Authors: Norah Lofts
In a voice that was so firm that it sounded brutal I said:
‘I intend to go back to L’Espan, for a time at least. If you care to come with me…’
‘But of course,’ she said gently. ‘It was what I was thinking, that you and I should be together at L’Espan.’
‘But not alone,’ I insisted.
‘In a sense, no, of course. We couldn’t turn them away now. In fact, Anna—Perhaps this is an idle thought. I haven’t slept well since—One has to occupy one’s thoughts when one lies awake in the night… We could make L’Espan bigger. There must be so many women like those there, like me. We might even’—she brought it out diffidently—‘build a chapel and have a priest.’
I saw then that, like many other women whom life has failed and disappointed, she was turning to Holy Church. And Holy Church, at least, would not fail her; with her it was simply a case of “Seek and ye shall find.” And dimly, tentatively, I began to perceive how I could ease the burden off my unwilling shoulders onto those broad and accommodating ones.
‘That is an interesting idea,’ I said.
And I thought: Holy Church—though they call her
she
—is strong and competent; she will deal with the Cornish tin mines and the mill dues from Le Bocage and all those miles of fishing rights. She will know what to do with women who come in with boxes of jewels.
Then I stiffened, remembering the little dog who was forbidden at the nunnery at Blois.
‘If you make L’Espan into a nunnery, Berengaria, I shall insist—because, after all, I started it and it is suposed to belong to me—that part of it be reserved for women like me; women who could not bear to take vows, women who like little dogs.’
‘But you’ve never had a little dog in your life, Anna.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes. It’s very strange that you should say that about making a nunnery. I had never said, had I, but I have been thinking—’
XIX
Women whose lives follow an ordinary pattern bear children, nourish and tend them and start them on the road to growth and for a while the child minds its mother’s bidding; but inevitably there comes one day when it begins to follow its own will and another day when, if not by word, by action, it says, ‘I can do without you now.’
So it was with me and L’Espan. In the five years that followed Richard’s death it grew and went its own way so inexorably that sometimes it seemed to me that the place had a destiny of its own, mapped from the moment of the turning of the first sod.
And the day came when the last stone was in place and I could walk around and see everything in order with L’Espan pursuing its threefold life, no part of which concerned me.
There was the nunnery. Berengaria had hankered towards the idea of establishing a religious house and, subject to certain conditions, I was but too pleased to shuffle off the responsibility for the finance and administration. So now about L’Espan there were a dozen and a half nuns, soberly clothed, walking meekly with down-bent eyes, sedulously obedient to the orders of a tyrannical abbess whom they had chosen themselves in what I could only think was a passion for self-immolation. To me she seemed a terrible, detestable woman but I knew that the establishment of the funds would be safe with her.
Then there was, in the old wing, what was invariably called the “Lodgings.” It sheltered twenty women whose rights I had carefully guarded when I handed over my charge. They were the kind of women I should have been but for Father—unplaced, in need of a settled home but lacking all sense of vocation. They moved more briskly, dressed more brightly in their shabby finery, had their pets, their playing cards, their tapestries, their ever-changing pattern of little alliances and feuds.
And in the newest part of the building there was the part which the abbess, who was German by origin, always called the “Kindergarten.” There were housed a number of orphan children and a few bastards and a few taken in charity from enormous families in over-crowded hovels.
I was, I must confess, as little at ease with the children as with the nuns or the ladies in the Lodgings. My appearance rouses only two responses in the young, stark terror or mockery. And although I liked to see them happy and well fed, I never had much feeling for children, except for two who seemed doomed never to be born—the boy who would look like Blondel, the girl who would be my god-daughter.
The one person who moved from part to part of L’Espan and seemed equally at home in each was Berengaria. She could help to tend the children in the Kindergarten and seemed happy when playing with them; she could move on and spend an hour or two with the ladies in the Lodgings, stitching a little, gossiping a little, eating cakes and sweetmeats; and then, at the call of the chapel bell, there she was, sinking easily and gracefully into place amongst the nuns. Affection, at times amounting to adoration, greeted her wherever she went; the children loved their gentle playmate, the ladies regarded her as one of themselves, the nuns looked on her as a saint and invariably referred to her as the foundress of L’Espan. And she was content, happy and tranquil as an old man home after a long and disastrous war, basking in the sun. Armed with two weapons, great beauty and a stubborn will, she had fought for many years, losing every battle and yet emerging victorious, able to lay her weapons down, submitting her beauty to time, her will to that of God, now that the enemy, the loved one, was dead.
Gradually, but very surely, it became apparent to me that the will of God, so far as Berengaria was concerned, was conveyed through the voice of the abbess. The day came when that voice announced that I was free.
Madam Ursula and I concealed beneath a scrupulous politeness a cordial and reciprocal dislike. Probably she sensed that if it had been left to me L’Espan would have remained a purely secular establishment; and certainly the arrangements I had made, the protective measures I had taken for the happiness and security of the uncloistered inhabitants before I handed over the reins to her, were justification for such a suspicion. So her dislike for me had sounder grounds than mine for her which were based upon reasons less ponderable and more personal. Yet we had worked together very successfully during the long business of transition; she had a keen brain and, in any matter disconnected with the religious life, a sense of justice, a gift of logic. Professionally—and religion with its many ramifications was to her a profession rather than a vocation—she was unjust, illogical, dictatorial to an unimaginable degree and unbearably superior. So armoured, so immune, that often words failed me and I longed with childish fury to smack her smooth plump face.
A few days after the last of the building was done she sent for me and brought into the open a subject which had lurked alongside for some time. The subject of Blondel.
I entered this passage of arms heavily handicapped from the start by, if nothing else, a sense of guilt; for it was a subject which I knew should have been faced and dealt with long ago.
Blondel had been at L’Espan when Berengaria and I returned there after Richard’s death. He had finished his account of the crusade; no building was in progress and he was drinking steadily. His right arm was now useless and it is admittedly difficult for anyone to keep neat and trim with one hand, however skilled that one may be. Not that Blondel now cared or took much trouble. However, I tidied him up to the best of my ability; he could still play his lute and he did a good deal to cheer Berengaria in those days, making her music and telling her stories and listening to those sad, reminiscent little speeches which are the voice of sorrow. And I, as always, took joy in his company. Sourness had sharpened his ever-ready wit and so long as I avoided remembering, eschewed sentimental backward-looking, all was well.
Then the spurt of new building, new planning had begun and he had been busy and sober for longer intervals and even the critical Madam Ursula had admitted his usefulness. Weeks and months had slipped away; now and again I had roused myself to say, ‘When were you last shaved?’ or, ‘Get your hair cut,’ or ‘That tunic is a disgrace,’ or ‘Come, let me cut your nails.’ But such cares were only like irksome little pebbles on a smooth and pleasant path. There were hours, especially during the winter when the evenings were long, which we could spend together in the room I had firmly reserved for myself, practising our English, reading together or just talking. Such hours made up to me for being chained to L’Espan, chained by my promise to Berengaria, by my promise to Richard, by my self-exacted promise to Father. I would look after Berengaria and where she was, there I would be; I could but be grateful that Blondel was there too.
Now here was Madam Ursula saying in her dry, rasping voice that he must go.
I restrained myself and was silent while she pointed out in nice order the strength of her position, the weakness of mine should I—that was the implication—be so silly as to make a stand.
The Lodgings’ charter, which I had myself drawn up, stipulated that certain pets, capable of being kept within control, must be accepted. Not pages, serving-men, or minstrels—that was correct, was it not?
The women now in residence were of some long standing, women who remembered doubtless with great gratitude all I had done for them and who would neither dispute nor attempt to share my privilege; but I did see—did I not?—that we must look to the future. Another generation of women would arise who, at need, could look back and say, “At one time the Duchess of Apieta lived here and kept her own lute player.” Abuses so easily crept in, did they not?
And then, unfortunately, there was the character of the man.
I sat, resolutely dumb, while she pointed out that he was drunken and dissolute, a disgrace to any respectable establishment, even an entirely secular one. L’Espan was, of its very nature (and her glance accused me), a somewhat unorthodox place and the task of any innovation was to prove itself at least as good as, and if possible better than, the thing it superseded, was it not? And think how misleading, how abominably misleading it would be if, when the bishop made his inspection, he met Blondel, dirty, unshaven and drunk.
My silence at first encouraged and then finally disconcerted her. Silence from me was a new thing—but then we had never before talked openly about Blondel. I listened to her, to her irritating dicta and even more irritating questions, like bladders full of stones tied to curs’ tails: ‘Is it not?’ ‘Do you agree?’
Then I said, ‘Madam, what leads you to believe that the lute player is
my
appurtenance? So far as he belongs to anyone, he belongs to Her Majesty, does he not?’
That took her aback but only for a moment. The professional side came into play. At one level there might be a difference between a disgrace belonging to the Duchess of Apieta and the same disgrace belonging to the Queen, the foundress of L’Espan. Madam Ursula gave that difference its due—a moment’s silence. Then she was abbess of L’Espan, strong and armoured and a disgrace was a disgrace, never mind its sponsor. The bishop, on his inspection, might not wait to have the distinction pointed out and despite its unorthodox aspect L’Espan was going to gain a good report from the bishop if Madam Ursula had anything to do with it (Was it not?)
‘I did not realise,’ she said. ‘I am very sorry, in that case, to have troubled you in the matter, Your Grace. I will take up the question with Her Majesty.’
Madam Ursula wasted no time. That evening after supper Berengaria took me by the arm and said, ‘Come to my room, Anna. I want to talk to you.’
She fussed over me a little, insisting that I take the most comfortable seat; pouring me wine with her own hands, offering me small cakes cut into fancy shapes. Then she seated herself and lifted into her lap the heavy altar cloth which she was embroidering for the chapel. She stitched for a moment or two in silence and when she spoke she did so without looking up.
‘I had a conversation with the abbess just before vespers.’ She had taken lately to measuring the day in the cloister terms and, each time she did so, I was conscious of a flick of reasonless, quickly suppressed irritation. I heard it sharpen my voice now as I said:
‘About Blondel?’
She looked up. ‘Really, Anna, sometimes I think you must be a witch! How did you guess?’
‘I didn’t guess. She spoke to me this morning.’
She didn’t mention that. What did she say to you?’
‘Several things, many ridiculous and all unkind.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Absolutely nothing. I let her talk herself to a standstill and then referred her to you.’
‘Oh, what a pity. I would so much rather not have been mixed up in it.’
I could see that the interview had disturbed her usual deep serenity; that and her attentiveness to me led me to the conclusion that Madam Ursula had launched a pretty shrewd attack and that Berengaria was now looking to me for support. I was prepared to give it right heartily for my retreat that morning had been a tactical one, owing to diplomacy, not to reluctance or inability to fight.
‘You were bound to be involved. And I thought better sooner than later. Whatever I had said this morning would have carried no weight at all. It is useless for me to argue or reason with her. She suspects my every motive and, unless we are talking business, discounts every word I say. So, though I had many good arguments, I thought they would sound better from you. She does at least listen to you—and with a marked degree of respect.’
‘Oh, Anna. You shouldn’t say that. She is the abbess. She is the head of this house.’
‘Of the religious side of this house,’ I amended. ‘And if one of her nuns—God pity them—wanted to keep a singing bird, she would be entirely within her rights to say, “No, you must drive it out to be gobbled up by a sparrow hawk.” But
we
have taken no vows of obedience. That was made perfectly plain from the first. I took particular pains to mark exactly the limit of her authority and it stops at the door of the Lodgings. I always knew that one day she would poke her nose into our affairs and I so arranged it that when she did that same nose could be given a sharp rap. I would have administered it myself this morning but a rap from me would be beneath her notice; whereas one from
you
would be very effective. Mind you,’ I said rather warmly, ‘it cost me something this morning to keep a still tongue in my head. I so longed to point out to her that her moral scruples hadn’t become troublesome while Blondel was planning and overseeing the building. They didn’t sprout until the last stone was laid. So typical of her to overlook the disgrace so long as the usefulness lasted. Did you think to say that? Well, you can next time. In fact, in this fight I’ll roll the stones up and you can fire them.’