She puts Benedict’s infidelities to the back of her mind and, for a quarter of a century, that is largely where they stay.
Amid the happy splendour of Helewise and Ivo’s wedding day, one small disturbing incident occurs.
The sun has shone since early morning, the bride looks quite exquisitely beautiful and the handsome groom clearly can hardly restrain his impatience to get her alone. Family and friends shower the bridal couple with flowers and the tenants and peasants turn out to wish them well.
The small incident occurs during the splendid feast that Ralf de Swansford throws for his daughter and her new husband in the flower-bedecked hall at Swansford. Helewise, flushed with happiness, is momentarily separated from Ivo as the two make their separate ways around the hall, pausing to talk to their guests, thanking them for the gifts they have brought, encouraging them to eat, drink and enjoy themselves. Helewise is wearing her new scarlet tunic whose silk is so stiff and heavy that it rustles, and Elena has helped her to cut it so that the fullness of the wide skirts begins slightly above the natural waistline; at nearly three months, Helewise’s pregnancy is just beginning to show and this wise precaution has been taken just in case anyone is sufficiently impolite — sufficiently curious — to take a close look at the radiant bride’s belly.
Helewise dances up to an elderly but still handsome couple who are vague relations of Benedict’s and engages them in cheery conversation. They are friendly, affectionate, and they have just given her a beautiful little ivory statue of the Virgin for the private chapel at the Old Manor. Martin, Benedict’s man, comes up to join them.
The four of them, even the taciturn Martin, are laughing, happy. But in the midst of these pleasant exchanges, Helewise suddenly feels as if someone has run icy fingers down her spine. She breaks off in mid-sentence, spinning round, and sees that a malevolent, black-clad and dark-aspected woman of about thirty is glaring at her ferociously, her expression suggesting she would have willingly stuck a knife in Helewise’s back. Helewise catches her breath, shocked to the core by this sudden discordant element in her blissful day.
It is as if the bad fairy has turned up at the feast.
The wife of the elderly couple has caught Helewise’s arm and is turning her away from the awful fascination of the dark woman’s stare; she has seen too and she mutters something that sounds like, ‘Take no notice, my dear, she is nothing to you.’ She gives Martin a nudge — quite a sharp one — and he nods his understanding. He strides off, the old woman’s husband following him, elbowing his way through the crowd until he stands beside the black-clad woman. He leans down to say something to her — he leans really close so that he speaks right into her ear — and then he takes hold of her and hustles her away, the old man following, until she has been escorted out of the hall.
‘Who is she?’ Helewise asks nervously.
The elderly woman sniffs. ‘That? That’s Sirida. She should not even be here …’ And she stares worriedly after her old husband, as if suddenly anxious for him.
Helewise tries to laugh. ‘She’s quite slight; she won’t hurt them!’ she says jokingly.
But the woman replies, ‘She might. Oh, she might.’ She shakes her head, still looking anxious. Then she leans closer to Helewise and whispers, ‘They say she is a witch.’
Then the old husband comes back — Martin has disappeared — brushing his hands together as if he has just ejected an unruly hound from the house and, before Helewise can ask any more questions about the dark woman, Ivo comes to find her.
Very relieved to see him, she snuggles up to him, feeling his strong body close to hers as he draws her against him. For the first time she realises that he is, in all ways, a man she will always be able to lean on. She raises her face and starts to tell him about the black-clad woman but he misinterprets her intention and, thinking she is demanding a kiss, obliges with such robust enthusiasm that the people standing around clap their hands, laugh and call out encouraging remarks that verge from the cheerfully ribald to the almost obscene; this is, after all, a wedding. Ivo’s passion instantly infects his bride and Helewise’s brief fear is drowned out by the flood of sensation flowing through her. Then Ivo grabs hold of her hand and, amid the cheers of their friends and relations, spins her away into a dance.
They dance, feast, drink, laugh, dance again, late into the night. Everyone there is having a good time. Everyone there, now, is happy.
Helewise’s wedding day ends in joy. In the flurry and the hundred different impressions and memorable images of newly married life, the one unpleasant moment from her wonderful day is forgotten.
Almost.
Helewise lay in her austere nun’s bed in the dormitory of Hawkenlye Abbey. Her memories had come back with the force of a rain-flooded river bursting its banks and she had recalled things she thought she had long forgotten. In the chilly darkness she found her face hot with shame as she remembered Leofgar’s conception and her total lack of contrition, not only at having lain with Ivo before they were wed but also at the way she had lied to her dear father over the reason why she must bring forward her wedding day. She pictured his face, frowning at first but persuaded by her enthusiasm and her determination and not wanting to question her further in case he put a damper on her joy.
And Elena, Helewise thought, what would I have done without her? The old nurse had been given permission by Emma de Swansford to accompany Helewise into her new life and from the moment she and her young mistress had set foot in the Old Manor, she had been quite invaluable. It had been Elena who had provided the potions and remedies that helped Helewise through two pregnancies that came a little too close together; Elena who had twice turned midwife, capable and loving, easing Helewise’s pains by her quiet confidence and by her very presence. And, after each baby boy was born, it had been Elena who had given Helewise the sensible advice that allowed her confidence as a mother to grow until she no longer needed her old nurse’s support.
But it was not Elena whom Helewise now needed to think about. It was Benedict Warin.
Could it be possible? she wondered. Could one of Benedict’s many infidelities — if indeed that accusation were also true — have led to some young girl conceiving his child? Helewise frowned as she considered the possibility. Ivo had been a virile man who, she reminded herself, had set a child growing in her as easily as look at her; why should his father not have been the same? Yes, it was true that Blanche Warin had given Benedict but the one child but then they all said she had been in delicate health and that she had become barren after Ivo was born.
It was possible, then, that Benedict could have fathered an illegitimate child. The more she considered it, the more she had to conclude that it was not only possible but probable.
As at last she closed her eyes and tried to compose herself for sleep, Helewise wondered how on earth she was to go about trying to find out whether this probable event had ever really happened.
Chapter 16
Down in the Vale, Josse had an early morning visit from Gervase de Gifford’s man, Matt. He brought the sheriff’s greetings and the request that Josse come with him down to Tonbridge as soon as he could manage it because de Gifford urgently wished to speak to him.
Josse knew better than to ask what it was about; Matt was a taciturn sort of a man and in any case it did not seem wise to discuss the sheriff’s business in an open-sided shelter with all manner of strangers wandering around outside. In fact there were only four pilgrims in the Vale at present and one of those was a baby, but the monks themselves were not above accidentally overhearing muttered discussions and then speculating wildly afterwards on what they thought they had heard and what it was likely to mean.