Domina Elisabeth’s uncertainty, as she looked from one of them to the other was painful to see. She had never shown uncertainty about anything. But neither had she ever been absent or inattentive to the Offices before now. Only finally, sharply, did she draw herself up straight and order forcefully against the affront to her church and self, “Both of you be silent!”
Mistress Lawsell’s mouth, opened toward another demand or protest, snapped shut.
Still sharply, Domina Elisabeth said, “This is hardly something that will be settled by shouting. Not here or anywhere else, but most especially not here. Elianor, you’ve decided then that after all you want to be a nun? As your mother told us she hoped for you?”
That was less a question at Elianor than a cold challenge at Mistress Lawsell, but it was Elianor who answered, saying scornfully, “She never hoped for me to be a nun. She lied to you about why we were here!”
“Is that true?” Domina Elisabeth asked at Mistress Lawsell.
Not seeming the least abashed, Mistress Lawsell said back at her, “Yes. Now tell her to come out of there. This can all be talked out at home.”
Elianor started, “I won’t go! Once you have me back there you’ll…”
Not raising her voice but with the full weight of her will on the words, Domina Elisabeth ordered, “Enough. Both of you.” And when the Lawsells’ mutual silence assured her that she was obeyed, she said at Elianor, “You may stay where you are for the time being.” And at Mistress Lawsell, over the beginning of a protest from her, “You will content yourself with waiting in either the guesthall or here in the church, with thought that prayer for forgiveness for lying to us would not come amiss.” Mistress Lawsell made again to say something, but Domina Elisabeth raised a hand to stop her, going on with unrelenting sternness, “This will have to content you for now. We presently have weightier matters on us than you and your daughter’s quarrel. When we have time, then we shall turn to your lies and misleadings. Now leave us. Or else kneel to your prayers.”
Mistress Lawsell opened her mouth toward some manner of furious reply, then seemed to think better of it. Or maybe she was suddenly aware of the several servants there and staring. Either way, she drew herself up straight, jerked her head in very false respect at Domina Elisabeth, and stalked away, down the nave and out the west door. It was a heavy door, not easily dragged shut into a slam, but she accomplished it.
When the thunder of that ended and she was gone, everyone’s gaze swung back to Elianor, who was still standing at the altar, glowing with triumph. She made as if to turn around and kneel again, but Domina Elisabeth ordered, “Come away from there. Come here to me.”
Elianor startled, faced her, hesitated, then obeyed, with carefully bowed head and hands quietly folded in front of her in good nunly seeming.
As unrelenting as she had been to Mistress Lawsell, Domina Elisabeth said, “You have been disobedient to your mother and possibly disrespectful to us. Dame Juliana will take you from here to the warming room. There you will wait in patience until we have time to consider this matter further. Dame Juliana.”
Dame Juliana rose from her place and stood waiting. Elianor cast what might have been a frightened look into Domina Elisabeth’s stern face, dropped her gaze again, and followed Dame Juliana away. The onlookers beyond the rood screen were leaving, too, but the nuns stayed where they were, unable to go until Domina Elisabeth gave them leave.
She should have dismissed them then. There was nothing to keep them there longer. Instead, she groped out a hand for the tall edge of her choir stall, took hold on it almost blindly, drew herself to it, bowed her head to the wood, and stayed there, bent over, clinging with both hands, silent and unmoving. Her nuns stayed equally silent, heads turning side to side as they looked at one another, no one knowing what to do until finally Dame Claire rose carefully from her own place and went to her, put an arm around her, drew her upright, and led her away, out of the church.
Only when they were gone did the rest of the nuns, in silence and carefully, leave, too. In the cloister walk they were in time to see Dame Claire starting with Domina Elisabeth up the stairs to her rooms. Still no one said anything, simply went their separate ways in deep silence to whatever were their present tasks.
Frevisse, needed nowhere else just then, slipped away to her desk in the cloister walk for some place to be. From habit, she opened the box that sheltered the paper, pens, and ink of her work but took nothing out and after a moment shut the lid again and simply sat.
What was happening with Domina Elisabeth?
For that while in the church just now, confronting Mistress Lawsell, dealing with Elianor, she had been herself, but the very difference of that to how she had been these past few days and how she had collapsed afterward only made more plain that something was very wrong, either bodily or mindfully. So far as Frevisse knew, Dame Claire had not been treating her for anything of the body. Was her trouble of the mind then?
Whichever it was, the lack of her strong hand over them was starting to be felt in the cloister. From there it would soon spread through the whole priory if something was not done. So maybe it was just as well Abbot Gilberd was here. No matter how little anyone among the nuns wanted his meddling in their lives, best to have it quickly if it was needed, Frevisse thought.
She also thought she would put off attempting to confess to Domina Elisabeth that Elianor’s presence in the church was her fault, that when she asked to speak to her mother alone this morning, somewhere in her mind-where she deliberately had not looked too closely-she had thought Elianor might very well take the chance to escape into the church. And Elianor had. Now the trouble of that-and Frevisse’s fault in it-had to be dealt with.
Still, among the other present troubles, that one could wait. The why and who of Breredon’s and Symond’s poisonings mattered more, and she looked across the cloister to where Dame Perpetua now sat again outside Sister Cecely’s cell and knew that-whatever the how and whatever the why-Sister Cecely was surely the center of all.
Cecely had given up pacing, could no longer sit on the hard bench, would not read their damnable breviary anymore, was tired of lying down on the thin pallet, was tired of everything and all of it. All she wanted was to grab Neddie and get as far and as fast from this place as possible.
Except neither grabbing Neddie nor fleeing here were possible. Not while she was trapped in this room. Trapped here, all she could do was sit on the pallet with her back against the wall, her legs drawn up, and her arms around her knees, staring at the room’s nothingness.
Both of her times with the abbot had gone badly. There was no disguising that from herself. He had had no interest in anything she had to say except admittance of her guilt and had been angry when she would not give it to him straight out and in so many words. Before she was brought before him, she had promised herself she would be humble to him, but when it came to it, she could not, could not. He had demanded of her where she had been and what she had done since she fled St. Frideswide’s, and she had refused him even a straight answer to that until she found he already knew all the answers, that he had already talked to John Rowcliffe and knew everything he wanted to know.
The unfairness of that still overwhelmed her-that he was so openly ready to believe John Rowcliffe before he believed her.
Nor had he cared at all about her grief for Guy. “Your paramour,” he had said coldly.
“My husband!” she had said sharply back at him, no matter she had meant to gain time by seeming what they wanted her to be. Gain time until…