In front of me I saw Alfonsine take her place before the pulpit, accepting the shears with a thrill of submission. Then it was Antoine’s turn. I had never seen her without her wimple before, and the sudden beauty of her thick black hair was a startling revelation. Then came the shears and she was Antoine again, pale as a beached jellyfish, mouth working helplessly as LeMerle uttered the benediction. “I hereby renounce all worldly vanities, in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.”
Poor Antoine. What vanities had she known in her sad, fearful time but those of the table and the cellarium? The moment of beauty, so fleetingly glimpsed, was gone. She looked terrified, her hair standing out in uneven clumps, her eyes rolling and her fat hands kneading at each other as if in longing for the comforting routine of the bread pan.
Then it was Clémente, her flaxen hair catching at the light as she bowed her head. Oddly enough it was dour Germaine who cried out as the shears did their work; Clémente simply tilted her face at LeMerle, looking even younger than she had before the shearing; a wanton with the face of a little boy.
But hair was not the only vanity we were to relinquish; I saw old Rosamonde, her half-bald crown bared, reluctantly give up the gold cross that she wore about her neck. Her mouth moved, but her words did not reach me. She joined me a few moments later, her weak eyes roaming the chapel as if in search of someone who was absent. Then it was Perette, whose hair was already cropped, sullenly emptying her pockets of treasures. Magpie treasures, that’s all they were; a scrap of ribbon, a polished stone, a piece of rag-those small and harmless vanities that only a child could cherish. She was most reluctant to part with her enameled pendant and had almost succeeded in palming it when Soeur Marguerite pointed it out, and it was swept up with the rest. Perette bared her vicious little teeth at Marguerite, who piously looked the other way. From the corner of my eye I could see LeMerle trying hard to keep himself from laughing.
Then it was my turn. I watched the ground dispassionately as my hair fell, curl by bright curl, among the mounting trophies. I expected to feel something-anger maybe, or shame-instead I felt nothing but the burn of his fingers at the nape of my neck as he stretched out and drew aside the tangle of hair, cutting with a deftness and precision that drew the eye from the more intimate gestures-a thumb pressed against the earlobe, a lingering touch in the throat’s hollow-which he performed upon me in secret, without anyone noticing.
He spoke to me in two registers, the public one in which he intoned the Benedictus, and a thin, rapid whisper during which his mouth barely moved.
“Dominus vobiscum. You’ve been avoiding me, Juliette. Agnus Dei, very unwise, qui tollis peccata mundi, we need to talk, miserere nobis. I can help you.”
I shot him a glance of loathing.
“O felix culpa, you look wonderful when you’re angry. Quae talem ac tanctum, see me in the confessional, meruit habere Redemptorem-after Vespers tomorrow.”
And then it was over, and I went back to my place feeling dizzy and strange, with my heart pounding and the ghosts of his fingers still fluttering like burning moths against my neck.
At the end of the session, all sixty-five of us were sitting in our places, newly cropped and demure. My face still felt flushed and my heart was beating wildly, but I hid it as best I could and kept my eyes downcast. Rosamonde and some of the older nuns had been forced to exchange their old quichenotte for the crisp wimple favored by the new abbess, and they looked like a flock of seagulls in the semidarkness. Every cheap trinket, ring, necklace, every harmless scrap of braid or ribbon our old Reverend Mother had tolerated, was gone. Vanity, LeMerle told us in his grave voice, was the jewel of gold in the pig’s snout, and we had fallen to its lure. The Bernardine cross on our habits should be adornment enough, he said-while all the time the light played on his silver crucifix like a small malicious eye.
Then, after the communal blessing and act of contrition, which I mouthed with the rest, our new abbess stood up and began to speak. “This is the first of many changes I intend to make,” she began. “Today will be a day of fasting and prayer in preparation for the task we will undergo tomorrow.” She paused, perhaps to feel the impact of so many pairs of eyes. “The interment of my predecessor,” she continued, “where it best befits her, in our own crypt.”
“But we-” The protest was out before I could stop it.
“Soeur Auguste?” Her gaze was scornful. “Did you say something?”
“I’m sorry, ma mère. I should not have spoken. But the Reverend Mother was-a simple creature, who disliked the-the fanfare of church ceremony. We did what we thought best when we buried her. Surely it would be kinder now to leave her in peace?”
Mère Isabelle’s small hands clenched. “Are you telling me that it’s kinder to leave that woman’s body in some abandoned piece of ground?” she demanded. “Why, I believe the place was actually a vegetable garden, or something! What can have possessed you?”
There was nothing to be gained in confrontation. “We did what we thought was right at the time,” I said humbly. “I see now that it was a mistake.”
For a second Mère Isabelle continued to look at me with suspicion. Then she turned away. “I must remember,” she said, “that in such a remote area of the country old customs and beliefs still persist. There is not necessarily any sin attached to such a misunderstanding.”
Fine words. But the suspicion remained in her voice, and I knew I was not forgiven. The safety of the abbey was eroding every minute I remained. Twice already I had attracted the critical attention of the new abbess. My daughter had been taken from me. And now LeMerle held me between his careless, clever fingers, knowing perhaps that one more accusation-a hint of heresy, a casual reference to matters I had thought forgotten-would bring the weight of the Church’s investigation to bear upon me. It had to be soon. I had to leave soon. But not without Fleur.
And so I waited. We repaired to the warming room for a time. Then Prime and Terce, interminable chanting and prayers and hymns with LeMerle watching me all the time with that look of mocking benevolence in his eyes. Then to Chapter. In the hour that followed, duties were allocated, hours of prayer, days of fasting, rules governing decorum, dress, deportment laid down with military precision. The Great Reform was under way.
The church would be renovated, we were told. Lay builders would do much of the work on the roof, though the interior would be our own responsibility. The lay people who had until now done most of our menial duties were to be dismissed; it was unseemly for us to have servants to do our work whilst we spent our time in idleness. The rebuilding of the abbey must now be our main concern, and everyone was expected to take additional duties until the time of its completion.
I learned with dismay that our free time was to be curtailed to half an hour after Compline, to be spent in prayer and reflection, and that our excursions to the town and to the harbor were to cease at once. My Latin lessons to the novices too were to be discontinued. Mère Isabelle did not feel that it was appropriate for novices to learn Latin. To obey the Scripture was enough, she said; anything more was dangerous and unnecessary. A duty rota was established that reversed all our accustomed routines; without surprise I noted that Antoine no longer governed the kitchens or the cellars and that henceforth my herb garden would be tended by strangers, but I accepted this too with indifference, knowing that my time at the abbey was coming to an end.