Girl In A Red Tunic Read Free

her as a desk and she had to labour long into the night to catch up. Then she would drag herself to bed, exhausted with the work and the emotional strain, hoping against hope that the dream would not come back.
         But it did.
         Not every night; sometimes she would wake refreshed and filled with hope. But then, the next night or the one after that, those powerful, emotional images would be there again and all the things that she was trying so hard not to think about – had no right to think about, having forfeited that dubious pleasure when she left the outside world and became a nun! – would come crashing back.
     
    Now, sitting at her table with one of the Abbey’s huge account ledgers before her, she sat deep in thought, distracted, studying the end of her stylus with unfocused eyes. Her feet were numb. It was a bright November day but the lack of cloud had allowed the cold to penetrate. Usually one of her nuns would slip into her chilly little room at the end of the cloister with a hot stone wrapped in flannel, but she had discreetly ordered them not to; suffering feet like ice was part of her self-imposed penance.
         I must bring myself to speak to Father Gilbert again, she told herself firmly. It is no good continuing to try on my own – I need help. Perhaps if I tell him about my dreams and why it is they disturb me so, he will talk it all over with me and rid me of my problem.
         She went on sitting there.
         Yes. I’ll go and see Father Gilbert straight away.
         She did not move.
         Then, with a gesture of despair, she flung down her stylus, folded her arms across the great ledger and dropped her head. In a fierce whisper, she muttered, ‘Oh, how I wish Josse were here!’
         But Josse, as she well knew, was far away.
     
    In the afternoon she begged a basket of dainties from Sister Basilia in the refectory and set out for Father Gilbert’s modest little house. It was quite a walk and she threw herself into the exercise, shoulders back, basket held firmly in one hand and the other arm swinging powerfully. Her numb feet grew warm and soon the heavy woollen cloak that Sister Euphemia in the infirmary had insisted she wear began to make her sweat. As she marched, puffing slightly, she rehearsed what she would say to the Father.
         After trying out several different approaches, each of which sounded as contrived as the rest, she decided that the only thing to do was to give him the unadorned truth.
         Which, a short time later, blushing and hesitating in so uncharacteristic a manner that Father Gilbert was gravely concerned for her, she did.
     
    Father Gilbert walked with her back to the Abbey. They had been talking for what felt like hours and Helewise was feeling a great deal of relief; after her initial awkwardness, the Father’s sympathetic ear had made her confession relatively easy. Filled with a new hope that her dreams really would go away now and leave her in peace to do her best in this life that she had chosen, she would have broken into a run from sheer happiness had Father Gilbert not been with her.
         As they went in through the Abbey gates, Sister Ursel, the porteress, was greeting some visitors. They were a group of three: a young man, a pale-faced, nervy looking woman and a child of about a year. Father Gilbert went forward to greet them. It did not often happen that he was in the Abbey when visitors arrived and he intended to make the most of the opportunity to hear news of the world outside his own small domain. He turned to Helewise, saying, ‘My lady Abbess, come and speak to the newcomers and—’
         But the words died on his lips. Helewise, her face even paler than that of the young woman now being helped down from her horse, was staring with fixed eyes at the young man. He was staring right back and, for anyone sufficiently observant to notice, there was a remarkable similarity between the two pairs of eyes.