Chapter Fourteen - Unfurling

Sara was a young woman of perhaps her mid-twenties. She had an uneven rounded face so that Anne thought her nose like a small young radish and her lips like round pink rose petals. Her eyes though, were of deepest blue, and welcoming were the smiling creases around them. She embraced Anne and kissed her heartily on both cheeks, laughing that she’d heard so much about her and she looked exactly as Jan and Maynard had described. Anne was delighted with her. Sara had obviously heard about Jeanette, too, for she took hold of both the novice’s hands and held them as she looked directly into the younger woman’s eyes.

Anne thought Jeanette gasped at the intensity of her honest face.

Sara said, ‘You’re welcome, sister. Please, make yourself comfortable and stay as long as you can. I look forward to knowing you better.’

After a moment of fear passed over her features, Jeanette looked right back and smiled. ‘I too, Sara. Now, tell me, who is this?’

And Sara smiled, for she looked at her daughter who was trapped at this time in a willow circular net that was padded at the waist. The toddling child was able to stand, albeit with crooked feet, to push herself with an effort around the floor. ‘This troublesome creature? Why, this is Lucy.’

Jeanette crouched down and made a new little friend.

Anne watched it all, amazed, and suddenly very hopeful. Could this be home? For all of them?

Anne and Sara laid the table with the good things Louisa had sent, Sara exclaiming over the large ham, a cheese and potatoes, asparagus and other vegetables that could be eaten over the next week. Anne promised to carry Louisa much gratitude and some of Sara’s greengage jam in a crockery pot.

Before the meal, once everyone was seated, Jan bowed his head and said, ‘Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord.’

Everyone joined in with, ‘Amen’.

There was chattering and laughter aplenty at that table throughout the afternoon. Jan made firm friends with Claude and Pierre and soon bore them off, together with Maynard, to the workshop to talk about planks. Anne followed into the inner sanctum where, protected from the weather, two stands supported two logs, stripped clean and bare of bark.

Jan, saying the boys’ education may as well start sooner rather than later, showed them how to mark the wood to be cut with a piece of string rubbed with willow charcoal. He got Claude to snap the line by lifting it high against the tension as though it were a string on Sister Geneviève’s lute and, to let go quickly, flicking down on the surface. It left a neat line of charcoal on the exposed flesh of the tree. The next step, he explained, was called heeling. Maynard smiled but followed his father’s bidding to get upon the log to demonstrate the principles. He stood with his feet broadly apart, lifted his arms and heaved the axe down into the log, working his way evenly down the length biting out chunks at an angle on either side. The sounds of axe cleaving wood, and the smell of the timber was delicious to Anne.

Anne, included in the education program, listened carefully to her brother’s future. There was no waste in this workshop. The pieces eased from the side of the log were bevelled until suitable to fit between logs in rough stacks and buildings. The boys piled them up toward the end of the space. Jan demonstrated how to use a broad axe to smooth off the plank, and an adze to trim further. He even let the boys try, with smaller tools, to take rough bits from the sides.

‘Wood has structure,’ he told them. ‘We exploit the strength of the grain. The force of the cut causes splitting. ‘Tis a rending of the fibres.’

After Jan deemed their lesson done, he nodded to Maynard and said, about the boys, ‘They may prove useful. In a few years.’

Maynard smiled, and clapped Claude on the back so hard he pushed him forward and almost sent him flying.

Jan rigged a bed for them under the worktable in the barn. The boys were only too happy with their new beginning. Jan explained, with their help, he’d be able to do things he’d not been able to since his left hand was crushed. Their four young hands would bring him back old skills. Maynard pointed out the accident that had caused Jan’s disability was not rare. It was a warning to the boys that woodwork was not a game. It was dangerous. He looked at Jan and, to allay his fears, described how both Claude and Pierre had obeyed him during the work in the library. Jan shook hands with the boys and called them men. Again, thought Anne, the boys grew taller.

At Jeanette’s instruction, Anne brought the menfolk back to the table for fruit, beer, and blackberry tart. Houtachtig curled up under the table and was pleased to accept small offerings in secret.

Lucy climbed on Jeanette’s lap and played clap hands with her. The little girl had similar colouring to her uncle and Jeanette seemed entranced with the child. Jeanette’s eyes sparkled as the little girl patted hands with her. Looking at her sister, Anne realised that here might be the different future that Jeanette found so hard to imagine. It seemed obvious to Anne. Why could not Jeanette have an earthly marriage if she wanted? With this man? With this family? Anne could not think of a better idea. Why shouldn’t Jeanette have her own children? Anne could be an aunt. Anne looked at her sister with the little child and loved that idea. Did Jeanette?

After the meal was finished, Jan invited Jeanette to say grace again. She said, ‘Let us bless the Lord.’

The entire company, except Lucy, said, ‘Thanks be to God.’

Jeanette continued, ‘May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.’

Everyone agreed, ‘Amen.’

Anne could not help thinking of Léonie, lying in the parlour, surrounded by aromatic herbs, and tied in her shroud.

Sara insisted on cleaning by herself, she would accept no help today.

Jan took Pierre and Claude to examine the stock drying outside and to explain the systems of the workshop. Houtachtig followed Jan closely.

Maynard gathered his sketching things and came to sit next to Jeanette. As they talked, too softly for Anne to hear, he set about a deft sketch of Jeanette with Lucy sitting on her lap, the two looking at each other and smiling broadly.

Sara came to take Lucy for a rest. Apparently, Lucy was not impressed by the idea and the more mature members of the group grimaced to hear wailing as she was carried away. It soon abated and only the sounds of Sara’s murmuring came from the next room.

After a time, Anne turned the pages in a folder to find clean paper. ‘Excuse me, Maynard?’

Maynard took a moment to answer, so caught up in his conversation with Jeanette was he. In fact, both girl and man looked at Anne with some surprise. Anne couldn’t believe they might have forgotten about her. Anne pressed on with her mission. Indicating the clean paper, she asked, ‘Can I draw something?’

Maynard looked at Jeanette. He was smiling. It seemed that to them, this was not an important question.

Anne began to be annoyed.

‘Anne?’ Jeanette looked at her little sister, surprised, ‘You don’t normally ask permission. What’s got into you?’

Anne hardly knew herself. She perhaps wanted to remind them of her existence, perhaps she wanted to break the spell which seemed to exclude her; she didn’t know nor much care.

Maynard laughed, ‘You do know how much the monks charge me for each sheet? No, I’m teasing, little one. Go ahead.’ He nodded carelessly, indicating the required tools, and turned back to converse with Jeanette more intimately.

Anne took her paper and the silver-tipped tool to the other side of the room. She tried to remember how Maynard had looked at the object he was drawing. She sketched in the shapes of the space around them and the form of the couple that dominated her interest. Their two heads were bent together. Jeanette, in her novice nun’s garb, seemed more furniture than human shape.

Anne watched them, trying to study the shapes and fall of light as Maynard had taught.

All of them understood this was Jeanette’s last day as a single woman. As a free woman. As a free spirit. After the next week she would be promised to God. Unless she changed her mind.

Anne was frustrated when Maynard moved and sucked in her breath about to protest when she saw in amazement that he was kneeling in front of her sister. Maynard looked almost as if he were praying.

This was the attitude that Anne chose to depict in her next sketch, as Maynard remained kneeling in front of the young maiden for some time.

At one point Jeanette jumped up, as if bitten by some stinging creature, but Maynard caught at her hands and held her and drew her back close to him and gradually she sank back onto the chair.

Anne was proud of her picture. She felt she’d captured a good likeness.

Sara returned, pleased that her child had granted her a moment of quiet. She brought a basket of linen hose she was repairing. Jeanette was happy to join her in needlecraft and the two young women began their tasks and thence to chat over their work. After a pleasant time had passed, Sara asked if she could approach a personal issue? Anne waited almost as nervously as Jeanette to find out what Sara wanted to ask. Sara apologised and said she had wondered how long Jeanette had been without normal clothes? Jeanette laughed and looked at her habit. ‘These are normal clothes, Sara.’

‘Even the veil?’

‘Even the veil.’

Anne could see Sara would love to ask more but could not bring herself to stray over the proud boundary Jeanette had built around her. Anne, too, would have loved to see Jeanette dressed in some other garb with a respectable caul covering her golden tresses but knew it unlikely.

The conversation shifted to Sara’s mother Lucy, who died whilst washing sheep before the shearing season two years ago. Her woollen kirtle became waterlogged and so heavy she couldn’t save herself much less the sheep she was trying to protect from the fast-flowing waters. They no longer kept sheep as a result. Jan hated the mere mention of them.

‘May she rest in peace.’

The conversation again shifted to safer topics of farming and how the cauliflowers were looking good this year.

Anne had trouble staying focused on dreary mending but tried to pay attention as Sara pointed out where the sole of one stocking required replacing. Anne couldn’t help yawning.

As soon as Anne saw Maynard return, she dropped the needle and thread and jumped up to join him at the worktable. Jan and the boys were engaged in an important project in the outer room of which Maynard would not speak. In fact, they’d arranged to stay the night.

Maynard spread out several valuable sheets of paper and tacked them to the wooden work surface. What was he doing? Maynard greeted her, ‘Ah ha! As you have used my precious paper, I think it only right you assist with preparing more stock for me, don’t you agree?’

Anne asked continual questions as they prepared the ground to make the paper more textural for metal point work.

When Lucy cried, Sara went to the next room to collect her and, with no ceremony, gave her to Jeanette before returning to her sewing, and they all sat together, staring at the fire. The little girl stayed quiet for a time before she began to fidget. Maynard went to sit beside them and took his niece, and she snuggled into his front. He patted her little back soothingly and Jeanette looked at him. Maynard smiled at her.

To Anne, it was as though he were offering this peace by the fire, this family comfort, this rosy glow, and Jeanette seemed to be warming to him.

Anne happened to see that Sara, too, noticed the intimacy and left her basket of mending to attend to some important kitchen matter.

Anne, even while obediently painting ground over thick paper, was pleased to have been their witness. She loved to see them contented together. Was Jeanette ever this happy? Why, she hardly recognised her sister, her face glowing with reflected light from the fire. What were the chances she might not become a nun after all?

Maynard left the little family, the two sisters, at the end of the road approaching the convent, Jeanette insisting it would be better that way. He looked at her earnestly and said,

‘You’ll think of this seriously, won’t you, Jeanette?’

‘You’re not alone, Mijnheer.’

‘There’s me,’ said Anne, although Maynard and Jeanette didn’t even look at Anne. Anne watched them both and couldn’t understand their intensity.

Jeanette went on, ‘We both have Our Blessed Lord to grant us comfort in this confusion. Pray, Mijnheer. Pray for compassion.’

‘Bless you, Jeanette,’ said Maynard, ‘For now, you hold the happiness of the two of us in your hands. Be careful of my heart, I beg you.’

Anne, carrying her rolled picture under one arm, the promised jar of greengage jam in the other, walked beside her sister into the convent. Anne looked back and saw Maynard watching, his face serious. Anne’s heart lurched for him as she watched Jeanette lock the first set of gates behind them.

When they walked through the second set of gates, Jeanette locked those too. She hugged her little sister as they turned around the buildings. ‘Be good.’

Her back was straight as she went towards the nuns’ quarters, and she did not look back at Anne. Anne noted she did not look back at Maynard either.

Anne went into the kitchen to deliver her jam, worried about Jeanette. Did God bring Jeanette and Maynard together? Why should God be the one who separates them forever?

The rending of the fibres. A splitting of the heart wood.

Anne gathered Clotildé and Eloise close and the three girls cried about Léonie. The others went to sleep but Anne lay still, listening. Her eyes were hard like stones.

Sometime after the Nocturn’s bell she heard it.

The owl cried.