All the Ever Afters

by Danielle Teller

  17

  Betrothal

  After Lady Alba’s death, Joan moved to Cothay Manor, and Gisla became a maid to Ella. The child did not need two servants to care for her, but I was glad for the help, and Gisla was glad for the ease of her new position. I hardly needed to justify the expense to Emont and Wills; I had by then taken over most of the household accounting, and they seldom questioned me anymore.

  Black, the bailiff, was not as imposing as he first seemed. Though big and gruff, he was a reasonable man and respectful to women, most particularly to his wife, who, according to Black, was the most admirable person in all of Aviceford. Had he been a less broad-minded, thoughtful sort, it is unlikely that the bailiff would have worked with me on the idea that ultimately made the manor profitable.

  The population of the village had been in decline for some years. Young men escaped to the towns, hoping to gain their freedom and learn a trade. Young women married into more prosperous manors or ran off to town with their beaux. As Aviceford was the least lucrative of the abbess’s holdings, other manors poached workers. A lord stronger than Emont or a bailiff tougher than Black might have staunched the bleeding, but as it was, the shrinking population pinched Aviceford ever tighter.

  “We haven’t got the men for harvest,” Black complained at one of our meetings. “The grain will freeze on the stalks if it don’t rot first.”

  It had been a wet summer and autumn, which pushed harvest back into the arms of winter. We had already had a frost and a hailstorm; yield was bound to be poor, and Black was in a rush to get whatever grains were undamaged safely into storage.

  “Surely the manor can spare a few more able bodies,” I said.

  “I have already given as many as I can spare,” Wills snapped. He disagreed with me about reorganizing labor at the manor. I was bothered by the inefficiencies, but I had no authority to tell Wills what to do with his servants.

  “A few more able bodies would scarcely be enough in any case,” Black said. “I asked for help from Cothay, but they claim they’re just as hard up.”

  “A bunch of loiter-sacks is what they are,” Wills said.

  “The shortage gets worse every year,” I observed.

  “Aye.”

  “What if you quit planting and let grass grow for sheep?”

  “We cannot feed our people with sheep alone,” the bailiff said.

  “You could let most of the people go. They are leaving already.”

  “And how can we survive without rent money and fines?”

  I thought about how to respond delicately. I did not want the bailiff to think that I was accusing him of laxity, though in truth, he did a poor job of collecting payments. “Many a virgater is delinquent at one time or another,” I said. “They say they will pay with eggs, but the hens won’t lay, or they will get you the money after they sell an ox. The income has never been enough to sustain the manor, and the situation is only worsening. As more villagers leave, the land becomes less productive as well. There is no way out except to change the entire arrangement.”

  “Your plan is to trade peasants for sheep?” Wills said. “I would sure like to see the sheep till the fields.”

  “Turn the fields to pasture,” I said. “Sheep don’t pay rent with coins or eggs. They pay with valuable wool. They never miss a payment. They rarely run away. For each virgate farmed by a peasant, we could raise whole flocks of sheep. When too many sheep are born, we need not feed them. They will feed us instead.”

  The bailiff was not immediately persuaded to my point of view, but over the span of three years, he turned an increasing portion of Aviceford’s lands over to pasture, and the manor’s fortunes improved considerably. We had no trouble paying our debts, and we were able to put villagers to work constructing new barns and helping to repoint the outer walls of the manor house. Those who lost their land and did not want to help with construction left to work at one of the abbey’s other manors or to one of the nearby towns. I suppose that Lottie and Thomas were among them, as I never saw or heard from them again.

  When Ella was eight years old, her godmother came to visit. This was an extraordinary event, because the abbess seldom traveled, and after the death of Lady Alba, the manor almost never received visitors. Previously, Abbess Elfilda had shown interest in her niece by sending gifts, which included a superbly rendered portrait of the Virgin and child that we hung by Ella’s bed. Ella loved the painting, perhaps in part because the beatific Madonna resembled her own dead mother.

  Ella had taken over Lady Alba’s chambers, and I still shared the anteroom with Gisla. As these were the largest and most richly appointed rooms in the house, we moved out in favor of Abbess Elfilda. Ella slept with me in the attic, and Gisla slept by the hearth in the kitchen to keep her old bones warm. Emont was so concerned for the abbess’s comfort that he had a new feather bed and quilt brought from the city, though Ella’s were still perfectly serviceable. He pestered Wills about preparations for the visit until the chamberlain was quite beside himself. Wills had grown a long ginger-and-white beard, which he yanked when he was anxious. I thought that he would pull it right off his chin in the days leading up to Abbess Elfilda’s arrival.

  The abbess traveled with a retinue of ten people, three of them nuns. I did not witness their approach myself, but when Gisla came to fetch Ella, she told me breathlessly that the holy lady had ridden in a gilded carriage that bore the insignia of the House of Wenslock. Upon arriving, the abbess asked to see her goddaughter. Gisla joined us, as she did not want to miss a rare bit of excitement at Aviceford Manor.

  The abbess perched on one of the high-backed chairs by the blackened maw of the fireplace in the great hall, and Emont sat opposite. Two nuns flanked Mother Elfilda, surveying the room as though they expected barbarians to leap from behind the tapestries. Gisla and I nudged Ella toward her godmother. I had trained Ella to curtsy and to kiss the abbess’s hand, and she carried out my instructions flawlessly. Although she was a quiet girl, Ella had not a shred of shyness, and she was good about following rules. She was tiny, which made her look much younger than her real age, giving her the appearance of being precociously clever and poised. The abbess was charmed.

  “What lovely manners!” Mother Elfilda said. Her voice was clear and lightly resonant. “How old are you now?”

  “I am eight, Mother.”

  “And do you know your prayers?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “What are the seven holy virtues?”

  “Faith, Hope, Charity, Justice, Prudence . . .” Ella paused and furrowed her brow. She could become upset when she failed to remember something that she had learned. As Gisla and I watched from across the room, I held my breath.

  “. . . Fortitude and Temperance.” Ella looked pleased with herself.

  “Quite right. And can you recite the paternoster?”

  Ella rattled off the Latin words to the prayer in her singsong warble.

  “Such a clever girl!” The abbess looked at Emont. “Who teaches her lessons?”

  “Her nurse, Agnes.”

  “This must be a remarkably learned nurse to teach her prayers in Latin.”

  “I believe that she learned her letters at your abbey, my lady.”

  “She was our student? Then why does she work as a nurse?”

  “Not a student, my lady. Agnes worked for your mother. She married your ward.” In our years together, Emont had learned nearly every detail of my past.

  Mother Elfilda squinted into the shadows where I stood. “Of course. I sent you as a lady’s maid to my sister. I thought that Emont would have found you a husband by now.”

  I moved into the light and curtsied, saying, “Your Reverence.”

  “Are your daughters still attending our school?”

  “Yes, Mother. I am very grateful.”

  “I suppose it is fitting that since you have been teaching my goddaughter her prayers, I have been teaching your daughters theirs.” She turned to Emont. “Elfilda will need
a proper tutor soon. She is no longer a baby.”

  “Yes, of course, Mother.”

  The abbess turned back to Ella. “You have done well to remember your paternoster. Tomorrow I shall teach you the fifteen rosary promises. Your father is going to find you a real teacher from the city now that you are a big girl. Now go to bed, and I shall speak with you again tomorrow.” Mother Elfilda waved her hand in my direction. “You are dismissed.”

  That night, Ella and I slept in the garret at the southern end of the manor house, where there were several narrow pallets raised on sagging wood-and-rope frames. The attic had housed the servants of visitors, but had fallen into disuse after the death of Lady Alba. Rodents chewed through the beds and pulled out the stuffing, leaving straw scattered over the rough floorboards, and all was blanketed by a layer of fine dust. Only one bed had not yet caved in upon itself, so I made that one up to share with Ella. When I shook the mattress, the dust rose in a great cloud, and as it settled, the last rays of sunlight captured the slowly moving motes. Ella watched with fascination, reaching into the beams of light to close her little fist around vanishing firmaments.

  Despite the mischief by rodents, the garret was cozy. It smelled of pine, and there was no trace of mildew; it was warmer and drier than many parts of Aviceford Manor. Ella did not mind ceding her chambers to the abbess or sleeping in the attic, but she grumbled about sharing a pallet with me. I tried to give her space on the bed, but we kept slipping into the valley in the center of the mattress. Fortunately, the girl’s drooping eyelids were soon too heavy for her to lift, and she fell into slumber.

  Ella squirmed and rolled in her sleep, wrapping herself in a cocoon of bedclothes. Each time she turned, her long braid writhed across the pillow like a golden snake. I lay awake, chilled by the cold night air, plucking at the blankets when I had the chance to steal some back. The hunchback moon crept slowly across the window, and an owl hooted in the distance. A lonely moth trying to escape whirred softly and thumped against the glazing, dashing its body repeatedly into the unyielding glass in its bid for freedom. I tried to picture Charlotte and Matilda asleep at the abbey with moonlight on their faces. Of course, at that time of year, the shutters would be closed, allowing no more than a thin blade of light to pass through.

  Ella’s face in the moonlight was ineffably beautiful. I turned toward the wall and closed my eyes. After what seemed an eternity, I too fell asleep.

  Abbess Elfilda remained at the manor for one week, during which time Emont succeeded in maintaining the appearance of sobriety. The abbess met with Ella daily to further her religious education. On the morning of her departure, she joined Emont’s meeting with the bailiff and chamberlain. When it became clear to her that I meant to join too, the faint creases on her brow deepened. She turned to Emont, saying, “Why is she here?”

  Emont cleared his throat. “Agnes has been helpful with accounting, my lady.”

  Mother Elfilda raised her pale eyebrows. “Your child’s nurse is minding the books for you?”

  “Well, not exactly minding.” I could tell that Emont was cursing himself for not having foreseen her reaction. Hers was no different from the bailiff’s reaction years before, but we had all grown so accustomed to my role that we forgot how unconventional it was.

  “What, then, if not minding?”

  “She is clever with numbers, my lady. She points out mistakes.”

  The abbess seemed to consider this for a moment. She leaned back in her chair and waved her hand impatiently. “Get on, then. I am listening.”

  The meeting was routine and uneventful; Mother Elfilda asked some questions, but she did not seem to be particularly interested in the answers, and business was quickly concluded. After the bailiff knelt and bade her farewell, the abbess requested that I remain behind with her and Emont. She folded her small hands in her lap and looked at me placidly. “You have been a good nurse for Elfilda, but she has grown too old for a nurse. It is time that Emont found a husband for you. You are still young enough to have more children.”

  The dread that I felt was mirrored on Emont’s face. He had come to rely on me not only for administration of the manor, but as his only company. The self-doubt that plagued Emont made him uncomfortable with peers and distrustful of servants; he was bewildered by manly conventions and wary of feminine artifice. As I was straightforward and uncritical, and as Ella loved him unreservedly, Ella and I were the only people he wanted to have near him.

  Emont’s voice was tight when he replied, “I am sure that we can find work for Agnes here at the manor house when Ella gets a tutor. The girl is attached to her, Mother. It would be a shame to separate them.”

  I had not seen much evidence of Ella’s attachment to me. Regardless, Emont’s statement did not mollify the abbess.

  “All the more reason to find a husband for her. It is not natural for children to form too strong a bond with a servant.”

  “Your Reverence?” I paused, waiting for an invitation to speak.

  “Yes?”

  “I believe, my lady, that you have been pleased with the income from Aviceford Manor these past two years?”

  “That is true.”

  “My efforts have helped to raise that income, my lady, and I would be pleased to continue to contribute where I am needed.”

  The abbess shrugged irritably. “I appreciate your service, but that is the work of a lady of the manor. We shall find someone suitable soon, I am sure.” Abbess Elfilda gave Emont a disapproving look and then stood, indicating that the conversation was over. “You may stay with Elfilda until her tutor arrives. I shall have one sent from the city.”

  After the abbess and her retinue departed for Ellis Abbey, Emont sought me out. I had settled Ella into bed in her own room and was reading my psalter by the light of a candle in the anteroom. Gisla was already asleep in her bed when Emont opened the door and beckoned to me to follow him. Someone who knew him less well might not have noticed his unsteadiness; he had evidently made up for his week of relative abstinence at dinner.

  Emont led me down the corridor toward his chamber. The door was open, and the flickering firelight guided our way. Once inside, he closed the door and sank heavily into his chair by the hearth. The room was warm, so I loosened my shawl.

  “That woman should stay at the abbey and leave manorial affairs to the lords of the manors. I shall find a way for you to remain here with me.”

  I watched the flames dance on the hearth. The charred skeleton of a log collapsed, sending up a shower of orange sparks.

  “You will stay until a tutor arrives, anyway. Then we shall find a new position here for you. Abbess Elfilda needn’t know.” His tongue was thick with drink.

  “It would be no secret if I continued to help with the books.”

  “You could tell me what you think in private. Nobody else need know.”

  “You do not think that the servants gossip? That the abbess’s steward will report the gossip back to his mistress if she asks about me? And she means to find you a new wife. What wife will tolerate my interference?”

  Emont groaned and leaned his heavy head on his hands. “What would you have me do?”

  I was heartsick. Everything good that I had wrought in my life was torn from my grasp. I had raised both the alehouse and the manor out of ruin, and with a heedless flick of her wrist, the abbess had taken them both from me. I blamed her for the loss of my daughters. I hated her.

  “There is nothing to be done,” I said hollowly. I was too dispirited and hopeless to even shed a tear.

  Emont pushed the veil of hair back from his face. His gaze glittered with hectic intensity.

  “You could work in the laundry.”

  “And what? Drink ale with you in the morning? Become your whore?” Memories of Elisabeth’s degradation turned my stomach.

  “I . . . I can’t bear for you to leave.” His expression was anguished.

  A bold thought crept into my mind. Perhaps there was a way for me to stay. I nee
ded a husband, and Emont needed a wife. My breath quickened as I imagined the impossible, and before I could snatch back the words, I heard myself say, “You could marry me.”

  Emont tipped his head back and laughed with a mixture of drunken amusement and bitterness. “Marry you? I could sooner marry my horse.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? Are you out of your mind? You are a servant, and I am the son of Lord Henry Vis-de-Loup.”

  “I was married to the son of a knight. I am already functioning as the lady of the manor, and a good one at that. I am not young, but I have at least a decade of childbearing years still ahead. Besides, who will you take for a wife otherwise?” I knew that he did not want a new wife. Most women unnerved him, and he was too ashamed to let a stranger into his life. He wanted me by his side.

  “The abbess would be outraged. You are not even born of gentry.”

  “It might ruffle her feathers, but what would she do? You are the father of her dear niece and goddaughter. She will not take the manor from you. She cannot hurt you without hurting Ella.”

  “You are completely mad. This idea is mad.”

  I knelt down before him and reached out to brush my fingertips across his lips. My shawl slipped from my shoulders, leaving my arms bare. Emont gazed down at me with an expression of confused longing. Emboldened, I placed my hands on both sides of his face and pulled him toward me until his lips touched mine. His breath was hot, as though he had a fever, and stank of wine. I concentrated my senses on the prickly heat of the fire at my back. A bead of sweat slid between my breasts.

  Whether in a moment of decisiveness or loss of balance, Emont lurched forward, pressing his mouth hard against mine. Our teeth clashed dully before I teetered backward, my head landing a fingersbreadth from the hearthstone. Emont slid from his chair and crawled on top of me. He straddled my waist. There was hunger in his eyes, but also pleading. His weight squeezed the breath from me, and I was relieved when he shifted forward to lay his chest against mine. As he was too short to reach my mouth, he shimmied clumsily, like a boy climbing a tree. His movement dragged my shift until it bunched around my thighs. I lay still while he planted sloppy kisses on my mouth, but when he grasped my breast, I turned my face away, saying, “No, Emont.”