The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark Read Free Book Online Page B

of timidity when she is in the small environment of her equals. She
     shivers now as Maximilian addresses her with a smile of confidence.
    Baudouin looks from Mildred’s heart-shaped white face to Walburga’s strong
     dark face, two portraits in matching white frames. ‘Sisters,’ Baudouin says,
     ‘Felicity ought not to be the Abbess of Crewe.’
    ‘It must be Alexandra,’ Walburga says.
    ‘It shall be Alexandra,’ says Mildred.
    ‘Then we have to discuss an assault strategy in dealing with Felicity,’ says
     Baudouin.
    ‘We could deal with Felicity very well,’ Walburga says, ‘if you would
     deal with Thomas.’
    ‘The two factors are one,’ Maximilian says, smiling wistfully at Mildred.
    The bell rings for Vespers. Walburga, looking straight ahead, says, ‘We shall have
     to miss Vespers.’
    ‘We’ll miss all the Hours until we’ve got a plan,’ Mildred says
     decisively.
    ‘And Alexandra?’ says Baudouin. ‘Won’t Alexandra return to join
     us? We should consult Alexandra.’
    ‘Certainly not, Fathers,’ Walburga says. ‘She will not join us and we
     may not consult her. It would be dishonourable —’
    ‘Seeing she is likely to be Abbess,’ says Mildred.
    ‘Seeing she will be Abbess,’ Walburga says.
    ‘Well, it seems to me that you girls are doing plenty of campaigning,’
     Baudouin says, looking round the room uncomfortably, as if some fresh air were
     missing.
    Maximilian says, ‘Baudouin !’ and the nuns look down, offended, at their
     empty hands in their lap.
    After a space, Mildred says, ‘We may not canvass for votes. It is against the
     Rule.’
    ‘I see, I see,’ says large Baudouin, patiently.
    They talk until Vespers are over and the black shape comes in to remove the tea tray.
     Still they talk on, and Mildred calls for supper. The priests are shown to the
     visitors’ cloakroom and Mildred retires with Walburga to the upstairs lavatories
     where they exchange a few words of happiness. The plans are going well and are going
     forward.
    The four gather again, conspiring over a good supper with wine. The bell rings for
     Compline, and they talk on.
    Upstairs and far away in the control room the recorders, activated by their voices,
     continue to whirl. So very much elsewhere in the establishment do the walls have ears
     that neither Mildred nor Walburga are now conscious of them as they were when the
     mechanisms were first installed. It is like being told, and all the time knowing, that
     the Eyes of God are upon us; it means everything and therefore nothing. The two nuns
     speak as freely as the Jesuits who suspect no eavesdropping device more innocuous than
     God to be making a chronicle of their present privacy.
    The plainchant of Compline floats sweetly over from the chapel where Alexandra stands in
     her stall nearly opposite Felicity. Walburga’s place is empty, Mildred’s
     place is empty. In the Abbess’s chair, not quite an emptiness as yet, but the
     absence of Hildegarde.
    The voices ripple like a brook:
    Hear, O God, my supplication:
    be attentive to my prayers.
    From the ends of the earth I cry to thee:
    when my heart fails me.
    Thou wilt set me high upon a rock, thou wilt
    give me rest:
    thou art my fortress, a tower of strength
     against
    the face of the enemy.
    And Alexandra’s eyes grieve, her lips recite:
    For I am homesick after mine own kind
    And ordinary people touch me not.
    And I’m homesick
    After my own kind…
    Winifrede, taking over Mildred’s duty, is chanting in true
     tones the short lesson to Felicity’s clear responses:
    Sisters: Be sober and vigilant:
    for thy enemy the devil, as a raging lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour.
     Him do thou resist …
    ‘Aye, I am wistful for my kin of the spirit’; softly
     flows the English verse beloved of Alexandra:
    Well then, so call they,
     the swirlers out of the mist of my
    soul,
    They that come stewards, bearing old
     magic.
    But far all that, I am
     homesick after mine own