The Sumerton Women

by D. L. Bogdan

  Trestle tables were set up and food was being laid out, great platters of cheese and bread, prawns and boar and sugared comfits. Alec looked about him in wonder. The hall had been strung with pine boughs to usher in the holiday season and candelabras painted the room in cheery hues of gold. Dancing as festive as could be in the hearth was a bright fire. Fire ... Alec squeezed his eyes shut against a vision of the stake. He could almost smell his flesh burning. He shook his head.

  And then, somehow, she was there, approaching them. Her black mourning gown only accentuated her ethereal glow and rose-gold hair.

  Alec swallowed an onset of tears. He brought himself to meet those eyes but in them found no condemnation. Only a knowing sadness. But her smile was kind, even sincere, as she extended her hands to Mirabella.

  “My dear,” she said, drawing her near to kiss her cheeks. “Perhaps a feast is out of order considering our state of mourning, but upon learning of your nuptials and the grace of God, Who has preserved our Master Cahill, I thought it was a necessity.”

  Mirabella trembled visibly as she looked about her. “I ... I thank you, Cecily.”

  “My only wish is that you could have been there to see your father interred. Events deterred us from a proper funeral meal, as I’m certain you recall,” Cecily went on, her tone eerily light. “But no matter. He is with us now and knows all we do.”

  Alec noted even Mirabella had the grace to avert her eyes at the statement.

  “Come, won’t you sit?” Cecily asked as she led them to the high table, where Harry and Kristina were already seated with other members of the local gentry. “Now that Master Cahill is family we cannot deny him a seat among us.”

  Cecily proceeded for her seat at the center of the table, Hal’s chair vacant beside her. To her left she sat Mirabella and Alec. Before settling herself, she raised her cup of wine to the guests.

  “Please share our happiness with us, so hard won in the face of such recent sorrows,” she announced. “And welcome into our fold the newly married Alec and Mirabella Cahill. While starting his new life here at Sumerton with his lovely bride, it will please me to have Master Cahill continue to tutor the Pierce children.” She raised her glass. “To new beginnings!” she cried, her cheeks flushing. Only Alec was close enough to note the tears lighting her eyes.

  “New beginnings,” he chorused with the rest of the guests. Mirabella had made to clink her cup against his. He withdrew it, averting his head and wishing the cup were large enough for him to drown in.

  The feast was interminably long, as Mirabella expected Cecily intended, and before permitting them to retire she offered the couple a nuptial gift. With great care she presented them with a sack of orange velvet.

  Mirabella untied the drawstrings, sliding the bag down to reveal a sandglass. Her hands trembled as she ran a finger along a series of dates carved in the mahogany top, immediately recognizing the birth dates of her sisters and brother, along with the anniversary and death dates of her father.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, raising her eyes to Cecily.

  “It is to keep hours,” Cecily told her as though explaining something to a very small child. “Your good father gave it to me in the early years of our marriage, that we might keep a record of all the important events in our life. Now I give it to you to do the same. For good or for bad, mark the dates, that you might remember where your every decision has led you.”

  The guests who had remained throughout the length of the evening murmured their admiration over the sentimental gift. Mirabella hugged the timepiece to her belly.

  “I shall,” she told Cecily, meeting her gaze. “May it commemorate many a happy anniversary.”

  “As God wills,” Cecily said, her gaze unflinching.

  The face was a portrait of kindness that did not reflect in her eyes. In those teal orbs Mirabella expected a number of emotions, none of which she saw.

  There was only irony.

  21

  At the end of the evening Cecily led them to their newly appointed apartments herself and bid them good night. Mirabella was content to survey the rooms, ones that had been reserved for guests. In them was her prie-dieu, along with a portrait of Hal commissioned just before his death. Her father’s knowing blue eyes seemed to stalk her every move, forcing Mirabella to avert her head.

  “You know more about me than anyone,” she told Alec in soft tones. “My good and my bad ... and what was almost taken from me.” She raised her eyes to him. “But what was preserved, I choose to give only to you. I will not allow the past to interfere with your being a true husband to me.”

  Alec shook his head, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “Do you actually believe this illusion you have created?”

  Mirabella furrowed her brow. “It is no less than what you owe me. I saved your life!”

  “Saved me?” Alec’s voice was low. “After you turned me in and allowed me to sit in a rat-infested cell, assuring me I awaited my death were I not to wed you ... Saved me, Mirabella?”

  Mirabella started. For the first time he had dropped his formal address of “mistress.”

  “It was inevitable,” she said. “I was sparing you in the long run, from heresy charges that would no doubt be your fate, and something even worse... . I could not watch you sell your soul to the devil and had you become a true reformer priest—”

  “Which, as I recall, you said you would ‘let’ me return to once more if the reforms ever were pushed through—” His eyes widened in mock surprise. “Wait. That is no longer so?” His laugh was a joyless cackle. “You mean you were lying to me, Mirabella?”

  Mirabella shook her head frantically. It was wrong, all wrong. She knew he’d never see it her way and this was her punishment, his eternal resentment... . Oh, God, what had she done?

  “You don’t understand! It wasn’t like that—you make it sound so sordid, so vile!” she cried.

  Alec placed a hand upon his breast. “What? You mean I made your confiscating of my private papers and having me suspected for heresy, only to tempt me from the stake with promises of life”—he raised a hand as if to exclaim voila!—“and marrying you, to sound vile?” He raised his head. “Forgive the audacity of my assumptions.”

  “Your soul was in jeopardy!” she cried, seizing his hands in hers. “I did save you! Yes, I connived to do it, but it was worth the risk! You’re alive and finally, finally free of the reformer influence that would have cost you your soul!”

  At once Alec’s face softened. He approached her, cupping her face between his warm hands. She trembled. He leaned in, placing a kiss upon her forehead. When he drew back, his eyes were lit with pity. “My poor naïve girl,” he said. “I think you believe that.”

  Mirabella shook her head once more, clenching her hands into fists. “It’s the truth! Yes, I was angry at you and Cecily for betraying my father and felt you should suffer for it—I admit it! But this was about so much more than that when I thought about it—”

  “When you convinced yourself of it, you mean,” Alec corrected, his gentle tone laced with disgust.

  Mirabella bowed her head, closing her eyes. “You will understand. Someday you will understand and then you will thank me for it.”

  “Until I reach this understanding, you must ... understand, forgive the redundancy, that this is no marriage,” Alec told her in no uncertain terms. He made an expansive hand gesture as he cast his eyes about the room. “You are free to sleep where you like. I, however, will return to my former apartments until I make further arrangements.”

  “You will not!” Mirabella cried. “We are married now, Alec!”

  “In name only, my dear,” he told her as he made for the door. “Just until I can obtain an annulment ... or does that seem ungrateful?”

  “Wh-what?” The breath had been sucked from her. Her gut twisted in knots. How could she be such a fool as not to anticipate this? She pursued him, grabbing his upper arm and turning him to face her. “You can’t do this,” she told h
im in soft tones. “Please don’t do this. Give me a chance to be a good wife to you. Your days as a priest are over now. You cannot return to it after you have disgraced yourself in this fashion—”

  Alec withdrew his arm with a jerk. “I disgraced myself? By trusting you, by sacrificing my honor and integrity and choosing a marriage to you rather than death at the stake?” Tears lit his eyes. “Yes ... well. Perhaps I did,” he added, his voice just above a whisper.

  Mirabella reached up to cup his cheek in her palm. “I know you don’t believe it, but my actions were motivated out of love.”

  “You are right,” he said in flat tones. “I don’t believe it. Not for a minute. You were motivated out of anger, bigotry, and jealousy, none of which I have ever confused with love. I have grossly overestimated your intelligence by assuming you could discern the difference yourself. The ability to connive and deceive may fool people into believing one is intelligent for a time, but not for long.”

  “You should know,” Mirabella said in low tones. “Are you not practiced in the art of deception yourself?”

  “A dabbler, never a master,” Alec said without pause. “In that area, I defer to you, my good wife.”

  “Just you remember, Alec Cahill, who is in possession of your private papers!” Mirabella hissed then. “I only made statements before but did not turn them over ... yet.”

  Alec shook his head. “Holding me with more threats?” He shrugged. “Do what your conscience advises, Mirabella. If it is God’s will that I be subjected to the stake after all, then I will not fight it.” He expelled a sigh. “And now, it has been a trying day and I would like to bid you good night.”

  With this he turned on his heel and fled down the hall.

  Mirabella stood alone.

  It did not escape Cecily that Alec had taken to his old apartments since his nuptials, leaving an ashamed and humiliated Mirabella to her bridal suite alone. Cecily could not deny a perverse sense of satisfaction at the thought. But it was a short-lived victory; the prize was far too bitter.

  And for that prize the household was suffering. The children, especially young Kristina, absorbed the tension like sea sponges. The girl grew pensive, nervous, and agitated at the slightest provocation. Cecily could not condemn the poor thing, always too astute for her own good, and knew some action must be taken to spare the children from the heartbreak that was suffocating Sumerton.

  There was no one Cecily could think of to consult but Grace, who had returned to her dwelling and was known only as Mrs. Forest, and to very few at that. Cecily chanced riding to her the next day. A light snow blanketed the earth, insulating it as it awaited the birth of new life, new hope. There was no such anticipation for Cecily as she offered a feeble knock.

  Grace answered, her blue eyes widening in the subtlest trace of surprise as she beckoned Cecily’s entrance with a thin hand. She could not mask her shock whenever she saw the former Lady Sumerton. Assessing Grace sans the anguish wrought when first her presence was revealed was easier now; Cecily could take her time. Never would she have passed her by and recognized her as the woman who, for all intents and purposes, had raised her. Even if she had not isolated herself, Grace’s humble appearance alone afforded her an inconspicuous existence. She was thin but somehow more robust than Cecily ever recalled seeing her, with her ruddy cheeks and calloused hands that set one at ease the way most hardworking folk could. Her now white hair she wore in a simple plait down her back; she could never be mistaken for the young woman she had been. And yet, as Cecily examined her, still could be found the same wry expression, the sardonic half smile as Lady Grace scrutinized through her lashes. Despite whatever deception and betrayal that went before, there was a strange sense of coming home, a rare comfort Cecily had not experienced since her friendship with Alice.

  “My dear.” Grace’s tone was warm as she led her to the bedstead. She poured her something steaming. Cecily took the cup from her with ultimate trust, not realizing till after she sipped that it was hot honeyed milk. The drink, hers and Brey’s favorite as children, brought an onset of tears she tried to stifle.

  “I did not expect to see you so soon,” Grace said. “I hope you understand why I did not say good-bye. I could not bear to see Hal interred.” Her voice broke as she shrugged, offering an apologetic smile. “I suppose I would rather pretend all is as it was, that he is at Sumerton well and loving you and the children ... but it will never be as it was, will it?”

  Cecily shook her head. “No, never ... and I—I do not know where to turn. My dear friend Alice is dead, my husband is dead. I have no one now... . Fa—Alec and Mirabella are lost to me.”

  “Alec has taken a blow. And I daresay Mirabella is lost to herself as well,” Grace commented. “But worst of all, lost to that God of hers.” Her lip curved into the half smile Cecily had just now realized she missed. “I wonder what He makes of it?”

  Grace rose from the bed to pour them more honeyed milk. “And now I suppose you come to tell me she betrayed our Father Alec as a heretic, only to ‘save’ his life with a wedding ring and renunciation of his vows?”

  Cecily’s mouth fell agape.

  “I have my ways; I’ve had them all along,” Grace added with a joyless laugh.

  Tears swelled in Cecily’s throat. She swallowed. “It isn’t good for the children, living like this, seeing all the resentment and anger, and them mourning their father.”

  “You cannot think that Father Alec desires to be married to Mirabella any more than she desires to be married to him, God help her realize it,” Grace explained. “And, no, it is not a happy home for those children right now, I agree. God knows I’ve contributed enough to unhappy homes... .” Her eyes grew distant a moment. She shook her head, as though with that gesture she could shake the regret, replacing the wistfulness with her devil-may-care smile.

  “Mirabella and ... Alec are miserable. They sleep in separate chambers and he, from all reports, can’t abide the sight of her. I suppose I avoid them both and the children are left trying to maintain a relationship with all of us while trying to hurt none of us; it is a weighty lot we’ve put on their small shoulders.”

  “The children must be protected for a time,” Grace conceded. “But only for a time. You must send them away, all but the weak one, little Emmy. The other two are ripe for fostering and with their blue blood as backing you can have your pick of good families. In these times I recommend you find a family that is religiously ambiguous and has never had any dealings, good or bad, with the Crown that might draw any attention to them. Times are changing and reigns will, too. It is best to find a family that can change with the times.”

  Cecily absorbed these thoughts with a solemn nod. “But where? And who? Everyone I know seems to be firmly entrenched in either the old faith or the new. No one is above suspicion in Henry VIII’s England. I cannot imagine—”

  “You do not have to,” Grace told her. “Fortunately, I have enough imagination for both of us.” Grace leaned her chin on her steepled fingers. “Now. Are you aware of the Hapgood family?”

  “Hapgood ...” Cecily tested the name; it rolled unfamiliar on her tongue.

  “They are middle gentry, high and low enough to assure your children a place in society and assure you that they will not arouse any sort of controversy from His Majesty’s court or otherwise,” Grace told her, her voice ringing with the authority of a well-informed chatelaine. “A little reformist in bent but not dangerously so. And they have children old enough to contract alliances with Harry and Kristina, matches that may be a bit beneath you but guaranteed to satisfy any family with a bit of ambition. They wouldn’t refuse your children, in other words. They are far from here, Cecily, very far, which will be hard for you. Hard but necessary.”

  “But Harry has been brought up in the Earl of Surrey’s household till now,” Cecily pointed out, the thought of sending her children to an even more distant destination chilling her to the core. “Hal had hoped to marry him into the Howards.”
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  “A sinking ship to be sure, until such fortunes reverse,” Grace said, once again shaming Cecily with the fact that she remained more aware of the world’s happenings in her forest sanctuary than the lady of a bustling castle. “The Duke of Norfolk and his unfortunate son are in the Tower as we speak, arrested for treason—Surrey plotted to kidnap the little Prince Edward, I believe, and quartered his arms with Edward the Confessor. Norfolk has been implicated as a participant. Only a fool would ward a child to that lot as it stands now, let alone sanction a marriage.”

  “My God,” Cecily breathed in awe, sending a quick prayer up for the tragedy-ridden Howard clan, who had already lost two queens and countless children. It would be heartless to exclude them, however conniving and plotting they may be, from compassion. As much sympathy as Cecily felt for their plight, however, she would never be such a fool as to express it. She nodded in agreement. “No, of course I can never send him to the Howards now,” she said. “But the Hapgoods? How do I go about introducing myself and presenting the idea of wardship and possible alliance?”

  “Leave that to me,” Grace said, her smile triumphant.

  Cecily’s heart surged with fresh hope as she regarded the woman who had stood as, ironically, her truest friend. She thanked God that Mirabella’s hatred had turned on her to reveal such a blessing and knew without doubt that in coming to Grace she had come to the right place.

  The Hapgoods were impressed with the letter of introduction and proposal of wardship and possible future alliance, “should the children prove compatible.” Grace had composed the missive in Cecily’s name and negotiated the terms. For their wardship the Hapgoods would receive a handsome annuity to cover the expenses of the children’s upbringing. They would be received after Twelfth Night, an affair Cecily could not imagine infusing any joy in without Hal, the great lover of all holidays and master reveler.