The Sumerton Women

by D. L. Bogdan

  One night he did not come home at all. He arrived the next day in the midafternoon, blustery and ruddy cheeked from riding against the autumn wind.

  Cecily, gripped with anxiety, had been pacing the great hall for hours. When he burst in all smiles her relief was replaced by unexpected anger. She resisted the urge to throw her arms about him, stamping her foot instead.

  “Lord Hal!” she cried. Her lip quivered.

  “Darling!” he cried, making long strides toward her to grip her upper arms. He planted a kiss on her forehead. “What is it, dearest?”

  “What is it?” Cecily retorted, pulling away and folding her arms across her budding breasts. “Oh, my lord, how could you stay out all night without sending word? I was worried unto death! No doubt you were treating yourself to a marvelous time while I paced and waited imagining all manner of ill fortune befalling you! Not to mention the company you could be keeping ... How do I know you’re not with—with—” Tears clouded her vision as a strange sensation caught her off guard. Jealousy. It shocked her beyond measure. The feeling seared through her breast like an arrow’s tip as her mind’s eye conjured up a buxom blonde sitting on Hal’s lap, stroking his cheek, running her fingers through his hair. And yet was this an unreasonable fear? Hal was a handsome still-young man, in good form, and in possession of great charm. When a woman, a grown woman with breasts and hips and woman’s charms, learned he was married to a girl with the décolletage of an eight-year-old boy ... Cecily squeezed her eyes against the unwelcome imagery.

  Hal drew her close, rubbing her back and making little shushing noises of consolation. “I had no idea,” he said, his voice soft with surprise. “I am unaccustomed to people wondering after my whereabouts. I will never be so thoughtless again.” He kissed the top of her head. “And as for the company I keep, don’t fret. All old curmudgeons.” He pulled away, cupping her cheek in his hand. The fondness in his twinkling blue eyes sent a wave of reassurance warm as wine through Cecily as she leaned into his hand.

  “And their wives? How do they occupy themselves?” she asked him, sniffling. “The same way I do? Pacing and waiting?”

  “I am a witless idiot,” he said, lifting her in his arms. She wrapped hers about his neck as he carried her into the solar. He lowered them onto the settle. “I suppose I never considered how lonely it must be for you here now that ...” He let the thought hang between them.

  Cecily, knowing there was no need to expound on it, pressed her cheek against his. “I am sorry, my lord, for being cross,” she said in small tones, still shaken by the sense of protectiveness that overtook her at the thought of Hal in danger, even if that danger meant falling prey to another woman’s charms. “All I could think of as I waited out the night was, ‘What if something happens to my lord? How will I live without him whom I have come to love so well?’ ”

  Hal drew in a wavering breath, clutching her to him as he kissed her cheek.

  “I am to pay Sir Edward Camden a visit tomorrow,” he told her in husky tones as he swayed from side to side. Cecily recalled Sir Edward as the gentleman who had escorted her down the aisle at her wedding. “How would you like to accompany me? You and his wife, the Lady Alice, are of an age; perhaps you would enjoy her company?”

  “Oh, yes!” Cecily cried, snuggling even closer against him. “Do take me with you!”

  “Wherever I go, sweetheart,” he said, holding her tight.

  As he held the slight creature in his arms, relishing her scent, her softness, her sweetness, his heart constricted with a love he had never imagined possible, at least not for him. He had never loved the woman who became Sister Julia. Theirs was a connection based on sheer lust. Now that Hal knew the truth of it he considered it divine irony that devout Mirabella was born of such a union.

  The love he bore Lady Grace was based on companionship, forged in mutual strife and pain. That pain tainted everything, every touch, every smile, every act, at last devouring every tangible sensation. At the end of the day, there was nothing left to give. Empty apologies had been made. The words floated around them, useless. The love that had waned and waxed over the years had in the end, the very end, proved itself unsalvageable.

  Now Cecily, this gift, this miracle, remained to heal his shattered heart, his broken soul. Cecily, more than he could have dared dream of. Cecily ... He would not repeat his mistakes. He would make her happy, despite their age difference, despite everything, he would make her happy.

  And if God was as merciful as He was proving thus far, perhaps He would see fit that she love him as he so completely and inexplicably loved her... .

  Cecily was so struck by the reaction her loneliness for Hal had inspired that she did not want to sleep alone that night. Since their wedding guests had departed they had taken to sleeping in separate chambers, and though Cecily was still not ready to consummate the marriage, she thought it would do no harm to at least sleep beside her husband. And so she followed him to bed that night.

  “This place is too large. Our apartments are on opposite wings,” she told him. “It is silly. And it does become so cold... .”

  “If I did not know you I would call you a vixen,” Hal told her with a throaty chuckle. “I do not know, Cecily.” He drew in a breath. “To be honest, it is far easier for me to be honorable if we are in separate chambers.”

  “Oh,” Cecily said, bowing her head. “I suppose I did not think of it like that.”

  “Do not think I am turning you away ...” he reassured her. “But I am afraid I will lose control.” He bowed his head. “And I do not want to frighten you.”

  Cecily smiled. “You could never frighten me, my lord.” She strode toward him, reaching up to stroke his beard. “We are joined together under God, Lord Hal. Our bed is sacred and I am not afraid of what may take place in it. We will sleep beside one another. Whatever happens is meant to be.”

  “Dearest girl,” Hal murmured, drawing her into his arms for a tight embrace.

  Cecily crawled into his bed, drawing the covers to her neck as she watched him remove his doublet, revealing beneath it, to her utmost horror, a hair shirt. “My lord!” she cried.

  “Oh, this,” he said with a careless shrug. “I suppose you have never seen me unclothed before... . I—It is my penance.”

  “For what, my lord?” Cecily asked him, crawling out of bed to approach him. “For sins you have more than paid for?”

  Hal shifted from one bare foot to the other, averting his head, as though caught committing some grievous sin instead of trying to repent for one.

  Cecily drew in a breath. How much sadness this man has known! she thought as her eyes found themselves resting on the sandglass Hal kept on his bedside table. Brightening, she retrieved it, tipping it back and forth, watching the grains of sand slide from one end to the other.

  “Do you know what this represents?” she asked him in soft tones.

  “Time,” he answered, matching her tone with his own.

  “This kept time in the past,” she told him. “Each grain of sand represents every old sin, every old hurt.” Cecily headed toward the bay window, unlatched it, and pressed it open. For a moment she held the sandglass by her fingertips. “God forgives, my lord,” she reminded him. “Our sins to Him are as these grains of sand.” She let go. The sandglass plunged to the earth, shattering. “Cast to the winds. Forgotten.”

  She approached Hal, removing his hair shirt. “We will have a new sandglass, one that keeps time for our now.” She smiled. “No more hair shirts. No more punishments. Now is a time to begin again. First with a bath to cleanse your wounds,” she added with a smile. “And then a healing ointment. It is time to heal, my lord. Time to renew and start again.”

  Tears glistened off Hal’s cheeks as he regarded her. “Cecily ...” he breathed in awe. He opened his arms. Cecily ran into them, holding him close.

  Hal turned down the bed and Cecily crawled in once more. He slid in beside her, wrapping his arms about her to hold her close.

&nbs
p; “I meant what I said, though,” he told her. “About waiting. I never want to hurt you, Cecily.”

  “I know,” she said, squeezing him about the middle. “I know.”

  And after a warm bath was ordered for Hal that the cleansing of his self-inflicted wounds might start, they passed another chaste night.

  To his surprise, Hal found that his love for Cecily made this easy to do.

  Cecily awoke to the ringing of bells. “I haven’t heard the like since Queen Anne’s coronation!” she cried, running across the rush-strewn floor to the window, flinging it open to a burst of warm air. Below, the gardener was clipping at the ivy that crawled up the side of the castle like a great searching hand. “What news, sir?” she cried.

  “That’d be the birth announcement, milady!” he shouted back with a smile of his own.

  “Oh!” she cried, pressing her hands to her cheeks in excitement. “Have you heard? Is it a prince?”

  The old man shook his head. “A wee princess,” he said. “Poor little mite.”

  Cecily’s heart lurched as she thought of the new queen, who had held the hopes of a kingdom in her womb. Now she would be considered a disappointment, and after all the grief she went through in her elevation to queenhood. Oh, the poor lady ... Cecily found her hand straying to her flat belly, wondering how disappointed Hal would be in her should she bring him females.

  Of course there was no need to fret about that at the rate they were going. Hal was so respectful of her sensibilities that Cecily ruefully believed she would not become a mother till she was forty and toothless.

  Cecily pushed the thought from her mind as she waved to the gardener. “Well, God keep her!” she cried, shutting the window. Hal had risen and dressed.

  “A girl,” he breathed. “Poor Harry.”

  “Poor Harry!” Cecily cried. “The poor queen! She must be mad with fear.” She paused to call for Matilda. “Everything is different in Henry’s England,” she said. “He put one queen aside for providing naught but a female. Nothing will prevent him from doing the same with her.”

  Hal waved the thought away with a laugh. “He wouldn’t want to go through all that trouble again. That was a six-year ordeal! No. Our Queen Anne is young and has proved herself fertile. So the first one’s a girl; it will make the birth of their prince all the sweeter.”

  Cecily recalled the confident woman riding in her litter all covered in gems. “I suppose if anyone can hold a king she can,” she said.

  “Only because his eyes have not beheld you,” he said with such profound sincerity Cecily was touched.

  “Who would want to be a queen when they could be your wife?” she asked him, and found that it was not mere cleverness that motivated the retort.

  She meant it.

  Sir Edward Camden was visibly shocked when Hal called upon him with Cecily on his arm. The rheumy eyes lit with pleasant surprise, however, abating the knot of awkwardness in Cecily’s gut as they were shown into his solar.

  “Well, isn’t this wonderful!” said the old man as he limped to his chair. He flagged down his steward. “Albert, send for my wife,” he ordered, returning his attention to Cecily. He drank her in with his eyes; it was not a comforting assessment. Cecily shifted in her seat. “So pretty,” he murmured, stroking his beard.

  Cecily bowed her head. “Thank you, sir,” she replied, entwining her hand in Hal’s, who offered a squeeze of reassurance.

  “I had thought on your wedding day that your beauty was exaggerated by the stunning attire... . I see now I was wrong,” Sir Edward said, wagging his bushy gray brows at her. “And still so young; imagine when your beauty has reached its peak! Hal, you’re a lucky man!”

  “You honor me with your fair words, sir,” Cecily said, stifling her annoyance and feeling an immediate sympathy for his wife, who was making her entrance.

  The men in the room rose, offering bows, while Cecily inclined her head with a timid smile at the pale-faced girl who seemed to drown in her pink taffeta gown. Sir Edward wrapped his arm about her waist, then, to Cecily’s utter shock, squeezed her rump. The girl averted her flushing face with a grimace.

  “Here she is!” He laughed. “This is my Lady Alice.” He jerked his head at Cecily. “You remember Lady Cecily, Hal’s young bride.”

  Cecily rose. “I am afraid we were prevented from getting better acquainted due to all the wedding festivities.” The smile she offered was warm. “I am glad for the opportunity to know you better.”

  Alice extended her hand. Cecily took it, noting a sense of desperation in the squeeze offered.

  “Shall we leave the men to their conversation?” Alice asked, Cecily’s hand still in hers. “I should love to show you the tapestry I have been embroidering.”

  Cecily nodded.

  “Behave yourselves, ladies!” Sir Edward called after them as they quit the room.

  As the girls navigated their way through the manor they encountered a passel of children, boys and girls of ages varying from four to what looked like Cecily’s own, running about like a band of wild Scots. While some screamed and squabbled, leaping and turning about in somersaults, the older lads paused to gawk at their stepmother and her guest, causing goose pimples to rise on Cecily’s flesh as she averted her head to find two of them engaged in a mock sword fight on the table of the great hall!

  “Oh, these?” Alice quipped when noting Cecily’s overwhelmed expression. “Yes, the house is positively crawling with them—and there used to be more.” She grimaced. “Thank God two have married and two have become monks—not that there is a pious bone in the body of any Camden,” she went on as they walked. “Nine were born of his first wife,” she explained. “The last five are from the second. I suppose the reason for their deaths warrants no explanation,” she added with a smirk. Then to the boys: “Can’t you pretend civility for one blooming day, at least in front of the company?”

  The boys paused a moment, looked at her, then shrugged and returned to their amusements.

  “A pox on you all, then!” she murmured.

  Alice did not relinquish Cecily’s hand till they reached her apartments. There she collapsed against the wall, giggling. “Oh, thank God you’re here!” she cried, trading her weariness for animation. “I shall go mad without some gentle society!”

  “I see why!” Cecily cried before she could help herself.

  Alice, a plain-faced, auburn-haired girl with keen brown eyes and a boyish figure, exuded cheer and good humor despite circumstances that Cecily regarded as intolerable. Her heart constricted with a mingling of empathy and admiration for the girl as she watched her swagger to the large embroidery frame across which was stretched plain white fabric.

  “My tapestry,” she said, with an elaborate hand gesture. “As you can see, it’s nearly done.”

  Cecily laughed. There was not a single stitch on it.

  “I call it ‘Clouds,’ ” Alice went on.

  Cecily laughed harder, till her gut began to ache. Alice added her own laughter; it was a robust sound that bordered on hysteria. When the girls wiped the tears from their eyes, Cecily noted that Alice’s expression had converted from one of merriment to tragedy.

  “You married an older man, too,” she said in soft tones. “Does he treat you well?”

  Cecily’s throat constricted in guilt as she thought of gentle Hal. She almost did not want to admit her good fortune, lest she make the poor girl regard her lot as even more pitiable.

  “He is a good man,” she said.

  “He is not rough with you?” Alice asked, lowering her eyes.

  Cecily’s heart sank. Now she understood more than ever why Mirabella took the veil. Sir Edward was the type of man Mirabella had referred to when she shared her fears. At once Cecily hated him and all men like him.

  “It must be wonderful,” Alice said in wistful tones. “Edward is an ass and his sons, the older ones, they’re just as bad. My only relief comes when they go carousing in Lincoln.” She shrugged, then offered a rue
ful smile.

  “Oh, my lady!” Cecily cried, taking her hand once more. “I am so sorry.”

  Alice shook her head, drawing in a wavering breath. She wiped her eyes, then brightened. “Do you want to see my children?”

  “Very much,” Cecily answered.

  Alice led her to the nursery. A two-year-old girl just out of swaddling bands toddled toward them, stretching her arms toward her mother. Alice lifted her up, squeezing her tight as they made their way to a cradle in which was snuggled another infant girl of about eight months. She scrutinized the visitors with earnest brown eyes.

  “My daughters,” Alice said. “Ellen and Margery.”

  Cecily’s heart lurched with an unexpected longing as she reached down to caress the silky cheek of the baby. “They’re beautiful.”

  “They’re girls,” Alice said, her tone soft with fear. “And I pray I can ward them off to the convent as soon as they are able.” She lowered her head, kissing the blond hair of the baby in her arms. “It is not good to be a girl in this house.”

  Cecily did not know how to address the statement, or if it even should be, so remained silent a moment while Alice set little Ellen on her unsteady feet once more.

  “Is it very painful having babies?” she decided to ask.

  Alice laughed. “I’m still here,” she told her. “And I had Ellen when I was about your age. It isn’t pleasant, but we’re all proof that it can be done.”

  Cecily offered her own uncertain laugh.