I also realized — far more significantly — how very clever he had been. Subtly, skilfully, he had slipped in that innocent little comment and thereby removed himself from the list of men who had known Ida at the time she became pregnant and, horrified at the news that she bore a child, might have had reason to dispose of her.
I thought the possible sequence of events through again, right from the start, this time without the erroneous conclusion concerning when Sir Alain and Ida had first met. .
Lady Claude was informed by her formidable mother that, with her elder sister sick and unfit for marriage, it would be Claude, the younger sibling, who would marry into the powerful and influential de Villequier family, in the shape of Sir Alain. Lady Claude did her best to protest, but her mother was adamant. Lady Claude conceded and set about sewing her trousseau, engaging the help of the skilled and personable Ida. With Sir Alain now resident at Alderhall, close to the home of Claude’s cousin Lord Gilbert, what was more natural and compassionate for a reluctant bride than to suggest she went to stay at Lakehall, where she and her bridegroom could get to know each other before the wedding?
The purpose of the visit was not, however, for the pair to meet each other, for they had already done so. According to Gurdyman, Sir Alain had been a frequent visitor at Heathlands. He used to play chess with Lady Claude’s mother.
Now I wove another thread into my tapestry. I made an image in my mind of Sir Alain arriving at Heathlands for the first time and being escorted into a great hall, richly furnished and with an extravagant fire burning in the hearth. Well-trained and expensively-clad servants were hovering in the background, ready and waiting for the subtlest signal that would make them spring into action to obey the least whim of their mistress. There she was, Lady Claritia — I pictured her as a fleshed-out version of her daughter Claude, with the same stiff, mirthless face and the same small, carefully expressionless eyes — dressed in a gorgeous gown of heavy silk, the cuffs lined with fur, with heavy gold jewellery encrusted with precious stones at her throat, ears and wrists. Here is my daughter, she would say to Sir Alain, and Lady Claude would step forward, pale, skinny, unlovely, unloved, unlovable, the black habit-like gown as effective as a smack in the face proclaiming fiercely I don’t want to be your wife, for it is my vocation to be a nun.
They would have negotiated, that rich and determined woman and the man who knew his duty and would do it to the best of his ability. Power he had, for he belonged to the de Villequier family; money he needed, and money his wife would bring. How much did he demand as her dowry? Did he add on a sum for each of her drawbacks? I did not know, could not know, how these matters were arranged. Sir Alain had impressed me as a pleasant, even kind, man. He was certainly attractive, and I had no doubt that any woman whose hand he sought would readily give it. Yet he had agreed to marry Lady Claude. Perhaps it had even been he who had initiated the proceedings, for his new appointment must surely offer the possibility of advancement if he performed well, and advancement needs money if it is to be sustained.
I sent my mind back to that day, the first meeting between Lady Claude and Sir Alain in her mother’s great hall. I saw Sir Alain as at last he took his leave. I saw him mount his beautiful horse — I recalled the bay mare with the star on her brow — and ride away, his emotions a mix of triumph because he had secured a wealthy heiress as his wife and dejection because of who and what that wife was. I saw him turn a corner in the track and come across a young woman with a bunch of wild flowers in her hand. I sensed the instant attraction that flared between the man and the young woman, shooting out like a visible, tangible thing. A thread, fine but unbelievably strong, that drew them to each other and then bound them together.
I do not know if that was how it was; the circumstances might have been different — they probably were — but the result was the same. Sir Alain and Ida fell in love, they became lovers — the most secretive lovers there have ever been — and then Ida conceived a child. Sir Alain’s child.
How did she react? Was she apprehensive, nervous, delighted, exuberant? She was happy, of that I had no doubt, for both Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma had spoken of her as cheerful and smiling. She must have known what difficulties the future would hold. There would be many, of that there could be no doubt, for her lover was to be married soon, and Ida would always have to remain hidden in the background of his life. If she had appreciated this — and surely she must have done? — then it had not dented her delight. Perhaps she had trusted him to make provision for her and the child. Perhaps he had suggested some workable arrangement whereby she would be set up in a little house, not too far away, where he would be able to visit regularly. There would, after all, be plenty of money once he was married to Lady Claude. Would he see anything immoral in using his wife’s money to support his lover and her child? Would his conscience be pricked as he lay in the luxury of his marriage bed with the chilling depiction of Lust staring down on him?
I was temped to condemn him for his immorality and his dishonesty. Then I remembered that he was going to have to share the remainder of his life with Lady Claude, and I began to have a little sympathy. My impressions of her were singularly unfavourable. It might not be her fault, but she would, I was quite sure, be a reluctant wife and do her uxorial duty with clenched teeth and tightly-closed eyes, her bony body rigid and unreceptive. I tried to feel sorry for her, too. She wanted to be a nun, not a wife, and perhaps, having set her feet on that difficult path, she had already eschewed any thoughts of physical love. Chastity, charity, obedience; those were the vows of a nun, as I knew from my sister Elfritha.
Unbidden, into my mind came a memory of Elfritha and her nuns at Chatteris, faces alight with laughter and eyes full of joy. It was very hard work being a nun — you could not help being aware of that if someone you loved entered a convent — but it had become clear to my parents, my siblings and me that the life had its compensations, and that these were rich and sometimes unexpected. I tried to imagine Lady Claude in the company of the Chatteris nuns, and I failed. Before I could prevent it, I had the unkind thought that the Lord Jesus would have accepted poor Claude, but even he might have been a little reluctant.
The poor woman would have-
Suddenly, I was struck by a thought so dreadful that I stopped dead. Hrype turned to stare at me and, not ready to share my suspicion, I forced a smile and started walking again. We were close to home now, but all thoughts of something to eat and drink and the wonderful expectation of taking off my boots and soaking my sore feet in cool water flew out of my mind.
But I like Sir Alain! I wailed silently. He’s a man who loves life, and who is naturally cheerful and affectionate! Reluctantly, I admitted to myself that I found him attractive, as indeed I suspected most women would.
I ought not to like him. He was not — could not be — what he seemed. For his own and his family’s sound reasons, he was betrothed to a stern and unforgivingly righteous woman whose idea of suitable decoration for her marriage bed was a harsh depiction of the Seven Deadly Sins. He had impregnated his future wife’s seamstress — and if Claude ever found out, he could swiftly wave farewell to the life he envisaged with her, the life that her money would buy him. He would lose his grand new appointment — Lady Claude’s mother would make sure of that — and the name of Alain de Villequier would fade inexorably from the consciousness of everyone who mattered in King William’s realm, the king himself included.
I ought to hate him. He had seduced poor Ida and made her pregnant. Unable to risk the possibility that she would reveal her secret and run to her mistress to tell her who had fathered the child in her belly, Alain had killed her.