by Rumer Godden
‘But I have seen what that few can do,’ said Marc, and he laughed. ‘Perhaps I have lost my box-office attitude at last, thank God.’
How different he is now, thought Lise. Two short years at Belle Source …
‘It’s our milk and fresh food,’ said Soeur Thecla.
‘Our salads,’ said Soeur Fiacre.
‘It’s yourselves,’ Father Louis was firm.
Twice Father Louis had chosen to spend the short annual holiday he allowed himself with Marc in the aumônier’s little house. ‘I love this Belle Source of yours,’ he said. It was a gala day for the sisters when Father Louis came.
To have Dominicans again! This for Belle Source was wonderful luck. ‘So often our convents have to share the parish priests, good holy men, but not like having our own aumônier,’ Soeur Thecla told Lise. ‘One should be grateful for anyone, but secular priests are not trained in the Rule of an Order.’ Marc, for instance, came naturally to Lauds and Vespers, not officiating but as part of the community. He said his Mid-day Prayer and Compline. On Saint Dominic’s Day, sometimes on other feasts, he was invited to recreation when usually the lower domaine was closed to all outsiders. Unless he had guests at the aumônier’s house, and often then, especially if the guest were Father Louis, he ate in the guesthouse. ‘It might help in the work,’ he said diffidently.
‘Indeed yes. Just being with people often helps them,’ said the Prioress.
He relieved Lise of some of the driving, ‘and if anyone is taken ill, or there is an emergency, we can call on him day or night.’
The nuns, in fact, had found a brother. ‘I haven’t had a brother before,’ said Lise. ‘It’s pleasant.’
‘I wouldn’t have believed it would be pleasant to have some forty sisters,’ said Marc, ‘but it is.’
Marc, though, was astonished at the novices. ‘But where are the white veils?’ he asked. ‘I thought all novices wore them.’
‘So did we – once upon a time,’ said Lise. ‘In fact, I had to, but perhaps we have grown wiser and more merciful.’
‘Merciful?’
‘Yes. You see, some who come with … difficulties, may have to remain novices for a long time, and that white veil is distinctive. Now, when anyone is Clothed, she goes straight into the full habit, so that no one who isn’t intimate knows who are novices, who in temporary vows, who professed.’
For five hilarious days the three novices – habited as Lise had said – and two postulants, wearing jeans and tee-shirts, joined in the life at Belle Source and already Soeur Marie Isabelle was pleading for at least one; Soeur Marie Isabelle – Bella of the old days and now Prioress of a new American house – was back in France to attend the Chapitre Général of the Order and, to Lise’s joy, had been granted a holiday at Belle Source. ‘Just one little novice,’ she pleaded. ‘That would be riches.’
‘And I’m pleading too,’ said Soeur Thecla, ‘for that little Marie Jeanne. She wants to come here.’
‘To milk?’ Lise teased, smiling.
‘It’s no smiling matter.’ For once Soeur Thecla was sharp. ‘I can’t last for ever and what will happen to Belle Source and our cows then? You don’t know how I have prayed and prayed that God would send us someone capable and He has.’
‘I shouldn’t have teased,’ Lise told Marc in contrition. ‘What Soeur Thecla says is true. We still need our domaines. There are still bruised and uncertain souls who need the peace and health.’
‘Still?’ said Marc. ‘More – many many more.’
The novitiate did not please all the nuns. ‘They argue,’ said the older ones, scandalised. ‘I think they should,’ said their Responsable, Soeur Magdaleine Martine, who, after two others, had succeeded Soeur Raymonde of Lise’s time. ‘Our Lord dearly loved an argument and, after all, He always had the best answer, didn’t He?’
In particular, there was Anouk, the second postulant. ‘She’s dirty,’ Soeur Anne Colombe said what she meant, and others, more gentle, begged the Responsable, ‘Soeur Magdaleine Martine, can’t you get her at least to brush her hair?’
‘She does sometimes,’ Soeur Magdaleine Martine was unperturbed, ‘but it’s difficult for Anouk. She’s a born scruff.’
‘La pauvre!’ said Soeur Marie Isabelle – Bella – remembering her own struggles with her shock of frizzy hair.
‘But Anouk’s language! Sister, she swears!’
‘So did I,’ said Bella and, ‘She tries hard not to,’ Soeur Magdaleine Martine defended her chicken. ‘In fact, she tries hard over everything. She’s one of the most sincere, but she must have been brought up roughly, and she’s a little naïve.’
‘A little!’
Each of the visiting five took her turn for the half-hour watch or Adoration before the Exposition. ‘But … they sit on the floor!’ expostulated Soeur Anne Colombe.
‘At Saint Xavier we all sit on the floor if we want to,’ said Soeur Magdaleine Martine. ‘It is, you know, good for contemplation. Give them a cushion,’ she said and, each morning after Mass when the monstrance had been put on the altar, a flat cushion was laid on the floor beside the customary prie-dieu.
The novitiate visit coincided with a time of pressure at Belle Source; the infirmarian was away; one of the older nuns had fallen ill, another was in hospital; it was, too, the time for fruit-picking and jam-making, so that the house was grateful for the young ones’ help, especially knowing that one of them could always be called on to come to the chapel to reinforce or keep steadfast the worship and prayer that was the core, the heart of Béthanie.
Often they watched alone. One day Lise, over-busy with car-driving, helping the porteress, acting as infirmarian, had had to miss her half-hour and, having a lull, slipped, on the quarter, into the back of the chapel for fifteen minutes’ respite. She knelt, hidden by the height of the cantor’s music stand.
The half hour struck and into the chapel came Anouk. She genuflected, going reverently down on both knees, and touched the nun on the prie-dieu gently on the shoulder; the two exchanged smiles; before going out the sister gently touched the girl’s hair, that disputed hair, as Anouk settled cross-legged on the cushion.
Anouk glanced round; seeing no one, she obviously thought she was alone and put on the floor beside her a small transistor. For a few minutes she sat motionless, praying, thought Lise, then bent, turned a switch and the chapel was filled with rollicking raucous music.
Lise herself almost jumped upright, then waited and watched to see what would happen. Anouk sat rapt, her face uplifted to the star of the monstrance, happy and dutiful, but the noise was so loud it penetrated the thick glass doors that usually shut out all sound between chapel and ante-chapel; outside there began to be consternation; scandalised faces were pressed against the glass doors; frenzied sisters gathered, someone ran – for the Responsable, guessed Lise – while Anouk sat on, her body swaying slightly to the rhythm, lost in the music and her joy.
‘Well! What could you say about that?’ the indignant sisters asked Soeur Magdaleine Martine.
‘First I had to find out why Anouk did it; whether, for her, it was a programme she wanted to listen to herself or whether it was from the best of motives.’
‘What best of motives?’ As several sisters asked that together, it sounded like the burst of a grenade and, ‘Let Soeur Magdaleine Martine explain,’ said the Prioress.
‘If she can,’ and there were glowers.
‘Anouk played her transistor because she thought our Seigneur would like to hear it,’ said Soeur Magdaleine Martine.
‘Like it. That hullabaloo!’
‘Granted it isn’t exactly Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of man’s desiring,’” Soeur Magdaleine Martine admitted and Soeur Marie Mercédes laughed, that unexpectedly rippling and infectious laugh, and some of the nuns began to laugh as well.
‘Ma Mère,’ Anouk had said to Soeur Magdaleine Martine. ‘It was from Godspell. That’s the English musical about Jesus, all the rage in London. The words are from an old old praye
r … “Let me see you more clearly, Love you more dearly, Follow you more nearly, Every day,’” and Anouk said, ‘Our Lord may have heard it in London, but I’m certain He hasn’t heard it in Normandy, so I tried to pick it up for Him on my transistor and I did.’
‘Pah!’ The posse was still outraged.
‘Mes Soeurs,’ said Soeur Marie Emmanuel, ‘would you condemn Le Jongleur de Notre Dame, the poor lay brother in the story who juggled to amuse Our Lady?’
After that, ‘Anouk, our petite jongleuse’, the sisters called her with pride.
Marc had hired a small bus and drove the novices, ‘a merciful dispensation when we are so busy,’ said Lise. ‘I can guess Father Louis was behind that.’ – Father Louis was spending yet another holiday at Belle Source. Marc drove them far down in the countryside to Solesmes where they heard the beauty of the Chant, the magnificent ritual carried out by some hundred monks. ‘But you know,’ said Marie Jeanne, ‘I like our simple little Vespers better.’ He took them to Chartres, ‘Surely the most beautiful cathedral in the world.’ They went on picnics to the sea and in the nearby woods and every day he gave them a short conference. ‘Not a conference, it’s more like questions and answers.’ He smiled. ‘It’s they who usually supply the answers,’ but the smile was tender.
‘For someone who was going to stagnate you seem remarkably busy,’ said Father Louis.
It was not only the convent; the villagers had begun to come to Marc; with the Prioress’s permission he had started a catechism class in the guest-house, ‘And he’s an excellent confessor,’ said the nuns. Even Soeur Marie Mercédes, with her exacting standards, granted that. ‘He preaches without pretence,’ she said with satisfaction. Not only preached; shyly at first, he had revived the Sunday conference the sisters used to have. ‘It takes me hours to work one out,’ he told Father Louis.
‘It would,’ and more difficult still Marc sometimes gave one in the week, light and often amusing, on current affairs.
‘Can’t the novitiate hear one of those too?’ begged Soeur Magdaleine Martine.
‘I think one day,’ said Lise, ‘they will ask for you at Saint Etienne or Saint Xavier.’
‘Do you think they will?’ His face lit up. He had come to post his letters and found Lise acting as porteress.
‘Where you wouldn’t be wasted?’ Lise teased him. ‘In a rut?’
‘You have been talking to Father Louis.’
‘No,’ said Lise. ‘I guessed that you fought against coming here, but, as you see, there isn’t a rut and these girls are new life – and perhaps more real. When Bella and I were made novices, given the habit, the priest, as was the ritual, offered us two crowns, one of white roses, the other of thorns – we wondered what would happen if one of us chose the roses.’
‘It had to be the thorns.’
‘Yes. To be a nun of Béthanie isn’t easy and many of us were such innocents, but now there’s not the same need to warn. These children have grown up among thorns.’
‘Yet I suppose,’ said Marc, ‘it’s perhaps a hundred, even a thousand times more difficult to be a monk or nun now than it was fifty years ago.’
‘I don’t know,’ and Lise said, ‘There are still a few – they have always been few – that have such faith that once it has been kindled they see nothing else. Most of us, even after the “call,” waver; we have to struggle, but a few mysteriously go straight to the crux.’
‘Am I too old?’ asked Big Jo.
It had been two days after the battle on the stairs at Le Fouest that Big Jo had asked to see Soeur Marie Lise and Soeur Marie Mercédes, but particularly Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘Madame Foret, the wardress in charge of the punishment block, thinks you should,’ said Mademoiselle. ‘But are you nervous? I can send a wardress with you.’
‘That would be against everything we are trying to do.’ Soeur Marie Mercédes was decided. And, ‘I’m not nervous,’ said Lise. ‘I never have been of Big Jo. Of course, I have only seen and passed her; she hasn’t visited us. It’s Zaza who gives me the shivers.’
‘Yes, she’s one of those.’ Mademoiselle Signoret said it sadly. ‘Mal dans sa peau – evil personified.’
‘Pauvre femme,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes.
‘Everything we try to do she twists and distorts,’ said Mademoiselle. ‘Big Jo was never like that, only mulish and violent. If we let her in to the work rooms, she wrecked them; she terrorised the other women. I should have said she was one of the “irrécupérables”, but I was wrong. You’ll see.’
Big Jo came into Madame Foret’s small office, but was this Big Jo? With her heavy stride she strode into the little room seeming to fill it. She’s as big as a lorry driver, thought Lise, but she was washed and clean, her hair, though still rough, was brushed back with an attempt to hold it by a comb and the face that had always been sullen was radiant. She went straight to Soeur Marie Mercédes and knelt down and took her hand. Lise made a quick movement – those bones were so brittle – but the huge red hands were gentle, and reverent. ‘Ma Soeur,’ said Big Jo – the voice was husky – ‘ma Soeur, you didn’t know but I nearly punched you.’
‘I thought you might,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes, unmoved.
‘If I had, I would have broken your arm or your shoulder and I should never have forgiven myself, never … these little bones.’ For a moment Big Jo looked almost disbelievingly at the hand in her own, at the fine skin and bones. ‘If I had!’ Lise had seen that the small eyes were sore, red-rimmed as if Big Jo had been crying – For a long time, thought Lise – and now a tear fell on Soeur Marie Mercédes’s hands, then more. ‘Excuse me,’ said Big Jo, but the sister held her fast.
‘These are good tears,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes and, ‘Ma Soeur! Ma Soeur!’ Big Jo’s head went down on Soeur Marie Mercédes’s lap; the hand that was free stroked the rough hair. ‘Ma fille,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘Ma pauvre fille.’
Big Jo dried her eyes on her sleeve, knelt up and faced them. ‘Am I too old? Does one have to be a girl?’
‘For Béthanie?’ Soeur Marie Mercédes had understood at once. ‘Well, we once had an aspirant – someone who comes to try – of eighty.’
‘Did she turn into a frangine – I mean a nun?’
‘A very good nun.’
‘Bon!’ A huge sigh. ‘I have three more years to serve. Then I shall come.’
‘Dear Jo,’ said Lise. ‘This doesn’t happen in a moment.’
‘It has.’ Big Jo was triumphant.
‘But do you believe in instant conversion?’ Lise asked Soeur Marie Mercédes afterwards.
‘Of course. Wasn’t there Saint Paul?’ asked Soeur Marie Mercédes, and then, ‘Remember what Big Jo said.’
‘It was as if I was given new eyes, ma Soeur,’ she had said, turning to Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘I saw you shining with sunlight.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘There is no sun on those stairs.’
‘Exactly.’ Big Jo was even more triumphant. ‘Yet you were shining and I knew, because he told me so.’
‘He?’
‘Le Seigneur. Who else?’ asked Big Jo impatiently. ‘One day I shall be wearing that white habit.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Lise when Big Jo had been taken away.
‘We have had her before,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘Yes, other Big Jos. At Belle Source, with our visit from the novices, we have been looking forwards; that is good but perhaps we should look back too. Big Jo is like the “petites soeurs” of Père Lataste’s time, or those poor women of Cadillac our first sisters visited. They had to talk to them through the shutter of their cells; it was years and years before they were allowed to see prisoners in privacy. There was one called Hélène, condemned to twenty years. She used to cling to the shutter, watching them out of sight, poor soul. She said their white clothes shone in that gloom,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘You see Big Jo was right about the light.’ Mère Henri Dominique wrote of another called Alice, in for t
wenty years too. ‘Don’t go near Alice,’ the sisters were told. ‘Don’t put your hand through the shutter. She is a brute.’ A brute! When they spoke to Alice, she burst into tears. When one took her hand, she drew that sister’s hand in and covered it with kisses. ‘It’s a continuing miracle,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes, but it was a difficult miracle.
‘We’ll bring you some books,’ Lise told Big Jo.
‘Books! Mes lapins, I can’t read – read or write,’ said Big Jo.
‘Then in the years you still have to spend here, they’ll teach you. I’ll talk to the éducatrice.’
Big Jo gave a pitying smile. ‘Ma fille – pardon – ma Soeur – I’m made of wood, wood!’ Odd, thought Lise, I once said that of myself. ‘Thick as two planks,’ said Jo cheerfully, ‘I’ll do the work of two men when I come; I was a fishwife at Le Havre, used to lift crates and barrels, blocks of ice, but don’t ask me to read or write.’
After the novices and the postulants had gone Belle Source seemed extraordinarily quiet. ‘We needed that visit,’ said Soeur Marie Emmanuel and, except Soeur Thecla who mourned for Marie Jeanne, of all the girls, the sisters missed Anouk most. ‘Who would have thought it!’ To Lise, though, the peace was balm – ‘The days get richer and richer.’ There was her friendship with Mademoiselle and Marc and Soeur Marie Mercédes who had had to admit she had become too frail for prison visiting. Lise was the senior visitor now but often came to sit by the older nun and ask her advice.
When Big Jo was released it presented a problem. ‘We can’t send her to a foyer,’ Soeur Raymonde, still the Mother-General, said to Lise when she went to Saint Xavier to talk it over. ‘Yet she’ isn’t ready for Saint Etienne.’ In the end, Big Jo went to work in a market garden near enough to Belle Source for her to visit Soeur Marie Mercédes and Lise every month. ‘A little patience and you will come to Béthanie completely, enter Saint Etienne as an aspirant. This is only for now.’ To Big Jo it seemed nonsense; the old Jo would have fought it, but this new one said, ‘If they want it that way …’