Annabel opened her mouth to say something, she wasn’t sure what.
“I met a girl named Abigail,” Stephen said with a sheepish half smile. “She’s from Lincoln. Do you know her?”
“Oh yes, she seems nice.”
Was Stephen actually blushing? “She is nice.”
“Why, Stephen! Are you sweet on this girl?”
“Shh!”
Annabel looked for the source of Stephen’s sudden panic, and saw a woman was coming down the road toward them: Margery, the miller’s young wife. Annabel quickly turned to Stephen. “We’ll talk later, but please believe me when I say that everything is going to turn out for our good. And I know God forgives you.” She gave him a quick embrace before Margery got close enough to hear what they were saying.
Annabel continued down the road toward the mill. Seeing she couldn’t avoid Margery, she plastered a smile on her face and greeted the busybody blonde.
“Oh, Annabel! I haven’t seen you since the day before you went to work as Lord le Wyse’s servant. Are you well? Has it been simply horrible?”
“No, of course not, Margery. I am very well.”
“I told you then that you should marry. I couldn’t believe you refused to marry Bailiff Tom! And now he’s — no one knows if he’ll ever be well again. So many terrible things happening in Glynval. Everyone says” — she lowered her voice and glanced over her shoulder — “that the new lord is cursed. He brought all these hardships on us.”
“Cursed? That’s nonsense.”
“Well, just look at him! With that claw for a hand and only one eye. If I ever saw anyone who looked cursed, it would be him. Although I can imagine he was quite handsome before — But that temper! Everyone says he’s a perfect beast, yelling and growling at people.”
“Margery.” Annabel felt the anger rising inside her and struggled to stifle the ugly things she wanted to say. After taking a deep breath, she said, “I think it is a terrible thing to speak so of one’s lord.”
“But I —”
“Even if you are the miller’s wife, Lord le Wyse is still the lord of this demesne, and as such you should respect him enough not to spread nasty rumors about him being cursed. Cursed! That’s silly. And he is not a beast, he is a man, and a very kind lord.”
Margery narrowed her eyes. “You seem quite enamored with our new lord.”
“Don’t be foolish.” Annabel glared back at her.
“I still say he’s cursed, and you should have married the bailiff.” Margery looked away with a smirk. “But at least the hard work hasn’t affected your looks. You’re still as pretty as you were.” She looked down her nose at Annabel. “But I don’t know what good it does you if you stay an indentured servant and refuse to marry.”
“That’s nothing for you to worry about, Margery. Perhaps you should worry that the powerful Lord le Wyse will find out what you’ve been saying about him, spreading wicked gossip about him being cursed. If I were you, I’m not sure I could even sleep at night.” She smiled, wide-eyed, at Margery as she skirted around her and continued on her way.
She held back a chuckle at the fear that flickered over Margery’s face.
“Mistress Eustacia, do you think you would have been happy if you’d never gotten married?” She and her mistress were alone, indulging in a real bath at the stream — possibly their last good dunking before the weather turned cold — and it seemed like a good time to ask the question that had plagued her since Lord le Wyse mentioned the abbey. All the other maidens seemed so sure marriage was central to a woman’s happiness.
Mistress Eustacia stopped in the middle of washing her hair with the special hair soap Lord le Wyse insisted on sharing with his servants. Annabel had used the liquid soap before, as her father had imported some from India the last year he lived. Grabbing the flask, she lathered some into her own hair. She loved to rub it into her scalp then dunk her head, feeling as though all the impurities of the world were floating away downstream. And in this moment, the feeling was more welcome than usual.
While massaging in the hair soap, she kept her chin half-submerged under the water as she waited for Mistress Eustacia to answer. She held her breath, afraid Eustacia would ask what had prompted the question.
Instead, Mistress Eustacia stared downriver, as though she was seeing into the past. “I heard a priest once say that marriage was instituted by God for procreation, so we could have children. But that’s not the only thing marriage is for.”
The older woman became quiet and began splashing water on her neck. Annabel busied herself by scrubbing her own face and then her toes.
When Annabel finished, Mistress Eustacia was looking down at her. “Women want a husband of their own, someone to love them and protect them. Men want a wife to cook and clean for them, and the other privileges of marriage.” The mistress winked.