"Can someone tell me what's going on?" Sister Julienne asked as soon as she'd found her voice again. Her heart was pounding, and a strange taste coated her tongue.
Please, God, she prayed, please let this be a misunderstanding. Please tell me that I didn't see what I think I saw. The guilty looks on the faces of her sister and the doctor, though, told her she was not mistaken. Sister Bernadette had gone deathly white; even her lips had lost all colour. Doctor Turner, on the other hand, had flushed almost crimson.
"Sister," he said, voice hoarse, and nodded. "I've come to visit Sister Bernadette."
"That's not what I'm referring to," Sister Julienne said. Her hands and feet had gone numb. She could only feel her heart, and that felt as if it was breaking.
"It's just that…" Doctor Turner started.
Sister Bernadette shook her head, and looked up boldly at her fellow religious sister. "Please let me explain," she said, voice soft. She turned to the doctor. "You must get home."
But Sister Julienne wanted to get to the bottom of this, now, and would not allow Doctor Turner to steal away. She pinned him with a cold stare. "I'd greatly appreciate it if you could take me home, Doctor. It saves Nonnatus a bus fare. I'm sure you can wait a little while longer?" she asked, but it really wasn't a question.
"Of course, Sister," he said.
"I'll see you at your car, then," she said, dismissing him.
He looked as if he was about to argue, but Sister Bernadette shook her head at him. He gave her a small smile before walking away from them.
Sister Bernadette looked at his receding form as Sister Julienne sat down next to her. Icy silence fell. Sister Julienne folded her hands in her lap and waited, trying to still the wild thoughts that bounced around in her head.
"Please don't look at me like that," Sister Bernadette whispered.
"Like what?"
"Like we've done something unforgivable." She wrung her hands.
'We'. Oh, God.
"Like it was sordid," Sister Bernadette continued.
Wasn't it? "You are a nun. You cannot let a man kiss your hand. You must not allow it. You've made vows, and…"
"Do you think I don't know that?" Sister Bernadette cried out, cheeks flushed. People turned to look at them. She lowered her voice and eyes. "I'm sorry, Sister. I shouldn't shout. Come. We can speak in the garden."
Sister Julienne waited for Sister Bernadette to fetch her coat and did so outside, shivering as the autumn wind tugged at her wimple. Her mind was still reeling from what she'd seen. Was Sister Bernadette not the person she'd thought she was?
No, she thought, I cannot make hasty judgements. She is still my sister, still the compassionate and intelligent and sensitive person I know her to be. This might have been a temporary lapse. What if it hadn't been, though? She remembered how her sister had been in despair for months, how she'd spent hours in the chapel praying for something she could not name out loud, or something she did not wish to name out loud, not in front of Sister Julienne.
But I must reserve judgement at all costs, Sister Julienne knew. If she was hasty in forming her opinion, she risked alienating Sister Bernadette from her forever, and that was the last thing she desired. Besides, even though she felt she had a better right to have an opinion about the conduct of her religious sister than most, it didn't become a nun to condemn. It was up to the Lord to judge, not up to her.
She folded her hands around the wooden cross on the end of her necklace and closed her eyes. God, give me strength, she prayed. I'm afraid I need it now more than ever before.
Sister Bernadette appeared next to her. "I'm ready," she murmured.
Sister Julienne opened her eyes and firmly took Sister Bernadette's arm in hers, giving it a faint squeeze. No matter what had happened, her sister needed her strength and compassion; there was no room for Sister Julienne's hurt.
"How long has this been going on?" she asked as they stepped on a gravely path that wound between clipped shrubberies.
"These feelings… they snuck up on me. I didn't know what they were, and when I could identify them, I was already drowning in them." Sister Bernadette wiped a tear away.
"I tried to pray them away. I was on my knees for hours and hours, Sister, begging God to make me feel something else, anything else, but this longing I could never satiate. But with every prayer, it seemed as if my love only grew stronger..." She fell quiet for a moment.
'Love', Sister Julienne thought. Her stomach gave a funny lurch. She wanted to speak, but she knew it was best to remain quiet, to allow her fellow religious sister to spill everything she'd held inside for so long.
"I tried to ignore those emotions, and buried myself in my work. I thought that it might all go away as long as I kept myself occupied. I tried to ignore Doctor Turner, but how could I ignore him when we had to work together, when we had to secure that van for Poplar?" Her eyes flicked up. There was pleading in the clear blue, and need.
Sister Julienne felt her stomach make a strange little jump again. Had she unwittingly facilitated whatever there was between the doctor and her sweet sister? She pushed the feeling away, and focussed on Sister Bernadette again. "And then?" she prompted.
"Then I got diagnosed with TB, and everything unimportant fell away, but he remained." She took Sister Julienne's hand in hers and squeezed it very hard. Her fingers were cold as ice. "He was almost the only thing I could think about, Sister. I thought that, surely, this meant that my feelings for him were real, were true."
She tilted her head back so she could look at a tree that stood beside the path. It let go of a handful of leaves. They drifted down lazily, one brushing past Sister Julienne's shoulder, landing in the crook of her elbow. Sister Bernadette took it between her fingers and stroked the veins before letting it go. The wind caught it, and twirled it around before depositing it on the ground.
"I thought my time here, at the sanatorium, might do me good," Sister Bernadette continued. "There's no work here to occupy my hands and mind, just prayer, reflection. I wondered what might happen to my feelings for Doctor Turner if I scrutinized them. I wondered if they'd fall apart like cobwebs, like shadows when a ray of light falls on them." She inhaled very deeply, and smiled a little. "But I realised that my feelings for him are the light, not the darkness."
Sister Julienne felt her heart pitter-patter in her chest. Her fingers tingled. She put them in the spacious pockets of her coat. "Is that why you called him here?" she asked, trying to keep her voice level. She could not get the image of the doctor bent over Sister Bernadette's hand out of her head, could not stop seeing how he kissed her hand, taking liberties he had no right to take. She'd wanted to ask whether anything untoward had happened between them before, but suddenly she was very much afraid of the answer.
Sister Bernadette shook her head vehemently. "No, Sister! I didn't call him here. You see, he wrote me letters, so many letters… I didn't reply, gave him no encouragement. Maybe that was very cruel of me, but I didn't do it to toy with him; I just wanted to see if his feelings for me were as true as my feelings for him. I didn't doubt it, but I needed prove of his… steadfastness, if you will." She nodded. "Yes, I needed to see that he loves me, because that way, I would at least know one thing for sure. And he does, Sister, he does, otherwise he wouldn't have come to see how I was faring. But now I am so confused! Maybe his visit is the sign I have been hoping for. I thought God didn't answer my prayers, but maybe my feelings growing after every prayer were his answer. I don't know!" she cried. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
"It seems to me you might be closer to an answer than you suspect," Sister Julienne slowly said. She put an arm around Sister Bernadette and drew her close. Sister Bernadette hugged her, knotting her hands behind Sister Julienne's back. Her small frame shook.
"Am I? I just don't know! I love him so much, but I'm a nun, I am…"
"Oh, my dear," Sister Julienne murmured, rubbing circles between the younger woman's shoulder blades, "You don't have to be a nun to serve the Lord." She could feel something inside of her break and tear as she pushed these words out of her mouth, and felt like crying herself.
Sister Bernadette sniffed. "He's a good man, Sister, you know he is," she whispered.
"I do. And if you were so unsure, you would not have been glad to see him. You'd not have allowed him to kiss your hand," Sister Julienne went on, breath hitching on the last word.
Sister Bernadette stepped out of her embrace and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. "Maybe that's true. I am so certain…" But whether she was certain about her vocation or her love for the doctor, she didn't say.
Sister Julienne took her hand and squeezed it, stroking the knuckles with her thumb. "Let me take you inside," she said, smiling a little. Her vision was fuzzy with tears, but she swallowed them down. After all, she still had a conversation with Doctor Turner to get through.