“Alack . . .” She shook her head and was silent a moment. “Stephen . . . there’s a wise-woman in Ightham, I heard the maids speak of her—she sometimes can—can—stop the unwanted babes. She—she draws them out o’ the womb. Would you have me go to her?”
Stephen stared at her. Her calm dry words conveyed nothing to him. He was unable to understand that there might be life within her for which he was responsible, inside that beautiful body which had given him ecstasy. The concept was so repugnant that it seemed ludicrous. “I don’t know what you mean . . .” he said. “One can’t murder a babe, its life is God’s—but there can
be
no babe.”
“You want me to try . . .?” she repeated woodenly. “It’s not wise to bring a priest’s bastard into the world.”
Her eyes looked at him steadily, the long seductive eyes which were the color of a kingfisher’s wing. The wide rosy mouth which he had so deeply kissed was drawn to a thin line.
“I—I cannot believe it—I know naught about these things—unless ’tis punishment for our . . . our odious love.”
“Odious love,” she repeated. “Poor Stephen, and is it so odious, so hateful to you? Is this . . .?”
She reached up and put her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth on his. Again passion overwhelmed him. It was like a fiery cloud, it was like a lightning flash—no time for thought, for reason. Desire so long successfully quenched weakened his bones, and the world narrowed to one ecstatic moment.
Again they lay quiet on the moss, looking up at the quivering ovate beech leaves, and he turned to her, whispering, “My love . . .”
“Aye . . .” she said after a moment, “and is
this
love not nearer to thee than the other—Her, in your picture? Can I not be first?”
He recoiled, wishing she had not questioned. How dared she question? Why must she speak?
“I can’t answer,” he said at last. “Leave be, Celia—I—it must be late. There’s the next Mass—though I’m no longer worthy to celebrate it, may God forgive me. . . . The sun is high, I’ll be late—I must think and pray . . . my duty . . . my Order sent me to the Allens . . .”
Celia watched with angry eyes as he rose and smoothed his robes. She watched him tighten the knotted scourge around his waist; the rosary was tangled and he jerked it into place.
“I can’t think . . .” he repeated. “Late for Mass,
Jesu
—why did you come here this morn. I thought it finished. I thought you happily wed.”
He ran from the copse and down the hill.
A great sob rose in Celia’s throat. She picked up the purple mallow which had wilted, the petals were bruised and limp. Her anger gave way to sorrow. For the first time she began to comprehend her lover and the terrible dilemma he was in.
I’ll go to the wise-woman, she thought, see what can be done. I’ll go away. Then, with searing insight she thought, If I make him go to Germany, break his vows to marry me—he’d truly
hate
me later. Master Julian said I did not understand Stephen—so I’ll run away . . . but not yet. A few more days I can still be near him. Then I’ll go. When—? A voice cut through her chaos, a stern voice, as distinct as though someone had spoken aloud in the quiet sun-dappled glade. The voice said, “August eighth.” She looked around in fear. But there was nobody amongst the beeches. The voice was in her head, it did not sound real like the other voices she had fancied she heard, it simply said “August eighth.” Nay, not so soon, she thought, three days off. And I’ve no money. Stephen will have none? the Benedictines own nothing. Her hand went to the little pouch around her neck. There was her wedding ring—it could be sold, in London, maybe in Ightham—that kind Nancy at the George—or she could find other work somewhere—but the babe—the wise-woman would want payment.
Stephen said to pray—
Ave
Maria, Gratia plena
—and all she got as answer was Ursula’s face, not as it was in the last weeks of illness, but strong, stern and remote.
Celia left the glade of beeches, she dragged herself back to the manor and crossed the moat into the servants’ door.
Dickon was lounging outside the scullery. “Been a-jaunt?” he said winking. “Ye look forespent. Ye’re boy’ll be a lusty one, eh?” It was evident that Alice had been talking.
“He is,” said Celia managing a laugh. Already the scullery was piled high with pewter plates and tankards to be washed.
“Ye needn’t go so far afield,” said Dickon, smirking at her. “Me own cock robin’s as able as the next, an’ll be glad to oblige ye.”
“I thank ’ee,” said Celia, roilling up her sleeves, “but I’ve no wish for it. I—I’ve plighted my troth.”
“Phaugh . . . tarradiddle,” said Dickon. He grabbed her around the waist and fumbled her breasts.
Celia’s disgust was too deep for action, as it had been at the King’s Head. She spoke through her teeth with venom. “Don’t you dare touch me, you scurvy thieving little runt, you turn my stomach. You make me puke.”
Dickon’s eyes narrowed. He stepped back. “Thanks for that, your ladyship. I’ll no forget it. Ye may be sure I’ll no forget it.” He went to the Hall with a trayful of tankards. The family, having finished their Mass, were at breakfast.
Celia knew abstractedly that she had made an enemy. While she scoured and rinsed, her mind plodded in dreary little circles like an aged horse on a treadmill. Round and round, and no way to stop and rest. Leave now, leave now—I can’t leave now, I can’t leave, now I
must
see him. Pray then as he said. I can’t pray. Until finally a thick mist clouded her mind, and she did not think at all.
Sunday, August 6, was to be a gaudy day at Ightham Mote. In the Catholic calendar it was the Transfiguration of Our Lord on Mount Tabor. It also happened to be Emma Allen’s forty-fourth birthday and, therefore, a reason for inviting their tenantry to a modest feast.
It became clear to Stephen, when Emma came to his confessional on Saturday evening, that she regarded this coincidence as a special mark of Divine favor, and had his soul been at peace, he might have found some amusement in her complacency. But after her confession, which was hurried and made up of trivia—that she had not spoken sharply enough to little Charles when he was naughty, that she had forgotten to say the twelfth
Pater Noster
in her last penance, that possibly she had committed gluttony in savoring an extra cherry tart at supper—Emma received his equally hurried absolution, then suddenly lumbered up from her knees and sat on the other stool.
“We must chat a bit, Brother,” she said, smiling at him in a way which jarred him out of his wretched preoccupation.
The confessional was tiny, squeezed behind the chapel, and like all those in private houses, had no grille. Stephen found that Emma was so close that her ample knees pressed against his. Her upper lip was faintly bedewed, her cheeks scarlet, and she smelled of spirits. He had himself taken a little of the sack which was always served at supper, but this smell was different, and he suddenly identified it as being like the breath of a monk at Marmoutier who drank fiery white liquid from Cognac until he ended up as a raving lunatic and vanished from the brotherhood. Stephen drew his knees away but his conscience forced him to question this soul who was still in his care.
“Lady Allen,” he said quietly, “is it possible that—well, that you imbibe certain strong drink which may injure your health?”
“Oh, nay, indeed not—” she answered, looking at him tenderly. “Yet, ’tis kind in you to consider my health. Ye know . . .” she put her hand over his, “I believe you’re like
Him.
On this eve o’ the Transfiguration, I get visions. I see clear. White shining robes up on the mount—ye’ll read the words out tomorrow, and I’ll look at ye i’ the chapel and think o’
Him.
”
Stephen violently removed his hand from under hers, and lifted his chin. “I am in no way like
Him,
Lady Allen . . . and very shortly, I must leave Ightham Mote. I’ll apply to—to the Abbot. He’ll send you another chaplain.”
Emma smiled, though not enough to disclose her jagged teeth. “Nay, dear,” she said. “Feckenham’s gone. Mebbe to France. The Queen ousted him from Westminster last month. Ye’ve no master but
me.
I want ye here, and here ye’ll bide.”
Her eyes darted sideways back and forth . . . she slowly held out her broad muscular be-ringed hands and clenched them. She opened her hands and stared at them as though they were strange objects. Then she laughed and said in a throaty voice which held a peculiar blend of menace and sweetness, “My own kin, Stephen! Tomorrow’s the feast o’ my birth, and of our Blessed Lord’s a-shining on the mountain too. We’ll greet Him together, Stephen, your black robes’ll turn white as snow-drops—pure, pure as snowflakes—you an’ me . . . san . . . sanctified . . . you an’ me.”
Stephen rose abruptly from his stool. “Aye, well—Lady Allen. We need talk no more tonight. You must rest for your feast day. There’s many of your household waiting in the chapel to make confession.
Benedicite!
”
He spoke with such authority that though she wavered a second, and her underlip shot out mutinously, she went.
Drunk . . . Stephen thought, surely no worse than that. Not madness, nor possession, yet for the moment when she had looked at her hands, he had felt the presence of something besides Emma Allen in the confessional, something “other” and most evil . . . my own great sin has opened me to such fancies . . .
misericorde
. . . The woman is but drunk.
He shook himself and bowed gravely as the manor carpenter walked in and knelt. “Bless me, Father, for I’ve sinned . . .”
Stephen listened as they filed in—the manor servants, several of the tenants. Until midnight Stephen gave penances and granted absolutions. All the time, in a shut-off part of him he felt sickly longing for Celia.
Ightham Mote celebrated the Feast Day with unusual gaiety. Emma begrudged money spent on most festivities, even the Yuletide, but on this day she gave free rein to her husband’s generosity and let him give orders to Larkin which resulted in an ox being roasted over a bonfire beyond the moat, and a dozen kegs of ale to be swilled by the tenantry. Emma presided graciously at the long trestle table which had been set up in the courtyard. She was looking her most handsome in a new crimson satin gown made in London. Her headdress was edged with freshwater pearls.
There were two fiddlers from Wrotham and a piper, who scraped and tootled in their corner of the court. The day was fine, warm but not sultry, and though it was perfect for both haymaking and hop picking, work was suspended in honor of Lady Allen’s fortunate birth.
Earlier, at Mass, when Stephen was chanting the Epistle and came to “shining robes,” he gave Emma an apprehensive glance. She sat with Sir Christopher and Charles in the high canopied seats reserved for the manor lords, but her face remained bland, even vague. When she went first to the kneeling pad at the altar to receive the Communion wafer, he thought that she looked up at him, but he was not sure and kept his own eyes on the pews at the back of the chapel.
Celia had come to neither Mass. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow, I’ll talk to her. After this is over. But his anxiety rose, until during the feasting he caught a glimpse of her piling mugs on a tray that Dickon was bringing out to the courtyard. Tentatively he rose, then sat down again. Sir Christopher had begun the toasts to his wife.
Emma responded to the fulsome compliments and cheers with little beaming nods, she even smiled broadly, disclosing the crooked teeth she usually hid, but her darting black eyes missed nothing, and she presently beckoned to Larkin. “Where’s the new scullery wench—Cissy? I don’t see her wi’ the other housemaids.”
“I’ll go see, my lady.” The steward bowed and scurried off.
He finally found Celia in the cool damp buttery, which smelled of the sluggish moat that washed its outer walls. She was standing by the little barred window examining her wedding ring, but the steward’s blurred eyesight could not discern what she held in her hand, and he was too flustered to note that she had not troubled to bind her hair, which was hanging loose.
“Cissy . . .?” he quavered uncertainly. “Aye, I see ’tis. My lady wants ye i’ the court wi’ t’ others. Hasten, then . . .”
Celia slipped the ring back in its pouch. “I don’t feel for merrymaking.”
“Come on, do—” said Larkin, not having quite heard her, and thinking her shy. “Just make ye’re bob an’ say I wish ’ee good health, long life, summat like that . . . an’ there’ll be dancing later, why ’tis Ightham Mote’s great gaudy day!”
“Aye . . .?” said Celia. She threw back her head and burst into a peal of laughter, while the steward tugged impatiently at her arm.
“So be it,” said Celia. She gave her head a toss, then smoothed her loose hair, and came with Larkin through the passages into the courtyard.
Ursula or John Hutchinson, even Anthony, might have recognized the sparkle of defiance in her looks, the transformation from meek scullery maid to something elfin and reckless. Julian might have said, “Ah—the true Gemini—the other twin takes over.” But nobody at the Mote was prepared—least of all Stephen, though he was painfully reminded of her behavior on the night Sir Thomas Wyatt had sung “Celia the wanton and fair.”
She walked along past all those at the table and, with a flourish that was nearly insolent, curtsied to Sir Christopher, curtsied to Stephen, curtsied again to Emma Allen. “I would’ve come sooner, my lady,” she said, “but I thought me forbidden outside servant quarters. May you enjoy many another gaudy day in your honor!”
Emma stared. This girl with her indecent wealth of golden hair, the wide turquoise eyes between dark lashes, was there something familiar? Something half remembered . . .? And the tone of that clear, almost ironic voice, could that accent really be Lincolnshire? Emma’s black brows drew together, she said coldly, “Thank’ee, my gel, ye may go to the green and get some food.” As Celia bobbed her head and went towards the gate tower swinging her hips, Emma turned to Stephen. “I’ll have to get rid o’
her,
I believe she’s lewd. What’s your thought, Brother Stephen?”
He could not answer, his throat was choked with longing and apprehension.