“Mistress Watts warns me I should not go out in this weather,” she complained to Lally one day. “And in truth I grow so ungainly that I may pitch forward on my face on the cobbles—on wet days I fear to go out in my clogs for fear I will slip, and not to wear them would drench my shoes!”
“Stay indoors,” advised Lally.
‘That is very hard for me,” sighed Lenore. “For I am a country girl and used to fresh air.”
With the flowing green cloak to hide her condition, she continued to prowl the town on good days, sometimes walking all the way to Port Meadow, the pastureland which lay just to the northwest of Oxford. Now in the winter, damp mists lay over Port Meadow, which was owned by the Freemen of Oxford and was grazed by ponies and cows, frequented by flocks of ducks and geese and other birds. From its soggy ragwort and thistle-sprinkled grass the towers of Oxford rose in the distance in immense majesty, and Lenore would pause, shivering, to admire them.
Geoffrey heard of these prowlings and sternly ordered Lenore to stop going out alone—it wasn’t safe. Did she not know there were footpads about?
“In daylight?” she asked wearily.
“Take Lally with you,” he said.
Lenore gave him a resentful look. “Lally’s busy enough exercising Snowfire—I can’t take up all her time.”
“Then get Michael to accompany you. He’s a bright lad, and too cautious to let you get into trouble.”
Lenore was over-surfeited with Michael’s adoring company already, but when the weather moderated a bit, she relented and let him take her walking beneath the sycamores and wych elms and mulberry trees. Honestly believing Lenore would be interested in anything that interested him, Michael took her to the Ashmolean Museum to see the famous unicorn’s horn, and Guy Fawkes’s lantern and near it the bulletproof hat with its iron lining which had been worn by John Bradshaw when he presided over Charles I’s trial. Lenore studied it and shivered.
The Lord Protector, men said, was an evil man, but. .. Michael had casually shown her the old gate where Cranmer, the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, had been burned to death by Bloody Mary’s Catholic regime. The fires of burning Protestants had lit up the countryside then ... no wonder sturdy Englishmen had brought the Lord Protector to power, they wanted an end to the burning. But now she looked at that bulletproof hat and thought of the beheaded King and shivered.
Michael’s eyes had danced at that. He loved gruesome things and spoke of them with relish.
Lenore went home from that excursion sighing, wondering if all men were children at heart.
She found Lally waiting for her, sitting on the edge of the table, swinging one long leg and looking very depressed.
“I came over to show you my new blue velvet gown.” Lally stood up and swung around so Lenore could view this new creation. Then, dispiritedly, “No, I didn’t. Ned’s gone to Marston again, and I had a falling out with Gilbert over that ridiculous barmaid, Dorothy. Oh, Lenore, I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days. I—”
Lenore poured her a glass of wine and handed it to her silently. “Perhaps Gilbert is what’s wrong, Lally. Had you thought of that?”
Lally shot her a look. “You’re wondering why I bother with Gilbert, aren’t you?” she asked softly. “Ned isn’t even married yet and . . . here I am, slipping around back streets with Gilbert.”
Lenore’s rising color was an admission that she had indeed wondered.
“I’m the kind of woman who has to have—someone,” said Lally dispassionately. “Arms to hold me. If not Ned’s—someone else’s. Mind you, I love Ned—I never told anyone that before, not even Ned. But it’s true, Lenore, I do love him. When Kevin was drowned and my father died, it snowed soon after and it was bitter cold, I thought on death. It seemed to me the answer was out there in the snow. I could just walk and walk until I froze to death and all my troubles would be over. I actually started out across the fields, trudging along through a white, faceless world. I remember growing sort of numb and sleepy and slowing down and finally I couldn’t move any more and I thought, This is death. Soon it will all be over. Suddenly I felt someone slapping my face, and I came to and I was looking up into Ned’s face. I’d never seen him before. He’d been riding across the fields, taking a shortcut to see some friends, and he found me lying there in the snow. He brought me back to his lodgings and warmed me—with rum and hot broth and with his own body, he made me want to live again. And when he learned my story, he helped me through with the baby—and then he brought me with him to Oxford. I’ve been very happy here, Lenore. But now that— that I’m losing Ned, I have to look around. Gilbert isn’t the man I want, but he’s witty and well-dressed—and he makes me feel like a woman. And sometimes I need that.” Her smile was wistful. “I wanted you to understand, Lenore, because you’re my friend and I care what you think.”
Lenore felt a lump rise in her throat. Quickly she poured Lally a glass of wine.
Absently, Lally accepted the glass and toyed with it. “There have been times this winter,” she said, her slate-blue eyes clouded with bitter reflection, “when it was bitter cold and Ned was in Marston and I have looked out through the frosted panes and yearned to go out and just keep walking, walking in the snow until the hurting stopped and I grew numb and dropped down and down and down. . . . Freezing’s an easy death, they say.”
Lenore stared at her. Worldly and witty, Lally had been through so much. “What stopped you?” she asked, her mouth dry.
Lally gave her a rueful smile. “At the last minute, I always found a shred of hope to cling to. That’s what Ned’s done for me, I suppose, given me hope. I’m a victim of my sometimes optimism. It’s kept me going.”
“Lally,” Lenore’s voice was husky and sincere, “I wish with all my heart that Ned would marry you.”
“So do I,” shrugged Lally. “But ’tis not like to happen.” She sighed. “It’s growing late, I must go.”
In the gathering dusk, Lenore watched her friend walk around the corner into Magpie Lane, a solitary figure hurrying home to a cold hearth—and a colder bed.
CHAPTER 15
With the spring, the wind off the Downs brought with it the scent of damp woodland, meadow wildflowers, and a promise of summer to come. With the spring, the face of Oxford, a city set amid the floodlands, changed. Hawkers came swinging into the town, selling the dead swans and moorhens they’d snared on baited eelhooks in the nearby Thames. Yeomen farmers walked about, gypsy caravans with bright painted carts lumbered through the streets, their horses jingling with fancy trappings. The market abounded with fish and fowl and venison, and from the swampy land the wonderful gardens overshadowed with huge oaks and sycamores and wych elms sprang to life, and a breath of warmth ruffled the ivy that clung to the honey-colored stone towers.
As Lally had gloomily predicted, Ned and Lavinia, his “Marston lady,” were married—first a civil ceremony according to the law, and then another ceremony at home in Marston “to make Lavinia feel married,” as Ned said happily. To this home ceremony Geoffrey and Lenore were invited.
“Are you going? To Marston?” a forlorn Lally asked Lenore.
“No,” Lenore said moodily. “My excuse is that my delicate condition won’t let me make the trip, but the truth is I couldn’t stand it, seeing Ned marry somebody else when he should be marrying you.”
“Oh, please go,” Lally urged with a break in her voice. “Ned actually told me I could go if I wished, that he’d pass me off as a distant relative.” She tried to laugh, but it didn’t quite come off. “But I couldn’t bring myself to. I couldn’t bear to see it but I—I want someone to tell me about it. How—how it goes, and whether Ned seems happy.” There were tears in her voice, and Lenore almost cried, too.
Though large with child by now, Lenore reluctantly assented to Lally’s pleading and together with Geoffrey attended the wedding. She wore her russet wool gown and green cloak and the plum velvet hat and muff Geoffrey had given her for Christmas, for the weather
was still unstable and the day dawned damp and cold. She and Geoffrey crossed the Cherwell by ferry with some of Ned’s friends. On the opposite bank they were picked up by the bride’s family coach and went on to Marston. The jolting coach made Lenore feel slightly ill, and she was not prepared to like Marston. She found it a swampy town, filled with fingers of the Thames, where white swans rode the placid waters like a bevy of brides.
The manor house they rode up to in the jolting coach was small but elegant, of red brick turned greenish by the damp climate, and approached by a flight of mossy stone steps. Geoffrey kept a firm grip on her arm as she negotiated those slippery steps, and Lenore gave him a grateful look.
The heavy oaken doors swung open and they found themselves inside a handsome wainscoated hall, stone-floored and sparsely furnished. At one end a bright fire crackled on a large stone hearth, moderating the spring dampness. Lenore would have headed at once for that fire, but Ned and his Lavinia came forward to greet them.
It was the first time Lenore had met Ned’s Marston lady, and grudgingly she found she liked the small, buxom, bright-eyed brunette, who kissed her warmly and made her welcome.
“Ned, now that I’ve met Mistress Lavinia, I realize what a fortunate man ye are!” Geoffrey gave Ned a hearty slap on the back. Ned grinned idiotically, but Lenore, with a pang, thought of Lally and how disconsolate she must be today. Gilbert had stayed in Oxford with her, and for once Lenore was glad Lally had Gilbert—Lally would need arms around her this night.
“Cheer up,” Geoffrey whispered as they followed their hostess into the big withdrawing room to the left of the hall, where the mullioned windows were heavily draped with handsome green damask. A number of guests milled about there, their boot heels grinding into the big Oriental carpet which had traveled half across the world and up the Thames and into the heart of England. “This is a wedding,” he reminded her in a low voice, “not a wake. We owe it to Ned to be cheerful.”
Lenore gave him a wan look. It was a wake to her. But she rallied a little as she drank warm wine and ate sweet cakes with the other guests. They drifted out into the hall and saw a group of new arrivals, the women wearing plumed hats. People flitted up and down the heavily carved acanthus scroll staircase. Many guests were to stay the night, but She and Geoffrey were not; along with others from nearby Oxford, the family coach would be taking them back to the ferry.
“I do not like weddings,” muttered Geoffrey at a moment when no one was near. “Had I been in Ned’s boots, I think I’d have come out on the Puritan side, for once, and said ‘Let be’ after the civil ceremony!”
Lenore gave him a scathing look. For once she lined up on the side of Lavinia, the Marston lady. “The poor girl wouldn’t feel married!” she protested.
“She’ll feel married enough when their first child comes along!” said Geoffrey. He looked abruptly sorry he’d said that, and Lenore sighed. There was always this awkwardness between them on the subject of marriage and—it wasn’t right that it should be so. Their love for each other was as sturdy and sure as any marriage could be. She watched the little bridesmaids flit by with wistful eyes. They looked so young and fresh—so innocent and so happy.
She was still pensive when she went in on Geoffrey’s arm to partake of a hearty meal of cold ham, haunch of venison, boiled leg of mutton and capers, flour pudding and sturgeon—all washed down with white and red wine, beer and cider—and so many tarts and pasties that Lenore felt stuffed as a Christmas goose.
Some of Ned’s relatives were very late in arriving— among them his brother—so the ceremony was held up awaiting his arrival. Lenore, because of her condition, was given a cot in a corner of one of the upstairs bedrooms to rest in. She found herself unable to nap, for people came and went, greeting each other, hugging each other, eagerly giving news of friends. Many of the women’s clothes were quite beautiful, with pastel silks and satins garnished with lace and plumed hats and pearl necklets. Lenore in her plain russet wool felt quite out of it.
After her rest she went back downstairs and found Geoffrey standing among a group of friends from Oxford, drinking wine.
“Ned’s brother—still not here?” she asked him.
“They fear his coach may have lost a wheel—’tis known he was on his way, for there are those here who passed him on the road.”
“How long will they wait?”
Geoffrey shrugged. “Faith, they seem in no hurry. The knot is already legally tied, and this ceremony is just a garnish on the cake.” He turned and smiled as Lavinia came by and told them prettily that the ceremony was sure to be so late they’d never reach Oxford before curfew and of course they must spend the night here at Marston. At first Lenore demurred, but Lavinia insisted, smiling prettily with her small Cupid’s bow mouth, her voice persuasive. “And you haven’t seen my house linens—or my wedding gifts!” she told Lenore merrily, taking her by the arm.
“Every stitch of my linens is mine—I made them all myself, yes and embroidered them, too! Ned is so proud of me! The flax was spun here and the wool is from the Cotswolds—Ned tells me you’re from the Cotswolds, Mistress Lenore.”
Lenore admitted it.
“All those beautiful green hills and the flocks of white woolly sheep!” cried Lavinia ecstatically. “How could you bear to leave it?”
Lenore smiled and forbore to enlarge on her manner of leaving. She couldn’t imagine Lally making that remark or looking at her in that lost, starry-eyed way. She wondered what Ned’s married life was going to be like.
Then she found herself looking at the handsome collection of bridal gifts. The little silver cup she and Geoffrey had been able to afford was lost among massive candlesticks and handsome silver bowls, but Lavinia raved over it at length. She had never seen anything so beautiful! Lenore knew Lavinia meant well, but it all made her sad. She was glad when Lavinia rushed on to gush over somebody else.
At last Ned’s brother arrived, covered with mud and with a wild tale of an overturned coach and some hastily procured help to drag it out of the mud—a large undertaking, as it turned out, for it was tightly wedged between a boulder and a tree and when righted was found to have lost a wheel. But at least now the ceremony could proceed.
Lavinia looked so joyful that she could now be “proper wed” that even Lenore had to smile. Lavinia retired to her room, waving to Lenore to come along with her. There her mother and sisters and female cousins helped get her into an elaborate costume, all of white. Sewn all over it were knots of colored ribbon—after the ceremony the young men would pull these off and wear them as bride-favors in their hats. Everyone gasped at Lavinia’s gloves, which were of delicate lace-trimmed leather with tiny seed pearls sewn into rosettes. When Lavinia was ready—her mother having combed her long, dark hair down loose and set on it a circlet of myrtle—Lenore and the others went downstairs and waited for Lavinia to come floating down.
When she reached the bottom step, Lenore caught Geoffrey’s eye from across the room. He raised a gauntleted glove to her (Ned had given all his friends fringed gauntlets as marriage tokens, as was the custom). Like the other guests, Lenore was now wearing a brightly colored scarf, and she adjusted it as she walked over to him.
This was a country wedding, and blithely free of the strictures of Puritanism save that the bride would wear a plain gold ring instead of a jeweled or enameled hoop. Beside Lenore, an elderly lady in a regal plumed hat and stiff brocades muttered, “I would have had Ned give me a jeweled hoop, had I been Lavinia.”
“I think I would have been content with gold,” sighed Lenore.
The woman gave her an odd look, and Geoffrey said in a vexed voice, “Mistress Lenore has lost her ring—when she pulled off her gloves as she came in from skating. But —I intend to buy her a better one, with jewels to match her eyes!” He squeezed Lenore’s hand.
The plumed hat bobbed in approval—and then forgot her, for the bride was coming down the stairs.
A ring . . . Geoffrey meant to give her a ring
. Wistfully Lenore remembered the gimmal rings used in the Cotswolds, rings that were separated into two parts—half given at betrothal to the man, half to the maid. Then both halves were united into one ring at the church. As a little girl she had been determined to wear such a ring. Now she knew she never would, but perhaps . . . one with blue stones to match her eyes. Her gloved fingers—which had felt no need of a ring in the wilds or Dartmoor—felt suddenly quite naked, and she twisted them together during the ceremony.
Ned looked so happy . . . not a thought of Lally in his merry gaze. To get her mind off Lally, Lenore studied the bride’s crowning circlet of myrtle, which she wore so proudly over her long, dark hair. It reminded her of Meg’s circlet of myrtle—though this wealthy bride wore white and Meg had worn russet, as became a village girl.
Lenore sighed. She should not attend weddings. They reminded her of all that she had lost and all that would never be hers.
After Ned and his Lavinia were pronounced man and wife, all present drank wine with sops in it—and Lavinia shyly dipped in a sprig of rosemary “for everlasting love” before she drank. She giggled as the ribbons were stripped from her gown by eager hands and stuck rakishly into the gentlemen’s hats.
Afterward the guests—hardly hungry, for they had already been well stuffed—were seated at long boards covered with linen and embellished by tall silver salts and with a centerpiece of holly and ate their way through a banquet of some fifteen courses. Lenore could hardly force herself to touch another scrap, but Geoffrey and the others seemed to enjoy the roast duck and roast piglet and bullock’s heart and boiled fowl, and urged on her the roast beef and oysters and cheese and plum and apple tarts.
“Geoffrey,” said Lenore, laughing, “if I eat any more, I will burst!”
He grinned. “Ned’s in luck. His bride’s family sets a good table!”
Wine flowed so lavishly that as they left the table many of the guests were already weaving, their tongues slurred. But the merriment continued, and that night they all drank the traditional sack posset which was made of spiced wine and milk and eggs and sugar. Voices rang as they toasted the bride’s health, the groom’s health, the health of all present. And at bedtime, as was the custom, the bridemen gaily pulled off the bride’s garters. Lavinia had previously untied them, with much giggling, so that the dangling ribbons hung down and were easily grasped (“else they might grasp my knee instead!” she had cried merrily). Lenore fastened Geoffrey’s to his hat, as did the others, and went with the bridesmaids to the bride’s chamber, where they helped her undress. With a half-scared look, her eyes enormous, Lavinia climbed into the great featherbed, sinking down into it as if in a white-capped ocean.
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