The Cursed Wife

by Pamela Hartshorne

  You kept telling me it would be worth it when my babe was born, but you were wrong. After all that, I had only a daughter to show for my trouble. A daughter was no good to me. You never understood that, Mary. Your voice lifted when you told me, as if it was something to be joyful about.

  If only I had had a son instead! Everything would have been so different. You told me it would be a boy, you and that old witch you brought in to help. My right breast was plumper; that was a sure sign, you said. The babe stirred at the beginning of the third month; another sign. When I stood up from sitting, I used my right foot first. I rested most readily on my right hand. Clearly I was carrying a boy.

  Oh, I am out of all patience with you just remembering how you raised my hopes, only to dash them with your smiling news: you have a beautiful daughter. Faugh! I had it all planned out, and then to be told that the babe was a girl . . . What use was a daughter?

  I barely saw her after that. You tried to interest me in her, but what was there to see? A screaming infant, red-faced and tightly swaddled. You were besotted enough for both of us, in any case. I think you even named her. George was no more interested than I. He had only married me for a son, after all.

  Now the girl must be thirteen or so, and is bidding fair to be a beauty. I feel a twinge of pride in spite of myself. She has her father’s dark eyes and dark hair, but still, she has the look of me, doesn’t she? You must think that every time you look at her and the thought pleases me. You cannot have forgotten me, Mary, not with Cecily there to remind you of what you did.

  And how you have been lying ever since.

  Sarah is stammering out an apology for her clumsiness with the cream, and instead of rebuking her, you comfort her. ‘It cannot be helped,’ you tell her. ‘Do you make sure it is all cleared up, and then you can help me prepare the meal.’

  I meet Cecily’s eyes across Sarah’s bent head. I half expect her to share my incredulity at your softness, but she only looks coolly back at me. It must have been her I heard complaining to you earlier. She is not pleased that I am here, that is clear.

  ‘This is Cat,’ you tell her when you have finally finished fussing over Sarah. ‘We were children together, were we not, Cat?’ you add nervously. ‘Cat was with me when you were but a babe, Cecily.’

  Cecily raises her brows and looks at me, unimpressed. ‘Cat?’

  ‘A pet name,’ I explain. ‘I am Catherine.’

  ‘Like Mamma?’ There is a sharpness in the brown eyes that sits oddly with the sweet face.

  I glance at you and smile. ‘Exactly like Mamma,’ I agree.

  Chapter Six

  Cat

  Instead of sitting up by the fire with your husband as a gentlewoman should, you tie an apron around you and bustle around the kitchen, quartering a roasted chicken, throwing onions in a pan for a sop, mincing carrots for a salad. You direct your husband’s serving man, Roger, to put up the table in the hall and fill the tubs with fresh water for rinsing the glasses. Having cleared up the creamy mess on the floor, Sarah is to pull jugs of small beer – and yes, of course you have brewed it yourself to a special recipe. She is kept busy trotting backwards and forwards to the larder to bring out the remains of a tart and some preserved quinces.

  Cecily is set to fetching a tablecloth and damask napkins. I am to help her set the table, and I smile brightly as I am handed the pepper box and the salt, as if I am used to doing such lowly tasks. She is clearly not pleased at my arrival. You are probably counting on that fact. Something tells me you won’t like it if she grows too close to me, so it will be amusing to win her over. A little challenge for me, if you will.

  I set out to charm her as we move around the table, setting out pewter plates in every place. No trenchers for you, I see, Mary. I am surprised you do not set out knives, forks and spoons for everyone too. Little touches of luxury are evident everywhere: plates, glasses to drink from, silver gleaming on the chest. I admire the girdle Cecily wears and she cannot resist boasting that it comes from Venice.

  ‘John bought it for me while he was away. It was a gift.’

  ‘John?’

  ‘My eldest brother. Well, I call him my brother,’ she amends, polishing a spoon on her sleeve, ‘but he is not. My father is not my father either, but I always think of him as such. I was only an infant when Mamma married him.’ The brown eyes rest on my face, their expression hard to read. ‘But you know that, of course.’

  She is sharper than she looks. I nod. ‘I remember when you were born,’ I offer.

  ‘So you must have known my real father?’

  ‘I did, yes.’ I smooth out the tablecloth, knowing that she means George, but thinking of Anthony. Not as he was in the Dog’s Head, but as he was then, dark and comely. The smile that warmed me, that fluttered along my veins. The mouth that could make me shake with pleasure in the days when he cared to pleasure me. ‘You have the look of him,’ I tell Cecily honestly.

  ‘I have supposed so,’ she says, and flicks at a speck of something on her skirts. ‘I am not much like my mother.’

  I smile. ‘Oh, do you not think so?’

  ‘You see a similarity?’ She looks surprised, as well she might. You are both dark, but otherwise you have nothing in common.

  ‘In character rather than in looks,’ I say. ‘There is much about your mother that you do not know.’

  Well, perhaps it was mischievous of me, Mary, but she is intrigued now. I imagine you squirming under her questioning and laugh to myself.

  You set a good table, I must say. The entire household sits down to supper in the hall, even the kitchen boy, an urchin apparently rescued from the streets and now dressed in a canvas shirt and patched hose. I have to sit on a bench separated from him only by Sarah. At least I do not have to serve him: that would be too much.

  The servants admire and respect you, that much is clear. I am already tired of hearing what a good mistress you are, how kind, how devout, how worthy. If they only knew what I know about you, Mary, they would not be so impressed, would they?

  Your children, too, are all one could wish. Gabriel’s son John is a fine-looking young man, even I must admit. I keep my eyes demurely lowered for the most part, but I can feel his gaze on me and I cannot help preening myself a little. Your dull husband may not have the wit to admire me, but his son clearly does. John is well set-up with a handsome pair of legs and a courteous manner, even to servants such as I am supposed to be. He is young still, of course, no more than one and twenty, I judge, and so fair that his beard is no more than down on his cheek. When I smile at him, he reddens.

  There is a boisterous lad a little older than Cecily too, and, of course, Cecily herself, a beautiful, lively daughter who clearly dotes on John.

  How charming you all are together. The perfect family.

  Under my lashes, I watch you as you sit quietly next to your husband. You are toying with your glass, but drinking little and eating less. We servants have pewter goblets, and ale instead of wine. I find myself staring at the wine in your glass, imagining the taste of it hitting the roof of my mouth, sliding down my throat, and the need for it throbs down to my fingertips. I gulp at the ale instead, but it is not the same.

  Cecily is telling some story that is making the others laugh, but my gaze is fixed on the wine, and that is how I see the merchant lean towards you and murmur something as he presses a crumb from the corner of your mouth with his thumb. You touch the tip of your tongue briefly to the place where his thumb was, and you look back at him.

  Well.

  So you are afire with passion for him, this dull man, and he for you. You did not tell me that, Mary. Neither of you smile, but even from the end of the table I can see how the air heats between you. All it would take would be a graze of a finger, a breath warm on skin, and it would burst into a blaze.

  My cheeks burn as if I am watching you naked together. Warmth pools in my belly, and there is a disturbing tug in my privy parts that makes me shift uneasily on the bench. No man has eve
r looked at me the way your husband looks at you. He is not a gentleman, true, but when he looks at you like that, I feel envy, yes, I do. It seems that all you have to do to earn his desire is to sit there like a pudding, quiet, covered up, eyes modestly lowered.

  So you have wealth and respectability and children and a husband who desires you – and all because of me. Rage and misery bubble in my throat. I stab my knife into a piece of chicken. It will not do. You have everything and I have nothing. It is not fair, Mary. You must feel it too.

  Hand clenched around my knife, I look up, and I catch you watching me, almost as if you can hear my thoughts. There is a crease between your brows, and you smile anxiously at me, but I am not fooled. You do not want me here. You are wishing that you had never invited me in. You are thinking that you should have given me money and hustled me back out into the street. Perhaps you are even wondering how soon you can persuade me to go.

  But that is not going to happen now, Mary. I let my fingers relax and smile sweetly back at you. I like your warm, comfortable house. I am here now, and here I will stay.

  I sleep well on my flock bed, in spite of the lumps. It is a great improvement on what I have been used to of late, but still, I think of you lying with your husband high on your feather beds, the curtains closed around your bedstead, warm and close under your sumptuous coverlets, and it seems unjust that I should be up here under the eaves with just a plain bolster and coverlet.

  For all that you are the mistress and I the maid, you are up ahead of me. The household is abustle with activity before I have pulled on the clean shift. I have to lace myself into the bodice. I know, I have become used to dressing myself, but to have to do it here, while you are below, it feels all wrong, Mary. Why are you not here to help me rise?

  I am hungry again, but no, we cannot break our fasts until the whole household has prayed together, and then the barber surgeon has been sent for and the missing maid, Amy, has had her tooth pulled to much screaming and wailing. I have to wait while you fuss around her afterwards, making up a calming posset and preparing another clout to comfort her and insisting that she stays in bed, as if she has not already been lolling around for too long. You are such a weak mistress, Mary. They cannot respect you.

  Later, you tell me that I can accompany you to the market. How gracious of you! You are going to show me how to shop, you say. I have to walk behind you and carry your basket. Do you have any idea of what that feels like, Mary? Well, of course you do. You were a servant for long enough. But you do not know how it feels to have been a mistress and be now reduced to a maid. You have no knowledge of how humiliating it is to trail after you like a little dog.

  I am a little anxious at first in case Anthony should see me, but it is early. I do not think he will be out and about yet, and anyway, he would never think to look at a maidservant demurely following her mistress.

  Yesterday’s rain has cleared and in the weak sun, the sky is reflected in icy puddles that gleam in the street. A brisk wind cuts through to my bones and I stand and shiver while you dig your hands deep into sacks of grain to check the quality, and lean over the butcher’s stall, pointing out precisely the cut you want. He is all deference: Yes, Mistress Thorne. No, Mistress Thorne. That is the best cut, Mistress Thorne. For roasting, is it? Stewing? Lifting his cleaver and bringing it down through the bone with a dull thwack.

  ‘This is as good meat as you will get anywhere in London,’ he tells you proudly.

  And you, you ask him about his apprentice who was sick, and you seem to know his wife. How can you be interested in these dull little people? I huddle deeper into my cloak and will you to hurry.

  It all takes so long. Weighed down by the basket, I follow you along to the market, where the countrywomen squat by their baskets, huddled under their hats, their faces swathed in neckerchiefs. You don’t seem bored at all.

  ‘Pay attention now, Cat,’ you say as you inspect cabbages – cabbages! – closely, turning them over in your hands and sniffing them with as much care as if you were buying a precious jewel. ‘This one is rotting already, do you see?’

  I don’t, but I nod and pretend to listen. What do I care for cabbages?

  Now I have to stand while you bargain with a toothless woman squatting next to a wicker cage of clucking, burbling hens. She plucks out two, snaps their necks efficiently, trusses their scaly feet together and hands them to me with a sly smile. She knows that I do not belong in this crowded market with its pushing and jostling and bleating and shouting and quacking, and its smell of rotting vegetables and mud and banked aggression.

  I am expected to carry these dead birds? I glance at you in disbelief, but you are wishing the woman a calm good day as you hand over a coin. You keep careful track of the money in your purse, I notice. You were born to be a merchant’s wife, it seems. The knowledge that you have taken my name and made Lady Catherine into a prudent housewife burns and scrapes like a bone in my throat.

  Everything takes twice as long as it should. Women keep stopping to greet you respectfully, and you inquire after their children and their coughs and their caudles as if you really want to know. I see how they defer to you and ask your advice, even the matrons whose gowns are as well-trimmed as yours. One or two gazes flicker over me, sharpening at the unfamiliar face, narrowing further at the bruise blooming on my cheek, the scab on my lip.

  ‘My servant, Cat,’ you say smoothly. ‘She is but newly arrived in London.’

  My cheeks mottle with the humiliation of being looked over by women like these, women I would not even acknowledge in my own life. My real life. When would I have ever had occasion to carry my own basket in a market? Even when money was short in France, I had a servant to shop for me. I begin to think you have done this deliberately, Mary. You must have known how I would dislike this, but if you think this will be enough to get rid of me, you must think again.

  I shift the basket from hand to hand, swapping with the chickens, and wait while the women pay court to you. They dip their heads and smile admiringly while their eyes grasp at every detail of your gown. There is nothing for them to sniff at. You are modest, which they approve of. You do not flaunt yourself, but the cloth is of the best quality, and your trimmings discreetly expensive. Dark it may be, but the gown still shouts prosperity. You wear it well, I will give you that, and black becomes you. I would have chosen a brighter colour myself.

  Oh, you are quite the lady here, are you not? The queen of the parish, of the whole ward, it seems. While I have been suffering, you have been laughing with your gossips. Where once you would have told me all your secrets, now you confide in a mere Mistress Hawkins, a plump housewife with a merry laugh whose eyes rest on me curiously. She may think you will tell her all about me when you are alone, but you won’t, will you, Mary?

  At least there is one who dislikes you. A Mistress Parker, who is too grand to acknowledge a mere servant, as she thinks. She is all smiles and honeyed words, but her face is clotted with envy as she looks after you. You do not like her either, do you? No one else would be able to tell, but I see the slightest tightening of your shoulders, the way you are able to withdraw into yourself, so subtly that you would have to know you really well to notice. I doubt Mistress Hawkins knows you well, Mary, no matter how close a gossip she may be.

  Nobody knows you the way I do.

  All this clamouring and clattering and chattering are making my head ache. My back aches too, and my feet, rubbing in unfamiliar shoes. I wish we could go home instead of listening to the interminable news of sickness and adultery by people I do not know. There are mutterings about the misgoverned women the minister keeps in his house, the state of the gutters, how one woman called another woman a whore in the open street. Your neighbour, a fat goodwife who waddles up to accost you breathlessly, has a daughter who is in labour and, by the sounds of it, is hollering like a beast.

  ‘I would take it kindly if you would step in to see her,’ she says wheezily, laying an overly familiar hand on your arm
. Her chins wobble as she speaks and her fingers are dimpled and swollen around her rings. ‘You are so skilled, mistress. You would be able to quiet her.’

  ‘I will go to her now,’ you say instead of reprimanding her for her insolence. You turn to me. ‘Do you take all this home, Cat, and tell Sarah to start preparing dinner. You can help her. I will come in a while.’

  And that is it. It takes me a moment to realise that you have dismissed me. Dismissed me! As if I am nothing. You turn away as if there is nothing more to say, and you go off with the grovelling goodwife and you do not even turn back to see if I have everything I need. You leave me standing here ridiculously in the street, holding two dead hens and a basket of cabbages and turnips. An apprentice pushes past me with a casual insult, a woman at her door leans into her gossip and they both look over at me and snicker behind their hands.

  I glare back at them. What do I care for their snide looks? They do not know who I am. I will not be treated like this. You should know better.

  I watch you walk off, straight-backed as ever, and I feel something turn over and settle inside me, cold and hard.

  Chapter Seven

  Mary

  Little Wood Street, May 1590

  Outside, the sky is turning a dark blue over the rooftops and the casement is open to let in the soft evening air. All day the sun has been shining. The trees are bursting with greenness and blossom powders the streets while the herbs in my garden are budding up nicely. My husband’s business prospers, my family and friends are in good health. We have eaten well tonight and now we are gathered cheerfully in the great chamber. Cecily is at the virginals, and Cat and John are singing together. Cat has a beautiful voice, sweet and pure, the kind of voice that makes people stop in the street below the window to listen.