An Honourable Estate (32 page)

“I am no spectre, my lady,” he reassured her, catching her hands
in his again to kiss them each in turn.  “I was condemned to live as an
outlaw and could not return for fear of my life.  But now the Earl of
Lancaster is dead and I have come home.”

He held his arms open wide as the villagers around them
clapped and cheered his return.  Mabel realised that she was expected to
step forward and allow him to embrace her and carry her into Haigh Hall, to a
welcome reminiscent of that of the prodigal son.  A fatted calf should be
killed and wine should flow freely as they danced and sang in celebration until
he took her to their bed and gave her his customary birthday gift.

“No!” she cried suddenly pushing him away from her. 
“No!”  Her hands flew to her mouth as she stared at him in confusion not
knowing what to do.  Then she ran inside to the bedchamber, where she
slammed down the bar that held fast the door and fell sobbing to the bed.

Mabel
had no idea what time of the day it was when she was awakened from a dream
about William returning.  Someone was banging on the bedchamber door,
making the latch rattle, and Edmund’s voice was shouting at her to unbar it at
once before he fetched the axe to break it down.

Confused, but with a notion that something startling had
happened, Mabel sat up and was surprised to find that she was wearing her
outdoor cloak.  She unfastened it and looked at the door, not knowing why
she had secured it.  Was she ill, she wondered, as she pressed a hand to
her throbbing temple.  She did feel unwell and her mind was in such turmoil
that she couldn’t even decide what day it was.

“Mabel!” came Edmund’s authoritative voice once again. 
“Open the door!”

Leaving the cloak strewn across the bed she walked unsteadily
towards the wooden bar and grasped it in both hands.  At the sound of it
being raised, Edmund pushed the door open.  His face was contorted with
anguish.  Something had happened, but she couldn’t remember what. 
Had someone died?

“Bella?  Amelia?” she asked, her voice sounding hoarse
and unnatural to her ears.

“They’re safe.  Mistress Palmer has taken them to her
house for the present.  “Are you harmed?” he asked.

“Harmed?  I don’t think so.  No.” She shook her
head and tried to look past him, through the doorway into the hall.  She
thought that she could see William sitting in his chair by the fire with Calab
spread at his feet, but her reason was telling her that it could not possibly
be so.

“Who is that?” she asked as she tried to pass Edmund, but his
arm across the doorframe blocked her way.

“Mabel, I must speak with you, in private, if you feel well
enough,” he said, looking down at her with a concerned expression.  She
could see Edith hovering behind him but he waved her away before grasping
Mabel’s elbow and urging her gently towards the bed.  She sat down on the
edge of the mattress and watched him as he shut the chamber door and then
walked across to the window and opened the shutter slightly.  Mabel saw
that it was daytime and she could hear excited voices talking in the distance,
yet the last thing she remembered was eating honey cakes for breakfast.

“It is my birthday!” she said, as she began to
remember.  “I was handing out alms at the door and a palmer came, returned
from the crusade.  He looked so like William that for a moment I thought
it was him... I think I was so shocked I must have fainted away,” she said.
“But you were not there.  Have you just returned?” she asked as he stood
with his back to her.  “I hope you do not bring bad news.” 

He sighed and turned to face her.  Apart from tiredness
he did not seem harmed, although there was an unfathomable hurt in his blue
eyes as he gazed at her.

“Do you still love him?” he asked.

“Who?”

“William Bradshaigh.”

“I did love him,” she said slowly.  She wasn’t sure how
to answer.  She did not want to make Edmund angry, but she could not, would
not, deny her love for William.  “I think I was shocked because the man
reminded me of him so much.  That is all.  It does not mean I love
you less,” she reassured him, standing and going to him and touching her hand
to his cheek.

“Don’t!” he said, pushing her hand away.

“Edmund?  What’s wrong?” she asked in
bewilderment.  Surely, she thought, he was not so jealous and angry
because she had seen a man who reminded her of her dead husband.  Even he
could not be that unreasonable.  “The beggar who came. Is it he who is
sitting in the hall?” she asked, wondering why the man had been brought inside,
let alone given the chair before the fire.  “Who is he?”

“You do not know him?” asked Edmund and Mabel was puzzled to
detect a note of hope in his voice.

She sat down on the bed again and fought to gather her
thoughts and memories and, as she pressed her face into her hands, she began to
recall more clearly what had happened earlier.

“It is William,” she said at last.  “He is not
dead.  He has come home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she replied.  “I’m sorry,” she told him. 
She saw that he had been hoping she would deny she knew the man, that she would
say he was an imposter who bore only a passing resemblance to William.

“Are you certain, beyond a doubt?” he asked again.  “It
is a long time since you saw him.”

Mabel looked down at her fingers clasped in her lap and
remembered how she had traced his face.  He was older, but his eyes and
his voice were the same.

“Yes,” she said.  “I am certain.”

“Then you had better go to him,” said Edmund, turning away
from her again.  He tried to sound unemotional but Mabel knew that he was
near to tears himself.

“Edmund?” she said as she laid a hand on his back.

“Go!” he said, shrugging off her touch.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again after a moment of silence.

Mabel went to the door and opened it hesitantly, but when she
walked into the hall it was as if she had stepped back in time.  William
looked up and smiled and Calab struggled to his feet and came to her with his
tail wagging.  She reached out a hand to stroke the hound’s head and it
licked at her fingers.

William was still wearing the cloak with the palmer’s cross,
but beneath it she could see that his tunic and hose were fashioned from fine
cloth and he looked healthy and well fed.

“Mab?”  He held out a hand, but she was reluctant to
approach him any closer; she was still afraid that he might dissemble and fade
as he always had in her dreams.

Suddenly she was aware that there were other people in the
hall.  Not just Edith, but others who were strangers, yet not quite
strangers.  From a bench below the window a man with a beard had stood up
as she entered and now he bowed to her.

“Ned?” she asked.

“Yes, my lady.  It is me, safe and well.”

At Ned’s side his wife stood looking up at him, her hand
possessively curled around the crook of his elbow as she smiled.  Mistress
Kemp had waited for her husband to return without losing faith or hope, thought
Mabel with regret. 

By the door there was a young squire who looked vaguely
familiar.  She puzzled at his face for a moment until he smiled at her as
if he knew her.

“Lady Bradshaigh,” he said with a formal bow.

“Dicken?”  She gazed at him.  He was tall and,
although still gangling, showed signs that his jaw was firming and his chest
broadening.  “How?” she asked.  Then she recalled how the boy had
disappeared the day Lymesey was attacked in the forest and brought home so
badly beaten.  She also recalled how she had prayed hard that he would be
taken care of and now she knew that more than one of her prayers had been
answered.

“Sir William rescued me.   He is training me to be
a knight,” grinned the boy. 

“I prayed that you were safe,” she told him.

“And did you pray for me also?” asked William.  Mabel
walked slowly towards her husband.

“You have been in my prayers every day,” she told him.

“Even when you thought I was dead?”

“Especially when I thought you were dead.”

He was still holding out his hand and she put her palm to his
palm and felt his familiar fingers close around hers.  He stood up and
gently put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him.

He smelt the same and she stood for a long time, cradled in
the safety of his embrace until she slowly realised what she had done. 
She shrugged off his arms and took a step back as she glanced with sudden
horror towards the bed chamber door.

“But I did think that you were dead.  I married again,”
she told him in a quiet voice. “Oh, God forgive me!  God forgive me,” she
repeated.  “What have I done?”

She watched William’s expression crumble into
disbelief.  He stared at her and said nothing.  Then he looked
towards the doorway and Mabel saw Edmund Neville standing there with similar
look of agony on his face.

She looked speechlessly from one to the other and did not
know what to do or say.  She wanted to go to them both, to be comforted by
them both and because she could not choose she remained unmoving, and they all
stared at one another without speaking for what seemed an eternity.            

“I truly believed your husband was dead,” said Edmund, at
last.  “Those men, those outlaws swore that they had seen him die.  I
would not have married you otherwise.”

“Which men?” demanded William staring at Edmund as if the devil
himself had been conjured before him.

“Stephen Scallard and William Tegg swore, before they went to
the gallows for the murder of Henry Bury, that they had seen you killed at
Preston,” whispered Mabel, putting out a restraining hand towards
William.  “They must have said it to protect you and keep you from being
hunting down.  But I believed that what they said was true – and when I
was free to marry again I became Edmund’s wife.”

“Why?” he asked incredulously.  “Why did you do it,
Mab?”   He shook his head in disbelief and looked at her as if she
had become a stranger to him.  “This man was my enemy.  He was the
one who sought out Adam Banastre and Henry Lea and had them killed, and he
would have had me killed as well if he had found me.”

“William!”  Mabel fell to her knees in front of him and
grabbed for his hand and brought it to her lips.  “William, forgive me,
please.  I believed that you were dead – and I needed his protection.”

“Protection?”  he repeated as he pulled his hand from
her grasp.  “From what?”

“From Peter Lymesey,” she told him.  “Please do not be
angry with me, William.  I only accepted him because he offered to keep me
safe from Lymesey.”

 “This was the same Sir Peter Lymesey who beat the boy
and who had the lands whilst they were forfeit to the king?” he asked.

“Yes.  Do you know him?”

“I’ve heard about him,” said William, with a cautious glance
at Edmund Neville.  “And met him on one occasion.”

“Then you were the one who attacked the man and caused him so
much harm he almost died!” burst out Edmund, starting across the hall towards
William as if he would seize him and call in his guards.  Mabel saw
William’s hand fly to his tunic and she thought he was going to pull out a
knife and strike at Edmund.

“No!” she cried in alarm, but William took out a letter and
shook it at the sheriff.

“I have a pardon from the king for all past crimes – real or
imagined,” he warned him.  “Do not think that you can be rid of me so
easily!  The letter also confirms that these lands are mine.  You
have no rights here over my land or my wife.  You had better leave before
I set the dog on you!”

At his words Calab sat up and awaited a command, a growl
rumbling at the back of his throat.  Mabel saw Edmund eye the dog with
suspicion.  It had never liked him and she knew that if William ordered it
to it would attack him.

“Please William!” begged Mabel.  “Do not be so hasty to
turn Edmund out.  He has been a kind husband to me and a caring
step-father to our daughters.  He has provided for us and kept us
safe.”  She still knelt before William and clutched at his hand again as
she begged his understanding.    

“But Neville was the sheriff of Lancashire,” he said, looking
down at her.   “And as the sheriff it was for him to decide who my
lands were demised to for the year and a day.  It was he who chose Peter
Lymesey.”

Bewildered, Mabel looked up at Edmund who was standing with
his arms folded and his eyes averted from her.

 “That cannot be true?” she said to him, refusing to
believe that he would have deliberately sent such a man as Lymesey to take
control of her manor and to treat her so appallingly.

“Oh it’s true, believe me Mab,” said William.  “And why
do you think he would do such a thing?  Why do you think he first
persuaded you that I was dead and then showed you such an evil man before
offering himself as an alternative?”

Mabel stared at Edmund Neville; at the man she had trusted;
the man she had come to love.