Madame Bovary's Daughter (26 page)

B
ERTHE HAD TURNED SIXTEEN YEARS OLD A FEW WEEKS
earlier and was now starting over again for the third time. The carriage that was to take her to Paris had a one-day stopover in Rouen to change horses and pick up new passengers.
Rouen
, she thought as she stepped down from the carriage. Then it came to her. This was the place her father had been sent to school as a young boy. She remembered him telling her how he was dragged away from the fields he loved in order to be educated. It had been his mother's wish that he achieve his place in the world as a professional man. Berthe had the feeling that once he had embarked on this “city life” he had never been completely happy again.

Berthe was seeing for the first time where it all began for her mother and father. It was in nearby Tostes where her father first laid eyes on his bride-to-be at her father's farm. The Ursuline convent in the town of Rouen was where Emma Bovary had been schooled.

“It was at the convent where I spent two of my best years,”
Emma had once told Berthe. “It was a wonderful place for a young girl. I would have been happy to spend the rest of my life there.” Berthe had a difficult time imagining her mother locked away inside a nunnery. Suddenly, she wanted to see the place that had been such a source of joy for her mother.

The convent wasn't difficult to find. It was a sixteenth-century two-story stucco structure surrounded by an ivy-covered wall located near the center of town. The tall arched doorway made it seem both inviting and intimidating. Instead of going directly in, Berthe followed the vaulted cloister path that bordered the garden. The garden was abloom in tender white peonies. Setting down her valise, she was bending to inhale the delicate fragrance when she heard a voice behind her.

“May I help you, mademoiselle?” It was a young nun. She seemed hardly older than Berthe herself. Her round pink face was made even rounder by the stiff white bandeau and coif. Her eyes shone like two bright coins as if Berthe's unannounced visit was a cause for celebration.

“My mother once attended school here and I …” Berthe said, struggling for more of an explanation.

“Oh, then you'll want to see Mother Superior. Come,” the nun said, easing Berthe over her awkward hesitation.

Berthe followed her into the convent itself. Instead of the dark interior she expected she was surprised to see how light and airy the hallways were. The smiling nun led her to a large vaulted room. One wall was taken up by huge gold-framed oil paintings. On the opposite wall were French doors that opened out onto the garden. At the end of the room was a shoulder-high fireplace. On either side of the fireplace were two huge double doors.

“Wait here,” the nun said. “I'll fetch Mother. You can put your valise in the corner.”

“I don't want to disturb her,” said Berthe, nervously fingering the fringe of her shawl.

“She likes being disturbed.”

While she waited for the Mother Superior, Berthe studied the paintings. One was more distressing than the next. She read the title plates underneath each picture.
The Martyrdom of Saint Stanislaus
, a poor figure in full armor apparently newly slain by a sword.
The Penitent Mary Magdalene
, a beautiful woman clutching her breast, looking as if she had just lost her last friend on earth. Christ appearing to Saint Anthony during his Temptation. Again anguish, pain, and fear. Christ himself appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way, bent under the weight of an enormous wooden cross. And Christ on the cross, thorn-crowned, head bowed, bleeding from nail-pierced hands and feet. But the final painting gave Berthe some relief. It was of a young Jesus dressed in long white robes and holding a baby lamb in his lap. How handsome and happy he seemed.

An elderly woman in a nun's habit entered from the doorway on the left of the fireplace. She approached Berthe with open arms, spreading the folds of her habit as if they were wings. A wide toothless smile lifted the wrinkles of her face.

“Why, it's dear Mademoiselle Rouault,” she lisped. “Why aren't you in Chapel?”

“No, Mother, I am her daughter, Berthe.” The Mother Superior clutched Berthe's hand with cold, clawlike fingers.

“Her daughter, of course. I'm afraid my age has robbed me of my senses,” she said, peering up at Berthe's face from underneath her coif. “I remember your mother well. Always reading a book. And never the right book,” she added, chuckling.

Berthe, of course, had the same memory of her mother always reading. Once, as a very small child, she tried to climb onto
her mother's lap to literally squeeze between Emma and the book she was so engrossed in.

“Not now; they are slaying the dragon,” her mother had said, turning the page as she pushed Berthe away.

“Didn't she have to read the Bible?” Berthe asked.

“I'm afraid Sir Walter Scott
was
her Bible,” the Mother Superior said, smiling and shaking her head. “She was not our usual student. No, in all honesty, she really didn't belong here.”

“But my mother always said this was the happiest time of her life,” said Berthe.

“I'm not surprised. Oh, she loved it here. But not as most of our girls love the convent. She loved the beautiful trappings. Not the spiritual benefits. No, she was certainly not suited to the life of seclusion and meditation. She was far too free a spirit, that one.”

Berthe looked around the room, taking in the stained-glass windows, the mosaic floor tiles, the ornately carved mahogany window frames and moldings. “You know what she once said to one of the sisters?” the Mother Superior continued. “She said that this was a waste of a grand home on a God who wasn't here to enjoy it. Can you imagine? She was a handful. But we did love her spirit. We were sorry to see her go,” she said, gazing up at Jesus and the lamb. She turned to look at Berthe. “And how is your beautiful mother? Still with her head in the clouds?”

“Actually, all of her is in the clouds now, Mother. She died over three years ago.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” The old nun crossed herself. “So you have come here to make a pilgrimage to where your dear mother attended school?”

Berthe nodded. “I am on my way to Paris, but when the coach stopped in Rouen I remembered that my mother's school was here and I thought …” Suddenly, Berthe's voice broke with an unexpected emotion. She could never understand why her
husband's and daughter's love hadn't been enough for her mother. But this place, this convent had clearly made Emma Bovary feel loved.

“Of course, it is only natural that you would want to visit the places that were meaningful to your mother,” said the Mother Superior, patting Berthe gently on the shoulder. “But wait, if you want to learn more of her you can talk to Madame Blanquet. She was here when your mother was an adolescent and she still does our linens every month. She can tell you all about your mother as a young girl. Between you and me, I believe she is the one responsible for corrupting her,” she said with a laugh.

Carrying her valise, Berthe followed the Mother Superior down a long passageway into the basement of the convent. The stone walls gave off a cold, musty smell. In the dim light she could make out an old woman sitting at a table that was piled high with folded linens. She was mending a hem on a pillowcase.

“Madame Blanquet, you will never guess who I have here,” said the Mother Superior in an overly loud voice. The old woman looked up, a confused expression on her face. “Here is our dear Mademoiselle Rouault's daughter, Mademoiselle Bovary. Do you remember Mademoiselle Rouault from so many years ago?” she said. “Well, I'm sure you both have much to talk about. Come and see me before you leave,” she said to Berthe.

Madame Blanquet put down her sewing. Berthe thought she must be almost one hundred years old. The hands that held the mending were so bent and thickened with arthritis and age that Berthe wondered at the fact that she could even hold a needle. Her watery eyes seemed almost sightless.

“Mon Dieu, it is my
chère
Mademoiselle Rouault. Come sit down. Where have you been, you naughty girl?”

“Madame, I am Berthe Bovary. Emma Rouault was my mother.”

The old woman stretched out her knobby hand and grabbed Berthe by the chin, turning her face this way and that. “Ah, yes. Now I see. The hair is a different color. And how is your mother? Your naughty, naughty mother?”

“She is dead,” Berthe whispered, again embarrassed by the sudden emotion she felt. Her mother's presence in this place was almost unendurable.

“Of course she is dead,” said the old woman, nodding her head and smiling. “She must have died tragic and young, with her hair spread out upon her pillow and a red rose clutched to her breast. Am I right?”

“She did die young.” The words stuck in her throat. Berthe didn't want to recount the gruesome details of her mother's agonizing death.

“How she loved all the tragic tales of romance. All those beautiful ladies and their handsome lovers. They always die young. Sit down. Here, you can help me with my mending. Your mother had a fine hand with a needle. The thread and needle are somewhere in the basket. Take care you make the stitches small.”

Before she knew it, Berthe was repairing the edging on a pillowcase with tiny, even stitches.

The cotton was so worn and soft it almost felt like silk. For how many years, how many heads had lain on this same pillowcase? She held it to her nose and inhaled the clean smell. Perhaps her mother's head had once rested on this very fabric. She thought about the cotton mill for the first time since leaving it and remembered what a terrible price was paid in making this simple material.

She was suddenly aware that the old woman was talking to her.

“She even made up her own wonderful stories,” Madame Blanquet was saying. “She would tell me about how one day a
handsome young man would come and take her away and lock her in his beautiful castle and dress her all in gold and silver and leave her there until she told him she loved him. Everything was a fairy tale. She even invented sins to confess to the priest. I told her that her imagination would get her into trouble one day. But how I did love listening to her. Here, dear, let me see your work.” She reached out her hand and Berthe placed the pillowcase in it. The old woman brought it up to within inches of her eyes. “Fine work, just like your mother,” she said, running her fingers over the stitches. They sat for a long while stitching in the dim light. Finally, the old woman stopped and touched Berthe's hand.

“I just remembered, I have a book of your mother's,” she said, reaching over and pulling out a drawer in the long table. She took out a faded red leather-bound volume and handed it to Berthe. “This was her favorite. The Bible never had enough plumes and passion for her taste.” Berthe took the book and studied it. It was entitled
Sense and Sensibility
by “A Lady.” It was an English novel translated into French. On the inside first page was an illustration, covered by tissue paper, of two ladies in high-waisted dresses of the Regency period standing under a huge oak tree. Off in the distance could be seen an enormous mansion with a meandering path that led up to it. One woman peered at a small miniature painting while the other looked on. The caption underneath the illustration read:
“Be so good as to look at this face.”

“She used to read this to me while I sewed, and when she left the convent she gave it to me. You may as well have it. I can't see the words anymore, anyway. The sisters never did know what to do with her. Luckily, it was decided that she had to go home and take care of her father when her mother died.”

Berthe reached out and touched the old woman's gnarled hand. “It's the first time I've heard about my mother as a young girl. Thank you for sharing your memories, Madame Blanquet.”

“My memories are all I have left to share,” said the old woman.

Berthe took leave of Madame Blanquet and found her way back to the main salon. She was surprised that there had been nothing but kind words for her mother.

“Mother Superior asks that you wait until she finishes her evening prayers,” said the young sister who had first greeted her earlier in the day.

Berthe sat down on a wooden chair and opened the book. She noticed that there were lightly penciled underlinings of what must have been her mother's favorite passages. She closed the book. She couldn't bear to read it now. She made an effort to push her mother's presence from her mind. The closeness she felt to her was almost too painful to bear.

As she sat in the great room with the gold light of the setting sun coming through the windows, Berthe thought how wonderful it would be to stay here, to study, to read, to sew small stitches in old soft cotton and to just be at peace. Suddenly she had an idea. She would beg the Mother Superior for a job in the convent. She would do the wash, cook, clean the rooms, anything as long as she could make this her home.