CHAPTER V
SISTER AVICE

 
Love, to her ear, was but a name
Combined with vanity and shame;
Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all
Bounded within the cloister wall.
 

Scott, Marmion.

Sister Avice sat in the infirmary, diligently picking the leaves off a large mass of wood-sorrel which had been brought to her by the children around, to make therewith a conserve.

Grisell lay on her couch.  She had been dressed, and had knelt at the window, where the curtain was drawn back while mass was said by the Chaplain, the nuns kneeling in their order and making their responses.  It was a low-browed chapel of Norman or even older days, with circular arches and heavy round piers, and so dark that the gleam of the candles was needed to light it.

Grisell watched, till tired with kneeling she went back to her couch, slept a little, and then wondered to see Sister Avice still compounding her simples.

She moved wearily, and sighed for Madge to come in and tell her all the news of Amesbury—who was riding at the ring, or who had shot the best bolt, or who had had her work picked out as not neat or well shaded enough.

Sister Avice came and shook up her pillow, and gave her a dried plum and a little milk, and began to talk to her.

“You will soon be better,” she said, “and then you will be able to play in the garden.”

“Is there any playfellow for me?” asked Grisell.

“There is a little maid from Bemerton, who comes daily to learn her hornbook and her sampler.  Mayhap she will stay and play with you.”

“I had Madge at Amesbury; I shall love no one as well as Madge!  See what she gave me.”

Grisell displayed her pouncet box, which was duly admired, and then she asked wearily whether she should always have to stay in the convent.

“Oh no, not of need,” said the sister.  “Many a maiden who has been here for a time has gone out into the world, but some love this home the best, as I have done.”

“Did yonder nun on the wall?” asked Grisell.

“Yea, truly.  She was bred here, and never left it, though she was a King’s daughter.  Edith was her name, and two days after Holy Cross day we shall keep her feast.  Shall I tell you her story?”

“Prithee, prithee!” exclaimed Grisell.  “I love a tale dearly.”

Sister Avice told the legend, how St. Edith grew in love and tenderness at Wilton, and how she loved the gliding river and the flowers in the garden, and how all loved her, her young playmates especially.  She promised one who went away to be wedded that she would be godmother to her first little daughter, but ere the daughter was born the saintly Edith had died.  The babe was carried to be christened in the font at Winchester Cathedral, and by a great and holy man, no other than Alphegius, who was then Bishop of Winchester, but was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and died a holy martyr.

“Then,” said Sister Avice, “there was a great marvel, for among the sponsors around the square black font there stood another figure in the dress of our Mother Abbess, and as the Bishop spake and said, “Bear this taper, in token that thy lamp shall be alight when the Bridegroom cometh,” the form held the torch, shining bright, clear, and like no candle or light on earth ever shone, and the face was the face of the holy Edith.  It is even said that she held the babe, but that I know not, being a spirit without a body, but she spake the name, her own name Edith.  And when the holy rite was over, she had vanished away.”

“And that is she, with the lamp in her hand?  Oh, I should have been afraid!” cried Grisell.

“Not of the holy soul?” said the sister.

“Oh!  I hope she will never come in here, by the little window into the church,” cried Grisell trembling.

Indeed, for some time, in spite of all Sister Avice could say, Grisell could not at night be free from the fear of a visit from St. Edith, who, as she was told, slept her long sleep in the church below.  It may be feared that one chief reliance was on the fact that she could not be holy enough for a vision of the Saint, but this was not so valuable to her as the touch of Sister Avice’s kind hand, or the very knowing her present.

That story was the prelude to many more.  Grisell wanted to hear it over again, and then who was the Archbishop martyr, and who were the Virgins in memory of whom the lamps were carried.  Both these, and many another history, parable, or legend were told her by Sister Avice, training her soul, throughout the long recovery, which was still very slow, but was becoming more confirmed every day.  Grisell could use her eye, turn her head, and the wounds closed healthily under the sister’s treatment without showing symptoms of breaking out afresh; and she grew in strength likewise, first taking a walk in the trim garden and orchard, and by and by being pronounced able to join the other girl scholars of the convent.  Only here was the first demur.  Her looks did not recover with her health.  She remained with a much-seamed neck, and a terrible scar across each cheek, on one side purple, and her eyebrows were entirely gone.

She seemed to have forgotten the matter while she was entirely in the infirmary, with no companion but Sister Avice, and occasionally a lay sister, who came to help; but the first time she went down the turret stair into the cloister—a beautiful succession of arches round a green court—she met a novice and a girl about her own age; the elder gave a little scream at the sight and ran away.

The other hung back.  “Mary, come hither,” said Sister Avice.  “This is Grisell Dacre, who hath suffered so much.  Wilt thou not come and kiss and welcome her?”

Mary came forward rather reluctantly, but Grisell drew up her head within, “Oh, if you had liefer not!” and turned her back on the girl.

Sister Avice followed as Grisell walked away as fast as her weakness allowed, and found her sitting breathless at the third step on the stairs.

“Oh, no—go away—don’t bring her.  Every one will hate me,” sobbed the poor child.

Avice could only gather her into her arms, though embraces were against the strict rule of Benedictine nuns, and soothe and coax her to believe that by one at least she was not hated.

“I had forgotten,” said Grisell.  “I saw myself once at Amesbury! but my face was not well then.  Let me see again, sister!  Where’s a mirror?”

“Ah! my child, we nuns are not allowed the use of worldly things like mirrors; I never saw one in my life.”

“But oh, for pity’s sake, tell me what like am I.  Am I so loathly?”

“Nay, my dear maid, I love thee too well to think of aught save that thou art mine own little one, given back to us by the will of Heaven.  Aye, and so will others think of thee, if thou art good and loving to them.”

“Nay, nay, none will ever love me!  All will hate and flee from me, as from a basilisk or cockatrice, or the Loathly Worm of Spindlesheugh,” sobbed Grisell.

“Then, my maid, thou must win them back by thy sweet words and kind deeds.  They are better than looks.  And here too they shall soon think only of what thou art, not of what thou look’st.”

“But know you, sister, how—how I should have been married to Leonard Copeland, the very youth that did me this despite, and he is fair and beauteous as a very angel, and I did love him so, and now he and his father rid away from Amesbury, and left me because I am so foul to see,” cried Grisell, between her sobs.

“If they could treat thee thus despiteously, he would surely not have made thee a good husband,” reasoned the sister.

“But I shall never have a husband now,” wailed Grisell.

“Belike not,” said Sister Avice; “but, my sweetheart, there is better peace and rest and cheer in such a home as this holy house, than in the toils and labours of the world.  When my sisters at Dunbridge and Dinton come to see me they look old and careworn, and are full of tales of the turmoil and trouble of husbands, and sons, and dues, and tenants’ fees, and villeins, and I know not what, that I often think that even in this world’s sense I am the best off.  And far above and beyond that,” she added, in a low voice, “the virgin hath a hope, a Spouse beyond all human thought.”

Grisell did not understand the thought, and still wept bitterly.  “Must she be a nun all her life?” was all she thought of, and the shady cloister seemed to her like a sort of prison.  Sister Avice had to soothe and comfort her, till her tears were all spent, as so often before, and she had cried herself so ill that she had to be taken back to her bed and lie down again.  It was some days before she could be coaxed out again to encounter any companions.

However, as time went on, health, and with it spirits and life, came back to Grisell Dacre at Wilton, and she became accustomed to being with the other inmates of the fine old convent, as they grew too much used to her appearance to be startled or even to think about it.  The absence of mirrors prevented it from ever being brought before her, and Sister Avice set herself to teach her how goodness, sweetness, and kindness could endear any countenance, and indeed Grisell saw for herself how much more loved was the old and very plain Mother Anne than the very beautiful young Sister Isabel, who had been forced into the convent by her tyrannical brother, and wore out her life in fretting and rudeness to all who came in her way.  She declared that the sight of Grisell made her ill, and insisted that the veiled hood which all the girls wore should be pulled forward whenever they came near one another, and that Grisell’s place should be out of her sight in chapel or refectory.

Every one else, however, was very kind to the poor girl, Sister Avice especially so, and Grisell soon forgot her disfigurement when she ceased to suffer from it.  She had begun to learn reading, writing, and a little Latin, besides spinning, stitchery, and a few housewifely arts, in the Countess of Salisbury’s household, for every lady was supposed to be educated in these arts, and great establishments were schools for the damsels there bred up.  It was the same with convent life, and each nunnery had traditional works of its own, either in embroidery, cookery, or medicine.  Some secrets there were not imparted beyond the professed nuns, and only to the more trustworthy of them, so that each sisterhood might have its own especial glory in confections, whether in portrait-worked vestments, in illuminations, in sweetmeats, or in salves and unguents; but the pensioners were instructed in all those common arts of bakery, needlework, notability, and surgery which made the lady of a castle or manor so important, and within the last century in the more fashionable abbeys Latin of a sort, French “of the school of Stratford le Bowe,” and the like, were added.  Thus Grisell learnt as an apt scholar these arts, and took especial delight in helping Sister Avice to compound her simples, and acquired a tender hand with which to apply them.

Moreover, she learnt not only to say and sing her Breviary, but to know the signification in English.  There were translations of the Lord’s Prayer and Creed in the hands of all careful and thoughtful people, even among the poor, if they had a good parish priest, or had come under the influence of the better sort of friars.  In convents where discipline was kept up the meaning was carefully taught, and there were English primers in the hands of all the devout, so that the services could be intelligently followed even by those who did not learn Latin, as did Grisell.  Selections from Scripture history, generally clothed in rhyme, and versified lives of the Saints, were read aloud at meal-times in the refectory, and Grisell became so good a reader that she was often chosen to chant out the sacred story, and her sweet northern voice was much valued in the singing in the church.  She was quite at home there, and though too young to be admitted as a novice, she wore a black dress and white hood like theirs, and the annual gifts to the nunnery from the Countess of Salisbury were held to entitle her to the residence there as a pensioner.  She had fully accepted the idea of spending her life there, sheltered from the world, among the kind women whom she loved, and who had learnt to love her, and in devotion to God, and works of mercy to the sick.