Chapter Twenty - Unfurling

After supper, Anne was surprised to find Sister Nicole waiting for her as they left the refectory. They went to the calefactory to sit by the fire, joining other nuns who sat together in small groups near the rush lights set into the walls.

As it was never good to be idle, Anne found a distaff of wool and they began to spin with small drop spinners, drafting from either side of the large clump of wool. It was not delicate work, the wool could be a little uneven, whereas, if they tried spinning flax as lumpen as this, Sister Blandine would undoubtedly require the work to be combed out and they’d have to start afresh.

Once their work had been established, and some yarn measured up on her spindle, Sister Nicole asked, ’Do you like Christmas?’

‘It’s a pleasant service,’ said Anne, not entranced with Franciscan ideas of playing with wooden animals and prancing around the baby in the manger, more suitable for younger orphans.

‘I love Christmas,’ said Sister Nicole, ‘I’m glad that Our Dear Lord Jesus was born safely.’

Anne thought that was obvious. She pulled at a lumpy knot of wool and said, ‘We wouldn’t be Christians if he’d not been.’

‘What a strange thought!’ Sister Nicole looked at Anne as if she had made a new friend.

Anne remembered, ‘You were going to tell me about your trials in that other convent?’

‘I’m not sure I should tell you. You’re too young to hear such tales.’

‘You can tell me.’ Anne leaned forward, the firelight flickering across the walls, ‘Anything.’

Sister Nicole hesitated, looked around to ensure their privacy, then began her tale. ‘It was the Brigittines’ Convent.’ She looked the question and Anne shook her head, no she didn’t know about it. Sister Nicole continued, ‘Started by Anne Dubois, you know her? A devout nun - the best of spiritual intentions.’

‘Oh, The Book of Grace and Mercy? It’s in our library.’

‘For all her grace and mercy, something bad was in that convent. Still is, I believe. When my father first wanted me locked up—’

Anne was confused. ‘What do you mean, ‘locked up’?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t his fault. His wife hates me.’

‘His wife? Not your mother?’

‘Why else would I be locked up?’

Anne stared at her, coming to understand that Sister Nicole must have been born out of wedlock. ‘I’m sorry for you.’

‘One of my multitude of trials. They sent me to the Béguinage at first.’

‘Oh! In Lille?’

‘No, no,’ Sister Nicole shook her head, ‘Kortrijk. I hated it. I ran away to my aunt’s house to be with my mother. But then, my father found me again and they sent me to the Brigittines because they had strict enclosure in a new building with rich patrons. But I couldn’t stay there. No one could.’ Here Sister Nicole stopped her spinning and leaned forward so that no-one could hear their conversation. ‘They were possessed.’

Anne was incredulous. ‘Possessed?’

‘Really possessed, I promise you, truly, by demons.’

‘Demons?’ Anne couldn’t believe this girl. Why would she make such an extraordinary statement?

‘God’s truth. I thought I’d die. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stay in my cell at night. May the saints preserve us.’

Anne echoed, ‘The Lord protect us. Did you see a demon?’

‘No, but I heard them. Awful, fearful, dreadful groaning noises and clankings, crashings and screams … ’

‘Dear Lord! What of the other nuns?’

‘We were all terrified. Especially at night. And other things happened, too, when the nuns … I can’t tell you …’

As still as a mouse, Anne urged her on … ‘What could be so … ?’

Sister Nicole shook her head but continued nevertheless, ‘You’d be too shocked … some of them went mad … dreadful things … I wrote and begged and begged and finally my father let me come here.’

‘So that was why you made your solemn vows.’

‘Yes, I’d been a nun before.’

‘I don’t think there are any demons here.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

Although, thought Anne, there may be some evil influence. The girls continued spinning and winding industriously.

‘But Anne …’

‘Yes?’

‘I cannot … Oh, Anne,’ Sister Nicole clearly had more to say but something halted further speech.

Anne could see arguments going on inside Sister Nicole. She asked gently, ‘What troubles you, Sister?’

‘Anne. Do not worry.’ Sister Nicole stood and stabbed her spindle into the tree of wool at the head of the distaff and rose to her feet. ‘Nothing. Another of my trials! It’s Christmas tomorrow and now, it’s nearly Compline, I think.’

Anne watched her go, still holding her own spindle, and then, even more surprising, the sister returned and impulsively kissed Anne on the cheek. ‘Thank you, Anne. You’ve been a good friend. Look after the time you have on earth. Life is not eternity. Life is life.’

In the morning, Sister Nicole was nowhere to be found. In the months that followed, Anne discovered that she’d planned a rendezvous with her young cousin and eloped to France. That was why she liked the idea of Christmas so much. It was her gateway to freedom.

And it was left to Anne to sing the solo with humility and devotion to God.

In the spring all the orphans got new clothes.

And Sister Agnes died.

They buried her the day after Easter.

Anne went to the infirmary and sat on the chair next to the bed. She reached out and touched the mending basket.

She asked Sister Matildé if anyone had claimed the basket and, on finding there was none, took it for herself. Which is why Anne de Breuil could often be found darning socks while there was light enough to work.

When Sister Agnes died, Anne was no one’s petit chou. She missed that love. She looked for it in Sister Thecla, but she was closed. She looked for it in the older nuns, but they all had their own reasons for being shut and hard. She looked for it in the other children. And sometimes she found it, but Helen died of whooping cough and Gabrielle died in the mumps epidemic and Claude was busy working. Anne was only a tiny soul. Just a grain of sand. Just a speck of dirt in the whole cosmology. She looked up at the stars and wondered. How would she know if she did as God wanted?

She was chastised so often by certain senior nuns until she thought it no longer mattered. They said she was untameable. Sometimes she watched the larger birds: owls, hawks or eagles, gliding, choosing the current to rise them up or a curl of air that swung them, floating, effortless with their wings wide and triumphant like angels.

It was a hot summer. Anne was caught up in games of patriotism, wearing boys’ clothing as often as she could get away with it, and sometimes fighting for the Netherlands like Kenau of Haarlem, and sometimes fighting for France like Jean d’Arc.

She was loose and wild - her clothing unconfining - as wild as any child could be in the orphanage. Ran with the boys, picking fruit in the orchards, chasing ducks, and throwing stones. Rode on the carts around the local farms. Explored the neighbourhood, and walked everywhere. Knew how to ride a horse, too. She loved horses. Loved their strength and their wildness but seldom had an opportunity to touch the creatures. And, she told Doudou repeatedly, she did love donkeys, too!

One warm day she and some other children were fishing in the stream at the bottom of the convent lands. It rolled through under the monastery walls to pass where the monks had a mill to grind flour into wheat. There were four children at play here on this sunny day. While it was rare to find a fish here of any size, small chub and dace occasionally found their way into the kitchen. The children liked to find the frogs, and snakes too, if they were lucky. They raided the garden on the way down to the stream and, after eating their fill of apricots, cherries, and raspberries, still had some in reserve in their pockets. Now there was much concentration as each child attempted to sneak up on a trout and tickle under its belly with their fingers. These children were not patient, and it must be said when an eel wriggled under Anne’s foot, all four of them screamed as loud as each other!

As everyone tired, Anne set to work in the deepest part of the stream. The other children lay quiet in the green grass. She located a trout and gradually, pretending her arm was a mere stick or log, floated serenely her branch-arm behind and under the fish until her hand was right there and she was tickling the trout and she almost had it, she was in a trance, trying to be water with the fish, its fluid form swaying quietly in the stream, when she became aware someone was shouting her name urgently, ‘Anne! Anne de Breuil!’ She tightened her hold and raised her hand triumphantly, the slender golden fish flapping this way and that in her grasp. It was the first time she’d managed to catch a fish with her bare hands, and she was jubilant, capering with excitement, trying to keep upright on the slippery stones underfoot, while the other children cried out in admiration. They were all laughing and pleased with themselves and then she heard her name, cried out with more urgency. What could be so important?

She stood in the stream, wet breeches, knowing the squashed berries stained her pocket and watched as Magdalena ran to her. She was crying. But why?

Magdalena shook her head, and no words could get out of her mouth. She looked scared, and Anne started to cry too because Magdalena was crying profusely. She was devastated and knew she should be, with no idea why the woman was weeping. Magdalena reached forward and took hold of Anne’s wet hand and pulled her to the bank. When did Anne drop the fish? She couldn’t tell. She looked to the other children, but they were petrified.

Magdalena took the other hand. She took a deep breath but could not look Anne in the eye. She tried and then she had to look away. Instead of talking Magdalena embraced her but her arms were weak. Anne understood she had some grieving to do and could not contain her weeping. But why? Why? Magdalena released her but kept one hand. Why? She followed Magdalena to the parlour. Why?

Then she learned.

After only a year of working for Maynard and Jan, Claude had been carried into the parlour. They’d laid him on the table in the parlour, still dressed for his work as an apprentice carpenter.

Jan and Pierre rose to their feet the moment she came into the room. Pierre had turned ten and had been allowed to live at the workshop permanently, but Claude still returned at night. Anne knew that Maynard was not permitted in the convent and that was why he was not there.

Sister Thecla knelt in the corner behind the grille, praying, praying, praying.

Anne went to Claude. She could see where his face had been wiped but blood and gore still plugged his nose and ears. His body was crushed. His clothes were bloody and dirty. She reached out and touched him, first with one tentative finger. His skin was cool. It was clear from his injuries he was beyond sleeping. She patted his face with her hand. She could not stop touching him. She ran her hands over her little brother. His serious face with the lips so purposeful. His eyes with down-cast shadows carved beneath. His smooth skin. His sandy hair, cut short, flaxen, and straight, and crooked cut across the fringe. His neat and tidy ears. His straight and narrow angular shoulders. His limbs, like thin young branches of coppiced trees, smooth and straight and sun browned. Except for the broken arm she could feel with her fingertips. She picked it up and laid it gently down, trying to straighten it. She could easily meet her thumb and forefinger around the limb.

She heard Magdalene weeping softly. She could hear Jan talking. Pierre came and stood beside her. Why was not Pierre dead instead of Claude? Why did Claude have to die? Why was Claude dead? She surprised herself when she heard herself say out loud, ‘Why is Claude dead?’

The males looked at each other, desperate to catch some reason that would make sense, any sense at all.

‘Looking at it,’ Jan said, after clearing his throat, ‘We thought he’d chopped the notch in one side and then the other, but instead of making the second ‘v’ higher he’d gone in the same level and the tree fell the opposite way he expected.’ Jan’s throat sounded as though it hurt him. ‘No point in arguing now ...’ Jan’s voice rose in passion, and his words came as a torrent, ‘I can’t believe he didn’t ask. Why? He couldn’t ever carry that log by himself. He would’ve had to tell us then. Oh, the darling boy. Why couldn’t he wait? Why didn’t he come to us? Why? We would’ve helped him. I’m sorry, Anne. I don’t know what else we could’ve done.’ Jan choked on his tears.

Pierre patted the old man on his back.

Anne had hardly heard him. She turned to walk up to the grille and look at Sister Thecla. She thought if Sister Thecla had been there, she’d have stopped him. ‘If you’d married Maynard this would never have happened.’

Sister Thecla paused in her prayers for the merest of moments and Anne saw a single tear roll down her cheek.

‘You have but one tear for your earthly brother?’

Sister Thecla looked up at Anne and quoted, ‘“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”’

Anne turned away but then turned back. She came up to the grille and smacked it hard. She wanted to beat her sister, but the grille was in the way. Anne could feel her hand throbbing with the pain of striking the thick metal. Sister Thecla stood up and came near to Anne’s face. The two girls looked at each other through the grille. They were near in height. Anne could feel Sister Thecla’s breath. Sister Thecla raised her hand and placed it, open, over the grille. Anne put her hand on the grille, matching the shape and position of her sister’s hand. Then she leaned her head on the cold metal and cried hot tears. Sister Thecla leaned her head against the metal, too. Their heads rested on the metal but touching. She whispered to Anne, ‘“All shall be well. All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” My little sister. Trust in God.’

Anne breathed in, found God was not there, not in this moment. She pushed away from the grille and returned to stand beside her brother’s body. Stood at his side and held his hand. Tried to smooth him. Took leaves and twigs out of his hair. Kissed him on his forehead. Kissed him on his cheek. Reached to straighten his clothes.

Became aware the Mother entered the parlour. When Pierre saw the Prioress, he went to stand beside her. She nodded her gratitude and took his shoulder to lean on him. Marie Therese was flanked by Sisters Blandine, Matildé and Beatrix. It was a sombre cohort of nuns that stood there looking at Anne’s brother lying on the table. Marie Therese stepped forward and came towards Anne.

Jan stood awkwardly in the middle of the parlour. He held his cap in his hands and twisted it. Back and forth it twisted.

Anne watched him. Then she looked back at the Mother who had walked forward with the nuns to look at the little boy. The Mother said, ‘“ … the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”’

Everyone said, ‘Amen.’

Jan cleared his throat. ‘We’ll bring him a coffin,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow.’ He bowed and went out to the front entrance. They could hear Silvia stamping and turning on the gravel and the gates opening and shutting. Unlocking and locking.

The convent was quiet.

Anne hated the idea of him being buried in the priory. He wouldn’t want to be there. She said, ‘He should be buried in the forest.’

The nuns moved in lockstep. Marie Therese came to Claude and scooped him up in her arms. She was so strong he might have been a baby for the effort she took. She looked Anne straight in the eyes and Anne did not feel a searing pain for once. She could not understand what she saw there but it was wild and dark. ‘Buried in churchyard.’

The Mother said, ‘He’ll receive the Christian burial he deserves. He’ll live in peace with Our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life.’

Anne watched, shocked, as Marie Therese walked from the parlour. The other nuns, except the Mother, who leaned still on Pierre’s shoulder, followed her closely.

They took Claude’s broken body to the balneary. Anne followed to help, angry that this strange nun should be in charge, but the other nuns were close. They assisted as Marie Therese washed him. She was respectful enough, but Anne resented her. What was she doing there? Why did the other nuns let her? Was it they had no strength to argue with her now? Anne withdrew into silence and regret and memories of Claude. Claude. Claude.

Sister Beatrix and Sister Blandine took Anne and washed her down. They dressed her in clean and comfortable skirts and bodice. They were her gentle handmaids, but Anne didn’t notice anything with her mind caught in remonstrating with Claude. Sister Genevieve came with the shroud and Sister Matildé brought herbs and they wrapped her brother in his winding sheet and scattered him with lavender and rosemary and tied him in his shroud and then Marie Therese carried him back to the parlour.

The other nuns lit candles around the room and the bells went for Vespers and Compline and Night and Matins and Prime and Terce and Anne heard them all and spun all the wool on the distaff and darned all the socks in the basket. Then she curled up on the floor near her brother.

There was a leaf under her cheek. She took it in her fingers and folded it. She needed something to cling to.