Time's Echo

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘You should have given them to Isobel to do.’

  The hectoring note in Margery’s voice is already familiar. She is a big-boned woman with a raw face and small, sour eyes. She was Ned’s first wife’s maid, and has been keeping house for him since her mistress died. She’s been running it well too, I can see that. The floors are swept, the carpets beaten, the linens brushed. I have no reason to complain of her. But she doesn’t like me. She has transferred her devotion to Ned and cannot understand how he has chosen me, a plain dab of a girl with no dowry and an uneasy reputation. She doesn’t know that he thinks I am beautiful.

  My face is still screwed up as I lower my arm and set to the onions once more. ‘Isobel has enough to do,’ I say.

  As well as Margery, there are two maids, Alison and Isobel, who are often to be found giggling together, just the way Elizabeth and I used to do. I feel lonely when I see them, which is foolish of me, I know. I am their mistress, not their friend, but it is a big change. I am used to the Beckwiths’ house, where we all sat at table together and talked. I miss that. I miss Mr Beckwith grumbling about the state of the paving, about blocked sewers and encroachments, about taxes and statutes and the untrustworthiness of southerners. I miss my mistress. I miss Meg. I even miss Dick, for all that he used to pinch and tease. Now I eat with Ned in the hall, and the maids wait on us, the way I used to wait on the Beckwiths when they had guests.

  Isobel is only fourteen, a whey-faced girl who blinks, while Alison is as sturdy as a cob. I would like them to like me, but they are both taking their lead from Margery and, whenever they catch sight of me, they fall silent and watch me out of the edges of their eyes. That’s why I’m chopping onions. I want them to see that I’m not too proud to do the jobs they would do.

  Or perhaps I am hoping that if I don’t make them do the hard tasks, they will like me for it.

  They are more likely to despise me, I know.

  At least the onions give me an excuse to sigh. My eyes are stinging so much that I can hardly see, but it seems to me there is something wrong about the table. Putting down the knife, I squint through my tears at the ingredients I have set out in front of me in neat piles, the way Mrs Beckwith taught me. Mutton, yes. Ale, yes. And onions, of course. And there are the herbs I need: rosemary, thyme, parsley. I have set the spices around a plate, ready to use. I touch them in order: cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg. I am frowning. What have I forgotten?

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Margery pinches her lips together. She is making pastry for an apple pie, kneading the dough irritably at the other end of the table. She pushes it with the heel of her hand, lifts it, turns it and lets it drop once more. Slap, thud. Slap, thud.

  The apples for the pie are piled in the middle of the table. They are perfectly good apples. Isobel has polished them on her apron, and their skin is smooth and shiny and not in the least wrinkled, but every time I look at them I am sure I can smell them rotting, and I think about Francis pushing into me in the orchard and my stomach heaves. I would rather chop a whole sack of onions than touch those apples.

  Margery doesn’t like me in the kitchen. Her kitchen, she thinks of it. She prides herself on the table she has kept for Ned. His wife, Anne, let Margery do everything while she sat in her chamber and prayed, I hear. She was a lady, Margery says, implying that I never will be. And she is right, if being a lady means closeting yourself with a Bible and a prayer stool. I would lose my wits with boredom. Besides, I am determined that this will be my kitchen. I will never be mistress of the house otherwise. Mistress Beckwith told me that.

  ‘Nothing . . . ’ I shake my head. I use the corners of my apron to dab the onion tears from my eyes. The puzzled sense that something is not quite right about my ingredients has gone. It is all there. Prunes and dates and currants to add with the spices, and the precious oranges and lemons that Ned imports.

  I am making stewed mutton steaks. It is one of Ned’s favourite dishes. I remember how he used to comment on it when he came to dinner at the Beckwiths’, and I want him to know that I am trying to be a good wife. We have been married a month, and I am used now to the way he turns to me in the dark and pulls up my nightgown. I still don’t know why Alice smiled the way she did, but it is all right. It doesn’t hurt any more, anyway.

  And Ned has let me keep Hap. This I have learnt about my husband: he is a man of rare understanding. He waits and he looks, and he sees things for what they are, and not for what other people tell him they should be. When he looks at Hap, he doesn’t see Satan’s pup; he sees a small dog whose paw has been broken, that is all.

  He is a good man, and a kind one. He has filled his house with misfits. Margery has no family, and nowhere else to go. The maids Alison and Isobel are both poor orphans with no one to speak for them, either, while his servant, Rob, is a gowky lad whom the other apprentices make fun of. His agent, John, who looks after Ned’s affairs in Hamburg, has a crooked shoulder, I hear.

  And then there is me, of course.

  It is odd of Ned. My husband is not just good and kind, I find, he is interesting. A merchant so rich should flaunt his wealth – what is the point in having it, otherwise? The neighbours puzzle over him, but they don’t forget that for all his strange ways he is richer by far than they, and they respect that, if not his choice of a wife. No one would have been surprised if Ned had forbidden Hap the house, but he didn’t. He let me keep my dog by my side, and that has been more comfort to me than I can say.

  The servants are mistrustful of Hap, though, mainly because Margery dislikes him, and I keep him out of sight as much as I can. He sleeps by the door in our chamber, or sits with me in the parlour, but I don’t take him to the market any more. I remember what Mistress Beckwith told me about my reputation, and Ned’s.

  Ned is at the wardmote today. All the men of the ward are there, appointing an inquest jury and, as I know from Mr Beckwith, that can take some time. It’s not easy to persuade men to take time away from their workshops to walk around the streets, to inspect blocked gutters and broken paving and listen to complaints about nuisance neighbours. It is a thankless task, too. No one likes to have their offences pointed out, and Mr Beckwith used to come home bristling after being shouted and sworn at. Bootham ward is more prosperous than Monk, but empanelling the jury still takes some time, and Ned will be ready for his dinner when he comes home.

  He will invite some of his neighbours to come back with him, he said, and I must have a good dinner to set before them. The neighbours don’t like Ned’s marriage any more than his servants do, that is clear. I want to impress, for Ned’s sake. A fine dinner and a modest wife. Will that be enough to show them that he has not made the mistake they think he has? I am hoping so, but I am nervous.

  So when I hear the clunk of the door latch, the stamp of boots and male voices in the hall, I jump. ‘Master is back,’ says Margery unnecessarily. She heaves herself to her feet. ‘I’ll take some wine.’

  ‘I’ll take it.’ It is not for Margery to greet Ned’s guests. It is my place, as Ned’s wife. I take off my apron. ‘Will you check the pie?’

  Without waiting for her reply, I ladle wine into a jug and take it into the hall, where Ned is making welcome some five or six other men. They stand with their legs braced, chests pigeon-puffed to show that they are not over-impressed, but their eyes dart around the hall, measuring the cost of the hangings, the wainscot, the carpets on the chest. Measuring Ned’s profits. Wondering, perhaps, if they outweigh the mistake he has made in marrying me.

  I recognize Mr Fawkes, and Christopher Milner, whom they call master of physick, although I suspect Mistress Beckwith or Sybil Dent knows far more about curing sickness than he does. The others are strangers to me. This is a new ward and a new parish, and it still feels odd to me. I knew everyone in Goodramgate. Here, in Coney Street, I find myself among strangers, and my neighbours eye me askance. I am mistress of a fine house, and I have a kind husband who thinks me beautiful, but still, it’s hard not to feel homesick for my
old life sometimes.

  But I smile and offer spiced wine to my husband’s guests, and I try not to notice how their eyes run assessingly over me, gauging my worth. Ned is at the door, greeting the last guest, so I don’t see who it is at first. When I do, my grip loosens on the jug and I almost drop it. Steadying it with my other hand gives me an excuse to arrange my expression, but my bowels have twisted into a painful knot.

  Francis Bewley is standing with my husband, smiling, at ease, looking around him. No, he’s not smiling. He’s smirking.

  I want to throw the wine at him. I want to beat at him with my fists. I want to run back to the kitchen and hide. But I do none of those things. Ned has seen me, and is bringing Francis across the hall to where I am standing rigidly with the jug of wine between my two hands.

  ‘We can feed an extra mouth, can we not?’ Ned says easily. ‘As you see, I have brought our new neighbour, Francis Bewley, to dine.’

  ‘Mistress Hilliard.’ Francis sketches a mocking bow and glances up at me, daring me to admit that we have met before.

  ‘Mr Bewley.’ I can’t bring myself to curtsey to him. I incline my head instead. It is all I can do to unseal my lips. ‘Will you take some wine?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I hate the way my hand shakes as I fill the goblet and pass it to him. Ned doesn’t notice, but Francis does. Oh, yes, he notices, and it pleases him.

  ‘Francis is but newly come to Coney Street, but he has already made his presence felt in the wardmote.’ Ned claps him on the shoulder, the way men do. ‘Meet our new churchwarden, solemnly sworn this morning! It is not often we get a volunteer.’

  ‘I am always ready to do my godly duty.’ There is a complacent look to Francis now. It is only a month since the wedding, but already he seems fatter, sleeker, his red mouth redder.

  I have just stopped dreading this moment. After seeing him on my wedding day, I was afraid to go out in case I came face-to-face with him again, but I couldn’t stay in my chamber, like Ned’s first wife. I had to show Margery and the other maids that I was no fool, to be fobbed off with musty corn or putrid fish. I can weigh a loaf of bread in my hand and tell if the baker is skimping on flour. I dig my hands into a sack of oats to check they are fresh below the surface, and watch the measures when the sugar loaf is weighed. In the Shambles I have a sharp eye to the look of the meat, a sharper nose to its smell, and I expect no less of the maids.

  So I had to go out to market with them, but I held myself stiffly, as if braced for a blow. York is a city of walls and sly corners, of narrow alleys and sudden turns. There was no way of knowing when Francis might suddenly appear. I made excuses not to visit Mrs Beckwith in Goodramgate in case he still lodged there, but little by little I let myself think that I had imagined seeing him on my wedding day after all. And even if I hadn’t, I knew I was safe in Coney Street. This is one of the most prosperous streets in the city. What would a penniless clerk do here?

  And yet here he is, and his eyes are crawling over me, and my flesh shrinks away from him in disgust.

  ‘Francis is a notary,’ Ned is explaining. ‘Always a useful man to know! He has come from London. Most men make the journey the other way.’

  ‘Indeed?’ I manage. ‘And what brings you to York?’ I nearly say ‘back to York’, but catch myself just in time.

  ‘Everything I want is here,’ Francis says, looking straight into my eyes, and I have to force myself not to look away. He smiles blandly. ‘I was fortunate to inherit everything from my old master in London, and now I can please myself where I go.’

  I know, without him telling me, that I am the reason he has come back, and I remember how callously he planned for his master’s death. I will see to it. My blood runs cold at the thought that Francis has, in fact, seen to his master.

  ‘I came to York with my late master,’ Francis goes on. ‘I had a fancy to come back. My house is small, just across the street in fact, but this is a respectable neighbourhood. I like that. I have set up my business here. I am here to stay.’

  It is a warning. No, it is a threat, and there is nothing I can do about it. I cannot move away. I cannot complain. I cannot tell Ned that I don’t want Francis Bewley in the house, because then he will want to know why, and I can’t tell him. Ned has taken a risk in marrying me. If I lose my reputation, he will look a fool, and Francis can destroy my standing with a word or two. I know that, and Francis knows that I know.

  All this whirls around my head as Ned and Francis talk about the shufflings and grumblings at the wardmote. I am just standing there with the jug of wine. I am trapped by this man, with his small, intense eyes and his red lips; this man who smiles at me as if he is remembering how he hurt me, as if the thought gives him pleasure still.

  ‘Ned, what say you to this new tax on brewers?’ It is Mr Fawkes, drawing Ned away, leaving me stranded with Francis.

  He holds out his goblet for more wine. ‘So, Mistress Hawise, where is that Hell-hound of yours? I hope your husband has got rid of him?’

  ‘On the contrary. Hap is upstairs in my chamber. He doesn’t care for the company.’

  ‘You have your husband besotted, I see. Clever of you.’ Francis sips his wine, and his eyes never leave my face. ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘About us, of course.’

  My throat is so tight it hurts to swallow. ‘There’s nothing for him to know.’

  ‘Oh, I think there is. If I were married, I would want to know if another man had had his hand on my wife’s cunny.’

  The worst thing is that he is smiling. To everyone else in the room, it must look as if we are having a pleasant conversation, but I can feel my gorge rise. I have to press my lips together to stop myself vomiting.

  ‘Oh, don’t look like that,’ says Francis, tutting. ‘I’m not going to tell him, and you won’t either, will you?’

  I can’t bear to be near him any longer. ‘I must see to the other guests,’ I say and turn away.

  I can’t believe nobody has noticed that I am sick and shaking. The wainscot on the walls seems to be pressing in on me, and I only stop myself from fainting by concentrating very hard on the warmth of the jug on my palm, the smoothness of the handle in my grip. Autumn sunshine is slanting through the glass and striping the hall with bars of light. They make the room look like a prison.

  My eyes rest on Ned. He is nodding, listening to Mr Fawkes, his head bent courteously towards the older man. I see him as if for the first time. My husband. He is not a very tall man, but he is compactly muscled, and I find myself remembering how solid his shoulders feel beneath my hands in the dark. I no longer see the pockmarks on his cheeks. He is not handsome, no, but I like the quiet angles of his face, and when I look at the line of his mouth I feel something warm uncoil inside me.

  I wish I could go over to him and burrow my face in his chest. The longing to lean into him, just for a moment, to close my eyes and feel safe, is so strong that I am dizzy with it, but I know Francis is watching me, his malign presence thickening the air. I know he would take it as a sign of weakness, of fear, and that would please him.

  So I move on with the wine instead. I am a modest wife, and I am here to make sure Ned’s guests are well wined and well dined, and nothing else.

  It is a relief to go to the kitchen and order Alison and Isobel to start setting out the table. I wish I could stay there, but I have to go back and take my seat at the table. If I have to sit next to Francis, I will pretend I have been taken ill, I decide, but in the event he is beside Christopher Milner, who sits opposite me. This way it is worse, I realize. I can feel Francis’s eyes on my face all through the meal.

  The conversation turns to the new preacher in St Martin’s, who is by all accounts a godly man. Myself, I find his sermons very long, and my mind tends to wander to what I will cook the next day, but I don’t admit that. Besides, no one is interested in my opinion. I am only a woman.

  Francis is giving a fine impression of pious devotion
. He attends divine service in the Minster every day, he says, and now that he is appointed churchwarden, he intends to tackle sinfulness in the parish.

  ‘I take my office seriously,’ he says. ‘I will root out abominations wherever I find them.’

  ‘What abominations?’ asks Christopher Milner, his mouth full of mutton.

  Francis looks grave. ‘There is witchcraft rife in the city, I hear,’ he says and the men at the table look uneasy. They are hard-headed men, for the most part. They go to church, but their hearts are in their workshops and their warehouses. They don’t like talk of witchcraft and abominations. Women’s work, I can almost hear them thinking.

  ‘I fear the signs are all too real,’ Francis says, perhaps sensing their lack of encouragement. ‘Wherever you look there is disaster. Poor crops, sickness, lewdness and unrest. Only last week they say a young woman in Selby gave birth to a cat.’

  ‘I heard there was a two-headed calf born up Haxby way,’ offers Charles Batchelor.

  Francis’s eyes are alight with fervour as he leans across the table. ‘And who is to blame for all these monstrous abominations?’ he demands. ‘Persons of lewd and ungodly life, blasphemers, and sorcerers!’

  ‘It is not the job of the wardmote to enquire into witchcraft,’ Ned puts in mildly from the other end of the table. ‘Our business is the everyday. We must worry about paving and ditches and market offences, not sorcery and bewitchment.’

  ‘I worry about that cursed Anne Ampleforth,’ Christopher Milner grumbles, and there are some nods around the table. ‘What a scold that woman is! No one can live quietly beside her.’

  ‘Indeed, but there is no suggestion that she is a witch, I think,’ says Ned, who has his own quiet authority.

  ‘Nothing that a spell in the thew wouldn’t sort.’ Christopher grunts his agreement. ‘And the sooner, the better, in my opinion.’