A Dark Night Hidden Read Online Free PDF Page B

her. Then, just as she had settled on to her knees, the knock at the door had come. And Sister Ursel, the porteress, had announced that Father Micah was outside and wished to speak to her.
    ‘I have told him that it may not be convenient but—’
    ‘But I insisted,’ Father Micah interrupted, pushing Sister Ursel out of the way and entering the room. ‘Your prayers must wait, my lady Abbess, for I need to speak to you urgently.’
    Rising to her feet, Helewise had swallowed her annoyance and, with a smile, invited Father Micah to be seated.
    Standing before him – he had ignored the stool which Helewise kept for visitors and sat himself down in the Abbess’s own throne-like chair – she listened in growing incredulity as Father Micah divulged the nature of his urgent matter. Now, swallowing her growing anger, Helewise was finding it more and more of an effort to keep the smile on her face.
    For Father Micah’s discourteous interruption had been for nothing more grave than to inform her that he was in need of a housekeeper. ‘One of your nuns will do,’ he was saying with a wave of a long, bony hand. ‘Get her to come in once or twice a day. There is cleaning to be done and, for all that my appearance belies it, I have a good appetite and I need a woman who can cook a decent meal.’
    Helewise was speechless. Biting down the angry retort – that her nuns had their own duties, thank you very much, and it was up to Father Micah to see to his domestic arrangements – she reflected how very, very sorry she was that poor Father Gilbert had broken his ankle and dumped this ghastly replacement on the Hawkenlye community. For a moment Father Gilbert’s kindly face swam into her mind; he had struggled down to the small pond near to his house to break the ice and allow the birds to drink. Then, turning to go back inside, he had fallen heavily on the rock-hard ground. As well as the broken ankle, he had given himself a severe concussion.
    His benign image helped her to reply politely, ‘My nuns have work enough here, Father Micah, but perhaps I can find someone in the neighbourhood who will be able to cook and clean for you—’
    ‘I’m not having some slut of a girl with dirt under her fingernails and lust in her heart!’
    ‘I would not recommend such a girl, even if I knew of one.’ Helewise kept her tone level.
    Father Micah was looking suspiciously at her. ‘I don’t want one of those whores you tend in your house of fallen women, either,’ he went on, as if she had not spoken.
    That idea was so inconceivable that Helewise almost laughed. ‘Quite so, Father,’ she murmured. ‘It would not be suitable at all.’
    ‘They are evil in God’s sight,’ the priest declaimed, ‘and by their foul and unnatural behaviour they lead good men into sin!’
    Helewise, who had always considered that it was at least as much the other way round, wisely kept her peace. It was not the moment – if moment there ever would be – to remind the Father that many women were driven to prostitution as the only alternative to death by starvation. Which, while it might be acceptable to a woman on her own, with only herself to worry about, was certainly not an option when she had a child or two to feed.
    And, anyway, was mankind not taught that their God was a God of love, and that He forgave those who repented of their sins?
    Listening to Father Micah – he had taken the opportunity to launch out into a vicious diatribe against women who turned men’s eyes, heads and hearts from where they should be, rapt in the contemplation of the Lord – Helewise admitted to herself how much she disliked him.
    And that, she well knew, was going to be very awkward since, all the time Father Gilbert lay incapacitated in his bed, Father Micah was her confessor.
    Oh, dear Father Gilbert, she pleaded silently, come back to us soon! How am I to manage with this cold substitute, who stares at me as if he hates me and who is as likely to understand