The Mercy Seller: A Novel by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

Author:Brenda Rickman Vantrease [Vantrease, Brenda Rickman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 14th Century, England/Great Britain, Fiction - Historical, Faith & Religion, Writing
ISBN: 978-0312331931
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 2007-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

In His love He clothes us, enfolds us and embraces us;

that tender love completely surrounds us, never to

leave us …

—JULIAN OF NORWICH,

REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE

Reverend Mother, you said to call you at nones.”

The voice beyond the thick oak door was soft and muffled and accompanied by a diffident knock.

“Thank you,” the abbess called, then listened for the receding footfalls. A light tread. Probably one of the novices.

I should not have sent her away. Not without opening the door. Not without inviting her in and listening to the loneliness that always shadowed the young ones. I am mother to them now.

But she hated it when they called her “mother,” she who was so unworthy of the title. Perhaps they were too near the age of that other girl who had once looked upon her as “mother.” Perhaps there was too much pain of memory there.

The abbess knew she was regarded among the novices and younger sisters as formidable, both in tone and aspect. The tone she tried to change, making efforts to praise the sisters when praise was called for and scolding softly when they neglected their duties, as young girls—even young girls who are to be wed to Christ—were wont to do. But the aspect she could not change. The face veil would not be lifted. She would not bare her marred face even for these, her spiritual daughters. With the death of her old servant who had fled the fire with her, more than knowledge of the abbess’s ruined face had passed. The last vestige of an abandoned life had died with the old cook of Blackingham Hall. Or so the abbess thought. But that was ten years gone and memories swirled within each shaft of autumn light shooting through her chamber window.

The Reverend Mother laid down her pen. Her hands trembled with fatigue. Laborare est orare. To work is to pray. And she had labored these thirty years. Pages of Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love were spread out on the desk in front of her. These, thankfully, she did not have to copy in the tedious Latin or even translate into English because they were written in English, and thankfully also they were not contraband. Somehow, the holy woman of Norwich had maintained that fine balance between orthodoxy and heresy, clinging to the former while courting the latter.

Safe works such as these the abbess usually gave to the nuns whose loyalty she questioned—such as Sister Agatha. But Sister Agatha had been consigned to the kitchen garden for a spell and there was a commission for a copy of the work—a particularly fine copy. (The abbess sometimes marveled at the miracle of her steady hand despite her age. Surely a gift from God.) The abbey needed the money, and at this particular season in her soul, she needed the comforting words.

“All will be well,” the anchoress of Norwich had written. “All will be well,” the last words the abbess had copied, lay now beneath her quill. She prayed it would be so.

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