The Cursed Wife

by Pamela Hartshorne

  I barely heard him, I was panting to get free, turning my head frantically this way and that to avoid his loathsome mouth while his hands plunged into my bodice, ripping the laces and pinching my breasts. He was breathing hard as he grabbed and squeezed my flesh. ‘I’ve wanted to do this for so long,’ he said, and he laughed, his face suffused with excitement, his eyes alight with the wrongness of it.

  ‘If you want to keep your place here, Mary, you’ll learn to please me.’

  ‘No,’ I said, wriggling desperately. ‘No. Never.’

  The air jangled with my harsh breaths and the coarse words and insults Avery was muttering as he pawed at me. ‘Oh yes, you will,’ he said. ‘You are a servant wench, less than nothing. You will do as you are bid.’

  My palms were jammed against his doublet which was damp and sticky, the embroidery ruined. I could smell wine and vomit. I was trying to kick him but I was hampered by my skirts.

  ‘I am more than you, Avery,’ I spat back at him. ‘You are too doltish to learn your ABC!’

  It was foolish of me, I can see that now. I invited the stinging blow he dealt to my jaw that whipped my head to one side and left my ears ringing.

  ‘Bitch,’ he muttered, and clapped a sweaty hand over my mouth as he thrust me round and shoved me against the stable wall. ‘Let’s see who is clever now.’

  He took his hand away so that I could at least breathe easier, but my face was jammed up against the timber strut and I could not even shout out. I could only concentrate on breathing while Avery panted vile words, scrabbling at my skirts, pushing them up, up, until cold air bit against my bare buttocks. ‘God’s bones, stay still!’ he swore at me.

  I tried to cry out again, but my face was squashed, and when I flailed my arms frantically, he pinned them with one hand, wedging me into place with his body. I could feel him fumbling with the ties of his hose, and then, God, then he was ramming into me, again and again, heedless of my pain. I was dimly conscious of the horses moving restively inside the stable, sensing the violence, the hate. I knew the stable boys must be able to hear my whimpers and Avery’s grunts. They knew what I was suffering but they would do nothing, because Avery would be master one day and could do what he liked with the rest of us.

  I remember thinking: this is what the vagrant woman intended. This is my punishment for pushing that child, and now I have pushed again and the curse has come true. But then my mind went dark, blotted out by the horror and disgust and shame that I had somehow brought this on myself. It seemed to go on for a long time, but at last Avery gasped and juddered against me and a moment later pulled out of me. No longer pinned into place, I slumped against the stable and crumpled into a heap. Wetness oozed down the inside of my thighs, and I could taste blood in my mouth. Pain beat at me everywhere as I lay on the frozen ground, drawing small, shuddering breaths.

  ‘Look at me!’ Avery’s boot caught me in the ribs but I had no air left in my lungs to howl. All I could do was roll myself into a ball and clasp my arms around myself. When I forced my eyes open I saw Avery towering above me, adjusting the points of his hose with a smirk of satisfaction. ‘Next time, Mary, do as you are told,’ he said. He made to turn away, only to stop at a thought and turn back. ‘Oh, and I will tell my mother to stop the cost of that pot from your wages.’

  Bridget found me huddled against the stable where Avery had left me, discarded like a crumpled cloth, my face turned into the rough plaster, my body numb with cold. She helped me up and took me inside to the still room. She brought me water to rinse the blood from my thighs and from the cuts on my face where Avery had struck me, and she put salve on my grazes, and all the time I never said a word. She brought me a cloth so that I could strip down and rub, rub, rub away the feel of him and then she helped me into a clean shift and laced me back into my kirtle and tied a fresh apron around my waist.

  I smoothed it down with hands that were not yet steady and spoke at last. ‘What can I do?’ I asked Bridget, who was gathering up the bowls and rags and bloodied water.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Endure it.’

  So I finished making the rhubarb purge and carried it up to Catherine’s chamber, moving as stiffly and slowly as an old beldam.

  She was curled up in the bed, her eyes dull. ‘It hurts,’ she moaned, clutching at her belly.

  I could barely stand. Inside I was raw and ripped where Avery had thrust into me, and revulsion still pulsed over my skin when I remembered what he had done, but I murmured soothingly and coaxed Cat into sitting up so that she could sip at the purge.

  ‘I hate this,’ she complained feebly. ‘Why do you make me drink it?’

  ‘Because it makes you feel better. Come, drink some more.’

  When she had finished, she lay back against the pillows with a grimace. Only then did the blue eyes focus on me. ‘What happened to you?’

  Your brother forced me and then left me broken and bleeding on the ground. I could not say that.

  I touched the cut that throbbed painfully on my cheekbone and then the corner of my mouth. I dabbed away blood that still oozed there. I had not looked in a glass but it was just as well. My eye was beginning to swell.

  ‘I fell,’ I said carefully. ‘It is icy out. I fell and broke the chamber pot. I fear your lady mother will send me away.’

  Cat closed her eyes wearily. ‘I will not let her send you away over a pot. Do not be foolish, Mary.’

  I squirrelled her words away, taking them out to turn them over in my memory whenever I felt anxious.

  Lady Ursula said nothing about the pot but I could feel her cold stare on me sometimes, and I wondered if she knew how her son tormented me. Avery would not let me alone. He appeared when I was going about my business, and pushed me into doorways or under the stairs, against the pigsties or under a tree, shoving up my skirts and forcing himself into me, careless of anyone who might see. I quickly learnt not to fight him. I let him do what he would, and after a while it did not hurt so much, but I hated it, and I hated him. I kept my eyes fixed on a far point while he pumped into me, and told myself that one day I would feel safe again. I did as Bridget advised and I endured, but I was not grateful any more.

  Steeple Tew, June 1574

  Lady Ursula took to her bed one fine summer day, complaining of pains in her stomach. Bridget sent me into the garden to find endive and mint which she steeped in white wine for a day before straining and adding cinnamon and pepper. Another day I had to grind up cumin seeds into a fine powder so that she could mix it with red wine, but none of it did any good. You could feel death in the room, leaning over the bed, smell it in the sour darkness of the chamber. She had lost all colour and was shrinking into herself as the life leached out of her. She was a wasted candle, barely flickering.

  Bridget persisted with her remedies even though it was clear to all that Lady Ursula was dying. My steps dragged with the exhaustion that seemed to dog me then as I took the sorrel and spinach she had asked me to pick into the kitchen, where she was ferociously stirring a pot on the fire.

  ‘You took your time,’ she grumbled. ‘What’s been keeping you?’ A knuckle of veal and some mutton were boiling for a broth, and she took the sorrel and the spinach and threw them in the pot along with some sage and hyssop. ‘Mace, saffron . . .’ she muttered to herself. ‘Get me an egg, will you?’ she added to me. ‘Oh, and some sugar while you’re at it. Look sharp, now, Mary,’ she went on when I didn’t move, and she looked up from stirring the pot in time to see me clap my hand to my mouth. The sweat stood on my forehead and my stomach heaved at the smell of the broth.

  Bridget dropped the spoon she was using to stir the broth and hooked a stool forward with her foot. ‘Sit,’ she ordered, pushing my head down. ‘Don’t you be casting up your dinner in my nice clean kitchen.’

  I kept my head down as instructed while she sent one of the little maids to fetch wine and made sure the other servants were busy once more. ‘Drink this,’ she said. ‘It will make you feel better.’
/>   ‘Thank you.’ I sat up, but my hands trembled as I took a small sip.

  Bridget glanced over her shoulder to check that no one was listening and lowered her voice. ‘How long have you known?’

  My eyes slid miserably away from hers. There was no use in pretending any longer. ‘A month, maybe longer.’ I had tried leaping from a wall, but all I got was a twisted ankle. I had jumped up and down and run as fast as I could, but nothing happened. I just got tireder and tireder. Even Cat had commented on my grey face.

  ‘Can you . . . can you give me something?’ I knew that what I was contemplating was a sin, but what else could I do? Sick as she was, if Lady Ursula found out that I was with child, she would send me packing, whatever Cat said. Never mind that it was all Avery’s doing. The unfairness of it burned me while dread churned sickeningly in my stomach to add to the constant sense of queasiness.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ My voice rose in spite of myself and I saw the kitchen boy glance over curiously from where he was scouring the pots.

  ‘Hush now,’ Bridget said firmly. ‘If you want to be rid of the babe, there is still time I think. I will make you something. Try not to fret. You’re not the first maid to be in this position, and you won’t be the last. But you’re a good girl, Mary, and you deserve better than this.’

  Lady Ursula died the next morning. They rang the bells for her in the parish church, and as word spread, the neighbours came to pay their respects. Sir Hugh, Avery and Cat were gathered in the chamber with the minister, and the household servants shuffled past the corpse. With all the coming and going, we were kept busy providing wine and cakes, and I was on my way back to the kitchen when Bridget pulled me aside and gave me a cup which contained a bitter-smelling drink. It had herbs floating on the top and I sniffed it cautiously.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Best not to know,’ said Bridget. ‘Take it tonight while they are all sitting with the body. It should loosen the babe, but be prepared, Mary, it is a violent potion. You will suffer.’

  The light was fading from the summer sky when I carried the cup carefully outside to the privy. Careless of the stench, I sat down on the wooden seat and bent my nose over the cup again. It looked innocuous enough but the smell made my belly churn.

  I thought about the babe growing inside me and I ached for it, but what could I offer it? Nothing but poverty and despair. I tipped the cup to my lips and swallowed the potion in one go. It left me coughing and choking and curiously resigned. For a while it seemed as if nothing would happen. I even left the privy and wandered along to the pigsties to lean over and scratch the old sow’s back. There was no one else around as the household gathered around death.

  In spite of myself, my heart lightened at the thought that Bridget’s potion had not worked. I imagined the baby, how it would feel to hold it. Would it be a boy or a girl? A boy would have a better chance, I decided, but I would love a girl just as much. I would call her Catherine after my mistress and my friend.

  No sooner had I chosen the name than my body was seized with a terrible cramp, so painful that I could not even spare the energy to call out. I only just made it back to the privy in time. I hugged myself as I rocked backwards and forwards, my teeth chattering with the effort of not screaming.

  It did not take long in the end, but the after-effects were as bad as Bridget had warned. I bled and bled, and my body was shaken with violent fits. I was desperately thirsty but dared not cry out for water.

  At length I managed to drag myself back to the chamber. I packed rags between my legs to staunch the last bleeding and crawled into my truckle bed, unsure whether I feared death or would welcome it. I could not even rise to help Cat when she came in after sitting with her mother’s body. I told her that I had eaten something that disagreed with me and she called one of the other servants to help her undress. It was another day before I could stand on shaky legs and by then Lady Ursula had been buried.

  I have never conceived again. Whatever Bridget gave me to drink that day rid me of the child, but it rid me too of any hope that I might be a mother and hold a baby to my breast. I knew it even then. My only baby would be a wooden one. Heartsore, I lay in the little bed and clutched Peg to me, and the vagrant woman’s curse shrieked at me through the years: May you never have a child of your own. May you never be safe, never.

  Chapter Ten

  Cat

  Steeple Tew, May 1576

  I wanted a noble husband, and I got one. George was titled, he was elegant, he was cultured. He read Greek and Latin, and he wrote poetry that I could not understand. He had inherited a great estate in Wiltshire where he was building a house in the latest fashion. He was a prize far out of my reach. Or so my brother’s bride, Jocosa, told me.

  ‘Lord Delahay is not for the likes of you,’ she said.

  I did not care for Jocosa, nor she for me. She was older than Avery, pinch-mouthed and whey-faced with pale, lashless eyes, and she was not happy to find that the groom’s sister would far outshine the bride. But how could I help it? Pappa and I travelled all the way to Lismore House on the border of Wiltshire for their wedding, but she showed me no courtesy. At the wedding feast, she put me a long way down the table, stuck between a minister and a decrepit old tutor, and opposite a stammering cousin who sprayed me with spittle whenever he spoke and a tedious plain widow who bored us all, even the minister, with her devotion.

  The feast dragged, with course after course of tepid dishes and dreary conversation. The only interest for me was the gentleman who sat near the top table on the opposite side of the hall. I could just see him between the widow and the cousin. Whenever I glanced up, he would be glancing up too and my eyes would snare on his. I waited for him to smile at me, but he never did. His hair was so fair it was almost white, and his features bland in a girlishly pink and white face, but there was something eerily intense about his gaze. I was reluctantly fascinated, but when it became clear that he would not smile, I ignored him, peeping only the occasional glance.

  When the feast was over and the tables cleared for dancing, I waited for him to come over, but no. I tossed my head and let a succession of callow boys lead me out into the dance. I made sure I smiled brilliantly at them all as I danced and not once did I look at him, although I was aware of his gaze on me all the time.

  Jocosa noticed, of course. ‘You are wasting your time,’ she told me. ‘Lord Delahay needs a son, it is true, but he will not be interested in a country wench like you. He is a man of great distinction, and it is an honour to my father that he came to the wedding at all. He never dances, Catherine, so you may spare yourself those inviting smiles.’

  By which I understood that she herself had not been asked to dance.

  After that, of course, I was determined to make him notice me. And I succeeded. It took all evening, but for the last dance he came over and led me out, and I made sure to smile sweetly at my new sister. But his hands were as cold as his eyes, and although my triumph was great, I did not enjoy dancing with him as much as I thought I would. That should have been a warning.

  I told you all about it that night when you unpinned my sleeves and unlaced me. Do you remember? You had been watching from the sidelines with the other servants, and you had seen it all. ‘Jocosa is jealous of you,’ you told me, as if I did not know that.

  ‘What do the other servants say of Lord Delahay?’ I asked, holding out my arms obediently as you eased the pearls from my waist.

  ‘His servants are afraid of him,’ you said, between the pins clenched in your teeth.

  ‘Afraid? Why?’

  ‘They will not say. They say nothing at all. That is how we know they are afraid. Most servants will talk freely enough about their masters, but these . . . they are too close-mouthed. Do not toy with him, Cat. He is too secretive for you.’

  I pouted. ‘What do you say about me?’ I asked, and you smiled. You look different when you smile, did you know that? It is almost startling, the change from guarded to warmth, from d
arkness to light. I always said you should smile more often.

  ‘I say you are a young lady of beauty and charm,’ you said. ‘I say you are as bright and gay as a daisy turning its face up to the sun.’

  I liked that. I thought you meant it, Mary. I thought you loved me.

  George sought me out the next day and invited me to walk in the gardens of Lismore House. I struggled to keep up a flow of chatter in the face of his stern silence. He made me nervous, I can admit that now, although at the time I strove to think myself sophisticated. But when his eyes rested on me intently, my mouth would dry and I would falter, pinioned by his stare, and there rose in me a strange trembling that was part fear, part excitement. When his fingers pressed mine, I jolted at his touch. I was his prey, dreading the moment he would swoop down on me but afraid, too, that he would veer away to some other dangled bait and leave me alone after all. And there were plenty of other maids there. He could have chosen any of them, but he chose me, and I was glad of the chance to prove Jocosa wrong.

  I was proud of it. Can you imagine?

  When you heard that he was coming to Steeple Tew to woo me, you tucked in the corners of your mouth. ‘Are you sure you want this?’ you asked me.

  No, I wasn’t sure, but by then I did not know how to say no. I thrilled at the idea of George, of his wealth and his standing, but when he was standing right in front of me and took my hand with those cool fingers, I shrank a little from him. He bought me expensive gifts: exquisitely embroidered gloves, a girdle with gold thread, a book, and you sewed a pair of gloves for me to give him in return. But he did not try to kiss me. He just watched me.

  He made my skin prickle, and I had almost made up my mind to refuse him when Pappa died. My beloved Pappa, who went out riding one day and was brought home on a bier. You had to tell me. You came in to my chamber where I was playing the lute and your face was quite white.

  ‘I have terrible news,’ you said with difficulty. ‘I do not know how to tell you. Your pappa . . . Cat, he is dead.’