The Testaments(68)

I said that God had given women other gifts as well, such as the ones he had bestowed on her. She said what might those be? I said the gift of being able to read, since all Aunts were gifted in that way. She said that the reading the Aunts did was holy reading and in the service of all the things she had said before—she said them over again—and did I presume to be sufficiently sanctified myself?

I said I was willing to do any kind of hard work in order to become an Aunt like her, because she was a shining example, and I wasn’t yet sanctified at all, but perhaps through grace and prayer I would receive enough sanctification, though I could never hope to achieve the level of sanctification that she herself had reached.

Aunt Vidala said I was displaying an appropriate meekness, which boded well for a successful integration into the service community of Ardua Hall. She even gave me one of her pinched-in smiles before I left.



* * *



—

My final interview was with Aunt Lydia. I’d been anxious about the others, but as I stood outside the door to Aunt Lydia’s office I was terrified. What if she’d thought better of it? She had a reputation for being not only fearsome but unpredictable. While I was lifting my hand to knock, her voice came from inside: “Don’t stand there all day. Come in.”

Was she looking at me through a miniature hidden camera? Becka had told me that she deployed a lot of those, or that was the rumour. As I was soon to discover, Ardua Hall was an echo chamber: the rumours fed back into one another so you could never be certain where they had come from.

I entered the office. Aunt Lydia was sitting behind her desk, which was stacked high with file folders. “Agnes,” she said. “I must congratulate you. Despite many obstacles, you have succeeded in making your way here, and have answered the call to join us.” I nodded. I was afraid she would ask me what that call had been like—had I heard a voice?—but she did not.

“You are very positive that you do not wish to marry Commander Judd?” I shook my head for no.

“Wise choice,” she said.

“What?” I was surprised: I’d thought she might give me a moral lecturing about the true duties of women or something of the sort. “I mean, pardon?”

“I am sure you would not have made him a fitting Wife.”

I breathed out in relief. “No, Aunt Lydia,” I said. “I would not. I hope he will not be too disappointed.”

“I have already proposed a more appropriate choice for him,” she said. “Your former schoolmate Shunammite.”

“Shunammite?” I said. “But she’s going to marry someone else!”

“These arrangements can always be altered. Would Shunammite welcome the change of husbands, do you think?”

I remembered Shunammite’s barely concealed envy of me and her excitement over the material advantages her wedding would bring. Commander Judd would confer ten times as many of those. “I am sure she would be deeply grateful,” I said.

“I agree.” She smiled. It was like an old turnip smiling: the dried-up kind our Marthas used to put in soup stock. “Welcome to Ardua Hall,” she continued. “You have been accepted. I hope you are grateful for the opportunity, and for the help I have given you.”

“I am, Aunt Lydia,” I managed to get out. “I am truly grateful.”

“I am glad to hear it,” she said. “Perhaps one day you will be able to help me as you yourself have been helped. Good should be repaid with good. That is one of our rules of thumb, here at Ardua Hall.”





XV





Fox and Cat





The Ardua Hall Holograph


41


All things come to she who waits. Time wounds all heels. Patience is a virtue. Vengeance is mine.

These hoary chestnuts are not always true, but they are sometimes true. Here’s one that is always true: everything’s in the timing. Like jokes.

Not that we have many jokes around here. We would not wish to be accused of bad taste or frivolity. In a hierarchy of the powerful, the only ones allowed to make jokes are those at the top, and they do so in private.

But to the point.

It has been so crucial for my own mental development to have had the privilege of being a fly on the wall; or, to be more exact, an ear inside the wall. So instructive, the confidences shared by young women when they believe no third party is listening. Over the years I increased the sensitivity of my microphones, I attuned them to whispers, I held my breath to see which of our newly recruited girls would provide me with the sort of shameful information I both craved and collected. Gradually my dossiers filled up, like a hot-air balloon getting ready for liftoff.

In the matter of Becka, it took years. She’d always been so reticent about the primary cause of her distress, even to her school friend Agnes. I had to wait for sufficient trust to develop.

It was Agnes who finally broached the question. I use their earlier names here—Agnes, Becka—since it was these names they used among themselves. Their transformation into perfect Aunts was far from complete, which pleased me. But then, no one’s is when push comes to shove.

“Becka, what really happened to you?” Agnes said one day when they were engaged in their Bible studies. “To make you so set against marriage.” Silence. “I know there was something. Please, wouldn’t you like to share it with me?”