Gosford's Daughter by Mary Daheim

Author:Mary Daheim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: algorithm
Publisher: Camel Press

PART THREE

1589

Chapter 17

The heavy scent of lilacs mingled with the acrid odor of a hundred candles in the small stone chapel of the Dominican convent at Le Petit Andely. Through narrow windows wrought in exquisite stained glass, the morning sun cast a warm glow over the community as its members chanted Terce in Latin. In a pew near the back of the chapel, Sorcha knelt with Rosmairi, whose profile was all but hidden by the postulant’s white flared coif.

The rustle of linen habits and the soft slapping of sandals on the stone floor were the only sounds when the service ended. Sorcha watched the nuns file out in decorous silence, then moved into line with Rosmairi behind the others.

Outside the chapel’s arched entrance, Sorcha took a deep breath of the fragrant spring air and sighed. Beyond the lovingly tended garden of vegetables, herbs, and flowers stood the guest house with its slanting roof. Sorcha had resided there for over a year in a small, sparsely furnished room that looked out on the River Seine and across to the village of Le Petit Andely. She had come to the convent to keep her sister company while Rosmairi grappled with the festering wound of her aborted romance with George Gordon. Yet if Rosmairi found balm at Sainte Vierge des Andelys, Sorcha had few illusions about the religious life providing a solution to her own problems. Gavin Napier was the only answer, and Sorcha refused to believe she could ever find happiness without him.

Still, she found a measure of tranquility within the convent walls. Sainte Vierge des Andelys had been built on a small wooded island in the middle of the languorous Seine, giving the holy refuge an air of peaceful isolation.

Rosmairi was bending down to scold Marcel, an ill-natured goose that constantly bedeviled the convent's other geese and chickens. At eighteen, Rosmairi’s soft features had turned more angular. If she had been a pretty child, she was growing into a beautiful woman. But the red-gold hair was hidden under a coif, the gracefully rounded body was concealed by a white linen habit, and even her perfect complexion was less remarkable without color to enhance it.

“Ah, your sister, she is the only one to make Marcel behave,’’ said a droll voice just behind Sorcha. Mother Honorine’s bowed upper lip smiled in a curious way that revealed only her two large front teeth. She paused, regarding Sorcha with a frank, yet confidential gaze. “It would seem Rosmairi has put misfortune behind her.”

Sorcha turned pensive eyes on Rosmairi, who had joined one of the other postulants to scoop handfuls of grain from a sturdy wooden tub. “I pray she has,” replied Sorcha with more fervor than conviction. “She rarely speaks of the past.”

The bowed lips relaxed into a less jocular, though pleasant, expression. “Praise the Lord you two are so close. It must be a comfort.”

A sidelong glance revealed to Sorcha that Mother Honorine wore no pious demeanor, nor rolled her eyes heavenward in the assumption that the Bon Dieu was nodding approval of her comments.

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