I followed behind Sally, holding Meg and Mary by the hand, and as we rounded the arc of the field to join the gathering we could not help laughing at the sight of John Cook the Bailly, cider bottles bouncing at his hip and his big arms wrapped round a half dozen plum cakes as red as his Easter doublet.
‘Why,’ Simon Fosbroke said too loud as we drew near, ‘Martha Spicer, you’re more pretty than a primrose, than a bank on ’em, regular blooming you are. If you was my leman I wouldn’t go dallying round the country, not though the Queen herself demanded it.’
I must have looked all confusion, for Sally patted me and told me not to mind him, he was a gawping dolt who should mind his tongue or he’d be chewing on his own teeth. ‘But,’ she said, grinning, in a voice not so soft as she thought it, ‘there’s no hiding the bloom on you child.’
I squeezed her arm, but it was not Simon who set me colouring, it was the man an ell behind him who’d turned at his words and regarded me with a slow leer. So, Roger Boult was returned. I did not meet his eye. If I could have left without attention I would’ve done so, but it was not possible. I removed myself to the back of the crowd while they buried the cake; we spread out to step the field and bless it and to scrabble out the cockles.
‘Every step a reap, every reap a shear
And God send the master a good harvest’
We sang, stooping and peering, but it being such an early Easter the soil was near bare. Polly Tonkins was corn maid and she walked ahead of us all so the man who found the first cockle could claim his kiss. It was Boult himself who found it, though more likely it was passed to him. He strode up to the girl with his arm aloft, the root squeezed in his fat fingers and he caught her round the waist and off her feet while the men cheered and her mother looked doubtful, but the kiss he gave her was chaste enough. Then he stood still and scanned the line, his hand up for silence.
‘A kiss for the maid,’ he boomed, ‘and another for the matron who charmed my wound away. Where’s the little witch hiding? There you are! Mistress Spicer!’
He strode across the field to me and clasped my shoulders; his thick moist lips bore down on mine, his tongue pushed at my clenched teeth. Then he unstoppered a bottle and took a long draught of cider, making as though to toast me. The men cheered, if a little uncertainly, and the bottles were slurped along the line. I should have laughed. I should have smiled and ducked a curtsey, made light so that others too made light, but I felt the blood drain out of me and could only stand like wax. His voice was at my ear, ‘You’ll kiss me back next time, hussy.’ He would have said more, but Rowland had appeared at his side.
‘With your leave, sir,’ Rowland said, ‘has there been aught of the travellers?’
Boult left off his leer but he continued to stare at me, though his words were for Rowland. ‘They do well enough, Coggeshill. They will be back in a month. There was some little trouble in an inn; Sir Edward was obliged to leave the party. It was nothing of any consequence. Fortunate perhaps.’
He stared at me but I was barely sensible. After a moment or two Rowland cajoled him back to the line of folks stepping the corn. Perhaps it was only a moment; I could not move. There were crows wheeling above me and ahead of me the line was loosening with cider and singing, the yellow March sun licked at my face and shoulders, but within I had frozen. He had called me a witch and marked me as his strumpet. It was Meg who roused me, pulling at my skirts.
‘Are you taken bad again, nuncle, are you going to spew?’
I dropped to my knees on the wet earth and hugged her. She patted my head and little by little I was restored to myself. Nobody thought me a witch. Not any more. Boult might seek to throw it on me as a halter, but I was not his beast nor anyone’s. I was not a girl any more. I would not be tripped so easy.
‘I don’t like the Steward,’ Meg whispered in my hair, ‘he sprays spit like a wheel in slurry.’
‘Yes, Meg, yes he does.’ We picked our way back across the field. Other groups of women were leaving now, only the men left carousing and many of them too, the soberer ones, beginning to peel and go. When I reached the cottage and kissed Meg goodbye I felt myself recovered and lifted the latch quite sanguine.
My first thought, when I saw the neat package lying by the hearth, was that Jacob had found some way to send me a trinket; or perhaps it was Owen, who had not written in months, remembering his old friend at last. I was all delight as I pulled at the wrappings. The fancy box put me right fast enough. Jacob could never afford such velvet, nor Owen neither, unless they’d dug up a pot of gold. My guts heaved and I flung the thing from me and the letter beneath it, with its lump wax seal.
I sat on the floor and stared at them for a good long while, till the sun sank behind the hill and the lane outside was in shadow. Now and again I heard a man or two carolling home; a wife’s tart responses. At last I opened the letter.
I am in Ludlow. There was a necklace made for you here I’m told. Here is another, much more, I trust, to your liking. You owe me a book; I have an offer for you. When I return we can discuss accounts. Don’t think yourself too high, mistress. We all must wear a chain at one time or another. Be merry, you have swapped rope for gold. You have a pretty neck.
When he came, I thought, I would make him take back his filthy gift. I would stuff it into his mouth and make him choke on it. I sat on the floor without a fire or a candle while the sun went down on the Resurrection and I cursed my healing hands and my knowledge of letters. The cottage felt so very empty; I had given too little thought to my life’s riches – the pleasure of hearing Jacob’s hand upon the latch, of choosing to stay bent over the pot as he entered, knowing he would softly step up behind me and fold me in his arms and kiss my neck. I had felt so safe with his arms round me. It would be four more weeks at the least before he came home. Until then I would have to rely on my wits.
It was no good moping. I lit a flame and paced the dark cottage, to and fro. Then I thought of Boult’s book; its form-shifting and escapes. I could not hate it, for all the trouble it had caused me. The Steward proclaimed me a heifer he could buy and use, but the book let me believe things could be otherwise. I took it out and sat down to read; its pages unfixed the world. In the yellow moon of my candlelight, girls and men and gods changed shape and when I lifted my eyes to the darkness that pooled beyond the flame it seemed a world waiting to be born. I sat half waking, half sleeping, and the snuffle of Sally’s pig carried in it the snorts of a man entranced and the lonely call of a tawny owl was a god gliding over the wood.
8
April began clear and bright. One morning, not so long after Easter, I stood at my window scanning the empty lane, as I did so often now. I knew well enough it would be a good few weeks yet, but I could not rid my mind of the fancy that I should be looking out at the early mist when a man would appear out of the gloom. As he drew near he would begin to run to me and I to him. It was a piece of foolishness, but it fed me better than breakfast. I would never, I thought, let him go so long again – and then I smiled at myself – as if I would get to choose! I touched my belly; next time, God willing, I would not be alone. The days and the nights, too, would not be empty if I had a baby to coo to, or a child at my knee. Would it be a girl as Sally said? When he first met little Meg, Jacob threw her in the air until she squealed. I smiled thinking how I would tell him, how each morning and evening he would rest his hand on my belly to feel for the flutter of its quickening.
I stood at the window idly waiting and dreaming till the grass outside was licked with sun. The lane stayed empty as usual, but all at once I heard the cuckoo, the first of the year.
‘Did you hear it?’ Meg asked me a little later.
I nodded.
‘I hope you were outside. I was. I was on my way to the privy house. My pa used to say that it was bad luck to hear the first cuckoo from within the house. Whatever you were doing you’d be doing all the year.’
‘That’s a silly tale Meg,’ I said, ‘there’s no fortune attac
hed to the cuckoo’s call.’
‘There is though,’ she answered me earnestly. ‘My brother Samuel heard it in his bed and scarce ever got up again. Ask Ma Sally if it’s true.’
‘Well, it doesn’t touch me in any case,’ I lied, ‘I was outside praising God for the beauty of the morning.’ I wasn’t though, I thought, I was by my window, yearning. I did not like to think what that might mean.
The season brought much to be done and I helped willingly. I was not so sick as I had been, or else I had grown used to it. Nothing was said to me openly of the Steward’s kissing me at the corn-showing, but I knew that didn’t mean it wasn’t talked of. I prayed some other business would push me from his mind and it seemed my prayers were answered for a while, for he was back and forth to Croft Castle, to Sir Thomas’s great neighbour. It was talked of that Edward Croft had fallen out with Sir Thomas and had returned under some cloud or other. I remembered how he had raised his whip when his horse was started by a hare, how quick he was to curse; Sir Thomas was well rid of him. Beyond this and the hope it would speed the return of all I did not think; I was merely grateful Roger Boult was occupied.
I had in my mind to talk to Rowland about the letter and the chain, to lay everything before him and ask his advice: how I should act. I found him in the yard by the great barn, grinding at the shears, although it was weeks till they’d be needed. He would not see sixty again but there was no one, in our parish or beyond it, who could match Rowland for shearing. For a while I stood in the shadow of the barn and watched him work; he stroked the blade back and forth along the grinding stone, back and forth, with a smooth roll. If he noticed me it did not interrupt the sweep of his arm.
There was no one by, but the words were as awkward in my mouth as pebbles; every way I thought to come at it the necklace called me out a harlot. At last I coughed.
‘I was asking myself when you’d likely begin Goody Spicer. You’re worse than a sparrow that won’t settle to peck. Words ain’t blades, be they ever so sharp.’ He pulled himself up and regarded his shears. ‘And if they were blades, it were better they were keen; it’s the blunted hacking every which way which does most damage. It’s about the Steward, I’ll warrant, his being so free with you at the showing. Now I can’t say as folks didn’t notice, and you a pillar of salt at the touch on him. You’ll have to bide a bit of wagging.’
‘There’s something else, Rowland. When I came home—’ but Rowland had with a glance beyond me shown me I should stop. It was Meg’s brother, Jack Robbins.
‘I been sent to fetch you Aunt Martha, the Steward hisself has come to inspect the thatching. He wants you to report on it.’
I returned the look old Rowland gave me, what he said in it I couldn’t tell, but I was sure he meant it kindly.
‘He’s inside,’ Michael Robbins said as I scurried up, not bothering to hide a leer.
I nodded and stepped into my cottage, leaving the door wide open. Boult was seated across the room in Jacob’s chair. I tensed all through at that, but nevertheless I bobbed him a curtsey and waited.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘I had forgot you were lame. Aren’t you going to thank me?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, ‘it is very fine thatch.’
He stood up and quietly walked past me to close the door. ‘Not the thatch, girl. Where is the chain?’
‘You are very kind sir,’ I said, ‘but I cannot accept it.’ I went to where I had hid the box under the tick and came back towards him, holding it in my outstretched hand. He did not take it straightaway, but stood without moving, only a curl of his lip showing he had heard. Then he lifted it slowly from my palm.
‘I want to see it on you,’ he said quietly, his eyes on mine. ‘You shall put it on.’
‘No sir,’ I said, backing away a little.
All at once he lurched and grabbed me. His face was red, but he was smiling. ‘No manners at all. I only want to see it round your dirty neck. That’s all. I don’t force, I think I told you that already.’ He had his hand on my smock. I must have glanced past him at the door, for he added, ‘If you want your husband to have a position to come back to, you will do me the courtesy of trying it on. I doubt you’ll brook another scandal.’
I swallowed and nodded, lifting my chin to bare my neck but averting my face from his.
He came closer and, drawing the chain out of its box, lifted it up before my eyes. It was a dainty, delicate thing; the sun caught it and it glowed. A single pearl hung as a pendant. He moved round so that his face was before mine.
‘Are you sure you don’t want it? Think how the pearl will warm against your skin.’
‘I’ll none of it, sir, thank you,’ I said. ‘It is too fine. It would not suit me at all.’
‘That, Mistress Minx, is for me to decide. Stand still, while I thread it round.’ I had no choice but to let him circle his arms about my neck and fasten the chain; I twisted my neck so that I didn’t have to look into his face. His breath was warm on my skin.
‘Brown as a hazelnut above that collar. How does it look, I wonder, on whiter skin?’ The sense of his words didn’t reach me, not until I felt his fingers fumbling the laces of my kirtle. I tried to pull away, but his hands were at my smock, snatching it from my shoulders. I should have screamed out then, I should have kicked him. Anything. I don’t know. But I could no more have moved or cried out than a tree can scream when the axe cuts into it.
‘That’s better, that’s better,’ he said, looking down at my naked chest and nodding. For a moment I thought he would just look me over as though I were a horse he must assess, and let me be. But then, all in an instant, he looked up at me, and leered, and pressed his mouth against one and then the other breast, sucking hard on the nipple, so that I winced with pain. Still I said nothing, did nothing. It was as though even my breath was choked. I looked where the hair was sparse upon his head and there was scaling on his pink smooth scalp and I thought of the knife in my pocket, Jacob’s knife, how clean and ready the blade was. His lips kneaded at me. I felt his slaver grow cold on my skin and I stood rigid with revulsion and fear. It is not enough to say I hated him, that came before and after – when suddenly about my day or lying in bed I felt again his pawing hands and his mouth and to quell the cold sweat and the horror I pictured driving the knife into his neck.
What could have happened next, I don’t know and I won’t think, but what did happen was a knock at the door. He released me; I staggered away, pulling my clothing about me.
‘Goody Spicer, Martha,’ a familiar voice called. It was Annie Bartlet, from up the way. ‘My father, he’s had a fall, working the barn roof, his leg is cut bad and broken. Can you come? Can you bind him?’
‘I’m no bonesetter Annie,’ I called out, but then I relented; it was a deliverance. I must take it, even at the cost of a leg. ‘You go on,’ I said, ‘I’ll come straight.’
She waited for me where the lane meets the high road, too pale and shaken herself to notice my state. A second after I reached her Boult strode past. She ducked him a curtsey and trancelike I copied her.
‘I have heard about your father Annie’, he said, ‘I will pray to God for a swift recovery. You must apply to me if you require help.’
As she bowed her head in thanks he met my eye, lifting his brows slightly as though we were plotters, as though we had escaped together. Although it disgusted me I knew in part it was true; he had pulled me into an intrigue. I was glad she had not seen, that in her fear for her father she did not question how, with the lane empty behind us, he had heard about her father.
I gave Tom Bartlet nightshade for the pain and set the bone as well as I could. At first my fingers shook so much I had to pause and pinch myself, but little by little the work calmed me and I felt my breathing steady in my chest. There was a ragged wound on his thigh where he had fallen against a plough. I cleaned and bound it, stopping the blood, mixing a poultice. Annie and her mother bustled round me as I directed, lit candles as the light faded. When we were do
ne we knelt to pray together. As long as no fever set in he would mend well, I thought, and said so.
Annie ducked out of the cottage behind me and walked a way back. The evening was cool and empty with the moon palely rising. As I said goodbye she put out her hand to my neck. ‘A golden chain and a pearl too. I en’t never touched a pearl before. When you were praying alongside me the flame licked along it so pretty and the pearl all white like a moon.’
My hand followed hers. I had forgot it, quite, the chain. ‘It was my mother’s,’ I said quickly.
Annie gave me a long slow smile. ‘You a lady in disguise then? Is that why the Steward likes you? You don’t let the grass grow Martha Spicer.’
‘Annie, please, I love my husband. How could I prefer the Steward?’
‘Course you love him, but he en’t here is he? Preferring ain’t got nothing to do with it. Get what you can I say. Even if Jacob finds out he’s not like to do much. Huff and puff. Knock you about some maybe. He’ll be glad of a new roof same as you when the rain comes.’ She patted my cheek. ‘Don’t look so affrighted, I won’t tell nobody.’
I looked at her, luminous in the soft twilight, twirling the chain round her finger. Even if I could persuade her I was true, what was my innocence to her? I’d merely be a fool to pass a treasure by, that had been left for me to take. And in any case, something like guilt was gleaming round my neck. Her face was fresh and downy as a newly opened rose. Who was the more simplehearted, I wondered, her or me?
9
It dawned through the village everywhere at once, like sunlight. The party was on their way back. Two weeks. Less if Sir Thomas wished it. I was glad and fearful all at once and angry that I should be afraid. Now when I pictured his homecoming – his arms opening for me on the road; later, at home, his mouth covering me with kisses; his hand resting with joy on my belly – now when I saw all this in my mind’s eye I saw him hesitate, then draw back and frown at me with a doubt in his eyes I could not bear to see. A voice at my left ear whispered to me that if I seemed a child to Annie Bartlet, Jacob was greener still; he could not tolerate guile or strategy; he loved freely, wholly, or he did not love at all. But another voice sat at my right and told me not to hearken to such folly. He had cleaved to me when all the world had called me wicked, his own mother foremost among them. He was not such a lamb that he didn’t know how clever the wolf could be. Hadn’t he warned me, just before he left? Ah the first voice said, yes, he warned you, remember the thickness in his voice then; how he fears you will give him horns.
The Good Wife Page 6
