For that would be my lot, I knew. Marriage was for the procreation of children. What use was a barren wife? And whenever I thought of childbirth, I couldn’t help but think of my mother, delivered of a dead babe, bound to the bed, her eyes bulging and rolling like a terrified horse, the whites glistening with madness in the stifling darkness.
Judith’s news sent my thoughts scattering in alarm. I hugged my knees to my chest and watched the moonlight fall in a lovely silver strip across the bed we shared.
‘I do not want to be wed,’ I said again.
Judith clicked her tongue. ‘Of course you must marry, Isabel. What else is there for you?’
Outside, I heard the throaty hoot of an owl. I imagined it taking flight in the darkness, its wings rustling in the air as it soared and swooped in search of its prey.
‘I wish I didn’t have a fortune!’ I said childishly. ‘I wish I could live in the woods and forage for my food. I wish I could fly and be bound to no man.’
‘Isabel!’ Judith pulled herself up against the bolster and shook her head at me. ‘You should not say such things.’
‘Why not? They are true!’
Judith sighed. ‘You must take care, you especially.’ She lowered her voice. ‘If they heard you, people who do not know you, they would say that you are mad.’
Mad like my mother.
‘Your aunt worries enough about you as it is,’ Judith said.
I did not want to talk about madness. I tried to make light of it. ‘She worries that I cannot sing or cast accounts!’
‘It is more than that.’ The moonlight caught Judith’s eyes, and I had the disconcerting impression that they were blank and silver as pennies. ‘We know what you are like,’ she said in her soft voice, ‘and we love you for it, but others do not understand. They think it strange that you are not content to ride in a coach but must be out in all weathers and wear breeches underneath your skirts to ride astride.’
‘I am learning husbandry, as my aunt wishes.’ I hated the defensive note that crept into my voice. ‘I cannot inspect cattle or crops well from a coach.’
‘Oh, Isabel, you know what I mean,’ sighed Judith. ‘You do not like the things a lady should. You do not do or say the things a lady should.’ She hesitated. ‘Your aunt fears that you are too like your mother. She told her chaplain that her passions ran strong, just as yours do. And I fear for you too,’ Judith said. ‘You must not say that you want to live in a wood, or fly, even in jest. You do not want to give people the excuse to remember how your mother died. You know what folk are like. “Like mother, like daughter”, they will say.’
I knew she was only trying to help me, but I didn’t want to hear it. I fixed my eyes on the moonlight pouring through the window. My mouth was set in a stubborn line, I am sure, and I was determined to keep silent, but I had never been able to stay sullen for long and besides, the idea of an imminent marriage was barrelling through my defences, and as I sat there, something inside me began to crumble.
‘Judith.’ I broke the silence in a whisper. ‘I am afraid.’
‘Come, can this really be you?’ Judith sounded shocked. ‘Isabel, who fears nothing, who jumps every beck and out-stares every snorting stallion? Isabel the boldest and bravest of wenches?’
I swallowed. I knew that she was trying to tease me into a smile, but I couldn’t. ‘I fear this,’ I said, low. I rested my forehead on my knees and told her the truth that I had hidden for so long. ‘I fear that I will indeed go mad like my mother. I fear they will shut me in a room if I have to give birth and I will not be able to breathe. I fear they will tie me to the bed as they did her, and that I will lose my reason as she did.’
I am afraid.
The words shiver in the darkness as I lie in the hospital bed, a faint but vibrating echo from the past, and I am afraid again, afraid of what remembering them means. For this is not a film I have seen, it is not a book I have read. That fear was real. It was inside me, a fist clenched tight, just as it is now. The pulse beats rapidly in my throat, as it did then. I can still feel the fineness of the linen smock pressed into my face where I leant my head on my knees. The chamber smelt musty, faintly smoky, and a quill from one of the feathers in the mattress was poking through the sheet and digging into my bottom. I did not invent that. I remember it. I remember.
On the television, the drama is still playing out. There is running, a chase through a warehouse. Someone has a gun. I blink at the scene without understanding what I’m seeing. My mind is far away.
It doesn’t make sense. It is impossible for me to be remembering an evening that belongs centuries ago, I understand this, but at the same time I know that the memory is real. I don’t want to remember any more now, but it is as if a door has been unlocked in my mind, and now that it has swung open I cannot close it again.
Judith stroked my hair very gently. ‘I know,’ she crooned. ‘I know you are fearful.’
‘It isn’t fair,’ I said. I lifted my head and blinked back the tears burning behind my eyes. I preferred to be angry and resentful than afraid. ‘When I marry, I will have to leave everything that is dear to me. I will be wed to a man who can take my fortune as his own and do what he likes with me. I will have a child and they will shut me up in a room and bank up the fires, and then they will be surprised that I run mad!’
My voice rose until Judith shushed me. ‘Hush now,’ she said, her hand still stroking my hair comfortingly. ‘It is our lot to marry if we are fortunate. What else is there for us, after all?’
‘How will I bear it without you?’ I said miserably.
‘You will have to charm your husband so that he will do whatever you ask, and then you may send for me as your companion,’ she suggested, and I brightened. I had not thought of that.
‘Do you think I may?’
‘You will need to be kind to your husband,’ said Judith, ‘and then you may do whatever you will.’
Chapter Seven
Judith had given me some hope, but when I looked through the squint that day, I was far from reconciled to the idea of marriage. I remember peering down into the hall, where I could see my uncle, bowing deeply to a florid man in a sumptuous fur-trimmed gown and a splendid velvet hat. Beside him, my aunt curtseyed a little awkwardly; I could tell that her knees were paining her.
‘Anyone would think the Queen’s majesty herself had come to call,’ I whispered, determined not to be impressed.
Who were these Vavasours after all? Judith knew, of course. They had been merchants in York once, but thanks to their fortune and some shrewd marriages were now connected to the greatest families in Yorkshire and could count some of the courtiers close to the Queen as their allies. According to Judith, they owned land throughout the county, but their family estate was at Askerby, past Helmsley, where Lord Vavasour had knocked down the old manor and built himself a fine new hall in the latest fashion. ‘They say it has glass in every window,’ Judith had said.
I could scarce believe that such a family would be interested in me, but Judith insisted that it was so. ‘Your uncle hopes to make an alliance with Lord Vavasour,’ she said. ‘And you are part of it. Why else did your aunt tell you to wear your best gown?’
I tugged irritably at the constriction of the stomacher, which was so tightly laced I could hardly breathe. Between that and the stiff hoops of the farthingale, it was awkward to bend. I had already endured a painful half-hour while Judith combed out the tangles in my unruly hair, which never would lie straight, no matter how tightly she tried to bind my curls.
Under my aunt’s direction, I had been carefully dressed. ‘Like a joint of meat to tempt a buyer,’ I had muttered to Judith. My skirts were a vivid green, embroidered in gold, and my sleeves were outrageously puffed. The starched ruff kept my chin tilted high and a gold chain hung at my waist. Oh, I was very fine, and I hated it. I could not wait to get back into my old skirts and escape outside.
Two young men stood behind Lord Vavasour. One of them was my cousin Law
rence, who I scarce recognized. He had grown into a man since I last saw him. Beside him stood another youth, swaggering in his patterned Venetians and pinked doublet. His collar was crisp and white, and a short cloak was swung dashingly over his shoulder.
‘That must be Edmund, Lord Vavasour’s heir,’ said Judith, who had crept forward in spite of her fear and was craning her head to look. I made room beside me so that she could see. ‘He is comely,’ she whispered as Edmund bowed and flashed a smile that had my aunt bridling with pleasure, and there was an odd note in her voice that I did not recognize.
They think to make a match for you with Edmund Vavasour.
My stomach felt hollow. It could not be true. They could not really be going to marry me to this posturing fool who looked as if he feared to splash his stockings with mud.
‘What a popinjay!’ I curled my lip at him.
‘Oh, Isabel!’ Judith chided. ‘He could be old and gouty and fat, but instead he is young and fair and wealthy. He has kin with influence, and look, good teeth too. What more do you want?’
‘I want him to smile less,’ I said sourly.
I did not want to impress Edmund Vavasour with his arrogant swagger. I was not interested in his teeth or his fine house. But I knew that I would have little choice in the matter. My fortune could not sit idly when it could be traded for men’s profit, and me with it.
I started to complain about it, but Judith put a finger to her lips. ‘Shh!’ she hushed me. ‘They are talking about you.’
‘What? What are they saying?’
‘Your aunt is saying that she will send for you to join them. Quick, we mustn’t be found in here,’ said Judith, in a flurry to be gone. ‘You know we are forbidden. You will be beaten if your uncle hears that you were here.’
She didn’t fear beating herself – my aunt knew well that she was never responsible for any of the trouble I led her into – but she was always trying to save me from the rod.
‘He won’t beat me today if he wants to show me off to the Vavasours,’ I said, but I followed Judith as she scurried back to the parlour, where we were supposed to be quietly embroidering a coverlet.
Scarcely had we picked up our needles than Agnes, one of the maidservants, appeared and said that my aunt had sent for me to attend her in the great hall.
I cast aside my embroidery and jumped to my feet. ‘Come, let us go, Judith.’
Agnes looked askance at Judith. ‘My mistress just sent for you,’ she pointed out to me.
I’d noticed the servants did not care overmuch for Judith, and it always puzzled me.
‘I am too close to them,’ Judith had said with typical serenity once when I commented on it. ‘They know I am dependent on your aunt and uncle’s charity. Were it not for that, I would be a servant for hire as they are.’
‘Of course she means for Judith to come too,’ I insisted, overruling Agnes.
So Judith followed me down the stairs and into the great hall, which all at once seemed crowded with Lord Vavasour’s great retinue. Dogs milled around, snapping and snarling at each other until they were broken apart with a curse or a boot, and servants squeezed through the press of people with jugs of wine.
‘Ah, here is my niece.’ My uncle was all smiles as he presented me to Lord Vavasour. I sketched a curtsey. I did not see why I should rub my nose in the rushes for him.
Lord Vavasour looked at me assessingly, as he would eye up a prize heifer. He did not seem impressed. His only response was a grunt before he crooked a finger. This was the signal for his son to step forward, all dazzling in his fine clothes.
I could have predicted that Edmund would make an extravagant bow, and so it was. There was no need for such a display. It made me feel that he was mocking me. His face was perfectly straight, but I was sure when he lifted his gaze to mine that he was laughing. He had very dark, very blue eyes, so blue that it was unsettling, and all at once I was very aware of my lanky frame, of the pockmarks on my cheeks and the hair that sprang from its pins. I was furious with myself for caring when I had never cared before, and I stuck my nose in the air. That only seemed to amuse him more.
There was no pretence that a bargain was not being struck with my person – or rather, my fortune – at the centre of the discussion. I was placed next to Edmund at the end of the top table when we sat down to dine. He was annoyingly attentive, helping me to custard and some salad of hard eggs, a fritter, a slice of gingerbread. He studied every dish to pick out the plumpest roasted lark, or the most delicate slice of veal baked with raisins and dates and seasoned with saffron and cloves. He made sure that I had some sauce with it, and I tasted the sharpness of the vinegar, the sweetness of the sugar, cut through with pungent ginger. He carved me a slice of venison pie with his own knife. Such condescension.
I accepted his attentions coldly, wishing he’d stop piling food onto my plate. Normally I had a hearty appetite, and the cook had made my favourite dish of capon stewed with prunes, but between my tight lacings and Edmund’s presence, it was impossible to enjoy my meal that day. The meat stuck around my mouth and I had trouble chewing. I was too aware of his glinting blue gaze, of the warmth of his body beside mine.
Judith was seated at a lower table. Whenever I caught her eye, she nodded encouragingly at me; I knew I was supposed to smile and flutter my eyelashes at Edmund, but I couldn’t do it. Whenever he spoke, I heard a ripple of laughter in his voice, like sunlight on a stream, unmistakable but impossible to pin down and say: There it is. Whatever it was, it made me tongue-tied and stiff, I who was normally so fiery and quick to retort. It made me furious that I should be so discomfited.
As soon as the meal was over, my uncle and Lord Vavasour withdrew to my uncle’s closet, where no doubt they would get down to the true business of the day, bargaining over my fortune. As the servants began to clear the tables, I slipped away before my aunt could catch my eye. Judith was less skilled at escape, and I saw my aunt beckon to her as I backed out of the door and almost knocked over the little maid, Peg, who was labouring under a pile of trenchers.
‘Leave those!’ I seized her arm and she goggled at me. ‘Come and unpin me. I cannot manage alone.’
With Peg’s help, I unpinned my sleeves, and breathed a sigh of relief as the stomacher was loosened. I wriggled out of the farthingale hoops and left my skirts in a heap as I pulled on the pair of breeches I used for riding and tied them at the waist. I wore them under a kirtle with a modest padded roll which gave my skirts some shape but at least made it possible to ride.
There was still no sign of Judith so I slipped with Peg down the stairs to the kitchen, where the cook sighed and shook his head at me but let me go. In a faded blue kirtle and a plain collar, nobody would take me for the heiress with her fashionable farthingale and extravagant ruff. Or so I hoped.
As always when I was in turmoil, I headed for the stables, and there Judith found me, mindlessly grooming my uncle’s magnificent stallion. Genet was a successor to Prince, even bigger, even blacker and with an even trickier temper, but I forgave him his moodiness for his speed and grace.
Judith edged into the stable. ‘Your aunt is asking for you,’ she said, eyeing Genet warily.
‘Tell her you cannot find me.’ I was surly at the knowledge that I had behaved badly. ‘I have had enough of doing the pretty to that mincing fool Edmund Vavasour. Did you see his stockings with their embroidered clocks?’ I asked her. ‘Does he think he is at court?’
I sneered because it was easier to think of him with contempt than to remember how ugly and awkward I must have appeared. I imagined him whispering to his father that he would not marry me, no, not for a thousand of my fortunes, and I told myself I was glad of it, because I certainly did not want to marry him.
‘I dare say he was carried here in a litter so that he did not have to get his shoes dirty,’ I said to Judith.
‘Why, Mistress Isabel, I do believe you have taken me in dislike!’
Judith squeaked with alarm, and I sucked in
my breath as Edmund’s head appeared around the side of the stall. He must move like a cat through the straw. I hadn’t heard him approach at all.
‘You know what they say,’ I reminded him when I had my breath back. ‘Eavesdroppers never do hear good of themselves.’
‘You do me wrong,’ he protested. His face was as straight as ever, but his eyes danced. ‘I am perfectly able to ride, you know. It is not my fault that it is a fine day and there is no mud to splash my stockings.’
I eyed him resentfully, disliking the way he made me feel foolish and jittery. ‘You came on a fat pony, perhaps? It wouldn’t do to fall off and crush your silks!’ I knew I was being unforgivably rude, but I couldn’t help myself, and Edmund only laughed.
‘I don’t think my Bale would like to be called a pony,’ he said. ‘He is as mettlesome as that beast you’re hiding behind.’
‘I am not hiding!’ The accusation stung and I stepped forward boldly. ‘Don’t come near,’ I warned as Edmund made to enter the stall.
Judith gasped at his bravery. ‘Indeed, sir, you should not go in. The horse is dangerous!’
‘He is not dangerous.’ I corrected her with a dagger look. ‘He does not care for strangers, that is all.’
‘He will not mind me.’
Edmund’s confidence grated on me, and I half hoped that Genet would punish him for his insolence. Instead I had to watch incredulously as the horse lowered his head and let Edmund scratch his cheek and murmur a greeting.
When Genet blew softly into his hand, as docile as the motherless lambs that were brought into the shed at lambing time, I could only watch with my mouth a-cock, half outraged, half impressed in spite of myself.
‘Well!’
At that, Edmund looked up from whispering in Genet’s ear and grinned at me. All at once he looked like a boy, not an intimidatingly elegant young man, and I found myself smiling back at him.
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