Whiter than the Lily

by Alys Clare

  ‘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.

  ‘Good evening, friend,’ she said softly, not sure if the almost-closed eyelids meant he was asleep and not wanting to wake him if he were.

  But the old man opened his eyes and, seeing her beside him, gave her a very calm smile.

  ‘You’ll be the Abbess Helewise,’ he said. ‘The old feller said as how you’d come to see me.’

  ‘I am,’ she agreed. ‘Are my monks making you comfortable?’

  ‘Aye, they are that.’ He paused to take a couple of breaths then went on, ‘I’m not long for this world, my lady Abbess.’

  Sometimes when a sick pilgrim said those words, the very last thing that they wanted, Helewise reflected, was for you to agree with them. Even if it were true, some folk did not have the courage to accept that they were dying and that had to be respected. But this old man, she thought, gazing down at him, was not one of those.

  ‘Have you prepared your soul to meet God?’ she asked quietly. ‘Do you wish me to send a priest to you?’

  The old man smiled his serene smile again. ‘I’m ready, my lady. Ready as I’ll ever be, that is. I’ve confessed my sins to the good Father and that old monk has praye
d over me. If that’s not enough for the dear Lord, then there’s no more I can do about it.’

  Helewise suppressed a smile of her own; it was unusual to hear someone speak quite in that way of their approaching death. ‘And what of your family?’ she asked. ‘Is there anyone you wish us to contact?’

  ‘No. I’m alone now. Me and my wife were only blessed with the one child and she died when she were five. And my old girl’s gone on ahead of me too. I reckon that she’ll have my little nook waiting for me when I get to Paradise.’ He said it with such conviction that Helewise was moved and, for a moment, could not reply.

  Then she said, ‘We shall pray for you, that your time in Purgatory is brief and she will not have to wait for too long.’

  ‘Thankee, lady, but it won’t make any difference. She’ll be ready for me and then we shall be together again.’ Tired from the effort of speech, his eyes closed and he let out a faint snore.

  Helewise said a brief, silent prayer over his dozing old body and then she straightened up and tiptoed away.

  In need of comfort – the old man’s simple faith and patient acceptance of his lot had affected her more than she had realised – Helewise made her way to the little shrine that stood over the holy water spring. She opened the door quietly, holding the bunch of keys that hung from her belt close to her skirts to keep it from jangling. She knew only too well from her own experience how irritating it could be to be deep in prayer or meditation only to have some newcomer barge noisily in and disturb the peace.

  As she went carefully down the stone steps, she thought at first that the chapel was empty. But then she noticed a figure crouched on the ground before the statue of the Virgin on her plinth. The figure – Helewise could not tell if it were male or female, young or old – had squeezed into the furthest corner where the light was very dim and seemed to have some sort of covering over the head.

  Helewise said a brief apologetic prayer to the Virgin: I came to seek your comfort, Holy Lady, but in doing so it seems I would be intruding on another’s need for privacy, so I will look for you instead in the fields and the clean evening air as I return to the Abbey. Then, without a further glance at the crouching figure, she left the chapel as quietly as she had entered.

  Brother Saul was coming down the path from the Abbey as she ascended it. Ah well, thought Helewise resignedly, if anyone had to interrupt my prayer, I’m glad it’s Saul.

  She greeted him, smiling at his bent head as he made a low reverence. ‘All goes well with you, I trust, Brother Saul?’

  ‘It does, my lady, it does.’ He returned her smile. Then, the warm expression fading, he said, ‘She’s a devout soul, that new visitor, isn’t she?’

  ‘The new visitor?’ Could he mean Galiena? Surely not, Helewise thought; of all the adjectives that might be employed to describe the lady of Ryemarsh, devout was not the first that sprang to mind.

  ‘Aye.’ Saul leaned closer, dropping his voice as if avid gossips lurked in the long grass waiting on his every word. ‘That pretty lass as wants to have a baby.’

  Ah. So he did mean Galiena. Wondering yet again at the mysterious way in which information seeped through the Abbey like water through a sodden sandal, Helewise said softly, ‘It is the lady’s business, Saul. Hers and her lord’s.’

  ‘Aye, that it is, my lady, and I’m sorry I spoke as I did. Only—’ Saul’s kind, honest face struggled with competing emotions.

  ‘Only what, Saul?’ she prompted.

  But Saul shook his head and, bidding her good evening, hurried away.

  It was not until the next day that Helewise discovered what lay behind that little scene. She went to seek out Galiena – it was, she told herself, high time she spared a moment to see how the young lady had settled in, even if she was very busy and didn’t really want to. Especially because I don’t really want to, she reproved herself.

  But Galiena was not to be found. The infirmarer shrugged her shoulders and said she hadn’t seen her since the early morning when, according to Sister Euphemia, Galiena had informed her that as soon as her preparations were ready, she would take them and be on her way back home. Helewise went next to enquire of Sister Tiphaine, who had all but forgotten who Galiena was. Nobody else seemed to have noticed her about the Abbey. Then Brother Firmin, coming up to inform Helewise that his elderly pilgrim had died in the night, mentioned that the Lady Ryemarsh was in the chapel again and Saul still couldn’t get in to brush down the steps and it was all very worrying because, as everyone knew, the steps became very slippery if not regularly cleaned and it would be frightful if anyone fell and—

  Stopping the old monk in mid-sentence – Brother Firmin had been known to go on for ages if not interrupted – Helewise said, ‘You said she is there again, Brother Firmin. She was in the chapel yesterday?’

  ‘Aye, my lady, almost all day! Down on her knees huddled in the darkest corner, veil over her head and face, praying for hours on end! And, although I know I should not speak ill of another when the dear Lord alone knows what goes on in her poor troubled heart to make her shout out so, there was really no call to speak to Saul so unkindly.’

  ‘I see.’ It all began to fall into place. ‘What happened, Brother Firmin?’

  ‘Well, like I said, Saul was aware that the steps needed a good clean but when he went into the chapel early in the day, there she was a-praying and he didn’t like to disturb her with his mop and his bucket. He went back twice more but each time mere she was, looking, Saul said, as if she hadn’t so much as moved a hair. So finally Saul comes along to find me and he says, Brother Firmin, I can’t let it wait any longer, the condition of those steps is on my mind every minute. So I had a bit of a think as to how best to advise him.’ Nodding his head, he stared at Helewise as if seeking her approbation.

  ‘You did right, Brother Firmin,’ she said encouragingly, wishing that it were not taking quite so long for the old monk to get to the end of his tale. ‘It’s always best to give a matter proper consideration.’ He would not, she was certain, detect the very faint irony. ‘And what did you finally suggest?’

  ‘I said, you’ve got your duties to attend to, Brother Saul, just like the rest of us, and cleaning down those steps is one of them and must not be put off any longer, so just you go in, apologise nicely to the lady for the interruption, roll up your sleeves and get on with it.’

  ‘Quite right, Brother Firmin. It was good advice. And what happened next?’

  ‘Well, my lady, you won’t credit it, a soft-spoken, kindly, charitable, understanding lady like yourself, but she shouted at him!’ Brother Firmin bridled as he spoke, his thin old face flushing with indignation. ‘She cried out, can’t you see I want to be alone? Then she said to get out and take his bucket with him!’

  ‘Dear me, how very distressing for poor Saul!’ Helewise exclaimed.

  ‘It was, aye, it was,’ Firmin agreed. ‘Brother Saul isn’t used to folks shouting at him, especially not when he’s trying to help. Of course, it would have put her off her prayers, having someone cleaning the steps so close to her, but there you are, these jobs must be done.’

  ‘Indeed they must,’ Helewise agreed. ‘And she stayed in the chapel all day, you say?’

  ‘Aye, and she’s back there today!’ Brother Firmin’s pale old eyes were wide with astonishment. Then, dropping to a whisper, he added, ‘If she doesn’t get herself with child after all that praying, then I reckon the good Lord must have his reasons agin it!’

  ‘Such things are for God alone to decide,’ she said gently. ‘We must not speculate, Brother Firmin.’

  ‘No, my lady, of course not, and I wasn’t, not really, I just meant—’

  ‘Not to worry,’ Helewise said smoothly. ‘Thank you for telling me, but let us speak of it no more. Now, about the elderly pilgrim who has just died …’

  And, for some time more, she and the old monk turned to discussing matters over which she, at least, felt she had rather more control.

  I must, she decided la
ter, speak to Galiena. She has come for our help and we are freely giving it – she had checked and Sister Euphemia confirmed that yes, she and the herbalist had made two different remedies for Galiena to take and that they were all but ready – yet she makes no use of that other great solace that we offer to those who are troubled. Yes, she prays alone, or so I am told, but she shows no desire to worship with our community.

  To Helewise, who had found when severely tried that the regular offices punctuating the day were her greatest comfort and support, the idea of someone in sore need not attending them was so strange as to be unfathomable. I will find her and invite her to pray with us, she decided. Perhaps she does not realise that it is permitted! The thought, striking all of a sudden, hit Helewise as a likely explanation.

  Feeling guilty that she had not made sure Galiena knew all the relevant details of Abbey life, Helewise hurried on her way.

  Galiena was in the shrine, just as Brother Firmin had reported. As Helewise quietly descended the steps – Saul was quite right, they did indeed need a good clean – the young woman spun round and, from behind the concealing veil, cried out, ‘For the love of God, am I not to be left alone?’ Then, seeing who it was, she lowered her voice a shade and said rather grudgingly, ‘Oh, it’s you, Abbess Helewise.’

  ‘Yes,’ Helewise agreed. Trying to keep her irritation under tight control, she said, ‘I am told, Galiena, that you have spent many hours in here on your own.’

  ‘It’s allowed, isn’t it?’ the girl asked truculently.

  ‘Of course,’ Helewise said smoothly. ‘But, understanding as I do what it is that you pray for, since you yourself have told me, I wonder if you might rather join the community in our devotions? You would be most welcome and, if I did not make this clear to you when we spoke before, then I am sorry.’

  Galiena did not respond for a moment. Her face was still shaded by the heavy veil and Helewise could not see her expression. Eventually she spoke.