The Good Wife

by Eleanor Porter

  ‘She won’t prevent it,’ I said, thinking of Mistress Mary. ‘Can you help me? Show me a different road.’ I saw him hesitate. ‘I’ll give you a shilling.’

  He nodded and gestured to me to follow him. ‘I didn’t let on you were still here,’ he said, smiling at his cunning. ‘I’ll take you out Gressingham way, only to the river mind – you can take the Kirkby Lonsdale road back.’

  After we had gone on a while he stopped. ‘It ain’t true what they said, is it?’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘That he’s a conjurer, that he calls up devils, that he made a dead man speak.’

  ‘No,’ I found myself saying, but more perhaps to myself than to the boy whistling at my knee, ‘that isn’t it. He’s not a bad man. It’s natural, holy magic that he’s after. He sees the threads that bind us to the spirit world, the strings of light, and he seeks to pluck them as a man might pluck a lyre to make music. He thinks we’ve fallen off from the golden light of God and wants to make us pure and gold again.’

  The boy was staring at me, his mouth hanging open. As soon as I am out of sight, I thought, he’ll cross himself and pray and pick himself a whip of thorn and place nine notches in a rowan stick to guard against the wizard’s boy he aided. We had reached the desolate ruins of a castle where the road crossed the Lune, all gravel and shallows.

  ‘This is the way,’ he said, beginning to pace back already, ‘Go west a mile then take the road south and west to Lancaster. You can’t go wrong and if you do there’ll be plenty of folk on the road.’

  The day had not fulfilled the promise of the dawn; I passed miles of drizzle-dull pasture, enclosed with piled stone walls. It was too bleak for much in the way of crops until I dropped down towards Lancaster, but then there were plenty of people coming and going. They greeted me with friendly indifference and many of the men touched their forelocks in respect and the women half bobbed and in truth, it barely felt strange at all to sit above them, with the wide green horizon open to me. I felt at ease in breeches astride Juno, the reins in my hand; I was no longer lame and poor. He left in March, I thought and now the summer is almost gone. It has been half a year; I am not who I was then.

  At a distance post four miles from the city, before the road fell to the river, there was a stand of trees. It looked an unfrequented spot. I slipped from Juno’s back and led her across to them and tied her where she could not be seen. Further on, in the crook of the dell, hidden from the road and the river both, I came across all that remained of a two-roomed house. The walls were low and mossy now, mounded up with leaves and briars. At one end, where the hearth had been, was a wide flat stone. There was nobody about. I heaved it up. The earth beneath was dry as new ashes. I made a hole and lined it roughly with loose stone until I had made a shallow chamber. Every few moments I paused and listened and waited, but there was only the birds and below, the gurgle of the river. Wrapping them in his leather bag I set down Talbot’s books, half of his money and his letters – all but the title deeds. Those I tucked in my doublet. Carefully, I scattered more stones above them and put the hearth stone back. It was as good a hiding place as any.

  34

  Near St Leonard’s Gate I found a quiet tavern and stabled Juno. It was already past two in the afternoon and so I refused the landlord’s offer of a meal and went straight into town to the dirty alley by the market and the open door of the whorehouse.

  She was in the parlour on the first floor, half asleep on the couch with her head resting on the old jade’s shoulder. The place looked more shabby by daylight, the hangings frayed and faded, the air ripe with stale sweat, ale and shit. A fly had settled on Betsy’s painted cheek. The old woman did not recognise me; she bustled up at my approach to begin her patter, but Betsy raised a hand to silence her.

  ‘Good day, sister,’ she said.

  My first thought had been to pay Betsy to visit Talbot in the gaol and enquire if Jabez too, was looked for, but her greeting brought me back to my true self.

  ‘Good day.’ I said. ‘My master has been taken to the castle. Have you woman’s clothes I can pay you for the hire of?’

  ‘No end, no end of fine clothes,’ the old jade said, cackling. ‘We’ll have you back a goodwife in no time.’

  We were of much the same size, Betsy and I. She brought me a bodice and heaped skirts and petticoats on her bed. I slipped off my doublet and hose and became a woman again.

  ‘You make a better youth than you do a woman. Wait, you need a cap too, to hide your straggle of a thatch. Look at you, with your legs flung wide like an apprentice. It’s something when a whore must teach you modesty. Why do you bother with him, this master of yourn, does he owe you money or do you love him as well as the other one, your bonny truelove?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘neither one nor the other, but I’ll help him if I can. I owe him that.’

  ‘An’ if you’re known or he names you? You’ll be taken along with him, you know that?’

  ‘I’ll take the risk.’

  ‘What is he accused of, swindling?’

  ‘I think of conjuring. He is a scryer and an alchemist. He has a showstone; he drew down an angel for Lady Stanley.’

  ‘Could he draw down a duke for me?’

  ‘You mock,’ I said, ‘but if you could hear him you would believe. It was as though we saw what he saw, we too heard the angel talking. It cast a vision for me, too, I am sure of it. I believed it was leading me to my husband, but Talbot reads it differently. He says it is commanding us to marry.’

  She patted my hand. ‘Are you sure he does not play you? He knows what tune to play. What was this vision?’

  ‘The moon. The devil flings a bridge above it and a lame swan crosses over to a limping man. He throws her a ring. When she reaches him she turns into a woman. I am the swan. Talbot my master has a limp. He believes it is sent by God.’

  ‘It sounds a child’s game to me. You are well rid of him. I’ll look after your men’s things for you. I doubt you’ll be out of them long, you’ll feel quick enough how skirts keep you trailing dirt. Have you nothing else you wish me to keep?’

  I smiled and shook my head. I liked Betsy well enough, but I knew better than to trust her with Talbot’s gold. ‘I’ll not be long,’ I said.

  When I had seen him last his face had run with blood. There was no time for me to prepare simples myself and so I found an apothecary’s shop on Market Street and bought a paste of elderflower, horsetail and lavender. In case of greater pains the man directed me to a bottle of dwale, the concoction of spirits, belladonna and bryony, that surgeons use to dull men’s senses for the knife. Outside the castle a gypsy woman was selling herbs. I bought a sprig of rosemary and held it to my nose.

  It took all my strength to ask to step inside the dark walls of the castle and then to follow the gaoler through stinking corridors to Talbot’s cell. The air was sour with old piss, and rang with the clank of metal on stone. For a second I was back there, in Ludlow, awaiting trial. I pinched the rosemary hard between my fingers till the keen scent of it revived me.

  I gave the gaoler a silver coin I could not spare, and a plum cake from the market, telling him I was of Lady Elizabeth’s household, that she lacked a smooth black stone the man Talbot had in trust from her, that he would earn my lady’s favour if it was returned to me. It was too easy. The man was all obsequious bluster, rushing off at once to retrieve the stone in its pouch and restore it. I wondered whether he would have handed me the prisoner himself if I had asked for him in my lady’s name.

  ‘What is there against him as a conjurer?’ I asked.

  ‘As to that, I’d say in truth there en’t much,’ the man said. ‘Some fools said he was raising of the dead and speaking in charms, but he denies it and there en’t no one who will swear they was present at the act. There was a fight at the alehouse in Caton. He broke a man’s nose and there’s talk that he had a book of spells and magic instruments, but your lady’s gentlewoman had the room he lodged in searched an
d nowt was found, not the book, nor the youth who worked alongside him. Then there was a message it weren’t to be followed no further. I b’lieved your lady had washed her hands of him, so to speak.’

  ‘She has indeed, but there must be no scandal. If the man could be quietly let go, it would be best.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, rubbing one hand over the other, ‘if it was up to me, I’d say just that, just that. Let the fellow go with just a bit of a kicking. But it ain’t quite so easy I’m afraid. There’s a complaint been lodged that he forged a document, a set of title deeds, borrowed money on it. Won’t touch your lady, that, praise God. It’s from his time in t’ city.’

  I nodded. ‘May I see him?’ I asked. ‘My lady has requested that he be treated decently, and given some comfort. No pains are to be used against him.’

  I was shown into the cell. The straw was greasy with dirt and there were maggots in the brimming shit pail. Against one wall there was some planking for a bed and on it Talbot was huddled, his head on his knees, only his owl eyes staring.

  I held a handkerchief against my nose. ‘Oh horrible, horrible,’ I said, as though such sights were new to me. I pointed at the pail. ‘Please, good sir, that must be emptied. And he must have a jug of water and clean straw. My lady asked particularly about the straw.’

  The man hesitated; I wondered if I had gone too far, but I placed a quarter-angel in his palm and he shuffled off to ‘see about it straight.’

  Talbot raised his head. ‘Mistress Jabez,’ he said quietly. ‘You took your time. I suppose you are going to berate me now. Have you hidden my things well? I thought I was lost. You must find Babcock – the man who says I cozened him – and pay him off. He lives on the corner of Penny Street and Chennell Lane.’

  In the thin light from an arrow slit he looked grey; all the mad blaze was gone from his eyes. One indeed was swollen to a slit and the gash on his forehead was wide and sore. I set about cleaning and pasting it.

  ‘Why do you do it Talbot?’ I said as I worked, ‘Why do you venture your soul, your freedom like this? When all is so nearly won? Each time. You ride a hundred miles and more to reach here, then risk all in gaming and false papers. You take an angel by the hand and then instead of throwing yourself down and thanking God for His high gift you go roaring to the gates of hell.’

  He patted the cut approvingly and leant back against the wall behind him. ‘Do you see,’ he said, ‘how here and there the rough stone has worn itself to a shine from the rubbing of men’s hands?’

  I snorted with impatience and held his good eye until he shrugged and sighed.

  ‘I don’t know why, Jabez. I cannot rest. You said once that I was like Phaeton, Apollo’s son, who begged to drive his father’s golden chariot. To feel beneath him the horses of the sun. Imagine such power pulling at the reins. I think there is a dragon that spurs me on to burn all that I hold. When you left me yesterday I was all fire. I could have set light to the moon. I shouted philosophy to the empty road and every empty-headed rustic that I met. Drink did not begin to douse the burning in me, not even the blows I roused some clowns to batter me with.’

  ‘I saw you, at the grave.’

  ‘The days are coming Jabez. That is what the angel meant. “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are gone.”’

  I heard the gaoler rattling at the end of a corridor with a pail. ‘Even if I allowed that what you did was lawful, which I do not,’ I said, ‘why did you risk a branding or worse with your gambling, your counterfeiting?’

  He shrugged. ‘Your little loot had nearly all gone, Jabez; we needed gold.’ It was not a good answer, and he knew it as well as I, for he fell silent. Then he sighed. ‘Very well, for sport then. I cannot plod out my life. I cannot drudge. When I see the chance I must always take the reins, I must always attempt to grasp at the sun and fly above the mud.’

  ‘Phaeton was a fool.’ I said quickly, listening to the gaoler getting closer. ‘He did not have the strength he thought he had. The horses were too wild. He scorched half the world and burned himself to death. At least they will not hang you, it is not a hanging offence.’

  ‘I might never see the sun again. I might be branded, mutilated, pelted by the multitude.’

  I did not know what to say, I had no comfort to offer and the gaoler was bundling through the door. I remembered the dwale and thrust it with some money into his hands. ‘This—’ I said.

  He interrupted me, ‘I know what it is woman, I was an apothecary, remember?’

  I turned, shielding Talbot with my skirts. They were good for this at least. ‘When is he to be tried? I asked.

  ‘What is it, Tuesday? Be next Monday I reckon. No reason for delay, we’re none too busy, not likely to be busy till St Bartholomew’s Day and the harvest drunks. Clerk is taking depositions tomorrow. Trial Monday, branding Tuesday eh?’ He tried a laugh.

  Talbot had slunk back into a crouch. I nodded at the gaoler to be let out. The air in the street was so sweet I stood a long while breathing and then I turned south down Chennell Lane to blunt Babcock’s ardour.

  At first he would not admit me; then he called me Talbot’s whore. He shouted that it was too late; he had taken the false deeds to the justice. Talbot must be a prisoner for life, he must be branded, face the pillory, lose his ears. I waited while he stormed himself out and then I asked him if he wished to recover any of his gold. He was not such a fool as to refuse outright. Within an hour he had agreed to urge clemency; to say he understood that Talbot had himself been duped; to acknowledge he had been repaid.

  By the time I reached the bawdy house I felt wrung out with weariness. Betsy was not at home. The old beldame, leering, offered to collect my things and give me a closet to ‘peg my pizzle back on’ but I said I’d wait and eat. I sat myself on the couch and directly fell asleep. I woke with a start that spilled my undrunk wine. A man’s fingers were working their way beneath my bodice. I turned to him in horror and he gave me a drunken smile, but did not remove his hand until I seized his lace-cuffed wrist and flung it off. The room was warm with candles; I remembered where I was just as the old woman came in.

  ‘Oh no, Master, she’s not in the profession. Or not yet. Are you, dearie?’ She frowned, needing an answer.

  ‘No.’ I said. ‘I was here to see Betsy. Is she back?’

  Oh yes. Hours since. She has a gentleman at present. I might go and see for you if she could spare a minute?’

  A little later Betsy appeared, half-dressed. She beckoned me to follow her to her own room.

  ‘I can’t be long,’ she said a little crossly. ‘This one likes me to be there when he wakes. Here are your clothes. That’s sixpence.’

  It was a relief to pull on my breeches, but as she gathered up the petticoats I thought how I might soon have need of them. She was happy enough for me to buy them off her, and when I barely haggled she pecked me on the cheek, all bright again, her sleepiness shrugged off like a drab coat.

  ‘What will you do, now?’ she asked, ‘will you stay in town?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s a few days till he’s tried. Until then I’ll try my search east and north a little.’

  ‘I hope you find your leman.’ She paused, looking me up and down. ‘I fear it’ll go hard with you, to hold a distaff and to bob again, even to a husband. Do you love him dearly?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Dearer than life, Betsy.’

  She nodded and then a man’s voice called her name and she bustled me from the room and onto the narrow stairs, pausing at a door just off the parlour.

  ‘Farewell, sister. Come and see me,’ she said.

  I nodded and hugged her, breathing in her scent of lavender and rosemary and sweat. As she turned to go into the room she suddenly paused. ‘Oh yes,’ she whispered, ‘that magic dream – the devil and the bridge. Laugh at me if you will – I am not learned like you or your foolmonger, but there is a bridge they say the devil threw up ac
ross the Lune outside Kirkby Lonsdale. You might try there.’

  35

  It was dawn by the time I reached Juno at the tavern. It had rained overnight and the road glistened but I felt there was a heat waiting above the mist. Betsy’s last words had set my blood racing like a wheel that spills from its axle and whirls and bounces faster, faster downhill. My hands shook dreadfully, so I spent some time brushing Juno down, letting the wide sweep of the bristles against her flank calm me. It struck me that I had not thought to ask Talbot what had become of Erebus. Well, no matter, I had done what I could for now. No doubt the horse had been seized in lieu of charges or stabled at a fee.

  Betsy could be wrong, of course; it was her reading of a picture made of air. And it could be the devil that sent it, but of all the wisps and whispers I had followed this had to me the simple ring of truth. ‘I would let myself believe, Juno,’ I said to the mare, ‘perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, I shall see him. I will hold him in my arms.’ I set off on the road I had come from Hornby and was soon climbing into cloud. At the highest point I was wrapped in a white mist that glowed as the sun breathed upon it. I could barely see the road ahead, but it didn’t matter. My mind was full of better visions. Perhaps I would chance upon him in the street, turning a corner or ducking out of a shop. Perhaps I’d be directed to a house where he lay sick, but mending. Yes, I thought, that was more likely, for if he was hale why would he be here?

  I urged Juno to a sharp trot. The mist had damped the harvest off and after Halton other travellers were few; luminous silence enfolded me round until a man, or a lumbering cart shadowed the haze and then grew into colour. Beside us the grasses were beaded heavily with dew, spiked here and there by yellow asphodel. It seemed that every seed, every stalk and stone gleamed with expectation.