The Beloved Land Read Free Page B

formerly had been commons land. Whereas so many of England’s villages and small landholders were desperately impoverished, those within Charles’s domain were not only protected but even prospering. And so it was decided that it would be a church wedding.
    When Charles and Judith, Anne and Thomas and John had arrived in the village at the time arranged with the vicar, they found the entire community decked out in garlands and bunting. The children, dressed in their best, sprinkled petals from the season’s first blooms on the path up to the church doors.
    Inside the ancient Norman structure, flowers and candles filled the air with light and color and scent. As Anne had walked up the aisle with her husband-to-be on one side and her son on the other, joining Charles and Judith before the vicar, her heart sang with the rightness of the day.
    If only her parents, Catherine and Andrew, and yes, Louise and Henri, had been with them, the moment would have been perfect indeed. …
    She returned to the present with Charles’s voice reading the final lines of the letter. “ ‘. . . not asking you to come, Anne. It is exceedingly distant and with the war on and no end in sight, it is no doubt impossible. But I feel you should know the truth. Hopefully, by the time you receive this, Andrew will be much improved. With love, your mother, Catherine.’ ”

    The entire manor seemed to have awakened early the next morning. When Anne went downstairs to have what she hoped would be an hour of quiet reflection after a rather restless night, she found her son and husband already seated at the servants’ table in the kitchen. Maisy was busy at the stove.
    “I remember it clear as day,” the bighearted woman was proclaiming as Anne entered. “Fifteen musicians gathered upon the upstairs balcony makin’ more noise than the Second Coming. Half a hundred people thunderin’ up and down the grand hall, doing a dance like I’ve never seen before in all my days.”
    “It was a polka if I recall,” Thomas supplied, tying a napkin around John’s neck. “All the rage at the time.”
    “Sounded like elephants on parade if you ask me.” Maisy turned and pointed at John with her ladle. “Then what do I find but young lordship here curled up on top of a laundry basket full of my best damask tablecloths, fast asleep.”
    “I was sleepy,” John announced confidently.
    Maisy advanced upon him, the wooden spoon held like a weapon, her face a mock scowl. “Then why is it,” she demanded, “that you have insisted upon waking the whole household from useful slumber a’fore the sun’s even crested yon ridge?”
    John shrieked with glee and hid his eyes at Maisy’s approach. The woman had cared for the child since his arrival, and they loved each other dearly. Maisy grumbled and ruffled the child’s hair, kissed the top of his head, then retreated to her stove. “Whatever should we feed such an impossible young man?”
    “Porridge!”
    “No lad who robs me of my sleep deserves a fine bowl of porridge. I think maybe dried husks with a bit of water will do you this day.”
    John began waving his spoon in the air. “Porridge—with cream!”
    “Quietly, now we must let the others have their rest.” Thomas gently wrested the spoon from John’s grip, then turned to his wife standing in the doorway. “Forgive us, my dear. He awoke me with his singing.”
    Maisy smiled a greeting as she stirred the cooking oats. “Shall I fix you a tea, ma’am?”
    “I hoped to bring him down and feed him a bit of toast,” Thomas continued before she could answer, “but Maisy heard him as well.”
    “It’s all right, ma’am.” Maisy ladled out a steaming bowl, brought it over to the smiling child, and plied the cream pitcher. “There’s no finer way to start a morning in my book than feedin’ a happy child.”
    “More cream!”
    “And how do we ask, John?” Anne put in.
    “Oh yes, please, more cream,” John sang out.
    “That’ll do for