Love Letters

by Madeleine L'engle

  “I don’t care about Brites, about the bishop, about the rules. Take me with you on the ship! Don’t leave me here!”

  She was beyond reason, but still he tried. “You know that is impossible. It’s a ship for fighting men.”

  “I don’t care! All I want is to be with you. I don’t care about anything else.”

  “If you were my wife you couldn’t be on the ship with me.”

  She cried out again. “Noël! Don’t leave me. My love will kill me. Take me with you. I’ll die without you.” She clung desperately to his knees.

  He pushed her away from him and she fell to the patterned floor. He crossed to the door, turned back as though to speak again, then, with a helpless gesture, left.

  She cried after him, once, “Noël!” Then she lay, face downward, stretched out in despair, her habit like a dark stain against the pattern of the mosaic.

  The door opened and the abbess came in. She walked rapidly over to Mariana. She looked down at her, said, “Get up.”

  Mariana did not move, and the abbess bent over and started hitting her. “Get up. Get up. Get up!”

  … “Wake up. Wake up,” Violet said.

  Charlotte sat up in bed, roused with a jerk from the deep pit of sleep into which she had fallen. “What—”

  “Sorry,” Violet said. “I knocked. I didn’t think you’d be asleep so soon. I want to talk to you.” She came across the room, carrying a dusty wine bottle and two glasses, Orlando Gibbons ambling amiably at her heels, and stretched out on the chaise longue.

  “I couldn’t practice,” Violet said. “You and Patrick kept cutting across the music. So did my own thoughts.”

  Orlando Gibbons again investigated the bed and Charlotte in it, then returned to his mistress. Violet pulled a large handkerchief—one of the doctor’s?—out of her pocket and spread it on her lap, but the dog flopped down on the floor beside her. For a moment Violet pulled affectionately at his ear, then she took the wine bottle and uncorked it, slowly, professionally, silently, poured, and handed a glass to Charlotte.

  “You have no idea,” she said, “you have absolutely no conception of what marriage is. And I find that I have to have rather more wine than usual before I can bring myself to tell you. What are you looking for, Charlotte? What do you want?”

  Charlotte replied in a low voice. “I suppose I think there should be love.”

  “Love is a four-letter word. And you, having been wrapped in the cotton wool of those damn convent schools all your life, know nothing about four-letter words. Love is the wildest one of them all. We take it and we separate it and we are too cowardly to accept the violence of the union of all its parts. And a marriage that is a marriage has to accept this fusion. It has to be done, Charlotte. It cannot be evaded. I have been a coward all my life about love. You might as well face that about me. I do not like admitting it, but it is a fact. All I have been willing to accept in my relations with men is passion. Passion is part of a marriage, and a necessary part, but it does not endure unless it is sustained by a foundation of love that is—”

  “That is what?”

  Violet sighed, deeply, sadly, took a long draught of wine. “Endurance, for one thing. Acceptance. All people are impossible to live with, don’t you know that? You are impossible—”

  “I know—”

  “Hush. Patrick is impossible. So what a marriage is founded on is a commitment to this impossible. You make promises when you get married and you stand by them. You stand by them no matter what. You stand by them even if you have broken them. And you break them over and over again, in intention, if not in act. And it doesn’t matter. You still stand by them. I did not do this, Charlotte. Ever. I come closer to love now, with João, who refuses me passion, than I ever have before. We are not in love, you know, Charlotte; not in the sense in which gossipers would understand it. So perhaps I will not short-change him as I have everybody else I have pretended to love. I have loved nobody but Violet Napier.”

  “No—” Charlotte started to protest.

  But Violet cut her off with an imperious gesture. “Love me for what I am, Charlotte, not for what you would like me to be. That is how you must love Patrick. You must love him for what he is. And you must love him for no reason. You must love him simply because you love him. It is an act of commitment. You have committed yourself to it. And you can do it. Where I could not, where I refused.”

  Violet paused. “You have a strange sort of virginal innocence, Charlotte, and this is irresistible to most men.”

  “But that’s idiotic.”

  “It’s not a physical quality. The fact that men confuse it with this is what makes the problem.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte said. “I still don’t understand.”

  Violet leaned back against the chaise longue, looking up at the ceiling, her empty glass on the floor beside her. The dog raised his head and rested his chin in her lap and she stroked one of his ears, not noticing that he had carefully pushed the handkerchief aside.

  “No, of course you don’t. I’m speaking in vague generalities, am I not? Just to hear the sound of words. Any words. Because we’re still leaving the important ones unspoken. Let us be silent until we can bring ourselves to say something.”

  Charlotte finally broke the silence. “After Andrew died—”

  Violet did not move but she opened her eyes. “Yes?”

  “Then I learned something about my father.”

  “What did you learn about Clement?”

  “Before you came—before you knew him—he used to lie on the black leather couch in the library and go away.”

  “Away?”

  “Yes. You never saw it. But I think you could have understood it. Better than I did. He used to lie there and—well, what I said: go away. I tried for a while to make myself think it was like the great Eastern fakirs who could lie down and leave their bodies and travel about among the stars. He was as far away as that. He was so far away that sometimes it was very hard for him to come back. But it wasn’t out among the stars or anywhere glorious. I know where it was now because I have been going there.”

  “Where?” Violet’s voice was gentle. “Where, Cotty?”

  “Nowhere. The abyss of nothingness. You go there when there are things you can’t bear. You go into the abyss so deeply that you barely exist. You go into nonbeing. And this is far more of a sin than getting drunk would be, or adultery, even. I wanted Patrick to bring me back to life. And when he didn’t—wouldn’t—then I was like—I don’t know, Violet, somebody in a dream, not real. I laughed and dressed carefully and was charming when we entertained because I was afraid to be real. So he accused me of adultery. But you cannot do anything as real as sinning when you are in a dream.”

  “Wake up, Cotty,” Violet said, still very gently.

  “I am going to have to. But it is going to hurt, the way your foot hurts when it’s been asleep for much too long and the blood starts flowing again. I don’t want to hurt.”

  “All life hurts,” Violet said.

  “But it is glorious,” Violet said. “It is filled with a wild and brilliant joy.”

  Outside the villa the moon shone on the white sand of the driveway. The poplars stood in dark contrast on either side.

  … It was a night of wind and clouds and the moon occasionally flickering in a naked black patch of sky. A carriage rolled wildly up the driveway. In the carriage sat the abbess, her features cold and rigid. Beside her was Mariana, white, withdrawn, blind, like one dead.

  She whispered faintly, “Where are you taking me?”

  “To your father. Did you think I could keep you at Beja? For your information, I run a convent, not a whorehouse.”

  If Mariana heard she gave no indication.

  As they approached the villa the lights were snuffed out, as though at a signal, one by one.

  Dona Brites gave an angry murmur. “What does he think he’s doing?”

  The coachman climbed down from his high seat and rang
the bell to the great front door. Darkness. Silence. The abbess leaned out the carriage window. “Ring again. Keep ringing until you’re answered.”

  It was time outside time that they waited. There was no counting the minutes. The coachman rang. Rang.

  When the door was opened an elderly servant, holding a torch, shook his head angrily, waving his hands in excited gestures of rejection. The abbess flung open the carriage door and stalked up the steps. “Let me in.”

  “I’m sorry, madam. As you can see the household has retired for the night.”

  “Then they will have to be roused.”

  “I’m sorry, madam. The master has given me orders—”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes, madam, the Most Reverend Mother the abbess Brites, the master’s sister.”

  “And you still will not let me in?”

  “The master has ordered—”

  She pulled out money. “And will you now obey my order? I tell you to open.”

  The old man took the money. “Well, if I didn’t open to you, seeing as you’re the holy abbess, it would be—”

  “A black spot on your record. See that we have some light.” She turned on her heel and went back to the carriage, beckoning to Mariana. The girl did not move or react in any way. The abbess reached into the carriage and dragged her out. Going up the steps Mariana fell, but Dona Brites pulled her to her feet.

  Francisco Alcoforado’s valet hurried down to them as they went into the great hall, saying, “Dom Francisco begs to be excused. He is indisposed and cannot see anyone.” The monkey appeared chattering at the top of the stairs, slid down the bannister, then ran back up the stairs on all fours, looking back at the two nuns.

  Dona Brites ignored the valet and pulled Mariana up the stairs and along the wide, portrait-hung gallery, with the monkey dancing ahead of them until he reached a heavy door which he tried unsuccessfully to open, giving little mewling sounds of frustration. The abbess pushed the monkey away and flung open the door without knocking. Francisco and a chambermaid sprang apart.

  “You may go now, Catalina,” Dom Francisco said. “I’ll call you when I need you.” The girl gave a nervous giggle, dropped a curtsy, and scurried out.

  Dom Francisco turned angrily to his sister. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The abbess pushed Mariana in front of her. “Your daughter.”

  Dom Francisco put out his hand in rejection. “I gave her up to God a long time ago. She no longer belongs to me, as you’ve so often reminded me.”

  “God, then, if you like, is giving her back to you.”

  He gave a grimace of sheer rage. “Oh, no, sister dear, neither you nor your God can get out of your responsibility that easily. You let the man into your sacred walls. I didn’t. Now you have to stand the consequences. I don’t. And I won’t.”

  “You reject your daughter?”

  “You think I’ll open myself to be a laughingstock at court for this whore? Do you think I’ll jeopardize my position because you can’t make your nuns behave?” He gave a snarling laugh. “You’re really very amusing, Brites.”

  “You don’t care what happens to her?”

  “I care enough to know that she has to stay in the convent. The only way to avoid a scandal is for you to keep things quiet and pretend that nothing has happened.”

  “So what she has done makes no difference? I’m to forget about it?”

  “I don’t care whether you forget or remember. That, like the girl, is your problem.”

  He moved deliberately to Mariana and struck her across the face. “You’ve made me look like a fool, you whore. Get out and never let me see you again.”

  She reeled. Dom Francisco raised his arm as though to strike her once more, but the monkey, gibbering, clawed at his hand, and he turned his wrath on the little beast, who fled, screeching, up the bedpost.

  Dona Brites pushed the unresisting Mariana from the room, down the stairs, out of the villa, and into the carriage.

  The carriage rolled back down the dust of the drive and into the heat of the night. Sheet lightning flickered behind the hills, the trees. The abbess thrust her face close to Mariana’s. “For tonight only, do you understand? I will keep you for tonight only.”

  But if Mariana heard, if she understood, she gave no sign.

  She was in the abyss of nonbeing.

  The others could not, would not, so withdraw.

  The convent, under the structure of order and regularity, tottered as the one night turned into days and weeks.

  The lay sisters buzzed over the pots and pans, the laundry. The choir sisters were acutely aware of Mariana’s empty stall. The children ran everywhere, listening, whispering.

  “She wasn’t in chapel this morning,” Ampara hissed.

  “She’s been confined to her cell,” Urraca whispered back.

  “My father said,” Ampara’s sibilance continued, “that Baltazar Alcoforado wanted to fight a duel with the Frenchman but his friends held him back.”

  “Stop it!” If Peregrina could speak loudly enough Mother Escolastica would come and stop them; but her throat was so tight that her words were barely audible.

  “My father came,” Ampara said with relish. “You should have heard him. He threatened to take me out of school if she stays. ‘Who do you think this convent is for,’ he asked her Grace, ‘the scum that nobody else will have?’ And her Grace said—you should have been there, you should have heard her, I’ve never been so frightened in my life—her Grace said, ‘Yes!’ and my father said, ‘Get her out of here—’”

  “Stop—” Peregrina whispered.

  But Ampara went ruthlessly on. “And her Grace said—I was there, I heard it, I’m not making it up—‘My dear sir,’ she said, ‘where do you think she’ll go if I don’t keep her? Out on the streets. Because there’s no place else for her to go. Would you have that?’ And my father said, ‘If Alcoforado won’t have her he is putting her on the streets, not I!’”

  At last Peregrina’s voice rang clear. “Be quiet!”

  At the harsh sound that shattered the quiet, Mother Escolastica at last looked up from Sofia’s work. Why had she been paying so much attention to Sofia’s needlework which everybody knew was impossible? Ampara and Urraca bent diligently over their sewing. Mother Escolastica started sharply, “Peregrina, if you can’t—” Then she saw Peregrina’s face and moved quickly to her, putting a gnarled hand on the girl’s shoulder, “—see well there, come sit by me where there’s more light.”

  “My father came this afternoon,” Urraca told the girls at bedtime. They were supposed to be in Silence, but no one had come to them, no one had put out their lights. They had evidently been forgotten and they took full advantage of this. “He told her Grace to get things under control. He said of course Sister Mariana should stay. He said everybody’s taking it much too seriously. He has no idea of taking me out of school, worse luck. He says now maybe Sister Mariana will be worth something to them as a teacher. He has no patience with virgins.”

  One of the floating wicks flickered and went out. At last Sister Maria de Assunção came in. “Girls! Why are you still up? What is the meaning of this?”

  The convent slept.

  The abbess knelt in prayer.

  Lord. God.

  O holy Spirit, penetrate me now.

  Let me know thee.

  Break through my darkness.

  Fill me.

  Let me not remain closed against thee.

  Tell me thy will.

  Help me to obey.

  All duties were rearranged by the abbess. Rules were made, were broken, by the nuns, by the children. A day of Great Silence was ordered. There was the sibilance of whispering hanging on the air.

  Be quiet.

  Mariana stayed in her cell.

  Joaquina took Mariana’s place with the younger children in the morning. The children cried, they misbehaved.

  Where is Sister Mariana? We want Sister Mariana. Why is she
in her cell? When is she coming back to us?

  Joaquina had to call Mother Escolastica to restore order.

  Beatriz taught the French classes.

  Sister Maria da Assunção was called in to help with Mariana’s little ones. They cried but they did what she told them to. They played in the garden like little birds with clipped wings.

  Old Sister Portress fell and was sent to the infirmary. Mariana took her place at the gate.

  “How’s that for a grand Alcoforado?” Ampara asked.

  Urraca snickered. “Only a lay sister is ever Sister Portress. Never a choir sister. It’s a servant’s job.”

  Peregrina’s face was white. She spoke through clenched teeth. “Be quiet. All nuns are servants of Christ. There is nothing that is too lowly. It is part of the obedience. Be quiet.”

  Ampara, smiling, asked, “But who will be the next abbess now?”

  Urraca purred, “Peregrina, I suppose.”

  All laughter had an edge.

  All silence was noisy, like the insect-filled air about the compost heap behind the kitchen gardens.

  “Mariana will be the next abbess,” Peregrina said. “Be quiet.”

  The abbess spoke to the nuns. Her blue eyes were so pale they were almost white. Like diamonds, they could cut glass. “I am still abbess here. I shall see to it that my rules are enforced. Your behavior is execrable. Without exception. What do you take the religious life to be? There is to be no more whispering. Silence is to be kept. Gossip in the mouth of a Religious is sacrilege. Don’t you realize what you are doing?”

  “It is not what we are doing,” Sister Joaquina said during recreation, speaking loudly to nobody. “It is what she is doing to us.”

  But who was she? And what was being done?

  “It has changed nothing,” Beatriz said angrily to Michaela. “No matter what any human being does or does not do, the Sacraments are still valid. If your mind strayed—and mine did, too, this morning—that does nothing to the virtue of the Sacraments. We can still receive them even when we are most unreceptive. We can still be renewed and revitalized by them even if at the moment we raise our hands to receive the host our erring, errant minds elude our concentration and stray to—Don’t you see? It is because it is God who is in control, not Her Grace, not Father Duarte, not any one of us. God is not only in control of the validity of the Sacrament, He is in control of all history, even the tiniest corner of history, even what has torn apart the Convento da Nossa Senhora da Conceição.”