The King's Daughters

by Emily Sarah Holt

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

  DOROTHY TAKES A MESSAGE.

  "Now then, attend, can't you? How much sugar?"

  "Please, Sister Mary, my head does ache so!"

  "No excuses, Cicely! Answer at once."

  A long sobbing sigh preceded the words--"Half a pound."

  "Now get to your sewing. Cicely, I must be obeyed; and you are a rightperverse child as one might look for with the training you have had.Let me hear no more about headache: it's nothing but nonsense."

  "But my head does ache dreadfully, Sister."

  "Well, it is your own fault, if it do. Two mortal hours were you cryinglast night,--the stars know what for!"

  "It was because I didn't hear nothing about Father," said poor Cissysorrowfully. "Mistress Wade promised she--"

  "Mistress Wade--who is that?"

  "Please, she's the hostess of the King's Head: and she said she wouldlet me know when--"

  "When what?"

  "When Father couldn't have any pain ever any more."

  "Do you mean that you wish to hear your Father is dead, you wickedchild?"

  Cissy looked up wearily into the nun's face. "He's in pain now," shesaid; "for he is waiting, and knows he will have more. But when it hascome, he will have no more, never, but will live with God and be happyfor ever and ever. I want to know that Father's happy."

  "How can these wicked heretics fall into such delusions?" said SisterMary, looking across the room at Sister Joan, who shook her head in away which seemed to say that there was no setting any bounds to thedelusions of heretics. "Foolish child, thy father is a bad man, and badmen do not go to Heaven."

  "Father's not a bad man," said Cissy, not angrily, but in a tone of calmpersuasion that nothing would shake. "I cry you mercy, Sister Mary, butyou don't know him, and somebody has told you wrong. Father's good, andloves God; and people are not bad when they love God and do what He saysto them. You're mistaken, please, Sister."

  "But thy father does not obey God, child, because he does not obey theChurch."

  "Please, I don't know anything about the Church. Father obeys theBible, and that is God's own Word which He spoke Himself. The Churchcan't be any better than that."

  "The Church, for thee, is the priest, who will tell thee how to pleaseGod and the Holy Mother, if thou wilt hearken."

  "But the priest's a man, Sister: and God's Book is a great deal betterthan that."

  "The priest is in God's stead, and conveys His commands."

  "But I've got the commands, Sister Mary, in the Book; and God hasn'twritten a new one, has He?"

  "Silly child! the Church is above any Book."

  "Oh no, it can't be, Sister, please. What Father bade me do his ownself must be better than what other people bid me; and so what God saysin His own Book must be better than what other people say, and theChurch is only people."

  "Cicely, be silent! Thou art a very silly, perverse child."

  "I dare say I am, Sister, but I am sure that's true."

  Sister Joan was on the point of bidding Cissy hold her tongue in a stillmore authoritative manner, when one of the lay Sisters entered the room,to say that a woman asked permission to speak with one of the teachingSisters.

  "What is her name?"

  "She says her name is Denny."

  "Denny! I know nobody of that name."

  "Oh, please, is her name Dorothy?" asked Cissy, eagerly. "If it'sDorothy Denny, Mrs Wade has sent her--she's Mrs Wade's servant. Oh,do let me--"

  "Silence!" said Sister Mary. "I will go and speak with the woman."

  She found in the guest-chamber a woman of about thirty, who stooddropping courtesies as if she were very uncomfortable.

  Very uncomfortable Dorothy Denny was. She did not know what "nervous"meant, but she was exceedingly nervous for all that. In the firstplace, she felt extremely doubtful whether if she trusted herself insidea convent, she would ever have a chance of getting out again; and in thesecond she was deeply concerned about several things, of which one wasCissy.

  "What do you want, good woman?"

  "Please you, Madam, I cry you mercy for troubling of you, but if I mightspeak a word with the dear child--"

  "What dear child?" asked the nun placidly.

  Dorothy's fright grew. Were they going to deny Cissy to her, or even tosay that she was not there?

  "Please you, good Sister, I mean little Cis--Cicely Johnson, an' it likeyou, that I was sent to with a message from my mistress, the hostess ofthe King's Head in Colchester."

  "Cicely Johnson is not now at liberty. You can give the message to me."

  "May I wait till I can see her?"

  Plainly, Dorothy was no unfaithful messenger when her own comfort onlywas to be sacrificed. Sister Mary considered a moment; and then saidshe would see if Cicely could be allowed to have an interview with hervisitor. Bidding Dorothy sit down, she left the room.

  For quite an hour Dorothy sat waiting, until she began to think the nunsmust have forgotten her existence, and to look about for some means ofreminding them of it. There were no bells in sitting-rooms at thattime, except in the form of a little hand-bell on a table, and for thislast Dorothy searched in vain. Then she tried to go out into thepassage, in the hope of seeing somebody; but she was terrified to findherself locked in. She did not know what to do. The window was barredwith an iron grating; there was no escape that way. Poor Dorothy beganto wonder whether, if she found herself a prisoner, she could contriveto climb the chimney, and what would become of her after doing so, whenshe heard at last the welcome sound of approaching steps, and the keywas turned in the lock. The next minute Cissy was in Dorothy's arms.

  "O Dorothy! dear Dorothy! tell me quick--Father--" Cissy could get nofurther.

  "He is at rest, my dear heart, and shall die no more."

  Cissy was not able to answer for the sobs that choked her voice, andDorothy smoothed her hair and petted her.

  "Nay, grieve not thus, sweet heart," she said.

  "Oh no, it is so wicked of me!" sobbed poor Cissy. "I thought I shouldhave been so glad for Father: and I can only think of me and thechildren. We've got no father now!"

  "Nay, my dear heart, thou hast as much as ever thou hadst. He is onlygone upstairs and left you down. He isn't dead, little Cissy: he'salive in a way he never was before, and he shall live for ever andever."

  Neither Dorothy nor Cissy had noticed that a nun had entered with her,and they were rather startled to hear a voice out of the dark corner bythe door.

  "Take heed, good woman, how thou learn the child such errors. That isonly true of great saints; and the man of whom you speak was a wickedheretic."

  "I know not what sort of folks your saints are," said Dorothy bravely:"but my saints are folks that love God and desire to please Him, andthat John Johnson was, if ever a man were in this evil world. An _evil_tree cannot bring forth good fruit."

  The nun crossed herself, but she did not answer.

  "It would be as well if folks would be content to set the bad folks inprison, and let the good ones be," said Dorothy. "Cissy, our mistressis up to London to the Bishop."

  "Will they do somewhat to her?"

  "God knoweth!" said Dorothy, shaking her head sorrowfully. "I shall befain if I may see her back; oh, I shall!"

  "Oh, I hope they won't!" said Cissy, her eyes filling again with tears."I love Mistress Wade."