Seventeen
Mary felt something cool being pressed against her forehead, and at the same time a warmth and lightness of being for which she could in no way account. Remembering the vision she had seen of him---was it days, hours, moments before?---she opened her eyes slowly, afraid of waking from the blissful dream of his return, which could not possibly be real.
Yet the first thing she saw as they focused in the gentle candlelight, was the same beloved face, neither shrouded nor ghostly nor pale. It had aged, become more serious. But it was still of living flesh, still shared the same world as her own. He sat leaning across her on the bed, with softened, loving eyes taking in her every movement. His arms were spread to either side of her, within reach of her hands. And feeling again the swoon of emotion and disbelief, she caught at them quickly. Her fingers encircled his wrists, and he did not fade away.
Again he pressed the cloth lightly to her forehead. Then with a tenderness and swelling of the heart that erased in one moment the imprisoned hell of the past three years, he bent down and kissed her gently.
“Stay, Mary. It’s your Michael, in the flesh, and he’ll not leave you again.” Her eyes closed hard, and the tears that flowed from them were an anguish and an ecstasy for which no words exist.
“Hold me,” was all she could say. “Just hold me.” He raised her up and crushed her to him, his face as wet as hers.
“Dear God, I love you.” And again he kissed her, long and full. But then he drew back, and a dark shadow clouded his features, as if recalling some barrier which stood between them still.
“What is it?” she asked, terrified.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I know you’re glad to see me. . .and I have no right to ask.” Their eyes met, and there was such astonished pain in her gaze..... “Do you still love him?” he whispered.
“Do I still love who?”
“The Englishman.”
“Michael! Whoever said that I did?”
“.....but your letter, the day I left to join our troops. The one you put in my pack, explaining---”
“Michael, look at me.” He did, as bewildered as she. “I have never loved anyone but you. I never could. And I wrote you no such letter, then or otherwise. The only Englishman I know is my half-brother, and if in the whole of my lifetime I can learn not to hate him, I will deem it a blessing from Heaven.”
He fell back further still, as if it was she who had returned from the dead. The question of who, then, had written the letter, hardly occurred to him. Only one thing mattered. Against all hope. . .she loved him too. A tortured groan escaped him, and his face so convulsed with emotion that he could only hide it in shame against the coverlet.
But slowly the paroxysm passed, and he felt loving fingers caressing his hair, and whispering words of comfort. “Michael,” she said, as he drew himself up, exhausted. “It must have been my mother who gave you the letter, part of a long, bitter plot against Lord Purceville. She needed my help, and wanted you out of the way. Please forgive her. She harbored such hatred against him, that it made her blind to all else..... But that is in the past.” She tried to smile, as he nodded his understanding. “You know,” she said. “I have a few questions for you, too.”
He put a finger to her lips. “Soon, but not now. Let us have what remains of this night, at least, free from sorrow and danger. Let us have each other.”
At that moment there came a light knocking at the door, and Anne Scott entered the room. Her face was so softened, and beaming with such reborn faith that Mary hardly recognized it. Her unbound hair formed a loop of pale gold upon the shoulder of the nightdress, and she looked years younger than either could remember seeing her.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, as if this were not her home, but theirs. “If my son will give a doting mother one last embrace, I will leave the two of you in peace. I fancy I’ll sleep in Mary’s room tonight, and give up my chambers to you.”
“Truly, Anne? Would it be all right?”
“Listen to me, Mary. God married the two of you long ago. And in this moment I’m so happy, so grateful.....” She faltered, and her eyes glistened. “My son is given back to me, whom I thought to be dead. Do you think I can’t share him, this one night, with the woman he loves, and the girl I raised up from a child? Please, Michael, before I make a fool of myself. Kiss me, then send me off to bed.”
He rose, but not more quickly than she. Mary embraced her first, like a schoolgirl, then stood aside as mother and son said their affectionate good-night.
“In the morning hard choices await us,” said the woman, addressing them both. “But for now, let us thank God. Let us thank Him.” She was blinded by tears, and turned away. Michael watched her go, then closed the door softly behind her.
“In the morning I shall have to give her sad news,” said the girl, remembering her purpose. “And perhaps it will grieve you as well.”
“What is it, Mary?” And despite his own assurances, he felt that he must know. “Tell me now, and let us have done with dark surprises.”
... “Michael. Your friend and mine. James Talbert is dead.”
He was silent for a time, then asked simply.
“How?”
“Two men attacked me on the road west of my mother’s hut.” She thought it best not to add that they were English. As it was he came forward and took her by the shoulders, with a look of sudden anger and concern.
“Attacked you? Are you all right? They didn’t---” She shook her head quickly, emphatically.
“No. James saw to that. He killed the one. . .then was shot in the back by the other, who rode away.” She looked at him imploringly. “I’m so terribly sorry. I feel as if it’s my fault.....” He held her close to him, and closed his eyes.
“No, my girl,” he said at length. “It’s not your fault, and no more than I expected. I don’t know if I can explain this to you. Here. Sit you down, and let me wrap the coverlet about me. I’m afraid I’m not quite well.”
She did as he asked, and studied this new Michael as he spoke. He had changed both physically and spiritually, though there had always been another side of him, seeming at times so serious and worn that she could find no trace of the hardy, boisterous youth she had once known.
And even as he spoke of the hardship and sorrow of another, her woman’s instinct read his own tale between the lines. And seeing his pain, she determined to learn fully of the scars and afflictions he bore, that she might nurse him again to health and ease of mind.
“James had a rough go of it in prison, as did we all. But for him the more so, because he could never master his pride and fierce temper. He didn’t know when to back down, and just survive. Because of this he was often singled out for punishment, as an example to the rest. Punishment in that place. . .took various forms. But it always ended with the Cellar, a cold and solitary cell in the ancient dungeon that lay beneath our castle prison.
“For weeks on end. . .he was caged there without light or hope, like an animal. Each return to the light of day saw him more ill, and more distracted. But it never once brought him closer to submission. Towards the end, his feverish mental state had become so acute that our captors thought of sending him to an asylum. This, until it was learned that he had contracted the shakes*, which would sooner or later carry him off of their own accord.
*Ague.
“It is a wonder that he lived to see the escape, let alone survived our long flight across the countryside. What a bloody hell that was. Stealing food, horses when we could get them, riding or walking the endless miles by night, hiding out like thieves and murderers by day. All in the land of our birth, and the home that we had fought for. After what we had already been through, I don’t know how he endured it. I, at least, had thoughts of you, though I had lost all hope of your love. He had nothing but fever and chills, and a strength that grew less each day.”
“My God. Michael. Did he know about the letter, the one you thought I wrote?”
“Yes, love. We’d been together through so much, and were now thrown into such a desperate pass..... There could be no secrets between us. But he loved you, as cousin and friend, and never held it against you.”
“Then he died thinking. . .that I was in love with those who did this to you. Oh, it is horrible.”
“Easy, lass. His pain is over.” Again they embraced, taking that last human comfort against young and tragic death. Then Michael began to pace again, both to warm himself, and to finish what he must say. For he, too, carried a burden of guilt and remorse.
“As I said, it is a wonder that he survived it. But some last obsession drove him: whether hope or madness, I could never say. He was determined to return to the home of his fathers, and perform some last act of heroism.” He paused. “There is something else I haven’t told you. Something very painful to me.”
“What is it, Michael?”
He could not face her, as if she were some part of himself which he had shamed. And the look of self-reproach that she had long known in him, returned with a force she had not yet seen.
“It was a horror for me to watch his decline, his hopeless battle in the stockade. Because we are so much alike, and because I felt..... I often felt that he made my mistakes for me. That I learned, and survived, only because of him. Many is the time that my own temper was about to explode, to my injury, and possible undoing.... But it was always James who struck the guard first, or raised his voice in anger at the outrage we all felt, but lacked the courage to act upon.
“It is a terrible thing to think that he died for that courage, and that because of my cowardice I live. Seeing the black end to which we must all come, still I shunned the fight. After the first year..... I only turned the other cheek, again and again. I told myself that I had to survive, just keep trying and hoping. But survival becomes a poor excuse, when pride is lost.
“It will be many years,” he concluded, “before I can look myself in the face when I think of James Talbert.”
“Why?” she asked, in deepest earnest. “Because you desired life instead of death? Because you saw the futility of resistance, and chose not to follow him into the grave? For I tell you now, and from the bottom of my heart, that if you had not lived, and come back to me. . .my own sorry tale could not have gone much further.
“And what of your mother? Do you have any idea what her life has been like, without you? I will never understand. Why do men call it a virtue to die, to leave bereft the ones they love, and a weakness to return to them, and give meaning and substance to their lives?
“Perhaps that is unfair,” she continued. “I have seen in the years of your absence just how bitter, how unanswerable sorrow can be. And I know that nothing is ever that simple. I only want you to know that this pain, this scar, I understand as well as you. I have felt the same remorse, the same bludgeoning sense of guilt. Until tonight.
“Do you know what he said to me, as he lay dying in my arms? ‘You have given my death meaning.’ He performed that last act of heroism, Michael. He may have saved my life.” Her voice faltered. “And if what you say is true, then he also helped deliver my love from the depths of the darkness. And to me, his name shall always be thrice blessed.
“Hold me, Michael, please. Don’t ever let me go. Dear God!”
“My only love, I promise you that. With all my soul, I promise you that.”
They put aside all further talk until the morning, and made their bed together for the first time. Michael was too ill, and she herself too weary, to make love. And without any words this was understood between them. They found joy and solace instead in the slow, gentle caress many lovers never feel, because they do not first feel love. Their passion would come when the skies above them were less dark, and when the fruit was ripe on the tree. Not before.
They slept far into the overcast morning. And when they rose a further bond had been established between them, that no earthly trial could ever put asunder.
He was a man, and she was his woman.