Chapter Twenty two - Unfurling

And so, Anne de Breuil became a candidate for religious life. She became a postulant nun at the age of twelve, meaning she formally requested admission to the Priory of Sainte Scholastique. The Mother handed over her religious education to Sister Gertrude. In her last meeting with the Mother, she reminded Anne that being a postulant meant detachment from her past life and acknowledging her intention to join the contemplative order. She must be removed from being an orphan to being in love with Jesus Christ for all the days of her life. She would commence to wear a black dress and white collar, although still with her hair showing.

There’d definitely be no boys clothing! Anne would obey the Rule of the Bells. The bells were the voice of God. Whatever happened, all the nuns had to obey the bells. It was essential to stop whatever Anne was doing and attend prayers immediately. But this would be easier now that Anne would always be in the priory grounds. Anne stopped to consider this last echo. Anne would always be in the priory grounds. It was meet and right. Anne would always be with Claude and Jeanette.

For Anne, best of all was that she gained her own cell. It was small but it had a window. The whitewashed walls were thick and curved over and up into smooth arches between dark wooden beams. The floor was dark wood too, soft, and quiet. It was her place in the world. It smelled of sweet beeswax and, because she had to polish the floors, she would come to know them well. She would come to know all the wooden nails in a line down each plank. The planks were wide. The wood was rounded and felt somehow soft.

For once, she had belongings. She had her own book, a small breviary, that contained all the texts of the different prayers to be said at the different times, Prime, Terce, Sext … She went around the room touching each object. There was a cabinet of her very own. A bed of her own. A prie-dieu kneeling stool with its own little altar shelf. A crucifix. She knelt and gave thanks to God, grateful to have a room of her own decorated with her own things. This was luxury. She had a feather from a dove. In time she arranged a dozen small white pebbles from the driveway on the windowsill in the shape of a horse’s head. She found some pieces of blue and green glass and arranged them along the bottom of the window to catch any stray sunbeam. In a strange way this enclosed space was her freedom.

But, during that first night in her own longed-for cell, the place transformed. No longer private and enveloping, the hard walls became cold. She felt so lonely she could not sleep. Her bed was like stone. Her time was restless, and she was glad to hear the bells calling her to the Chapelle. She was almost sleepwalking as she went to Night prayers and, three hours later, Lauds.

She woke cuddled with the other girls in her old bed with the fustian sheets and the patchwork woollen blankets made from odds and ends and bits and bobs and she was calm. Just for a moment. Then she saw she was in the wrong place. She realised she did not know how she got there in the middle of the night. It must have been after Lauds. She would have had to have walked from the cloisters, cross the garden, and get through the kitchen and up to the dormitories without waking any of the servant nuns. She was sure she could not have done it awake! She would have disturbed someone for certain.

She’d have to wake up, leave the warm bodies in their cosy bed and get herself back to her proper room, to her cell, to dress, before they were called for Prime. Or else.

And then she remembered her dream.

As she wrapped herself in her black dress and pulled up her stockings, she remembered and shivered. She was just in time for Prime. She walked looking down. She did not know where else to look. A tense fear gripped her, and she knew not why.

After their breakfast, she’d normally go straight to her bible studies with Sister Gertrude. She made her way to the library and when she saw Sister Thecla reading, she sat down next to her. There was a moment where both sat in serious silence. Both were grave and stared down at the table in front of them. Anne asked her sister if she may speak to her. Sister Thecla said that she might.

Anne was nervous. She felt sick. She told of her dream. The red bed, the blue doll. The strange feelings that had driven her into her old dormitory. She looked at the young nun with the bent head and then Sister Thecla looked up at Anne with such sympathy Anne felt deeply recognised and in return she perceived her sister in the nun, fully. But then Sister Thecla smiled, a funny, tight smile. ‘How strange you should remember, Anne. It must have been a doll I used to have when I was a little girl. You might have dreamed something of our past. How extraordinary. Has it ever happened before?’

Annie felt better. It was a peculiar looking doll, Sister Thecla agreed. It was an odd thing. Very good it had been left behind when they came to Templemars. She reached over the table and patted Anne’s hand. ‘It will be good for you to try the religious life, Anne. But do not feel you must be a nun because of me.’

‘But, Jeanette, I have to.’ Anne could not help the tears from overflowing. ‘I am sorry, Sister Thecla. Sister Thecla. I am so sorry.’

Sister Thecla arose from her chair and came around to Anne’s side of the table. She leaned down and embraced Anne. Anne felt warm and loved, such as she had not felt in years, she thought, and she leaned with longing into her older sister’s thin body. She could not help the upwelling that seemed to come from the ground from under her feet and heated her entire body. She felt the ice of her loneliness crack and the grief welled up and over.

‘I’m sorry too, little sister.’ When the spasm was over, Sister Thecla began to pull back, disengaging from Anne’s warmth. She whispered,

‘ … neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Sister Thecla grasped Anne’s hand as she continued, “Nor me, Anne. Nor me. I am here, but, Anne, I am not here. Do you understand?’

‘No.’ Anne sniffed and wiped her hand over her face. Sister Thecla had a linen square which she gave to Anne, who took it gratefully.

‘It will not take long to get used to the rhythm of the day and the night. Seven times a day we sing God’s praises. These times become the reason for your life. Make that your focus and delight and it will become easier. Pray, Anne. Pray to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary and your pain and sorrow will become lighter.’ By this time Sister Thecla had loosened her grip on her hand and taken a step away from Anne, who longed to leap up and embrace her again but knew that Sister Thecla would leave her.

Anne stared at the wood grain in front of her and her eyes felt so hot and hopeless she knew not what to do. Her lips were burning, and she felt life seeping out of her.

Then Sister Thecla came back with a rush, swiftly embraced, and then kissed her on the head. ‘You can do anything, Anne.’ And then she was gone. Anne laid her head on the table, wept a little, and she slept.

A gentle shaking disturbed her, she could hear someone calling her name, and she heard the bells, the voice of God, sounding Terce, and Sister Beatrix was telling her to go to the Chapelle once again. Her life as a postulant nun had begun.

Noticing Anne’s growing habit of apparent idle daydreaming, Sister Gertrude suggested she spend some constructive time in the scriptorium with Sister Margaret, the young, recently professed nun with the hunchback. Under her patient and loving tutelage, Anne spent several hours in the scriptorium copying a text onto some fine chalked parchment. Some of the nuns were beautiful copyists and others worked on the illumination. Anne chose for her first passage, the bookmark of Teresa of Ávila:

‘Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing make you afraid. All things are passing. God alone never changes. Patience gains all things. If you have God you will want for nothing. God alone suffices.’

But she smeared some of the lettering. And the paints were so precious Sister Margaret was reluctant to let her use any gold at all!

Anne found it difficult to slow down and focus on just one letter at a time. It took her so long. She had to stand up and walk around and that annoyed the other nuns working. Thank God for the bells which made them stand and move. She often felt she was faster than everyone around her. She was impatient when Sister Margaret took so long to think about things. People seemed to be above her, looking down, bigger, stronger, and more powerful. And much slower.

The weather was often grey, and everyone wore dark colours made of thick wool or linen or the mixed fustian. Everything was dull. Anne tried to get outside every day. Perhaps to see Doudou or walk to the orchards or to cross to the refectory in time for meals. The oils in the wool kept her dry when it rained. And it did rain. For this was Wallonia, near the North of France, and although there may have been a dearth of many things, what Wallonia did have in plenty was water. In her convent there was water in the stream, water in the well and water in the eyes of the nuns.

Sometimes her persecutors (as Anne often considered her educators) locked her into her cell. At times she loved being left alone but mostly there was plenty of work to do. After her time in the scriptorium proved inadequate, Sister Gertrude sent her to work with Sister Blandine who found her work carding the wool or looking after the looms. Anne already had some skill in spinning and weaving, but felt she had a better feel for flax. She understood that she needed to work to be part of the community and although she felt she had other talents that might be better utilised, she was still happy because she was by herself and could sleep without anyone kicking her in the ribs.

In the daytime sunlight came through the stained-glass windows. Colours shifted around the Chapelle as the sun moved. Anne loved the splashes of colours over walls and floors. She tried to sit in the pew where the light would move but once in a place it was hard to change. The other nuns didn’t like it. She must take her place in the choir and stay there.

Sometimes Anne worried about the other nuns. What did they think of her? Was she trying too hard to look like a saint, trying to attract favour, not only with God, but also with Mother Prioress? Finding enough courage, she asked Sister Gertrude, who told her she was not so important. The other nuns thought only of God. Anne knew that was not true. She asked Sister Gertrude why God wanted us to suffer? Why was there so much suffering and sorrow in the world?

Sister Gertrude replied that God did not want us to suffer. He wanted us to make the right choices. He was our Father, our loving parent.

Anne pointed out she’d not known a parent.

Sister Gertrude asked about children she had seen in the past. She must have seen parents looking after their young at the market when she’d been working with Armaud? Could she not imagine a child walking with her mother and falling over? Sister Gertrude asked, ‘Is it her mother’s fault she fell over? Did the mother push the child? Is she to blame for the little one falling?’

‘No.’

‘That’s right, Anne. The mother picks up the child and helps them feel better. The earthly mother and the father care for the child unconditionally.’

Of course, Anne had seen Sara caring for Lucy. She knew that Sara would always run to pick up her child. She suddenly felt a gap in her own heart. And then she heard Sister Gertrude say, ‘That is like God’s love.’

God would be Anne’s parents as well as her lover.

God would be Anne’s life.

When Anne heard Sister Beatrix was searching the cells, she knew her childish pattern of stones and the glass chips of blue and green, and the feather would be found, and she would be punished.

Marie Therese beat her. She hit Anne with her strap. The one with the metal tag at the end. She and Sister Colette dug their fingers into Anne’s arms and back. They dragged her across the floor. They did it secretly when no one else was looking. They said Anne was trouble. They said Anne was vain.

Anne prayed to God. Anne prayed to Jesus. Anne prayed to the Holy Virgin Mother, and no one answered her.

Anne felt young, and she did try to love God and obey her betters, but she failed. She felt as though she could never be perfect. At times she felt hopeless. She thought she should run away.

Anne was punished for looking too saintly. She was obviously trying to show the older nuns how their betters behaved. They said she thought she was better than them. But she didn’t! Honestly!

One day, as Anne attempted to walk demurely through the cloisters, Marie Therese came far too close and swept her into the Chapter House.

Anne always thought of this room as a small forest, in that there were two tall columns like trees dividing the room, arching up into the ceiling and splitting that surface into triangles and curving lines of elegance. The walls were painted in a rustic orange that gave warmth and held stylised drawings. The first was of Jesus talking with the Samaritan Woman by the well. Deborah, prophet, and judge of Israel tended to her citizens on another wall, while another showed Miriam looking after Baby Moses. Seats ran around the edge of the room, and it was to these that the senior nun lead Anne. She pulled her down to sit beside her, too close.

Anne tried to get away from her bitter breath, but she couldn’t pull far enough. Her words felt like whip lashes, ‘Remember Anne, you and your family, outcasts from France. Remember your name, Anne de Breuil. You are French. Both father and mother came from France. Heart, feet belong to the soil and soul of La France. Remember, now you are nun in Wallonia. Remember.’

And then that strange, strong nun stood up and left Anne sitting alone, flummoxed. Of course, Anne knew her name. She already knew from whence she came. But why would this wire woman grip her and breathe venom upon her?

That night, when she had come from the dawn prayers and chose to stand in the herb garden to breathe in fresh air and try to clean herself of Marie Therese’s tirade, a fanning of air and a force came so close to her she barely knew she existed. Silent and powerful, an adult owl flew past her and flew high into the sky and out and away over the Chapelle Saint-Marie. Or did the owl fly through her? Anne caught her breath. It was a wondrous moment. She felt glad to be alive. Would ever such an owl come so near her again?

Anne felt that was something she was glad to have known. At least she would be able to remember the strength from another being that went by her, so close that her hair was blown from her face. Had she been touched by God?

Only, Dear Lord God above, what did the sign mean? For the owl flew away, out, high in the sky, away from the priory.

Away from the priory, wherein within months, Anne would vow to become a novice.

Anne looked up at the stars above and prayed. For she could never leave Claude and Jeanette.

She would stay in the priory. No matter what happened.

For ever.