In This House of Brede

151

4

She was Brede’s thirteenth abbess. “Perhaps there is something

in numbers,” said Dame Domitilla. “The election was on the

thirteenth; you started with thirteen votes.”

“Yes, it’s an augury,” said Dame Perpetua, her face beam-

ing; Dame Catherine knew, without being told, that Dame

Perpetua’s vote had been hers from the start. Thirteen abbesses—

a long line, stretching from Dame Elizabeth Paget, first abbess

of the house of Our Lady of Peace, little England, at Beauvais

in France, to Abbess Hester Cunningham Proctor, and now

thirteenth, and least, thought Dame Catherine, I.

The nuns of Brede traced their origins back to an ancient

and proud tradition. “There were Benedictine nuns in England

in the seventh century,” said Dame Agnes; houses at Folkestone,

Whitby, Minster, Ely, and Barking. When these were sequestered

at the Reformation the nuns were scattered, but their traditions

were handed down in the old Catholic families, from aunts

to nieces, old cousins to young cousins, godmothers to god-

daughters, in the faithful, persistent way of women, until, in

152 In This House of Brede

the seventeenth century, a little band of them emerged, driven

to new boldness. Nine resolute young women escaped from

England, “at the risk of their lives,” Dame Ursula would impress

on each succeeding novitiate, “and led by a Lady Elizabeth

Paget, opened a house at Beauvais in northern France.” She

turned to Hilary. “Am I right in thinking your family are off-

shoots of those Northumberland Pagets?”

“Yes, the Dalrymples,” said Hilary. “Perhaps I am a great,

great—I don’t know how many greats—a very distant cousin of

that Elizabeth.” Those nine young nuns had called their house

Our Lady of Peace, a touchingly confident name for those per-

ilous times.

For the next 170 years other adventurous young women,

traveling in secret, had found their way from England and

Scotland to Beauvais. They often brought their maids and

dependents with them, from whom an equally sturdy lay sister-

ship grew up. “But choir and lay have always worked together,”

said Dame Ursula, “as they do now. Everyone has always shared

the burden of the work of house and garden.” Indeed, the choir

nuns provided the, as it were, unskilled labor because they went

to help where necessary, often working under a lay sister expert

in charge of kitchen, laundry, poultry, or garden. “And you

don’t know,” Dame Ursula said, “what a profound effect it has

on people, to see a young noblewoman working in the kitchen,

a scholar laboring and doing exactly what she is told in the

Rumer Godden 153

vegetable garden. In those days, gentlewomen didn’t do such

things. We were revolutionary.”

Though Beauvais was in France, the house was firmly

English; only English and Latin were spoken. The “little

England” of Beauvais lived up to its name; it gained a reputa-

tion for beauty and peace, a place of quiet and culture in the

troubled times, but, “In human life, peace is transient,” this

was Dame Catherine, who taught church history in the novi-

tiate. “We may enjoy a little pocket of peace, vouchsafed for a

while, but no one should count on it.” The French Revolution

was at its height in 1793 when the Beauvais house, like most

religious houses, was seized and its nuns imprisoned.

“You may wonder,” said Dame Ursula, “why our abbess,

for her pectoral cross, wears that humble little wooden one on

a cord. You would expect it to be a gold cross, inlaid or set with

amethysts, and once upon a time our abbess wore a cross like

that, but it was seized in those troubles. Mother’s cross, rough

and humble as it is, was made by a princess, the Princess Marie

Hortense of Savoy, who was in that prison with our nuns. She

carved this little wooden cross with her penknife from pieces

of a broken chair and, on the morning that the tumbrel came

to fetch her for the guillotine, she gave it to our then abbess,

Lady Abbess Flavia Vaux, and said, ‘I give you the most valu-

able thing I possess.’ She could not say more because of the

guards, but think of it,” said Dame Catherine. “For a princess


the most valuable thing she possessed was a rough little cross.

Mademoiselle, as they called her, was guillotined the same day,

so you can see why that cross is so eloquent, and more precious

to us than gold. Our abbesses have worn it ever since.”

The Beauvais nuns would have gone to the guillotine, too,

if Robespierre had not died; the fanaticism waned, and they

were released on condition they left France. They decided to

come to England in spite of danger. “There was nowhere else

for us to go—and, half-starved, ragged, and penniless, twenty-

seven of us landed at Dover.” Only twenty-seven out of thirty-

eight; eleven had died of malnutrition and prison fever; one, an

old nun, Dame Benedicta Laidlaw, had died of a heart attack

when the Beauvais house was invaded; one nun, trundled off

the boat on a handcart, was paralyzed. “It was a terrible time,”

Dame Ursula said when, at recreation, the novitiate talked over

Dame Catherine’s lesson. “Nobody wanted us, most people

were afraid of us, but the spirit was wonderful, and it was here

in this district of downs and marshes on the borders of Sussex

and Kent that—after several tries—we found a home.” “You

know the portrait that hangs in the refectory,” Dame Catherine

had said. “It is Elinor Hartshorn’s. She allowed us, not to buy

Brede Abbey—many people then would not sell to nuns—but

gave it to us. We had to keep it a secret though; Dom Aidan

Pattinson, who came to see her for us over arrangements, had

to come disguised as a country squire, and it was still years

Rumer Godden 155

before we could bring back our customs and wear the habit.

When that was possible we had not even a pattern and had

to write to Arras; the Arras nuns, bless them, sent a complete

habit and cowl for the abbess. More years went by before we

could put up the ‘grates,’ as they called our grilles, and have

true enclosure, enclosure for life in this house.”

Dame Ursula’s first lesson to any postulant was on the

meaning of that enclosure. She gave these lesson talks three

times weekly to the novitiate. “They go on forever.” Hilary

warned Cecily. “Dame Clare’s are far more pithy.”

“You have to know all these things,” said Dame Ursula,

“because you, in your turn, will have to pass them on.” It was

like a torch that went from hand to hand—and there was much

to learn.

“It will be some time before you take any vows,” Dame

Ursula always said. “Maybe a long time, but you must under-

stand them.” “Understand what we are in for,” muttered

Hilary.

“We Benedictines do not take the same vows as other

orders: poverty, chastity, and obedience. For us, our first vow

is of stability, stability to our chosen house. St. Benedict laid

down,” said Dame Ursula, “that a monastery should be as

self-contained as possible, with its own farm and orchard, its

vegetable garden, poultry, and, in the old days, its watermill;

its own bakery, its weaving, bookmaking—handwritten then,


now it is printing—so that ‘its members should have no need

to go abroad,’ ” she quoted, “ ‘which in no way can be good for

them.’ ”

The second vow was the famous Benedictine “conversion

of manners.” “I’m glad you teach them manners,” Mrs. Scallon

had said. “Young people’s manners are deplorable these days.”

“Which of course isn’t true,” said Dame Ursula. “Many of you

have excellent manners.”

Conversion of manners, though, meant far more than that;

it was an entirely different way of thinking from the world’s,

“and turns your ideas topsy-turvy,” said Hilary: self-effacement

instead of self-aggrandizement; listening instead of talking;

not having instead of having; voluntary poverty. “They are

dear, good girls,” Dame Ursula often said of the novitiate—it

did not matter which novitiate—“If only they wouldn’t be so

ardent. They want to sleep on planks, go barefoot, which isn’t

necessary, but they won’t use up a reel of thread, or make a

pencil last, or darn or patch, which is necessary,” and, “What

is the use,” she said to Philippa, “of taking a vow of poverty if

you look to the house to provide you lavishly with everything

you need?” Philippa had to smile at the thought of Brede being

lavish. “And our poverty,” Dame Ursula taught, “doesn’t simply

mean doing without—a great many poor people are niggardly

hoarders; it means being willing to empty yourself, be denuded,

giving and giving up.”

Rumer Godden 157

“Think of all you gave up to come here,” Cecily said to

Philippa; her brown eyes were again bright with admiration.

“Yes, a cat and a clock and some dear little sins.”

“The newspapers said far more than that.” Cecily was

indignant.

“Did they now? Do you believe all you read in the

papers?”

“Don’t tease. You wouldn’t joke if you knew how they

helped me,” said Cecily. “My mother was impressed. You gave

up all that.”

“And what did you give?” Philippa was serious again. “You

and Sister Hilary and Sister Constance and Sister Louise? I was

like an orchard where the fruit is ripe, but some has fallen in

windfalls, some been spoiled by wasps, some sold”—Philippa’s

voice was low—“or given away or wasted. The owner comes

and gathers what is left and gives it to God. That’s what anyone

does who gives up in the fullness of her life, leaves it for him;

but the one who comes at nineteen or twenty or even twenty-

three,” she said, looking at Cecily, “give the whole orchard,

blossom and fruit and all.”

There were grounds for Philippa’s regrets. Dame Agnes, too,

was worried. “She is extremely mature in the worldly world,”

said Dame Agnes, “but a beginner in ours. Ideally the two

should mature together; if they don’t, there is this unevenness,

so difficult to redress. Can anyone ever really start again?”


“Sister Philippa is making a valiant try,” Dame Clare

defended her.

“I grant you that, but for her it is far more difficult than

for anyone less gifted; just because she is so unusually capable

and with so many resources, there must always be this instinct

to decide, to settle matters for herself, be reserved. A religious

must reserve nothing,” said Dame Agnes.

There was always this emphasis on giving—being fit to give.

“A monastery or convent is not a refuge for misfits or a dump-

ing ground for the unintelligent,” Abbess Hester had often

said, “nor for a rebound from an unhappy love affair—though

a broken heart can often find healing in one of the active orders,

it will not do for us—nor are we for the timid wanting security

nor the ambitious wanting a career,” and, “Anyone who comes

here with the idea of getting something is bound to fail,” Dame

Ursula warned all her postulants.

“But every human motive is, in some sense to get, to find,”

Philippa would have argued, “if only satisfaction.” Yet the para-

dox remained: Only by giving completely was there any hope

of finding.

“Have you told me everything?” Abbess Hester had asked

Philippa in her days of candidature.

“No, Mother.”

The abbess had not questioned further. She had only said,

“You will.”

Rumer Godden 159

The third vow was obedience, “and you don’t know what

you are in for when you take that,” said the nuns. Obedience

was the rub for them all—all through their religious lives. It

must, too, be prompt and wholehearted, “which means what it

says,” said Dame Clare, “doing what is asked of you with your

whole heart, even if you don’t like it, even if you can’t agree.

It’s not blind obedience,” she said. “You cannot be asked to do

anything you know is wrong, such as telling a lie, or hurting

someone. It is submitting your will, even when it goes against

the grain; giving up your judgment and accepting your superi-

ors’—even such a weak superior as I,” said Dame Clare. “Our

abbess, we believe, is the representative of Christ—God. It is

in her name, ‘abbess,’ from ‘Abba,’ Father. That is why we hold

her in such reverence; kneel to her, make the deep bow when

we pass or meet her.”

“And she will be abbess for life,” said Cecily. “It must be

terrifying.”

“Domina Catherina Ismay Abbatissa electa est.” Dame Catherine

had had to step out of her stall as Dame Agnes bowed before

her; step out of it forever, though that realization had not come

to her then, and go to the wicket, where she had knelt, thank-

ful to kneel, while the abbot president confirmed her as abbess

in the name of the Holy See, giving her the pectoral cross, the

ring, the seal, and the keys of the monastery. The bellringer


had slipped up to the bell tribune to set the bells ringing; the

doors were unlocked, and the claustral sisters and novitiate

trooped in.

Dame Agnes led the new abbess to the abbatial chair, its

mourning gone now, as the president intoned the Te Deum

and the nuns took it up. Can they feel thankfulness and praise

for this? Dame Catherine had wondered, but the voices had

been strong and clear as if shaken into vigor after the days of

hesitancy. The very newness of the idea of Abbess Catherine

Ismay had shaken them. Then, one by one, Dame Perpetua

first, the nuns had come, each kneeling and putting her hands

between Abbess Catherine’s, to show fealty, homage, obedi-

ence, and to be given the Kiss of Peace. Peace and love to each;

she had tried to show it, but what must Dame Maura be feel-

ing as she knelt to her? Or Dame Agnes, those great nuns?

She had been heartened by Dame Perpetua’s open approval,

the gladness in Dame Beatrice’s eyes, the delight in Philippa’s.

Then Dame Perpetua, acting for the prioress, had led Abbess

Catherine up to the abbess’s rooms, the whole community fol-

lowing. As they reached the top of the stairs, they had heard

the sound of castors; Sister Ellen and Sister Stephanie were

wheeling away Abbess Hester’s small bed, bringing in a larger

one. The homely sound had seemed suddenly to crystallize

the morning’s happenings, make them positive. Then I’m not

dreaming, thought Abbess Catherine.

Rumer Godden 161

The rooms themselves were ready, the larger study swept

and polished as only Sister Ellen could polish; a fire was burn-

ing, fresh flowers had been put in the bracket vase on the wall,

clean paper in the blotter. But these are all Mother’s, Abbess

Catherine had wanted to cry. How can they be for me? and

her own voice had answered, “Not for you. For the Abbess of

Brede.” The prie-dieu was in an alcove that made a small ora-

tory—I should feel Mother’s spirit there. It was not the utili-

tarian prie-dieu they all had in their cells, with its shelf for books,

a top that opened like a desk, a cupboard with shelves below;

even the kneeling board lifted to show a space where each nun

kept her cleaning things: a tin of polish, scouring powder, shoe

blacking. An abbess would have no need of such things—she

had not time for them—and this prie-dieu was handsome, of

oak with a kneeling cushion—Mother needed that; her knees

were old; for me it should be taken away. Dame Catherine’s

few books were already on the shelves, her one picture hung

on the wall, though Sir Basil’s Madonna was still over the fire-

place. “Then my things have been moved already,” she had said,

dazed. “Of course,” said Dame Perpetua. “We look after you

now. I’ll leave you,” she said, “until it’s time for Sext. I expect

you would like to be alone for a little,” and she had given the

deep bow before she went respectfully away. The bow was like

a blow. Abbess Catherine had shivered and fled to the small

Chapel of the Crown of Thorns that opened out of the choir.


The nuns saw her go, and Dame Beatrice guarded the door

as Abbess Catherine fell on her knees close to the chapel grille.

“I can’t. I can’t,” she had cried silently; her face hot though her

knees and feet and hands were cold. “I can’t.”

Dame Catherine had a brother who, like Sister Julian’s, was

a monk, but ordained priest when he was still very young, and

a bishop now. When they were children, Mark and Catherine

had taken a vow together. “Whatever you do, I will do, too.

Whatever you are, I will be, too.” Mark had been ten, Catherine

six, and she could remember how, sitting up in one bed, they

had pricked their wrists with Mark’s penknife and held the two

together so that their blood could mingle. “It’s a blood vow,”

Mark had said solemnly. He was a Benedictine novice while she

was still at school; then, for her, there had been Paris, further

study in Rome, and when at last she had come home, she had

still dallied, just staying at home, playing tennis, picnicking,

going to every party and dance she could. Had her father and

mother, Dame Catherine often wondered afterward, been try-

ing to tempt her away from religious life—she was their only

daughter—or had they been testing her vocation? Had she her-

self been trying to stifle the call that matched Mark’s? It was

odd, she thought, that she who was so shy had, in those last

months in the outer world, been almost feverishly gay.

One night—it was in June—she had gone to a dance at

the big house of the village, she, the doctor’s daughter. She

Rumer Godden 163

had always loved dancing; like many large people she was light

on her feet—and I had danced myself giddy that night and

had come home at three in the morning. She could still see

every detail of her coming in: the color of her dress, dark-gold

satin—an odd choice for a girl—but it set off her white skin

and the chestnut of her hair; the necklace she had borrowed

from her mother rose and fell with her excited breathing. She

had almost gotten engaged that night. The hall was dim, the

moonlight fell through the open window, warm moonlight,

and then Catherine had seen a line of light under the surgery

door. It was not her father, she knew; it was Mark, home for a

few days, but still working. Mark! She had not spoken but, as

if he answered her, the door had opened and he had come out,

holding his book. His face, so young, looked tired but exalted,

the young Catherine had thought, and as satisfied as if he had

been drinking at some refreshing spring! “He shall be as a tree

planted by running water,” she had found herself thinking; she

had looked at his black tunic and cincture, and her own dress

had suddenly seemed tawdry.

Her eyes had begun to burn, her heart to pound. Mark had

been unaware. He was smiling at the sight of her. He thought I

looked radiant, remembered Abbess Catherine. He should have

seen his own radiance! “Was it wonderful?” he had asked, and

Catherine had answered, “Yes,” and then said what she knew

had been beating in her brain all evening, all night—and all


the months before, months she had spent running round and

round and round—“It was wonderful, but no place for me.”

“What you do, I shall do, too. Whatever you are, I will

be, too.” That childish vow was fulfilled. “You a bishop, I an

abbess,” she had whispered aloud in the Chapel of the Crown

of Thorns and, at that, realization overwhelmed her. Every-

thing she cherished at Brede would, for her, be gone: the ano-

nymity that was such balm to her; her manual work—there

would be no time for the fine weaving that was so restful—

“Dame Catherine’s orphreys”—nor for translating—she was

in the midst of a new book on the Qumran Caves by Father

Pierre Benoit of the Order of Preachers—that would have to be

left, nor would there be the lessons in church history she gave

to the novitiate and found so interesting. She must not have

special friends, must give up the joy she had taken in her talks

with Dame Emily, once her own novice mistress, the recre-

ation quips with Dame Colette and her companionship in the

vestment room and, latterly, the growing friendship with Sister

Philippa; the abbess must be for everyone, nothing is as lonely

as a throne, and she, Catherine, would not possess Abbess

Hester’s warm genius for getting beyond it. The silence Dame

Catherine had found so fruitful must be continually broken in

upon; worst of all she, to whom it was still an ordeal to take

a solo part in choir, or to act as reader in the refectory, meet

strangers in the parlor—though she had successfully hidden all

Rumer Godden 165

this, too successfully she could have said—must now be always

solo, leader in everything, unmercifully prominent. An abbess

cannot lift a little finger but it is seen and marked by her nuns;

she must lead, inspire, and every hour of the twenty-four hours

of each day until she died, bear that awesome responsibility of

souls and, in her own monastery, consent to be the representa-

tive of Christ.

“I can’t,” Dame Catherine had cried in the chapel and at

once felt the need to be where all the nuns went for strength

and comfort, reassurance and love; as if drawn, she had got

up from her knees and gone into the choir itself, to kneel on

the step behind the grille, the step facing the sanctuary where,

long ago, she had knelt as a postulant in her first hour in the

enclosure. Once again it was as if a quieting hand was laid on

her panic; with her eyes on the small flame that had never gone

out since the community came to Brede, she whispered, “I

can’t,” but it was acceptance now. “I can’t,” whispered Dame

Catherine, “so You must.”

The bell began to ring for Sext. She rose to her feet and

walked toward the abbatial chair.

It was not until after dinner—in the strange seat at the high

table—giving the knock, the rap with the small wooden mallet

that was the abbess’s signal, walking behind the procession to

sing the dinner grace in choir, that Abbess Catherine had been


able to go to her rooms. “Go and rest,” Dame Perpetua had

urged her. “I will take recreation today.”

The abbess had gone into her new cell; it was smaller than

the study and as humble, she was glad to see, as any nun’s, with

its bare floor, narrow bed, and chest of drawers below the cruci-

fix, her own crucifix. Only the prie-dieu was missing; there was

an armchair instead—cushioned, thought Abbess Catherine

with distaste. Missing, too, were the customary basin and jug,

and she remembered that the abbess had a bathroom, a bath-

room to herself, while the others washed in basins on the floor

of their cells. That had brought the unwelcome thought; there

could be no more of those informal and friendly meetings in

the interval between Vespers and supper when the nuns hur-

ried to draw off their cans of washing water while the water

was really hot.

Her bed was made up and ready. Abbess Catherine took

a step nearer and caught her breath; the pillow and white

counterpane were strewn with small picture cards and nose-

gays such as the extern sisters were often asked to place in

the guest house to welcome some especially loved guest. No

names were attached, no words written on them; they were

not needed—the nuns who sent them could guess what that

welcome would mean to their new abbess—but there was one

exception: a few of Dame Mildred’s carefully grown white vio-

lets were gathered into a bunch, with a card on which Abbess

Rumer Godden 167

Catherine recognized Dame Maura’s writing: “For my abbess

and dearest Mother with the love, loyalty, and prayers of her

devoted daughter, Maura.”

Sister Ellen, coming in with the small pile of Dame

Catherine’s underclothes, found her new abbess on her knees

by the bed, sobbing as if her heart would break. The door had

been open, the sister had thought the abbess had gone to recre-

ation—“or I shouldn’t have come in.”

Sister Ellen was ninety-two, “long past her work,” said

Dame Veronica, but she was still scrupulously clean and tidy,

and, “I can polish with the best of them,” she would say indig-

nantly. Abbess Hester had refused to have anyone else. The old

sister was tired with the changing of the cells, the emotion of

putting her beloved Abbess Hester’s few things away; she was

shaken out of herself, or, “I would never have done as I did,”

she told Abbess Catherine afterward. She put the linen down,

and Philippa, who had come up from recreation to catch up

with her pile of letters, never forgot what she saw then. “It gave

me a glimpse of what it means to be elected abbess.” Letters

in her hand, she had followed Sister Ellen through the open

door of the abbess’s room and for a moment stood transfixed

by what she saw in the cell beyond.

Abbess Catherine was far taller than Sister Ellen, but the sis-

ter would never have dreamed of sitting down on her Abbess’s

bed; instead she had knelt beside her, reached up and put her


arms round the big strong body, cruelly shaken now—for the

moment Sister Ellen’s thin old arms were the stronger. “Don’t

cry, my Lady,” she was saying, and Philippa saw she was rock-

ing Abbess Catherine as if she were a child—to Sister Ellen, of

course, Abbess Catherine was still young. “Don’t cry. It will be

all right. You will see. It will be all right.”

Philippa silently went away.

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In This House of Brede