The door swung wider now, and the old man hobbled off cackling to himself, and Father Lawrence gently ordered, “Come, my daughters, cast down your eyes and be not bold of speech or manner, but remember what little English I have lately taught you. You are to remember foremost the English phrases, 'I have taken a vow, my Father,' and 'I cannot give myself without my vow, Father.' Then also, when you see the gleaming eyes and the reaching hands that hunger for your sweet bodies, you must say, 'Oh no, I prithee, Father, it is against my vow!' Now these three goodly terms should suffice you at least for this first night. Later, as I can, I will hurriedly impart to you other answers, and you in turn must relay to me the behavior of your holy and vigilant accosters. For remember that under each cassock, no matter how thick to veil nor how somber black to disperse thought of carnal indulgence, there stirs the prick of a mighty stalwart throbbing to bring you out of your novice state to blessed fulfillment. Ah, here comes the Father Superior now! He has more gray hairs than when I last saw him, and his face is flushed and his collar is awry. As I thought, he was interrupted at a most grievous moment of confessional.” Then raising his voice, Father Lawrence called out cheerily, “I greet you, most Reverend Father Superior, as myself a novice priest assigned by my estimable superiors to take education with you and your devout familiars. Doubtless you have had this word, and I am Father Lawrence.”
“I bid you welcome to St. Thaddeus,” replied the mellow voice of the Father Superior, which was an instrument that could play as many tunes as a Westminster organ – for I had heard full many of them in my earlier days, you will recall. “Ah, but when my sacristan told me that three fair virgins were in tow with you, I could not believe my ears but hastened to see for myself.”
“This is the tender Marisia, orphaned and then adopted by a worthy French patron of a humble village in Provence, who, peace to his eternal soul, departed this earth and hence the child implored me to bring her to a place of sanctity.”
“Ah, what devotion, what gentle grace shines on her piquant face. What black silken hair falls in tender curls about her winsome shoulders! My child, have done with your rue and tears, you are come blessedly to our safekeeping. And these two others, Father Lawrence?”
“Sisters, my eminent Superior, Denise and Louisette. Denise is blessed with wheat colored tresses and this delicious pink skin your sharp eyes doubtless have already marked, while Louisette has hair the hue of copper, and her gray-green eyes are clear as those of the purest angel, for, like Denise, she is virga intacta.”
“All three, then, are French?”
“By birth, indeed, worthy Superior. I have taught them all some little English to aid them through the period of novitiatehood.”
“We shall teach them a great deal more, and of Latin also, since French stems from the mother tongue of Mother Church,” the Father Superior chuckled. “Yet why do these sisters wish enlightenment in a foreign land?”
“Their young brother had been stolen away and delivered up to the notorious Bey of Algiers as a slave. I met them in Calais, where they had journeyed from their distant little village to beg aid from some valiant and courageous ship captain who would sail them to the Bey's port there to implore his release from that despotic ruler. And I told them that here, where we have parishioners who give gold pieces to the furtherance of good and holy works, they might well find the aid they prayed for.”
“Ah, you have done heroically, and you need not apply the lowly term of novice to your station, good priest – quadruply welcome, for yourself and these three immaculate virgins without sin who come under your protective wing to take shelter at St. Thaddeus. But come, we are preparing the evening meal, and you four shall sit at my right hand and partake of our hospitality and our company, so that these tender maids will be accustomed to our joviality. For our order of St. Thaddeus, whatever you may have heard of its disposition, is not a gathering of hellfire and brimstone-breathing priests who never smile or never see good things in a blade of grass or a rising star, but rather of hale and hearty men under the black robe linked in a felicitous congress to enlighten and fortify the timid novice with their own amiable and valorous spirits.”
In French, Marisia murmured to Father Lawrence, “What is all that he says?”
To which the English ecclesiastic replied, in as low a voice, “It is like the bait for the mouse which the waiting cat spreads out. Pay it little heed, but be wary of all such lengthy orations in the name of welcome.”
“What are you saying to the child, the one you call Marisia?” the Father Superior now interposed.
“Why, my eminent head of the order, only that she might cross all the seven seas and never again hear so fulsome a welcome which is benediction and graciousness made one.”
“You are fluent in several tongues, and I foresee you will be a valued adjunct to our humble tasks here at St. Thaddeus,” the Father Superior remarked with the most pleasant of tones. “Come now, you must meet the company.”
But hardly had all of us gone but a few steps towards the edifice which stood just beyond the gate than the Father Superior chuckled, “Ah, your vigorous ringing of our bell has startled some of the others. There is Father Clement, and also Father Ambrose.”
Turning to his wards, Father Lawrence murmured in French, “These are the dangerous ones, all three; be on your utmost vigilance when they approach you, my daughters.”
“Good evening, good eventide and be welcome to our seminary,” I heard the sonorous voice of Father Ambrose, the short, stout, somewhat corpulent priest who had been first to convert Bella somewhat in advance of her entry into this gentle abode of succor and sanctity to wayward girls, orphans and timid virgins.
Quickly Father Lawrence introduced his wards, and to Father Clement, the man of red hair and the bludgeoning prick who had possessed sweet Bella after the Father Superior and, as I recall, given that tender damsel such a test as to cause her to faint, even though she had previously been able to support the first two holy men within her sensitive lovechasm.
“What cherubims, what angels,” Father Ambrose sighed, “such sweet additions to our order! They are virgins?”
“I can attest to it, since I have protected them from bodily harm and mortal sin since my first days in that village of Provence and then most lately in Calais, and as was imperative upon me, made them bring me their confessions,” Father Lawrence declared.
“Oh, what bliss it will be to instruct them in the arts of their novitiatehood,” gasped the fat priest, whose wheezing breath told me that he was already savagely in a ruttish state at the mere thought of prying apart the tender rosy petals of those three maidenly cuntholes.
Father Clement, too, added his own admiring observations, so it was plain that Marisia, Denise and Louisette already had three hugely potent admirers and that if Father Lawrence should decide to quit his duties as their guardian, they would not at all be left friendless and without sponsors.
At the refectory, a chorused cry of acclaim rose from the already seated priests at the sight of the lovely trio. The Father Superior, taking his place at the head of the long wide festal board, called for silence and declared that St. Thaddeus was renowned for its hospitality to those of unhappy circumstances and since these three charming maidens had come to fling themselves at the door of the seminary to seek protection, he would impose a solemn oath on all his colleagues to gratify their most earnest wishes.
Father Lawrence was introduced with effusive praise by the Superior as the man who had crossed the stormy Channel to conduct these timid virgins safely to the fold of righteousness, and then all fell to most heartily, as the swallowings and chompings and gasps of good cheer rose in that merry room.