by Rumer Godden
As for cleaning the barrels – ‘I never imagined!’ gasped Lise. A chain was put through the hole, the barrel filled with boiling water and soda and the chain worked round and round as the strongest of the sisters pushed the weight of the barrels to and fro. The sisters were soon exhausted but Soeur Thecla drove them on. ‘Unless the barrels are completely clean, next year’s cider won’t be good.’ ‘Talk of galley slaves!’ said Lise.
This too was the season for tidying up the domaine; culling the poultry, seeing to the cold frames, getting up dahlias and storing them, planting bulbs – ‘There must always be flowers for the chapel.’ The grapes were picked and sent away to be sold in boxes layered with tissue paper, and, with all this busy-ness, not a minute of prayer or devotion could be left out of the day.
There was one feast though when, in spite of Bella’s overriding wisdom, Lise could not help shutting her mind. With the Dominicans, and particularly with Béthanie, there had always been a devotion to the Rosary and, on the seventh of October, its feast, Our Lady of the Rosary, came round with a sung Mass in the morning, a lunch of extra goodness and an afternoon given over to recreation. Lise would have liked to plead a headache and stay in her room; instead she volunteered for the tasks that, feast or not, still had to be done; she washed dishes, relieved the infirmarian, fed the hens and the pig; Soeur Thecla seemed to sense she needed any and every distraction. ‘I wish I could milk,’ Lise told her as she watched Soeur Thecla with Bienvenue.
‘You haven’t the hands,’ Soeur Thecla said flatly, whose own were broad and strong. ‘They’re too nervous,’ which Lise supposed was true on this day of all days. Nobody commented, asked any questions; only the Prioress said, ‘That’s enough, Sister. Go into the chapel and rest.’
In the chapel there was rest, and Lise was always glad that, each year, when cider-making was over, harvesting done, the eight-day retreat was held, when the convent was shut to all outsiders and a priest came to take charge; not their familiar aumônier, but a priest from outside, ‘who will open our minds, give us to think – I hope,’ said the Prioress.
‘I always wonder,’ said Lise, ‘why, in Britain and America, we make Hallowe’en into a frightening thing with, for children, ghosts and skulls, witches, spiders and black cats, when it is the eve of one of the most radiant feasts of the year – All Saints, all those men and women who have shone out light and goodness, courage and faith into the world.’
‘And All Souls is radiant too,’ said Soeur Marguerite – it followed the next day. ‘For us there is loss, but for the dead, for him or her, it is the culmination, the crown …’
‘What of the people who die badly – in their sins …?’ That was what Lise, from the first, was haunted by.
‘How do we know they do?’ Soeur Marie Alcide had answered. ‘No one knows, except God, what happens in those few last seconds.’
‘No,’ and Lise remembered that smile, Patrice’s strangely sweet smile, and the whisper, ‘Chérie.’ She would hear that forever.
‘And don’t let me catch you being morbid on All Souls,’ Soeur Théodore too had always told her aspirants. ‘Pray, yes, for every soul you know, but leave them to God. That they are with Him should make us joyful.’
‘The weather doesn’t, though.’ Lise found it difficult to find joy in the darkening year, usually wet, day after day of Normandy rain … the frost too mild to be sparkling and invigorating. ‘The weather doesn’t, particularly when you have to get up mangolds in the mud, dirty heavy slippery things,’ and yet there was a satisfaction in piling up and earthing the heaps. ‘The cows will be fed all winter and, if they are, so will we be, with milk and butter and cheese …’ but, ‘getting up mangolds isn’t work for you,’ Soeur Thecla told Lise.
‘It is, Sister. Sometimes I need to do hard, dirty work.’
‘Exorcising devils,’ but wise Soeur Thecla did not wait for an answer. She took action though, and Lise was put to transplanting endives into the cellars where, cut, they would spring up in six weeks. ‘So we shall soon have salads again.’ Soeur Thecla herself had begun ploughing and, to her satisfaction, great wheelbarrows of pig and cow manure were wheeled by those she called her ‘stalwarts’ down the paths to the furrows. ‘Phaugh, Jehoshaphat!’ Bella, Soeur Marie Isabelle, had said on a visit to Belle Source and added, ‘It’s not what goes into a man that defiles him, it is what comes out. I didn’t know that applied to innocent animals!’
And then, as if it had stolen into these dwindling days without notice, as Christ had stolen in almost without notice, came Advent. It’s odd – Advent always comes as a shock, thought Lise. ‘Rorate Coeli – Drop down dew’ was sung at Benediction. It reminded Lise of the old carol:
He came all so still
Where His mother was
As dew in April
that falleth on the grass …
A new dew, a new refreshment, was coming into the world.
The days of December were like a hush, expectant, though the world was at its darkest; when she, Lise, came out in the morning to help Soeur Thecla, the stars were still out until the sky paled and they faded, leaving one, her evening star; she knew now it was the morning star as well and, as she turned Bienvenue or Bibiche in the stall ready for milking, rubbing the Jersey’s head, hard and firm under its soft hair, Lise could see the star through the broken rafters of the cowshed, incandescent in the pearl of dawn in the sky. No wonder the Magi had followed it as wise men had done ever since.
She held her hand under Bibiche’s soft muzzle and felt the warm breath, sweet with the smell of grass and hay, the breath of life. You don’t have to try and be wise, Bibiche, thought Lise; you simply have to live, you lucky little cow. You don’t know when you fail … trample on someone else’s heart. She was thinking of Lucette’s present.
It had happened at Christmas, Béthanie’s homely joyful Christmas, when, after Reveillon, Lise had gone up to her room and on her bed was the usual little packet from the Prioress.
To Lise’s intense joy, Soeur Marie Emmanuel, having done twelve years as Mother-General, the utmost limit, had been appointed the new Prioress of Belle Source – Soeur Raymonde was Mother-General now. Lise opened her packet, warmed by its message and affection, then turned with a sigh of happiness to take off her veil, and stopped.
There, between two lit stubs of candles, obviously saved from the chapel and carefully stuck into a pair of shards – from a broken flower-pot, Lise guessed – was a picture, a collage or an ikon. Lucette! It must have been Lucette, but what was Lucette, Lise wondered, doing in her room. Then Lise came closer; to Lucette this – travesty, Lise could not help thinking – was an ikon, holy enough to excuse any trespassing – but Lise only understood that, and with anguish, afterwards; unfortunately, what she saw in that first moment was a garish daub, a picture of the Mother and Child cut from a newspaper and coloured with crayon in kindergarten colours, bright red cheeks, bright blue eyes, bright yellow hair, the Virgin’s hair not as yellow as the Child’s which was spangled with gold. How did Lucette get the gold, Lise asked herself when she came to examine it. She must have picked up a snipped-off end of the gold cord Soeur Elizabeth tied the cornets of sugared almonds with; Lucette had minutely shredded it and, to make the Child’s robe white, she had used icing sugar on glue and varnished it. ‘So it won’t come off, ever.’ Lise could imagine her saying that and the same of the frame which was of sugared almonds, glued down and varnished too. Lucette would never have taken them without leave, but she was a pet of Soeur Elizabeth who would every now and then give her one or two; they were eked out with a few beads and pebbles. The Virgin’s robe was red translucent paper which Lise recognised as being from crackers sent to the community for Saint Joseph’s Day; her sleeves and neckline were bordered with the minute flowers of lavender, rubbed from the spikes. ‘It must have taken hours.’ The figures were backed by a gold paper lace doyley spread on a cardboard base and varnished too. All this Lise saw afterwards but, as she had turned, the yello
w and red, blue and gold hit her eyes and, for a moment, her face betrayed her.
It was only a moment but Lucette, hiding full of joy and pride behind the door and peeping round it, saw, and ‘You don’t like it.’ It was a cry like a wounded child.
‘Ssh! It’s silence,’ whispered Lise, and, ‘Like it? Of course I like it. It’s just … it’s such a surprise. How did you do it?’ but, even to Lise, it sounded false and, ‘You don’t like it.’ It was such a wail that it brought other sisters to their doors but, when they saw it was Lise and Lucette, they went in again.
‘Lucette.’ It had been no use; Lise had tried to hold her close – she made herself do that – and whispered, ‘Isn’t it enough that you did all this wonderful work for me?’
‘No, it isn’t enough.’ Lucette tore herself free, darted into the room and took the imitation ikon. She tried to tear it across but being so encrusted and firmly glued it would not tear, so she crushed it, threw it on the floor and ran sobbing down the corridor to her own room.
Lise had stood, sick dismayed and in something of a panic; holding Lucette had been like holding a human sparrow, her bones were so small and light, so frail. I must go after her – but to go into another nun’s room was forbidden and Lucette was now almost a nun. After a moment Lise went to Soeur Marie Emmanuel.
‘Ma Mère …’
The Prioress, already undressed and in bed – where she must need to be, thought Lise – came at once to the door, a shawl over her nightdress. ‘Ma Mère, may I go to Soeur Lucette?’ and, as Lise told, she found she was suddenly sobbing too.
The Prioress listened, her eyes on Lise, her hand steady, then, ‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘Leave Soeur Lucette to me.’
‘Ma Mère. It’s past two o’clock. You must be tired.’
‘Not too tired for this,’ and she put her hand on Lise’s shoulder. ‘Soeur Marie Lise, don’t grieve. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘It was. It was. I should have been more controlled.’
‘One can’t control oneself all the time,’ and, ‘Bed,’ ordered Soeur Marie Emmanuel.
On New Year’s Eve, after Vespers, the nuns met in the community room to wish one another a happy new year and eat the bonbons the Prioress provided, and on New Year’s Day, at recreation, the aumônier brought in a basket and each nun drew out a motto, an augury for the coming year; for Lucette it had been, ‘They took sweet counsel together and walked in the house as friends,’ and it was at Lise that Lucette beamed.
Another year was rounded, and nothing anyone could write or say, thought Lise, could tell the whole meaning of each succeeding year, of its unfolding; what is a day-to-day miracle is unexciting because usually it’s so sure – and yet it is a miracle; only if it’s taken away, as in a famine or drought, do we see that. I never saw it, thought Lise. Long before I went to prison, I was in a prison, the prison of myself, and, thinking of Soeur Thecla, she thought, The paradox is that the nearer you are to earth, the nearer you are to heaven. My motto was fitting, too: ‘My lines have fallen in pleasant places.’ I don’t deserve it but thank God, thought Lise. Thank God.
Then the Mother-General, Soeur Raymonde, sent for her. Why, thought Lise. Why?
Soeur Raymonde was at Belle Source for the ‘visitation’ the Mother-General had to make to every house of Béthanie at least once in three years, for a minute examination of the affairs of the house. Lise had already had the long and private interview that was given to every sister in the house, just as every corner, every least thing was seen. ‘How does she find time?’ Yet Soeur Raymonde never seemed hurried and this sudden summons must have been premeditated and Lise could not help a feeling of apprehension.
‘Soeur Marie Lise, sit down,’ and, when Lise had arranged herself, her hands under her scapular, Soeur Raymonde said with a smile, ‘You have been here at Belle Source seven years.’
She is going to move me, thought Lise in dismay, but she only murmured, ‘Yes, ma Mère, except for the years when, as you know, I filled in at the novitiate.’
‘Yes. Well, as we both know …’ and the words familiar now and dreaded came, ‘… you have great sympathy and tact in dealing with girls and women.’
‘Not sympathy.’ Lise had to be honest. ‘Tact, perhaps. I … I learnt that in a difficult school – had to learn it.’ Lise gave a wry smile.
‘Well, it has stood you in good stead. You have been elected, Soeur Marie Lise, as a missionary, one of our prison visitors.’
‘Prison!’ and emotion overcame Lise. Soeur Raymonde waited until she was able to speak. ‘But ma Mère, I was there. Not at Le Fouest, of course, but at Vesoul.’
‘Naturally that made us have to consider carefully, not to say gravely – still, after fifteen years, and in a different prison, it isn’t probable you would be recognised.’
‘This is a small world,’ Lise said desperately, ‘and there’s my scar.’
‘Sister, that shows to you far more than it does to us. I doubt if anyone in the outside world would notice it unless you deliberately drew back your veil. Besides, the mark has grown so pale.’
‘Except when I’m angry or excited or moved. Then in spite of myself …”
‘It reddens. I know. I have seen it.’
‘Yes. Suppose …’ Lise twisted her hands under her scapular.
‘Well, suppose, which isn’t likely,’ Soeur Raymonde was calm. ‘Wouldn’t it be a wonderful witness to our Lord that this woman, once La Balafrée, is a Sister of Béthanie now? Naturally you must be extremely careful but, as it happens, there is no one here now at Belle Source as suitable as you and, my daughter, there is terrible need.’ It was the same Soeur Raymonde, ‘bringing you up higher than you think you could go,’ as Bella had said. ‘Terrible need, perhaps more now than ever before. As, physically, things get better for these poor unfortunates, the spirit seems to get worse, and Soeur Marie Mercédes, in spite of her courage, is beginning to fail.’ Soeur Raymonde laid her hand on Lise’s. ‘Think what it was like for you when you first saw Soeur Marie Alcide.’
‘But – Soeur Marie Alcide … she is a saint.’
‘How do you know,’ said Soeur Raymonde, ‘that Soeur Marie Alcide may not once have been exactly like you?’
‘For your prison visiting,’ Soeur Raymonde said a little later, ‘I shall ask you, Soeur Marie Lise, to think about two things: the first comes from a story often told – you may have heard it before: it was when, during the war, the Americans had a detachment near a leper colony. One young soldier watched a nun washing an old man and dressing the leper wounds where the fingers were dropping off. “Sister,” he said, “I wouldn’t do your work for ten thousand dollars a day.” “Neither would I,” said the nun.’
‘Ah!’ whispered Lise.
‘And if you do take the work, remember the parable our Lord told his disciples after he had sent them out and they came back delighted with what they had done and expecting praise. “What man,” asked our Lord, “when his servant was out all day, ploughing the fields, and came in at the end of the day, would say to him, ‘Sit down and I will get you something to eat.’ No, rather he would say, ‘Go and wash and make yourself tidy, then wait on me while I dine. You can eat and drink yourself later,’ because the servant had only done his duty.’”
‘Ah,’ said Lise again.
9
Lise had to confess, when she saw the gates, the heavy portico of the Maison Centrale of Le Fouest, her heart almost failed her. I can’t go behind prison walls again, I can’t – and the thought came. But Lucette did – and not as you are doing now, Lise reminded herself, not free but under duress; Lucette endured and came through, yet you think of her as a feeble little creature.
All the same it seemed incredible to Lise that her companion, Soeur Marie Mercédes, could go calmly up to those gates and ring the bell, an everyday ring. The grid that opened was not ‘everyday’ – no one could pretend that – nor the uniformed guard who looked through, but, without question, he opened the door, the same
sort of little door that had let Lise out of Vesoul. This time the guard not only opened the door but saluted. I wonder what he would say if he knew whom he was saluting, thought Lise.
There was the same sort of courtyard she remembered, but here were trees in flower, magnolias – ‘We hadn’t anything as beautiful as those,’ she almost said to Soeur Marie Mercédes. Behind the beauty of the trees was a huge, four-storeyed building, bigger than Vesoul and grim in its dark brick and the four stone staircases that penetrated and divided it. Think about the magnolias, Lise urged herself, not about walls; shut out the sound of locks and keys. ‘But we didn’t come here to talk about magnolias,’ she found she had said that aloud.
‘We could,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes, ‘or any other pleasant thing. The difficulty for the women is to talk about the … the nub, shall we call it – the thing that really matters – and that usually doesn’t happen for a long long time.’ All the same, Lise felt the little nun stiffen herself as for an ordeal.
There were questions Lise longed to ask: ‘Do you still come here in chains?’ ‘Do you still have that shaming search?’ – but of course you must. ‘Do you still have that same prison régime?’ There has to be a régime, but how it had altered! Lise soon saw that. The bell still went at half past six, the wardress on duty opening the judas to be sure the women were up; slops still had to be emptied – no more than Vesoul was Le Fouest an up-to-date prison. Cells still had to be tended and cleaned – mine was always bare, thought Lise – a few books, a photograph of Coco – but now she saw that some were almost cosy, an odd word to use for a cell, but women with long years to go had made their cells into bed-sitting rooms with rugs they had made in the workshops on the floor, the walls covered in photographs, pictures, pages torn from magazines, perhaps a statue, a vase of paper flowers. ‘For many their cell becomes their home – they haven’t any other,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes.
