Page 219 of The Pillars of the Earth
She began to cry.
After a moment, Jack woke up.
He kissed the tears on her cheeks with unbearable tenderness.
She said: “Oh, Jack, I want to marry you.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said in a voice of profound satisfaction.
He had misunderstood her, and that made it even worse. “But we can’t,” she said, and her tears flowed faster.
“But after this—”
“I know—”
“After this, you must marry me!”
“We can’t marry,” she said. “I’ve lost all my money, and you’ve got nothing.”
He raised himself on his elbows. “I’ve got my hands,” he said fiercely. “I’m the best stone carver for miles around.”
“You were dismissed—”
“It makes no difference. I could get work on any building site in the world.”
She shook her head miserably. “It’s not enough. I have to think about Richard.”
“Why?” he said indignantly. “What has all this got to do with Richard? He can take care of himself.”
Suddenly Jack looked boyish, and Aliena felt the difference in their ages: he was five years younger than she, and he still thought he had a right to be happy. She said: “I swore an oath to my father, when he was dying, that I would look after Richard until he becomes earl of Shiring.”
“But that could be never!”
“But an oath is an oath.”
Jack looked nonplussed. He rolled off her. His soft penis slipped out of her and she experienced a sense of loss like a pain. I will never feel him inside me again, she thought sorrowfully.
He said: “You can’t mean this. An oath is just words! It’s nothing by comparison withthis.This is real, this is you and me.” He looked at her breasts, then he reached out and stroked the curly hair between her legs. It was so poignant that she felt his touch like a whiplash. He saw her wince, and stopped.
For a moment she was on the edge of sayingYes, all right, let’s run away together now,and perhaps if he had carried on stroking her like that she would have; but reason returned, and she said: “I’m going to marry Alfred.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s the only way.”
He stared at her. “I just don’t believe you,” he said.
“It’s true.”
“I can’t give you up. I can’t, I can’t.” His voice cracked, and he stifled a sob.
She tried reason, arguing with herself as much as with him. “What’s the point of breaking my vow to my father, in order to make a marriage vow to you? If I break the first vow, the second is worthless.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want your vows. I just want us to be together all the time and make love whenever we feel like it.”
It was an eighteen-year-old view of marriage, she thought, but she did not say so. She would have accepted it gladly if she had been free. “I can’t do what I want,” she said sadly. “It’s not my destiny.”
“What you’re doing is wrong,” he said. “I meanevil.To give up happiness like this is like throwing jewels into the ocean. It’s far worse than any sin.”
