The Good Wife

by Eleanor Porter

  She nodded, solemnly her dark eyes on mine. ‘Ma always held my hand when she came. She daredn’t creep up on me when I was holding Ma’s hand.’

  I took her warm hand and held it.

  ‘My ma died,’ she said. ‘Baby Peter ripped her. She was so worn in holes with bearing us Ma Sally said that the devil had only to breathe and she burned all up.’

  ‘Peter’s not to blame,’ I said.

  She nodded again. I pressed her hand to my lips. I thought she had gone to sleep, then, but a while later she put her hand out and touched my cheek.

  ‘Are you crying about my Ma?’

  I shook my head, but perhaps I was, a little. On the other side of me little Mary made soft whimpers as she slept. The girls were so warm and new, how could it be that their mother had been taken from them? A few feet away the baby began to cry and Sally, from somewhere in her sleep, began to croon to him. He had been her sister’s seventh child. I put my free hand on my belly. These last years I had longed to feel the hard knot of a life beginning, had dreaded each return of blood, Jacob’s suppressed sigh. The bleeding had not come this month, not yet – it could be nothing; yet my breasts were still tender … By the time he returned I would know, I would be certain. Meg had fallen asleep at last, her hand still folded in mine. Perhaps, this winter, I would have my own baby beside me. If I lived. I pushed the thought away. I had survived a hill falling on me – but a life, gathering its body from my bones and blood, pushing its way out of me, would I survive that? Would I have to survive it again, and again, my body losing its own shape, its fastness, with always the sour piss taint in my skirts because I could not help but leak? I thought of the stories in the Ovid book, where girls were wrenched into new bodies with no power to say stop, let me be as I am: Io, turned to a white cow and watched by a herdsman with a hundred eyes, left to graze and waddle, unable to call her father by his name. Little Mary cuddled against me in her sleep as though listening to the story in her dream. Then she let out a long gurgling giggle. I couldn’t help but grin: there was not only loss; a child’s joy, their petal-freshness, there would be that, too.

  It was good to feel Roger Boult gone from the village, to have the morning my own again. I helped Sally with the children and prepared and sowed our bit of ground ready for Jacob’s return. Word had got out about my healing work, as I had known it would. Sissy Probert came the first morning. I was busy with a bit of mending when I heard her outside with Sally. Soon enough there she was, Sally behind her, nodding and smiling over her shoulder.

  ‘Now Goody Spicer,’ she said, as though I were one of her grown-up children late for church, ‘my Thomas tells me you’ve cured the Steward of his canker that stank worse than my privy.’

  ‘It’s mending,’ I said, ‘it’s not gone, but it shall in time, God willing. I helped nature along a little, that’s all.’

  ‘Well nature was taking her time about it. And it’s often enough she doesn’t step in at all. It strikes me it’s like starting a fire from the sun. Sunshine alone won’t do it, however dry your kindling – you need that bit of glass to marry the two together.’

  I smiled, a little warily. ‘I used to do a bit of healing in my own country,’ I said, ‘but that was before I was married.’ I hesitated, not sure how much was known of my history, not sure how much to tell. ‘My husband does not want a cunning woman for a wife.’

  She waved her hand as though pushing a fly away. ‘I’ve heard you had some trouble from idle tongues. That’s no matter.’ She stood up and as though delivering a sermon added, ‘It’s a sin to stay the hand that might give succour.’

  Behind her Sally sighed and nodded piously. I raised my eyebrows at her.

  ‘Sally agrees with me, Martha. You can’t say a good heart like Jacob’s would wish to let a neighbour suffer. My mother groans so with her sores I scarcely sleep.’

  It was true, he would not wish it, but neither would he be happy that I was called on. ‘I’ll come along with you,’ I said, ‘and if I can be of any help at all of course I’ll try.’

  Each day brought a new supplicant or two, hanging by the hedge, till Sally spied them and ushered them in, talking me up no matter how I tried to hush her. ‘There’s such grace in the girl’s fingers,’ she’d say, ‘curing Boult when the Court had given up his leg for worm’s meat. It’d have been the knife for him if it hadn’t been for young Martha. To think we had a regular Merlin in our midst and we all thought her such a little brown mouse!’ And people would smile and nod and a part of me drank in their admiration and a part of me quailed. Not Merlin, I’d say quickly, just a little learning I got as a child.

  It was as though a part of me was waking and my neighbours too were seeing me freshly. Such a happy sleep, with my head on Jacob’s shoulder and my breath rising and falling to the rhythm of his chest. Never mind, I said to myself, when he comes home all will be as before – or nearly so. Even as I was called to a neighbouring parish to see to a fever-ridden child I said it, even as I walked back exhausted, happy, the next morning, scouring the unfurling verges for what they might yield.

  At the same time I was hungry to be reading. I began to take the book with me when I went visiting. I said it had belonged to a physician that my father had known, that I read in it for my cures. Then one morning – I was back at Sissy Probert’s – old Rowland happened by where I sat reading by her mother’s bed. Sissy pointed to the book, it had no end of cures, she said, reaching back past King Henry’s time, all laid down by a doctor of divination. Rowland took the book gently in his hand; I watched his eyes follow the lines and understand them and my chest tightened with apprehension. Then, as I was sure he would, he leafed through the covers. There, in black ink, Boult’s name. Rowland looked at me. ‘It can be perilous, to get and have possession of a book like that,’ he said. Nothing else. He didn’t need to. I reddened to the ends of my hair. I had presumed too much on my neighbours’ ignorance; Rowland wasn’t alone in knowing his letters. Another man would take the question to the alehouse. ‘Young Martha Spicer’s got a pretty book of the Steward’s, keeping it close, says it’s charms or some such. What do you reckon she paid for that, eh?’ How could I have been such a fool? Rowland passed it back to me and I put it quietly away. I was more careful after that.

  The Steward had spoken the truth when he said the thatchers would be done before he came back. A part of me had been sure that the minute he was gone they’d be off – they must have other business pressing – but I was wrong. By the Monday after Palm Sunday they were done, my house shucked tight with thatch, all cut and trim and gleaming in the morning. After the tightness of Sally’s cottage, where every patch of floor had a child upon it, where I could not move in the bed for girls, where all evening Michael filled the room with his fug and talk, worse than a baby hungry for the nipple with his need for women to feed him with attention, after all that my house felt as large and free as the Court itself.

  Old Rowland borrowed a cart from the stables again to bring back the things he’d stored for me. I sat beside him, awkward in my heart from not knowing what he thought I might have done for the book.

  ‘A fine morning,’ he said.

  I stumbled into talking. ‘You can read, Rowland.’

  ‘Aye, it’s not such a magic as people say. Thirty years since I was first made a warden in our church. I figured that if the word of God was the way to heaven I had better get and learn it.’

  ‘Boult saw me looking. In his library. He offered me the book to borrow just for a bit, while he’s gone, if I take good care of it.’

  ‘And he didn’t ask payment for the lending of such a pretty book?’

  ‘A kiss on the cheek like a bird at the grain, nothing.’

  ‘A nothing kiss, eh?’

  ‘Yes, a nothing.’

  ‘And your Jacob, he’ll think it nothing?’

  The words boiled in my throat. I looked down at my lap and was quiet.

  Rowland patted my knee and smiled. ‘I’m not about t
o whistle up strife child. But a man like Boult, he’ll expect payment, full payment. And you’re getting about a bit now, with your healing, into people’s minds and mouths. It won’t take much to be wondering at that thatch of yourn. My advice is you be clean and straight with your young man when he comes home. He’ll shout and puff at you a little like as not, but it’ll let his mind settle back easy.’

  I looked across at him as he stared out at the pony. ‘I’m afraid he’ll shape it bigger than it is.’

  Rowland nodded. ‘He will,’ he said, ‘there’ll be a bit of mending to be done, but better to root out any rot before it spreads through the house and brings the frame down on your heads. And Jacob’s not home yet. The Steward will be asking a little more I warrant, before the travellers return.’

  I shivered. ‘I’ll give him nothing.’

  Rowland made as if he didn’t hear. ‘And when the Steward does come asking, if you need help, you come and see me. I said it before and I meant it. Whatever happens or has happened I won’t judge you.’

  ‘You’ll have no need to,’ I said. ‘But thank you.’

  It was easy to put the conversation out of my mind in the days that followed. Boult was still not back. It was as though I were a carefree girl again – better, for as a girl I had never been this fortunate or this free. I limped through the lanes for simples and felt all my knowledge flowing back into my fingers. Sally rooted through the neighbours for pots to put my preparations in. I was paid for my healing in food and candles; Sissy Probert promised me a piglet when it was weaned. In the evenings I sat in the quiet of my bed with a candle and read until my eyes ached and all was quiet except the lonely call of an owl or the bark of a vixen in the fields. Soon Jacob would be home again and he would cup his hand round my breast and feel how full it was and say Why Martha, my sweeting, you are become a woman.

  I had begun to be sick in the mornings. It had been coming on a while. Even at Sally’s I had felt queasy when the bread was broken at first light. Now often as not I had to lurch from my bed to the bucket. Then for two or three hours together I could barely take a morsel – my body would revolt and I’d be retching. At least I am alone and nobody to notice, I thought, but it did not take long for Sally to mark it. She had a way of coming in with barely a knock and on the Thursday morning she walked in to find my head in the pail.

  ‘Oh you poor love,’ she said darting to help scoop and hold my hair. ‘What have you eaten, are you sick?’ I did not need to answer. She stroked my back with her free hand. ‘I saw you out gathering, I have no doubt you have eaten some of your roots and they have made you ill, you should be careful, my dear. There’s no end of cunning folk have made themselves crop sick. There’s Meg at the door. Meg go and fetch Aunt Martha a mess of pottage from the fire, to restore her.’

  ‘No, no,’ I began, but Meg cut across me.

  ‘Shall I Nuncle? Or will it make you sick again. Isn’t it just like at our house when you were pale and swallowed over and over and gave me your bread? She always did that in the morning, Ma Sally.’

  I stood up and let go of Sally’s arm. ‘You’re right, Meg, I don’t want food.’ I turned back to Sally. Her face was filling with smiles, words would spill out soon enough. ‘Please,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure, yet. Please don’t talk. Not till he comes home.’

  ‘Oh you can count on me,’ she said, shooing Meg away. ‘I won’t say a word to a goose. Oh, what a homecoming he’ll have, a new baby and a good sound house and his wife the marvel of the parish with her healing and no end of favour with the Steward. Oh what a spring you’re having and no mistake. You had better sit down. I’ll comb your hair. You can have baby Peter’s things of course, he’ll be big by then and the crib, Michael can mend it …’

  ‘But you won’t say a thing, Sally?’

  ‘Oh no, not me. An October baby then, that’s a good month, it can get good and strong before the winter sets in, and then you can sit all through the dark months and feed him into a regular little king by the spring. Peter was February of course and my poor sister sick with the cold and rain before she even came to bed. Have you plenty of milk? I’ve a little butter, you should eat butter you know.’

  She sat beside me and I let her prattle on. She could no more stopper her mouth than a pot could cease itself from steaming when the fire is lit, but she was a good soul; year after lonely year she’d longed to feel a life quicken beneath her ribs and been given only her old parents and her husband’s parents to nurse, then on a sudden more mouths than she could feed, but there was no bitterness in her. I took her hand and felt her joy bubble into the air. I could not but be happy too, but all the same I felt these days of luck were fragile, that I was tempting Fortune’s wheel to roll. I must not be like my father, I thought, waiting to be flung down into the dust. Or perhaps the Steward’s tongue had introduced a worm into my happiness.

  That night I read about the sun god’s child Phaeton who sought out his father and asked him for a gift. ‘Of course,’ his father answered. ‘Then,’ the child said, ‘let me drive your chariot across the sky.’ Apollo tried to warn him off, showed him the stamping horses, the terrible strength they had, but the boy would not budge. And so he let him mount into the chariot alone. The horses of the sun felt how light the boy’s hand was that gripped the reins and they ran wild through the compass of the sky until the earth was charred and Jove struck the boy with a bolt of fire and burned him too.

  The story rippled through my dreams. The earth was thick with the bones of those who overreached, who could not hold the reins of life, and fell.

  7

  Our vicar was a feeble preacher. He laid his plump hands on the holy book and intoned the sermon sleepily, with a gaze that lingered round his fingers as if through every holy word he longed to be picking at his meat again.

  It was Good Friday, the most terrible and wonderful day of the year, when our Lord climbed the hill of Calvary and embraced the pain of death and the pain that leads to death so that we could live again. I thought of Christ nailed to the cross by his hands and feet in the slow glare of the day until God put out the sun and there was darkness all over the world. After Phaeton fell Apollo, in his grief, would not ride the sun across the sky; he let it be hid, until the earth cried out for light. We knelt in the church and prayed, but outside the woods and fields knew already that He would rise again and were busy with the business of becoming. Tomorrow, as always, we would deck the graves with flowers for Easter Eve.

  Meg came by with little Mary to collect me in the afternoon. We did not need go far for flowers, despite the earliness of Easter. We began up the same path I had followed on the morning Jacob had left, but not far, for Mary toddled every which way and then grew tired, so that I had to put her on my hip. As we filled our baskets I talked to Meg about what leaves and roots were good for healing and how they might be used. She listened with a serious expression and her head cocked to the side like a blackbird.

  ‘When I was a little girl like you,’ I said, ‘my grandam took me collecting and taught me how to read the verges and the woods for remedies.’ It was hard to imagine myself so young, chifchaffing at my grandam’s side.

  ‘And now you are teaching me,’ Meg said. I nodded, laughing, and put Mary down among the primroses.

  ‘Ma Sally says you are with child. She says it’ll be a girl, that’s why you’ve been so sick. You can call her after me if you like,’ Meg said.

  It was likely half the parish knew already. I was about to ask Meg more when Mary began to howl. She had wandered almost as far as the road and fallen. A party of horsemen were advancing at a canter from the direction of the village; I scooped her up and stepped back into the shadows of the trees and crooned her quiet while we watched. They went by so fast I could barely see their faces; gentlemen clearly, on fine mounts, one finer than the rest. I had seen him before, I knew it; the sight of him made me uneasy although for the life of me I couldn’t place how I knew him. Then Meg called me and I left off staring af
ter the riders.

  There were groups already across the graveyard, most from the village, some from other parishes, returned to deck family graves. As the afternoon wore on and work was finished with, more and more came, all bearing knots and clumps of flowers. The sun was warm yet and the light turning golden for evening. I chose a quiet corner where three or four old crosses leant towards the hedge as though unsure of their fellowship. None of my people were buried here and although I did not want to stand aloof I felt more at my ease at the margin. I knelt and cut the turf with the knife Jacob had given me and heeled in daffodils, violets, primroses. Children ran from grave to grave hanging chains of blooms over the mounds and crosses. The custom was stronger here than it had been at Kynaston where I grew up. It was as though the parish sought to conquer death with petals.

  As the light faded people lingered still, till the blooms began to gleam palely in the twilight. I stayed for a long while, breathing in the scent of damp earth, listening to the choir practise anthems for the morrow’s service. At last Meg found me; she said Sally had sent her to get me, declaring that I should not breathe the cold spiritous air. We walked home together, her small warm hand in mine.

  It was with the same easy forgetfulness that I went to the corn-showing Easter Day afternoon. It was expected that all who were hale enough would go, for as well as the luck it brought the harvest, we picked the cockle that sprouted up between the corn. I could have stayed at home for all that, but it was another fine clear day with the frost already shrinking by the hedge banks by the time the bells were rung for service. I wore the fine new girdle Jacob had given me at Christmas and, truth be told, I felt young and pretty and wanted to be out with the others in the glistening field, everybody wearing something new about them for Easter Day and laden with cakes and wooden bottles of cider; the parish full of song and laughter. Roger Boult was not there for the service, so I believed myself safe from him and indeed, although it’s usual for a Steward to lead in the corn-showing, he was too grand for such a country custom; every year I’d lived in Hope he had left it to the farm bailiff to lead the blessing and the march.