The Abbess of Crewe

The Abbess of Crewe Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: The Abbess of Crewe Read Online Free PDF
Author: Muriel Spark
heart. It’s necessary.’
    He was jealous but he lost. Whatever Mildred’s deeply concealed dreams might be,
     they ran far ahead of the Jesuit, far beyond him. He began at last to hate Mildred and
     took up with Felicity.
    Alexandra, who brought to the community no dowry but her noble birth and shrewd spirit,
     is to be Abbess now that Hildegarde lies buried in the chapel. And the wonder is that
     she bothers, or even her favourite nuns are concerned, now, a few weeks before the
     election, that Felicity causes a slight stir amongst the forty nuns who are eligible to
     vote. Felicity has new and wild ideas and is becoming popular.
    Under the late Abbess Hildegarde this quaint convent, quasi-Benedictine, quasi-Jesuit,
     has already discarded its quasi-natures. It is a mutation and an established fact. The
     Lady Abbess Hildegarde, enamoured of Alexandra as she was, came close to expelling
     Felicity from the Abbey in the days before she died. Alexandra alone possesses the
     authority and the means to rule. When it comes to the vote it needs must be
     Alexandra.
    They pace the dark cloisters in such an evident happiness of shared anxiety that they
     seem not to recognize the pleasure at all.
    Walburga says, ‘We must do something. Felicity could create a crisis of leadership
     in the Abbey.’
    ‘A crisis of leadership,’ Mildred says, as one who enjoys both the phrase and
     the anguish of the idea. ‘The community must be kept under the Rule, which is to
     say, Alexandra.’
    Alexandra says, ‘Keep watch on the popularity chart. Sisters, I am consumed by the
     Divine Discontent. We are made a little lower than the angels. This weighs upon me,
     because I am a true believer.’
    ‘I too,’ says Walburga. ‘My faith remains firm.’
    ‘And mine,’ Mildred says. ‘There was a time I greatly desired not to
     believe, but I found myself at last unable not to believe.’
    Walburga says, ‘And Felicity, your enemy, Ma’am? How is Felicity’s
     faith. Does she really believe one damn thing about the Catholic faith?’
    ‘She claims a special enlightenment,’ says Alexandra the Abbess-to-be.
     ‘Felicity wants everyone to be liberated by her vision and to acknowledge it. She
     wants a stamped receipt from Almighty God for every word she spends, every action, as if
     she can later deduct it from her income-tax returns. Felicity will never see the point
     of faith unless it visibly benefits mankind.’
    ‘She is so bent on helping lame dogs over stiles,’ Walburga says. ‘Then
     they can’t get back over again to limp home.’
    ‘So it is with the Jesuit. Felicity is helping Thomas, she would say. I’m
     sure of it,’ Mildred says. ‘That was clear from the way he offered to help
     me.’
    The Sisters walk hand in hand and they laugh, now, together in the dark night of the
     Abbey cloisters. Alexandra, between the two, skips as she walks and laughs at the idea
     that one of them might need help of the Jesuit.
    The night-watch nun crosses the courtyard to ring the bell for Lauds. The three nuns
     enter the house. In the great hall a pillar seems to stir. It is Winifrede come to join
     them, with her round face in the moonlight, herself a zone of near-darkness knowing only
     that she has a serviceable place in the Abbey’s hierarchy.
    ‘Winifrede,
Benedicite
,’ Alexandra says.
    ‘Deo Gratias,
Alexandra.’
    ‘After Lauds we meet in the parlour,’ Alexandra says.
    ‘I’ve got news,’ says Winifrede.
    ‘Later, in the parlour,’ says Walburga. And Mildred says, ‘Not here,
     Winifrede!’
    But Winifrede proceeds like beer from an un-stoppered barrel. ‘Felicity is lurking
     somewhere in the avenue. She was with Thomas the Jesuit. I have them on tape and on
     video-tape from the closed-circuit.’
    Alexandra says, loud and clear, ‘I don’t know what rubbish you are
     talking.’ And motions with her eyes to the four walls. Mildred whispers low to
     Winifrede, ‘Nothing must be said in the hall. How
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