A Vision of Light

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “Again and always,” I murmured, burying my face in his neck. And if the first was rapture, the second reached beyond it. We fell asleep together, twined in a true lovers’ knot.

  An errant beam of sunlight had made its way through the heavy curtains of the bed, illuminating my husband’s bare back above the coverlet. It was beautiful to me—the pale skin over the shoulder blades, the even marching column of backbones, rising in an arch where he lay curled. Everything looked more lovely, like the green earth after a summer rainstorm. What beautiful curtains, what an interesting coverlet! And what an amazing creature lay in the bed beside me—someone who had cared enough to unlock for me the treasure of love and show me the secrets of my own heart.

  “Surely,” I mused to myself, “this must have been the sort of wedding for which God intended His blessing. Not that other kind. People have made a mistake, as usual.”

  My husband stirred, turned, looked up at me where I sat in the bed beside him, and smiled. “You are a very unusual woman,” he said. “I wonder if you have any idea how unusual.” I kissed him, and he returned the kiss. We soon again reentered that state of bliss we had experienced the night before.

  “Margaret, you are a woman beyond belief. You have renewed my youth,” he said, admiring my face.

  “And you have taught me of something that I never knew, never suspected could exist,” I whispered to him.

  He sent for breakfast, and we drank from the same cup, for love. We lay in bed all day, talking and renewing our love from time to time, and all through the next night.

  “Is this what marriage is supposed to be?” I asked him on the second morning.

  “Not usually day and night, but that’s the general idea,” he said happily.

  It was true, at length we had to open the bed curtains and come out into the world, for there is always work to be done. But my days were full of the friendship and warm understanding that make marriage, true marriage, a blessed estate. Kendall’s house was large, and learning to run it took time. Besides, I had ideas that made a great deal of trouble. I had the servants scrub the house from top to bottom, for they had developed slovenly habits in the days of Kendall’s widowerhood. The necessary-places in the back wall of the house were stinking dens: we hired men to clean them, since no house servant would do it. We rebuilt the storerooms solidly, to discourage the burrowing of vermin, and I set a fat old tabby and her kittens to live there, for I do hate rats. What they do not eat, they foul—and in this they remind me of some human creatures that I won’t speak of just now.

  “I must speak with you, wife. The money you spend on new rushes is immense. And mixed with sweet herbs always! The most dainty people are content to change them but four or five times a twelvemonth, yet you are constantly sweeping them out.”

  “Dirty rushes hide rats and insects. I hate rats.”

  “The world is full of rats and insects. Suffer them to live, and spare my household all this turmoil.”

  “They may live anywhere they wish, as long as it is not in this house. Besides, I have a lovely idea. Haven’t you seen those beautiful carpets, with the fabulous plants and monsters woven into them, that foreigners put on their floors? If we had them, there would be only one expense.”

  “And what an expense—a hundred years’ worth of rushes! Wouldn’t you like jewels? Most women love jewels. I could shower you with them.”

  “I’d rather be showered with a clean floor, beloved husband. Perhaps just in our own room, at least?”

  “I’ll write to Venice,” he answered with a smile.

  “And the beautiful room that looks onto the garden?”

  “That too.”

  “And the hall?”

  “At that I draw the line. Too much falls from the table. Better to sweep out rushes.”

  “As you wish.” I smiled. He shook his head in wonderment and smiled his funny, lopsided grin.

  But he did not object too much to the transformation of his house. He said it was as satisfying as getting a new one, and without the trouble and expense of moving.

  It was not long after that I found myself pregnant. When I told him, he was beside himself.

  “You’ve given me a new life, a second life that I never expected at the end of the first one,” he said to me that morning. He was immensely pleased that he could show to the world that he was as manly as ever, and took every opportunity to drop the fact into conversation with each man that he met. It was only natural that it became the talk of the town, and he received a great many teasing comments, which he took blandly as compliments.

  “But won’t you be angry if it’s not a boy?” I asked him.

  “I have sons already, and they’ve been a disappointment. Why not try something different? Whatever child that is yours and mine is welcome.”

  It was true that his sons made him sad. They were already grown. The elder, Lionel, was twenty-five, and the younger, Thomas, was twenty-two. They showed few of the good qualities of their father. This I attributed to the indulgent spoiling their grandmother had given them, particularly when Kendall was away in their youth. They led wasted lives and cared for their father only as a source of money. They had already failed in the trades he had apprenticed them in. Thomas now lived in a rented room above a tavern and spent his days dicing. Lionel lived with his mistress, who was an unpleasant, grasping woman. I knew about her from before. She was said to have once been a favorite of the Earl of Northumberland, before her looks faded. She had procured an abortion from an old, incompetent midwife that I knew, who had used the dark powder carelessly, nearly killing her and, indeed, leaving her lunatic for many months after. Kendall had often before paid for justice for them—to get them off for killing a man in a tavern brawl, for dumping a friar into a pile of manure—just as he helped them escape punishment for playing handball in church, and smashing a window, when they were little.

  My husband often sat with his head in his hands, brooding about them, I know. I would kiss his neck to make him feel better, and he would start, looking up at me to say, “Oh, Margaret, if only they could have had you as their mother, they might have turned out better.” And then he would stroke my belly with the swelling life in it and smile sadly.

  He told me that he once thought all boys were wild, but that eventually they became sober and took on manly responsibilities. His boys had not only run away from school, they once broke the master’s stick over his back. He tried apprenticing them with a fellow merchant, where they had proven incurably lazy and troublesome. The eldest he had sent to sea on one of his merchant ships, in hopes of his learning more about trade; he learned, instead, more about vice.

  One day in springtime, when everything was green and joyful, he called me to him in his office, where I seldom went. He sighed deeply, and said, “I have made my decision, Margaret. This house, my country estate, and my personal goods I am dividing between you and our child, or, God willing, children. There is an income from the estate alone that will support you all well. My business stock, my movables, and the goods I have in storage in the seld are to be sold. Part of it I am leaving as gifts to my servants, friends, and benefactors. There is a large lump sum that will be divided between you and any children we have. I have asked that Master Wengrave act as their guardian and take over my apprentices’ terms. I know you trust him, Margaret, and he’s a good man to have on your side. Even with the large sum I intend to leave to the Church for perpetual Masses for my soul, you will still be a wealthy widow—one of the wealthiest in London, Margaret.”

  “Oh, God, husband, don’t speak of it, I don’t want to be a widow, wealthy or not. I want to go with you. I can’t live without you, don’t you see that?” I could feel the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes.

  “Margaret, Margaret, you are too young to speak like that,” he said gently, wiping my eyes as he would a child’s. “Listen to what I say, for it is you I am thinking about, and your own good. You must look after our child, Margaret; I care about you more
than I can tell you, and this is a very wicked world.” For his sake I tried to listen, but talk of death arrangements, even though we all must do it, fills me with superstitious fear.

  “What I’m trying to tell you, Margaret, is that I have disowned my sons. Their debauchery and crimes have brought me nothing but grief, and I have paid their proper inheritance several times over to get them out of trouble. I dreamed, once, that they would mend their ways; but they have brought me nothing but disgrace with their notorious way of life. I am leaving them each, on condition that they show honorable behavior, with a small sum—more than I started out with, to be sure—which they will doubtless consider sufficient to provide them with only a few nights’ carousing. It ought to keep them properly occupied in the courts, trying to certify their virtue in order to secure the money, and it may keep them from annoying you.”

  “Surely you leave them too little?” I asked.

  “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 st
ayed 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.”