The Abbess’s Prayers
Sister Philippa looks dazedly around her. “Sisters,” she says, “you all saw! You all saw the sign we were given! ”
Sister Agnes, the granddaughter of a duke, laughs. “Sister Philippa,” she says, “I can assure you that I did not see the sign.”
“Nor I,” Sister Anne, the daughter of a viscomte says.
“Nor I,” says Sister Eleanor, like Sister Philippa—and Sister Sebastienne, too- the daughter of a mere knight.
“But you did, Sister Agnes, and you too, Sisters Anne and Eleanor,” says Sister Philippa, all anxious protest and stubborn insistence. “You did see the sign! In the dream it was-”
“Silence! ” the Prioress says sharply. “It is forbidden to talk idly at any time of the day or night. If there is to be discussion of this matter, it will take place in Chapter, as the Abbess directs.”
The Prioress snuffs the candle, and dark and silence return to the dormitory. Sister Sebastienne thinks of the tomb and shivers. Night in the dormitory has been disturbed, as though the heavy, stifling, icy dark of the Oratory has crept up the stairs and penetrated the dormitory. In her thoughts there is only the tomb and the awful, dread-filled sense of God’s cold demands on his brides. The sister feels strangely like crying, though no tears fill her eyes much less touch her cheeks. Sister Philippa’s a silly old hag, she tells herself. But it is not the dream or Sister Philippa’s high, quavery voice that she is really thinking about, but the tomb, the tomb now holding the Master’s bones.
6.
That morning, as they are performing the office of Prime, Sister Agathe is taken by a fit of hiccoughs that mars the perfection of the psalm. She leaves the Oratory, but the damage has been done.
Later, as Sister Agathe chastises herself for her sin, Sister Philippa is heard to say that the devil found his way in, even into the holiest of places, the very house of God, through their lack of attention to the sign given them. “Nonsense,” the infirmarian says briskly. “Sister Agathe simply ate the morning gruel too quickly. She should have known better.”
7.
In Chapter, the Abbess neither questions Sister Philippa about her dream nor introduces the subject for discussion. She asks the Prioress, who has a strong, steady voice, to read yet another of the Master’s sermons, which everyone knows the Abbess esteems highly.
Afterwards, when dismissing the sisters, she gestures slightly to Sister Sebastienne. When the novices and other sisters have gone, the Abbess says, “The Porteress tells me you’ve received another letter from Brother Laudri.”
Sister Sebastienne’s heart pounds; she flushes. Has all been lost? She pales—and acknowledges to the Abbess that she has indeed done so.
“I do not ask to see it,” the Abbess says. Her fine, high forehead remains smooth, her voice light and even. “I’m sure that if you perceive a reason for my reading it, you will tell me.”
Sister Sebastienne bows her head. Her breath expels all at once, and she realizes she’s been holding it.
