The Good Wife

by Eleanor Porter

‘As true as the circling sun, Martha.’ He smiled, kissed me once more and leapt down the ladder.

  Then all was commotion; the bleary young lords and their retinues came swaggering in. There were shouts for forgotten necessaries, bags added to, orders from the florid Steward and in the grey damp light the horses were led one by one to the mounting block and the gentlemen swung themselves into the saddle. It was Jacob himself held Sir Thomas’s bridle. He was barely older than we were; I dare say he looked younger, although his dainty-featured face was golden from his travels. There was a delicate charm in him that spoke of strength, like a jewelled scabbard for a blade. Jacob beamed when his master inclined his head and spoke to him. Sir Thomas did not shout as the Steward and the other lordings did – he garnered attention and spent it generously, sweeping us all in his clear intelligent smile.

  The party were about to leave when there was a bustle at the entrance to the stables and flanked by her ladies, the Lady Anne, his mother, appeared. Sir Thomas left off talking to his companion and sombrely dismounted to kneel before her on the bare flags of the yard, his head bowed for her blessing. She placed her hands upon his head and raised him up; then she was gone, but I saw the look she gave her son’s young friend and the tightness of her smile as she acknowledged his bow. Ah, I thought, so you do not approve of young Edward Croft, although his father is comptroller to the Queen and he is heir to half the county. I could see why. I think his horse could, jostling against her fellows so that a stable boy reached for the bridle.

  ‘Get back you damned varlet,’ Croft muttered, turning on the boy. I think he would have struck him if there had not been others by.

  There was some other delay. It was no use skulking in the shadows to bother Jacob for glances. A knot of us straggled to the drive to watch them as they came through. A thin mist had risen from the river and was strewn across the low boughs of the elms like wisps of wool. A ewe bleated; I waited for the lamb to answer. There was an eerie loneliness to the morning; the stillness was beautiful but had no warmth in it. The soft mist would thin into the desolate light of day. At last the cry of the lamb came, but it was far away, over the river, surely; how had it wandered so far? Could it find its own way home? I darted a look at my near neighbour, old Rowland Coggeshill, to quiet myself, but his frown looked as worried as mine. His nephew, John, was leaving home for the first time in his life, working alongside Jacob. I tried a smile.

  ‘What is known of Sir Thomas’s companion, Edward Croft, Rowland? He looks a choleric man, not a bit like Sir Thomas.’

  ‘Young Edward Croft? Less known of him the better. Brings all to ruin he touches. Old Sir James, his father, is the powerfullest man I ever seen, near the highest in the land he is, rules the Queen’s house and everyone in it, but even he en’t got a clue what to do with him. Folks say Edward killed a man out Lingen way, that Sir James had to spend no end of money keeping it in the county. I reckon they’re only too glad to lose him to the North for a month or two. Hoping he don’t come back I daresay.’

  ‘Then I’m glad he’s not Jacob’s master, or John’s. But I’m surprised Sir Thomas should like him so, or his mother allow him to be one of the party.’

  ‘Well, as to that she don’t have much say. Young lord Thomas’s a grown man and not in hock to his mother. And Edward Croft may be lively company when drink or his own dark soul don’t set him roaring; there’s many enough like that, young Martha, great or small.’

  ‘That’s true too.’ I said, thinking my own thoughts till the coming of the company pushed them aside. The two young lords were out in front, with feathers in their hats, their mares prancing at the bit. Sir Thomas slowed as he pricked past us, deigning a smile on old Rowland, and behind him was Jacob, easy in his own strength, watchful of his masters. He did not need fine cloth to gild him. I held his gaze for just a moment, caught the glint in it, but could not catch the words his lips began to shape, for there was a sudden stir.

  It was Master Edward’s horse, something had startled it, the mare was rearing all over the road with her rider laying about her, as though a whip would calm her. Jacob rode forward quickly, leaning across to take the bridle, but Master Edward swore at him to hold back and jerked at the bit and brought her in line; the fear still red in her eyes.

  ‘What made her start so?’ I nudged Rowland.

  ‘There was a watkin ran across, near under the hooves. Didn’t you see a couple of the hounds go after it?’

  I swallowed. ‘A hare?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ He looked at me sharply; he knew as well as I did that to cross a hare at the start of a journey boded ill for the travellers. ‘And it don’t mean nothing. Don’t have to. Leastways not for yours or mine. Best not dwell on it. Look how the sun is trying to shine on them. Give him a last wave, girl, they’re nearly through the gatehouse.

  I could not tell if he saw me; I think he looked back. Then they were through the gatehouse and the wide road took them.

  Rowland patted my hand. ‘Come on home. He’s a fine steady lad, he’ll be back before you know it.’

  I smiled and nodded and we turned towards the row of cottages. The sun was leaking into the edges of the day, but it could not reach the lane. As I neared my own door I felt suddenly that I did not wish to enter my empty home, not yet. I would walk a while, slow as I was, and see if I could lick up some dregs of light. It was a long time since I had wandered gathering simples. I felt a strong wish to do so, if only to banish from my mind the hare’s warning of mischance. Perhaps old Rowland read a little into my thoughts because when I made my excuses, he shook his head gently.

  ‘Fortune is as she will be girl. There’s a sight more hares waiting in the grass, she ain’t riding all their backs. Give it over. There’s no use moithering on signs.’

  I took a path to the south-west that wound slowly uphill through the woods, curling like shy ivy round and alongside the main straight lane. It was a habit not to want to be seen and besides, I could take what bark and what roots and leaves I wanted with more ease. Not only that – Jacob’s leaving had churned up all my old disquiet. If I could, I thought, I would wait here for his return, like a hedgehog in a drift of leaves. Foolish of course; even before I reached the brow a woodsman hailed me from a hazel stand a few yards off. He wished me good day and asked after the company, had they made a fine departure? It soothed me, talking to him; it reminded me that I was simply Martha Spicer, a respectable woman, who kept a clean enough house and was married to a good man, who a neighbour would ask to mind a baby or lend a cup of milk without a blink of fear. It was as Jacob had said over and over – I could let go fearing my fellows. At least for now, I thought, bidding the man good bye.

  At the brow, all the tributary paths flowed into a clearing that opened off the Hereford road. Hampton Court Castle was laid out below me, with its square walls and neat stables and embroidered gardens. All the mist had cleared; the light an indifferent white that permitted colour but did not encourage it. Behind the Court the river was an iron bar; it seemed to assent to the great house and offer itself as a fierce girdle. I could not see my own cottage; it was hidden in the hollow. Morning barely reached it before the shadows stretched from the sloping fields to claim it back again. Even our lane snuck down away from the road. For a while, Jacob was stepped up into the world of strong walls and windows, the world of those who could pattern out the earth and even bend the river, who could kick up the mud of the road and scoff at portents. What must it be like, I wondered, to look down on a score of chimneys, on fields and hedges and paths and to feel ownership, to feel it in the pulse of your blood? You could plant your legs so firmly on the earth, look down the middle of the road. Common people would step aside as you approached and you would barely notice.

  They would be beyond Leominster by now. I could not make out much of the road, there was too much of a haze in the air and it was too fuzzed about with trees. It was clearer the other way, towards Hereford. I pretended to myself I could see the city walls
and the tower of the great cathedral. Owen was there, somewhere, in a scholar’s gown, his hair as white as the day he’d stepped out of his mother’s house and climbed up to me on the cart that was taking me to gaol. Angel, the crowd had whispered, leaving off their baying and cursing to watch as he called my name and climbed up and embraced me. Who could say I’d witched him after that? My little Owen, who I’d taught to read better than any hedge-priest

  He’d be grown now, near as. He was doing well, he wrote; he was going to be sent to Oxford, to the University. When a letter came – it was not often; one year I had seven, one year two – when a letter came I would not read it straightaway. I kept it folded in my gown, feeling the paper with my fingers now and then, the pain and the joy of it – Owen, who was lost to me, who was thriving, who had not forgotten. What I would give to see him! He was to be let in to the world of streets and money, of libraries where all the learning in the world waited for the reaching hand. There was no use my dreaming of any of that.

  Would Jacob write? I smiled, it was not likely – or if he did it would not be much. He had mastered the letters quick enough and could read any page of the Bible, but he’d had no need of writing, nor occasion to practise it. For him the world before him, with all its variousness, was enough; he did not yearn for more, nor feel the delight my father had unlocked in me, when the voice on the page opens a door to a world elsewhere. Tell me, I’d said, write to me and tell me about all the places you pass through, the people you meet. He’d laughed. I’ll be back before the letter would reach you; I’ll put you on my knee and tell you myself – how one town was very like the last, how one master was haughty and another kind and how I tired of kissing the women. He had been fresh come home from the stables with the smell of the horses on him, the energy of their snorts and stamping lingering round him; I closed my eyes and stood still on the road, to hold the picture of him in my mind.

  ‘For God’s sake, make way!’ a man’s voice shouted behind me, beside me. ‘What! Are you mad? In the middle of the road like that? You might have lamed her.’

  A gloved hand roughly pushed me aside, so that I cried out, stumbled, lost my footing and half fell. I was not hurt, thankfully, but my gown was muddied and the herbs I had gathered were lost. I had let a dream knock away the morning. I hauled myself upright quick and turned to look at the rider. He had turned his horse round and was regarding me and the scattered simples in the mud. My hood was still about my head and he did not know me, but I knew him, I had seen his skinny shanks often enough, checking up on the hands.

  The crest of the hill was only a few paces behind. The horse was not breathing hard – it had not taken the rise at a lick then. More like a walk. He might have called out; there had been no need to push me. I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze as he stepped the horse closer. He did not like that; for a moment he raised his whip and leaned as though to strike me. It was enough, I dropped my eyes and bobbed.

  ‘Forgive me, my lord Steward, it was careless of me. I beg your pardon.’

  ‘You are one of our people, aren’t you? Pull your hood back.’ He put his face down close and peered. I focused on the mole on his chin, the long hairs dangling from it. ‘Ah’, he said at last, ‘I know you, you are the wife of the stablehand Sir Thomas has taken a fancy to. You were to be hanged as a witch once, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was found innocent, sir.’

  ‘Yet you rise like a hooded spirit in the woods and frighten my horse. What’s that you were holding?’

  He could see the herbs as well as I, but I named them for him. What was he, I wondered, near fifty, older? He carried himself like a man who had been handsome. Perhaps he believed himself to be so still, although his cheeks sagged and his belly strained against the doublet. He gave me a reproving stare. ‘You should ask permission to pick simples.’

  I nodded, returning my eyes to the mud as I ought. An early ramsons bud lay by my skirts, the tissue already peeling back round the tight white flower. The mud was on it; it was spoiled already. I felt his watery eyes on me.

  ‘Are you skilled?’ The question startled me.

  ‘Only a little,’ I answered, feeling the old tug of fear.

  ‘I think you are. And proud with it, I’ll bet. Come and find me soon, you might be of some use to me. Physicians are scoundrels.’

  With that he took up the reins again and left me.

  Scarce a few hours had passed since Jacob had named him as one to be wary of. He hadn’t needed to; every woman within a half-day’s ride knew how Steward Boult gobbled girls – and spat them out when he’d sucked the bloom from them. There was more than one fair daughter hereabouts, packed off to marry an old man in another parish when her belly grew big. In my mind’s eye Jacob shook his head in warning. But surely, I thought back, it could do us no harm to be useful to someone as powerful as he? Not if I were careful. I was no golden girl, no dewy rose to be sniffed and plucked.

  3

  Rain set in before nightfall. A cold thick rain that pressed out light and hope. I knelt by my bed and prayed they had found good lodgings and kindness. Even as I did so, I half expected the light touch of his fingers on my neck, his presence behind me. Such foolishness, it was only two months. Nevertheless, I lay awake a long time, long after the cottages were quiet and there was only the odd owl, the rain on the thatch and the drip where it leaked. It was getting worse, the leak. The ridge needed renewing. They had promised it when we arrived. ‘Not a bad cottage Jacob Spicer,’ they’d said, ‘and the Steward’s man has promised you a new coating of thatch before winter.’ We’d scarcely cared at first, the life here was so much more than we’d dared hope for, but as that winter passed, and the next, we’d grown tired of patching the holes. Last November a storm had threatened to blow half the roof away; we’d had to rope it down, with the gale in our faces. If we were to have another wild night I could not attempt that on my own. Mould spread over our end wall like breath on glass, however often I scrubbed and limed it. If I could be of service to the Steward, perhaps Jacob would come home to a new roof.

  I must have fallen asleep at last, for when I woke the birds were loud and the rain had stopped. I opened the door to sunshine, and to Sally Robbins, my neighbour two doors down. Silly Sally we called her, she was always wittering to fill the empty spaces in her head, or else worrying after things she could not help, as though it were only her fretting stopped the sun from falling down. There was no harm in her, for all that; when her sister had died she had taken the children in, though there was scarce room to stand. It had been the making of her, for it gave her a whole houseful who would worry her forever. She was forever clasping the children to her big turnip breasts and weeping at their faults and falls and they loved her for it and strained to get away.

  I smiled. It felt good to have another’s voice in the house and if I couldn’t have Jacob, hers would do, for it lined the emptiness without my having to make much in the way of response.

  ‘Well I didn’t see you all afternoon and I said to my Michael, that poor girl – I know you are a grown woman Martha, but you are a girl to me ever since I saw you arrive thinner than a reed in winter – so I said to myself that girl has gone to be alone to weep. And I expect you didn’t get a wink of sleep did you, all night long?’

  I smiled to think I was near as feeble as she thought me. ‘I slept quite well Sally, thank you, although the rain was coming through all night.’

  ‘Yes, you look pale as death itself, poor thing. It’s a terrible thing to be lovesick. And you two like pretty doves, if a dove could be as dark as you are dear – if I’m honest you are more brown like mistress blackbird and you have a lovely voice like her too, I’ve heard you singing. And Jacob your ouzel, but golden. Michael said if you think she’s lonely you could send the baby round to her, he’d keep her busy enough!’

  ‘I’d be happy, Sally— ‘

  ‘—And make you pine the more! Well, maybe an hour or two of an evening, I have that much to do I barely eat some nig
hts and the poor babe so sick with the kinkcough he whoops all night. But don’t you worry, you’ll have some of your own before long, there’s nothing like a bit of yearning to quicken you up when he comes home – perhaps if Michael had gone away a bit more we’d have had our own. But see, we’ve plenty.’

  ‘You have, Sally, they’re doing well.’

  ‘Are they, do you think so, you don’t think Jack has taken to stooping? They are working him too hard in the yards and now with Jacob gone – he’ll miss him near as much as you will, always a kind word, Jacob, like a brother he’s been—’

  ‘—Sally,’ I said, for my patience was wearing a little, ‘Roger Boult, the Steward, accosted me yesterday as I was gathering herbs. He wants me to attend to him, I think it must be a sickness of his own, or someone else in the household. Do you know of anything?’

  Sally pursed her lips together. ‘I won’t hear a word against Sir Thomas, he’s the best master that ever lived…’

  I nodded her on.

  ‘But that Steward is a knave. A bobber and beguiler, that’s what he is. Don’t have nothing to do with him, if you can help it. Or if you can’t, sew up your petticoats.’

  ‘Have no fear for me, Sally,’ I said, ‘I’ve known fetters already. There are things worse than hanging – if he touched me, I’d stab him in the throat.’ And I showed her my knife to prove it. It was a lie, of course. There was nothing worse than the foetid rat-ridden cell and the slow festering hours and the gaoler’s leer and the noose approaching – Sally was an innocent, after all, compared to me. ‘He’s not after my skirts, or not particularly – there must be an ailment. Do you know what it might be?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was his leg. His left leg. Word is, he’s a canker on it, after a dog bit him. That’ll be what it is. Goes everywhere with it all bound and bandaged. They were talking on it up at the Court, said it smelt foul, that Sir Thomas’s lady mother had wrinkled her nose. Should be in his pizzle not his leg, all the girls in the parish would be a sight better off if that got bound.’