Leofric says an exceedingly foolish thing
Eadgith smiled up at her father, but he could see by her eyes that she had been crying.
“You’re early today,” she said.
“Do you schedule your tears for when your father isn’t here, my baby?” he asked as he embraced her.
“You can tell!” she said with a little, painful laugh.
“By your eyes. Don’t tell me you’re up here missing that rascal of a husband of yours. Are you? Shall I go after him and make him come home to you?”
“Oh!” she said with that little laugh again. “I wish you could.”
“Next time we shall make him stay home with you, and we shall send your good-for-nothing old father in his place. What do you think?”
“I want both of you here, and my brother too. And everyone.” She let her head lie on his shoulder.
“It won’t be long,” he soothed. “And I brought Aeri for you today. A nice, fat baby is better than that gangly old husband of yours, isn’t it?”
She shuddered for a moment and then let out a sob against his tunic. He realized that he had said an exceedingly foolish thing.
“Not today, father, not today!”
“My baby,” he sighed.
“Not today!”
“Is that why you were crying?”
“I know I shan’t – now – and now he’s gone, and if he – ” She stopped, too afraid to even speak aloud her greatest fear.
“Don’t say ‘shan’t’, my girl. You haven’t been married a year.”
“But ten months! It is enough.”
“One night can be enough! It is a mystery how such things are. You must talk to your mother – ”
“My mother!” she said bitterly and lifted her head. “My mother talks of nothing else! Drink this! Put these flowers under your pillow! Say this prayer! Don’t go riding! Don’t get up before dawn! Don’t stand out in the rain! Sleep on your back! Sleep on your side! Don’t sleep so much!”
Leofric scowled, surprised at her vehemence, but not at the foolishness of her mother. “Doesn’t she see it hurts you?”
“I don’t know… and Hilda too…”
“Hilda! I can talk to Hilda, and by God, I will.”
“Oh, dear, no! Don’t! They mustn’t know it distresses me.”
“Hmph.” He supposed that Hilda already knew it, but he couldn’t say so to his daughter. “Don’t let it, my baby. You are only a baby yourself, you know, and there’s no hurry. It will happen when you least expect it. It often does.”
