The Sumerton Women (17 page)
Cecily refused to allow Hal the luxury of pitying himself. After a week she began making him feed himself with his able right hand, and though she still helped with his basic maintenance, she would not let him get out of doing something he was capable of himself.
“If you do not do for yourself, you die,” Cecily told him with conviction. She was certain most illnesses could be beaten with sheer determination and, though there was no lack of it in her, she could not do it alone. Hal would have to assist in his recovery process.
When it was discovered that Hal could wiggle his toes and fingers on his left side Cecily was more convinced than ever that he would return to her a whole man. She began to make him hold a ball in his left hand and try to grip it. He protested at first, using any excuse to avoid it, but Cecily persisted with unwavering cheer coupled with steely resolve. Soon Hal was clenching and unclenching the ball, gaining strength in a hand he never thought he would use again.
By late spring Hal was sitting up and able to extend his left leg. Though it trembled violently, Cecily made him exercise it by repeatedly lifting it, bending it at the knee, and stretching it. The same strategy was implemented with his arm.
By the time the justice of the peace came calling, Hal was able to sign the king’s Oath of Succession seated at his high table in the great hall, dignified as any able-bodied lord. It was an effort for him; he did not want to lose face in front of the JP by receiving him abed in his apartments. Upon the JP’s departure, however, Hal returned to his chambers, all but carried by his faithful steward, George Hunter.
When Hal was settled and comfortable, Matilda burst into their apartments, dropping into an apologetic curtsy, then rising with a bright smile.
“My lord, my lady!” she cried. “A visitor!”
Hal closed his eyes, leaning against his pillows. “What they want now? I signed the damned oath—Anne Boleyn is queen undisputed and her children rightful heirs—” He could not continue. The words would come out jumbled; he could feel it. It seemed his speech was taking the longest to recover, and he wondered if he would ever be able to communicate with the ease he had so taken for granted before.
Matilda shook her head, twitching her lips, unable to suppress her smile as she stepped aside, allowing a slim figure donning a nun’s habit entrance.
Hal’s jaw went slack. “M ... ira ... bella,” he said slowly.
Mirabella, whose beauty was so incongruent with her sober attire, offered a slow smile. “Hello, Father.”
“How manage you get here?” he asked her, trying not to grit his teeth in frustration as he struggled with the words.
Mirabella’s green eyes lit with pity. Her lips quivered as she ran to her father, wrapping her arms about his shoulders and holding him close. “Cecily arranged it. She—made a very generous donation. I am accompanied by the abbess herself.” She buried her head in his cheek. “Oh, bless you, Father! Thank God He has seen fit to spare you!”
“Thank Cecily,” Hal told her, grateful at least that this simple sentence could escape his lips unspoiled.
Mirabella righted herself, inclining her head toward Cecily. Her eyes reflected genuine gratitude. “Thank you, Cecily, for being what my father needs.”
Cecily ran toward the girl, this figure that represented so much of her childhood, and embraced her. “I am so glad to see you, Mirabella! How I have missed you!”
They clasped each other a moment, then returned to sit beside Hal. He took in his fill of Mirabella, managing to hold a conversation with her by speaking as little as possible. She intuited his need to remain silent and told him of the convent and her dangerous opinion on the Oath of Succession.
“Sir Thomas More, the king’s former chancellor—he hasn’t taken the oath, you know,” she said in low tones.
“Oh, the dear man,” Cecily said, her heart thudding with fear. “If he doesn’t sign the oath, he will be accused of treason! He’ll be imprisoned or perhaps even die!”
Mirabella’s gaze was level. “Then he will be a martyr.” Her voice was rich with admiration. “More never wanted a break with Rome, as forward-thinking as he may be. His dispute with the king is based on conscience. He cannot acknowledge the king’s whore’s children as the rightful heirs.”
“Mirabella!” Cecily cried. “The justice of the peace has only just left us. Please desist in this talk. You have come to see your father, after all.”
Hal, who had remained quiet throughout this conversation, gazed at Mirabella thoughtfully. There was a glint of fear in his blue eyes as he beheld her. Was he afraid of her or for her? Cecily wondered. Perhaps, like her, it was a mingling of both.
Mirabella seemed content to close the subject and returned to more neutral topics. They spoke of their landholdings, the forest, and the price of wool, all trivial things. Safe things. At last Mirabella took Hal’s and Cecily’s hands in hers and led them in prayer for his recovery.
When Hal was happily exhausted from the company, Mirabella and Cecily removed to the solar.
“Are you happy there, Mirabella?” Cecily asked her when they were settled. “Is it all you ever hoped for?”
Mirabella nodded. “It is,” she said with confidence.
But as she regarded her father’s bride the conviction in her heart did not match her tone. There was something about Cecily, a tangible love she emanated that Mirabella found herself at this moment envying. What would it be like to love like that?
She dismissed the thought. Surely everyone in the monastic community had moments like these, enhanced by exposure to the outside world. Mirabella’s hands trembled. She longed to return to the safety of the cloister, where disturbing images like these could not taunt her.
With abruptness she rose. “I am afraid I must leave.”
“So soon? But I thought we would have time together as well ...” Cecily protested, tears lighting her vibrant teal eyes.
Mirabella averted her head in guilt. She had planned on a lengthy visit but knew the longer she stayed the more she would question herself. She did not want to question herself.
She had always been so certain.
And so she took Cecily’s hands. “It was a blessing to be permitted such a visit as it is, you know that. I will write more often, however. I promise.” She leaned in, kissing Cecily’s cheek, closing her ears to the soft tears Cecily shed as she departed.
Her father was recovering, Cecily was a good wife. That was all she needed to know.
Now she could go back. She must go back.
“So you ran away,” Sister Julia observed after Mirabella confided the details of the visit to her the next day in the courtyard of the cloister.
Mirabella wanted to protest but found the words sticking in her throat. Sister Julia called life as she saw it and had never been wrong about Mirabella. For this candor Mirabella respected her.
Sister Julia took Mirabella’s hand in hers as they promenaded. “Mirabella, why are you so afraid to love?”
Mirabella averted her head, blinking away an onset of unexpected tears. “I ... have loved,” she said as an image of Father Alec conjured itself before her mind’s eye. “But those I love are constrained not to love me.”
“But I love you, Mirabella,” she said. “And so do your father and Cecily.” Sister Julia paused. “But that is not the type of love you fear, is it?”
“I am called to love only God,” Mirabella told Sister Julia.
“I know you believe that—”
“I am!” Mirabella insisted, frustrated that her vulnerability lay thus exposed. “You are proof that even the most dedicated servant of God has moments of doubt,” she added.
“Yes,” Sister Julia agreed. “My moment of doubt gave me you. But it also gave me the courage to pursue what I truly did love most and that was the Lord. Mirabella, my course of action did irreparable damage to some,” she added in soft tones as she lowered her eyes. “You do not have to go to that extreme to figure out what it is you want most. But you do need to resolve this battle you are fighting with yourself.”
“When I am here I am as close to being at peace as I have ever been,” Mirabella told her. “So here I will remain.”
“But is it to seek an intimate relationship with God or is it to escape from emotions you cannot seem to grapple with in what some would refer to as ‘real life’?” Sister Julia challenged her.
Mirabella shook her head. “I ...”
“You do not owe me an answer,” Sister Julia said. “You owe yourself. Please reflect, Mirabella. Do not live a lie. This is a difficult life; I would hope you would not remain because you were afraid of losing face should you change your mind.”
They continued their walk in silence, Sister Julia’s words echoing in Mirabella’s mind again and again.
But still, not even to her own self could she admit the possibility that she had chosen the wrong path.
That would change everything.
Hal had regained almost full use of his limbs. The traces of his sudden and baffling illness remained in his speech and in the slight droop of his mouth that caused him a great deal of embarrassment.
“I think it’s charming,” Cecily told him one night as she reached out to run a finger along his lips.
Hal kissed the finger. “A crooked mouth, charming?” he returned with a slight chuckle. He sighed as he organized his next words in his mind. He spoke slowly. “These past months have taken you toll on,” he told her. “Few enough would ever have ... done what you did. Do not think it goes unappreciated. I would still be abed were not for you.”
“Nonsense,” Cecily said, though both knew it was true.
She snuggled against his chest, savoring the closeness she so feared would be stolen from her. Hal’s summation had been correct; the past few months had taken a toll on her. She spent the days seeing to Hal’s every need and the nights in an exhausted state of anxiety, listening to Hal’s every breath, judging his every movement, beside herself with fear that he would relapse.
He did not. He grew stronger. With her beside him, pushing him relentlessly, he thrived. Each day was easier than the day preceding and Cecily was filled with hope. When Dr. Hurst came to visit he marveled at Hal’s improvement.
“Lady Sumerton is a born healer!” he would exclaim with a chuckle.
Born healer or not, Cecily had managed to will Hal through. And now there was nothing more that she wanted than to be a wife to him in every sense of the word. Her glimpse of Hal’s mortality shook her to the core and she vowed not to let him leave this world without the heirs she had promised him.
What’s more, she longed for that closeness. For the past few months saw her transform from girl to woman. Her willowy figure had blossomed; curves replaced the flat landscape of childhood. The face that stared out of the glass was no longer a child’s and the mind behind the eyes longed for things she had never experienced.
Now, feeling Hal’s kiss upon her finger caused her lower abdomen to clench in a not altogether unpleasant sensation. She trembled. She had dreamed of this moment for months now, and though she still regarded it with some measure of fear, she did not doubt what she wanted to happen next.
Cecily stroked his cheek. “I love you, Hal,” she told him with all the sincerity in her heart, leaning in to press a gentle kiss upon his mouth.
“Oh, Cecily ...” Hal breathed, rolling to his side to take her in his arms. “I love you. So much.” He held her close.
“I am thinking there is one more exercise we need to indulge in, to make certain you are ... quite recovered,” Cecily suggested, flushing.
Hal laughed. “Cecily, you minx!” His eyes lit with concern as he stroked her cheek. “You are sure?” he asked, offering his crooked smile.
Cecily nodded. “I have never been more certain. Let me be your wife, Hal.”
Hal leaned in, kissing her in a way he never had before. Cecily moved her mouth along with his, her body thrilling with a rush of sensations foreign to her.
That night she became Hal’s true wife at last.
This new dimension to Hal and Cecily’s relationship found them in a state of befuddled rapture. They could not get enough of each other. For Cecily, this was a time of exploration and she absorbed each new sensation as if she were a student taking in a particularly stimulating lecture. For Hal, Cecily was his joy and to be allowed to demonstrate his love for her in the manner of a true husband made the struggles of his life easier to bear. Cecily made everything easier to bear.
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