Nun Letter One, 1936

Syon Abbey
2nd September 1936

Dear Cousin
So how goes it, being the disappointment of the family? You’ll have to be the outrageous sweet sixteen for both of us now, as I’ll wager there’ll be no chance for mischief in my new digs. Even day dreams of Clark Gable are off limits. It’s true: if I so much as picture myself as |Joan Crawford in Love on the Run I’m quite sure one of the sisters will read my mind and I’ll get extra washing up
Mighty lucky thing I’ve never got a word in edgeways in our family because there’s no need for words now. Total silence from dawn till dusk, except for “recreation”, when postulants such as I can embroider and talk to the cats. Oh cousin if you could only meet the cats – such gorgeous haughty creatures they are – I remind them to revise their Peter Chapter 5 and “dress themselves in humility” but they are quite beyond redemption. Yesterday the tabby stole a sausage straight from my hand!
I heard in recreation today that a black American swept the board at the Munich Olympics and Herr Hitler didn’t know what to do with himself. Before Lauds we were interceding double time for world peace, and praying that the royals will overcome their trouble with Wallis Simpson. Though it doesn’t do to root for the royals too much round here, given Henry 8th sent our lot into hiding and martyred one of our number, St Richard Reynolds, in the process.
The Abbey seems happy enough with my dowry, so hopefully mother’s abstemious winters forfeiting bingo and swapping dripping for butter were worth it. Did you know, your spotty little cousin now resides in the ancestral home of gentry? The lawns are quite spectacular, if occasionally troubled by mole hills – though the little blighters don’t pop up too often as there is a roaring trade in their skins, I hear. William of Falaise first passed these grand buildings to the Abbot of St Dogmael in the hopes that he’d intercede for his sins. Must have been some pretty conscientious sinning going on to justify 288 acres. The most recent tenants, before we Bridgettine Sisters, were the Palk Carews, who owned all the land round Rattery as far as the eye could see.
Our chapter house was their genteel drawing room and the sacristy was their morning room. The last in their line, Bessie and Bea Palk Carew, never married and insisted all their workers went to church else get their wages docked. And if a labourers daughter had a child “the wrong side of the blanket” they were banished from the parish! The line of the Palk-Carews stopped with B&B, as they were known, because Bessie and Bea’s brother Walter – hushed tones – committed the deadliest of sins “cleaning a hunting rifle”. Funny to think of all that money ending in misery and the priest getting rigged up where those two puffed up hens took their tea.
My cell is simple if cold, but I am soothed by song floating up from the chapel below. The water in my jug often freezes overnight, but if the older sisters can bear it I’m sure I can. How mature I’m getting these days – and I’ll be the grand old age of seventeen next week!
Oh cousin, I’m so glad your tonsils were up and you couldn’t take the journey with Ma and me down to Totnes last month. Do you know I think I saw a tear in her eye as I left her in the hall and the cloister doors closed behind me? The nuns were waiting the other side, kindly smiles on their faces, candles in their hands, but all I could think was the only other time saw Ma cry; that time she got all eight of us horrors scrubbed and tubbed and to midnight mass on time, only to discover her nylons had laddered. However great my joy at crossing that threshold, I don’t think I could have borne it to see your twinkly smile disappearing from view, only ever to be seen again through a grille in the grate room.
My Latin is still the pits but I did understood the word “Clausura” over those big imposing doors. It means enclosure, and was a clear reminder that I was leaving the outside world behind, gobstoppers, rhum trifle and Cary Grant included. I have since read in the abbey library that there are many names with ancient meanings round these parts. Nearby Luscombe manor takes its name from the Saxon for pigsty valley, ancient fields such as Sand park and Marl park refer to the ancient practice of preparing soil with seashells and clay, and one poor lady, of dubious parentage, is on the census as being called Serena Bastard. You can deduce for yourself why.
I’m rambling, but there are just so many words I don’t get to use these days. Sometimes I find myself blurting a thought out and a room full of startled eyes turn on me. A gobstopper would come in handy. But the kindly sisters tell me this is all part of the process, and do you know the funniest thing? Some time, a week or so ago, between Vespers and Compline, I could feel it work! I heard God talk to me. That’s why I commit this nonsense to paper because I know he has already read it in my heart anyway and won’t mind. He’s the kindest companion and I don’t know how I did without his nearness before. And when he’s there, I feel a little shiver of delight that within just one year my postulancy will be over. I’ll wear my white bridal gown, which I’m stitching myself, before I am given my habit…I’ll see all my hopes fulfilled, and not wait till 42 to fulfil my girlhood dreams as poor aunt Matilda did, only to have Uncle Sid run off with an usherette.
The very best thing I read in the library was that Rattery may have once been Ratreu which means red tree. Of course I thought of the tree our Lord died on, painted with his blood. God won’t mind if I say I miss home, but don’t you see, these quiet Devonshire hills round “Ratreu” are the very centre of God’s plan.
Tell Ma I’m getting to be quite the whizz at my catechism, give a hug to the rest of the brats and please be mindful of those tonsils and wrap up warm this winter. A line of eye kohl down the back of the legs does not constitute adequate clothing!
Your loving friend,