The Lute Player (64 page)

I then saw at over her poised and halted needle Berengaria was staring at me with some horror.

‘But I agreed with her. I entirely agreed with her.’

‘What?’ I daresay my face mirrored the horror.

‘She is right, Anna. I agreed with her.’

‘You agreed that Blondel is a dirty, drunken, dissolute fellow, a disgrace to any respectable establishment?’

‘Isn’t it true?’ She looked down and carefully threaded a pearl onto the needle.

So many thoughts rushed into my mind that for a moment I was speechless. I stared at her, seeing as though for the first time the smoothly dressed hair speckled with grey—that hair which had fallen in shining plaits over her shoulders, been gathered in the great rich knot at the back of her head, been twisted into fantastic fashionable horns on her brow; seeing the lips, once so richly curved, so ripely red, so like a rose, grown pale and narrow, grown prim and patient. As though aware of my scrutiny, she lifted her head and looked at me and I saw the sad, old woman’s eyes.

And I thought of the tall red-headed knight, the valiant crusader, rotting in his untimely grave; killed not on some high enterprise, some noble errand but dead of avarice, slain in a sordid little squabble about a treasure which had no existence.

And I thought of Blondel, my beautiful singing boy, bloated, drunken and cynical.

What dreadful destruction could be wrought by time and what desolate ruin we did work upon one another. Past all bearing to contemplate.

What would she say now if I dared tell her the whole truth; if I told her that she had destroyed Blondel, made him what he was as surely as Richard had destroyed her and made her what she was?

For a moment the hot angry desire to do so was strong in me. Then I saw how useless and cruel such an outburst would be—merely a relief to my feelings at the expense of her peace. She was not to blame any more than Richard was to blame for spoiling her life or Blondel for the smouldering fire in me.

‘You can’t say it isn’t true,’ she said, and pulled the needle through, so that I realised that all this thinking had taken no longer than the firm stitching of a pearl into place. One drop of spleen forced its way through my self-control.

‘He is not dissolute,’ I said loudly.

‘Well, I am not clever with words. It was the one she used. And then, you see, since
your
conversation this morning, Anna, there was that most unfortunate occurrence during dinner.’

‘Nobody can be dissolute at dinner.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Anna. It was a matter of discipline. Sister Elizabeth had occasion to punish two of the children, Marianne, the one with the curls, and that little cross-eyed girl—I forget her name. She said they were not to have any dinner but, being merciful, she did not wish to torment them with the sight of the others feeding, so she stood them outside the door. When she went to recall them they were not there and at last she found them in that little den which you fitted up for Blondel to write in. He had one on each knee and he was drawing things to make them laugh and they both had crumbs on their faces—cake crumbs. You must see that such behaviour on his part makes it impossible for Sister Elizabeth to maintain discipline—and as the abbess says, Marianne is far too big a girl to sit on any man’s knee.’

‘At last she has said something I can agree with! Too big and too heavy. But he lifted Catherine up to enable her to see what he was drawing and Marianne climbed up uninvited. Her father has been dead not quite six months, Berengaria; probably he often set her on his knee, probably she thinks men’s knees are for sitting on. As for the cake, I gave them that. I was there, you see. They said they had lost their dinner for making ugly stitches and God knows I have made many such in my time.’

‘Then you were equally to blame,’ Berengaria said coldly. I saw the spirit of the cloister, cold and irresistible as an evening shadow, move forward and engulf her.

‘I agree. I’ll go further and agree that a place where discipline is preferred before simple kindness where, in fact, an unthinking kindness is regarded with suspicion, is not the place for Blondel—or for me.’

She halted the busy needle then and looked up with the expression of one who half-hears, doubts and waits for a sound to be repeated.

‘You said that as though, if Blondel were asked to, you would go.’

‘And that,’ I said, ‘is precisely what I mean. Madam Ursula meant it too.’

‘That is nonsense, Anna. You talk about suspicion and lack of charity! She has never mentioned your leaving. How could she? This is your home. But for you L’Espan would never have been built. There was never any suggestion—Oh, why must you take this curious attitude? I never heard anything so ridiculous. One would think you couldn’t live without Blondel.’

‘I should find it difficult to live without something that Blondel stands for, dirty, drunk and disreputable as he may be. And that something doesn’t flourish here, Berengaria. There’s a taint—I’ve watched it spread and now I know you are infected. Only a short while ago, though you might have criticised Blondel yourself, you’d have been loyal and remembered the many services he has done you. You had only to say, “He has served me faithfully and where I am he remains.” She would have accepted that from you. But you have caught the cloister cold-heart and you agree with her. So it remains for me to say, “I have used him and when he goes, I go.” And that is what I am saying now.’

‘You’re angry,’ Berengaria said with infuriating tolerance. ‘Don’t be angry, be reasonable. Of course he has served me but he has always been fed and clothed and housed and been given presents. I’m fond of Blondel but for years now he has been going downhill, getting dirtier, almost always fuddled with wine and often rude.’ She pointed her needle at me. ‘Don’t think that I was blind to these things until the abbess spoke. I’ve noticed. I’ve spoken to him repeatedly and he just laughs. If you’ll just think for a moment you’ll see, as I do, a dozen reasons why he should go and not one why he should stay.’

‘I do. I see that with great clarity.’

‘Yet you are so perverse you must side with him. Just as you must give naughty children cake. You don’t like the children; you never go near the Kindergarten; you said their singing sounded like the last wails of drowning kittens—but as soon as you see two being properly punished you must give them cake! And you agree that Blondel has no place here but if he goes you threaten to leave too. It’s stupid.’

‘It was a promise rather than a threat,’ I said lightly. ‘L’Espan will be rid of two awkward, misplaced people at one throw. Madam Ursula will be delighted.’ Not, I thought spitefully, that my removal would give her full rein; the Lodgings’ charter was quite watertight and if she tried to interfere with my women she would find herself reckoning not only with Sir Godric but with her own bishop as well.

‘Anna, you don’t really mean to go?’ She looked at me and saw that I did. ‘I shall miss you—horribly. We’ve been through so much together.’ For a moment the memory of all our hopes and fears and schemes, merry times, sad times, journeyings and waitings were quick and vivid in the room. ‘So much,’ she said, and sighed, remembering. Then the cold shadow strode forward again and she said, ‘But it is useless to look backward—it’s all over.’

I saw her gaze drop to the little box of pearls. And I knew in a flash of perception that for some time now Blondel and I had been not merely perverse and awkward and out of place at L’Espan but out of place in the new life she was building, constant uncomfortable reminders of the old life of stubborn self-will, fleshly passion, worldly scheming. She had turned her back on that life and on us. In a way our going would be a relief to her too. At that thought my heart leapt up like a bird inadvertently set free by a clumsy fowler. Yes, it was all over.

‘But you have found peace—and happiness, of a sort here, haven’t you?’ I asked gently.

She looked up but her left hand moved to the box and blindly selected the next pearl.

‘Oh yes, Anna. I’ve been happier here than at any time, since—since I was a girl.’

The happiness of resignation, routine, ritual and faith. Very real; attainable to everyone—at a price. But the door to such a state of mind was so narrow that you must enter it alone, stripped naked; and so low that you must bend your head and say, “I agree,” “I accept.” Not for me—yet.

It was eight o’clock and a mild summer evening. Every pink rose on the little bush was open to the heart and some petals were already shedding; the white lilies were now in full bloom, filling the air with a swooning sweetness. The garden was empty save for Thérèse, who, walking a snail’s pace, was taking her senile, obese little dog for its last airing of the day. The children were all abed, the ladies indoors. The stillness was broken only by the occasional murmur of a dove and the soft sound of the nuns at compline in the chapel.

I knew where I should find Blondel; in the place which Berengaria called his “little den.” In the failing light he would be laying aside his reading or his writing, fitting a new string to his lute or merely sitting and watching the night run in over the fields of the sky. He would not be sober. The wine jug would stand empty on the floor, the beaker, half full, be ready to hand.

His right arm, now withered to uselessness, would be tucked into the front of his tunic and the tunic would be dirty, stained and crumpled. His face would be bloated, unshaven, cynical, kind.

I knew. What I should find; where I was going.

But you come in the end to the place where your heart is; that is, if you set your heart in an attainable place. And it occurred to me that of them all I was the only one who had done that. Now it would be easy enough to go to Blondel and say:

‘Our work here is done; we are not wanted here any more. Come, let us go to Apieta and build
our
house.’