to think about it. If by your going you could find out that poor Mrs Fairly died accidentally and not by her own hand then it would lift a great burden from Father Malone when the time comes for him to be told.’
    Sister Joan was silent. Her first impulse had been to declare that she would gladly go down to the presbytery if there was the smallest chance of her uncovering the truth, but her immediate reaction following that