“It is a small enough burden, Kate. I think I can bear it.”
“Your friend may think it no small burden.”
After Winifred died, and not knowing where else to turn, Kate had gone to the lodgings in Cheapside where Tom Lasser stayed when he was not in Woolwich working on his boat. She had prayed he would be there. But when he answered the door the landlord directed her to, she had blurted out her need and immediately wished she had not. From the candlelit interior of the intimate sitting room, a woman’s voice had demanded, “Whoever it is, Tom, send them away. I want you all to myself tonight.”
“By my friend you must mean Charlotte? She’s a widow from Lübeck who just happened to be in London on business. I have known her for a very long time. Her husband was a cloth merchant. Much older than she. He departed this life, leaving her rich and still young enough to enjoy it.”
“She is very beautiful,” Kate said, remembering the pouting, rouged lips of the blond woman who had peered quizzically at Kate over the captain’s shoulder as he shrugged into his doublet.
“Yes, I suppose she is,” he said. “She works at it very hard.”
By now the grave was half filled and no glimpse of the shroud remained. Kate tried not to think of Winifred’s thin bones bearing the weight of so much dirt. But when had she not borne a heavy weight, this woman with her frail body and heart of a lion, her life a struggle from its beginning to its end? So unlike the rich, beautiful widow from Lübeck. Where was the justice in that? Kate turned her gaze away from the grave, unable to bear the sight of it. Had Charlotte been waiting for the captain when he returned last night? Did he tell her how they had taken Winifred to the nuns to be washed and laid out in the chapel? Did he tell her he had paid for the burial service of a poor seamstress? He had given instructions to the nuns as though Winifred had been his own sister. “Tapers at her head and feet all throughout the night,” he’d said. He had paid for the grave, too, inside the churchyard, not in the pauper’s area. Did the beautiful widow from Lübeck know the heart of Tom Lasser? Kate wondered. Or did she care only about the handsome sea captain with his glib answers and flashing smile?
“I hope you were able to see her again before she left.” Kate felt her skin flush at the lie and hoped he did not notice.
“Oh, she hasn’t left yet. She’ll be here a while. She is making the rounds of the English shops. I’ll bring her around for you to meet her if you’d like.”
Kate would not like. She felt a sudden and quite unreasonable dislike for the blond widow from Lübeck with her pouting lips. “Don’t trouble her. I’m sure she would not be pleased. I recall that she said something about ‘having you all to herself.’ ”
A fine mist had begun to fall, deepening the misery of the day. John slept somewhere in this same churchyard. She had never seen his grave, not wanted to, yet suddenly she did not think she could leave this place without seeing it.
“If you’re ready to see it, Kate, I’ll show you.” As if he’d read her mind. “It’s right over there. Next to the wall.”
She nodded, ambushed by a sob. He guided her a few feet over from Winifred’s grave, just to the edge where a creeping vine clutched at the stone wall. Grassy weeds had grown over the mound. She was surprised at how large it was. “I thought you said—”
“There were a few bones left, scattered among the ashes. We put them in a box.”
She pointed to a simple cross, small but carved in stone, at the head. It bore no name. “Did you do that?”
He nodded. “We couldn’t put his name on it. It was all Monmouth could do to get him buried in the churchyard.”
He walked away a few paces, as she bent to trace the smooth stone with her fingers, feeling suddenly calm and at peace. “I miss you, John,” she whispered. “Take care of my friend Winifred. You would have liked her, I know. She was brave. Like you.”
Then she stood up and walked away to the place where Captain Lasser waited for her in the shadow of a yew. Neither of them talked as they walked back to Paternoster Row.
“Is Maman still in the ground in the churchyard?” Madeline asked a week after the burial.
“No, she has gone to heaven.”
“But I didn’t get to tell her good-bye,” the child said, pouting.
“You can tell her when you say your prayers. Just give God the message, and he’ll see she gets it.”
“Will she come back tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow.”
It became a litany between them.
After about a week Madeline looked thoughtful. “Is Maman with Papa?”
“Yes, Madeline. She is with your father,” Kate said, relieved that the child finally understood.
“Will Madeline stay with Kate and Endor?” she asked.
“Madeline will stay with Kate and Endor,” Kate answered. She could not add For a while, until you go to live in a great house in Bishopsgate. The words would not come. Not yet. It was too soon.
“Good. Madeline likes it here.”
Madeline’s referring to herself in the third person became a pattern that lasted for several weeks, but Kate understood that it gave the child some distance from her loss, and did not correct her. Kate understood all about loss and distance. She was just now beginning to come to grips with the full reality of her widowed circumstances.
The countess had sent a servant by to collect the child three days after the funeral, saying she’d heard of the death of the seamstress and was informed by the curate at St. Dunstan’s that the child was with her.
“My lady wishes to know if the child is learning to sew,” the footman had said.
“The child does not sew, but she is bright. She is learning to read and write.”
“I think my mistress will only be interested in the sewing. The girl will probably start in the kitchens if she cannot sew.”
And end there, Kate thought.
She had put the footman off until after the New Year, pleading that the child was still grieving over her mother and was still too young to go into service. No good can come from putting it off, she chided herself after he had gone. What was she thinking? Her only support came from a man who would be leaving soon. How was she going to look after herself, let alone a child? Madeline would become just more attached than ever to her new home. When she finally had to leave, the pain would be greater—for both of them.
As the old year passed, Kate dreaded each knock on the door, half expecting the countess’s footman to show up to claim Madeline. Even if Kate could figure out a way to keep her, Winifred had said she had an agreement with the woman. Did that mean some legal obligation? What was she going to tell the child, if she had to send her away? But a week into the new year it was not the footman who showed up unwanted.
Kate’s first inclination after peering out the window was not to open the door, but before Kate could stop her, Madeline skipped to the door shouting, “It’s Captain. Madeline will open the door,” and straining on tiptoe, she lifted the bar with both her hands. “Oh,” she said in disappointment. “You’re not Captain,” as Margaret Roper stepped inside.
The child, suddenly shy, ran to Kate and hid behind her skirt.
“I’m so glad you answered the door,” Mistress Roper said. “I came right after your husband . . . died . . . and you were not here. I was worried.” She stood in the door, the cold air pouring in around her. Kate did not invite her in.
“Your father did not tell you, then?”
“He told me only that you had returned to London.”
“I returned to London. The great, charitable Sir Thomas delivered me to Newgate Prison. I was locked up with the criminally insane while my husband was being put to death. I would still be there were it not for the intervention of a good man.”
“Oh,” the visitor said, her face a mask of discomfort. “I did not know.” She held out her hand palm up as if begging Kate for something. “My father . . . if you could have known him before . . . he is not himself. He thinks only of h
eretics these days. He talks incessantly of Tyndale.”
“Then prithee, Mistress Roper, unless your visit is not one of goodwill as you say it is, do not remind him of my existence.”
“May I please come in? Just for a moment?” Kate nodded curtly, and Margaret Roper took a couple of steps forward, closing the door behind her. Kate did not invite her to sit. “I have learned a hard lesson about my father. You may be sure I will not mention you to him again. I hope you know that it was not my doing that your brother’s press was destroyed. I knew nothing of it. I asked my father to help secure his release. He promised me he would.”
“He was released. I am happy to say he lives now in a less hostile clime.”
Madeline must have sensed the tension between the women. Usually a happy chatterbox even in the presence of strangers, she clung silently to Kate.
“I did not know you had a daughter,” Mistress Roper said. “That makes your husband’s loss even greater. I heard he died very bravely. I have prayed for his soul these many months and I wish to tell you I am verily sorry for my family’s part in your misfortune.”
Kate peeled the child away from her skirt, and lifted her in her arms, feeling suddenly threatened and not just for herself this time.
“And to offer help,” Mistress Roper added, glancing meaningfully at the still empty shelves. “I am on my way to the almshouse. My father need not know that his charity extends to his enemies. I can—”
Kate could not believe what she was hearing. “Mistress Roper, I can see by your demeanor and your words that you are truly sorry . . . for . . . the part your father has played in the persecution of my family. But you must know that I would rather take charity from the devil himself than from Thomas More. My daughter and I will be just fine.”
My daughter. She had claimed it. Margaret Roper had named it, and Kate had claimed it. Endor, who had been watching the exchange between the women, looked at Kate, and in a gesture Kate remembered, pointed with two fingers of her right hand to her own wide eyes and then to Madeline. Blue eyes.
My child will have blue eyes.
My child has blue eyes.
The decision was made. Madeline was indeed her daughter and whatever happened they would be just fine.
“Will there be anything else, Mistress Roper?” Kate asked.
The woman half turned and placed her hand on the latch in response to her dismissal. “Just one more thing, Mistress Frith. Please pray for us. Chelsea is not a happy place these days.”
Kate was almost too startled to respond. “I will pray for you, Mistress Roper. I don’t think I can pray for your father. I am not a saint.”
The woman nodded and shut the door behind her. Months later, when Kate would hear from across the sea about the king’s beheading of Sir Thomas More, she would remember the sadness in Margaret Roper’s face, and take no joy in it.
Kate did not welcome the coming of spring. The first daffodils had scarcely lifted their heads in the little flower boxes outside the shop—had they bloomed every year in her absence, bravely waving their yellow banners in defiance and hope?—when the captain began to speak of leaving. His ship was almost finished. Kate began planning how to survive without his support.
Endor sold her honeyed biscuits and sweet buns to the yeomen workers and watermen on their way to the docks each morning, bartering sweet goods for flour from the miller’s wife and milk from the dairyman. Kate did scrivener’s work for the unlettered among them and copied broadsheets of love poems and songs to sell, rolling them into bordered scrolls and tying them with bits of lace and ribbon from Winifred’s stores. What swain could resist picking a love poem for his sweetheart from Madeline’s basket as she skipped among the market stalls? Even Ruffles the cat worked. At long last they were free of the rats that would have wreaked havoc on their baked goods. They would survive without the captain.
Yet she dreaded the thought of his leaving. Madeline would especially miss him. And Endor—Endor might even decide to go with him.
Kate would miss him too; she could not deny it. She had been content as long as he was nearby in Woolwich, and she could look forward to his visits—for Madeline’s sake, she’d told herself. Surely, what she felt for the captain was no more than the affection a helpless woman owed her benefactor. But it was not his kindness that invaded her dreams. She woke more than once laden with guilt as she tried to conjure John’s face. What kind of woman dreamed of another man with her husband in his grave a scant few months? Could a woman love two men at once? she wondered. But it didn’t matter. Tom Lasser would be gone soon and Kate would have endless years of loneliness to repent those dreams.
FORTY-THREE
Gray-eyed Athena sent them a favorable breeze, A fresh west wind, singing over the wine-dark sea.
—FROM HOMER’S ODYSSEY, BOOK I
On the first day of May, when all of London was celebrating and every churchyard and square was festive with Maypoles and morris dancers, Captain Tom Lasser did not join the raucous festivities. Instead he donned his best finery and headed for the dim cave of his favorite fleecing tavern. It was in Southwark near the bear-baiting pit and cockfight arena so that when the gamblers wearied of the cheers and jeers of blood sports, they could retire to the Fighting Cock Tavern to quench their thirst and find a more patrician game. With blood heated by violence and wanton death, they were always reckless in their wagering.
Tom squinted as he entered the room lit only by one glazed window, and when his eyes adjusted, he surveyed the pickings. He did not want to go elsewhere. He also had good luck at the Boar’s Head, but time was short. The crowds would grow rowdy, even riotous, late in the day and he’d promised to walk Charlotte home from the dressmaker. At a trestle table beneath the window, a couple of courtiers played at hazard, but dice games were not for Tom. The only way a man could win at dice was with the help of Dame Chance—or by cheating. Tom never cheated and seldom bet on chance. A man who could read faces didn’t have to do either in a game where he could bluff.
In the shadow of the dead chimney, a table of three sat hunched over a deck of cards. Two looked to be of the merchant class and one was a dandified cleric whom he recognized with some surprise. The prospect of playing against Henry Phillips—again—was not altogether a pleasant one. Tom had flattened the upstart’s purse the last time they’d played at cards, only to learn later that the money the youth had lost had been his father’s. The high sheriff had foolishly entrusted his savings to his Oxford-educated son to “invest.” An unfortunate decision. Tom had later heard that Phillips’s father had disowned him, and he felt a little guilty about that. But if Phillips hadn’t lost to him, he’d told himself, then somebody else. He was a ripe plum for the picking. Tom just happened to be standing under the tree. And it had after all been for a very good cause. The sheriff’s money had gone to buy new rigging for Tom’s ship.
At the sound of the latch falling back into place, Henry Phillips looked toward the door, and his gaze locked on Tom’s. His eyes glinted hard as steel before he flashed a hearty smile and waved. “Captain, come and join us. The game is better with a fourth.”
Tom hated to pluck the same pigeon twice, but Phillips was an easy mark and such an eager one. And he did not want to keep Charlotte waiting, so he sauntered over and asked, “Primero?”
Phillips motioned for him to sit down. “If I remember correctly, Captain, that’s your game.”
“Italian rules or English?” Tom asked, settling into the fourth chair.
“English,” one of the merchants said. “We don’t declare hands. Stake is two crowns. Rest is four.”
“Here, you do the honors, Captain, just to show I’ve no hard feelings,” Phillips said as he handed the deck to Tom to “lift.” The merchant to Tom’s left drew the lowest card and dealt.
“I’m surprised to see you, Master Phillips,” Tom said, frowning deliberately at his hand. It was a decent hand: one court card from each suit worth forty points. But the value of the hand didn�
��t really matter. He would lose the first two hands deliberately to draw the merchants in. “I heard you were living on the Continent,” Tom said as he made a show of discarding all four cards and drawing four more.
“I am. I’ve just returned to London to draw payment on a new business venture.”
And you can hardly wait to lose it, Tom thought. “Congratulations,” he said, glancing at the piles of coins in front of Phillips. “It seems you have found a wealthy patron.”
“A very influential patron,” Phillips said, drawing in the pot he’d just won with a simple primero valuing only about twenty points. The merchants must be novices for Phillips to win with such a low hand.
“The Bishop of London has employed me to represent some Church matters on the Continent,” Phillips said with bravado. “I’ve also made some valuable connections in Flanders.”
“Good for you,” Tom said, wondering to what purpose the Bishop of London could possibly put such a poseur. But then it was Church business. And Phillips was charming enough to ingratiate himself almost anywhere. He could be a perfect spy. He had one of those boyish faces a man or a woman would be eager to trust—if you didn’t look too closely at the eyes that lied.
The attention returned to the game, with the betting and the passing and the folding. They swigged on the fourth hand, with everybody folding, the money staying in the pot. On the fifth hand, Tom picked up his cards to find a low hand. Unfortunately the cards had run against him since the first hand, but the afternoon was getting on. Charlotte would be waiting for him. Now was the time. He discarded none of the cards and forced a pleased expression.
Two more rounds of vying and the merchant beside Phillips vied two more crowns. Phillips’s eyes clouded, but he saw that bet, discarded one card, and revied. Tom calculated the heap of money in the center of the table. It was just about enough to pay his ship out of hock.
“I vie the rest,” Tom said, putting four crowns in the center with a confident flick of his lace cuffs. The two merchants folded. Henry Phillips fingered his cards nervously and after an interminable silence and a slight twitching of his left eye—a distress signal that Tom recognized—threw his cards facedown with a grunt of disgust. Henry Phillips was nothing if not a coward, and a coward could always be bluffed.
The Heretic’s Wife Page 47