by Nina Clare
She unclipped the clasp at her throat and Harry jolted himself out of his momentary stupor and hurried to take her cold, heavy cloak. Under it she wore a woollen overgown which she also removed, and his eyes widened again as he saw the gown of blue silk she wore beneath. She was certainly some great lady to be wearing such a costly gown, though it was of an unusual fashion.
“Tell me,” she said to Red Harry. “What is the young master’s name?”
“ ‘Tis Lord Beck, milady.”
“Beck,” she repeated. “And his first name?”
“Felix.”
The young woman’s eyes seemed to darken, as though a shadow had passed across her. She suddenly looked pained. She held out her hand to him, and he could see that something lay there in her palm.
“Take this to him,” she said in a strange voice. “Take it immediately, and tell him it has come from the same hand that once sent him water and food by moonlight.”
Red Harry frowned a little at such puzzling words. He knew that at that moment Master Felix would be standing amongst a crowd of people about to say his vows before the priest to Lady Cicely. Red Harry balked at the thought of having to make himself so conspicuous in giving him such a message and hand him what looked like a piece of common quartz.
But the young woman was willing him with her beautiful sapphire eyes. She was so otherworldly looking, so rare and unusual, why should her message and gift not be strange also? And the look in her face was compelling, as though what she was asking him to do were a matter of life and death. He could not refuse her. So he took the stone from her palm and walked towards the great hall.
The priest took up the scarlet silk cord, and Felix and Cicely obediently held out their hands for him to bind them. Felix was aware of a movement at his shoulder. He turned his head slightly to see that it was Red Harry, standing with a strange look on his face.
“Remove yourself,” Felix heard Lord Orlan say in a quiet but annoyed tone to Red Harry.
“But...” stammered Red Harry, “there is a message I must give...”
“Get away. The message can wait!” Lord Orlan whispered.
Felix saw Red Harry holding open his palm as if the message lay upon it. He glanced down to see that in Red Harry’s palm was a stone.
“I bid you all as witnesses...” began the priest.
The sight of the stone that Red Harry held out caused a sudden flood of memory to wash over Felix as he stood, feeling the cold fabric of the priest’s binding cloth touch on his wrist.
He recalled finding such a stone amongst his clothing the night he gathered up his belongings to set out for Barkenon Dock, to set off in great excitement to make his fortune.
He remembered he had carried such a stone tucked into the folded cuff of his linen shirtsleeve. Somehow it had remained fast through the violent handling of the Corsa pirates as they dragged him from the ship. It had remained fast even as his wrists were fettered with irons each night. He had been stripped of all his clothes bar his breeches and his linen undershirt. How violently he had shivered at night in the bitter cold in just that shirt. How tightly had all the slaves huddled together in their misery to try and keep warm. And how flimsy had his linen shirt been to protect him from the fierce heat by day as they trudged barefoot through the burning sands.
And then, as he had stood in the slave market, being prodded and examined by potential buyers, and he had felt such a rush of pity for the small child next to him, who had joined their chained line of miserable beings at a town not far from the market. Such a little girl with big, black eyes full of sorrow. For one moment he had been lifted out of the well of his own suffering to feel moved by that of another, whose fate could be even worse than his. And so he had given her that stone, as the only thing in the world that he had to give, save for the ragged linen shirt on his back and the filthy, torn britches on his thighs.
She had not taken it from him, so he had laid it down on the dirt between them, and her sister had picked it up and given it to her. She had clutched it tightly. Bibi was her name.
In the year that he had seen her day by day, she never once uttered a word, but she always held tight to that stone.
“Where did you get that?” he heard his own voice saying in a strange tone. He felt Cicely move beside him, looking in surprise at his interruption of the words of the priest.
“Let me see it – where did you get it?”
He was certain it was the same stone. Quite certain.
“Felix?” said Cicely’s gentle voice.
“A lady gave it,” said Red Harry, feeling mortified at having every eye in the room now fixed upon him and Lord Felix. Even the priest had stopped speaking and was glaring at Red Harry.
“She gave a message.”
“What...message...?”
“Something like...the hand that gives it is the same hand...um...that gave you water and food at moonlight... I think that’s what she said.”
Felix was shaking.
“Felix, what is it?” said Cicely, putting a hand on his arm.
Felix turned to face the door to the hall. The look on his face caused Cicely and everyone in the hall to turn and look likewise. There was a collective gasp, and a ripple of whispers of “Who is she...?”
Standing in the entrance was a young woman dressed in deep blue silk. A woman of great beauty and unusual colouring.
It was Cicely who first stepped forward. She knew immediately who it was. She took hold of the young stranger’s hand and gave a curtsey to her.
“Welcome to Foxeby Manor, Shula-Jane. You are just in time.”
Bride
The hall erupted into excited chatter and exclamations. No one knew quite what was happening. The priest had concluded that the ceremony he had thought he was there to take was now ruptured, but what was all the talk of another marriage between the young lord and this new lady? He sat down in confusion near the dining table, and was comforted to note that a jug of mulled wine was conveniently near to his elbow.
Lady Beck was a strong lady, but she looked suddenly crumpled with dismay as the situation dawned upon her. Lord Orlan took hold of her and Cicely and steered them out of the tumult into the north gallery, telling Felix to follow. He called out to the servants milling in the entrance hall that they were to begin serving the guests, keeping them plied with wine and food, and to tell the musicians to begin playing.
He closed the oaken door upon the escalating voices and leaned against it for a moment as though wishing to draw strength from the great oak.
Felix stood with the beautiful stranger he called by the name of Shula-Jane. He gripped her hand tightly, as though he feared she would vanish as suddenly as she had appeared. There was a fierce light in his eyes, such as had not been seen since before he had left on his travels two years ago.
Lord Orlan had heard of this young woman, had heard of the story of the girl Felix hoped would follow him home, but he had disregarded it as highly improbable. Young women did not leave their homes and make their way halfway across the world to marry a man that they had never been legally betrothed to. It was a fanciful idea. A fairy-tale.
But here she was.
And here stood his Cicely Rose, looking strangely calm in the face of such a situation. Her third wedding day, and after the disastrous failure of her first marriage, and the terrible morning of her second wedding day, when it was revealed that that rogue Percy had almost deceived her into an illegal union, and now this very day! Felix abandoning her at the moment of hand-fasting – what curse lay upon his poor daughter? And why was she not distressed? Why did she even, somehow, seem pleased at the sight of Felix and his young woman?
Lady Beck’s composure was shattered by dismay. “Oh, what is to be done?” she cried. “It is like a bad dream!”
“What is to be done, is that Felix will marry his true bride,” said Cicely calmly.
“But – how is it she is here?” said Lady Beck. “You said she had married another?”
“I am not married, my lady,” Shula-Jane told her, with a respectful bow of her head. “Felix has told me of the news he was brought. I can only conclude that the young woman seen was the new wife of the man I was thought married to. But I have never been wed.”
“And you have travelled all this way?” said Lady Beck. “A young woman such as yourself travelling alone?”
“Not alone. My manservant was with me. And he is highly trained. He protected me well when required.”
“You are very brave,” said Cicely.
“This is my dearest friend, Lady Cicely Rose,” Felix said to Shula-Jane.
“I am honoured to meet you,” said Shula-Jane with a bow of her head, and her hands clasped over one another. “Felix spoke to me of you. He spoke to me of you all,” she said, looking to Lady Beck.
Lady Beck still looked distraught.
“I am sorry, Mama, about the estates,” said Felix. “I don’t know how I can alter the situation.” He turned to Shula-Jane. “You find me here in this manor house, Shula-Jane, but all this will not be mine after today. If you were to marry me you would be marrying a poor man.”
Shula-Jane beckoned to her servant. He came forward, carrying a leather bag. She spoke to him in a foreign language, and he opened the bag and took out a smaller one that was buried at the bottom.
Shula-Jane took the small bag, opened it, and showed its contents to Felix, whose eyes widened in surprise.
“It is no matter whether you are rich or poor to me,” she told him, “but we will not live in poverty, for I have brought the inheritance of my father.”
Felix took something from the bag and held it up.
“Is that a diamond?” asked Lord Orlan, coming near to see more closely.”
“It’s a whole bag full of diamonds!” said Felix.
Lady Beck looked thoroughly overwhelmed.
Lord Orlan took her by the elbow and hand and led her to a seat. When she had sat down he unexpectedly dropped down on one knee before her.
“Lady Beck,” he said, his voice strangely thick.
She looked at him in surprise.
“My dear Lady Beck. I have had a burning desire for a long time. Years. I have never felt free to speak of it to you before, but now...things are so altered.”
He broke off and looked down at the floor as though he could not bring himself to say any more.
When he did not speak further she put a hand to his chin and gently lifted his face towards her.
“Lady Beck. Magdalena. I have always greatly admired you. And this admiration has grown the longer I have known you. I never allowed myself to hope to be able to speak of you of this, for I was certain that the happiness of my daughter rested on her being marchioness of this family. I believed her security and the welfare of her children after her rested on her alliance with your sons. But now it is not to be. And so...I declare…that I love you, Magdalena, and would be honoured if you would consent to be my wife. Not only would our union satisfy the legal requirement of retaining your estates, but it would be a marriage of the heart, for me.”
Lady Beck did not reply. Felix, Cicely and Shula-Jane were as statues, not daring to move or speak in the silence. What would she answer him?
“I thank you, Lord Orlan,” she said, sounding formal. “But there is an obstacle to our union that I can do nothing to remove.”
Lord Orlan looked crushed. “An obstacle?”
“Indeed. You and you alone can remove it.”
“Then tell me how and it is done!”
“Your beard, Lord Orlan. I have always greatly disliked the feel of whiskers.”
“Felix!” cried Lord Orlan. “Send for a man with a sharp blade and hot water. And inform the priest that there will be two weddings in this house this day!”
There was one further guest to Foxeby Manor that snowy day. Cook had dropped from exhaustion onto the stool by the fire to rest her aching feet after the busiest day she had ever known. She leaned back against the cupboard behind her and closed her eyes for a few moments. She was soon startled into opening them again by the sound of a familiar voice.
“Good day, to you, young Dorcas.”
Cook was taken aback; no one had called her Dorcas in more than ten years. And no one had called her “young” for twenty years.
“Why, Mistress Wheedle!” cried Cook. “You’ve never walked here in this snow?”
“Come to give my tidings to young master on his wedding day,” said Mistress Wheedle, seating herself on the stool opposite Cook.
“Well, and what a wedding day it has been!” said Cook. “First Master Felix was to wed Lady Cicely, and then young master wasn’t to wed her, for a young lady came in and he said he’d promised to wed her – and then – what do you think? My lady has gone and wed Lord Orlan! And if she’d only wed him years ago, then poor Lady Cicely would never have had to go through all she has with one wedding after the other turning sour on her – people are saying that she’s under a curse, poor mite!”
“Well, ‘tis what happens when folks try to order things they’ve no business to. The pretty child is under no curse, Old Mother knows all about curses, ‘tis the quite contrary – the child is blessed.”
“Blessed?” said Cook. “Here she is four and twenty years and still no husband!”
“Her time will come. ‘Tis a curse to be wed out of time.”
Cook wondered anew at the strange creature sitting opposite her with her worn out boots on the fender and her grimy skirts hitched up. She was a peculiar being for certain.
Mistress Wheedle’s nose twitched as though she were sniffing the air. “Is that spiced frumenty?” she queried. “And ain’t there a morsel of wedding cake to be had for an Old Mother on such a day?”
Cook heaved herself up to serve her uninvited guest.
Red Harry was sent to give Lord Felix the message that the old herb-woman from the woods beyond the village wished to speak to him. Red Harry thought Lord Felix would refuse to see her, why would he want to leave his guests and his new wife to speak to that smelly old woman on his wedding-day? But to his surprise Lord Felix seemed very interested to hear she had come, and led his new wife out to meet her in the gallery.
“Mistress Wheedle,” said Felix, “you have found me on a very special day, this is my wife, Lady Shula-Jane.”
“Blessings and greetings to you your lordship and ladyship. I am glad to see this day, more glad than you can know.”
“I want to thank you,” said Felix. “For your words to me when last we met. They sustained me in a very dark time.”
“Words, your lordship?”
“You told me that I would know great bitterness, and I was to remember that one day I would return from that place and would know the sweetness of joy, or words to that effect. Those words gave me hope, and they have indeed come to pass.”
“Of course they have. And now, your lordship, I have come to take back something you have of mine.”
“I have something of yours? I do not think so.”
“My charm.”
“Charm?” Felix shook his head. “I have never had a charm nor anything of yours, Mistress.”
“In your pocket, your lordship.” She pointed a dirty finger at his new velvet doublet. Felix put his hand to his small pocket, and his fingers touched something cool and hard.
He pulled the object out. “As you can see, the only thing I have in my pocket is this piece of quartz.”
Mistress Wheedle’s eyes glowed like that of cat caught by lamplight in the dark. She gave a chuckle of glee and held out her hand.
“There it be. My charm.”
Felix looked at the piece of stone, thinking of the history he now attached to it.
“It was Bibi’s stone,” said Shula-Jane. “She gave it to me when she left me.”
“And I gave it to her, “said Felix. “I found it amongst my belongings. It came from Angliana.”
“It came from somewhere very far from Angliana,” said Mistress Wheedle, her
eyes still glowing and her fingers hovering over Felix’s palm.
“Take it,” said Felix. “I cannot see how it is yours, yet you may have it.”
Mistress Wheedle laughed, holding up the stone as though she held a priceless piece of treasure.
“Here, your lordship, I give you something in return.”
She held out something to him. It was an old iron key, worn down from much use. A small key, nothing remarkable. She jabbed it towards him, and he took it out of politeness.
“You keep this and don’t try to use it ‘til after midnight on the new moon.”
“Use it...for what?”
“ ‘Tis the key to my dwelling house.”
Felix thought back to the time he had visited Mistress Wheedle’s ramshackle hovel in the woods. Whatever did he want a key for that pile of rotting wattle and daub for?
Mistress Wheedle turned away as though to leave them. “Remember!” she called, as she walked in a lurching fashion towards the door. “Not before midnight on the next new moon!”
“Felix, it is snowing hard and will be dark soon,” Shula-Jane said, touching his arm. “She cannot walk out in such weather – she is so old.”
Felix crossed the room and opened the door the old woman had left ajar. He stepped over the threshold and then turned back to give Shula-Jane a baffled look.
“She’s gone,” he said.
“She cannot have left so quickly,” said Shula-Jane, following him out into the long hallway. They passed the head-footman coming from the direction of the kitchens with a jug of wine in each hand. He stepped aside when he saw them and bent his head deferentially.
“Has the old lady who was here passed you by?” Felix asked.
“No, milord. Only the butler has passed me.”
She would not have gone into the hall, and the main entrance was still bolted on the inside. Felix looked at Shula-Jane in astonishment. Lord Orlan saw them standing beyond the hall door and called them to come and rejoin their guests. Shaking his head in perplexity, Felix tucked the key into his pocket, and led his bride back to the festivities.
