Remember Me (26 page)

William found the place, dismounted, opened the gate, and led his horse in after him—being careful to latch the gate again; he didn't know what arrangements Madeleine had for her goat here.

He stood gazing in astonished delight at his new home. “A cottage,” Thomas Haydon had said, which could have meant anything. William feasted his eyes on this low, comfortable house with a porch to the wide front door, weathered oak under a great stone lintel. A rose that had been trained to grow on the wall now hung loose in long sprays where the care of it had been neglected, only a leaf or two and three lingering blossoms left on it this late in the year. He had not known what to expect but had not anticipated something of such good size. At the front of the house where he stood, the stone-flagged yard adrift with leaves was bounded by a wall. Through the archway in the section of wall opposite him he saw a garden—clearly itself walled, so presumably for vegetables even though at present it looked on a glance to be no more than a haven for weeds.

“Oh! Oh! You have your palfrey! And we have a stable!” An excited Madeleine appeared around the side of the house, where another way through led to the ground at the back. He had sent word to her that he would come today, and she had been listening for the sound of a cart or a horse or even the simple sound of the gate latch as a man came in on foot, every hour of the morning. “Come! Come and see!”

He led his horse through like a man in a dream, to where she had prepared the stable with bedding on the floor, a pail of water, and a net of hay. “I've had the goat in here at night. I didn't know we'd have the palfrey.”

“John said I could bring her. She'd come with me from St. Dunstan's.”

They fastened her in the stable. “There's a paddock where she can go,” said Madeleine, “and we have an orchard, and a pond—we shall be able to have ducks as well as geese, and a pig right away because the orchard is walled and has a pig house at the back. Oh—there is a fruit store by the vegetable garden, all fitted with racks and some apples already laid away. And the wood store is stocked—the wood is well seasoned too! Come and see!”

William followed her in silence, taking in everything she showed him. “Isn't it wonderful? Don't you love it?” She looked for his approval as he stood under the boughs of an apple tree still bearing the last remains of unpicked fruit. She could not read his face. “You—you do like it, don't you?”

He nodded without speaking and hastily wiped a tear from his eye with the heel of his hand.

“I can't believe this kindness from someone we hardly knew.” His voice shook as he answered her. “This is a palace. It's so much more than I imagined. I've been afraid for what we would do to provide for ourselves, but you're right—there's room for a pig and geese and ducks and vegetables and all we could need.” He smiled at her, trying to get a grip on his tangled emotions. “Where have your hens gone?”

“Over there, look—tucked into the bottom corner of the orchard. There was a henhouse already.”

She looked at him, her eyes dancing with joy, and she wrapped her arms about him. “And now there is you, to make it heaven.”

And then he bent his face to hers, folded her in his embrace, his mouth joining to hers as he gave himself to the sweetness of their kiss.

“We are home,” he said softly, when he could bear to let that kiss come to an end. “It came true.”

He cradled her in his arms, drinking in everything about this moment, every nerve awake to the feeling of her body against his, hardly able to take in that this was their home; they could stay. It was given.

“Come and see inside the house! Come and see!” She looked up at him, sparkling with happiness.

“Just a minute,” he said, unwilling to let her go, and though he felt her taut with impatience to show him everything, he kissed her again. Then he was ready to look at their house.

The front door opened into a generous room, one wall taken up with the inglenook and bread oven, but there were other rooms besides: the kitchen, of course, and a scullery with a stone sink. From the scullery a door led into a cobbled yard with a well in which Madeleine had found gaps built into the stones to house her butter. Another door opened from the scullery into a pantry with stone shelves and only one small window, built on the north side of the house to keep fresh food cool. A brace of grouse hung there. “Our neighbour brought them,” said Madeleine happily, “for a welcome gift.” Besides this, the house had three further rooms downstairs, so far bare and empty. “For accounts and deeds and records.” “For drying herbs and preparing medicines—a real apothecary.” “For a little oratory—one where I'm actually
allowed
to kiss my lady.”

The stairs led to an upper floor with four fair-sized rooms. “If we need more money, we could have a lodger—maybe two!” said Madeleine.

“We could,” William agreed, but she heard reluctance in his voice. “For a while—only a while—can we be private here? Can it be just you and me for a little while?”

“For sure. Anyway, we have an income as well as a house. I have eight pounds a year, and if I marry, there is ten pounds a year for my spouse, remember. If I never marry, that second amount is to be held in trust and goes to the abbey on my death.”

William had remembered. No detail of that will had escaped him, and he had fully grasped the information and its implications on first hearing.

It was a modest income, but with no rent to pay and the possibility of their own meat and eggs and milk, and with a horse already given, they would have to be frugal, but not anxious. The house had still a few sticks of furniture—a bedstead and a large chest with a domed lid in one room upstairs, a table and two stools, three pails, and some kitchen paraphernalia downstairs. “And it was so good of Adam to let me bring all that I had in the cottage, even though it wasn't mine to begin with!”
Who?
wondered William momentarily; he could not get used to Madeleine referring to John always by his baptismal name.

“We haven't a proper mattress, but I've made one from bracken and heather from the moor for now,” said Madeleine as they came into the only furnished bedroom. “But Adam said I could bring the sheepskins. I haven't purchased much, but I did buy the linen to make the mattress, and two sheets and a blanket. I got the best price I could, but it was a lot—I hope you don't think I've been extravagant.” She looked at him anxiously.

He smiled at her and kissed her cheek. “What else could you do? We can make shift with heather and bracken very well, as you say, for now. Once we have the birds, we can save the feathers until we have enough for a mattress.”

“William…” She hesitated. “What are we—when are we—do you know—when will we be able to be wed?”

He raised his eyebrows, and his gaze held hers, teasing. “Wed? Were you thinking we would be wed?”

But he dropped a kiss on her brow before she could entertain any serious doubt of his intentions. “Nay, if you will have me, my lady, your good brother has been more generous than I could ever have expected. He will marry us with a license to waive the need for banns—this coming Saturday, in the afternoon, he said. We are to meet him at the lych-gate of Holy Redeemer.”

“Brother Conradus.”

The novices had finished their lessons for the morning, stacked the Gospels and the various texts of the Desert Fathers away neatly on the shelves, and begun to make their way down to chapel for the midday office. Conradus sometimes helped in the kitchen in the mornings too, but Father Theodore remained firm upon the point that he did actually have to learn something sometimes, and he had been in the novitiate schoolroom all this morning. On his way to the door with the others, standing back to make room for Brother Benedict to go ahead of him, he turned in response to his novice master quietly speaking his name.

“Yes, Father?”

“Will you wait just a moment. I wanted to ask you something.”

Conradus came back to where Theodore still sat in his place in their circle, watching the young men filter out of the room. He always prayed for each one as they went through the door.

“Come and sit down. I won't keep you but a minute.”

Conradus sat beside him, and his novice master waited peacefully until all the others had gone. Brother Robert, the last out, looked back questioningly: should he close the door? And Theodore nodded—yes, please—so he latched it quietly behind him.

“What's the matter, Brother Conradus?” asked Theodore then.

Brother Conradus looked instantly alarmed. “I'm sorry!” he said quickly. “Have I been remiss? Was I looking sullen?”

Theodore smiled. Sometimes it hurt Conradus that almost everything he said seemed to make people laugh, even when he was in earnest, when he was telling them the most heartfelt truth. He comforted himself with the reminder that those who afford others a reason for laughter, who are somehow of themselves a kind of joke, are part of the leaven of righteousness that keeps life from getting heavy and sad. But he couldn't see why his reply had caused his novice master amusement.

“You have not behaved badly, Brother Conradus. You just look a bit glum—and cheerful is your normal mode of being. What's wrong?”

Conradus sighed. He looked perplexed now. “The thing is, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, Father.”

“You probably are. I am your novice master and your confessor. You can say what you like.”

“Well, then, it's Father William. I knew he was unhappy—really unhappy. I told Father John he was. There was a day during the summer when I accidentally came upon him up in the wood. He'd gone there to find some privacy, I suppose, and I'd gone up just for a stroll. And when I found him there, he was crouched on the ground weeping—really sobbing. He was angry to be disturbed and had a few choice words to say to me—he came to find me later and apologized to me—but I could never put it out of my mind after that. He was so very unhappy. I prayed for him every day, and not knowing what to pray for I asked Our Lady for help. And—I told Father Abbot this—the words came into my mind to pray that he would have the courage to keep the flower of his love alive through this winter, for it would have its time in the sun. So that is what I have prayed for, day after day after day. But he never looked any happier, and now I see he has gone. I know I can't ask; I'm not prying. I just feel so sad and disappointed that my prayers were never answered. He gave up without ever getting past December; he didn't struggle through the winter to see that time in the sun.”

Theodore digested this in silence, wondering how much, if anything, he could say.

“I'm sorry, Father,” said Conradus. “I do know I'm not supposed to mention him.”

“This is difficult,” Theodore said slowly, “but I can tell you this much: your prayers have not gone unanswered. He had the courage. He kept it alive. It has its time in the sun. You can give thanks. And he would be touched and grateful to know you had prayed so faithfully, for it was very hard going for him at times. That's all I can say to you, apart from that it's worth bearing in mind that many of our prayers are answered beyond the horizon of our sight—but that's a limitation of what we can see, not the failure of our faith or our prayer.”

“He's—he's all right then?” Theo watched the young man's eyes brighten with hope and relief.

“I believe so,” said Theodore. “I really cannot tell you anything more than that.”

“But we've only this week begun Advent. We haven't gone through the winter.”

Theodore looked at him with a certain amount of wonder. The realm of thought and philosophy was his natural medium, and it never failed to surprise him how opaque that realm could be to the literal-minded.

“I think,” he said, “Our Lady may have been speaking figuratively.”

“Sweetheart; we are man and wife now. We are safe in the privacy of our own chamber. Here I am, in my own skin. I know it's chill, but might you not think of removing your shift? I give you my word, I'll keep you warm!”