“These holy sisters would have speech of the Lady,” explained Bertram. “May the same be?”
Certainly it might, so far as Constance was concerned. She was so weary of her isolation that she would have welcomed even the Duchess Joan. She bade the immediate admission of the nuns, who were evidently provided with permission from the authorities. They were both tall women, but with that item the likeness began and ended. One was a fair-complexioned woman of forty years,—stern-looking, spare, haggard-faced,—in whose cold blue eyes there might be intelligence, but there was no warmth of human kindness. The other was a comfortable-looking girl of eighteen, rosy-cheeked, with dark eyes and hair.
“Christ save you, holy sisters!” said Constance as they approached her. “Ye be of these parts, trow?”
“Nay,” answered the younger nun, “we be of the House of Minoresses beyond Aldgate; and though thine eyes have not told thee so much, Custance, I am Isabel of Pleshy.”
“Lady Isabel of Pleshy! Be right welcome, fair cousin mine!”
Isabel was the youngest daughter of that Duke of Gloucester who had been for so many years the evil angel of King and realm. Constance had not seen her since childhood, so that it was no wonder that she failed to recognise her. Meanwhile Maude had turned courteously to the elder nun.
“Pray you, take the pain to sit in the window.”
“I never sit,” replied the nun in a harsh, rasping voice.
“Truly, that is more than I could say,” observed Maude with a smile. “Shall it like you to drink a draught of small ale?”
“I never drink ale.”