Wynflaed tells

Wynflaed leaned over the table, and when her tears fell she could hear them slapping against the wood. The pain was less when she sat in a chair, but it was still because of her pain that she cried.

As there were times when the pain was so great that she could no longer lie quietly in her bed and had to get up to sit in the dark kitchen until it had passed, so also were there times when her unspeakable fear was so great that she could not stand and work and smile, nor even worry about her mother, but could only sit, and rock herself, and cry.

Even so, she was still strong enough to save her crying for her moments of solitude. Fortunately the night was never more than half a day away.

On this night she had lit a lamp. There were times when her solitude seemed too great for her to bear, and she lit the lamp to give herself the impression of company. The laughing flame seemed like a little friend then.

It was true that its flicker would people the room with strange, dancing shadows, as sinister as the flame was merry, but these did not deter her. All of life was that way, she knew. As long as there was warmth and light and love in the center, there would be shadows and sorrows pressing her round. It was strange that no one else seemed to understand this. Life would be easier lived alone, unloved, and unloving.

Wynflaed shuddered in surprise at the sound of a soft tapping on the window, and her surprise was quickly followed by terror. She could only see the reflection of the room in the glass, but she knew that one could see quite clearly into a lit room at night from the outside. Someone had seen her sitting there—crying! In her nightgown!

She blew out the lamp and leapt from the chair, her pain forgotten. And still she was so accustomed to suppressing anything that might worry her mother that she did not scream, but only stared at the window with a horrified fascination.

The figure outside held up its two hands as if to show that it meant no harm. It was a tall man, she saw, with long hair, broad shoulders, a lean waist, long legs…

Oh! It was Sigefrith! Somehow she had never realized his body until that moment, though she had unknowingly learned it well enough to have identified him only by his silhouette.

And she in her nightgown!

She found her cloak in the dark and pulled it on, and then she slipped out the door and met him at the corner of the house, trembling with anger, fear, and fascination.

“Wynsome!” he whispered, and again he held up his hands to show her he had not come to hurt her.

She had not seen him in a month. She knew he had returned late that evening, but he had not come to see them. She could not understand why he would be here now.

“I’m sorry to frighten you,” he continued.

She began walking away from the house, having suddenly remembered the open windows above, and he followed.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he explained softly, “and I only meant to walk up and look at the house, and—I don’t know. I wanted to see that it was still here, or something. Wyn?”

“And so you looked in at me.”

“I didn’t mean to. Wyn?” He laid a hand on her arm and stopped her. “I didn’t mean to look at you. But I saw the light, and I worried… and then I saw you were crying, and I was frightened. They told me your mother was still… here, and so. But I couldn’t come tonight, and tomorrow morning I must go to my father’s to meet my cousins, and so…”

“She’s no better,” Wynflaed mumbled.

She started off again, around the house and on towards the top of the hill. He walked on the lower side of the slope, and so it seemed that she had grown nearly as tall as he. It was strange to see his face from his own height.

“No worse?” he asked.

She shrugged. “She will be very happy to see you, when you can come.”

“What about you?”

“Of course I am happy to see you, too.”

“You don’t look it,” he said, and she looked up at the sound of a smile in his gentle voice. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I mean that it is very sad to see a girl who never cries crying alone in the night.”

She shivered as if he had touched some terribly sensitive part of her.

“Unless you often do cry?” he suggested. “Alone at night?”

She could not look at him. When she looked up at him, she saw only the shadow of his head, and the starry sky behind. She did not like to see him as a shadow.

“Is it so that no one will see?” he asked.

She nodded.

“But I did. And now you are angry at me.” He waited a moment for a reply from her, and when she said nothing, he said, “But since I did, you might as well tell me why you cry.”

She shook her head slowly.

As they walked on, he took her hand and laid it in his arm. “You had better tell me,” he murmured. “You ought to know that if you don’t tell me otherwise, I’m vain enough to think you were crying because you missed me.”

She tried to laugh. “We did miss you.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, “but ‘we’ don’t run away from me when I come. Only you do. So sometimes I wonder.”

So he had noticed. “I don’t…”

“Never mind. If I saw me coming, I would probably try to hide too. ‘Not that great big looby Sigefrith again!’” he sighed. “But even a great big looby has ears and can listen to your troubles, even if he can’t always make them go away. But I would wager he could sometimes help.”

As she walked beside him, with her hand on his elbow, the back of her wrist would sometimes brush against his side, and it made her shiver. She had never touched more than his hand, and now she was as aware of his body as if it were her own.

They stopped near the top of the hill. The moon hung so low that it seemed they had climbed to its height.

They stood a while and looked down at the roof of her house, at the tops of the birches beyond, and below them the barns, the fields and farms, and the tower of Sigefrith’s own manor. Even the tower was lower than their feet now, and their moon-​shadows were so long that the shadows of their heads merely faded into light far below.

“I suppose it’s selfish of me,” he mused, “but I often wish that you would tell me your troubles. Because I would like to tell you mine, and I am too shy to go first.”

“You…?”

“Are you surprised to hear that I have troubles or surprised to hear that I am shy?” he smiled down at her. “As for me, I’m surprised I just said that. I’m afraid I shall tell you everything that goes through my head if you don’t hurry up and say something.”

“I don’t know…”

“Tell me simply why you were crying tonight,” he said, and all the jest had gone out of his voice. “I suppose I know, but it might help us both if you said it.”

“You do?” She felt a queer surge of relief at the idea that perhaps someone did know, someone had guessed, after all…

“You worry about your little mother, don’t you?” he prompted. “And sometimes it’s too much worry for little you, isn’t it?”

Her lip quivered with her disappointment. Oh, she would cry merely because he did not know why she cried!

“Yes,” she said and nodded quickly.

“No.” His dark brows descended in an expression of worry. He did not believe her. She could see that much in the shadows of his face.

He laid one hand on her shoulder and held it firmly. She felt his determination to know the truth, and she felt his strength, which was greater than that of her own will. She spoke.

“I’m sick too,” she whimpered.

“What?” he gasped.

“I’m sick here,” she said and pressed a hand to her side. “Like mother. It hurts.”

After a stunned silence he whispered, “You’re too young.”

The grip of his fingers hurt her shoulder, but she thought she would collapse if he let her go.

“You…” He stopped and swallowed, but his gentle voice still trembled when he spoke again. “Not you too.”

With his other hand he took hers, and only then, as if he too believed she would fall if he did not hold her, did he lift the first and lay it on her side, atop the pain.

She supposed he was searching for something like the great lump of dark flesh that was devouring her mother to feed itself, but she had nothing of the kind as yet. She had only her pain and her fear.

“And you!” she said, choking into uneasy laughter. “Now you must tell me your troubles. I went first.”

“Oh, no. Mine are not important.” The hand on her hand held her firmly, but the other trembled on her side until he slid it around to the small of her back and pulled her against him.

“They must be important to you,” she said.

“No longer.”

“But…”

“Don’t let’s talk, Wynsome,” he whispered. “I shall say everything that goes through my head.”

“Are you crying?” she asked.

“Aren’t you?”

“I suppose I am.”

“It’s better than crying alone, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. It was.