Chapter Seventeen - Unfurling

The day of the profession dawned with red streaks across the sky. As the community made its way to the Chappelle, they appeared to enjoy the warm summery weather, but Anne was cold.

After Prime, Jeanette came to breakfast. She was allowed to sit with Anne at the young girls’ table, but she didn’t eat anything. Sister Absolem, wearing a baby strapped to her chest, arrived at the table with a platter bearing a chopped-up apple zig-zagged with honey. ‘There, there, darling soul,’ she said, and gave Jeanette a hug with her free arm.

‘Come now, my little one, Jesus wants you to love this day with sweetness.’

She picked up a piece of apple and tempted Jeanette with it. Jeanette tried hard not to let Sister Absolem see the tears threatening to roll from her eyes. Anne signalled to the kindly nun and the sister backed away. The baby snuffled in her soft front and reached out a tiny hand to clench the black scapular as the nun turned to go. Then the tiny hand seemed to wave. For a moment Anne smiled until she turned back to Jeanette.

Anne took the apple from her sister’s slender fingers. She took her own grimy sleeve and wiped her sister’s face. ‘You should eat. You must be brave.’

Jeanette nodded and began to bite the morsels. She was pale. Anne thought she’d lost weight in retreat. She gazed at her big sister in awe. It was as though she were turning into an angel in front of her. Anne was filled with a wave of love so strong she couldn’t help it and jumped up to stand beside her sister to hug her. Then Claude was there too, having run from the boys’ table across the room and the three of them stood there, hugging, and laughing and crying, and Sister Agnes was laughing too, and wiping tears from her wrinkly face.

Anne caught a movement from the corner of her eye as she gradually released her hold on Jeanette and straightened up. Marie Therese had not come to berate them. Anne had seen her, clear as day, standing in the doorway. Then she turned to go. The world was topsy turvy indeed this day.

After Jeanette went to dress in her gown, Claude and Anne went into the public parlour to wait. Claude wanted to give his big sister a present, but Anne said, ‘She’s not allowed any things, you know that.’

‘I like things.’

‘I do too. But Jeanette will have eternal bliss for certain. Not like you, who wants to be a carpenter.’

Claude thought he was on safe ground, ‘Joseph was a carpenter.’

‘Let us pray.’ Anne pulled her little brother down beside her right there on the floor of the public parlour. They put their elbows on the seats of two of the fancy red velvet chairs and they prayed to the Lord God Our Father. ‘Dear God, please let us see our sister Jeanette whenever we want, as our dear sister, and have her see us right back like the sister and brother we’ve always been. As well she can have all the other sisters and brothers too. As extra.’

Claude added, ‘So long as we’re the special ones.’

‘Yes,’ said Anne, ‘And she loves us just the way it has always been.’

‘Amen.’

And Claude said, ‘Amen.’

As they stood up to leave, they could see the remains of the dragon tossed aside in a heap through the grille. Claude said, ‘I wonder what we can do with that,’ and before Anne could answer more people came into the parlour.

A family: father, mother, and a small boy, accompanied a young girl dressed in a plain brown dress. Not to profess then. Just a novice. She had a hunched back. Claude crossed himself when he saw her, but Anne just stared. The girl smiled at Anne so sweetly that Anne couldn’t help smiling back, just a bit. Then there was a clatter, and a carriage drew up to the second gate. Claude and Anne hastened to watch the new arrival, seeing the porter nuns try to hold the horses, but the drivers had to jump down to calm them before it was safe for passengers to get down from the coach.

Anne and Claude watched as a frowning man wearing a huge hat overshadowed by an enormous feather climbed, with his thin red legs, out of the shiny black coach. The stripes in his pantaloons sparkled with gold. His doublet was yellow and blue. Anne thought he strutted like a heron.

Then a woman with a pout on her face and a bouquet of feathers in her hair wearing a glittering blue gown with a blue-green patterned stomacher swirled her way onto the ground. Two bright birds, then. And, finally from the same carriage, a bride alighted. She was dressed in embroidered white brocade and her hair was piled with jewels. The Mother Prioress was almost immediately in attendance.

How did she know? Anne thought and they followed the group inside again. When she looked at Claude, she could tell he was as amazed as she was by the size of these people’s ruffs. Anne had seen large ruffs before, but these were almost the size of the wheels on the coach. These were ruffs as big as millstones!

No one noticed Jeanette’s arrival except Anne and Claude, and they were glad the glittering nobles had captured everyone’s attention. Jeanette was wearing a simple white gown embroidered with white fleur-de-Lys that Marie Therese had refused to admit to making but Jeanette told Anne she must have because the Chamberess had been busy fixing the altar embroideries for the church.

Jeanette told them there had been two tense fittings where Marie Therese had pinched and twitched at her. She’d been hemming around the bottom of the gown while Jeanette stood on a table. Jeanette had wanted to wear one of the orphan dresses, but Marie Therese would not hear of it and she wouldn’t explain why.

Jeanette told Anne she’d taken advice from Sister Agnes who explained that Jeanette might feel regretful if she didn’t get a chance to marry in a gown. She may not care now, but later …

Anne thought Jesus would not see it. He wouldn’t care what garment an earthly girl wore. He only saw her soul, after all.

Jeanette let Anne and Claude take hold of a hand each. They stood so close together that no one could have seen. They stood like that until Mother Prioress came, leaning on Sister Beatrix, accompanied by a servant nun with a silver tray, to stand on the little stage area by the door. She smiled around the room, particularly at the young postulant, and the two novices, ‘ … to be presented to our religious community today. The contemplative life is, by no means, an easy life but, rest assured, a young woman choosing to devote her life to Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ will see eternal bliss and joy far sooner than the rest of her friends and family, those Christian souls she leaves behind her in the earthly world. The act of giving ourselves, body, and soul, to Jesus is recognised by God. You may be sure God is grateful to her family for letting her serve him and God will smile on all of us.’

There were prayers and everyone said, ‘Amen’.

Then the Mother, leaning hard on Sister Beatrix, approached the plain family. They exchanged pleasantries and the father took a small bag and held it out to her. The Mother indicated Sister Beatrix, who collected the little bag and put it on the silver platter carried by the servant nun who followed her.

The man with the thin red legs took a slightly larger purse from his waist and laid it directly on the silver platter himself. He bowed to the Mother Prioress as he did so. The purse jangled as it travelled through the air and the servant nun seemed surprised by its weight as it landed on the platter.

‘What’s that?’ asked Claude.

‘Dowry,’ said Jeanette.

‘Do you need money?’ asked Anne, in alarm, when she saw Jeanette carried no purse. ‘Does that mean you’ll just be a servant nun?’

‘No, we were paid for when we entered the orphanage.’

‘Were we?’ Anne asked, surprised.

Jeanette continued, ‘All of us can enter religious life, if we want.’

‘I don’t,’ said Claude and Anne squeezed his hand. By now the little procession had wound out of the parlour. It made its way through the formal foyer and out into the courtyard bounded by the two sets of gates.

‘You don’t have to,’ said Jeanette.

They walked out into the street. Anne and Claude walked Jeanette into the church.

Jeanette smiled at her little brother, ‘What will you do?’

‘I’m to be a carpenter, like Maynard.’

Jeanette slowed and closed her eyes.

Anne grasped her whole arm and whispered into her ear, ‘You could run.’

Jeanette opened her eyes and looked at Anne. The flash of sun that had warmed her face with an idea now quickly faded and her eyes filled with tears. ‘No, my darling sister, I devote my life to God.’

Anne hugged Jeanette, squashing her as hard as she could, until Jeanette, almost smiling, peeled her arms away. She bent down to Anne and urged, ‘Tell him to marry another.’

Then she straightened up and walked into the church. She looked tiny as she entered the carved archway. Anne and Claude followed her down the nave as she went to her place in the centre of the church. Mijnheer Gustav’s organ vibrated through the shell of the building and wove melodies over and through each other, through the pillars of rising grandeur and around the tapestries and embroideries that hung from the ceiling like banners. The place was built to summon music into the heights and all those present felt the cavern around them vibrate.

The curves of the surrounding stone forest were cut into sinuous triangles by the sun streams coming in from the east. Normally they sat on the other side of the grille with the nuns. Here, as public, Anne felt small, dwarfed by the size of the space. Friends and family went to sit behind the young women who knelt at the front of the church while members of the public sat behind.

Abbot Thierry stretched out his golden robes as he held his arms out to his sides. Claude leaned over and whispered to Anne, ‘Almost as fat as pregnant Etienne.’ Anne could not smile; she was aware of Jeanette’s heart breaking. Or perhaps it was her own.

The service began, washing over her, lulling her into comfort. It was normal Sext prayers, the familiar, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want … ’ serving to soothe her. Because it was a Saturday the words were all about the Virgin Mary, who never knew the stain of sin and who interceded for us with our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Anne listened to the words afresh, new questions arising after her conversation with Father Vincent. She puzzled for a while then whispered to Claude. ‘How could the Virgin, who did not know she would bear the baby Jesus until she was engaged to be married, be conceived without sin?’ she asked, ‘Didn’t she have normal parents like everyone else?’

Claude nudged her and tried to look solemn, as Jeanette did.

Of course, Anne knew perfectly well her name saint was the Virgin’s mother – but was her mother also without sin? How could that work?

Realising she would get no answers from Claude, Anne looked around and noticed the church was gleaming. Sister Genevieve had done her work well. Anne recognised snowdrops, lily of the valley, and white anemones in the flower arrangements.

Abbot Thierry gave a sermon about the Virgin Mary. He said a lot of things about the church and about how pleasing it is to God to see someone who was made for social success renounce the world.

Anne couldn’t help looking at the sparkling heron family. The opulent young lady looked around her, giving the impression she was contemplating escape. The Abbot finished by saying that Saturday was a reminder that, ‘the Virgin Mary is continuously present and operative in the life of the Church as are these religious women who pray for our community. We welcome these, our new nuns, into the Priory of Sainte Scholastica, in the hope they will find fulfilment and peace in their new lives with God.’

Everyone said, ‘Amen.’

The organ began with a rising thrill of Salve Regina and the nuns’ voices rose with passion;

‘Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,

Our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

To thee do we cry,

Poor banished children of Eve;

To thee do we send up our sighs,

Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.’

Too soon, Anne heard the grille to the choir unlocked. There were Sister Gertrude and Marie Therese standing beside the gate. The three girls stood and began the move away from their families.

Jeanette, with her head bowed, looked at the floor as she walked up to the choir. Anne thought she was crying. She saw Marie Therese grab Jeanette’s arm and press her into the choir before she had moment to look back at the outside world, even if she’d wanted to. In contrast, the young hunchbacked novice smiled down at her family, joyful at her acceptance into the world of God. Then, the heron family pushed their glamorous charge to the end of the pew, and she let out a choked noise that Anne thought sounded like a sob. One of the servant nuns came to her assistance and offered her an arm. She led her to the grille and sent her through the portal with a gentle pat that the sparkling girl shrugged off as though the nun had been a hornet.

The grille shut fast with an iron crash and the lock clanked home. The three young girls were enclosed.

Anne felt acid rise in her, weighing her down and swinging her insides into a whirlpool. She couldn’t help a kind of cough, a choking sound, and she surprised herself as the hot tears rose into her eyes, welled up, and fell down her face. She bent to hide. She reached for Claude. But he wasn’t there. The Abbot droned on and on, but Claude was gone. Where was he? Anne looked down her pew and then turned to each side. She stood and shuffled to the wall end of the church, walking up beside memorial tablets and statues devoted to the long dead. There he was, sitting next to Maynard. Well, not next to exactly, more like half-buried in Maynard’s jacket and tucked under the tall man’s arm.

Maynard looked up at Anne and his face, yellow in the half-light of the church, looked so miserable she didn’t know what to do except apologise to the person she stood on as she moved along the pew to sit beside him. Maynard opened his other arm, and they sat like that, long after the service was finished. Maynard patted Anne’s head, just as she had seen him pat Houtachtig.

Jeanette was Jeanette no more. On the other side of the choir they could hear the service continue.

Anne looked at Maynard and saw his cheeks were wet. They glistened in the golden light from the glory of the stained-glass depiction of Saint Catherine and her breaking wheel. The sun poured through the patron saint of young unmarried women.

The three of them walked out and down the few steps to the road where they stood in the fading sunshine. The sheep in the field across the road shouted to each other, the lambs running eagerly to suckle at their mothers’ sides.

Anne looked up at Maynard, given a bright halo in the sunlight, and said, ‘She told me you should marry another.’

As though he’d just woken, Maynard turned to stare at her. ‘I wanted her to change her mind.’

‘So did I,’ added Claude.

As if he hadn’t heard him, Maynard carried on, ‘How do I keep going?’ And he turned to leave.

After they looked at each other for a moment, not knowing what to do, Claude and Anne followed him. They were all forlorn.

Maynard glanced back to look at them, dragging along behind him like lambs after their mothers, appearing surprised they were there, but he let them come on. Right to the workshop.

They sat around the kitchen table. Silent. His sister, Sara, brought them all a small mug of ale each. She cut them a piece of bread, stooping to encourage each one to eat and drink.

Maynard swallowed his ale and went to refill his cup. When he returned, he asked Anne, ‘Will I ever see her again?’

Anne did not know. ‘We don’t know if we will, either.’

‘Of course, you will. You live in the same place.’

‘But she’ll be a different person,’ said Claude.

‘Jesus will change her,’ said Anne. ‘She’s more than just our sister now. She is everyone’s sister. She is your sister.’

‘I don’t want her to be my sister.’

Claude looked up at him, ‘Can I be your apprentice now?’

‘When you’re ten.’

‘That’s forever.’

Maynard countered. ‘Not as long as Jeanette has got.’

Anne agreed. ‘That’s eternity.’

‘What about you, Anne?’ said Claude.

Anne thought of Bruges, city life and famous people. She thought of embroidered stomachers and swooshing skirts. Then she came back down to earth. ‘I think the Mother wants me to learn how to be her.’

Maynard wasn’t surprised. ‘A succession plan. Worthy woman.’

Claude looked at Anne . ‘Will you be a nun?’

Anne pushed her brother. ‘Don’t you want salvation?’

‘Of course,’ said Claude.

Maynard agreed, ‘We all do, little maid.’

‘I should be happy to marry Christ,’ said Anne. Even as she heard the overt duty in her voice, she tried to inject some enthusiasm into her words. ‘I’ll make him a good bride and leave behind earthly trappings with no regrets.’

Claude looked askance at Anne. She knew he didn’t really believe her. She didn’t believe herself.

Maynard shared a glance with his own sister and stood to leave the table. Sara shook her head, her lips tight. Anne supposed she must feel as sad for Maynard as she herself felt for Jeanette, but that was no reason to alter her own destiny.

Maynard looked at Claude. ‘Come on, lad. We’ve work to do. We must make this nun here a sword.’