It is a strange time. Do you feel that too, Mary? As if part of you is waiting for something to happen, and the other part going about your daily business as if nothing has or ever will? Next door, the Bowmans are having a new staircase built. It seems that ever since Mistress Bowman saw the staircase here, she has been consumed with envy, and has not rested until Mr Bowman has agreed that they should have one too, although knowing Elizabeth Bowman, it will be even bigger and grander than yours. She is nearly as jealous of you as Isabella Parker. The carpenters are certainly making enough noise. Wisely, the Bowmans have gone to live with her sister for a few weeks, which is all very well for them, but we are left with the constant banging and hammering and sawing and shouting, and the smell of sawdust clogs the nostrils.
Truly, I sometimes hate the unceasing noise of the city. Even at night you can hear neighbours arguing, dogs barking and babes crying, and the dark is filled with the sound of snoring and sniffing and snorting, grunting and gasping that dances from house to house through the thin walls. And when all of that quietens down, the scavengers come to collect the night soil, waking me with the creaking of their carts, the jingle of harness. Cursing, I pull the sheet over my head and wish myself back at Steeple Tew, peaceful, comfortable Steeple Tew, the only place I have ever felt truly safe.
You go with Gabriel to a great feast at the Grocers’ Hall. I am not invited, of course. Gabriel buys you a new gown for the occasion, trimmed with sable. I gasp with pleasure when I see it and stroke the soft fur longingly. It is so unfair that you should have this gown and not me. Cecily sulks because she wants a new gown, too, and for once you have refused. You are still feeling guilty about the hundred sovereigns you stole from your husband to give Anthony, are you not? I have noticed how frugal you have become of late, as if to make amends, but it is too late for that now, Mary. By all means say no to Cecily, who is abominably spoilt as it is, but I do think you could have thought of me. It is getting colder, and I would be glad of some fur for warmth, too. But you have never cared for me, not really.
I could use some of the coin I found hidden in Anthony’s lodgings, but why should I buy my own gown when you have enough money to buy one for me? Besides, how would I explain my sudden wealth? It is frustrating to have the money but not be able to use it. I have had to hide it under my feather bed. I tried to even out the coins, but sometimes when I turn over in bed at night, I can feel the lumps of gold digging into my flesh. It is not a bad feeling, though, to know that it is there. I have enough to go and live by myself with a servant, but then I would never see Gabriel, and the thought is not to be borne.
I cannot bear it. I will not.
Outside, it is a bright, snappy day with a jagged light that makes me screw up my eyes. The wind is in an irritable mood, blustering between the jettied houses, leaping to grab at the shutters and shake them like a dog with a rat, only to drop eerily away without warning. The last few leaves clinging to the trees shudder under its onslaught, while the sign of the three swans above the front door creaks wildly. A draught sneaks in at every window, it seems. I really do need some fur to comfort the back of my neck.
You have taken Cecily to the market and Amy is busy in the brewhouse. Sarah is out somewhere, I care not where. Gabriel has been at his accounts in his closet all morning. I see Gabriel’s manservant, Roger, leave the house on some errand, the latch rattling as he pulls the door of the study to behind him and his boots clomping on the hall floor.
This is my chance. I scratch quietly at the door. ‘May I speak with you?’ I ask him when he bids me enter.
‘Of course.’ Is it my imagination or does he hesitate? ‘What concerns you, Cat?’
‘It is my mistress.’ I have to force the word out. You, my mistress? I am your mistress, though you seem to have forgotten that long ago! How I hate the fact that I have to so demean myself in order to speak to your husband at all.
Gabriel gets up and stands in front of the fire, warming himself. ‘What about her?’
‘There is something I think you should know.’ The carpenters are making such a racket next door that I have to raise my voice over the noise. ‘She is . . . not herself at the moment, as you may have noticed.’
He studies me with those cool eyes that seem to reach right inside me and squeeze my heart. ‘Why do you think that is, Cat?’
I have a pretty tale ready, hinting that you have not always been as calm as you normally appear. All I need to do is tell him my story and pretend that it is yours. Oh, I don’t tell him all of George’s charming perversions, but that he was cruel to his wife is no lie. If you really had been married to him, you would have been driven mad, of that I am sure, Mary. So I nudge the truth this way and that, always pretending to make excuses for you while at the same time trying to convince Gabriel that you cannot really be trusted.
Which is only the truth. He has no idea that you are capable of killing a man in cold blood.
But I know.
I think I do it quite cleverly. Gabriel is looking very grave, and I am on the point of confiding that you were suspected of helping George to die – while claiming not to believe a word of it myself, naturally – when you knock and walk in without even waiting for Gabriel to bid you enter. You can do that because you are his wife. I cannot do that.
You spoil everything.
You are supposed to be still at market, not here. I did not hear you come in over the sound of those carpenters, and I feel at a disadvantage. Humiliation scrapes at me and pinches my lips together.
You look at me sitting on the stool, at Gabriel standing by the fire. Your face is taut. He looks rueful, but not guilty. ‘Do I interrupt?’ you say coldly, and I get to my feet with an insulting lack of haste. I cannot help myself.
‘Not at all, my heart.’ Gabriel goes over and takes your hand, the way he never, ever takes mine. He barely looks at me as he says, ‘Cat, you may go. We will talk of this matter another time.’
And that is that. I am dismissed. Rage chokes me and I stalk up the stairs to the great chamber. I want to break something, but I vent my feelings instead on the virginals, crashing my fingers down on the keys in one jarring sound. The carpenters are busy next door, banging away, so no one will hear but it makes me feel a bit better. I strain to hear the sound of an argument from Gabriel’s closet but there is nothing. If you are fighting, you are doing it very quietly.
At length a blessed pause in the banging lets the sound of the front door drift up to the chamber. Has Gabriel left? Have you?
Restless, I pick up the lute that Cecily has left lying about, the way she does, but I cannot sit still. What if you have told Gabriel to send me away? I will tell him the truth if you do, Mary. Do you really want that? I tiptoe out and hang over the staircase, but there is only silence that throbs with a kind of defiance. Turning, I push open the door into your bedchamber, the one you share with Gabriel, where you brought me when I first came here. I am rarely invited in here and I wander around it, the lute dangling from one hand. I don’t care if you find me. We have come to the end of the pretence. It is time for me to reclaim my life once and for all.
All of this should be mine. These velvet bed hangings, these cushions, these tapestries . . . all of it. You may take away that horrible wooden baby on the chest with my pleasure. Has it always had that malevolent expression? Uneasily, I turn it to face the wall. Wooden or not, I do not care for the way it looks at me.
I sit in the window seat and imagine that the chamber is indeed mine. I will hang different bed curtains and change the tapestries. I do not want Gabriel reminded of you at all. The thought makes me smile, and I pluck at the lute strings. I find myself playing the song that always makes you flinch: Oh, John, come kiss me now, now, now, I sing. Oh, John, my love, come kiss me now. Oh, John, come kiss me by and by, for well ye ken the way to woo.
I wish Gabriel would kiss me now, now, now. He does not need to woo me. He just needs to stand there.
And you need to be gone.
&n
bsp; I start again. Oh, John, I begin, but the door bangs open and you are there, your eyes ablaze.
‘Stop it!’ you say furiously, slamming the door shut behind you. ‘Stop that singing!’
Deliberately I sing on to the end of the line, but before I have reached the third ‘now’, you have snatched the lute from me and thrown it – thrown it! – onto the settle.
‘I said, stop that,’ you say as the lute strings squawk in protest.
I have never seen you so angry. I stare up at you defiantly, not wanting to admit that I am afraid. I wonder if you are going to strike me, but you suddenly turn away.
‘What has happened to us, Cat?’ you say abruptly. ‘We loved each other once.’
‘Life has happened,’ I say. I am not one for sentimentality. ‘We are not little girls any longer.’
‘No, and I am not your maid any longer. I am your mistress. I am married.’
‘As if I could forget that,’ I say bitterly.
You let out a long sigh and turn back to me. ‘Gabriel is not for you, Cat. He is my husband. Leave him alone.’
‘I do not know what you mean.’
‘Come, Cat, I am not blind! Do you think I do not notice you making sheep’s eyes at him?’
Fury at the contempt in your voice sends a wave of colour sloshing into my cheeks. Sheep’s eyes! How dare you? But you do not even give me time to respond before you rail on.
‘You are wasting your time,’ you tell me. ‘Gabriel will never return your feelings, and even if he did, he would not act on them. He is an honourable man, a devout man. Do you really believe that he would sully himself with you?’
Where I was red, now I am sure that I must be white with rage. ‘You forget who you are talking to!’
‘Oh, I do not forget,’ you say coldly. ‘I remember exactly who you are, Cat. You are not Lady Catherine Delahay any longer. You threw away your name like a wilful child when you chose to play the whore with Anthony.’ I gasp as if you have slapped me. ‘You did not want your name or your child, so I picked them up,’ you say, oh so sanctimonious. ‘They are mine now. You cannot go back and play the lady after everything that has happened. You made your choice and I made mine.’
‘A choice? You saw an opportunity to better yourself and you seized it.’ My voice is shaking, my hands clenching and unclenching. ‘That was typical of you, Mary. You always have looked out for yourself first. Don’t think I don’t know that. You were the one who persuaded me to marry George in the first place, because it suited you. You didn’t want to stay with Avery and Jocosa, so you pushed me into marriage.’
‘Oho, so it is my fault!’ You give a short laugh. ‘How very like you to see it that way, Cat. It is always somebody else’s fault, never yours. When will you ever, ever take responsibility for yourself?’
‘When will you ever stop being holier-than-thou?’ I retort. ‘I am sick of you, Mary. Your whole life you have looked down on everyone. Nobody can match you for perfection, can they? And yet it is you who has spent your whole life living off other people! You give nothing of yourself. You care only for yourself and that dull merchant of yours. I, desire your husband?’ I spit at you. ‘You delude yourself. I have never wanted anything of yours, but you, you have everything of mine.’
All the petty frictions come roiling to the surface like a great pot of broth coming to the boil, releasing all the rage and resentment I have repressed over the past few months. The years are blown away and we are small girls again, shouting that we hate each other, slapping at each other with tears in our eyes, as sisters do. I push at you in frustration, and you push back, savagely, and I stumble, my arms flailing as I try to regain my balance.
Everything seems to stop, as if time itself has paused, and for a long moment I am poised, trapped on the cusp of falling or regaining my balance. I have time to stare at you and see your mouth open in shock, your eyes widen in horror. Your hands come up and you step towards me and I cannot tell if you are going to push me down or pull me up. Either way, you are too slow. I am falling backwards, backwards, after all, and my heart is lurching in fear as my head slams into something hard and blackness bursts through me.
The chamber is tilting and spinning. I blink dazedly, unable to make sense of it. Where are you? A face swims into view above me, and I stare, confused. How can there be someone on the ceiling? And then I realise. I am not standing up, I am on the floor. I have fallen down. At the same time, I become aware of a terrible pain in my head and I groan.
The face smiles and then is blocked out by a blur of green. How strange. I just have time to realise that it is a cushion before it is upon me, pressing down on my mouth and nose.
Horror and disbelief blank my mind. I am too weak and groggy to lift my arms and pull it away. Instead, I try desperately to gain purchase with my heels and buck off the weight, but the cushion is held firmly. I cannot breathe. This cannot really be happening. Is that what Anthony thought before you stabbed him in the heart? ‘No,’ I want to say. ‘No, no, no! Not yet, I am not ready.’
But I cannot speak. There is a screaming in my head, the scream I would make if I could draw in any air. It swells louder and louder until there is a great flash of bright light, a stare into the abyss, a collapse into the dark. And then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-five
Mary
When Cat’s head hits the edge of the fireplace, the sound is not loud, but it is unmistakable. The sound of having gone too far. The sound of losing control. It cuts through the wind outside and the carpenters knocking and banging next door.
The sound stops me dead. The world that has been spinning out of control for what seems like weeks, months, now jars to a sickening stop. What am I doing? This is Cat, my past, and I have hurt her. I pushed her, just as I pushed the vagrant child all those years ago, as I pushed Avery. When will I learn?
I drop to my knees beside her. Her face is a ghastly grey, her eyes rolled back in her head. ‘Dear God, dear God, I am sorry, so sorry,’ I mutter feverishly as I press my fingers beneath her ear. Her skin is warm and I can just feel the thread of a pulse. My own throat feels horribly constricted.
But this is no time to be thinking about myself. I must help Cat. I scramble to my feet and rush to the door. Outside I nearly collide with Cecily who is coming up the stairs with an armful of linen.
‘Leave that!’ I say, bundling her into the chamber and ignoring her astonished protests. ‘There has been an accident. Stay with Cat, keep her still. I must go and get bandages and a salve. Don’t let her move!’
Without waiting for an answer, I clatter down the stairs to my still room, but when I am there I have to hold my head to stop it spinning. I can’t remember what I am doing. I stare helplessly at the spice cabinet. What can I take to help Cat? I must pull myself together. I must think!
At last I grab some bandages and a cloth and some water from the pot. Where are Amy and Sarah? Too late, I remember that Amy is in the brewhouse and I sent Sarah to the butcher. Spilling the water from the bowl in my haste, I run back to the chamber and shoulder my way through the door.
Cecily is sitting calmly on the settle, holding a cushion. I know instantly that Cat is dead. There is an emptiness to the air, a clamouring absence. Swallowing, I set the bowl down with ridiculous care and bend down to Cat once more. There is no light in her eyes and her face is congested.
A thread of green silk trails from the corner of her mouth.
My head lifts in slow jerky stages to look at Cecily. She gazes limpidly back at me.
‘She spoilt everything,’ she says, as if that was explanation enough.
‘Cecily . . .’ I croak, the enormity of what she has done pounding in my mind. ‘Cecily, what have you done?’
‘When I saw her lying there, it seemed as if God had put her in my way,’ my daughter says seriously. ‘Cat has made you wretched, Mamma. Do not think that I have not noticed! She was trouble right from the start, always insisting on being the centre of attention. Singing an
d showing off, and she cared for nobody but herself! She hurt John, she flirted with Pappa, she was horrible to me. I hate her!’
‘But . . .’ It feels as if the world has cracked asunder, and there is a great chasm between now and a few minutes ago. When I killed Anthony it was not like this, not this great welling of horror. ‘That is not a reason to kill her, Cecily.’
‘I do not see why not. It is not as if anyone will miss her.’
I will, I think.
Is this all my fault? Have I not realised what effect Cat has had on the others in the household? I have been so preoccupied with my own problems that I have become as self-centred as Cat.
As Cecily.
It is only now that I realise how much she resembles her mother. I have been misled by her sweetness and lightheartedness, but she is only really charming as long as she gets her own way. Cecily is the centre of her own world and nobody else really matters. She did not like Cat coming in and drawing attention away from her. Would I ever have understood this about her if Amy had not had the toothache that day? If I had not met Cat and invited her into my home?
I close Cat’s eyes with a heart turned to stone. If there is a chasm between now and the past, there is another between now and the future, and I feel giddy when I think of how deep and dangerous that gap is. How can I get Cecily across it safely? Because it is clear to me that I must care for her now more than ever. She is not responsible. She does not know what is wrong, and that must be my fault, as I have been her mother for so long. I cannot tell anyone what she has done. I must protect her.
And Gabriel? What can I tell him?
‘We will say it was an accident,’ I say, but my voice comes out thready and weak as if I am an old woman. ‘It was an accident. I argued with Cat. I pushed her and she fell. You were not here,’ I tell Cecily. ‘You know nothing about it.’
The Cursed Wife Page 24