The Town House (51 page)

Maude made a gesture of impatience, and moved towards me and the door. We went out together and she pulled the door closed and leaned against it.

‘You must not misjudge,’ she said. ‘They are both orphans and have lived here for four years. We have enough to eat.’

‘That I beg leave to doubt. You’ve grown very thin.’

‘We eat with the nuns and they work far harder than we do.’

‘You and they, in there, are growing,’ I protested.

‘Which we shouldn’t do if we lacked sufficient nourishment.’

‘There’s no arguing with you. Shall I fetch you on Christmas Eve?’

‘If you have time to spare.’ She smiled at me and I saw that her odd little face which so easily assumed an expression of melancholy could just as easily shape itself to merriment. Martin had mentioned that she was a merry, hoydenish little girl. I cursed once again the bad management, the ignorance and false values that had brought her to
this.

Yet there was no denying that six months at Clevely had done a good deal to lighten her misery of spirit. During those four days of Christmas when my eyes, whenever possible were upon her, as though they could never look their fill, I noticed that the old haunted look of desperate unhappiness had gone, and been replaced by a serenity which had a beauty of its own. Life at Clevely might be harsh and comfortless – some of the things Maude let slip shocked even her mother – but it seemed to be spiritually satisfactory and I, watching every blown straw that betrayed the wind’s direction, saw several ominous signs.

Mistress Reed, as before, grumbled about her daughter’s clothing. Why was this one dress so much worn, had Maude donned it every day, and why, where were the others? She was little pleased to hear that Jill was wearing one and Avice the other. Even I, doting as I was, detected a certain priggishness in the way Maude said,

‘At Clevely we have all things in common. Except shoes. Feet vary so much. But’, she added as though in extenuation, ‘we share the clogs.’

Mistress Reed said, with a tartness which I understood,

‘That calls up the three-legged race which children run.’

Maude laughed,

‘So it does! I should have said that we wear any clogs which come to hand, or to foot.’

I recalled how teachable she was; in six months she had mastered the art of Christian imperturbability as one of my teachers had called it.

Then again, at the well-spread table, the question of convent food arose.

‘When you go back,’ Master Reed said, ‘that is if you insist upon going back, I shall send some hams and salt beef, and good wheat flour.’

Maude said, and hate the word as any man of sense must, there is no other,
demurely
,

‘That would be very much appreciated. Dame Winifred Challis, who often has sick poor people in the guest room, is mostly at her wits’ end to find them tasty dishes.’

‘You mean you wouldn’t eat what I sent?’

‘Oh no. We all eat from the same dish. Even the Prioress.’

‘Going hungry is no virtue,’ Master Reed said. ‘Thousands of people live their whole lives without knowing the feel of a full belly. You’re enjoying what you’re eating now, aren’t you?’

‘Oh yes. Very much. But to eat like this every day would be gluttony.’

How well I knew it, this prate about the deadly sins! It could have only two effects. Hearing it often enough the young must give in, accept that to enjoy a comfortable bed was sloth, to eat a good meal was gluttony, to think one independent thought was pride, and on and on, until in one day of ordinary living you could commit the whole seven, twice over. (Whoever named them, did so cunningly, murder, which comparatively few people are tempted to, is not among them, anger, which every man must feel, is.) The only other way for the young to take is plain rebellion, bouncing away in the other direction, as I myself had done. Was Maude capable of it? That only time could tell.

In the privacy of the office Master Reed loosed his complaints.

‘I’ve worked very hard, and at times been ruthless to see my family secure and comfortable, now the one I care most for might as well be a scullion. Better. Scullions grow fat on the dripping.’ He scowled at me. ‘I always thought food was plentiful in such places. They hand it out. When I was first lamed I lived on what was given me at the Abbey Alms Gate.’

‘It varies,’ I said. ‘All religious are supposed to be vowed to poverty. Their interpretation of it varies, and some merely disregard it. I believe Clevely is genuinely poor. They never managed to replace their sheep and so lost what piteous income their wool brought in.’

His scowl lifted.

‘I’ll give them some sheep. How many could they look after properly without unduly adding to their labours? Three dozen? Fifty?’

‘They had eight, if I remember rightly, before. I don’t know how much pasture they have.’

‘Ask when you take Maude back. I’ll give them what they can take, of my good Cotswolds from Minsham. And I’ll buy every handful of wool at top price. That should help them to feed those poor girls a bit better.’

‘It wouldn’t benefit Maude in any way, sir. The sick poor might fatten. And you’d be putting the gyves on Maude tighter than ever. Once make Maude a supply line between you and Clevely and next time you see her she’ll be in novice garb. I know my monks, and nuns differ from them only in ways that have no effect on greed.’

He said, ‘I think you’re wrong, Nicholas. Oh, right about the persuasion, possibly, but wrong as to the result. My family is naturally perverse. I believe if they tried to coax her
into
a habit she’d run home and turn Lollard.’

‘You say that because she resisted our persuasions.’ I saw one of his eyebrows twitch when I said ‘our’. ‘Yes, I tried to talk her into waiting, at least. But we were arguing against something that she felt she should do; and we were only using words. They – if they do try to persuade her – will be arguing for what she feels she should do, and words will be the least of it. Inside every community there is an atmosphere, a kind of mental climate which is very difficult to withstand.’

He gave one of his enormous sighs, and said, as he had once said when Walter was under discussion,

‘People do what they must, I suppose. But in this case,’ he scowled as he sought for the words he needed, ‘I never can feel that this is something that was in Maude and must out. It’s been brought on from outside. If you knew what drove her to religion you’d understand what I mean.

‘She told me the whole story, once. And sorry hearing I found it. One person had been kind to her in her loneliness, so she fixed on her the whole affection of a young and tender heart. And then the only word of real comfort she was given came from a priest. The result was inevitable.’

There was a pause and I thought he was finished with the subject, but he said,

‘I failed her, too, perhaps. I thought of my own griefs – over which by this time, God knows, the grass should have grown. I envied her the certainty of her faith. I said as much. And I was wrong.’

‘As to that,’ I said, ‘I answered her with no faith, only with logic. It was a waste of breath.’

He gave me one of his sharp looks.

‘You seem to have a …’ I thought by the way his lips shaped he was going to say ‘a fondness’, he amended it, ‘an interest in the girl.’

I said boldly, ‘I am very fond of her, sir. Who could help it? Her looks are charming, her mind is lively, and even her obstinacy shows a good spirit.’

He was pleased; it showed in the softening of his harsh old face. Then his eyes narrowed, as though he were regarding a bale of wool, assessing its weight and value.

‘Her mother’, he said slowly, ‘is often somewhat harsh towards her. You notice that?’

‘Too often. I am tempted at times to forget my place and speak up in defence.’

‘Ah,’ he said, as though some question had been asked – not in words – and answered in the same fashion. ‘And you are now, how old?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘You know the business; you are trustworthy and healthy, as handsome as a man needs to be. And twenty-four. Are your affections or interests engaged elsewhere?’

I told him, no, which was near enough to the truth as mattered.

‘Then I’ll tell you, Nicholas; if I could wish one wish it would be that in two years’ time, or three, you and Maude would marry. I could die easy then.’

I muttered some deprecating words about time being young yet, and being honoured by this proof of his confidence and liking. Never again did the matter come into the open; but the words had been said; and if justification of my action was needed, later on, there it lay.

The next two years seem to me, when I look back, to have been as long as any other ten in my life. At Master Reed’s insistence Maude came home at fairly frequent intervals, always for Christmas, for the birthday she shared with Walter, and again, either in August or September; between these visits time sagged and dragged.

I had always held that any man who suffered any avoidable trouble or pain was a fool, and after Maude had gone stubbornly back after that first Christmas visit I made great efforts to rid myself of my infatuation.

I tried a change of mistress. My Bessie was as cheerful and cuddlesome as ever and I was fond of her, but I had become increasingly aware of some lack in our relationship. It was a coupling of the flesh only – a business
with which I had always hitherto been supremely content but which now seemed to fulfil only half my needs. I had only just determined to do something about this when an astonishing and unlooked for piece of luck came my way. Mistress Reed’s brother, Sir Godfrey Blanchefleur, he who was responsible for all the trouble that had sent Maude to Clevely, came down to visit his mad, moribund old father at Minsham and was shocked by the conditions in which he found him. It chanced that on one of the manors he had gained by his marriage he had found some distant relative of his wife’s family, a widow with two young sons, living on sufferance. He spent a little money on making Minsham Old Hall weather-tight and slightly more comfortable and installed this lady, with three good servants, to rule the household.

Clemence Kentwoode, had she possessed the minimum of money or property, or even been childless, would not have remained a widow for a week; she was pretty, witty and amorous. She had the smattering of learning, and the grace of manner common to her kind, and although, at first, the greater freedom and independence which life at Minsham offered pleased her, she was soon desperately lonely. For me it was an easy conquest, but as soon as the excitement of the advances, and the novelty of the affair had worn off, there I was, in no better case than before. Worse indeed, having proved the failure of any substitute, however delightful. I was still in love with a child, a sanctimonious, sentimental stubborn child.

And then, suddenly it seemed, a child no more. It was the birthday visit when she and Walter were fourteen years of age. I went, as had now become customary, to escort her home on the afternoon of the twelfth of March, and the moment I saw her I noticed the change. The sexless, carved-angel look had vanished. Though the Clevely diet and her growth upwards had assured that no flesh should accumulate on her bones, from somewhere Nature had found material enough for little pointed breasts which pressed against the material of her plain grey bodice, pulling it taut. The child had become a woman, the joy-giver, the child-bearer.

For me that was a miserable holiday; she seemed to have turned shy, losing what frank and confident friendliness she had ever felt for me. Nor was I the only one to suffer. Master Reed had bought her, as a birthday present, a fine gold ring with an inset sapphire, a trinket both valuable and beautiful. At the sight of it she burst into tears in which my experienced ear detected unmistakable hysteria, and holding one hand over the ring she had brought from Beauclaire, sobbed out that at Clevely nobody was allowed to wear more than one ring.

Her grandfather, with what I considered admirable restraint, said, ‘Well, wear them turn and turn about, then!’ She turned, and sobbing flung herself upon him, putting her hands about his neck and saying that he had always been so good to her and she did not wish to displease him. He patted her, awkwardly, and said, rather as though soothing a frightened horse, ‘There, there. There, there. It’s all right. Don’t upset yourself. There there.’

Mistress Reed, with a look of controlled loathing said,

‘If this is cloister hysteria we want none of it here.’

And where, I wondered, in her restricted life had she heard of ‘cloister hysteria’, that ease in the shedding of tears which, alongside its opposite, stoic fortitude, is reckoned a virtue by all those communities who must make virtues or sins out of every natural thing. Her words inevitably made me take Maude’s part and I said,

‘Sudden contrasts are very upsetting. At Clevely she has so little and here she has so much. I remember when I was at Norwich we were all, for some prank which no one would confess to, confined to Dorter and Frater for a week. Then we were let out, and in the grass a single daisy had flowered. We all wept at the sight of it as though we had received news of bereavement.’

‘That’, Mistress Reed said with cold dignity, ‘is exactly what I mean. Cloister hysteria. We don’t want it here.’

Maude pulled herself free of her grandfather’s patting hand.

‘You mean you don’t want me here. That is nothing new. You never did. I’ve known for years that the sight of me affronts you. Everything you’ve ever given me was a sop to your conscience. I know. And you need not worry about my bringing the cloister here. I shall not come here again. When I go back I shall begin my novitiate.’

Martin Reed banged his hand on the table.

‘Enough!’ he said. ‘That’s enough. In all my days I never heard such a todo over nothing. You, my girl,’ he looked at Maude, ‘will never be a novice with my consent. Five good pounds a year I paid them for your keep and never in all my dealings have I had worse value for money. That’ll stop. Tell them that. If they take you in a veil they take you bare. See how they like that. As for you,’ he swung round and faced Mistress Reed, ‘all the wench said was true. Out of the house, first to Beauclaire, then to the nunnery. Why, God alone knows.’ He reached out and snatched up the ring which had precipitated the scene, and tossed it towards me. ‘Take it,’ he said, ‘give it to your leman. She can sell it and buy one of her boys some bit of
gear that’ll set him on the road to knighthood.’ He spat out the word as though it were an obscenity and rushed on, ‘That’s been the ruin of us all, pretensions, with nothing behind them, sacrificing decent sober hardworking people and silly little girls who love the first person to speak a kind word and fine gentlemen so fine they’ll wed lunatics for the sake of their acres….’ He had, on the whole, been coherent up to that point, then he began to mutter and babble.