That was warning as much as report, and Frevisse found it to be true enough. Asked by Frevisse how they were, Mistress Lawsell said readily and at length that both she and her daughter were in great good and comfort of both soul and body, that their stay here was all she had hoped for, that they had nothing for which to ask. The daughter only nodded unsmiling agreement to that, not saying a word, her gaze steadily downcast until-at the last moment, when Frevisse was parting from them-she looked suddenly up, such taut misery showing in her eyes that Frevisse almost asked her outright what was the matter. But Mistress Lawsell was saying how much they looked forward to the rest of the Offices today, and Frevisse decided that some other time, without Mistress Lawsell present, would be better to talk with the girl. She realized, though, that she did not even know her name, her mother merely saying, more than once, “My daughter”; and Frevisse cut across Mistress Lawsell’s flow of words to ask the girl, “Please, what’s your name?”
Both mother and daughter looked startled, Mistress Lawsell even breaking off whatever she had been saying, making a pause into which the girl said shyly, “Elianor, if it please you, my lady.”
Frevisse bent her head in a single nod of thanks and left before Mistress Lawsell could begin again, taking with her a doubt that Elianor had any desire whatsoever to be a nun. The best she might have was desire to please her mother, and that was not enough. But Mistress Lawsell meant to stay on into Easter Week. That gave Frevisse time to find chance to talk with Elianor alone, or else suggest to Domina Elisabeth that she should do so.
Vespers came, and then supper. Domina Elisabeth, mindful of the long night of Offices ahead of her nuns, saw to their supper portions being somewhat more than they had been of late and then that they had their full hour of recreation before Compline.
The early evening was warm under a clear sky, the hope of a clear Easter looking likely to be fulfilled after the days of fitful weather. Only Dame Claire and Dame Perpetua, taking their turn in vigil at the altar, and Sister Cecely at her penance with them, did not come out into the garden for the while. In their place, as it were, was Mistress Petham, come slowly, at Dame Claire’s urging and with Domina Elisabeth’s permission, leaning on Sister Margrett’s arm, her other hand resting on the shoulder of Sister Cecely’s son as if to steady herself. She sat on the bench nearest to the gate, openly grateful that she need go no farther, but her smile was full of pleasure as she looked around the garden and at the sky, like a prisoner newly freed.
The boy sat down beside her, but she patted his back and said, “You don’t have to sit with me. Domina Elisabeth will likely give you leave to walk here.”
“Better yet,” said Domina Elisabeth, “Dame Amicia and Sister Helen can take him to the orchard. He can run there if he wants. Or climb the trees.” She smiled at the boy. He stared solemnly back. “Would you like that? Would you like to go to the orchard with Dame Amicia and Sister Helen?”
“If it please you, my lady, yes,” he said. He looked at Mistress Petham. “If I may?”
“If Domina Elisabeth says you may, you may,” Mistress Petham assured him. “She’s lady here.”
His face lighted with the first smile Frevisse had seen on it. “Thank you, my lady,” he said.
Dame Amicia was already going toward the garden’s gate, smiling, too. She held out a hand toward him, and they went out of the garden hand in hand, Sister Helen following them, and not immediately but soon and now and again through the while left until Compline, Frevisse heard him laughing from among the apple trees beyond the garden wall and found herself smiling at it. It was good to know he could be a happy child despite everything. Nor did Mistress Petham look the worse for having his company, so likely he was well-mannered, too. Frevisse supposed there was good chance that before all this came on him he had had a good life, had been well-cared for and well-loved. She hoped so. However wrong his birth had been, God forbid that either blame or punishment for it should fall on him, the one innocent in it all.
The hour ended with the clacking summons, and Frevisse turned her mind toward Compline’s prayers with pleasure. This was the final readying toward tomorrow’s joy, the triumphant glory of Easter with, “Surrexit Dominus vere!”-The Lord is truly risen!-and through Matins and Lauds the glad, oft-repeated, “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!” All the deprivations and contemplations and prayers of Lent would come to their fruition then, and Frevisse found she was smiling with forward-looking pleasure, because Multi sunt qui de me dicunt: “Non est salus ei in Deo.”-Many they are who say of me, “Safety for him is not in God.” But, Tu autem, Domine, clipeus meus es, gloria mea…-But you, Lord are my shield, my glory…And Easter was the glory that crowned all.
Chapter 10
In Frevisse’s years in the nunnery there had been sometimes an Easter made difficult by illness among the nuns, or by bitter weather, or by worldly worries that could not be kept at bay. This Easter, for a blessing and despite Sister Cecely, went as beautifully as the best had ever done. During Prime, as they were saying, “Hic est dies quem fecit Dominus; exsultemus et laetemur de eo”-This is the day that the Lord made; we are joyful and glad in it-the rising sun struck through the choir’s eastward window, flooding light-multi-hued scarlet and azure and golden-the choir’s length, over the altar shiningly covered with its white altar cloth now Christ had risen, over the polished wood of the stalls, across the black and white clad nuns in their ordered rows. More than one of them lifted her head and turned her face toward the light, the psalm not faltering, instead taking on new strength, as if fed by the light and all the promises of hope and life that came with it.
Later even Father Henry’s familiar Easter homily-of how, just as each dawn the sky colored with the promise of the coming sun, so they must color their lives with holiness for the Coming of the Son who has been and ever will be-seemed somehow fresh.
Besides that, because the nunnery’s hens had begun to lay again when winter was done, and because Lent’s fast was over, there was a boiled egg for each nun at breakfast, causing many small sounds and sighs of delight along the refectory table.
Just thus, Frevisse thought with an inward smile at her own savoring of her egg, were the soul’s need and the body’s mixed together, inseparable until death.
The one pity of the day was, of course, Sister Cecely. Frevisse had feared her presence would taint everything, but set against the day’s glories, Sister Cecely was such a small thing that she barely mattered. It helped, of course, that Domina Elisabeth took on herself the duty of watching her, sparing Dame Amicia her turn for today at least and thereby removing Sister Cecely as much as might be from their midst.
Domina Elisabeth also took on herself the care of Dame Thomasine, who was gone so far into prayer, was so glorying in the day’s glory, that it seemed her body hardly had existence for her. Except that Domina Elisabeth took her by the arm and led her to meals, she would probably not have left the church at all.
Seeing to both women meant that Domina Elisabeth, rather than being able to give herself up to the pleasure of the day, spent it dealing with the two outermost ways of nunhood-Sister Cecely and Dame Thomasine-and that was a pity, because surely their prioress was as ready as all the rest of them for the end of Lent. Certainly Frevisse found during the late morning Office that her Lenten-fasted stomach was answering the wafting smells from the kitchen on the far side of the cloister with an ache stronger than her heed of the psalms, but for once she did not care, and the meal, when they at last sat down to it, was everything that could be hoped for. Besides the lamb roasted in a sauce of garlic, rosemary, pepper, eggs, and its own drippings, there were a cheese tart thick with eggs and heavy cream, small, soft rolls of the last of the year’s fine white flour, with butter to go on them, and a fig pudding rich with almonds, raisins, honey, and ginger.