by Ellis Peters
Once she had grasped what he was asking of her, Cecily disengaged violently from the embrace she had permitted as soon as the door was closed, and heaved him off in a passion of indignation.
‘Are you mad? Throw my good name to the four winds to save your skin? I’ll do no such thing, the very idea of asking it of me! You should be ashamed! Tomorrow or the next day my man will be home, and very well you know it. You would not have come near me now, if you had any thought for me. And like this, in daylight, with the streets full! You’d better go, quickly, get away from here.’
Daniel clung, aghast, unable to believe in such a reception. ‘Cecily, it may be my life! I must tell them
‘
‘If you dare,’ she hissed, backing violently out of his desperate attempt at an embrace, ‘I shall deny it. I shall swear that you lie, that you’ve pestered me, and I’ve never encouraged you. I mean it! Dare mention my name and I’ll brand you liar, and bring witness enough to bear me out. Now go, go, I never want to see you again!’
Daniel fled back to Margery. She had the shrewd sense to be watching for him, having known very well what his reception must be, and spirited him competently away to their own chamber where, if they kept their voices down, they could not be heard. Dame Juliana, next door, slept in the afternoon and slept soundly. Their private business was safe from her.
In agitated whispers he poured out everything though he was telling her nothing she did not already know. She judged it time to soften against his shoulder, while keeping the mastery firmly in her own hands. He had been shocked out of his male complacency, and almost out of his skin, she felt pity and affection for him, but that was a luxury she could not yet afford.
‘Listen, we’ll go together. You have a confession to make, but so have I. We’ll not wait for the Lord Beringar to come to us, we’ll go to him. I’ll own that I lied to him, that you left me alone all that night, knowing you were gone to a paramour. You’ll tell him the same. I shall not know her name. And you will refuse to give it. You must say she is a married woman, and it would be her ruin. He’ll respect you for it. And we’ll say that we start anew, from this hour.’
She had him in her hand. He would go with her, he would swear to whatever she said. They would start anew from that hour; and she would be holding the reins.
In bed that night she clasped a devout, grateful husband, who could not fawn on her enough. Whether Hugh Beringar had believed their testimony or not, he had received it with gravity, and sent them away solemnly admonished but feeling themselves delivered. A Daniel eased of all fear that the eye of the law was turned ominously upon him would sit still where a hand could be laid on him at any moment.
‘It’s over,’ Margery assured him, fast in his arms, and surprisingly contented there, considering all things. ‘I’m sure you need not trouble any more. No one believes you ever harmed the man. I’ll stand with you, and we have nothing to fear.’
‘Oh, Margery, what should I have done without you?’ He was drifting blissfully towards sleep, after extreme fear and the release of correspondingly great pleasure. Never before had he felt such devotional fervour, even to his mistresses. This might have been said to be his true wedding night. ‘You’re a good girl, loyal and true
‘
I’m your wife, who loves you,’ she said, and more than half believed it, to her own mild surprise. ‘And loyal you’ll find me, whenever you call upon me. I shall not fail you. But you must also stand by me, for as your wife I have rights.’ It was well to have him so complacent, but not to let him fall asleep, not yet. She took steps to rouse him; she had learned a great deal in one unsatisfactory week. While he was still glowing, she pursued very softly and sweetly: ‘I am your wife nowwife to the heir, there’s a status belongs to me. How can I live in a house and have no place, no duties that are mine by right?’
‘Surely you have your place,’ he protested tenderly. ‘The place of honour, mistress of the house. What else? We all bear with my grandmother, she’s old and set in her ways, but she doesn’t meddle with the housekeeping.’
‘No, I don’t complain of her, of course we must reverence the elders. But your wife should be granted her due in responsibilities as well as privilege. If your mother still lived it would be different. But Dame Juliana has given up her direction of the household, being so old, to our generation. I am sure your sister has done her duty nobly by you all all these years
‘
Daniel hugged her close, his thick curls against her brow. ‘Yes, so she has, and you can keep your hands white and take your ease, and be the lady of the house, why should you not?’
‘That is not what I want,’ said Margery firmly, gazing up into the dark with wide-open eyes. ‘You’re a man, you don’t understand. Susanna works hard, no one could complain of her, she keeps a good table without waste, and all the linen and goods and provisions in fine order, I know. I give her all credit. But that is the wife’s work, Daniel. Your mother, if she had lived. Your wife, now you have a wife.’
‘Love, why should you not work together? Half the load is lighter to bear, and I don’t want my wife worn out with cares,’ he murmured smugly into the tangle of her hair. And thought himself very cunning, no doubt, wanting peace as men always want it, far before justice or propriety; but she would not let him get away with that sop.
‘She won’t give up any part of the load, she has had her place so long, she stands off any approach. Only on Monday I offered to fetch in the washing for her, and she cut me off sharply, that she would do herself. Trust me, my love, there cannot be two mistresses in one house, it never prospers. She has the keys at her girdle, she sees the store-bins kept supplied, and the linen mended and replaced, she gives the orders to the maid, she chooses the meats and sees them cooked as she wishes. She comes forth as hostess when visitors appear. All my rights, Daniel, and I want them. It is not fitting that the wife should be so put aside. What will our neighbours say of us?’
‘Whatever you want,’ he said with sleepy fervour, ‘you shall have. I do see that my sister ought now to give up her office to you, and should have done so willingly, of her own accord. But she has held the reins here so long, she has not yet considered that I’m now a married man. Susanna is a sensible woman, she’ll see reason.’
‘It is not easy for a woman to give up her place,’ Margery pointed out sternly. ‘I shall need your support, for it’s your status as well as mine in question. Promise me you will stand with me to get my rights.’
He promised readily, as he would have promised her anything that night. Of the two of them, she had certainly been the greater gainer from the day’s crises and recoveries. She fell asleep knowing it, and already marshalling her skills to build on it.
Chapter Nine
Thursday: from morning to late evening
Dame Juliana tapped her way down the broad wooden treads of the stairs to the hall in good time on the following morning, determined to greet Brother Cadfael when he came after breakfast with all the presence and assurance of a healthy old lady in full command of her household, even if she had to prepare her seat and surroundings in advance and keep her walking-stick handy. He knew that she was no such matter, and she knew that he knew it. She had a foot in the grave, and sometimes felt it sinking under her and drawing her in. But this was a final game they played together, in respect and admiration if not in love or even liking.
Walter was off to his workshop with his son this morning. Juliana sat enthroned in her corner by the stairs, cushioned against the wall, eyeing them all, tolerant of all, content with none. Her long life, longer than any woman should be called upon to sustain, trailed behind her like a heavy bridal train dragging at the shoulders of a child bride, holding her back, weighing her down, making every step a burden.
As soon as Rannilt had washed the few platters and set the bread-dough to rise, she brought some sewing to a stool in the hall doorway, to have the full light. A decent, drab brown gown, with a jagged tear above its hem. The
girl was making a neat job of mending it. Her eyes were young. Juliana’s were very old, but one part of her that had not mouldered. She could see the very stitches the maid put in, small and precise as they were.
‘Susanna’s gown?’ she said sharply. ‘How did she come to get a rent like that? And the hems washed out too! In my day we made things last until they wore thin as cobweb before we thought of discarding them. No such husbandry these days. Rend and mend and throw away to the beggars! Spendthrifts all!’
Plainly nothing was going to be right for the old woman today, she was determined to make her carping authority felt by everyone. It was better, on such days, to say nothing, or if answers were demanded, make them as short and submissive as possible.
Rannilt was glad when Brother Cadfael came in through the passage with dressings in his scrip for the ulcer that was again threatening to erupt on the old woman’s ankle. The thin, eroded skin parted at the least touch or graze. He found his patient reared erect and still in her corner, waiting for him, silent and thoughtful for once, but at his coming she roused herself to maintain, in the presence of this friendly enemy, her reputation for tartness, obstinacy and grim wit, and for taking always, with all her kin, the contrary way. Whoever said black, Juliana would say white.
‘You should keep this foot up,’ said Cadfael, cleaning the small but ugly lesion with a pad of linen, and applying a new dressing. ‘As you know very well, and have been told all too often. I wonder if I should not rather be telling you to stamp about upon it day-longthen you might do the opposite and let it heal.’
‘I kept my room yesterday,’ she said shortly, ‘and am heartily sick of it now. How do I know what they get up to behind my back while I’m shut away up there? Here at least I can see what goes on and speak up if I see causeas I will, to the end of my days.’
‘Small doubt!’ agreed Cadfael, rolling his bandage over the wound and finishing it neatly. ‘I’ve never known you baulk your fancy yet, and never expect to. Now, how is it with your breathing? No more chest pains? No giddiness?’
She would not have considered she had had her full dues unless she had indulged a few sharp complaints of a pain here, or a cramp there, and she did not grudge it that most of them he brushed away no less bluntly. It was all a means of beguiling the endless hours of the day that seemed so long in passing, but once past, rushed away out of mind like water slipping through the fingers.
Rannilt finished her mending, and carried off the gown into Susanna’s chamber, to put it away in the press; and presently Susanna came in from the kitchen and stopped to pass the time of day civilly with Cadfael, and enquire of him how he thought the old woman did, and whether she should continue to take the draught he had prescribed for her after her seizure.
They were thus occupied when Daniel and Margery came in together from the shop. Side by side they entered, and there was something ceremonious in their approach, particularly in their silence, where they had certainly been talking together in low, intent tones on the threshold. They barely greeted Cadfael, not with any incivility, but rather as if their minds were fixed on something else, and their concentration on it must not be allowed to flag for a moment. Cadfael caught the tension and so, he thought, did Juliana. Only Susanna seemed to notice nothing strange, and did not stiffen in response.
The presence of someone not belonging to the clan was possibly an inconvenience, but Margery did not intend to be deflected or to put off what she was braced to say.
‘We have been discussing matters, Daniel and I,’ she announced, and for a person who looked so soft and pliable her voice was remarkably firm and resolute. ‘You’ll understand, Susanna, that with Daniel’s marriage there are sure to be changes in the order here. You have borne the burden of the house nobly all these years
‘ That was unwise, perhaps; it was all those years that had dried and faded what must once have been close to beauty, their signature was all too plain in Susanna’s face. ‘But now you can resign it and take your leisure and no reproach to you, it’s well earned. I begin to know my way about the house, I shall soon get used to the order of the day here, and I am ready to take my proper place as Daniel’s wife. I think, and he thinks too, that I should take charge of the keys now.’
The shock was absolute. Perhaps Margery had known that it would be. Every trace of colour drained out of Susanna’s face, leaving her dull and opaque as clay, and then as swiftly the burning red flooded back, rising into her very brow. The wide grey eyes stared hard and flat as steel. For long moments she did not speak; Cadfael thought she could not. He might have stolen silently away and left them to their fight, if he had not been concerned for its possible effect on Dame Juliana. She was sitting quite still and mute, but two small, sharp points of high colour had appeared on her cheek bones, and her eyes were unusually bright. Or again, he might in any case have stayed, unobtrusive in the shadows, having more than his fair share of human curiosity.
Susanna had recovered her breath and the blood to man her tongue. Fire kindled behind her eyes, like a vivid sunset through a pane of horn.
‘You are very kind, sister, but I do not choose to quit my charge so lightly. I have done nothing to be displaced, and I do not give way. Am I a slave, to be put to work as long as I’m needed, and then thrown out at the door? With nothing? Nothing! This house is my home, I have kept it, I will keep it: my stores, my kitchen, my linen-presses, all are mine. You are welcome here as my brother’s bride,’ she said, cooling formidably, ‘but you come new into an old rule, in which I bear the keys.’
The quarrels of women are at all times liable to be bitter, ferocious and waged without quarter, especially when they bear upon the matriarchal prerogative. Yet Cadfael found it surprising that Susanna should have been so shaken out of her normal daunting calm. Perhaps this challenge had come earlier than she had expected, but surely she could have foreseen it and need not, for that one long moment, have stood so mute and stricken. She was ablaze now, claws bared and eyes sharp as daggers.
‘I understand your reluctance,’ said Margery, growing sweet as her opponent grew bitter. ‘Never think there is any implied complaint, oh, no, I know you have set me an exemplary excellence to match. But see, a wife without a function is a vain thing, but a daughter who has borne her share of the burden already may relinquish it with all honour, and leave it to younger hands. I have been used to working, I cannot go idle. Daniel and I have talked this over, and he agrees with me. It is my right!’ If she did not nudge him in the ribs, the effect was the same.
‘So we have talked it over and I stand by Margery,’ he said stoutly. ‘She is my wife, it’s right she should have the managing of this house which will be hers and mine. I’m my father’s heir, shop and business come to me, and this household comes to Margery just as surely, and the sooner she can take it upon her, the better for us all. Good God, sister, you must have known it. Why should you object?’
‘Why should I object? To be dismissed all in a moment like a thieving servant? I, who have carried you all, fed you, mended for you, saved for you, held up the house over you, if you had but the wit to know it or the grace to admit it. And my thanks is to be shoved aside into a corner to moulder, is it, or to fetch and carry and scrub and scour at the orders of a newcomer? No, that I won’t do! Let your wife clerk and count for you, as she claims she did for her father, and leave my stores, my kitchen, my keys to me. Do you think I’ll surrender tamely the only reason for living left to me? This family has denied me any other.’
Walter, if he had anticipated any of this, had been wise to keep well away from it, safe in his shop. But the likelihood was that he had never been warned or consulted, and was expendable until this dispute was settled.
‘But you knew,’ cried Daniel, impatiently brushing aside her lifelong grievance, seldom if ever mentioned so plainly before, ‘you knew I should be marrying, and surely you had the sense to know my wife would expect her proper place in the house. You’ve had your day, you’ve no complaint.
Of course the wife has precedence and requires the keys. And shall have them, too!’
Susanna turned her shoulder on him and appealed with flashing eyes to her grandmother, who had sat silent this while, but followed every word and every look. Her face was grim and controlled as ever, but her breathing was rapid and shallow, and Cadfael had closed his fingers on her wrist to feel the beat of her blood there, but it remained firm and measured. Her thin grey lips were set in a somewhat bitter smile.
‘Madam grandmother, do you speak up! Your word still counts here as mine, it seems, cannot. Have I been so useless to you that you, also, want to discard me? Have I not done well by you all, all this while?’
‘No one has found fault with you,’ said Juliana shortly. ‘That is not the issue. I doubt if this chit of Daniel’s can match you, or do the half as well, but I suppose she has the goodwill and the perseverance to learn, if it has to be by her errors. What she has, and so I tell you, girl, is the right of the argument. The household rule is owing to her, and she will have to have it. I can say no other, like it or lump it. You may as well make it short and final, for it must happen.’ And she rapped her stick sharply on the floor to make a period to the judgement.
Susanna stood gnawing at her lips and looking from face to face of all these three who were united against her. She was calm now, the anger that filled her had cooled into bitter scorn.
‘Very well,’ she said abruptly. ‘Under protest I’ll do what’s required of me. But not today. I have been the mistress here for years, I will not be turned out in the middle of my day’s work, without time to make up my accounts. She shall not be able to pick flies here and there, and say, this was left unfinished, or, she never told me there was a new pan needed, or, here’s a sheet was left wanting mending. No! Margery shall have a full inventory tomorrow, when I’ll hand over my charge. She shall have it listed what stocks she inherits, to the last salt fish in the last barrel. She shall start with a fair, clean leaf before her. I have my pride, even if no other regards it.’ She turned fully to Margery, whose round fair face seemed distracted between satisfied complacency and discomfort, as if she did not quite know, at this moment, whether to be glad or sorry of her victory. ‘Tomorrow morning you shall have the keys. Since the store-room is entered through my chamber, you may also wish to have me move from there, and take that room yourself. Then you may. From tomorrow I won’t stand in your way.’