The singing continued and she craned forward. She could see an old man up the front and guessed he must be the priest. He was dressed in thick, colourful robes with ornate decorations on the sides and he was singing, too, as he walked around in front of a big stone table on the raised platform. He was shaking some kind of gold cup on a chain. Smoke was coming out of it and she got a whiff of something musty and sweet. Ruth couldn’t make out his face, but she thought he must be very old because he was moving so slowly. Occasionally he raised the beautiful clanking, smoking thing up high and bowed deeply. Each time he passed the shining gold cross on the middle of the table he bobbed right down on one knee, as if he was curtseying.
Ruth dared to look sideways down past the row of girls, first to the left and then to the right. She saw that the walls were lined with individual polished wooden seats and that in each one there was a woman dressed in a strange black-and-white costume with only her face visible.
Nuns! They must be nuns.
Before this she had only ever seen one or two nuns out in the street, and they had looked normal enough – in plain dresses, sometimes with funny little headscarves.
These
were like the nuns in the
Madeline
books. They were covered in long, voluminous black dresses and they had heavy beads and crucifixes around their middles. Some of them were quite young. The stiff white stuff around their faces pointed out at odd angles like wings. She had never seen even one nun dressed like this before, much less so many together.
Ruth was intrigued.
Thank you, Rodney. You’ve pulled it off this time!
Suddenly she felt a sharp dig in her ribs. Ruth turned to the girl next to her, stunned to be pulled so rudely out of her reverie.
‘Move!’ the girl hissed.
Ruth saw that the girls to the left of her had stood up and were starting to file out into the middle aisle and that by standing still she was holding up the line. The singing was still going on, but whatever had been happening up at that front table seemed to be over. Ruth got up and awkwardly turned to follow the girls as they made their way out. But when each girl reached the aisle she stopped to do a kind of curtsey before turning around and heading towards the back of the church. Ruth panicked momentarily. She had never curtseyed before. Should she try? Well, of course she had to. Out in the aisle she hesitated.
Which leg should she use?
But she stalled a moment too long. The girl behind sighed impatiently and Ruth lost her nerve. She made the mistake of trying to copy the girl who had come out from the row opposite. In the process she lost her balance, toppled over onto the patterned tiles and hit her head against one of the pew ends. When she looked up, a sea of strange faces was staring down at her, waiting for her to get up.
‘You all right?’ The girl behind bent to grab Ruth’s elbow and help her up, but Ruth could hear the mocking tone in her voice and pulled away. She scrambled to her feet; the sharp pain on the side of her head as she followed the row of girls out made everything around her suddenly very real. So much for the music! She wasn’t hearing anything now. She could hardly even think. The gasps and titters from the other girls made her feel as if her head was filled with mush. She stumbled towards the back doors trying not to look as stupid as she felt.
Outside it was bleak and windy. Clouds hung low and heavy in the sky. Ruth huddled down into her blazer, watching shyly as girls broke up from their rows into small groups as soon as they left the church. A few looked her over curiously before heading off either on their own or with friends.
The girls were around her age, although some were a little older, but there was no squealing or boisterous chatter, no calling out or
omigoding
. Not one girl was searching frantically for her mobile phone, as far as Ruth could make out. She could hear the nuns still singing in the church and wished she was back there with them, more or less invisible and listening to that lovely music.
As the crowds of girls moved off quietly down a paved path towards a group of three-storey sandstone buildings, Ruth followed. On either side of the path there were flower gardens, and along the high granite wall surrounding them, some big old trees. It didn’t really correspond with Ruth’s notion of a school, and yet all the girls were in uniform, so that was what it had to be. When she passed a group of older girls – all about thirteen or fourteen – the tittering and laughter become louder and she turned around. Mortified, she realised that they were laughing at her.
The girl who had been sitting next to her in church caught Ruth’s eye. ‘New girl, are we?’
A collection of friends almost magically formed around her and they moved to surround Ruth, all of them taller and older. ‘So what is your name?’
‘Ruth.’
‘And are you a pauper or an orphan or … a miscreant?’ the girl sneered. ‘Or all three?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘She’s not sure!’ the girl repeated. ‘Well, little-miss-butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth, have you got a mummy and a daddy? Or is Mummy a fast girl who likes sailors?’
Ruth had no idea what this meant, but the other girls seemed to. They held their hands over their mouths to hold back the sniggers.
‘Is Daddy a sailor, sweetie?’ The girl leaned over, lifted up Ruth’s thick plait and dropped it contemptuously. ‘Are you a little
accident
?’
‘Girls!’
Ruth’s tormenters immediately fell away.
The voice was not loud but it had the tone of absolute authority. A tall nun had appeared seemingly from nowhere. She held up one hand to stop the tide of girls flowing down the path towards her. Everyone was immediately still and very quiet. Thick beads hung around the nun’s waist, and a wooden cross was tucked into her leather belt. It rattled a little whenever she made the slightest movement.
There were perhaps fifty or sixty girls standing motionless now, waiting, faces expressionless. The nun clasped her hands slowly in front of her chest and peered over the heads of those girls at the front.
‘And what is the rule about how we walk from Mass into breakfast?’ she asked in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
Ruth’s stomach churned. The woman had not even raised her voice and yet almost
because of this
she was way scarier than anyone shouting. Beyond the walls a car horn sounded, then two twittering birds swooped past. Someone far away called out a name. But in spite of these normal noises, the outside world seemed far away.
‘Perhaps you can answer that question, Marcia?’ The nun looked straight at the girl who’d been teasing Ruth.
‘We should walk silently from Mass into breakfast, sister,’ Marcia said.
‘And why is that?’
‘So that we might ponder the mystery that we have just witnessed, sister,’ the girl replied without hesitation.
What?
Ruth was intrigued in spite of her fear. What mystery did they just witness? Oh, if only she knew more!
‘And what mystery is that, dear?’
‘The mystery of Our Lord’s sacrifice as commemorated in the Holy Mass, sister.’
Our Lord’s sacrifice?
What did that mean?
‘And what were you doing, Marcia?’ The nun’s voice was getting lower and more threatening with each question. Her slimness and her height and her face – the long, perfectly shaped nose, arched eyebrows, high cheekbones and full mouth – reminded Ruth of a fashion model but also, Ruth shuddered, of
a snake
. On a nature program she’d once seen a snake silently raising its head, getting ready to strike a mouse. This frightening extraterrestrial being draped in black serge with white starchy cardboard around her face was as beautiful and deadly as a snake.
‘I was talking, sister.’
‘You were talking.’ The nun breathed the words slowly and momentously, raising her chin, her blue eyes narrowing as she continued to stare at Marcia. ‘And you were laughing.’ She was almost inaudible now. ‘So tell me, Marcia,
why
were you talking and laughing, dear?’
‘Sister, I was trying to make the new girl feel welcome, sister.’
Liar!
Ruth wanted to shout. But there was a slight murmur of excitement among the crowd of girls. Marcia’s tone was appropriately subservient, but it was obviously audacious of her to give any excuse at all.
‘Were you now?’ The nun’s eyes were like slits of blue porcelain, cold and hard.
‘Yes, sister.’
‘We’ll talk about that further during recreation this afternoon,’ the nun said softly. ‘Be waiting outside my office at three-thirty sharp.’
‘Yes, sister,’ Marcia said.
‘And bring a pen and exercise book.’
‘Yes, sister.’
So the nun didn’t believe that girl!
Ruth thought victoriously. But before she could get too pleased, the nun turned around slowly and fixed that blue stare on her.
Oh no
. Now the other girls were turning, too, and Ruth wished the ground would open and swallow her. She had never been so frightened of anyone. Her knees were shaking. She suddenly knew what it was like to be that mouse, struck rigid with terror as the snake readied itself for the kill. The nun appraised her coolly for a few moments, from head to toe, as though she might be some kind of irksome insect.
‘What is your name, child?’
‘Ruth.’
‘I
beg
your pardon!’ A flush of pink hit those high cheekbones.
Utterly confused, Ruth wondered what she had done wrong. She bit her lip and looked around for a clue as her own face began to burn and her legs got even wobblier. Perhaps the nun had been talking to someone else? But no, everyone was looking at her now, including the nun. They were all waiting but …
for what?
What had Ruth done wrong? She had no idea.
‘Sister,’ a voice behind her whispered. ‘Say
sister
.’
Ruth didn’t dare turn around to see who had spoken.
‘My name is Ruth,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Sister,’ she added quietly.
‘Let us start that from the beginning, shall we?’ The nun flashed a cold smile for the benefit of the crowd and the girls around tittered appreciatively. ‘What is your name?’
‘Ruth, sister.’ Ruth was close to tears. She almost never cried, yet here she was with that clamped feeling in her throat and a terrible prickling behind her eyes only half an hour into her new life.
‘Well, Ruth, you do have a lot to learn.’ The nun’s voice remained dangerously low. ‘You are clumsy and ill-mannered. I can only hope you are not completely ignorant as well. This being your first day, I will overlook your transgressions … but remember, we have little patience here for insolence or sloth or uncouth behaviour of any kind.’
Ruth nodded mutely, a wave of blessed relief spreading through her.
She was forgiven.
She smiled tentatively at the terrifying creature in front of her to show how relieved and pleased and grateful she was to have been let off the hook. But something wasn’t right. The nun was still staring at her … waiting.
What now?
Ruth looked around wildly. What was she meant to do now? Then she heard the soft voice behind her again.
‘Say
Yes, sister
and then
Sorry, sister
and then
Thank you, sister
.’
‘Yes, sister. Sorry, sister,’ Ruth said breathlessly. ‘And thank you, sister.’
The nun gave the barest of nods and stalked off.
Everyone else followed silently.
Feeling as though she had only just avoided an execution, Ruth joined them. She was too scared now to look around but she followed the crowd. Ruth Craze was known for her good manners. Teachers and other parents always commented on her politeness. And she was nimble and quick, not usually clumsy.
So what had happened?
‘Don’t worry,’ said a voice at her side. ‘They’re not all that bad.’
Ruth turned to see a girl not much older than herself with dark, curly hair and blue eyes smiling at her. This must be the whispering saviour. Ruth wanted to hug her.
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. That was Sister Winifred. Wild Winnie the wicked witch,’ the girl laughed under her breath. ‘Or just
Winnie
for short. She’s batty, as you probably gathered, but not so bad when you get to know her. I’m Bridie, by the way.’
‘I’m Ruth,’ Ruth whispered back.
‘I know,’ Bridie giggled. ‘You told us.’
‘So are there nice ones?’
‘Nuns, you mean?’
Ruth nodded.
‘Yes, of course. They’re not all fearsome. Come and I’ll show you where to go next.’
They turned a corner and continued after the other girls along a paved path towards the old sandstone buildings.
It’s a jail
, Ruth thought angrily. The great stone wall surrounding the buildings and the garden was so high that it had to be.
What did Rodney think he was doing?
‘What happens now?’
‘Breakfast,’ Bridie said. ‘Then charges and then school.’
‘Charges?’
‘I take it you’re not a
lady
boarder?’ Bridie looked Ruth over and grinned. ‘Sorry, but your uniform tells me that.’
Ruth looked down at herself and realised for the first time that her uniform, although quite clean, was second-hand. The cuffs of the blazer were worn and there were some old stains on the tunic; her shoes were worn too.