The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters Page A

turned her thoughts again towards the cloister.
    Sister Magdalen was sitting on a cushioned bench beside the unshuttered window in Judith’s small private chamber, broad, composed and placid in her black habit. Agatha had brought her fruit and wine, and left her to herself, for she went in some awe of her. Judith sat down beside her visitor.
    “Cadfael has told me,” said the nun simply, “what ails you, and what you have confided to him. God forbid I should press you one way or the other, for in the end the decision is yours to make, and no other can make it for you. I am taking into account how grievous your losses have been.”
    “I envy you,” said Judith, looking down into her linked hands. “You are kind, and I am sure you are wise and strong. I do not believe I am now any of these things, and it is tempting to lean upon someone who is. Oh, I do live, I do work, I have not abandoned house, or kinsfolk, or duties. Yet all this could as well go on without me. My cousin has just shown me as much by denying it. It would be a most welcome refuge, to have a vocation elsewhere.”
    “Which you have not,” said Sister Magdalen shrewdly, “or you could not have said that.” Her sudden smile was like a ray of warmth, and the dimple that darted in and out of her cheek sparkled and was gone.
    “No. Brother Cadfael said as much. He said the religious life should not be embraced as a second-best, but only as the best—not a hiding-place, but a passion.”
    “He would be hard put to it to apply that to me,” said Sister Magdalen bluntly. “But neither do I recommend to others what I myself do. If truth be told, I am no example to any woman. I took what I chose, I have still some years of life in which to pay for it. And if the debt is not discharged by then, I’ll pay the balance after, ungrudging. But you have incurred no such debt, and I do not think you should. The price comes high. You, I judge, will do better to wait, and spend your substance for something different.”
    “I know of nothing,” said Judith bleakly, after a long moment of thought, “that I find worth buying in this world now. But you and Brother Cadfael are right, if I took the veil I should be hiding behind a lie. All I covet in the cloister is the quiet, and the wall around me, keeping the world out.”
    “Bear in mind, then,” said the nun emphatically, “that our doors are not closed against any woman in need, and the quiet is not reserved for those who have taken vows. The time may come when you truly need a place to be apart, time for thought and rest, even time to recover lost courage, though of that I think you have enough. I said I would not advise, and I am advising. Wait, bear with things as they are. But if ever you need a place to hide, for a little while or a long while, come to Godric’s Ford and bring all your frets in with you, and you shall find a refuge for as long as you need, with no vows taken, never unless you come to it with a whole heart. And I will keep the door against the world until you see fit to go forth again.”
     
    Late after supper that night, in the small manor-house of Pulley, in the open scrubland fringes of the Long Forest, Niall opened the outer door of his brother-in-law’s timber hall, and looked out into the twilight that was just deepening into night. He had a walk of three miles or so before him, back to his house in the Foregate of the town, but it was a familiar and pleasant walk in fair weather, and he was accustomed to making the trip two or three times in the week after work, and home in the early dark, to be up and at work again betimes in the morning. But on this night he saw with some surprise that there was a steady rain falling, so quietly and straightly that within the house they had been quite unaware of it.
    “Bide overnight,” said his sister at his shoulder. “No need to get wet through, and this won’t last the night out.”
    “I don’t mind it,” said Niall simply. “I