I let my mind meander back to childhood days when Eve and Tom and I used to play with Bess, running in and out of the flowerbeds, chasing across the lawns, and dangling our fingers and toes into the fountains. Bess is wrong. I am certain it was sunnier then, when our hearts were unburdened with shadows.
“I should get up. Father would call me a sluggard and a lazy bones.” My voice catches a little at the mention of him but I force myself to sit up and smile at the grey windswept clouds that blanket my window. Swinging my swollen ankles from the bed, I slip my feet into slippers and wrap a gown about my shoulders. “Help me dress please, Bess, and then I will keep Mother company. We can offer each other comfort.”
Sometime later I am in the hall, sipping frumenty with Mother before the fire. We have decided to organise the maids into a frenzy of spring cleaning, although Spring still seems to be so far away. “We shall start in the attics,” Mother says briskly, tying on an apron, “and finish down here. Will you be all right if I leave Bess to see to your needs?”
It is good to see her with some purpose again and I am sorry I cannot be of more help. Bourne Manor is now in the hands of my brother, Tom, and Mother will want the place to be in good order. My brother was just on the cusp of manhood when last we met and full of the arrogance of youth, but although only two years or so have passed since then, he will now be fully grown. In my mind’s eye I see a replica of Father, mild and thoughtful, a worthy successor to the Bourne title. Soon, he will marry and raise a fine set of sons, and we can form some semblance of happiness again. It is a happy dream and I linger there for some time, ignoring the activity in the hall.
Soon maids are scurrying up and down the stairs with buckets and brooms while I stay cosily settled before a roaring fire. I ask Bess, more for company than for need, to help me sort through some of Eve’s things, and she fetches a big pile of her clothing so that we can work near the comfort of the fire.
It is a heart-breaking task. Not only are the colours and texture of her clothes evocative of her, but when I hold them to my cheek and close my eyes I can smell her perfume too. It is almost as if she is here in the room with us. “Have you thought of names for the little one, My Lady?”
I open my eyes and lower the garment I’ve been sniffing to my lap, blinking away tears. “If it is a girl I shall call her Evelyn, of course. If it is a boy, he shall be John after his grandfather. If my husband agrees …”
I concentrate, trying to recall Anthony’s face, but it escapes me. Our time together was so short and I realise now that I was a poor wife to him. Pray God, he will live so I can make it up to him. I take a big breath to chase the maudlin thoughts away. “You will have to bring your little daughter to see me, Bess, one day I hope she will be a playmate for my child.”
“Oh, I will, My Lady. Shall I fetch her tomorrow?”
“Yes, yes, that will be lovely.” I pause and cock my ear to the window, listening. “Is that horses arriving outside?” Bess struggles to her feet and with her legs numb from kneeling, limps across the floor.
“Yes,” she says, peering through the thick green glass. “Ooh, I think it is the master.”
My heart lurches for an instant, thinking she means Father, and then I remember that Tom, whom I have not seen in so long, is the master of Bourne Manor now.
Moments later the door is thrown open and he strides over the threshold and
without greeting me, he demands, “Where is Mother?”
A little dazed by the fact that my baby brother is now a man with a deep voice and a sword on his hip, I wave my hand toward the upper floor. In a few strides he is at the bottom stair, hollering like a ruffian. “Mother, come down. I’ve found her! I’ve found Eve!”
I stand up as a small, skinny woman is led shuffling into the hall. For a moment I am puzzled but then she lifts her terrified eyes, just briefly, and something that I see there gives me pause. She looks like Eve and yet, she doesn’t. There is almost no resemblance to the beautiful young woman I last saw. This woman is thin and ragged, her hair lank and lustreless, but it is her eyes that are changed the most.
There is no life in her expression. Eve is vivacious and naughty but in this woman, the wicked spark of intelligence is extinguished and all I see is bewilderment and fear. “Eve?” I whisper, and she gapes at me without recognition, a trickle of dribble running down her chin. I do not rush to take her in my arms.
I move forward but she pulls away, conceals her face in Tom’s cloak. “What has happened to you? Who has done this?”
“That’s what I should like to know.” Impatiently, Tom all but rips his cloak from Eve’s grasp. “I found her with a family of whores on the Bankside, romping on a bed with a slattern … I’d the devil of a job to get her away from one of them.”
“What?” This cannot be true. I look at her again, cannot take my eyes away, although the sight fills me with a curious mixture of fear, regret and revulsion. This cannot be my sister. In truth I am longing for it not to be her after all, but merely some freak of nature who resembles her.
While I watch, she crouches on the hearth and wraps her arms about her knees. Soon she is rocking back and forth like a chastised child. “Eve,” I try again, and this time she looks up at the sound. “Come, sit on the settle.” I move toward her and hold out my hand, but the eyes that look back at me are blank. She doesn’t know me. I think this might be the final straw.
There is a movement at the doorway and Mother appears, her breast heaving from the haste in which she descended the stair. “Eve!” she cries, and the anguish in her voice is hard to bear. “Oh, blessed God, you are returned to me.”
Ignoring the state of her filthy clothes and matted, probably lice-infested hair, Mother drags the terrified girl to her feet and into her arms. I look away, close my eyes.
Mother has noticed nothing beyond Eve’s physical presence, she does not realise that she has lost her mind. “Tell me where you have been, Eve. Who took you away? Did they harm you? Are you all right?”
She stands back, holds her daughter at arm’s length and, for the first time, looks into her eyes. Mother goes very still and her smile fades as at last she recognises the truth. There is nothing left of what made Eve, Eve; no joy, no wit, just a bleak emptiness. Eve’s hands drop to her sides when Mother releases them suddenly to cover her mouth. She closes her eyes.
“Oh no, not this, God, please not this.”
Untouched by Mother’s tears, Eve shuffles to the table where victuals are habitually laid out. She picks up the jug and begins to drink from it, rich red wine dripping onto her chest. Thomas emits a growl of displeasure. “Bess, take her to the kitchens and feed her. Keep her out of my sight until I decide what is to be done with her.”
I stand up, outrage overshadowing my sorrow.
“The kitchens? Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t do that. She needs care and nurture, not shutting from your sight. Bess, take her to her old chamber while we decide what to do, and have the maids take up some food and hot water so she can be bathed.”
Shaking herself from the shock, Bess moves forward and gingerly takes Eve’s arm. “Come along, Miss,” she says, “come with Bessie, she will look after you.”
To my relief Eve follows her without protest. As the door closes behind them, Mother plumps into a chair, older and greyer than before, while Tom, from his position before the fire, looks down the length of his nose at me.
“You, Madam, will do well to remember that I give the orders around here now.”
Joanie Toogood
“I’m scared, Joanie …” Sybil’s voice is stark in the gloom, making me jump. Usually, I’d scorn her fears but today I am as frightened as she is. The straw rustles beneath her feet as she crosses the cell to sit beside me, her body as near to mine as she can get. Sybil and I have never been close but, grateful for the extra warmth, I loop an arm about her shoulder and give her a little squeeze o’ comfort. She tucks herself closer, her hand slipping about my waist, her head falling onto
my shoulder. “Oh Joanie, what’ll we do? I wish Betsy was 'ere.”
“What good would it do having all three of us in Clink?”
Knowing that Betsy has escaped into marriage and been spared this punishment is the only small comfort I have.
We have been here for near on a month now and it is a dismal place; dark and damp and cheerless. It makes the squalor of my chambers seem like heaven. The only light that enters our darkness comes through a barred window high up on the wall, but when night falls, as it has now, it is blacker than a hangman’s heart.
Night and day we can hear the restless creak of the gibbet that hangs on the outer wall just outside our chamber, so that when we do sleep, the soul that rots there creeps into our dreams.
Night time is the worst. During the day the turnkey unlocks our cell and we are allowed to wander about and mix with the other prisoners. I’ve even managed to turn a few tricks and earn an extra crust and a chunk of cheese. But there are so many other girls trying to work the same patch that it ain’t easy. Luckily, after a day or two, I learn that the turnkey is old enough to enjoy a little ‘motherin’, and I make a friend of him.
His name is Nick and of course, he is no man o’ steel. There was a time when I’d 'ave scorned to lie with the likes of him but ‘needs must,’ as my mother used to say. He can soften our time here if anyone can and if anyone knows what is likely to happen to us, it’s him.
Against my will I embark on a campaign to win him and, by my truth, he is easy won. I can barely stand it when he takes me, his great flabby belly banging on my arse as he bends me forward over a barrel. But that night Sybil and me enjoy a meal that has proper chunks of meat in it and the bread that we dip greedily into our pottage is the freshest we’ve eaten in weeks.
The next time I service him it doesn’t seem so bad. I focus my thoughts on the herb flavoured stew and doughy dumplings that he’s promised me and, once he is lodged inside, I wriggle my arse to make a quicker end to it.
Afterwards, barely able to see his piece beneath the bulge of his belly, he ties up his laces while I pull down my skirts and adjust my bodice. Then I smile winsomely at him and begin to pick his brains. “Nick, what will become of me and my sister, d’you know?”
He smiles through his broken teeth as he tugs his jerkin down and tightens his belt. “Well, Joanie, that all depends on which justice you come before. Some of 'em, the sort that like to dally with women, go lightly on whores, but there are others, the ones who want to clean up the streets, well … they goes heavy on 'em.”
That doesn’t sound very much like justice to me but at least he is honest. All I can do is wish for the right sort o’ judge … or the wrong sort, whichever way you care to look on it.
Nick turns at the door. “Thanks, Joanie. I’ll order up something special for yer dinner tonight. Oh, I forgot to tell you. You had a visitor yesterday but he come too late an’ I sent him away, told him to come back today. If he comes back, d’yer want t’ see 'im?”
My head jerks up. “Well, that depends on who it is, don’t it?”
He scratches his scalp, examines his finger and squeezes a louse between his nails. “Said his name was Peter.”
Peter! Peter is back! A tiny breath of freedom wafts beneath my nose. “Oh, yes,” I say with too much delight. “I want to see Peter.”
Nick’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “He said he was your nephew.”
“And so he is, Nick, so he is, and very fond of the boy I am, too.”
I cannot rest. All morning I stride back and forth in the yard with my fists clenched, longing for Peter to come. The other whores, seeing my distraction, mock me, thinking I am waiting for a lover. I ignore them and they soon get tired of taunting me and begin to squabble over the few paltry inmates that have the coin to pay for their services. And when I finally see Peter, dressed head to toe in goose-turd green, creeping cautiously into the yard, I surprise myself and fly to greet him as if he is indeed the love of my life.
He drags off his cap, his face pink with embarrassment, and I step away, release my hands from around his neck, remembering he is now a married man and no longer willing to continue our previous bargain.
“It’s good to see you, Peter. You look well.”
“It’s good to see you too, Joanie … although … well, it’s not so good to see you in here. I was shocked when I heard what had happened …” His eyes dart around the yard, where the other inmates are up to their nefarious business, and suddenly I realise how unkempt I must look to him. I know there are lice in my hair and on my body also. He must see the difference to the healthy, smiling Joanie of old.
“How did you know where I was?” I ask as an afterthought.
“Bertha. I went to see Bertha when I heard her husband had died and she told me … is there anything I can do to help, Joanie? I’ve been unable to sleep nights since I heard.”
Knowing his involvement in my crime, he is brave to come here. The shadow of the boy is lurking visibly beneath the thin cloak of his manhood. He is as scared as I.
“What can anyone do, Peter? I think I am for it.” I speak quietly, so as not to alarm Sybil who is sitting with her face turned toward the wall, as she often does.
“No, no. Don’t think like that, Joanie.”
“What else will they do with me? Thank me for taking care of her and give me a fat purse by way of reward? No. It’s the rope for me and it’s best I face the fact.”
“Have they…? Do they …?”
“Know about Francis? Nay, I think not. You are quite safe. I am to be charged with abduction and abuse, no more.”
“Abuse? But you treated her like she was your own child.”
We exchange a long look before I whisper, “Aye, Peter, she was just that …the child I never 'ad. Who’d have thought I’d come to love her so?”
“Where is she now?”
I shrug. “I know not. Back with her own, I suppose, although her brute of a brother … well, it should be me bringing charges against him, not the other way about, but who’d listen to a rape charge from a woman like me?”
I try to stop the memory of the beating and the hurt that Thomas Bourne laid upon my body, but a tear drops onto my cheek.
“Aw, Joanie … don’t.”
His eyes are bright with unshed sorrow, making me smile ruefully and reach out a hand. “Don’t pity me, Peter. Life hasn’t been so bad and what other end would I choose? Dying of the pox in the gutter, old and withered and unwanted? I don’t think so.”
He stands up, screws his cap into a roll, and I realise he has put on his Sunday best to visit me. He has always been such a good, gentle boy. I was cruel to drag him into the violence of my world.
“I’ve given the turnkey some coin. Enough to ensure you don’t have to … work … in here anymore. When I return, and I will return, you must tell me if the turnkey has scrimped in your comforts in any way, do you hear?”
I nod but cannot answer, for my throat is painfully choked with grateful tears. I know he cannot spare the coin but he is a good soul and will one day join the saints in Heaven. He takes my shoulders and plants a kiss on my cheek.
“I will seek some legal advice, Joanie, and see what, if anything, can be done.”
It is hard to let him go. I want to cling to him. He is little more than a boy, but weak and powerless as he is, he is all I have. “Come on, Sybil,” I say, “let’s go in, it’s starting to rain.”
She shambles toward me, clutches my shawl and we walk slowly back to our comfortless cell.
Things are a little better now. The turnkey daren’t deny us food since Peter has paid him well, but he resents the withdrawal of my favours. He turns up his lip and dumps the tray before me, and I know I have lost a friend. I just pray to God I never need to placate him again. Sybil pins all her hopes on Peter.
Terrified of hanging, she tells me, time and time again, that all will be well. “Peter is a good boy, I always said so. He will work some miracle and get us out of here, I
know he will.”
She is better company now she has hope so, for my own comfort, I do not disillusion her. Let her believe all will be well, it will make the days shorter … at least, for her. Day by day, my sister grows braver and even begins to speak to one or two of the inmates. There is no one more surprised than me when I spot her leaning against a wall flirting with a felon. I pause and watch, surmising if she is turning a trick or just passing the time of day.
He is not a bad looking man, his long hair would be black and glossy if it were washed, and the cut of his shabby doublet had once been good. Sybil has always leaned toward his type. As I watch, he reaches out and lifts her hair from her damaged cheek but she clamps her hand upon his and turns her face away.
His laughter floats across to where I am lingering beneath the arch. He puts a finger beneath her chin, lifts her face toward him. Sybil is blushing like a maid and I watch in astonishment as he kisses her, gentle-like, on the mouth. Then, with her chin down and he with his head held high, he takes her arm and begins to squire her about the yard.
“By all that’s holy!” I exclaim out loud, and Janet of the stews stops beside me.
“Whassup, Joanie love?”
“Who is that walking with Sybil? What’s he in for?”
She squints her eyes, shades her brow with her hand. “That’s Jack. I’m not sure what he is in for this time. I do believe he has a finger in most pies, smuggling, poaching, theft. In fact, it’s a wonder he has a hand left to double deal with. He’s an oily sort, always manages to slip out from beneath the noose.”
“Not a good fellow, then?”
Her laugh is loud and raucous, and I feel my own lips stretching in response as she walks away bellowing over her shoulder. “Blow me, Joanie. What on God’s acre is a ‘good fellow’ when he’s at home?”
The Winchester Goose: At the Court of Henry VIII Page 17
