In Pursuit of the Green Lion (9 page)

But when I got to the chapel, there he was. And if I’d been thinking about God more and the paper and ink less, I suppose I wouldn’t have minded, but as it was it seemed very annoying that he was there. He was noisy, too, so a body couldn’t concentrate. He was hopping and dancing about, trying to brush something off his robe.

“Come to confess, eh?—get off! Get
off
, I say!”

“Father—”

“Couldn’t be much. I absolve you. Get
off
! Three aves.” Then he brushed some more, and hopped about a bit. “They’re all
over.
Can’t seem to get them off.”

“What are they? Bedbugs?”

“No—can’t you
see
them? Nasty things, off!”

“No, I can’t see anything there.”

“Devils! Damned little devils! Green, like big spiders, but with such nasty little faces. Off, off! They make my skin burn and crawl. Oh, God, my sins—forgive—get them
off !”

“I can brush those bugs off, I think—quit jumping around so much and let me try.” I knew right away where those bugs were from. But the problem is, if you heal a person who drinks too much, then they remember why they were drinking, and get much more upset than they were before. I did it only once, and the man jumped out of the window to try to kill himself, but only broke both legs—and that was a much bigger healing job.

Just a little bit, for the bugs, so he can sit still, but not so much he gets sober, I thought to myself. Then he’ll go off to bed. And I quieted my mind and called just the tiniest bit of the healing light, which God sent to me in my vision. When I could feel it in my hands, I knelt down and brushed his robe all about the hem, until he sighed,

“Oh, gone, gone at last. Those little faces! Ugh! I’ll see them in my dreams. However did you manage?”

“You just didn’t brush hard enough, Father Simeon, and you couldn’t get round to the back, where they were hiding.”

“Where? The back?” and he whirled around. “No, none there, God be praised. You seem to have got them all. If you’ll pardon me now, I must withdraw to—meditate.” He looked about him unsteadily. “You’re staying?” he asked.

“I haven’t yet said my prayers for Roger Kendall.”

“Very good, very good. I’m glad to see a pious soul in this house at last.” I couldn’t help feeling just a little guilty as I watched him stagger off. A wisp of fog whirled across the room behind him sobbing dolefully. The Weeping Lady. I knelt down anyway, and as I started, the sobbing stopped. Then, just as I was especially explaining to God that Roger Kendall’s good deeds must be taken into account, I heard a soft little voice in my ear.

“I saw you,” it said. Goodness, the Weeping Lady could speak. Most of them aren’t clever enough.

“I saw you. Your hands and face glowed, and the light made me feel warm. Have you any idea how cold this chapel is? That’s how I died, you know. I got a chill, and now I’ll never be warm again.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” I said. One should always be polite to Weeping Ladies. They’re usually the ghosts of women who died in childbirth, come back searching for the baby. They deserve respect, especially from us women. Then she moaned a bit, just to keep in form, and bewailed her dead babies awhile.

“Doesn’t that frighten you?” she asked, a little maliciously.

“If you were evil, it would frighten me, but I don’t think you’re evil,” I answered stoutly.

“How do you know that? After all, I’m here for vengeance. That’s what our sort of being exists for. Why,” she added, rather haughtily, I thought, “I could go to heaven anytime I wished, but I just chose to wait here until I’ve got even—something I never got a chance for, when I was alive. I had to petition, and get all sorts of special permissions,” she went on rather pridefully. “Not just
everyone
gets to be a Weeping Lady. You have to have a
special
mission.”

“Why, that’s very impressive,” I answered humbly. A snobbish ghost. There’s something new all the time, isn’t there? “Could you tell me what it is?”

“Of course not. It’s a secret. But I’ll tell you this much. It’s men I’m getting even with. They’re nothing but a trouble and a bother. Take my word for it, and don’t waste your life on loving any of them. Or it’s soon enough you’ll be a Weeping Lady. There. Wasn’t that impressive? Not many people get advice from a Weeping Lady.” The wisp of fog swirled around me.

“And by the way, if you want to do any more glowing, come in here. I like the way it feels. All warm again. It’s very nice. And tell the Cold Thing that followed you here not to bother me anymore. This chapel’s only big enough for one apparition.” The wisp of fog thinned and vanished, leaving me vexed and curious, instead of peaceful, as I expect to be when I’m in a chapel. It took me no end of time to compose my mind again and resume my prayers.

When I’d gone on a proper long time, long enough to secure Master Kendall’s soul for another day, I finished up and went to rummage in the big chest of books and vestments that was kept in the corner behind the altar. But after I’d folded the sheet of paper I’d found and tucked it into the bosom of my surcoat, I heard the sobbing resume. I looked up to see a wisp of fog whirling up above the crucifix. The Weeping Lady was still there. But where was the ink? Ah, there in the bottom of the chest, well stoppered. I poured it off into the little jar that used to hold my rose water, leaving just enough so Father Simeon would think he’d forgotten that he’d used it himself. The weeping stopped. A long column of mist was forming in front of me, and I thought for a moment that I could make out in the vapor the tall figure of an elegant-looking lady with a long, straight nose, and hair that might once in life have been darkish, all tucked up under a fancy French headdress. She had a large number of rings on her long, slender fingers, which interested me at the time, since I wondered how jewelry, which is so hard and lumpy, could become all misty like that. She was peering intently at me.

“I saw you,” she said. “You took paper and ink.” I blushed.

“Did you take them for yourself?”

“Yes, I did,” I confessed.

“Then you can write?”

“I can,” I answered.

“I can write too,” she said rather haughtily. “I can write my name. Not many can, but I am exceptional. Why do you need a whole sheet of paper? Are you having a letter written?”

“I’m writing for myself. I write things I learned from Mother Hilde, so they won’t be lost. Recipes and secret charms for childbirth, and things like that. Also I write my thoughts, because everyone tells me I talk too much and I’m trying to reform, but if I can’t talk to someone about the things I think, then I might die.”

The Weeping Lady looked rather sympathetic at this last. She swirled a bit, so I couldn’t see her face. Then she formed up again and said firmly, “Then you’re a nun. Mother Hilde is your abbess. Why aren’t you wearing a habit, and what are you doing here anyway?”

“I’m not a nun. Master Kendall hired someone to teach me to write, because I begged him. Mother Hilde is the wisest woman in the whole world, but she’s not an abbess. She is a healer, and a wise-woman, and a midwife, and she taught me all of her secrets, long ago. I am writing them in a book for my daughters.”

“A midwife? I don’t trust midwives. I’m sorry she wasn’t an abbess, though I don’t trust them either—they’re always hunting for endowments.” The shape separated and wavered at the edges, as if she were finding it difficult to concentrate herself. “Do you know I had eleven babies?” She rippled and swayed. “All but two are dead. They weren’t even a year old. It was my husband’s sins that killed them. I couldn’t pray enough to keep his sins away. Oh, it was cold, cold, so cold. And then I died. Are you sure Mother Hilde isn’t an abbess?”

She sounded so disappointed that I said, “She really isn’t, but I have a brother who’s a priest.”

“A priest? Oh, that’s nice.” She sounded approving. Good, I thought. It’s important to humor spectres. “I’ve a son who’s a priest,” she added. “Probably much more important than your brother by now. My, he was a pretty little boy. Just like me. I had my confessor teach him reading and Latin when he was just a tiny thing. He was ever so quick—not thickheaded, like my first. Bad blood, that one had. That’s what comes when you marry beneath yourself. My father would never have stood for it if he’d lived. ‘Never marry beneath yourself, my little chick,’ he’d say. ‘It’s better to be a nun.’ Now, my little boy, he must be very large by now, but he’s gone away to be a priest and I’ve never seen him since the day I died. He was too little to be left; I heard his weeping even on the other side. But I’m sure he remembered what I’d told him. ‘Be a priest,’ I said, ‘not a sinner like that creature I married. Stay pure. Remember, you’re not like them.’ Oh, the pity of it, that I married beneath myself, and was brought to all this grief.”

As she spoke I began to have a curious suspicion. It grew and grew in me, and made my skin crawl.

“You must have very fine blood,” I said very carefully. “Even now you look very elegant.” The Weeping Lady swirled a gracious acknowledgment. “Just who was it you wed? Would you care to tell me his name?”

“Oh, what a crude young man. Mother was quite taken in. A true chevalier, she said, come to rescue us in our distress. Well, he did look nice in his armor, I must confess, and he carried my favor to victory in the tournament, which did turn my head at the time. But can you imagine? The moment we were wed he spent my dowry to repair his tower and didn’t even have the chapel painted. Oh, Father, how right you were!” She became agitated and rose to the ceiling awhile, and then billowed down.

“The only thing he ever spent a penny on was his horses!” she hissed spitefully in my ear. “A new saddle blanket? Spare no expense! A new dress for his poor wife, who’d married beneath herself? Never! I wore out my wedding clothes, I tell you, and then I died. A woman can’t live without a decent dress. But I tell you, I’ve come back to haunt him, haunt him, haunt him, until he’s ashamed to show his face in public! Take my advice! Never marry beneath yourself!”

“And the name, just so I’ll know how to follow your sage advice?”

“Sir Hubert de Vilers, may the Devil fly off with him! A horrid blond young man, a bit on the square side—very vain about his swordsmanship. You can’t mistake him, no, not at all!” Her anger had swirled her all up again, so I couldn’t see her, but it didn’t matter. Even after she was gone, I had to put my hand over my heart, it thumped so. There was absolutely no mistaking it. I had a Weeping Lady for a mother-in-law. It was really altogether too much.

Now, Mother Anne, who was not my real mother but my stepmother who raised me up, was a woman of great practical sense, and she always warned me about mothers-in-law.

“Now, Margaret,” she always said, “when you get married, be very careful of your mother-in-law. Remember, they are always angry at the girl who marries their son, so be respectful! Don’t give them any cause to get peevish! Give them the best of everything at table, and make sure their bed’s warmed before they get in it. Call them ‘Madame my mother’ even if they’re no lady at all, and kneel before them in respect. I’ve had several mothers-in law, and believe me, I know. That’s the only good thing I can say about your father—he didn’t come attached to a mother-in law, and for that I’m grateful.”

Oh, Mother Anne, I miss you now! Surely, surely someday we’ll meet again. And when we do, I’ll tell you about my first mother-in-law, because Master Kendall was so old, he didn’t come with one either. You’ll be amazed! And I certainly never needed your advice more than now, in this very delicate situation I’ve found myself in.

T
HE NIGHTS THAT FOLLOWED
were hard, hard. I’d turn restlessly in bed, sitting up suddenly in a cold sweat, worrying about the Cold Thing, and listening to the breathing all around me. The circles grew underneath my eyes, but I never told anyone why—that I was worried by Cold Things, by ghosts that swirled and boded no good, especially if that foolish Weeping Lady ever managed to catch up with the changes in the house and find out that her little boy wasn’t a priest after all, and it was partly my fault.

Sometimes, if there was a moon, I’d get up and tiptoe across the rushes, around the sleeping dogs, and go to stare out the window at the stars, I was so torn with hidden fears and secret anguish. They were so cold and sparkling, all set up there on the dome of the sky. How did God ever manage to stick them up there, so they could move about without falling down? I’d put my elbows on the windowsill, even though I was half frozen, and watch the clouds scudding across the moon until my numbing feet sent me back under the covers. Gregory’s lucky. He can sleep through anything. Then I’d hear his soft breathing in the dark, and feel the warmth of his body, and my heart would melt inside me, in spite of everything—because of everything. Who knows?

My greatest fear was of the Cold Thing, however. I feared—no, I knew—that one day it would come between us. It would come in the night, and reveal its beastly, unnatural self. It would shake its huge, shaggy head and seize me in its slavering jaws. Or maybe it was a devil, and in the morning, they’d be able to find nothing but a faint stain on the sheets, where I’d lain, and smell a whiff of brimstone. Oh, it was coming to get me, all right. I could feel it near. It was just biding its time.

A little longer, please. Leave me a little longer, Cold Thing. Let me have him just a few more nights. I know what you’re waiting for, Cold Thing. You’re counting my sins, and when you’ve got the last one, which is wanting him too much, then you’ll take it all away. Oh, yes—it was at night that the thought of the Cold Thing frightened me. When the sun is up, I can manage anything—even the formidable task of placating a Weeping Lady. But night makes even common things eerie. The shadows of the clothing on the perches look like monsters’ faces, and the sound of rustling insects like ghosts’ footsteps.

So now, whenever I heard a rustle in the night, my eyes would fly open with fear, and sleep would vanish until I recognized the sound of mice scampering in the rushes, the
whuff, whuff of
a dog having dreams, or even the sound of someone using the chamber pot. But then, late one night, I woke to a rustling sound that did not turn itself into something ordinary. It sounded like the feet of a large animal, most probably a hound of hell, or some other awful monster, shuffling slowly toward the bed to fetch me at last. Gregory was rolled into a ball, the pillow over his head, sound asleep but grinding his teeth with worry. He’d never tell me what the worry was, but I knew anyway. He’d lost his life’s calling, and being married isn’t a calling, and coming into money isn’t a calling either. And farthest of all from a calling is having to come home and be shouted at instead of being free and a scholar, and in search of God. So I didn’t wake him up. I just got up my courage to pull aside the bed curtains and peep out. Maybe all they’d find in the morning would be some greenish slime in one slipper, but that’s the way it was going to be.