Excerpt from Therein Lies the Pearl - Caen, Normandy - December 1060 - Melisende calls upon her friend Cecile for advice about love and revenge.
“He’s got the fungus again,” Cecile whispered, lifting her chin in his direction. “Watch. He’ll start pulling and scratching at his head any minute now. His hair has just grown back after the last bout with it. I sent for his mother, but she’s with Matilda checking out the progress of the women’s abbey, so she’ll not be returning until late afternoon.”
Cecile ushered Melisende over to one of the tables in the back corner of the room and pulled out both chairs. “Come, sit.” She took the pitcher of ale and poured it into two cups. “I’ve put him off to the side because I don’t want him to spread it to the other children. Sadly, it's not been a problem keeping them away because nobody likes him anyway. I’d feel sorry for him if he weren’t such a louse and if I didn’t hate Jeanette so much. He’s too young to see his mother for the witch she is, but I keep hoping to instill some sense of proper behavior by praising him publicly when he does good and pulling him away from the group and reprimanding him privately when he does wrong. I have seen a slight change for the better.”
She took a sip of the ale. “But today’s situation is not really his fault. What can a child do when his mother cares more for herself than for him? His head will need to be shaved again before he can return though.”
She put down her cup and reached across the table to pat Melisende’s hand. “And how are things going with you, my friend?” Cecile’s face broke into a bright smile, welcoming Melisende to share the news of the day.
She felt bad complaining like this to Cecile, a woman who had it so much worse, for Cecile already had Chloe and was pregnant with Grace when her husband was killed in the pillaging two years ago. Yet she courageously carried on, and not only that, she had absorbed none of the bitterness surrounding those disastrous events, while it had lodged and festered in Melisende’s own heart. Cecile spoke often of Felix and did so with a lilt in her voice and a gleam in her eye, as if the man were not permanently gone but simply out in the field and coming home later for dinner. She had kept his memory alive for both Chloe and Grace in such a way that the girls carried only laughter and smiles inside them rather than wistfulness and sorrow. Knowing that Cecile was far wiser than she, Melisende was grateful to lean upon her for comfort and direction.
“Well, two things have come up actually. Two things that I need your opinion on.” Melisende heard Grace starting to fuss, so she went over to retrieve the child and then plopped her into Cecile’s arms. “Mallory’s at it again…”
“Oh, no!” Cecile interrupted. She bounced Grace up and down in her lap. “Whatever is that girl’s problem?”
“I know. I thought I’d shut down her attempts to undermine me when I poured that warm lard under her bed sheets for a soothing night’s sleep, but she’s at it again. This time she put manure into my cleaning tub when I wasn’t looking. So I need to come up with another form of payback. But it has to be something more long-lasting than a single uncomfortable night. Something more enduring, yes?”
Grace was still fussing, so Cecile placed her finger in the child’s mouth and let her gnaw on it. “Hmmm. Well, we’ve got to give this one some thought and come up with something really good. Why she thinks you’d even be interested in a fellow like Cantrell makes no sense to me! With your looks, mon cherie, you could have the Duke himself if you so desired!”
“Oh, shush, Cecile! You know how I feel about men. I’ll not be turned into a breeding mare--” Her words escaped her mouth before she had the tact to realize what she had said.
“I’m so sorry, Cecile. You know I didn’t mean that about you. I meant it only for me. There’s something wrong with me, inside my head, I guess. I just don’t have any wish to be a mother--not that there’s anything wrong with being a mother--it’s just that it’s wrong for me, that’s all.” She folded hands prayer-like across the table, begging Cecile to understand her intent.
“No offense have I taken, Mellie. I know how you feel about marriage and men, and I know your words were intended only for you.” She looked over at Vivienne and then back at Melisende. “You do realize though that you have already been a mother, and a rather outstanding one at that, for these past few years, don’t you?”
“That’s different though. I didn’t have to endure anything for Vivienne to come into this world. My mother bore the burden of that and look what became of her.” Melisende’s voice quaked. She cleared her throat.
“Which brings me to the second thing I wanted to talk to you about. Simon, the neighbor I told you about, the man who helped me carry on after mother’s death and father’s surrender? Simon is back.”
Melisende spoke so sadly that Cecile was confused. “So what’s the problem then? Are you not glad to see this man?”
Melisende looked down at her hands on the table as if ashamed. “I am happy. That’s why I’m worried. I’m happy. I let him know how thrilled I was to see him safe and alive, and now he thinks that means something more than just that.”
Grace had drifted off to sleep in her mother’s arms. Cecile removed her finger from the baby’s slackened mouth and wiped it on her skirt. “Do you think it means more than that?”
Melisende wanted to slam her hands against the table in frustration but held back for the sake of the napping child. “I don’t know, Cecile. I just don’t know. I know that I missed him. And I know that I could readily go with him and bring Vivienne with me to the new land he will settle upon when the fighting is over, but I’d want to go only as his friend and not as his wife, and I don’t think that he--or any other man for that matter--would want to throw in his lot with a woman and her little sister unless there was something more in it for him. So I’d rather stay here and be under no obligation to anyone than to be forced to give away all of myself to another.”
Cecile looked at Melisende with tenderness but did not utter a word. The minutes passed, heavily laden with unsaid words, while the chatter of the children continued in the background.
Melisende asked pointedly, “What do you think I should do, Cecile? What would you do?”
Cecile exhaled deeply, curling her lips and closing her eyes. “I cannot tell you what to do, Melisende, just as I cannot tell you how to feel. You must follow your heart as I once followed my own. You want the truth? I never dreamed passionately of Felix at night, never woke in the morning panting with desire for him. My voice never cracked nor did my hands tremble when I was in his presence. All those things that balladeers and poets tell you about, they never happened for me. But, he was steady and reliable and always there. He fluttered my heart not with yearning but with laughter. So amusing and so clever, he was. I came to adore everything about him, all his antics and quirky ways, and I drew great strength from his ability to make the toughest of situations more manageable.
And he loved me. Oh, how he loved me, deeply, so, so deeply. I knew that no matter how ugly and unappealing I was, how irritable and cranky I’d behave, or how wrinkly and toothless I’d one day become, Felix would always see me as the light of his life. When you feel a certainty like that in another person, there’s no limit to how your own feelings can grow to match and go beyond storybook traditions about love. And now, when I wake up each morn, I’m grateful to have heard the echo of his laughter in my dream the night before. And that echo readies me to take on the new day because I carry inside his belief in me.
So I cannot tell you, mon tresor, what you should do. I can only tell you this: don’t close off your heart to a man who wants only to give himself to you. Don’t deny him that chance. He may be satisfied with just being able to serve you and nothing more. And who knows? Perhaps some day your own feelings may swell and intensify until you come to embrace him not just as a companion but as a true partner in life, in all ways.”
Melisende pondered Cecile’s words, remaining still without responding. She wondered if it could be like that. Perhaps she could just go along as they were--she and Simon--without attaching any definition to their alliance. Then she could see what the future brought as it came upon her day by day. After all, he was heading back to battle anyway, so she needn’t take any action at the moment. Her meditation was broken when Andre yelled out to Cecile from the doorway.
“Madame Cecile, my hair is on fire with itching. I must go to the river--now!”
The boy’s announcement made something click in Melisende’s mind. She sprang from her chair inspired by the flash of a brilliant idea. In answer to Andre’s call, she turned to Cecile. “I will take him. Relax and stay here with the children. I’ve just thought of a way to solve my first problem.”
While nothing had to be done for the moment with regard to Simon, the time was ripe for exacting revenge on Mallory, her manure-bearing enemy.
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