Girl In A Red Tunic (39 page)

     ‘I am not convinced that Sirida deliberately misled you!’ Helewise protested. Dear God, the poor man had just been told that the man he had believed to be his father was no such thing; let him not also have to contend with his mother having lied to him!

     But Arthur did not answer. He turned away from her and, as he closed his eyes, she saw tears leak from them and drop on to the spotless pillow.

     There seemed nothing else to do but tiptoe away.

In the middle of the day Leofgar returned. Sister Ursel had been looking out for him and when the party came in sight, she sent word to Helewise, who hurried to the gates to meet him. With him came Rohaise – a smiling and suddenly beautiful Rohaise – and Timus, sitting in front of his father and whooping with delight.

     Behind them, grumbling about her aching bones, was a very old, very plump woman on a sturdy bay pony. The years fell away and Helewise was a new bride, full of nervous excitement at taking on her husband’s household and servants; yes, dear old Elena had gone to the Old Manor with her but Elena, she had well known, loved her already; Magda was the one she’d had to win over  ...

     She had succeeded. She’d grown to love Magda dearly, especially after Elena had died, and she knew that her feelings had been fully reciprocated.

     Now, her eyes opening wide in amazement, Helewise cried out, ‘Magda! Is it really you?’ and, as the old woman’s round face creased into a joyful smile, Helewise ran forward to embrace her.

     ‘Looking every inch the Abbess, I might say,’ Magda observed as Helewise helped her down from her pony. ‘Thought I’d come and see for myself, young Helewise, whether all that I hear of you is true.’

     ‘And is it?’ Helewise asked, grinning.

     Magda gave her a reverential bow. ‘Indeed, my lady Abbess.’

     But Helewise heard her add, not quite sufficiently under her breath, ‘Still my Helewise underneath that black habit, I’ll warrant.’

     Helewise greeted Rohaise and swept Timus off his feet into a cuddle, managing to hug him for at least the count of five before the little boy wriggled to be released. Laughing, Rohaise said, ‘Do not take it amiss, my lady; he is lively and restless from spending days shut away inside and he has energy to spend!’

     Leofgar came to stand beside his mother. ‘We have been lodging with Magda, who has a little house in Tonbridge, on the edge of the town,’ he said quietly. ‘We could not go home when we left here in the middle of the night, for I feared that whoever had killed Teb Bell might find us there and could set out to harm us. So I went to Magda and she took us in. We have been there ever since.’

     Helewise turned to the old woman and hugged her close. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

     Magda nodded. But her smile was an indication of her pleasure and satisfaction. ‘All’s well now, Helewise,’ she whispered back. ‘See how the young wife looks? They’ve grown close, she and her husband, while they have been under my roof. She’ll do very well, now.’

     The simple statement was enough, Helewise thought, studying the laughing, happy Rohaise as she chased Timus and then, pretending to be afraid, let him chase her. Something profound had altered; whatever malaise had sat so heavily upon her had lifted. And, with the threat to her husband and child gone, the true woman was emerging.

     Yes, Helewise thought. She’ll do very well.

She made the time to tell Leofgar of her conversation with Arthur Fitzurse and, when Josse returned late in the afternoon, she told him too. He in turn reported that Gervase de Gifford sent his compliments and was delighted to hear that the Abbess had been returned safe and unharmed to Hawkenlye. ‘But he’s not satisfied that no crime has been done, my lady,’ Josse added with a frown. ‘He cannot see why these events have happened. I did not explain to him, for the secret is not mine to tell.’

     ‘I will explain, if necessary,’ she said. ‘If he comes asking, I will tell him what I must. Although when I think of Arthur’s despair, I realise how very reluctant I am to broadcast his shame further than I have to.’

     ‘De Gifford is discreet,’ Josse remarked. ‘He would not use against Arthur Fitzurse something that was not the poor man’s fault. Considerations such as that, however, would no doubt become irrelevant were de Gifford to accuse Arthur of Teb Bell’s murder. It is his duty as sheriff to bring to trial those believed to be guilty of such serious crimes and de Gifford would be failing in that duty if he allowed our pleadings for clemency to affect him.’

     ‘We could speak in Arthur’s defence, could we not, if he comes to trial?’

     ‘Indeed we could, my lady.’

     ‘But let us hope that de Gifford does not accuse him,’ she said fervently.

     Josse was watching her. ‘He may suspect but he has no proof,’ he said. ‘He will not make an accusation, I judge, unless and until he has.’

     ‘Hm.’

     Josse spread his hands expansively, a smile on his lips. ‘My lady,’ he said winningly, ‘your son and his wife and child are back here with you and the young woman, I would dare to say, looks bonnier than ever. Will you not forget your cares for a while and simply enjoy their company?’

     It was, she reflected, the best suggestion she had heard all day. ‘Yes, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘I rather think I will.’

Leofgar and his family remained at Hawkenlye Abbey for another two days and Magda stayed there with them. Helewise, able to relax now, enjoyed being with them all even more than she had thought to. In particular she loved to be with Leofgar, walking, talking; quite often, just being quiet together.

     She realised something about herself. Spending these past days as she had done, with such extensive and clear thoughts of her past, had led her to see that she had been carrying considerable guilt, particularly since she came to Hawkenlye, over the manner of Leofgar’s conception. She was a nun now and it seemed to her that her sin in having lain with Ivo before they were wed still stained her soul. She had never confessed it to Father Gilbert lest he think the less of her for her past.

     She wondered now whether this guilt had led to her not wishing to see her son. He was, after all, a constant, vital reminder of her life with Ivo and she saw his father in him all the time, for all that everybody else said he looked just like her. I have been too hard on him, this beloved son of mine, she told herself, and on Dominic too; for I have not allowed myself contact with the younger brother all the time that I denied it to myself with the elder. But it is time for a change.

     She went to see Father Gilbert and told the astonished priest the full story of meeting Ivo, falling so deeply and passionately in love with him, making love with him and conceiving Leofgar before their marriage. Father Gilbert gave her pen ance – he seemed to realise that she could not forgive herself if he did not impose a token punishment – but she thought that his kindly manner suggested strongly that he thought she had been making a lot of fuss about nothing very much.

     Straight away she felt better. And, with the removal of the dark lens imposed by the long burden of her guilt, at last she was able to see her own past through open, honest eyes.

     When the time came to bid farewell – a temporary farewell – to Leofgar, Rohaise and Timus, Helewise opened her heart and let them see how much she loved them. ‘We shall meet again soon,’ she promised Leofgar, who looked surprised and then, very quickly afterwards, rather pleased.

     Magda held Helewise against her as they said goodbye. ‘Come to visit me in my little house,’ she urged. ‘Leofgar’ll tell you where I am – it’s not far away. I would like to think that I shall see you again before I go, Helewise. It would comfort me.’

     ‘Then I shall,’ Helewise promised, smiling. She had overheard several of her nuns suggesting politely to Magda that she refer to Helewise as my lady Abbess, but the elderly servant still saw the young bride and not the stately nun; Helewise was destined to have Magda call her by her name until the day that the old woman died.

     Magda beckoned for Helewise to bend down so that she could whisper in her ear. ‘There’s another one on the way,’ she said softly, nodding in Rohaise’s direction, ‘unless I’m mistaken, which I never am. They’ve found each other again, Helewise.’

     Helewise, who discovered that she had a lump in her throat and could not speak, instead made her response by silently returning Magda’s hug.

     Josse stood with her as they waved the party on their way. He too had announced that he was leaving; he was planning to set off the following morning. The Abbey would seem quiet without the visitors but, as for herself, Helewise thought that she would quite welcome a return to serenity  ...

That serenity would have to wait a while longer.

     At first light the next morning, when the nun on duty in the infirmary went on her rounds, she found an awful sight.

     Arthur Fitzurse must have turned too violently in the night, for he had managed to open his partly healed wound. It had gaped wide, almost as if its edges had been forced apart, and the infirmarer, instantly summoned, realised as she inspected it that he had been bleeding for some time; Arthur’s bed was soaked in his blood.

     He was dead.

     They gave him full funeral rites and nobody mentioned the possibility of suicide. Sister Euphemia held her peace: she had seen his face and recognised the expression. She knew that where life holds nothing, a man may well choose death.

     Helewise suspected. She realised that she had probably brought about Arthur’s final despairing act – if indeed it had been a deliberate act and not an accident – by revealing the truth to him. She cried her woe to Josse, who heard her out and then, once she had eventually finished with her self-accusations, said calmly that even if Arthur had decided to end his own life, it was not her fault for having told him the truth but the fault of those who had done those deeds that she had been driven to reveal to him.

     Still she was not convinced.

     Finally Josse said that if Arthur had sincerely wanted to die, then who were they to hold on to him and make him remain alive? She had started to say that only God had the right to make that choice, but something in Josse’s expression had stopped her.

     ‘Do not be so hard on yourself,’ he said kindly. ‘None of us is perfect, even you.’

He waited until she was calm again, bless him, before he set out for home. He went to the Abbey church with her for Sext and then they returned to her room, where she sent for bread, salted fish and a draught of weak ale to fortify him for the journey. Then, aware that he was still giving her the occasional glance as if to reassure himself that she really was all right, she walked with him to the stables and saw him on his way. As always, she said, ‘Come back to see us soon’ and as always he replied, ‘Aye, I will.’

     Back in the privacy of her little room, she thought about what he had said and she loved him for the determined way in which he had tried to talk her out of her guilt over Arthur Fitzurse’s death. She still felt the echo of that guilt, however, and a part of her knew that she always would; she would have to learn to live with it. I did what I thought best, she thought, but perhaps I got it wrong.

     But then, as Josse had said,
None of us is perfect, even you
.

     She smiled. When she thought about it, it was not a bad summing-up.

Postscript

Midwinter 1193

In her lonely hut down in the mists by the river, Sirida mourned for her son.

     They had come to tell her he was dead.

     That Helewise had not turned out too bad after all, Sirida had to admit; she had made sure that the lay brother with the kind face who had brought the message – more than a month ago now – had told Sirida a gentle version of Arthur’s last hours. But Sirida hadn’t needed to be told: she knew what had happened.

     I could not help you, Arthur, she said to his shade as it flowed around her, the greyness moving to make a vague human form, briefly coalescing only to disperse again. I have always done what I thought was best for you, and I know now that what I believed to be right was probably wrong.

     But how could I tell you that you were born from a fumble in a shack with a man who performed another’s duty?

     Benedict Warin hid the secret of his impotence so well, my son, that I never suspected the truth until it was too late. My senses were dulled by lust, otherwise I should have probed into his mind and seen him for what he was. But I did not think I had any need for such precautions. I wanted him and I used every trick that I knew to make him want me; I set my trap and he fell into it. He summoned me and I came to him. I lay in that hut, wet and hungry with desire for him, for he was a splendid man and knew well how to make women – girls – love him and want him. He was kind, appreciative, generous with his compliments and with his little favours. I could not resist him, and the thought of what he might do for me if I pleased him – as I knew I would – ran ever a short second in my mind to how much I wanted to bed him.