‘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?’