The King's Daughters Part 33

"What do you want, good woman?"

"Please you, Madam, I cry you mercy for troubling of you, but if I might speak a word with the dear child--"

"What dear child?" asked the nun placidly.

Dorothy's fright grew. Were they going to deny Cissy to her, or even to say that she was not there?

"Please you, good Sister, I mean little Cis--Cicely Johnson, an' it like you, that I was sent to with a message from my mistress, the hostess of the King's Head in Colchester."

"Cicely Johnson is not now at liberty. You can give the message to me."

"May I wait till I can see her?"

Plainly, Dorothy was no unfaithful messenger when her own comfort only was to be sacrificed. Sister Mary considered a moment; and then said she would see if Cicely could be allowed to have an interview with her visitor. Bidding Dorothy sit down, she left the room.

For quite an hour Dorothy sat waiting, until she began to think the nuns must have forgotten her existence, and to look about for some means of reminding them of it. There were no bells in sitting-rooms at that time, except in the form of a little hand-bell on a table, and for this last Dorothy searched in vain. Then she tried to go out into the pa.s.sage, in the hope of seeing somebody; but she was terrified to find herself locked in. She did not know what to do. The window was barred with an iron grating; there was no escape that way. Poor Dorothy began to wonder whether, if she found herself a prisoner, she could contrive to climb the chimney, and what would become of her after doing so, when she heard at last the welcome sound of approaching steps, and the key was turned in the lock. The next minute Cissy was in Dorothy's arms.

"O Dorothy! dear Dorothy! tell me quick--Father--" Cissy could get no further.

"He is at rest, my dear heart, and shall die no more."

Cissy was not able to answer for the sobs that choked her voice, and Dorothy smoothed her hair and petted her.

"Nay, grieve not thus, sweet heart," she said.

"Oh no, it is so wicked of me!" sobbed poor Cissy. "I thought I should have been so glad for Father: and I can only think of me and the children. We've got no father now!"

"Nay, my dear heart, thou hast as much as ever thou hadst. He is only gone upstairs and left you down. He isn't dead, little Cissy: he's alive in a way he never was before, and he shall live for ever and ever."

Neither Dorothy nor Cissy had noticed that a nun had entered with her, and they were rather startled to hear a voice out of the dark corner by the door.

"Take heed, good woman, how thou learn the child such errors. That is only true of great saints; and the man of whom you speak was a wicked heretic."

"I know not what sort of folks your saints are," said Dorothy bravely: "but my saints are folks that love G.o.d and desire to please Him, and that John Johnson was, if ever a man were in this evil world. An _evil_ tree cannot bring forth good fruit."

The nun crossed herself, but she did not answer.

"It would be as well if folks would be content to set the bad folks in prison, and let the good ones be," said Dorothy. "Cissy, our mistress is up to London to the Bishop."

"Will they do somewhat to her?"

"G.o.d knoweth!" said Dorothy, shaking her head sorrowfully. "I shall be fain if I may see her back; oh, I shall!"

"Oh, I hope they won't!" said Cissy, her eyes filling again with tears.

"I love Mistress Wade."

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

n.o.bODY 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 n.o.body?"

"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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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.

n.o.body can't call me to be a sister to n.o.body 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 n.o.body left for me. Father'll have company: I must try and think of that. I thought he'd find n.o.body 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 G.o.d 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. n.o.body 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.