The Wait of the Soul

Part 18

The sun does not warm her, the buttercups in the lush summer grass do not gladden her eye.

Only the dark rectangle of fresh turned earth before her occupies her mind. It had swallowed her father, her mother and her sisters too, all now interred deep this quiet churchyard.

All happiness went with them, every loving hope gone.

Her breath comes in stifled gulps, fighting the hard lump in her throat. Eyes stinging from tears shed and unshed.

There is nothing in her now, and empty future yawns wide and black.

Letty had no idea a person could feel such grief.

Was Sophie...?

"Mistress, Mistress..."
Someone is calling her, not a voice she knows, but there is warmth there...A woman kneels at her side, pulls her into a hug, brushes back a wayward lock of hair. "Your uncle is come my lamb."

###

Letty sat up looking about her. She was in Sophie's bed, the child slept on, small mouth pursed as she too was lost in dreams.

The thought of sleeping in her own bed was rejected. How could she? It was a wasteland without him. Not a place of rest, just of regret. 

Though she had rationalised what had followed their lovemaking, tiny shards of doubt still floated in her mind. She even considered moving back to her parents house for a while.

Sighing and snuggling back around Sophie's small, warm body, sleep slid over her once more.

###

The smell of Alfrieda's baking and cooking roasting meats filled the air, the sun shone.

All was ready, she knew it. No need to open her eyes to see, or reach up to touch the coronet of flowers about her head. She understood what was happening, but strangely did not quite grasp the full meaning. All was familiar, she knew she stood at the doorway of Saint Peter's-atte-Highbrooke. She knew she had been brought to Christ here as a babe, that her family all lay buried in the churchyard.

But Letty also knew she had never seen this place in her life.

"Your hand child," an impatient older voice snapped.

She lifted her left hand, it was taken by another, this one broader, long, strong calloused fingers. The nails clean and deep-set. It was a hand used to work.

"...a ploughman or a soldier," Alfrieda had said of him.

Him, who was Him?

"Do you take this man..."

The hand that held hers gripped tighter. She felt his tension but none herself.

Then, untroubled by how she got there, Letty looked up at the rafters above her parent's large bed. She lay uncomfortably stiff on a damp patch of the sheet. The reason for her discomfiture lay on his belly, snoring softly.

He was her husband.

And then Letty knew, this marriage had been hastily arranged. Two awkward, parentless, young people married off, inheritances secured, obligations met. Two minor families now united, all was well.

###

He capered about the bed watching the sleeping form upon it. Soon he would claim ownership of that very form, sweet life would be his to enjoy once more. What power he would gain. His knowledge would serve him well in this world of greed and vaulting ambition. Such things appeared to achieve more than any industrious talent or skill.

Beauty and noise was all that had value, even when that beauty held an ugly soul, the noise a noxious lie, none truly cared. The shallowness he saw thrilled him. Humanity had not changed so much as it believed. A word in the right ear, the blending of a lie with the modicum of truth, the swaying of opinion with false sentiment. Manipulation of the unwary by truths tailored to fit the mean opinions of middling philosophers, that was the way of it. He had heard a phrase and delighted in it; 'the triumph of style over content'. It described this society concisely.

All was appearance.

Oh, this world suited him full fine and no mistake.

Rob Locke turned, snuffled against his pillow. Daylight thoughts chased darkened night imaginings through a looking glass forest. Rob frowned in sleep, unaware of his amused visitor.

The boy was still a hopeless case, though this incarnation was possibly less vomit-inducing than the previous. There was a feral cunning that the shade was disposed to, ambitions that could be manipulated to serve more a useful purpose than 'helping the poor'. Even the thought made him grimace.

But another consideration fixed him.

The boy was lithe, robust...lusty.

Unusually for him, he considered the employment this handsome body could be put to. He could not remember being young, he did not think he ever had been. He had sprung from his mother's womb fully formed in the armour of middle age.

That armour would soon be tested.

###

Letty eases a cramped leg away from Sophie and wriggles into a more comfortable position. Drowsily she rubs her nose, the tang of apples fills her mouth...

The gnarled tree at her back allows little in the way of comfort, but much in it's solidity. She feels safe, secure here. On her lap lie the manor accounts, tally sticks, a quill. She runs an ink-stained finger down a column of figures marked 'surplus.'

She is no longer alone.

He is there, sprawled lazily at her side. He takes up the ledger from her lap.

"Should not the steward perform this duty?"

How dare he?

"My father thought it better done by..."

He tosses the book to one side, carelessly.

She feels the bile rise in her. She begins to stand, intent to collect the book and walk from him. But he catches her hand, looks at her palm, inspecting the stained fingers. He closes his much larger hand around them and holds fast. "I..." he falters.

She sits again, uncomfortable, embarrassed, looking at her husband.

He is young and very slender, his face is long, cheeks unfilled and unshaven, nose large, lips narrow. Mouth too wide, brow too high, topped with dark, untidy hair. She would not call this young man handsome, but she knows him.

His wide grey eyes hold her and speak a plea...

Remember me...