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On the morning of the First Day she woke in his arms and knew that it was over.
They had gotten in late late late last night, and there had been no one moving in the great old house. They’d left so precipitously two? was it only two? months ago that she wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been given up for dead. They’d certainly given themselves up for dead - but, she reflected, never each other. And through nothing short of a miracle, they’d at last come home.
Home. It hadn’t been home before, they hadn’t had time to make it their own. But after weeks of guest rooms and bedrolls and little inns and train cars, her own bed welcomed her like they were made for each other. Nestled against her husband on one side and her pillows on the other, she was entirely confident she was never going to need to move again. Warm under the counterpane with just enough chill in the air to make it comfortable, his arm draped over her just where it fit best without confining or irritating, just holding, snug and secure. There was nowhere else in the world she wanted to be.
The cathedral bells were playing the Doxology. He stirred slightly, just a little squeeze of presence, a little exhalation of breath, nothing urgent like when they had clung to each other in the night in terror or desperation. She shifted slightly in return so she could look at him. Hair like fresh fallen snow, lips slightly parted by quiet breathing, his face smoothed from the lines of care that had taken up apparently permanent residence there. He had slept through the night. She watched him, marveling. He had slept - they had both slept - to waken, fully, with the morning.
“Adam lay ybounden, ybounden in a bond…” ethereal voices drifted in through the open window. She had quite lost track of the date. Of course, Lessons and Carols, the start of Advent, a new liturgical season, a new year, a new life. Getting up was of course out of the question, bed was perfect and she had already resolved never to move again, but nothing could be better than to lie here, watch her husband breathe, and listen to the whole history of mankind in song and story. “Full ten thousand winters thought he not too long.”
He shifted again. “Mmm,” he said, and opened his eyes just enough to see her watching him, and smiled. “Mmm,” she agreed, as he drew her to him to kiss her with lips still warm and soft with slumber. Then he snuggled back into her shoulder, right where he belonged, as content as she was to embrace the indolence of a sleepy Sunday morning. She closed her eyes…
“EEK!” The sudden shriek and accompanying clatter roused them both to wakefulness in an instant. Mary the Housekeeper was standing in the doorway, white as a sheet and slightly bug-eyed.
The young lovers looked at each other and started to giggle. Uncharitable but she couldn’t help it, it bubbled up through and past all the darkness of the past months, like a fountain overflowing. Poor Mary turned from white to red. “I saw a mouse,” she lied, radiating affront and abashment in equal measure. It didn’t help her case, they laughed all the harder.
Her husband rallied enough to try to apologize. “We should have sent word we were on our way. We weren’t even sure anyone would still be here."
The housekeeper eyed them reproachfully, but just said: "Will you be needing breakfast” a glance at the clock “…or possibly dinner?”
It was too much, they dissolved again. “No thank you,” she managed, “we’re just taking a slow morning. Pretend we’re not even here-” and broke off into more spluttering giggles. The housekeeper made a disapproving grunting noise, retrieved her dropped duster, and shut the door on them once more.
“Oh dear,” her husband said when they could breathe again. “I think we shall have to give her a raise.”
“I think we will at that,” she agreed laughing. “Poor thing, what a shock." She raised herself up on an elbow. "Ought we to get up, do you think? Mary was right, it is quite late.”
“Not for worlds,” he said. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here.”
“No, nor I,” she said, and kissed him soundly. It was all over, and they were going to be alright. They had passed through the long night to a new day at last. “A newe werk is come on honde” came the quietly triumphant music drifting up from the cathedral, the choir still moving through the Nine Lessons. Time kept ticking onwards and upwards.
It was all over. It was all beginning at last.