A Vision of Light (57 page)

“Not little enough!” he said, with intense bitterness, and he stared at me fiercely. Then, seeing how I stared back, he smiled faintly and said something I did not understand at the time.

“If anything happens to you, or if our children die without issue, all the assets my sons might then hope to claim as an inheritance revert to the Church.” I looked puzzled. His chuckle was grim: “Set a greedy dog against a greedy dog. It ought to keep them in shrines for a good long time.”

I had grown immense now, and could hardly walk. Hilde came often to visit, and she would give me all the gossip of the town from the midwife’s-eye view, so to speak. What child looked like no known relative, what child was born in a caul, or marked unusually, and what strange arrangements had been made in which household to deal with the new baby. It was delicious, for it brought the old days back to me in a rosy haze, without any of the difficulties. Brother Malachi was doing well with plague remedies. He could sell them without leaving town, which made Hilde happy. It seems that when a plague remedy doesn’t work, there’s always a good excuse, and besides, there is no furious customer to try to stuff the bad merchandise down your throat.

“And he’s dreadfully, dreadfully close to the Secret these days. He says the first gold he makes will be used to crown my head in reward for my patience. He’s silly, but so well meaning!”

“His equipment?” I asked in some alarm. “It’s out?”

“Oh, don’t worry so. In the daytime he makes spirits of wine, which is his excuse. At night he pursues the Secret. He does well with his spirits—he sells it for a medicine. He tells people it will cure almost anything, and whether it does or not, they always come back for more.”

“But doesn’t he ever sleep?”

“In the daytime, when there’s work to be done, he usually needs a nap. But that’s the way it is with higher minds,” said Hilde complacently. Then she patted my stomach. “The baby’s dropped nicely. It can only be a few days more, dear.”

Three nights later the powerful contractions began; water gushed into the bed.

“Send for Hilde!” I gasped, shaking my husband by the shoulder. Everything was ready when she arrived, the firelight shining on the new cradle, and the little bath that sat on the hearth. The clean linen and swaddling bands were laid out. Hilde had brought the birthing stool, for we had both seen enough to know that if there is a choice, it is easier to push
down
than, lying flat, to push
out
.

“Surely, Margaret, you’ve delivered enough children not to be so anxious this time,” she said, holding my hand.

“It’s entirely different when it’s your own, Hilde. And besides, I know too well that anything can happen.”

“Then breathe deeply instead of panicking, Margaret; surely you can do better than this,” she remarked calmly.

My husband was morbidly nervous. He paced noisily about outside the door of the lying-in room, peeking in every so often to ask some useless question of Hilde.

“I’d feel much better if we had that thing Margaret used to take around—just for an emergency, mind!” he said, waiting outside the open door.

“No matter, Master Kendall. I was always afraid to use it. I’m just old-fashioned. It was always Margaret’s, and she can’t very well deliver her own baby, anyway, can she now?” Hilde’s calm good sense stilled his nerves for a few moments. Then as the pains grew stronger, I could not help groaning and crying out. There he was, back at the door, interfering again.

“I can’t bear hearing all this, Mother Hilde. Are you sure this is all going as it should? It sounds terrible; it’s much more gruesome than an encounter with pirates. You say women do this all the time?” Hilde was too busy to answer, so he sat down outside, with his head in his hands. Then I cried out again; the head was being born.

“Only a few minutes more that you must wait, Master Kendall; all goes well, very well indeed,” called out Mother Hilde, as she lifted the slippery torso.

“It’s a girl-baby that you’ve got now, Master Kendall,” she called out a minute later. But she wouldn’t let him in the room until the child was washed and neatly wrapped, and I was clean and tucked into the newly made bed. This time, when he stood at the door, she held out the little bundle for him to inspect.

“Why, it’s got red hair!” he exclaimed with pleasure. “Little red curls on the top. I can see the color plainly!”

Hilde put the baby in my arms, where it first rooted about for the breast and then sucked ecstatically.

“Who would have thought it? Red hair,” my husband kept murmuring dreamily. His sons were black headed, like their mother. It was his hair that had been red, long ago, before it was white.

I have never been more tired than in the days and nights that followed. It was a happy tired, and I slept most of the time and fed the baby in between.

“Won’t you have a wet-nurse to spare yourself? I thought all women wanted a wet-nurse,” Kendall said when he saw the circles under my eyes.

“Oh, husband, never. For the child takes on the characteristics of whoever’s milk it drinks. And I’ve seen too many wet-nurses at close hand.” His eyebrows went up, and he shook his head at my eccentricity.

Several weeks later, while the child slept, I decided to take my sewing downstairs, where I could enjoy the roses. I was making something nice, an embroidered gown for my little girl.

Agatha came in to interrupt, her face the picture of annoyance.

“There’s a shabby begging priest at the door to see you. He says he knows you and wants to be admitted. I’ll chase him off if you want. These people are just leeches, and you need your rest.”

“But who did he say he was?” I asked her.

“He said he was David—you’d know the rest.”

David! David here!

“Oh, Agatha, send him in right away—he’s my brother.”

“Your brother? You certainly picked a poor-looking brother. It fooled me,” the old woman muttered, and was gone.

“David, David!” I beamed, and got up and held my arms out to him as he entered the room.

“Don’t get up, sister. I hear you’ve gone into the childbearing business, this time, and I’ve been informed you need your rest.”

“Just let me hug you this once, David—I’ve craved it for so very, very long,” I answered, and he put his arms about my shoulders with an awkward gesture.

David and I sat together on the window seat. It was almost like the old days.

“You live well here, sister,” he said, looking around at the glazed windows, the patterned carpet, and the blooming roses outside.

“My husband gives me everything.”

“Then you must be happy,” he said, but his eyes looked sad.

“Happy? Yes, happy, I guess. But I wanted to be free. That’s different.”

“I’m sorry, then.”

“Don’t be sorry, David. Don’t ever be sorry for me. Things didn’t come out badly. I’ve even found you again. That’s been a joy, even though I couldn’t see you. I wanted to, you know, but I thought I’d pull down your great career. So I stayed away.”

“I knew that was so. That’s why I’ve come to see you instead. I’ve something to tell you, Margaret.”

“Nothing bad, I hope,” I replied. His face looked so serious.

“No; it’s just that I wanted to apologize.”

“You never need to apologize to me, David. I’ll apologize to you.”

“No, you don’t understand, Margaret. When I saw you there, looking so unhappy, and Father Edmund humiliated you on purpose, I felt so bad I can hardly tell you. It was about something that happened long ago. I—I was ashamed I’d never showed you the rest of the alphabet.”

I took his hand in both of mine. How dearly I loved David! My twin, my other half, for all the days of my life. I wanted only to console him.

“But that’s all gone by, now. You can’t grieve over what’s past. I’m well off, you see, and my husband has promised to get a reading teacher for me sometime when I’m less tired. Someday I’ll study, and then I’ll write you a letter in my own hand. You’ll be pleased with me then, David.”

“Well, just don’t be sending letters all over. They’ll wind up in the hands of the bishop’s officers. Don’t you remember? We get the reports on you at the bishop’s palace. Reports on you, and a lot of others.”

I thought about that awhile. It didn’t seem fair, but David was right.

“Oh, David, it’s so depressing. I wish there were an island far away in the sea, where I could go live and think what I like.”

“There is no such island, Margaret, and if there were, people would make it just the same as here. You’re stuck, Margaret. You have to live like everybody else.”

“If you were a nice brother, you wouldn’t remind me,” I said with a smile.

“That’s something like I’ve been thinking, Margaret. I think somewhere I took a wrong turn—not much of a one, but it led to the wider path, you see.” His face looked, suddenly, drawn and sad.

“You’ve got a wonderful career—don’t spoil it now with doubts,” I urged him.

But he went on: “It’s just that I started thinking about the old days, Margaret. It’s when I started buttering up the bishop after your hearing. I told him all these good things, how mother had died, and how good you’d been to me. He got quite smug that he’d let you off. But I started remembering some of the ideas I’d had, and then I felt worse and worse. So I’ve talked him into letting me go. I want to work with the poor, and live like Christ and wander about—at least for a while, until I can figure out what’s right.”

“Oh, David, that’s not very safe—you might get hurt. And you have big things to do.”

“You mean, come back a prince? I’m not so sure it can be done. Just like you can’t be free.”

“But the bishop isn’t mad at you, is he?”

“Oh, no, he looked very sentimental and gave me his blessing. He said he did that, too, when he was young, and wishes he could do it now.”

Oh, David, I thought. All this tolerance you get. They’re better to you there than they are to the others, and I know why. But if I told him, it would break his heart. He thought the bishop liked him for himself alone. Why spoil it for him? So I said, “Well, if you need a good meal, you’ll at least come back here, won’t you?”

“Of course I’ll come back.”

“When, David?”

“When—when I see angels again.”

“Oh, David, then you’ll take my blessing too? Let me put my hands on your shoulders.”

He knelt down, and I put my hands on the rough material that covered his thin shoulders. The room glowed soft orange, then deep orangish-pink, and for a moment a bright, soft honey-gold.

“Why, Margaret, that’s a funny trick you have. Your face lights up. How did you learn that?”

“It’s a long story, David. But I’ll tell you one thing I’ve noticed about your bishop.”

“What’s that?”

“His fleas jump
much
farther than yours ever did.”

“Oh, Margaret, you’re
unregenerate
!” He cuffed me on the arm and grinned, picked up his bundle, and was gone.

M
ARGARET LOOKED AT WHAT
she had written. It was hard to think about David without missing him so much that she hurt inside. A year ago a letter, all stained from travel overseas, had arrived, addressed “To My Right Well-Beloved Sister, Margaret.” It had taken months to arrive, and gave news of wandering in Italy, of work in a lepers’ hospital, and a planned pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Margaret read it and reread it, and still took it out occasionally to touch it as a talisman, as if that might bring David safely back to her. Now writing of David made her need her letter again. She took it out of the chest, unfolded it carefully, and looked at the well-memorized words once again, stroking the paper and touching the signature before she put it back and resumed writing.

I
N THE TIME THAT
followed, my husband grew richer and richer, so that even the people who had gossiped about his wedding to me fought for invitations to his house.

“Good company and good food, Margaret—that’s what everything’s all about,” he would say, holding up some odd rarity that had come to him from overseas, so that he could see it in the light. Silver goblets from Italy, gold rings from Constantinople, strange little gilded paintings of the Blessed Madonna from the Slavic lands—they all passed through his hands and were converted into gifts to the great and powerful, which built his influence even further.

“Never forget, Margaret, we all need friends,” he’d say, telling me of some spiteful revenge or double-dealing at court. Then he’d add, “And isn’t it a blessing you run my house so well—that’s half the story of my new successes, right there.” I never felt so wanted and so valued.

He purchased two more manor houses in the country to add to his estate—one of them solely because it had an excellent cherry orchard, for he loved cherries immoderately. Each time he bought property, he’d rewrite his will secretly, to make sure his two sons never got anything with which to finance their wild lives. About the time I was pregnant with Alison, Lionel and Thomas, fearing I was bearing a son, and not knowing that his plans were already made, became so vicious that he barred them from the house entirely.