Chapter Twenty-Nine - Her Lawfully Wedded Husband
Templemars, winter 1617/18
In the corridor leading to the balneary, Anne could see the faint sketch of Susanna on the wall. The lady was facing away from the viewers, in a stone bath between two trees. One, an ancient oak, grew wide, shadowy, and curvaceous across the wall and up into the arched ceiling. The other, a grey mastic tree, grew more from Winifred’s imagination. After confering with Sister Matildé, the artist decided it might be like an olive tree in shape and size. They’d seen illuminations of olives in the library books and surmised the stem might be thinner, wiry, with a bushier shape than the lowering oak. The leaves were thin ovals, of a grey-green colour, rather than the well-known undulating leaf of the other tree. The oak arched over the vulnerable woman while the mastic menaced her from one side. The overall effect would be of a cooling green walkway as nuns and orphans made their way to bathe.
Anne took a moment to marvel at Sister Winifred Marie’s brush work. But there was no time to discuss her improved skills, Anne bursting full of travel plans and ideas for the future, keen to explain what both their futures would hold. Anne and Winifred could both travel with Maynard. They’d be safe with him. Anne looked forward with interest to see Caen. The town boasted a great Cathedral and castle as well as the two Abbayes built by William and Matilde. The Mother had shown her a map.
Winifred listened to Anne with an impassive face. ‘It sounds organised, Anne.’
‘Oh, yes, Maynard and I both think it feasible. I can afford the inns to rest the horses and ourselves, of course, overnight.’
‘Is it settled then?’ Sister Winifred Marie took care to wrap her brush and place the paints under the plank where she had been working. She stepped away from her work and, as Anne replied, indicated they should come to sit on two stools in the adjoining laundry.
‘Maynard is discussing it with his family, as I am with you. You do like the idea, do you not?’
‘It is a good idea but … ’
‘There! We’ll be quite an artistic team … ’
‘Anne.’ Sister Winifred Marie faced Anne squarely and looked at her in a decisive way. Anne did not like it when the nun said directly, ‘I won’t be joining you.’
‘Why ever not?
‘Your life is your path. As is mine. I can’t leave this place.’
Anne considered the nun and then looked away towards the baskets full of dirty linens. ‘Are you sure? You don’t want to follow the Mother’s invitation to paint at one of the great Abbayes of the world?’
‘Anne.’
Anne heard the final note in Sister Winifred Marie’s naming. She was right. There was no reason her friend should obey her. But where did that leave Anne? What on earth could she do? They sat in silence for a time.
Sister Winifred Marie said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was quiet and soothing.
Anne was not soothed. She could feel her fear and panic return. This had been her best escape plan. She needed to go, to move, to find a different way of being and she’d thought that being with Winifred, that being on the road, going somewhere, would be a start. That was all she needed, just to get going. ‘I can’t think what else to do, Sister. For, if you do not want to go to Caen, then I’ve no need to be there.’
‘Could you not go on to Mont St Michel with Maynard?’
‘As what?’ Anne stared at Sister Winifred Marie boldly. How could a single woman travel with a man not her husband unless she was his partner? What would the world say to that behaviour?
‘What were you intending to do in Caen? Would you be a nun there?’
Anne saw how rash she had been. ‘No.’
Sister Winifred Marie looked at her, ‘Were you thinking of wearing a habit when we travelled?’
‘No.’ Anne realised she hadn’t really considered the practicalities of this trip. ‘I was so in need of a plan to move forward I could only see the benefits of the first thing suggested. I hadn’t thought of consequences.’
The nun rose to her feet and walked across the room. Then she turned and looked at Anne. ‘What do you want to do? With all your heart?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What really interests you? Where would you most prefer to live?
‘Honestly?’ Anne swallowed her memories of devout dignity.
‘If not with me, then … ?
Anne put away her sense of propriety, her feelings of duty and bared her real ambitions. If only she could, if only she dared … ‘Paris. I’d love to live in one of those modern apartments of the city, with the tumult of politics, excitement, and fashion. Near to the Louvre. Win, I met the King, you know.’
‘Louis?’
‘Yes.’ Fleetingly, the image of the dead falcon swung into Anne’s mind. Then she shook it away to remember the elegance and geniality of the Lunyes family. Oh yes, she could see herself at court! ‘There would be masques, dance, and theatre!’
‘You admit to liking society life.’
‘I did, in Berry. I managed to acquit myself there, I think.’
‘I imagine you did.’ Sister Winifred Marie looked at Anne thoughtfully before they rose to obey the bells to Compline.
As they walked toward the Chappelle, Anne said, ‘But, Olivier might be there.’
‘You can’t take that risk.’
‘Not if I want to survive.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes. I don’t know why, but I find I do want to keep breathing.’
Winifred smiled then before walking on to the church.
Anne found the prayers of Compline particularly resonant this night, “Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.”
She went to Prime. She went to Terce. She went to Sext. She returned to the looms and practiced a straight selvedge.
Sister Winifred Maria returned to painting Susanna and her interior life. As a fully professed nun, the Benedictine Rule suggested friend and family memories were not helpful in growing a sincere relationship with God. So, Sister Winifred Maria went about her focused business painting detailed oak leaves across the walls. She was an enclosed nun. Her business was with God.
Until, one day, Sister Winifred Maria ran into the weaving room, ‘Anne! I have thought of something.’
‘You are cleverer than I.’
‘You could kill Anne!’
Anne looked at Sister Winifred Maria in complete mystification. What on earth could she mean?
When Sister Winifred Maria laughed at her, Anne supposed her face must have become as comical as her own. ‘You were going to anyway if you had professed and become Sister Clotilde as you once hoped. You would have destroyed Anne de Breuil right there and then. You could do it now. Anne, listen to me, would you go to England?’
‘England?’ To Anne, England may as well have been on the other side of the world. Which it was.
‘You could, you know, your language is good enough to survive. You’ll practice when you get there. It wouldn’t take you long. You can go to England. Take a new name. Be a different person.’
Anne watched her friend, Sister Winifred Maria, her dear earnest friend who even now not yet mastered Dutch and still spoke in the clearest of English. ‘You think I could?’
‘Yes, I do. Your English is passable. I’m a very good teacher, you know. You should be grateful.’
‘You know I am but, oh Dear God, I’m confused.’
‘Understandable.’
‘You’ve given me hope. Looking into your eyes it’s as though I see a ray of sunshine.’
‘I’m not often compared to the sun!’
‘Would you come with me?’
‘Look at me! Do you think I can go back into society, meeting the people who used to know me, my old friends, and family connections, now I look like this? Do you think I could even walk down the high street? Go into a shop?’
‘Win. Please. You could wear a shawl.’
‘I’ve taken to this veil.’ Sister Winifred Marie indicated the black fabric that covered her head and shoulders. ‘I like it. I don’t need anything over my face here. I like this life, Anne. Please don’t ask me to leave.’
‘Will you at least think about it?’
‘You must allow my mind is made up. It was made up when I first stepped inside these walls. You, of all people, know that. I’m happy here, as much as I can ever be. I cannot go back to that world. London is so full of people, you know, they call it hurly-burly. It is like the crashing of waves upon the sea only the waves are packed with human beings. There are so many people trying to forge ahead, all trying to get something for themselves, take, take take, the press of daily business and the noise of vendors, builders, and cleaners upon the street, all wanting, demanding. You’ll see cutpurses and malignants who watch for every opportunity that comes their greedy way - and that’s only at court! Nay, Anne, I prefer this quiet life.’
‘You can’t imagine how disappointed I am.’
Sister Winifred Marie smiled, ‘I can, a little.’
‘What am I to do?’
‘I can only tell you what I will do. I’ll write you directions and letters of introduction. It’ll be as good as having me with you. Better, in fact. For, you know, I believe you would like my grandmother.’ Winifred paused. ‘And, I rather think my mother will approve of you very well indeed.’ She examined Anne, who looked back, suddenly hopeful again now her friend sounded purposeful. Although Anne was not sure she was entirely complimentary about her mother as she remembered stories Winifred had told her years ago. From memory, Anne thought Sister Winifred Maria’s mother was a socialite. One who concentrated on pleasure and power, in no particular order. Anne’s body suddenly shivered. Was it anticipation or recognition? It was as though a gear had clunked into action. There was clarity in what she had to do, how she had to go about it. Perhaps this was God’s will? Perhaps it was true that her entire existence was already mapped out?
She went to None in the Chapelle and felt the words of psalm 118: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”
Anne watched the lay nuns dig the deep hole in the cemetery. It was difficult work. The ground was still frozen hard and turned to slippery mud on the surface. They found other remains at the bottom of the hole. These they recovered with no comment. It took six nuns to carry the coffin, made by Maynard, Jan and Pierre. After hearing about this woman’s relationship with Jeanette, Claude and Anne, the carpenters had decided their affection for the children meant they should honour the mother.
It was a simple box with three carved faces upon it. Anne gazed upon the lid in amazement and thought it a shame something this beautiful had to be buried. Her own face was refreshed in Maynard’s mind, of course, but he had found Jeanette and Claude only by memory. Perhaps Pierre had aided in the curves of Claude’s cheekbones, his strong top lip and intense brow. But Jeanette’s visage altered not one iota from that of the wooden record carved in the side of the staircase in the day room.
Now, by the dim light of storage place where the bodies to be buried were stored, Anne understood there was a face missing from that lid. She went outside to find a piece of metal or a burnt stick in the embers thrown away that morning. When she found a piece of charcoal that would suffice, she came back and scratched the form of a faint baby face looking over Claude’s shoulder. The little lost Gaston. A ghostly sketch of the face of an unknown baby boy born too soon into violence. Perhaps Maynard’s work was spoiled but it was of no import as the coffin was not to be seen by human eyes after this day. Anne thought she’d done something unconditional for her birthmother. No matter how unskilled the drawing, her fourth child would be represented.
Later, as Father Vincent intoned the funeral service beside the open grave, her thoughts wandered to the Assumption. She had heard Olivier and Father Hubert, in their long evenings of wine and cheese, discussing Calvin’s blasphemous comment that if she had not been Assumed there’d have been too many relics of the Virgin across the world. And, as she was perfectly without sin, she wouldn’t have had to undergo purification in purgatory. As Anne’s heart touched briefly with Olivier’s tone of voice and interest in all things divine and poetic, she couldn’t help the lurch of grief that upset her. Every day. Every day his rejection and his loss shook her afresh. Would it never end? She turned instead her mind to the voices of the nuns’ chorus raised in the final hymn; ‘May the Angels Lead you Into Paradise, ending in the words, “May you have eternal rest.”’
Anne did hope her frantic birthmother may at last have found rest. But, when she thought more, surely Marie Therese must be in purgatory? ‘Is purgatory not in the bible?’
When she raised this problem with the Mother after the burial, the Prioress tilted her head to one side. ‘Anne. I’m glad to see you’re back, thinking the impossible again.’
The Prioress was seated at her table in the outer office. Her papers were stacked neatly to one side, from where, no doubt, Sister Beatrix would retrieve them. Ceramic bowls of sweet dried fruits punctuated the rest of the table.
Anne wanted reassurance that the woman was finally at rest. ‘How can we know it to be true?’
The Mother thought for a moment before breaking a dried fig between her fingers and looking inside at the multitude of seeds. ‘Catherine of Genoa tells us the fire of purgatory is within. It is our own fire of contrition and deep sorrow for the sins we committed. The love we bear for God is the very flame that cleanses our souls. The flame of love will burn any residue of sin. I know Marie Therese confessed, many times, and I know of her great penitence. I’m sure she was contrite. I believe she will be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.’
‘Do you think Marie Therese could have been in purgatory on earth? While she was alive?’
‘We can’t know these things, Anne. We must accept God’s mysteries and not question His decisions. We follow the Catholic Church’s rules, as well as the rules of community from Saint Benedict. But the church does teach us the fire of purgatory does not burn as painfully as the fire of hell … ‘
‘Or the fire that scarred her earthly body.’
‘Yes,’ the Mother looked at Anne. ‘Your mother did suffer here on earth.’
‘You’re my mother.’
Here the Prioress took in breath to speak but Anne forestalled her, ‘Marie Therese was a woman who looked after me for my first three years. That’s all.’
‘She loved you in her own way, Anne.’
‘You love me in your own way.’
‘As does the Holy Virgin.’ Here the nun looked at the dried nuts in the bowl in front of her before offering Anne a choice. Anne declined with a small gesture. The Mother continued, ‘Have you given further thought to your future? You’re not inclined to become a Tertiary nun?’
‘I’m to travel, Mother.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s best you don’t know where I might have gone. But you can tell anyone who asks I am heading to Paris. To work with a new charity.’
‘Have no fear, child. I am not worried about inquisitions.’
Anne looked at the doughty Prioress and saw her strength, but she knew Evert to be relentless. ‘I wish I could be so confident, Mother.’
She did not trust the Executioner of Lille.