To Hear a Nightingale Read online

  ‘I made enough candy for all three of you,’ the note read. ‘And when I was making it, I thought of you all in those hammocks that day. God bless you, little Cassie.’

  ‘With love, Mirabelle Ann Roebuck.’

  The candy was a double godsend to Cassie. Not only did it make her feel loved and wanted: better still, it meant that by giving it all away to the girls in her class and not having any herself she earned another silver star.

  She didn’t much enjoy practising receiving Communion though, when she had to stick out her tongue. Even with her eyes shut and her thoughts fixed on the meaning of ritual, Cassie still thought it hardly seemed a fitting way to receive the body of Our Lord. It made her feel awkward and embarrassed, even when they started practising with tiny pieces of wafer on their tongues, morsels so small and light they seemed to disappear long before the children had closed their mouths over them.

  Then there was the question of their dresses.

  ‘Rosella’s arrived today,’ Mary-Jo told Cassie one evening. ‘Wait till you see it. It’s beautiful. Bright white with little white pieces of embroidery on the hem. Her veil is just like a real bride’s veil.’

  Cassie wriggled lower into her bed and pulled the maroon quilt up to cover her nose and her reddening cheeks. She had written to her grandmother several times about her own dress, but Grandmother hadn’t replied. Every day she had waited in line as the letters and parcels were distributed, and every day there was neither a letter nor a parcel for her. Nobody said anything, but Cassie lived in a deep and silent fear that her grandmother would finally ignore her constant request for a dress of her own, and that Cassie, on her Day of Days, would have nothing special to wear.

  Then Teresa’s dress arrived. The class stood silently around the box in which it had arrived, and watched as Teresa lifted from a nest of snowy tissue paper a long dress with underskirts of net and white lace, and an overskirt caught up at intervals with exquisite handsewn flowers. Everyone gasped.

  It was the most beautiful dress Cassie had ever seen. She was still staring at it while the other girls turned to look at her.

  ‘So it’s only Cassie’s dress to come now,’ someone said from the back. ‘The other three have all got theirs.’

  ‘It should have been here last week,’ Cassie said. ‘But Grandmother’s had some trouble sewing the veil. She has bad arthritis, you see.’

  Someone at the back of the group giggled as the class dispersed to discuss whose dress so far was the prettiest, and when no one was watching her, Cassie went outside and sat at the foot of the big tree the four friends had embraced that day, ashamed of the lie she had told. Ashamed of the three lies she had told. She had lied about the dress arriving, she had lied about her grandmother having trouble sewing and she had lied about Grandmother having arthritis. She lay face down in the grass and prayed as hard as she could for God to let her die.

  She wanted to die even more when the next day’s mail brought no parcel for her, nor the mail the day after that. Cassie waited long after the other girls had collected their letters in the faintest of hopes that there had been some mistake. But there hadn’t.

  ‘Still nothing, I’m afraid, Cassie dear,’ Sister John said, seeing the child standing waiting in silence. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

  Cassie looked at the ground and said nothing, unable now even to raise a brave smile. Her First Communion was now only a matter of days away, and the possibility of her having a pretty dress to wear like the others was becoming more and more remote. She had written to her grandmother at least a dozen times, but had received no reply to any of her letters.

  ‘Maybe it’s gotten lost in the mail, Sister,’ Cassie said suddenly, still staring at the polished floor.

  ‘Why of course!’ Sister John replied. ‘That just has to be what’s happened! Things do, you know. Things quite often do.’

  Cassie looked up and the nun suddenly felt ashamed when she saw the light of hope her white lie had rekindled in the child’s bright eyes.

  ‘And just in case it has got lost,’ Sister John added hastily, ‘we’ll say a special prayer to Saint Anthony to find it. Don’t forget now!’

  The nun called out after Cassie who had turned away to walk slowly down the long corridor.

  ‘We’ll both pray!’

  Cassie stopped and looked back at Sister John.

  ‘You bet,’ she said. Then she walked away and disappeared around a corner.

  You bet I’ll pray, Cassie thought. I’ll pray as hard as anyone’s ever prayed. Because there was no doubt at all in her mind that prayer was her very last resort.

  So for the next two days she prayed. She prayed the moment she woke up, she prayed in between classes, she prayed as she played, as she ate, as they took their afternoon walks, and she prayed until the moment she fell asleep. But as the 29th of June approached, it seemed that her prayers were not to be answered.

  ‘I guess I’ll just have to wear my blue dress,’ she said to Sister John, as she drew yet another blank in the morning’s mail.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Sister John retorted. ‘Since your dress hasn’t arrived, then we’ll just have to borrow you one. I’ll see you in white, darling, if it’s the last thing I do. Don’t you worry.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone with a white dress, Sister!’ Cassie exclaimed. ‘And I’m so much smaller than anyone else!’

  ‘We’ll come up with something,’ Sister John assured her. ‘Just wait and see. Now off you go to class. There’s the bell.’

  Cassie hesitated.

  ‘You’ll be late for Sister Joseph,’ Sister John warned her.

  But still Cassie didn’t move.

  ‘What is it, child? You’ll have a dress, I promise.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ Cassie said. ‘But you see . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Sister John prompted.

  ‘Well you see, Sister,’ Cassie answered, looking at the floor. ‘It just won’t be the same as having one of my own, you see.’

  Cassie looked up at the nun, as bravely as she could, then turned and hurried away to class. Sister John watched her go, then hurried away herself, in the opposite direction, up the stairs to Matron’s room.

  Two days later, the day before the Feast of St Peter and St Paul, the day of the First Communion, Cassie nearly fainted when she heard her name called out by Sister John for a parcel as she stood in line after breakfast. Mary-Jo squeezed her hand in delight, and Maria gave a cheer as Cassie hurried forward to collect the large box Sister John was holding up. Cassie looked at the writing on the covering paper, which was in large black block capitals. It certainly didn’t look like her grandmother’s usual careful but spidery hand, but then since it was a parcel, Cassie thought as she tore open the thick brown paper, perhaps it needed a different sort of writing. And besides, if the box she was now hurriedly pulling open contained what she hoped and prayed it would, who else but her grandmother would have sent it.

  Cassie stared into the box as she folded back the tissue paper. Her prayers had been answered after all. She lifted out the dress almost reverently and held it up against her for the friends who had crowded round her to see. The group of children stood looking at the garment in silence, because Cassie’s dress had to be the most beautiful of them all. It wasn’t as ornate as Rosella’s, nor did it have the exquisite handsewn flowers Teresa’s dress had. And it was altogether much simpler than Mary-Jo’s with its antique lace overskirt. But it was made of silk. Pure, expensive, heavy silk, which shone and caught the sunlight which was filtering through the corridor window as Cassie tried the dress up against her.

  Mary-Jo leant forward and stroked it, as if the dress was a living thing.

  ‘May I try it up against me?’ she asked Cassie. ‘It’s so beautiful.’

  The other children sighed and gasped in admiration, as Mary-Jo shook out her hair and held the silk dress up against herself. Edith, one of the youngest children, fought her way to the front of the group and snatched a handful of
the precious material.

  ‘Careful now, Edith,’ Sister John warned her. ‘That silk is – that silk must be pre-war, you know. And we don’t want any grubby little handmarks on it now, do we?’

  Cassie was busy searching through the box for a letter or a note from Grandmother. But there was nothing. Just tissue paper. She looked up and found Sister John smiling at her.

  ‘Good for St Anthony, darling,’ the nun said, ‘wouldn’t you agree?’

  Cassie nodded emphatically and grinned, too happy to be able to express it, and as she turned away to claim her dress back from Mary-Jo, she was much too excited to notice the deep yawn of exhaustion Sister John was quite visibly failing to stifle.

  As Cassie walked slowly up the aisle beside Mary-Jo and behind Teresa and Rosella, she thought she had never seen anything more beautiful than the way the chapel looked that day. The flames of what must have been hundreds of candles flickered and danced, and there was such a heady scent from the banks of white flowers that it seemed to Cassie she was walking into Paradise.

  As they made their slow progress up the aisle, Cassie imagined that this must be how she would feel on her wedding day, dressed in a beautiful silk dress with a white veil and a headpiece of miniature white roses, and watched by hundreds of pairs of smiling eyes. She glanced to her side and caught sight of Mrs Roebuck, who was smiling at her, while dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. Grandmother was sitting next to her, but was looking not at Cassie but resolutely down at her missal. Cassie then noticed with delight that Mr O’Reilly was also there, in the row behind Mrs Roebuck and her grandmother. Cassie also noticed that he seemed to be frowning rather hard at the four communicants as they passed close by him, then he looked away and stared up at the ceiling, his chin puckering oddly, and one hand grasping the back of the pew in front of him. Cassie hoped that he was all right, and wasn’t going to faint or something terrible.

  The four girls then knelt at their flower-decked places, and Cassie raised her eyes to the tabernacle. She closed her eyes and prayed, thanking God for sending her this wonderful day. Then she opened her missal and turned the thin crinkly pages over with her white-gloved hands till she came to the start of the High Mass. The nuns sang Ave Verum, and Cassie carefully read the words in front of her.

  I will go up to the altar of God –

  To God, the giver of youth and happiness.

  Suffer the little children to come unto me. Maybe, Cassie thought as she looked up at the wondrously decorated altar in front of her, maybe it wasn’t such a sinful thing to be a child after all.

  After the Mass was over, the children went in search of their parents and relatives. Cassie stood on the edge of the hall trying to find her grandmother. Mrs Roebuck spotted the little figure standing in the doorway by herself and waved to her, then Gina and Maria ran over to her to collect her.

  ‘Wasn’t it a hoot when Rosella dropped her rosary?’ Maria laughed, taking Cassie’s hand. ‘Gina had to stick her handkerchief in her mouth!’

  Cassie smiled in return, but found it difficult. She’d just been through the most important moment of her young life, and all the time Gina and Maria had been laughing. For a moment, she couldn’t help feeling hurt, and her smile masked her near-tears. Then she thought that perhaps if it hadn’t been her special day, and someone had done something funny, because it was meant to be so solemn she’d have found herself laughing too. So she smiled genuinely now, as both girls started to rearrange her veil and stroke the wonderful silk of her dress.

  Then she saw her grandmother, and the smile froze on her face. Grandmother was standing talking to Sister John, but she was looking with a visible lack of affection at Cassie.

  ‘I’d better go and say hello to Grandmother,’ Cassie said to her friends.

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ sighed Gina. ‘She looks as if she’s going to eat you.’

  ‘I must,’ Cassie replied. ‘And I have to thank her for my dress.’

  As Cassie walked away, Gina sniffed airily.

  ‘It’s not her grandmother Cassie should be thanking,’ she said to her sister.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Maria.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Maria,’ Gina replied. ‘Everyone knows that Sister John made Cassie’s dress.’

  Everyone except Cassie. Sister John watched the child approaching them and turned once more to her grandmother.

  ‘Much the best thing, Mrs Arbuthnot,’ she reiterated, ‘not to say anything at all. You don’t want the child disappointed now. Not on this her Day of Days.’

  ‘You’re surely not suggesting I tell a lie, Sister?’ Grandmother replied. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting I should blacken my soul for the sake of a wretched child’s vanity?’

  ‘I’m suggesting no such thing, Mrs Arbuthnot,’ Sister John answered very firmly. ‘And well you know it. There’s all the difference in the world between telling the truth, telling a lie, and sometimes remaining silent.’

  Cassie’s grandmother made a noise of distinct disapproval, but nonetheless did not further the argument. Which was as well, since Cassie now had reached where they stood.

  ‘Hello, Grandmother,’ Cassie said.

  ‘Hello, child,’ her grandmother replied, tugging Cassie’s perfectly straight dress even straighter. ‘And for heaven’s sake put your shoulders back. You don’t want to grow up a hunchback.’

  Cassie did as she was told, even though she was standing quite straight.

  ‘Thank you for my lovely dress, Grandmother,’ she said. ‘Everyone said it was by far the prettiest.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Grandmother replied curtly. ‘But to my way of thinking a complete waste of money. Still, you can work off what it cost me in your holidays.’

  ‘Of course I will, Grandmother,’ Cassie agreed. ‘And honestly, it wasn’t a waste of money. I shall keep this dress for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Of course you shall, Cassie,’ Sister John said quickly, pre-empting any further remark from Cassie’s grandmother. ‘And please God who knows your own little daughter may one day take her own First Communion wearing the very same dress. Now off you go with your friends and have a good time.’

  Sister John turned Cassie away and steered her off in the direction of Mary-Jo, Teresa, and Rosella, who were all having their photographs taken by Mr O’Reilly, who seemed quite to have recovered his old cheerful self.

  Sister John turned back to Cassie’s grandmother and gave her a very old-fashioned look.

  ‘All I can say to you, Mrs Arbuthnot,’ she said grimly, ‘is if you intend to make young Cassie work off what we were going to charge you for making her little dress, then it would be a better thing were we not to charge you for it at all.’

  Grandmother smiled to herself. That sort of arrangement would suit her perfectly.

  ‘However,’ Sister John continued. ‘In these instances, rather than adding a small sum to the termly account, what is usually done is for the parent or guardian to make a contribution to St Anthony, for helping to find a solution to the problem.’

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ Cassie’s grandmother replied with a sniff.

  ‘Indeed it is not,’ Sister John replied. ‘That’s a fact. Perhaps you’d like me to include notice of your kind donation in the announcements I am just about to make. Shall we say twenty dollars?’

  After the First Communion breakfast, Cassie and her grandmother were invited back to Mrs Roebuck’s for a party. Cassie was seated at the head of the kitchen table, next to Gina on one side and Maria on the other. She had never felt so special, nor so happy, despite her grandmother’s constant disapproving frowns and sighs.

  ‘You really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble, Mirabelle Ann,’ Grandmother said repeatedly through the lunch. ‘It really doesn’t merit it.’

  But no one paid her the slightest heed, as they were far too busy laughing and talking, and cracking the shells of their prawns, or watching Mrs Roebuck carefully slicing the juicy pink beef.

  The piè
ce de résistance was one of Mrs Roebuck’s famous home-baked cakes, which everyone welcomed with delight. Everyone except Grandmother.

  ‘None for Cassie,’ she sniffed. ‘That will be far too rich for her delicate constitution.’

  ‘Oh what nonsense you talk, Gloria!’ declared Mrs Roebuck. ‘This is Dolce Alla Piemontese, and it’s always been eaten by everyone in our family at First Communions. Everyone.’

  And with that Mrs Roebuck cut an extra large slice for Cassie and served it to her with a grin. Cassie returned the grin happily. No one was taking the slightest notice of her grandmother, so for once she decided that she needn’t either.

  They ate the cake with long-handled spoons, which were designed, Mrs Roebuck explained, specially for eating soft puddings. The sponge inside was as soft as the meringue outside, and the home-made vanilla ice cream sandwiched in between just melted in the mouth.

  Afterwards, while the coffee was brewing, and the men left the table to go outside in the yard to smoke cigarettes, Mrs Roebuck handed Cassie a pretty little white-painted basket with a bow on it.

  ‘Almonds,’ she told her. ‘For luck.’

  The basket was full of little packs of sugared almonds tied into heart shapes. Gina and Maria jumped to their feet and helped Cassie hand them round to everyone, including the men who stood outside smoking. The men took the packets politely and thankfully, then left them on the wall while they continued smoking. Then after they had distributed the almonds, and while the womenfolk were taking their coffee, the three little girls went upstairs to Gina’s room where they stood and watched as Gina sat in front of the mirror and brushed her hair into different styles.

  ‘Thank you for my present,’ Cassie said to them both, as she fingered the silver medal and chain Gina and Maria had given her. ‘It’s the nicest present I’ve ever ever had.’