The Chatter of the Maidens (4 page)

‘No!’ Sister Basilia exclaimed. And Sister Euphemia was looking at Sister Edith with a new, more respectful expression, as if her horror at what Sister Alba had said to an innocent child had shown her in a new and better light.

‘In summary,’ Sister Edith concluded, when it seemed that nobody was going to comment further, ‘I have to say that I do not believe Sister Alba has any vocation for teaching.’

Sister Basilia looked worried. ‘No aptitude for nursing, nor for teaching,’ she said. ‘And I shall only endorse what you both have said when I relate my own experiences. Sister Alba, I’m afraid to say, does not like hard work. Or, at least, not the sort of hard work we perform in the refectory and the kitchens. She volunteered to work as cellarer – she said she knew all about provisioning, and would be very careful over selecting and locking away the wine – and when I said we already had a very capable cellarer in Sister Goodeth, and, in any case, it was not an office usually filled by a newcomer, she looked most upset.’

‘So what
did
she do?’ Sister Euphemia asked.

Sister Basilia smiled faintly. ‘I put her to pot scrubbing. But I don’t think she did very much, I think Sister Anne covered for her.’

‘Kind of Sister Anne,’ Sister Euphemia remarked.

‘Sister Anne is a follower, not a leader,’ Sister Basilia said gently. ‘She tends to give in before a stronger personality, and do what she’s told.’

Helewise, although listening intently, had been gazing into the distance. It was only when she refocused on the trio in front of her that she realised they were all looking at her.

‘Thank you, Sisters,’ she said. ‘You have all done your best with Sister Alba, and I do appreciate your efforts. I will now think on what you have reported, and decide what to do next.’

There was an awkward silence, during which Helewise noticed the three other nuns glance at each other.

‘Abbess, may we speak frankly?’ Sister Euphemia said.

Helewise suppressed a smile. ‘Of course.’ You usually do, she might have added.

‘We – you—’ The infirmarer cleared her throat and began again. ‘Abbess, what the three of us are thinking is that it’s not right, you having to be bothered with all this, not given everything else you have to do. Sister Basilia here was remembering that, before, when old Sister Mary was still alive, she was Mistress of Novices, but, what with us not having floods of new nuns any more, the office has sort of been absorbed by the rest of us. Particularly you. And we were wondering, why not appoint someone, and fill the office again?’

For an instant, Helewise wondered crossly if Euphemia had been talking to Queen Eleanor. But no, that was unworthy. And, anyway, they had a point.

‘Had you thought of a likely person?’ she asked, trying to sound encouraging and not as if she had just had to bite down on her irritation.

Again, the three nuns glanced at one another. Then Sister Basilia said, ‘We wondered about Sister Amphelisia.’

Sister Amphelisia. Sufficiently young to retain an empathy with postulants and novices, yet with enough years of convent life behind her to give her dignity and authority. At present, working with the learned and distant Sister Bernadine on maintaining and copying the Abbey’s small collection of holy manuscripts. And, as Helewise well knew, not particularly happy in her work.

Sister Amphelisia as Mistress of Novices?

Why not?

Helewise composed her reply before uttering it. ‘Sisters,’ she said eventually, ‘you have clearly given this matter careful and diligent thought, and I am grateful.’ She took a deep breath, observing that it still cost her a great effort to hand over authority to another, and concluding from it that she was far too full of pride. She would have to have a long and, no doubt, painful and humiliating session with Father Gilbert, who would doubtless impose heavy penance. For the good of her soul, naturally, and for the furtherance of her growth in the religious life.

Oh, dear.

Where was she?

‘I will speak to Sister Amphelisia,’ she said, standing up to let the Sisters know that the meeting was over.

Sisters Euphemia, Basilia and Edith bowed, then made their way out of Helewise’s room. She listened to their retreating footsteps as they set off along the cloister, waiting to see if they would make any audible comments about what had just happened.

They didn’t.

Adding the sin of curiosity – very well, nosiness – to the growing list to mutter into the merciless ear of Father Gilbert, Helewise wearily straightened her back and began to think out how best to raise the matter of her appointment with the potential new Mistress of Novices.

 

The Abbess was emerging from the church in the middle of the following morning when a slight commotion from the gates alerted her to the fact that the Abbey had a visitor.

Sister Martha, who had flung down her pitchfork and gone hurrying across from the stables, was holding the head of a docile-looking horse while the porteress, Sister Ursel, was standing beside the cart which the horse was pulling. Both nuns were exclaiming loudly, and exchanging remarks with a strangely familiar-looking man sitting at the front of the cart and holding the reins.

Before Helewise had time to puzzle out who the man was, another figure leapt down from the back of the cart and, with Sister Ursel trotting along behind him trying to catch hold of his sleeve – ‘That’s the Abbess! You mustn’t go accosting her, she’s very busy!’ – made his way to Helewise.

‘Greetings to you, Abbess,’ he said with a sketchy bow. ‘Forgive my lack of ceremony, but Sir Josse lies in the cart, gravely sick with the fever, and we, that is, Sir Brice and me, we—’

But Helewise was already running towards the cart.

The man on the front – yes, of course, he was Sir Brice of Rotherbridge, Josse’s neighbouring landowner – jumped down as she hurried towards him, catching her as she stumbled. ‘Abbess, we need the skills of your infirmarer,’ he said quietly, his face close to hers.

‘What is the matter with him?’ she demanded, panting, heart in her mouth. Then, realising belatedly that she was hardly behaving in a dignified and abbess-like manner, she straightened up, pulled a little away from Sir Brice and said more calmly, ‘Sister Euphemia will attend to him as soon as she is able. Sir Brice, will you and—’ She glanced questioningly at the other man.

‘Will,’ Brice said.

‘Please will you carry Sir Josse into the infirmary?’ She pointed out the door. ‘Sister Martha, Sister Ursel, perhaps you could help . . . ?’

She stood back and watched as, with great care, Will and Brice edged Josse’s tall, sturdy body out of the cart, supporting him under each shoulder while Sister Martha, strongly-muscled herself, hurried to hold him under the hips. Sister Ursel took hold of his feet, and, moving with exaggerated care, the four of them set out towards the infirmary. Overtaking them, refusing to allow herself even a peep at Josse’s face, Helewise went to alert Sister Euphemia.

The next few minutes were a trial for them all. Sister Euphemia was calm in the midst of the furore, despite having to think of three things at once; in addition to Josse, she was supervising the delivery of a badly-positioned baby and administering a pain-killing sedative to a man who was about to have his gangrenous left hand removed.

She made room for Josse at the far end of the infirmary, in an area which, although its position gave him privacy, meant that his four bearers had to carry him the length of the long ward. Despite their best efforts, between them they managed to upset a pail of water, knock over a small table containing herbal potions and crack Josse’s head against the doorframe. The last accident caused their patient finally to break his silence; the howl of pain that emerged from him made Helewise’s blood go cold.

With a barely perceptible gesture, Sister Euphemia had summoned two of her nurses. And as, with polite but firm insistence, they made their way past Helewise, Brice and Will, the Abbess and the two men found themselves excluded from Josse’s bedside.

The infirmarer caught her eye; Sister Euphemia briefly turned down her mouth in an anxious expression. Oh, dear Lord, Helewise thought. I am very afraid that this is as serious as I feared.

Then Sister Euphemia turned back to her patient. As Sister Beata and Sister Judith began their first task – stripping the patient of his shirt and removing the bloodstained dressing on his arm – Helewise had a brief glimpse of Josse’s face.

I cannot bear to see him like this, she thought.

Then, putting aside her personal feelings and assuming once more the mantle of Abbess of Hawkenlye – rarely could she recall a moment when it had been so hard – she said to Brice, ‘Please, come with me. I will order something to eat for you and Will, and, if you wish it, we offer you the Abbey’s hospitality while we see if he is going to – that is, until there is word of Sir Josse’s condition.’

Brice and Will, she noted, looked as stunned as she felt. They seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move away from the bedside and out of the infirmary; with a brief bow to Brice, she led them off, back down the ward and out into the bright sunshine outside.

The long wait was easier for Helewise than for the two men. She was in her own environment, and she had the daily round of duties to occupy her mind, preventing it from dwelling constantly on that white-faced, agonised figure in the infirmary.

She also had the vast solace of prayer. The hour for Sext had come and gone, and it was almost time for Nones, and still there was no word from the infirmary save only, ‘He lives’.

On her way to the Abbey church, Helewise caught sight of Brice and Will. They were sitting on a stone seat by the gate. Brice was tracing patterns in the ground with a stick, Will sat with folded arms staring straight in front of him.

She went over to them. They stood up as she approached and, impetuously holding out her hands to them, she said, ‘Will you not come to pray with us? When we have said the Office, we shall be asking God that He look kindly on Sir Josse, and that He lessen his pain.’

‘I will come, thank you, Abbess,’ Brice said.

Will stood mutely, staring at the ground; Helewise thought she saw him briefly shake his head.

But later, when some small movement caused her to turn round and look down from her position near the altar towards the entrance to the church, she noticed that Will had crept in and was kneeling by himself, just inside the great door.

Somehow, to have Josse’s devoted manservant adding his pleas to those who prayed so hard for Josse seemed, to Helewise, oddly comforting.

It was at dusk that Sister Euphemia finally came to Helewise with definite news.

Helewise was in her room; as the infirmarer came in and made her reverence, Helewise wondered if she should summon Brice and Will.

As if Sister Euphemia read her mind – it quite often happened between them – she said as she straightened up, ‘I’ll tell you first, Abbess, if you will allow it. Then may I ask that you tell the others, Sir Brice and what’s-his-name?’

‘Of course,’ Helewise said. Euphemia was, she realised, totally exhausted; it would be far less exacting for her to explain everything to just one person than to three. ‘Please, Sister, come and sit here, in my chair.’

Sister Euphemia looked quite shocked at the suggestion. ‘Indeed I will not, Abbess!’ She squared her shoulders. ‘Thank you all the same,’ she added.

‘How is he?’ Helewise asked quietly.

Sister Euphemia nodded. ‘He will live. And, with God’s help, I believe that we have saved his arm. He’s strong, very strong, else he’d have been dead by now. That servant of his has been doing his best, but I suspect that he and his woman haven’t any real skill. Probably knew to keep his master drinking, and to sponge that fearful wound occasionally – and I must admit, the dressing was fairly fresh and neatly applied – but I wouldn’t imagine either of them knew of any specific for a violently rising fever.’

‘But you do,’ Helewise said, deliberately making it a statement; she could not bear there to be any doubt.

‘I do,’ Euphemia agreed. ‘Sister Anne and Sister Judith got down to cleaning and dressing the arm, soon as you left us, and I got Sister Tiphaine to help me with the strongest medicine we could think of. Thank the good Lord, it’s spring, and the plants we needed are green and potent.’ She paused, frowning, as if going over in her head what she had done and wondering if she had forgotten anything. ‘Anyway, seems we did right. The fever’s broken and is receding.’

‘God be praised,’ Helewise said softly.

‘Amen.’ Euphemia was still frowning.

‘Sister?’ Helewise prompted. ‘What is it?’

Sister Euphemia shook her head, as if to drive away whatever thought was bothering her. ‘Nothing, leastways, nothing very relevant.’ She smiled briefly at Helewise. ‘Don’t you fret, Abbess dear. Like I said, he isn’t going to die, I’m as sure of that as I can be. I don’t think the good Lord is impatient to call him home just yet awhile.’