Secrets to Keep (38 page)

Then, suddenly, memories of past conversations came flooding back to Aidy. ‘You’ve done this before!’ she exclaimed. ‘Three times, to my knowledge. To a Mrs Crosby, Mrs Potter and another old
dear …’ the paused for a moment, fighting to remember the name of the old lady presumed to be insane ‘… called Mrs Willows. And how many more I don’t know about, eh? Got yourself a nice little racket going on here, haven’t you, Sister? But, in all honesty, I think you could have chosen your victims a little more wisely. As you’ve probably realised by now, people round here ain’t got what it takes to make you rich.’ Aidy glared at her darkly. ‘So, come on, lady, just who are you?’

While Aidy looked on, the woman kneeling on the floor bent her head as though in prayer and remained like that for several moments before she let out a deep, despondent sigh. She then slowly lifted her head and, one by one, picked up the items arranged on her skirt and put them back in the cigar box. She then put the box back in the bottom drawer of the tallboy, the clothes back on top, and shut the drawer. She picked up the pouch bag from off her skirt and rose to her feet. She put the pouch into a side pocket of her habit, clasped her hands in front of her and slowly walked over to the old lady’s bed where she sank down. Then, looking across at Aidy, she fixed her eyes on hers and said with conviction, ‘I am what you see, Mrs Nelson. A nun.’

Aidy sneered at her in disgust. ‘A nun who’s a thief?’

Clearly and precisely, she replied, ‘Yes, I am.’

Her honesty shocked Aidy. She had expected her to deny it, try to convince Aidy she had not seen what she had, wriggle out of it somehow. ‘But why? What good are those bits of jewellery to you? You can’t wear them, can you? You’re not allowed.’

‘No, nuns aren’t allowed anything pretty, or any frippery at all. I planned to sell the pieces when I’d got enough together, to make the amount I needed.’

Aidy was staring over at her, mystified. ‘But what do you need money for? The Church provides you with all you need, doesn’t it?’

‘My material needs … food … a bed … but the Church doesn’t provide for my physical needs as a woman, Mrs Nelson.’ She heaved a deep sigh as her grey eyes blazed back at Aidy with a deep sorrow, the like of which she had never witnessed before. ‘I have faith, I believe in God, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to give up my freedom to live a bleak life serving him. I wanted to have fun like other girls, have boyfriends, get married, have children, grandchildren … but my mother had other ideas for me.’

A look of horror filled Aidy’s face. ‘You mean, she forced you to become a nun?’

‘That’s exactly what she did. From a very early age my mother found God through her Sunday School teacher, herself a nun, who I can only think glamorised the life in my mother’s young mind. It became her dream to become a nun, to give her life to doing
the Lord’s good works and securing her place beside Him when her time came. But when she informed my grandparents of her intention they were horrified, wouldn’t hear of it, flatly refused to give their consent. So she calmly announced to them that she didn’t need their permission when she reached the age of twenty-one. She was determined to become a nun and would let nothing stop her.

‘Mother was an only child. After she was born, it wasn’t possible for my grandmother to have any more children. According to my father, my grandfather was a very forceful type of man, the sort who got his way whatever it took. He was desperate for a male heir to pass on the family business to. He’d started from scratch and spent his life building it up to the success it was then. He had a factory that made ribbons and tapes. The only way he was going to get his heir was through a grandchild.

‘My mother was an attractive woman, but she made herself unattractive by the plain, dull clothes she wore, had her hair cut short in the style of Joan of Arc. Everyone she came across, she would try to convert to the faith, to become the Lord’s shepherds and do his good works. When she wasn’t doing her Church works, she was reading the Bible. My grandfather threatened to disown her, cut off her allowance, anything to get her to stop her nonsense. But nothing he did worked. With the age of twenty-one fast
approaching, when she’d be legally free to become a nun, my grandfather made it his mission to find Mother a husband.

‘My father was an employee of his, a clerk in the accounts department, a very mild-mannered man, kind and gentle, who supported his widowed mother. My grandfather saw him as the ideal victim. My father was called into his office and accused of embezzling the firm’s money to the tune of a thousand pounds. He was given a choice. Either he could go to jail for a very long time or he could secure himself a decent future by marrying the boss’s daughter. My father really didn’t have a choice. He was also told to use any means necessary to get my grandfather an heir.

‘I’m not privy to how my father got my mother pregnant as he was too ashamed ever to talk of it … I can only assume he somehow got her intoxicated and had his way with her. My mother never knew of her own father’s part in her downfall as that was part of the deal. She therefore blamed my father entirely for shattering her dream of becoming a nun, and never let him forget it. She made his life a living hell.

‘The irony is that a month after my parents were married, my grandparents were both killed when the horse that was pulling their coach bolted and they were overturned. My mother was sole heir to their estate. The first thing she did was have my father
dismissed from his job. She made it impossible for him to get another so that he was at her mercy day and night, because she also made sure he had no money and couldn’t leave her. Besides, he adored me and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving me alone with her. My mother knew this. The only social outings we went on were Church-associated. The only books in the house were religious ones. The only visitors to our house were connected to the Church.

‘After seven years of misery my father could stand no more. He came to my bedroom one night, waking me up as he sat on my bed. With tears rolling down his face, he told me that he was going away and not coming back. He then told me the story I have just told you in the hope I’d understand and forgive him for what he was about to do. Before he left he hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe. I never saw him again. That night he threw himself off a bridge in front of a train.

‘From as soon as I could understand, my mother made it clear what her ambition for me was. I was to live the life that had been denied her. I was going to become a nun and spend my life carrying out the Good Lord’s work. Unfortunately, I had not inherited her or my grandfather’s forceful nature but my father’s kind and gentle one. I was no match for her. Consequently, against my will, at the age of sixteen
I joined the convent as a novice. I wasn’t even allowed to keep my own name, but known as Sister Teresa Mary from that moment on.

‘I had thought my life under my mother’s rule was joyless enough, but inside the convent it was worse. My room was no more than a cell, big enough to take a cot bed and a small chest for my spare habit and change of underwear, the window too high up in the wall for me to see out of. The only adornment was a picture on the wall of the Holy Mother and child. My day started at four when I’d rise for prayers. As soon as they finished I helped prepare our breakfast of porridge, and spent the rest of my time on my knees, scrubbing the floors, the only breaks for prayers and lunch of bread and water. At four-thirty I would return to the kitchen to help prepare the evening meal. That was my life for two years.

‘The convent had an annexe in the grounds that held two wards used to nurse the very elderly in the convent’s vicinity, their way of doing good works for the local community, and Mother Superior decided I had the makings of a nurse. She assigned me to learn nursing under a strict disciplinarian of a nun who was eighty if she was a day and would punish me severely for the slightest mistake I made. She would make me kneel in the corner of the ward on a rough piece of matting that dug into my knees and recite the Lord’s Prayer, over and over, until she
decided I’d had enough. I remained under her tutelage for ten years and when she died I took her place in charge of the ward, but I can assure you that I never punished any novice under my wing in any other way than verbally.

‘For those who freely choose their vocation it is a very rewarding life, but I detested every minute of it, everything about it. When all the other sisters were saying their prayers in praise of God, I was damning him as much as I was damning my mother for the life I’d been forced to live. The only thing that kept me sane was knowing that she could not live forever, that one day she would die, and then, as her only child, I’d be sole heir to her estate.

‘I would lie in my cell at night and plan the life I would finally have for myself. I would only take from my inheritance enough to buy myself a little house, and the rest I would give away to good causes. I hoped the money that had caused such misery to some, might bring joy to other people. To keep myself, I would get a job using the skills I had learned as a nurse. I hoped I might one day meet a nice man to love me and that we’d live happily ever after.’

She gave an ironic laugh. ‘I should not have underestimated my mother. She had decided at my birth that she would make a present of her daughter to God, in replacement for herself. She made sure I couldn’t have any opportunity of flouting her wishes
and leaving the sisterhood by bequeathing her entire estate to the convent. Without the means to start a new life for myself in the outside world, I was trapped. A few pounds, two or three at the most, was all I needed, but I had no way of obtaining them. There was nothing I could do but resign myself to a life that was pure purgatory to me. Accept the fact I would never know what it would feel like to be loved, kissed, hold my child in my arms, cook a meal for my family and sit around a table watching their happy faces. Then, out of the blue, a way to make my escape was presented to me. It was an opportunity I just couldn’t let pass. Another might never come my way.

‘A nun who had been on a missionary trip in the Congo returned. Mother Superior was busy deciding where she would prove most useful. The decision was made that she would take one of the nurse’s places on the ward, and another nun would nurse where she was needed – out in the community. Mother Superior decided that this area was in most need of a nun’s services at the time, and that I was to be that nun. I am sure she will never appreciate what a gift she gave to me! Getting away from the strict regime of convent life for a few hours a day was like being released into paradise for me.

‘The first patient I attended was a Mrs Miller. She had had a leg amputated and I was to check the stump
for infection and redress it. As I finished my work on her, she asked if I would be kind enough to go up to her bedroom and fetch a shawl for her as she was feeling the cold. I would find it in the second drawer of her tallboy. I had retrieved the shawl for her, and as I was about to leave noticed a little china dish on top of the tallboy. It held several pieces of dusty, tarnished jewellery. Not elaborate by any means, just cheap pieces the old lady had obviously been given over the years. That was when the means to escape my awful life and make a new one became clear to me. How easy it would be for me to take one of those pieces! When the loss was discovered, who would ever suspect a nun of taking it? It was apparent the things in the dish hadn’t been worn for years and were just lying there gathering dust. On its own, one piece might reap only a penny or two from a second-hand dealer, but if I managed to collect enough …

‘To steal is wrong, however valid you may consider your reason for doing so, and especially from defenceless sick people. But when someone is in a desperate situation and sees a way out being given to them, then all sense and reason leave them. With today’s items, I was of the opinion that I finally had enough for my needs.’ She paused, looking enquiringly at Aidy. ‘May I enquire how you found out what I was doing?’

Aidy had become deeply absorbed in the terrible
story she had just been told. She couldn’t imagine how it must have been for this woman before her, having to live such an austere existence against her own will in order to satisfy her mother’s need. She gave herself a mental shake. ‘I didn’t. I just came to find you. I forgot to put a patient’s name on your list after Doc asked me to yesterday.’

‘Oh, I see. Then it appears I will be swapping one cell for another.’ With a look of sadness clouding her face, shoulders slumping in resignation, Sister Teresa unclasped her hands, stood up and asked quietly, ‘Will you be accompanying me to the police station or do you trust me to present myself there, Mrs Nelson?’

Aidy stared at her blankly. This woman had been imprisoned her whole life. Would it be right to subject her to more years on top? Maybe the wrongs she had done in order to escape her purgatorial existence could be put right so that none of her victims was left to suffer from her misdeeds. And Aidy herself had the means to help her finally change her life to the one she wanted to live. She had a feeling that should she offer the chance to her, she would never come to regret it.

‘Let’s not be hasty, Sister. First things first, what is your real name?’

‘Oh, er … Ruth. Mother’s choice. Had to be something religious.’

‘Religious or not, I wouldn’t have minded being
called that instead of the name I was burdened with. Ruth is very pretty and it suits you. Well, Ruth, to make a new life for yourself, all you need is a place to sleep and some food to eat while you find yourself a job and then put some money together to get yourself somewhere to live, isn’t that right?’

The nun was looking at her quizzically. ‘Yes, that is all. Along with a change of clothes.’