My Name is Resolute (24 page)

Sister Joseph put one hand under my chin and lifted my face to hers. She said, “Now, let me put some salve on your poor little hands.” She clucked her tongue.

One moment I was full of hate, the next, longing. I told myself I hated Sister Joseph, even as she rubbed salve on my hands. I hated her as she wrapped them in cotton lint and put a pair of black stockings on my hands as if they were gloves. I hated her as she led me to the dining room and sat beside me. After the blessing, I opened my eyes and saw that I had two pieces of bread on my plate and she had none. Oh, la. I wanted to climb into her lap and be comforted! I wept. If she had only stayed cruel I could have held only my anger and hatred, but instead I turned to Sister Joseph and asked, “Will you fix my hands again?” not because the bandages had fallen, but because I wanted her to caress and hold them again. She murmured to me as she straightened the stockings that I had worked so very hard, much more than the other girls, and that she was proud of me for such a great labor unto the Lord. When she had finished pulling the stockings in place, she hugged me and I loved her for it.

In chapel, I fell asleep during prayers. One of the girls awoke me when it was over and I stumbled as I followed the others to my dormitory where Donatienne waited to help me into my nightgown. She held in her hands the rough, gray thing as I approached the bedside. Exhaustion left me bitter and anger flooded my thoughts. “Leave me alone,” I said. I swatted at the thing, sending it to the floor.

“What is the matter, Marie?” Donatienne picked it up, searching for the sleeves.

“My name is not Marie. I am tired. I have worked like a
slave
all the day long, and you ask me what is the matter? Leave it on the floor; I do not want your help.”

“Very well. I will not help you.” She laid the gown on my bed.

I hated that horrible bed. The small comfort that it was not a flea-ridden bearskin next to a chimney, nor a mat on the fetid floor of a Saracen bilge-hold did not make it
my
bed. My bed had coverlets of goose down and pink satin. My bed had carved and rubbed mahogany posts and a down tick and a cunning wee stair to get into it.
My
bed was on the top floor of a stone house on Meager Bay. “Do not look at me, either,” I said, and burst into tears. Why could I not hide them now? Why was I no longer brave? Why did Sister Joseph not come and hold my hands in hers again? Such hard work as this day I hoped never to see again.

Donatienne mumbled,
“Très bien.”

I answered in French, “And stop saying ‘very well.’ It is not very well at all.”

“Your French has improved. You have found your tongue.”

My tears flowed in earnest then, and I blubbered, “
Je vous déteste.
I hate you.” I turned away from her and pulled down my skirt, dropping the loose shirt atop it, both in a heap on the floor beside the bed. I pulled the gown on over my petticoat and shift. I kicked off my shoes but did not bother with the stockings for I could not use my fingers, wrapped as they were in other stockings.

Donatienne sobbed as she put on her own night clothes and climbed into her bed only inches from mine. “I am sorry if I have offended you.”

Her words threw fresh oil onto the fire of my anger. “Pulling flax all day for two days,
that
has offended me.” Uncontrollable tears annoyed me for a short time before I slept the sleep of exhaustion.

Some of the flax was left to ret or cure in the field; some was bound in bundles, wrapped in tow sacking, and sunk at the edge of the river in vast trays made of logs. Rocks weighted the bundles so that they stayed in the water. Mold and rot made a stench in the bundles worse than the garbage bins before they set them afire. That was the most valuable flax of all, for Sister Agathe said when it was woven it shone like gold.

Sister Agathe came to me one evening. “I have asked the Mother Superior if you may be allowed to visit your uncle. She made inquiries and found he is not your uncle.”

I sighed. “I hoped if I said he was my uncle you might allow it. He was the minister of our community. He was kind to me.”

“And so you have lied again? This time about something more serious than eating a carrot, no? You will spend tomorrow on your knees in prayer at the foot of the cross.”

“Yes, Sister.” I tried to contain my glee at facing a day without flax, but found on the morrow this punishment was not so easily ignored as before. The stones at the foot of the crucifix had been strewn with seeds, and I was not allowed to move them or to sit. I did not cry for myself. I laid curses to Sister Agathe on the deaf ears of the plaster man hanging above me.

Another Sunday came, a day warm and misty, the air reeking with moldering flax blown away by a light breeze, so that the whole place seemed lush and fragrant, verdant, full. The sun was high in the sky when prayers and Sunday’s only meal of the day at mid-morning were finished. I walked to the vegetable garden hoping to find it unattended, but three nuns in gray bent there, praying over pease suffering wilt. The day warmed as I ambled the grounds. I came to a glade made by blueberry bushes grown overhead. An elderly nun sitting in an invalid chair slept there. Her blanket had slipped to her feet. I tucked it up over her shoulders. She awoke and smiled at me.
“Merci,”
she whispered,
“petite ange.”
She fell asleep again as soon as the words left her mouth. More like
“petite sauvage,”
I thought. I wished I were an Indian with a tomahawk.

I picked a handful of berries and ate them. On the other side, a gate in the garden wall stood ajar. Beyond it stretched an open field of grain, silver heads waving under the gentle breeze like water in a bay. Bees hovered about a honeysuckle grown upon a discarded stile beckoning over a fence that no longer existed.

I wheeled around to face the convent buildings, aware that I was alone. I could see the upper floors with their open shutters, the spire of the cathedral. In the distance near the stables a man brushed a horse. Chickens pecked around both their feet. On this side of the blueberries, though, as far as I could see, I was alone at a path between fields. Once I stepped through the gate and stood on the far side of the wall, nothing lay before me but grain fields in all directions. Doves sighed and fluttered overhead, a pheasant cried out rising from his hiding place under the stile. I began to run.

As I ran from the convent proper, my face spread with joy. I opened my mouth to gulp in great breaths of free air. No one called me. On and on I dashed, my shadow before me as if a dark image of myself ran along as company, my arms swinging, my back warmed by the sun and the thought of freedom.
“Oui!”
I called out, with joy. I returned to English, crying, “Yes, oh yes, Ma. I am coming home!”

I ran until my side ached. The ground rolled lower at the end of the field, which stopped at a stand of maple trees. I might have dashed my brains against the colorless wall of stone on the far side of the maple trees, for I ran into it at full tilt, my hands breaking my fall. The wall was higher than the sides of the Saracen ship. I raced along it one way, then turned and went the other. I beat against it with my fists, growling like a wild animal. I jumped at it, trying to find a fingerhold. Here and there, a rock protruded, but putting my toes on it crumbled it from its place. I heard a dog bark on the other side of the fence. I called out, “Ho, there! Help me, gentlefolk!”

“Who calls?” a man’s voice answered.

“Your servant, sir. Help me, please. They torture children, and starve us, and beat us without mercy. I was brought here by Indians. Save me from this, dear sir, and my mother will pay you handsomely. She is the duchess of all Scotland! Only throw me a line, and I will climb over. Take me away from this place and you will be rich!”

The voice laughed! “You will not find a one in this city who will go against the church!” His laughter and the dog’s barking faded away.

I found a downed tree but it was too heavy to move. Another limb placed against the wall proved too thin to balance upon, and it cracked when I got half its length under me. Surely, there would be a gate in this wall. I began to run along it. The pain in my side grew until I slowed to a walk. I would return for Patience; I must make my escape while there was a chance. I went until I came out of the thicket of maple and entered low brush. The sun baked upon my head and I pulled off my cap and used it to wipe my brow.

I found myself but ten paces to a vineyard. I stopped at the first row of vines and ate an entire bunch of grapes, though they were tart and afterward I felt a terrific thirst. Across the vineyard I spotted a square place in the gray wall. It must be a gate! I started through the rows. My side gnawed at me. I tripped and fell, then rolled and sat in the shade of a vine. I would catch my breath. I meant to rest a while, but when I awoke the sun was low, the sky painted with pinks the color of the inside of a conch shell. I ate more grapes. I looked toward the gate but the shadows were so deep I could not see it. It took me until night fell to make my way across the vineyard in the direction I believed the gate to be. Crows fussed at me as if they meant to give away my escape.

Darkness fell without a glimmer of moon. I stopped at the last row. Something moved nearby and I sniffed for the scent of bear. An owl swooped from a tree and called, his wings catching the last of the light that lingered in the air and taking it with him, leaving me in darkness. I jumped at his call and felt a sharp stab. A nail protruded from the framework built to hold the grapevine over the ground in an awkward shape. It caught my left arm just above the wrist. Blood gushed from the ragged wound and I pressed my hand against it. I sank by the vine. The thing’s branches were forced with cords into unnatural bends over the wood frame. Crucified, I thought. The wretched things had all been crucified.

I would wait until moonrise and continue, I decided, so I curled my arms about my knees to wait, pressing the bloody wrist against my skirt. The touch of a leaf upon my cheek brought me awake as if it had been a slap. I heard voices and peeked from my place toward the sound. The moon was so bright! “There! I see her!” I heard a voice from behind my head. It was not the moon but the sun! My heart sank. I lay upon the earth as if I were dead, wishing the ground would cover me there. Sister Joseph and Donatienne followed a priest, their skirts held high, revealing their little feet at my eye level, running so they seemed as puppets. I started toward the gate, trying to escape with them on my heels. Donatienne reached my side, her face red and wet. “Oh, Marie, you are safe!” I sank to the earth in a heap.

The priest raised me to stand. Behind them was Reverend Johansen. My face lit up with joy but he did not seem happy to see me. He turned on his heel, picked up a hoe, and left the three of them to walk me back to the convent. I felt overcome with emotion for myself and sorry for Donatienne, then. “I went for a walk. I got lost,” I said.

Sister Joseph sat on the ground and pulled me toward her, hugging me, hugging Donatienne with me, squeezing us together the way Ma sometimes did with Patey and me. She murmured. She took me by the shoulders and gave me a shake. “You would not lie again, would you, Marie?”

“No. I will never lie again. I was not running away. I was lost. I am sorry,” I said.

“I know you are sick for want of your home.”

“I was lost. Must I be punished?” I asked Sister Joseph.

“Yes. Severely,” she said with a frown. Then she smiled. “I think you must say a hundred prayers. Let us go and eat some breakfast.”

*   *   *

Two days later, Sister Agathe called me from my work and said I was to go to the sick ward. Patience had been delivered of a baby boy. She added that it was important that I see my sister and kiss her good-bye, for the priest was with her.

I went to Patey’s bedside. “La, Patience, you are so ill,” I said.

She opened her eyes for a moment. “Ressie. Sit by me.”

I pushed myself onto the narrow bed and she moaned. The others about us gasped as if I had hurt her. “I am sorry,” I said.

“Do not leave me, Ressie. Please stay with me. Hold me. I am so cold.”

I leaned toward her and laid my face against her neck. “Patience. Do not die. I need you so. The baby is well,” I added, to cheer her. “And handsome.”

“It is not my baby. It is Rafe MacAlister’s baby. Tell the nuns to find him and charge him with the child’s keep.”

“How can he have aught to do with your baby?”

Sister Agathe put her hand on my shoulder. “Father is going to give her Extreme Unction. It will forgive her sins.”

“Patience has no sins. I am the one who sins.”

“You would not want her to go to hell. Step back before she dies.”

I looked upon my sister with wariness and fear. Her face was indeed more pale than ever I had known, her eyes sunken and filmed worse than when she had had scurvy on the ship. “No, no,” I whispered. “May I not stay with her?”

Sister Agathe and the priest frowned at me. I stepped away. He put oil on Patey’s forehead and tried to get her to eat a bit of Eucharist. When he finished, I returned to her side and sat on the floor by the bed where I could hold her hand and wait. “Patey will not die,” I chanted over and over again.

Suddenly I stood. I ran. First out the door, then to the chapel. I rang the bell to call a priest to the confessional. “Father? Father! Hear my confession.” A candle came into the little cell with a man’s form. “Tell God to let Patey live. I confess I have told lies. I lied about the carrot. I ate it myself. I lied to my
compagne
about my family. I lied about my ma driving a coach and my age and I told Violette how the dogs we owned would eat her alive once I get home. There are hundreds more, too. Forgive me, Father. Please do not let my sister die. Please!” The priest was one of the old ones. He could not understand my frantic mixture of English and French, and mumbled something I could barely make out. “You old spider!” I shouted, and ran from the chapel back to the sickroom.

Donatienne appeared carrying a bundle of blankets and two pillows. “I came to wait with you,” she said.