She tried to embrace my father, but he pushed her away.
Oh, it was dreadful to see him this way, staring blindly before him, clutching his walking stick, yet without his bearings, feeling now that he was alone amongst enemies of his own flesh and blood.
I began to cry and couldn't think of what to say.
"These are daughters of a Jewish mother," my father said, "and these are Jewish women who will be someday the mothers of sons who are Jews, and you will have nothing to do with them. They are not of your faith. And you must leave here. Don't tell me stories of your high sanctity and fame in Paris. I have heard enough of this many a time. I know who you really are, the man who betrayed my trust and my house. Go preach to the Gentiles who accept you as the reformed sinner. I accept no confession of guilt from you. If you don't visit a woman every night of your life in Paris, I stand to be surprised. Get out!"
You don't know my father. You can't know the heat of his wrath. I barely touch on the eloquence he used to flog Godwin. And all this in the presence of the girls who were staring from me to their grandfather, and then to the Black Friar who went down on his knees and said:
"What can I do but beg your forgiveness?"
"Come close enough," said my father, "and I will beat you with all my strength for what you've done in my house."
Godwin merely stood up, bowed to my father, and giving me a tender glance, and looking back on his daughters sorrowfully, made to leave the house.
Rosa stopped him, and indeed threw her arms around him, and he held her with his eyes closed for a long moment--things my father couldn't see or know. Lea stood stock-still, weeping, and then ran from the room.
"Get out of my house," roared my father. And Godwin obeyed at once.
I was in dreadful fear as to what he was doing or where he had gone, and now there seemed to me to be nothing to do but to confess to Meir the whole tale.
Meir came that night. He was agitated. He'd been told there had been a quarrel under our roof and that a Black Friar had been seen leaving and the man had been in great distress.
I shut myself up with Meir in my father's study and told him the truth. I told him I didn't know what was to happen. Had Godwin gone back to Paris, or was he still in Oxford or London? I had no idea.
Meir looked at me for a long time with his soft and loving eyes. Then he surprised me completely. "Beautiful Fluria," he said, "I've always known the girls were your daughters by a young lover. Do you think there are those in the Jewry who do not remember your affection for Godwin, and the tale of his break with your father many years ago? They don't say anything outright, but everyone knows. Calm yourself on this account, insofar as it concerns me. What faces you now is not my defection, surely, for I love you as much today as I did yesterday and the day before that. What faces us all is what Godwin means to do."
He went on speaking to me in the calmest manner.
"Grave consequences can await a priest or brother accused of having children by a Jewish woman. You know this. And grave consequences can await a Jewess who confesses that her children are daughters of a Christian man. The law forbids such things. The Crown is anxious for the property of those who violate it. It is impossible to see how anything can be done here, except that the secret be kept."
Indeed, he was right. It was the old stalemate, which I had faced when Godwin and I had first loved each other, and Godwin had been sent away. Both sides had reason to keep the secret. And surely, my girls, clever as they were, understood this very well.
Immediately Meir had produced a calm in me that wasn't too different from the serenity I often felt when I read Godwin's letters, and in this moment of remarkable intimacy, because it was very truly that, I saw the meekness and innate kindness of Meir more clearly than before.
"We must wait to see what Godwin will do," he repeated. "In truth, Fluria, I saw this friar leave your house, and he seemed a humble and gentle man. I was watching, because I didn't want to come in if your father was in this study with him. And so I happened to see him very clearly as he came out. His face was white and drawn, and he seemed to carry an immense burden on his soul."
"Now you carry it too, Meir," I said.
"No, I carry no burden. I only hope and pray that Godwin will not seek to take his daughters from you, for that would be a horrid and terrible thing."
"How can a friar take his daughters from me?" I asked.
But just as I asked this question, there came a loud knocking, and the maidservant, my beloved Amelot, came to tell me that Earl Nigel, son of Arthur, was here with his brother the friar, Br. Godwin, and that she had shown them in and made them comfortable in the best room of the house.
I rose to go, but before I could, Meir rose beside me and took my hand. "I love you, Fluria, and want you for my wife. Remember this, and I knew this secret without anyone having to tell me. I even knew that the old Earl's youngest son was the likely man. Believe in me, Fluria, that I can love you unstintingly, and if you do not want to give me your answer now as to my proposal, things being as they are, be assured that I wait patiently for you to decide whether we will be married or not."
Well, I had never heard Meir put that many words together in my presence, or even in my father's. And I felt greatly comforted by this, but in total terror of what awaited me in the front rooms.
Forgive me that I cry. Forgive me that I can't help it. Forgive me that I can't forget Lea, not now as I recount these things.
Forgive me that I weep for Rosa as well.
O Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Do not bring your servant into judgment for no one living is righteous before you.
You know this psalm as well as I do. It is my constant prayer.
I went in to greet the young Earl who had inherited the title from his father. Nigel, too, I had known as one of my father's students. He looked troubled but not angry. And when I turned my gaze on Godwin I was once again astonished by the gentleness and quiet that seemed to surround him, as though he were present, yes, and vibrantly so, but in another world as well.
Both men greeted me with all the respect they might have shown a Gentile woman, and I urged them to be seated and take some wine.
My soul was quaking. What could the presence of the young Earl mean?
My father entered and demanded to know who was in his house. I begged the maid to go to Meir and ask him to come in with us, and then, my voice unsteady, I told my father that the Earl was here with his brother, Godwin, and that I had invited them to take some wine.