“As you will, my lady,” Jack said with a slight bow.
Frevisse walked Edward the long way around the cloister again and to the foot of the stairs to Mistress Petham’s chamber, watched him go up them and safely beyond the door at the top, then wondered why “safely” had come to mind. But the answer to that was easy enough. There were too many people-beginning with his own mother-with interest not so much in Edward himself but in what profit he could bring them, including Jack’s father, if not Jack. Edward should be safe enough here in the cloister, but Frevisse did not want to chance finding by the hard way she was wrong about that.
As she turned to circle the cloister walk again, Dame Perpetua joined her, going the same way, and said, nodding ahead, “This is become such a bother. I’m to take Alson’s place guarding Cecely. As if I’ve no work of my own to do.”
Frevisse looked ahead, was surprised to see Alson sitting on a stool beside the guest parlor, and said, “It was Malde before. And where’s Dame Thomasine? Shouldn’t she be there now?”
“Yes,” Dame Perpetua said disgustedly. “But Dame Claire needed her help with some medicine she’s brewing in the infirmary. An ointment and poultice for the man who was hurt yesterday, I think.”
“But where’s Dame Johane?”
“Taking her turn at duty in the kitchen, trying to better her skill at making pastry. I didn’t want to let her off it, so I shifted Alson so Dame Claire could have Dame Thomasine who has the next best skill with herbs. But now Alson is needed in the kitchen to cut vegetables, being better with a knife than I am anymore.” Dame Perpetua held up her right hand, where the arthritics that had come on her in the past few years were bending two of her fingers awry. “So I’m taking Alson’s place for the while.” Dame Perpetua sighed. She was not enjoying being presently cellerar and in charge of the kitchen and meals and the necessary servants, and plainly Sister Cecely was making her work no easier.
Frevisse made sympathetic sounds while, ahead, Alson stood up as they came and bobbed a curtsy. Dame Perpetua made a nod at the doorway and asked, “How does she?”
“She’s crying, poor lady. She’s frighted what those men mean to do to her and to her boy,” Alson answered, sounding worried.
“It’s Abbot Gilberd she’d best be frightened of,” said Frevisse.
“You can return to the kitchen now, Alson,” Dame Perpetua directed. “I’ll take your place for the while.”
Alson ducked her head in another bobbed curtsy and hurried off as if glad to be away. Frevisse gave Dame Perpetua a nod of her own and went on her way to the church where she was not pleased to find Jack Rowcliffe in talk with Elianor Lawsell in the middle of the nave. The girl did not seem pleased either, was backing away from him toward the rood screen, and although he was not threateningly close to her, he was undeniably following her, intent on whatever he was saying to her. At sight of Frevisse, though, he stopped still, and Elianor swung around with what looked to Frevisse like relief. As Frevisse went toward them, Jack stayed where he was while Elianor hesitated until Frevisse said, “I’ve come to speak with him alone, by your leave.” Elianor answered with a bright smile, gave Frevisse a hurried curtsy, and went on up the nave, leaving Jack to her.
He gave a bow as Frevisse reached him and said courteously, “You had something more to say to me, my lady?”
Letting go by the matter of Elianor, she answered, “You seem to have been a good friend of Edward’s father. I want to ask you about him.”
“About Guy? We were friends, yes,” he said willingly. “He and George and I. They treated me as somewhat the younger brother neither of them had.” Jack’s face and voice tightened, controlling apparent grief as he added, “The world seems emptier without them.”
“What of Guy’s marriage? How did that seem to you?”
“His marriage that wasn’t a marriage?” Jack said bitterly. “Guy could be a true idiot sometimes. He always was where Cecely came into it, that’s sure. We used to jibe at him for it.”
“He never gave any sign of the truth?”
“Never. Though I think that of late-”
He stopped.
“Of late?” Frevisse asked.
Jack sighed and said, as if resigned to the thought, “I think this past year or so he had begun to weary of her ways. She always wanted every bit of him, begrudged him any moment he wasn’t with her. I think he went on this trading voyage with George just to be away from her for a time.”
“Do you know why he told the truth about her to Symond Hewet?”
“Maybe because he wasn’t able to keep it to himself any longer? Maybe because if anything happened to him, someone would know and be better able to deal with her? If Symond knows why, he hasn’t said. You’ll have to ask him.” Jack shook his head as if to shake understanding of it all into his thoughts. “If he’d just said nothing, if he had just kept shut about it…”
“…she could have gone on living in the lie she and Guy had made,” Frevisse interrupted sharply.
Jack gave a wry twist of his mouth, acknowledging that, but then burst out, “But how could he have done it to Edward? It’s Edward who’s being most hurt by it!”
“Given the way Sister Cecely is,” Frevisse returned, “it may be Edward who’s most saved by it, too, if it frees him from his mother.”
Jack looked startled at that thought. Leaving him to be startled, she thanked him and went back up the nave. She would have preferred to escape beyond the rood screen, to the cloister’s somewhat-quiet, but there was no hope of pretending Elianor Lawsell was not there, turning around as Frevisse neared her.
Looking down the nave to where the west door was just thudding shut behind Jack, then back to Frevisse, she said somewhat desperately, “Domina Elisabeth sees no bar to my becoming a nun here. But she wouldn’t say when.”
“There’s your family to be thought about,” Frevisse offered. “It’s best if they can be reconciled to it first. If you…”
“I doubt my mother will ever be reconciled to it! What then?”
“If,” Frevisse repeated firmly, “you practice patience now, you’ll have begun to learn one of a nun’s first lessons.”
Elianor opened her mouth to continue with plea or passion, but stopped, stared at Frevisse, then very carefully closed her mouth, bowed her head, and said meekly, “Yes, my lady.”
Frevisse fought the smile trying at the corners of her mouth and kept it from her voice as she said mildly, “Jack Rowcliffe is showing inclination to you.”
Despite her head was still humbly bowed, Elianor said scornfully, “That’s because there’s no one else here for him to incline to.”
“He’s a comely enough young man and of good family and well-mannered,” Frevisse suggested.
Elianor raised her head sharply. “And that’s supposed to be enough, isn’t it?” she said hotly. “He surely thinks it’s enough.” She made an impatient gesture with both hands. “Why do they think we’re such idiots? Why do they think we should give up everything just for the sake of lust? Because lust is what it mostly is, no matter how much anyone throws the word ‘love’ around!”
Sternly, Frevisse said, “There are more kinds of love than one. A nun chooses to love beyond the world and the body, but that doesn’t gain her the right to despise all other loves there are.” She might pity them, Frevisse added silently to herself, but for the sake of her own soul she should never despise them. But that was more lesson than Elianor needed just now, and Frevisse went on, “Rather than spending effort in scorn of others, you should be looking inward at yourself, searching your own love and learning needed patience while you wait to have your will.”