Mademoiselle Chanel (3 page)

All I needed to do was look.

SISTER THÉRÈSE GAVE ME
a handkerchief as a test, showing me a pattern of camellia flowers from a book. “I want you to embroider this around the edges. Can you do that?”

I nodded, studying the pattern until I memorized its shape. Ignoring Marie-Claire’s intermittent stares as she hemmed a smock, I threaded my needle and began to stitch the pattern into the linen. It was painstaking. I had only embroidered for my mother a few times, mostly easy motifs along sleeve cuffs, while this was intricate, with rounded corners that required precision. I made several mistakes that I had to undo; glancing up to find Marie-Claire smirking, I clenched my teeth. I was going to accomplish this if it killed me so I could wave it in her face. But once I finished the first camellia and Sister Thérèse came to look—“Oh, yes, Gabrielle, that is lovely”—I lost all sense of Marie-Claire and everyone else. The workroom with its rafter ceiling and white plaster walls, the large crucifix over the door and the rows of tables over which the girls bent, disappeared. It was only me with my needle, creating camellias as if by magic. When I looked up in a daze, I found I was the only one left.

As I stood, wincing at my sore buttocks from sitting for hours, Sister Thérèse rose from a stool in the corner. She floated to me, gathering shadows under her hem. “Are you finished?” she asked, and I nodded, suddenly aware I’d forgotten everything but what was before me, missing my prayers and, by the looks of it, dinner as well. Now she’d tell me I had failed her test, too.

She took up the handkerchief, turning it over to check the tiny knots of thread, then reviewed the pattern before she breathed, “Perfect,” and to my disbelief, I saw tears in her eyes. “Just perfect, my child. Never have I had a girl here who can sew like you.”

I didn’t know what to say. Her praise was so unexpected that I could only look at the handkerchief in her hands and mutter, “It . . . it wasn’t hard once I figured out how to do it.”

“Not hard? It is one of the most difficult patterns I could find! The camellia is a blessed symbol of our order, grown in our very gardens, but few can reproduce it like this.” She paused. Her next words were spoken so softly, I almost didn’t hear them: “Does God speak to you?”

I met her gaze. Here at last was my opportunity, my chance to earn lasting reward. If I lied, I could become a novice and then a nun, immured and safe forever. But Sister Thérèse looked so eager that I couldn’t bring myself to deceive her.

Without speaking, I shook my head.

She sighed. “It’s not a punishment. God loves us all. He can’t ask every one of us to serve Him. He needs us in the world, too.”

Looking up, I whispered, “I am afraid.” I had never admitted it to anyone, not even Julia. Fear had become my enemy because it might take root inside me and never leave.

Sister Thérèse smiled. “You needn’t be. Don’t you know we will see to your care even after you leave us? The most promising among you will be sent to other convents on your eighteenth birthdays, to perfect your skills in the hope that apprenticeships can be found. It is our duty. We do not want our girls to lose their way.”

“You will?” I said hesitantly.

She nodded. “We will do all we can. You need not fear; I know it in my heart. A skill like this can save you, my child. God does indeed love you, Gabrielle. Never doubt it.”

O
n Sunday afternoons in the spring and summer, we were released past the locked gates into the countryside. I had never understood the reason for locking us in. There was nowhere to run; forests and the mountains surrounded Aubazine. With our allotment of two pairs of shoes and stockings, two chemises, a cloak, gloves, and a wool hat, and the one uniform we wore until it strained at the seams, where could we possibly go?

Still, the girls eagerly awaited the ceremonial unbolting of the gates. The noise was deafening as we tumbled into the fresh air with ecstatic cries no amount of chiding by the nuns could stifle, bounding to the summit overlooking the valley. Picnic baskets were uncovered, bread and cheese passed around. Even the nuns sat together to lift their shuttered faces to the sun.

It was during one of these excursions in late July, shortly before my eighteenth birthday, that Julia suddenly said to me, “You’ll be leaving soon.”

I glanced at her. We sat dangling our bare feet in the rushing waters of the river, which fed the convent’s fishpond and now ran full with melting snow. It was the only time we were allowed to shed our stockings and shoes outside the dormitory.

“My birthday isn’t until August. And if you haven’t left by now, why would I?” In fact, I wondered why she hadn’t. Her eighteenth year had
come and gone in September and we both waited nervously for the day the abbess would summon her. But it hadn’t happened.

“Have you decided to take the veil?” I added, not certain how I would feel if she told me she had. She seemed resigned to spending the rest of her days in Aubazine, but since my talk with Sister Thérèse, I wondered about life beyond these walls. Her reassurance about my skill with sewing had given me confidence, and though I still worried about my uncertain future, I was starting to anticipate the day when I could embark on it.

She sighed. “If only I could.” She paused. “And you? Sister Thérèse is always praising your work. Even Sister Bernadette seems less demanding with you.”

“Sister Bernadette has given up. She’s resigned to the fact that I’ll never learn proper grammar or penmanship.”

“You haven’t answered me, Gabrielle.”

I met her stare. “No,” I finally said. “I don’t have a vocation, either. It’s not for me.” I was about to tell her what Sister Thérèse had said. For a reason I myself had not understood, I hadn’t revealed her assurance that I could make a living. I realized why as Julia said, “They don’t know what to do with me. I’m not good at sewing, so where can I go? If they let me out now . . .” Her voice faded. Like me, she, too, had apparently been worrying about the future. “But you,” she said, with a tremulous smile. “You can do anything. You have a gift.”

I burst out laughing. The sudden sound of it startled me almost as much as it did her. It made a raucous noise like my father’s, too loud and coarse to have come from my narrow chest. Like the nuns, I didn’t laugh often. “Honestly, Julia, where did you get such an idea? Just because I can turn a hem and embroider a pattern is hardly proof of anything.”

“But it is.” Her declaration was solemn, as it had been that day in the cemetery when our mother died. “You may not see it yet, or maybe you don’t want to, but Sister Thérèse certainly does, and so does the Reverend Mother.”

“Hah.” I wiggled my toes; they were starting to freeze but I didn’t want to pull them out. “The Reverend Mother won’t allow me to use the
library. She set me to extra hours of prayer and memorizing the Epistles. The last thing she thinks I have is a gift.” Even as I spoke, I found myself waiting with unexpected breathlessness for her reply. Sister Thérèse had said I was more skilled than any other girl she had taught. Was that the same as having a gift?

Julia said, “The Reverend Mother only tries you because she knows you are different. She knows you question everything. And she knows you still sneak books out of the library.”

“She does not!”

My sister arched her brow. “Sister Geneviève isn’t blind. Everyone knows you read every spare minute you can find. That candle under your blankets isn’t invisible, nor is the tent you make of your sheets with your knees to hide what you’re doing.”

“Well, at least I’m not doing what Marie-Claire does,” I snorted.

Julia sighed again. “They’ll send you to another convent, and from there you’ll find a position. You won’t end up like Maman. Or me.”

I seized her hand in mine. “No matter what, I will never leave you or Antoinette. If you don’t have a vocation, then we must find something else for you to do. And you mustn’t let Marie-Claire or her friends push you around. They only do it because they think you are weak.”

She looked at our entwined hands. “I am not like you, Gabrielle.”

“Then you must learn to be. Everyone takes advantage of those who are weak.”

The nuns called for our return. As girls slipped forth with rumpled skirts from climbing over the rocks, Julia and I gathered our shoes and stockings, and trudged down the hill to where the nuns awaited.

Joining the procession back to the convent, I said to Julia, “I don’t know whether I have a gift or not, but I’ll do whatever I can to see us safe.”

“Yes,” she said, without turning to me, “I have no doubt you’ll try.”

MY EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY DAWNED
like any other day: the tolling of the bell tower waking us, the somnolent assembly to the chapel, the
breaking of our fast and dispersion to lessons and chores. As I sat embroidering a pillowcase, I kept glancing at the doorway, expecting my summons by the abbess. I was so distracted that I hardly paid heed to my work until Sister Thérèse chided, “Gabrielle, what has gotten into you? Look at this mess you’ve made. It’s so unlike you.”

Glancing at the cloth in my hand, I found a tangle of threads and clumps.

“Unstitch it all and start again,” Sister Thérèse ordered. “At once.”

Since my triumph with the handkerchief, I rarely made a mistake. When I did, no one was harder on me than myself, my compulsion for perfection keeping me at my task until I succeeded; but all of a sudden, I couldn’t bear to sew anymore. “I don’t feel well,” I said. “The porridge this morning hasn’t agreed with me. May I be excused to use the privy?”

“Yes, yes, but do hurry back.” Sister Thérèse waved me out.

Rushing into the corridor, I pulled at my high collar. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. Taking to the cloisters, I paced. I’d walked these labyrinthine passages countless times, rounding the cloisters that circled the fountain. The scent of white camellias from the gardens suffused the air. Everything was as familiar as my own body, down to the mosaics in the walkway, so trodden upon during hundreds of years they were almost indiscernible.

For an inexplicable reason, today I paused to stare at the mosaics, trying to make sense of the pattern, as if it might ease the simultaneous relief and disappointment crushing me inside. The abbess had decided I wasn’t ready. As she had done with Julia, she intended to retain me here until I declared a vocation or I was old enough to be evicted.

“They represent the number five.”

I spun about, startled to find I was no longer alone.

“Didn’t you know?” said the abbess, a wry note in her voice. “I thought you’d read everything we had to offer by now and were fully aware of the meaning of those figures.”

I looked back at the mosaics. “Five?” Now, I saw the repetition, the same five figures or five-pointed stars, duplicated over and over. “Why that number?”

“Had you been paying as much attention to your catechism as you do to other matters, you would know it is our most holy number, the perfect embodiment of God’s creation: wind, earth, fire, water, and, most important of all, spirit. Everything we see around us contains these five elements. Five is the most sacred number in the firmament.” She motioned. “Come. I sent to the sewing room for you but Sister Thérèse returned word that you were unwell.”

She didn’t ask the cause of my discomfort. Following her in silence, my heart pounding hard in my ears, I had to stop myself from placing a hand to my chest to subdue it.

In her chamber, she pointed me to the stool before her desk. Once I sat, she paced to the window. She didn’t speak for such a long moment, I began to fear she was going to confront me with my continued disobedience, ordering that I never set foot in the library again. Then she said abruptly, “I have welcome news. Though you may doubt His compassion, God has seen fit to look upon you and your sisters with favor.”

She wanted me to take the veil. She had decided my life for me. Suddenly, the walls closed in around me. I was grateful for the care the nuns had given me, the stability and refuge, and the chance to discover myself. I had also accepted that my father was never coming for us, nor had he intended to. But I still had my sisters to support. I couldn’t do it as a nun.

She turned around. “I wrote to your family. It took me some time to locate them, but they have returned word that they are willing to receive you.”

“Family?” I echoed. “I have no family, Reverend Mother.”

I meant it. Though I had long ceased to expect anything of Papa, I had not forgotten how my mother’s sisters had sent us away, out of sight and out of mind, inconveniences for which no one wanted to assume responsibility.

“Oh, but you do.” She retrieved a paper from her desk. “Your father’s sister Madame Louise Costier has written to say she can place you and Julia with her own younger sister, Adrienne, in the boarding school at our blessed convent of Notre Dame in Moulins, near where the family resides. You can spend holidays with them and, in time, seek an apprenticeship that might lead to a permanent position.”

Upon this announcement, she waited for my response. My hands clenched in my lap. It was exactly what Sister Thérèse had told me: the news I had been waiting for. But without even glancing at the letter the abbess held like a portent from heaven, I said firmly, “I do not know any Madame Louise Costier. You must have been misinformed, Reverend Mother.”

Part of me deliberately refuted her, though I knew no one could fool the abbess. Another part of me had to see the evidence with my own eyes, for how could I have family willing to receive me? Where had they been these past seven years?

“I surely have not. You may not be aware of it, but your father’s parents are alive and reside in a town outside Moulins. Louise is their eldest daughter; she assures me that had she known you and your sisters were here, she’d have come to visit you.”

My nails dug into my palms.
Visit?
She would have come to visit but not take us in? I was right; I did not want to see her. As far as I was concerned, Louise Costier must be as bad as my other aunts, another heartless soul cut from the same unyielding cloth.

My anger must have shown, for the abbess said, “I see you are as contrary as ever. I do fear for you, as your nature is never to be satisfied. Yet Sister Thérèse assures me God sees past my concerns.” She still didn’t offer the letter, though by now I had to hold myself back from lunging up to tear it from her fingers. “You will prepare for your departure. Inform Julia of your good fortune and see that I hear no reports that you fill her head with these unseemly doubts. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Mother.” I stood, not feeling my legs move. As I turned toward the door, I abruptly went still, overcome by the enormity of what had occurred. Once the convent gates opened to let me out, they would close behind me forever, unless I came back begging to take the veil. When I first arrived, all I had wanted to do was leave. Now that the moment was upon me, I hesitated. What if I failed? What would happen to me, to Julia and Antoinette? A needle was not much of a weapon; it certainly had not saved Maman. How could it save me?

I braved a look over my shoulder. Perhaps for the first time since I had darkened her threshold, the abbess detected that fear I kept tethered inside.

“What of Antoinette?” I asked.

“She, too, will go to Notre Dame in Moulins once her time here is over.” The abbess paused. Her voice softened. “You must remember my warning, Gabrielle: There is no place for aspiration in a humble girl’s heart. Sometimes, it’s the simplest things we should most long for.”

I left her at her desk, with the letter from an aunt I had never met still in her hand.