1
Early Life, Such as It Was

IN 1812, I went to "the Stone," the holy house at C——, a village straddling the ill-drawn borders of Brittany and Normandy, dependent upon the grace of the Church. For the next twelve long years, the nuns who had taken me in made it plain: if I lived cleanly, devoutly, as they did, I might one day see the face of God…. But no; lately I've seen only Satan. The sweet girlish faces of Satan…. Ah, but I don't mean to self-dramatize; I mean only to situate you, Reader, and so…

My world was the domain of C——, its sloping fields bounded by picket fences and, beyond, hedges and waves of mounded stones. That place was comprised of a series of outbuildings surrounding three larger, two-story buildings conjoined by galleries, some shuttered, others open. It was hewn of darkly mottled stone and gray slate. Surrounded by tall stands of deciduous evergreens, the place seemed to leech the very light from the sky.

Set loosely at right angles, and forming an inner yard at the center of which rose a statue of the Sacred Heart, the three main buildings were these: St. Ursula's Hall, a large and featureless space sometimes used for assembly, beneath which were the kitchen and dining hall; the dormitory, set above a bank of classrooms, nuns' cells, and offices as well as our Pupil's Parlor, where the girls received their visitors; and the third building, which housed the main chapel, Our Lady of Prompt Succor, as well as the sisters' chapel, the main library, and several lesser libraries. Beyond the chapel sat the dairy and the stables. Beyond the stables was a graveyard, where we buried our dead in private. Too, there was the laundry, a dovecote, a carpenter's shop, a smithy, and the building known as the Annex, which sat empty and unused all my years at C——. White pickets formed our inner borders; and it was within these pickets that we girls, twice daily, surrounded the Sacred Heart to take our exercise. The youngest girls formed an inner circle, so near the statue as to see our Lord's incarnadine heart amid the marble folds of His robes. If the weather was fair, it was in the yard, thusly circling our Savior, that we would stand with arms akimbo, bending at the waist, doing this and that, careful always to keep one foot firmly planted on the ground, "as befits a lady." In winter, we would crowd under the galleries and stretch and bend as best we could. My position in these drills was fixed: I had always to stand nearest the kitchen, lest Sister Brigid need me for some duty therein.

Understand: I was the sole scholarship student at C——, and I was made to work for my keep. Usually in the kitchen, sometimes in the laundry or gardens. Though Sister Isadore ran the Lower School, and Sister Claire de Sazilly the Upper (both answering to Mother Superior Marie-des-Anges), it was to old, enfeebled Sister Brigid that I reported. I loved her; she was kind. Kind too was the extern I knew from an early age, Marie-Edith, who came to C——from the village thrice weekly to help with meals; she also did our shopping, as the sisters were suspect of all worldly commerce. Indeed, it was I who lately taught Marie-Edith to read in my room off the kitchen…. Yes, I lived apart, at Sister Brigid's request, and I did not mind. The cellarer, Sister Margarethe, however, did mind: not only did I occupy her pantry but I deprived her of the root cellar dug into its floor and covered over with boards. Though it was barren and cold in winter and damp in summer, with its walls in constant sweat, the room suited me. It was private; and it was privacy I craved above all else. No novitiates came to see that my Bible lay beneath my pillow as I slept. No one woke me harshly at first light. Neither did the candles I burned through the night attract attention. And, blessedly, a pump sat just outside the kitchen door, and it was from this that I drew my bath water, bathing alone behind my closed door.

Not only did I have to work for my keep—and countless were the potatoes peeled, the corn shucked, the fish scaled and gutted…—I had to succeed academically. If I did not—and this was intimated, if never stated—I might be sent away to an orphanage or some lesser facility of the Ursulines.

And so I became an excellent reader at an early age. In time, no text was beyond me. And the books at C——…. So many wondrous works, though I remember too some particularly hateful theology and sheaves of impenetrable poetry…. I was perhaps ten when I began to study Greek under the tutelage of Sister Marie de Montmercy. I immersed myself in the language; but only until I discovered Latin, to which my allegiance shifted. Here was the language for me! So sensible, the construction of its sentences as satisfying as a puzzle perfectly done. I don't mean to say that I rambled about C——with Aeschylus and Cicero tripping off my tongue, but fluency did come in time. Additionally, there were the hours devoted to the perfection of our French, of course—and her sisters, Italian and Spanish. I worked diligently on English and German in private; quite similar, the two, though I loved the myriad exceptions of the former and detested the guttural rattlings of the latter. For this, I relied solely on texts and guesswork, for none of the nuns spoke English and only one spoke German (ancient Sister Gabriella, as likely to nod off as to assist me with the nuances of pronunciation).

Mathematics, penmanship, geography…. These were easy and unexciting subjects, which I easily mastered. (Immodest, but true.) Yes, scholastically, I further set myself apart and eventually won access—for one hour each day—to the private library of Mother Marie-des-Anges.

That library!…The rich, supple bindings of Cordovan leather. And the thin blue cloud of smoke that seemed always to hang in the air (Mother Marie-des-Anges favored an occasional Spanish cigarette, en vie privée.). Sunlight seeped into the library through two large windows of Bavarian stained glass. That pied light was enrapturing. I would position myself to let the multihued light swim over whatever text I read…. Those hours in the library of the Mother Superior are my finest memories of C——; and it pleases me to have them, for all my other memories of C——are of the Chaos that overtook order there.

Order? Oh yes, life at C——was well-ordered. Our days were divided into canonical hours, those times appointed for an office of devotion: Matins, followed by Lauds, then Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. After Lauds we studied for one hour, at which time a bell would summon all the girls to a breakfast of white bread (wonderfully warm on Monday and Thursday), thick pats of cold butter, and coffee. We ate in silence, seated on benches before long oak tables. We wore our gray work pinafores, white puffs of tulle at the sleeves (so extravagant that seems now!); our hair was wound into braids or tucked beneath caps of white chamois.

Breakfast lasted a half hour. A Low Mass might follow; typically, classes would commence directly. Then Terce, or High Mass on holy days. Followed by more study. Occasionally, the younger girls would be granted a fifteen-minute recess during which they would receive black bread and water. Thrice daily, at the discretion of the Mother Superior, the Angelus bell would sound and we would gather to commemorate the Incarnation.

We ate our primary meal at Méridienne, or high noon. This meal—dinner, we called it—consisted of vegetables grown in our gardens, perhaps a stew of game, or seafood that Marie-Edith had begged from a fisherman "of the faith" down on the quay. Wine was often poured from the vast store kept by Mother Marie-des-Anges. We ate well, owing, I think, to her presence: she had a taste for…for life's finer things. (At our meals, I served, eating only after the other girls, and in the company of various externs and aged, infirm nuns. This did not shame me, though it was often suggested to me that it should.)

Dinner was followed by exercise, rest, or prayer—the decision was not ours. Then None. More study. Vespers. Meditation. Study. Collation: a light meal of fruits or cheeses. Compline. And finally, sleep. Our routine was only slightly more relaxed during summer recess, when the great majority of girls left C——to vacation with their families; many nuns, too, went on summer retreats of one kind or another.

…Regarding my time at C——…I endured. Took refuge in the orderliness of the convent school, the ceaseless tick-tocking of that canonical clock, every day the same, same, same…. And I tasked myself with study.

…Ah, but of course there is more to say. I do not wish to say it, but I must, and will.

The school at C——was attended by girls of a particular sort, and it seemed to me that by some cruel act of Providence I'd been cast there to remind them of their many advantages. They were lace to my linen, jewels to my gimcrack. Upon maturation, they would ascend. Their fathers had made fortunes in commerce; the daughters of these men, though derided as "common" by the girls of bluer blood, were rich. They spoke of dowries and diamonds and what Papa and Mama were doing with whom and where—polo with a crowned prince, horse racing with the Raj, brunch in Paris with a Swedish baroness, et cetera. It was a language I could not speak.

Copyright © 2002 by James Reese