Matilda says the wrong thing

Matilda stood in the doorway of the baby’s room, briefly startled speechless. Something about the scene reminded her painfully of herself with her father – the tall man, the broad back, the baby peering over his shoulder…

Of course, it was absurd to believe that she had any memory of her babyhood, and quite impossible that such a memory would involve seeing herself from a distance, from the point of view of another person. She must have been thinking of another tall man, another baby – Harold, perhaps, with one of his sons, or Sigefrith… but the sight went straight to her heart, as if it were her father…

Dora saw her over her grandfather’s shoulder and began to squirm and snuffle in delight. Leofric only warbled nonsense at the baby for a moment, but then he seemed to realize that he had an audience and turned abruptly.

“Hilda didn’t tell me you were here,” Matilda explained at once.

“Hmph!” he grunted.

She wondered what he thought of Hilda’s little trick. Matilda didn’t know what to think. It was the first time she had seen him alone since they had agreed to be friends again – a promise they had not managed to keep.

“Didn’t Sigefrith mention it?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen Sigefrith.”

“I thought that was why you came to this house,” he muttered darkly.

A shudder of cold anger went over her, her bitterness reasserting itself. Still, she longed to explain to him.

“No,” she said coolly. “I came to sew. Estrid and Synne are coming, and we mean to make dresses for Maire’s baby. She’s so big that she had already outgrown half the dresses Maire had made for her before she was born, and she has almost grown through the other half in three weeks.” She tried to smile.

Leofric relaxed. “What about this little bee?” he asked of Dora, whose head bobbed against his shoulder in her attempts to attract Matilda’s attention. “She’s still so small I could hide her in my sock.”

“And poison her?” she asked dryly.

“You’re thinking of Sigefrith’s feet,” he smiled at her – the boyish smile she had known for so long.

“As I recall, only Sigefrith’s feet could hide the stench of yours,” she said.

“And as I recall, your husband does not seem to bathe his in rose water, either.”

“No, but I do.”

“What a charming – nay, what a Biblical practice! The anointing of one’s husband’s feet!”

“My own feet!” she laughed.

Dora laughed with her and pounded her grandfather’s chest with her open palm.

“You find that funny, do you, my pigeon?” Leofric asked her. “I believe she wants you, Matilda.”

“Well, and I don’t blame you, darling,” Matilda said as she took the little girl. “Who in her right mind wants to be kissed and cuddled by that scratchy old man?”

She flushed and turned away with the baby. That had been the wrong thing to say.

She was made to wonder what Leofric had been thinking after that remark, for he suddenly asked her, “Is Alred still here? I wanted to see him today.”

“He wasn’t here at all. I came alone.”

Leofric scowled at her as if she were a child who had disobeyed his command, and her cold anger shook over her again.

“Is that safe?” he asked.

“I don’t see what difference it makes,” she snapped. “From what I have heard, a guard of several men would not be enough to defend me against a band of elves. You saw how that sword was bent.”

“Then perhaps it is best for you to stay at home. Sigefrith keeps Eadgith at the castle.”

“Sigefrith may do as he pleases! Eadgith is only a girl and doesn’t realize that he isn’t her father to be giving her orders, nor that he is not a god, and is not infallible. No doubt she is happy, as some birds may be happy in their cages. Others prefer to fly and risk the hawks. I am one such.”

Dora babbled at her and pawed at her mouth, which somewhat lessened the cold dignity she tried to maintain throughout this speech.

“No one wants to put you in a cage,” Leofric sighed. “But no one wants to see you hurt, either.”

“Speak for yourself! Who is this ‘no one’ for whom you speak?”

“Very well! Then I do not want to put you in a cage, and I do not wish to see you hurt!”

“And who are you?”

“Your friend.”

“It is not enough to declare oneself my friend, to make it so!”

“Am I not?”

He tried to keep his voice firm, but his eyes were like the eyes of her children when she lost patience with them, snapped at them, and said harsh things. They were the eyes of a child who fears that the bedrock of love that underlaid his life was not as stable as he had supposed.

She hated him for looking at her with those eyes, as she hated her children at such moments, for making her see herself in all her vicious, petty ugliness. Her love crumbled and shifted like piles of wet sand. She hated herself most of all.

“Matilda, what has happened to you?” he pleaded when she did not respond quickly enough.

Matilda’s head snapped back, she drew herself up to all her meager height, and she stared down her nose at him. Why did this not make him squirm?

“If I have any part in this – if there is anything I can do – ”

“You?” she laughed coldly. “What a vain, vain, silly man you are! To think you could make me anything that I am, for good or ill!”

Dora slapped her on the cheek as if she understood. Leofric took a step back and stood tall, towering over her, glowering down at her.

It had been the wrong thing to say, a cruel thing to say, and she hated herself for saying it. She stared back at him, her wide eyes unblinking for fear that a tear would otherwise be loosened. But he did not see how they shone, and he turned away from her with a look of disgust.

“Here, Dora,” she murmured, and she felt again as if she were watching herself from a distance, only now she was the adult and she held the baby on her shoulder. “Here, Dora, let’s get down.”

She laid Dora in her cradle and stood looking down at her until she was certain her eyes would not betray her.

She turned back to Leofric, but he was standing before the window, staring out at the darkening scud that announced the oncoming storm. He was waiting for her to speak, she realized – or for her to leave.

She left.