Alys Clare - Whiter than the Lily

The walled garden lay as if stunned under the hot May sunshine. After an indifferent spring, it seemed that Nature was eager to make up for lost time and, since the middle of the month, the weather had been dry and unseasonably hot.

The grass was dotted with daisies and, at a distance from the sheltering group of apple and nut trees in the far corner, three or four fairy rings made a pattern of darker green on the lawn’s brightness. Herbs and flowers grew abundantly in the beds. Predominant among the lilies, pansies, poppies, sage, lavender and thyme were the tall stems of rue, its yellow flowers brought early into bloom by the sun and pushing their way vigorously up to the light. Roses climbed in profusion over the southern and westward walls, their bright pink flowers giving a fragrance to the warm, still air. Wormwood and yarrow, southernwood and bramble competed for space in the hedge beyond the nut trees; in the shade of the hedge, in its own marked-off space, grew mandrake.

Between the herb beds, narrow paths wound through the grass. On the furthest path stood a young woman. She had just picked a rose and, holding it to her face, her eyes were closed in pleasure as she breathed in the scent.

She was tall, slim and fair, so fair that, in the bright light, her skin appeared white. Her hair, too, was almost white; a blonde so pale that it resembled ripe flax. She had thrown back the veil that she usually wore to shield her face from the sun and now the faintest blush of pink was beginning to colour her cheeks. She was dressed in silk, expensive, heavy silk, imported from France and acquired, at considerable cost, from a merchant in Romney. The silk was the palest pink of an opening bindweed flower and — not in the least by accident — it exactly matched the soft colour in the girl’s smooth skin.

Graceful, rapt, eyes still closed, she was beautiful.

So beautiful, thought the old man watching her from a window above, that she puts the flowers to shame. Who has need of a garden, if he can but gaze on one such as she?

He put up a hand to rub at his eyes. His sight troubled him constantly, although he did not care to admit it. Until quite recently, it had only been close things that he could not see well but now he was also beginning to have difficulty with his long sight. The rubbing did not help; in fact, he realised, it had made matters worse. Letting his hand fall into his lap, he leaned forward in his chair, narrowed his eyes to fierce slits and resumed his intent study. Concentrating very hard, he fixed his watering eyes on her.

Still holding the rose in one long, pale hand, she was moving along the path now. Then, in a swift, supple movement that made the watching man catch his breath, she bent down to pick some small flower from the grass. A daisy, he thought, wishing he could see. Or perhaps a violet. Yes, probably a violet, and she was going to prepare for him some of those sweetmeats made from violets steeped in honey that he enjoyed so much.

Ah, but how he loved her! Loved her for the care she took of him, for the store of remedies for his many ailments that she seemed to keep within that sleek head. Loved her for her affectionate nature and her playful ways, she who made him laugh sometimes like the boy he wished with all his heart that he still were.

She was patient with him, aye, patient and loving. When they lay in their bed and he reached for her, his wife, she had ways of making his old flesh respond and rouse itself. But, despite the small caressing hands, the regular addition of rosemary to his food and the testicle-shaped beans beneath his pillow, it was becoming steadily more difficult to reach any sort of satisfaction, for himself or for her. He worried ceaselessly that her youth and her ardour might tire of his efforts.

Besides that worry there was another. He prayed daily for a child and, as well he knew, so did she. Their intimacies were usually of a nature for her to conceive — not always, but surely with sufficient frequency — and there had been times when she believed herself to be carrying his child. But on each occasion — there had been no more than three — at the moon’s turning she had begun to bleed. The loss from her womb had been accompanied by quiet and heartbreaking tears from her beautiful blue eyes, tears which had set off his own so that, balked of parenthood, they wept together and found some small comfort in each other as they did so.

I would give her the world, he mused, staring down at her as, leaving the path, her small feet in their calf-leather slippers lightly crossed the grass. The world, aye, and everything in it. I do give her anything she asks of me, not that she asks for much, bless her loving heart.

But I cannot give her a child.

He felt the familiar grief overtake him. He had reached down his hand to her belly and the soft hair of her groin that morning; heartened by a good night’s sleep and aroused by the warmth of her bottom pressed into his stomach as she slept, he had woken with his blood pounding. But she had gently taken hold of his wrist and whispered, ‘No, my dearest love, for my courses are beginning.’

They had tried not to dwell on it, tried not to let it spoil the bright day. And, after all, were not the spring and the early summer times of hope?

She must have felt his gaze on her. Perhaps, he thought fondly, close to my heart as she is, she senses my distress.

For, reaching the corner of the garden where two walls met and a low door gave access to a little hut, suddenly she stopped, turned and, looking straight up at him, gave him a sweet smile and blew him a kiss.

For a long time he went on staring at the space where she had stood for that brief moment. Then, as the summer scents and the heat from the sunny garden steadily pervaded the room, slowly his eyelids began to droop. Settling himself more comfortably in his high-backed chair, resting his grey head on the small lavender-scented cushion that she had made for him, he slept.

Down in the little hut, the young woman was busy. She loved it in there, where the walls smelt of cut wood and the reed thatch of the roof housed small and usually unseen creatures whose soft rustlings and sudden brisk movements provided cheerful company for her as she worked.

The hut had been built with its back to the bricks of the walled garden, in the driest place that could be found. It had two little windows in its outward-facing side and, on sunny days, the shutters were always fastened back to allow a good circulation of air. Positioned out of the prevailing south-westerly wind and in the shade of the high wall, the temperature inside the hut remained fairly constant; the girl had stipulated the necessity for this when she had given her orders regarding the hut’s construction.

It was the place where she dried and stored her herbs and where she prepared her simples and potions.

Along the rear wall was a wide wooden workbench, on which she laid out her herbs after picking. She had recently been gathering rosemary, eager to collect some of the plant’s first potent flowering, and the air inside the small space still smelt sweetly of the herb. Above the bench, several wooden poles had been fastened lengthways under the hut’s roof and from them hung bunches of herbs in the process of drying. On shelves at the end of the hut were a great many stone jars, neatly sealed with wax so as to keep out all air and moisture.

She was skilled in herb lore and knew exactly what she was doing.