Hamnet and Judith

by Maggie O'Farrell

  Susanna is still singing, clapping her hands together. Her knuckles are dimpled, each one, indented on the bone. The song goes round and round, the same four notes, the same drone of sounds, round and round. It evidently does not please him because he winces and covers one ear with a hand.

  Agnes frowns. She thinks about the baby, there in her belly, curled in water, listening to all that is going on, breathing in this foul air; she thinks about the warm weight of Susanna on her lap; she thinks about this cloud of grey and rot coming off her husband.

  Is this marriage, this child, their life together causing his malaise? Is it their home in this apartment that is draining the life out of him in this way? She has no idea. The thought fills her with panic. How can she tell him about the new child in her belly while he is in this state? It might only worsen his melancholy and she cannot bear to see her news greeted with sorrow, with anything less than rapture.

  She says his name. No response. She says it again. He raises his chin and looks at her: his face is horrifying to her. Grey, puffy, beard straggly and unkempt. How did he get like this? How did it happen? How can she not have noticed this change coming? What is it she has not seen, or chosen not to see?

  ‘Are you ill?’ she asks him.

  ‘Me?’ he says, and it seems to take him a long time to hear her, to articulate a response. ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘You do not look well.’

  He sighs. He rubs a hand over his brow, his eyes. ‘Do I not?’ he says.

  She stands, shifting Susanna to her hip. She touches his forehead, which feels clammy and cool, like the skin of a frog. He twists irritably out of her grasp, waving away her hand.

  ‘All’s well,’ he says, and his words are heavy, as if he is spitting out pebbles as he speaks. ‘Don’t fuss.’

  ‘What ails you?’ she says. Susanna is kicking her legs, trying to turn her mother’s face towards her, telling her she needs to sing.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I’m tired. That is all.’ He stands, scraping the chair against the floor. ‘I’m going back to bed.’

  ‘Why don’t you eat?’ Agnes asks, trying to shush Susanna, bouncing her up and down. ‘Some bread? Honey?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Remember your father wanted you to go early to—’

  He interrupts her, with a curt wave of his hand. ‘Tell him to send Gilbert. I’ll not go anywhere today.’ He heads for the stairs, dragging his feet across the floor, pulling the misty smell after him, like a ream of old, unwashed cloth. ‘I need to sleep,’ he says.

  Agnes watches him go up the stairs, pulling himself up by the rail. She turns to look into the round, dark, wise eyes of her daughter.

  ‘Sing, Mamma,’ is Susanna’s advice.

  * * *

  —

  In the still of the night, she whispers to him, asks him what is wrong, what is on his mind, can she help him? She puts her hand to his chest, where she feels his heart tap against her palm, over and over, over and over, as if asking the same question and getting no answer.

  ‘Nothing,’ is what he replies.

  ‘It must be something,’ she says. ‘Can you not say?’

  He sighs, his chest lifting and falling under her hand. He fidgets with the sheet edge, rearranges his legs. She feels the scrape of his shin against hers, the restless tug of the sheet. The bed-curtains are close around them, forming a cave where the two of them lie together, with Susanna asleep on the pallet, arms flung wide, her mouth pursed, hair plastered to her cheeks.

  ‘Is it…’ she begins, ‘…are you…do you wish we had not…wed? Is that it?’

  He turns to her, for what feels like the first time in many days, and his face is pained, aghast. He presses his hand down on top of hers. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Never. How could you say such a thing? You and Susanna are all I live for. Nothing else matters.’

  ‘What is it, then?’ she says.

  He lifts her fingers, one by one, to his lips, kissing their tips. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Nothing. A heaviness of spirit. A melancholy. It’s nothing.’

  She is just falling into sleep, when he says, or seems to say, ‘I am lost. I have lost my way.’

  He moves towards her, then, and grips her round the waist, as if she is drifting away from him, into huge, tidal waters.

  * * *

  —

  Over the next while, she observes him carefully, in the manner of a doctor watching a patient. She sees how he cannot sleep at night but then cannot rouse himself in the morning. How he rises at midday, groggy, whey-faced, his mood flat and grey. The smell off him is worse then, the sour, rank scent soaked into his clothing, his hair. His father comes to the door, shouting and bawling, telling him to stir himself, to put in a day’s work. She sees how she, Agnes, must remain calm, steady, must make herself bigger, in a way, to keep the house on an even keel, not to allow it to be taken over by this darkness, to square up to it, to shield Susanna from it, to seal off her own cracks, not to let it in.

  She sees how he drags his feet and sighs when he goes off to teach his pupils. She watches him stare out of the window when his brother Richard returns from school. She sees the way he sits at table with his parents, a scowl on his face, his hand toying with the food, with the plate. She sees him reach for the ale pitcher when his father praises Gilbert’s handling of a certain worker at the tannery. She sees Edmond come and stand at his side and lay his head on his sleeve; the boy has to butt him with his forehead several times before his brother realises he is there. She sees the absent, weary way he lifts the child to his lap. She sees Edmond stare intently into his brother’s face, a small hand pressed to each stubbled cheek. She sees that Edmond, alone, is the only other person who notices that something is amiss with him.

  She sees how her husband starts in his seat if the cat leaps on the table, if the door slams in a breeze, if a plate is put down too roughly. She sees the way John snaps at him, sneers, invites Gilbert to join in with this. You are useless, she hears John say to him, when he spills ale on the tablecloth. Can’t even pour your own ale, eh, eh, Gilbert, did you see?

  She sees the cloud above him grow darker, gather its horrible rank strength. She wants to reach across the table then, to lay her hand on his arm. She wants to say, I am here. But what if her words are not enough? What if she is not enough of a salve for his nameless pain? For the first time in her life, she finds she does not know how to help someone. She does not know what to do. And, anyway, she cannot take his hand, not here, not at this table. There are plates and cups and candlesticks between them, and Eliza is standing now to clear the meat dish and Mary is trying to feed Susanna cuts of meat that are too large for her. There is so much to do in a family of this size, so much to see to, so many people needing so many different things. How easy is it, Agnes thinks, as she lifts the plates, to miss the pain and anguish of one person, if that person keeps quiet, if he keeps it all in, like a bottle stoppered too tightly, the pressure inside building and building, until – what?

  Agnes doesn’t know.

  * * *

  —

  He drinks too much, late into the night, not out with his friends, but sitting at the table in the bedchamber. He cuts feather after feather into quills, but none is quite right, he says. One is too long, another too short, a third too thin for his fingers. They split or scratch the page or blur and spot. Is it too much to ask for a man to have a working quill? Agnes wakes one night to hear him shout this, hurling the whole lot at the wall, ink pot and all, making Susanna wail. She doesn’t recognise him, then, holding her screaming child to her side: his livid face, his dishevelled hair, his yelling mouth, the splash of ink, like a black island, on the wall.

  In the morning, as he lies sleeping, she ties Susanna to her back and walks the path to Hewlands, stopping on the way to gather feathers, the heads of poppies, sprays
of nettles.

  She finds Bartholomew by following a noise of repetitive thudding. He is at the nearest fold, swinging a hammer on to the top of a fence post, driving it into the earth: thwack, crack. He is making enclosures for the new lambs. She knows that he could have told one of the others to do this job but he is a good fencer: his height, his extraordinary strength, his unswerving, unstinting approach to a task.

  As she approaches, he lets the hammer fall to his feet. He waits, mopping at his face, watching her as she walks towards him.

  ‘I brought you this,’ Agnes says, holding out a hunk of bread and a packet of the cheese she makes herself, in the outhouse in Henley Street, straining ewe’s milk through muslin.

  Bartholomew nods, accepts the food, takes a bite and chews, all without taking his eyes from Agnes’s face. He lifts the corner of Susanna’s bonnet and passes a finger over her sleeping cheek. Then his eyes are pulled back to Agnes. She smiles at him; he continues to chew.

  ‘Well?’ is the first thing he says.

  ‘It is,’ Agnes begins, ‘no great matter.’

  Bartholomew rips the crust off the bread with his teeth. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It is merely…’ Agnes shifts the weight of Susanna ‘…he doesn’t sleep. He stays awake all night and then cannot rise. He is sad and sullen. He will not speak, except to argue with his father. There is a terrible heaviness about him. I do not know what to do.’

  Bartholomew considers her words, just as she knew he would, his head on one side, his gaze focused on something in the distance. He chews, on and on, the muscles in his cheeks and temples tensing and tensing. He slides the remainder of the bread and cheese into his mouth, still saying nothing. When he has swallowed, he exhales. He bends. He picks up his hammer. Agnes stands to one side, out of range of his swing.

  He sends two blows down on top of the post, both true and straight. The post seems to shudder and flinch, drawing into itself. ‘A man,’ he says, then strikes another blow, ‘needs work.’ He swings the hammer again, brings it down on the post. ‘Proper work.’

  Bartholomew tests the post with a hand and finds it steady. He moves along to the next, already loosely dug into the soil. ‘He is all head,’ he says, swinging his hammer, ‘that one. All head, with not much sense. He needs work to steady him, to give him purpose. He can’t go on this way, an errand-boy for his father, tutoring here and there. A head like his, he’ll run mad.’

  He puts a hand to the post, which doesn’t seem to his liking, because he takes the hammer to it again, once, twice, and the post is driven further in.

  ‘I hear it said,’ Bartholomew mutters, ‘that the father is free with his fists, particularly with your Latin Boy. Is that true?’

  Agnes sighs. ‘I have not seen it with my own eyes but I don’t doubt it.’

  Bartholomew is about to swing the hammer but checks himself. ‘Has he ever lost his temper with you?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘And the child?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If he ever raises a hand to either of you,’ Bartholomew begins, ‘if he even tries, then—’

  ‘I know,’ Agnes cuts in, with a smile. ‘I don’t think he would dare.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Bartholomew mutters. ‘I should hope not.’ He flings down the hammer and walks over to his pile of posts, stacked in a heap. He selects one, weighs it in his hand, holds it up and looks along it, to check its line.

  ‘It would be hard,’ he says, without looking at her, ‘for a man to live in the shadow of a brute like that. Even if it was in the house next door. Hard to draw breath. Hard to find your path in life.’

  Agnes nods, unable to speak. ‘I had not,’ she whispers, ‘realised how bad it was.’

  ‘He needs work,’ Bartholomew says again. He hoists the post to his shoulder and comes up to her. ‘And perhaps a distance between him and his father.’

  Agnes looks away, down the path, at the dog, lying in the shade, pink rag of a tongue unrolled.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ she begins, ‘that it might interest John to set up elsewhere. In London.’

  Bartholomew raises his head, narrows his eyes. ‘London,’ he repeats, rolling the word over his tongue.

  ‘To extend his business there.’

  Her brother pauses, rubs at his chin. ‘I see,’ he says. ‘You mean that John might send someone to the city, for a while. Someone he trusts. A son perhaps.’

  Agnes nods. ‘Just for a while,’ she says.

  ‘You would go with him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You would leave Stratford?’

  ‘Not at first. I would wait until he was settled, with a house, and then I would follow him, with Susanna.’

  Brother and sister regard each other. Susanna, on Agnes’s back, stirs, gives a small sob, then settles back to sleep.

  ‘London is not so far away,’ Bartholomew says.

  ‘True.’

  ‘Many go there, to find work.’

  ‘Again, true.’

  ‘There might be opportunities to be found there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For him. For the business.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘He might find a position for himself. Away from his father.’

  Agnes reaches out and touches the cut end of the post Bartholomew is holding, tracing a finger around and around the circles there.

  ‘I don’t think John would listen to a woman in this matter. If an associate were to put the idea in his head – someone with an interest in his business, with a stake – so as to make it look like John’s idea in the first place, then…’

  ‘The notion would take hold.’ Bartholomew finishes for her. He rests his hand on her arm. ‘What about you?’ he says in a low voice. ‘You would not mind if he…went ahead of you? It could take some time for him to establish himself.’

  ‘I would mind,’ she says. ‘Very much. But what else can I do? He cannot continue like this. If London could save him from this misery, it is what I want.’

  ‘You would come back here,’ he jerks his thumb towards Hewlands, ‘in the meantime, you and Susanna, so that—’

  Agnes shakes her head. ‘Joan would never take to the idea. And there will be more of us soon.’

  Bartholomew frowns. ‘What are you saying? There will be another child?’

  ‘Yes. By winter’s end.’

  ‘Have you told him?’

  ‘Not yet. I will hold off, until all is arranged.’

  Bartholomew nods at her, then gives her one of his rare, wide smiles, putting his powerful arm around her shoulders. ‘I shall seek out John. I know where he drinks. I’ll go there tonight.’

  Agnes is sitting on the floor by the pallet, next to Judith, a cloth in her hand. She has been there all night: she will not rise, she will not eat, she will not sleep or rest. It is everything Mary can do to get her to drink a little. The heat from the fire is so great that Agnes’s cheeks have scarlet spots upon them; strands of hair have escaped from her coif to write themselves in damp scribbles on her neck.

  As Mary watches, Agnes dips the cloth into the bowl of water and wipes Judith’s brow, her arms, her neck. She murmurs some words to her daughter, something soft and soothing.

  Mary wonders if the child hears her. Judith’s fever has not broken. The bubo in her neck is so large, so taut, it may burst. And then all will be lost. The girl will die. Mary knows this. It may be tonight, in the deepest dark, because that is the most dangerous time for the sick. It may be tomorrow or even the day after. But come it will.

  There is nothing they can do now. Just as three of her own daughters were taken, two when they were just babies, Judith will go from them. They will not have her any more.

  Agnes is gripping the child’s limp fingers, Mary sees, as if she is trying to tether her to life. She would
keep her here, haul her back, by will alone, if she could. Mary knows this urge – she feels it; she has lived it; she is it, now and for ever. She has been the mother on the pallet, too many times, the woman trying to hold on, to keep a grip on her child. All in vain. What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand. The trick is never to let down your guard. Never think you are safe. Never take for granted that your children’s hearts beat, that they sup milk, that they draw breath, that they walk and speak and smile and argue and play. Never for a moment forget they may be gone, snatched from you, in the blink of an eye, borne away from you like thistledown.

  Mary feels tears gathering in her eyes, feels her throat closing over. The sight of Judith’s hair, still plaited, the line of her jaw and neck. How can it be that she will no longer exist? That, before too long, she and Agnes will be washing this body, combing out that plait, readying her for burial? Mary turns briskly, taking up a pitcher, a cloth, a plate, anything, moving them to the table and back again.

  Eliza, who is seated at the table, her chin in her hand, whispers, ‘I should write. Don’t you think so, Mamma?’

  Mary glances at the pallet, where Agnes has her head bowed, almost as if in prayer. All day, Agnes has refused to let Eliza write to Judith’s father. All will be well, she has kept saying, as she ground up herbs, with increasingly frantic movements, as she tried to get Judith to swallow tinctures and tisanes, as she rubbed ointments into her skin. We mustn’t alarm him. It is not necessary.

  Mary turns back to Eliza and gives her a quick, single nod. She watches as Eliza goes to a cupboard and takes out ink, paper and quill; her brother keeps them there for when he is at home. She sits down at the table and dips her quill into the ink and, hesitating for just a moment, writes.