Girl In A Red Tunic (14 page)

     She said, after an uncomfortable pause, ‘You believe my son to be a coward, Sir Josse, and you think that his absence this morning is because he did not want to be among your party hunting for the probably violent Walter Bell.’

     It sounded even worse when she put it into those particular words and he hastened to qualify what he had said. ‘No, I am sure he is not cowardly; all I meant was that it takes some young men longer than others to get accustomed to the dirtier side of life. But he rallied, your Leofgar, he pulled himself together double-quick and got busy looking after Sister Phillipa as soon as I asked him to.’

     ‘That is something to be thankful for,’ she said ironically.

     ‘I’ve thought of another possibility,’ he said, hardly registering her brief comment. ‘The lady Rohaise was in a sorry state when they arrived, was she not?’

     ‘Yes, although she seems to have improved. The work in the infirmary has been good for her, I believe, and she seems more at ease now with her little boy.’

     ‘Aye, well, that all goes to suggest that this time I may have come up with the right answer!’ he said eagerly.

     ‘Which is?’ She was, he noticed, watching him with something that looked like indulgence.

     ‘Let’s assume that Leofgar too has seen the improvement in his wife,’ he said, the words rushing out of him, ‘and he decides that if they stay on here now that this wretched business with the Bell brothers has started, there’s every chance that poor Rohaise will get anxious and worried and she’ll fall back into her former misery. What do you think of that?’ he demanded triumphantly.

     But to his dismay he heard her murmur, ‘Oh, dear!’ Then she said, ‘Dear Sir Josse, you are trying so hard and I appreciate your kindness. You ask what I think of your suggestion, and I have to reply that the answer is, not very much.’

     ‘But—’

     ‘If their departure were for such a very understandable and indeed logical cause, then why did they run away in the middle of the night without telling us? Leofgar had only to say that he feared for his wife and son’s safety all the time there was the risk of a violent ruffian in the vicinity and we would have said, of
course
you must go home! Wouldn’t we?’

     He had to admit that it was so. Moving away from her and returning to his usual place on the opposite side of the table, he said, ‘What do you think, my lady?’

     Her brow creased into a frown. ‘I do not know what to think. I wish that I—’ She stopped. Then, looking at him, holding his eyes, she said very quietly, ‘Sir Josse, I have scarcely seen my son for more than fifteen years. I knew him as a baby and as a small child as well as any woman knows her son, but after that I – well, I was widowed and it was best for my sons’ own sakes that I took certain steps to ensure their futures. So I – homes were found for them with men of equivalent rank and position to that of my late husband and off they went. And then I came here.’ She dropped her head and seemed to be engaged in an intent study of her folded hands. ‘You ask me what I think of my son’s strange behaviour and I have to say that I have no answer. I no longer know what or who he is and I cannot even make a guess as to why he has fled from the Abbey as if the devil himself were on his heels.’

     Josse had never really thought about the Abbess’s past. There had been hints – she had once or twice mentioned her late husband and made the occasional reference to motherhood and the birth of her sons – but this was the first time that she had spoken with such power and, it had to be said, such emotion about her past life. Wondering whether or not it would be diplomatic to pursue the subject – oh, surely he should, for did she not need some kindness, some reassurance? – he said tentatively, ‘My lady, you sound almost as if it is a matter for regret that you have lost your former closeness with your children.’

     ‘It is,’ she said baldly.

     ‘But is it not the case with the sons of many men and women, that they are sent from home when young and trained for knighthood by other men? It happened to me and I did not suffer.’

     ‘Yet you remained in contact with your mother. I know you did, Josse, you told me how she insisted you spend time with her kinfolk in Lewes.’

     ‘Aye, that’s true,’ he agreed reluctantly.

     ‘And when your brother Yves came here that time, you and he spoke with such love of your late father that I knew full well you had all been close.’

     He had forgotten her prodigious memory. And the fact that, in pursuit of the truth, she was relentless. Even when – perhaps especially when – the truth was to do with some accusation she was making against herself.

     ‘The past is the past,’ he said eventually. ‘Maybe you will have to live with your regrets about what was done long ago, my lady. But must they be allowed to affect what you do in the present and what you plan for the future?’

     Slowly she looked up. Then, her grey eyes full of tears, she said huskily, ‘I keep seeing him as a child. Both of them, and I see Ivo too. All this time, ever since I had those dreams when Leofgar was calling out to me, I’ve been unable to control my thoughts. The pictures from my own past flood into my mind and I can’t shut them out. And I still dream so vividly, about – well, about things that a nun should not be dreaming of.’

     ‘We cannot help what breaks out into our dreams,’ he said reasonably, ‘or, if there is a way, I do not know what it could be.’

     ‘I dream of Ivo and me when we were young,’ she murmured. ‘It is
wrong
, Sir Josse!’

     ‘You were his lawful wedded wife,’ Josse said. ‘Surely there is no shame attached to that?’ He thought she was about to speak but she seemed to change her mind. ‘And it is not as if you kept your past a secret when you presented yourself here and took the veil, is it?’

     ‘I ...’ She hesitated and he thought he saw a faint blush rise in her pale face. ‘They knew I had been married, had borne two sons and was widowed, yes,’ she said. ‘As you say, nobody protested that any of that made me unfit to be a nun. The Abbess at the time questioned me carefully over the provision I had made for my children, but everything had been meticulously arranged and she found no fault.’

     ‘What provision had you made?’ He asked the question despite himself; he was very curious to know the answer.

     She paused for some time. Then said, ‘Leofgar went to a great friend of Ivo’s. He was to stay there and receive his training as a page and then a squire until he came of age, upon which he would take up residence at the Old Manor. That was Ivo’s family home,’ she added, ‘and it was, of course, Leofgar’s inheritance as the elder son.’

     ‘And your other son?’

     ‘Dominic was not all that much younger than Leofgar but he was—’ She swallowed. ‘He was closer to me, the one who always wanted to be with me. He was less of an adventurer than his brother, although ironically it is he who has grown up to be a soldier who fights in faraway lands. He – I sent him to live with my brother and his wife and Dominic quickly became like another child in their happy home.’

     ‘You did what was best for them.’ He believed it; knowing her as he did, she could not have done otherwise.

     But she said only ‘Perhaps.’

     After another lengthy silence she wiped the last traces of tears from her eyes, mopped her face with her sleeve and stood up. Taken by surprise, Josse said, ‘My lady? You are going somewhere?’

     ‘Of course I am.’ Determination written all over her, she strode round her table and made for the door. ‘I would love it if you were to accompany me, Sir Josse, provided you think you can be spared from the search for Walter Bell.’

     ‘Saul and Augustus can start without me,’ he assured her. ‘But where are we going?’

     The expression that she gave him suggested that she thought he should have known without asking and, when she spoke, he realised that he should have done. ‘To look for Leofgar and Rohaise,’ she said. ‘We’ll search for them in their home, that used to be mine. We’re going to the Old Manor.’

Chapter 8

Helewise sent word to Sister Martha and both Horace and the golden mare named Honey were saddled and waiting by the time she and Josse had collected what few belongings they were taking with them and were ready to leave. Helewise had dressed herself in an extra layer of warm underclothes – a fine woollen shift and petticoat – and she had found her heavy travelling cloak. Josse, she noticed, was also well wrapped up against the cold.

     Sister Martha, eyes betraying her curiosity, saw them to the gate and watched them set off. Helewise turned Honey’s head to the right, instinctively knowing which way to go; Josse, catching her up, said, ‘How far away is this Old Manor, my lady?’

     I should have told him, she thought. It is discourteous to have virtually ordered him to accompany me without telling him exactly where we were going. ‘It lies in a small hamlet in the shadow of the North Downs,’ she said, turning round in the saddle. ‘As to how far ... a morning’s ride, perhaps a little more. I will take us along lesser-frequented tracks, Sir Josse, if you do not mind, for I prefer not to ride down through Tonbridge and possibly have people speculate and guess at our purpose.’

     ‘No, I don’t mind,’ he called back. ‘Lead on, my lady.’

     They had been riding for some time when something occurred to her. ‘Sir Josse!’

     ‘My lady?’ He kicked the big horse and trotted up to ride beside her.

     ‘You speculated that perhaps Leofgar left as he did because he did not want to be a part of your search party.’

     ‘I was wrong, I am sure of it,’ he said quickly.

     ‘Never mind. What I wanted to say is this: I found my son in the stables last night and I realise now that he was probably getting everything ready for the family’s secret night-time departure. Did you tell him yesterday about the search party?’

     ‘No.’

     ‘I thought not because I did tell him, as we left the stables, and to judge from his reaction I would have said that he had not known of the plan before.’

     ‘Therefore he did not leave because he feared helping us search for a violent man,’ Josse concluded. ‘There, my lady. I said he was no coward.’

     For some time the happy thought cheered her. But then she recalled all her other worries and the fleeting lightening of her burdens was gone again.

Although she had once covered the journey in the opposite direction, Helewise had never travelled the route from Hawkenlye Abbey to the Old Manor; nuns did not habitually leave the convent for visits back to their former homes for, once within the order, that was considered to be their life and reminders from the past were not encouraged. Returning to your previous existence to care for a sick parent, for example, turned your mind from where it belonged, with God and in His service, perpetually His to command.

     So it was strange, she mused as they rode along in the feeble sunshine, that she knew the way without hesitation. They left the main route down Castle Hill towards Tonbridge soon after leaving the Abbey, branching off to the right and descending into the wide Medway Valley down a track that was mostly used by drovers trying to get their herds up on to higher – and therefore drier – ground. They crossed the river some distance to the east of Tonbridge. It was as well, she thought, that the weather had not been wet recently because the marshy areas either side of the river would have been impassable if the ground were anything but bone dry and hard with frost. She turned north-west on the far side of the Medway and soon the long ridge of the North Downs rose up before them.

     I must, she decided as once again she made a slight change of direction with barely a thought, have made this journey many times in my mind  ...

     But she was not sure that she wanted to dwell on that. The idea that she had mentally and unconsciously made her way back to her old home, perhaps with regular frequency, suggested that her detachment from her former life was not as complete as she had always believed.

They came into a small settlement with a wide green and a pond – there was nobody about and Helewise concluded that the inhabitants were wisely tucked up in their homes, sheltering from the cold – and rode on up a long, gentle rise towards the Downs.

     Then the great line of oak and chestnut trees that sheltered the Old Manor from the east wind came into view. Helewise kicked the golden mare into a smart trot and then a canter and, with her veil flying in the breeze and the sound in her ears of Horace’s big hooves pounding the hard ground as Josse raced to keep up with her, at last she was approaching her former home.