by Anya Seton
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.
Eighteen
EMMA 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, whi
le 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.
Then, of a sudden, as he stood under the trees, near the mossy bank where they had lain together, an appalling doubt came to him; it clashed and clanged like cymbals, and evoked a memory from his boyhood at Battle Abbey. A Maundy Thursday, long ago—the service, Tenebrae, the candles which were extinguished one by one, as the monks, pure and passionless, chanted the canticles, the dirge. At last no light was left within the abbey church and Stephen, mourning—already dedicated—had wept for the blackness, for the betrayal and the death of our Lord. Betrayal. “I have betrayed . . .” he whispered aloud, but could not voice the anguish of the next thought. Had Celia? What had she meant by her unheeded words “I gave you the water-witch’s potion.” Was it witchcraft that possessed him? He raised his crucifix to his lips then dropped it. A lover in Ivy Hatch? Impossible. And yet, the image of her allurement as she had listened to Thomas Wyatt singing to her; the image of her last night at the gaudy-day festival—provocative, dancing, laughing, hand in hand with those yokels. Was one of them from Ivy Hatch? The wanton temptress—the monks had so often warned him. Nay, but could any woman feign the love he thought she had shown him?
It is my child . . . it is unless she lies, she has told other lies. Mad with a jealousy he never knew existed, he began to pace back and forth amongst the tranquil beeches. A holly frond caught his robe, and he grasped the prickly leaves, rejoicing in the pain, watching the little drops of blood run down his palm, black droplets on his glimmering palm.
It was past midnight of that August eighth when Stephen walked back to the manor. The kitchen door to the Mote was still open, as it should not have been if the steward had made his nightly round. Stephen groped his way through the unlit passages, determined to mount the servants’ stairs and see if Celia were in the attic, though the open door could mean that she had arranged it so, to further her clandestine return. As she crept secretly he thought, so may she creep to others, and why did she not see me today?
At the foot of the backstairs he paused, startled out of his furious pain. There was a strange noise in the Hall, a gritty rhythmic slapping sound, and there was a crack of light beneath the Hall door. Stephen held his breath. There should be no noise in the Hall at this hour, nor had he ever heard such a noise as this. He opened the door and saw Emma Allen sitting at the end of the table, her chin resting on her hands, gazing in his direction. She seemed to be chuckling—a low bubbling sound.
Stephen stood in the doorway staring. He was aware that there were men in the Hall, the lighted tapers showed them clearly. Larkin the steward cowered by the fireplace. It was Dickon who held a mason’s trowel and made the slapping noise as he fitted a brick into the niche, then dipped into a bucket of mortar and plastered.
“What’s this?” said Stephen, his voice unsteady. “Lady Allen, ’tis an odd hour to be sealing up your strongbox!”
Emma stopped chuckling. Her massive face grew wary, as her eyes focused slowly on Stephen. “And ’tis an odd hour for you to be abroad, my dear priest, were ye seeking for your leman?”
Her speech was clear enough, though there were pauses between the words. “Near finished, Dickon—” she said, “only two, three more bricks.”
Dickon gave Stephen a look of stark terror. He dropped his trowel.
The steward began to whimper. “I’d naught to do wi’ it, sir—she was near dead anyways—the poor maidy. I didn’t know . . . what ’twas we carried up from the dungeon. ’Twas all bundled. I swear by God and the Blessed Virgin I didn’t know.”
Emma turned and gave her steward a tolerant smile. “O’ course ye knew, an’ so did Dickon. Ye knew that Christ in his shining robes’d want ye to wall up the priest’s whore. ’Twas always done so. Leastways there was a nun bricked up at Easebourne i’ the cloister, long time back. Maybe King Richard’s time . . . An’ now ye’ll not be tempted, dear,” she said to Stephen. “We’ll be easy together here at the Mote.”
Stephen stared at them for one more second, then he flung himself at the niche, tearing at the bricks and wet plaster, pulling down a great hole until he saw what was inside, crouched far below, shrouded in brown sacking.
“Stop him—” Emma screamed. “She’s near dead, he mustn’t touch her!” She moved as she spoke and seizing the trowel, hit Stephen on the head just hard enough to stun him. He dropped prone on the rushes.
“Drag him away,” Emma said to her servants. “Upstairs to his bed, bind him down wi’ sheets—then Dickon, come back and finish the job.” She held up a purseful of gold coins and rattled them. “Mind ye o’ these, m’dear, ye can live like a lord, so ye can.”
Dickon looked down at the priest on the floor, and hunched his shoulders. “As ye like, Lady—Come on, old whiffler, gi’e me a hand wi’ him.”
The steward trembled, he wheezed and gulped. “What’ll Master say? What’ll he say w’en he finds the cupboard plastered up?”
Emma’s eyes wavered, they held a momentary bewilderment. She reached for the goblet at her elbow and drained it. “He won’t notice, he’ll—he’ll believe whatever I tell him. He—he don’t—don’t . . .” she stopped and gaped at the hole in the wall. “That must be filled!” she said in a tone of surprise. “Naught there but a scullery maid, a lustful scullery maid . . .” She picked up the trowel, and replacing a fallen brick began slapping on the mortar herself.
The next morning Stephen did not appear for the servants’ Mass. It was Alice who later found him hanging from the beam over the fireplace, near the confessional, his knotted scourge around his neck.
On Michaelmas Day, September 29, Cowdray Castle celebrated the feast with glorious profusion, for Anthony had returned from Spain and his new son, Philip, was to be christened that day. There were ga
rlands of daisies and roses over every door. A white satin banner, embroidered in gilt, flew from the flagstaff above the buck-head pennant.
Hundreds of Michaelmas geese were a-roasting and their succulent odor mingled with that of baking apples, and of the crushed new herbs strewn on every floor. Outside the manor itself, the village of Easebourne and the town of Midhurst were decked as they had never been before. Those who did not bother with garlands at least had ivy trailing from the door knockers. There was continuous music at the Spread Eagle and the Angel. There were singing in the streets and morris dances. The bell ringers added to the joyous din, hand bells—but peals too from the church, and though there were some who wondered if such merrymaking might annoy the Protestant Queen, Anthony, who knew her better by now, and had acquitted himself well on his brief mission to Spain, felt no such qualms. Elizabeth approved of gaiety, and had sent a tiny gilt cup to the infant Philip as a christening present.
The Bishop arrived from Chichester to perform the ceremony, and even young Anthony, who was jealous of all this pomp and concentration on a baby brother, stopped sulking and played at hoodman’s blind with the children of the more aristocratic guests.
Julian alone, amongst Cowdray’s inhabitants, did not share in the general rejoicing. Each day since the baby’s birth he had started to think of plans for returning to Italy. And each day let them slide. He was given ample reward for his care of Magdalen, though cynically aware that his presence was unnecessary. She had delivered with almost painless speed, and no more fuss than was made by a healthy Southdown ewe. He had been carelessly invited to stay on for the christening, so from an occasional prick of conscience he poulticed a burn or sewed up a cut amongst the manor folk. But he left routine blood-lettings to the Midhurst leech. He became increasingly bored and depressed. He dreaded the coming of another English winter, yet lacked the energy to leave. For his frequent joint pains he took poppy juice, which dulled the aches.