Part 6 (2/2)
”Hallo, there! Well, you've arrived.” She turned to face another nun who seemed to have descended from the roof, so quickly had she made her appearance. ”You look tired. Are you tired?”
”Yes, Miss.”
”Yes, Miss. Ha! ha!” The laugh ran down the empty platform. ”Sister, child. I'm Sister Agnes Mary.” The voice was deep, not unlike a man's.
”Sister!” It was the escort speaking, and there was a strong breath of reprimand in the word.
Mary Ann, eyes slightly wider now, moved under the propulsion of the guiding hand of her escort towards the entrance, and ahead of them, carrying both her cases, strode Sister Agnes Mary. Fascinated, Mary Ann watched her make straight for a car, an old car, a very old car, and after dumping the cases into the boot pull open the door, squeeze herself in, and start up the engine.
Nothing at that moment could have surprised her more. Never had she seen a nun in a car, let alone driving one. All her preconceived ideas about nuns were being knocked to smithereens with sledge-hammer force.
”In you get.” This was from Sister Agnes. ”Push that box along, do it gently. You're not afraid of hamsters, are you?”
Mary Ann, in a stooped position on the step, stood riveted, gazing at the wire box full of mice, as she thought of them.
”Oh, well, all right, I'll bring them over here. . . . Here.” She lifted the box over the back seat. ”Hold it, Sister.”
Sister Catherine took the box with no great show of pleasure, then putting Mary Ann into the back of the car, and indicating her silent companion to follow, she closed the door and without a word seated herself in the front next to Sister Agnes.
There was a grating somewhere under Mary Ann's seat, then, with a jerk that knocked her backwards, they were oflf. The young nun steadied her and smiled.
She had been in Mr. Lord's car when he drove fast, but it hadn't been this kind of fast, nor had it made all this noise and rattle. That the noise was even affecting the imperturbable driver was made evident when her voice, above the din, came to Mary Ann, crying, ”Have tc take His Eminence's inside out tonight.”
”I thought you were going to do it this afternoon.” Sister Catherine's voice, although loud, was still prim.
”Couldn't. Just got my Office in when I had to go to the laundry. Sister Teresa's got toothache. You'd think it would be rheumatics she'd get, not toothache, wouldn't you?” A pause. ”She's small-what's her name?”
”Mary Ann Shaughnessy.”
”Huh! 'Just a little bit of heaven'.” The words were sung m a full contralto. ”That should make the hearts of Sisters Alvis and Monica glad.”
”Sister!” again the tone of reprimand, and then. . . . Could Mary Ann believe her ears, or was it the jingling of the car that made Sister Agnes Mary's reply sound like, ”Oh, stow it ! ”
It must have been the jingling of the car, no nun could ever say such a thing, nuns couldn't know words like ”stow it”, they were angels. At this point, and so early in her acquaintance of the celestial beings, Mary Ann had to remind herself of this fact, which immediately placed her further acquaintance with the heavenly overflow on a very insecure footing. Matters such as nuns being angels, as everybody knew, should be accepted without question, like the sun coming up and the rain coming down.
The town was left behind now, and the car was rocketing through the narrow, high-hedged lanes. Then, with startling suddenness, that seemed to be the main facet of its character, or was it its driver, it was out of the narrow lane and thundering up a broad drive. And the next minute it had stopped, and Mary Ann was once again lying back in the seat with her legs in the air.
”Come on, out you get, Miss Mary Ann Shaughnessy.”
Sister Agnes Mar^ was holding open the door and laughing. ”It's a big name for such a little soul, eh ? ”
'ies, Miss-Sister.”
Mary Ann stepped out of the car, and recognised immediately that she had dropped, or been thrown, into a new world. Before her were wide steps leading up to a house which was so big that the wall on either side seemed to stretch endlessly away, and all about, in front of the house, people-girls of all ages and grownups, and nuns, and over all she felt the canopy of excitement.
Before Sister Catherine's hand descended on her she glimpsed behind her a bal.u.s.trade and, through its grey stone pillars, terraces falling away in a glory of colour.
Sister Catherine's hand firmly on her head now, she was directed up the steps and through the wide-open doors into a huge hall, with broad oak stairs leading from its farthest end.
Only two impressions touched her whirling mind here. One was that the floor was so highly polished that she could see her white socks in it, and the other that the school was a funny place to have big pictures. In her ascent of the main staircase she glanced up in some awe at the gigantic old paintings covering the walls. But, arrived on the first floor, even these were thrust into the background by the maze of corridors branching from the long gallery. Like an appendage to the silent nun, she turned and twisted and dodged the scurrying figures of girls, and eventually arrived in a corridor away to the right, and at its end went through a door and into a dormitory full of beds. And the impression she had on arrival here was that n.o.body, n.o.body had taken the slightest notice of her. She could have been in her own school for all the curiosity she had aroused. And this, strangely enough, added to the weight of her loneliness.
Beside all the beds but one there were cases, and beside each case a child knelt or stood, and with the exception of two of them they were all chattering and laughing across to each other. Of the two, one was kneeling silently by her case and the other was crying by hers, and it was to the bed between these two that Sister Catherine took her. And from there she called imperiously to a girl at the end of the room : ”Beatrice ! ”
Beatrice, a thin, lanky girl of about eleven, came running down the room. ”Yes, Sister?”
”Must I remind you about running in the dormitory? WalkI think we had all this out last term.”
”Yes, Sister. I forgot.”
To Mary Ann the voice sounded high, sw.a.n.ky and cheeky.
”This is Mary Ann Shaughnessy. Show her what is necessary^ % then take her down to tea.”
”Yes, Sister.”
Sister Catherine now turned to Mary Ann, saying, ”When your cases come up Beatrice will show you what to do. After tea Reverend Mother wishes to see you; report to Mother St. Francis.”
”Yes, Mi-Sister.”
The Sister walked out, the door closed after her, and then to Mary Ann's open-mouthed horror, and it was horror, she saw Beatrice's face pucker up until her upper lip exposed in a half moon her top teeth, and her eyes screw up as if she were peering through gla.s.ses, and with her arms hanging like penguins' wings ?i , she took a few steps towards the door, saying, through her distorted mouth, ”Catty Cathie! Catty Cathie!”
There were some apprehensive giggles, there were some laughs, there were also some murmurs of disapproval, but these were low, timid and covert.
”Did she bring you?” Beatrice was fronting Mary Ann now.
”Yes.”
”Poor you; you should have had Aggie. Where are you from?”
”From Jarrow. No, I mean in the country outside-near Pelaw.”
”Make up your mind.”
Mary Ann stared at the girl. A moment ago she had stood in awe at her daring; a moment prior to that she had been made uneasy by her sw.a.n.ky voice and manner; now the voice and manner only annoyed her, and simply caused her to think, I don't like her, she's cheeky. Moreover, there was something familiar about the girl that puzzled her.
”What do you think you're doing?” Beatrice had turned from Mary Ann to the girl on her right who had lifted one of her cases on to the bed.” ”Get that off there-you know they haven't to be put on the bed.”
3(tie girl, who was nearly as tall as Beatrice, straightened her back and looked at her; then in a voice of a kind which Mary Ann had never heard before, she said, slowly, ”Eef you do not like eet, then leeft it hoff, or go and run to teel Sister.”
The two girls faced each other across the bed, then Beatrice, nodding slowly, said, ”All right, you wait till tomorrow when the marks start.” With this she walked away, and an oppressive silence fell on the room for a few seconds. Then it was broken by the sound of a bell and a number of voices calling together excitedly, ”Tea! tea! tea! Come on.”
There was a scrambling round the cases, and Mary Ann watched the legs flying down the dormitory. The girls were all running now, but at the door Beatrice stopped for a moment and called back to Mary Ann, ”Come on.” But she did not wait for her, and as Mary Ann made to walk away from her bed the girl from the next bed said, ”Take hoff your coat and hat.”
' 72 The tone was kindly, and Mary Ann took her things off, then looked at the girl. And the girl held out her hand and said, ”Come.”
With her hand in the strange girl's Mary Ann walked up the empty dormitory, and she had the feeling she was with someone ”grown-up”. Before the girl opened the door she paused and said, ”My name is Lola, and yours ces Mary Han?”
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