Chapter Thirty Five.
Nobody left for Cissy.
“Please, Dorothy, what’s become of Rose Allen? and Bessy Foulkes? and Mistress Mount, and all of them?”
“All gone, my dear heart—all with thy father.”
“Are they all gone?” said Cissy with another sob, “Isn’t there one left?”
“Not one of them.”
“Then if we came out, we shouldn’t find nobody?”
“Prithee reckon not, Cicely,” said the nun, “that thou art likely to come out. There is no such likelihood at all whilst our good Queen reigneth; and if it please God, she shall have a son after her that shall be true to the Catholic faith, as she is, and not suffer evil courses and naughty heretics to be any more in the realm. Ye will abide here till it be plainly seen whether God shall grant to thee and thy sister the grace of a vocation; and if not, it shall be well seen to that ye be in care of good Catholic folk, that shall look to it ye go in the right way. So prithee, suffer not thy fancy to deceive thee with any thought of going forth of this house of religion. When matters be somewhat better established, and the lands whereof the Church hath been robbed are given back to her, and all the religious put back in their houses, or new ones built, then will England be an Isle of Saints as in olden time, and men may rejoice thereat.”
Cissy listened to this long speech, which she only understood in part, but she gathered that the nuns meant to keep her a prisoner as long as they could.
“But Sister Joan,” said she, “you don’t know, do you, what God is going to do? Perhaps he will give us another good king or queen, like King Edward. I ask Him to do, every day. But, please, what is a vocation?”
“Thou dost, thou wicked maid? I never heard thee.”
“But I don’t ask you, Sister Joan. I ask God. And I think He’ll do it, too. What is a vocation, please?”
“What I’m afeared thou wilt never have, thou sinful heretic child—the call to become a holy Sister.”
“Who is to call me? I am a sister now; I’m Will’s and Baby’s sister. Nobody can’t call me to be a sister to nobody else,” said Cissy, getting very negative in her earnestness.
Sister Joan rose from her seat. “The time is up,” said she. “Say farewell to thy friend.”
“Farewell, Dorothy dear,” said Cissy, clinging to the one person she knew, who seemed to belong to her past, as she never would have thought of doing to Dorothy Denny in bygone days. “Please give Mistress Wade my duty, when she comes home, and say I’m trying to do as Father bade me, and I’ll never, never believe nothing he told me not. You see they couldn’t do nothing to me save burn me, as they did Father, and then I should go to Father, and all would be right directly. It’s much better for them all that they are safe there, and I’ll try to be glad—thought here’s nobody left for me. Father’ll have company: I must try and think of that. I thought he’d find nobody he knew but Mother, but if they’ve all gone too, there’ll be plenty. And I suppose there’ll be some holy angels to look after us, because God isn’t gone away, you see: He’s there and here too. He’ll help me still to look after Will and Baby, now I haven’t”—a sob interrupted the words—“haven’t got Father. Good-bye, Dolly! Kiss me, please. Nobody never kisses me now.”
“Thou poor little dear!” cried Dorothy, fairly melted, and sobbing over Cissy as she gave her half-a-dozen kisses at least. “The Lord bless thee, and be good to thee! I’m sure He’ll take proper vengeance on every body as isn’t. I wouldn’t like to be them as ill-used thee. They’ll have a proper bill to pay in the next world, if they don’t get it in this. Poor little pretty dear!”
“You will drink a cup of ale and eat a manchet?” asked Sister Joan of Dorothy.
A manchet was a cake of the best bread.
“No, I thank you, Sister, I am not a-hungered,” was the answer.
“But, Dolly, you did not come all the way from Colchester?” said Cissy.
“Ay, I did so, my dear, in the miller’s cart, and I’m journeying back in the same. I covenanted to meet him down at the end of yonder lane at three o’clock, and methinks I had best be on my way.”
“Ay, you have no time to lose,” responded Sister Joan.
Dorothy found Mr Ewring waiting for her at the end of the lane.
“Have you had to eat, Dorothy?” was his first question when she had climbed up beside him.
“Never a bite or sup in that house, Master, I thank you,” was Dorothy’s rejoinder. “If I’d been starving o’ hunger, I wouldn’t have touched a thing.”
“Have you seen the children?”
“I’ve seen Cissy. That was enough and to spare.”
“What do they with her?”
“They are working hard with both hands to make an angel of her at the soonest—that’s what they are doing. It’s not what they mean to do. They want to make her a devil, or one of the devil’s children, which comes to the same thing: but the Lord ’ll not suffer that, or I’m a mistaken woman. They are trying to bend her, and they never will. She’ll break first. So they’ll break her, and then there’ll be no more they can do. That’s about where it is, Master Ewring.”
“Why, Dorothy, I never saw you thus stirred aforetime.”
“Maybe not. It takes a bit to stir me, but I’ve got it this even, I can tell you.”
“I could well-nigh mistake you for Mistress Wade,” said Mr Ewring with a smile.
“Eh, poor Mistress! but if she could see that poor little dear, it would grieve her to her heart. Master Ewring, how long will the Lord bear with these sons of Satan!”
“Ah, Dorothy, that’s more than you or I can tell. ‘Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried’: that is all we know.”
“How much is many?” asked Dorothy almost bitterly.
“Not one too many,” said the miller gravely: “and not one too few. We are called to wait until our brethren be accomplished that shall suffer. It may be shorter than we think. But, Dorothy, who set you among the prophets? I rather thought you had not over much care for such things.”
“Master Ewring, I’ve heard say that when a soldier’s killed in battle, another steppeth up behind without delay to fill his place. There’s some places wants filling at Colchester, where the firing’s been fierce of late: and when most of the old warriors be killed, they’ll be like to fill the ranks up with new recruits. And if they be a bit awkward, and don’t step just up to pace, maybe they’ll learn by and by, and meantime the others must have patience.”
“The Lord perfect that which concerneth thee!” said the miller, with much feeling. “Dorothy, was your mistress not desirous to have brought up these little ones herself?”
“She was so, Master Ewring, and I would with all my heart she could. Poor little dears!”
“I would have taken the lad, if it might have been compassed, when he was a bit older, and have bred him up to my own trade. The maids should have done better with good Mistress Wade.”
“Eh, Master, little Cicely’s like to dwell in other keeping than either, and that’s with her good father and mother above.”
“The Lord’s will be done!” responded Mr Ewring. “If so be, she at least will have little sorrow.”