Occupation: Principal at Saint Reginald’s Academy for Girls, December 1962
That little Sister Clothilde in the outer office has probably been listening on the extension again, and if she wasn’t such a good typist I’d find another secretary. No wonder she’s curious these days. I seem to be on the telephone with police detectives and the bishop all day long. Especially now that the second boarding student has disappeared. I suspect boys are at the root of these disappearances. Other possibilities are far more worrying, but the worst that could have happened to these foolish girls is something I can’t bear to consider.
It’s been difficult to concentrate. Even the view from my window distracts. The snow-covered grounds are so lovely at this time of year, especially the grotto and the frozen serpentine with its joyful skaters’ tracks. The dark pines, on the other hand, strike a note of melancholy. But I must remain optimistic and practical. As long as I can placate the parents, and of course keep that prying Inspector Moreau at a distance, Saint Reginald’s reputation should survive. That is my daily prayer.
My whole day has been filled with conversations I can only call ridiculous. Clothilde, of course: she can’t keep the cat out of the office, “darling Lester,” as she calls him, follows her everywhere.
Sister Patricia had the gall to slide in here before lunch, ostensibly to discuss her vocation, from which I deduce she wants a summer vacation in Lourdes. Her timing, as usual, is excellent. I expect we’ll bargain, and she’ll get the month in France she wants. I know perfectly well she smokes out behind the kitchen, gossiping with her particular friend Harriet, and I itch to play that card with her. Keeping the lid on things, however, has become my full time job.
Sister Harriet herself must have been lurking in the hall because she appeared directly afterwards. She wanted to share details of that civic bridge committee Bishop Aloysius has put her on, but I was clear I wash my hands of that. She is inexperienced, poor child, for the obscure diplomacies of that role, the shenanigans. Not to mention those rascally men. But if one more thing drops onto to my plate I shall scream.
Harriet is one of those idealistic, antsy, almost too intelligent young sisters, for whom a vocation solves so much, while creating just as many problems. She’s been looking careworn lately. Is that tiresome bridge building competition I’ve put her on with Mr. Montserrat proving too much? But with a Mr. Montserrat among us, there is always risk. Where suave, handsome, enigmatic Marin Montserrat is concerned, I sincerely hope we haven’t been nursing a viper in our bosoms.
After I get this pile of paperwork back to Clothilde, whom I can see filling her time adorning Lester with a paperclip necklace, there are several more parents to call back. It’s essential to convince them that all is well with their daughters. Blandishments and hollow words. And then I should prepare notes for the pep talk I’m giving the nuns after refectory this evening. Should I stress morale, and the need to keep it up, or gossip, and the need to crush it down? Both, I think. More hollow words.
I should be getting a month in France: but I’ll have to content myself with a brief period of solitude in the school chapel later. No one importunes me in the chapel. In its dim atmosphere I know I shall find a fleeting peace. Why is it that things always appear better in the half-light?
The Suspension Bridge
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: October 2024
Format: Print
Purchase Link
In this irreverent and immersive pilgrim’s progress narrative set in a midcentury North American river city, Sister Harriet of Bingham plunges into new teaching duties at a boarding school where girls ominously begin to disappear. Between sleuthing and teaching, Harriet hardly has time for her secret identity crisis. But it’s 1962, and the whole world is restless. Hellbent on glory, Bothonville (pronounced Buttonville) is building a gigantic bridge, unaware everyone is falling victim to its destructive influence. Amid the dreams and double lives, the monsters and mayhem, who will make it out alive?
About the author
Anna Dowdall was born in Montreal and currently lives in Toronto, Canada. She has been a journalist, a college instructor, a pilot, an urban shepherd and a horticultural adviser, as well as other things best forgotten. Her well-received novels, April on Paris Street (Guernica Editions 2021), The Au Pair (2018) and After the Winter (2017) probe the lives of women, in evocative settings and with a seasoning of dark humour. She was nominated for the American Katherine Paterson literary prize and the Arthur Ellis award in the unpublished category. The Suspension Bridge (Radiant Press, 2024) is set in an unreliable 1962 and features reluctant sleuth Sister Harriet of Bingham. It’s a genre-bending mystery, combining allegory and satire with a sprinkling of fantasy.