The Cursed Wife

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘Cat, do you keep Cecily company,’ I order her as I leave.

  I am not often out on my own at this time of night. It is alarming but exciting at the same time. The rain has stopped and the shapes of the houses are bulky against the dark sky, where a moon flitters fitfully between scudding clouds, giving me just enough light to see by. The trees and gutters rustle and dark shapes of creatures slink and scuttle. I think longingly of my quiet house, but I cannot turn back now. The night is blessedly cool after the rain, the air smells different, fresher and more pungent somehow, and the sounds are more intense: a dog barking, a babe’s thin wail, quickly shushed as it is put to a breast. It is as if all my senses are alert tonight. I cannot believe what I am about to do.

  A hand falls on my arm and I gasp and shrink back in fright.

  ‘It is I, Cat.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I whisper, still shaken from my fright. ‘I told you to stay behind!’

  ‘I do not think you should go alone,’ she says. ‘You do not know Anthony or what he is capable of. It is better if there are two of us.’

  Perhaps it would be better, I think. I know Jacopo will be there, but still, I am nervous, and Cat’s presence steadies me. I do not entirely trust her, but I have known her for so long, it is as if she is part of me, and it feels right for us to be walking together through the night. I am more glad of her company than I expected to be.

  The quays are furtive in the dark. I sense people standing in shadows, and I wonder how many of them think that Cat and I are trulls on the lookout for clients. My cheeks burn at the thought. The breeze is rattling the lines against the masts, and the water is slapping against the great hulls of the ships as they groan and tug at their ropes.

  In spite of the torrential rain earlier, the alehouses by the docks are busy and music spills out onto the slimy cobbles as we walk past. Somewhere, I can hear a drunken crowd singing: Oh, John, come kiss me now, now, now, and I am not surprised, not tonight. If they had not been singing it, the tune would have been playing in my head in any case.

  The singing grows louder and more raucous as we pick our way through the puddles to where a tattily painted sign creaks in the breeze, and I look up, knowing without being told what I will see. This is the Cock and Pie.

  Of course it is.

  A curse be on you.

  Cat pushes open the door and the tune shoves itself through the fug like a bully in the street, wrapping itself around my throat, strangling me as surely as a hangman’s noose, and I baulk in panic, my hands scrabbling at my throat.

  Cat holds the door, looks back impatiently. ‘Well? Do you come or not?’

  Inside waits Anthony. I think of John, red-eyed. I think of Cecily, my daughter, and the way Anthony bent over her, the tiny smile that curved her mouth as she peeped at him through her lashes.

  I swallow the painful clog in my throat. ‘I am coming,’ I say.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cat

  The Cock and Pie is a squalid place, even by Anthony’s standards. The stench of ale and piss and sweat stewed together in the heat of the past weeks wraps itself around our faces in a foetid embrace and I see you recoil and cover your nose and mouth with your hand. The tavern is crowded with leering, drunken sailors, singing and shouting. Between the noise and the smell, I feel battered. This was my life before I found you again, Mary. Can you blame me for not wanting to go back to it? For doing whatever it takes to stay where I am?

  Anthony is lounging in a corner, looking slovenly and unkempt. I can tell by the slackness of his mouth that he has been drinking, the fool. My lips tighten. If anything had been needed to persuade me to choose your husband over Anthony, this visit has done it. I could have stayed warm in bed and let you come here by yourself, but I could not trust what Anthony might say in his cups.

  And in spite of everything, I do not like to think of you out at night by yourself. This is not your world. You are rigid with shock and disgust. Oh, you think you have seen how hard life can be, Mary, but what do you know of it, cossetted in your fine house? I am torn between impatience and a strange desire to protect you as I take you by the arm and drag you through the press of bodies, your hand still pressed over your nose and mouth.

  Anthony does not even bother to get up when we approach. ‘Well, good ladies, here is a change of scene for you,’ he sneers. ‘Sit you down.’ He gestures mockingly to the stools across the table.

  You glance at me and I nod. We sit side by side facing him. It feels right like that.

  Anthony shouts for wine. A serving wench brings it over and slops the jug down in front of us, clattering the goblets onto the table beside it. Anthony pours unsteadily and we both shove our stools back as wine trickles over the edge of the table.

  ‘Anthony, have a care!’ I snap at him without thinking. ‘Why have you chosen this vile place to meet?’

  ‘Down by the docks, you said,’ he counters. ‘Is this not by the docks as my lady requested?’

  ‘It will do well enough,’ you say tersely.

  ‘There, she says it will do.’ Anthony picks up his goblet and tips it towards us and the spark of malice in his face is unmistakable. ‘Come, let us drink to friendships rediscovered. What, you don’t drink?’ he says to you, pretending offence. ‘There is nothing untoward in this wine, I assure you. I would not be so free to drink if you were pouring the wine. I know what a hand you have with poisons, mistress.’

  ‘I did not poison anyone,’ you say. ‘We all know what happened. It was an accident.’

  ‘Well now, Daniel says different.’

  ‘Daniel?’ You flinch as if remembering George’s servant with his goat-like eyes and his smirk. ‘What has he to do with us?’

  ‘He will say that he knows how his master died, and that you are both responsible.’

  ‘Daniel was not there,’ you say after the tiniest of hesitations. ‘He knows nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Anthony allows, ‘but he suspects much. About how you two put poison in his wine, how you pushed him down the stairs. He will say he saw it all.’

  I make a dismissive noise, determined not to seem daunted. ‘If Daniel exists at all now, he will say whatever you have told him to say.’

  ‘He will not be any less convincing,’ Anthony points out. ‘A devoted manservant and a devoted friend against a scheming wife and her maid. I would not care to take my chance at trial, would you?’

  I look at Anthony, my eyes narrowed, wondering. What game is he playing? I told him to treat me as his victim, just as you are, and so he is, but I do not trust him.

  ‘Why are you doing this, Anthony?’ you ask quite coolly after all. ‘What did we ever do to you?’

  He nods his head at me across the table. ‘Well, this one ran off without telling me. Does that seem very polite to you?’

  ‘She barely knew what she was doing.’ Mary, you are defending me. I had not expected that. ‘She was cold and hungry. You had not cared for her.’

  ‘Is that what she told you? I cared for her for all those years until her jewels ran out, and then the first chance she gets, she takes off. Next time I see her, she is a fat little pigeon, well fed and well gowned, while I, I am left in squalor. I think I deserve some compensation, don’t you?’

  ‘Compensation? Is that what you call it? I name it blackmail!’

  He shrugs. ‘Call it what you will. The fact remains that I know the truth of what happened to George, and neither of you want anyone else to know. But I am very willing to share my knowledge, if you wish. It would be a relief to unburden myself and ease my conscience after all these years.’

  ‘No one would believe you,’ I say, and he smiles unpleasantly at me.

  ‘Would they not? Do you wish to put that to the test?

  ‘Enough,’ you interrupt with an impatient gesture. ‘Lord Delahay’s death is old news. I am not here for that.’

  Anthony’s brows rise. ‘Indeed? You are very brave.’

  ‘Let us not pretend, S
ir Anthony,’ you say briskly. ‘You have taken a hundred sovereigns from me, but you are greedy. You want more. Well, you can have more,’ you say. ‘One more payment, that is all I can do. My husband will be home soon, and I will not be able to find such a great sum again. After that, you will have to do your worst. Go to the coroner, produce Daniel if you can. Cat and I will take our chance at a trial.’

  That is all very well for you to say, Mary, I think. I try to look as if I know what you are about.

  Anthony looks taken aback. ‘If you are so ready for a trial, why ask to see me at all?’

  ‘Because I care about the present, not the past. And because you mean mischief,’ you say. ‘You have found a way to hurt me through my family. Oh, do not try to deny it. I know quite well what you are doing with John. He was a good and worthy man until you weakened him with gambling.’

  ‘The poor boy was so unhappy,’ says Anthony with a glance at me, inviting you to blame me for putting an end to John’s infatuation. ‘We all know why. I offered him friendship when he found none at home.’

  ‘Friendship?’ You spit out the word. ‘No friend would lure another to the tavern and teach him to squander his money on dice.’

  Anthony is unmoved. ‘I fear you do not understand the fever that grips you when you know how much depends on the fall of the dice, the turn of a card.’

  ‘Do I not?’ you say grim-faced.

  ‘You cannot teach someone to feel that,’ Anthony says. ‘The fever was always in him. If it has taken hold while I bore him company, am I to blame?’

  ‘You are the carrier of that particular sickness,’ you say. ‘If you leave him alone, I believe he may recover.’

  ‘So you care more for John than for the threat of the gallows?’ Anthony turns a mocking face to me, widening his eyes. ‘What say you, Cat? You, I am sure, care more for your pretty neck than an idle gambler.’

  ‘It is not up to Cat,’ you snap before I have a chance to reply. ‘She has nothing to give you in any case. You have already gambled away her jewels. Everything she has now she owes to me.’

  For now, perhaps, I think, glancing down at the gown that, yes, you gave me. But there is no need for you to speak so contemptuously of me, Mary, none at all. Especially when the truth is that everything you have, you owe to me, or have you forgotten that? You came to Steeple Tew with nothing but a grubby apron and tattered wooden baby. If it were not for me, you would have no name, no husband, no family.

  ‘I will give you three hundred sovereigns,’ you say, your voice cool, and you do not even look at me when I gasp.

  Three hundred sovereigns! Where have you got such a sum, Mary?

  Anthony stills. ‘Three hundred?’ he repeats cautiously, as if he cannot believe his ears.

  ‘They are yours if you will take them tonight and go,’ you say. ‘I care not where, but somewhere far from John, far from me. From my house and my daughter.’

  ‘Your daughter?’

  You lean forward. ‘Come, there is no need for playacting. We know the truth, we three. Cat gave birth to Cecily, but I am her mother. You have neither of you given her a moment’s thought, and now I will protect her the way you should have done. If that means paying you to go away, then that is what I will do.’

  ‘But she is so very charming,’ Anthony says provocatively. ‘I would wish to know my daughter better. For she is mine, is she not? And if she is mine, she is not entitled to the dowry she has as Lord Delahay’s daughter. That would be a sad blow for her marriage prospects, would it not?’

  But you are not impressed. ‘Do not waste my time, Sir Anthony. The choice is yours. Three hundred sovereigns in your hand, or nothing at all.’ You smile, but not nicely. ‘I understand you are a gambler, sir. Here, I offer you a wager, all or nothing. Which will you take?’

  I stare at you. What are you thinking, Mary? Surely, surely, you do not believe that Anthony will keep his word, whichever he chooses. He will always come back for more. You will never satisfy him.

  I have almost forgot that the idea was mine. It was a small thing, tossed into a broth, but it has boiled and bubbled up and now I can see no end to it, save tipping up the pot and pouring it all away.

  Anthony glances at me over the rim of his cup. I can see him thinking as he drinks: three hundred sovereigns. He is not thinking of me, I can tell. He is thinking of keeping all three hundred for himself. He is thinking of spending them on cards, on dice, on wine and women. He is thinking that he does not need me now.

  We will see about that, my heart.

  He puts down his cup abruptly. ‘You have the money with you?’

  ‘In a warehouse, hard by.’

  ‘Very well. I will take your three hundred sovereigns.’

  ‘And in return, you will go away? You will make no attempt to contact John or Cecily or any of us again?’

  ‘It is a fair deal,’ he says, and he spits on his palm and offers it to you. ‘We are agreed.’

  You do not take your eyes from his as you spit on your own palm and shake his hand. Look at you, Mary, cool as a winter sky, sealing your bargain with a blackmailer! If Gabriel could see you now, he would not recognise his drab and dutiful wife. I scarce recognise you myself.

  I fear you are making a terrible mistake, though. Three hundred sovereigns! Where will you find any more when Anthony comes back? As come back he will. I will have to throw in my lot with Anthony after all, but then, what about Gabriel? Oh, I am out of patience with you!

  But it is too late to persuade you to another course. Anthony drops some coin on the table and pushes back his stool. ‘Let us go now.’

  It is a relief to leave the tavern to the darkness and relative quiet of the quay. My head is aching from the racket and the piss-poor wine. I do not like not knowing what is happening, or why you are behaving so foolishly. You seem so sure of yourself, Mary. You know something I do not and it makes me uneasy.

  You and Anthony walk together, both apparently content with the bargain that has been driven. I am left to follow behind, picking my way over the cobbles that are still slippery from the rain, my shoes skidding on who knows what filth that has been discarded underfoot.

  I do not like following behind.

  The warehouse door opens with a creak when you unlock it, releasing a reek of stuffiness and spices. You gesture Anthony inside.

  ‘If it is all the same to you, I will let you go first into the dark,’ he says. ‘We may have agreed, but that does not mean I trust you, mistress.’

  You shrug. ‘Wait then while I make some light. There is a tinderbox here . . .’

  A spark jumps in the darkness and you light a candle set in a lantern. ‘There,’ you say, holding it aloft so that the shadows leap and swirl on the walls. ‘You can see that there is no one here.’

  Satisfied, Anthony steps inside. The candlelight judders over us as we walk through the warehouse. The barrels lined against the wall are bulky in the darkness, and my shoulder blades twitch as if they are soldiers, gathering themselves for a leap.

  You open the door to a counting house at the back of the warehouse. ‘Cat, do you hold the lamp while I find the key,’ you say, beckoning to me, and like an obedient servant I step forward and do as you say, burningly aware of Anthony’s amused eyes on me.

  You rummage around in a jug and draw out a key. For all your briskness, I notice that when you draw it out, your hand is not quite steady and that makes me feel better. You step over to a long chest and bend down to unlock it, lifting the lid up and pulling out an account book, or so I assume.

  ‘Come,’ you say to Anthony. ‘I have the money here. Cat, bring the light so that he may see.’

  You are grown far too firm in your orders, Mary. I do not like it, but I step reluctantly closer as you step back from the chest to let Anthony bend down and dig his hands into a bag of coins with a chuckle. Thinking that you cannot see his expression, he looks up at me with a grin and puckers his lips in a secret kiss.

  So, perhaps he has b
een thinking of me after all. Well, that is something. I am careful not to smile back, but a warmth spreads from my belly.

  ‘It is a pleasure doing business with you, mistress,’ Anthony says, letting the coins run through his fingers. They glint in the light as they fall, chink, chink, chink, back into the bag. Anthony and I watch them, mesmerised. Images jostle in my mind: costly gowns, furs, jewels, a carriage of my own. Feather beds piled high, the bedstead hung with silk, sheets made of the finest linen.

  But who will lie with me there, Anthony, or Gabriel?

  I cannot decide, I really cannot. Is it wrong to want both?

  You give me no warning.

  I am looking at the coins, dreaming of what they will buy, and Anthony is stooped, chuckling, over the chest, when you step closer. Out of the corner of my eye, I see your arm lift, the flash of metal in the candlelight. I turn, my mouth opening in surprise, or perhaps it is to warn Anthony, I am not sure, but anyway it is too late for that, and I can only watch as you coolly drive a knife deep into his back.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Mary

  It is not as easy as it looks to stab a man. I aim just above his kidneys. If I hesitate, he will knock me aside before I can kill him, but I think of how he smirked across the table at me, of how he toyed with John and threatened Cecily’s security, and when I remember that, it is not so hard to kill him after all.

  It is fortunate that it has been so hot. Anthony is wearing only a fine linen shirt open at the neck and a thin jerkin made of damask, which offers little resistance to the point of the knife. It might have been harder had he been wearing a padded doublet, I find myself thinking inconsequentially.

  In any case, I have sharpened the knife well and Anthony has no time to react before I shove it into him and it slides easily, soundlessly, into his skin. I do not let myself think any more. I close my eyes and imagine that I am in my kitchen, dealing with a chunk of meat. This is not human flesh swallowing up my knife. These are not a man’s veins, a man’s sinews. I am not glancing off his bones or ripping through his membranes. He is just a carcass to be butchered.