In This House of Brede

by Rumer Godden

the human heart Is unknowable. But in my birthplace The flowers still smell The same as always.

behaved like ‘unholy innocents,’ as Dame Agnes said, but she could not be annoyed because, by tradition, for this one day they were given the freedom of the house, rampaging into the workrooms, climbing up into the loft to raid the store of apples; they played the organ, drove the tractor – the Japanese novitiate looked on in astonishment – and ended up in the Abbess’s room where they roasted chestnuts on her fire, opened a box of chocolates left from Christmas and talked. ‘Even Sister Cecily lost her halo today,’ teased Hilary, ‘she took off a gatepost with the tractor.’

In September the swallows flew, wheeling about the garth for days, filling the air with the sound of wings and cries, an excitement about them until one chosen day, instead of scattering, flock after flock keeping together, rose high above the Abbey, wheeled and disappeared towards the south. For Brede the cycle of the year went on. ‘I always think of September as a time of warm colours,’ said Dame Mildred. There was clear sunshine and in her flower beds was the rich gold of rudbeckia, deep purple and rose from Michaelmas daisies, flaring dahlias, and in the vegetable garden scarlet runner beans,

Their different avocations were twined with the seasons of prayer: for Sister Gabrielle it was the newly hatched chicks in their coops and runs set at Easter in the orchard: the putting down of eggs, when they were plentiful, in pails of isinglass against the winter: the culling of table birds and probably especial cockerels for

‘I have been making my prayer,’ she would say. ‘I don’t know what the theorists would make of it and I don’t care; just look at the pattern of that tree against the sky,’ or she would be found kneeling on the earth, examining a minute wild flower through a magnifying glass. ‘Only God could make a thing as perfect as that,’ but she would also tell its colloquial and botanical name and where it would be found and how it would grow. Her borders were a

‘Know what it is to be bereft,’ Lady Abbess had said.

The moon was so bright that the roses showed in the ghostly soft colours in its light. Philippa could hear when Dame Emily’s shallow breathing changed to stertorous; there was no other sound but that and the water falling, but the world seemed to be filled with expectancy of something … tremendous, thought Philippa, something just out of sight waiting for Dame Emily. Philippa felt the promise, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him’ was, in a few minutes? Hours? A day? to be fulfilled. All around was waiting, expectancy – and longing. If only I could go with her, thought Philippa this moonlit night, but as clearly as if a voice had told her, Philippa knew the expectancy was for Dame Emily – ‘and not for me.’