Alys Clare - The Chatter of the Maidens

Helewise told herself to stop daydreaming and remember why she had come. She wondered where Brother Augustine was. She was just about to send a monk to go and find him for her when one of the pilgrims got up from where he had been sitting, leaning against the front wall of the shelter, and came over to her.

She stared at him as he approached. She didn’t think she had seen him before, although it was hard to tell with so many people passing through all the time. And there was actually something vaguely familiar about him.

She said pleasantly, ‘Good day to you, pilgrim.’

He stopped a few paces from her and made her a deep reverence. She noted fleetingly that it was exactly the way that the professed greeted one another; the man must have a good eye for detail. Then, straightening, he met her eyes. His, she noticed, were dark, as was his short-cropped hair. And, unlike most men, he wore a beard.

He said in a low-pitched voice, ‘I believe I have the honour of addressing the Abbess of Hawkenlye.’

Helewise bowed her head briefly in acknowledgement, and his serious expression lightened momentarily into a smile.

‘You have arrived just today?’ she asked.

He nodded, but then said, ‘Er — yesterday.’

‘Have you yet taken of the precious, holy water?’

‘No.’

She was about to ask whether he was there for healing — not that he looked anything but the picture of health, but you could not always tell — or to offer prayers at Our Lady’s shrine. But she stopped herself. It was not usually her way to question visitors; why should she do so now?

The stranger was still staring at her. Beginning to feel a little uncomfortable, she said, ‘Excuse me, please. I must-’

But again she stopped herself. She was not in the habit of explaining her movements to the pilgrims, either. Giving him the smallest of nods, she turned away.

As she hurried off to find someone to locate Augustine for her, she was surprised to find that her heartbeat had quickened.

Why? she wondered. She tried to analyse the emotion coursing through her. It was not exactly fear, but it was quite close. Apprehension?

Yes.

Then suddenly she thought, it’s as if I’ve just had to go before a superior with an inadequate excuse for some fault!

Amazed at herself — it was a long time since she had been in that position — she put the image of a pair of disturbingly penetrating dark eyes to the back of her mind and beckoned to Brother Saul.

Brother Augustine, who had been helping one of the pilgrims treat his old mule’s cut foot, came hurrying to find her as soon as he was told of her summons. She explained what she wanted him to do and, putting her trust in his shining honesty, told him why.

He frowned as he absorbed her words. ‘You’re really going to use Berthe to lead you to her sister,’ he said slowly.

‘I am, Augustine,’ she replied. She kept her eyes on his. ‘I do not like myself for doing so, but I feel that a greater evil is perpetuated by allowing Berthe to continue living this life of pretence.’

He nodded. ‘Aye. She’s not happy, poor lass.’

‘I don’t suppose that she has confided in you?’ Helewise asked.

‘No.’ He grinned briefly. ‘And that’s the truth, Abbess.’

She laughed softly. ‘Oh, Augustine, I believe you. Really, I never knew a pair so transparently honest as you and Berthe!’

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely. Then, after quite a long silence: ‘I will gladly go for you, Abbess. And, when this is all over, I will explain to Berthe why I did so. Is that all right?’

Thankfully she said, ‘Yes, Augustine. Indeed it is.’

She gave him a little while to find himself a hiding place from which he could observe Berthe. Then, trying to control her excitement, she walked along the path to where the girl was still sitting with the group of children.

Catching sight of Helewise, Berthe leapt up to greet her.

‘Abbess, how nice to see you!’ she said ingenuously.

‘Good day, Berthe. Will you walk with me? I have something that I wish to tell you.’

‘Of course!’

She led the girl further along the path, away from the shrine. Then she said, ‘Berthe, I told you yesterday that Alba is no longer a nun. This means that I have no authority over her, and therefore I cannot keep her imprisoned. I have informed her that, as soon as we can find her somewhere to go, she will have to leave Hawkenlye.’

Berthe’s rosy face had gone dead white. ‘You-’ she began. Then, trying again, ‘But surely she wants to stay?’

‘What she wants is not relevant,’ Helewise said gently. ‘Berthe, she is not at all suited to life as a nun, nor indeed to living in a convent as a lay sister. She is too disruptive an influence. I have the well-being of all my community to consider and, although it is hard on Alba, I have no alternative but to send her away.’

‘I understand, Abbess.’ Berthe’s face had set into a strangely adult, resigned expression, which looked incongruous on one so young.

Helewise’s heart turned over with pity. ‘But you may stay here, Berthe,’ she said. ‘Without becoming a postulant, I mean. Sister Euphemia is always on the look-out for suitable young girls to train as lay nurses, and you are certainly suitable, she tells me.’

For a moment, Berthe’s face lit up. But then the depression fell again. ‘It is a lovely idea, Abbess,’ she said politely. ‘But not possible.’

‘Because of Alba?’ Helewise asked. The girl nodded. ‘But you can be free of her, if she is sent away!’

Berthe turned sad eyes to her. She said dully, ‘We can never be free of Alba.’

Hating herself, wanting above all to talk to the child, give her what consolation she could, instead Helewise gave her a short adieu and, turning away, set out back to the Abbey.

She could not bear to sit in her room while she endured the prolonged wait. There was work she could have been getting on with — there was always that — but she could not concentrate. Her mind kept filling with images of Berthe slipping away, running to find Meriel, and breaking her heart as she sobbed out her story. Of Augustine, following her, watching from behind some great tree and recording everything with his observant eyes to report back to his Abbess.

In the end, she went over to the Abbey church, slid into her accustomed place in the stalls and opened her burdened heart to God.

While the Abbess prayed, Berthe and Augustine were engaged in almost exactly the actions she had imagined.

But somebody else was following behind Augustine. Someone whose involvement, had she been aware of it, would have surprised the Abbess greatly. .

Augustine came to find her sooner than she had expected. She was back in her room, calmer now, about to go through the cellaress’s latest report when there was a soft tap on the door.

In answer to her response, Augustine came in. Trying to read his face as he greeted her, she thought perhaps he looked relieved.

‘Did the plan work?’ she asked.

‘Aye, Abbess. First, let me tell you that Meriel is safe and, as far as I could tell from a brief glance, seems to be none the worse for a spell of living in the open.’

‘Thank God,’ Helewise whispered.

‘Amen. You were right, Abbess,’ Augustine hurried on, the story seeming to burst out of him, ‘soon as you’d left the Vale, Berthe slipped away. I only managed to trail her because I was expecting her to go off somewhere — she was very clever, she went inside the lean-to and got out through a loose panel at the back. Anyway, like I said, I managed not to lose her.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘I thought at first she was heading up to the Abbey but, before she got to the rear gate, she turned off to her left, circled round the side of the Abbey, then crossed over the track that leads off to Tonbridge and went into the forest.’