Green Darkness (66 page)

“Aye . . .” said Anthony frowning heavily. “It is already.” He choked on a herring bone, and shouted, “Name o’ God, why can’t that wench blandish someone suitable. I was rid o’ her once.”

Magdalen nodded. “But, I’ve still fondness for Celia. I’m sorry for her . . . We can’t cast her out, ’twouldna be Christian. Anthony, did ye talk to Squire Ratcliffe, mightn’t ye calm him? He might soften and ’twould solve Celia’s future.”

Anthony’s scowl deepened. “I’ve enough to do wi’ solving my own future, Lady, an’ I’ll not have the Yuletide ruined. I’ve no mind to soothe a justly angry father, nor countenance a crazy lovesick lad. As for Celia—keep her out of my way! For decency’s sake she may remain until her aunt is buried. After that I care naught what becomes of her.”

Magdalen said no more.

The Christmas festivities at Cowdray proceeded without either Celia or Edwin. The latter was kept guarded in his room at his father’s manor and ostentatiously treated as the victim of an attack of madness. Celia continued to spend most of her time in Ursula’s chamber, though she was laying plans and biding her time.

She could hear the uproar outside, the raucous cheers as they brought in the yule log, the caroling of the waits in the courtyard, the stridency from the Great Hall where Anthony’s minstrels kept up continuous music—trumpets, pipes, rebecs and drums reverberated throughout the castle. She could dimly hear the songs as the traditional wassails were drunk, as the roast peacock was borne before the company, and the boar’s head. She was not actually a prisoner; Magdalen had told her she was welcome in the Hall so long as she kept away from Anthony, but the girl had no heart for merriment. Ursula had died in her sleep, her head resting on Celia’s shoulder. It wasn’t until the corpse grew cold that Celia realized what had happened. And then she felt only dull resignation, followed by repulsion. The thing on the bed was not Ursula Southwell, nor was the body in the chapel. Ursula was gone forever, and of the soul all the clergy ranted about, Celia felt no certainty. There were prayers for the dead, but she could not remember them. In any case, what was there to pray
to?
An indifferent void. She was glad when they took Ursula’s wasted body away. Glad to have the room to herself and Taggle. She had loved Ursula; years ago she had loved her mother. Both were gone now. Love was gone, faded into a reminiscent sadness like the lingering aura of old wood smoke. So, new fires must be lit, lively fires to give new warmth, before they too died away.

During that Christmas week, Celia became consciously aware of dormant urges in her body. She caressed her thighs, her breasts, and rubbed them with the marigold pomade she found in Ursula’s cupboard. Ursula had made the pomade as a moth repellent; Celia used it for the sensuous pleasure it gave her.

In Ursula’s coffer and huge court cupboard, Celia found many items to enhance her beauty and rejoiced that they were hers.

Ursula’s brief will left all that she possessed to “my beloved niece, Celia de Bohun, now Lady Hutchinson,” and had been dated four years ago, after Celia left for Lincolnshire. The inheritance which seemed so paltry in the eyes of the Montagus was englamored for Celia by the delight of ownership. She rearranged the chamber completely. She moved the great bed with its frayed crimson hangings to the northern wall. She took down Ursula’s crucifix, and hung up on its peg a tarnished mirror Ursula had acquired during the Southwark days. Now, when Celia knelt on the
priedieu
, she was able to gaze into a wavering reflection of her own face.

At the bottom of the store chest, carefully wrapped in yellowed linen, she found Ursula’s wedding gown. It had once been white, a satin overdress sprigged with tiny bunches of embroidered flowerets, all faded to an indeterminate cream. The long sleeves were banded with tarnished silver cloth, the tasseled belt had once been of silver, too, but was now blackened. Yet, the supple satin, woven at Lyons, had not cracked in forty years, Celia discovered as she took off the lavender sprigs. She tried on the gown, peering into her mirror. The gown was too large, Ursula had been a bigger woman, but the old-fashioned skirts were full enough to accommodate a farthingale. The bodice could be adjusted, the neck lowered, the tarnished bands brightened with alum.

I shall wear this at
my
wedding, Celia thought. She had determined to marry Edwin. The immediate procedures towards that end were not yet apparent; she knew that he was incarcerated at home, but she felt a certainty that all difficulties would melt under the force of her will. She and Edwin had stolen several meetings while he was still at Cowdray; she had persuaded herself that she loved him. At least, she was slightly stirred by his kisses, and knew that he was her slave.

The two men who were the prime obstacles to the union, Squire Ratcliffe and Anthony, she was sure of being able to manage—when the time came. Never again shall I be balked of what I want, she thought. Yet, her new-found sense of power must be subtly directed. She was no longer a child to be forced mindlessly into situations she could not control. She would wait until after her aunt’s funeral and, meanwhile, ready herself.

As an interim step, she discarded the cheap woolen widow’s garb, and altered Ursula’s best black velvet weeds, knowing that the velvet enhanced the beauty of her skin, and glad that she had refused Magdalen’s suggestion that Ursula be buried in them, saying with truth that Ursula would never have wanted such wasteful display.

The funeral was held on December 27, and was a hurried affair. Dr. Langdale officiated at the Mass but delegated his assistant, Father Morton, to conduct the actual burial in Easebourne Church, where a slab had been lifted from the paving near Sir Davy Owen’s effigy. Anthony and Magdalen attended the Mass but, as it was a chill windy day, did not walk in the funeral procession. Celia walked alone, followed by a handful of the retainers who had once known Ursula—and by Wat Farrier.

After the slab had been laid in place, the priest scurried off with the others. Wat turned sympathetically to Celia, who was gazing down at the slab.

Wat said, “Ye’ll miss her, won’t ye, Lady. I mind me o’ her many kindnesses, an’ she loved ye true.” Like Magdalen, he thought Celia strangely dry-eyed and distant. “’Twas well ye came to her at the end,” he added.

“Aye . . .” she said, “I’m glad o’ that. But death
is
the end, Wat. I doubt anything matters except living. I’ll fend for myself, and ne’er harken back.”

“But ye’ll say prayers for her soul,” asked Wat puzzled, “help ye’re Lady Aunt climb outa purgatory?”

“Have ye ever
seen
a soul, Wat?” Celia answered with a small earnest smile. “Do you know where purgatory
is?
”

Wat was really startled. Such questions! He was not a religious man. Confession, then Mass, Christmas and Easter, that satisfied his inherited tradition. But Celia’s great eyes were fixed on him as though she expected an answer.

“Never thought on it,” he said, and also looked down at the freshly mortared slab above Ursula. “We must have souls . . . priests all say so. And purgatory—” He chewed his lips, adjusted his leather jerkin. “Well,” he said uncomfortably, “I’ve ne’er seen Jerusalem, nor talked to anyone ’oo has, but I believe it’s there.”

“Jerusalem’s a place on this earth,” said Celia, “and beyond this earth or life is too whimsical for me to credit.”

Wat grunted. He was not in the least disturbed by her pronouncement. Women were always twisting reason for their own ends. He simply felt sorry that she seemed to have lost her faith, and worried about remarks which might be heretical enough to endanger her.

“Woman wasn’t made to think,” he said kindly, “and her tongue has allus been a dangerous weapon. Keep yours i’ the scabbard.”

“I shall,” said Celia, “except when I need it to do battle.”

She turned down the aisle, and out of the church. Wat followed, startled by her tone yet admiring the willowy grace of her carriage, the proud set of her golden head in its starched widow’s coif. At the lych gate she stopped while Wat unlatched it.

“D’ye never hear naught of Simkin?” she asked.

Wat flushed painfully, a sorrowful anger showed in his little eyes. “Nay, not in years. He run off wi’ them Winchester mummers. Broke his poor mother’s heart—he run off in women’s clothes,” added Wat through his teeth. “Potts saw him as he passed through Midhurst a-clingin’ to that pretty boy Roland, the Devil take ’im! I doan’t like ter think on it . . . me own son . . .” Wat gulped.

Celia shook her head with grave sympathy. She understood far better than she had long ago, and she remembered Simkin’s vehemence in the close walks during her first ride on Juno. “Some day,” he had said, “it’ll be different, I’ll no have to obey nobody, I’ll do as I please wi’out shame.” Had he really achieved this? She remembered how he had told her that red and yellow did not suit her, and yet had cried, “God rot ye fur being a woman!” Still, there had always been a liking between them, poor ugly tormented lad.

“I’m sorry, Wat,” she said gently. “Still, you’ve other children and grandchildren to content you.”

“Faugh . . .” he cried. “A spineless mewling lot, an’ I’m no the man to crouch feebly by his fireside—not yet. Bigod, I’d like to ship out. There’s a whole western world across the sea, Span’ard an’ French’re hoggin’ it now, but there’s
more
to the north, a land like England. I’ve spoke wi’ fishermen from the Grand Banks. They know.”

Celia smiled abstractedly. Adventuring to undiscovered lands did not interest her. She was planning, very coolly, the best time and place to approach Anthony as a first step towards her goal. Twelfth Night, she decided, when he was mellowed by the customary festival. He’d not evict her during the Yuletide. I’ll send word to Edwin, she thought. She had already exchanged brief messages with Edwin. The page who had waited on Ursula was enamored of Celia. Little Robin. He was fifteen, undersized, the lowliest of the pages at Cowdray and dazzled by the mysterious beautiful widow who stroked his neck and kissed him on the cheek. One of Robin’s numerous cousins was a servitor on the Ratcliffes’ manor. Celia had bribed the servitor through Robin; sent one of the five shillings she had found in Ursula’s pouch. Robin gladly loped the seven miles between Cowdray and the Ratcliffes’ for the sake of Celia’s thanks.

The twelfth and last day of Christmas came in a crisped sparkle of icy tree limbs. The brief hours of sunlight shed diamonds on the hedge rows, the privets of the maze and pleasaunce. The air was dry and buoyant. It expelled much of the winter dankness throughout Cowdray’s multitudinous chambers, which were lavishly decorated with holly, trailing ivy festoons, branches of yew and spruce. From the lintels of each public room hung mistletoe bunches tied up with red ribbons. The kissing balls were nearly denuded of their white berries, since one must be plucked for each kiss to insure good luck, but the evergreens were still fresh and pungent.

Celia rejoiced in the fine weather—a happy omen. She felt exhilarated in a way she had not been since the day at Skirby Hall when she had set out to consult the water-witch. Good omens continued through the morning—she sneezed hard before Robin appeared with her breakfast ale and bread. Later, when she reached to the top of the cupboard, a spider fell on her face. As mishaps generally come in threes, so—though, alas, more seldom—may
good
portents. Celia looked out her window towards Easebourne and saw a loaded hay wain coming towards the castle, and the ox-herd who gangled astride a white ox had hair as red as a radish.

This multiplicity of good omens offset a passing discomfort. Once, she would have prayed to St. Anthony for the success of her project this day. She had only to run down to the chapel and speak a few imploring words to her patron saint, yet she did not. John Hutchinson’s contempt for “graven images” had left its mark, though she had not been able to like his Protestant Bible either. Religion of either kind was a mockery, a toy for children to fight over. I’ll have of it, thought Celia, and unpacked the costume smuggled to her by Robin.

On Twelfth Night at Cowdray the Christmas revels climaxed with the “Dance of Fools.” Every night there had been mummers from Midhurst and the nearby villages, cavorting around the courtyard or in the Hall. These were dressed in simple guises, some wearing animal masks, some having only blackened their faces with soot. They had all been given Christmas pies and pennies, as were the accompanying waits bawling out their carols with earsplitting vigor.

The Dance of Fools was more stylized, and had been held, without change, by centuries of de Bohuns, before the Brownes bought Cowdray, and like the Midsummer Eve’s fair, the tradition was perpetuated by Anthony.

Celia had watched the dance several times—when her mother had brought her from Midhurst to goggle near the Cowdray gatehouse amongst other townsfolk, and also during her first year with Ursula when she had seen the ceremony from inside the Buck Hall. She was confident that she could manage the dance steps, and hopeful that amidst the carousing the presence of an extra “fool” would not be noticed. There were always twelve fools—for the months of the year, for the days of Christmas. Their identity was secret. They were youths chosen by the Lord of Misrule—this year, a vapid young squire who had been selected to replace Edwin. The fools were dressed as court jesters of the days of Edward the Third, and there were stacks of the old costumes in Cowdray’s attics.

By dusk, Celia was ready. The long parti-colored hood came to her waist and covered her bosom. She had stuffed the horns with sawdust and sewed jingling bells on the tips. The motley trunks were fortunately baggy and hid her hips. She had made a mask, like those she remembered, out of parchment, and drawn on it a sad clown face, making the eyeholes very large. She must be able to see what was happening. Robin had got her a dried pig’s bladder which she tied to the end of a stick. On her hands she put old leather gloves to hide the amethyst wedding ring. She debated removing the ring, but some delicacy prevented her, a faint sense of tribute to Sir John who had been so jubilant, so anxious to make her happy when he put it on her finger. She chided herself for the weakness. John was dead, and she had vowed never to harken back. Welladay, she thought, soon I’ll have a wedding ring.