Alys Clare: Whiter than the Lily

‘Aye, she is,’ Josse said quietly.

‘And, as doubtless was your first thought on seeing her, young enough to be my granddaughter.’

‘Ah, no!’ Josse protested, feeling himself redden again. ‘I thought only …’ He could not summon up a lie, and, his flush deepening, he fell silent.

Misunderstanding him, Ambrose smiled faintly and, looking away, said, ‘Well, perhaps not quite my granddaughter. But, for sure, my daughter.’

‘She — er, it is clear that she cares for you lovingly and tenderly,’ Josse said. Since that was true — or so he believed, on such brief acquaintance — he said it with conviction. He felt his hot face begin to cool down.

‘She does, she does.’ Ambrose sighed again, more deeply. ‘As do I for her. I love her, Josse, and it is my greatest wish to make her happy.’

‘She seems happy to me,’ Josse said. ‘She has the air of a contented woman.’ That, too, he believed to be the truth.

But Ambrose, turning to face him and fixing him with faded hazel eyes, said sadly, ‘But Galiena is clever at dissimulation. She wishes me to believe that I satisfy her in every respect. She does not like me to think that she sorrows and therefore she pretends that she is happy, with not a care in the world.’

Josse was beginning to dread what might be coming. ‘She — er, she has a beautiful home and a loving husband,’ he said, wishing himself anywhere but there in the sunny garden and apparently about to hear some highly intimate confidences. ‘Many women would give much to be so comfortably situated.’

‘Aye, that is what she, too, says.’ Ambrose lowered his eyes. ‘Yet that, sir, is all she has. We live very quietly here. I do not care for company and, save for Brice and, today, yourself’ — he gave an acknowledging nod in Josse’s vague direction — ‘we have few other visitors other than family. And indeed I am often from home when there is business to attend to or when I am summoned to court. Life with a man who now prefers the peaceful country life is, I fear, dull for Galiena. How can she be satisfied with it?’ He breathed deeply once or twice, keeping his head down, then, as if he had been gathering his courage, abruptly raised his eyes towards Josse again and said rapidly, ‘Sir Josse, I need your help. Brice tells me that you are acquainted with the good sisters at Hawkenlye Abbey?’

‘I — er, aye, that I am.’ The sudden change of tack had totally confused Josse and he stumbled over his response.

‘Then tell me, if you will, are they skilled in women’s matters?’

Women’s matters . Oh, God’s boots, Josse thought frantically, it’s even worse that I feared! ‘Er — they have a highly competent infirmarer,’ he hedged. ‘There are many dedicated nursing sisters and there’s Sister Tiphaine, she’s the herbalist.’

‘They treat women for their personal problems?’ Ambrose persisted, and the heavy emphasis on personal made Josse blush anew.

‘Um — hmph — er — ’

But Ambrose, lost in his own deep distress, seemed unaware of Josse’s extreme discomfiture. ‘She is a herbalist herself, my Galiena,’ he muttered. ‘She has tried everything she can think of. Even what I believe are quite desperate remedies.’ The anguished expression making him look even older, he went on, ‘I see her at night, you see. Oh, she thinks that she does not disturb me, that I sleep blissfully on when she creeps out of my bed. But I awake, sir, always I awake. I perceive her sudden absence, even if I am deeply asleep. And I go to the window, from which I can look down on the garden, and I watch as she enacts her rites. Only often she conceals herself, you understand, she slips away to where I can no longer see her. It is easily done.’ He sighed. Staring out over the garden, dropping to a whisper, he said, ‘Naked under the moonlight she is, her lovely body so pale and white. So beautiful. So beautiful.’

Suddenly he seemed to recall to whom he was speaking. The intensity left his haggard face and, laughing briefly, Ambrose said, ‘Josse, I am sorry. In my desperation, I forgot myself. You arrive here as an unsuspecting guest then all of a sudden your host drags you off alone and starts raving about matters more suited to a private discussion between a lady and her bedchamber maid. You must be quite horrified!’

Since horrified did not begin to describe it, Josse merely grunted.

‘What I am asking you,’ Ambrose went on, his voice calmer now, ‘is whether the Hawkenlye nuns can help my wife. Help both of us, indeed, for it is my wish as much as it is hers.’

Light dawned on Josse, suddenly and totally. Old husband, young wife, and a large, wealthy household whose quiet peace was undisturbed by a child’s shrieks of laughter or a baby’s cry.

He opened his mouth to speak, but as he did so Ambrose forestalled him. ‘Galiena is barren, Sir Josse,’ he said quietly. ‘And I want more than anything in the world to grant her heart’s desire and give her a child.’

‘You reassure me, Josse. I had no wish to raise my wife’s hopes if there was no hope, but now I believe I shall make the suggestion to her.’

Ambrose and Josse had walked all around the garden. Josse had answered the older man’s questions about the Hawkenlye community as fully as he could, and at last Ambrose seemed to accept that Josse could not be regarded as any sort of an authority on that highly embarrassing subject of women’s matters. With a chuckle, Ambrose said he would wait until he could address his questions to the proper person — Josse had told him that the infirmarer was called Sister Euphemia, which Ambrose had committed to memory — and he promised not to badger Josse any more.

As they set off back towards the house, the soft summer sounds punctuated by the tap of their footsteps on the path, Josse suddenly exclaimed, ‘We are forgetting the waters!’

‘The waters?’ There was a note of query in Ambrose’s tone.

‘Aye, the precious healing waters, down in the Vale.’ Confident that this was a type of cure that anyone could discuss without the hot flush of embarrassment, Josse hurried to explain. ‘There is a spring at Hawkenlye — you have not heard tell of it? The holy water has worked many a miracle.’

‘I am not entirely sure that I believe in miracles,’ Ambrose said. ‘Sir Josse, I would risk a further confidence, if you permit?’ Screwed-up eyes peering at Josse’s dubious face, he gave a shout of laughter and said, ‘Not that sort of confidence, man! Did I not just give you my word? No. What I was about to say was this. We have prayed, Galiena and I, aye, and fasted. Confessed our sins and done penance, quite extreme in my case. The priest tells us that Galiena’s failure to conceive is a mark of God’s disfavour and that a sincere and heartfelt repentance will restore to us the Lord’s grace. So we pray, and tell our beads, and I submitted myself to a hair shirt and no clean linen for a month.’ He shuddered. ‘Believe me, Josse, to I who am probably over-particular, my own stench and the crawl of lice on my skin were worse torments than the rough scratch of horsehair. And all for naught!’ Anger flashed in the stern face and, for a moment, Josse caught a glimpse of the authority and the force that must have surged in Ambrose when he was in his prime. ‘All for naught,’ he repeated more softly, ‘for my poor lassie goes on bleeding regularly each month.’

Feeling that the gentle Hawkenlye monks had somehow been included in Ambrose’s rant against the priesthood, Josse felt obliged to speak up for them. ‘There is nothing of that at Hawkenlye,’ he said firmly. ‘For one thing, the monks are loving and only too aware that people go to them in trouble. They wish always to help if they can and they do not judge. For another, the Abbess of Hawkenlye would not permit such heavy-handed measures as you describe.’