The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [358]
For a moment she was on the edge of saying Yes, all right, let’s run away together now, and perhaps if he had carried on stroking her like that she would have; but reason returned, and she said: “I’m going to marry Alfred.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s the only way.”
He stared at her. “I just don’t believe you,” he said.
“It’s true.”
“I can’t give you up. I can’t, I can’t.” His voice cracked, and he stifled a sob.
She tried reason, arguing with herself as much as with him. “What’s the point of breaking my vow to my father, in order to make a marriage vow to you? If I break the first vow, the second is worthless.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want your vows. I just want us to be together all the time and make love whenever we feel like it.”
It was an eighteen-year-old view of marriage, she thought, but she did not say so. She would have accepted it gladly if she had been free. “I can’t do what I want,” she said sadly. “It’s not my destiny.”
“What you’re doing is wrong,” he said. “I mean evil. To give up happiness like this is like throwing jewels into the ocean. It’s far worse than any sin.”
She was unexpectedly struck by the thought that her mother would have agreed with that. She was not sure how she knew. She dismissed the idea. “I could never be happy, even with you, if I had to live with the knowledge that I had broken my promise to my father.”
“You care more for your father and your brother than you do for me,” he said, sounding faintly petulant for the first time.
“No .. ”
“What, then?”
He was just being argumentative, but she considered the question seriously. “I suppose it means that my oath to my father is more important to me than my love for you.”
“Is it?” he said incredulously. “Is it really?”
“Yes, it is,” she said with a heavy heart, and her words sounded to her like a funeral bell.
“Then there’s nothing more to be said.”
“Only ... that I’m sorry.”
He got to his feet. He turned his back to her and picked up his undershirt. She looked at his long, slender body. There was a lot of curly red-gold hair on his legs. He put on his shirt and tunic quickly, then pulled up his socks and stepped into his boots. It all happened much too quickly.
“You’re going to be fearfully unhappy,” he said.
He was trying to be nasty to her, but the attempt was a failure, for she could hear compassion in his voice.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “Would you at least ... at least say you respect me for my decision?”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “I don’t. I despise you for it.”
She sat there naked, looking at him, and she began to weep.
“I might as well go,” he said, and his voice cracked on the last word.
“Yes, go,” she sobbed.
He went to the door.
“Jack!”
He turned at the door.
She said: “Wish me luck, Jack?”
He lifted the bar. “Good—” He stopped, unable to speak. He looked down at the floor, then up at her again. This time his voice came out in a whisper. “Good luck,” he said.
Then he went out.
The house that had been Tom’s house was now Ellen’s, but it was also Alfred’s home, so this morning it was full of people preparing a wedding feast, organized by Martha, Alfred’s thirteen-year-old sister, with Jack’s mother looking on disconsolately. Alfred was there with a towel in his hand, about to go down to the river—women bathed once a month, and men at Easter and Michaelmas, but it was traditional to bathe on your wedding morning. The place went quiet when Jack walked in.
Alfred said: “What do you want?”
“I want you to call off the wedding,” Jack replied.
“Piss off,” Alfred said.
Jack realized he had started badly. He should try not to make a confrontation out of this. What he was proposing was in Alfred’s interest, too, if only he could be made to see it. “Alfred, she doesn’t love you,” he said as gently as he could.
“You don’t know anything about it, laddie.”
“I do,” Jack persisted. “She doesn’t love you. She’s marrying you for Richard’s sake. He’s the only one who will be made happy by this marriage.”
“Go back to the monastery,” Alfred said contemptuously.