“I will go home.”
Patience bent to pull the stalks in her hand from the ground, and said, “Where is home, Ressie? What have we but this place? I had hoped Lukas would take us with him. He promised to do it.”
“Ah,” I said. “Lukas promised.” I felt disdain for Patience then, worse than any anger or puzzlement I had felt before. She had allowed him to use her for the price of escape. I knew what that made her in the eyes of God and the world. “Perhaps you sold yourself too cheaply, sister.” She turned to me with venom in her eyes. It was the first time I knew my own heart as I knew my own hands. Her eyes met mine on the same level for I had grown to her height. I said, “If you slap me, ever again, I shall return you blow for blow. I will not be beaten by you or anyone for speaking the truth. You have no right to use me so ill.” Patience straightened her back, dumped the armload of flax at my feet, and struck out through the tall plants, parting the flax, running from me. She took up a place between some other workers. I laid out the flax she dropped without shedding a tear, righteous indignation fueling my work as it did for the next several days.
*
Days turned into weeks and winter came again. My mind felt numbed to time and the rhythms of it I measured by seasons rather than days. I turned fourteen, and felt fully a woman, at last allowed to don the gray gown of our order. Before the summer flax harvest that year, we received word that Donatienne had died of consumption. I was not allowed to attend her funeral or burial.
On my fifteenth birthday, in the year 1734, Sister Joseph called me to her. I presumed that it might be something to do with my life there, my possibilities of a future placement in marriage. What she gave to me was a bundle of papers tied in woolen yarn.
“This day is usually reserved to assign you as a compagne, or to speak to you of coming prospects. Taking vows, marriage, or placement as a lady’s maid. You have gone to great lengths to deceive your purposes here, Marie,” she said. “These letters from you have been placed in our post box for the past three years. While I do not read English well, it does not take a scholar to discover the content of them.”
“I only wrote to my mother.”
“You procured costly paper available only to the Brothers. How did you come by these sheets?”
“I asked for them. From Lukas Newham.”
“What did you give to him in return?”
“My word.”
“That is all? He is gone, now. Will you tell me his secret?”
“Since he will not fulfill it, I will. He intended to become a priest. He said he knew of secrets that the pope alone should hear. He swore me to secrecy for the paper.”
“We believe he dealt shamefully with young women in our care. Did he lay hands upon you? Did he beg you for favors, or take them?”
I could not stop the color on my face. “No, Sister. I am not to be had so easily.”
“Why the wine upon your cheek, then? May I not assume that you are sullied or saddened by the efforts of that young man?”
“Not I, Sister.” The image of Patey with him made my face burn. “I hated him.”
Sister Joseph cocked her head and watched my heart play upon my face. She said, “Do you know of others whom he did sully? Tell me the truth.”
I bowed. “Yes.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“’Twould have broken my word to two people to do that. I was trapped for the want of a sheet of vellum.”
“Several sheets, I see.”
“Yes, Sister, though I did not steal them. He stole them.”
“But you are wrong, Marie. There are other forms of theft, especially of the light you hold in your heart. It is dimmed by deception no matter how small. You have hidden one lie within another.”
“Sister, what of my letters? To let my mother know I am alive?”
“No contact with the outside world is allowed for anyone. The paper will be soaked and the ink washed, though it will leave stains, as lies leave stains upon your soul, daughter. Leave here and go to confession now.” As I passed the threshold, she said, “I thought you were above this sort of thing, Marie.”
My work was doubled for thirty days, every moment of it spent fuming in anger, scheming to escape. I found every possible opportunity to pass Patience in the kitchen or at meals and inquire whether there had been a candlestick on a certain table or if one needed polish. I did it before listening ears. Sister Joseph thought I was feeling repentant, seeking out even more work to penalize my wicked heart.
*