beneath his white sheet, and Margery plucked two white roses from the
spray that straggled across his window, and laid them on the dead man’s
breast. So they left him, with the candle still burning out into the
dark.
* * * * *
“There was a horrible dread in St Radegund’s when, four days later,
sister Margery sickened of the pestilence; and it was worse when we
learnt soon after that Thomas Key was visited--then that he was dead.
That was the beginning of our sorrows. You have heard, Lady Prioress,
how three sisters died before August was out, how most of the others
deserted the house, and some never returned to it. Our prayers were
unheard, and to us who remained it seemed as if the saints slept, or
God were dead.
“So it happened that when the plague abated, and the first meeting
was held in St Radegund’s Chapter-house, about St Luke’s day in the
autumn, there were only three to attend it--the Prioress, the Sacrist
(Emma Denton), and Margery Cailly. For--wonderful it seems--Margery,
who least needed to live, was the one spared of those who were taken
with the pestilence. Presently some old sisters returned, and new
ones took the place of the departed. But the sword of the pestilence
cut off the memory of the old days, and the sins and sufferings, the
virtues and the victories of the former sisterhood were a forgotten
dream when the cloister filled again. So when Emma Denton passed into
her lethargy, and Margery Cailly earnestly petitioned to fill her place
in the Sacristy, there was not a sister to question her character and
devoutness.
“Not yesterday, but forty years ago, Margery Cailly passed out of life;
for you know that, save to me, she has spoken few words since. And
though I have waited on her for most of those years she never breathed
to me the name of Nicholas De Frevile, never hinted at the story of her
unhappy girlhood. But once in the springtime, just after she entered
her Sacrist prison-house, she entreated me to plant a white rose-bush
on the grave of the young priest of St Peter’s. I did so, and have
renewed it since, and one day, by your grace, I shall plant a spray
of the same roses where she lies apart from him. I have confessed my
wrong in stealing the key and bringing death into the cloister. If
you can forgive me, so; if not, all I ask is that you let your sinful
servant depart in peace.”
* * * * *
There is a curious aperture in the outer northern wall of the chancel
of the nuns’ church which is now Jesus College Chapel. If it is
examined its purpose is evident. It was the lychnoscope, through which
the Sacrist watched by night the light before the High Altar. It is the
sole abiding memorial of Margery Cailly, Sacrist of St Radegund.
[Illustration: Prosperum iter facias]
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Transcriber’s Notes
Errors in punctuation have been fixed.
Page 63: “My heart bleed” changed to “My heart bleeds”
Page 78: “pardonable strategem” changed to “pardonable stratagem”
Page 86: “I thing she” changed to “I think she”