The Beautiful Thread

by Penelope Wilcock

  “Can I help you?” Brother Cormac rose to his feet.

  “Ah! It’s a beautiful day in a beautiful world,” announced the newcomer. “Everyday blessings keep us smiling! His Lordship sends warmest kindly greetings, and wants to let you know we made good time so we’re here a day earlier than expected. Our smiles have travelled the miles to share in great fellowship with you, and we trust we won’t be putting you to any inconvenience.”

  “Er… what? His Lordship? You’re saying… the bishop is here already? He’s arrived?”

  “Yes, his Lordship is waiting at the guesthouse. I’ve been looking for your abbot but found only his esquire – so I came here. Our horses will need watering, and his Lordship will be pleased with a hearty repast – we’ve been on the road three hours.”

  Cormac felt, beneath the cover of the table behind which he stood, the meaningful pressure of his companion’s boot against his ankle. Press, press, press. Why? He realized that his response must sound distinctly lukewarm in respect of its hospitality.

  “I’ll… um… I’ll be right over,” he said hastily. “If you’ll make yourselves comfortable, I’ll just dash down to the kitchen and see what… I’ll be right there. Is there anything else I can do for you meanwhile?”

  The man cocked his head, bright eyes sparkling. “Smile!” he reprimanded. His own smile remained fixedly in place, encouraging emulation. Cormac stared at him, bewildered.

  “Who… who are you?” he asked. The visitor threw back his head and laughed.

  “I am Brainard LePrique!”

  If Cormac had not felt so taken aback, he might well have laughed at that himself; but as things were, the information just made everything feel even more bizarre.

  “His Lordship’s equerry?” prompted the enquirer, his head at so sharp an angle now and his eyebrows raised so high that he looked definitely peculiar.

  “Oh. I see. Er… welcome. You are welcome indeed. Right then, I’ll cut along to the kitchen directly.”

  The equerry gave a blithe little chuckle, and turned on his heel. “We’ll expect you very soon,” he said. “His Lordship enjoys paté and red wine, but does not care for pickles. He likes plenty of butter and will never say no to cold cuts of pigeon or guinea-fowl – even peacock if you have it. Lark’s tongue paté is his favourite. Or the livers. Oh! Cheer up, Brother! Remember – a smile is the candle in your window that lets the world know a caring, sharing man is there within!”

  He headed off with no further remarks. Stupefied, Brother Cormac stared after him, then said to his silent companion. “What the –?”

  “A well-fed snake, if I’m not mistaken,” responded William tersely. “Expect trouble and keep him where you can see him.”

  Like a man in a dream, Cormac turned to look at him after a moment’s silence. “William,” he said, “I – I – I can’t do that. I can’t.”

  William frowned, perplexed, then his face cleared. “Oh. Eating skylarks. No. Good for you! Look, all he means is dainties. Cormac, Brother Conradus is your secret weapon here. Tell him to slather on the butter and gild the gingerbread. What that man wants is power, that’s all. He’s just letting you know how important he is. Play up to it, and quietly forget about the larks. Oh, and Brother Cormac – it would seem this is your chance to unleash the magic of your smile. Or just throw up. Your choice.”

  Before Cormac could reply to this, a footfall outside and a tap on the door claimed their attention; the porter, Brother Martin.

  “Pardon if I’m intruding when you’re busy. I’ve just come from the abbot’s house. Lady Florence is here, and Father John asked would I let William know. He says, sorry to trouble you but he’ll be glad if you can go over directly.”

  “Thanks, Brother Martin; I’m on my way. Have you told him Bishop Eric’s arrived? Yes? Good. And that’s all in hand, is it? The guesthouse, the kitchen – everyone aware? Yes? My word, this place runs like an oiled wheel these days!”

  William set out briskly across the broad, open space of the abbey court, enjoying the fragrance of the flowers now blooming in its borders – gillyflowers and violets, some late primroses, cowslips and irises, hellebores, lungwort and lily of the valley. Rosemary bushes in first flower, new green growth of lavender thrusting out from the silver foliage left from last year. And sprays of roses fastened back against the walls, their young leaves shiny copper red, and the buds still small. Such life here, he thought; such happiness.

  Brother Thomas opened the door to his knock at the abbot’s house, and William stepped in to be introduced as steward of the feast, to Lady Florence Bonvallet and an upright, aged dame occupying the other chair – “Lady Gunhilde Neville – Lady Florence’s mother.”

  “My lady… my lady…” William bowed low, did not attempt to kiss the hand of either, his declared role being too subordinate for such intimacy.

  “The steward of the feast,” observed Lady Florence, her eye resting appraisingly on William. “So it’s too late. It’s really happening, and there’s nothing more that can be done to stop it.”

  John invited William to sit with a friendly gesture, and they both sat on stools since the ladies had the chairs.

  “Too late?” the abbot enquired cautiously. “Oh! Maybe you don’t think so?” A shaft of hope gleamed in Lady Florence’s penetrating eye. “Well, at least I can console myself I’ve done what I can. I had a most stormy interview with Gervase last week. I thought I was being fair to the girl. I even offered for us to take on the children – save her the expense of their upbringing. I expect we could find a place for them, and a suitable occupation.”

  “The children?” Abbot John frowned, perplexed. “Hannah’s children? An occupation? One’s barely three and the other but a babe.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Well I expect they could be accommodated out of the way somewhere.”

  “But… why…?”

  “Presumably” – Lady Florence fixed the abbot coldly with her gaze and explained with exaggerated clarity – “what she wants is money. And the children will be an impediment if this match does not go ahead. So I offered to step in. If that’s what it takes to get rid of her, we can take the children so she is free of that burden, and even give her some small settlement in consideration of the time and expense involved in rearing them thus far. I am sensible of our obligations. I suppose they must be Gervase’s.”

  John blinked.

  “In my day,” interposed the lady’s ancient mother, her eyes glittering like jewels of Whitby jet set into a lacy skein of wrinkles, “such audacity would have been unthinkable. Even the most froward upstart would have stopped short of thinking herself capable of worming a way into the Neville family. Or the Bonvallets. Nobody in my generation would have contemplated anything of the sort. Young people nowadays seem to think family doesn’t matter – it’s all about love. Love! Ha! What do they know? Abandoning all standards, all sense of decency.”

  She drew back slightly in her chair, her face giving the impression of having detected an offensive odour in the near vicinity. Whether the abbot replied or not seemed a matter of complete indifference to her.

  “Gervase said he would have none of it,” Lady Florence continued. “He spoke to me most pugnaciously – with extreme disrespect. He insists on seeing this whim through. But what will he do with her once he’s got her? Does he imagine he can bring her home? To our manor? She is coarse – common in the extreme. She is of most inferior stuff. She has a certain competence in practical matters, I suppose. I gather she tends a flock of goats out on the moors. But her accomplishments and abilities are those of the lower orders. Gervase brought her once to our house – it was an absolute disaster. They had a fair on the green that day, and he’d promised to take her. She wanted to see the man with the hurdy-gurdy, she said, and the children dancing.” (Lady Gunhilde’s lip curled as she heard this, and she turned aside her head in incredulous disdain.) “But Gervase and his brothers – Hubert and Percival; I think you know them – wanted to practise the
ir bowmanship, out upon the lawns. Her duty of course was to encourage and admire, but after only a couple of hours she became positively petulant. She wandered away eventually, and Gervase had to stop what he was doing and go in search of her. He found her curled up like a child on a garden bench, weeping. Can you imagine? All because she’d missed the fair! That’s the kind of girl she is, you see: childish. She can’t help it; it’s just that she’s from that kind of family. Preoccupied with trinkets and baubles, with diversions and amusements. She has no backbone, she doesn’t know her duty – she has no idea how to behave.”

  “It wouldn’t have been like that in my day,” Lady Gunhilde observed. “We knew how to behave. My generation had the highest standards instilled into us. Young people today think any slipshod nonsense will do. I expect it’s the way I grew up, but my generation had values. We knew what was expected of us.”

  “So I felt there was no more I could do,” Lady Florence concluded. “I told Gervase it was still not too late to bring things to a halt. But he refused even to answer me – he turned away with extreme discourtesy. I shall entreat him one last time, on the night before his wedding – because I cannot believe he really wants to marry this wench. It can come to no good. What can he possibly see in her, after all?”

  Bleak and arid, her coldly questioning eye directed its glance at the abbot. Evidently this was the moment for his response.

  William raised his head and looked at John, at the ladies, impassively observing. John sat thinking, rubbed his chin, his mouth.

  “I regard this as a very poor return on all we have invested in him,” added Lady Florence, seeing the abbot not about to speak. “I don’t know how much your father put into your education, Father John – into the moulding of you to become a man fit to enter society – but you will realize it is a costly endeavour, in terms of effort, time and money. One needs a proper foundation to know how to comport oneself with refinement and dignity. It doesn’t just come naturally. It is very disappointing to see it thrown away like this. Very disappointing indeed. Gervase has wasted the family resources. One could call it theft, without overstating the matter.”

  “My lady,” asked William quietly and smoothly into the silence that followed this; “are you intimating that the planned marriage may actually not take place?”

  “Not if I can help it.” Lady Florence sounded not so much vehement as resigned. “But it seems my counsel is not wanted. A mother is not to be consulted. So far as I know it will go ahead. But not by my wish.”

  “When I grew up,” added her mother, “young people respected their parents: ‘Honour thy father and thy mother that it may go well with thee, and thou mayest dwell long in the land.’ What happened to that? Young people today are grown so headstrong – they think of nothing but pleasing themselves and going their own way. My generation would never have dreamed of such a thing. But I suppose it must have been the way I grew up.”

  “Yes, my lady,” murmured William in the familiar dulcet tone that filled John with immediate alarm, “I suppose it must have been.”

  Lady Florence’s calm, implacable gaze continued to rest on the abbot.

  “I know what you are thinking, Father John,” she said. That recalled his attention from William.

  Few things irritated John more than people telling him they knew what he was thinking. Knowing his annoyance likely to show, however hard he tried to hide it, he lowered his eyes. Flashing unbidden into his mind, a memory of his father surprised him. From his childhood, when Jude had been briefly at home between military skirmishes. They had stood outside in the breezy air, Jude showing his small son how to handle a longbow.

  Beautiful yew wood, John could still remember the feel of the thing, ludicrously big for him. His father’s touch light upon him – his back, his shoulders, his arms. The kindly voice explaining, “It’s not the strength of your arms, lad, you press your whole body into it. Rest your hand so – that’s it – and lay your body into the thing. Steady. Hold steady. Hold the strength of your core. Feel it in your belly. That’s it, lad.” His father’s smile. “That’s it, lad.”

  And John, holding steady, raised his eyes to her ladyship, feeling more than seeing William’s quick, perceptive, appraising glance checking that all was well.

  “You are thinking,” said Lady Florence, “that I am a heartless and selfish woman; but you are wrong. Why should I care what happens to Hannah? I have nothing against her – except that she means to ruin the life of my son. I am a mother, and it is in the nature of things that a mother will fight for her child’s wellbeing. I do not want that… chit… to exploit my son’s vulnerability as a man to press her own advantage. I would spare him the pain such an alliance must bring him in the end, when lust is spent and she and he tire of each other. I would save my son.”

  John’s hand moved in a gesture of involuntary protest. “I do see – but my lady, is that really what’s happening? I have met with Gervase and Hannah, counselled them, heard then, listened carefully to what they have to say. Their betrothal has been long – heavens, they have two children already – and the love between them seems real and abiding, to me. The Mitchells are not the Nevilles nor the Bonvallets, I grant you, but they are worthy people. Walter Mitchell is a fine and honourable man. Hannah is the soul of kindness – not gently born maybe, not always dignified – but surely she could learn from you? She is a good mother and she would be a good wife. She has been steadfast in her affections for Gervase these three or four years; Hannah is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Lady Florence’s lips curved faintly in a small, dismissive smile. Her gaze beheld the abbot in cool pity. “Father John,” she said, “how can I put it to you? You are the abbot of a monastery. Whatever your own background, you must surely see the rectitude of precedence, of keeping to the place to which one is assigned. In your abbey, when you enter the room, the brothers rise to their feet. When you reprimand them, they kiss the floor. When you bid them, they go. That’s how it is. They do not command you, but you them. This is not because of any tie of personal affection, nor does it imply they have a slavish disposition. It is simply that they know their place and keep to it – and that is what divine order is. Knowing and fulfilling our position in life. You are the abbot of St Alcuin’s. I am the wife of Sir Cecil Bonvallet and the daughter of Sir Arthur Nevill. I am the mother of my three sons. My role in life is to uphold the wellbeing of my family and to advance its interests as best I may, just as yours is to safeguard the integrity of the Benedictine life in this community. Hannah is nothing to me. I bear her no personal animosity. But she is not of our kind. She does not belong in my family. And if I can get rid of her, I will. But I perceive you to be intractable in your adherence to the point of view Gervase thinks he has. I would request only that you ask yourself, whose side are you on?”

  “Whose side? Lady Florence, is that what it must come to? I thought this was a marriage, a union – a family – not a war! I’m not on your side or Hannah’s side – I see no sides, no opposition. I am on the side of Christ, of love, of finding our way together as best we might, finding something gentle and hopeful in life, some way to purposefully channel our humanity. I’m not signing up to a fight!”

  “I see,” she replied, her voice chill and remote. “Then since we have the steward of the feast present with us, shall we come to terms? Have you the lists I supplied, of our requirements?”

  William rose to his feet and fetched the scroll from the pile on John’s table. He had taken in its contents and could answer to it with convincing familiarity.

  Wearily, an hour later, the abbot made his carefully courteous farewells of both ladies. They wanted to make a thorough inspection of the area where the marriage vows would be made, the refectory in which the feast would take place, and the abbey church where High Mass would follow the nuptials. John sent Brother Tom in search of Francis to be their escort; he took his leave of them with all pleasant kindness at his door – but declined to go beyond it, and left them
to begin their inspections alone, with the promise that Francis would find them without delay. And he shut the door.

  “You have to admit,” said William, “she has a point.”

  “I do not,” replied the abbot, shortly. He glared at William. “Hannah is a decent girl. She and Gervase love one another. Her family are good people. She deserves a chance. And – if you meant that as a joke, it isn’t funny.” His eyes blazed at William, but then he stopped himself and half-turned away. He took a deep breath and started again, more quietly: “Anyway, what about you? Haven’t you got something to do? Doesn’t Cormac need you?”

  William grinned. He knew a man doing his best when he saw one. He made himself scarce.

  John closed his eyes, counted to ten, prayed silently and fervently to remain courteous and patient, then turned his mind to the early arrival of the bishop. Skirting the court to avoid Lady Bonvallet now deep in conversation with his prior, he crossed to the guesthouse to tackle the beginning of their Visitation.

  By some miracle of divine kindness, though Bishop Eric spent time with Abbot John in the afternoon, having amply lunched, and had some searching questions to ask about what John considered to be the strengths and weaknesses of this community and his own fulfilment of his role within it, the bishop felt sufficiently wearied by his journey to retire early, stating a preference to eat in privacy in the guesthouse. John took the opportunity to take his supper in the abbot’s house in William’s company. He felt he owed William that honour, as his guest and in thanks for his help. Besides that, it had not been an easy day, and in William’s company he felt completely accepted – that here was one soul who never asked him to give an account of himself, but had the perception simply to understand.