Shadows of the Workhouse

call that night and it had been Cynthia who had gone out at the bleakest hour before dawn, 3 a.m. We sat down around the kitchen table, eating our peanut-butter sandwiches.
    “They’ve gone,” I whispered, in case any of the Sisters were in the hallway.
    “What’s gone?”
    “The jewels, they’ve gone. They are not in the drawer.” Trixie eyed me dubiously. “Are you sure they were there in the first place? After all, we’ve only got your word for it. Perhaps you dreamed the whole thing. Sister Evangelina calls you Dolly Daydream, and not without reason.”
    “I did not dream it. I tell you, I saw them and now they’ve gone.”
    “Well she must have hidden them somewhere else, the cunning old—”
    Cynthia stopped her. “Don’t you two start on that again. I’m too tired to put up with you squabbling like a couple of children. Pack it in.”
    Chummy groaned and spoke in a weary voice: “I second that motion, Chairman. My poor bally head feels like a suet pudding that’s gone cold and been warmed up again for the servants. Did I hear you say that the jewels have gone?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well strike me pink.”
    Trixie was quick off the mark. “She’s hidden them. It’s as clear as daylight. She knows she’s been rumbled, so she’s hidden them again. You can’t tell me she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Of course she does.” Trixie cut another slice of bread and dug her knife into the jar.
    Cynthia was less emphatic. “Well, this does throw rather a different light on things. I still don’t think she knows what she’s doing.”
    “Oh, go on with you. She pulls the wool over everyone’s eyes. But she doesn’t fool me for a moment,” said cynical Trixie.
    Chummy was licking the peanut butter off the knife.
    “Premeditation. That’s what the constabulary will be after. Were her actions premeditated or were they not? If we’re going to protect Sister Monica Joan, Counsel for the Defence, that’s what we’ve got to prove. But at the moment, my poor bally head aches so much I can’t think straight. I’m going to bed. Who’s on first call?”
    “You are.”
    “Groan, groan and thrice groan. That settles it. I must get in a bit of the old sweet slumber before that accursed bell pitches me out onto the floor. Nighty-night all. Sweet dreams.”
    Cynthia stood up. “And I’m going to bed too. Don’t you two start quarrelling as soon as you’re alone.”
    Trixie looked at me when they had gone. “I reckon there’s not much more to say. Chummy hit the nail on the head. Was it, or was it not, premeditated? Come on, let’s do the washing up.”

RECREATION HOUR

    Recreation in a convent is a time when the nuns can let their hair down – metaphorically, of course. Usually the recreation hour lasts from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. With the morning work completed, lunch taken and no religious duties to perform until Vespers at 4.30 p.m., the nuns are free. But “free” only within the discipline of the order. At Nonnatus House, during the recreation hour, the nuns withdrew collectively to their sitting room, where they would engage in needlework and polite conversation.
    How these reverend ladies found time for it defeats me to this day. Each of the nuns seemed capable of packing forty-eight hours of work into every twenty-four and each of them did it with serenity and grace. Sister Julienne, for example, who was Sister-in-Charge, was not only the senior nurse and midwife with overall responsibility for the practice, but she was also in charge of the smooth running of the house. She was accountable for maintaining the monastic tradition of religious observance, instructing the novices, teaching the student midwives, acting as hostess to numerous house guests, handling convent finances and keeping the accounts. She took her fair share of district visits, including night calls, as well as finding time to engage in needlework and polite conversation during her brief hours of recreation when most people would want to lie horizontal with their feet up.
    It was their practice, as I have said, for the nuns to retire to their sitting room after lunch. But occasionally Sister Julienne would say at lunch time, “I think we will take recreation in the nurses’ sitting room today,” whereupon the Sisters would look with a particular benevolence upon us girls, as though they were granting us some special favour. The nuns would then go to their cells (nuns sleep in cells, not bedrooms) to collect their