All the Ever Afters

by Danielle Teller

  Rose House could accommodate up to four residents, and it was usually populated by affluent pensioners. During the time that I worked at the abbey, however, the whole building had been turned over to the abbess’s mother, the dowager countess of Wenslock. Lady Wenslock was cousin to the former king, and she was exceedingly wealthy in her own right. It was gossip among the servants that she chose to live at the abbey in order to atone for whatever sins had led to her eldest daughter’s madness. Providence had marked very different fates for the two living fruit of Lady Wenslock’s womb. Abbess Elfilda had become a powerful instrument of God, a mystic and philosopher, whereas Lady Alba had fallen prey to the devil, descending into lunacy and delirium. Had I foreseen the hand that Lady Alba would eventually play in my own fate, I might have listened to the gossip with more interest.

  While Rose House was beneath the means of its noble denizen, it was not rustic. Each of the four apartments boasted a sizable hall decorated with tapestries, carved panels, and moldings, and Lady Wenslock had brought furniture, statuary, and silver with her. There were separate solars for sleeping and sitting, and the garderobes were comfortable. Because Lady Wenslock had claimed the largest apartment and made annexes of the other three, she dedicated chambers for music, embroidery, reading, dining, and receiving guests. Many times each year, visitors made the trip from the city to stay with her and enjoy a quiet retreat. For the wealthy, this was a pilgrimage to a holy place, as Ellis Abbey was a sanctuary where God’s presence could be felt most powerfully.

  Although Lady Wenslock did not live like an anchoress, she did not have all of the comforts customary to a woman of her rank either. Her needs were attended to primarily by Mary, a young woman who had graduated from the nunnery’s school. Mary, in turn, had but one servant working exclusively for her—the position that I would fill—though she could borrow from other parts of the abbey when necessary. Visitors to Rose House brought their own servants, and all of the cooking took place in the abbey’s kitchens, but due to the fluctuating number of visitors, the amount of work necessary for upkeep of the residential building was unpredictable from week to week.

  I met Mary in the main hall, which, despite its grandeur, was almost cozy, as it was crammed with draperies, decorative furniture, artwork, and bagatelles. I wondered whether Lady Wenslock had tried to stuff the furnishings of an entire castle into Rose House.

  Mary herself was a far less interesting sight. She was angular and thin, with a wan, pinched face and furrows between her brows that belied her years. Her gray frock flapped loose, and the way her pointed chin jutted forward on her long neck made me think of a chicken. She greeted me politely enough and asked about my experience.

  “I did all manner of work at Aviceford Manor,” I lied. “I can do whatever is needed, be it cleaning, polishing, provisioning, tending the fires, smoothing or repairing her ladyship’s garments, or running errands.” Anything Mary asked me to do would be better than working in the laundry.

  “My lady countess is exacting. She has requested a new servant from Wenslock Castle; the girl will come next month when her ladyship’s niece visits the abbey. In the meanwhile, I expect you to do the cleaning, keep the buttery and woodpile stocked, and tend the fires if the evenings and mornings become cooler. I tend to my lady’s person and wardrobe.” She sniffed. “Your duty is to stay out of her ladyship’s sight.”

  Mary stiffened as the dowager countess herself entered the hall. Despite a slow and faltering step, she looked like a galleon, her ample bust leading the way, her gauzy white wimple tented on both sides of her face like sails. She wore a green velvet gown embroidered with gold thread, but no jewels save a brooch in the shape of a cross. To my astonishment, she made straight for me. I knelt hastily, bruising my knee. Lady Wenslock took a wheezy breath, saying, “You must be the one come to fill in for poor Lizzie. I hope that you will find Rose House to your liking. Mary will help you.”

  As I stared with round eyes, Mary said, “I was just going to explain her chores, my lady.” Her expression was sour.

  The countess lowered herself carefully into a chair, deflating like a bread loaf taken out of the oven on a cold day. “First, fetch my Book of Psalms, and bring that stool closer so that I can raise my feet.” She looked at me and smiled, the wrinkles on her face rearranging themselves; tiny sunbursts appeared in the corners of her eyes. “Stand up, child. What is your name?”

  “My name is Agnes, my lady. God bless you, my lady,” I added quickly.

  As Mary left to find the psalter, Lady Wenslock sighed, saying, “I don’t suppose that you can read, young Agnes.”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Mary can read, but she has no feeling for it. She makes prayers sound like an accounting of the wheat harvest. I have asked my niece to find me a girl who understands the words she reads. Of course, such a girl would refuse to work for Mary, and Mary is such a good girl.”

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, wondering what I should do.

  “I believe that girls should be taught to read and write. My daughter’s treatise on the spiritual weapons required to defeat evil is considered as wise and important as any recent written work. Perhaps even divinely inspired. Imagine what ideas are locked up in the hearts and minds of women who simply lack the tools to express them.”

  Mary had returned, carrying the book.

  “Do you not agree, Mary?”

  “My lady, your most holy daughter is a marvel and a gift to us all straight from God,” Mary said with sudden passion, “but I know my place at your feet and at Mother Elfilda’s feet as sure as Agnes knows hers.”

  “Your humility does you credit, Mary. True nobility comes from being humble, benign, and courteous. Without these key qualities, all other virtues are worthless.” She took the psalter from Mary and opened it, holding the book at arm’s length and tilting her head back. We waited several moments, but she ignored us, so we curtsied and Mary led me away.

  “My lady countess is most devout.”

  “She is kind.”

  “Yes,” said Mary acerbically, “he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord. This is one of her many favorite sayings.”

  “What happened to Lizzie? The girl who was here before me?”

  “Lizzie got herself with child.”

  “Lady Wenslock must have been greatly aggrieved!”

  “Quite the contrary. It was Mother Elfilda who threw her out. Lady Wenslock would not throw a stray dog out of the house.”

  I had the impression that Mary did not approve of Lady Wenslock’s lenience. She showed me the rest of Rose House, which was equally crowded with furniture and decorative objects, some beautiful, some strange. I wanted to pause to admire each one, but Mary kept a brisk pace.

  The room that impressed me most was the library. Mary explained that the countess had collected over two hundred books in her lifetime, a sum that was incomprehensible to me. She had donated most of the books to the abbey’s large library, but she kept some of her favorites at Rose House, heavy leather-bound tomes chained to lecterns. The library was the brightest room in the building and also the most spare. White damask embroidered with W’s encircled by gold crowns draped the lecterns, and the walls were lined with matching simple white tapestries, showing what I assumed to be the arms of the late Count of Wenslock and edged with the same crowned initial. The room was otherwise bare of furniture and art.

  “Can you read those books?” I asked, delighted by the romance of the room.

  “Nay!” She looked shocked. “I am not allowed to touch them! And you may not enter the library except to dust.”

  She pointed out the buttery, and then we left Rose House to visit the brewery and the kitchen where I would fetch Lady Wenslock’s meals. Mary explained that the nuns took their meals in silence, and the countess preferred to eat alone or with her guests when she had visitors. I would have to bring the tray of food to Rose House and then dash back to the dining hall so that I could partake at th
e servants’ table. Although not bound by vows, the servants were not allowed to break the silence either. This sounded dreary to me, but Mary did not seem to mind. I suppose that she was used to it from her years at the convent school.

  I came to find out that Mary was the daughter of a baronet, and she had been sent to the abbey as a child, biding her time until her parents could find a suitable husband. Since the baronet was not exceptionally rich, and since Mary did not possess beauty or charm to overcome her lack of a fortune, eligible men proved elusive. As the bloom of youth fell away, her prospects dimmed further. She was content to become a nun, but her father had not yet given up his ambition of finding a match that would elevate the family’s fortunes, and so she waited patiently, caring for Lady Wenslock.

  Though Mary was gentle born and austere by nature, she did not treat me unkindly. To my relief, even though I sometimes finished my work early, Mary never sent me to help in the abbey’s laundry. I discovered in those first weeks that she preferred me to do my work without consulting her, and as long as we did not have guests, she did not mind me visiting the cloister or the rose garden if I had time.

  Rose House was named for the adjacent rose garden, and I had a favorite spot, a sun-warmed stone bench facing a bowered path to the fishpond. I liked the chatter of birds and shimmer of water through the tangled vines. As summer drew to an end, there were few blooms left, but the air still held the lingering scent of roses. Sometimes I collected fallen petals for the sisters who made aromatic water and salt paste. To this day, the smell of roses transports me back to a time when the breeze, the sun, the reflections of water on a bowered path were an unspoken promise from God.

  One day Fernan’s silhouette blackened the arch of the bower; I recognized him by his broad shoulders and easy lope. The gravel crunched under his heavy boots as he approached, flashing his bright smile.

  “How goes the life of leisure for the new lady’s maid?”

  I colored, remembering my mistake. “You know perfectly well that I am not a lady’s maid. But I am doing fine, thank you.”

  He threw down his satchel and sat beside me on the bench. “I am very glad to hear it. You look well. Now I can see your pretty face without the soot. You look rested. And your hands are no longer blistered.” To my shock, he took my hand from where it rested on the bench and stroked it lightly. I snatched it back without thinking, as though his touch burned. He paid no attention.

  “How do you find life at the abbey?”

  My mouth was dry. “It is heaven. Mother Elfilda is a saint. Lady Wenslock is too.” I wanted to slide farther away from him, but it seemed like an awkward thing to do. The flesh on my hand tingled.

  “Have you figured out yet how to make your post permanent?”

  “No. A new girl is supposed to come next week.” I had managed to put out of my mind the knowledge that I would be sent back to the manor. I did not want to think about it. Frustration rose like gorge to my throat. “You are so fortunate! You can come and go as you please. I . . .” I lowered my voice. “I am not free.”

  Fernan looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe it is unjust that my father was a knight and yours is a peasant. But you were born with some advantages. You are smart and pretty. And resourceful. Your life is only beginning.”

  Nobody had ever described me as pretty before. I looked at him to see if he was making fun of me, but his eyes were serious.

  “You really don’t know that you are beautiful, do you,” he said.

  I looked down at my big hands and long, tapering fingers. “My father always called me an ox. He told me that I wouldn’t need a dowry because I could pull a plough as well as any team.”

  “Being strong does not disqualify you from being beautiful.”

  “Beautiful for a plough-beast.” I ducked my head, but I felt a flush of pleasurable warmth, along with a tangle of feelings that I could not identify. “I have to get back to work.”

  I stood abruptly, but he rose at the same time, very close to me, so that my eyes were level with the opening of his collar and the hollow at the base of his brown neck. I could not breathe until he stepped away with a small bow. He picked up his satchel and adjusted the strap across his chest. “I hope to still find you here after next week. I shall look for you here in the garden whenever I pass by on my way from the stables.”

  As I watched him walk away, I resolved to never linger in the rose garden again. A moment later, I wondered how often he visited the abbey.

  Mary and Lady Wenslock attended Mass daily, and Mary did not mind if I did too, as long as we were not too busy. Mary and the countess set out much earlier than I, for Lady Wenslock walked slowly, and she preferred to arrive and settle herself before the gray flock of sisters rushed silently into the church.

  Mass was my favorite part of every day. The church building itself was enough to induce rapture; I believed that no heathen could enter it without being compelled to fall immediately on his knees and praise God. The sheer height filled me with awe. The walls ascended like cliffs to the dizzying apex of the vaulted roof, the columns virtually disappearing into the shadowy reaches. Gold stars had been painted between the ribs of the vaulting, adding to the illusion of infinite distance, and jeweled rose windows floated mysteriously in the blackness, seemingly without support. During the Latin Mass, I would gaze at the paintings of the stations of the cross, or at the scenes depicted in the lancet windows, their brilliant images arranged in panels one above another, and try to imagine what it would have been like to have lived in the time of Christ.

  The part that I loved most was the sermon by the abbess at the end of Mass. After the priest said “Benedicamus domino,” Mother Elfilda would climb the spiral stairs to the pulpit, regal and light as an angel, to address the congregation. She held us in thrall, her command so profound that no cough or rustle could be heard until the last word dropped from her mouth. Her voice would rise, clarion clear, echoing through the nave and choir, and then it would fall to a hush so intimate that I felt she was speaking only to me. It was not only her otherworldliness that held us spellbound, but the wisdom and dazzling truth of her words. When she reached the most stirring parts of her sermons, her white hands would sometimes lift from the lectern like doves taking flight, but her pale face always remained still and saintly, like the image of the Virgin in the manor’s chapel.

  In one of the sermons I remember best, Mother Elfilda compared the Virgin Mary to an onyx, the precious stone that opens up to receive a drop of dew when the sun shines on it. After nine months it opens again and another onyx falls out, leaving the original stone unchanged. Mary remained pure, untouched, even as God forced Joseph to wed Mary.

  Mother Elfilda did not dwell on Joseph’s reluctance, a story I had heard many times, but rather on Mary’s reasons for needing to wed Joseph. Marriage was protection against being stoned for adultery, and she needed help for the birth and flight into Egypt. A painting in the church depicted a beatific Mary and baby Jesus on a donkey, the baby’s tiny fist clutching at her cloak, and Joseph walking beside them with an expression of grim determination. He was a guard for the Holy Family and a decoy to prevent the devil from identifying Christ.

  Another of Mother Elfilda’s sermons that affected me deeply was a reminder to the sisters of the symbols that their ordinary clothing represented. Even more than paternoster beads represented prayer, a habit represented contrition and confession, a kirtle trust in God, boots two desires, to amend and to abstain from evil, a girdle restraint of one’s will, a wimple abstinence, and a veil obedience. Every part of the sisters’ lives perfected the bending of human desire toward God.

  Although I was not allowed to quit my duties in order to observe the liturgy of the hours, I began to observe them in secret. As long as I was alone, when the bell tolled, I knelt wherever I found myself, usually on the cold stones. The ache in my knees caused me to stagger when I tried to stand. At matins, when the sisters slipped quietly from their beds in the dark of night to go to c
hapel, I rose and knelt beside my mattress, in winter shivering so violently that my teeth knocked together. I willed my soul to forget about its cage, unleash itself, swell past the boundaries of my flesh, and open itself utterly to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I felt an answer, a warmth blooming deep inside me, a soft unfolding of unspeakable tenderness. When the susurrus of leather-clad feet in the arcade warned of the sisters’ return, I was reluctant to crawl back into the cocoon of my blanket.

  I did worry that God would be displeased with my unorthodox observance of the hours, or that someone would catch me kneeling alone and accuse me of Lollardry or some other form of heresy. Yet my devotion suffused me with peace and quiet joy, a bright clarity of mind. I began to see tiny pieces of the Kingdom of God all around me, and something as ordinary as the song of a lark could bring tears to my eyes.

  8

  Enlightenment

  A few days after my conversation with Fernan, Mary informed me that Lady Wenslock’s niece had delayed her visit until after Michaelmas. I rejoiced in my reprieve, and I did all that I could to make Mary happy. I did not know whether she had any influence over my staying or leaving, but it would do no harm to have her on my side. I made sure that she always had ale on hand from the most recent batch, and I strewed fresh herbs or made bouquets every day. I anticipated where the countess and Mary would sit in the evening, and I prepared a fire ahead of time. In every way, I tried to be helpful but invisible.

  Mary spent most of her time with the countess, scribing letters, helping in the dressing room, or, most often, reading to her. She was also responsible for taking her ladyship’s gowns to the laundry and arranging her wardrobe. She devoted little time to inspecting my work and even less to telling me how to do it. I liked to plan my own days and keep my own counsel.