Emma was further amazed by Hild’s calm acceptance of her resolution. But there were still several questions left unanswered.
“You said both Rowena and I are Lord De Laval’s daughters. Out of wedlock?”
Hild nodded.
“Aye, I was a serving girl in his house and only fifteen when he claimed me. There was no choice. He was a forceful man.”
Emma dimly recalled her father. She’d been afraid of him, and she remembered all his servants had feared him. Her heart clenched for the woman in front of her. This woman was her true mother.
“I bore him two daughters,” Hild went on, still clasping both Emma’s hands in hers. “He was away at the time and, even if he’d been there, he would not have concerned himself with it. Several women had borne him children out of wedlock, but he had cast them away, along with their children, not caring they were of his own blood. Just bastards, he called them. Lady Edith was his lawful wife, but she had borne him no child. We servantsoften heard bitter arguments, and Lord De Laval threatening to cast her aside because her womb was barren. So Lady Edith seized her chance. His was a long trip, and she’d persuaded him she was with child before he’d gone away. And then… She is a vicious woman. She’d already thrown me out of their house, as soon as she’d known I was with child."
As Hild went on with her tale, it seemed to Emma the scene was catching life in front of her eyes. It seemed to her that Lady Edith was now saying, with a cold smile upon her face, “Why, woman, two daughters?”
“Aye, milady,” Hild replied feebly, her eyes downcast.
“How will you feed both of them?” Lady Edith tossed, now laughing harshly, looking at the dire, impoverished lodgings Hild had been able to find for herself.
“I’ll find a way.”
“Give one of them to me. No one will ever know. My husband will no longer be able to say I’m barren. Besides, it is a fitting punishment for him. I will not give him a son. He does not deserve a boy. A lowly girl – this is what he is going to get. So that I won’t be forced to ever lie in front of God if he ever takes it upon himself to ask me if the child is of his blood. He’s jealous and petty.”
“Milady, what are you saying?”
“The child, woman! Are you deaf as well as stupid? I want a child. Whichever… You’ll claim she hasn’t lived. Whereas for me, I’ve worn my gowns loose and for a while now I’ve been pretending to be in confinement. The women in the house will hold their tongues, or lose them if they betray me. Just as you’ll lose yours if you breathe a word of this to anyone.”
“Milady, I cannot do as you ask. They’re both my children. Mine!”
“Stop whining, or I’ll have you whipped in the square and pilloried as a loose woman. And who will take care of yourchildren then? I’ll take one now. Whichever. And you should be thankful I let you live after you lay with my husband like the harlot you are.”
Emma came back to herself, shuddering to hear Hild tell the tale. The one Hild had depicted sounded just like Lady Edith, the woman Emma had for so long thought her mother.
“Forgive me, daughter. I was weak,” Hild said with a humble bow of her head.
“There’s nothing to forgive. You had no choice. She would have done just as she threatened. I know her all too well.”
Hild squeezed Emma’s fingers tight, a heart-breaking expression on her face.
“Oh, she must have been cruel to you, child! Wasn’t she… cruel?”
Emma shook her head, struggling to smile, as she suppressed a sob that caught in her throat. She fought hard not to speak of the many harsh whippings and cruelties she’d had to bear from the woman she’d thought her mother. Somehow, she told herself they had become easier to brush away now that she understood Edith was not her mother.
“Yet you had Sarah. And Sarah was kind. The kindest woman who ever was,” Hild whispered as she looked at Emma with eyes filled with remorse.
“You knew my nurse?” Emma asked in sheer wonder.
“Sarah was the best friend I had in this world. She'd lost her own daughter to untimely death, after Lord De Laval had used her just as savagely as he’d used me. And I begged her. I begged her to return and be your nurse. It was the one thing I tried to do for my child. That she should grow up raised by a good woman.”
Emma smiled, now letting tears fully flow upon her cheeks.
“Sarah was indeed a mother to me, God rest her soul.”
They did not speak for a while, just clasping hands, and Emma felt as if a heavy weight was lifted from upon hershoulders. She thought of kind, selfless Sarah, and of how Sarah had also been her mother, and she now thought of Robin and of how she would be a mother to him.
“Well,” Hild said at last with a sigh. “Our time is soon to end.”
“Are you content here?” Emma asked, rejoicing she had found her true mother, but understanding Hild had forever left the world behind.
“Aye, I found the peace I craved.”