The Good Wife

by Eleanor Porter

  After she had gone I stood by the door, thinking. A canker. That should not be so difficult to treat, although it was a poor time of the year for gathering fresh plants. My store was meagre, barely more than any good housewife would have. 'Put them by,’ Jacob would say when he came home to find me with pestle and mortar thinking up poultices, and I did, more and more, till I mostly forgot how it had been before I married, when every meadow and hedge would sing to me to be picked and used. There was chickweed coming up already that I could boil with vinegar to clean the wound. I went to my simples box: ground goldenrod, betony, fennel seed, horsetail, calendula, hemlock. I had enough.

  The first time my grandmother had taken me with her to treat a canker, I ran from the stinking hut to retch. She stood at the door until I was done, then pulled me back in and held my hair to make me kneel and look. It was an old woman, who lived near Putley, with no family or children about her and my grandam sat her in the weak winter sun and stood over me until I had cleaned the wound and pasted it. Then she had me clean the tick the beldam slept on and cook her broth, because, she said, healing begins in the belly.

  I doubted the Steward would be needing pottage. I thought of the way his mouth always hung a little open, as if waiting to be fed. I wasn’t afraid of his lechery. If he laid his big clammy hands on me I could brew up wolfsbane and quiet him forever. It was thoughts like that scared me, the part of me I had laid hidden in the box, the hungry, outfacing spirit in me that had led me almost to disaster. The spirit that urged me to look directly into men’s eyes, into the workings of things, the workings of nature herself.

  I took out a root of oak fern I had gathered in November and held it in my fingers. How insignificant it looked, thick and woody with its yellow scales – how easily tossed aside – but I knew how it could loosen the chest, soothe the stomach. Half-empty as it was, my box was full of power to heal and to hurt. If I cured Boult I would be called on, up and down the village, further perhaps. ‘It was bound to happen,’ I said to Jacob in my head. ‘Don’t worry, we have friends here, I’ll be careful.’

  4

  Still I delayed any visit to the Steward’s house. Quite apart from taking up healing, I had sworn to myself, after the trial and my deliverance, that I would not mess with great ones again, but live quietly among my own sort, a good wife. It should be enough. When Jacob was close by it was, oh more, more than enough; there were summer days when I hailed him as he returned home from the yards or the warrens, and breathless and laughing we turned into a hollow where the grasses and a willow made a green room, and we flung ourselves down and I lay between the press of the earth and his warm body. When we had to mix with the Court on holy days I held myself so quiet I believe I was barely seen at all. It wasn’t difficult – what were we but cattle to them after all? We had no books; for a while I had had glimpses of the distances and sights that learning promises and they had thrilled me through, but the mist had come down on the world again so that I must only look before my feet. The village was not short of tales. Sally in especial could yarn out stories as she sat and span, and many nights, if there were gatherings, old men like Rowland told tales of the country, so that it seemed there was a fairy or a witch at every turn of the path.

  Jacob was right not to have wanted me known as cunning with herbs. I was too good not to attract notice and we could not risk that, not when we were new here. Each time folks asked me, in the ordinary way of a neighbour, if I had this or that to borrow, my fingers had itched to do more. Surely now we had less need to be so cautious? If I had had a child I believe I should not have felt so restless, although if I wanted a babe it was chiefly for him – to feed the yearning I could see when he watched children in the lane – and to have something, someone from him, that we had made together.

  It would have kept him awake nights, the Steward’s request. It will mean trouble, he’d have said, you should have prevented it. ‘And how could I do that?’ I asked him in my head. He could no more have forbad me to go it than I refused, but he would have made sure Sally or another came along with me or, more likely, he would have made occasion to come himself.

  It had surprised me to find that Jacob could be jealous. What was I but a cripple, the daughter of a drunk? At home it had been thought proof of my witchery that he’d wanted me at all. Folk were kinder to me here. Last harvest, although I could not dance, I was called on to sing while the dancers rested. I finished ‘The Bitter Withy’ and Simon Fosbroke, who had clapped me louder than the rest and had had a cup too many, came up close and stood with his tankard raised and shouted a toast ‘to the pretty songbird.’ Jacob, warm with dancing, had been out to fetch the cider; he stepped back into the barn just as Simon seized my hand and kissed it too long. The smile fell from his face and he darkened with a look I had not seen before. A moment later he made as though he was easy again, laughing Simon further off; though I could see he was angry still. ‘It was nothing,’ I told him when we lay in bed, ‘you mustn’t mind it. Think how you yourself whirled Annie Bartlet. I don’t fire up at the way she clung to you, or how you laughed together.’ He didn’t answer for a while, so that I thought he was sleeping, or angry. Then he turned to me and kissed my lips hard. ‘Don’t talk silly,’ he said, ‘you know it’s not the same. A man is more free, of course he is, but not with a married woman. It felt like a devil had seized me, Martha. For a moment there I wanted to smash his face with my fist. If another man touched you I think I might kill him.’ ‘What foolish talk,’ I said smiling, brushing his cheek. To my surprise, it was wet.

  I lay awake a long while afterwards, with his sleeping head on my breast and the rise and fall of my chest following his breath. He was dearer to me than life, and yet there were moments when he seemed strange. I had seen him throw Annie in the air and catch her and I knew it did not matter, it was only the dance and his glad free way of giving himself. How could he be angry at another man’s trifling if he believed me true?

  I was not permitted to debate my visit to Boult for long. Two days after he knocked me down there was a banging at my door. It was scarcely dawn. One of the Steward’s household was outside.

  Martha Spicer? You’re to come now to tend my master’s wound.’

  ‘Now? I must see to the chickens.’

  ‘You can see to them later. Gather up what you need.’

  I had the bundle made up already. It was just as well, for he was even now striding quickly down the lane. I had to hirple after, conscious of my rolling gait. More than once he stood to wait, sighing loudly.

  ‘You’d best hurry. He has engagements. He shouldn’t be kept waiting by a daggle-tail such as you.’ Then he watched me attempt to run, letting a sneer play openly across his lips.

  I stopped. Why abase myself? Let the lord Steward wait, and his braided niddicock too. I began to walk at my own pace. ‘He could have sent a cart, then,’ I said.

  He looked a little startled at that and shrugged. ‘We have a man in the kitchens, used to work at the Hall in Kynaston. He knew all about you. How you were lamed when you were buried by the hill. Trapped in the earth for days and days until your horse-boy pulled you out. Quite a story.’

  I made sure to splash his hose as I lurched up. ‘So.’ I said.

  ‘Told us more, too. Said he doubted you’d ever dare go back, not there, where people know you, know how it was you that brought down the hill and the chapel, too.’

  ‘I was acquitted.’

  ‘I dare say. In Ludlow, I dare say you were.’

  Would he have talked like that if Jacob had been by? It was unlikely. He would not have risked his delicate arse being thrown into the mud. But then again, it would be a reckless stablehand who’d raise his fist against a servant of the bedchamber. He was an intimate of his master’s shit, too exalted to be touched by the likes of us. I was a fool to think it was over; I would always be exposed. The only safe way was to bide quietly, give no offence and to keep shy of gentry. Yet here I was. If I succeeded there would be talk and
envy and customers, if I failed the Steward would resent his weakness in seeking me out. It could not be helped. I shut my eyes to consequences.

  For all our rushing, I was left waiting by the scullery an age before a boy nodded me into the house. I smelt the canker from the hall, well before I reached the library where Boult was having his dressings removed. I swallowed hard and thanked my grandmother for teaching me to endure rot. As I entered the Steward was swearing at a man attempting to peel off the bandages. I smiled; it was my guide. Not so lordly now, he picked at the pus-soaked cloth, his face twitching with disgust.

  Seeing me the Steward gestured me forward. ‘Come on then, you can’t do me any good from there, can you?’

  I bobbed a curtsey and approached him. ‘I’ll need hot water, bandages and a good clean knife,’ I said to the man, curtly enough.

  ‘Get it sirrah,’ Boult shouted, kicking him back with his good leg.

  I mixed a draught of nightshade. He drank it off; I was surprised by that. I think the pain from the old cloths was very great. They were matted to the sore. It took me a long time to scrape and clean the wound. I bathed it with chickweed then made a paste of the herbs I had brought and applied it thickly. His skin was very white and hung loosely on his calf. A stick of a leg, with a great round belly above it. He grimaced with pain as I worked but the nightshade kept him placid; he stared at me with his pale, blood-traced eyes and let his fleshy lips hang open.

  Above him was a painting of a young woman. I suppose it must have been his wife; Sally had told me she’d died a long while ago, soon after they were married. She was pretty, in a deep red dress with puffed shoulders. A cross hung from a rope of heavy pearls about her neck. I felt as though she caught my gaze and knew me and I looked back so long he kicked me on the shoulder with impatience. There was something poised and ready about her, as though she were about to jump up and escape this dark room with its rank air.

  When I was done I stood and stretched myself and looked about me, calling for vinegar to rouse him. There were two shelves of books, all bound in dark leather, titles picked out in gold on the spines. I longed to reach and touch them, but was aware of his gaze on mine and stuffed my hands in my kirtle. It had been so long since I held a book! Since I traced my fingers over the print and felt the words form in my mouth.

  He waved me off without a word. I left a draught for him at the kitchen and instructions to change the dressings when they smelt foul, and to send for more of the paste. I felt glad to be done with it all so lightly, but then, as I was leaving the servants’ door, a man called me back.

  ‘You are to return tomorrow. In the morning. Early.’

  A weak spring sun had risen when I got outside. The smack of the wind, sharp with new-tilled earth, was more welcome than wine.

  And so it went on through that week and into the next. Boult did not speak to me, nor I to him, although he grunted with approval each morning when he saw the swelling had visibly reduced, that the dressings were almost dry. He sat at his desk now, with his bare leg stretched out to the side of him. I had grown used to the sight and the smell of it; I was even eager to see the shrinking coastline of the wound, for I was proud of what my skill had done when physicians had failed. Each day I arrived early, hoping to be shown into the library before him, so that I could linger by the shelves of leather-bound books, trace my fingers over the gilt words; but he was always there already, reading correspondence, or running a finger along columns of numbers. If my eyes strayed about the room – the paintings and the books – he was quick enough to prod me back to my task. He took to resting his large hand on my head. My neck grew stiff with the weight of it. Several times I tried to speak, hoping to raise the question of our thatch, but he told me gruffly to be quiet. On the seventh day, his man Richard accosted me as I left.

  ‘My master wishes to know what payment you expect. I am sure you will tell him you want nothing.’

  I smiled at the man – he was not in earnest, surely? But of course he was. He raised his eyebrows as though in surprise that I could doubt it.

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘please inform him that I would like the new thatch that has been promised us. That’s all. And that it should be done before Sir Thomas returns.’

  The fellow snorted. ‘That’s all! You’ve a nerve. I’ll do it, but I won’t clear up the mess he makes of you.’

  The next morning I was so nervous my fingers trembled as I touched the wound, but Boult said nothing. When I was done he simply nodded and waved me off as before. It could only be, I thought, that his man had ducked delivering my request. Rain glistened on the blackthorn in the hedge. The buds were tight and new, soon the blossom would be thick as shorn wool. Before it finished flowering, Jacob would be home. My bodice felt tight and I paused to pull at it. There was a chance … but I should not think it, there was so little hope of that. Yet all week how tender and full my breasts had felt. If it were true, if he came home to that news, what would the thatch matter? I smiled to myself and loitered by a bank of primroses, picking a handful to bring the sun inside with me.

  As I drew near I was surprised to find old Rowland Coggeshill, Sally Robbins and a few others in the lane outside my door. My first thought was fire, and I threw myself into a lurching trot to reach them, calling to Sally as I came. She waved her arms at me, beaming.

  ‘Well, Martha, look – they’ve called the thatchers in. Not just any patching job neither but a new ridge and coating. Ever so early they came, Michael and Jack had not long gone when Meg ran in saying, “Ma there’s men on Nuncle Martha’s roof ripping it down”. Years you’ve been waiting and every month more rotten and leaking. They’ve come over from Bodenham. You’ll be like a queen, Martha.’

  It was true, there were four men at least, the ridge was off already and much of the top coating and the end wall where the wind had loosened the spars. I did not know what to say but fell into Sally’s soft bosom, holding my flowers to the side.

  ‘Look at you,’ she said smiling, ‘collecting primroses as though afeard he’ll give his heart away! You’ve no need of them dear, he’s true as Robin’s arrow. It must be his favour with the master as has done it. Sir Thomas himself must have left word behind. Fancy his lordship stooping to notice. You must bide with me – it’s no bother if you don’t mind a bit of a squeeze – the roof won’t be tight yet a while.’

  My mouth dropped open a little at her explaining the favour so happily. I thanked her for her offer of a bed.

  ‘Wait a bit and I’ll get a cart from the yard and help you move your things out of the weather,’ Rowland said as Sally bustled off. ‘You can keep them at mine, there’s no end of room in the place while my John’s away.’

  There was not much that would spoil; only the tick we slept on and Jacob’s clothes and stable gear. His chair. My own clothes and my box of simples I could take to Sally’s. Rowland said little while we took the things over, but when all was stowed he invited me to sit with him and share a cup of small beer. There was a slow thoughtfulness about him; it was apparent in his cottage, everything scrubbed and regular. I had never seen him drunk or angry, even at harvest or Shrove Tuesday.

  I took the mug he handed me and waited while he filled himself a pipe. He was working himself up to talking. ‘It strikes me,’ he said at last, not unkindly, but walking round to the point, as he was used to, ‘it seems to me that it’s not likely Sir Thomas’s bidding, this thatch. Thomas Probert told me you’ve been up every morning to the Steward’s house, doing healing work…’

  I looked up; I must have frowned, for he shook his head.

  ‘There’s no mischief in Thomas, or not a purpose. I seen you myself a couple o’ mornings, walking with your mouth a set line, before the dew has settled. Steward Boult’s canker’s all but healed. Thomas thinks you must be a marvel, that the Good Lord has lent your hands a little of His grace.’

  I shifted uneasily, staring into my pot of beer.

  ‘The power of healing is a holy thing and there
en’t no harm in a cunning man, nor woman neither, that helps nature along some. I don’t say so to the vicar, but there’s ministers of God and ministers of nature and as long as one sticks to the soul and t’other to the body then all’s well and holy. But you’ve no family here and young Jacob is away and so I said to myself it was up to me to counsel you – I trust you won’t take it amiss. You better be careful, that’s all.’

  ‘I did not dare refuse him Rowland. He sent a man to fetch me.’

  ‘Aye, right enough, but I doubt you wanted to refuse, did you? Not really. You wanted to try what you could do?’ He leaned forward and looked at me, still friendly, but keenly too. ‘There’s a power in your fingers asking to be let out, that’s what I’m thinking. And maybe you can stop it and maybe you can’t. But …’ and he paused, knocking out the ash and looking at me, ‘there’ll be things he’s likely to ask which you had better say no to, if you want to be happy with your bonny man.’

  I coloured and summoned a temper, but it would not work. ‘He is not interested in that, Rowland. In any case, I can protect myself.’ Rowland patted my hand.

  ‘Be ready. Remember how the look of things matters, whatever the truth is. You know that already.’

  I nodded and he smiled. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘and if ever you need help child, ask me.’

  5

  I was guarded when I approached Steward Boult the next morning. For the first time he was not already at his desk but standing at the shelves. I followed his eye along the gilt titles as it came to rest on a handsome volume: In Praise of Folly by Erasmus. I knew it; Miss Elizabeth, the great lady of my own village, had put it in my hands to teach from when – because I could read and nobody else was cheap enough – she had paid me to learn the village boys their letters. I was as honoured as if I’d been asked to greet the Queen herself. Day after day, in a room above the stables, the boys twisted on their benches clutching slates and I wrote out lines to copy. She thought she was saving our souls; I thought her all that was great and good. She picked me out, she promised to protect me – and then disowned me in a trice. The last I saw of her was her gloves at a window when the rabble came for me and she shut her door.