Hamnet and Judith

by Maggie O'Farrell

  She is unaware of the owl, skimming the sky above her. Her breath comes into her body in ragged, shallow bursts. She has seen something. A flicker, a hint, a motion, imperceptible, but there, unmistakably. It was like the passage of a breeze through corn, like the glancing of a reflection off a pane, when you pull the window towards you – that unexpected streak of light passing through the room.

  Judith crosses the road, her hood falling from her head. She stands outside her former home; she paces from its door to that of her grandparents. The very air feels coalescent, charged, as it does before a thunderstorm. She shuts her eyes. She can feel him. She is so sure of this. The skin on her arms and neck shrinks and she is desperate to reach out, to touch him, to take his hand in hers, but she dares not. She listens to the roar of her pulse, her ragged breathing and she knows, she hears, underneath her own, another’s breathing. She does. She really does.

  She is shaking now, her head bowed, her eyes shut tight. The thought that forms inside her head is: I miss you, I miss you, I would give anything to have you back, anything at all.

  Then it is over, the moment passing. The pressure drops like a curtain. She opens her eyes, puts her hand up to the wall of the house to steady herself. He is gone, all over again.

  * * *

  —

  Mary, early in the day, opening the front door to let out the dogs into the street, finds a person in front of the house, slumped and crouched, head on knees. For a moment, she believes it is a drunkard, collapsed there during the night. Then she recognises the boots and hem of her granddaughter, Judith.

  She fusses and clucks around her, brings the half-frozen child in, calling for blankets and hot broth, for Lord’s sake.

  * * *

  —

  Agnes is out the back, bending over her plant beds, when the serving girl appears, saying that her stepmother, Joan, has come to call.

  It is a wild and stormy day, the wind gusting down into the garden, finding a way up and over the high walls to blast down on them all, hurling handfuls of rain and hail, as if enraged by something they have done. Agnes has been out there since dawn, tying the frailer plants to sticks, to buttress them against the onslaught.

  She pauses, clutching the knife and twine, and peers at the girl. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Mistress Joan,’ says the girl again, her face screwed up, one hand holding on her cap, which the wind seems determined to rip from her head, ‘is waiting in the parlour.’

  Susanna is running along the path, head down, barrelling towards them. She is shouting something at her mother but the words are lost, whirled away, up to the skies. She gestures towards the house, first with one hand, then the other.

  Agnes sighs, considers the situation for a moment longer, then slides the knife into her pocket. It will be something to do with Bartholomew, or one of the children, the farm, these improvements to the hall; Joan will be wanting her to intercede and Agnes will have to be firm. She doesn’t like to get involved in things that go on at Hewlands. Doesn’t she have her own house and family to see to?

  The minute she gets inside the house, Susanna starts to pluck at her cap, at her apron, at the hair that has escaped its moorings. Agnes waves her away. Susanna trails her along the passage and through the hall, whispering that she can’t possibly receive visitors looking like that, and doesn’t she want to go and restore her appearance, Susanna will see to Joan, she promises.

  Agnes ignores her. She crosses the hall with a firm, quick tread and pushes open the door.

  She is met by the sight of her stepmother, sitting very upright in Agnes’s husband’s chair. Opposite her is Judith, who has placed herself on the floor. There are two cats in her lap and three others circling her, lavishly rubbing themselves along her sides and back and hands. She is talking, with uncharacteristic fluency, about the different cats and their names, their food preferences and where they elect to sleep.

  Agnes happens to know that Joan has a particular dislike of cats – they steal her breath and make her itch, she has always said – so she is suppressing a smile as she comes into the room.

  ‘…and, most surprising of all,’ Judith is saying, ‘this one is the brother of that one, which you wouldn’t think, would you, if you saw them at a distance, but up close, you’ll see that their eyes are exactly the same colour. Exactly. Do you see?’

  ‘Mmm,’ says Joan, her hand pressed over her mouth, standing to greet Agnes.

  The two women meet in the middle of the room. Joan takes her stepdaughter by the upper arms with a grip that is resolute and swift. Her eyes flutter closed as she plants a kiss on her cheek; Agnes resists the urge to pull herself away. They ask each other how do they do, are they well, are the families well?

  ‘I fear,’ Joan says, as she returns to her seat, ‘I have interrupted you in…some task or other?’ She looks pointedly down at Agnes’s muddied apron, her dirt-encrusted hem.

  ‘Not at all,’ Agnes replies, taking a seat, putting a hand to Judith’s shoulder, in passing. ‘I’ve been at work in the garden, trying to save some of the plants. Whatever brings you to town in such fearsome weather?’

  Joan seems momentarily wrong-footed by the question, as if she hadn’t been prepared to be asked. She smooths the folds of her gown, presses her lips together. ‘A visit to a…a friend. A friend who is unwell.’

  ‘Oh? I am sorry to hear that. What is the matter?’

  Joan waves her hand. ‘It is but a trifle…a mere cold on the chest. Nothing to be—’

  ‘I would gladly give your friend a tincture of pine and elder. I have some freshly made. Very good for the lungs, especially over the winter and—’

  ‘No need,’ Joan says hastily. ‘I thank you, but no.’ She clears her throat, looking around the room. Agnes sees her eyes light on the ceiling, the mantel, the fire-irons, the painted drapes on the walls, which feature a design of forests, leaves, dense branches punctuated by leaping deer: a gift from her husband, who had them made up in London. Agnes’s recent and unexpected wealth bothers Joan. There is something unbearable to her about the sight of her stepdaughter living in so fine a house.

  As if following her train of thought, Joan says, ‘And how is your husband?’

  Agnes regards her stepmother for a moment, before replying: ‘Well, I believe.’

  ‘The theatre still keeps him in London?’

  Agnes laces her hands together in her lap and gives Joan a smile before she nods.

  ‘He writes to you often, I suppose?’

  Agnes feels a slight adjustment inside her, a minute sensation, as if a small, anxious animal is turning itself around. ‘Naturally,’ she says.

  Judith and Susanna, however, give her away. They turn their heads to look at her, quickly, too quickly, like dogs awaiting a signal from their master.

  Joan, of course, doesn’t miss this. Agnes sees her stepmother lick her lips, as if tasting something good, something sweet on them. She thinks again of what she said to Bartholomew, years ago, in the marketplace: that Joan likes company in her perpetual dissatisfaction. How is Joan hoping to bring her down now? What information has she that she will wield, like a sword, to slash though this house, this room, this place she and her daughters inhabit, trying to live as best they can in the presence of such enormous, distracting absences? What does Joan know?

  The truth is that Agnes’s husband hasn’t written for several months, save a short letter assuring them he is well, and another, addressed to Susanna, asking her to secure the purchase of another field. Agnes has told herself, and the girls, that nothing is amiss, that he will be busy, that sometimes letters go astray on the road, that he is working hard, that he will be home before they know it, but still the thought has gnawed at her. Where is he and what is he doing and why has he not written?

  Agnes crosses her fingers, burying them in the folds of her apron. ‘We heard from him a week or so
ago. He was telling us that he is very busy, they are preparing a new comedy and—’

  ‘His new play is of course not a comedy,’ Joan cuts across her. ‘But you knew that, I expect.’

  Agnes is silent. The animal inside her flexes itself restlessly, starts to scrape at her innards with its needling claws.

  ‘It’s a tragedy,’ Joan continues, baring her teeth in a smile. ‘And I am certain he will have told you the name of it. In his letters. Because of course he would never call it that without telling you first, would he, without your by-your-leave? I’m sure you’ve seen the playbill. He probably sent you one. Everyone in town is talking about it. My cousin, who came back from London yesterday, brought it. I’m sure you have one but I carried it with me, just the same, for you.’

  Joan stands and crosses the room, a ship in full sail. She drops a curled paper into Agnes’s lap.

  Agnes eyes it, then takes it with two fingers and flattens it against her mud-splattered apron. For a moment, she cannot tell what she is looking at. It is a printed page. There are many letters, so many, in rows, grouped into words. There is her husband’s name, at the top, and the word ‘tragedie’. And there, right in the middle, in the largest letters of all, is the name of her son, her boy, the name spoken aloud in church when he was baptised, the name on his gravestone, the name she herself gave him, shortly after the twins’ birth, before her husband returned to hold the babies on his lap.

  Agnes cannot understand what this means, what has happened. How can her son’s name be on a London playbill? There has been some odd, strange mistake. He died. This name is her son’s and he died, not four years ago. He was a child and he would have been a man but he died. He is himself, not a play, not a piece of paper, not something to be spoken of or performed or displayed. He died. Her husband knows this, Joan knows this. She cannot understand.

  She is aware of Judith leaning over her shoulder, of her saying, What, what is it? and of course she cannot read the letters, cannot string them together to make sense to her – strange that she cannot recognise the name of her own twin – and she is aware of Susanna holding steady the corner of the playbill; her own fingers are trembling, as if caught in the wind from outside, just long enough for her to read it. Susanna tries to tweak it from her grasp but Agnes isn’t letting go, there is no way she’s letting go, not of that piece of paper, not of that name. Joan is looking at her, open-mouthed, taken aback at the turn her visit has taken. She was evidently underestimating the effect of the playbill, had no idea it might produce such a reaction. Agnes’s daughters are ushering Joan from the room, saying that their mother isn’t quite herself, Joan should return another time, and Agnes is able, despite the playbill, despite the name, despite everything, to hear the false concern in Joan’s voice as she bids them all goodbye.

  * * *

  —

  Agnes takes to her bed, for the first time in her life. She goes to her chamber and she lies down and will not get up, not for meals, not for callers, not for sick people who knock at the side door. She doesn’t undress but lies there, on top of the blankets. Light streams in through the latticed windows, pushing itself into cracks in the bed-curtains. She keeps the playbill folded between her hands.

  The sounds of the street outside, the noises of the house, the footsteps of the servants coming up and down the corridor, the hushed tones of her daughters all reach her. It is as if she is underwater and they are all up there, in the air, looking down on her.

  At night, she rises from her bed and goes outside. She sits between the woven, rough sides of her skeps. The humming, vibrating noises from within, beginning just after dawn, seem to her the most eloquent, articulate, perfect language there is.

  * * *

  —

  Susanna, scorched with rage, sits down at her desk-box with a blank sheet of paper. How could you? she writes to her father. Why would you, how could you not tell us?

  * * *

  —

  Judith carries bowls of soup to her mother’s bed, a posy of lavender, a rose in a vase, a basket of fresh walnuts, their shells sealed up.

  * * *

  —

  The baker’s wife comes. She brings rolls, a honey cake. She affects not to notice Agnes’s appearance, her untended hair, her etched and sleepless face. She sits on the edge of the bed, settling her skirts around her, takes Agnes’s hand in her warm, dry grip and says: he always was an odd one, you know that. Agnes says nothing but stares up at the tapestry roof of her bed. More trees, some with apples studding their branches.

  ‘Do you not wonder what is in it?’ the baker’s wife asks, ripping off a hunk of the bread and offering it to Agnes.

  ‘In what?’ Agnes says, ignoring the bread, barely listening.

  The baker’s wife pushes the strip of bread between her own teeth, chews, swallows, tears off another shred before answering: ‘The play.’

  Agnes looks at her, for the first time.

  * * *

  —

  To London, then.

  She will take no one with her, not her daughters, not her friend, not her sisters, none of her in-laws, not even Bartholomew.

  Mary declares it madness, says Agnes will be attacked on the road or murdered in her bed at an inn along the way. Judith begins to cry at this and Susanna tries to hush her, but looks worried all the same. John shakes his head and tells Agnes not to be a fool. Agnes sits at her in-laws’ table, composed, hands in her lap, as if she can’t hear these words.

  ‘I will go,’ is all she says.

  Bartholomew is sent for. He and Agnes take several turns around the garden. Past the apple trees, past the espaliered pears, through the skeps, past the marigold beds, and round again. Susanna and Judith and Mary watch from the window of Susanna’s chamber.

  Agnes’s hand is tucked into the crook of her brother’s arm. Both their heads are bowed. They pause, briefly, beside the brewhouse for a moment, as if examining something on the path, then continue on their way.

  ‘She will listen to him,’ says Mary, her voice more decisive than she feels. ‘He will never permit her to go.’

  Judith brings her fingers up to the watery pane of glass. How easy it is to obliterate them both with a thumb.

  When the back door slams, they rush downstairs but there is only Bartholomew in the passage, placing his hat on his head, preparing to leave.

  ‘Well?’ Mary says.

  Bartholomew lifts his face to look at them on the stairs.

  ‘Did you persuade her?’

  ‘Persuade her in what?’

  ‘Not to go to London. To give up this madness.’

  Bartholomew straightens the crown of his hat. ‘We leave tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I am to secure horses for us.’

  Mary is saying, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and Judith is starting to weep again and Susanna clasping her hands together, saying, ‘Us? You will go with her?’

  ‘I shall.’

  The three women surround him, a cloud wrapping itself around the moon, peppering him with objections, questions, entreaties, but Bartholomew breaks free, steps towards the door. ‘I will see you tomorrow, early,’ he says, then steps out into the street.

  * * *

  —

  Agnes is a competent if not committed horsewoman. She likes the beasts well enough but finds being aloft a not altogether comfortable experience. The ground rushing by makes her feel giddy; the shift and heave of another being beneath her, the squeak and squeal of saddle leather, the dusty, parched scent of the mane mean she is counting down the hours she must spend on horseback, before she reaches London.

  Bartholomew insists that the road via Oxford is safer and faster; a man who trades in mutton has told him this. They ride through the gentle dips and heights of the Chiltern Hills, through a rainstorm and a smattering of hail. In Kidlington, her horse becomes lame so she changes to a piebald mare wi
th narrow hips and a flighty way of high-stepping if they come across a bird. They pass the night at an inn in Oxford; Agnes barely sleeps for the sound of mice in the walls and the snores of someone in the room next door.

  Towards mid-morning on the third day of riding, she sees first the smoke, a grey cloth thrown over a hollow. There it is, she says to Bartholomew, and he nods. As they move closer, they hear the peal of bells, catch the scent of it – wet vegetable, animal, lime, some other things Agnes cannot name – and see its vast sprawl, a broken clutter of a city, the river winding through it, clouds pulling up threads of smoke from it.

  They ride through the village of Shepherd’s Bush, the name of which makes Bartholomew smile, and past the gravel pits of Kensington and over the brook at Maryburne. At the Tyburn hanging-tree, Bartholomew leans down from his saddle to ask the way to the parish of St Helen’s, in Bishopsgate. Several people walk by without answering him, a young man laughs, skittering off into a doorway on bare, cut feet.

  On towards Holborn, where the streets are narrower and blacker; Agnes cannot believe the noise and the stench. All around are shops and yards and taverns and crowded doorways. Traders approach them, holding out their wares – potatoes, cakes, hard crab-apples, a bowl of chestnuts. People shout and yell at each other across the street; Agnes sees, she is sure, a man coupling with a woman in a narrow gap between buildings. Further on, a man relieves himself into a ditch; Agnes catches sight of his appendage, wrinkled and pale, before she averts her gaze. Young men, apprentices, she supposes, stand outside shops, entreating passers-by to enter. Children still with first teeth are wheeling barrows along the road, calling out their contents, and ancient men and women sit with gnarled carrots, shelled nuts, loaves laid out around them.