The Convent (7 page)

May God grant you perseverance in this your holy resolution …

Veni Sponsa Christi,

Accipe coronam, quam tibi Dominus praeparavit in aeternum

Come, Spouse of Christ,

Receive the crown which the Lord hath prepared for thee in eternity.

And then it was the novices' turn, making the first of their solemn vows.

I do vow and promise to God, Poverty, Chastity and Obedience and the
Zeal for Saving Souls, and to preserve until the end of my life in enclosure
in this Institute for the charitable care and instruction of poor women and
girls … I will make my vows to the Lord in the sight of all His people
in the courts of the house of the Lord.

The Bishop sprinkled each newly received novice with Holy Water and handed her a folded white veil, a long white candle and a small, silver, heart-shaped locket in which those same vows were enclosed.

Receive this holy veil, the emblem of Chastity and Modesty. May you
carry it before the judgement seat of Our Lord Jesus Christ that you may
have Eternal Life and live for ever and ever.

The novices and New Professed responded to the words of the Antiphon
Vota mea
in unison.

I am espoused to Him whom the angels serve and at whose beauty the
sun and moon stand in wonder.

They filed off the altar in procession to the sanctuary where the capping would take place as His Grace intoned the
Regnum mundi
. Mother Superior, along with the Mistress of Novices, supervised the cutting off of their hair and the putting on of their new habits, all the time singing in Latin.

I have despised the kingdom of the world, and all the grandeur of this
earth, for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Whom I have seen, Whom I
have loved, in Whom I have believed and towards Whom my heart inclines.

There were so many pieces of clothing and so many prayers to remember as each garment went on. Cecilia was not the only newly professed novice who had difficulty fitting the bandeau properly and pinning the white veil in place. So many archaic undergarments before the voluminous outer dress. How was it going to feel in summer? And where was her chord and how were you meant to tie it?

She swung around so a stern Mother Holy Angels could set her guimpe straight as they continued singing the psalm.

He has placed his seal upon my forehead and I will admit no other
lover but Him.

After assessing each new novice for imperfections, the Mistress of Novices motioned for them all to fall back into line. One by one they knelt before the Mother Superior and took a long white flickering candle.

Cecilia risked a small smile as she caught the eye of Marie Claire, now Sister Mary Scholastica, and Breda, now Sister Mary Perpetua.
How different we all look!

Breda nudged Cecilia. ‘We made it, kiddo.'

‘We did.'

A massive organ and the singing of Psalm CXXXIII accompanied their return into the main body of the church.

Ecce quam bonum

Quam jucundum

Habitare fratres in unum

Behold how good and how pleasant it is

for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Cecilia sensed a rustle of disquiet as the congregation, who'd been sitting and waiting for them for some time, craned forward. She went on singing and didn't raise her eyes, but for the first time she thought of her own family sitting somewhere in the body of the church. Mum would be fine, but her father and brothers would be finding this long ceremony difficult. She wished suddenly for it all to be over, longed to hug them. No matter about her new religious name, she was still Cecilia, the same person that they'd always known.

And yet the blunt truth was that she had left them, and she knew they knew it too. Apart from a couple of hours every six weeks, after this day she would be effectively gone from their lives. The new habit said it all. Only her face was visible. A sudden stab of sorrow shot through her, as an image of the home she'd grown up in filled her mind. Never again would she see that house, sit in the kitchen or smell a cake cooking in the oven. Nor would she ever ride again with her brother Dom, race across the paddocks towards Auntie Mon's back paddock, clearing Patterson's Creek near the bridge that they'd been warned a thousand times was too wide and dangerous for a horse – then up the hill to the finishing line, neck and neck, the horses wet with sweat, both of them breathless with laughter.

Never again would she sit on the verandah and drink mugs of tea, listening to her brothers scrapping and fighting and joking with each other. No food or drink would pass her lips in front of any other person for the rest of her life except her fellow sisters. The twins – those two boys who'd arrived after her mother thought she'd finished having babies – were now only eleven. She would never know them, nor they her.

Nor would she ever have a family of her own. No man to love; no babies to hold.

In a final act of submission, the line of professed Sisters lay face down in front of the altar. The funeral pall that would be placed over her coffin one day was draped over her body to signify her retreat from the world. She could smell the floor wax and feel the cool of the wood, and she hoped she wasn't going to sneeze or cry. Already her shorn head felt itchy.

The new novices walked single file down the aisle joyfully singing the
Te Deum
along with the other Sisters.

Te Deum laudamus: Te Dominum confitemur.

Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.

We praise thee,O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.

All the earth doth worship thee: the Father everlasting…

And it was over.

After a quick lunch with her fellow sisters – they were all ravenous, having not eaten since the night before – there were two and a half hours of sitting about in the convent gardens with her parents and brothers. Dominic really had come, and although he'd been distant with them all, his smile for her was warm
.
They'd all started off shyly, probably because they hadn't seen her for months, and the new habit hid the sister that they remembered. But as the afternoon wore on, when she linked arms with them, laughed and joked like old times, they all relaxed. For Cecilia it was such a joy to be with her family. She would never go home again, nor eat another meal with them, but this was the next best thing.

At one point there'd been a lull in the conversation. Her father had looked up from his paper to the big brick buildings. ‘This place will kill you,' he'd muttered sourly.

Cecilia laughed in dismay. ‘I'm happy here, Dad.'

‘I heard you telling your mother just now that you couldn't take your cardigan off without
asking
the Reverend Mother,' he growled. ‘
That
is just plain ridiculous.'

‘Oh, Dad!' Tears sprung to her eyes. ‘It's nothing.'

‘You could be using that head of yours.'

‘But I am!'

He slumped down in the chair, closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. ‘My only daughter,' he said to no one in particular, before turning back to the pink
Sporting Globe,
‘cooped up like a bloody chook! I never thought I'd see the day.'

Cecilia tried to laugh along with her brothers. But his blunt ridicule cut deeply, all the more because he'd intended that it should.

It was later, when Cecilia pulled the curtains around her bed and began to take off the new habit, that panic hit her. It came in waves, ebbing and flowing around her like the cold green ocean on a bleak day. The new robes were confining and hot, much heavier than the postulant dress. The starched linen encasing her head had chafed both sides of her face and a sharp line across her forehead. It diminished her hearing too. She missed half of what people were saying unless she was facing them directly.

As she felt for the pins that held the whole set in place, she made herself take some deep breaths.
Calm down!
If only she had some oil or lotion for the sore bits. But it was when her hands touched the short stubble where her hair used to be that some deep part of her stilled, and her head became a roll of panicky drumbeats, all out of rhythm.
What have I done?

During the ceremony it had been exciting seeing the soft golden clumps fall about her feet, but now, feeling her bare head, and picturing again the grim satisfaction on the Novice Mistress's face as the curls massed on the floor, something inside her mind gave way. The soft shapes turned into slivers of glass about her feet, and she wanted to cry out.
I'm nineteen years old, and I have no hair!
She fell to her knees and prayed.
Oh God, let me see that it is leading me
closer to you!
But all the certain calm joy that had carried her through the day had vanished and in its place was a pit of black terror.

Her heart was rattling, her skin clammy with dread. She put both hands up to her prickly skull and a silent scream echoed around and around her head high above the drumbeat.
Oh, what
have I done?

She longed suddenly for human contact. If she could just talk to someone! If she could only pull the curtains aside and sit on the end of Breda's bed. Ask her if she felt the same about losing her hair. But doing that would make a mockery of all that she'd decided to do that very day. To breach the Great Silence with such an inconsequential matter would be a very grave fault.

Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until
they rest in thee
.

Oh, but it was true! It had to be true. How many times had she said it? And so she must do so again and again and again. They were St Augustine's own words written during his own dark night of the soul.
Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are
restless until they rest in thee …

Ever so slowly her equilibrium returned.
Yes.
She knew who she was. She was Annunciata, a newly received Sister in the Order of the Good Shepherd. She knew who she was, and why she was where she was.
I do. I know who I am. I do. And I know why I'm here.
Eventually she rose from her knees, pushed back the curtains and got into bed. She was overwrought, that was all. Overwrought.

It had been a big day.

At last the overhead lights were out. Cecilia listened to the quietness of the others asleep around her, and thought of her father and his curt dismissal of everything she held dear. But that didn't upset her as much as Dominic. Dom was troubled. Anyone could see it in his face, and it tore at Cecilia's heart. Her eldest brother, who used to put her up behind him on the white pony when she was very little, make up funny little stories for her and whistle tunes for her to guess. When she was old enough, he'd taught her to ride. Now Dom was … lost. If only she could help him. If only she could sit with him, tell him a joke, make him smile.

‘Have you been riding?' she'd asked shyly that afternoon during a quiet moment.

‘Nah.' He'd shrugged and looked away.

She lay on her back staring at the ceiling, letting the tears leak from the corners of her eyes down onto her thin pillow. Most nights someone cried herself to sleep in this room. So now it was her turn.

She shifted onto her side in the bed and was just dropping off to sleep when she realised that Breda's bed was empty. Alarmed, Cecilia sat up and looked around.

Breda was standing by the window, her small bald head bent to one side in the light coming in from the cold moon. She must be up looking at that tree again. Cecilia couldn't help smiling. Just then the moonlight caught a glint of something silver in Breda's hand and the smile froze on her lips.

Oh my God!
Cecilia pushed off the bedclothes and tiptoed over.

‘Where did you get that?' she whispered in awe.

‘Dad,' Breda said simply, holding out the small transistor radio so Cecilia could see. ‘Today.'

‘But Breda!' Cecilia was genuinely shocked. ‘If Mother sees it she'll have a stroke.'

‘Footy,' Breda said matter-of-factly. ‘I'm sick of relying on Guido.'

Breda's only source of information about her beloved team, Fitzroy, was old Guido, a sixty-year-old Italian refugee who worked with Mother Benedict in the garden. Every week she risked the Novice Mistress's wrath to grab five minutes to find out the Lions' weekend score. But he didn't work Mondays, so it meant she had to wait until Tuesday.

But they weren't allowed to own anything.
Poverty.
‘The female has a natural inclination to make a nest,' Reverend Mother told them time and time again. ‘My dear Sisters, housewifery is part of our very natures and so must be resisted at all costs. We are not housewives but vehicles for God's Grace in the world. As such, we own nothing except the sacred vows we have taken and keep as the sweetest flowers near our hearts. They are kept fresh every day with the pure water of prayer.'

Nothing. We own nothing
.