On this Christmas at Naworth, George Dacre was chosen. Celia watched the old Baron place the traditional crown on his son’s head—the crown was cut from parchment, gilded and studded with little hunks of shiny quartz—then Lord Dacre boomed, “We are your subjects, your grace, what d’ye decree?”
“Yule! Yule! saith the Lord o’ Misrule,” George answered promptly. “Every man to make merry and each play the fool! Fetch all the servants into the Hall!” His face was flushed, his eyes gleamed, he swallowed a ladleful of the steaming hot wassail which was contained in a silver bowl as big as a cartwheel.
The younger children darted out to round up the servants who had been expecting the summons. Cooks and scullions, stableboys, dairymaids, shepherds, swineherds, hunters, archers—they crowded into the Hall and overflowed into the passages. George greeted each one with a nod, but a slight frown appeared between his brows. “I dinnet see Simkin, the southron lad,” he said finally. The head stableboy explained that Simkin, not being part of Naworth’s household, had not deemed it fitting that he should join them.
“Bowlderdash!” said George. “Go fetch him!” He took another drink of the wassail.
When Simkin appeared in his stained leather jacket, his coarse black hair tousled, his pockmarked face truculent, Celia’s apathy was pierced. Her own unhappiness recognized unhappiness in him who had for over a fortnight last autumn been her devoted admirer, and with whom she had enjoyed many a laugh until that night at Dacre. She watched the quick uneasy look Simkin gave George, and saw a small tightening around George’s mouth before he cried, “Come drink o’ the wassail, all o’ ye—there’s plenty more, then we’ll clear the Hall and dance, each one ta his fancy!”
His orders were obeyed. They stacked the trestle tables and the benches. They drank and they jigged while the piper led them in reels. They shouted and leapt and stamped. Many of the men had tied bells above their knees; the jingling added to the din. And there was a hobbyhorse who galloped clumsily, butting the dancers.
There were fewer women than men, and Celia found herself grabbed by the swineherd, then one of the hunters, then a scullion, and finally Leonard, whom she had scarcely greeted before Sir Thomas himself claimed her and was replaced by his father, laughing uproariously.
Everyone danced, even Lady Dacre and Ursula, and the wassail bowl was often replenished. It so happened that Celia was flung off the end of a line, during a wild leaping flourish, and leaned in a corner to catch her breath. Thus, across the Hall she saw George, whose crown though tipped backward was unmistakable, and noted with astonishment that he held Simkin’s hand, and seemed to be expostulating with the boy while the dancers whirled by them, unheeding. Celia had only a glimpse through the medley of arms and legs, yet in that glimpse she received a strange impression of intimacy. She frowned, faintly disturbed, but her hand was caught by Lord Dacre’s chief bowman, who dragged her back into the reel.
They danced until at dawn they fell into bed, exhausted. Celia had managed to forget the approaching marriage, and just at cockcrow she dreamed of Stephen. The dream repeated the setting of their farewell on Tan’s Hill, but its outcome did not. In the dream Stephen clutched her hungrily in his arms, saying, “You’ll never leave me, my love,” and when he kissed her they became one being as when two raindrops merge, and they were lying softly together in a golden boat, lulled by the gentle billows beneath them. Shining contentment which lasted until Celia was awakened by Magdalen shaking her shoulder.
“Och, there, slugabed, ’tis late,” said Magdalen laughing. “Were ye dreaming o’ your bridegroom wi’ that daft wee smile on your face?”
“Of Stephen . . .” whispered Celia, half awake and gripped by a sickening sense of loss.
Magdalen nodded. “That’s apt,” she said, “sence ’tis his day. He mun be proddin’ ye ta Mass for his intention.”
Celia’s jaw dropped, she stared at her friend who was dragging a comb through her crackling red hair, sluicing icy water out of a basin onto her face. For a dazed moment Celia thought Magdalen was speaking of Stephen Marsdon, though she knew that the girl had never heard of him. Then she understood. To be sure, this day after Christmas was St. Stephen’s Feast Day—St. Stephen, the first martyr, who had been stoned to death outside Jerusalem by the wicked Jews—then it was also
her
Stephen’s name day . . .
“Hasten . . .” cried Magdalen. “We’ll be late, an’ ye knaw that fashes Faither, forebye there’s a-mickle ta do fur your weddin’—there’ll be fifty extra ta feed iffen the snaw howlds off, the Musgraves fra Eden Hall an’ the Graham clan’ll be here, na matter what . . .”
“I can’t wed Leonard,” said Celia in a flat voice, her eyes hard as sea ice.
For a second Magdalen was startled. “Whist, hinny!” she pulled Celia off the bed. “Ye’re haverin’, wake oop!” She sloshed water on Celia, ran the comb through the long yellow tangles, flung a hooded cloak over the girl.
Celia allowed herself to be propelled down the stone stairs to the chapel. She said no more. She listened intently when there were references to St. Stephen in the Mass; she murmured responses with the others but her long apathy had vanished. Whatever happened she would
not
marry Leonard. Two and two made four. Fire burned, snow was cold. The River Irthing flowed south. Cowdray was in Sussex. She could not wed Leonard Dacre.
She glanced down the chapel towards Leonard, whose narrow foxy-colored pate was decorously bowed like his brothers, then at the Baron’s box pew where he and his Lady followed the Mass with brisk devotion while keeping a watchful eye on the younger members of their family.
Celia clenched her hands in a fold of her gown and thought frenziedly of plans. Flat refusal would do no good. The Dacres were kindly, but the Baron never altered his decisions; nor were weddings with unwilling brides unknown in the North. Magdalen had laughed about a Dacre marriage where the bride had been trussed up then carried screaming to the altar and jabbed with a dirk until she panted out the vows.
Feign illness then, thought Celia. But how? Deception clever enough to fool Magdalen or Ursula was beyond her powers. Ursula had loved her once, but to Celia now her aunt seemed an enemy. There was no confidence between them any more.
The girl’s schemes grew wilder. Escape . . . run north to the Border. Those fearsome Scots . . . the Maxwells, the Lowthers . . . would they shelter her—glad of the excuse to annoy Dacres? But how far was the Border, and how to survive in frozen mountains, through icy streams?
As the Lanercost priest made the benediction and said, “
he, missa est,
” Celia’s cheeks flamed from another idea. If she told them she was not a virgin . . . that she was with child? No, they wouldn’t believe that either. She scarcely understood exactly what kind of act produced a child, but Magdalen’s robust comments had enlightened her on one point. A woman with child ceased to have the monthly courses and Magdalen naturally knew that Celia had just recovered from hers. This event and its precalculation was indeed why the wedding had been set for the twenty-ninth.
Blessed Mother—what
can
I do? Celia’s heart began thudding, the chapel walls closed around her like a tomb.
“Coom, lass,” said Magdalen nudging her, “we’ll gan out an’ gather fresh greens to mak’ garlands fur the Hall and church, an’ we mun start gildin’ the wheat ears fur your bride crown.
Jesu!
” she added sharply, “ye’re white an’ wambly as a lamb new born . . . Leonard!” she called to her brother, “Celia’s gan mazy, can ye not gentle her?”
Leonard, who had been hurrying from the chapel intent on a farewell gallop to Gilsland and some pleasing hours of bawdry with the warm Widow Dixon, paused and looked around at the two girls.
It struck him that Celia did indeed look mazy—pale, bewildered and yet sullen. She showed none of the sparkle and provocative challenge which had so attracted him, and he wondered if he were not making a bad bargain after all. This pallid childish lass might be a poor bedmate and breeder, and no dowry either, but he’d never dare own misgivings to his indomitable father who had often berated him for being a shilly-shallying laggard.
“Oh, I’ll gentle her Thursday neet,” he drawled with a halfhearted smirk at his determined sister. “’Tis not seemly aforehand.”
Magdalen snorted then tossed her head. She linked her arm to Celia’s and conveyed her into the Hall to break their fast with ale and a manchet of bread.
Ursula was already in the Hall, seated at a table beside Lady Dacre. The two matrons had become cronies. The wedding plans excited them, and they were busily sorting ribbons—the bride laces which would be attached to Celia’s girdle, wrists and ankles, to be yanked off by the young folk after the ceremony. They were also counting the requisite favors to bestow on the guests. Lady Dacre had raided her coffers and unearthed some gloves, bows, silver-gilt trinkets she had been storing against a daughter’s marriage.
“We’ll send to London fur more when your time cooms, Maggie,” said Lady Dacre, smiling at Magdalen as the girls entered. “Celia’s wedding s’all be like a dotter’s, an’ll not shame us Dacres.”
Ursula murmured her thanks. She was woefully embarrassed by her poverty, and certain that the Dacre generosity must overwhelm Celia with the grateful rejoicing she herself felt. After years of subservience and loneliness, Ursula was blossoming at Naworth, where the servants treated her deferentially and the family included her as an equal. She was unconscious of the mutinous pleading look Celia gave her. She smoothed the last white ribbon and laid it on the pile.
“Should be a-plenty,” Ursula said happily, “unless . . . I suppose none o’ the Nevilles’ll come from Raby, ’tis too far . . .?”
Lady Dacre shook her head, a shadow crossed her florid face. “Only Tam’s puir wife Bess,” she said sighing. “He’s gan ta fetch her fra Dacre. By the Blessed Saints, I hope there’ll be na trooble.”
“Oh, surely not,” said Ursula absently. The strange night at the Dacre keep seemed years past, and she had been so feverish with ague that she barely remembered what had happened. Moreover, it pleased her that young Lady Dacre—wife to the heir—should be brought to Naworth to honor Celia’s wedding.
Magdalen and Celia also heard Lady Dacre’s remark. Magdalen was always optimistic and practical and scarcely noted it. Celia saw the news as yet another nail in her coffin lid.
By twilight Celia’s desperation had induced need for action—any action. She went in search of Simkin, praying that she would find him in the stable. It was not hard to escape from Magdalen, who had been called to her parents’ bedchamber to confer with the elder ladies about a tally of the Graham youngsters whose names Lady Dacre was not sure of.
In the stable, one of the lads quirked his eyebrows at Celia’s question, said that Simkin had watered and curried the Cowdray horses an hour ago, and had probably gone to his loft. Celia nodded, got directions and hurried towards the warren of wooden outbuildings behind the castle’s south wall. She entered the third door into a dark cavern of oat bins and stored threshing implements. She sought Simkin because there had once been sympathy between them, because she felt that he was unhappy, and because he came from Cowdray.
She saw that there was candlelight flickering above a ladder, and heard male voices from the loft. She called out, “Simkin!” but stopped as she heard a harsh despairing laugh, then a crooning sound, like the sound a mother made to her babe, and yet unlike—for this held a cruel taunting note.
Celia was deeply puzzled, but she slowly mounted the ladder until her head cleared the trap door and she could see. She stared uncomprehending as her eyes strained wide.
In the loft on a pile of sacking there lay two naked men. At once she recognized them. Simkin and George. She saw Simkin’s shaggy black head lying next to George’s finely cut upturned profile. Then Simkin’s harsh voice cried out, “Aye . . . so now ye find me ugly, eh? But where’ll ye get another cotquean to be your slave an’ do your filthy bidding?”
“Ah . . . but ye luv ma bidding, hinny, m’lad,” George crooned in that wooing taunting voice. She saw George’s hand begin to stroke the other youth’s hairy thigh.
Celia clung to the edge of the trap door. Her knees trembled, she nearly retched.
They had not seen her. She crept down the ladder.
“Christ have mercy . . .” she whispered.
She fumbled her way past the oat bins into the air where a fine powdery snow was beginning to fall. She wandered back through the side postern of the castle. So there was nobody to help her. Nobody.
“Christ have mercy . . .” she repeated and leaned on the side of the kitchen wall. Time passed while she stood there in the snow. There was bustle in the kitchens, she heard snatches of laughter, and the preparatory squeals of the bagpipes. Jock the piper was practicing for her wedding. “The bonny bride fra far awa’”—that was the name of the piece.
Celia stood there in the courtyard as her golden hair whitened with snow. She did not raise her head when the courtyard bell clanged out. She did not watch when the gates swung in and a party of horsemen came through them.
She dimly heard voices. “What’s that?” “Why ’tis a lass crouched by the wall!” “Some kitchen wench.”
Blessed Virgin help me . . . Celia prayed with the force of shock and despair, and looking up thought that there had been a miracle. That an angel had come down from heaven to comfort her.
A tall whitish figure stood beside her, the kitchen lights gave it luminescence, and it spoke in a low sweet voice. “What troubles you, poor maiden?”
Celia gave a long shaking sigh and reached out her hands towards the figure. “Help me . . .” she whispered. A hand took hers, but its touch startled her—so clammy cold, yet thickly soft. Celia stared down and saw that the other hand was encased in a drenched velvet glove.
Sir Thomas, having also dismounted, came peering. “Why, ’tis little Celia Bohun!” he cried. “Bess, ’tis the lass who’s to wed Leonard. ’Tis the bride!”
“Ah, so . . .” said young Lady Dacre, “sma’ wonder she shivers an’ hides. Yet the King, my royal father, told me she’d be here.”