8

Lise’s three months at Saint Xavier’s had extended to two years. ‘It seems you have a way with young girls,’ said Soeur Raymonde.

‘I’m popularly supposed to have victimised them,’ or, ‘It comes of long training,’ but Lise did not say either of those bitter things and, ‘I’m glad now I stayed,’ she was to tell Marc.

‘Béthanie has had to come into the world – our houses can’t all be isolated in faraway villages, though we need that too. Our “spring” – I like to think of it as that – must be at the centre of things; our young be trained in the outside world as well as in our own.’ Thinking of her own novitiate, Lise often wondered at the freedom given now to the young postulants and novices; their easy confidence and capability; how they would perch on the edge of the Responsable’s desk and swing one trousered leg as they talked to her. ‘We used to have to kneel down,’ Lise told Marc. They talked, too, openly, freely, and the Responsable listened. ‘As a novice, it was I who had to do all the listening. There was no exchange.’ These new ones sat on the floor in chapel, cross-legged or against the wall, completely at home, ‘which is what one should be. We just learned Latin and the Bible and singing – now they take courses in Paris. Of course it’s far more tiring for the Responsable. I must say we sometimes longed for the old “instant obedience”.’

‘The ironic part is that I have never liked young girls,’ but Lise could not tell that, nor ‘but I loved …’ She knew she had to try and love all with the same undifferentiating love as Soeurs Théodore or Raymonde, but, One more of those trips on the metro! thought Lise – but, of course, there would be dozens of trips. She must not flag, no matter how tired she was.

‘We are sending you back to Belle. Source,’ Soeur Marie Emmanuel told Lise at the end of those two years.

‘Belle Source!’ Lise knew a light had leapt into her eyes. ‘But, ma Mère …’

‘If you want something badly, that is no reason against your having it.’ Soeur Marie Emmanuel said it with her warm smile. ‘Besides, they need you. They have many old sisters. You are one of the few who can drive a car, and when you are not so tired you are strong, and I think clear-headed.’

Sometimes indeed it seemed to Lise that she was clear, clear of herself, as if the old self had dropped away, and, As if I hadn’t been given enough! thought Lise, she’s sending me to beloved Belle Source.

It was January when she came back, the turn of the year with a powdering of snow over the domaine and bitter cold, so cold that the big moat was frozen and the ducks had had to be taken in. The big vegetable garden was bare except for a few carrots and cabbages and Soeur Thecla’s procession of cows only went out for an hour or two and then were brought in to the warmth of the pig house for the night – it was too big to be called a sty. Soeur Thecla had been ploughing the empty fields, the fruit trees were being cut back; everything was dormant, sap and life low – except in the chapel.

Lise was in time for Epiphany, the feast that celebrated the coming of the Magi – Wise men? Astronomers? Kings? No one knows, but the feast kept the day or night on which the infant child was recognised as Christ.

Arise, shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen … and his glory shall be seen …

And the Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising …

Not just the few familiars in Bethlehem, carpenters, innkeepers, shepherds, but men from far away, paying homage and bringing gifts from a far bigger world, the world of courts and kings, governors, counsellors, all titles that presently would be given to this humble Child; and it was only the first homage paid by men of vision, men who had eyes that could read the stars, tongues that could tell the Word which, as the prophets had foreseen, would spread from land to land, nation to nation.

Lift up thine eyes and see roundabout: the multitude of camels … the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they came from Sheba … They shall bring gold and incense …

… the isles shall wait for thee and the ships … to bring thy sons from afar … thy gates shall not be shut day or night.

How did Isaiah know all these things fifteen centuries before Christ? wondered Lise. The foreseeing of the prophets never ceased to astonish her.

In the refectory after Vespers the galette was brought in, the traditional huge flat round cake of the three kings; somewhere in it was hidden a midget plaster figure of a king, The sister who found it in her slice would be crowned with a gold paper crown and be King for the day. Lise found herself hoping, even praying, it would be Lucette who would get it.

‘You will find Lucette at Belle Source,’ Soeur Marie Emmanuel had warned her. ‘She wasn’t strong enough for Saint Xavier. In fact it alarmed her, so we are allowing her to finish her novitiate at Belle Source.’ The Mother-General gave Lise a penetrating look. ‘Will you mind?’

‘Only … if …’ Lise hesitated.’ … I could upset her.’

‘I don’t think you could. This is a new Lucette.’

‘New and not new.’ Lise had, of course, not contradicted Soeur Marie Emmanuel and indeed she saw little of Lucette who was almost always with her Responsable, Soeur Marguerite, to whom Lise had hoped the trust and love would be transferred; but no; though Lucette scrupulously followed every word Soeur Marguerite said, when she met or saw Lise, there was still the same mute appeal in the brown eyes, the appeal Lise found as touching as it was irritating – and hated herself for being irritated; that ‘old self’ she had thought wiped out had not gone after all. Lucette, too, had the power to make Lise long for Vivi – with all the spite and wounding and cheating – for Vivi’s tough beauty and independence. ‘Why do I like them wicked so much better than good?’ Lise asked herself despairingly. Was it because Patrice and Vivi called out something good in her, Lise, while Lucette brought out what was bad? I must be very vain, thought Lise, vain and selfish, and she prayed: ‘Finding the King is only play, a tiny thing, but it would give Lucette such confidence. Please, please,’ prayed Lise, and Lucette got the King.

Perhaps it was a good omen, thought Lise; that year she took her final vows.

Again it seemed as natural and logical as when she had made her Promise, only this time it was after Mass, and a vow to God in the presence of the priest as well as to the Mother-General.

After the Solemn Mass, Lise prostrated before the altar.

‘What do you ask?’ It was the priest’s deep voice which seemed – and was – the voice of the whole church.

‘God’s mercy and yours.’ Lise had lifted her head.

‘Rise up.’

After he had spoken to her of the life, the loyalty and steadfastness it would need, the faith and trust, Lise knelt as before in front of Soeur Marie Emmanuel who was holding the book of Constitutions; again Lise laid one hand on it, the other in the Mother-General’s hand, and again said the same words: ‘I, Soeur Marie Lise du Rosaire, vow and promise …’ but this time the vow was far deeper, ending with the words: ‘jusqu’ à la mort’ – until death.

The nuns sang the psalm:

Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum …

Dico ego opera mia regi …

Joyful the thoughts that well up from my heart, the king’s

honour for my theme …

the blessings God has granted can never fail

Gird on thy sword.

Lise was blessed; then came the blessings of her veil ‘in the hope,’ Soeur Marie Emmanuel had explained, ‘that when you wear it you may be pure in soul and body.’

‘I!’ thought Lise, and then, ‘Why, perhaps I am now – not pure but purified …’ purged in another sense; every paper or form that showed she had once been convicted and in prison was destroyed … every proof; it was as if a weight of lead had dropped off her.

And what a pilgrimage of strange milestones, or little monuments, if you could call them that, had led to this day; a fountain lit with red, white and blue lights playing on it to the sound of singing and shouting: a silk dressing-gown and a huge blue and yellow macaw: the grey and white of a pseudo-Rockingham teaset: a little French bulldog in a rhinestone-studded collar: a gold lame dress: a ten-franc note given her by Père Silas: the broken end of a bottle: a hand clutching a string of mother-of-pearl beads with a little silver cross – ‘Don’t,’ Lise interrupted herself. ‘Don’t. Don’t.’ But they went on: her clothes thrown out on the landing: a warm cheek rubbed against hers: a wedding dress that must be pink too – ‘Please, please, Madame Lise,’ – a raw steak held by Marcelline to a throbbing black eye: several steaks, several black eyes: letters printed in writing like a child’s on cheap paper: a pair of white kid baby boots: a bed of geraniums and blood oozing into the earth: interviews in the visiting room at Sevenet: and papers, papers, papers: scarlet and ermine robes and the sea of faces. La Balafrée, condamnée, condamnée. The courtyard at the Division d’Accueil where you were put out to walk round and round, up and down … the sound of the judas – the spyhole in the cell door – as it was lifted and an eye looked through: the star through the window pane.

‘Searching is finding.’ Lise knew that now. The pilgrim had come home.

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,

My staff of faith to lean upon,

My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

My bottle of salvation.

The words of Walter Raleigh’s poem, forgotten until now, seemed to come of themselves into Lise’s mind over the nuns’ singing.

Over the silver mountains

Where spring the nectar fountains …

Nectar. Belle Source. At last she could settle down, And the last trace of me be blotted out, thought Lise.

The Normandy February was usually wet and cold but there were days of clear sunshine that reminded Lise of her childhood in England when there might be catkins; the willows turned red and the first snowdrops were out. There were no catkins at Belle Source but she found an early primrose in the bank below the aumônier’s house and a scattering of snowdrops. ‘Soon the lawns will be a sheet of crocus,’ said Soeur Fiacre. ‘If they’re not soaked,’ said Lise.

André Foucan from the village pruned the vines and lettuce was sown in the frames. ‘Crops are beginning,’ said Soeur Fiacre.

Candlemas came, the last lit feast till Easter, with a procession in the cloister, the candlelight moving in slow rhythm to the chapel which was filled with light for the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of the Child in the Temple at Jerusalem, and soon after, in contrast, was the sombreness of Ash Wednesday; those who could, fasted on bread and coffee; for the rest there were vegetables and soup, and so the days of Lent began.

‘Like the weather, Lent is nice or nasty,’ the Prioress said in her address, ‘but remember, unlike the weather, it is what you make it.’ Breaking the austerity there were still feast days: on March the tenth, the anniversary of Père Lataste’s death, when his picture hung in the cloister, ‘and we remember how Béthanie started and why’ – the first violets were always for Père Lataste. On the nineteenth came Saint Joseph’s day; if it were fine enough, tables were set in the cloister for gouter, the midafternoon break, with drinks – ‘children’s drinks,’ Lise would have said in the old days – fruit juice, syrupy grenadine, but to the nuns a treat; there were cakes too, just as there had been a special dessert at lunch.

Then came the Annunciation, but this was a solemn day when the Martyrology was sung, the long list of the men and women who had died for the faith, died willingly. Those of the nuns who were able prostrated themselves in the choir as a tribute to the courage, steadiness and fidelity, not only of the martyrs, but of that young girl, Mary, who said ‘Fiat’ to the angel’s message knowing, in part at least, what that would bring her.

And meanwhile, in typical Saint Joseph fashion, the work of the house went on. Spring cleaning was done, whitewashing, and in the garden much was being sown, more carrots, spinach, tomatoes in the frames, more lettuce for the invaluable salads, onions and shallots planted; and it was not only food for humans; there was lucerne, oats and mangolds for the cows. The farm was busy too; chicks were bought and pullets: the first brood of ducklings hatched out, and Bienvenue was heavy with her calf. The plum trees were in blossom. ‘The plums are always the first,’ said Soeur Fiacre. There were daffodils, narcissi …

Most of the sisters were out of doors, ‘so we are hungry,’ said Lise. ‘Yet we have to fast on Wednesdays as well as Fridays. But we manage – strength comes.’ ‘I was given some roots of white violets,’ said Soeur Fiacre. ‘I thought them rare so some I planted in the shelter of a cold frame and some under cloches, but there wasn’t room for them all, so some had to go outside and face the cold and wind and wet; the ones inside died, or were sickly and pale, the outside ones flourished,’ and it was true that the nuns looked much better, more fresh and clear-skinned than the guests in the guesthouse, always busy for Easter, where no one was asked to fast or work.

On Maundy Thursday, Béthanie kept the traditional washing of the feet, the Prioress taking the role of Christ and kneeling before her daughters, and, after an evening Mass, just as Christ went from the Upper Room, the Cenacle, to the Garden of Gethsemane, so the Host was taken from the altar’s tabernacle and borne in procession to an altar in the ante-room made welcoming with flowers and candles; the chapel itself was left stark, with the tabernacle door open, showing the emptiness inside. The nuns watched at the Altar of Repose until midnight, taking it in turn, coming quietly in and out, as their work or strength dictated.

On Good Friday, the ‘big service’, as the sisters called it, was held; it took all afternoon, with the reading of the Passion, the prayers of intercession for the whole world and the Veneration of the Cross and the singing of the Improperia with its poignant refrain:

My people what have I done to you?

How have I offended you? Answer me.

I led you on your way, in a pillar of cloud

but you led me into Pilate’s Court …

I gave you manna in the desert

but you struck me down and scourged me.

I gave you saving water from the rock

but you gave me gall and vinegar to drink.

I gave you a royal sceptre

but you gave me a crown of thorns.

I raised you to the height of majesty

but you raised me high on a cross.

My people what have I done to you?

How have I offended you? Answer me.

The Cross was left exposed on the stripped altar. It was a day of silence; most of the sisters were wrapped in their own thoughts as they still were on the curiously blank day of Holy Saturday, blank as it must have seemed to the apostles and disciples and for Mary and the other women; for them it was the Jewish holy day, the Sabbath, on which all movement and work were forbidden; their own hope of holiness was sealed silent in a tomb. What did they do, wondered Lise, what think? Could they keep their faith and trust? Peter had already denied him. Mary had been warned from the beginning and never lost hope, but Mary Magdalen? She must have known despair. True, she had seen the raising of Lazarus, but could Christ raise himself? It must have seemed impossible and she surely believed him dead. Why else did she bring spices to the sepulchre and ask, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us?’ That Saturday of waiting, when she was held helpless by custom and respect, must have been most terrible of all – or was she stunned by the disillusionment? At Béthanie’s five o’clock Vespers, some of the sisters looked as if they had been weeping; all were pale, but Easter was to come when hope comes back to the church as, long ago, hope came back to the apostles.

There has never been on earth, thought Lise, anything more beautiful than the Easter Vigil, herald of the first Mass of Easter Sunday; ‘But it’s not of earth,’ said Soeur Thecla. ‘It’s a glimpse of heaven.’

The new fire was kindled outside the chapel; the big paschal candle was lit from that new fire and the aumônier took the first step into the empty dark church; he raised the candle ‘Lumen Christi – The light of Christ.’ Three times the cry echoed as the new light was passed from candle to candle held by the nuns, then to the villagers gathered in the externe chapel. As the candles caught, one from another, Lise had a vision of the flame running in the same way from one church to another through all Christendom, far around the world: new light, new joy, new hope.

This is the night on which heaven was wedded to earth. On this night Christ broke the bonds of death.

and, the night shall be as light as day, the night shall light up my joy.

On Easter morning, very early, Bienvenue’s calf was born; ‘I heard lowing in the pig-house,’ said Sister Thecla, ‘got up and went out, and there she was in the straw, a little heifer.’ She was called Aurore, in honour of the dawn, and was to be sold a year later down to the South of France. ‘It seems the fame of our cows has gone far and wide,’ said Soeur Thecla. ‘But the papers that poor little thing had to have! The arrangements, more than for an orphan child!’ On that Easter Sunday she had called Lise to see and, after the marvel of the little creature, with its velvet coat, small black muzzle and big wondering eyes, standing upright on its legs, had been admired enough for Soeur Thecla, Lise had come out into the first daylight of the domaine as, long ago, day must have come in its freshness to Joseph of Arimathea’s garden; that was far away from France, yet Lise seemed to smell freshly-watered dust paths, hear the movement of long-stemmed olive leaves, see pink and white rosettes of oleander flowers.

‘You have been to the Holy Land!’ Soeur Marguerite’s exclamation of astonishment and wonder brought Lise up short. They had been talking of the Holy Sepulchre at recreation and, remembering her thoughts of the morning, Lise had said without thinking, ‘No one knows where it was, but I should rather it was there, in that garden, which possibly was Joseph of Arimathea’s, than where people have been taught to believe it is, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That seemed to me a dreadful place. But in the garden,’ said Lise, ‘among the olive trees you seem really near – they can’t be the same olives, of course, but they might be from slips of the old …’

‘And you have been there?’

‘Yes.’ The whole circle of faces watching Soeur Marie Lise was eager.

‘To have been there!’

‘How wonderful!’

‘Were you on a pilgrimage?’

‘No.’ Anything but, Lise could have added. Every other year or so Patrice or Emile had gone out to the Middle East, Algeria, Morocco, Cairo, ‘to … to recruit,’ Lise had said finally, trying to find the exact word for Soeur Marie Alcide. ‘Don’t let imagination run away with you; it was not white slave traffic, but they found girls, often in poor circumstances, and offered them “an opportunity,’” she did not know what else to call it. ‘We had beautiful girls at the Rue Duchesne, and many of them were foreign. Patrice also controlled “centres” or houses – I don’t know how many, but there was one in Cairo and he had heard there would be a coming city in Tel Aviv; in those days it was just growing. He was an astute business man in spite of his laziness, Emile more so, and we spent some time in what was to be Israel. I don’t know why he took me – perhaps he was not feeling well and needed ballasting; perhaps Emile was bullying him which, surprisingly, he often did – but most of the time I was at a loose end and I hired a car and drove; perhaps, though I didn’t know it, that was part of the searching. I went to Nazareth and Galilee. We …’

Lise choked and the Prioress came forward to rescue her. ‘Sister, this was long ago,’ but Lise took breath and went on. ‘If you have seen the stars over Gethsemane, those same stars that shone on the agony in the garden … As I said, no one knows where the sepulchre really was, but at five o’clock in the morning, in Jerusalem, the air is fresh, dew lies on the paths, or they water them early, and the olive leaves stir as they did then; and there are already gardeners going about their work – no wonder Mary Magdalen mistook him for the gardener …’

In April the apple trees flowered; the orchards all round Belle Source and in the orchard of the domaine were a dream of beauty, but there was no time to dream; all the sisters who could were planting potatoes, dirty, wet work – ‘Try bending double in the rain, wet soaking down your neck, your hands so wet and mud-caked they are frozen.’ A notice appeared on the board of the cloister:

On Wednesday Lectures will be at two o’clock, not three; the pig is being killed. On Thursday Midday Prayer will be an hour earlier; we are cutting up the pig.

‘I never thought,’ said Lise, ‘that making boudins could be part of my trying to serve God!’ The boudins, blood puddings, were laid out in black glistening rows to dry. ‘Ugh!’

‘But they are delicious.’ Soeur Fiacre was surprised. ‘I look forward to this time all the year.’

‘Ugh!’ said Lise again, taking off, at last and thankfully, her red-spattered apron.

Soeur Fiacre laughed as she went back to her sowings of haricots. ‘If you have ever lived in a convent you never want to see haricot beans again,’ said Lise; tomatoes were put out, more lettuce, and the garden was a mass of flowers, lilac, tulips, pansies.

There was the same pattern of festival for Ascension Day; then June was hay-making month – always anxious because rain might ruin the hay – then strawberry time with strawberry picking – more back-breaking than the planting of potatoes; there was picking of currants and gooseberries too, and those nuns who were not outside, toiling in blue aprons and with great straw hats over their veils to keep off the sun, were in the kitchen making jam and bottling fruit; the shelves in the stillroom were gradually filling. ‘We’re like squirrels, working against the winter.’ Some of the sisters dried rose petals for the potpourri they sold; the roses were in full bloom, with lilies, the pinks Lise loved for their clove scent, sweet-peas and, for Corpus Christi, one of the great feasts of June, there were enough flowers to decorate the small altars that were set up around the domaine as ‘stations’ where the monstrance, with its precious burden, was set down for a few minutes and the sisters knelt to sing, while, when they reached the paddocks and pens, the cows, chickens, rabbits and pheasants watched this strange invasion of their territory. ‘But they know that it is holy,’ Soeur Thecla declared. ‘If you notice, the cows watch and do not graze until we have gone.’

‘They chew their cud though,’ said Lucette.

‘That means they’re thinking.’

One of the ‘stations’ was by Belle Source’s small cemetery, a fenced enclosure with crosses made from rough apple branches, still with their bark, and marked only with a name and date, sometimes two or three names because more than one nun could be buried in the same grave. Here were other Soeur Irènes or Henri Dominiques or Lucie Magdaleines, row after row lying undisturbed except by the rustling of the trees or by a new burial and, every year, by Corpus Christi with its procession of candles and singing. ‘I like to think they are visited by him each year,’ said Soeur Thecla.

Before Corpus Christi, though, was Pentecost when the work-rooms were at their busiest because this was the time in the world of First Communions and the robes for boys, the long dresses for girls, all in white, hand-stitched and pleated or tucked and embroidered, were made ready, the white and silver boxes were piled high. Family cars drew up to fetch them, other boxes went by post and, typical of Béthanie, thought Lise, in every box was a paper cornet of white sugared almonds sent without payment to sweeten the day and its demands for some young Pierre or Michel or Jeanne or Solange. Prayers were said for them too.

It was often penalising to have to wear a habit and veil in July; sweat streamed down Soeur Fiacre’s and Soeur Thecla’s faces – they were the two most outside. It was unbearably hot in the sun and often thunder gave Lise a headache, but no sooner was the picking of soft fruit done than the plums were ripe and there was the added burden of watering and hoeing; the weeds seemed as plentiful as the vegetables and flowers. ‘They must be sinful or they wouldn’t multiply so fast,’ said Soeur Fiacre in unwonted irritation; more irritating were the gnats and flies: ‘We’re so mosquito bitten we look as if we had measles,’ said the Prioress; and, with all the crops, the garnering, the constant work of visiting, rescuing, organising, the unexpected requests and important errands, went on, and the guest-house was crammed. Because of the heat it was a danger time for quarrels; tempers were quick and patience wore thin. ‘If I bottle any more haricots I think I shall go mad,’ said Soeur Monique, and Soeur Anne Colombe, obsessed with cleaning, disturbed even recreation with her mop and bucket. ‘This is rest time, Sister.’

‘Maybe, but this floor hasn’t been washed for a week.’

‘You washed it yesterday.’

‘I certainly did not.’

‘Leave her, leave her,’ said the Prioress. ‘She is old.’

‘So she, above all, should rest.’ Soeur Irène was the infirmarian.

‘To try and make her would only tire her more. Let her go her own way,’ which, in any case, Soeur Anne Colombe would have done.

Now the harvest was beginning to reach its zenith. From the vines the unfruitful branches were cut away so that each cluster of grapes could get the full sun and swell. ‘The pullets have started to lay,’ Soeur Thecla was content. ‘The new pig is fattening beautifully … we have clutch after clutch of pheasant eggs,’ they sold at a good price, ‘and I have never seen such plums as we have this year.’

‘Let’s shake the trees and have done,’ said impatient Lise.

‘Shake them! You will bruise them.’ Some had to be shaken, they were so high, but the ladders came out, the blue-pinafored nuns went up them to pick; baskets were carefully lowered to be carried in. ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,’ said the psalm, ‘but sometimes I wish there were not so much fullness,’ said Lise, and, ‘do we need so much jam?’

‘There are forty-five of us and it’s not only for us; there’s the guest-house,’ said Soeur Fiacre.

‘Soon it will be tomatoes.’

‘Well, what do you expect? Be thankful. Besides, you have seen nothing yet. Wait for the apples and cider …’ but the work was, as usual, broken by feasts, especially one nearer to the heart of Béthanie than even Saint Joseph’s, the feast of Saint Mary Magdalen. It was a day of rest and pleasure, with the beauty of its liturgy, telling all her stories. For lunch a cold buffet was spread in the cloister and in the evening when the heat of the day lessened, the whole community picnicked in the forest by the spring which gave Belle Source its name. To interrupt the work again came the respite of another day, Saint Dominic’s, and, on the fifteenth of August, the Assumption of Our Lady, with its procession and Solemn Mass, acolytes helping the aumônier and the chapel crowded with visitors. ‘After that, I always think summer abates and we begin the slowing down and quietness of autumn,’ said Soeur Thecla.

‘Quietness? Slowing down? I think you have forgotten the cider,’ said Lise.

In September the garden was lovely with late summer flowers and there was mist on the lawns in the early morning, and those minute spider webs spun on the grass that, as a child, Lise had called fairies’ cradles – but there was little time for fairies; not only had the main crop of potatoes to be got up but, in October, the apples were ripe; this time the fruit could be shaken down and the cider apples were piled in a great heap in the courtyard; a few rotten ones among them were left to ferment until the last week of November which brought the hardest work of the year; first the apples were brought into the cellars and put into the heavy wooden press; from the press the juice was poured into barrels and left to work for a month. The knocking out of the bungs was skilled exciting work with the sisters standing by with jugs and buckets to catch the gush. Even the smell was potent. ‘You can be quite drunk without touching a drop,’ warned Soeur Thecla.

As for cleaning the barrels – ‘I never imagined!’ gasped Lise. A chain was put through the hole, the barrel filled with boiling water and soda and the chain worked round and round as the strongest of the sisters pushed the weight of the barrels to and fro. The sisters were soon exhausted but Soeur Thecla drove them on. ‘Unless the barrels are completely clean, next year’s cider won’t be good.’ ‘Talk of galley slaves!’ said Lise.

This too was the season for tidying up the domaine; culling the poultry, seeing to the cold frames, getting up dahlias and storing them, planting bulbs – ‘There must always be flowers for the chapel.’ The grapes were picked and sent away to be sold in boxes layered with tissue paper, and, with all this busy-ness, not a minute of prayer or devotion could be left out of the day.

There was one feast though when, in spite of Bella’s overriding wisdom, Lise could not help shutting her mind. With the Dominicans, and particularly with Béthanie, there had always been a devotion to the Rosary and, on the seventh of October, its feast, Our Lady of the Rosary, came round with a sung Mass in the morning, a lunch of extra goodness and an afternoon given over to recreation. Lise would have liked to plead a headache and stay in her room; instead she volunteered for the tasks that, feast or not, still had to be done; she washed dishes, relieved the infirmarian, fed the hens and the pig; Soeur Thecla seemed to sense she needed any and every distraction. ‘I wish I could milk,’ Lise told her as she watched Soeur Thecla with Bienvenue.

‘You haven’t the hands,’ Soeur Thecla said flatly, whose own were broad and strong. ‘They’re too nervous,’ which Lise supposed was true on this day of all days. Nobody commented, asked any questions; only the Prioress said, ‘That’s enough, Sister. Go into the chapel and rest.’

In the chapel there was rest, and Lise was always glad that, each year, when cider-making was over, harvesting done, the eight-day retreat was held, when the convent was shut to all outsiders and a priest came to take charge; not their familiar aumônier, but a priest from outside, ‘who will open our minds, give us to think – I hope,’ said the Prioress.

‘I always wonder,’ said Lise, ‘why, in Britain and America, we make Hallowe’en into a frightening thing with, for children, ghosts and skulls, witches, spiders and black cats, when it is the eve of one of the most radiant feasts of the year – All Saints, all those men and women who have shone out light and goodness, courage and faith into the world.’

‘And All Souls is radiant too,’ said Soeur Marguerite – it followed the next day. ‘For us there is loss, but for the dead, for him or her, it is the culmination, the crown …’

‘What of the people who die badly – in their sins …?’ That was what Lise, from the first, was haunted by.

‘How do we know they do?’ Soeur Marie Alcide had answered. ‘No one knows, except God, what happens in those few last seconds.’

‘No,’ and Lise remembered that smile, Patrice’s strangely sweet smile, and the whisper, ‘Chérie.’ She would hear that forever.

‘And don’t let me catch you being morbid on All Souls,’ Soeur Théodore too had always told her aspirants. ‘Pray, yes, for every soul you know, but leave them to God. That they are with Him should make us joyful.’

‘The weather doesn’t, though.’ Lise found it difficult to find joy in the darkening year, usually wet, day after day of Normandy rain … the frost too mild to be sparkling and invigorating. ‘The weather doesn’t, particularly when you have to get up mangolds in the mud, dirty heavy slippery things,’ and yet there was a satisfaction in piling up and earthing the heaps. ‘The cows will be fed all winter and, if they are, so will we be, with milk and butter and cheese …’ but, ‘getting up mangolds isn’t work for you,’ Soeur Thecla told Lise.

‘It is, Sister. Sometimes I need to do hard, dirty work.’

‘Exorcising devils,’ but wise Soeur Thecla did not wait for an answer. She took action though, and Lise was put to transplanting endives into the cellars where, cut, they would spring up in six weeks. ‘So we shall soon have salads again.’ Soeur Thecla herself had begun ploughing and, to her satisfaction, great wheelbarrows of pig and cow manure were wheeled by those she called her ‘stalwarts’ down the paths to the furrows. ‘Phaugh, Jehoshaphat!’ Bella, Soeur Marie Isabelle, had said on a visit to Belle Source and added, ‘It’s not what goes into a man that defiles him, it is what comes out. I didn’t know that applied to innocent animals!’

And then, as if it had stolen into these dwindling days without notice, as Christ had stolen in almost without notice, came Advent. It’s odd – Advent always comes as a shock, thought Lise. ‘Rorate Coeli – Drop down dew’ was sung at Benediction. It reminded Lise of the old carol:

He came all so still

Where His mother was

As dew in April

that falleth on the grass …

A new dew, a new refreshment, was coming into the world.

The days of December were like a hush, expectant, though the world was at its darkest; when she, Lise, came out in the morning to help Soeur Thecla, the stars were still out until the sky paled and they faded, leaving one, her evening star; she knew now it was the morning star as well and, as she turned Bienvenue or Bibiche in the stall ready for milking, rubbing the Jersey’s head, hard and firm under its soft hair, Lise could see the star through the broken rafters of the cowshed, incandescent in the pearl of dawn in the sky. No wonder the Magi had followed it as wise men had done ever since.

She held her hand under Bibiche’s soft muzzle and felt the warm breath, sweet with the smell of grass and hay, the breath of life. You don’t have to try and be wise, Bibiche, thought Lise; you simply have to live, you lucky little cow. You don’t know when you fail … trample on someone else’s heart. She was thinking of Lucette’s present.

It had happened at Christmas, Béthanie’s homely joyful Christmas, when, after Reveillon, Lise had gone up to her room and on her bed was the usual little packet from the Prioress.

To Lise’s intense joy, Soeur Marie Emmanuel, having done twelve years as Mother-General, the utmost limit, had been appointed the new Prioress of Belle Source – Soeur Raymonde was Mother-General now. Lise opened her packet, warmed by its message and affection, then turned with a sigh of happiness to take off her veil, and stopped.

There, between two lit stubs of candles, obviously saved from the chapel and carefully stuck into a pair of shards – from a broken flower-pot, Lise guessed – was a picture, a collage or an ikon. Lucette! It must have been Lucette, but what was Lucette, Lise wondered, doing in her room. Then Lise came closer; to Lucette this – travesty, Lise could not help thinking – was an ikon, holy enough to excuse any trespassing – but Lise only understood that, and with anguish, afterwards; unfortunately, what she saw in that first moment was a garish daub, a picture of the Mother and Child cut from a newspaper and coloured with crayon in kindergarten colours, bright red cheeks, bright blue eyes, bright yellow hair, the Virgin’s hair not as yellow as the Child’s which was spangled with gold. How did Lucette get the gold, Lise asked herself when she came to examine it. She must have picked up a snipped-off end of the gold cord Soeur Elizabeth tied the cornets of sugared almonds with; Lucette had minutely shredded it and, to make the Child’s robe white, she had used icing sugar on glue and varnished it. ‘So it won’t come off, ever.’ Lise could imagine her saying that and the same of the frame which was of sugared almonds, glued down and varnished too. Lucette would never have taken them without leave, but she was a pet of Soeur Elizabeth who would every now and then give her one or two; they were eked out with a few beads and pebbles. The Virgin’s robe was red translucent paper which Lise recognised as being from crackers sent to the community for Saint Joseph’s Day; her sleeves and neckline were bordered with the minute flowers of lavender, rubbed from the spikes. ‘It must have taken hours.’ The figures were backed by a gold paper lace doyley spread on a cardboard base and varnished too. All this Lise saw afterwards but, as she had turned, the yellow and red, blue and gold hit her eyes and, for a moment, her face betrayed her.

It was only a moment but Lucette, hiding full of joy and pride behind the door and peeping round it, saw, and ‘You don’t like it.’ It was a cry like a wounded child.

‘Ssh! It’s silence,’ whispered Lise, and, ‘Like it? Of course I like it. It’s just … it’s such a surprise. How did you do it?’ but, even to Lise, it sounded false and, ‘You don’t like it.’ It was such a wail that it brought other sisters to their doors but, when they saw it was Lise and Lucette, they went in again.

‘Lucette.’ It had been no use; Lise had tried to hold her close – she made herself do that – and whispered, ‘Isn’t it enough that you did all this wonderful work for me?’

‘No, it isn’t enough.’ Lucette tore herself free, darted into the room and took the imitation ikon. She tried to tear it across but being so encrusted and firmly glued it would not tear, so she crushed it, threw it on the floor and ran sobbing down the corridor to her own room.

Lise had stood, sick dismayed and in something of a panic; holding Lucette had been like holding a human sparrow, her bones were so small and light, so frail. I must go after her – but to go into another nun’s room was forbidden and Lucette was now almost a nun. After a moment Lise went to Soeur Marie Emmanuel.

‘Ma Mère …’

The Prioress, already undressed and in bed – where she must need to be, thought Lise – came at once to the door, a shawl over her nightdress. ‘Ma Mère, may I go to Soeur Lucette?’ and, as Lise told, she found she was suddenly sobbing too.

The Prioress listened, her eyes on Lise, her hand steady, then, ‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘Leave Soeur Lucette to me.’

‘Ma Mère. It’s past two o’clock. You must be tired.’

‘Not too tired for this,’ and she put her hand on Lise’s shoulder. ‘Soeur Marie Lise, don’t grieve. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘It was. It was. I should have been more controlled.’

‘One can’t control oneself all the time,’ and, ‘Bed,’ ordered Soeur Marie Emmanuel.

On New Year’s Eve, after Vespers, the nuns met in the community room to wish one another a happy new year and eat the bonbons the Prioress provided, and on New Year’s Day, at recreation, the aumônier brought in a basket and each nun drew out a motto, an augury for the coming year; for Lucette it had been, ‘They took sweet counsel together and walked in the house as friends,’ and it was at Lise that Lucette beamed.

Another year was rounded, and nothing anyone could write or say, thought Lise, could tell the whole meaning of each succeeding year, of its unfolding; what is a day-to-day miracle is unexciting because usually it’s so sure – and yet it is a miracle; only if it’s taken away, as in a famine or drought, do we see that. I never saw it, thought Lise. Long before I went to prison, I was in a prison, the prison of myself, and, thinking of Soeur Thecla, she thought, The paradox is that the nearer you are to earth, the nearer you are to heaven. My motto was fitting, too: ‘My lines have fallen in pleasant places.’ I don’t deserve it but thank God, thought Lise. Thank God.

Then the Mother-General, Soeur Raymonde, sent for her. Why, thought Lise. Why?

Soeur Raymonde was at Belle Source for the ‘visitation’ the Mother-General had to make to every house of Béthanie at least once in three years, for a minute examination of the affairs of the house. Lise had already had the long and private interview that was given to every sister in the house, just as every corner, every least thing was seen. ‘How does she find time?’ Yet Soeur Raymonde never seemed hurried and this sudden summons must have been premeditated and Lise could not help a feeling of apprehension.

‘Soeur Marie Lise, sit down,’ and, when Lise had arranged herself, her hands under her scapular, Soeur Raymonde said with a smile, ‘You have been here at Belle Source seven years.’

She is going to move me, thought Lise in dismay, but she only murmured, ‘Yes, ma Mère, except for the years when, as you know, I filled in at the novitiate.’

‘Yes. Well, as we both know …’ and the words familiar now and dreaded came, ‘… you have great sympathy and tact in dealing with girls and women.’

‘Not sympathy.’ Lise had to be honest. ‘Tact, perhaps. I … I learnt that in a difficult school – had to learn it.’ Lise gave a wry smile.

‘Well, it has stood you in good stead. You have been elected, Soeur Marie Lise, as a missionary, one of our prison visitors.’

‘Prison!’ and emotion overcame Lise. Soeur Raymonde waited until she was able to speak. ‘But ma Mère, I was there. Not at Le Fouest, of course, but at Vesoul.’

‘Naturally that made us have to consider carefully, not to say gravely – still, after fifteen years, and in a different prison, it isn’t probable you would be recognised.’

‘This is a small world,’ Lise said desperately, ‘and there’s my scar.’

‘Sister, that shows to you far more than it does to us. I doubt if anyone in the outside world would notice it unless you deliberately drew back your veil. Besides, the mark has grown so pale.’

‘Except when I’m angry or excited or moved. Then in spite of myself …”

‘It reddens. I know. I have seen it.’

‘Yes. Suppose …’ Lise twisted her hands under her scapular.

‘Well, suppose, which isn’t likely,’ Soeur Raymonde was calm. ‘Wouldn’t it be a wonderful witness to our Lord that this woman, once La Balafrée, is a Sister of Béthanie now? Naturally you must be extremely careful but, as it happens, there is no one here now at Belle Source as suitable as you and, my daughter, there is terrible need.’ It was the same Soeur Raymonde, ‘bringing you up higher than you think you could go,’ as Bella had said. ‘Terrible need, perhaps more now than ever before. As, physically, things get better for these poor unfortunates, the spirit seems to get worse, and Soeur Marie Mercédes, in spite of her courage, is beginning to fail.’ Soeur Raymonde laid her hand on Lise’s. ‘Think what it was like for you when you first saw Soeur Marie Alcide.’

‘But – Soeur Marie Alcide … she is a saint.’

‘How do you know,’ said Soeur Raymonde, ‘that Soeur Marie Alcide may not once have been exactly like you?’

‘For your prison visiting,’ Soeur Raymonde said a little later, ‘I shall ask you, Soeur Marie Lise, to think about two things: the first comes from a story often told – you may have heard it before: it was when, during the war, the Americans had a detachment near a leper colony. One young soldier watched a nun washing an old man and dressing the leper wounds where the fingers were dropping off. “Sister,” he said, “I wouldn’t do your work for ten thousand dollars a day.” “Neither would I,” said the nun.’

‘Ah!’ whispered Lise.

‘And if you do take the work, remember the parable our Lord told his disciples after he had sent them out and they came back delighted with what they had done and expecting praise. “What man,” asked our Lord, “when his servant was out all day, ploughing the fields, and came in at the end of the day, would say to him, ‘Sit down and I will get you something to eat.’ No, rather he would say, ‘Go and wash and make yourself tidy, then wait on me while I dine. You can eat and drink yourself later,’ because the servant had only done his duty.’”

‘Ah,’ said Lise again.