The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [49]
It was a charming spot to choose, on a sparkling summer morning. The sun was catching his golden hair. He asked her quietly, yet almost gaily and he looked so noble. What woman could have wanted to refuse? She wished she could have been transformed into someone else.
And indeed, why should she refuse? Did it make any sense? It was not as if the conquering Normans never married members of the defeated Saxon noble class. They still did. She would lose a little face, but not too much. He was delightful. She was charmed.
But in front of her, out in that western distance, lay the manor of Hugh de Martell. It was down in one of the valleys between the ridges over which she was looking. And behind her, only a mile or so away, she realized, was the narrow stream where Puckle’s wife had seen what was to come.
She would marry Martell. She still believed it. After the shock of hearing that the Lady Maud had safely given birth she had wondered for a while what it could mean. But the witch’s cautious words had come back to her: ‘Things are not always what they seem.’ She had been promised happiness and she had faith. Something would happen. She knew it would. It seemed clear to her that in some unforeseen way the Lady Maud would depart.
If so, she would be a mother to his son. An excellent one. That would be her good deed, her justification for what must happen.
So what should she say to Edgar? She certainly did not want to be unkind. ‘I am grateful,’ she said slowly. ‘I think I could be happy as your wife. But I am not sure. I cannot say yes at present.’
‘I shall ask you again at the end of summer,’ he said with a smile. ‘Shall we ride on?’
Hugh de Martell gazed at his wife and child. They were in the sunny solar chamber. His son was sleeping peacefully in a wicker cradle on the floor. With his wisp of dark hair, everyone said he looked like his father already. Martell looked at the baby with satisfaction. Then he transferred his eyes to the Lady Maud.
She was propped up, almost in sitting position, on a small bed they had set up for her. She liked to sit in there with her baby, which she did for hours each day. She was rather pale but now she managed a small wan smile for her husband. ‘How is the proud father today?’
‘Well, I think,’ he replied.
The pause turned into a little silence in the sunlit room.
‘I think I shall be better soon.’
‘I’m sure you will.’
‘I’m sorry. It must be difficult for you that I have been sick so long. I’m not much of a wife for you.’
‘Nonsense. We must get you well again. That’s the main thing.’
‘I want to be a good wife to you.’
He smiled rather automatically, then looked away to the open window, staring out thoughtfully.
He no longer loved her. He did not altogether blame himself. No one could reproach him for his behaviour during the months of her sickness. He had been solicitous, loving, nursed her himself. He had been with her, held her hand, given all the comfort a husband can, on the two occasions when she thought she was dying. In all this, his conscience was clear.
But he did not love her any more. He did not desire her intimacy. It was not even her fault, he thought. He knew her too well. The mouth he had kissed, which had even breathed words of passion, was still, in repose, small and mean. He could not share the petty confines of her affections, the neatly tidied chamber of her imagination. She was so timid. Yet she was not weak. Had she been so, the need to protect her, however irksome, might have held him. But she was astonishingly strong. She might be sick, but if she lived, her will would remain unchanged, as constant as ever. Sometimes her will seemed to him like a little thread that ran through the innermost recesses of her soul – thin enough to pass through the