Alys Clare - Whiter than the Lily

Helewise, making a determined start on her resolve to be kind and generous of heart towards Galiena, offered up a special prayer for the girl at Matins, at Prime and at Tierce. She did not know exactly when Sister Euphemia planned to interview Galiena — the infirmarer had not been specific — and so Helewise sent word to the infirmary asking Sister Euphemia to report to her as soon as there was anything to report.

Sister Euphemia came to see her in the middle of the morning.

Helewise, taking in the expression on Sister Euphemia’s face, realised immediately that things had not gone well. Reaching for the jug that stood on her table, she poured out a mug of barley water and handed it to the infirmarer, who took it with an absent nod and downed it in one.

‘That’s better.’ She smacked her lips. ‘Thank you, my lady.’

‘You looked as if you needed a cool drink,’ Helewise observed.

Sister Euphemia grinned briefly. ‘It was as obvious as that?’

‘It was,’ Helewise agreed. ‘What has happened, Sister?’

Sister Euphemia sighed and shook her head. ‘Precisely nothing, my lady! For all that she clamours for our help, she will not speak to me of intimate matters between herself and her husband. Not a word! And when I suggested I have a look at her, she leapt up and clutched that long veil she wears tightly around her as if I were threatening to strip off her clothes and examine her by force!’ Pink in the face at this insult to her professional integrity, Sister Euphemia was momentarily lost for words. Then, in a quieter voice, she added, ‘The very idea!’

‘Do not distress yourself,’ Helewise said soothingly. ‘All of us who know your ways treasure your kindness and your tact when — er, when a patient’s treatment requires certain intimacies.’

‘Thank you, my lady.’ Sister Euphemia muttered something to herself then, eyes raised to meet Helewise’s, she said, ‘I wouldn’t have said that young lady was coy, though. I find it strange that she should react to my questions like a timid child.’

‘You can never tell,’ Helewise remarked. ‘Sometimes what we see on the surface masks other, very different emotions.’ Remembering her vow to be charitable to Galiena, she went on, ‘Perhaps she finds this whole business of trying to conceive rather embarrassing. I mean, she is still young and to have strangers know of — er, of matters usually reserved for the bedchamber, to have people, no matter how well-intentioned, aware that there are difficulties …’ Floundering, she broke off.

The infirmarer was watching her with a smile. ‘Happen you’re right, my lady, and I’m grateful to you for reminding me of something I should have thought of for myself. I’m too forthright and well I know it. I meant well, though, and I did stop my questions when she looked so upset. And I’d only got as far as asking her whether her courses came regularly and fully, how frequently her husband lies with her and whether he’s still capable of ejaculation!’

Helewise had a moment’s genuine sympathy for Galiena. However well intentioned, Sister Euphemia could be formidable when she was seeking out the facts behind a patient’s malaise.

‘Then I said,’ the infirmarer was relating, ‘well, my girl, if you don’t want to speak of such things, better hop up on the cot, slip your skirts up and let me have a look at you, and she went so white I thought she was going to faint!’ Amazement flooded the honest face all over again as Sister Euphemia described the scene.

‘Oh, dear,’ Helewise said. ‘The thought of an examination genuinely distressed her, then? It was not merely a pretence at delicacy designed to engage your admiration for her refinement?’

Immediately she regretted the words. Sister Euphemia was far too astute to miss their significance; the fact that Helewise should suggest Galiena’s modesty was purely to impress the infirmarer reflected all too clearly Helewise’s opinion of the girl.

The infirmarer looked at her for a moment. Then she said quietly, ‘Don’t look so guilty, my lady. The same thought had occurred to me. But aye, that pallor was real, all right. For some reason, the idea of my looking at her private — um, having a look down there put the fear of God in her.’

Helewise, only a little comforted, nodded. ‘Well, we must accept the young woman’s sensibilities and leave her be,’ she said. ‘Are you able to offer her any treatment that might help conception? Without knowing more about her — er, her circumstances?’

‘Aye,’ Sister Euphemia said heavily. ‘Aye, there’s things we can try. The trouble is, my lady, they may well be the wrong things. If I can’t pin down exactly what the problem is, then how am I to know how best to treat it? And I cannot identify the precise problem without Galiena’s help.’

Helewise remembered suddenly her first impressions of Galiena. ‘One thing does occur to me, Sister Euphemia,’ she began tentatively. ‘Although, when I come to think of it, it is scarcely worth mentioning.’

The infirmarer grinned. ‘Why not mention it anyway, my lady?’

Helewise returned the smile. ‘It was just that I understood the young lady to be eighteen years old.’

‘Aye, that’s what she told me.’

‘Yet to me she seems older. I cannot say why, exactly, especially when she keeps herself so well covered up. I just wondered if her age might be a factor in her barrenness.’

‘She could be a year or so older than she claims,’ the infirmarer agreed, ‘although I do not think it would make any difference to whether she conceives or not. Why, I’ve known first-time mothers ten or even fifteen years older than young Galiena! If she were forty, now, that might just make things trickier.’

‘I did not for a moment think she was as old as that!’ Helewise laughed. ‘As I said, it wasn’t really worth mentioning.’ She sighed, then went on: ‘If Galiena continues with her attitude, you will just have to manage without the young lady’s help and do the best you can, Sister.’ She got up, went round her table and, pausing beside the infirmarer, put a hand briefly on her strong right arm. ‘As I know you always do,’ she added softly.

‘Thank you, my lady. I’ll get over to Sister Tiphaine and the two of us will get our heads together and see what we can come up with.’ She took a deep breath, releasing it noisily and with some force. ‘We’ll be guessing, like as not, but I suppose that’s better than nothing.’

‘A great deal better than nothing,’ Helewise said encouragingly. Then, with many rather odd thoughts and ideas buzzing in her head, she saw the infirmarer to the door and watched her hasten away.

As the day wound down towards evening, a thin band of cloud puffed up in the west so that, for a time as the sun went down, the perfect sky was shot with stripes of brilliant gold and orange. Helewise, going out of the rear gate of the Abbey on her way down to the Vale, stopped to look and to admire. As she stood in the peace of early evening she reflected that it was the first time she had allowed herself a moment’s quiet reflection all day. All week, come to that. Closing her eyes and determined to enjoy it, she breathed in the scent of hot dusty grass. This, she thought, eyes still closed, is a good place.

Then, remembering her promise to visit an elderly pilgrim who, according to Brother Firmin, had not much time left to him to enjoy either Hawkenlye or anywhere else, she opened her eyes, brought her wandering mind back to the present and hastened on her way.

Brother Firmin’s old man did indeed look frail. He was propped up on a straw mattress, a mug of holy water by his side and, even from the doorway of the pilgrims’ shelter, Helewise could hear the shallow, rasping breathing. She sat down beside him and took one of his thin, age-spotted hands in both of hers.