When she asked him where Matthew was, he made no reply but pointed to yet another door. She went the way he had pointed, came to the door, and, without knocking, entered.
She stood in a square room with a single arched window placed high in a stark white wall. There were no furnishings except for a round-backed chair and square table on which many books were heaped. Poring over these moldy volumes and with his back to her sat a person dressed in a flowing gown. She knew it was not Matthew who sat reading these books, but she approached nonetheless and touched the reader on the shoulder.
Strangely, in her dream her fingers seemed to pass through the shoulder as though it had no substance. Then the stranger rose and turned to face her.
The face was indeed a stranger’s face, with hollow eye sockets and sharp, pointed chin, and lips so thin there was hardly more than mouth. Joan’s eyes fell from the face to the breast, for she saw the gown he wore was open to the small, buttonlike navel, like some old painting of Christ’s apostles she had seen. But amazing to her were the two female breasts with swollen nipples as though the hermaphroditic creature had just given suck.
Next morning Joan remembered her dream and puzzled over it. She believed it to be an omen, for like any sensible woman and decent Christian, she believed in the prophetic power of visions of the night, just as she believed in the glimmerings that had so often expanded her awareness beyond ordinary observation.
But an omen of what?
She dressed and went downstairs to find Frances in the parlor, obviously upset about something.
“Why, what is it, Frances?” Joan asked.
“It’s my father-in-law. He’s been sick all month and now is worse. Thomas and I will be leaving for Suffolk within the hour. They fear for his life, for he is a very old gentleman.”
Joan expressed her sympathy and sat down next to her friend. Under these new circumstances, she decided not to propose her plan to Frances, half-glad to lose the opportunity, given her certainty that Frances would think her stark mad and try to talk her out of it. “How long will you be in Suffolk?”
Frances wasn’t sure; all depended on God’s will, she said. At the age her father-in-law was, one never knew. The old man could go between breaths. She urged Joan, however, to stay as long as she liked. “The house you may treat as your own in our absence. You may rule the servants as you see fit, and I shall tell them so myself.”
It was then Joan realized that she need, not inform Frances of her plan at all. Frances and Thomas both would be gone. Unsupervised, Joan could now do as she pleased, and there would be no one to tell her otherwise.
Later that morning, as Joan stepped out into the street, she saw that the morning’s frost was nearly gone and a pale sun was struggling to penetrate the smoky air. She had left the house with no fanfare, Frances and Thomas having departed in the coach before her. Joan was so dressed to put her disguise to the test and to find Nan and secure both counsel and the clothes she needed to invade the Temple precincts.
She was relieved that, once in the street, her appearance caused no stares of wonder in the faces that she met, which gave her encouragement that her plan was not entirely absurd. As she walked, she practiced her masculine gait, lengthening her stride and swinging her free arm like the pendulum of a clock. She followed the way she knew well, too intent on the strange adventure before her to pay much attention to the passing scene.
The city clocks were striking noon by the time she reached her destination, not the Middle Temple (that would be later) but die Gull. Here she faltered briefly in her resolve as she faced the tavern where she had been a few days earlier so rudely treated, although in the light of day the place did seem far less threatening than when last she saw it. The men who were coming in and going out seemed a more respectable sort than the drunker, sailors who had accosted her before.
Inside, she was relieved to find that the ugly proprietor was not at his usual station. In his place was a young man of pleasant and honest-seeming countenance who greeted her courteously and asked what she would have, and most important, gave no sign of observing in her appearance any contradiction between her face and her costume. The tavern itself was half-full, and many of its occupants seemed merchants and small tradesmen doing business over cups of wine or ale. The whores who had descended from above in the night had yet to make their appearance. In a husky voice of uneven pitch, Joan explained to a waiter who inquired that she would have neither food nor drink but wished to see Nan Warren, a former employee of the house. The young man laughed.
“For all I know, sir, Nan is employed here still. I saw her but yesternight. Her room is just up those stairs, although I’ll not guarantee she’s out of bed as yet, it being only noon and Nan wont to sleep late.”
Concerned that Nan had not yet left so loathsome a place, Joan thanked the young man for this information', grateful that he did not regard her with suspicion. Emboldened by these signs of her disguise’s success, she went right upstairs and proceeded down the passage to the room where she thought she and Nan had taken refuge the first night of their acquaintance. But when she knocked, an unfamiliar voice answered, and out from the shadowy recesses came a female form so wan and undernourished that Joan was sure this picture of frailty was as near to death as any mortal might be and still breathe.
“Good morning, young sir,” the girl said in a velvety voice promising physical delights the unwholesome body be-
fore her could not possibly deliver. “You’re early abroad. Yet’s it’s never too early for pleasure, is it? Well, don’t stand there, come in.”
The invitation was supported by a slender arm that extended, grasped Joan by the shoulder, and drew her in to the little room, where Joan could discern a narrow bed all atum-ble with dirty bedclothes, a bare floor of planks, and not a stick of furniture else but old, stained wainscoting. The one tiny window was covered with a ragged cloth, permitting only a gray effusion that allowed Joan to see in outline but not in detail. For Joan, the outline was horrid enough, as was the personage clutching at her. She tried to get away, but the girl’s appearance belied the strength in her arm.
“My name is Alice,” the girl said.
Joan told her she was looking for Nan Warren, an announcement that did not please Alice, for she said; “Nan Warren? Why, the Devil, what has she that I’ve not? I am as much woman and more. ”
With this, Alice grasped Joan’s hand and pressed it against her emaciated body where Joan could feel the slight swell of the girl’s breast. Joan gasped with embarrassment and drew her hand away, her heart racing. She was unsure how to extricate herself from her present situation, how to explain to this pitiful creature before her just why her invitation to illicit passion was so abhorrent. She had fooled the strangers in the street and the young waiter downstairs with her cape and doublet, her hair concealed beneath the cap, but this indeed was the stronger test of her manhood. In the next instant the wanton before her would be removing Joan’s clothes, and then how would young John Stock fare?
Behind her, Joan heard another voice. Turning away from Alice, she saw the old woman with the ghastly red wig and wrinkled face whom Nan had called Mother Franklin. The old woman eyed her suspiciously. “What villainy is here, Alice? What, will this maggoty head not pay for his pleasure?”
Joan turned from the old woman to look at Alice. She watched with astonishment as a devious smile of understanding spread over Alice’s face. Alice said: “Well now, Mother
Franklin. He will not, though I have asked him with much courtesy. Twice he had his way with me and now he claims to have no money about him at all but begs to let him return later.”
“Return later, my foot!” retorted the old woman. She flung at Joan a long and vile train of epithets, at the same time clenching her fists and making her wrinkled face more hideous than before. “You miserly rogue, give the girl what you owe her fairly or by all that’s holy, I ’ll have Master Hodge up from below and he’ll take it from your hide.”
&nb
sp; Really alarmed now, Joan tried to explain that she had not used Alice at all, but had only asked after Nan Warren, but the old woman would not be pacified, and Alice made it worse by beginning to shake and blubber most convincingly and swear she had been wronged—an honest working woman deprived of her due and other such nonsense that, in less dangerous circumstances, would have caused Joan to laugh outright at its ridiculousness.
But Alice’s professions of injury achieved their purpose. Mother Franklin’s outrage intensified, as did the vileness of her abuse. “You whoremasterly spaniel! You son of a three-legged pup! You damned spittle of the lazar house.”
Joan was on the verge of disclosing her true identity and suffering the consequences when the more than welcome face of Nan Warren appeared in the doorway. Nan seemed at once to take in the situation—the true nature of the conflict and even Joan’s identity, for Joan was dressed in the doublet and hose Nan had given her and of course her face was the same as ever. Nan inquired of the old woman the cause of the turmoil
‘ ‘This whoremasterly knave has refused to pay for services rendered.”
Alice blubbered that it was all true and glared at Joan reprovingly.
“I never touched the child at all,” Joan exclaimed. “I only asked for Nan, here, whom I have come to see on a matter of private business.”
“Filthy business, I wager,” Alice said.
“What if it be filthy?” Nan responded harshly. “What concern is it of yours, if it is my business?”
Joan repeated that she had not touched the girl, much less crawled in bed with her, and Nan said she believed it, for Alice had pulled this same device before with honest gentleman who had not so much as peeked beneath her skirt.
Then Alice called Nan a greasy whore, and Nan called her a lying slut, and in the next instant both women were face to face snarling and grimacing and it was all the old woman could do to keep them from tearing at each other’s flesh. Joan watched all this with mute horror, for although she was relieved to have attention shifted from her, she was uncertain as to how this row between Nan and Alice would come out, and she was shocked to see the violence of which her new friend was capable. Nan was the taller and stronger of the two women, and certainly the healthier, with her plump, round arms, full breasts, and sturdy hips, but there was a fiery determination in the pale Alice, who cursed and snarled like a person really wronged and not the fraud she was.
The commotion had wakened the whole house now, and from other rooms women in various stages of undress came sleepy-eved to know the cause of this noisy dispute. One of these newcomers now supported Nan’s story about Alice’s former fraudulent claims, and when a third voice was raised in the same cause, Alice began to calm down and after a few further exchanges was forced to admit because of these testimonies that it was in fact “some other gentlemen whom she meant, and not he before her.”
Then Nan led Joan from the room and took her to her own chamber and closed the door behind them.
“Mistress Stock! It took me a second before I recognized you. Why are you here?”
“I might ask the same of you,” Joan said, trying not to sound censorious. “I thought you intended to gather your belongings and find new lodgings.”
‘4Oh, I do,” said Nan. “And I have found new lodgings, but had to return for something I forgot, which having now, I am free to shake the dust from my feet and say farewell to
this place forever. But you are at great risk returning to the Gull as you have done.”
‘‘You saved my life a second time,” Joan said. “I daily grow in your debt. But before telling you my full intent and why I am thus dressed, I must sit down. For that old harridan’s oaths and the odor of Alice’s chamber have made me want to retch.”
Joan went over and sat down on the edge of the bed, which, unlike that of Alice’s tiny quarters, was cleanly made. Nan sat down next to her. ‘‘Now tell me all,” said Nan with an encouraging smile. ‘‘Both why you have forsaken your natural sex and why so boldly returned here.”
Joan told Nan how Matthew had been attacked, and found, in the process, that she had to reveal more than she intended about his real purpose at the Inns. Yet her confidence in Nan did not now admit the need for caution.
‘‘Well,” said Nan when Joan had finished her story. ‘‘Thanks be to God your husband was spared a worse fate. You say he was on his way to ask questions of one of the gentlemen of the Inns?”
‘‘Yes, Braithwaite—the most recent victim.”
‘‘Ah. I don’t remember having heard of him before, but I am sorry to hear that your husband has Theophilus Phipps for a nurse. For my money, he’s the murderer your husband seeks.”
Joan said Phipps was her choicest suspect, based on what Nan had said and Matthew witnessed.
“Would it not be wiser, seeing your husband is wounded, that he withdraw from these inquiries—and you as well? I fear, Joan, that in close quarters your true sex will become known. Surely your presence will put you into serious danger. Won’t you reconsider?”
Joan thought about this, then said, “I’m sorry, Nan. Of course, you’re right about the danger. Yet I can’t stand the idea of Matthew’s being alone there. He’s virtually helpless in his present state. Besides, I don’t like being excluded just because I am a woman. ”
Nan commiserated with Joan on that point. Then she said, “Well, Joan, you must do what you must do. I see there’s no
arguing with you. But why doesn’t your husband arrest Phipps for the crimes? Then all would be done and you two could hie home to Chelmsford. ”
Joan laughed. “You have much to leam about these works of my husband,” she said. “Evidence must be gathered, witnesses secured, testimonies presented. It’s not as simple as you might suppose.”
“Yes,” Nan reflected, “I can see it will not be as simple as I supposed.”
“Can you find more clothes for me? I can’t wear this to the Temple.”
Nan said she could. “Why, I know the very place. There’s a certain Jew keeps shop in the Old Exchange where poor gentlemen pawn their cloaks and shirts. There’s none the Jew can’t fit if he’s a mind. He loves me well and will give me a good price.”
Joan was pleased with this plan and gave Nan money, and Nan said she would be back within the hour, but first, she said, she would take Joan to her new lodgings, where she could wait in greater comfort.
Nan’s new lodgings v/ere less than a mile from the Gull, in a better neighborhood, with respectable houses and shops. It was upstairs from an apothecary’s and was entered from a side door and some narrow stairs that led up to a landing off which were two doors. Joan’s sensitive nose detected an unpleasant odor coming from one of the chambers.
“That chamber opposite is the apothecary’s,” Nan explained as she inserted the key in the lock of her own. “He is ever distilling his potions. His mother, Mistress Browne, says I will soon grow used to the odor, but I doubt it. Yet the smell is worth what it spares me in rent.”
Nan told Joan what she paid, and Joan agreed Nan had struck a good bargain with her landlord. Clean lodgings in respectable houses v/ere difficult to come by in London, unless one was willing and able to pay a great sum. Joan was pleased that Nan had managed her expenses so well and was more than ever convinced that her trust in the woman had not been misplaced, especially when she saw the inside of Nan’s apartment.
There were two rooms there, one a kind of parlor and the other a bedchamber. Both were simply furnished, and everything was clean and neat as though Nan had dwelt there a long time. TWo windows looked out into the street, and a small fireplace occupied one wall. In the farthest comer of the bedchamber was a hidden recess, which Nan showed Joan with some pride. “A priest’s hole,” she called it.
Joan commented that it was not much of a concealment, being as it was so shallow, and must therefore hide a priest who was no more than a skeleton. Nan, with a mischievous look, showed her how the boards in the wall gave way to an even deeper an
d more capacious recess. “Mistress Browne showed me this,” Nan explained casually. “She said it was a place to hide in case robbers should break in.” Joan said she hoped Nan wouldn’t be driven to such an extreme, for the hole was not that large either in height or width, and Nan said that it was very true and that while she was off to the Jew’s, Joan should not feel obliged to take refuge there but might enjoy a comfortable chair in the adjoining room.
Joan thanked her friend and sat down to wait.
It was nearer two hours than one before Nan returned, carrying a very large bundle beneath her arm and announcing that what several poor gentlemen had exchanged for a pittance, Nan had rescued in Joan’s cause. During which time Joan began to experience her first serious doubts about her undertaking. She had fooled the waiter and lying Alice and old Mother Franklin with her disguise, and even Nan had admitted momentarily being deceived, but would she deceive the clever lawyers at the Temple and especially the treacherous and probably homicidal Theophilus Phipps? By the time Nan made her appearance, Joan had worked herself into a state of considerable anxiety. Yet Nan herself seemed to have cast away her reservations, for she said, when entering, “Now, my good Jack Stock. We’ll fit you out as becomes your station as a prosperous merchant’s son, with doublet, hose, and codpiece too, shoes with silver buckles, and a cloak neither patched nor threadbare but of good solid stuff. ’’
Joan changed into one of the suits in the bundle while Nan helped her put the final touches on her disguise. Then Nan wished Joan all the success she deserved and the two women embraced warmly as though they had known each other all their lives.
Joan was only a stone’s throw from the apothecary’s when she was approached by two ragged urchins petitioning her for pennies. The boys, who could not have been past ten, looked up into her face so piteously and asked of her with such earnestness that Joan found it impossible to deny them. She gave each twice what he had asked and blessed them, and they said, “Thank you, Lady,’’ with great politeness.
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