The Cursed Wife

by Pamela Hartshorne

  I should be content.

  Instead, I am afraid.

  At Steeple Tew, I loved to hear Cat sing. It meant that she was happy, and when Cat was happy, the whole manor was happy too. It was a gift that she had, to make us share in her feelings. But now the sweeter the melody she sings, the more jagged I feel, as if the music is scraping against me, jarring in time with the uneven beat of my heart.

  Go from my window, my love, my dove, Cat sings, smiling at John. Go from my window, my dear.

  At the virginals, Cecily strikes a chord that jangles harshly through the chamber and makes Cat break off in mid-note. ‘Your pardon,’ Cecily calls after a moment. ‘My fingers slipped.’

  ‘No matter,’ says Cat gaily. ‘We will start again.’ And she smiles at John, who turns the dull red of bricks drying in the sun.

  I rub at my hand where my scar itches. ‘Just for a while,’ Cat said, but two months have passed and still she is here, at the heart of the household. She is a poor servant, as I knew she would be. She wrinkles her nose when set to plucking chickens or to filling a scuttle for the midden or sweeping out cobwebs. Her seams are sewn crookedly. She is careless in the kitchen, forgetful in the market.

  She mocks me behind my back. I was on my way into the kitchen the other day when I heard the servants laughing, and I paused, smiling, pleased that they were enjoying themselves, even though it sounded as if Cat was hectoring them.

  ‘Do you sweep the floor, Amy,’ she was saying briskly. ‘No, wait, I will do it because I sweep best. You cook the meal instead. No, I cook best. Bring water from the conduit . . . no, no, I do that best too. Roger, put up the tables, no, wait, I will do that too. I put up the tables best.’

  It took me a moment to realise that she was imitating me, and hurt swiped the smile from my face. Amy, loyal, steadfast Amy, was honking with laughter. I imagined her wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron, and I knew that I could not bear to step into the kitchen and pretend that I had not heard. I turned away instead and went up to my bedchamber, my throat tight with tears that I refused to shed. I am not a child. I am not going to cry because they are laughing about me behind my back.

  But my vision was wavering when I closed the door to the chamber and leant back against it. I could see Peg, sitting in her usual place on the chest, and I could have sworn that her smile had slipped, that instead of curving upwards, it was turned unhappily down, just like mine, and my heart tripped with the impossibility of it. Blinking the tears furiously away, I looked again. No, I had imagined it. Of course I had. How could a painted smile change?

  Picking Peg up, I stared down at her familiar face: two round eyes, wide and staring, two little dots to mark the nose, a curving red line for a mouth. It is a little unsteady in the centre where my paintbrush wobbled, but that quirk has always been there.

  Hasn’t it?

  The more I stared, the stranger the wooden face seemed. Had her expression always looked that dismayed, her smile that anxious? Suddenly repelled, I put her abruptly back down on the chest and stepped away, my hands shaking.

  Since then I have found myself looking askance at Peg whenever I pass, turning my head without warning as if I will catch her expression changing even though I know it won’t. It can’t.

  I was sharp with Cat when I found her in the parlour this morning. I have tried to teach her some skills in the still room and she pays attention there at least, but she does not spin, she does not sew. She would much rather be sitting at her ease, or singing. Only this morning I found her in the parlour, lounging on the window cushions and plucking idly at the lute. Sometimes I think she deliberately plays that tune that disquiets me so, and a clogged feeling rises in my throat, almost like panic, and I was shorter with her than I usually am.

  ‘What are you doing in here? I thought you were helping Amy with the brewing.’

  ‘Amy said she doesn’t mind doing it by herself.’ Cat didn’t even stop playing. It wasn’t the tune, but it was almost it. Straining, I was convinced that I could pick out the now, now, now. ‘Brewing is dull work. I could not bear it.’

  It was all I could do not to snatch the lute from her hands. ‘I told you that you would not care for being a servant,’ I said.

  ‘Well, and you were right as you always are, Mary,’ she said tartly, and to my relief she laid the lute aside, although I was sure that I could still hear that miserable tune jumping and jarring in the air. ‘I do not care for it at all.’

  I sank down onto a stool. ‘Cat,’ I tried again. ‘If you do not wish to be a servant, I will give you some money. You can go away and start afresh.’

  ‘Go away?’ She stared at me, the blue eyes filling. ‘Is that what you want? To send me off with a few coins and be rid of me! What am I, your sweepings to be brushed out into the gutter?’ Her voice rose and I shushed her.

  ‘Of course not. I thought merely that if you were unhappy . . .’

  ‘I am sorry indeed that I am not a better servant, but I am not born to it,’ she said. ‘You do not know how hard it is.’

  I thought of the years I spent as a servant at Steeple Tew. ‘My father was a gentleman. I was not born to it either,’ I reminded her, but Cat waved that away.

  ‘Oh, you were but a child. It is not at all the same.’

  I let that go. Cat sees the world not through a window as others do, but in a looking glass that reflects back only what she wishes to see. ‘I know it is hard for you,’ I tried. ‘That is why I wish to give you some money so that you may live as you are used to. Gabriel owns some houses in Finsbury. You could live there with a servant and be comfortable, perhaps.’

  ‘Comfortable? So I, Catherine Latimer, Lady Delahay, am to be reduced to a tenement in the country and a single servant, is that what you propose?’ she asked tearfully. ‘Do you think that is fair, Mary, when you have taken my name and my connections and the life that should have been mine?’

  You did not want it, I wanted to cry. My fists were clenched in my skirts and I made myself relax my fingers and smooth the fabric instead. Cat is contrary at the best of times. I could not risk making her angry. It would take very little for her to go to Gabriel and curtsey low. ‘There is something you should know about your wife,’ she would say, and that would be that. She has said nothing, made no threat, but we both know that she could.

  ‘Besides,’ Cat went on, ‘I would not be safe on my own. What if Anthony were to find me?’

  I had forgotten about Anthony. ‘He has not found you so far.’

  ‘He will be looking for a woman on her own. It would never occur to Anthony that I disguise myself as a servant, why would it? But if I live alone, I fear it would only be a matter of time before he found me. You do not know him,’ she told me. ‘He will not give up. I am afraid every time I go out.’

  I have not noticed her fear, I confess. It seems to me that she has been quite at ease, but I know better than to say so.

  ‘But what then are we to do?’ I said. ‘You will not want to stay here forever.’

  Cat examined her nails. ‘Perhaps I may marry.’

  ‘Marry?’ I gaped at her. ‘But you are married to Anthony!’

  ‘Not so,’ she said airily. ‘There were no witnesses.’

  ‘But . . .’ I shut my mouth. I did not know what to say.

  ‘You need not look at me like that, Mary. Your own marriage has little to recommend it either.’

  ‘Our vows were witnessed. We had a nuptial mass,’ I said, my face stiff. ‘The minister blessed our marriage. I am married before God.’

  ‘But under a false name,’ Cat pointed out with a sweet smile. She brushed at her sleeve. ‘Can you not let it be known that I am a widow – which I am, as you know?’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said dully.

  ‘You must know some wealthy men in search of a wife.’

  ‘Cat, these are practical men. They are looking for a woman to run the household, care for their children, help with their business. A woman who will work and a
dd to their reputation.’

  ‘I’ll warrant some look for skills in the bedchamber too – and do not try and tell me that your husband does not care for that,’ she said with an arch look. ‘I have seen the way you look at each other. You are not as prim and proper when the bed curtains are drawn, are you, Mary?’

  I set my teeth. ‘I would be glad to find you a husband, but I do not know any gentlemen.’

  ‘I will settle for a merchant now I have seen how comfortable you are,’ she said, to my dismay. ‘One like your husband, perhaps?’ she added airily. ‘Although I would manage him very differently, I can assure you. Your husband is rich, but you put on an apron and bustle around like a goodwife. If I were married to a man of his wealth, I would have whisked him off to an estate long since. I would have had him build me a fine new house, or buy a fine old manor like Steeple Tew. If I were you, I would have a housekeeper to stock my larder, someone else to poke over turnips or sniff at pickled eels. But you have no such refinement,’ she said almost sulkily. ‘I do not understand why Gabriel would bother to marry a gentlewoman if he just wanted to stay in London. Avery would have pushed for every penny he could. I cannot see that having Lady Catherine Delahay to wife would be worth anything unless he wanted to move up in the world.’ She sounded baffled. ‘I never expected to find you here. I had imagined you on an estate in the country, but no, here you are as if he had done no more than marry a baker’s daughter! What have you done for his standing?’

  ‘I am respected. I have added to his reputation.’ I was offended, but in truth I have often wondered myself why Gabriel wed me, even after he had discovered that the sickness had taken Avery and his wife and the marriage portion agreed with them. I had been too grateful to question him closely, too afraid to reveal that I was not the woman he thought I was. I told myself that he was a man who had set his heart on a gentlewoman and was determined to get what he wanted.

  Now that I know him, I think the explanation is much simpler. My husband is a kind man. And he wanted me.

  I think of how he turns to me in the night, and heat floods through me. He does not know my name, but he knows what turns my bones to honey. He knows how I arch beneath him, what makes me catch my breath, and smile and sigh. He knows me.

  He wants me still.

  In the end, Cat had her way, as I knew she would. We have agreed that she will be a companion more than a servant. That I will treat her as my kin. ‘As we are,’ Cat reminded me.

  There will be no rough work for her now. She thinks she may help me in the still room as she has done before now, and she may go to market, but there will be no plucking of chickens, no chopping of onions. No beating of carpets or churning of butter.

  I stretched my mouth into a smile. ‘But you must sing and play for us in the evenings,’ I said. ‘That will be your task.’

  She clapped her hands together, her smile brilliant. ‘Of course! Thank you, Mary.’ Impulsively she embraced me. ‘I am grateful to you for taking me in,’ she whispered in my ear, her arm around my neck, and when she drew back, the cornflower blue eyes were warm as summer skies as they looked into mine. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  I thought about arriving at Steeple Tew, the curse ringing in my ears. How I had clutched Peg as the only familiar thing in a world turned dark and bitter. How Cat had danced in and taken my hand and made everything right.

  ‘How could I not?’ I said, drawing her back into a tight embrace. I pressed my cheek to hers. ‘How could I not?’

  I am glad that I have been able to offer her shelter and repay the welcome that she gave me. I am glad that she is not alone and friendless and cold on the streets of London. I am. But everything has changed now that she is here, and I am not glad about that.

  Now I watch as Cat sings, her face upturned to John, her hand to her throat. Her lashes flutter extravagantly as she acts the part of the lover to make everyone laugh.

  Everyone except me – and Cecily, I notice, but then, she is concentrating on the keys of the virginals. She is still learning how to play.

  I let my gaze wander around the chamber. At the back, Amy and Sarah are listening to the song, rocking gently from side to side, their shoulders bumping every now and then as Sarah misses the beat, but they are smiling, content. Richard Martindale has come to supper. Gabriel is taking Tom to Hamburg to learn the business from his factor there, just as John did, and the three of them have their heads together, discussing the journey. Jacopo is squatting outside the door. He prefers to be outside, he says, with his back to a wall. The smoke from his pipe drifts up past the open casement and the smell of it catches at the back of my throat. He seems peaceful, but I think of the knife that he keeps at his waist, how quickly it appears at the first whiff of danger.

  Some friends of John’s came to supper too, young men who are sprawled on cushions or have made themselves comfortable in the window seat as they listen to Cat and John sing. They are all laughing, enjoying themselves.

  John is dazzled by Cat, of course. Gabriel tells me not to fret. ‘He is a young man and she is a beautiful woman. She knows how to keep him at arm’s length and he will grow out of it. When I come back from Hamburg we will think on a marriage for him, but for now, let him make calf’s eyes at her if he will.’

  I hope he is right. I hate to see John’s ready smile falter as Cat turns carelessly away from him, the reddening of his cheeks when she bestows a smile.

  The song ends at last, and the chamber erupts with clapping and laughter. Cat bows, smiling, and gestures towards Cecily at the virginals to include her in the applause. Everything is as it should be.

  Am I the only one who feels the air constantly atremble with disquiet?

  I am in the chair, the best seat, but I cannot shake the feeling that the chamber is shunning me. I stare at the silver jugs on the chest, convinced that they have swivelled to face Cat instead, and that there has been a subtle shift in the tapestry figures whose eyes turn away from me to her. They look to her now, not me.

  At urging from the others, Cat has started another song. She is doing nothing wrong, I remind myself as my thumb frets at the scar. She is just singing. But there is something precarious in the air now, a whiff of danger, like a drift of smoke that makes you lift your nose but dissolves into the air before you can point to it and say ‘There!’

  How complacent I have become! I thought I had turned the curse aside, but it is still there, written bone-deep. Cat’s arrival has shown that my world is unstable, slippery. A careless word, less than a fingernail flick from her, could bring it skidding out from beneath me to shatter like pottery dropped on cobbles. I can hardly breathe with the terror of it.

  But what can I do? Sometimes I let myself think how different things would have been if only Amy had not had the toothache that day. If only I had checked my store of poppy seeds. If only I had taken Gabriel’s advice and sent Sarah.

  If only, if only, if only . . . Oh, what is the point of if onlys? I think bitterly. It is done now. I cannot unspool time, unweave the tiny moments that make up the warp and weft of life. It is knitted up now, and Cat is right in the centre of it.

  I will never be rid of her now.

  ‘Another!’ my guests call when the song finishes. ‘One more!’

  Cat demurs prettily, but allows herself to be persuaded at last. ‘Very well,’ she says, and picks up the lute. Even before she opens her mouth, I know what the song will be.

  Oh, John, come kiss me now, now, now, she starts, and then they all join in, even Tom who cannot usually be bothered with singing.

  Oh, John, my love, come kiss me now.

  I cannot sit here any longer, as if my stomach is not curdling with a dread I cannot explain. ‘I have the headache,’ I murmur to Gabriel as I get to my feet as unobtrusively as possible. ‘I will go to bed.’

  But alone in the bedchamber I share with my husband, I can still hear them singing, and I could swear that behind the lute, behind the voices, are the creak of the cart’s wheels and
the scream of a child and a curse called over the years.

  Gabriel’s deep voice, Cecily’s laughter, the bright spill of conversation through the open windows. My family are all next door with Cat, and I am here alone with only Peg for company. I lift her up from the chest for comfort, but her painted smile seems fixed and her expression so desolate that I shudder, and for one horrifying moment I can feel a noose tightening around my neck.

  PART II

  Chapter Eight

  Mary

  Steeple Tew, 1562–1576

  With Cat as my friend, I was safe at Steeple Tew, and I was grateful, just as Emmot had told me to be. Sir Hugh, Cat’s beloved Pappa, was distantly kind to me. Her mother, Lady Ursula, never cared for me, but she was correct. I was clothed and fed, I slept with Cat in a comfortable bed, and I was allowed to share lessons with her and her brother, Avery. Avery’s tutor, Master Gregory, taught us in the schoolroom at the top of the manor, a small, dank chamber but good enough for children. Cat had no interest in learning, and sat making idle scratches on her tablet, but I loved to copy letters from my hornbook and she would imitate the way the tip of my tongue stuck out when I was concentrating.

  I learnt to read quickly, but Avery struggled and hated me for making him look foolish by comparison. He was a sturdy boy, golden-haired like Cat, but meaner of spirit, with a tight, cruel mouth and meaty hands that were ever quick to cuff. Sometimes I would pretend that I could not read a word just to stop his face mottling with rage. At others I squirmed on my stool with frustration at how dull his wits were and I would have to bite my lip not to prompt him, but I might as well have spoken out, for Avery would find a way to punish me either way. After our lessons, he would pinch and push and play tricks on me. Once he took Peg and threw her on the fire. I burned myself badly getting her out. A puckered scar has blotted the side of my hand ever since; I cannot bend my little finger properly, even now, and Peg’s wooden stump is singed still underneath her skirts.

  The building of the banqueting house at Steeple Tew brought an end to my childhood. Lady Ursula was commonly considered to have married beneath herself and she pinched constantly at Sir Hugh for his lack of ambition. To quiet her he built a banqueting house in the garden. Made of the same honey-coloured stone as the manor house, it had three storeys – one for dining, one for drinking and conversation and one for dancing – and was bigger than many of the houses in Little Wood Street now. When it was finished, all the neighbours around were invited to be impressed by the latest fashion. As was the purpose. There was to be a feast in the hall, and then the guests would repair to the banqueting house for sugared comfits and sweetmeats. Cat and I thrilled at the idea and practised dancing in the long gallery, touching our fingertips together and sweeping down into curtseys while we hummed the music as best we could.