do collapse with exhaustion.”
But with the best will in the world she found as she followed her daughter up the steep stairs toward the nursery quarters high in the keep that she was trembling violently. She pressed her hand against her heart, feeling its irregular fluttering, and took a deep breath at every turn in the stairs, forcing herself to follow steadily as Margaret, her skirts held high, ran ahead of her. “We’ve called her Egidia,” the girl called over her shoulder. “Oh, Mother, she’s the most beautiful child you’ve ever seen. She’s a pearl.”
Matilda followed her into the nursery and sank heavily onto the stool that the plump, motherly nurse left as they approached the crib. Her heart was pounding uncontrollably and she felt suddenly overwhelmed with nausea and faintness, but somehow she managed to force herself to lean forward and admire the small sleeping face, two tiny webs of dark lashes lying so peacefully on the pink cheeks.
“She’s beautiful, darling.” Matilda smiled shakily.
Margaret had been watching her closely. “You’re not well, Mother. What’s wrong? You shouldn’t have let me rush you up those stairs.” She dropped to her knees in the strewn herbs at her mother’s side, suddenly contrite. “I was so excited at seeing you and knowing that you were safe at long last.”
Matilda smiled and patted her hand. “I’m all right. It has just taken so long to get to you, that’s all. The marshall was so kind to us, then the new justiciar appeared and threatened to betray us. The dear old marshall defied him, of course, but he had so few men. He thought we’d be safer here.”
“And so you are, Mother.” Margaret hugged her again. “You will all be perfectly safe here, you’ll see.”
Matilda smiled sadly and glanced back into the cradle, where the baby was screwing its tiny face into a thoughtful, wizened caricature of itself in its sleep. “Perhaps, my dear, perhaps” was all she said, but in her heart she knew their optimism was but a vain hope. Once again she found John’s face before her, haunting her; the handsome, spare features, the straight nose, the cold blue eyes, the cruel mouth that once had sought and held her own. She felt something tighten in her chest again, but this time she knew it was fear.
When the letter came, Matilda had no premonition that it was from Richard. She had watched Walter unroll it and scrutinize the lines of close black writing, her eyes calm, her face serene as she listened to Margaret singing to herself as she worked on a piece of tapestry by the light of the high window.
Slowly Walter climbed to his feet. He passed the letter to Matilda with a grin. “News to please you, Mother-in- law, I think,” he said softly. Then, beckoning Margaret after him, he strode out of the hall.
Matilda took the letter and scanned it slowly. The words were formal, dictated to a scribe, but nothing could conceal the happiness of the message they contained. Mattie had gone from Wigmore back to Suffolk and at Clare, on one of the mild December mornings untouched by wind and flecked with mackerel cloud, she had presented Will with a second son, a companion for little John.
And now that Will seemed settled for the time being at Trim, Richard proposed that he bring Mattie back to Ireland.
Matilda rolled up the letter and walked over to the fire, her heart beating wildly. Richard would be hard on the heels of the messenger; perhaps he was already in Ireland. She bit her lip to suppress a smile in a sudden moment of wry self-mockery. So much excitement, so great a longing, suddenly, in a woman of an age to know better!
Will, when he heard the news, was beside himself with joy, and ready to ride at once for the coast.
Margaret seized his arm, her eyes, so like those of her mother, blazing with fury when she heard his plan.
“Don’t you dare go to meet them, Will! You must let her father bring her all the way here. You must!” She glanced over her shoulder toward Matilda. “For Mother’s sake! Think how she would feel if Richard turned back at the port!” So Will curbed his anxiety and waited, watching the drying road and the burgeoning spring sunshine that should have brought his wife from the sea, and didn’t.
And then at last they arrived. Richard de Clare was riding beside his daughter, the two babies following with their nurses and the escort.
Matilda stood back to watch Will greet his wife, and there was a lump in her throat as she saw her son examine the small bundle that the nurse held out to him. He saw her watching and laughed, unembarrassed, his arm still round his wife’s waist, his face alight with happiness.
Then, at last, Richard was beside her. “I’m glad the children have found so much happiness in each other,” he murmured by way of greeting, touching her fingers lightly with his own. His hair now had turned completely white and his face was marked by pain and exhaustion. He met her gaze squarely with a wry smile. “Don’t look like that, my dear. I’m getting old. It shows, that’s all.”
“Richard, have you been ill?” She had forgotten her son and the crowds of people around them, conscious only, with a terrible sense of fear, of the deathly pallor of his skin.
He shrugged. “A fever, nothing more. I had my Mattie to take care of me. No harm has been done, save the delay in coming to you. Come now, you must take us to our hosts. Walter will be wondering what has happened to us.”
There was no way that Richard could hide his failing strength from Matilda during the weeks he stayed at Trim, and, as if he were conscious how unhappy it made her to see him so stooped and weak as he watched the hunting parties ride out daily without him, he insisted at last on leaving before Easter. Nothing she could say could dissuade him, nor did he make any attempt to see her alone before he left.
“Good-bye, my dear” was all he said as she bade him farewell in the bailey at Trim. “God go with you, and protect you always.” He raised her fingers to his lips for one lingering kiss and then he mounted his horse and rode slowly away with his followers over the drawbridge and out of sight. He never once turned back.
“Jo!” Ann was banging on the bedroom door. “Jo, for God’s sake, can you hear me?” She rattled the handle again. “Jo, let me in.”
“Here, let me.” Ben pushed past her. He thundered on the door panel with his knuckles. “You are sure she’s in there? She might have gone out for a walk.”
“She’s in there. Look, the key’s in the lock on the inside.”
Behind them the sun blazed down through the small skylight in the back roof, lighting up the stripped wooden boards of the floor and the charcoal and cream wools of the rug hung on the wall.
“Ben-what if she’s done it? What if she regressed on her own and died-”
“Don’t be stupid!” Ben’s voice was sharp. “Jo is a sensible woman. She’s not going to do a damn fool thing like that.” He knelt and put his eye to the lock. “Fetch me a pencil and a newspaper or something. Let’s see if we can push the key out and bring it through under the door.”
“Why did she lock it?” Ann moaned as she watched Ben juggling the pencil gently in the lock.
There was a small metallic bump as the key fell, and with a satisfied grunt Ben pulled gently on the paper and brought it under the door. Ann grabbed the key and with a shaking hand inserted it in the lock.
Jo was lying on her bed, her arms across her eyes.
“Is she breathing?” Ann ran to her and dropped on her knees beside the bed. “Jo? Oh, God, Jo, are you all right?”
“I can see her breathing from here.” Ben stayed firmly in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the low neckline of Jo’s nightgown.
“Jo?” Gently Ann shook her shoulder. “Jo, wake up.”
With a little sigh, Jo stirred. She opened her eyes and stared at Ann blankly.
“Jo, it’s after ten. The children have been pestering us to wake you.”
Jo smiled faintly. “Egidia,” she said. “And Mattie’s boys. So sweet. So like Will when he was little…” She closed her eyes again.
Ann glanced over her shoulder at Ben, who looked heavenward and disappeared back into the hall. A moment later she heard the sound of his feet running down the stairs. She turned back to Jo. “Not Mattie’s boys, Jo. Polly and Bill,” she said gently.
Jo frowned. “I slept so heavily,” she said slowly. “And such a long sleep. Richard left. He had given up…He was old, Ann. Old.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I must have cried myself to sleep.”
