Valour and Victory Read Online Free PDF Page A

I do,
like to see you before she dons the habit so there is another
reason for you to visit before your marriage and future position
make travel difficult.
    Think about it
Isobel, we would all love it if you could persuade Aunt Anne to let
you come and I’m sure Katia would like to come to see Jill. If you
make it soon, perhaps Tamsin would be able to come with you, she
lives so very far away, but I am asking her myself. I am very much
aware, who isn’t, about what a royal marriage entails and no doubt
you will be expected to provide an heir before long. After that
event, visits to your old friends will be impossible. Please ask
Aunt Anne and Uncle Pierre if you can come.
    Now I’d better
end this now, it’s nearly time for Sext and then I have duties to
attend to in the library. You and Estelle are always in my thoughts
and my prayers, now and always.
    Cynwise.’
    Letter from
Jill, a schoolgirl who is attending to her education whilst in the
care of the Sisters of the Order of Grey Nuns, to her sister
Katia.
    ‘ Dear
Katia,
    I hope this
finds you well and in good health. Sister Earcongota says that we
must always begin our letters like this. I am well and happy.
    I am writing
this in the school room, we are all writing our letters home, this
is the candle-mark for it. There is a candle-mark for everything
here and I quite like it, although some of the candle-marks are
nicer than others.
    Arithmetic is
not so nice. Sister Earcongota says it is to teach us how to reason
but I do not see it. I don’t like learning about numbers and my
answers are rarely the same as what Sister Earcongota says they
must be. Reading and writing are much more fun and history, I love
history although the names and dates of the kings and the other
ducal families are sometimes confusing. No, not sometimes, always,
if I say sometimes I’d be telling a lie and Sister Earcongota says
that telling a lie, however small and well-intentioned, is a sin. I
wish people wouldn’t keep calling their children after themselves
and their aunts and uncles. We are at the moment studying what
Sister Earcongota calls the Great Civil War, which is exciting but
difficult to understand. Did you know that Queen Petra the First
was educated here at the convent? It was a very long time ago of
course and none of the sisters here knew her.
    Our day begins
with prayers then we have breakfast. After a walk we begin lessons
which continue until Sext. Then we partake of luncheon (to partake
is an interesting word is it not? We have just learned it). After
luncheon we do sewing and embroidery. I am doing the smocking on
the pinafore I had started last time I wrote. The older girls are
doing gorgeous embroidery on an altar cloth. Sister Eanfled says
that when I am older I will be able to help make one too but I’m
not nearly good enough yet. At Noce we stop doing embroidery.
    Then we have
our recreation time. When the weather is nice we play in the
gardens and when it is not we have to spend the time in the common
room, reading, playing board games and talking. Then we have more
prayers, then supper then bed.
    I was so happy
when Mother Breguswið told me that Duchess Anne Cocteau has invited
me to stay at the manor for the summer vacation. I have written to
her accepting. Sister Earcongota checked all my spelling. It was
most kind of her to think of me. Most of us here stay all the year
round and do not go home and it was a wonderful surprise to hear
that I would be visiting you for three whole tendays! Sister
Earcongota is helping me prepare suitable clothes for my visit as I
have grown out of all the ones I brought with me and we wear
uniform here. Quite indecent she cried when I tried on that red
dress, you know the one and it was one of my favourites too. Even
with the hem taken down to its fullest extent it barely covered my
ankles!
    Please send my
love to Mother and Father when you next write (I am writing to you
this time) and to our brother. Is the baby born yet?