Alys Clare - The Chatter of the Maidens

‘He’s married,’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘He and Meriel are man and wife.’

‘I know.’ Bastian gave her a calm smile. ‘They were wed before they left Medely.’

‘ What ?’ But it was not the moment to ask that; recalling what they had been discussing, she said, ‘Jerome must have found the burned body in the cottage, and realised that Alba had to get away from the farm before anyone else came across it, in case she was suspected of being involved.’ She paused. ‘I do not believe Jerome knows the truth,’ she said slowly. ‘He and Meriel may have their suspicions, but I believe they have no proof.’

‘I believe you are right,’ Bastian put in quietly.

But she barely heard. ‘He — Jerome — would surely have hurried to the farm. But before he had time to prevent her, Alba had swept up her sisters and fled — Jerome would have found nothing but an empty house. Since Alba must have known that Meriel wouldn’t go with her otherwise, she told her that Jerome had died in the cottage.’ She even showed me . ‘Oh, God,’ she murmured. ‘Alba made Meriel look . And how convincing she must have been in persuading the girl that the poor, dead youth was Jerome!’

Bastian was looking at her sorrowfully. ‘Alba was convincing because she believed he was Jerome. It was her intention to murder Jerome, and she thought she had done so.’

‘But why ?’

Bastian gave a deep sigh. ‘It is all to do with the person that Alba is,’ he said, ‘or, perhaps, the person that her life has made her.’ His eyes on Helewise’s, he asked, ‘Will you hear the tale?’

And, late though it was, surreal though it seemed to be sitting here with a stranger in the silent, candlelit dimness of her room, she nodded.

‘Alba,’ he began, ‘is considerably older than her sisters, as you will have observed. This meant that, when Meriel and Berthe were born, Alba developed a rivalry with their mother, Adela, over who had the greater responsibility for them and, indeed, for their father. Alba had been used to caring solely for Wilfrid, and he allowed a far greater intimacy to develop between the two of them than he ought to have done. But he was a weak man. An autocrat within his own four walls, but without the moral strength to recognise a developing wrong and correct it.’

‘You speak of the two of them, Alba and Wilfrid,’ Helewise put in. ‘What of Adela?’

‘Adela was not Alba’s mother. In his young manhood, Wilfrid took a village whore to his bed and impregnated her. She died giving birth to the child, and my predecessors — that is, those who had overseen events made sure that the baby was placed where she belonged, with her father. Wilfrid was faced with the baby, Alba, and he had no choice but to accept his responsibilities. Village gossip being what it is, Alba grew up in no doubt about the identity of her mother, who was, indeed, a loose-living, indolent soul with few, if any, saving graces.’

‘Only God can know that,’ Helewise put in gently. ‘We receive many prostitutes here, Bastian, and their profession does not necessarily remove them from God’s love and favour.’

‘I know, Abbess. I accept your reprimand.’ He bowed his head briefly. It was hardly a reprimand, she thought. He went on, ‘And in any case, I am only repeating what others said, which I should not do.’

She had, she realised, interrupted the flow of his story. ‘Please, continue,’ she said.

‘Thank you. Alba, the child of a whore, began early in her life her attempt not only to better herself, but also to raise up the family into which, on her father’s side, she had been born. He was, as I have said, a weak man, and it was easier for him to go along with Alba’s high-flying aspirations than to argue her out of them. Indeed, he probably enjoyed her flattery and her insistence that only the best would do for them . There was an adequate living on the farm and Alba, for all her faults, was a good manager. She was apparently horrified when Wilfrid announced he was going to marry Adela, who, decent and loving woman that she was, came from very humble stock.’

‘Then, when Meriel and Berthe were born, Alba would have sensed that she was being thrust into the background, and doubled her efforts to make herself and her family shine,’ Helewise said thoughtfully. ‘Because she saw them as hers , any achievement of theirs reflected back on to her.’

‘Precisely. With Wilfrid’s support, Alba became bossy, then dogmatic, and finally domineering to the point of tyranny. She instigated a system of punishments, and even Adela sometimes suffered, although never as much as the girls. Wilfrid, one gathers, was vastly amused at the sight of his middle child being penned up outside with the hounds because she had forgotten to feed them, and by the howls of little Berthe shut in the cellar for answering Alba back.’

‘Meriel said Berthe is afraid of the dark,’ Helewise said pityingly.

‘Is it any wonder, when Alba worked on that childish fear to increase Berthe’s suffering? It was a dreadful life, Abbess, and, although Wilfrid was perhaps even more to blame, he is dead and gone. Alba, on the other hand, is very much alive.’

But Helewise was following another thought. ‘Meriel, too, said that Alba was instrumental in Adela’s death,’ she said. ‘Is that truly so?’

‘It is.’ Bastian’s face was grave. ‘The girls used to use the old tumbledown cottage as a sort of play house, and, I suspect, as a refuge. Alba rarely went there — whenever the girls and their mother were out of the farmhouse, she used to bask in being in sole charge. One day, Adela took the girls to the old cottage for the day, and they were having such fun that Adela forgot the time. She rushed home to start on Wilfrid’s dinner — he used to be violent if his meals were late — and all would have been well except that Alba told him. She said something like, what a shame we have to have this stew again! Had Adela not been so late home, she would have had time to prepare something fresh! Wilfrid ordered his wife to cook something else, but she had nothing to cook. She was going to slip out, run all the way down to the village and try to beg something from kindly people there, but Alba said slyly that it surely wasn’t fit for a wife of Wilfrid’s to be seen begging . Wilfrid agreed and told Adela instead to go and dig up some vegetables from their own plot. He wouldn’t let her back inside until he was satisfied she’d got enough to feed them all. It was raining, and dark, and cold, and Adela took a chill. Weakened by it, she succumbed to the ague.’

‘They were monstrous , Alba and her father!’ Helewise cried. ‘Especially Alba!’

‘Monstrous?’ Bastian seemed to reflect. ‘Yes, perhaps. But we have to look at it from Alba’s viewpoint, Abbess. Unwanted at birth, thrust on to a father who didn’t want her either, then, as soon as she began to make some progress in her life, the father ousts her by taking a wife and begetting two enchanting little girls. Whose mother, incidentally, adored them both and worshipped the very ground they walked on. Whereas Alba’s mother was a reviled, hapless woman who had died at her birth.’

‘I do see what you mean,’ Helewise acknowledged. ‘But her distressing background cannot be allowed to condone her behaviour.’

‘I did not intend to suggest that it should,’ he said. ‘But what happened to her when she was young can perhaps explain why she grew up as she did.’

‘She murdered a young man.’ Helewise felt the horror begin again. ‘Whom she believed to be Jerome. Did she know they were married, he and Meriel?’

‘No. Nobody knew except Berthe. She knew about Jerome from the start, and was sworn to secrecy. But the poor child inadvertently let the secret out to Alba that Meriel and Jerome were in love. They all knew Alba would make a fuss, both because she couldn’t bear to lose control over any of her family, and also because, although she had never met Jerome, she had heard that he was an orphan, brought up by distant kin and very much a poor relation.’