The Cursed Wife

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘Cat?’ I say tentatively at last. ‘What of Anthony?’

  She does not answer at first, but her shoulders stiffen. When she turns, the confidence has dropped from her like a discarded cloak, and her eyes are full of tears. ‘I cannot talk of it,’ she says, a crack in her voice. ‘I beg of you, do not ask me about him.’ Her voice drops to a choking whisper. ‘I have been so scared . . .’

  I touch my lip, where hers is split. ‘Your lip . . .?’ I ask, and she nods.

  I remember Anthony when I first saw him at Steeple Tew, how he bowed low. The boyish looks, the lock of hair that he would push back with a glinting smile. And Cat, whirling frantically, her eyes wild. ‘I love him! I need him. Oh, you could not understand, Mary!’

  I could not then, but I do now.

  ‘I am truly sorry,’ I say, ‘but you are safe from him now. I will give you some money and some clean clothes before you go.’

  ‘Go?’ Cat’s mouth trembles. ‘You would turn me away?’

  I stare at her, stupefied. ‘But, Cat, you cannot stay here,’ I stammer.

  ‘Why not?’

  Why not? I want to scream at her. ‘You cannot be yourself here,’ I say carefully instead. ‘Gabriel married me thinking that I was you. I am you now,’ I say, and in my head I hear that sickening refrain again: now, now, now. ‘We cannot go back, and my husband must not know the truth.’

  I am trying to sound calm, but my voice cracks with desperation. If Gabriel finds out that I have been lying to him all these years . . . Panic scrabbles at the edges of my mind. It cannot happen. It must not happen.

  I will not let it happen.

  ‘I will not tell him,’ says Cat. ‘Why would I?’

  The answer leaps into my head: to punish me.

  I rub my temples. This is not what I was thinking when I invited her in. But then, I was not thinking at all, was I?

  ‘Please, Mary,’ she says in a small voice, and I look up sharply. Her blue eyes are blurred with tears, and guilt jabs at me. What is wrong with me to think such a thing of her? This is Cat, and she is suffering.

  Cat crosses the room to drop to her knees beside me and bury her head in my lap. ‘Please, please let me stay. Just for a while. I have been so cold, and I am so tired.’ Her voice cracks and tears. ‘I cannot go back to Anthony now that I have left him. He will kill me, Mary.’

  She sobs into my skirts and I stroke her head. Her cap feels gritty with dirt and I am ashamed of myself for wishing that I could wash my hands. ‘Hush now,’ I say helplessly.

  ‘He will!’ She lifts her face to me, beseeching. ‘I am not how I was. I ask for so little now: shelter, some warmth, something to eat. Can you deny me those?’

  Of course I cannot. I am a Christian woman. I cannot turn her away, but the scar on my hand has begun to itch.

  ‘Just for a short time?’ Cat pleads. ‘Until I am stronger? And then I will go away and not trouble you any more, I promise.’

  ‘Cat, of course you can stay,’ I say, and her face lights up in a dazzling smile. Ah yes, that is the Cat I remember.

  ‘Thank you! Oh, I thank you!’

  ‘But, Cat,’ I go on warningly, ‘there is much to be thought of. How are we to go on?’

  ‘Well, you have already said that I am an old servant of yours.’ Cat sits back on her heels, buoyant once more. ‘We will change places!’ She laughs excitedly, a frenetic ripple of notes up the scale. ‘You will be the mistress, and I the maid.’

  ‘You would not like being my servant,’ I say.

  ‘It would just be for a short time. Come, will it not be amusing?’

  I think of the years I spent as her maid. Of a sore back and sore fingers. Of aching feet and bone-tiredness. Of emptying her chamber pot and preparing rags for her courses. I did it willingly, but it was not amusing, no.

  ‘What of Cecily?’

  ‘Cecily?’ Cat looks blank, then her face clears. ‘Oh, my daughter.’

  ‘My daughter now,’ I correct her, biting out the words. I do not know whether to be relieved or furious that Cecily can mean so little to her. ‘You gave her to me. You begged me to care for her, and I have. She is mine now.’

  Now, now, now.

  I shake my head to clear it of the tune.

  Cat takes both my hands in hers. ‘Mary, do not fret. I will do nothing to betray you. All I ask is some shelter for a few weeks, in memory of the shelter we gave you at Steeple Tew.’

  And my name, which you stole.

  She doesn’t say that, but I know she must be thinking of it. And she is right. I have everything that was once hers: her name, her status, and the rest. She threw them away, and I picked them up, but that did not make them mine.

  A shameful part of me is wishing that I had taken Gabriel’s advice, that I had let Amy suffer and stayed home where it was warm and dry, where Cat would not have seen me. But it is too late for regrets. She is here now, and I cannot throw her out into the rain and send her back to a man who beats her.

  And she might tell Gabriel the truth if you do, a voice whispers at the back of my mind. We both know what happened twelve years ago, and now I have more to lose than she does.

  Much more.

  And Cat knows it.

  Chapter Five

  Cat

  Little Wood Street, March 1590

  I have a chamber of my own. You wanted me to sleep squeezed in with Sarah and another maid, who share with Cecily, and I listened, astounded, as you proposed who would share which beds, as if I really was just another servant, or a child come into the household. You cannot seriously have supposed that I would want to do that, after all that I have been through?

  I hung my head, but not so quickly that you would not see the tears of self-pity that stung my eyes. ‘Of course,’ I murmured, biting my lip, making sure you could see my efforts to disguise my disappointment. ‘If that is what you think best.’

  You hesitated. ‘Unless you would rather sleep on your own?’

  Oh, Mary, Mary, you are as easy to manage as ever.

  I confess, I was still a little drunk when you brought me here. The warmth of the house left me befuddled, and I hardly knew what I was doing at first. I have a vague memory of you hurrying me up a staircase, and then putting a glass – a glass! – of hot wine in my hands. It burned comfortingly down my throat, and the fragrance of cinnamon and cloves cleared my head, and I began to feel myself again.

  I looked around your chamber and I could not help but compare it with the squalid lodgings I left this morning, with its stink of tallow and piss, and the scuttle of rats. While I have been tossing on a mean mattress, you have been sleeping soundly on three feather beds. My hand sank down when I tested them. It must be like sleeping in the clouds that billow across a summer sky.

  You have had all of this, all of it, because of me, Mary. You have stolen my name! You have been masquerading as me all this time. I could hardly believe it when you told me what you had done, and so coolly too, as if it were nothing to take my name and my life and make them your own, you a mere maidservant too! Who would have thought you would have dared to impersonate a lady?

  Nothing but the best for you now. Your chamber smelt of sunshine even on a day like today. What is that fragrance? A special mixture of your own, no doubt. Some lavender, I am sure, and roses, perhaps? The scent reminded me of the garden at Steeple Tew anyway. It made me think about the way the slanting sun would turn the stone walls to gold, and throw long shadows across the fields. The memory is a jagged ache in my throat and I have to swallow hard.

  This is no manor drowsing in the summer sun. It is just a tiny chamber in the roof, barely more than a wedge of space between the rafters, with a roughly hewn bedstead and an old chest that I have nothing to put in. It smells of wood rather than summer, but at least there are no rat droppings on the floor and no leaks in the roof. I am better off than I was this morning, with Anthony labouring over me.

  I wonder if he is still in the Dog’s Head? Has he gone to look for
me? He will be angry, I fear, when he realises that I have gone. He is very possessive. He likes to hold onto what he has. He is like you that way, Mary. I could have taken your money and gone back to him, I could have shared the purse of silver I know you would have pressed on me, but he would have gambled it away, do you see? I am better off here.

  Thinking of Anthony, I chew my thumbnail. He is all charm until he is crossed. I have learnt this well over the past twelve years. You told me it was madness, but how could I have known it would turn out like this? You have not said ‘I told you so’, but I could tell that you were thinking it.

  Well, it has not all been bad. As long as my jewels lasted, as long as there was wine, and a servant or two to care for our needs, there was laughter and lust and even love. But I wonder, sometimes, if Anthony and I did not secretly conjure George up in our heads while we were making the beast with two backs. As if we somehow needed him to make us feel like that.

  I sigh a little, remembering how once I craved Anthony’s touch, how I thrilled at how possessive he was. Now . . .

  I have nibbled a shred of nail and I tear it free impatiently. I wish I was sure that I have not made a terrible mistake. What if he tries to find me? But how will he know where I have gone? Our lodgings are in Southwark, far from here. In all the weeks we have been here, I have never seen you until now, Mary. We have moved in different worlds, it seems, so there is no reason that Anthony’s path should cross yours as mine did. And even if it did, would he even remember you, my modest maidservant? I dare say he never even looked at you.

  No, I think I will be safe. Besides, for all I played the terror-stricken wife to you, I can manage Anthony. He is clever at cards, but for all his gloss, he has no ambition beyond a full glass of wine and a woman to satisfy his needs. He might be angry, but he desires me still. That gives me power over him. I can use that if needed.

  When I saw you first, I had no thought of abandoning him, but then you brought me inside and your chamber was so comfortable that the thought of going back to that hovel was unendurable. And so I had to persuade you to let me stay. I did not think it would be so hard, Mary. Anyone would think you did not want me here.

  Who would have thought that you would have done so well for yourself? I imagined you as a maid to some other lady, not pretending to be a lady yourself! I am angry with you for using me that way, but I admire you, too, I must confess. You took your chance, and it has paid off. No wonder you do not want me here, putting all you have gained at risk, but you gave in, as I knew you would. I did not need to threaten to tell your husband the truth. I did not even need to hint at it. You know what I can do.

  So Roger, your husband’s serving man, was sent to sleep above the stable, and a new flock mattress was dragged up here for me and slung onto the ropes. It will serve, but when I prod it, it is lumpy and hard, and I think of your bed with its velvet curtains and cushiony softness and the injustice of my situation burns in my belly.

  You stood in your bedchamber and put a rough coverlet into my arms.

  ‘Where is the sheet?’ I asked.

  ‘Servants do not have sheets, Cat.’

  ‘Please,’ I said in a small voice.

  I should not have had to beg for a sheet, Mary. Why did you make me do that? Have you forgotten the times I was a kind mistress to you?

  You bit your lip as you turned away to lift the lid of your linen press, and the scent of lavender wafted out. ‘Do not let the others see,’ you warned as you tucked a sheet beneath the coverlet in my arms. ‘We do not want them to wonder about you.’

  You do not want them to wonder about me. Be honest, Mary. You do not want them to ask how someone like me could be a servant. You do not want them to wonder if there might be some secret between us, do you? Or what that secret might be.

  I thought at first that you had not changed at all, but you have. You have grown into those severe brows and that lush mouth that always sat so oddly with your oh so modest demeanour. The mouth of a whore, Avery always used to say. You are no beauty, but you are striking, and there is a sheen to you now, and a confidence in the way you clapped for your servant.

  Now you may clap for me if you wish, and I will have to go. I sit abruptly down on the bed. Have I made a mistake, insisting that I stay and be your servant? You will not like being my servant, you warned me, and I fear you may be right. But it will not be for long. I will find some way.

  And in the meantime, I have this chamber. I have a clean linen shift to wear, a petticoat and a gown, a pair of stockings and some velvet pantofles that are too big for me. My feet have always been daintier than yours.

  You gave me a comb and a cloth to rub myself with too, and the little maid, Sarah, was sent labouring up the steps with a bowl of scented water, most of which she slopped onto the floor. I gather from the careful way you haven’t said anything that I must stink, and I set my teeth as I scrub myself furiously and comb the lice from my hair. Somehow this is more humiliating than anything George ever did to me. I know I should feel grateful to you, but instead I hate you for pitying me, for seeing me in my shame.

  It feels good, though, to feel cool, clean linen against my skin once more, and I sit on the edge of the bed in the shift to pull on the stockings and tie the garters at my knees. Once you would have knelt to tie them for me. Once you would have pinned my sleeves, and pulled my laces. Now I have to do it all by myself.

  Two floors below I can hear a girl protesting loudly to you. ‘Who is this new servant? Why should she have her own chamber? Let her share with Amy who snores, and leave Sarah with me. That would be more fair!’

  I am surprised that you let her speak to you like that, but then, it seems you are an overindulgent mistress altogether, tolerating clumsy maids and sending others to bed with little more than a toothache. They take advantage of you, that is clear. You murmur placatingly in response, but the girl continues to complain. ‘And why did you give her your second-best gown?’

  Second-best, is it, Mary? I think, jerking the laces of the bodice tight. The gown you gave me is fine-quality russet, better by far than the one I had. The thought that you wear a better one rankles, though.

  But a chamber of my own, a roof over my head, a warm gown: these things are a start. The certainty of a place in this comfortable house as long as I have a tongue in my head that can tell your husband and your neighbours that you are living a lie. The chance to plan and take my chances.

  By the time I make my way down the narrow stairs from the attic it has grown dark, and in the great chamber the clumsy maid has lit a mass of candles. Beeswax candles, of course. It is so long since I have sat in the light of anything but stinking tallow that the brilliance almost blinds me.

  You are sitting in a chair in the great chamber, some stitching in your hands. Always busy, always good.

  Except when you are lying, of course, and come to think of it, that is all the time.

  You seem composed, but I can see the tremulous pulse in your throat. Your husband is standing before the fire, holding out a booted foot to the warmth. He is bigger than I remember. More solid.

  You both look up at my entrance, and I see relief cross your face to see me modestly dressed and with my hair decently covered. What did you think, Mary? That I would come down with my breasts bare and hair hanging loose?

  ‘Husband, here is the servant I was telling you about earlier,’ you say calmly. ‘Cat has fallen on hard times and I have offered her a place here for the time being. You have no objection, I trust?’

  ‘None if you have work to occupy her.’

  For a wealthy merchant, your husband is dressed as soberly as a monk, in a plain dark doublet and hose, and a gown lined with nothing but budge. He is a dull-looking man, quiet of face, quiet of feature, but he holds himself easily and his eyes are shrewd. I did not notice that before. The lack of interest in them as they rest on me is a needle prick of pique. He is a man, after all, and I am fair, even in your second-best gown. Even with a torn lip and a
bruise on my cheek. He ought to notice me.

  Strange thought that this man might have been my husband. Not that I would ever have lowered myself to marry him. For all his faults, Anthony is at least a gentleman. And this house is comfortable, but it is nothing compared to Haverley Court, or even to Steeple Tew.

  Still, there is money here, and security, and now that I know you have been lying to your husband all these years, I see no reason why I should not have both.

  You lay your sewing aside and get to your feet. ‘You look better, Cat,’ you say. ‘Are you warmer now?’

  ‘I am, thank you . . . mistress,’ I add after a moment. The word feels grudging on my tongue.

  ‘Do you come with me to the kitchen then,’ you say briskly. ‘You can help prepare supper.’ You turn to the merchant. ‘Husband, shall I send in more wine?’

  ‘Thank you, no. I will go to my closet.’

  ‘Come then, Cat.’

  I follow you out although something in me bridles at being given orders by you. It comes to you so naturally now. I do not care for it when you are brisk like this. I think after all that I prefer you when I am the mistress and you are the maid.

  The kitchen is warm and smells of bread and a mutton broth that is simmering over the fire. Sarah is on her knees, mopping a puddle of cream from the floor, watched by a girl with an enchantingly pretty face and a rosebud mouth.

  ‘Oh, Mamma, look what Sarah has done now!’ She spreads her hands, casting her eyes up to the bacon pieces hanging from the ceiling.

  Mamma? I glance at you. Your face may be calm, but there is a rigidity to your shoulders and I look back at the girl with more interest. This then must be Cecily. My daughter.

  My daughter, you said, your voice hard.

  Well, well.

  I remember little of her birth. A red haze of pain, of pushing and wrenching and tearing and stretching. The muscles in my throat taut with screaming. Sweat rolling down my face and my body leaden, and all you could say was ‘Just one more push’. Easy for you to say. You should not even have been there, as an unmarried woman, but none of the respectable neighbours would have anything to do with us by then, would they?