Eadgith and Matilda speak of it

“Oh, goodness,” Eadgith’s mother huffed, and she fumbled her knees out from under the edge of the counterpane the ladies were embroidering. “If there is a part of his body that hasn’t a bruise, I’m not aware that he has it.”

Edris laughed softly. “Haakon is as careless as Baldwin is careful.”

“Count yourself lucky,” her mother said as she stalked out behind the nurse to rejoin Haakon in the nursery.

“I don’t know,” Edris mused. “It takes him ages merely to get his toys out ready to play. Haakon simply dumps them on the floor and sets to it. And heaven help us if Baldwin’s meat touches his peas!”

“Both sorts require a saint’s patience,” Matilda said. “Dunstan is the careful one and Yware is the careless one, and they both drive their mother batty.”

“Soon Eadie will take Yware off of your hands,” Edris said with a smile.

Matilda opened her mouth as if she would say something to Eadgith, but she immediately closed it again and looked back to her sewing.

Eadgith, meanwhile, had never looked up. Of course she often had to see Matilda, but the two had scarcely said ten words to one another since Emma’s birthday. Seeing her was as much as Eadgith could bear.

Indeed, even that should have been unbearable, but she was constantly reminding herself that a great lady would see Matilda, and smile politely, and never show by word or look or deed that she had anything to reproach her, except perhaps by a mild coolness that only Matilda would notice.

She did not think she came anywhere near this ideal, but she desperately tried. Sigefrith believed that she would be a great lady, and she would have died before disappointing Sigefrith in this. It was her one hope of eventually being worthy of him.

“Eadie,” Edris continued after she perceived that only she would break the silence, “you might ask your father for advice if Yware proves to be more than you can handle. From the stories Cenwulf has told me, it appears that your husband-​to-​be was very Yware-​like in his youth, and it was your father had the responsibility of keeping him in line.”

“What about Cenwulf?” Eadgith asked.

“Oh, I believe he was rather bad himself at that age,” she said with a fond smile. “But mostly because he did whatever Sigefrith wanted to do.”

“I think that Yware will be better once he has Caedwulf around all the time,” Matilda said. “Caedwulf has a limited patience with his antics that will soon be exhausted if they spend all their time together. And he is a big enough boy to knock Yware down if necessary. And sit on him,” she giggled.

“If necessary,” Edris laughed.

But then the nurse returned, this time looking for Edris. Lady Ardith had, it seemed, injured herself in the same tumble as Haakon, but had been too shy to complain at first.

Eadgith felt a rising panic as Edris stood and brushed the snips of thread from her gown. If only she had gone up to kiss Haakon earlier! Now she would be left alone with Matilda! She could feel Matilda’s eyes on her. Matilda wanted to talk to her. What would a great lady do now?

“Eadie,” Matilda said softly and pleadingly once Edris had gone out.

Eadgith blinked rapidly and prayed that her mother would hurry back.

“Eadie, talk to me, please.”

“We have nothing to say to one another,” Eadgith murmured.

“Yes, we do.” Matilda folded up her edge of the counterpane and laid it across Edris’s chair before coming to sit beside Eadgith in the chair her mother had left. “Put your sewing down,” Matilda said firmly.

Eadgith slipped her needle into the fabric, but she could not bear to look up.

“Eadgith, please. You…” Matilda trailed off in confusion, and Eadgith looked up at her, surprised at her lack of self-​assurance. “Don’t hate us, Eadie!” she blurted.

“I don’t hate you,” she said softly. That was not difficult. Surely a great lady would not hate. She herself did not feel herself capable of hate… not exactly…

“Thank you,” Matilda said, and her voice was calmer now, though she was breathing heavily. “And thank you for not telling Sigefrith.” When Eadgith did not respond, her face paled and she asked, “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No.”

Matilda sighed in relief.

This was the great worry that was spoiling Eadgith’s last months before her marriage. She did not know whether or not a great lady would tell whom she had seen with her father. She didn’t know whether a great lady would tell her husband, or whether it mattered that he was not yet her husband, or whether it mattered that Matilda and Alred and her father were all among his dearest friends.

Her only guide was Sigefrith’s request not to tell Leila about the matter. It would seem to follow that Alred should not be told either… unless there were a difference between an unfaithful husband and an unfaithful wife—and she thought there might be.

“That’s very wise of you, Eadgith,” Matilda said. “I had feared that at your age, you wouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t understand at all.”

“Well… you understood that it was best not to tell Sigefrith. That’s the important thing. You know, it wouldn’t do anyone any good if he knew, or if—if anyone else knew,” she said with a hot blush. Eadgith supposed she was thinking of Alred.

Eadgith only shrugged. She didn’t think Matilda’s opinion on the matter was any guide at all.

“You know, dear, it was only a stupid, stupid mistake. And nothing happened. I mean, nothing that you might have been thinking these past weeks really happened. Only what you saw. It was only a silly, stupid mistake, and it will never happen again.”

“I certainly hope not.”

“It won’t, I give you my word. So, we can simply forget about all of this and be friends again, can’t we?”

“I can’t forget it, and I don’t want to be your friend,” Eadgith said firmly.

“Eadgith!”

“I shall see you of course, as we do now. But I don’t wish to be your friend.”

“But, Eadie! You don’t understand. It was nothing, it shouldn’t matter.”

“You are right, I don’t understand. But it was not nothing, and it matters to me. And I don’t wish to talk about it.”

Matilda lifted her head high and looked at Eadgith through half-​closed eyes, in that way she had that made her seem to be looking down on one, even though she was shorter than nearly everyone over the age of twelve. “You should have stopped with ‘You are right,’” she said coolly. “As soon as you admit that you don’t understand, you are in no position to judge others. We shall discuss the matter again in twenty years, when you are my age and have been long married, and we shall see whether or not you understand then. I suspect you will understand long before.”

“What do you mean by that?” Eadgith asked, bristling.

“I simply mean that marriage is not the lifelong bliss young brides imagine it to be. I am not a depraved woman. Anyone might do what I did if the right man and the right circumstances meet. Even you.”

Eadgith frowned, but she knew it was pointless to protest. If she did, Matilda would simply remind her that she was too young to understand. She suspected that she had already allowed herself to be dragged farther into this conversation than a great lady would have done.

“I believe that I shall forgive you and my father one day soon,” she said slowly, searching for the most gracious thing to say. “I know you are not depraved. But I am, as you say, still a young girl, and my father is my father, and it is painful for me to see him do wrong.” Then she remembered something Sigefrith had said, and snatched at it as the words of a great man. “Also, as you say, I am a young bride and it is a difficult time at which to be reminded that marriage vows are not proof against all temptation.”

Eadgith had thought it well-​said, but Matilda only stared at her for a moment, with the corners of her pretty mouth turned down sharply into a frown, before getting up and returning to her corner of the counterpane.

Neither spoke again until Eadgith’s mother returned to the room. Eadgith was certain she had said the wrong thing, and despaired of ever having the wisdom or grace of a great lady. She did not realize that in her attempt to excuse her feelings, she had simply found a reproach that Matilda could not meet with condescension.