“Brother,” said Conradus in a rush of bravery, knowing he should have said “Father” and that it was probably something William would regard as none of his business anyway, and deciding not to care, “Whatever is it? You look as if something’s completely crushing you.”
“Crushing?” Something that Conradus assumed was intended as a smile crossed William’s face. “You mean I don’t look completely crushed yet? Well, that’s an encouragement. Thank you for your charity, brother, and your patience. Maybe I should make a time to see you once a week before Mass and get all my apologies out of the way in one go. Thank you. You have a gentle spirit.”
And with a sketchy suggestion of a respectful bow, he turned on his heel and went back up the path the way he had come.
“I’m sorry, brother,” said Cormac who was waiting for Brother Conradus when he returned the pitchers to the scullery. “I didn’t think quick enough to avoid that one.”
“No—it was all right,” the novice responded. “He wasn’t angry. He wanted to say sorry for being rude to me again. But he seems so—do you know what’s the matter with him, Brother Cormac?”
“Probably,” said Cormac, “if I think about it. But it might be better not to, so I don’t.”
He reached past Brother Conradus for a large cooking pot hanging on a nail in the wall. “I’ll boil some eggs,” he said firmly, and Conradus realized he would have to be content with that enigmatically unsatisfying reply.
CHAPTER THREE
September
Madeleine stepped through the open door into the checker this mellow September morning, the scent of autumn carried on the light breeze, the earth lazy in the golden warmth of the day.
“God give you good day, Brother Ambrose!” she greeted him pleasantly. “How goes the work? Are we solvent? Are we walking in hope? Are we in profit?”
He looked up and smiled at her. “Good morrow, Mistress Hazell! I think I can say we are striding confidently—all our debts are paid, and we have enough in store for the unexpected; all repairs are done and accounts up to date. It’s a marvel—but ’tisn’t I. We have to thank Father William; the work he’s put in takes my breath away. I never thought I’d see the day when we had everything in such exemplary order.”
“Oh,” said Madeleine, “he’s got more to him than a pretty face and a charming manner then?”
Brother Ambrose chuckled, mightily amused by the suggestion that William could be considered as having either. “What can I do for you, Mistress Hazell, this fine day?”
“Well, with your permission, Brother Ambrose, it’s not your time I came to waste but Father William’s. Only for a moment. I’ve a message for him from Mother Cottingham.”
“Surely—there he is in his corner, hard at work as we like him to be.”
With a smile of thanks, Madeleine turned to William. She knew exactly where he was. She knew where he sat—and how he sat, and the look on his face when he was thinking or puzzling over some complication in his correspondence. She could feel him in all her body, even before she turned to look at him. She knew what he would be doing—calmly continuing apparently to address himself to the matters he had in hand until the moment she turned. And as she did so, he would raise his face to her with a carefully composed expression of polite inquiry that did not quite match the intensity in his eyes. And this he did.
“Madeleine,” he said, “I am all yours.”
She saw the amusement on his face at her sudden look of alarm before she registered that Brother Ambrose would take this for the harmless pleasantry it was not. She felt annoyed with herself (and with him) that the unexpected words left her slightly flustered—actually physically took her breath away—and that he saw. She felt very grateful in that moment to have her back to Brother Ambrose, the expression on her face obscured from his view.
“God give you good day, Father William,” she said—and could think of no double entendre to match his, though for a few seconds she did frantically try. “Two things. The first is, yesterday I was in the infirmary taking them some good physic herbs from my garden, and Brother Michael said could I slip into the conversation in passing if I saw you that Father Oswald feels a little hurt (Brother Michael thinks) that you have not been to spend time with him in a while. Though why Brother Michael expects I am more likely to run into you than he is, I cannot imagine.”
William nodded. He read the warning in her words and in her eyes, telling him that the bond between them had not gone unnoticed among the brothers. “Thank you. I understand. Yes, I’ll go to see Oswald. He seems to be doing well; I have been somewhat preoccupied—had things on my mind—and thought I would not be much company for him. The other thing? Mother Cottingham?”
“She said—I am telling you exactly what she said—that she wanted to talk to you about sin.”
“Really? Well, that’s always a pleasure. I’ll go over and see her this afternoon.”
“She hasn’t been too well this last week. She has a head cold, and it’s gone to her chest a bit. But she wraps up warm and sits out in the afternoon sunshine when the wind doesn’t blow, and I am taking good care of her. I’m going to beg some broth from Brother Cormac to make her a chicken soup—none of my hens have been broody yet; I’ve bred no pot fowls.”
William leaned back in his chair as she talked, his face hidden from Brother Ambrose’s line of vision by Madeleine standing there, his eyes frankly adoring her. Her words trailed away, disconcerted from her attempts to sound normal by the ardour that enfolded her like an embrace even as she stood in the middle of the room. She felt cherished, she felt wooed, she felt as though she’d been kissed.
“Well, that’s all,” she said.
“As soon as ever I can, if I can find a way to get free of all this,” he replied softly, the yearning of his heart in his voice.
“Good Lord, brother, go easy on yourself!” Brother Ambrose laughed. “You work too hard! We can spare you for an hour to see poor old Mother Cottingham—think of it as an investment; the dear soul is good enough to us!”
“Ah—thanks, Ambrose; yes, that’s the way to look at it. I’ll be over to see her later today. Madeleine, thank you so much for stopping by.”
Nothing in his words emphasized that last sentence, only the look in his eyes.
“She will wait for you until you can come to her, whenever that may be,” Madeleine said, her eyes and her tone having the same incongruence as his, and inclining her head in courteous farewell, she turned away.
“Don’t work too hard, Brother Ambrose!” she said airily. “Why keep a dog and bark yourself ?” And that gave her a reason for one last glance back at William, to take and store the smile she brought to his face, in her heart.
William watched her leave, his eyes following her until she had gone through the door and turned the corner out of his sight.
“A pleasant woman,” Brother Ambrose remarked. William looked at him, considering his words, his face betraying nothing.
“Yes,” he said, “and it’s a blessing to our kitchen to have the occasional pail of surplus milk from her goat.”
He reached across the table for the wax and seal, to close the letters their abbot had already approved and signed and stamped.
When they rose from their work for the midday office and meal, Brother Ambrose commented on the beauty of the day; it seemed to make things go more cheerily, he thought—there had been a good atmosphere that morning in the checker.
When they had eaten, William made his way across to the abbey close, where he found Mother Cottingham’s door ajar. He knocked, and a wheezy voice from within bade him enter.
He was aware of a sense of relief deep in his inner core as he stepped through her door. Here was someone who knew his longing and his sorrow and did not regard it as something to be suppressed or put away—not a cause of scandal but a valid love. He felt himself relaxing as he came in to see her. But it was not like Ellen Cottingham to let a visitor walk in without coming to greet him, and when he
saw her, he stopped dead where he was.
“God love you, Mother—you look really unwell! I hadn’t realized. I’m so sorry; I should have come before.” William’s sense of shock was evident in his face. Her face was flushed and puffy and her eyes fever bright. The labour of her breathing was audible from just within the doorway. Three swift steps took him across the small room to her side, and he bent over her and kissed her brow tenderly, as if he had been her son. This meant the world to Ellen.
“Nay, I’m well enough. Your Madeleine has cared for me night and day. I’m that stuffed with herbs I feel like a fowl ready to go in the oven. I’m better than I was yesterday, and tomorrow I shall be still better again. Anyway, I’m always better for seeing thee.”
He smiled at her, and she saw his real affection and felt it an honour.
“Madeleine tells me you want to talk to me about sin! What have you been up to?”
She looked at him. He found it impossible to read what she was thinking, so he sat down across the table from her and waited to hear whatever she wanted to tell him.
“That’s why I didn’t go out to sit in the sunshine this afternoon. I wanted to speak to thee in private. ’Tisn’t my sin that’s on my mind; I was thinking of thee.”
“Lord have mercy on us—is it a sin to even think of me now? I must be getting worse.”
She laughed, which made exacerbated her wheezing and started her coughing. She sat for a while getting her breath back and took a sip of water from the small pewter mug that stood on the table at her side.
“That’s enough, young man. I haven’t much strength even though I’m on the mend. Listen to me now. It came to me in the night—not last night, the night before, when I was really poorly—that I must talk to thee. What was thy mother like?”
William’s eyebrows rose. “My mother? What has she to do with anything? In Christian charity I think I should not describe my mother to anyone. And I don’t know if it’s ‘was’ or ‘is’. I last spoke to her about thirty years ago.”
“So you were not close—she and thee? You did not talk—as thou and I are talking now?”
William laughed—-not an especially pleasant laugh. “No,” he said.
“And tha hast no sisters? Tha’s not grown up with women?”
William shook his head. “Women have been distant stars to me, Mother. They shine all the brighter for that.”
Ellen smiled but would not let herself laugh. The coughing hurt her chest. “Thee—tha’rt all rogue! Charming and wicked; I know thy kind!”
“It’s true, I confess—but in spite of it the company of women has passed me by.”
Ellen regarded him speculatively. “Well, then, art tha ready to hear what I have to say?”
“For sure. I’m listening.”
“One more question first. Before tha came into a house of religion—or since—did tha lie with women? Has tha had lovers before?”
“Before what? Madeleine—or you?”
She chuckled, the net of wrinkles around her eyes closing in laughter, but she said, “Nay, lad, tha must take me seriously. This is important, and tha’rt hedging. Did tha?”
William felt the flush of colour rise in his face, and he so wished this wouldn’t happen—he hated the way it betrayed his loss of equilibrium.
“No,” he said.
“Tha’rt a virgin then?”
“Mother Ellen—wherever is this leading? Yes, I—I suppose I’m a virgin. By a bishop’s precise definition. I must confess I associate virginity with purity—a clean mind and heart, and I make no claim to that; but no, since you ask, I have never lain with a woman.”
She nodded. “Then that’s what I want to talk to thee about. It may be tha will be a monk all thy life. But from what tha’s told me, I understand that if the chance ever comes thy way, tha’ll make thy life with Madeleine. Am I right?”
William could not remember a time since he had left boyhood behind when anyone’s questioning had made him feel so thoroughly uncomfortable and exposed. He could only answer her in the affirmative, but she saw his sense of shame in doing so. She watched him, but he did not raise his eyes to her face.
“Maybe tha should know, lad, that what is true of thy condition is true of Madeleine’s too—at least, before she was assaulted by those thugs in the place where she came from. She’d not known a man before that day.”
William sat quite still, taking this information in, his face quiet, betraying nothing now, listening to what she had to say.
“So neither one of the pair of you has learned the arts of love. People think ’tis only like the animals, it’ll all come naturally. But I tell thee, lad, there’s many a woman disappointed through that philosophy—and in the end a disappointed woman will make a disappointed man. The love between man and woman is only partly instinct. ’Tis also knowledge. If tha has thy chance (and why should tha not? I have prayed for thee), there are things tha will need to get right. All that Madeleine knows for herself, in her own body, of what is between man and woman is violence and fear. Tha’ll have thy work cut out for thee to woo her to a place where she is not afraid and can welcome thee. And how can tha do that if no one’s ever told thee how to please a woman, what to do?”
She paused and looked at him, but he made no reply, remaining silent and impassive, but not indifferent; waiting, alert to what she was telling him. So she continued, “I’m going to tell thee, then, what tha needs to know. If it’s not knowledge tha needs ever, what’s the harm? If it comes in handy, well, tha’ll thank me when that night is done. Listen well, then—for it’s in my mind that no other body is likely to tell thee this.
“Before ever tha takes a woman to bed, tha must court her—not at the beginning only, when friendship grows into love; I mean every time, every evening tha holds out hope will come down with the nightfall to making love when the two of you retire to bed. Tha must make her laugh; tha must remember the endearments, the compliments; make her feel treasured, make her feel adored. Tha must woo her, find her eyes wi’ thy eyes; tha must make love in a thousand ways before ever tha thinks of leading the way to the bedroom.
“Take time for conversation with her—women do not like to make love with strangers. The man who works all day, comes home, eats the dinner she’s cooked, quaffs his ale, falls asleep and snores all evening, then turns to the woman handy in his bed to grab his rights and satisfy his wants need not be surprised to come home one fine day and discover she’s left with the handsome gypsy who came to sell baskets at the door.
“Talk to her, lad; look at her, listen to her. And wash. She’ll be hoping to find a man in her bed, not something like a lump of rancid bacon.
“Then, when it comes to the bedroom, here’s four words tha should remember: patient and tender, light and slow. Hast tha got that? Patient and tender, light and slow. Love can be ardent and passionate, but not hasty or greedy or rushed.
“A woman wants to feel she has been taken reverently, like the host of God in the holy sanctuary, not torn apart and devoured like a hot roast bird on the kitchen table. Patient and tender, light and slow.”
She went on to tell him with an explicit candour he found quite astonishing—and illuminating—of the techniques of love. She talked of the bodies and responses of women, about timing and finding the rhythm of love. She spoke of how to touch and kiss a woman to please her, as well as of trust and gentleness, of the etiquette of the bedchamber, its courtesies and kindness.
As she talked, her wheezy voice slow and her breathing difficult, he listened intently, never interrupting her or looking at her. Some of what she told him made him blush; he could feel his heart beating as he imagined what she described, and he hoped desperately that when she looked at him she would not see how her words stirred and aroused him. Then finally she had done.
“There. That’s all I wanted to tell thee.”
He sat in silence. Across the abbey court, the bell began to ring for None. He didn’t move.
“I think tha must go
, my lad. And I am tired now. Come again soon to see me; tha’rt a blessing to me.”
But William did not move to go immediately. He remained exactly as he was, thinking over all she had told him, considering it and committing it to memory. Then he smiled at her, and there was something shy in his smile that she liked, not the cynicism that he used to hide behind.
“By my faith, mother! I’m lost for words. I hardly dare stand up. How can I thank you? Keep on praying for us. And if the chance ever comes my way, I’ll remember what you told me. Glory! How could I possibly forget?”
He leaned across the table, and he took her hand and kissed it. “God keep you. I hope you feel better tomorrow. I’ll come back and check on you as soon as ever I can. Thank you. Really, thank you. Nobody else in all the earth would have done that for me.”
“Aye, well—there are gifts hiding in old age, but a body wants sharp eyesight to see them for what they are. One of the gifts of an old woman is the liberty to talk freely with a man. Take it as the gift of an old ’un—and may it be wisdom tha can put to good use one day.”
“Yes. Amen. Bless you, dearest. See you soon.”
Her eyes were bright with love for him as she watched him go. As he went into the choir for the office of None, Ellen Cottingham also took time to give thanks to God. She thanked him from her heart that as the evening of her life drew down to night and falling darkness, she had been given again the thing she had lost and longed for, the gift of a son.
William had never found the afternoon office especially gripping in either content or form. On this day his body was present in chapel, but his mind was entirely elsewhere. Sitting, standing, kneeling, he said and sang what he should, but his thoughts were filled with old Mother Cottingham’s careful, comprehensive, and disquietingly vivid advice: “Patient and tender, light and slow.”
He tried to imagine what he might be thinking about, but he couldn’t quite make it come real. The materials for his imagination were not there. Very few people had touched him, held him, in the whole course of his life. Of his mother’s touch he had vivid memories of being dragged by the wrist from places where he had hidden among the outbuildings, to be more easily and conveniently thrashed by his father in the house. He must have been quite small then, he supposed. He had known the kiss of peace—sometimes meant, more often not—with his brothers in community in different places over the years. He thought of John’s touch, careful and serious, on burns and bruises. He thought of Michael’s touch that always had a smile and kind words to go with it. And whenever he recalled it to mind he could feel again, as if it happened now, Tom’s embrace of forgiveness steady and strong. But to make love with a woman? Her body would be very different, he thought, from a man’s. And her touch would be different too. He tried, but he couldn’t imagine it—though he remembered vividly enough what it had felt like to hold Madeleine in his arms and kiss her. So he simply stowed away in his heart the advice he had been given, all of it carefully heeded and memorized and none of it forgotten, in the small but stubborn hope that it would be of use one day. Or night.
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