The Cursed Wife

by Pamela Hartshorne

  Downstairs I hear the sound of the door opening and male voices. John and Gabriel are back.

  My husband meant to be reassuring about what Cat had said to him earlier. ‘She cares for you more than she knows, I think,’ he said before he went out to meet his son. But I was not reassured. I was jealous, and see where that has brought me.

  ‘Do you go down and see to their wants,’ I say to Cecily. ‘Pretend you have not seen me if your father asks. I will try to think of some way to make this right.’

  She goes off without even a backward glance. That is what really frightens me. I pick up the cushion. When I turn it over, I can see the marks of Cat’s teeth and I shudder. How can I deal with this? I stand, turning the cushion over and over in my hands, and then I hear the footsteps on the stairs. Gabriel is coming to find me, and I still do not know what to tell him.

  The door opens, and Gabriel is there. As if at a signal, I drop the cushion, abruptly repelled by it. ‘There you are, my heart,’ he says, only to stop when he sees my face. My expression must be ghastly because he takes a quick step forward. ‘What is it? Are you ill?’ But then he breaks off as he catches sight of Cat sprawled on the floor.

  ‘I pushed her.’ My voice quavers, wobbling up and down so erratically that I must be hard to understand.

  Gabriel stoops swiftly to feel for Cat’s pulse, just as I did. He looks up at me.

  ‘She is dead,’ he says, expressionless.

  ‘It was over in an instant. She pushed me and I pushed her back. We were squabbling like little girls.’ My chest hurts so badly I can scarcely breathe. ‘I don’t know what happened. She tripped, I think, and then she fell and then there was this sound, her head hitting the hearth.’ My hands are at my throat, massaging it desperately. Now that I have started talking, it is as if I cannot stop. I keep telling Gabriel that I didn’t mean it, until he comes over and clasps my arms firmly.

  ‘Hush now,’ he says. ‘Just tell me what happened.’

  So I start again, rambling on. ‘We were arguing.’

  ‘What about?’

  About you, I want to say, but I cannot. Even in death I will not let Cat share in him. He will never know how she felt for him. I do not want him wondering what would have happened if I had been the one to trip and fall.

  ‘I wanted to know what she had been saying to you. You said it was nothing, but I was afraid she had been lying.’ My eyes are jittery, darting around the room, unable to fix on any one thing. ‘I was angry with her, but I didn’t mean her to die, you must believe that, Gabriel.’

  ‘Of course I believe you,’ he says soothingly. ‘It was an accident.’ But something in the way he says it makes it sound like a question.

  ‘It was an accident,’ I insist.

  ‘How long has she been dead?’

  ‘I hardly know . . . some minutes, maybe more. I couldn’t move. I knew that if I moved, that would make it real, and I do not want it to be real.’ My eyes fill with tears. ‘She was my friend once.’

  ‘Come, my heart, sit down.’ Gabriel leads me over to the settle and pushes me gently down onto it. My hands are still scrabbling at my throat, and I am convinced that I cannot breathe properly.

  ‘We must send for Edward Parker,’ he says.

  I can only stare at him.

  ‘He is the coroner,’ Gabriel reminds me gently. ‘In a case of sudden death, he must be called. He will find it an accident of course. No one who knows you could suppose otherwise.’

  ‘Keep Cecily away,’ I manage. ‘I do not want her to see this.’

  ‘I will send John for the coroner and ask Amy to sit with you. Why do you not lie down for a while? You are shocked.’

  ‘No, I will stay with Cat.’ This last thing I can do for her, to sit vigil over her body.

  It seems ages before Gabriel comes back into the room with Edward Parker. I spend the time praying, or trying to pray. I press my palms to my forehead and beg God to forgive me for all the wrongs I have done. And I remember Cat as she was, so bright and warm, the laughter and lift of spirits when she was near. Is it her fault she was caught up in my curse?

  But what makes me feel worse is that there is a bit of me that is relieved too. We had come to such a pass that we could not continue living together and Cat had no intention of going. One or other of us would have had to die.

  I am worried about Cecily. She seems so unaffected by what she has done. Does she even realise that Cat is dead by her hands? I cannot bear to look at the cushion. I have picked away the green thread from her mouth.

  Edward Parker. A man who has ever been jealous of Gabriel’s success. Whose wife I brawled with openly in the great chamber and who will not have forgiven me. Between them, they are a resentful couple. I had forgotten that he was coroner.

  When he and his assistant arrive at last, he bustles in, very conscious of his responsibilities and of his importance. ‘A bad business,’ he says at first. ‘A very bad business. But I must inspect the body and make my inquiries, and then you will be able to bury her.’

  ‘Inquiries?’ Gabriel asks.

  ‘It is my duty to investigate any sudden death,’ he says officiously. ‘You would not want me to be derelict in my duty, would you?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Gabriel murmurs, but the glance he shoots at me is worried.

  Mr Parker sends us out of the room. The household gathers in the hall but the silence is leaden with anxiety. It is a lifetime since I looked around and thanked God for my healthy, happy family. A lifetime receding into the distance beyond that aching chasm. I want to comfort Cecily, but I cannot. I keep thinking of Cat, hoping that she was not conscious when my daughter pressed that cushion over her face.

  If only I could unspin time: but where would I go back to? To the moment I told Cecily to sit with Cat? To when I set out to buy poppy seed for Amy? When I lied to Gabriel about who I really was? Or when I encouraged Cat to marry George? Or perhaps I should go all the way back to the cart? If I had just handed Peg to the child, how different would this moment be?

  It is past time to eat, but none of us are hungry. We can hear Mr Parker and his assistant clomping around in my bedchamber. I should be thinking about calling the minister. We should lay Cat out.

  But it seems that I need no longer concern myself with domestic details. Mr Parker comes importantly into the hall and calls Gabriel out for a discussion. When Gabriel comes back, he is looking grey, and I know that this is the end. He will not look at me.

  ‘This was not an accident,’ Mr Parker says, looking hard around the room. ‘The woman died of suffocation. We found some threads in her mouth and there is no doubt in my mind that this was murder.’

  I look at Cecily, and see her flinch. Perhaps only now does she realise what she has done. Is she opening her mouth? I cannot let that happen.

  I stand up. ‘I did it,’ I say, keeping my eyes on Mr Parker. ‘I killed her.’

  Mr Parker looks disgruntled as if he had hoped to have the chance to unmask Cat’s killer. ‘Then I must take you to prison, Mistress Thorne. You will be tried in the courts of assize, and sentenced there. If you did indeed do this terrible thing, I have no doubt you will hang.’

  You will die kicking and choking on the gibbet.

  Mr Parker lets me go up to my chamber and find a warm cloak to wear over my gown. He will have to go with me, he says sternly.

  Cat still lies on the floor where she fell. I avert my eyes from her and walk stiffly over to the chest. Kneeling, I open the lid to my linen press to find a cloak and the sweet smell of summer herbs rises to meet me. A drumming sense of desperation swells in me as I realise that I will never gather herbs again. Never stand in my garden and feel the sunshine warm on my shoulders. Never open the door to the house and feel myself at home.

  ‘Mistress Thorne.’ Impatience feathers Edward Parker’s voice and I straighten, but as I turn to go, my eyes meet Peg’s where she sits atop the chest and my heart stutters to see that she is crying painted tears for me. I
lift a hand to touch her gently, but Mr Parker snaps at me from the doorway.

  ‘Leave that. You may take the cloak but nothing else.’

  Next door the carpenters are still banging and hammering, oblivious.

  Carrying the cloak over one arm, I follow him down my fine staircase. For the last time I run my hand over the wood to impress the feel of it on my mind. I cannot look at Sarah or Amy, at John who watched aghast as I stood up and confessed, or at my daughter, who said nothing.

  I cannot look at Gabriel, my husband, heart of my heart.

  I do not say goodbye. There is a muffled sob from behind me as I walk to the door. I hope that it is Cecily, but I think it might be Sarah. Numb, I step out under the sign of the three swans for the last time. I do not look back.

  Push, push. Push, push. It is so easy to do. Such a small action. So deadly. My head was boiling with rage when Cat pushed me, and I did not think. My hands came up and I pushed her. She staggered back and even as she was falling, I came to my senses. I meant to catch her, but I was too late. I meant to save her, I did.

  I am in prison. It is not too uncomfortable because Gabriel has paid my gaolers well, and Sarah has brought me food. But I am still in prison. I cannot open the door and leave, and the thought wraps itself around my face and makes it hard to breathe. I have not slept. I lie on the rough bed and I stare at the wall. I do not cry. In a strange way it is almost a relief. I have spent my whole life fighting the curse, and now it has come to pass. I have been betrayed. I will hang. I will die.

  I have tried to be a good woman, a good wife, but I have not been. I stood in the court of assize, and I listened to my neighbours tell of my misdeeds. The rumours that have been whispered around the streets have congealed into something heavier and more certain. I had killed Peter Blake with a poisoned potion, they said, aye, and Agnes too if the truth be told, and who knew how many more? Was it not known that I had murdered my first husband? He was said to have fallen down the stairs and broken his neck, but someone had heard someone else say that they had heard he died of poison too, and all too conveniently for me. As for Gabriel, he was an upstanding citizen, and I bound him to me with a spell.

  So much that is untrue, but there is truth there, too. I have killed a man, and caused the death of others. It is right that I should hang.

  I told Sarah not to come again. I am too ashamed to look her in the face. The street must be afire with news of my fall from grace. Will any of my friends stay loyal to my memory, I wonder? Does Anne Hawkins deny the rumours, or does she weep for Cat instead?

  Most of the time, though, I think only of the house at the sign of the three swans, of Gabriel and Cecily and John. What they must be thinking and feeling. How will they tell Tom? It is worse for them than it is for me. I just have to die. They have to live with the bitterness of knowing that I have lied.

  I worry most about Cecily. She killed so calmly, so certainly. But I cannot tell the truth. It will be the last thing I do for her, to keep her safe.

  Gabriel comes to see me. I have longed to see him and dreaded it at the same time, so when he appears, I do not know whether I am grateful or desperate. He has to duck his head to enter my cell. His face is drawn with grief and something in me crumples. My heart is caving in with guilt and sadness and shame.

  I hang my head and wait for him to berate me, but instead he comes over and takes my hands. ‘How are you, dear heart?’ he asks, and his gentleness oversets me. Tears spill down my cheeks.

  ‘I am sorry, I am so sorry,’ I weep, clinging to his hands. ‘Please forgive me. I have brought disgrace to your name. I have been such a bad wife to you.’

  ‘No.’ Gabriel draws me down to sit next to him on the bed. ‘I do not know what has happened, but you have been a good wife. You have brought up my sons, and kept my house and loved me well. I cannot forget those things. Whatever happened, it does not change the past. It does not change the fact that I love you.’

  ‘Oh, Gabriel . . .’ I draw a shuddering breath. ‘You would not say that if you knew the truth about what I have done.’

  ‘Tell me the truth, then,’ he says.

  So I tell him. I tell him everything, from my journey to Steeple Tew and the child that I pushed and the curse that has blighted my life. I tell him about Cat and how we loved each other. About Avery and how he forced me again and again. About the babe that I voided into the privy. I tell him how Avery’s marriage changed everything, especially when Sir Hugh died. All I wanted was a home and to feel safe, I tell him, and Jocosa would never have rested until she was rid of me. I tell him how I encouraged Cat to marry Lord Delahay.

  ‘But I did not know what he was,’ I try to excuse myself. ‘How could I have known that he would twist Cat’s sweetness and debauch her?’

  I falter only when I come to talk about how Cat gave birth to a daughter and turned away from her. About Cat’s passion for Anthony. I am coming to the part where my lies grow great. In spite of myself, my voice softens as I remember Cecily as a baby, how small she was, how perfect.

  Gabriel listens, interrupting rarely. He nods occasionally or makes a sound to encourage me to go on, but he does not exclaim in disgust as I half expect. I flick glances at him from under my lashes every now and then, but it is easier to tell him sitting side by side instead of facing him.

  And now I have reached the point where I must tell him about George. The decoction I gave to Cat to mute his temper and give her some respite from his cruelty. How she had feared for her life when he woke unexpectedly one night and attacked her in a rage. ‘I made it look like an accident,’ I confess. ‘I concealed the truth, but what could I do but help her?’

  But I sound as if I am excusing myself, and it is too late for that now. I tell him about how Cat reacted when Avery suggested his courtship, and my cheeks burn at confessing the deception.

  ‘And then, when you visited Steeple Tew, I didn’t know what to do. I thought Cat was mad to reject you, when you were everything I had always wanted. So . . .’ I swallow. ‘I did not correct you. I married you knowing that you thought I was someone else. I lied about my name. I am not Lady Catherine.’

  ‘I know,’ he says, and I stare at him.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Avery went to great lengths to tell me how beautiful his sister was, with her golden hair and blue eyes. I knew as soon as I saw your eyes. The cap could cover your hair, but never your clear eyes. I wondered that she would not want to talk to me, but I saw you and I was captivated. I let you believe that you had fooled me because it seemed important to you, and I wanted you. You are all I have ever wanted.’

  ‘You knew,’ I say wonderingly.

  ‘And some of the story Cat told me. Oh, not deliberately, but now I understand. She wanted me to think that her story was yours, but that it can never be, because you are not her. There is only one thing I want to know.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘What is your name, wife?’

  I look at him then. ‘My name is Mary.’

  Tomorrow I will die. I have stopped regretting now, but it is strange. I keep saying it to myself but I don’t believe it, not really. I will die. Will God have mercy on me? Or will I be consigned to hell, to burn for all eternity, never to see God or Gabriel or my child again. For Cecily is still my daughter. I have told Gabriel not to bring her to see me. I do not want her to be distressed or to blurt out the truth. But I have tried to warn him, too, to be careful of her. I have asked him to watch her, to recognise that when she is crossed she is capable of acting thoughtlessly. He looked at me hard when I said that. Is it my fault that Cecily is that way? Have I spoilt her by loving her too much? I think I was firm with her as a child, as all children need firmness. I treated her and Tom the same. But I could not help loving her more. She grew up knowing that she could do whatever she wanted and I would still love her: perhaps that was my mistake, but should not a child like that be considered fortunate, to take so much for granted?

  So, yes, perha
ps it is my fault. Unless she was born that way, just as Cat was. I have been thinking about Cat so much, replaying that moment when my hands shot out and pushed (pushed) her. And if Cecily was born like that, is there anything I could have done? She might have killed Cat anyway. That was the worst moment, when I understood that I would never be rid of the personality they shared, a ruthless focus on themselves. Now I think that that is the other half of me, a necessary balance. When I did not have Cat, I had Cecily. The problem was when they were both there, tipping me off balance, so that I lost control.

  I hope Cecily’s husband will be doting and not cross her. But she may not have a husband now. Who would want to marry the daughter of a murderess? What will happen to my household? Gabriel tells me that Sarah and Amy wish to stay, and that while some acquaintances have turned their back on the family, some friends have stayed true. ‘My wealth will always buy me some friends,’ he says ruefully.

  So it may be that Cecily can stay with Gabriel, and not marry at all – but what if she does not care for that? Is it possible she would take her frustrations out on Gabriel? Have I created a monster? And what of John? I hope that Cat was not right when she hinted that Cecily’s feelings for him went beyond that of a sister. I cannot believe that is true, but then I did not believe Cecily was capable of murder either.

  I did not think I was.

  The best thing for John would be to marry Meg, but will the Sims agree to the marriage now? I hope so, but I will never know.

  I will never know about dear Tom, either. I hope he will not think too badly of me. He is young still and adventurous. He will be happy as long as he has a ship and a horizon to sail towards, I think. I hope he will remember me fondly, that is all, but why should he, when I have ruined his father? But he might remember instead the times I picked him up when he fell and brushed him down. When I sat up with him all night and spooned an infusion into him, little by little. The times when I cooked his favourite apple pie, or mended his torn hose, or did not tell Gabriel that he had lost his hornbook but quietly bought him a new one.