The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  John, to while away the time, kicked the end of a bench, then, lifting up his brown paw, began to sniff at it. The palm smelt of all sorts of things: of the horses’ sticky, dusty coats; of hay, of earth, of dirt. The back smelt different, and rather pleasant; he did not know what the smell was, and then realized that it was the smell of John. He put his tongue to it, and it tasted slightly of salt.

  Margery Conyers was standing near.

  ‘Smell my hand,’ he said, shoving it under her nose. She struck it away.

  ‘It’s not foul. Not the back.’ He was angry, and punched her with his fist before he turned away to find Christabel.

  ‘Smell my hand, Christie,’ said he. She smelt it and then her own, and then he must smell hers, holding it in both of his, while Margery watched them.

  Christabel slept in the very last room of what had once been the open dorter, but had for a long time now been divided up into a series of little chambers. This one, which they called the Richmond Chamber because of the blue and yellow chequers painted on the ceiling, was shared by three of the Nuns and Christabel. Here they slept and ate, as all the other Ladies, three or four to a mess and each mess in its own particular chamber, fetching its food away from the kitchen. So the old Frater on the Cloister was hardly ever used, except at the great feasts.

  It was just on midnight, but not dark because of the full moon that shone through the two little windows. The Ladies had gone down to the Church for Matins and Lauds, but Christabel had not wakened either at the candlelight or the shuffling about in the room as they pulled on hosen and shifts and gowns, or at their sleepy, yawning conversation. She only woke when John laid a hand on her.

  ‘Christie! Christie!’

  She woke up then with a start.

  ‘Oh! John!’ She put out a hand and felt his – yawned, stretched and whispered, ‘How did you come?’ She made room for him on the bed, and he curled up by her inside the curtains.

  ‘Up the pear-tree.’

  ‘And through the Sacrist’s chamber? Did Margery hear you?’

  ‘No – she was snoring.’ He began to fumble in his shirt, and then put something into her hand in the dark. ‘It’s cherries and some comfits.’

  ‘Oh, knave!’ Christabel said, putting a comfit into her mouth.

  ‘I’m not. Maudlin gave them me,’ he said, and they ate them together merrily.

  But when they were finished he sighed.

  ‘I came to tell you something. When I was in the kitchen with Maudlin, the Lady’ – that was what they called the Prioress – ‘the Lady went by in the Great Court, and I heard her say that she had writ to my father that I must go from here, now that I am so big.’ He put his arm round her neck and said, ‘Oh, Christie!’ and kissed her. She kissed him as readily, and put her arms about him.

  ‘But you’ll come back to see me, John.’

  ‘It won’t be the same. I can’t come often. Christie, come with me.’

  ‘You silly boy,’ she said, ‘how can I?’ She felt much older than he; he was only a child.

  He pulled himself away from her. ‘You don’t love me.’

  She said again, ‘How can I?’ because, though she knew it was silly, yet she was setting two things up against each other. The one was life at Marrick – it was made up of solid, sensible things – meals, lessons, her own gear in this little room. The other was nothing to be seen or touched – it was loving John.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried, ‘I do. I do love you.’ It was true, and she had never loved anyone before, except her grandfather, long ago, before he had beaten her. But John was so easy to love. John was her little boy, and her lover, and the child she played with, all in one, Being yet children they could have it so, without even knowing that it was so.

  She took a deep breath. She couldn’t go away with him: she was old enough to know that. But at that moment for Christabel foolishness was wiser than wisdom, and things that are not, brought to nought things that are. She caught him again in her arms. She must do something to show him that she loved him; she must somehow break and hurt the things that are, for the sake of the things that are not.

  ‘I know. I shall give you my great cup Edward.’

  ‘Oh! Christie!’ he said, in such a voice that she felt warmth and light all through her, and glad to be giving away the great cup Edward. Tears came into her eyes, and were running down her cheeks when he kissed her, and when Dame Anne Ladyman, stepping softly, suddenly twitched the curtains of the bed open, and stood looking in, shining a candle upon the two of them.

  ‘Jesu!’ said Dame Anne, ‘it’s as well I slugged abed and did not rise to Matins.’

  Margery Conyers crept away, quiet as a mouse. She had seen them, but they had not seen her. Yet she had done right to waken Dame Anne. John had no business to be out of his bed at this time of night, a little boy like that. And he was her cousin, not Christie’s. He should have loved and followed her. She hated Christie.

  1511

  March 11

  The Bishop had arrived last night and lay in the guest-house; Christabel’s father and mother, her eldest brother, the sister who had married a knight, and her husband too, were all staying at Master Christopher Thornaby’s up at Marrick village; and any time now, for it had been light for a couple of hours, Margery Conyer’s father and mother might ride in from Marske. None of Bess Dalton’s people would be coming; her nearest kinsman was a cousin, a cross-grained, ill-conditioned fellow, who was only too ready to be rid of the girl, but who did not mean to spend any more on the settling of her than he need.

  For at Chapter Mass the three of them, Christabel, Margery, and Bess, were to be made Nuns by the Bishop, and afterwards the Conyers and the Cowpers would feast the new Nuns and all the rest of the House. It would be a great dinner, served in the old Frater, which had been scrubbed, and cleaned, and strawed fresh with rushes, and with whatever little tufts of greenery the young year provided.

  Christabel and Margery were at it now, scattering the pansy leaves they had gathered, which would smell sweet, though faint, of violets. As was fitting they spread them thickest at the table set crosswise at the dais end, for there the Bishop, the Prioress, and the guests would sit.

  ‘My ring,’ said Christabel, because she knew that Margery’s father and mother would sit above her own at the board – ‘my ring has a ruby in it.’ She knew also that Margery Conyers’ ring was of plain gold. Margery had said that nuns should not have precious stones set in their espousal rings, but that was only to make the best of it.

  ‘My cousin John, who is page to my lord my uncle, is coming to the feast,’ said Margery.

  Christabel had not known this before and wondered if it were true. She said nothing for a minute, scrabbling in the basket for the last of the leaves, and dropping them carefully where they would best show.

  ‘My sister’s husband, who is a knight,’ she said, ‘has offered a gold piece to St. Andrew. And my father has brought a whole bolt of cloth for gowns for the House, and last night he sent a servant down from Marrick with pounds and pounds of spices to the kitchen here.’

  ‘My father has sent a heron and two cranes, and partridges, – I know not how many.’

  ‘Huh! Those cost nothing.’ Christabel tossed the last of the pansy leaves disdainfully out on the rushes.

  ‘Last time I went home,’ Margery said, ‘I saw my cousin John, and I asked him if he would be sorry that you should be a Nun, Christabel. But he said he cared not, whether or no, and when I said that you would be fain to see him at the feast he pulled an ugly face and made a scream like a peacock.’

  ‘Little boys,’ said Christabel, ‘that lack the rod, grow up unmannerly.’

  But Margery Conyers, in order to have the last word, had gone out into the Cloister leaving the door open. The snowdrops in the garth were almost over, and here and there the daffodils had pushed up a green mace among the leaves. A delicate sunshine, shining through thin cloud, made the Cloister light, but threw no shadows. The big pear-tree,
up which John had climbed, was covered with large buds; they had been caught and blackened at the tips by the late frosts, and every day now, since the weather had become warm, one of the Nuns would wonder if the frost had really spoiled the blossom. Across the other side of the Cloister Bess Dalton stood, looking up into the air. On an ordinary day the Ladies would have been sitting there, sewing and reading in the sun, but to-day they were far too busy preparing for the feast, or entertaining the Bishop, to have time to sit in the Cloister, and Bess should not have had time either, to stand there, only staring.

  She began to throw handfuls of corn out into the Cloister garth, and down came the pigeons. Bess watched them, and she saw Christabel and came round the Cloister to her. She was a fat, cheerful, stupid girl, never out of temper. To-day she looked happier than usual.

  ‘They should have their feast too,’ she said, tipping her head back towards the birds.

  Christabel answered, thinking of the good corn: ‘The Cellaress will be angry.’

  ‘Oh! Not to-day.’

  ‘Your cousin,’ said Christabel, not looking at Bess, but fiddling with the empty basket on her arm – ‘your cousin – hath he sent aught towards our feast?’

  Bess laughed. ‘Perdy! Not he! He’s a mean old snudge. But there’s plenty. Oh! it will be a rare feast!’ She went off quite happy, though everyone knew that her cousin had paid no more than her bare dower, and that what household stuff she had brought with her was poor and old.

  Christabel was thinking about this when she found that Bess Dalton had come back, and all, so it turned out, to tell Christabel that she was so happy she could jump out of her skin, because to-day she was to be made a Nun at Marrick, where all the Ladies were so good and kind, everyone of them. And if her cousin had not paid her dower, and she had had to leave Marrick, – ‘I should have broken my heart, Christie, for I love them all here, they are so kind to me.’

  When she had gone away, crying a little and smiling, and wiping the tears off with the back of her hand, Christabel went again into the Frater. She had been pleased this morning at the thought that she would be made a Nun to-day, but what Margery Conyers had said seemed to have overcast the pleasure. And there was Bess Dalton, so happy about nothing. Christabel thought ‘The Ladies are not so bad.’ If Margery Conyers were gone, and Dame Eleanor Maxwell who was so deaf, yet always wanted to be talked to, and Dame Anne Ladyman – ‘then I would like them well enough.’ It was Dame Anne who had found John and her together in the middle of the night, so it was Dame Anne who was responsible for the beating that Christie got, and the days on bread and water, locked up in the closet beyond the Prioress’s room. John had been beaten too, and sent off the very next day. Christabel had not seen him since, and did not want to see him now. Loving John had been pleasant and sweet. But they had made her smart for it, and had made her ashamed of it, so that now it was an offence to her.

  The serving woman came in from the kitchen and began to set out the wooden platters on the Nuns’ table, with here and there a small silver cup. They brought them from the latticed aumbries beside the Cloister door. Christabel cheered up at this, and watched them now in pleased anticipation. Yes. There it was. One of the women took off the shelf a tall handsome cup, the bowl made of a cokernut, cunningly borne in worked bands of silver gilt. It was Christabel’s great cup Edward. She watched the woman set it on the table, right down at the lower end of the Frater. But none of the Ladies had one fit to match with it, not even the Prioress. The Bishop to-day would drink from the Prioress’s best, which was an old small silver cup. Christabel would drink from Edward.

  She sidled up to the table and began to run her fingers about the rim. ‘Supposing,’ she thought, ‘I had given John the cup, and he had gone away with it.’ She felt that she had been spared a great loss. Now she would always be pleased when she used the great cup. It was unlikely anyone at Marrick would ever have one so fine. She felt secure again, and content. If she could only avoid having to speak to John to-day, she could enjoy these solid, real, dependable things – her great cup, the new coverlet her mother had brought for her, the gold pin her father sent her last New Year, the ring with the ruby which the Bishop would put on her finger to-day. And in the future there would be other things to look forward to, and to scheme for.

  As it turned out she did not have to speak to John. She did not see him in the Church until the very last of the long Mass. She and the other novices had laid their new habits at the foot of the altar, and the gowns had been blessed and sprinkled with holy water, and taken up again. They had put them on in the vestry, and come in with their lit candles, and knelt before the Bishop, received the veils, and had been espoused to Christ by the rings – wet and difficult to get on because they too had been sprinkled. At the very end of the office, with Bess Dalton crying happily, Margery shivering with excitement, and Christabel very proud and demure, they had come once more to the Bishop, their hands covered in a linen cloth, bearing the bread and wine with which he should communicate them. As Christabel knelt she heard a scuffling noise behind. She turned and saw John: he and another page-boy were trying to stamp on each other’s feet. Then a tall man behind cuffed them each soundly, and they were still, with crimson faces. Christabel turned back and received the bread.

  She saw John serve, of course, at the feast, but he served only at the table where the Bishop sat. When her own folk had taken leave and ridden away she saw him again. She was going along the Cloister towards the door leading up to the Richmond Chamber. There was a shout and a scuttering of feet, and three boys, John the smallest of them, came out from the Parlour, and went by her at the rate of a hunt. She had to jump out of the way, and they raised loud and jeering shouts as they passed her; she thought they jeered at her, and went on up to the Richmond Chamber with her cheeks burning. But they were jeering at the Cook’s man, whom they had braved, stealing wafers from the kitchen.

  By evening they were gone, and now she sat at table with the other Nuns, and the great cup Edward was before her, and nothing would take it from her, nor uproot her from the comfortable security of her possessions in this House at Marrick.

  1515

  December 3

  On a fine and bright winter morning the Ladies at Marrick were always pleased to be able to walk for a while in the orchard. They grew very tired of the Cloister during the winter and, ‘Really,’ said Dame Anne Ladyman, holding up her bare palm to feel the sunshine on it, ‘it’s as warm to-day as if it were spring.’

  To-day there was news to listen to, and talk over, for Dame Anne and Dame Bess Dalton had been away at Dame Anne’s sister’s house at Topcliffe on Swale, for the christening of a first child. Just a year ago they had been given leave by the Prioress to go there for the wedding, so the Ladies knew about the house, and the family, almost as much as could be known by those who had never seen any of the places and people. That made this second visit all the more interesting in the hearing. There were younger sisters of last year’s bride, who might by now have had marriages arranged for them. And last year half the bees at Topcliffe had died of disease; how had they sped this year? And had Dame Anne’s sister finished the embroidery for the chair that she was working last year? And did the parlour chimney still smoke? And the babe? He, of course, was new, and as a subject of conversation, inexhaustible.

  Last year Bess Dalton and Dame Anne had talked so fast, prompting, and correcting, and supplementing each other, that hardly a question had to be asked; but this time Bess seemed heavy and dumpish, and Dame Anne would stop in her talk, when she was speaking of the guests, or the games they played, or songs that were sung, and purse her lips, looking sly and saying, ‘Well! Well! least said soonest mended,’ or, ‘Lord! you must ask Bess to tell you who sang the sweetest.’ The Nuns, knowing Dame Anne, and seeing Bess’s crimson cheeks, could guess what all that meant, but little Margaret Lovechild, the youngest of the novices, who walked hanging on with both hands to Bess Dalton’s arm, was too simple to guess.

&
nbsp; ‘And the babe,’ said Bess, brightening up a little at a question from one of the older Nuns who wished to stop Dame Anne’s tongue – ‘the babe is the prettiest little gentleman, with the bluest eyes.’

  ‘Ah!’ Dame Anne cried, ‘but there was a prettier little gentleman yet, whose eyes were brown.’

  ‘Were there twins?’ piped little Margaret, and Dame Anne let out a squeak of laughter.

  Bess grew crimson, tried to answer Margaret, stammered, and burst into tears. When she had gone away, hurrying off with her head bent, Margaret began to cry too.

  The others stood silent. The air here was never perfectly quiet, for always there was the sound of the rushing Swale below, and almost as constant as that the sleepy meditation of the wood pigeons in the bare bright woods high above the Priory.

  ‘Run away, child!’ Dame Anne bade Margaret, and she went, with a scowl at Dame Anne, because she loved Bess Dalton dearly. Dame Anne tittered again.

  ‘Now I can tell you all about poor Bess and her—’

  ‘No one wants to hear it,’ the old Cellaress interrupted heavily, and pushed past her. Most of the others followed, so Dame Anne had not much of an audience.

  Christabel was in the Richmond Chamber when Bess came in; but Bess did not see her, and flopped down on her bed and sobbed aloud.

  ‘Jesus!’ said Christabel. ‘What’s amiss?’

  Bess cried for awhile and then told her. The priest at Topcliffe was a young man, comely and gentle. ‘So gentle and so good,’ Bess said, lifting a hot, wet face for a moment. ‘Anyone must see it who but looks at him.’ Bess had seen him at the wedding a year ago. ‘He lives in the house, for he’s chaplain to Sir Wat, in a little bare room. I looked within once – only from the door, Christie; there was but a bed and a crucifix and some books. And such a torn coverlet upon the bed. A blue coverlet.’

  Christabel had to wait till Bess had snuffled a little before she could go on.

  ‘He said my eyes were like a dove’s. And he said – But then – No, Christie, I can’t tell you what he said, for it is sacred. But I know that he will go wretched all his days for want of me – as I for want of him.’ At that she broke down again, and wept desolately.