Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [145]
Osgar hardly knew what he felt, that October, as he approached the family monastery at Dyflin. Samhain was approaching, an appropriate time he supposed for his uncle to have departed for the world beyond. The old abbot had taken his leave very peacefully; there was no need to feel pain on that account. As he had descended the path from the mountains on that clear autumn day, Osgar had felt only a gentle melancholy as he thought affectionately of the old man. But as he came to the monastery gates, there was another thought on his mind. For he knew very well what they were going to ask of him. And the question, which he had not yet answered in his own mind, was what he was going to do?
They were all there. His uncle’s sons, friends, and family he had not seen for years. Morann Mac Goibnenn was there. And Caoilinn, too. The wake was just ending when he arrived, but they asked him to conduct the final ceremonies as they placed the old man in his grave. It was kind of Caoilinn, afterwards, to have invited him to visit her at Rathmines the following day.
He arrived at midday. He had asked for only the simplest meal to be provided. “Remember I am only a poor monk,” he had told her. He was rather glad to find that she had arranged for the two of them to eat alone. Looking at the handsome, dark-haired woman opposite him he realised with a slight shock that he had not sat alone with a woman for twenty-five years. It wasn’t long before she came to the main issue on everybody’s mind.
“Well, Osgar, are you coming back?”
That was what they all wanted. Now that his uncle had gone, it was obviously Osgar who should come and take his place. His uncle’s sons wanted it, since neither of them had any real desire to take on the role. The monks wanted it. He would probably be the most distinguished abbot the little place had had in generations. Wasn’t it his duty? Probably. Was he tempted? He wasn’t sure.
He didn’t answer her question just yet.
“It is strange to be back,” he remarked. “I suppose,” he went on after a thoughtful pause, “that if I had remained here, I might be sitting in the monastery now with a brood of children and my wife opposite me. And I suppose,” he added with a smile, “that the wife in question might have been you.” He glanced at her. “But then, perhaps you would not have married me.”
Now it was her turn to smile.
“Oh,” she said, reflectively, “I would have married you.”
She looked at the man before her. His hair was grey. His face was thinner, and rather severe. She studied the way the lines on his face ran: ascetic, intellectual, but not unpleasing.
She remembered how close they had been when she was a little girl. He’d been her childhood playmate. She remembered how he’d saved her from drowning. She remembered how she had admired his fine, aristocratic ways and his intelligence. Yes, she had always supposed he would marry her. And how shocked she had been, she remembered, how hurt and furious when he had turned away from her. And for what? For a monastery in the mountains when he already had one at home. She couldn’t understand it. That day when she had met him on the path, she had wanted to shock him, attack his choice of life, show her power over him was greater even than the religious vocation that was so humiliatingly stealing him away. I’d have been happy at that time, she realised with wry amusement, if I’d seduced him into denying God Himself. She shook her head at the memory. What a devil I was, she thought.
She almost asked him if he regretted his decision now, but decided she had better not.
After their meal, they went for a short walk. They talked of other things. She told him about the improvements