“No—that is—er … no.” John hesitated, but decided the novitiate had priority since the visitor would need in any case to stay overnight. “Refresh the man and make him welcome. I won’t be all that long. I’ll send word to the guesthouse as soon as I’m free. Ask Brother Ambrose to keep him company to give Father Chad a bit of a break.”
When the lawyer heard that the abbot was busy, he looked irritated. He had to make two calls in the village before his return to York.
“I have to see a woman named Madeleine Hazell as well,” he said. “She dwells in the cottage adjacent to Mistress Cottingham’s, I understand? I know my way there. No, I need no sustenance, thank you. We stopped on the way.”
He walked briskly along the abbey close and found Madeleine at home, checking her supplies of herbs and tinctures for winter colds, much depleted by her care in recent weeks of her ailing neighbour.
She invited him in and offered him the comfort of her fireside, amused by his desiccated manner and the prim composure of his face. He looked, she thought, like a man who would regard human emotion as a pointless self-indulgence. He asked to sit at the table instead, where he unrolled and set out the deed and scripts and records he had brought her. She listened intently to what he had to tell her, accepted the documents as he handed each one into her keeping, and then made him go through it all again. Even then, she found it hard to take it in. She asked him a number of questions and was just satisfying herself that she had assimilated the news he had brought her when another knock came at her door: Brother Ambrose this time, telling her visitor that Father Abbot had returned to his house and would see him now.
Thomas Haydon got up from her table. “You understand all, Mistress Hazell? Those were the terms. My instructions were to impart this to you alone. You comprehend what I have told you? Write to me if you have any trouble, or I will be here until the morning, should you need more clarification. And you are alone? You have no husband? No son? No father? This is important.”
“There is only my brother,” Madeleine replied. “I have no other family.”
The lawyer waved this aside. “Your brother does not count. He is a monk. He cannot own property. Well then, good day!”
He dipped his head in a quick bow and turned to Brother Ambrose. “We must go via the guesthouse,” he said. “The documents I need for your abbot are all over there.”
Madeleine stood in the doorway watching them go. She saw them enter the guesthouse, then emerge again shortly after and walk across the court to the abbot’s house. She waited until she had seen them admitted and satisfied herself the door was closing behind them. Then she set off along the close as fast as she could go, without drawing the attention of anyone who might notice her by breaking into a run.
She arrived breathless at the door of the checker and glanced back, thanking God with all her heart that nobody was on their way here and William, rising to his feet in surprise as he saw her in the doorway, was alone.
She went in and turned to close the door but changed her mind. It would be immodest indeed to be alone here with one of the brothers.
“Listen!” she said. “No! Listen! Don’t touch me, don’t kiss me, don’t speak to me—just listen! I don’t know how much time we have, and you must take this in.”
He had come forward to greet her, but perched on the edge of the table. “Go on then,” he said.
Hardly reaching her conscious mind, an arrow of gratitude whizzed through Madeleine’s soul that she had found a man who could take a woman seriously enough not to bluster when she told him (imperiously) what to do.
“’Tis Ellen’s will. She has left me riches. There is a house and eight pounds a year settled on me, but she has also left me a second sum in trust. From that sum I may take the interest only, until I marry, when it passes to my husband as an annuity. If I never marry, I can have the interest of it until I die, and then the capital sum goes here to the abbey. Do you see? Do you see what she’s done? William, she has set us free! She has given us a house and an income, a way clear to be together!”
Breathless, excited, she stopped and tried to calm her breathing. William had his hand at his mouth, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he considered what this meant.
“When will you go?” he asked. She saw with surprise that he weighed this news cautiously. The sunburst of eagerness and delight she had expected did not come.
“I don’t know—straightaway—I don’t know—what shall we do?”
“The thing is…” He hesitated, and she saw the struggle in his face. “I don’t know if you have heard about this, because I told Mother Cottingham but I’ve not seen you to tell you, but I made a huge, huge blunder in the spring—with the money—and I have brought this house to the edge of complete downfall. I think I can turn things round again, but I’m certain no one else can. I don’t really see how I can leave them now. In another year, possibly—not certainly, possibly. But not now.”
She stared at him in dismay. “You mean—she has done this, given us a hope and a future, and you won’t come? Do you not—have you misgivings—have I mistaken you?”
He shook his head slowly, no, and she saw the hardship of it in his eyes, leaden now and drained of every joy. “You have not mistaken me. I have no misgivings. But I have been the worst kind of fool, and I just have to stay here until I’ve put it right. Will you… can I ask you… will you go ahead and wait for me, if I come as soon as I can?”
Madeline felt the amazement of hope and freedom starting to bleed away. Unbearable this, to have so near within her grasp the love she had yearned for, only to find it must be deferred by months and months and months.
“Oh you complete… dolt!” she exclaimed, glaring at him in absolute frustration.
He nodded. “Indeed. You have it right. That’s what I am.”
Then as approaching footsteps sounded on the gravel of the abbey court, he slipped back onto the stool behind his desk, and she found herself looking down onto an upraised face saying to her with pleasant expression and neutral tone, “No, there is no question of it at all. Two goats at most, Father Abbot said, and yours only. It is entirely unfair that they should have sent you thus to speak on their behalf. It is a fruitless inquiry, and they already know the answer to their request. It is the same as when they asked me back in October. I have—oh, good day, Brother Ambrose, that took very little time.”
“Trouble about that goat of yours?” Ambrose smiled kindly at Madeleine. “Well, I’m sorry to interrupt, but can it wait? This man from York insists he has to have you present, Father William, before he will go through with Father John what he needs to say. I can’t think why.”
“I’ll be getting along,” Madeleine said as she stepped back toward the doorway.
“Madeleine—I will do what I can. I will do my best.”
Brother Ambrose’s cheery laugh split the air and made them both jump. “That’s a promise to beware of, Mistress Hazell! This brother’s best is sometimes more than meets the eye!”
Seeing his joke found no favour whatsoever with William and raised only a distracted smile from Mistress Hazell, Brother Ambrose felt embarrassed and guilty. Perhaps he had been unkind.
“Well, anon—they will be waiting,” he said more soberly, and they went to the abbot’s house while Madeleine returned to her cottage, with nothing to hurry for now.
“Ah! Here he is! Good. Bring a stool to the table here, Father William,” said his abbot.
Down in the village at Motherwell, when John was a boy, there had been a man who was viciously cruel to his dog. He kept it for ratting. It had been kicked and sworn at, beaten and starved, until it lost the will for anything at all. Dull of eye and cowed in manner, it no longer cared about life. It was past biting or begging; it no longer chased interesting smells; it just lay outside its master’s hovel in the cold with its face turned away from the world and toward the wall, completely defeated.
Watching William’s face as he pulled the stool across to the table b
rought that beaten, broken animal back with a sharp, unexpected suddenness to John’s mind. Lord have mercy! he thought Whatever’s happened to him now?
“That’s right; then I can begin.” The lawyer’s fussy, precise tones called their attention. William sat down on his stool and looked as interested as if he had been summoned to watch the fire going out.
“This is a most unusual will, most unusual. I have special instructions, and I have had to speak to the beneficiaries separately. In the letter she left with me, Mistress Ellen Cottingham was particular to ensure that the contents relating to St. Alcuin’s Abbey were divulged in the presence of its abbot and of Father William de Bulmer. Can you confirm, Father, that you are indeed he?”
“Aye, that’s me,” said William. John was relieved to see he looked at least puzzled now, not just desolate and bored.
“Thank you. Then here are the bequests Mistress Ellen Cottingham has made. She has three properties in the city of York that return a tidy sum in rent each year—I have the particulars with me, all the relevant accounts. One is a butcher’s shop in Low Petergate, one is a leatherworker’s shop in Spurriergate, and one is a merchant’s home in a yard behind Stonegate. They are all trade premises with dwellings over. She has also a farm about halfway between here and York—a good-sized, thriving farm, a little east of Malton. Mainly sheep. Good income. Each of these properties, and the income related to them, she has bequeathed to St Alcuin’s Abbey.
“Then she has some money on deposit which she has bequeathed to the abbey—being the sum of four hundred and eighty pounds, fifteen shillings, and sevenpence, and the use and disposal of this is at the abbot’s absolute discretion. There is also a second sum, however, a greater amount. She has bequeathed separately, but also to St Alcuin’s Abbey, a sum of five hundred pounds. This is to be used at the discretion not of the abbot but of the cellarer, in payment of any outstanding debts and for the purchase of provisions for the workshops and the kitchens and the infirmary, wherever it will be of practical use for the well-being of the community. This second sum, she bade me make especially clear, is given to the abbey with particular thanks to Father William de Bulmer for his gentle care of her soul. There are no conditions upon this sum; its connection with Father William is none other than that it is an expression of thanks for his care of her. He has no personal claim or call upon it. It is to supply the daily wants of the community here.”
As Thomas Haydon stopped speaking, utter, stunned silence reigned.
“Have you any questions for me, Fathers?” the lawyer inquired. “No? I shall act for the estate in making the deeds of transfer to the abbey’s ownership, and my fee is to be subtracted from the first of the two sums. Under any circumstance, Mistress Cottingham insisted, the five hundred pounds bequeathed in association with Father William de Bulmer is to pass to the abbey untouched by any other consideration or cost. I shall carry out all that is necessary, and I think you will see it is straightforward. If the lands and properties lie too far from here for you to consider practical to administer, I can (if you wish) arrange for their sale and see to it that you receive the monies realized in outcome of the transactions.”
“Thank you.” John recollected himself. “Thank you, indeed. I think we were just speechless, friend—I mean, who knew? She lived so simple and plain. Anyway, God bless her. Yes, we may well have questions later. I know you have business down in the village while you are here today, but perhaps you will care to dine with me here?”
Abbot John rose then to accompany Mother Cottingham’s lawyer to the door, and Brother Ambrose went with him to the stables to see that all was ready for his visit to his other clients down in the village. William ignored their departure completely. John came back and sat down opposite him.
William sat gazing, thinking, gazing. “Oh I see…” he said softly at last. “‘My will… all shall be well.’ That’s what she meant.”
He seemed to snap back into a more normal state of being then, and he looked down at the documents spread on the table.
“I can take these and look at them, perhaps? Will you accept my advice on whether to keep or sell the farm? Not decide today maybe—ask Brother Stephen’s advice and Brother Tom’s. The shops in York—my first instinct is to keep them, but we can see how we go, surely? If I take these with me now, I can have something coherent for you at suppertime—that’s if you want my company here, Father; forgive my presuming.”
“Oh, yes indeed, I would be grateful if you join us, and for your advice which is always shrewd. Yes, take them—do. And you? Does this make some things better?”
William rolled the plans and scripts and deeds into one large scroll and looked up at his abbot.
“Better? I feel as though the whole fallen world has been resting on my shoulders and crushing me to death, and it’s just rolled away. She has made everything better—not some things—everything.”
John wondered how that could be and if perhaps William had been haunted mostly by anxiety about the money. Perhaps the thing with Madeleine was fading from his mind, even if not from hers. He sincerely hoped so. He held the door open for William and thought how fragile he was beginning to look. Even this good news, stunning as it was, brought profound shock, and in that moment William seemed as brittle and unstable as a lattice of ice. “Look them over, but don’t work too hard, my brother,” he said to him as he walked through the door.
“I’ll tell you what you need to know by suppertime,” William replied.
He took the documents to the checker and put them down on his table. Brother Ambrose had returned and was full of excitement at this new turn of events. But William, half listening, murmured an excuse. He left the checker and walked swiftly down the close to Peartree Cottage, and he couldn’t care less who saw him.
Madeleine recognized the quick decisive knock. He had intended only standing in the doorway, not going right in, but he saw from her face she had been crying. He slipped inside the house, pushing the door to, and took her in his arms.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all going to be all right.”
The frustration of brief explanations was something they both had to live with. They hastily agreed that Madeleine would go to the cottage that had been given them, and William would follow as soon as he had guided John through the abbey’s end of the necessary administration. He thought it best that she go without telling John of their intentions. “Let me weather that storm once you are away from here, dearest,” he said, for he privately thought the storm when it broke might be very bad.
“Can I ask you though,” he said soberly then, “are you sure you really want this complete dolt to have and to hold? You will be a woman of property now and could have your choice of men. Do you truly want the real man I am? Some women … well, there are women who fall for the fantasy, and once out of the habit and the mystique of the monastery, the man himself, so ordinary, loses attraction. I haven’t the skills of a householder. Away from here I am going to seem inadequate by anybody’s standards. Are you sure, quite sure, my sweet, that you want me—the real me?”
“I’m not one of those women,” she answered him, “and yes—I am quite sure that I want the real you.”
CHAPTER SIX
December
“John—” he whispered—“John, please let me go.”
“Let you go? What d’you mean, let you go? Are you out of your mind? Do you think for an instant I’d be letting you stay, after this? You’ve betrayed me—deceived all of us! How long has this been going on? How long have you been hatching this? What kind of a deal did you strike with old Mother Cottingham? Whatever have you and Madeleine been up to in that old woman’s cottage? How could you do this to us? Do you not remember how you begged us to take you in? And all this while you have been taking what we have to offer and presuming on our good fellowship while you plotted in this safe place some other private scheme of your own! How could you do it? Oh, you disgust me! I would never have believed this of you!”
William nodded. “And I should have deserved it. You can do it now if you like.”
“To what end? William, do you not understand monastic life at all? Our scourge is not for punishment; it’s for correction. It’s for those who are struggling to walk in the way, not those who want to leave when the going turns uphill. It’s for the monks—and as far as I can see, you are no monk, you’re just a man in someone else’s habit.”
“Please, John. Can I speak to you? Will you listen to me? Can we sit down and talk?”
He raised his face to look at his abbot. “Please.”
With a rough, vague gesture, John indicated the chairs beside the hearthstone. “Sit then,” he said.
With evident reluctance, the abbot sat in the other chair, and so they faced one another. “I’m listening.”
William swallowed. “It hasn’t been quite as it looks, but I haven’t behaved well either—and I’m sorry. I went to see her one night in the summer, and—”
“You did what?” John gripped the arms of his chair.
“Oh, peace!” William lifted his hands, palms toward John. “Brother, peace! Let me tell you. Please. Just—shut up!”
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