Catherine Cookson - Mary Ann Shaughnessy 03 by The Devil; Marianne

Author:The Devil; Marianne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-05-21T09:31:40+00:00

115

And now Sister Catherine took over. ”You’ll be punished for this, severely punished. Reverend Mother will be told about this. You forget where you are-we don’t allow this kind of thing....”

”Ssh ! ssh ! ” Sister Alvis interrupted her and looked down on Mary Ann. ”Now, my child, if you tell the truth you won’t get into trouble. Why did you write this? It was a silly thing to do, wasn’t it? Have you written any more like this?”

Mary Ann looked up at the Sister, so like Mrs. McBride in her manner, and ner voice shook as she said,

”I didn’t write it, Sister, honest. I don’t know nothing about it. Somebody’s done it for spite, not me.”

”Huh ! ” Sister Catherine was coming again to the fore, and her attack was just stopped by the sound of the bell, so that all she said was, ”Get .away! Get away to your class this minute.” Mary Ann got away. She went along the corridor and into the hall#i»nd once round the corner she stood with her four fingers in her mouth, biting at one after the other. But it was Sister Catherine she was biting, and it was to her that she silently spoke. ”You! I didn’t, I didn’t do it. Somebody’s done it, it wasn’t my writing! You’re always at me. I hate you, I do! You’re mean, you are. You! ... I don’t like you.”

”What’s the matter?” It was Marian again, excited and eager to know what the trouble was. ”What did they want you for? I saw Sister Catherine. Oh, she looked wild.” Mary Ann, tears now welling into her eyes stammered, ”They said I’d-I’d written some bad poetry, and I never did.”

”Who?”

”Sister Catherine and Mother St. Bede and Sister Alvis. That Sister Catherine-she thinks she’s Mrs.

God!”

As this blasphemy was uttered the earth seemed to open, but not far enough to swallow Mary Ann, for there, not a few feet away at the entrance to the corridor, stood the three nuns in question.

Her eyes darting from one to the other of her contemporaries as if in confirmation of her opinion of this child, Sister Catherine, with foreboding quietness, said, ”Go to the dormitory this minute, and don’t move until I come.”

Trembling as if with ague, Mary Ann squeezed past the three 116

pairs of eyes and like someone drunk went up the broad, pictureladen stairs towards the dormitory.

Twenty-four hours had lapsed since Mary Ann had committed the heinous crime, not of writing cheeky poetry, but of insulting Sister Catherine. Each individual in the dormitory, with the exception of Lola, had given her own version of the affair as she had heard it-the different versions ranging from simply swearing at Sister Catherine to hitting, biting, and, lastly, spitting in her face. But Mary Ann heard none of these versions, for she was being ostracised. Marian, after her many accounts of the incident, had not the nerve to be seen openly talking to her; only the steadfast Lola still spoke to the culprit.

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