In Convent Walls Part 38

"Let me hear it, Joan."

"Did you know," said she, dropping her voice low, "that it was in part for heresy that your own father suffered death?"

"My father!" cried I. "Joan, I know nothing of my father, save only that he angered Queen Isabel, and for what cause wis I not."

"For two causes: first, because the King her husband loved him, and she was of that fas.h.i.+on that looked on all love borne by him as so much robbed from herself. But the other was that very thing--that she was orthodox, and he was--what the priests called an heretic. There might be other causes: some men say he was proud, and covetous, and unpitiful.

I know not if it be true or no. But that they writ him down an heretic, as also they did his father, and Archdeacon Baldok--so much I know."

I felt afraid to ask more, and yet I had great longing to hear it.

"And my mother?" said I. I think I was like one that pa.s.ses round and round a matter, each time a little nearer than before--wis.h.i.+ng, and yet fearing, to come to the kernel of it.

"I have heard somewhat of her," said Joan, "from the Lady Julian my grandmother. She was a Leybourne born, and she wedded my grandfather, Sir John de Hastings, whose stepmother was the Lady Isabel La Despenser, your father's sister. I think, from what she told me, your mother was a little like--Sister Roberga."

I am sorely afraid I ought not to have answered as I did, for it was--"The blessed saints forfend!"

"Not altogether," said Joan, with a little laugh. "I never heard that she was ill-tempered. On the contrary, I imagine, she was somewhat too easy; but I meant, a little like what Mother Gaillarde calls a b.u.t.terfly--with no concern for realities--frivolous, and lacking in due thought."

"Was your grandmother, the Lady Julian, an admirer of these new doctrines?" said I.

"They were scarcely known in her day as they have been since," said Joan; "only the first leaves, so to speak, were above the soil: but so far as I can judge from what I know, I should say, not so. She was a great stickler for old ways and the authority of the Church."

"And your mother?" I was coming near delicate ground, I felt, now.

"Oh! she, I should say, would have liked our doctrines better. Mother Annora, is there blue enough here, or shall I put on another coat?"

Joan looked up at me as she spoke. I said I thought it was deep enough, and she might now begin the shading. Her head went down again to her work.

"My mother," said she, "was no bigot, nor did she much love priests; I dare venture to say, had Father Wycliffe written then as he has now, she would somewhat have supported him so far as lay in her power. But my father, I think, would have loved these doctrines best of all. I have heard say he spoke against the ill lives of the clergy, and the idle doings of the Mendicant Friars: and little as I was when he departed to G.o.d, I can myself remember that he used to tell me stories of our Lord and the ancient saints and patriarchs, which I know, now that I can read it, to have come out of G.o.d's Word. Ay, methinks, had he lived, he would have helped forward this new reformation of doctrine and manners."

"Reformation!" cries Mother Ada, entering the chamber. "I would we could have a reformation in this house. What my Lady would be at, pa.s.seth me to conceive. She must think I have two pairs of eyes and six pairs of hands, if no more. Do but guess, Sister Annora, what she wants to have done."

"Nay, that I cannot," said I. I foresaw some hard work, for my Lady is one who leaves things to go as they list for ever so long, and then, suddenly waking up, would fain turn the house out o' windows ere one can shut one's eyes.

"Why, if she did not send for me an hour after we came out, and said the condition of the chapel was shameful; how could we have let it get into such a state? Father Mortimer was completely scandalised at the sight of it. All the holy images were all o'er cobwebs, and all--"

"And all of a baker's dozen of blessed times," said Sister Gaillarde, entering behind, "have I been at her for new pails and brushes, never speak of soap. I told her a spider as big as a silver penny had spun a line from Saint Peter's key to Saint Katherine's nose; and as to the dust--why, you could make soup of it. I've dusted Saint Katherine many a time with my hands, for I had them, if I'd nought else: and trust me, the poor Saint looked so forlorn, I fairly wondered she did not speak.

Had I been the image of a saint, somebody would have heard of it, I warrant you, when that spider began scuttering up and down my nose."

"And now she bids us drop every thing, and go and clean out the chapel, this very morning--to have done by vesper time! Did you ever hear such a thing?" said Sister Ada, from the bench whereon she had sunk.

"Mother Ada," said Sister Josia, "would you show me--"

"Mercy on us, child, harry not me!" cried Sister Ada.

"But I do not know whether a lily should be in this corner by the blessed Mary," said Sister Josia, "or if the a.s.s should stand here."

"The lily, by all means," said Sister Gaillarde. "Prithee paint not an a.s.s: there's too many in this world already."

"I do wish Father Mortimer would attend to his own business!" cried Sister Ada, "or that we had old Father Hamon back again. I do hate these new officers: they always find fault with every thing."

"Ay, new brooms be apt to sweep a bit too clean," replied Sister Gaillarde. "Mary love us, but I would we had a new broom! I don't believe there are twenty bristles left of the old one."

Joan looked up from her griffin's tail to laugh.

"Well, what is to be done?"

"Oh, I suppose we must do as we are bid," saith Sister Ada in a mournful voice. "But, dear heart, to think of it!"

"How many pails have you, Sister Ada?"

"There's the large bouget, and the little one. The middle-sized one is broken, but it will hold some water."

"Two and a half, then," answered Sister Gaillarde. "Well, fetch them, Sister, and I will go and see to the mops. I think we have a mop left.

Perhaps, now, if we din our needs well into my Lady's ears, we may get one or two more. But, sweet Saint Felicitas! is there any soap?"

"Half a firkin came in last week," responded Sister Ada. "You forget, Sister Gaillarde, the rule forbids us to ask more than once for anything."

"The rule should forbid Prioresses to have short memories, then. Come, Sister Annot, leave that minikin fiddle-faddle, and come and help with the real work. If it is to be done by vespers, we want all the hands we can get. I will fetch Sister Margaret to it; she always puts her heart into what she has to do. Well, you look sorely disappointed, child: I am sorry for it, but I cannot help it. I have no fancy for such vanities, but I dare say you like better sticking bits of gold leaf upon vellum than scrubbing and sweeping."

"Sister Annot, I am ashamed of you!" said Sister Ada. "Your perfection must be very incomplete, if you can look disappointed on receiving an order from your superior. You ought to rejoice at such an opportunity of mortifying your will."

"That's more than I've done," said Sister Gaillarde. "Well, Sister Ada, as you don't offer to move, I suppose we had better leave you here till you have finished rejoicing over the opportunity. I hope you'll get done in time to take advantage of it. Come, Sister Annot."

I thought I had better follow. So, having given Joan a few directions to enable her to go on for a time without superintendence, I went to see after the water-bougets, which should have been Sister Ada's work. She called after me--"Sister Annora, I'll follow you in a moment. I have not quite finished my rosary."

I left her there, telling her last few beads, and went to fetch the bougets, which I carried to the chapel, just as Sister Gaillarde came in with her arms full, followed by Margaret and Annot.

"I've found two mops!" she cried. "Mine was all right, but where Sister Ada keeps hers I cannot tell. Howbeit, Sister Joan has one. Now, Sister Annora, if you will bring yours--And see here, these brushes have a few bristles left--this is a poor set-out, though. It'll do to knock off spiders. Now, Sister Margaret, fetch that long ladder by the garden door. Sister Annot, you had better go up,--you are the lightest of us, and I am not altogether clear about that ladder, but it is the only one we have. Well-a-day! if I were Pr--Catch hold of Saint James by the head, Sister Annot, to steady yourself. Puff! faugh! what a dust!"

We were all over dust in a few minutes. I should think it was months since it had been disturbed, for my Lady never would order the chapel to be cleaned. We worked away with a will, and got things in order for vespers. Sister Annot just escaped a bad fall, for a rung of the ladder gave way, and if she had not clutched Saint Peter by the arm, down she would have come. Howbeit, Saint Peter held, happily, and she escaped with a bruise.

Just as things were getting into order, and we had finished all the dirty work, Sister Ada sauntered in.

"Well, really," said Sister Gaillarde, "I did not believe you could truly rejoice in the mortification of your will till I saw how long it took you! Thank you, the mortification is done; you will have to wait till next time: I only hope you will let this rejoicing count. There's nothing left for you, but to empty the slops and wipe out the pails."

Joan told me afterwards, in a tone of great amus.e.m.e.nt, that "Mother Ada finished her beads very slowly, and then said she would go after you.

But she stopped to look at Sister Annot's work, and at once discovered that if left in that state it would suffer damage before she came back.

So she sat down and wrought at that for above an hour. Then she was just going again, but she found that an end of the fringe was coming off my robe, and she fetched needle and thread of silk, and sewed it on.

The third time she was just going, when she saw the fire wanted wood.

So she kept just going all day till about half an hour before vespers, and then at last she contrived to go."

Note 1. I may here ask pardon for an anachronism in having brought Wycliffe forward as a Reformer some years before he really began to be so. The state of men's minds in general was as I have described it; the uneasy stir of coming reformation was in the air; the pamphlet which is so often (but wrongly) attributed to Wycliffe, The Last Age of the Church, had been written some fifteen years before this time: but Wycliffe himself, though then a political reformer, did not come forward as a religious reformer until about six years later.

Note 2. Psalm 138 verse 2, Vulgate. The Authorised Version correctly follows the Hebrew--"Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy Name."