Read The Abbess of Crewe for Free Online Page B

Jesuit. The lay brothers, who will take the place of domestic nuns as in the
     eleventh century, will be Cistercians, which is to say, bound to silence. Now, if you
     please, Walburga, let’s consult
The Art of War
because time is passing
     and the sands are running out.’
    Alexandra gracefully pushes back her plate and leans in her chair, one elbow resting on
     the back of it and her long body arranged the better to finger through the pages of the
     book placed on the table before her. The white coifs meet in a tent of concentration
     above the book where Alexandra’s fingers trace the passages to be well noted.
    ‘It is written,’ says Alexandra with her lovely index finger on the margin as
     she reads:
    After you have consulted many about what you ought to do,
     confer with very few concerning what you are actually resolved to do.
    The bell rings for Matins, and Alexandra closes the book. Walburga
     leads the way while Alexandra counsels them, ‘Sisters, be vigilant, be sober. This
     is a monastery under threat, and we must pray to Almighty God for our
     strength.’
    ‘We can’t do more,’ says Mildred.
    ‘To do less would be cheap,’ Walburga says.
    ‘We are corrupt by our nature in the Fall of Man,’ Alexandra says. ‘It
     was well exclaimed by St Augustine, “O happy fault to merit such a Redeemer!
O
     felix culpa!
”’
    ‘Amen,’ respond the three companions.
    They start to descend the stairs. ‘O happy flaw!’ says Alexandra.
    Felicity is already waiting with her assembled supporters and the anonymous files of
     dark-shaped nuns when the three descend, graceful with Walburga in the lead, each one of
     them so nobly made and well put together. One by one they take their capes and file
     across the midnight path to their chapel.
    Felicity slips aside, waiting with her cloak folded in the dark air until the community
     has entered the chapel. Then, while the voices start to sound in the ebb and flow of the
     plainchant, she makes her way back across the grass to the house quickly as a water bird
     skimming a pond. Felicity is up the great staircase, she is in the Abbess’s
     parlour and switches on the light. Her little face looks at the remains of the little
     feast; she spits at it like an exasperated beggar-gipsy, and she breathes a cat’s
     hiss to see such luxury spent. But soon she is about her business, through the door, and
     is occupied with the apparatus of the green telephone.
    At the end of a long ring someone answers.
    ‘Gertrude!’ she says. ‘Can that really be you?’
    ‘I was just about to leave,’ Gertrude says. The helicopter is
     waiting.’
    ‘Gertrude, you’re doing such marvellous work. We hear —’
    ‘Is that all you want to say?’ Gertrude says.
    ‘Gertrude, this convent is a hotbed of corruption and hypocrisy. I want to change
     everything and a lot of the nuns agree with me. We want to break free. We want
     justice.’
    ‘Sister, be still, be sober,’ Gertrude says. ‘Justice may be done but
     on no account should it be seen to be done. It’s always a fatal undertaking.
     You’ll bring down the whole community in ruins.’
    ‘Oh, Gertrude, we believe in love in freedom and freedom in love.’
    ‘That can be arranged,’ Gertrude says.
    ‘But I have a man in my life now, Gertrude. What can a poor nun do with a
     man?’
    ‘Invariably, a man you feed both ends,’ Gertrude says. ‘You have to
     learn to cook and to do the other.’
    The telephone then roars like a wild beast.
    ‘What’s going on, Gertrude?’
    ‘The helicopter,’ Gertrude says, and hangs up.
    ‘Read it aloud to them,’ Alexandra
     says. Once more it is lunch time. ‘Let it never be said that we concealed our
     intentions. Our nuns are too bemused to take it in and those who are for Felicity have
     gone morbid with their sentimental Jesusism. Let it be read aloud. If they have ears to
     hear, let them hear.’ The kitchen nuns float with their trays along the aisles
     between the