Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(163)
“Stop! Arrêtez! Please stop!”
Her mother stopped, gasping for breath, looking up at her. “Est-ce qu’il vous a envoyé? Raphael L’Archange? êtes-vous l’un des siens?” “Did he send you? Raphael the archangel? Are you his?” Her voice quivered, but she had calmed a little; she wasn’t struggling, and Minnie cautiously let go.
“No, no one sent me,” she said, as soothingly as possible. “I came on my own, to visit you.” Groping for something else to say, she blurted, “Je m’appelle Minerve.”
Emmanuelle’s face went quite blank.
What is it? Does she know that name? Mrs. Simpson hadn’t said whether her mother might know her name.
And then she realized that the bells of the distant church were ringing. Perhaps her mother hadn’t even heard her speak.
Helpless, she watched as Emmanuelle got laboriously to her feet, stepping on the hem of her robe and staggering. Minnie made to take the woman’s arm, but Emmanuelle regained her balance and went to the prie-dieu, quickly but with no sense of panic. Her face was composed, all her attention focused on the book lying on the prie-dieu.
Seeing it now, Minnie realized at last what her aunt had meant by “None” and “hours.” The book was a small, elegant volume with an aged green cover, set with tiny rounded cabochon jewels. And as Emmanuelle opened it, Minnie saw inside the glow of beautiful paintings, pictures of angels speaking to the Virgin, to a man with a crown, to a crowd of people, to Christ on the cross…
It was a Book of Hours, a devotional volume meant for rich lay people, made during the last age, with the psalms and prayers intended to be said during the monastic hours of worship: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. None was the ninth hour—the prayer said at three o’clock in the afternoon.
Emmanuelle’s head was bent over the open book, and she was praying aloud, her voice soft but audible. Minnie hesitated, not sure whether she should leave…but no. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her mother—the more so as the woman probably wouldn’t notice her trying to take her leave. Instead, she came quietly to the prie-dieu and knelt down beside Emmanuelle, in the straw.
She knelt close enough that the pink linen of her gown nearly brushed the white habit. It wasn’t cold in the shed, not with the brazier going, but nonetheless she could feel her mother’s warmth and, for just a moment, surrendered to the vain hope she had brought here—of being seen, accepted, wrapped in her mother’s love.
She closed her eyes against the starting tears and listened to Emmanuelle’s voice, soft and husky but sure. Minnie swallowed and opened her eyes, making an effort to follow the Latin.
“Deus, in adjutorium meum intende; Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina…” “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me…”
As the recitation of the Office of None went on, Minnie joined timidly in the prayers she could read adequately. Her mother took no notice, but Emmanuelle’s voice got stronger, her back straighter, as though she felt the support of her imagined community around her.
Minnie could see that the book was very old—at least a hundred years, maybe more—and then realized with a small shock that she had seen it before. Her father had sold it—or one very like it—to Mother Hildegarde, the abbess of le Couvent des Anges, a hospital order of nuns. Minnie had delivered it to the good mother herself a year or so before. How had it come here?
In spite of the rawness of her own emotions, she found a small sense of peace in the words, even when she didn’t understand them all. Emmanuelle seemed to grow both quieter and stronger as she spoke, and when she had finished, she stayed motionless, gazing up at the crucifix, an expression of the greatest tenderness on her face.
Minnie was afraid to rise, not wanting to disturb the sense of peace in the room, but her knees couldn’t stand much more kneeling on the stones of the floor, straw covering or no. She took a deep breath and eased herself up. The nun seemed not to have noticed, still deep in communion with Jesus.
Minnie tiptoed toward the door, which, she saw, was now open a crack. She could see a movement of something blue through the gap—undoubtedly Mrs. Simpson, come to remove her. She turned suddenly, on impulse, and went back quickly to the prie-dieu.
“Soeur Emmanuelle?” she said very softly, and gently, slowly, laid her hands on her mother’s shoulders, fragile under the white cloth. She swallowed hard, so her voice wouldn’t shake. “You are forgiven.”
Then she lifted her hands and went quickly away, the glow of the straw a blur of light around her.
9
WELL PAST MIDNIGHT
IT WAS TIME.
Argus House had fourteen bedrooms, not counting the servants’ quarters. So far, Hal had not been able to bring himself to sleep in any of them. Not his own. He hadn’t lain there since the dawn when he’d risen from Esmé’s warm body and gone out in the rain to face Nathaniel.
“On your bloody croquet lawn!” he said aloud, but under his breath. It was after midnight, and he didn’t want to wake any inquisitive servant. “You pretentious nit!”
Not Esmé’s chaste blue and white boudoir next door, either. He couldn’t bring himself even to open the door, not sure whether her ghost might still linger in the scented air or whether the room would be a cold and empty shell. Afraid to find out, either way.