The Sumerton Women (38 page)

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Authors: D. L. Bogdan

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical

BOOK: The Sumerton Women
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Mirabella averted her head, sobbing harder.
“If you had been loved and petted as you deserved to be, perhaps that quest would have been undertaken in the right spirit,” Grace went on. “Or perhaps not at all. Who’s to say what choices would have or should have been made when we find ourselves at the crossroads of What If ...” She trailed off, reflecting on her own choices and where they led her. She swallowed a painful onset of tears. “Mirabella, wrongs can never be made right, but that doesn’t mean we cannot do right
now
. For my part, I am here now and I will be here for you as long as you need me.”
“Oh ... oh,
Mother!
” Mirabella cried, throwing herself forward into Grace’s arms.
Grace held her tight, swaying from side to side. “My dear girl,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”
“That is all that is left to us,” Mirabella whimpered into her shoulder. “Regrets and remorse.”
Grace pulled away, cupping Mirabella’s face between her hands. “And forgiveness. This is where it starts, Mirabella, in the midst of sorrow. This is where we begin to let go.”
Mirabella regarded her a long moment, then nodded slowly.
“Forgive ... let go,”
she whispered. “I ... have heard those words before.”
She nuzzled against Grace’s shoulder once more. As Grace stroked her hair she wondered if those things could ever be attained at Sumerton.
 
Cecily stood in the mausoleum alone. She gazed upon the stone effigies of Brey, so young and innocent even in his stone rendering, and of baby Charles, too young for his features to even be captured with accuracy, left to be remembered as any baby, a generality, more of an idea than a life. An effigy of Grace was there, too. Hal had commissioned it when he awaited the recovery of a body that would never be found, not in the way anyone could have ever anticipated.. . .
And Hal, her husband, her first love. In stone his countenance was captured, its kindness, its consistent ability to forgive, to love. Cecily rushed toward the effigy, throwing herself atop its cool stone chest and sobbing as she stroked its face.
“I am lost, Hal,” she confessed. Her voice echoed a lonely remembrance in the darkened room. “I have sinned against you, God knows. You know. But I have endeavored to live right, to honor your memory in my decisions with the children and myself, and even Mirabella and Alec. But now ... now ... please do not ask this of me. Please let her be lying. If it is true then it stands to mock everything we ever held dear and constant. Everything will change, even my memories!”
She raised her head to regard the face as if it would somehow answer her. It remained unchanged.
“The dead are our only constants,” she observed, her voice laden with sadness. “In a world that just keeps moving.” She sighed. “Until I join that realm of constancy, I have but to move with it. Lend me your strength, Hal. Lend me your ability to keep loving and forgiving, no matter the sin. Please.” She squeezed her eyes shut a long moment, willing the prayer to him with all her strength.
Then she rose. And kept moving.
 
Cecily returned to find Grace waiting for her in the bower. She opened her arms and Cecily fled to them, her tears renewed. When she recovered herself, she pulled away.
“It is true, then,” she said, steeling herself for the answer that was in Grace’s nod.
“It is,” Grace said. “And conceived out of another deception, as with anything else in Mirabella’s imagining. She infused his wine with some country concoction to dull his senses, thinking consummating the marriage would hold him. Her punishment is the realization that nothing could hold him. Nothing but God ... and you, of course.”
Cecily bowed her head. The story revealed no surprises to her. Indeed, she found a strange sense of relief in the fact that Alec had not gone to Mirabella of his own free will, for what little comfort that could provide. She wondered what this portended, for nothing could bond a man and woman like a child, even if the bond was not a loving one. It was nonetheless two people tied, made one. Alec and Mirabella ... She bit her lip, shaking her head against the thoughts that played before her mind’s eye against her will. She must resist. She must not think of them ... that way. She never imagined she would have to.
“What are we going to do?” she asked in a whisper, taking Grace’s hand in hers as if the woman held the answer to every mystery of life.
“We are going to end the deceptions once and for all,” Grace told her, her voice firm with resolve. “We are going to summon Alec Cahill home to Sumerton. And Mirabella is going to tell him the truth.”
A novel concept,
Cecily thought, her gut churning in a compound of jealousy and bitterness she longed to ignore. She drew in a shaky breath. “You have sent the summons already, haven’t you?”
“I have,” Grace admitted, wrapping her arm about Cecily’s shoulders and drawing her near. “Because it’s going to end now, all the lies and all the pain. It’s going to end because that is the only way life can begin again.”
Cecily squeezed her eyes shut against the burn of more tears. What had she ever done but begin again? Was not her life the constant transition between beginnings and endings? Her lips twisted into a wry smile. Perhaps that in itself was the constancy she had thought belonged only to the dead.
There was nothing to do but wait, yet another reliability that had accompanied Cecily throughout her life. Now it was to wait for the little one who held everyone’s hopes and fears as one, and, always, always, for Alec.
 
The response from London was without delay.
“No?” Cecily asked the messenger, her eyes widening with bewilderment.
The messenger offered an apologetic shake of his head. “That was all he said, my lady. Just ‘no.’ ”
“He did not even send a handwritten message with you?” Cecily asked, assessing the young man from head to foot as if she could detect a hidden note on his person.
Again, he shook his head, shrugging. “No, my lady. I am sorry.”
Cecily sighed. Her shoulders ached. Her feet ached. She mopped her brow with her handkerchief and sighed. “Go to the kitchens, son,” she told him. “At least be fed for your efforts.”
The messenger’s eyes sparkled at the notion. “My thanks to you, my lady!” he exclaimed as he retreated.
At least someone still finds happiness in simple things,
Cecily reflected, her heart constricting as she made for Mirabella’s chambers; Mirabella rarely left them. If the legitimacy of her pregnancy had been in question, it was no longer. Despite that it was too soon for the quickening, Mirabella retched daily and took to her bed, exhausted more often than not. To Cecily’s good fortune, Grace stayed with Mirabella much of the time. Cecily as yet was unable to remain in Mirabella’s company for any period of length and kept the running of her household and tending of her tenants in the foreground, distracting herself from before sunrise till after dark, when she at last took to her bed. Her solace was found in her work and her sleep; she invested her whole self in both.
Longing for her bed now, she forced herself to enter Mirabella’s suite, finding Grace as always sitting sentinel at her side as the two sewed.
Cecily closed her eyes a moment. Baby garments. They were sewing baby garments. She shook her head. How could she resent this? Had not she passed time in the same manner as she anticipated the births of her own children? Why should waiting for the birth of Mirabella’s child be spent differently? The child would need clothing, after all. Cecily sighed, exasperated with herself.
“Master Cahill sent word through his messenger,” Cecily announced. “And said no. He is not coming back.”
Mirabella’s expression yielded a fusion of relief and despair.
Grace pursed her lips. “Well,” she began in soft tones. “I do not think it appropriate to convey this news in a dispatch. We must find another way to bring him home.”
Mirabella shook her head. “We have time. Perhaps we should just wait it out.”
“Perhaps we should,” Cecily agreed, shocked to share any form of consensus with Mirabella. Both seemed of the same will when it came to avoiding Alec’s reaction to this newest happenstance.
Grace emitted a sigh. “No. He deserves the same amount of time as Mirabella to prepare himself. This is going to be fair, as fair as can be for something very unfair. No surprises, no lies, no deceit,” she reiterated once again. “Consider this our chance for redemption.”
Mirabella lowered her eyes. She drew in a breath as she cast her eyes to the bedside table on which the sandglass from Cecily stood.
“We may have no choice but to convey it somehow,” Mirabella said as she reached a hand out to trace the etchings of the various dates in the mahogany.
Cecily regarded her a long moment, reading her intent. It was not the worst idea, she conceded to herself a bit grudgingly.
“There is something else,” Mirabella said then. “Something else I want him to have.” She raised her eyes to Cecily. “Behind a loose stone in the garden wall by the yellow rosebush, the place where I used to sit with Master Reaves ...” She blinked several times, averting her head. “Master Cahill’s papers are there. Please fetch them. Perhaps then he will know that ... that I mean no harm.”
Cecily nodded to Grace, who quit the room to do Mirabella’s bidding.
Redemption indeed.
24
A
t Lambeth Palace, Alec had at last begun to heal. Though the archbishop was much occupied under the new reign of young King Edward, he always made time for counsel and friendship. Under his gentle guidance, Alec flourished. He devoted many hours to prayer and introspection in the hopes he might find forgiveness and atonement. When he was not imbued in quiet contemplation, however, he was working alongside the archbishop and his panel of learned men from all over the realm on the
Book of Common Prayer,
that which was to serve as the cornerstone of the faith of the Church of England. It was a joyous, frustrating challenge inspiring many a stimulating debate on doctrine and many a devoted hour to study, translating, and writing.
In another word: paradise.
Though Alec was knighted at Easter for his devotion and suffering for the sake of his faith, he could not yet bring himself to take his vows once more and return to the priesthood. Despite Cranmer’s lectures on self-forgiveness and his urgings to join the fold, he could not. Until he found himself truly worthy and at peace with all that came to pass, he would remain Sir Alec Cahill, a secretary and scribe to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an identity he could still at last take pride in.
After Mirabella set him “free,” he endeavored to pray for her without bitterness. She was a lesson, Cranmer had told him. A lesson to be applied to his journey toward God. Ah, but how high the price of such learning! Nonetheless, Alec prayed for her and for all those at Sumerton, all but one. Cecily he could not think of, even so much as in prayer. Not after the night of the young king’s coronation. It seemed that to think of her now after such a sin degraded her. She was sacred, and until he was worthy of things sacred she remained as unattainable as his collar.
And then the summons, expecting his immediate return to Sumerton. He could not bring himself to make a lengthy reply. “No” was enough; indeed, it encompassed everything. He was not a priest, he was no longer the children’s tutor, and he certainly was not Mirabella’s husband (a fact he could not help but thank God for daily). There was no reason to go back. If they were in need of spiritual guidance, he could recommend many a man of the cloth who would happily take on the complexities of Sumerton. He no longer had to.
It was early summer when he received the package from a messenger of Sumerton. Exasperated, he opened the plain wooden box to reveal the sandglass Cecily had bestowed upon him and Mirabella at their farcical “wedding” feast. He sighed as he scanned the dates, wondering why the women of the place he once considered his fondest home had the need to send him something so cryptic.
A fresh etching caught his eye.
20th February
. King Edward’s coronation day. He swallowed. Of course it would not mark that event but the moment he fell deeper into sin with Mirabella. He resisted the urge to smash the sandglass against the opposite wall of his small quarters. Drawing in a breath, he set the sandglass on his writing table and reached back into the box, where, to his shock, he found papers. Not a random missive these, but his own private papers that Mirabella had confiscated and threatened to sentence him to death with. All of them, every word, bound, protected, and intact.
He looked, mystified, from the papers to the sandglass, then retrieved the heavy timekeeper to gaze upon it once more.
She had set him free and returned his papers. Why? Were her motives pure at last or was this simply a subtler torture device?
He squinted as his fingertips found a much fainter etching in the mahogany.
It read simply:
November
. No specific date.
Alec’s heart began to pound as he looked from
20th February
to the lightly carved
November
beside it. Almost against his will, he counted the months. He began to shake his head, his breathing coming in rapid spurts. No ... No ...
Mirabella could not have devised a better instrument of agony had she commissioned it from the Spanish Grand Inquisitor himself. Yet ... was it? Momentary hope surged through him. It could be another lie, another machination to bind him to her. He could pray. The truth would be revealed one way or another.
There could be no avoiding it. He would return to Sumerton.
In November.
 
The baby had quickened. Life stirred within Mirabella’s womb, kicking, stretching, and making its presence known, dispelling completely any remaining doubts as to her condition. Sumerton passed a hot summer that set Mirabella into fits of sweats that caused her to throw her blankets aside in a fit of irritation and bathe her face with cool water to evade the effects of the heat. Relief was found when September yielded itself to a crisp October. As her belly grew, the baby grew more active. Grace insisted it must be a girl, for Mirabella carried high. Cecily, though she remained uninvolved in the day to day of Mirabella’s progress, conceded the point, admitting that she had carried both Kristina and Emmy so high that she suffered great discomfort when she was kicked in the ribs. It mattered not to Mirabella the child’s sex as long as she could give birth, and soon. She hated every minute of her pregnancy and found little consolation in the vibrancy of the life within. The sooner she was delivered, the sooner she could begin her life anew.
As it stood, Mirabella’s life was immobilized. She could not bring herself to rise from her bed. She lay, rubbing her swelling belly and thinking, always, of the past. The missed opportunities and the opportunities stolen from others. Now she was an unwanted resident of Sumerton, kept out of obligation, nothing more. Despite whatever Grace believed about redemption, there was no rectifying what she had done. There was no asking forgiveness. Yet were rectification and forgiveness truly necessary? As yet she was unsure if she was sorry. Did she regret her moment with Alec, the moment that inspired life to renew itself within her? Did she regret saving his life, no matter that he wasted it on the New Learning? Indeed, his life would have been put in jeopardy. She may have rushed that process, but in doing so she removed him from suspicion. She supposed it had worked in his favor, considering the exalted position he held in his beloved archbishop’s household.
If she had only been let alone years before, it all could have been avoided. If she had been allowed to remain at the convent to practice her faith as she chose, to devote her life to study and oneness with the God of the True Faith. If she had been allowed that, life would not have come to pass as it did. It was the fault of the king, the mad King Henry. Him and that devil Cromwell, may the demons devour his soul! Archbishop Cranmer could not be excluded from blame, nor even could Father Alec himself. Nor could her own family, whose betrayals and deception spurred her toward the calling that was forever denied her.
She was blameless.
For the hurt she caused in response to the hurt inflicted she
had
made reparation. She freed Alec. She respected Cecily and made peace with Grace. She wrote lighthearted letters to Harry and Kristina and devoted hours each day to baby Emmy. She had set things right.
As to this baby, she had not intended it. The act that conceived the child had been her last feeble attempt at making their marriage real. It had been in vain, all of it. She couldn’t hold him with her love; she did not expect the baby to make any difference. If he had hated her before, this would serve to further drive the spikes of his resentment through her palms. There was naught to be done now but tell him the truth, as Grace instructed. His reaction she neither anticipated nor despaired over. Regardless, she planned to remove to France as soon as she was well enough to travel upon its delivery. There she would seek refuge with some of her other exiled sisters. The child would be her gift to the Church, the true and only Church, and would be groomed for Holy Orders no matter the sex. It was the greatest offering she could think of to demonstrate her love for the Lord and her sincere desire to attain forgiveness for her sins real and imagined.
Hope surged through her. She would get through this. She would endure and, in the end, be happier than any at Sumerton.
She may have lost her cause with England, but what of that? England was only a small part of God’s great world, as irrelevant to His will as a candle’s extinguished flame. Its light would be doused from her life forever, replaced with the flaming torch of the higher purpose she had been meant for all along... .
 
“My lady ...”
The whisper cut through the fitful slumber Cecily had slipped into at her writing table. She found herself roused by a gentle hand on her shoulder and realized she had fallen asleep before her ledgers, her head resting on her folded arms. Embarrassed, she recovered herself and met the owner of the voice.
“Lady Grace,” Cecily began with a smile. “I did not know I slept.”
Grace offered an apologetic smile. “I am sorry to have woken you,” she said. She drew in a breath. “I have come to tell you that Master Cahill ... Alec ... he is here.”
Cecily’s face tingled. “He waited long enough,” she said in hard tones. Her breathing quickened with her heartbeat. She brought a hand to her cheek and swallowed, bowing her head. “Strange how Mirabella’s was the summons he obeyed, even if it was a bit delayed.” She bit her lip, averting her head. “I do not know why it is strange. They were married. They are having a child. I ... don’t ... know ... why ... it’s ... strange—” she began to gasp as she dissolved into sobs.
Grace rounded the writing table to take Cecily in her arms. “My darling, you know the marriage and the child were all under the harshest of circumstances,” she told her as she rubbed her back. “Now, now. Be strong. You have been strong all of your life. You grieved when it was time to grieve and put grief aside when it was time to work for the interests of yourself and those in your life.” She drew back, tipping Cecily’s chin up with a fingertip. She nodded with a smile. “Keep being strong, dear heart. Everything you need is inside of you.”
Cecily’s lips quivered as she found a foothold in composure. She drew in a quavering breath and nodded her assent, knowing that she was putting her trust utterly in Grace’s confidence in her strength, for she was desperately short of it for herself.
Cecily reached out, squeezing Grace’s hand. “I cannot see him just now,” Cecily told her. “Please. Let me gather this strength you so believe me capable of for a time before ... before I face him.”
Grace cupped her cheek in one hand, brushing aside the rose-gold hair that had strayed from beneath Cecily’s hood. “Do what you must, my dear,” she said, leaning in to place a kiss on her forehead.
As Grace quit the room Cecily wondered what it was she could do to recover herself and to face all that must be faced, praying all the while she could avoid the inevitable for any amount of time God was generous enough to allot.
God, in your divine mercy,
Cecily begged,
remember us
.
Be kind
.
 
Grace found Alec lingering in the great hall near one of the trestle tables, his hand tracing idle patterns on the wood surface, his expression wistful. Upon seeing her, his hazel eyes swam with tears. Grace blinked rapidly. He was a handsome man, though the year’s events had aged him considerably, streaking his fine chestnut hair silver, creasing his gentle face with a subtle patchwork of lines. Grace approached him, taking his hand.
“I am Mrs. Forest,” she told him in hushed tones, offering her sardonic smile. “I am a lady-in-waiting to the Countess of Sumerton.”
Alec nodded in understanding. His lips trembled. Grace took his hand.
“Come, my old friend,” she beckoned, and together they made for the place she sensed he dreaded most: Mirabella’s apartments.
“We have witnessed much at Sumerton,” she observed as they navigated the maze of hallways that led to their destination. She looped her arm through his, squeezing his hand. “And if it has taught us anything, that which we have found to be the hardest is that fate is crueler than God.” She stopped walking; they stood before the door, the ominous door that seemed to hold the fate of Sumerton behind it. “God is forgiveness, light, and love. Fate is immune to the railings of man; his cries for mercy, vengeance, and justice fall upon ears that are far worse than deaf. They are”—she fixed him with a hard gaze—“uninterested.” She rested her hands on Alec’s shoulders. “To ensure yourself the benevolence of one you must have the favor of the other. Pray God might command a gentler fate to those who love Him.”
Alec drew in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut a long moment.
Then opened the door.
 
Alec found Mirabella abed. She lay there, her dark locks flowing around her shoulders in thick waves, pale and drawn beneath her olive complexion. Bluish circles surrounded green eyes that had lost their once luminous luster. Upon seeing him they filled with tears she blinked away.
Alec edged forward. “So,” he began, his heart pounding. He did not know how to proceed, what to say. What was there to say? What was there to do? He sat in the chair that had been positioned near the head of the bed. “Are you well?”
Mirabella bowed her head. “I am tired. I am in pain often,” she admitted in soft tones before raising her eyes to him once more. “But I will survive as so many others before me have.” She sighed. “I am glad you came, Alec.” She reached out, taking his hand in hers. He could not will himself to respond to the touch. His hand lay limp in hers.

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