The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [444]
The worst of it was, Aliena felt partly responsible. It was her father’s estate, and she and Richard had failed to win it back for the family. They had given up, when William became earl and Aliena lost all her money; but the failure still rankled, and she had not forgotten her vow to her father.
On the road from Winchester to Shiring, with a wagon-load of yarn and a brawny carter with a sword at his belt, she remembered riding along the very same road with her father. He had constantly brought new land into cultivation, by clearing areas of forest, draining marshland, or plowing hillsides. In bad years he always put aside enough seed to supply the needs of those who were too improvident, or just too hungry, to save their own. He never forced tenants to sell their beasts or their plows to pay rent, for he knew that if they did that, they would be unable to farm the following year. He had treated the land well, maintaining its capacity to produce, the way a good farmer would take care of a dairy cow.
Whenevr she thought of those old days, with her clever, proud, rigid father beside her, she felt the pain of loss like a wound. Life had started to go wrong when he had been taken away. Everything she had done since then seemed, in retrospect, to have been hollow: living at the castle with Matthew, in a dreamworld; going to Winchester in the vain hope of seeing the king; even struggling to support Richard while he fought in the civil war. She had achieved what other people saw as success: she had become a prosperous wool merchant. But that had brought her only a semblance of happiness. She had found a way of life and a place in society that gave her security and stability, but in her heart she had still been hurt and lost—until Jack came into her life.
Her inability to marry Jack had blighted everything since. She had come to hate Prior Philip, whom she had once looked up to as her savior and mentor. She had not had a happy, amiable conversation with Philip for years. Of course, it was not his fault that they could not get an annulment; but it was he who had insisted they live apart, and Aliena could not help resenting him for that.
She loved her children, but she worried about them, being brought up in such an unnatural household, with a father who went away at bedtime. So far, happily, they showed no ill effects: Tommy was a strapping, good-looking boy who liked football, races and playing soldiers; and Sally was a sweet, thoughtful girl who told stories to her dolls and loved to watch Jack at his tracing floor. Their constant needs and their simple love were the one solidly normal element in Aliena’s eccentric life.
She still had her work, of course. She had been a merchant of some kind for most of her adult life. At present she had dozens of men and women in scattered villages spinning and weaving for her in their homes. A few years ago there had been hundreds, but she was feeling the effects of the famine like everyone else, and there was no point in making more cloth than she could sell. Even if she were married to Jack she would still want to have her own independent work.
Prior Philip kept saying the annulment could be granted any day, but Aliena and Jack had now been living this infuriating life for seven long years, eating together and bringing up their children and sleeping apart.
She felt Jack