‘Which of these children is Lotte?’ Hew asked impulsively.
The grande dame looked puzzled, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Lotte, the daughter of Beatrix van Straeten.’
The grande dame fixed him with a look, and waited till the children had trooped out with sister Agnietje, before she offered her reply.
‘Lotte is an infant, and too young to learn her letters; or, indeed, to spin, that we teach our little daughters from the age of six. Who are you, monsieur?’ She spoke to him in the same calm tones of caution, with which she had admonished Katheline, and Hew had the sense he was being rebuked; he felt like a child in the schoolroom.
‘Ma chère grande dame . . .’
‘My name is Ursula.’
She was implacable, composed, and in a way, magnificent, and Hew had no conception how he might begin with her. He felt that he should fall before her on his knees, and began to understand why Robert had refused to come into the nunnery, for Ursula, he had no doubt, could see into his soul.
He did the simplest thing, and told the truth. ‘I have come from St Andrews in Scotland, to see Beatrix van der Straeten and Lotte. I bring her sad news of her husband. He came upon a ship into St Andrews Bay. The ship was wrecked, and all the crew were lost.’
Ursula said quietly, ‘Jacob Molenaar is dead?’
‘I fear it, ma dame.’
And he could see that Ursula had been affected by his tale, though she did not allow her mask to slip – and yet, he thought, the inference was false, for it was not a mask, but a seam of self assurance that ran through to the heart, like diamond through a rock.
‘Your pardon, sir,’ she said at last, ‘but how am I to know you speak the truth?’
‘He left behind him letters,’ answered Hew. ‘And he left this.’ He took the ring out of his pocket and handed it to Ursula. He did not think it sensible to offer her the creed.
‘Albrecht’s ring,’ said Ursula. And for a moment, Hew thought he saw a tear form in the corner of her eye.
‘Who is Albrecht, ma dame?’
‘Albrecht is my brother,’ she replied, her fingers closing tight around the ring.
‘Jacob took your brother’s ring?’ asked Hew.
‘He did not take it,’ Ursula replied. ‘My brother Albrecht is the father of Beatrix, and was a diamond merchant in Antwerp. He gave this ring to Beatrix. And Beatrix gave it to Jacob, on the day that he left Ghent. Jacob would not have removed it.’
‘He did not, ma dame.’
‘Then I must believe that what you say is true. This is sad news.’
‘May I ask you, ma dame, how Beatrix came to be here at the beguinage? Since she is your niece?’
‘You may. It is a sad tale, though not, in these times, such an uncommon one. She came as a girl of thirteen. Her father had a shop in Antwerp. When the Spanish soldiers came, and sacked the town, his business was destroyed, and he sent Beatrix here to me, to keep her safe. That was in the winter of 1576,’ she sighed, ‘and followed from the treaty that they call the pacification of Ghent – when we were promised we may worship as we pleased, though little peace we had from it. The diamond ring was all that Beatrix had of Albrecht, to link her to her former life, and all that my poor brother had left to give to her. He died in abject poverty, broken in his heart.’
‘Then how,’ said Hew, ‘did Beatrix meet her husband, Jacob Molenaar?’
‘She met him here,’ Ursula acknowledged with a smile, ‘at the begijnhof. I see that startles you. Yet it is not so strange, though we do not encourage it. Our sisters take no vows that bind them to be brides of Christ; they make no pledge of poverty, that forces them to give up all their wealth, and relinquish diamond rings. And those who can afford to, keep servants in their house, and so they do support and serve the rest. Though for the most part, we live simply, for our needs are not extravagant. And our younger sisters wander daily through the town, to tend the dead and teach in schools and bring nurture to the sick, so they are not cloistered as you may suppose. It is a brave man, nonetheless, who sets his heart and cap against the beguinage, and many of our sisters come here to escape unhappy marriages. And yet it does occur, from time to time, that a man and woman fall in love, and the beguine seeks to leave, and when that happens, of her own free will and choice, then we will not hinder her, but wish her on her way, with God’s good love and grace. And so it was with Beatrix and her husband, Jacob. They met here in the beguinage, where Jacob was employed in some simple works of carpentry, in passing on his skills to the sisters in our care.’
‘You teach them woodwork, too?’ Hew inquired, amused.
‘We would be self-sufficient in all things,’ Ursula said simply, ‘and sad to say, the Calvinists had done some damage to our church, that we lacked the skills to repair. Since it was never Albrecht’s wish to have left his daughter to a lifetime of retreat, we gave her gladly up to Jacob Molenaar.’
‘And why, then, did he leave her here, and go off to sea?’
‘He left her when his father died; and Jacob Molenaar found out,’ Ursula said sadly, ‘that he was not the man he thought he was.’
‘What do you mean?’ Hew asked in astonishment. ‘That he was not himself?’
‘In truth, you might say, he was not himself,’ Ursula agreed. For it was when he found out that he was not the man he thought he was, that Jacob Molenaar changed. He thought that he could have a better life, than the one that he had here in Ghent. And to be fair to him, it was never his intention to have left his wife and child. He always meant to send for them. What did not change was Jacob’s love.’
‘Ma dame,’ said Hew, ‘I do not understand. ‘What brought about this change?’
‘As I think I said to you, Jacob’s father died. His father was Clays Hansen, the timmerman.’
‘And Jacob’s name was Molenaar? Then he was not his son?’
‘Though he was not his son,’ Ursula agreed, ‘the name does not signify. A man may take as byname whatever he may choose, for unlike our own given names our surnames are not fixed, and need not pass from father down to son. So if a man be timmerman, whose father is a cook, there need be no connection in their style of name, but one is Jan the timmerman, the son of Jan the cook. Molenaar was what we called him here. It means simply, Jacob the miller, though that did not encompass him; for he was more than that, a skilful engineer. He knew how to work the wind, as well as any man. His father – for, for want of better word we ought to call him that, and Jacob knew no other – Clays Hansen, had been a ship’s carpenter, before he settled here as millwright in the town, and it was from him that Jacob learned his art, and earned the name of miller. Clays Hansen had a Scottish wife.’
‘His mother was a Scot!’ said Hew.
‘His mother was, beyond a doubt, a Scot,’ Ursula said oddly. ‘Though not Clays Hansen’s wife. But setting that aside, Clays Hansen’s wife, that Jacob knew as mother, died when Jacob was a child; he had not known her long. She was a woman, I recall, called Ruth – Ruth Adams as I think. Clays Hansen met her at a place called Dondie.’
‘I know that place,’ said Hew. ‘Indeed, I did set sail from there.’
‘Indeed? Well, he met her there, and married her, and brought her back to live in Ghent, and with them came their little child, and that was Jacob Molenaar. Though they were old, indeed, to have a little child, and shortly after, Ruth Adams died. Clays Hansen, for his part, lived on for twenty years, and he brought little Jacob up to follow in his trade, and no man could have loved his son as dearly as did he. And then, three months ago, Clays Hansen died. And on his deathbed, he told Jacob Molenaar that he was not his father, but his uncle, for Ruth Adams had been Jacob’s aunt. His father was her brother.’
‘Who then, was his mother?’ wondered Hew.
‘Clays Hansen did not say. But as Jacob understood, the girl had died in childbirth. And she and Jacob’s father were not wed. Since Ruth had a husband, and no child, and her brother had a child, and no wife, the simple
thing was for Ruth and her husband to bring back the child to Ghent, and keep him as their own. And Jacob, when he found this out, became persuaded he might find another, and a better, life, for Beatrix and for Lotte, far away from Ghent, where the Spanish were not knocking with their daggers on the door. And he became, in truth, a different sort of man, than the boy who had been son to the timmerman Clays Hansen. And that was sad to see. For I never saw a boy more wanted or more loved, or a prouder father, in the whole of Ghent.’
Chapter 22
A Changed Man
‘Why have you come?’ asked Ursula to Hew. ‘It is a long way to come.’
‘I brought Beatrix a letter,’ Hew replied.
‘But even so,’ said Ursula, ‘it is a long way to come, to bring a letter.’
‘I think, perhaps,’ said Hew, ‘that you should see it. There are questions I must ask, if not of Beatrix, then to you.’
‘Why do men,’ sighed Ursula, ‘always have to ask so many questions?’
‘I do not know, ma dame. But if you read the letter, you will understand.’
She read it silently. ‘These are terrible words,’ she acknowledged.
‘He writes about a sickness that is known as holy fire,’ said Hew. ‘It infected the crew of the Dolfin, driving them mad.’
‘I have heard of it,’ said Ursula, ‘though I have never witnessed its effects. It is not so holy, as I think.’
‘The provost of our college is a fine physician. It is his belief the sickness stemmed from tainted grain, that was taken on the ship in flour or bread, poisoning the crew.’
‘If that is so,’ said Ursula, ‘it did not come from here. For we have had no sickness in the town. Ghent is the central marketplace for grain, for many miles around.’
‘We think the bread was purchased further north, at Rotterdam, perhaps,’ suggested Hew.
‘That is always possible,’ Ursula agreed. She looked back at the letter in her hand. ‘This is a dreadful letter, and it will break her heart.’
‘I place it in your hands, and trust upon your judgement, whether we should give to her, her dying husband’s words. You know her fortitude and strength. And yet I am assured, he wrote the words for her. We have to make her understand, in spite of what he says, that Jacob was not lost. He did not die alone, but in the house of a good woman, who held him in her arms, and laid him to his rest,’ said Hew. And for the rest, the questions he must put to her, he thought that that could wait.
‘And was she a good Christian, this woman?’ Ursula asked.
Hew hesitated, ‘I do well believe, ma dame, that you would think her one,’ he answered her at last, ‘though she keeps a sailors’ tavern, that some call a low place. She is a good-hearted soul and a widow. Her married life was not a happy one.’
‘There are many women here,’ said Ursula, ‘who have not had happy marriages.’
‘She has a daughter too, who is sore afflicted, wanting wit and grace.’ It was a cruel depiction, he reflected guiltily, of the lithesome Lilias, who wanted none of grace, for all she lacked of wit.
But Ursula replied, ‘We are all God’s children, and afflicted in our way. This woman’s part in Jacob’s death must bring my niece some comfort, and we must give our thanks to God, that in her care and kindness she was there, and not think to reproach her for the sort of house she keeps. Well,’ she folded up the paper with a sigh. ‘Will you come, mon fils? We can defer no longer. Let the deed be done.’
‘I will come, ma mère.’
She led him through the courtyard to the little close of houses built of red and yellow bricks, stopping at the third one from the end. Beatrix sat before the window, where the light fell through the slats onto the pale blue cushion nestled in her lap, and a dozen wooden bobbins spun and turned, bent in concentration as her fingers worked the lace. In the centre of the floor a little child sat playing pat-a-cake, with an older novice from the beguinage. The girl took up the infant’s chubby hands and clapped them, while the infant gazed on stolidly, through solemn, sleepy eyes in rosy-tinted cheeks. Fair threads of flaxen hair escaped the small lace cap, too fine to braid or pin. Beatrix, looking up at last, let out a startled cry. Her hand flew to her mouth. And whether it was Ursula, her sad and sombre countenance, or perhaps the stranger coming in their midst, it seemed she knew at once, without the need for words. The cushion slipped unnoticed from her lap, the bobbins clattered on the floor, and Lotte learned the clapping trick at last, delighted with the bobbins and their scatter of bright beads. Ursula spoke softly to her niece, reverting to the Flemish as she took her in her arms. Presently, she whispered, ‘will you wait outside, monsieur? And I will come and find you, when the time is right.’
The novice scooped up Lotte and followed Hew outside. ‘What has happened here, monsieur, to make the mother weep?’ she asked him anxiously. He found he could not answer her, for he did not know the words.
Beyond the high walls of the convent still, a dozen windmills turned. Hew heard no other sound from the little house. He walked a little further, coming to the church, stripped bare of its idolatry and artefacts of Christ, where doubtless, God would hear him, sending up a prayer. He felt a deeper quiet in that place. Outside upon the green, the sheets and linens flapped and furled, like sails of bobbing boats. The children were released from morning school, and flexing their taut fingers, squinted at the sun, where for a while, at least, they knew no other cares. Hew knelt upon the stone and was kneeling still, when the voice of Sister Ursula awoke him from his prayers.
‘There you are, mon fils; now what has brought you here?’ she asked, so full of warmth and sadness that he longed to have her blessing. He rose quickly to his feet.
‘You are not a Catholic, as I think,’ she went on shrewdly, ‘yet you have found God here, in our broken church. Or, am I wrong?’
‘I found something here,’ admitted Hew, ‘and if not God, then something deeper.’
‘Foolishness, my child. What can be deeper, after all, than God?’
‘Patience,’ Hew said, simply.
‘Patience? Ah, we have that here. I fear that it was something Jacob lacked.
‘Beatrix will talk to you now,’ she brushed past him, without touching, and he felt her calm composure, the cool swish of her skirts. ‘She has many questions. And the worst has past. She will be looked after here.’
‘And Lotte?’ questioned Hew.
Ursula nodded. ‘Lotte is in the garden, with Paulina and Sister Agnietje. Agnietje, bless her heart, is not good at looking after little ones. She does not see them if they eat laburnum seeds, or fall into the well. But Paulina is watchful, and quick on her feet, and Agnietje is careful and kind, and has a soft lap, and a low crooning song, that will lull a cross child to her sleep. Together, they make up a careful nurse, and so it is in the begijnhof, for what we lack in parts, we make up as a whole. A child can play at will, yet never go unwatched. There are many places worse to bring up a little girl. Still, Lotte knows her mother, and her mother wants her child. It is how things should be. I shall take her home. Go on to Beatrix, talk to her, and tell her I shall come again, with Lotte, in a little while.’
Hew was startled. ‘Am I to go alone?’
‘Go, and have courage, my child. For is that not why you have come here?’ She took him by the hands, ‘God sees your heart, and knows your will is good. Know that she will hear you, now the worst is done.’
Beatrix was composed, though pale as linen flax. Her eyes were deep and wet with unshed tears. She did not wear the habit or the white hood of the faith, but a simple linen cap and light blue linen dress, and Hew supposed that she was not a true begijnte, perhaps she never had been one, for it did not seem to matter to the nuns. ‘You may not wish to have it now, but Jacob left you this,’ he told her, bringing out the creed. ‘For fear of it offending her, I did not wish to offer it before the holy mother. But I thought that you might wish to have it, since it brought your husband comfort in the hours before he died.’
Beatrix forced a smile, reaching out her hand to take the book. ‘His faith was not the same as mine, and yet it did not come between us. And I would wish to have it, for it is a part of him. And you are right in thinking that it would not please my aunt. We call her the grande dame – the groot juffer, and not la mère, though you are correct if you suppose that she is mother to us all, and most of all, to me. I have been thinking,’ she said suddenly, ‘about the little boy Joachim, and whether someone ought to tell his mother.’
Hew’s spirits sank. The thought had not occurred to him, and now he saw at once that he must seek her out, and break the dreadful news.
‘I see her every week,’ said Beatrix, ‘in the Friday market, selling herbs and flowers. She is so very proud of him, and tells the world that he has gone abroad, to seek his fortune overseas.’
Hew nodded miserably.
‘She has no expectation,’ Beatrix went on quietly, ‘of his ever coming back. Then do you think it is so very wrong, to leave her with her dreams?’
Hew swallowed. ‘I do not think it is so very wrong,’ he answered hoarsely.
‘Nor do I,’ said Beatrix. ‘But I must ask my aunt. She tells me Jacob did not die alone. Was that the truth, monsieur? Or was it meant as kindness? For I do not count it kindness, if I am not told the truth.’
‘I think that you must know,’ said Hew, ‘that she would not tell lies to you.’
‘I know that she would not. That is not what I ask.’
‘It is the truth,’ said Hew.’
‘Then it is a comfort, and I thank you for it. Where did Jacob die?’
‘In a clean, warm feather bed, in the comfort of the inn.’
‘Though that is good to know, it is not what I meant. I mean, what was the place? What city, street or town?’
‘He died in St Andrews. It is a town in Scotland, on the coast of Fife,’ said Hew.
‘I know it,’ Beatrix smiled. ‘Then I must be content, for Jacob died at home. He found the place that he was looking for. Then he was not a stranger at the last,’ and she was smiling through the tears, for the tears had overflowed.
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