“Cross the Great Water” – Chapter 3

CROSS THE GREAT WATER

by Sweetbaum & Smith

Chapter Three

When he was dressed, Jack Hamilton-Sykes sprinkled some scent on himself, smoothed out, in the absence of an iron, the creases in his triple-breasted waistcoat and distributed into his pockets his cigarettes, notebook, patch knife, and new pocket watch – a gift from his father upon the recent announcement of his engagement to Miss Grimes. Unusually he had arisen before the sun, not at all a common habit, but one he had managed to accomplish with the assistance of a cigarette. As he readied himself for Morning Prayers – a requirement while he was a guest at the convent – he observed a small rip near the fly of his knee breeches. However, on hearing the church bells already ringing, he knew there was no time to put the problem right and, reckoning no one would notice, he rushed himself out the door and along the waterfront pathway to the chapel.

Lady Jeanette had departed the previous day and, as much as she might be dear to him, Jack was relieved to have some solitary time with himself in a place where no one knew him. Even attending church services would be tolerable, he reasoned, for here on Makogai there were no society women, no men of importance, no snobbish sons who considered themselves his chums, or daughters who annoyed him with their inability to look him in the eye or speak to him in adult sentences. While this wasn’t exactly Southern China, whose shores he longed for and whence he would return as soon as he had secured his 200 piculs of beche-de-mer, at least it wasn’t Australia and its isolated and particularly ignorant haut monde, within which he had to circulate whilst staying at his father’s home.

Due to the distance of the guesthouse from the chapel, he was one of the last to arrive. He had entered the chapel through the wrong door and found himself standing near a number of sleepy patients with varying degrees of leprosy, ranging from the unassuming to the severe. His whereabouts gave him a momentary fright, but then, as if by some act of God, a veiled angelic creature adorned in white robes took him by the elbow and guided him away from the leprous contagion to a cordoned area on the other side of the chapel.

“Don’t be alarmed, leprosy is only contagious if you come into physical contact with it, and even then the Good Lord may still protect you,” said the angel to Jack showing him his seat.

When he oriented himself, Jack found that he was sitting all alone, across from the sisters who were kneeling in prayer on the opposite side of the nave. He scanned their faces, there where about dozen in all, and he noticed that Sister Catherine was absent. He looked around the chapel and it dawned on him that, once he left this island, the next time he would find himself in a church would be on his wedding day. Marriage had never presented itself to Jack as plausible. Not only did he consider most marriages disingenuous – his father’s subsequent marriage following his mother’s death being a prime example – the thought of reconciling his nomadic life to the responsibilities of husbandhood and the children it inevitably engendered, struck him as an altogether disagreeable challenge. His proposal to Isabella Grimes only came about as a mutual stroke of genius. Having been close friends since childhood they had come upon the idea, as it would suit all parties involved. For Jack a marriage would secure the inheritance left to him by his mother on her death, and for Isabella, Jack’s promise to transfer her lofty dowry to her in full, as well their mutual understanding that they would play the requisite roles of husband and wife as when it was required, would allow her to live according to her own terms and free her from the attentions of unwanted male suitors and an overbearing, match-making mother.

The sound of a pipe organ broke Jack’s train of thought and as the nuns rose from kneeling he noticed the same angelic creature who had ushered him away from the leprous contagium to the cordoned safety of his present seat. She had a gentleness to her movements and as she entered the opposite pew her veil parted to one side greatly surprising Jack that this kind and graceful creature was in fact Sister Catherine. For a fleeting moment he considered gesturing some form of thanks, but any intimation would have been seen by all the nuns, and in any case Sister Catherine was not looking in his direction. As she took her seat he detected a mournful look in her eyes.

Our Father who art in Heaven,

Hallow be thy name,

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…

As the rain began battering the roof of the little church, warm heavy droplets competing with muted voices in prayer, Sister Catherine found herself unable to convey any meaning in the Lord’s Prayer. She liked each day for the words to renew their significance in her heart, but with a month-long confinement looming she found herself, despite the rain, yearning to be outdoors; to be doing rather than contemplating. She thought of the sheep in the paddock, their thick coats soaked with rain, and how this might have been avoided should Mr Hamilton-Sykes have risen before the dawn and shorn them, as she would have done if she had possessed the skill. She asked the Good Lord to forgive her impatience with this new guest, and as quickly as she did this her restless thoughts returned to her imminent seclusion and the impatience she felt toward that.

“Ten years!” Lady Jeanette had said the previous day. “You really do have the patience of a saint!”

No doubt ten years had been an uncommonly long time, but for some strange and illogical reason this final month seemed to Catherine an eternity in comparison. She thought of Mr Hamilton-Sykes’ guffaw at Lady Jeanette’s remark, a guffaw that went unnoticed to all but her. It bothered Catherine that her shortcomings should be so transparent to this newcomer and she wondered if her present impatience was obvious to him today as he sat across the nave.

As hard as she tried to restrain her anxieties, yet another thought, which had been niggling all morning, came to the fore of Catherine’s mind. She worried that once in seclusion, rather than think of ‘Our Father’ she would instead think of her father, and would consequently be filled with feelings of guilt for not having seen him since she had become a nun. Catherine’s mother had died in childbirth and perhaps due to the fact that her father had never discussed it, Catherine had taken it upon herself to carry the weight of responsibility for this most tragic event. Although her primary motivation was to serve God, joining the convent had given her some freedom from this burden, however Catherine could never quite rid from her mind the nagging thought that her joining the order might have pained her father as much as the loss of her mother. She had chosen to inform her father of her decision to become a nun on the very day he had decided to tell her that it was time to return permanently to China, and that she was expected to come too. Fung Yee, as she was called before she became a nun, had only ever known the isles of Fiji as her home. A usually dutiful daughter, she protested vehemently and, in return, her usually silent father issued the still painful edict that if she chose to submit to a gwai lo religion, she would no longer be his daughter.

The organ played its final note and the ensuing silence broke Catherine’s train of thought. As the rain cleared her mind now shifted to her imminent journey to Wakaya Island with the pale-faced stranger, Mr Hamilton-Sykes.

(to be continued…)

If you missed earlier chapters please click below:

Chapter One, published in Issue1TheX

Chapter Two, published in Isssue2TheY

© 2011, Sweetbaum & Smith. All Rights Reserved.