PARTING
There in the holy house at Almesbury
Weeping, none with her save a little maid.
TENNYSON, _Idylls of the King_.
THE agitations of that day had made Grisell so much worse that her mind
hardly awoke again to anything but present suffering from fever, and in
consequence the aggravation of the wounds on her neck and cheek. She
used to moan now and then “Don’t take me away!” or cower in terror, “She
is coming!” being her cry, or sometimes “So foul and loathly.” She hung
again between life and death, and most of those around thought death
would be far better for the poor child, but the Countess and the Chaplain
still held to the faith that she must be reserved for some great purpose
if she survived so much.
Great families with all their train used to move from one castle or manor
to another so soon as they had eaten up all the produce of one place, and
the time had come when the Nevils must perforce quit Amesbury. Grisell
was in no state for a long journey; she was exceedingly weak, and as fast
as one wound in her face and neck healed another began to break out, so
that often she could hardly eat, and whether she would ever have the use
of her left eye was doubtful.
Master Miles was at his wits’ end, Maudlin was weary of waiting on her,
and so in truth was every one except the good Countess, and she could not
always be with the sufferer, nor could she carry such a patient to
London, whither her lord was summoned to support his brother-in-law, the
Duke of York, against the Duke of Somerset.
The only delay was caused by the having to receive the newly-appointed
Bishop, Richard Beauchamp, who had been translated from his former see at
Hereford on the murder of his predecessor, William Ayscough, by some of
Jack Cade’s party.
In full splendour he came, with a train of chaplains and cross-bearers,
and the clergy of Salisbury sent a deputation to meet him, and to arrange
with him for his reception and installation. It was then that the
Countess heard that there was a nun at Wilton Abbey so skilled in the
treatment of wounds and sores that she was thought to work miracles,
being likewise a very holy woman.
The Earl and Countess would accompany the new bishop to be present at his
enthronement and the ensuing banquet, and the lady made this an
opportunity of riding to the convent on her way back, consulting the
Abbess, whom she had long known, and likewise seeing Sister Avice, and
requesting that her poor little guest might be received and treated
there.
There was no chance of a refusal, for the great nobles were sovereigns in
their own domains; the Countess owned half Wiltshire, and was much loved
and honoured in all the religious houses for her devotion and
beneficence.
The nuns were only too happy to undertake to receive the demoiselle
Grisell Dacre of Whitburn, or any other whom my Lady Countess would
entrust to them, and the Abbess had no doubt that Sister Avice could
effect a cure.
Lady Salisbury dreaded that Grisell should lie awake all night crying, so
she said nothing till her whirlicote, as the carriage of those days was
called, was actually being prepared, and then she went to the chamber
where the poor child had spent five months, and where she was now sitting
dressed, but propped up on a sort of settle, and with half her face still
bandaged.
“My little maid, this is well,” said the Countess. “Come with me. I am
going to take thee to a kind and holy dame who will, I trust, with the
blessing of Heaven, be able to heal thee better than we have done.”
“Oh, lady, lady, do not send me away!” cried Grisell; “not from you and
Madge.”
“My child, I must do so; I am going away myself, with my lord, and Madge
is to go back with her brother to her father the Duke. Thou couldst not
brook the journey, and I will take thee myself to the good Sister Avice.”
“A nun, a nunnery,” sighed Grisell. “Oh! I shall be mewed up there and
never come forth again! Do not, I pray, do not, good my lady, send me
thither!”
Perhaps my lady thought that to remain for life in a convent might be the
fate, and perhaps the happiest, of the poor blighted girl, but she only
told her that there was no reason she should not leave Wilton, as she was
not put there to take the vows, but only to be cured.
Long nursing had made Grisell unreasonable, and she cried as much as she
dared over the order; but no child ventured to make much resistance to
elders in those days, and especially not to the Countess, so Grisell, a
very poor little wasted being, was carried down, and only delayed in the
hall for an affectionate kiss from Margaret of York.
“And here is a keepsake, Grisell,” she said. “Mine own beauteous pouncet
box, with the forget-me-nots in turquoises round each little hole.”
“I will keep it for ever,” said Grisell, and they parted, but not as
girls part who hope to meet again, and can write letters constantly, but
with tearful eyes and clinging hands, as little like to meet again, or
even to hear more of one another.
The whirlicote was not much better than an ornamental waggon, and Lady
Salisbury, with the Mother of the Maids, did their best to lessen the
force of the jolts as by six stout horses it was dragged over the chalk
road over the downs, passing the wonderful stones of Amesbury—a wider
circle than even Stonehenge, though without the triliths, _i.e._ the
stones laid one over the tops of the other two like a doorway. Grisell
heard some thing murmured about Merlin and Arthur and Guinevere, but she
did not heed, and she was quite worn out with fatigue by the time they
reached the descent into the long smooth valley where Wilton Abbey stood,
and the spire of the Cathedral could be seen rising tall and beautiful.
The convent lay low, among meadows all shut in with fine elm trees, and
the cows belonging to the sisters were being driven home, their bells
tinkling. There was an outer court, within an arched gate kept by a
stout porter, and thus far came the whirlicote and the Countess’s
attendants; but a lay porteress, in a cap and veil and black dress, came
out to receive her as the door of the carriage was opened, and held out
her arms to receive the muffled figure of the little visitor. “Ah, poor
maid,” she said, “but Sister Avice will soon heal her.”
At the deeply ornamented round archway of the inner gate to the
cloistered court stood the Lady Abbess, at the head of all her sisters,
drawn up in double line to receive the Countess, whom they took to their
refectory and to their chapel.
Of this, however, Grisell saw nothing, for she had been taken into the
arms of a tall nun in a black veil. At first she shuddered and would
have screamed if she had been a little stronger and less tired, for
illness and weakness had brought back the babyish horror of anything
black; but she felt soothed by the sweet voice and tender words, “Poor
little one! she is fore spent. She shall lie down on a soft bed, and
have some sweet milk anon.”
Still a deadly feeling of faintness came upon her before she had been
carried to the little bed which had been made ready for her. When she
opened her eyes, while a spoon was held to her lips, the first thing she
saw was the sweetest, calmest, most motherly of faces bent over her, one
arm round her, the other giving her the spoon of some cordial. She
looked up and even smiled, though it was a sad contorted smile, which
brought a tear into the good sister’s eyes; but then she fell asleep, and
only half awoke when the Countess came up to see her for the last time,
and bade her farewell with a kiss on her forehead, and a charge to Sister
Avice to watch her well, and be tender with her. Indeed no one could
look at Sister Avice’s gentle face and think there was much need of the
charge.
Sister Avice was one of the women who seem to be especially born for the
gentlest tasks of womanhood. She might have been an excellent wife and
mother, but from the very hour of her birth she had been vowed to be a
nun in gratitude on her mother’s part for her father’s safety at
Agincourt. She had been placed at Wilton when almost a baby, and had
never gone farther from it than on very rare occasions to the Cathedral
at Salisbury; but she had grown up with a wonderful instinct for nursing
and healing, and had a curious insight into the properties of herbs, as
well as a soft deft hand and touch, so that for some years she had been
sister infirmarer, and moreover the sick were often brought to the gates
for her counsel, treatment, or, as some believed, even her healing touch.
When Grisell awoke she was alone in the long, large, low room, which was
really built over the Norman cloister. The walls were of pale creamy
stone, but at the end where she lay there were hangings of faded
tapestry. At one end there was a window, through the thick glass of
which could be dimly seen, as Grisell raised herself a little, beautiful
trees, and the splendid spire of the Cathedral rising, as she dreamily
thought, like a finger pointing upwards. Nearer were several more narrow
windows along the side of the room, and that beside her bed had the
lattice open, so that she saw a sloping green bank, with a river at the
foot; and there was a trim garden between. Opposite to her there seemed
to be another window with a curtain drawn across it, through which came
what perhaps had wakened her, a low, clear murmuring tone, pausing and
broken by the full, sweet, if rather shrill response in women’s voices.
Beneath that window was a little altar, with a crucifix and two
candlesticks, a holy-water stoup by the side, and there was above the
little deep window a carving of the Blessed Virgin with the Holy Child,
on either side a niche, one with a figure of a nun holding a taper, the
other of a bishop with a book.
Grisell might have begun crying again at finding herself alone, but the
sweet chanting lulled her, and she lay back on her pillows, half dozing
but quite content, except that the wound on her neck felt stiff and dry;
and by and by when the chanting ceased, the kind nun, with a lay sister,
came back again carrying water and other appliances, at sight of which
Grisell shuddered, for Master Miles never touched her without putting her
to pain.
“_Benedicite_, my little maid, thou art awake,” said Sister Avice. “I
thought thou wouldst sleep till the vespers were ended. Now let us dress
these sad wounds of thine, and thou shalt sleep again.”
Grisell submitted, as she knew she must, but to her surprise Sister
Avice’s touch was as soft and soothing as were her words, and the
ointment she applied was fragrant and delicious and did not burn or hurt
her.
She looked up gratefully, and murmured her thanks, and then the evening
meal was brought in, and she sat up to partake of it on the seat of the
window looking out on the Cathedral spire. It was a milk posset far more
nicely flavoured than what she had been used to at Amesbury, where, in
spite of the Countess’s kindness, the master cook had grown tired of any
special service for the Dacre wench; and unless Margaret of York secured
fruit for her, she was apt to be regaled with only the scraps that
Maudlin managed to cater for her after the meals were over.
After that, Sister Avice gently undressed her, took care that she said
her prayers, and sat by her till she fell asleep, herself telling her
that she should sleep beside her, and that she would hear the voices of
the sisters singing in the chapel their matins and lauds. Grisell did
hear them, as in a dream, but she had not slept so well since her
disaster as she slept on that night.