Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [326]
And then, walking jauntily along the street, she saw her husband. He paused in front of Doyle’s door, glanced about, and seemed about to knock on it when the door opened and there, smiling in the entrance, stood Joan Doyle. He stepped in and the door closed behind him.
Margaret stared. Her heart missed a beat. It was true then: her husband and the Doyle woman. She felt an icy coldness strike her in the chest. She was suddenly breathless.
What should she do now? Were they really alone? Surely there would be a servant, at least, in the house. Unless the Doyle woman had deliberately sent them all away. That might be it: the Corpus Christi pageant was the perfect excuse. They would go to watch the plays while her husband slipped into the empty house. She looked along the street in the direction in which the procession had gone. The ebbing tide of people was just drawing away from the pillory which stood alone at the end of Skinners Row. She heard the distant blast of someone blowing a trumpet down by the Dame’s Gate, a haunting warning like a tocsin sound.
She must go in and confront them. It was now or never. But what excuse could she use? That she happened to have raced into Dublin that day? That she had just caught sight of him entering the house? What if his visit had some other purpose, purely innocent?
It would be, to say the least, embarrassing. And as she tried to formulate what she should say, she realised the uselessness of it. For if they were in fact making love, the door would certainly be bolted so that they wouldn’t risk being caught in the act. If she hammered on the door, William would either vanish through a back window or, more likely, be found there fully dressed with a plausible excuse. She’d be left looking a fool and perhaps none the wiser. She wondered whether to go across to the house and try to peer in through the windows.
She decided to wait a little and see what happened. Time passed. But she was so distressed that, after a while, she realised that she had no idea how long she had been watching. A quarter of an hour? Half an hour? It seemed like an eternity. She was just trying to work out how long it might have been when the door opened and William came out. He turned and walked swiftly towards the pillory as the door closed behind him. Margaret stayed where she was. More time passed. The door did not open again.
The pageant floats had come to rest near the edge of Hoggen Green where there was a small chapel dedicated to Saint George. While their horses grazed on the green, a group of five floats had been arranged in a large semicircle on the grass; and these were to give a succession of short plays, starting with the glovers’ Adam and Eve.
Cecily smiled. It was a charming scene, in sight of the old Thingmount. A few booths had been set up selling ale and other refreshments. The sky was clear blue, the sun hot. There was a smell of horse and human sweat and barley ale that was not unpleasant.
Though it was brief, the glovers’ play was well performed. Tidy’s cry, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?” was taken up by the crowd who, all together, had bellowed it back with great good humour. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent were duly banished from Paradise to general applause. Shortly it would be the turn of the next group to perform Cain and Abel.
Cecily’s attention had already been drawn to the group of young men standing nearby during the glovers’ play. It was obvious from their bright silk shirts and