by Mary Hooper
He finished, and everyone roared with laughter, stamping on the rush-strewn floor and warming their feet at the same time. Robert laughed too, for he didn’t want to be seen as a Bible-thumping Puritan, but he wished he hadn’t. Wished he didn’t think it necessary to laugh along with everyone else. Wished he could look solemn and explain why, tell them the poor girl had suffered enough without being ridiculed after her death.
“Was she hanged for whoredom, then?” one of the newcomers asked with interest. “I thought she was a murderess.”
“Whore, murderess—much the same thing,” said the scholar who had sung the song. “Though this one here is very pretty, by all accounts. ‘With a skin as soft as apricots and her hair all tumbling down, O.’”
“Her skin won’t be as pink as apricots now,” Wren pointed out. “For rigor mortis will have begun setting in, and the blood will have faded back from the skin. She’ll probably be yellow, tinged with blue.”
“Maybe she will, Wren, but that wouldn’t be so pretty to sing about,” Norreys said.
Another of the newcomers shook his head decisively. “Not rigor mortis already, surely, for ’tis scarcely three hours since she was cut down.”
“But ’tis damned cold and she may have froze into it!”
The crowd outside suddenly found their voices again and began banging on the fence, their shouts penetrating the room. A man’s cry carried clearly—“Give us Anne’s body! Give her back!”—and Robert felt certain that it was her brother, the fellow in a rough tweed coat who’d hung on to Anne’s legs.
Two of the scholars exchanged glances and then moved away from the window, fearing that they might be recognized and set upon by the mob later.
“Well, rigor mortis or not, I’ve heard that she’s passing fair,” said Norreys. He tweaked the ear of one of the others. “Here’s your first chance to see a woman undressed, eh, young Wilton?”
The gingery youth blushed. “’Twill not be my first!” he protested, to some jeers from the others. “I’ve seen my sister.”
“A sister doesn’t count,” said Norreys. He grinned around at the rest, encouraging them to take up the jest. “And what’s this we’ve heard about your mother moving into lodgings above yours, Wilton?” While the others jeered on cue, he added, “Is it to see that you don’t waste your money on card games and whores?”
“Whores?” came a bellow. “He wouldn’t know what way to hold one!”
“My mother is merely staying there while visiting her sister,” Wilton said when the laughter died away.
“There’ll be no chance of finding you with a naked woman in your rooms this term, then!”
Robert laughed along with everyone else, although he’d never had a naked woman in his rooms, either. Two weeks earlier, however, owing to a sudden determination to lose his virginity before his eighteenth birthday, he’d had carnal knowledge of one, and usefully enough, the whole procedure had taken place with hardly a word having to be exchanged. He’d spotted the woman—reasonably clean, with dyed-red hair and lustrous eyes—sitting on the parapet of Magdalen Bridge, which (so he’d been told) was one of the best places for the picking up of whores. He’d crossed the bridge very slowly, his stomach churning, and then walked back again, apprehensive about approaching her directly because a fellow in the mathematics department had had his face slapped and a lawsuit filed for taking liberties with a woman who was merely selling mousetraps.
This girl, however, was definitely a whore, because she’d asked him what he’d heard was the usual question—if he wanted to do business—and when he’d nodded, she’d motioned with her head that they were to go under the bridge. Once they were in the muddy darkness, there had been one awkward moment when she’d asked what he wanted and given him, at lightning speed, a selection of her possible actions and their various costs. He had not endeavored to speak, though, nor question the amounts, but instead had taken some coins from his pocket and pressed them into her palm. She’d counted these carefully, then deftly carried out what he presumed was the course of action covered by such an amount. So swift was this procedure, unfortunately, that all he could recall afterward was a swift realignment of body parts, a blur of movement, and a couple of seconds of delighted surprise—which led him to wonder whether the sum paid always equaled the pleasure obtained, and, if he was to pay double next time, whether twice the pleasure would ensue.
But thanks be to whores, he thought, for otherwise, being so afflicted, how could he even speak to a respectable girl, let alone get to know one well enough to perform that other matter?
Minutes passed, and Martha showed a new man into the room: a young surgeon by the name of Nathaniel Frisk, who was attending the dissection as an observer. He was thought well of by the physicians (despite being merely a surgeon and affiliated with the barbers) and attended as many dissections as possible.
A bench was brought into the room and placed behind the first row of standing students, so that those who came later would have a better view of what went on. As the scholars regrouped themselves, the fellow at the door shouted that they were to look lively, and after a moment the imposing figure of Sir William Petty came into the room, wearing a sleeveless scarlet cloak over a black gown and carrying rolled-up charts and a heavy medical book. He removed his tasseled cap and nodded to the assembled scholars, who in turn returned a deep and respectful bow, for Dr. Petty was quite a favorite. Twenty-seven years old, tall and good looking, with goose-gray eyes under brows that were thick and straight, he was, as every student there knew, marvelously good natured and affable. He had studied at Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Paris with men who were prime exponents of experimental science, had been made a Fellow of Brasenose College, and was tipped to become Professor of Anatomy. His only perceivable fault was a tendency to overeat.
He was followed into the room by John Clarke, the tall and weedy apothecary whose house they were in, lauded throughout Oxford as a fine chemist and expert beekeeper, and he and Dr. Petty immediately engaged in close conversation. Two minutes later Sir Thomas Reade appeared, wearing the outfit of a country gentleman: a heavy wool surcoat over checked breeches and high leather boots. He carried himself with some pomposity, and his red-blue nose and cheeks were crisscrossed in a mesh of broken veins.
Sir Thomas ignored the scholars but bowed in turn to Petty and Clarke (a shorter bow to Clarke, Robert noticed, for after all he was not a gentleman, but merely a shopkeeper), and they returned the courtesy.
“Are you here as a justice of the peace, Sir Thomas?” Mr. Clarke asked politely. “Or is dissection one of your interests?”
Sir Thomas shook his head. “The crime committed by this . . . this woman here affected my household,” he said stoutly. “I am here to see justice done and this unsavory job carried through to its end.”
“The corpse, one Anne Green, was a serving maid in Sir Thomas’s house in the village of Dun’s Tew,” Mr. Clarke explained to Dr. Petty.
Sir Thomas nodded brusquely. “She was. And I rue the day I ever took her in, for she proved to be nothing but a scheming whore.”
“Tsk . . . tsk,” murmured Dr. Petty.
“And a murderess to boot,” Sir Thomas added for good measure.
Dr. Petty raised his eyebrows. “She is dead now, Sir Thomas, so perhaps you may speak of her more appropriately.”
But Sir Thomas merely made a short harrumphing noise and turned away, pushing himself into the first row of the scholars and making them shuffle along to accommodate him. Robert, feeling himself dwarfed by such a hefty bulk of tweed, turned and climbed onto the bench behind, leaving Sir Thomas standing foursquare in front of the coffin with his arms folded across his chest. Sometimes, Robert thought, a gentleman would faint on seeing a corpse dissected for the first time, but he didn’t think Sir Thomas was going to suffer this indignity.
Dr. Petty removed his black and scarlet academic gowns, donned a bloodied white butcher’s apron, and rolled up his sleeves. “Doctor Willis will be with us shor
tly,” he said, “but in the meantime we will remove the corpse and place her on the table ready to begin work.” He gestured to the nearest two youths, who happened to be Robert and Christopher Wren. “If you please, gentlemen.”
Robert exchanged startled glances with Wren and, without saying a word, one went to the foot of the coffin and one to the head. They made a contrasting pair: Wren dark and stocky, Robert slight and very fair. Together, they lifted the wooden lid and exposed the body of Anne Green to the dissectionists.
Chapter ~ 7
Some strange thing has happened. I am still here, unmoving in the darkness, but the quality of this dark has changed and is now a strange black-gray. It is lighter, somehow. Am I ascending to heaven? No, that cannot be, for surely I’ve not yet been lying here hundreds upon hundreds of years—the length of time we were told purgatory would last. But perhaps that number of years has passed. Perhaps an age goes by in a moment when you’re in purgatory. Perhaps all those incidents with John Taylor and with Master Geoffrey happened a thousand years hence. Oh, but I fear they did not, for I feel them close by and inside my head, as if they would devour me.
But as I cannot know if my endurance is about to end or only beginning, I will return to my story and recall how I was mightily relieved when, about the end of the summer, Master Geoffrey went back to continue his schooling. I did not welcome his attentions, nor ever had done, and felt that once he was out of the way I might not be constantly anxious and affrighted by what was going on between him and myself, and what might happen to me if Sir Thomas found out that we’d bedded. I would lose my job for certain, but worse than this, I feared the punishments I would have to suffer for being discovered to be of loose morals.
I sinned six times in all.
The first act, in the sewing room, was over very quickly, leaving me to ponder afterward how such a small and strange act could be so very important and worth so much. Wonder of wonders, that doing such a thing could obtain me riches! But I must have been distempered in my mind at the start of it, for I’d stupidly supposed that when Master Geoffrey said he’d reward me if I let him have his way, I’d only have to allow him to do it once. That first time, however, far from cooling his passions, seemed to inflame them, and soon he was trailing me around the house with his blood hot and his mind set on a jolt with me again.
The second time followed a week after the first and happened in the dairy. Lady Mary, who’d been laid low with some malady or other, had given word through her lady’s maid that she had a fancy for a milk junket. Mrs. Williams and Susan being out at the weekly market in Stapleton, I thought to make this—or at least begin it—so had gone over to the farm in order to obtain milk fresh from the goat. I put a pan of it on the fire to warm, added rennet to make it curdle, then poured it into a dish to cool. I’d scraped a sugar loaf upon it and was about to grind cinnamon for the top when the far door leading from the kitchen garden opened, and Master Geoffrey came through. Straightaway I hid myself behind a pillar and waited, quiet as a mouse, for him to go out again.
But he was looking for me—and indeed had found me, for a flounce of my skirt was showing around the pillar.
“I see you and have got you now, Annie Green!” he said, and then with no more ado he fell on me, endeavoring to get one hand down my bodice and the other into my petticoats.
“Please, sir!” I said, trying to back away from him, for although the dairy was at the far end of the kitchen, it was only separated from it by a tiled wall and anyone might have seen us. “Please, sir, don’t!”
“Go to it with your please sirs!” he said. “You are as hot as I, and don’t deny it!”
“If anyone sees . . .”
“If anyone sees, they will not dare say a word, for they know I am to be master of this house. And a master’s wishes must always be obeyed!”
I wriggled away from him and darted around the table, and indeed ’twould have been almost farcical to see us, with me circling the room and him in hot pursuit, already fumbling with his breeches.
“Annie. Annie! Don’t you want to be mistress here?” he asked. “Have you already forgotten everything that will be yours?”
I didn’t say anything, for I’d only just realized how green I’d been, and that the act would probably have to be endured many more times in order to keep him satisfied. And whenever would I get what I’d been promised? For although Sir Thomas was upwards of sixty years of age, he was in robust good health and did not seem about to roll over and leave his lands and fortune to Master Geoffrey just yet. Wondering then what would become of me, I began to wish with all my heart that I’d not submitted in the first place. We are told often enough when we begin work as maids that gentlemen may try and take advantage of us, and we must therefore be sober in our discourse and never gay, so that they may not think we are open to levity. But—oh, stupid girl—I’d certainly been frivolous with Master Geoffrey, and from this he’d deduced that I’d be persuaded to lie with him.
I stopped going mulberry bush around the table then, knowing that my protests were useless, and stood against the cold stone sink, waiting. I only counted to seven before the act was finished, but sometime during this, my dish of junket got knocked onto the floor, so that when Mrs. Williams returned and heard of Lady Mary’s request, she scolded me for not having had the intelligence to obtain the goat’s milk from the farm earlier.
The third act happened early one day in Master Geoffrey’s bed, when I’d been sent in with his morning washing water. He has a stately bedroom, with ewer and basin of silver, two mirror glasses, and a vast feather bed with four posts hung about with costly drapes. I don’t usually carry the washing water around and hoped that he’d be asleep—indeed, I removed my shoes and tiptoed across the thick carpet in bare feet—but he seemed to know it was me, for his eyes sprang open the moment I set down the jug on the washstand. He was out of bed in an instant, took five strides across the room, picked me up, threw me onto the bed, and drew the curtains around us. When George, his manservant, came in a moment after, he told him he must leave and come back in ten minutes.
Of course, George didn’t know who was behind the drapes with Master Geoffrey, but he knew someone was, and spread the tale downstairs. The servants began gossiping and speculating and, knowing it must be someone in the household, before long had all deduced it was me, although I never admitted it. Instead of teasing me, though, as they had about John Taylor, they were quite mean in their comments. Mr. Peakes said that no good would come of it; Mrs. Williams, pinch-faced, said that that was as may be, but I need-n’t start putting on airs and graces; another said that when a youth was Master Geoffrey’s age, anyone would do, and one of the menservants winked at me and said that if there was aught left over, could he have a share. I began to feel bitterly ashamed of our association, which I could not even justify by saying that I loved him—for which emotion, I believe, many such similar sins of the flesh might be forgiven.
The fourth time with Master Geoffrey happened over by the carp lake. I’d cast the fishing nets onto the water and only then discovered, by him coming up behind me quietly over the thick grass, that he’d followed me out there. Seeing I was less than willing to do what he wanted, he tickled me until I was doubled up with mirth and pushed me into some myrtle bushes, swearing on his mother’s life that he was devoted to me and would make me mistress of all I could see. Indeed, he said he would make me queen of England, too, if he’d been able.
The fifth time—oh God, I swear I didn’t want this or encourage it in any way—the fifth was in the churchyard amid the tombstones, where the ground swarms with souls and spirits and surely ’tis a profanity to carry out such an act.
The churchyard. Am I there now, still breathing but under the earth? Oh, I pray not, for I swear that nothing I have ever done in my life has been wicked enough for that fate to befall me.
The sixth and final time occurred on the stairs in the dark, after he’d worn me down and made me weary enough to scream at his conti
nual pleadings, saying things such as he loved me entirely and couldn’t carry on without easement, and that I was being cruel and selfish to deny him this one thing before he went back to school. It was over very quickly, but I felt so bad afterward that I told him I didn’t wish to go on with it when he returned, no matter what he might promise. He insisted, however, that it must and would continue in December, when he returned to the house.
“For seeing as you’ve lost your maidenhead, how does it matter whether or not you do it with me?” he asked.
I had looked at him, not discerning his meaning.
“For your maidenhead wouldn’t come back even if you were to keep your legs together until the day you die!”
I turned away from these crude words, not wanting to hear more.
“And a fellow will always know, even though some jades try and fake their virginity. So you may as well be nice to me, Annie, for I am your only hope.” He ran his hand up my arm and tucked it inside the puffed sleeve of my blouse, pressing his fingers into me hard. “’Twould not be a clever idea to turn your back on me now.”
“You may be right, sir, but indeed I wish you had not started it!” I burst out.
“I start it?” he asked. “I wouldn’t say that was the case, Annie. It could be said that you led me on with your giggles and blushes and your unseeming language.”
My face flamed, but I had no reply to this, and knew that aught I said would be twisted and shaped to suit his own ends. I began to cry and after looking at me askance for a moment—for we were still on the stairs and mighty close to the door of his mother’s room—he pulled five silver shillings out of his pocket and pressed them into my hand.
“Here. Stop your women’s weeping,” he said, “and buy yourself something fancy to wear with this.”
