Girl In A Red Tunic (25 page)

     Helewise, thinking of her own father and of his devotion to his home, hearth and family, says, ‘But what of his children? Did he not want to be with them?’

     ‘Child, not children. Blanche gave him but the one son. It was rumoured that she became barren after that.’

     ‘Became barren?’ Helewise does not understand. ‘I have heard of women being barren, but not of becoming so. How can that be?’

     Again Emma hesitates. But this daughter of hers is ripe for marriage and there is no reason to keep such things from her. ‘As you say, Helewise, it is quite common for a wife to be unable to produce children and that would seem to be God’s will and there is little point in demanding to know why.’ She looks sad for a moment, then, perhaps thinking of the ease with which she has conceived and borne her own four children, a sort of thankfulness fills her lovely face. ‘But sometimes a woman gives birth to one child and then it is as if her womb sours and will not bear fruit again. Perhaps the experience of the first birth has been traumatic; perhaps there has been damage to the woman’s fruitful parts. Sometimes it happens for no apparent reason. But, believe me, daughter, it does happen.’

     ‘Poor Blanche,’ Helewise murmurs. ‘To go on hoping that another baby might bring her wandering husband back to her and yet to be constantly disappointed must have been hard.’

     ‘It broke her heart,’ Emma says quietly. ‘Or so they say, and I see no reason to doubt it.’

     ‘Yet you and Father welcome Sir Benedict to our home!’ Helewise is indignant.

     ‘It is your father’s choice to invite him and we must accept it. That is how it is,’ Emma says firmly. ‘What a man does in his own hall is his own business and nobody else’s. Your father and Benedict have been friends for a long time and it is not for us to query their friendship.’ She fixes her daughter with a frown. ‘And I do not want you to breathe one word of this conversation to anybody else,’ she commands.

     ‘But—’

     ‘Helewise, that is my wish,’ her mother says. ‘Do as I say.’

     She lets go of Helewise’s hand and stands up, graceful as ever. Then, relenting, she smiles down on her daughter. ‘There is so much for you to learn,’ she says kindly. ‘Remember that I am always here and that it is I who am the rightful recipient of your questions. I am always prepared to talk over any matter that puzzles you.’ A new urgency enters her eyes and, leaning closer to Helewise, she says, ‘I want you to be a good wife, my sweet. Your father and I love you dearly and we wish you to make a fine match, as all parents wish for their daughters. But in our case we also want you to be happy.’

     Moved, for her mother is rarely so outspoken, Helewise stands up and gives Emma a hug, which, after an initial slight resistance, is then lovingly returned.

     As Emma turns and, with another smile, walks away through the doorway, Helewise reflects that she is now taller than her mother.

She obeys Emma’s dictates and speaks to hardly anybody about this new and fascinating knowledge of men, women, wives, mothers and the business of marriage. The exception is Elena, but Helewise reasons that she has always talked over everything with Elena and that her mother must know this and accept it. Anyway, even if she does not, Helewise cannot help herself. And she learns a very great deal more from her nurse than she has done from her mother.

     Elena has a wide circle of friends, relations and acquaint ances spread throughout the knightly classes of Sussex and Kent. She hears far more gossip than her mistress and she is able to tell Helewise all about Benedict Warin’s women. She also supplies some fascinating facts about how women have babies and the things that can go wrong to prevent conception or the birth of a living, healthy child. Elena tells Helewise almost too much about this mysterious and fascinating subject and Helewise has to work quite hard to rid her mind of images of naked and terrifyingly bulging women screaming and straining in childbed, or being forced to lie with some demanding and son-hungry husband over and over again long after desire has gone. From some undisclosed source, Elena seems to know exactly how the body is put together and she shares this knowledge with Helewise. Before she has come anywhere near seeing a human male organ, Helewise has been told exactly what it looks like and what it does when aroused.

     Helewise absorbs this knowledge and thinks about it. She understands now that human beings are much like any other animal in their breeding habits and, with a shock, realises that her own parents must have engaged in activity similar to that of the hound on the bitch in season or the big horses out in the paddock who cover the brood mares and insert those huge members into their bodies. She is inclined to be horrified; childhood is, after all, not that far behind her. But her fast-awakening womanhood comes to her aid and something in her – perhaps the same something that responded to the sexual demand in Benedict Warin’s eyes – tells her that this is right, this is how it is and how it will be for her.

     She finds, after a while, that she is not afraid.

     Elena has let slip that this son of Sir Benedict’s is a very handsome man. Helewise wonders why nobody has told her this interesting fact before. And she also finds herself wondering – rather too often for comfort – what it will be like to meet Benedict Warin’s son and whether or not she will take his fancy. Or, even more important, whether he will take hers.

     She has absolutely no doubt that she is going to meet him. It is just a matter of time  ...

Chapter 14

She does not have to wait very long to find out what she thinks of Sir Benedict’s son.

It is one of those uniquely English spring days when April feels like midsummer. Helewise has told her mother that she is going out to collect young nettles for Elena’s hair tonic; she has told Elena that she is expected to exercise her mother’s palfrey. Neither her nurse nor her mother has in fact asked Helewise to do anything but, since she cannot seem to sit still and very much needs some time on her own, she has inferred to each of the two women who order her days that the other has sent her out on an errand. To ease her conscience, she rides out on her mother’s fine-boned bay mare and gets her hands and wrists stung picking a basket of nettles for Elena.

     She rides to her favourite spot: a small pebbled beach in the bend of a shallow stream that comes down off a low hill to disappear into woodland. The stream just here runs between a shoulder-high bank on one side and an ancient willow on the other and, once she is under the high bank with the palfrey tethered beneath the willow, Helewise believes herself to be hidden away in her own private place.

     For some time she sits on the sun-warmed stones of the little beach, occasionally picking up a stone and flipping it across the water. The stream runs too swiftly to make the stones bounce more than once or twice, but then she spots a place under the bank where the water is deep, dark and apparently motionless. She does better here and makes a stone bounce three times.

     She feels ... she tries to analyse it. Stirred up, is the best she can come up with. Were she to have asked practical, down-to-earth Elena, the nurse would have said, ‘You’ve turned into a woman, my girl, and your blood’s up! It’s spring and you’re as lusty as every other fertile creature on God’s good earth!’ But, even without Elena’s wise words, Helewise has a fair idea of what is the matter with her. She knows about what men and women do together and, even though she is a virgin, she feels a powerful, mysterious hunger inside her that she does not quite know how she is to assuage.

     She picks up another stone. Skims it. It gives one feeble bounce and she mutters a word that she heard the stable boy use.

     And from up above her, on the top of the bank, somebody laughs and a male voice says, ‘Very ladylike!’

     She turns, horrified but, at the same time, strangely excited. And sees a man on a big horse, silhouetted against the bright spring sky and clearly large and broad in the shoulder. For an instant an image of Benedict Warin flashes into her mind – she has just been thinking about him – then the horseman disappears. But only for as long as it takes him to dismount, tether his horse somewhere out of sight and then return to the bank; he jumps down and stands before her on the little beach.

     She has leapt to her feet and is staring at him; she is tall but he is taller, and she has to look up. Again she thinks of Benedict, for this man resembles him a little although he is much better-looking; she thinks she knows who he is.

     Her heart is beating faster.

     He says, ‘You, I believe, are Helewise of Swansford. Yes?’

     ‘Yes.’

     His eyes are dancing. They are not the same blue as his father’s; as the sun catches them, they appear sometimes green, sometimes grey-blue. ‘My father told me all about you,’ he goes on. ‘I had to come and see for myself.’

     ‘Oh.’

     He laughs again. ‘Are you always this talkative?’

     ‘I do not know your name!’ she protests, as if the lack of a formal introduction were the reason for her dumbness.

     ‘Ivo,’ he says softly, his eyes on hers. ‘Ivo, son of Benedict Warin of the Old Manor.’

     ‘I see.’ Oh, how prim she sounds! With an effort she says, ‘How did you know I was here?’

     ‘I’ve been looking for you these past three days,’ he says with disarming honesty. ‘You did not wander far from home yesterday or the day before, but today I was lucky. I watched you ride out and I followed you.’ Leaning down to whisper in her ear – a highly disconcerting sensation – he adds mysteriously, ‘I’ve been calling to you and finally you came.’

     His exciting remark stirs her strangely, even though it is not strictly accurate. Many thoughts battle for her attention. This man is an accomplished seducer. He is probably a womaniser, as they say his father is. He’s been waiting for me for three days! He’s been calling to me and I came. And, most powerful of all, oh, he’s so handsome and when he stares at me like this I feel as if I were melting.

     Her mouth suddenly dry, she says, ‘I have brought my mother’s palfrey out for some exercise.’ She points to the bay mare under the willow tree, calmly swishing away flies with her long tail. ‘My mother has not enough time in her day to give her horse sufficient attention.’

     He nods sagely. ‘And you have taken a tumble in the nettles, I see.’ Her takes her hands in his, very gently, and slowly inspects the backs of them and her strong wrists, then turning them over to look at the palms.

     She sees the line of nettle stings that looks like a pink bracelet. ‘I was gathering the young nettle tops for my nurse,’ she says with what she hopes is dignity. ‘Elena – that’s my nurse – makes a tonic for the hair.’

     ‘Does she, indeed.’ Now he has dropped one of her hands. With his free hand he carefully takes up a strand of her long hair, pulling it so that the curl straightens out and then letting go, allowing it to spring back. Then he takes out a small knife and, without so much as a raised eyebrow to ask her permission, cuts off the curl and stows it away inside his silver-grey tunic.

     She is aware that her mouth has dropped open and hurriedly she closes it.

     They stand staring at each other. She senses something in the air and wonders vaguely if a storm is approaching. Almost unthinkingly – she is a child of the country – she looks up quickly to see if clouds are gathering, being blown up against the wind. But the sky is clear, perfect blue and there is scarcely a breeze. She looks back at him; to her surprise, he too seems puzzled.

     He holds her eyes a moment longer, then says, ‘I can skim stones better than you can.’

     His cheerful, everyday remark breaks the tension. ‘Go on, then,’ she invites. He picks up a handful of stones and skims a couple of them expertly over the still waters under the far bank. Five, six. ‘Very good,’ she says, in the tone she uses when her little sister manages to do her needlework without pricking her finger and spotting the cloth with blood.

     He is instantly aware of it and he turns to her, dropping the remaining stones. Very quietly he says, ‘Do not play with me, girl. I am not your puppy or your baby brother.’

     The tension is back and now it crackles between them, all but visible. He has taken a step and now is very close. ‘How old are you?’

     ‘I shall be fifteen in three months’ time,’ she declares proudly. ‘My birthday is on the last day of July.’

     ‘I see.’ He frowns slightly. ‘I am twenty-seven and shall be twenty-eight on the first day of December.’

     ‘You do not look as old as that,’ she says, eager, she does not quite know why, to lessen this gap between them.