Authors: Norah Lofts
‘Hardly that,’ I protested. ‘When your son made—the arrangement—he turned over to L’Espan the revenue of the mill at Le Bocage and all the fishing rights in the river between St. Laurens and Villenau—’ And a fine peck of trouble I have had over their administration, I thought to myself.
‘It is, nevertheless, charity,’ said the old woman with great dignity and great venom. ‘Because it was for you to say yes or no when my horrid little half-breed asked whether you would take in his addlebrained old mother.’
It occurred to me that perhaps she had always regarded her half-Norman offspring as horrid little half-breeds, treated them as such and that was why not one of the four now had much filial affection for her. If she had succeeded in bearing a pure Saxon child she would probably have lavished all her love on it and thus insured against an unwanted old age. But it was almost half a century too late to point this out to her. And she was very pleased and proud to teach us English.
‘If you live long enough, as you well may,’ she said, ‘you will be glad. Every day this tongue, once so despised and neglected, is being spoken more and more. I am too old, I… shall not see it but the day will come when English will be heard in Westminster; and it will cross the sea, too, and be heard in Rouen and in Paris and in Rome.’
I left her her illusions and merely said that I had already heard it in Acre.
So all that autumn Blondel and I learned English together. He had the start of me because during his stay in London he had begun to learn and had added considerably to his vocabulary, at least while he was with the army. But once my competitive spirit was roused, I made great headway and my grammar, Huldah said, was sounder than his.
‘You
must
not think,’ she said fiercely, ‘that because in English a table is not
she
and a piece of butter
he
, as in your ridiculous French; or because in English the word is “tree” whether we say “that tree,” “under a tree,” “the tree is green,” or “oh, tree, how lovely you are”—therefore English has no grammar, no rules. It has. Of course,’ she added, ‘it is because English is not concerned with the non-existent sex of tables and calls a tree a tree in all circumstances that it will in time become the language of the civilised world.’
Blondel looked at me; I looked at him. No muscle in our faces moved. We saved that joke for private enjoyment later.
XIV
Berengaria’s wish to spend Christmas at Le Mans was granted. The whole court—or at least a company as nearly resembling a court as Richard was capable of tolerating—came south on the twentieth of December and took up residence in a grim grey castle which stood guard on the road to Orléans. I joined them there two days later.
Blondel stayed at L’Espan, busy, busy, busy, planning all manner of merry diversions for the revels there. Berengaria greeted me with the warmest affection and herself showed me to the little room which she had chosen and had made ready for me at the foot of one of the towers.
‘We wanted somewhere where we could be alone sometimes, so I said that you hated stairs. Even more, you would hate being bedded with all those giggling women. They’re all detestable, Anna. No nice woman stays in this household longer than a month; they make some excuse and go.’
I turned myself about and took a good searching look at her. She looked as much, and as little, like herself as she would if the Twelve Days of Christmas had already started and she were taking part in the revels under the Lord of Misrule. Her hair, which she had always worn simply dressed in plaits before her marriage and in a great shining knot at the back of her head after, was now most elaborately contrived into two twisted horns on either side of her head. Behind the horns, covering the back of her skull, was a little close-fitting cap of gold filigree work studded with jewels; and floating from the lower edge of the cap, just covering her neck and touching her shoulders, was a piece of gauze, a shrunken kind of veil, weighted at its edge with more jewels. Her gown was of velvet, the colour of a ripe plum, cut very low and so tight that little gussets had to be inset to accommodate her breasts and even then it was so close-fitting that the nipples were plainly outlined. Below the narrow, tightly laced waist the skirt of the gown flared out a little and then tightened, so that at the knee, in order to allow for walking, it had to be slit, revealing a petticoat of pink silk embroidered all over with little flowers of plum colour and leaves of bright green. The sleeves of the gown were skin-tight to the wrist, where they widened and fell away in a kind of fantastic open cuff which, when she lowered her arms, reached to the hem of her skirt and the cuffs were lined with the same embroidered stuff as the petticoat. Her shoes of purple velvet had long pointed toes. All very grand and very beautiful and very new-fangled but not, I thought, very dignified or modest or like Berengaria.
There I checked myself sharply. I had been buried in the country, immured at L’Espan, wearing, if truth be told, the same dresses with which I had set out from Pamplona and seeing women dressed in similar ancient style. For me even mentally to issue judgement on this fine apparel would be as silly and futile as that old priest ignorantly fulminating against the laced gown he had never seen.
‘You look more beautiful than ever,’ I said.
‘It profits me nothing.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘I rather hoped that things were well with you.’ Not quite true; her letter had informed me otherwise and that was why I was here and not making evergreen wreaths to hang in the dining hall at L’Espan.
‘Tonight,’ she said, ‘after supper, when they are having music and jugglers and tumblers—will you come with me, Anna, to the cathedral? St. Petronella you know…’
‘Willingly.’ I suppose my doubt sounded in my voice or peeped from my eyes. You look more beautiful than ever; it profits me nothing; will you come to St. Petronella’s shrine? A link broken somewhere.
‘It may sound crazy—perhaps I am crazed—God knows I have had enough to make me. But, Anna, I did think that if St. Petronella had the power they ascribe to her and was kind—I mean if she wanted to give me a baby—of course I shouldn’t say this to you but you are so understanding about everything even though—and to whom else could I say it? To have a baby, you know, you have to have a husband first. And if St. Petronella really does give babies, then it is obvious—Blanche is with child, did you know?’
The cold rigour that always assails me when I hear of miracles or ghosts or other things which reason cannot explain away shook me.
Say coincidence or simply determination on the woman’s part and where were you then? Doubt the power of the saints and you proceed to doubt the power of God. Deny that little Guillaume, little Geoffrey, little John, little Mary Petronella owed their existence to some particular intervention and you committed yourself to unplumbed depths of heresy.
But believe it and Berengaria’s words were entirely, utterly reasonable.
‘Does he bed with you?’ I asked, putting bluntly the question which had always been at the back of my mind.
‘When there is no excuse that he can give his own conscience, Anna, which means when he is not in camp, not on a journey, he comes to my bed.’ A hot wave of colour rose from the edge of the low-necked gown and poured over her face. ‘Let us not talk about it. Come with me this evening. We’ll slip away quietly. Oh, Anna, it is so comforting to have you here…’
The cathedral was deserted when we reached it; the quiet and the cold reminded me of my visit to the cathedral at Pamplona when I had knelt and prayed my desperate prayers—prayers which had been answered; that no one could deny! But perhaps one should be rather more careful about one’s prayers. Tonight I let her go alone into the little side chapel where St. Petronella lay and stayed myself in the darkened nave and confined myself to ritual prayers, parrotlike, with the simple addition, ‘God make her happy!’
Time passed slowly in the dark, in the cold, in the incense-laden air.I mustn’t be impatient; mustn’t imagine that an hour has passed, mustn’t think of the cold. ‘God make her happy.’ Time tames us all, supples us, makes us gracefully accept the crumbs and avert our eyes from the laden table where other men feast. Blondel plans little rooms and fuddles himself with wine; I busy myself with fishing rights, mill dues, toll fees, take pleasure in his company and in the happiness of the women I harbour. But she has nothing, no resources. God make her happy in the only way in which she can be made happy.
At last I was sure that an hour must have passed, even making allowances for the fact that kneeling is painful for me and that when one is cold and uncomfortable every moment seems endless. Presently I was aware of a dim figure moving about the altar; the light there brightened as the candles were renewed. It must be drawing near midnight. I rose to my feet, rubbed my hands together and then chafed my knees which were numbed from the cold stone.
Then I heard a voice, Berengaria’s voice, in the side chapel. It was too far away for me to hear what she said but there was a note of agitation and alarm. Possibly the priest who had renewed the altar candles had gone into the side chapel and startled her and although she was the bravest woman I knew about darkness, sudden noises, mice and what Blanco called “haunts,” nevertheless, in this great silent church, at such an hour and in the deadly cold which I at least always found lowering to the spirits, it was possible that even she was frightened. I began to hobble rapidly towards the entrance of the chapel and as I did so I heard her voice again. It said, ‘Come back—come back. I haven’t made you understand. If you understood you would forgive me…’ No other voice answered.
By that time I had reached the opening in the screen of stonework and could see into the chapel which was, in comparison with the dark body of the church, quite well illumined. I could even see the bunch of late frost-bitten roses and the posy of holly berries stripped of their leaves and surrounded by a frill of white lace which lay on the flat tomb. There was nobody there save Berengaria who stood rigid, staring at the wall and stretching out one hand in the gesture of one who would detain a passer-by. I called her name softly. She turned, looked at me blankly, and drew a deep breath. Then she said, ‘Anna,’ and very slowly she came towards me, walking as I imagined a sleepwalker does, though I had never seen a sleepwalker. I put my hand on her arm and could feel that she was shuddering violently.
‘Anna,’ she said again before I could speak.
‘I heard you talking,’ I said, a little shaken by her manner, by the memory of the tone of her voice, by the lateness, the darkness, the strangeness, the more than winter cold.
‘I tried to explain,’ she said, as though she were refuting an accusation. ‘If she had just let me explain but she wouldn’t listen. She walked away with her jaw stuck out and her head in the air and just didn’t give me time to explain. I was so overwhelmed at first, Anna, I couldn’t find words; then when I recovered myself she’d gone…’
She spoke a little more loudly than people usually speak in churches and the sound of her voice stirred something, not an echo but a curious vibration, in the great building.
Almost completely unnerved, I said, ‘What are you talking about? You were alone in there.’ Then I guessed. Greatly relieved, I said, ‘You fell asleep and were dreaming. Talking in your sleep. Come on. It’s late and horribly cold. Let’s get home.’
I pulled at her arm and she moved obediently. We came out through the great door, through the porch and into the frosty starlit night. There, in front of the cathedral, she waited, shook her head like someone suddenly awake and said:
‘I was not asleep, Anna. I saw her as plainly as I see you now. She is a short woman, thickset, with a brown peasant’s face and a scar puckering one eyebrow. I was kneeling there praying and then she was there and I thought how quietly she must have come in and then I looked at her shabby old brown cloak and hood and thought how strange and rather pleasant it was that this poor woman and I should be there at the same moment, asking the same favour. And then I thought that I mustn’t let anything distract me from my intention and started to pray again. And then—in a gruff angry voice she began to rail at me and I realised—’
She shuddered, and that superstitious chill ran over my flesh again. And yet I was not convinced.
For credulity is a very variable thing. Ever since I could read I had been stuffing myself with stories of the lives and miracles of the saints. Most penmen were monks so, quite naturally, most of the books they produced were of a religious nature and though I was light-minded enough to prefer secular literature when I could get it, it was hard to come by so I was, by this time, immensely familiar with stories of saints who had seen visions, of saints who had appeared in visions. And if I had read in a book that on a certain December night St. Petronella had appeared to a would-be mother in the cathedral in Le Mans, I should have found no difficulty in believing it and should have read on, untroubled by doubt, to learn what the saint had done or said.
But to read a thing in a book and to have it told you by somebody whom you have just seen eating supper, somebody you know well, somebody you suspect of having taken a little nap, are two very different things—which is, I suppose, why all saints and mystics seem to suffer from the cynicism of their family circle.
However, despite my doubt, I was curious, so I said, ‘Why was she angry? And what did she say?’
‘She was angry because she saw through me—that I wasn’t just asking for the sake of the baby. She said, “How much farther will you carry this mummery? Do you think to deceive the very saints? Am I God, to put fruit into a virgin womb?” I knew then, Anna, that it wasn’t just the peasant woman gone crazy—because in all the world only Richard and I know—even you, Anna, didn’t know that I was still—And then she railed at me like a virago for being what she called sly and deceitful. She cursed me too. And then vanished before I could explain and justify myself. You see, I was startled and taken aback; it was—unearthly. But I was recovering myself and if she had given me a chance I would have answered her and told her that I had a case; that I did really want a baby, too, and that it was important because of the succession.’