The Cursed Wife

by Pamela Hartshorne

  Did I?

  But the image of that spread palm, of my arm drawing back at just the right angle to give a good shove played over and over again in my mind.

  My palm, the scream, the jolting cart, the anguished, all too human lament.

  The curse.

  Steeple Tew was an old manor tucked into the fold of a hillside not far from Banbury. By the time the wagon lumbered into the courtyard, I was too tired and wretched to take in much beyond forbidding stone walls when Jack lifted me down and deposited me ungently on the cobbles. The ground seemed to shift and tip beneath my feet after so long sitting high on the lurching cart.

  My clogs were caked with dust and my apron was brown and grubby from the journey. Emmot would have scolded me for getting so dirty, but Emmot was not there. I was alone, and I was cursed. That was all I knew.

  The housekeeper, an angular woman called Bridget, came to take charge of me. She took me to the kitchen where I had my face and hands roughly scrubbed, and she made me take off my apron and kirtle so that one of the maids could beat the worst of the dust from it. Naked in my shift, I clutched Peg and sat miserably on a stool. I did not want to be there. I wanted to go back to Emmot, back to a time before I had killed, before I had been cursed.

  But going back would mean taking the highway once more, and the vagrants would be there still with their sharp faces and their hands like claws and their vile stench. They would remember that I had been on the cart, that I had been there when the girl fell, that my hand had been thrust into the air where she had been. They would tear me to pieces until I screamed the way she had screamed under the cart’s wheel. I imagined them crowding together under the hedgerows, shifting restlessly like cattle, waiting for me, and dread gripped me. I did not want to stay, but I could not go back either. I could just sit there and hold Peg for dear life, while the tune Jack had been whistling all day went round and round in my head until I dug my fingers into my scalp, wanting to claw it out and throw it into the fire.

  That was when Cat found me. She danced into the kitchen, an exquisite fairy creature with huge blue eyes and guinea-gold hair, so enchantingly fair and so different from the vagrants that I could only stare and wonder if I had tumbled into another world.

  ‘Are you Mary? I’m Catherine,’ she said before I could answer. ‘But you can call me Cat, like my pappa does. Sometimes he calls me Kitten to tease me.’

  ‘Cat,’ I repeated wonderingly. I had never met anyone called after an animal before. ‘Do you live here?’

  She looked blank as if it had never occurred to her that anyone could live anywhere else. ‘Of course, and now you will too. Pappa says you are to be my companion.’ She spoke the word very clearly as if she had just learnt it. ‘Do you know what that is? It means a friend,’ she said, again before I could tell her that I did. ‘You will be my friend.’

  Susan Pollard had been my friend.

  ‘Will you be my friend?’ I asked her, intrigued in spite of myself that you could order a friendship, and she smiled at me, such an open, sunny smile that for the first time since I was cursed, I felt something hard and tight loosen in my chest.

  ‘Of course I will,’ she said.

  Chapter Four

  Mary

  London, March 1590

  The rain has eased a little when I come out of the small house, tucking the packet of poppy seeds into the purse that dangles from my girdle, but the cobbles are still slippery under my clogs as I cross Cheapside and turn into Wood Street.

  The quietness of the city makes me uneasy. Sensible people are hunched over braziers, their shutters sparred against the weather. The goodwives have been to market, and the gentlefolk who come here in search of silver and gold, of velvets and silks and sumptuous satins have stayed at home in their warm houses. The smoke straggles out of the chimneys, beaten back by the rain.

  If this were Steeple Tew, I would not even notice, but in London, the lack of noise has a wrongness to it that sets up a twitch between my shoulder blades. The streets are usually thronging with carts and wagons making their way through the press of people and animals, with traders and goodwives and servants and hawkers and everyone who can find an excuse to be out and about. There should be a clamour of conversation, of curses and quarrels and laughter mingled with bleating sheep or bellowing cattle and the squabble of poultry and the raucous cries of the hawkers, but instead I see only a miserable lad with a rope of onions round his neck and a maid with a basket of roasted apples under her arm. ‘Hot codlings, hot!’ she cries half-heartedly every now and then, but nobody is in a mood to stop and buy.

  A gaggle of unruly apprentices jostle each other into the gutters, pushing and shoving until all their feet are wet, and I glimpse a dishevelled whore leaning drunkenly against the wall opposite, careless of the rain. Poor woman, I know I should frown at her, but I cannot help wondering where she came from, and what brought her to Cheapside in only a thin, tatty gown. I remember the woman who cursed me, how her face had twisted with bitterness. It might have been you in filthy rags. And she was right. If it had not been for Cat and her father, that might have been me shivering in the rain with nowhere to go.

  I draw the cloak closer around me and remind myself of my family, of the warm house in Little Wood Street at the sign of the three swans. I am not cursed, not now. Still, the memory of it loops around my throat and just for a moment I feel myself choking.

  There is no reason to feel this press of unease, lowering over my head like the dark grey sky. The damp air is dense with disquiet. It is all Sarah’s fault, I think again, exasperated with myself. If she hadn’t insisted on humming that wretched tune this morning, I wouldn’t keep thinking that I can still hear it. Snatches of the melody tickle me, whisking out of earshot the moment I stop and turn, haunting my brain as soon as I go on my way again. I try to hum a different tune as I walk briskly up Wood Street, but it is no good. Even the cart wheels splashing through a puddle in the middle of the street seem to echo with the rhythm of the song: now, now, now.

  I want to be home. I put my head down and pick up my pace. I have crossed into Little Wood Street and am thinking about the syrup I will make, when I hear someone call my name.

  My real name.

  ‘Mary!’

  I so nearly betray myself. I stop myself from faltering just in time. Why would I turn? I am not Mary any longer. I am Mistress Thorne, wife to an upstanding merchant. Mary does not exist any longer.

  ‘Mary! Mary, wait . . .’

  I increase my pace as if I have not heard, but there is something in the woman’s voice that sets foreboding pooling like ice in my belly. I know she means me. I want to run the last few yards to the house, but I can’t. Respectable Mistress Thorne, running through the streets? Impossible.

  But she is running. She is coming after me. I can hear her panting over the sound of the rain, the slap and squelch of her feet through the puddles on the footway, and I gasp in shock as her hand closes over my arm and pulls me round.

  ‘Mary!’ It is the whore, her hair straggling loose from her cap and plastered to her head, her face streaming. She dashes the rain from her cheeks with the back of her hand while I am still catching my breath. ‘Mary, do you not know me?’

  ‘You are mistaken,’ I say shakily. ‘My name is not Mary.’

  ‘Is it not? Mary, look at me! It is I, Cat!’

  I stare at her, uncomprehending. Cat? No, this bedraggled creature reeking of ale cannot be Catherine, my mistress, my friend. I try to pull my arm away. ‘I do not know what you mean,’ I start, but her fingers close around my sleeve like talons.

  ‘You know,’ she says. ‘Look at me.’ She wipes her face again. ‘Mary, look at me!’

  Perhaps it is the imperious note in her voice, perhaps it is my eyes catching up with my ears, but I do look at her, and my mouth falls open as a great swell of emotion rises in me: astonishment, joy, disbelief, shock. And slithering between them, to my shame, horror.

  ‘Cat! My God, Cat!’ W
ithout thinking, I reach out and grasp her arms, and a tremulous smile breaks over my face. ‘Cat, I thought I would never see you again! Is it really you?’

  ‘It is.’ She laughs a little wildly. ‘Have I changed that much?’

  ‘Yes, you . . . Yes.’ I shake my head. I cannot think straight through the thoughts that are jumbling and tumbling around in my head. How can I possibly start? I don’t know what I think, what I feel.

  My eyes search her face. It is her, but not her. There are lines around her eyes that I do not remember. Her lip is puffy around an angry-looking cut, and a bruise is blooming on her cheek. My smile fades. ‘Dear God, Cat . . . what has happened to you?’

  Her eyes fill with tears and she looks away. ‘I should not have discovered myself to you,’ she says. ‘I am ashamed.’

  ‘Do not be. I am so glad to see you, Cat,’ I hasten to reassure her. ‘It is just . . . well, come inside. We cannot stand out here in the rain. Come in and get warm at least.’

  Come out of sight is what I really mean. Now the first jolt of surprise has faded, I am all too aware that the Parkers’ house is just across the way. Edward Parker is a pompous little man who serves as coroner, and his wife, Isabella, is no friend to me, for all her sugary words to my face.

  ‘She is jealous of you,’ Anne says. Anne Hawkins is my gossip, as dear to me as a sister now. As dear as Cat once was. Like me, Anne married a widower and has a daughter, Bess, who is the same age as Cecily. She has no kin nearby either, so we have been family to each other. We have sat in each other’s parlours, and stirred each other’s pots, laughing. I helped her son into the world; she sat vigil with me after Nick died. But even Anne’s brows would rise to see me with a harlot, and it is all too easy to imagine how Isabella Parker would whisper news of it around the ward.

  Taking Cat’s arm, I urge her along the street, glad of the rain that keeps my neighbours from their doors. I keep my head down as we pass Anne’s house as quickly as possible, and until we reach the sign of the three swans. Cat is drenched and shivering. I can feel the fine tremors through my hand and I have to make an effort not to wrinkle my nose at the smell of stale ale and sweat that hangs around her. Pity for her grips my heart.

  It is only when I reach for the door that a warning rings, high and shrill at the back of my mind, and I falter. Too late, I realise what her reappearance will mean. A chasm yawns at my feet, but what can I do? I cannot turn her away, not now that I have brought her to my door. This is Cat, swaying beside me, shivering, lost and afraid. I remember the little girl who found me in the kitchen at Steeple Tew when I was terrified and lonely and she made it better. I asked if she would be my friend, and she did not hesitate. Of course I will, she said.

  So I turn the handle and push open the heavy front door, to be greeted by the sweet, clean smell of home, of polished wood and warm wool and the lavender woven into the fresh rushes. ‘Come in,’ I say to Cat, ridiculously nervous. ‘Come inside.’

  The water puddles onto the tiles from her skirts as she stands looking around her in a daze. I clap my hands and call for Sarah. Please let not Cecily come instead, I think, and I smile with relief when Sarah appears, bumping into the doorway as she hurries into the hall, clumsy as ever. Her eyes widen at the sight of Catherine with me.

  ‘Bring hot wine and cakes to the parlour,’ I say firmly, as if it is normal for me to return with a bedraggled whore. Taking off my cloak, I hand it to her to hang up. ‘This is my old servant, Cat, come to visit me,’ I improvise when Cat just stands dully. ‘No, wait!’ I put a hand to my head, changing my mind as Sarah turns to go. Gabriel might come out of his closet at any point, and Cecily might choose to play the lute in the parlour. I must talk to Cat alone before anyone else comes. ‘Bring the wine to my chamber instead. Come, Cat, I will see if I can find you a dry shawl at least,’ I add when Sarah has blundered off.

  Cat still hasn’t said anything, but her eyes come back to me and there is a spark of something unfamiliar in her face. She follows me obediently up the new staircase, and out of the corner of my eye I see her trail her fingers wonderingly up the carved banister.

  ‘Sit down,’ I tell her, and urge her to the chair while I bustle around the chamber, poking up the fire, pulling a shawl out of a chest, shaking it out and tucking it round her shoulders. Playing the maidservant I once was. When Sarah brings the wine, I pour out a glass and set it in Cat’s hands, closing her fingers around the warmth as if she is a child, and she squeezes her eyes shut with an expression that is something like pain.

  At a loss as to what to do next, I pull up a stool and sit on the other side of the hearth. It crosses my mind that we have reverted to old positions without thinking, Cat in the mistress’s place, I at her feet, and I am conscious of a pinch of resentment. I am mistress here now.

  The wet wool of her gown is steaming gently in the heat of the fire. Cat sips the wine and opens her eyes at last. ‘Thank you,’ she says in a wavering voice. ‘You do not know how I have dreamt of being warm like this.’

  ‘Cat, what has brought you to this?’ I do not know any other way to ask, and bitterness races across her face, although whether it is at my question or some other memory, I cannot tell.

  She does not answer directly. ‘What is this place?’ She sips at her wine as she looks around the chamber, at the tapestries and the velvet that hangs around the bed that I share with Gabriel, at the gold thread and the embroidered cushions.

  ‘It is my home now,’ I say.

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘My husband’s,’ I amend.

  ‘You have a husband!’ she comments. ‘And good wine.’ It has given her a sly, slurring edge. I should have ordered ale. ‘Pray, where did you find one so wealthy?’ There is a slackness to her face as she holds her feet in their tattered shoes towards the fire, one after the other.

  I hesitate. ‘I married Mr Thorne.’

  ‘Mr Thorne?’ Cat’s brow wrinkles and then clears. ‘The merchant?’

  ‘Yes. You had gone, I had Cecily to think of . . . What else could I do?’ I hate the defensive note in my voice.

  ‘But he was to marry me!’

  I set my teeth. ‘You told me to take your place. You said I might marry him with your goodwill.’

  Cat stares at me. ‘I did not think you would take me at my word!’

  ‘You did not want him.’

  ‘You let him believe you were me?’ There is gathering outrage in the blue eyes, and I swallow.

  ‘He still believes that.’

  ‘You have lied all this time, Mary? Taken my name?’

  ‘I had to! Or I would have become as you are now,’ I say deliberately, letting my gaze rest on her stained skirts, her bedraggled hair.

  Her jaw tightens. ‘What of my brother? Avery must have known who you really were.’

  ‘He died, Jocosa too. I did not know if I could take Cecily to Steeple Tew, or if the new Lord Delahay would support her. You had gone. I had nowhere else to go. Gabriel – my husband – said that you could write if you changed your mind, so I did, in your stead.’

  Cat’s gaze returns to the flames and for a while there is only the spit and crackle of the logs as they settle, and the relentless patter of the rain outside.

  ‘All this time,’ she says slowly at last, the corner of her mouth curling in a way I do not quite like, ‘you have been living as me. I do not know what to say, Mary. You were quick, it seems, to take advantage of the situation. That was clever of you. But then, you always were clever, weren’t you? And you have done well for yourself.’ She looks around the chamber again. ‘Very well.’ Her eyes come back to my face. ‘Wealth suits you, Mary. You have been luckier than I.’

  She drains her glass and holds it out, and I cannot help myself. I get to my feet and pour her more wine. I even offer her a cake.

  ‘Cat,’ I say clearly. ‘You must not call me Mary.’

  ‘What shall I call you then? Mistress? I heard you tell that serving wench that I was your maid.’
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br />   ‘I had to say something! Call me mistress or Catherine, but not Mary, I beg of you.’

  ‘Very well, m-mistress.’ Cat laughs at my expression. She drinks her wine, eyeing me over the rim of the glass. ‘We have changed positions, it seems.’

  And there was I thinking the opposite.

  She puts down the glass and gets to her feet so that she can shake out her damp skirts. I swivel on my stool to watch her walk around the chamber. Her head is blurry, I guess, and she is moving with exaggerated care, but she touches things lightly: feeling the weight of the velvet hangings, pressing the bed to test its softness. She smooths the tassel on a cushion, runs her palm over the turkey-work carpet on the chest.

  A gasp of laughter. ‘Is that really your old wooden baby? And still with only one arm, I see!’ Cat carries Peg over to the fire and for one terrible moment I think she is about to throw her in, the way Avery once did. ‘Do you remember how you held onto it when you first arrived at Steeple Tew? You would not let me touch it – not that I cared. I had one much finer of my own.’ She waggles Peg’s arm at me. ‘Why do you keep such a poor thing?’

  The firelight flickers over Peg as Cat turns her dismissively, and I am certain I see such an expression of horror on the wooden face that my heart lurches into my throat and hammers there.

  A trick of the light, no more.

  Still, I take Peg from Cat and lay her in my lap and smooth down her gown before setting her on the floor beside me. ‘I like her,’ I say.

  Cat flits off again, jittery now. This is how she was at Haverley Court, lurching from a blurry slackness to feverish intensity. She stops in front of the looking glass and examines her reflection. Does she see the split lip, the bruise, the bedraggled hair beneath her cap, or does she see herself as she was, glowing with beauty, a-sparkle with wit and promise?

  And yet, even in this state, she is beautiful and bright, the sun to my moon. Everything about Cat is vivid: her eyes are the bluest blue, her hair the goldest gold, while I am dim in comparison to her. My hair is an unremarkable brown, my eyes an unremarkable grey. I have straight brows and a mouth that is too big for my face. She is a summer day, I am a misty winter morn.