“I’ve tried to comfort her, to tell her this can’t be so. I’ve assured her that Fluria and Meir would have written to me if anything had befallen Lea, but Rosa can’t be persuaded that Lea is alive.”
“Your daughter is right,” I said sadly. “That’s the heart of the entire dilemma. Lea died of the iliac passion. Nothing could be done to prevent it. You know what this is, as well as I do, a disease of the stomach and the insides that causes great pain. Surely people almost always die of it. And so Lea, in the arms of her mother, has died.”
He dropped his face in his hands. For a moment I thought he’d break into sobs. And I felt just a tinge of fear. But he murmured over and over the name of Fluria, and in Latin, he begged the Lord to console her for the loss of her child.
Finally he sat back and looked at me. He whispered, “And so this beautiful one whom she kept has been taken from her. And my daughter remains here, ruddy and strong, with me. Oh, this is bitter, bitter.” The tears stood in his eyes.
I could see agony in his face. His genial manner had completely collapsed in this misery. And his expression had a childlike sincerity as he slowly shook his head.
“I am so deeply sorry,” I whispered as he looked at me. But he didn’t answer.
We kept a long silence for Lea. He had a faraway look in his eyes for a while. And once or twice he warmed his hands, but then he simply let them fall on his knees.
Then gradually I saw the same warmth and openness in him as before.
He whispered: “You know this child was my daughter, of course, I’ve told you as much already in my own words.”
“I do,” I said. “But it’s the child’s very natural death which is bringing ruin to Fluria and to Meir now.”
“How can this be?” he asked. He seemed innocent when he asked me, as if his learning had given him an innocence. Perhaps “humility” would have been a better word.
I also could not avoid noticing that he was a handsome man, not merely because of his regular features and near shining face, but because of this humility and the muted power that it conveyed. A humble man can conquer anyone, and this man seemed to hold nothing back out of the usual masculine pride that suppresses emotions and expression.
“Tell me everything, Br. Toby,” he said. “What is happening to my beloved Fluria?”
A film of tears appeared in his eyes. “But before you start, let me tell you something straight-out. I love God and I love Fluria. That is how I characterize myself in my heart, and God understands.”
“I understand too,” I said. “I know of your long correspondence.”
“She has been my guiding lamp many a time,” he answered. “And though I gave up all the world to come into the Dominicans, I did not give up my exchange with Fluria, because it has never meant anything to me but the highest good.”
He brooded for a moment, and then added, “The piety and goodness of a woman like Fluria are things one doesn’t find so often among Gentile women, but then I know little of them now. It seems a certain gravity is common to Jewish women like Fluria, and she has never written to me a single word that I couldn’t share with others, or should not have shared with others for their benefit—until this note came to me two days ago.”
This had a strange effect on me because I think I was half in love with Fluria for the same reasons, and I realized for the first time how very serious Fluria had been, and the name for this is “gravitas.”
Once again, Fluria in memory reminded me of someone, someone I had known, but I couldn’t think who this person was. Some sadness and fear were connected with this. But I had no time to think on it now. It seemed a perfect sin to think about my “other life.”
I looked around the little chamber. I looked at the many books on the shelves and the parchment pages scattered on the desk. I looked at the face of Godwin who was waiting on me intently, and then I told him all.
I talked for perhaps half an hour explaining everything that had happened, and how the Dominicans of Norwich were in the grip of a delusion about Lea, and how Meir and Fluria could not share with anyone except their fellow Jews the awful truth of the matter that they had lost their beloved child.
“Imagine the grief of Fluria,” I said, “when there is no time for grief because fabrications have to be made.” I stressed this. “And it is a time for fabrications, just as it was for Jacob when he deceived his father, Isaac, and later when he deceived Laban to increase his own flock. It’s a time for dissimulation because the lives of these people are at stake.”
He smiled and nodded to this reasoning. He gave no objection to it.
He rose and began to pace back and forth in a tight little circle because that was all that the room allowed.
Finally, he sat down at the desk, and oblivious to my presence began a letter at once.
I sat for quite some time merely watching him as he wrote, blotted, and wrote some more. Finally he signed the letter, blotted for the last time, then folded the parchment and sealed it with wax, and looked up at me.
“This will go now to my fellow Dominicans at Norwich, to Fr. Antoine, whom I know personally, and it is full of my strong advice that they are on the wrong path. I vouch for Fluria and Meir, and give here a frank admission that Eli, Fluria’s father, was once my teacher at Oxford. I think it will make a difference but not enough of a difference. I cannot write to Lady Margaret of Norwich and if I did, she would no doubt commit the letter to the flames.”
“There’s a danger in this letter,” I said.
“How so?”
“You admit a knowledge of Fluria to which other Dominicans may be privy. When you visited Fluria in Oxford, when you went away with your own daughter, didn’t your friars in Oxford know of these things?”
“O Lord help me,” he sighed. “My brother and I did everything to keep it a secret. Only my confessor knows that I have a daughter. But you’re right. The Dominicans of Oxford were most familiar with Eli, the Magister of the synagogue, and their sometime teacher. And they know that Fluria had two daughters.”
“Exactly,” I said. “If you write a letter, drawing the attention of the world to your connection, then an imposture which might save Fluria and Meir cannot be attempted at all.”
He threw the letter on the brazier and watched it go up in flames.
“I don’t know how to solve this,” he said. “I’ve never faced anything more bleak and ugly in my life. Dare we attempt an imposture when Dominicans from Oxford might well tell those in Norwich that Rosa is impersonating her sister? I can’t bring my daughter into this danger. No, she cannot make the journey.”
“Too many people know too much. But something has to happen to stop this scandal. Do you dare to go, and to defend the couple before the Bishop and the Sherriff?”
I explained to him that the Sherriff already suspected the truth that Lea was dead.
“What are we to do?”
“Attempt the imposture, but do it with more cunning and more lies,” I said. “That is the only way I see to do it.”
“Explain,” he said.
“If Rosa is willing to impersonate her sister, we take her to Norwich now. She will insist that she is Lea and that she has been with her twin sister, Rosa, in Paris, and she can show great indignation that anyone has so maligned her loving parents. And she can express an eagerness to return to her twin sister at once. By admitting the existence of the twin, converted to the church, you provide a reason for her sudden trip to Paris in the middle of winter. It was to be with her sister, from whom she’d been separated only a short time. As for your being the father, why should any mention be made?”
“You know what the gossips say,” he offered suddenly. “That Rosa is in fact the love child of my brother Nigel. Because Nigel was with me every step of the journey. As I told you, only my confessor knows the truth.”
“All the better. Write to your brother at once, if you dare, and tell him what has happened, and that he must proceed to Norwich at once. This man loves y
ou, Fluria told me so.”
“Oh, indeed, and he always has, no matter what my father sought to make him think or do.”
“Well, then, let him go, and vow that the twins are together in Paris, and we will journey there as quickly as we can with Rosa, who will then claim to be Lea, indignant and bereft over the state of her parents, and she will be eager to return to Paris with her uncle Godwin at once.”
“Ah, I see the wisdom in this,” he said. “It will mean disgrace for Fluria.”
“Nigel need not say outright that he is the father. Let them think it, but he need not say it. The girls have a legal father. Nigel need only claim the interest of a friend to the child who has converted to Christianity, as he was a guardian to her sister before her, her sister who waits in Paris for Lea, the new convert, to return.”
He was deeply absorbed in what I was saying. I knew he was thinking of the many aspects. The girls, as converts, might be excommunicated and thereby lose their fortune. Fluria had spoken of this. But I could still see a passionate Rosa, pretending to be an indignant Lea, and pushing back the forces that threatened the Jewry, and no one in Norwich surely would have the gall to demand that the other twin come there as well.
“Don’t you see?” I said. “It’s a tale that accommodates everything.”
“Yes, very elegant,” he answered, but he was still thinking.
“It explains why Lea left. Lady Margaret’s influence did make her accept the Christian faith. And so she sought to be with her Christian sister. Lord knows, everyone in England and France wants to convert the Jewish tribe to Christianity. And it is a simple matter to explain that Meir and Fluria have been most mysterious about all this because to them it is a double disgrace. As for you and your brother, you are the patrons of the newly converted twins. It’s all very plain in my mind.”
“I see it all,” he said slowly.
“Do you believe that Rosa can impersonate her sister, Lea?” I asked. “Do you believe that she can do such a thing? Will your brother lend a hand? As for Rosa’s willingness to try it, do you have any idea?”
He thought on this for a long moment, and then he said simply that we had to go to Rosa now this very evening, though it was late and obviously getting dark.
When I looked through the little window of the cell, I saw only darkness, but that might have been the thickness of the snow.
Again, he sat down and applied himself to writing a letter. And he read it aloud to me as he wrote.
“Beloved Nigel, I am in great need of you, for Fluria and Meir, my beloved friends, and the friends of my daughters, are in grave danger, due to recent events, which I cannot explain here but will confide in you as soon as we meet. I ask that you go at once to wait for me in the town of Norwich, where I am now heading this very night. And that you present yourself there to the Lord Sherriff, who holds many Jews in the castle tower for their protection, and you make known to the Lord Sherriff that you are well acquainted with the Jews in question, and that you are the guardian of their two daughters—Lea and Rosa—who have become Christian and now live in Paris, under the guidance of Br. Godwin, their godfather, and their devoted friend. Please understand that the inhabitants of Norwich are not aware that Meir and Fluria had two children, and they are very much perplexed as to why the one child whom they knew has left the town.
“Insist to the Lord Sherriff that he keep this matter secret until I can meet you and explain further why these actions must be undertaken now.”
“Splendid,” I said. “Do you think your brother will do it?”
“My brother will do anything for me,” he said. “He’s a kindly and loving man. I would say more if I thought that such a letter might not fall into the wrong hands.”
Once again he blotted his many sentences, and his signature, folded the letter, sealed it with wax, and then he rose, bidding me to wait, and went out of the room.
He was gone for some time.
It struck me as I looked around the little room, with its scent of ink and old paper, its scent of leather book binding and burning coals, that I could spend my whole life here happily, and that, in fact, I was living a life now so superior to anything that I’d ever lived before that I almost wanted to cry.
But this was no time to think of myself.
When he returned, he was out of breath and somewhat relieved.
“The letter will go out tomorrow morning, and make much greater progress than we will make, on its way to England, as I’ve sent it care of the Bishop who presides over St. Aldate’s, and the manor house of my brother, and he will deliver the letter into Nigel’s hands.”
He looked at me and once again the tears came up in his eyes. “I could not have done this alone,” he said gratefully.
He removed his mantle from the peg, and mine as well, and we dressed for the snow outside. He started to wrap his hands again with the rags that he’d laid to the side, but I reached into my pockets whispering a prayer and drew out two pairs of gloves.
“Thank you, Malchiah!”
He looked at the gloves, but then, with a nod, took the pair I offered and put them on. I could see he didn’t like the fine leather or the fur trim, but he knew that we had work that we had to do.
“Now, we go to see Rosa,” he said, “and tell her what she already knows, and ask her what she wishes to do. If she refuses this task, or feels she cannot do it, we will go to testify in Norwich on our own.”
He paused. He whispered, “Testify,” and I knew he was troubled now by the amount of lies involved.
“Never mind it,” I said. “There will be bloodshed if we don’t do this. And these good people, who have done nothing, will die.”
He nodded and out we went.
A boy with a lantern, who looked very much like a heap of wool garments, waited for us outside, and Godwin said we would go to the convent where Rosa lived.
We were soon hurrying through the darkened streets, passing an occasional noisy tavern door, but generally groping our way behind the boy who held the lantern, and a heavy snow had begun to fall.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rosa
THE CONVENT OF OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS WAS VAST, solid, and lavishly appointed. The immense room in which we greeted Rosa was more expensively and beautifully furnished than any room I’d yet seen. The fire was immediately fed and raked for us, and two young nuns, heavily covered in linen and wool, set out bread and wine on the long table. There were numerous tufted stools, and the most spectacular tapestries everywhere that I’d yet observed. Tapestries had been laid down over the polished pavers of the floor.
Candles blazed in many sconces, and large diamond-paned windows caught the reflection of the lights beautifully in their thick glass.
The Abbess, an impressive woman of obvious and easy authority, was clearly devoted to Godwin, and left us at once to whatever it was we had to say.
As for Rosa, clad in a white robe and beneath it a thick white tunic which might have been her nightgown, she was the image of her mother, except for her startling blue eyes.
For a moment it was shocking to me to see the coloring of the mother with the vibrancy of the father in her face. Indeed her eyes were so like Godwin’s as to be continually unnerving.
Her thick curling black hair was loose over her shoulders, and down her back.
She was a woman already at fourteen, quite obviously, and she had a woman’s shape and bearing.
That all the gifts of her parents were mingled in her was plain.
“You’ve come to tell me that Lea is dead, haven’t you?” she said immediately to her father, after he’d kissed her on both cheeks and on the top of her head.
He began to weep. They sat down opposite each other in front of the fire.
She held both his hands in hers, and nodded more than once as though talking to herself about it. And then she spoke up again.
“If I told you that Lea has come to me in a dream, I would be lying to you. But when I woke this morning, I knew n
ot only for certain that she was dead, but that my mother needed me. Now you come with this friar and I know you wouldn’t be here at this hour if something wasn’t required of me at once.”
Godwin at once brought up a stool for me and asked me to outline the plan.
As briefly as possible I told her what had happened, and she began to gasp when she realized the danger to her mother, and to all the Jews of this town of Norwich where she had never been.
She told me quickly that she’d been in London when many Jews from Lincoln had been tried and executed for the murder of Little St. Hugh, just such a supposed crime.
“But do you think you can play the part of your sister?”
“I long to do it!” she said. “I long to stand up to these people who dare to say my mother killed her daughter. I long to upbraid them for these wild accusations. I can do it. I can insist that I am Lea, for in my heart I am Lea as much as I am Rosa, and Rosa as much as Lea. And it will be no lie to say that I’m eager to leave Norwich and return to Rosa, my very self, in Paris at once.”
“You mustn’t overplay it,” said Godwin. “Remember, no matter what your anger or your disgust with these accusers, you must talk softly as Lea talked softly, and you must insist softly as Lea would have done.”
She nodded. “My anger and my determination are for you and Br. Toby,” she said. “Have confidence in me that I will know what to say.”
“You realize if this goes wrong, you will be in danger,” said Godwin, “just as we are. What sort of father is it that would let his own daughter go so near to a blazing fire?”
“A father who knows that a daughter must do her duty by her mother,” she answered at once. “Has she not already lost my sister? Has she not lost the love of her father? I have no hesitation, and I think the frank admission that we are twins is a great advantage and without it the imposture would surely be undone.”
She left us then, telling us she would prepare for the journey.
Godwin and I went off to arrange for a wagon to take us to Dieppe, from which we’d sail to England over the treacherous Channel once more, and this time in a hired boat.