The Chatter of the Maidens (6 page)

Josse reached out his left hand – awkwardly, since she was on his right side – and, after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. ‘It is terrible to lose your mother,’ he said quietly. ‘I am so sorry.’

She wiped tears from her eyes with her free hand. ‘My father’s dead, too,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t kind like my mother, but I’m sure he loved us in his way. Alba says he did, anyway.’ The girl looked suddenly glum, as if the mention of Alba, whoever she was, had depressed her.

‘Alba?’ Josse prompted.

‘My sister. My eldest sister, there’s Meriel as well. She’s sixteen – Meriel, I mean – she’s two years older than me. Alba’s
much
older than us. She’s a nun.’

‘I see,’ Josse said, although he wasn’t sure what he did see. ‘You still haven’t told me your name.’

‘Berthe,’ said the girl.

The pain in his arm, although lessening, was keeping up a steady throb. Thinking that a bit of a chat might take his mind off it, if he could summon the energy, Josse tried to think how he might encourage his enchanting companion to talk while he listened.

‘Berthe,’ he repeated. ‘Now, I can see that you’re not about to take the veil, and—’

‘Oh, I am,’ she interrupted, surprising him. ‘Not till I’m older, Alba says, but we’ve both got to, Meriel and me. Alba says we must, we’ve got no home, nowhere to live, now that Father is dead.’ She leaned closer and confided, ‘He didn’t
own
the farm, you see. It was all right for me and Meriel when he was alive, we looked after him and we didn’t mind, really, when he – well, we always had enough to eat and, as Father used to say, we had a roof over our heads and were warm and dry most of the time, which was more than many folks could say. We weren’t to complain, Father said, and when he heard me – I mean, we didn’t
need
to complain. He was quite right, I had disobeyed him, and it was his fatherly duty to – And then when Meriel met – I mean, there was – Anyway, we’re to be nuns, and there’s an end to it.’

She had, Josse thought, told him more by what she had left out than by what she had said. He had the strong impression that there were aspects of her young life that she had been ordered, under pain of some dreadful reprisal, to keep secret. Why else would there have been the abruptly cut-off remarks?

And why, when she had referred to the dead father several times, had there been no further mention of the mother?

Josse tried to plug the gaps and put the picture together. A tenant farmer, would-be master of his own few acres, making do but only just, head held high and woe betide anyone who pitied him. Heavy-handed in his punishments when his family complained, domineering, cowing a gentle wife to silence. Nothing put by, so that, when his daughters were suddenly orphaned, they were left both homeless and penniless.

And so they had come to Hawkenlye, where, without any consideration of whether or not they had a true vocation, they were all to be nuns.

This little thing, with her naughty eyes and her chatter, a nun?

Ah, but—

Josse had forgotten where he was. And, more importantly, which wise soul ruled this Abbey’s comings and goings. Abbess Helewise, he thought, with a rush of relief, would never admit a postulant because somebody else said she must. She, with her wise and perceptive eyes, would not force this child – Berthe – to take the veil unless Berthe was quite sure that God had called her, and that she wanted to answer His summons.

‘How do Alba and Meriel feel about being nuns?’ he asked.

‘Meriel doesn’t really show what she’s feeling, not at present, anyway, but Alba quite likes it,’ Berthe said. Ah yes, Josse remembered, Alba was already in Holy Orders. ‘Well, as much as Alba ever likes anything.’ A faint grin crossed Berthe’s face. ‘Alba says we are not put on this earth to enjoy ourselves, that we must work, and pray, and fight every moment to overcome original sin.’

‘And do you?’ Josse didn’t think it very likely.

‘I don’t really think I understand what original sin
is
,’ Berthe said, dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘but I’m quite sure Alba’s right, and we’ve got to be on our guard against it.’ The blue eyes stared intently at Josse. ‘Do
you
know?’ she asked, still in a whisper.

‘Er—’ Josse was not entirely sure that he understood any more than Berthe did. ‘Um – because Adam and Eve sinned,’ he said, thinking hard, ‘every one of us comes into the world tainted by that sin. Well, the same sin, sort of.’ He gave her a weak smile, hoping his paltry explanation would suffice.

Clearly it didn’t. ‘But what
was
the sin?’ Berthe persisted. ‘If Adam and Eve did it, then it was years ago, really ages and ages, and surely it’s not still lurking around trying to lure us into transgression
now
?’

Lure us into transgression, Josse thought. He didn’t imagine that little phrase was Berthe’s own. Who, he wondered, had been preaching at her?

‘Er – well, we can’t really help how we get here,’ he stumbled, ‘it’s nature, and it’s the same for all of us, king, knight and poor man, pope and saint. Oh, except the Holy Virgin Mary, because she was the Immaculate Conception.’ He was afraid he was entrenching himself more deeply and irrevocably into philosophical argument with every word. ‘See?’ he concluded hopefully.

Berthe shook her head. ‘No. Not at all.’ She was frowning. ‘What do you mean, how we
get
here? And what’s Immaculate Conception? I thought conceiving was when mares and cows are put with the stallion or the bull, when they’re going to bear young.’

But Josse, with a surge of relief, had noticed that his end of the infirmary had another visitor. One who, soft-footed, had arrived without his having noticed, and who, from the smile on her face, appeared to have overheard at least part of the conversation.

He grinned at Berthe. ‘I am not really the right person to ask,’ he said. ‘But, as luck would have it, this good lady is. Berthe, have you been presented to Abbess Helewise?’

Helewise had put off her visit to Josse until after Nones. It was not that she didn’t want to see him – far from it, she had been impatient to reassure herself that he really was on the way to recovery since first Sister Euphemia had told her of the sudden improvement in his condition.

It was, in fact, because of that impatience that she had forced herself to delay. She had, she was all too aware without her confessor having laboured the point, spent far too much time recently worrying about Josse. Oh, not to the detriment of her attention to her duties – she had made quite sure of that.

But it was, she had been discovering, quite possible to perform one’s duties convincingly while one’s mind and heart were engaged elsewhere. Even – and she was bitterly ashamed of herself – to recite the Office with her lips while her thoughts lay with that long, still figure in the infirmary.

She had already prayed for God’s forgiveness for that surely hurtful sin against His love, even before Father Gilbert had imposed his penance. Forcing herself to wait for almost all of the day before going to see Josse with her own eyes had been her idea; it had cost her far more than anything Father Gilbert had ordered.

Even having reached the infirmary, she did not allow herself to hurry immediately to Josse. Instead, she made sure that other patients received their due, stopping here by the bed of an amputee, there by a man newly recovered from the flux, and making a little detour to the area where two recently-delivered mothers proudly showed her their newborn babies. She also sought out and spoke to the infirmarer and her nurses with, as always, a word or two to each one.

It was hard, infirmary duty. The nursing nuns worked long hours, and refused to allow anybody to pass from this world into the next unless they were quite sure that God’s summons was not to be denied. Helewise, well aware that some of the tasks which Sister Euphemia and her nuns performed with horrible regularity would turn her stomach, wanted always to ensure that the infirmary staff knew how much their Abbess appreciated them.

Finally, she allowed her steps to follow the well-trodden path to Josse’s bedside.

‘. . . What’s Immaculate Conception?’ a light young voice was demanding. Berthe, Helewise thought, beginning to smile. Oh, dear, Josse seemed to have got himself into rather a pass. And was he really up to discussing the niceties of theological philosophy, convalescent as he was? Resisting the urge to chuckle, Helewise stepped forward.

The relief on Josse’s face as he saw her – and instantly dumped his little problem into her lap – suggested she had been right. He wasn’t up to it.

Berthe had shot to her feet and was making Helewise a passably graceful bow – ‘Thank you, Berthe,’ Helewise murmured – and Josse had relaxed, with evident relief, against his pillows.

‘Young Berthe has been cheering me up with a nice chat,’ Josse said.

‘Yes, so I heard,’ Helewise replied; the mild irony had been intended only for Josse, and only he gave a brief smile in recognition.

‘Abbess, am I allowed to ask
you
about Original Sin and that?’ Berthe demanded. ‘Josse says—’

‘
Sir
Josse,’ Helewise corrected.

‘Sorry, Sir Josse says you can explain better than he can . . . ?’

Helewise took a breath. ‘Original Sin refers to the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a disobedience which, because we are all descended from the first parents, we inherit,’ she said. She shot Josse a glance of mock reproof. ‘The Virgin Mary may indeed be the one Holy soul born without inheriting this sin, or so our eccelesiastical teachers would say, which is why we refer to our Blessed Virgin as the Immaculate Conception.’

‘But—’ persisted the irrepressible Berthe.

‘Berthe, dear, this is neither the time nor the place for theological instruction,’ Helewise insisted gently.

‘I’m sorry, Abbess, only Alba says—’

‘I am well aware what Alba says.’ The words had emerged more harshly that Helewise had intended; it was unfair to be angry with Berthe because of Alba’s shortcomings. ‘Off you go, now, Berthe,’ she went on, much more kindly. ‘Your visit has obviously done Sir Josse good’ – Josse nodded enthusiastically – ‘but I wish to speak to him now.’

Berthe had flushed with pleasure at the compliment. ‘Have I really done you good?’ she enquired, looking from Josse to Helewise and back again.

Helewise’s ‘Yes’ and Josse’s ‘Aye’ sounded together like a chorus.

Berthe’s smile spread until it encompassed her whole face. ‘Oh, I’m so
glad
!’ she exclaimed. Then, impetuously, ‘I wish Alba would let me be a nurse instead of a nun, I’d really much rather. Goodbye!’

Helewise watched Josse’s eyes following the girl as she hurried away. Then he turned to her.

She knew what he was going to say. As he opened his mouth to speak, she said, ‘No, Sir Josse. Before you do me the injustice of even asking, let me assure you that I will not be accepting Berthe as a postulant, not until she herself wants me to.’

Josse gave her a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, Abbess.’

‘No need for that,’ she said shortly. Indeed, she should not be impatient with him; the poor man’s recent state of health had surely made him deaf and blind to the subtleties of what had been going on in the community.

Just when she could have done with his wise counsel, too.

She studied him. He was still very pale, but then that was only to be expected; he had been shut away inside for so long, as well as having been so desperately ill. She glanced at the wounded arm. The dressing seemed to be smaller than when she had last visited. Was that a good sign?

He had followed the line of her glance. He, too, was looking down at his arm. ‘It is healing, Abbess,’ he said. He managed a grin. ‘Only hurts now if I try to throw a punch.’

‘I am quite sure there is no call for that here,’ she said primly. Then, unable to hold back the question any longer: ‘Sir Josse, was Berthe confiding in you just now?’

‘Before we got going on Original Sin, you mean?’ The old humour was back in his eyes.

‘Yes.’

He sighed. ‘Aye, that she was. Not a happy tale, is it?’

‘That’s just it! I don’t know what the tale is, not really.’ She hesitated. Was it right to suggest that a nun had been deliberately misleading her? Not one of her own nuns, perhaps, but, nevertheless, one that Hawkenlye had taken in. . . .

Making up her mind – this was Josse, her friend! How many times before had she confided in him and been glad of it? – she said, ‘All I know of Sister Alba, Meriel and Berthe is what Alba has told me.’ She kept her eyes steadily on Josse’s. ‘And, although it pains me to say it, I have become increasingly certain that Sister Alba is lying.’

 

If only, Helewise thought later as she sat alone in her room, unburdening myself to Josse could make my anxieties vanish. But that would not only be a miracle, it would also be unjust, since the anxieties are, after all, my concern.