Christopher said mildly, “She’s uncommon pretty, but she don’t seem
lewd,
I wouldn’t say . . .”
Emma threw her husband an irritated glance which was enough to silence him, and throughout the remainder of the festivities, even during the country dances in which Emma permitted herself to be led out by Sir Christopher, and then by Larkin, she was constantly aware of Celia. The tinder and the spark had kindled, though neither of them knew it.
Celia danced with the carpenter and two stableboys. Dickon did not come near her. She ate and drank greedily. Tonight she was hungry, which she had not been for days. When the Mote clock struck eight she slipped away from the green, and making occasion to pass near Stephen who stood silently by the bridge, she looked up into his face.
“My love,” she whispered, “I’ll come to thee tonight. Leave the door open.”
He flushed, started to speak—to say he knew not what—but she was gone, flitting back across the courtyard.
Celia was apparently sound asleep in their lumpy bed when Alice and the chambermaid staggered up from the festivities. Lady Allen, it seemed, had cut them short with a sudden order at nine, and both maids were resentful.
“Larst year
she
let us go on ’til midnight,” said the chambermaid. “An’ I was just bein’ to dance out wi’ blacksmith, too.”
“Lackaday,” agreed Alice who had not been at the Mote last year. “Still, we got our bellies filled fur a change, an’ there’s no tellin’ what
she’ll
do. I heard there might be a place open at Penshurst. I’ve a mind to go out fur it.” She yawned, and flinging her clothes at a corner, dove into bed.
Celia judged it wise to stir and murmur crossly, “Lay quiet, do—I’m a’weary.”
Alice giggled. “Ye didn’t seem weary w’en ye was dancing—all the lads was eyein’ ye, but then o’ course ye’re own boy wan’t there, poor chuck, so ye lost ye’re vim.”
“Aye, that’s right . . .” said Celia, and pulled over to her edge of the bed. She lay very still while the other two burrowed and wriggled on the crackling straw mattress. Presently they snored in concert, and Celia slid carefully out of bed.
Through the window she could see an orange slice of waning moon, and the hills around the Mote, undulating in the shadows.
She had kept on her shift, her best one, inherited from Ursula. It was made of imported linen, so old and delicate that it was soft as gauze, and over it she pulled her cramoisie mantle, which looked black in the dim light and covered her down to her calves. She pulled the hood close around her head. The maids never stirred as Celia glided from the attic and down the wooden steps, testing each one for creaks before she rested her weight. She descended to the second story, and reached the Solar.
Her young eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom, and she could see the vague shape of the squint which led to the disused chapel; therefore the door to the oriel room must be to her left. She waited, listening carefully.
There was no sound but the barking of a dog over by the stables. And then, for a moment, she thought she heard whispers, followed by a woman’s voice, bright and brisk. “And now,” it said, “we will go through towards the priest’s room and the Tudor chapel. That chapel is a gem . . . was built in 1521 during the reign of Henry the Eighth . . .”
Celia put her hand out for support against the paneling. The wood felt warm and reassuring. She held on to it, breathing fast. There was no more sound in the Solar, nor anything that she could hear in this part of the old manor except the scuttle of a mouse behind the wainscoting. Mice, to be sure . . . or maybe the ghosts, she thought. Poor Isabel in the nursery could not harm her, and this room was across the courtyard from the “cold” room Larkin had mentioned. Celia was daunted only a second, then her love and purpose repossessed her.
She moved surely from the Solar into the long oriel room until she stood before the door at the end. It was ajar, as she had known it would be. She edged inside and shut the door softly.
Stephen stood next to his cot. Neither of them spoke. He opened his arms and she went into them.
E
MMA ALLEN HAD
ceased to enjoy her festival after Celia appeared with her curtsies and insolent beauty. Emma could not stop watching the girl, and she had not missed the instant when Celia paused by Brother Stephen and obviously spoke to him. Emma had been too far off to clearly see the expression on his face, but she knew that it was like none
she
had ever seen. And the way he bent tenderly down—Suspicion was too monstrous, and yet Emma’s unease grew until the stamping of feet, the scraping of fiddles were intolerable to her. She issued the command which stopped the gaudy day, ignoring Sir Christopher’s startled protests. “But, my dear, ’tis early . . . and we always go on later . . . They’ve not even finished up the ale . . . They look forward to this day all year . . .”
“I’ve had enough,” said Emma, and told Larkin to send all the manor folk back to their lodgings. “I feel the need for prayer,” said Emma, “and I’ll thank ye to let me be.”
“Aye,” said her husband, “as ye wish. Ye don’t feel poorly, my dear?” He spoke anxiously. He never understood his wife’s moods, nor quite realized that during the past years they had been growing stranger, less predictable. He was fond of her, and proud of the son she had given him. He was indeed a contented man. He was pleased by the increased status his knighthood gave him, and knew that he owed it to Emma’s pertinacity.
He enjoyed the possession of Ightham Mote, which his father, having prospered greatly as a London mercer, had been able to buy. Christopher wished to keep up the traditions of manor lord, and tried to do so, but his chief interest lay in pottering around his estate. The success of the hop growing, additions to stables, dairies, the new dam below the fish pond, such concerns occupied his days. At night he slept soundly. He was a hale, wiry man of fifty-odd, and if he ever questioned Emma’s divagations, he then thought with sympathy of her girlhood and the outrageous way she had been evicted from her convent at Easebourne, despite a true vocation—as she often told him—and of the religious scruples from which she therefore suffered.
Christopher went placidly to bed when the musicians left, and the Mote settled back into quiet.
Emma did not. She walked around the courtyard for a while, then went up to the chapel. It was, of course, empty. The two fat tapers on the altar sent out a steady glow. The sanctuary lamp burned like a tiny red eye above the crucifix.
Emma knelt, but her ears were alerted and she soon heard faint movement, footsteps, not twelve feet away from her at the priest’s end of the chapel behind the altar. She waited another few minutes, then she rose stealthily. She crept through into Brother Stephen’s parlor. She listened at the door of his bedroom. It seemed to her that there were murmurs inside. She opened the door a crack and heard Stephen’s voice. It said, “My dear love, we
will
leave here and fly to France.”
Stephen’s room was dimly lit by the votive candle before the Virgin’s picture; Emma could see naked limbs entwined on the bed. She could see long tresses of gleaming hair falling off it to the hay-strewn floor. She backed away silently.
Celia raised her head from Stephen’s shoulder. “The door’s open,” she whispered. “I saw a face.”
“Nay, darling.” He pulled her down close to him. “That door ne’er shuts well unless ’tis bolted. There’s nobody there.”
“I’m affrighted . . .” she whispered, shrinking against his chest.
“No reason . . .” he said. “Everyone’s asleep. We’ll be gone tomorrow. To London. There’ll be a ship sailing for France soon . . . Mayhap Master Julian would help us, or—I’ll think of someone . . .”
“There’s my ring . . .” she said. “Poor Sir John’s ring, but he
gave
it me, ’tis mine. Stephen, put it on! It’ll make a . . . a kind of marriage between us, before we must sell it.”
She forced the ring, with some difficulty, onto his little finger.
“And what can I give to
you,
my love . . .?” His voice roughened; there were tears in his eyes.
“Ye’ve given the babe inside me. Do you believe it now?”
“Aye . . .” he whispered. “My child . . . My poor child. Almighty God but I wish I were Tom—squire of the broad acres—Medfield . . . but I thought I had a vocation . . .
I did
have . . .”
The votive candle flickered, and Celia sat up straight.
“There’ll always be that between us, Stephen? Can you change your whole nature—for me? And I fed you the water-witch’s potion. Master Julian said that was wicked. ’Twas not
meant
for thee.”
“Hush . . .” he said. “You babble.” He ran his hand down along her warm soft thigh. He kissed her, and she drew away.
“Something will punish us,” she said in a small dead voice.
“Rubbish, it is I should be talking thus, and I don’t feel so now.” He kissed her breasts. “My foolish one, hush. The morrow—after first Mass. When I walk to the beech wood as always, you need but follow. We’ll soon be in London, and they’ll never find us there—do they even search.”
“Aye,” she said, “I know.” She leaned over and kissed him softly on the mouth. Then she gave an agonized sigh. “Farewell,” she whispered.
He did not stir as she left; he lay drowsing until the Virgin’s candle suddenly guttered and went out. He glanced towards the dim square which was Her picture, and turned away. Having decided on his course, and being filled with languor, he immediately slept.
Celia, no longer furtive, walked back through the oriel room. She observed without surprise that there was a light in the Solar, where three people confronted her. She paused, holding her mantle tight around her. Emma Allen stood there flanked by Larkin and Dickon.
“Here’s the priest’s whore,” said Emma triumphantly. “Ye know what must be done!”
The two men stood gaping. The steward made a feeble whimpering noise. Dickon said, “Ah-h,” and licked his lips. But they did not move.
“Five sovereigns apiece, men!” said Emma.
Still they did not move, both staring at Celia who stood very quietly just within the doorway.
“Very well, ye cowards,” Emma cried, her black eyes darted to the right, to the left, she made a low animal sound in her throat and lunged.
Her hands closed around Celia’s neck and twisted, wrenching.
The next day, Stephen, after first Mass, went to the beech wood and waited until the time for family Mass. He was distressed, and yet partly relieved that Celia did not come. By the chill gray light of a damp morning, the impracticality of his plan seemed obvious. He thought that they must wait a little.
It would be meet and right to consult with the Abbot, and he was sure that he could find Feckenham amongst the powerful Catholic families. Someone would have given the good old man asylum. He felt he must ask his superior about so drastic a step—one, however, of a kind which had been taken before this. Feckenham would be greatly disturbed, but he understood England’s changing conditions, and he was just. Stephen also thought of Master Julian who might have bracing advice. The doctor had probably left Cowdray by now, since news had filtered through that Lady Magdalen was safely delivered of a fine son, christened Philip—for the erstwhile King. Stephen looked long at the amethyst heart ring Celia had put on his finger, and was worldly enough to be able to assess its probable value—not sufficient to pay their passages to France and support them for long. Other means must be found.
He performed his priestly duties that morning with calm and precision. He was not astonished that Lady Allen did not come to Mass. Sir Christopher was there, and murmured that his lady was wearied by all the gaudy-day festivities; that she was abed, somewhat ailing. Therefore, she did not grace either the dinner or supper tables. Nor did the steward. It occurred to Stephen that Dickon, while serving, gave him some peculiar sideways glances, but he thought little of that either. The whole manor was disorganized by the excitements of the day before. They ate leftover beef and stale bread.
But in the evening Stephen’s period of abeyance began to pass. He ceased to think that Celia was showing common sense and restraint and began to hunger for a sight of her. The hunger reached such a peak by nine o’clock that he went without excuse to the servants’ quarters, and found Alice, the nursery maid, angrily banging dishes in the scullery.
“Aye, Father?” she said bobbing.
“I was . . . well, wondering where . . .” he could not remember the name Celia had used, “where the new scullery maid was? Didn’t see her at Mass this morning.”
“Oh,
her,
” said Alice. “I suppose she’s took off. Has a lover in Ivy Hatch she’s hot for. A pleasin’ maid she be, though flighty. Has left us short-handed, or I wouldn’t be having to help the cook.”
“I see . . .” said Stephen. He felt a violent pang. “She has a swain in Ivy Hatch?” His heavy black brows drew together in a frown resented by Alice, who considered that there was far too much pother made about dalliance at the Mote.
“And why not?” she said, clashing a dish against the stone sink. “She’s young and comely, an’ ’tis all in natur’, an’ I’m quittin’ this house come Michaelmas. I’ll find me a more agreeable place—no fear. I’m not bound arter Michaelmas.”
“I suppose not . . .” said Stephen. “Are you
sure
that . . . that the scullery maid is out? She might have been tired and gone to bed.”
Alice tossed her head; her flushed face went blank. She didn’t hold with pryings, even from the priest. “Mebbe so, mebbe not,” she said, “and no doubt ye’ll hear all about it w’en she goes to be shriven—if she do.”
Stephen left the scullery and wandered back to the tiny kitchen courtyard. He went out over the back bridge which spanned the moat. He wandered aimlessly up the path to the beeches.
The skies had cleared after the rainy day. He looked at the stars, and the crescent moon, silvery and remote. The dark wet woods were profoundly silent, hushed. Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow she’ll be here. There
is
no man at Ivy Hatch, she had said that to quiet the other maid. She’s asleep, or readying her gear as we agreed.