“You should not be on your feet so much now, child,” she said.
“I have work to do, Mama. You know that.” Elizabeth replied.
“I will wager all your books are up-to-date, the lambs counted, the wool shipped off to Holland, and I can see the fields are thick with new growth. You are managing admirably, Elizabeth, but you are soon to give birth and must spare yourself now for a short time. I have seen Edmund, and he is well enough to help out a bit, and he wants to help out. And Maybel is not going to allow you to give birth without her. Does Baen do nothing to help you?”
“Baen is an excellent steward,” Elizabeth found herself defending her husband. “He is gone from morning till evening, Mama. Never has Friarsgate had a better man.”
“I am happy to hear it,” Rosamund said with a small smile. “Then you are getting on better, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth was silent, and then she said, “I want to, but I cannot forgive him, Mama.”
Rosamund shook her head. “I have never known such a foolish girl as you, my daughter. Is there nothing I can say to you?”
“If he would only stop defending himself, Mama,” Elizabeth wailed.
Rosamund shook her head. “Of all my children you are the one who has suffered the lack of my company. You did not like Claven’s Carn and so I let you return to Friarsgate to Maybel’s care. I should not have. You are too independent, Elizabeth.”
“You were independent!” Elizabeth protested.
“I was indeed, but I knew when to retreat from an impossible position. You do not. Well, you and Baen must work it out between you, my daughter,” Rosamund decided. “Now tell me how you are feeling?”
“I sometimes think this will never be over, and that I shall never see my feet again, or be able to sleep on my side,” Elizabeth admitted.
Rosamund laughed. “I know,” she sympathized.
“But none of your bairns was as big as this one, I’m sure,” Elizabeth said.
“Baen is a big man, but you will birth the bairn well, and I will be with you,” Rosamund promised her child.
“I am so glad that you are here, Mama!” Elizabeth said.
“I am glad I am here too, Bessie, and do not scold me. In my heart you will always be Bessie to your mother,” Rosamund said with a smile.
Chapter 15
Rosamund watched in distress as Elizabeth and Baen attempted to mend their difficulties. Actually she admired her son-in-law’s patience with her daughter, who could not, it seemed, resist snapping at him at every opportunity. Several times she almost remonstrated with her daughter, but realizing it would only make matters worse, and that Elizabeth would consider that her mother was taking a position in Baen’s favor, Rosamund bit her tongue in defeat. She had thought Philippa difficult in the matter of marriage, yet Philippa had been easy compared to her youngest sister. But then Philippa had a goal in mind, and having attained it was content. And Banon had never resisted the idea of marriage. She found her Neville, and was happy to settle down as wife and mother.
“Do you love Baen?” she asked her daughter one afternoon as they sat in the little walled garden belonging to the house. It was filled with rosebushes now coming into bloom, and the air was fragrant with them.
“I thought I did,” Elizabeth admitted. “I should not have lain with him if I did not love him.” Her hand went to her belly.
“But do you love him now?” Rosamund persisted.
“I do not know.”
“Either you love him, or you don’t love him,” Rosamund said impatiently. “You had best consider it, Elizabeth. One heir is not enough for Friarsgate, and ’tis better to couple with a man you love.”
“At last I am beginning to understand Philippa,” Elizabeth said sharply.
Rosamund laughed, not in the least offended. “Her reluctance was your gain, daughter. You are as passionate about Friarsgate as I am. My first husband was a strong child, and yet he was felled by the spotting sickness. Children are fragile.”
“This bairn will not be. He is a great lazy lump of a lad, and if he is not born soon, I think I shall go mad. And as for having another, Mama, this is surely not the time to consider that,” Elizabeth said.
“He is a good man,” Rosamund said.
“I know it,” her daughter admitted.
Several days passed, and Rosamund thought her daughter was surely due to birth her child, but Elizabeth showed no signs of it. And then on Midsummer’s Day Rosamund was awakened by the sounds of a woman shrieking. Jumping from her bed and pulling her cloak about her, she hurried from her room to Elizabeth’s chamber, from where the sound came. Her daughter stood in a puddle of water, and Nancy was staring, frozen. Immediately the older woman took charge. “Nancy, tell Cook to have plenty of hot water and the clean clothes ready. You have prepared them in anticipation of this birth?”
