Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [304]
“But you’ve become a lady. A fit wife for a knight!” he protested. It had pleased him to be brother-in-law to Geoffrey de Whiteheath; to be allied to Godefroi would be an even greater advantage. “Shockley’s nothing but a merchant.”
“I have money,” she reminded him. “I can do as I like.”
And to the delight of old Edward Shockley, they were married the following month.
On the day of their marriage, Peter gave her, for the second time, a little locket on a silver chain.
For Peter, his marriage was like being reborn, and when on the night of their wedding he led Alicia to the room in the old Shockley farm which Edward and his wife had occupied before them and took her in his arms, it seemed that all his years fell away and he was, once again, the eighteen-year-old boy united at last with his bride. All this Alicia knew; and if she could not feel the same, she concealed the fact, glad to feel his happiness. So it was with surprise that in the middle of the night, she woke and pulled him to her once more, but this time with a little gasp of unexpected passion.
When Jocelin de Godefroi heard about the marriage of Alicia and Peter Shockley he became white with anger.
“This merchant goes too far,” he muttered, “if he supposes he can take the bride of a Godefroi.” It was not only his family pride that was hurt; the business was an affront to him personally.
For several days he brooded about it.
Peter was in such a state of happiness in the first days of his marriage that he hardly noticed the fact that Godefroi had not visited the mill on his customary rounds of the estate; and so when, two weeks after his wedding, he saw Jocelin approaching he came out to greet him quite unsuspecting. His face fell in utter confusion as the knight, sitting bolt upright in the saddle and with a distant look in his eyes, told him:
“I’m afraid I shall be wanting another tenant for this mill, Shockley. You’re to leave at the end of the month.”
The mortgage to Aaron had been paid off many years ago; the mill lay on Godefroi’s land; Shockley might fight dispossesion in the courts, but even if he won, Godefroi could make his life a misery. As the knight rode away, he gazed after him in horrified disbelief.
He did not know what to do. He had become so used, over the years, to keeping matters to himself, that for two more days he went moodily about his business, unable to decide on any course of action and unable to speak about the matter even to his wife, On the third day, however, Alicia, who had waited patiently for his mood to pass, demanded firmly that he tell her what was on his mind; and after she had heard, she told him:
“You must ask your father to speak to him.”
But Peter refused. Edward was old and frail, and besides, the Shockley affairs were in his hands now.
“I’ll find a solution,” he told her moodily.
Alicia said nothing. But the next morning when Peter had gone, she retired to her room for half an hour. When she had finished, she smiled to herself at the result; and at noon that day the servants of Avonsford manor were surprised to see a woman dressed not in the plain, simple cotte and pelisse of a merchant’s wife, but in the richly embroidered robes of a lady, with wimple and cap, ride calmly into the courtyard and call peremptorily to one of the grooms to help her dismount.
In the twenty years as the mistress of Geoffrey de Whiteheath’s household, she had learnt all the elegant ways of a lady, and when a few moments later she swept into Jocelin’s hall, even he, despite her new position, automatically rose and bowed respectfully.
She wasted no time, and she addressed him in French.
“I know, seigneur, that you propose to eject my new husband from his mill.”
He inclined his head stiffly, but under the steady gaze of her violet eyes he could not help himself blushing. She pursued her advantage calmly and masterfully.
“I came to see you without his knowledge since – you will forgive my conceit – I feared I might be the cause. But perhaps I am wrong and my choice of husband was of no interest to you.”
The knight