One day, when Mary was away, I came upon Lady Wenslock sitting alone. She wore a glossy marmalade gown that swallowed the chair beneath her, and her hair was covered as usual by a wimple that flared like wings, maintaining its complex structure by means I could not fathom. I was hoping to leave unnoticed, but she looked up from her book and beckoned to me.
“Come here, come here. I need someone to read to me.” Her loose jowls trembled when she spoke.
I curtsied, bowing deeply. “I beg your pardon, my lady, but I cannot read.” I wondered if she was touched.
“No matter, come here.”
I walked to her side and stood obediently.
“Do you know what book this is?”
I had heard Mary reading to her from it many times. “Your psalter, my lady.”
“Very good. What psalms do you know?”
“I know several by heart, my lady. I do not know the numbers.”
“Recite one now for me.”
I began with the first one that came to my mind. “‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows.’” I relished the words that tumbled from my tongue, a long string of ancient and perfectly polished phrases that belonged to other people, in other times, and yet lived somewhere inside me. As I spoke the last line, a chill trickled down my spine: “‘Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.’”
“Wonderful! That is not a psalm for the faint of heart. You have remembered nearly every word correctly, and you spoke them with feeling. Well done. Now, that is Psalm 137 . . .” She opened the book to a page illuminated with angels, trees, flowers, and a river of turquoise and purple.
“These are the words you spoke. Do you know this letter?” She pointed to a bulbous, richly colored rendering of the letter B encircled by gold filigree. The figure of Christ crouched in the emptiness created by the top half of the letter, and he reached down to men in the lower half, while they raised their arms longingly toward him.
“That is the letter B, my lady.” My brother had learned his alphabet at church, and he had taught me most of the letters.
“Good!” Under her drooping lids, her eyes were bright and clever as a raven’s. “Then what does this first word say?”
“By?”
“Yes, of course! By. And the next?”
“The.”
“Yes!”
“Rivers.”
“Yes! Now, if you know your letters, you can tell when you have a word wrong, because you will know that the sound at the beginning of the word is incorrect.”
My heart beat like a rabbit’s. She smiled at me, pleased. “Go to the solar with the blue canopy and hunting tapestries. You will find several old psalters in the chest there. Bring one to me.”
I flew to the room and opened the chest. Something made of gold brocade lay on the top, but when I lifted the folded cloth, I found five books beneath. The covers were worn and undecorated, and when I leafed through the first one, I found the inside plain as well. I brought it back to Lady Wenslock, and she nodded with satisfaction. “I shall mark the pages of the psalms you know so that you may study them. Hand me my embroidery, there.”
I lifted her embroidery from the floor, and she cut several lengths of thread. “This first long one marks Psalm 137. Which other psalms do you know?”
“‘In the Lord put I my trust. How say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain . . .’”
“Ah, Psalm 11. ‘Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.’ Very good.” She marked another page with a shorter thread. “One more?”
I could not think of another in that moment and shook my head, looking at the floor. “No, my lady.”
“No matter, no matter. Take this psalter, child, and study those two psalms. When you have made out all of the words, come back to me, and we shall find two more.”
I took the book from her, and she patted my hand; her wrinkled skin was surprisingly soft. Gratitude welled in my heart. A price far above rubies, I thought. I could not recall what those words described, but I knew that what she had given me was precious beyond measure.
From that day, I took my psalter with me to the rose garden at every chance. The last blooms had fallen, and the purple lavender was gone, but the trees were beginning to dress for autumn, and the sun on the pond seemed even more brilliant through the thinning vines. I studied the psalter and listened for Fernan’s step on the gravel, and after some days, I heard it again. I felt an irrational urge to hide at the sound of his boots. I steadied myself, and he joined me on the bench.
“Agnes, I am glad to see that you are still here.”
“Her ladyship’s niece delayed her trip until after Michaelmas.”
“And what do we have here?”
“A psalter. Of course.”
“Of course? But I thought that you could not read!”
“Nor can I. I am learning.”
He leaned over my shoulder to look at the page. He smelled of woodsmoke and something foreign, not disagreeable, but earthy. “‘For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.’”
“Can you read it for me? I want to be sure that I have the words right.”
He smiled and read the psalm to me. His voice had a pleasant timbre, and his light accent made the words exotic. Desert, mountains, rain of brimstone, tempests of fire, he made these as real as the garden around us.
“Shall I test you? What does this say?”
He pointed to words on the page and I read them. I had been studying the psalm for some time.
“You are a scholar, cinder girl.” He regarded me warmly. His eyes were a deep amber-flecked brown, fringed with long black lashes that would be the envy of any woman. “Do you want me to help you with your reading?”
I nodded.
“I shall give you a parchment,” he said, removing a sheet no bigger than my hand from his satchel. “You must find a quill and ink. We shall make it a game. As you learn words from your psalter, you can use them to write a letter to me. When you have filled this parchment, give it to me, and I shall check it for errors.” He leaned close, and I could feel his warm breath as he murmured, “Write something nice. At your core, you are soft and sweet.” He ran a fingertip lightly over the gooseflesh on my neck before getting up to leave.
I stayed rooted to the bench, clutching the parchment in my lap, as the crunch of Fernan’s boots grew fainter. My stomach tumbled. I could not tell dread from longing. The sliver of space that had separated his shoulder from mine as we sat together on the bench had pulsed with warmth, and just as when a cat jumps down from your knee, the cold that replaced it was made more profound by its emptiness.
I did not move for a long time, letting the chill of the autumn breeze blow away the memory of his touch. I wanted him to come back; I wanted to lean against his broad chest, feel his warmth surround me. I wanted him to never return. Something about him sickened me. He made me feel as though I were descending to a dark place, as though he were choking off the light and air above me.
After more than an hour, the church bell tolled for none. I rose stiffly from the cold stone bench to kneel on the gravel. I closed my eyes, welcoming the cleansing pain. I let it wash over me, purify me. Roiling excitement and disgust thinned and parted like clouds revealing a patch of blue sky. With growing clarity of mind, I realized what I had to do.
The Holy Spirit was telling me to devote my life to God. This was why I had been sent to the abbey, why the countess was teaching me to read psalms, and why Fernan filled me with confusion. My heart yearned for the pure, celestial element of air, not the base, dark element of earth. Every sign pointed in the same direction, toward God, only I had been too blind until now to see it.
I would become a bride of the Lord, a maidservant, allow myself to be absorbed into the body of the church. I would never be parte
d from Mother Elfilda, who was as beautiful as an angel and as wise as a saint. I would do anything she asked of me. Being near her was more worldly reward than I deserved.
My heart grew wings as I thought about spending my life at the abbey, learning, praying, devoting my body and soul to God. When I stood again, I felt a new peace and sense of purpose. I tucked the parchment into my pocket and returned to Rose House.
September passed swiftly. I did not spend time in the rose garden anymore, but I continued to study my psalter when time permitted. I convinced Mary to teach me new psalms; though I was too timid to admit to her that I was trying to learn how to read, Mary soon found out. Lady Wenslock had me recite psalms to her on occasion, and she marked new ones in my psalter, which slowly filled with colorful embroidery thread. The more words I learned to read, the easier it became for me to memorize new psalms, and the countess was pleased with my progress.
I told no one about my plan to join the nunnery. I was most frightened of telling Mother Elfilda, but the idea of returning to the manor was unthinkable, and so I requested an audience with the abbess. I received no response, and as Michaelmas approached, I became increasingly nervous. I prayed and prayed. The Holy Ghost whispered to my heart: an audience would come.
On the eve of Michaelmas, I had to accept that I was not going to have the opportunity to speak with the abbess. I told myself that I should not have expected an audience; Mother Elfilda had great responsibilities. She had authority not only over the convent but over the abbey’s vast holdings, which meant that except for the king and the bishop, there was no higher ruler, judge, or spiritual guide for the souls occupying the abbey’s lands. A request from a domestic servant was doubtless of lowest priority on a long list of petitions she received daily. Still, I had been so certain of an answer. It had seemed like divine will.
It was with great heaviness of spirit that I readied Rose House for Lady Wenslock’s guests. After days of preparation, only the finishing touches remained. I found bright yellow hawkbit growing near the fishpond, and I mixed these with lacy hogweed to decorate the bedchambers. I put fresh linens on the beds, replaced every candle, and burnished the countess’s silver ornaments one last time. Finally, I fetched barrels of fresh ale from the brewery and arranged them in the buttery.
The outriders arrived near noon and alerted the grooms to be ready to receive the horses. Mary ordered me to fetch four more servants from the abbey to help with unloading. I was taken aback, because I had been told to expect only three guests, the countess’s niece and two other ladies. Mary smiled cynically. “An honorable life may not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions, but status certainly does. You are not used to the ways of the wealthy. Next to her peers, my lady countess lives like a pauper.”
I could not imagine any pauper living like Lady Wenslock, but when I saw the packhorses, carriage, carts, and wagons, I understood the need for many hands. A uniformed guard opened the door of a peculiar bulbous carriage emblazoned with the royal arms, and three ladies in rustling silks stepped down. Six other guards waited idly for grooms to take their horses, while the ladies’ servants and I bustled in and out of Rose House, carrying chests, trunks, carpets, and trundles, listening carefully for Mary’s instructions. I looked around, wondering which of the women was to be my replacement.
The week after Michaelmas was a blur for me. There was much to do to keep the guests comfortable, and I was busy from dawn until long past dusk. I could not even take time to attend Mass, and I was tortured by the thought that I was missing Mother Elfilda’s sermons during my last days at the abbey. Even when I had time to eat, I hardly touched my food. I receded from the world like a wave sliding back along the shore.
Then, one day, the guests departed, and life at Rose House returned to normal. Nobody told me to leave, and no new servant appeared. When I asked Mary about it, she merely shrugged and said, “I told you that my lady countess would not put a stray dog out of the house.”
This was how I learned that I would be allowed to stay on at the abbey. I would like to say that I felt overwhelming relief, but for some time I felt only disorientation. Never before had the complete absence of an event changed my life so profoundly. It was as though I had prepared for a blow that never came, but I was unable to let my body unclench. I went about my life as before, not quite believing that any of it was real.
I immersed myself more than ever in my psalter. To supplement my reading, I began to write on the parchment that Fernan had given me, using a quill and ink that the younger Sister Marjorie took from the abbey’s scriptorium. I told her that I was copying psalms, and she said that God would approve of that use of the abbey’s writing supplies. I wrote slowly and awkwardly, sometimes hunting for days for a single word. My choice of words was limited to those that appeared in my psalms, and I had only a small piece of parchment to record them, so I had to choose and scribe with care.
I did not see Fernan anymore, and I had no intention of showing him my work. Nevertheless, I would be lying if I said that I had not been writing for him. In a childlike way, I imagined him finding the parchment. He would read the painstakingly selected words, and his eyes would widen in wonder. He would shake his head in disbelief that an uncouth maid like me could produce such radiant sentences. Sometimes in my imagination, I would be standing before him, and he would take my hand and tell me that I was clever. The image caused a pleasurable flutter, but I never imagined him doing more than taking my hand.
Autumn grew colder and darker, and the first snow fell. I found it difficult to sleep at night, for even with the shutters closed, the frigid wind whistled through the paneless windows of the dorter. There were moans and grumbles throughout the long night, as the nuns also slept poorly. In the gray dawn, our breath became fog, and sometimes our coarse wool blankets were white with hoarfrost. Nature compensated for its cruelty, however, when the sun rose full on pristine snow. I liked to kick the glinting powder in the air on my walk to Rose House, keeping my cold fingers tucked under my arms and thinking about the fires I would soon have crackling. The countess spared no expense when it came to keeping our woodpile stocked.
During Christmastide, the nuns spent less time attending to their duties and more time in church. After nones, the sisters forewent their usual administrative meeting in the chapter house and met instead to sing. Music wreathed through all twelve days of Christmas, culminating in a service on the Feast of the Epiphany. No words could describe the music. The voices of the sisters rose toward heaven, revolving around one another in a slow dance, echoes weaving back through the original melody to create sound that was both complex and ineffably pure. When Mother Elfilda sang alone, the beauty of her voice pierced me like the sword of Saint Michael.
The food of Christmastide was less wonderful than the song, but far richer than the usual fare at the abbey. We ate goose cooked with butter and saffron, and after the Mass of the Divine Word, we even ate roasted swan. The king sent venison from his hunting lodge, and of course there was mince pie and frumenty with cinnamon, nutmeg, and dried currants. I was sorry to return to our usual bland diet when the holidays were over, but that was a reminder to me of how blessed my life had become. I did not like to think of my sister cooking pottage over a meager fire, worried that the barley might not last the winter.
It was not until the eleventh day before kalends of February that the prioress finally granted me an audience with Mother Elfilda. I felt less urgency for the meeting than when I had first requested it, but that did not diminish my nervousness. In fact, the long wait for an audience made it seem even more important and valuable.
I had not returned to the chapter house since my first meeting with Mother Elfilda. Before entering the foyer, I stomped the snow from my shoes. My throat had been sore since morning, and now my stomach hurt as well. I pushed back my hood and fidgeted with my coif, rehearsing for the thousandth time the words that I would say to Mother Elfilda.
I watched the other petitioners as they we
re ushered one by one into the chapter house, wondering what business brought them to the abbey. After some time, the door opened again and a sister motioned to me silently. The chapter house looked just as it had when I was last there, with Mother Elfilda on the dais and the prioress standing at her side. I knelt in the doorway, and the prioress said brusquely, “Come here, child.”
Kneeling before the dais, I was closer to Mother Elfilda than I had been in months. I was struck once again by the abbess’s small stature and icy fragility. Her face was unlined, though she must have been nearly beyond childbearing age, and her features were perfectly still, barely inhabited. She turned to the prioress, who looked down at her scroll. “This should be Agnes, Mother, the girl who works for Lady Wenslock. She came from Aviceford Manor after that problem with the other servant. Lady Wenslock asked that she stay on. The girl requested this meeting.”
Mother Elfilda looked back at me. “Yes, Agnes?”
The words that I had practiced for months caught in my raw throat. The solemnity of the chapter house, the regal bearing of the abbess, the impatient stare of the prioress, these brought the abbey into clear focus, as though I were seeing each stone and glass pane in detail for the first time. It was like waking from a gauzy dream to see the mold and soot stains on the ceiling, reminders that snapped me sharply back into the real world.
“God save you, Mother.” My voice sounded strange to me.
“Yes?”
“I have prayed . . .”
She gazed at me blandly.
“I have prayed, and I think . . . I think that perhaps . . . perhaps the Holy Ghost is guiding me toward a new fate.”
“Ah.” Her voice was clear and brisk. “You would like to get married, and your father is not free. You should return to Aviceford and arrange the terms with Emont. We shall find a replacement. What are you, sixteen?”
“Nearly fifteen, Mother. But I do not wish to marry. I wish to be a nun!” There, it was said.
All the Ever Afters Page 9