After that it was just as well the afternoon was given over to ease until Vespers, with leave for the nuns to spend the time as they would in the cloister walk and the garden and the orchard. Even Sister Cecely, having been allowed to sit at the far end of the refectory table during dinner and given half-portions of everything, was let off her penance in the church, to spend the time with Domina Elisabeth in the prioress’ parlor. Frevisse thought that probably made the afternoon more a penance than a pleasure for Domina Elisabeth. Then she willingly forgot Sister Cecely altogether, went to walk for a time in the orchard, and afterward-giving way to the satisfaction of a full stomach and her tiredness-sat and drowsed in the garden’s warm sunshine for a while.
She awoke from an unremembered dream to find herself with what seemed a quite unreasonable urge to return to the church. Surely she had spent enough hours there of late that she did not need more just now, she thought, and stayed where she was until-more fully awake and finding the urge did not leave her-she looked at it and found it was not duty moving her to it but joy. She was so suffused with happiness that she needed to be closer to the heart of it, and she rose from the bench, a little stiff with having sat still so long, and obeyed her desire.
At this hour of so sun-filled a day, the now-shadowed church seemed almost of another world, and Frevisse paused just inside the door from the cloister, to let her mind and body take in the quiet waiting there, to give it chance to reach into the deep places of her self, balm and blessing together. Candles still burned at the altar. After the blackness of the past few days, their brightness and the glowingly white altar cloth made plain how light and life could come out of darkness. As expected, Dame Thomasine was there before her, kneeling at the altar as straightly upright as one of the candles and probably burning, Frevisse supposed, with an inward flame as strong as their outward ones. Dame Thomasine lived in a state of prayer and grace that Frevisse could deeply respect and wonder at while nonetheless admitting-if only to herself-how much she was frightened by the thought of so much losing herself. That fear was a weakness she had prayed against without yet fully overcoming it, and yet sometimes, in her deepest praying, she brushed close to how it must be for Dame Thomasine and for a brief breath of time felt the wonder and freedom, the unbounded joy there was there, beyond the bounds of all the world’s seeming. And whatever her fears, afterward she always hungered to be there again.
Only as Frevisse moved forward, away from the door, did she see Elianor Lawsell in the nave, kneeling just beyond the rood screen. Or not so much kneeling as crouching. There seemed little that was prayerful about the way she was huddled down, one hand spread over her face, hiding it, the other stretched out and pressed against the screen. Another pace, silent-footed in her soft-soled shoes, brought Frevisse near enough to see the girl’s shoulders were unevenly shaking, surely with crying.
Frevisse sighed. However unwilling she was to the duty, she went around the rood screen, now deliberately not quiet-footed. The girl grabbed her hand back from the screen and began wiping at her face, her head still bowed, but when Frevisse lightly touched her shoulder and she looked up, tears were still coursing freely down her cheeks, nor did she seem ashamed of them, wiping at them more defiantly than as if hopelessly trying to hide them as Frevisse asked, “Is it as bad as that? You want so little to be a nun?”
The girl gasped. “No!” Still on her knees, she grasped at Frevisse’s skirts with one hand while wiping away yet more tears with the other. “Please. No. Don’t think that! I’m crying because I’m so glad. To be here. I’m praying I never have to leave!”
Frevisse leaned over, took her by the elbows, brought her to her feet. “You want to be here?”
The girl clasped her hands together. “I want it so much!”
Frevisse let her go, took a step back, tucked her own hands into her opposite sleeves, and said with what she hoped was a balance between sternness and sympathy, “Your mother brought you here in hope of this, but…”
“No,” Elianor interrupted fiercely. “She brought me here in hope I’d see how drearsome and over-burdened a nun’s life is. But it isn’t!”
“It can be,” Frevisse said quellingly. “It often is.”
“Everyone’s is,” Elianor returned. “You can’t tell me they aren’t.”
“I won’t. But this is not what your mother wrote to our prioress.”
“It wouldn’t be, would it?” Elianor returned scornfully. “No. What she wants is for me to give up my hope and settle for whatever husband she’ll choose for me.”
“She’s a widow?”
“My father finds it easier to let her do as she will,” Elianor said bitterly. “He says the matter is between us. Between my mother and me.”
“And if, after this while here, you still don’t agree with her, what will she do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Punish you? Force you?”
Elianor lightened into sudden, silent laughter. “When our quarrel started, she threatened to beat me, even to lock me up until I ‘behaved.’ I went to our priest. He laid order on her that I’m not to be forced in any way. I’m to be ‘persuaded’ or else allowed my choice. She was very angry about that.”
Frevisse could well imagine she would be.
“It’s not as if I were depriving her of all hope of marrying a daughter well,” Elianor said. “My sister can hardly bear the wait for a husband and household of her own. She’ll do everything Mother asks of her, once I’m out of her way.”
There were a number of questions Frevisse wanted to ask, but it was not her place to do so. This matter was for Domina Elisabeth. But there was no need to disturb her peace today, and Frevisse settled for saying, “Tomorrow ask Father Henry for leave to speak alone with Domina Elisabeth. Your mother will have to allow that at his word, and he’ll give it. That will put the matter between you and our prioress.” Who would not be pleased at having been misled by Mistress Lawsell.
Hope, relief, and gratitude bloomed in Elianor’s face. She looked as if she would have kissed Frevisse’s hand in thankfulness, but Frevisse kept her hands firmly up her sleeves, gave a short nod, and gladly escaped to the other side of the rood screen, going, as she had first intended, to kneel down at the altar and give herself into prayer.
Chapter 11
Cecily fell asleep in anger and awoke the same, both when Matins dragged her from bed and again when she had to rise for Prime and truly begin the day. After all the Easter praying yesterday what harm would there have been in taking some manner of ease from the Offices now? She valued Easter as much as anyone should, but she had always thought the hours spent at it here in the nunnery were beyond reason, and this morning, kneeling at the altar yet again in this farce of “penance,” she thought it more than ever.
She could only hope that Master Breredon was satisfied he had done his duty to God and be willing to have her and Neddie away as soon as might be. He had after all been right about Easter not being the best of days to make her escape; she had not counted on Domina Elisabeth’s attending to her all the day, and what a misery that had been. But Master Breredon had not known that would be the way of it and he had better not refuse the next chance that came. Tomorrow Sister, no, Dame Thomasine would have a turn at keeping watch on her. There was a woman so unbrained with holiness she probably could not keep watch on a wart on her thumb. All Cecely need do was get word to Master Breredon of when and get her hands on Neddie at the necessary time, and this miserable place would be behind her again. Tomorrow for a certainty, before she ran mad, she thought grimly.