Queen of Heaven? I was of less importance than the pigeons that found their way into the high reaches of the chancel. I would not eat for the whole of the next day. I would rise and go to bed with an empty belly. I would learn humility. And as my belly growled and my hand stung, I learned, and not for the last time, that it was not in the nature of women to get what they desired.
‘You are a bad child,’ Sister Goda stated unequivocally.
I lay awake until the Abbey bell summoned us at two of the clock for Matins. I did not weep. I think I must have accepted her judgement on me, or was too young to understand its implications.
And my third memory?
Ah, vanity! Sister Goda failed to beat it out of me. She eyed me dispassionately over some misdemeanour that I cannot now recall.
‘What a trial you are to me, girl! And most probably a bastard, born out of holy wedlock. An ugly one at that. Though you are undoubtedly a creature of God’s creation, I see no redeeming features in you.’
So I was ugly and a bastard. I wasn’t sure which was the worse of the two, to my twelve-year-old mind. Was I ugly? Plain, Sister Goda might have said if there was any charity in her, but ugly was another world. Forbidden as we were the ownership of a looking glass in the Abbey—such an item was far too venal and precious to be owned by a nun—which of the sisters had never peered into a bowl of still water to catch an image? Or sought a distorted reflection in one of the polished silver ewers used in the Abbey church? I did the same and saw what Sister Goda saw.
That night I looked into my basin of icy water before my candle was doused. The reflection shimmered, but it was enough. My hair, close cut against my skull, to deter lice as much as vanity, was dark and coarse and straight. My eyes were as dark as sloes, like empty holes eaten in wool by the moth. As for the rest—my cheeks were hollow, my nose prominent, my mouth large. It was one thing to be told that I was ugly; quite another to see it for myself. Even accepting the rippling flaws in the reflection, I had no beauty. I was old enough and female enough to understand, and be hurt by it. Horrified by my heavy brows, black as smudges of charcoal, I dropped my candle into the water, obliterating the image.
Lonely in the dark in my cold, narrow cell, the walls pressing in on me in my solitary existence, I wept. The dark, and being alone, frightened me—then as now.
* * *
The rest of my young days merged into a grey lumpen pottage of misery and resentment, stirred and salted by Sister Goda’s admonitions.
‘You were late again for Matins, Alice. Don’t think I didn’t see you slinking into the church like the sly child you are!’ Yes, I was late.
‘Alice, your veil is a disgrace in the sight of God. Have you dragged it across the floor?’ No, I had not, but against every good intention my veil collected burrs and fingerprints and ash from the hearth.
‘Why can you not remember the simplest of texts, Alice? Your mind is as empty as a beggar’s purse.’ No, not empty, but engaged with something of more moment. Perhaps the soft fur of the Abbey cat as it curled against my feet in a patch of sunlight.
‘Alice, why do you persist in this ungodly slouch?’ My growing limbs were ignorant of elegance.
‘A vocation is given to us by God as a blessing,’ Mother Sybil, our Abbess, admonished the sinners in her care from her seat of authority every morning in Chapter House. ‘A vocation is a blessing that allows us to worship God through prayer, and through good works to the poor in our midst. We must honour our vocation and submit to the Rules of St Benedict, our most revered founder.’
Mother Abbess was quick with a scourge against those who did not submit. I remember its sting well. And that of her tongue. I felt the lash of both when, determined to be on my knees at Sister Goda’s side before the bell for Compline was silenced, I failed to shut away the Abbey’s red chickens against the predations of the fox. The result next morning for the hens was bloody. So was the skin on my back, in righteous punishment, Mother Abbess informed me as she wielded the strap that hung from her girdle. It did not seem to me to be fair that by observing one rule I had broken another. Having not yet learnt the wisdom of concealing my thoughts, I said so. Mother Sybil’s arm rose and fell with even more weight.
I was set to collect up the poor ravaged bodies. Not that the flesh went to waste. The nuns ate chicken with their bread at noon the following day as they listened to the reading of the parable of the good Samaritan. My plate saw nothing but bread, and that a day old. Why should I benefit from my sins?
A vocation? God most assuredly had not blessed me with a vocation, if that meant to accept, obey and be grateful for my lot in life. And yet I knew no other life, neither would I. When I reached my fifteenth year, so I was informed by Sister Goda, I would take my vows and, no longer a novice, be clothed as a nun. I would be a nun for ever until God called me to the heavenly comfort of His bosom—or to answer for my sins in some dire place of heat and torment. From my fifteenth year I would not speak, except for an hour after the noon meal when I would be allowed to converse on serious matters. Which seemed to me little better than perpetual silence.
Silent for the rest of my life, except for the singing of the offices.
Holy Mother, save me! Was this all I could hope for? It was not my choice to take the veil. How could I bear it? It was beyond my understanding that any woman would choose this life enclosed behind walls, the windows shuttered, the doors locked. Why would any woman choose this degree of imprisonment rather than taste the freedom of life outside?
To my mind there was only one door that might open for me. To offer me an escape.
‘Who is my father?’ I asked Sister Goda. If I had a father, surely he would not be deaf to my entreaties.
‘God in Heaven is your Father.’ Sister Goda’s flat response dared me to pursue the matter as she turned the page of a psalter. ‘Now, if you will pay attention, my child, we have here a passage to study …’
‘But who is my father here—out there?’ I gestured towards the window that allowed the noise of the town to encroach, its inhabitants gathering vociferously for market.
The novice mistress looked at me, faintly puzzled. ‘I don’t know, Alice, and that’s the truth.’ She clicked her tongue against her teeth. ‘They said when you were brought here there was a purse of gold coins.’ She shook her head, her veil hanging as limp as a shroud around her seamed face. ‘But it’s not important.’ She shuffled across the room to search in the depths of a coffer for some dusty manuscript.
But it was important. A purse of gold? Suddenly it was very important. I knew nothing other than that I was Alice. Alice—with no family, no dowry. Unlike more fortunate sisters, no one came to visit me at Easter or Christmas. No one brought me gifts. When I took the veil, there would be no one to hold a celebration for me to mark my elevation. Even my habit would be passed down to me from some dead nun who, if fate smiled on me, resembled me in height and girth; if not, my new garment would enclose me in a vast pavilion of cloth, or exhibit my ankles to the world.
Resentment bloomed at the enormity of it. The question beat against my mind: Who is my father? What have I done to deserve to be so thoroughly abandoned? It hurt my heart.
‘Who brought me here, Sister Goda?’ I persisted.
‘I don’t recall. How would I?’ Sister Goda was brusque. ‘You were left in the Abbey porch, I believe. Sister Agnes brought you in—but she’s been dead
