Anna (54 page)

But in a kitchen garden all the work is heavy. There were the rows of potatoes, fifty metres long, to be hoed. Anna's hands grew sore and blistered, and her back never stopped aching. There was digging, too. Some of the nuns—the country ones—dug like men, but Anna was too slow: the others kept overtaking her. And, pityingly, she was given the odd jobs of the garden to do: the weeding—creeping along almost on all fours over the endless acreage; wheeling away the rubbish in a barrow that was too large, too heavy, for her; fetching the tools that the others, the workers, needed.

And while she was working the same conflicting thoughts were passing through her mind.

“I am no better than a labourer,” she told herself; “they think of me as a labourer, these nuns. They understand nothing about me.”

She longed, at times, to throw down the broom that she was holding and shout out to them to turn round and look at her; turn round and see how different from them all she was.

But always there was another kind of thought that succeeded these, the mad, foolish ones. She would become contrite again, and
see the work that she was doing as an expiation. She would ask for it to be made harder, so that she could begin her atonement here on earth.

And she would double her back over the heavy barrow, and strain at the handles, and be grateful.

It was in Anna's fourth year in the convent that the Reverend Mother died, utterly burnt out like one of the tall candles in the chapel. She was supplanted by a middle-aged woman of great energy. There was little spirituality about the new Reverend Mother, but much courage. She disapproved of people getting into a rut, she said; it made them indolent. And she proceeded to change everything. Anna was taken away from the gardens and put into the household. Sister Ursula became a teaching num. And Sister Veronica was brought back inside the convent once more. When she and Anna met in the kitchens, it was the first time for nearly six months that they had seen each other. Anna's heart lifted at the sight of her.

Meanwhile the new Reverend Mother was continuing as she had begun. There were many women in convents all over the world, she declared; and few fitted to be. She upbraided those in the Order for their slothfulness, their lack of discipline, their casualness in religious observance. And she interviewed the lay sisterhood, one by one, probing and penetrating into their secrets, asking them why they had wanted to turn their backs upon the world and whether they did not think that there was as much of God's work to be done outside the convent as within. She was thoroughly jealous of her profession and refused to tolerate anyone who in her opinion was unworthy of it.

To Anna she was brusque as she was with everyone. She asked why she had come there and then, instantly demanded if she wanted to stop. When Anna told her that she could not leave because of Annette, the Reverend Mother shrugged her shoulders and inquired what more Anna could do for Annette than was being done already. A convent, she maintained, should be a refuge only for the sick and the very old. Able-bodied young women should be able to fend for themselves outside.

As though to prove the earnestness of her theories she actually sent two of the lay sisterhood packing on the following week, even
though one of them was a distant relative on her mother's side of a Bourbon Marquis.

Sister Veronica was inclined to smile at the whole transformation.

“She is the new Captain,” she remarked, “and she wants to steer the boat round in circles at first just to show who's master.”

“She is ruthless,” Anna replied. “Quite ruthless.”

She was frightened to think that, even remotely, Annette should be under the control of such a woman.

But Sister Veronica only smiled again.

“She won't turn you away,” she said. “Besides, you won't want to stop here always. You weren't meant for this kind of life.”

Anna found herself remembering these words: they came back to her as she worked. They were like a dim ray, feebly lighting up the future. Her work was harder now: the lay sisters and helpers in the household got no rest at all. There were three hundred women in the convent, and the rooms, the stairs, the corridors all had to be scrubbed or polished daily. By six o'clock Anna was on her knees on the small mat of carpet beginning the everlasting task of cleaning. The water roughened her hands and opened cuts there, and the coarse soap entered into the skin. The beeswax filled her nails and left her fingers swollen; and always in her arms there was the same steady ache. They did not stop aching: at night the pain in her shoulders made her want to cry.

“And if it is like this for me,” she asked herself, “what will it be for Annette? They are still kind to her because she is only six. But when she grows older what will become of her then?”

The question terrified her; and it was always at night that it returned.

“What will they do with her when she is older?” she asked herself a thousand times. “How can I bear to stand by and watch it happen?”

And she remembered how some of the girls, the more intelligent ones, were sent out into the world for domestic service: it was the only life for which they had been fitted. The thought filled her with panic and, in the darkness, she saw a succession of hot kitchens and low attic bedrooms, and she shuddered.

“I must save her from that,” she began saying; “I must think somehow of a way of saving her.”

Her mind became filled with schemes, desperate ones.

“I will write to my father,” she resolved: “He could refuse me, but he couldn't refuse
my
little Annette.”

But even as the thought came to her, she remembered that the letters that she had sent him had gone unanswered, that when she
had spoken he had been silent. Then she thought of Berthe; but there was the Baron—he would never hear of it. In her misery she even thought of writing to M. Moritz and her pride no longer seemed to matter. But would it be any use in appealing to him, she wondered. Was he the kind of man to break his heart over the child of a discarded mistress.

“I can try,” Anna told herself. “For Annette there is nothing that I wouldn't do …”

Then, because it was late and she was tired and her shoulders no longer ached so fiercely, she began to drift off into sleep.

When morning came she was down on her knees once more. The bucket of water with the crystals of soda like little splinters of glass at the bottom, was beside her. It was the stone floor of the row of closets that she was cleaning; and when it was done Sister Angela, the house Sister, would come along with a taper to peer into the dark corners for dirt, for dry stone that had not been washed at all, for pools of water that had been left unmopped. She was a conscientious woman, Sister Angela, reserved, polite; but dull. She had supervised the cleaning of the convent for so long that she seemed to have lost any other object in life: she was so efficient in her task that the new Reverend Mother had left her where she was. On the whole, Sister Angela was satisfied with Anna; quite satisfied.

And for Anna it seemed almost that she had not known any other life at all. It never varied—the same pails and scrubbing brushes, the heavy jars of beeswax and the mops for polishing, the long corridors that seemed somehow to expand and lengthen as she knelt in them, the many stairs, the dark sink down which the pails had to be emptied, the sink itself which had to be cleaned after all the other business of cleaning was over.

“I wish that I could die,” she kept telling herself; “that somehow I and Annette could die together.”

But all the time she could hear Sister Veronica's words inside her: it was like listening to a voice that never stopped.

“You won't stop here always,” she was saying. “You weren't meant for this kind of life.”

When the Reverend Mother sent for her, Anna was on her knees. On her knees, but not praying. She was in the centre of the common room floor, her hands in the pail beside her, rinsing out the cloth that came away from the boards each time, gritty and crushed flat by the weight of her own rubbing.

The girl who delivered the message was clearly frightened by it. She lived in terror of the Reverend Mother, who was always so quick, so sharp, so accurate. And she could not forget that it was she who had delivered the fatal message summoning the two nuns whom the Reverend Mother had sent away from the convent.

“She's ready for you now,” she added. “She is waiting.”

Anna dried her hands and followed her: the same thought was in her mind too.

“Has it come?” she asked herself. “Has she decided that I am the next to go?”

But it couldn't be that, she decided; she was too hard-working and obedient—yes, too obedient—for any fault possibly to be found with her. It must be something else that the Reverend Mother wanted to see her about. Perhaps it was about Annette. Her heart began racing and her knees seemed weak suddenly as she entered the room.

The Reverend Mother regarded her for a moment before speaking.

“It is usual,” she said, “when coming to see your Reverend Mother to make yourself tidy. The Sister will always give you a clean apron if you tell her what it is for. And the hands should be washed. If we are careless in our personal habits very soon we find ourselves careless in our mental ones also.”

She broke off and went over to the desk from which she had risen. There was an envelope lying there, and she picked it up.

“This letter concerns you,” she said. “It is from a lady in England who wants a governess for a little girl. The lady is an invalid and must have someone whom she can trust. It is Sister Veronica who has suggested you. She is a relative of the writer's. Personally, I can think of others who would be more suitable but I am ready to release you if you wish to leave us. You may give me your answer in the morning. I shall have to reply to this letter.” She paused and looked at Anna.

“You don't answer,” she said.

“I … I was thinking of Annette,” Anna told her.

“The child is well,” the Reverend Mother answered. “At the moment all the children are well.”

“But I can't leave her here,” Anna answered. “Not leave her here and go to England.”

The Reverend Mother raised her eyebrows.

“Then you must abandon the idea,” she said. “There is nothing in the letter about bringing your family with you.”

Anna stood there, her hands clasped together in front of her.

“No,” she said. “I can't leave her. I mustn't.”

The Mother Superior looked up sharply, her keen eyes fixing on Anna as she spoke.

“I did not ask for your decision now,” she said. “It will be time enough in the morning.”

“But why did you do it for me?” Anna was asking. “Why did you go to all this trouble?”

Sister Veronica dropped her eyes to the ground.

“I've told you,” she said. “You don't belong here really. Your life is outside.”

Anna looked towards her.

“And yours.”

Sister Veronica smiled.

“Yes, mine is here,” she answered. “Here or somewhere else just like it.”

“And you're not unhappy?”

Sister Veronica smiled again.

“I chose the life,” she said.

They had reached the end of the path along which they were walking and as they turned Sister Veronica caught Anna by the hand.

“You
must
go,” she said. “Tell me that you'll go.”

There was an intensity in her words that startled Anna. It seemed that Sister Veronica was willing her to go, that there was some powerful force urging her. It was as though she were striving desperately to recover a life that deliberately she had lost; as though in the person of this other woman she was hoping still to be able to recover some portion of it.

“But there is Annette,” Anna said. “I can't leave her here.”

“You must,” Sister Veronica told her. “There is no other way. If you don't go now, you may be here all your life.”

“And Annette,” Anna said. “If I go, what becomes of her?”

“She's happy,” Sister Veronica replied. “Happier than you can imagine.”

“But without me would she be happy then?”

Sister Veronica paused.

“It would make no difference to her,” she said. “She is not allowed to see you when you are here. She is quite alone already. But she isn't lonely. She has her friends. Her life is full. She doesn't need a life outside—not yet. With you it's different. You're pining. You're miserable. I beg you to go. I beg you. You can come back later for Annette. Come back, when you've made a life for her.”

The bell rung violently by Sister Ursula—in all the changes
that had taken place she had managed somehow to retain her bell— cut abruptly through their conversation. The nuns began to move off to their various duties.

But Sister Veronica remained standing where she was.

“Go now,” she said. “Go now, while you still have the chance. There may never be another one. One day Annette will be grateful.”

Seeing that they were still talking, Sister Ursula began ringing her bell more violently than ever.

The next morning it was the Reverend Mother who sent for her again. Anna had not volunteered to go there because she still did not know the answer.

And the Reverend Mother seemed irritated because her mind was not made up.

“Is it still your child that is worrying you?” she asked.

Anna bowed her head.

The Reverend Mother gave a little gesture of impatience.

“And what do you think would happen to Annette if you went away?” she asked. “Do you imagine that France will vanish as soon as you go to England, that this convent will cease to exist?”

When Anna did not reply the Reverend Mother raised her hand and rung the small bell that stood on her desk.