Hetty does something bold

Hetty was a little sorry she could not dance, after all. Her husband’s musicians were excellent, and they possessed the additional charm of playing music that her husband had composed.

There was no doubt she had married a very talented man, and there was no doubt in her fond heart that men would still be speaking his name a thousand years hence, just as men still spoke today of Virgil and other poets of a thousand years before.

And perhaps, perhaps, if men were clever enough a thousand years hence, they would recognize her name in some of his acrostic poems, HEDWIGE spelled out vertically in the first letters of each line.

Life in his arms, all the undying future in their children and their children’s children, and immortality in his poems: she was a woman three times blessed.

And all of these friends, who seemed so happy together on this night: that was four times.

She looked up at Sigefrith and giggled out of her own overflowing happiness. “What are they laughing about down there?”

“Probably at Ethelwyn and Mouse,” Sigefrith muttered.

“Why? Are they saying something funny? Oh, I hope they become friends! Do not say it to them,” Hetty said slyly, “but I think they have been thinking of each other for some time, even though they only truly met tonight.”

“Hetty!” Sophie gasped. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Oh, Hetty!” Sophie laughed a gleeful baby’s deep, gurgling laugh. “They can’t stand one another! Mouse said she would like to wear red boots to Wyn’s funeral and dance around his grave!”

Stein and Eadwyn and Britamund laughed.

“Sophie!” Sigefrith growled.

“What does this mean?” Hetty whimpered.

“Don’t you know?” Sophie asked. “Mouse pushed Wyn into the moat—or ‘helped’ him fall, I don’t know—and then she jumped in after him—or ‘slipped’ in, I don’t know. And then when they climbed out again, they fought like a wet cat tossed together with a wet dog.”

“Ach, du lieber Gott!” Hetty gasped. “I thought Heafoc pushed Wyn in with a maid!”

“What a story!” Sophie crowed. “Heaf only got cake on Wyn’s cloak. Mouse pushed him in, probably for being rude to Heaf. And I don’t know why Mouse jumped in. Probably so as not to miss an occasion to see Wyn in a wet shirt. I know I’m sorry I missed it.”

“Ach, du lieber! What have I done?”

“Nothing, Hetty,” Sigefrith said. “If you didn’t know.”

“But—but they’re dancing together! And if everyone is laughing…”

“That means everyone is having a good time, dearie,” Sophie drawled.

“But they two? Ach, but does everyone here know but I? And Alred too?”

“It seems that way,” Sophie laughed. “Ach, du lieber, und so weiter und so fort!”

“I must do something about this.” Hetty rose from her chair.

“Now, Hetty, please don’t make a scene,” Sigefrith pleaded. “Mouse must feel dreadful as it is.”

“I shall not make a scene, but I must do something right away. What a torment it must be to them—and all to be polite to me! Oh, those poor friends of mine!” she whimpered to herself. “They will never forgive me!”

Hetty hurried around the line of dancers as fast as her wobbling center of gravity allowed and stopped behind Ethelwyn.

“Wyn,” she murmured, “I am terribly sorry to interrupt your dance, but I must speak to you by the fire for a moment if you will oblige me.”

“As you wish,” he said.

“Also, please bring your partner. I wish to speak to you both.”

She watched as Ethelwyn bent his head to Mouse’s, and then the two of them slipped away. Thereupon Hetty continued down the line to her husband.

“Are you only borrowing them for a moment, or shall we close up the ranks?” he smiled.

“You shall close up the ranks, Alred,” Hetty said as sternly as she knew how. “And I shall wish to speak to you as well, but after this evening is over.”

“‘Uh oh,’” Alred chuckled nervously, “as the Old Man would say.”

“Ach, Alred, how could you?” she sighed as she toddled around him to follow after Ethelwyn and Mouse.

She found them standing together at the far end of the room, but as far apart as possible while still allowing it to be said of both that they stood by the fire.

They did not look like a cat and a dog circling one another in preparation for a fight. They stared at one another with a shy, bewildered curiosity, reminding her of nothing so much as little Bruni when she was confronted with another child of her own age: each seemed to wonder what that other creature could be, never realizing that they were the same sort of creature themselves. But this seemed a good sign—better, at least, than what she had been told.

“My friends,” she said, but she went first to Mouse. She thought that, as a lady, Mouse would have been the most deeply wounded by the torment to which she had just been subjected.

Also, Hetty was feeling rather guilty about having asked Ethelwyn to pay particular attention to Mouse. Perhaps Ethelwyn had more to forgive her after all.

“I know it must seem strange and rather impolite to have called you out of your dance,” she said. “However, I have just learned something which has greatly distressed me for two reasons.”

“I suppose we know what you just learned,” Mouse said with a rueful glance over her shoulder to Ethelwyn.

“But is it true?” Hetty gasped.

“Is what true?” Mouse smiled. “Perhaps we shouldn’t guess, or you will learn things you didn’t know.”

“That is what the Old Man always says to me,” Hetty said. “I wish I had been so clever at that age. I mean: did you fall into the moat together with Wyn?”

“I did. I’m sorry if we dirtied your moat with our persons,” Mouse giggled.

“Ach!” Hetty cried, speechless for a moment. “But…” she whispered to Mouse, hoping that Ethelwyn would not hear, “but did you say…”

“Did I say I would wear red boots to his funeral?” Mouse asked calmly. “That I did. But I have since assured him that I wear red boots to all funerals, including my own.”

“And she has kindly invited me to the same,” Ethelwyn said.

It was so absurd a statement that Hetty thought it must have been a joke, but it was said without a smile. Now she was too speechless even for an “Ach!”

In the time it had taken her to waddle from her chair to the fireside, she had thought of some things she wished to say, but they were beginning to seem rather senseless. Still, they were better than this stunned silence.

“Well, my friends,” she began again, “this news was distressing to me for two reasons. The first is that I introduced the two of you, never knowing that you had met in such… circumstances. And you were obliged to dance together out of politeness to me, which you did so readily that I never dreamt what a trial it must have been to you both. It is evidence of both generosity and good manners, for which I thank you.”

Ethelwyn bowed, and Mouse blushed.

“The second reason,” Hetty continued in her slow, accented English, “was that I had hoped you would be friends once you knew one another, but I have learned that you know one another already, and are not friends. It is perhaps too much to ask for all of one’s friends to be friends with each other, but it is what I should like above all things.”

Ethelwyn turned his head away and looked down into the fire, which Hetty found to be a bad sign. She took a deep breath in preparation for doing something bold, and then she took Mouse’s hand and led her over to him.

“Wyn,” she said, “you always say that you will gladly do anything I ask of you. I would never ask you to be a friend to someone only for my sake, but I shall ask you to forget this dreadful Thursday ever happened, and pretend you only met tonight. And perhaps you will be friends for your own sakes, but if not I shall understand, and I shall not allow anyone to throw you together again like this.”

Mouse was smiling hesitantly at Ethelwyn, but Ethelwyn did not smile.

“I do not expect you to speak together in front of me,” she said, beginning to back away, “so I shall return to my other guests. And if you think you would rather not remain, you may consider that you have already taken your leave of me and may slip away through the side door, and I shall not be distressed.”

Mouse still smiled, and Ethelwyn still did not. However, his face was not angry, and his eyes seemed only bewildered and shy. This, Hetty thought, was not a bad sign.

Also, neither of them paid her any notice as she slipped away, and this she found to be a good sign indeed.