CHAPTER FOUR

Clare de Montany

My eyes opened, and I lay still. All was quiet. I raised myself on one elbow. Mary and Beth had crept out of bed and gone to play, but Therese was still asleep, buried deep under her covers. Cecily was still asleep too, curled up with her cheek pillowed on her hand, her long, dark eyelashes resting on her soft pink cheek.

Cecily looked delightful when she was asleep. Her mouth was like a little rosebud, and her curls spread on the pillow. She was a picture of vulnerable innocence. No one could have guessed, looking at her now, what utter weariness my parents’ faces wore after a morning of Cecily’s company. Daddy said she was like a natural disaster, a mysterious act of God which we could only suffer patiently and pray for strength to endure. She was only two, but Mother said she felt as though she’d aged more in those two years than in all the other thirty-eight years of her life put together. From the moment those great, china-blue eyes opened in the morning, Cecily was in conflict with the world, fighting her way forward with a dauntless spirit, a will of iron and an earsplitting voice.

I lay down again cautiously. I did not want to wake her up. Today was Sunday, nearly the best part of the week. The best part was waking up on Saturday morning to the realisation that the whole weekend lay before me. No school for two whole days. Freedom. But Sunday was quite good: half the weekend left, anyway. Any minute now the house would erupt into chaos as Daddy tried to get everyone ready for church, tried to find the little ones’ socks and cardigans, tried to convince Mother that ten more minutes in bed was ten minutes too long, and finally lost his temper with everyone.

It was the same every Sunday. Our family would arrive at church, still slightly breathless, Mother looking deceptively serene and composed as she swept up the aisle in her voluminous skirt, finding the first hymn for the little ones just in time to sing the last verse. Nobody could have imagined, to look at her, the terrible virago of twenty minutes ago, whose eyes flashed fire and whose tongue lashed us all, who had snatched up a bellowing Cecily, and dumped her unceremoniously into the car.

It was the same this Sunday. Mother took our hymnbooks from the sidesman at the door, flashing him her radiant and disarming smile, and then sailed up the aisle to our pew, with us children trailing behind her, and Daddy bringing up the rear with Cecily clinging round his neck, still hiccupping and sniffing, her tragic face peeping over his shoulder.

It is a curious thing how an hour in the swimming pool, or an hour in the theatre, is gone in five minutes, whereas an hour in church on a Sunday morning seems to drag on for eternity. The worst part of all was always Father Bennett’s sermon. Never in the history of mankind had one man been able to make fifteen minutes seem so long, of that I was sure. Daddy said the trouble was he had nothing to say, but he loved saying it.

He stood up now in the pulpit and closed his eyes. Daddy gave Cecily a jelly-baby and a book about farm animals to keep her quiet.

‘May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight,’ boomed Father Bennett, ‘O Lord, my Redeemer and my Rock.’

He opened his eyes, and gripping the edge of the pulpit, looked down on us. ‘Simon, son of Jonah,’ he announced, taking his text from the reading we had just heard, ‘you are a happy man.’ He allowed his gaze to sweep slowly round the congregation. ‘And why was he a happy man? Not because he was especially rich, because he was not. Not because he was especially well educated, because he was not. Not because he was especially important, because he was not. Yet our Lord said to him, “Simon, son of Jonah, you”,’ (here he stabbed his index finger forcefully at an imaginary figure standing a few feet in front of him, suspended in mid-air above the heads of the congregation) “—are a happy man.”

I glanced at Mother. Her mouth was twitching slightly, but she sat upright in her seat, and her eyes did not waver from the preacher’s face. I looked across at Daddy. He was smiling encouragingly at Cecily, slipping her another jelly-baby, a green one because that was her favourite, and silently mouthing ‘Moo! Moo!’ and ‘Baa! Baa!’ at her, as she showed him the pictures in her book.

Beth was looking at the pictures in the children’s service book, and Mary was watching the little jewel-coloured pools of light that freckled the pew as the morning sunshine streamed through the stained-glass window. Therese was looking at the congregation with her eyes slightly crossed to see if she could see two of everybody.

I sighed. Father Bennett was well launched into his dissertation on the exact source of the happiness of Simon Bar-Jonah. I looked at the war-memorial plaque, with its painted relief of a golden sword stuck through a coiled red dragon, and read through all the names written there. Daddy had told me, when I was only seven, that the list of names referred to all those who had died in the services, and added that I need have no cause for anxiety since they had all been men.

I looked at the flowers, gladioli and carnations and roses, that stood in front of the pulpit. They were quivering slightly from Father Bennett’s emphatic thumps on the pulpit desk. I looked up at him with curiosity. He didn’t mind kneeling down in the church service, to confess his sins to God. I tried to picture him kneeling in front of Daddy, saying, ‘I humbly confess that I have bored you with tedious sermons, and made God seem very small and far away like looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.’ I tried to imagine him kneeling before Stan Birkett, the dustman—a small, weary, disillusioned man—saying, ‘I humbly confess that you wanted me to be your friend, but I would only be your vicar….’ No, it didn’t fit. And yet, he didn’t mind kneeling down to God. Unless… perhaps he wasn’t sure God was there at all?

Just now he was beaming at his congregation with a confident smile, saying: ‘… and assuredly, as we confess the divinity and supremacy of our blessed Lord, we too can rejoice in his promise of blessedness, and lay hold of that coveted commendation, “Simon, son of Jonah, you are a happy man!” In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen; Hymn 452, “Oh Happy band of pilgrims, if onward ye will tread”. Hymn 452.’

‘We are a happy lot this morning,’ murmured Mother cynically, as she picked up her book. The congregation sang boisterously: the hymn following the sermon always had the holiday air of young cows let out to frolic in the grass after a long winter spent cooped up in a barn. We roared the words:

 

The trials that beset you,

The sorrows ye endure,

The manifold temptations

That death alone can cure—

What are they but his jewels

Of right celestial worth?

What are they but the ladder,

Set up to heaven on earth?

 

Mother looked down at me and smiled. ‘Peregrine,’ she said softly, and I smiled back; but at the time, I didn’t understand what she meant.

Then came the long, long prayers. Pages and pages of them. Cecily never made it through to Communion but always had to be taken out at some point, because she insisted on banging her foot loudly on the pew, or imitating the cries of the seagulls outside. This morning, she was removed halfway through the prayers of intercession, hysterical with rage because the last green jelly-baby had gone. If I listened carefully, I could hear Daddy playing ‘to market, to market to buy a fat pig’ with her, outside in the porch, but I forced myself to concentrate as Father Bennett’s voice droned on.

‘This is my body, which is given for you,’ he intoned. I wrestled with the thought. How could he speak about it like that? What had it to do with us? A man, so long ago, beaten, dirty, exhausted; his face streaked with tears and blood and spit; pinned to a cross with nails through his hands and feet. What had it to do with us? The compelling defencelessness of his courage and his vulnerable love had, so far as I could see, left us unmoved. Father Bennett, whom Daddy described as a fatuous twit, had nothing anywhere about him that reminded me of the struggle and self-abandonment of Jesus. When it came to it, nor did I.

‘Draw near with faith…’ boomed Father Bennett, and I got up from my knees and sat waiting until Mother stood up and we all followed her into the Communion queue. Therese had been confirmed two years ago, and I had been confirmed last autumn, but Mary and Beth were too young to receive the bread and wine, and instead Father Bennett laid his hands on their heads and blessed them.

We knelt in a row at the altar rail; first Therese, then Mary, then Mother, then Beth, then me, and I held out my hands to receive the Communion wafer.

‘The body of Christ, broken for you,’ said Father Bennett, as he pressed the white, translucent wafer, with the little imprint of a crucifix on it, into my hand.

‘Amen,’ I said, and as I tried to swallow the dry, tasteless thing before old Father Carnforth got to me with the wine, I asked myself, ‘How? How is it the body of Christ? What has happened to his hurting, his smile, his hands, his sore, dusty feet?’

‘The blood of Jesus, shed for you,’ said Father Carnforth in his aged, asthmatic wheeze, and I took the chalice and sipped the deep red, rich velvety wine. The delicious, intoxicating taste of it spread round my mouth, fiery and sweet. That seemed a bit more like Jesus.

I got to my feet and walked back to our pew, hands folded and eyes downcast, as Mother had taught me. In the silence before the prayers which ended the service, while the rest of the people took Communion, and then Father Bennett consumed the remains of the wine and washed and dried the chalice, I abandoned my questioning and played a whispered game of ‘I Spy’ with Beth.

At last it was time for the final prayers. I was itching to be out in the sunlight, and feeling light-headed with hunger.

We sang our last hymn with gusto, during which Daddy judged there was enough noise going on for it to be safe to re-admit Cecily, and then it was over.

We all shook hands with Father Bennett and said what a lovely morning it was, as we left, except Cecily who refused even to look at him; and then we went home to a huge dinner of roast lamb and new potatoes and greens, with apple pie and cream to follow.

After lunch, Cecily went up to bed for a rest, and Therese took Mary and Beth out to the park.

‘I’ll come and help you in a minute!’ I called to Daddy. I could hear him beginning to tackle the huge pile of washing-up in the kitchen.

Mother was in the living-room, curled up in the corner of the sofa, sipping her coffee. I sat down beside her.

‘Tell me a story,’ I begged.

‘Oh, goodness,’ she said, ‘my brain’s full of dinner, I can’t think!’ But she had that faraway, meditative, remembering look on her face, and I waited hopefully.

‘About Peregrine?’ she said.

‘Yes, please!’

She sipped at her coffee again, and then cupped her hands round the rough pottery as she thought.

Then she began her story.

The Benedictine Rule laid down that guests of the abbey, who were to be received with honour and courtesy, especially pilgrims and the poor, should always dine with the abbot. Father Peregrine found this duty particularly trying, because the awkwardness of his hands made it difficult for him to eat in the refined and tidy way such occasions demanded of him. He found the effort of concentrating on preventing his hands from letting him down, while at the same time sustaining an intelligent and witty conversation, extremely tiring. In addition, he had to try to finish his dinner at the same time as his guests finished theirs, so as to avoid a ghastly ten minutes of silence while his fascinated guests watched him struggle with the remains of his food. The mere thought of entertaining guests gave him a headache. In the end, he hit upon the plan of going into the kitchens before the meal, where Brother Andrew would give him a plate of food to stave off hunger; then he could be served a minute portion of dinner when he sat to eat with guests of the abbey. This alleviated his difficulties considerably, though he was embarrassed by the way his guests looked with alarm at the pathetic amount of food on his plate, and could later be overheard by the brothers, commenting on what a holy and self-denying man the abbot was.

It was a day of bitter cold and wind, towards the end of February. It had been raining for nearly a week and the light was weak and grey even at midday, and almost dark by late afternoon, when Father Peregrine was sitting in the infirmary with Brother Edward, who was working on Peregrine’s hands with his aromatic oils. It was a good place to be, on a day like this, because the infirmary was one of the few places in the abbey which was always kept warm, and today a brazier of charcoal glowed comfortably in the room where they sat.

Brother Francis was sent to them with word from the porter that a family had arrived at the abbey requesting hospitality and a bed for the night.

‘Father Chad has received them, and is seeing to their comfort. He says he will bring them to your lodging to dine after Vespers. It is a lady with her daughter and two sons, all of them between eighteen and twenty-five years of age as I judge, travelling to Iona on pilgrimage for the Easter Feast. Besides these are their servants; a groom and a lady’s maid.’

‘Thank you, brother. Did you enquire the name of the family?’

‘Oh, forgive me, Father. I forgot. Father Chad saw to them straight away, I had no conversation with them.’

Francis left them, and Uncle Edward put away his vials of essential oils; near the brazier he placed the bowl which held the remains of the mixture of almond oil and essential oils he had been using, that it might slowly evaporate in the warmth, scenting and disinfecting the room.

‘Terrible weather for a party on pilgrimage,’ he commented.

‘It is indeed. Iona is a long way in this foul rain. Still, they have a night to rest and be refreshed. Join us for dinner, Edward,’ said Father Peregrine. ‘You have more of a gift for conversation than I.’

‘Is that a compliment, Father, or a back-handed insult?’

Peregrine grinned at him. ‘As you will,’ he answered. ‘Now I must go to Brother Andrew and beg some bread, for I shall be fasting more or less if we have guests tonight, and what we ate at midday was nothing to compose poetry about. Thank you for your ministrations, Brother. My hands ache, this raw, wet weather. You have eased them indeed.’

Resigned to a difficult evening meal, Father Peregrine took refuge in the kitchens, where Brother Michael was kneading a huge mound of dough. Quiet and friendly, he was a welcome alternative to the irascible Brother Andrew. He heard Peregrine’s request with a smile, and found him a hunk of bread, some cheese and an apple, which Peregrine retired to a corner to eat. The kitchen staff had no leisure to watch him, and in any case were not fussy about table manners, and he ate the food gratefully and peacefully, then made his way to chapel for Vespers.

It was gloomy in the chapel, on such an evening. A few candles flickered, but in the damp air their iridescent haloes seemed to hover close to the flame, and they scarcely illuminated the dimness. Peregrine could vaguely discern figures in the abbey church, on the other side of the parish altar, but could not tell whether they would be his guests, or the usual worshippers from the village, some of whom attended Vespers as well as the morning Mass.

‘Magnificat, anima mea Dominum,’ Brother Gilbert’s voice lifted in the lovely chant.

‘Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo,’ responded the brothers. ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my saviour.’

‘It’s true,’ thought Peregrine, with some surprise. ‘After all the struggle of the early years, I am content now. I love this place, and these brothers committed to my charge. I am content.’ He gave his mind to the chant again, which he had been singing without thinking, both words and tune being as familiar as his own skin.

‘Gloria Patri et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto …’

After Vespers, as the brothers dispersed, Father Chad came round the parish altar to find the visiting family, as they sat in the gathering shadows. He led them out into the courtyard, to follow Peregrine, who was crossing to his house in the persistent drizzle.

‘Our lord abbot,’ said Father Chad, seeing the eyes of the mother of the family watching Peregrine’s awkward progress across the court.

‘A crippled man?’ she said in surprise. ‘There must be few so afflicted who rise to become abbot of a community. He must be an extraordinary man.’

‘He was not always as you see him now,’ Father Chad replied, ‘but he is an extraordinary man.’

They followed him into the abbot’s house, and found him standing with Brother Edward before a bright fire of seasoned apple logs. The abbot’s house was built with a hearth and a chimney, so that a fire might be lit to warm and cheer the guests of the abbey, though Peregrine virtually never lit it on his own account, except in the bitterest of the winter weather, when his hands, too cramped and inflexible to write well at the best of times, refused to function at all in the cold.

It was almost dark now, outside, but here the fire burned cheerily, and candles shone with a warm, soft light. The pilgrims came in gladly from the cold, and Father Chad introduced them to his superior. ‘Madame de Montany and her family, Father,’ he said, but Peregrine was standing staring at her, speechless, frozen to the spot.

‘Clare!’ he exlaimed at last.

She, too, as she saw his face, gasped with surprise and stood still.

‘How came you here?’ she said now. ‘I had no idea…’

As a young boy, Peregrine du Fayel and his two older brothers had been brought up on their father Henri’s manor under the wide, wild skies of the fenlands near Ely. Their neighbour, Robert de Montany, also a Norman knight, was a big kindly man, married to a gentle and sweet-tempered wife, Eloise. He had a son, Hugh, born within a week of Peregrine’s birth, and a younger daughter, Louise.

On the other side of du Fayel’s boundaries lay the lands of the van Moeck family, Dutch aristocracy who had settled in England on land they had inherited. They felt at home there, in the flat, wet lands under the great, luminous sky. Pieter and Gerda van Moeck had two daughters, Anne and Clare.

The children of the three households grew up together, played together as infants, rode and hunted and dined together as young people, and were all friends. Privileged young things, shielded from life’s hardships, with tolerant and indulgent parents all, the world was their plaything, and they enjoyed life to the full.

When he was twenty-five years old, and she twenty-four, Geoffroi du Fayel, Peregrine’s oldest brother, was betrothed to Anne van Moeck. They married and settled in a manor farm given to them by Pieter van Moeck, Anne’s father, on the edge of the du Fayel lands, and from there Geoffroi took charge of the farm management of his own land, and most of his father’s too. Gerda van Moeck and Melissa du Fayel, having spent the last five years discreetly engineering the match, sat back complacently to await the arrival of grandchildren, at the same time having an eye to any possible developments among their remaining offspring.

Emmanuel, the next of the du Fayel brothers, dark and quick-tempered, was by nature well adapted to bloodshed, and he took up arms in the king’s service, and went away to kill as many enemies of the Crown as he could lay his hands on.

Left together, Peregrine and Hugh lived the easy lives of young noblemen, more play than work, and devoted their time to hunting and breeding horses and training falcons. Louise de Montany, a docile, home-loving body, they had little to do with, and Clare van Moeck, the youngest of them all, they tolerated and teased as a little sister, until the day of her sixteenth birthday, which was 17th March 1283.

On that day, her parents gave a banquet for her, at which all three households gathered. Anne and Geoffroi, five years married now, were there with Pierre, their four-year-old son, and their tiny, toothless, hairless scrap of a daughter, but six weeks into the world. Emmanuel was still away, but the rest of the family was assembled.

In the solar, during the hour before they dined, Gerda van Moeck was working at her embroidery in the pale, bright sunshine that streamed through the window. Hugh and Peregrine had ridden out together, ahead of their families, partly because Hugh wanted to show off the merits of his newly acquired horse to his friend.

In age, the two young men were the same, but in every other way they were different, and Gerda van Moeck, plump and kindly, sat with her embroidery forgotten in her lap for the moment, watching them with amusement.

Hugh, big-boned, blond and gentle, with a deep voice and a hearty, generous laugh, was extolling the virtues of his new mount to Peregrine. Everything about Hugh was open, ingenuous and relaxed. Peregrine, by contrast, had a gathered, flame-like intensity about him, and the watchful, fierce expression of the falcon he was named for. Just now, his face was lit with laughter as he teased his friend, mocking him for losing his heart and his wits with it, to a mere horse.

The door of the solar opened, and Clare van Moeck shyly made her entrance, in her new dress which was her mother’s birthday present to her. It was a simple gown of delphinium blue, which gave her blue eyes the depth and clarity of jewels. Her mane of rich brown hair was gathered up in a gold net, and she stood within the doorway, her lips slightly parted and her cheeks a little flushed, graceful and shy in her finery. Both young men turned their heads at the same moment and saw her, and she was utterly beautiful. From that moment, and for the rest of his life, Hugh de Montany worshipped her. But as she stood a little self-consciously before their arrested gaze, it was Peregrine’s eyes she sought; and reading there the candid admiration she had hoped to find, her own eyes exulted. Clare van Moeck had grown into a woman, and Peregrine du Fayel wanted her.

Gerda noted with satisfaction the impact her daughter had made. Two fish on the hook; it was well. Both the banquet and the dress had proved worth the trouble.

From that day, and through the spring and summer of the year, Peregrine and Clare were more and more together. They rode and walked and talked together, having eyes only for each other. Late in the September of the year, as summer slid into autumn, there was a day when Clare stood laughing in the russet woodland and her glorious rich brown hair fell about the green gown she wore. She looked for all the world like a dryad of the autumn woods, and Peregrine took her in his arms and kissed her. Her heart triumphed. She had won him. He was hers.

With approval, their families watched their young love blossom. Another such union between the households was welcome to both the du Fayels and the van Moecks. Hugh de Montany alone could not be glad, but he kept his heartache private, continuing a steadfast friend to them both.

It was in the spring of the following year, when Clare was just seventeen, and Peregrine was twenty-four, that all this came to an end. For some little while now, the two of them had gone further in their love than they should and, bedded in the fragrant bluebells in the woodland, or nestled in the warm-scented hay in the great barns of Pieter van Moeck’s farm, they had lain together as lovers, wrapped in Peregrine’s cloak, lost in each other and consumed in the ardour of their love.

But somehow, unexpectedly, irresistibly, came the call of God on Peregrine’s soul. In the end there came a day when he held Clare in his arms and kissed her, and his face was sad but resolute as he told her his decision.

‘Clare, what we have done is sin. What is between us should have been saved for marriage. I have confessed it, for my part, to the priest, and I ask your pardon too.’

Dumbly, bewildered, she shook her head and held him close; held him fiercely as she felt in her heart that for some reason she could not understand, he was no longer hers.

‘I have to leave you, my lady, my love, my heart.’ He looked down at her blue eyes brimming with tears, and kissed her brow, her eyes, her cheeks, her hair; then put her away from him with a sudden, rough gesture.

‘I am going to enter as a brother at St Peter’s Abbey,’ he said abruptly.

‘A monk! You?’ exclaimed Clare, her amazement for a moment overcoming even her sorrow. He looked at her, and she could not read the expression in his eyes, she who had thought she knew him like her own soul.

‘Yes. Me,’ he said simply.

He tried to explain to her later the burning of his vocation, the passionate longing which is greater than the love between man and woman, with which his soul cried out for God. She did not understand, and she wept, but she did not try to dissuade him. Neither did his disappointed and astonished parents attempt to argue with him—they had given that up when he was two years old. He was received into the community of brothers at the abbey of St Peter, near Ely, at the end of May in the year 1284, and Clare van Moeck never saw him again.

Until today.

Brother Edward was as surprised to see Clare as Peregrine was. He had known her well as a little girl, and even during his days of itinerant preaching with the Franciscans, he had been a frequent visitor to all three households. He had watched the offspring of the three families grow up through childhood and lost touch with them only when his wanderings took him as far away as the North Riding of Yorkshire, where he had finally settled.

He glanced at Peregrine, and seeing him momentarily incapable of speech, stepped forward with a welcoming smile to greet Clare.

‘What a happy surprise, my dear! How the years have flown since last we met—and you are no whit less beautiful!’

‘Madame de Montany,’ broke in Peregrine. ‘Then you married Hugh.’ He had gathered his senses enough to smile at her. ‘And these are Hugh’s sons, yes, I see they are. The image of their father.’

‘Hugh, and Edwin,’ said Clare. ‘And this is Melissa, my daughter—my first-born,’ she added softly, with a slight tremble in her voice.

‘Oh, forgive me,’ said Peregrine, who had overlooked the young woman standing in the shadows at the back of the group. His words died on his lips, and his eyes widened as she stepped forward, looking at him out of intense, direct, dark grey eyes, set above a nose like a hawk’s beak, a resolute mouth and a determined chin. It was like looking into a mirror.

‘I am pleased to meet you, Father,’ she said at last, and he held out his hand to her, like a man dreaming.

‘Daughter, you are welcome,’ he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Clare held her breath as she watched Melissa take the scarred, twisted hand tenderly in both her own. What had happened to him? Melissa’s hands were as his had been, scholar’s hands, long and graceful; and they closed round his hand now, and released it again.

‘I did not know,’ he said, stating the obvious, looking from Melissa to Clare, and back again. ‘I did not know. But come,’ he recollected himself, ‘sit down and eat. You must be hungry.’

From childhood Melissa had known the story of her father, and she well knew Henri du Fayel, Peregrine’s father, whom he strongly resembled. As Melissa was so like the du Fayels, and apart from the mass of her brown hair she was so unlike either Hugh or Clare, there had seemed no point in keeping the story from her. Both Clare and Hugh had the generosity to portray her father to his little girl as a man irresistibly called by God, not as a lover who had used and abandoned his mistress. Now, the man she had wondered about all her life sat before her, and she could not take her eyes off him.

Clare, too, watched the man she had loved, and she wondered at the savage scar on his face, and her heart was wrenched with pity at his lameness, and the awkward fumbling of his hands. She watched the young brother, who waited on them at table, place the abbot’s food before him, already cut up, as a mother might give cut food to a child too young to manage on his own. At the sight of that plate of food, the words of astonishment were out of her mouth before she could restrain them: ‘Is that all you eat?’

She spoke with the forthright familiarity of an old friend, and one who had seen her lover many times come in from hunting, to devour a huge plate of food with the single-mindedness of an unusually fastidious wolf.

Her words broke the tension that bound the whole group, and Peregrine laughed. ‘No,’ he said smiling, ‘but it is not easy for me to eat with guests, Clare, because of my hands.’

‘What happened?’ she asked, gently; and he told them, briefly, factually, and without emotion, how he came to be so maimed.

‘I remember the man, and his sons,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘I remember the day he was taken away, and how he struggled and fought. It was awful. And this happened to you two years ago, you say?’

‘Three years at Easter. I am used to it now.’ These words were clearly intended to close the subject, and the talk was turned to old friends and family, and remembered places.

‘Melissa is to be married this summer,’ said Clare. ‘She is betrothed to Ranulf Langlon—do you remember the family? They are wool merchants from Thaxted. Ranulf is a fine young man.’

‘You are… twenty-five years old, this autumn it must be,’ Peregrine said to Melissa. ‘You have waited a while, then, to make your choice?’

‘Mother always counselled me to wait for a man I felt I could really love,’ replied Melissa. ‘She says a marriage where one does not love would be a weary business.’

Peregrine glanced sharply at Clare, and she met his look steadily. ‘Would you not think so?’ she said.

‘I think,’ replied Peregrine carefully, ‘that as the years go by, the same love would enrich any marriage as the love which builds and enriches a community of celibate monks; and that is the love which is pledged to lay down its own wants and preferences for the sake of the other. The marriage that was built on natural affection, and had nothing of such love would, in the end, sour, however promising its beginning, I think.’

Clare’s son laughed. ‘But you are not recommending, sir, that one should marry regardless of inclination or affection, unless one has to? That would seem noble, but not entirely sensible.’

Peregrine smiled at him: ‘Edwin, heaven help me, I am a monk. It is not for me to advance opinions on marriage! All I am saying is that between any people, if their love has not that Christ-like quality of humble service, then neither is it built to last forever.’

‘Of course,’ said Clare, ‘even where your heart is given to love and to serve, it does not always follow that the one you love will be true to you, or to his own protestations of love. Men change, and love given does not guarantee love returned.’

Peregrine dropped his gaze before her, his face ashamed.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I know.’ He was silent.

‘So you are travelling to Iona,’ remarked Edward cheerfully. ‘A beautiful place. Would that I could celebrate the Easter feast there with you. But you have chosen rough weather for your journey.’

Young Hugh laughed; a laugh so like his father’s that Peregrine looked up, startled; it was as though his old friend sat there with them in the person of his son.

‘Brother, we do not choose our weather,’ said the young man. ‘Pray for us, and the one who sends the rain may relent a little!’

They talked a while longer, over the remains of their meal, and then it was time for the brothers to go to Compline, the day’s last office, after which the monastery was folded into the Great Silence, and no conversation at all was permitted until the following day.

The pilgrims meant to rise early in the morning and be ready to depart as soon as they had heard Mass, so Edwin, Hugh and Melissa returned to the guest house, taking the chance to retire early and rest in preparation for their journey. Clare said she would come to Compline first, and then join them. Father Chad and Brother Edward went with the young people to the guest house to see that all they needed had been prepared for them. Peregrine set off directly to the church, it taking him a little longer than the others to make his way there; and Clare walked with him, suiting her pace to his slow and laborious progress.

‘Why did you never tell me?’ he said.

‘Because you would have married me,’ she responded sadly, ‘and I couldn’t bear to live my life as your second best, your dutiful choice. I kept it a secret until it could be kept a secret no longer, and by then you were clothed, and had taken your vows as a novice, and it was too late. I made them promise not to tell you.’

‘So you married Hugh.’

‘He offered immediately, to save me from shame.’

‘And two fine sons he has given you. You have found him a good husband, I think.’

‘Oh yes, he has been to me all that a husband should be,’ she said softly, ‘but you—’

‘Clare, don’t say it!’ he cried, harshly.

‘I have Melissa always to remind me. Every turn of her head and gesture of her hands is yours. That spring… how could I forget?’

He flashed her one glance and then looked away. ‘Neither have I forgotten,’ he said quietly, ‘and it does me no good, and does nothing for my peace of mind, to remember.’

They parted outside the great black bulk of the abbey church, he to take his place among the community, and she to go into the church, where visitors and parishioners sat, divided by the wooden screen and the parish altar from the brethren. She watched him go, lame and jerky on his crutch. He did not look back.

The de Montanys were ready to depart the next morning. They attended Mass in the abbey church, and made ready their horses with saddle and pack while the brothers were in chapter. By the time chapter was over, Hugh and Edwin and Clare’s maid were mounted, and their groom stood holding the bridles of Clare’s and Melissa’s horses as well as his own. Edward came across the court to them, to bid them farewell, and Clare, after a little hesitation, went to find Peregrine in his lodging, hurt that he had not come to say goodbye.

‘The time has come. We must leave,’ she said. He stood and looked at her without speaking.

‘Will you give me the kiss of peace?’

Slowly, he shook his head. ‘I wish you peace, Clare, with all my heart; but embrace you I will not.’

‘Then shake my hand, at least,’ she said, her voice trembling.

‘No, Clare! Do not ask me to touch you. There is too much between us still, you know it as well as I do! Go in peace, but for pity’s sake, go!’

She looked at him once more, and then turned swiftly and left, without another word.

Outside, growing impatient in the steady drizzling rain, Hugh and Edwin sent Melissa after their mother to hurry her along. Melissa came to the door as her mother came out.

‘A moment, and I will be with you, Mother,’ she said. ‘I must just say goodbye.’

Clare nodded, and went to join her family, and Melissa, hesitantly entering the abbot’s house, found him standing still in the middle of the room, his hand pressed to his mouth, and his eyes bright with tears. Struggling for composure, he stretched out his hand to her, and tried to smile.

‘I’m glad, so glad we came,’ she said. ‘I think we have made things difficult for you, but everything is different for me, now. Before, my father was a stranger, but now I belong. And I’m sorry it hurts you so, but I’m glad you still love Mother.’

She had taken his hand in both of hers, and she looked into his face with tenderness and happiness.

‘Go in peace,’ he whispered. ‘God bless you, little one.’

She looked at him steadily one more moment, then, ‘Goodbye,’ she said, and was gone.

The rest of the party was waiting for her impatiently. She hastily embraced Edward, saying gaily, ‘Goodbye, Uncle Edward! I shall be back!’ and added in a whisper, ‘Go and help him when we’re gone. He needs someone.’

Brother Edward watched them ride out, cloaked and hooded against the dismal mist of rain, then turned back to the abbot’s lodging where he found Peregrine preparing parchment and inks for Brother Theodore, who was coming to do some writing at his dictation, later in the morning. Peregrine looked at Edward with a carefully composed expression of polite enquiry.

‘Yes, Brother?’

‘Father, there is no need to pretend,’ said Edward bluntly. ‘It would have devastated me, too.’

‘Pray for me,’ said Peregrine, and that was all he said.

They expected to hear no more of the de Montany family, at least for some while, but barely three weeks later, just before Easter, in the chill, grey evening of a cold March day, Brother Edward overtook Peregrine on his way to Vespers, breathless with hurry and agitation.

‘Father, Melissa de Montany is here! She has ridden far and is in great distress. She is asking for you.’

Peregrine turned back immediately for the gatehouse, where he found Melissa, her hands twisting in her lap, her face white and her eyes shadowed with suffering and lack of sleep. He came and sat beside her, his eyes searching hers with concern.

‘What is this?’ he said. ‘What has happened?’

‘She is dead!’ Melissa blurted out. ‘Mother is dead! We came to a village not three days’ ride from here, and stayed at the inn there. Their food was dreadful, greasy and foul. The meat stank. We were all taken ill; it was poisoning from the meat, I think. Hugh and Edwin were tossing and delirious with fever for days. They are recovered now, but too weak yet to ride. I had eaten scarcely anything and was not too bad; but Mother died! She is dead!’

Peregrine gathered her wordlessly in his arms, and she clung to him. ‘She is dead! She is dead!’ she moaned over and over, and shook violently as he held her. Finally, she ceased to speak, and pressing her face to his breast, she sobbed and sobbed. Cradling her, he laid his cheek on her hair, and closed his eyes silently on his own tears.

He held her and comforted her through many such storms in the week that followed, as she grieved and wept for her mother. She leaned on his understanding love as on a rock, and when Hugh and Edwin came to fetch her, and began the sad journey homewards to bear the news to their father, the pilgrimage forgotten, she was sufficiently in command of herself to travel with them. Through the nights, Peregrine had kept vigil in the chapel and prayed for her, and during the days he had stayed with her, quietly watching over her, asking nothing, but allowing her to grieve.

She embraced him gratefully as they parted.

‘Thank you, Father,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much. May we meet in happier times!’

He nodded. ‘Greet Hugh for me. Tell him… tell him I’m sorry.’

Edward and Peregrine stood together to watch the forlorn little party ride away at first light on a grey, chill day, then walked slowly to the chapel for Mass.

Edward looked at Peregrine’s face, haggard with exhaustion and grief. ‘You have strengthened and comforted her,’ said Edward. When Peregrine did not reply, Edward looked at the sad, tired face, and added gently, ‘And you? Whom will you allow to comfort you in your own grief?’

Peregrine stopped and looked at him wearily. ‘Surely Christ has borne our griefs, and carried all our sorrows,’ he said quietly, and then groaned, ‘but oh, my God, my God, it takes some believing.’

Mother was quiet.

‘Is that all?’ I exploded. ‘Didn’t Melissa ever come back? What happened next? Oh Mother, there must be more!’

‘She came back. She married Ranulf Langton, and had children of her own, and some years later, just before the birth of her youngest child, she came to make her home in Yorkshire, and she visited them often. I told you, you remember, that Brother Edward told these stories first to his great-niece, who was your long ago great-grandmother Melissa.’

‘Oh, but Mother, it’s so sad! Tell me some more, don’t leave it there!’

‘Sad? Yes I suppose so. All the stories are sad, in a way. I don’t believe there’s a one of them without tears and struggle; but that was the life, you see. It wasn’t easy. Saying sorry, and giving up your own way, and daily turning your back on your own wants took some doing. But now, help your Daddy with the drying up and I’ll tell you a quick story to cheer you up again.’

As I got to my feet to take Mother’s coffee cup out to the kitchen, there was a thunder of footsteps on the path outside, the front door burst open, and Mary and Beth piled in through the doorway, breathless with running, their cheeks pink and their eyes shining.

‘We’re home!’ shouted Beth.

‘Therese buyed us an ice cream!’ cried Mary excitedly, ‘and it had a stalk!’

Therese was some minutes behind them. ‘They can run like the wind, those two!’ she exclaimed. ‘Is the kettle on, Melissa? I’m dying for a cup of tea.’

‘Any minute now,’ I replied, and went on my way into the kitchen.

‘Oh, Daddy, you’ve done it all! I was supposed to be helping you.’

He was sitting in the armchair in the corner, reading his paper, with the dog lying on his feet, and the cat curled up on his lap. He looked at me over the top of his glasses.

‘I am among you as one who serves,’ he said, in an exaggerated tone of suffering self-righteousness. ‘You can make me a cup of tea, though. Once your Mother gets going, time’s forgotten. I never knew such a woman, she could talk the hind leg off a donkey.’

‘A donkey?’ said Mary, a little uncertainly. She had come into the kitchen and was leaning affectionately on Daddy’s arm. ‘Why?’

‘Just a figure of speech, my poppet,’ said Daddy smiling at her. ‘Get cracking with that tea, Melissa, you look as though you’re in a trance!’

As the kettle boiled, there came an angry bellow from upstairs, ‘I… WANT… MUMMY!’ Cecily was awake. She came stumping down the stairs, only just awake, her limbs still uncoordinated, and her face still flushed from sleep.

‘I… WANT… MUMMY!’ she roared again, but when Mother came out of the living-room, laughing at her, she was so incensed at not being taken seriously that she flung herself on the floor in the passage way, her legs rigid and her little hands clenched into fists, making a noise like rending metal.

Mother sighed. ‘Heigh-ho. Back to reality,’ she said resignedly. ‘Oh, come on, Cecily! Do get up.’

Just then, there was a knock at the front door. Cecily leapt to her feet, crying, ‘IwanttoopenitIwanttoopenitIwanttoopenit!’ but the front door was opened before she got there, by our Grandma, who was on the other side of it.

Cecily burst into wails of disappointment and frustration, tears pouring down her crimson face, the veins standing out on her neck like cords. Grandma, confronted with this sight, looked down in astonishment for a moment, then knelt down on the floor and held out her arms. ‘Cecily, my darling!’ she said. ‘What’s the matter, poppet? Have you hurt yourself?’

Cecily was too much beside herself to speak.

‘I think she wanted to open the front door, Grandma,’ Therese explained.

‘Oh, I see. Right-o, then.’ Grandma hastily went out again, closed the door firmly behind her, and knocked on it loudly, calling through the letter-box, ‘Is anyone at home?’

There was a moment’s pause while Cecily wondered whether to relent. Grandma knocked again. With a hoarse cry of joy, Cecily ran and opened the front door, the noise and tears magically evaporated, her little face dimpling in an enchanting smile, her great blue eyes shining.

‘Oh, hello, Cecily!’ cried Grandma. ‘Can I come in for a cup of tea, darling, please?’

‘Grandma,’ cooed Cecily. Mother shook her head and sighed.

‘Make the big pot of tea, Melissa,’ she said, ‘and there’s a new packet of chocolate digestives in the cupboard. It’s hidden at the back, behind the macaroni.’

The rest of the afternoon was whiled away comfortably, chatting to Grandma and playing snakes and ladders with Mary and Beth. Grandma tried to teach Cecily how to play snap, but Cecily didn’t want to put any of her cards down. She wouldn’t say ‘Snap’ when the cards were the same, but she got cross if Grandma said ‘Snap’ and tried to pick them up. It was Grandma who backed down; in our family we live by the maxim that playing by the rules is less important than Surviving Cecily.