A Most Unseemly Summer

by Juliet Landon

  ‘This is not what I…’ she began, defensively.

  ‘I know. You want to fight me…hurt me…anybody. But I believe I have a better idea.’

  ‘You always believe you have a better idea,’ she snarled.

  He smiled, laying her down. ‘Yes, but just this once you might agree with me. I think it’s quite possible.’ He lay half across her, resting upon his elbows and lifting the strands of damp hair away from her face, unsticking them from her neck.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

  ‘Starting where we left off last time.’

  ‘You told me to think,’ she protested. ‘You said…’

  ‘That was then, and you did well to think in the circumstances. But now he’s out of the way, and you need think no more.’

  She writhed, pushing at him in anger. ‘Just like that! Stop thinking! You believe it’s that easy, don’t you? What do you know…or care?’ Out of control, her fists beat at him but were caught again and held away, and although she did her best to evade him, his mouth silenced her angry protests and showed her how easy it was to stop thinking.

  ‘I do know, and I do care,’ he said, releasing her wrists, ‘and we’ll talk about it later.’ He would have liked to have asked her if she was still a virgin, not knowing how far the priest had progressed with his instruction, but he knew she would resent such an enquiry and anyway, he would soon discover the answer for himself. But she was full of bitterness and hate, needing to take out her aggression on him, for want of a better adversary, and a fight was not going to be the pleasantest initiation for a virgin into the delights of love-making. It would require all his skills as a lover to turn her understandable antagonism into rapture.

  He did not start where they had left off in the garden that night; he began at the beginning with sweet searching kisses that caught her attention and held it completely. And slowly, for they had all the time in the world, his kisses deepened and moved away from her lips downwards, covering her throat, and when he thought she might revert to angry words again, he found that her eyes were closed with tears filling the corners and falling into her hair.

  Without comment, he eased her damp chemise over her head, folded it up and placed it beneath her hips, freeing her beautiful firm breasts to his mouth and hands and, still with the spectre of the deceiving priest between them, made her gasp at his softly biting caresses. Her arms came up at last and held his head, taking part in the rite, enfolding him, fondling his ears and damp hair, searching the wide expanse of his shoulders.

  She caught at his hand as it slid over her stomach to begin its quest towards the secretive quivering place and, although her legs parted of their own accord, the grip on his hand told him all he needed to know about her body’s ownership. She had given it to no one; of that he was sure.

  He rested his hand, letting it lie beneath hers. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I know. I’m the first, and I shall be the only one. You’re mine, woman. You’ve been mine from the beginning, and you’ll be mine to the end.’

  ‘The guardianship…?’

  ‘Was to hold you. This is to hold you even faster.’

  Almost imperceptibly, his hand was allowed to continue on its way, exploring, persuasive and then insistent on an entry that was followed immediately by the gentle assault of his body, reaching even further into her, making her cry out in an excitement that instantly craved for more.

  Expertly, he dipped and stroked, heightening the exquisite tension and stretching it almost to breaking point as she abandoned herself utterly to his mastery, moaning with the yielding pleasure of it.

  The thunder rolled away and the rain continued to lash the deep thatch above them, sending the wind to whine and moan around the corners to harmonise with the cries of the enraptured woman within, and time lengthened as the light faded completely. He had not known her need was so great, nor had she recognised it for what it was, an emptiness to be filled, a hunger to be satisfied. So when the time came that she believed her needs had been met, a wave of feverish excitement surged through her body, taking her completely by surprise and making her swing away sideways to escape its force.

  But Sir Leon had anticipated its arrival after his lengthy preparation, and he brought her back under him, twisting his hand into her long hair to keep her there. Relentlessly, but with supreme control, he guided her through the climax and heard her cries of ecstasy, felt her heave beneath him and then the fierce clasp of her fingers on his arms gradually relax. Understanding her bewilderment, he pulled her tenderly into his arms to lay in a close embrace and they stayed there, without speaking. They heard someone enter and leave again almost immediately, and they knew that the worst of the storm had passed.

  Aware of a slight tremor in her body, he pulled her even closer and swept his hand down her back, pulling her hair away from the new tears. ‘Do you want to tell me?’ he whispered.

  ‘I cannot,’ she said. ‘It hurts.’ There was a silence, then came her remembrance that his questions were no longer ambiguous concerning her previous relationship but now quite specific. ‘You knew?’ she gulped.

  ‘A fair idea,’ he replied. ‘Conjecture, mostly.’

  ‘About the Sisterne House, too?’

  ‘That was a guess. It would not have been St Cross Hospital; that’s for men. And Mistress Godden has something of a reputation. I take it you found out what you wanted to know. Is that why it hurts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your first love?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And now?’ His arm tightened again as he kissed her forehead. ‘Will he go, d’ye think? Will he leave us alone?’

  It was an impossible question to answer at that moment, her wounds being so fresh and the new experience of his loving being so persuasively close. She could have promised to forget, but the events of the afternoon were etched clearly in her mind, though jumbled and far too poignant, and a promise would be meaningless after that. Just as terrible was the confluence of this most recent commitment and her concern about the placing of his heart, for now she was reminded that men’s hearts were not necessarily where their loving was. It was what she had wanted, but did she know any more about him than she had about Father Timon? A woman’s shriek pierced her thoughts.

  ‘Eventually,’ she said. ‘Being a man, I’m sure he will.’

  The bitterness was not lost upon him. He swung himself over her, leaning upon one elbow to look at her in the dimness, every soft word now clear in the hay-scented stillness. ‘Is that what you think, my lady? That I’ll leave you, after this?’ His fingers slipped into her hair.

  Again she felt the incredible surging of desire where each part of his body touched hers, and the black fears about his attachment to Levina Deventer were whisked away into the depths like bats into a cave. Without answering him, she held his beautiful head between her hands and drew it close to her mouth. ‘Love me again,’ she breathed into him. ‘Show me.’

  ‘I will show you,’ he said. ‘I have that much in my favour.’

  Thomas Vyttery, Sir Leon’s perpetually unsmiling steward, stood in his employer’s office in the upper storey of the guesthouse, waiting for some response to his request. Unconsciously, the hand by his side clenched and unclenched, its fingers seeking each other’s reassurance. His other hand held a sheet of papers that hovered over Sir Leon’s desk as if about to be dropped in some impatience. Or despair.

  The Reverend John Aycombe, seated on the stool at the desk, tidied a pile of notes with exaggerated slowness and lay them carefully to one side. Then he tipped his black cap forward on to his forehead, scratched at the base of his hairline and righted it, tying the strings beneath his chin.

  ‘We’ve had our orders, Thomas,’ he said with maddening calmness. ‘That’s all there is to it, I’m afraid. You’ll have to take it up with Sir Leon when he returns.’ His immobility suggested that he knew this answer was not going to satisfy the former sacristan of Wheatley Abbey.

  Thomas�
�s paper stopped hovering and landed with a smack on the desk, though the effect on the former abbot was minimal.

  ‘And you know as well as I,’ Thomas Vyttery said, testily, ‘that that’s not all there is to it. It’s bad enough having that…that woman down here messing up our plans…’

  ‘Your plans, Thomas. Your plans.’

  ‘…without this to make matters worse. You told me you’d dissuade him from moving the sacristy to the north-west end and from digging up the chapter-house floor, and now I see they’ve been given the go-ahead. They’re about to start on it. Today. Look!’ His bony finger jabbed at the pile of papers. ‘And I’m expected to feed them while they do it.’

  Almost tenderly, John Aycombe, Master of Works, pushed the guilty papers out of Thomas’s reach. ‘I said I’d try, Thomas, and I did. But Lady Felice wants to start work on the garden that will cover the old cloister and the foundations of the chapter-house, and Sir Leon’s decided that we need the sacristy space for our expanding congregation.’

  ‘You decided that, Father Abbot. You decided that yourself, didn’t you?’

  John Aycombe sighed and looked away. They had rarely seen eye to eye though they’d known each other as novices, professed monks, priests, and as contenders for the abbacy, then as abbot and sacristan, though he himself had scraped in by a whisker with the casting vote of the Bishop of Salisbury. Since when he and Thomas and half the inmates had shared a bone of contention, their promises of loyalty made in the knowledge that the last abbot would be handsomely pensioned off, whereas the rest of them would not. John had done what he could to sweeten the pill by appointing Father Thomas as sacristan. Except that Father Thomas had expected to be appointed prior, no less. John had not wanted Thomas Vyttery to be prior any more than he’d wanted him to be sacristan, and now he often wondered which of the offices, if any, would have satisfied him.

  ‘No, Thomas,’ he protested mildly. ‘Of course I didn’t. But if the congregation is swelling year by year, it stands to reason that we have to make more space available for them. You saw what a squash it was on Sunday, and soon we’ll have the whole of Lord Deventer’s household with us, so what better time to do it than while we have the builders here, on site? Anyway, all churches nowadays have vestries at the other end of the church.’

  Such irrelevancies were like a red rag to a bull.

  ‘Have you forgot?’ Thomas poked at John Aycombe’s shoulder to bring him down to earth. ‘Look at me, John Aycombe! Have you forgot who’s buried in the chapter-house? Have you forgot how I get a living, the living you promised me would outlast me and Audrey? Well, have you?’

  John Aycombe’s bottom lip was sucked in and released. Of course he’d not forgotten. How could he? But Thomas should have let go of these old affairs by now and got on with the present: there were others who had suffered as much, if not more, one way and another.

  ‘No, I’ve not forgotten who’s buried there, Thomas, any more than I’ve forgotten your relationship with him. That kind of thing was very much disapproved of, you know, and maybe the time has come for you to let him rest in peace.’ Too late he realised the absurdity of the chastisement when the grave was about to be well pounded by the feet of builders and more rubble before Lady Felice’s garden was constructed over it, in which state not even Thomas would be able to visit it as he had done in supposed secret these last twenty years and more. As abbot, he should not have allowed the friendship to continue, but the end was in sight by then, and what did it matter? ‘And as for the living you speak of,’ he went on rapidly before Thomas could pick him up, ‘you and Audrey have done very well out of it, man. You can hardly complain that the deal was ungenerous, not after all this time. I suggest that you remove what you can before the men begin and leave the rest where it is. As I said, there’s nothing I can do until Sir Leon’s return.’

  Thomas Vyttery’s usual pallor had changed to an unhealthy green, his hands now clenched into tight fists. He took a noisy rasping breath. ‘Take it now?’ he almost screeched. ‘In broad daylight just as they’re about to start knocking the wall out? Have you taken leave of your senses? How can I do that, John Aycombe? Tell me. And while you’re about it, think back to the time when you needed my help, if you will. You’ve always had the best of the bargain, haven’t you? Always landed on your feet, in spite of—’

  ‘That’s enough, Thomas!’ John Aycombe rose to his feet, as sure of his authority as he’d always been, even as Wheatley’s youngest abbot. He would not listen to his catalogue of accusations. He had tried to put matters right; no man could have done more, and Thomas Vyttery had done a good deal better than the rest of them for a decent living.

  His shoe caught the corner of a beechwood box that stood on the floor beneath Sir Leon’s desk. ‘Listen, Thomas,’ he said. ‘I have a lot of catching up to do. Some of the men got drunk over May Eve and now I find that one’s been thieving and gone missing. We’ll talk about this later, eh? Do what you can for the time being. Nay, cheer up, man. All good things have to come to an end some time, don’t they? You must have known that, so it’s no great surprise. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  He smiled behind the closing door. What a fuss about nothing. Yet he stood for a few moments as his smile faded, wondering what other good things would come to an end, and had he made as much effort to forget things as he was advising Thomas Vyttery to do? The bottom lip ventured inwards again.

  From the stool, he bent forward and lifted the beechwood box on to the desk, recognising it immediately as a Catholic priest’s portable mass set. Why had he not noticed this before? And what was it doing here in Sir Leon’s room? Carefully, he lifted the lid, exposing the red leather lining, the silver chalice and plate, the rosary, crucifix and candlestick, the small box of wafers. A small well-thumbed bible held a bookmark of parchment.

  Fumbling, and in sudden haste, he opened the book and found the owner’s signature, Timon Montefiore, then the symbols that required no explanation and the initial F. Now his chest tightened painfully as he glanced at the verses, knowing them by heart, and from there to the end-page where the lock of hair still lay in a soft curl. His hands shook and tears trickled down his face, falling on to his chest like glass beads.

  ‘The sins of the fathers,’ he whispered. ‘The sins of the fathers.’

  After a long time, he gathered himself together, replaced the items in the box and closed the lid. He would leave it until dark, and then he would collect it when the men had finished work on the site. It would not be difficult to explain its absence to Sir Leon: thieves were an ever-present menace.

  Shaking with anger, Thomas Vyttery marched down the nave of the church and entered the sacristy, closing the door with a slam and at once shutting out the chatter and clatter of workmen who already gathered like vultures. He looked around him at the shelves where the daily vestments of the clergy were folded in neat piles, candles laid in order of size, boxes and casks, bibles, prayer-books and chests of tools for repairing and cleaning the organ, the clock and the two remaining bells. Years ago, these same shelves had gleamed with polished plate; vestments had lit the small room with their glowing colours, purple, red and green, sparkling with gold thread and jewels. Now all was black and white, plain and functional.

  All good things come to an end, indeed. Trust John Aycombe to think of that glib comment when everything he touched turned to gold. A knock on the door made him turn in fury. ‘I told you to…’

  The intruder did not hesitate politely, but stepped inside and closed the door behind him—a thick-set man wearing a filthy leather apron over his tunic, tied round the middle with twine, his grimy shirt-sleeves rolled up to his biceps. His head was enclosed in a flap-eared cap that framed his ruddy face like a pig in a bonnet.

  Thomas turned back to his study of the cope-chest. ‘What do you want?’ he said.

  ‘You’ll be wanting some help with that lot then, eh?’ said the smith. ‘So, considering that I’m the only one around here that you can
trust, here I am. How’s that for Christian charity, Father Thomas?’

  ‘I’ve told you not to call me that, Smith. It’s not appropriate. And why have you come here in the daytime, for pity’s sake? What d’ye think that lot out there will make of it?’ He tipped his head towards the door. ‘Well, since you’re here you might as well stay and help. It’s in both our interests.’

  ‘Ah, well. That’s what we have to discuss, isn’t it, Mr Vyttery? Just like you’ll have to discuss with the gardeners how to avoid trampling all over that friend of yours outside where the chapter-house used to be. Now that’s going to be a tricky one, isn’t it, Mr Vyttery?’

  Thomas stared at the smith, whose brawny arms were now folded implacably across his leather apron in as uncompromising a pose as one could devise. Thomas would not ask what the objectionable man meant, for it was plain that his extra help would require extra money. ‘Forget it!’ he snapped. ‘I’ll manage alone.’

  ‘Ah, but you see, Mr Vyttery, it’s not quite as simple as that, is it? I can’t forget, can I? As you said, it’s now in both our interests, and I don’t think you’re in a position to refuse my offer of help right now.’ His face crumpled into a bland smile at the blatant animosity in the steward’s eyes. ‘You see, I might just have a word with Sir Leon, when he returns. Or I might even have a word with the gardener and tell him he needn’t be too careful when…ah! No, you don’t, old man. You’ll have to put a bit o’ weight on before you can tackle Ben Smith.’

  Thomas’s thin patience had broken. Without his usual caution, his assault upon the smith had reached only chest-height before his wrist was caught and held away in a painful sideways twist. ‘Toad!’ he yelped. ‘Don’t you dare speak of that to anyone, do you hear? No one!’

  His wrist was released in a push that unbalanced him further. ‘No one? Well then, you’d better co-operate, Mr Vyttery, or that superior you were so friendly with might get a little disturbed, and so might Sir Leon and Lord Deventer. Now you’d not like that, would you? Don’t forget, old man, that I was digging these graves as a lad when you were Father Thomas, and I’ve seen what you and he used to get up to.’