Souls Dryft

by Jayne Fresina

  "You have no need to concentrate," said Mary coolly. "You only need sit and think of nothing. To be sure – no challenge for you, sister."

  While in London, Mary stayed with Sir Brian at a house belonging to one of his peers, but came to Lady Talbot’s every morning, to keep abreast of plans for her sister’s forthcoming wedding. According to Lady Talbot, we would be lucky to get hot food at the feast, for the Earl kept his purse strings "tight as a cat’s backside". As for the luckless Lord Edmund, he was "weak-lipped, flat-footed and destined for an early grave." It was fortunate, she said, that the young milk-sop was rich, otherwise he would merely be stupid. Millicent hardly cared, as long as he could keep her in new gowns and jewels.

  "You do realize there are wifely duties you must perform in return, Bagobones," I warned.

  She sneered, "How did you like your wifely duties, Scrapper?"

  This made Lady Talbot’s ears prick up. She’d heard rumors about my scandalous abduction, but her details were thinly sketched. When she asked about my marriage, Mary told her, "It was such an oddly done thing, and my poor father was too ill to prevent it."

  Bagobones explained, "We had to give him Scrapper to save ourselves."

  I solemnly agreed. "It was quite horrifying, Lady Talbot. The sinful acts I was forced to endure at his hands would curl your hair, as it did mine. Day and night I was at his mercy, begging for release. Again and again he had his way with me. However, someone had to be sacrificed to the beast. Better it be me, as I have a strong constitution."

  Quick, green eyes enlivened with macabre curiosity, she soon made me her project, advising me on my hair and costume, picking out little treats for me to try. When visitors came to the house, I was privy to her many colorful asides, regarding this person and that. She was capable of summing a visitor up with a few artfully chosen words, brutally disparaging their appearance and, often too, their character.

  A few days after our arrival, we were privileged with a visit from Lady Frances, who came, ostensibly, to renew her "friendship" with me, persisting with her silly masquerade. Lady Talbot did not conceal her disgust for our little visitor. Turning to me, she whispered loudly, "She married beneath her, you know. Could not do better, because her reputation was well known about court. Round heels, they called her." When I pretended not to understand, she explained, "You know, round heels – always falling on her back."

  Showing no sign that she heard, Frances chattered away about the dreary weeks of her confinement, steadily boring my cousins to sleep.

  Lady Talbot continued in my ear, "Her child, so I hear, has a conical noggin. My nephew was just the same. Possessed the largest head one ever had the astonishment of seeing. Even as a small child his head was enormous, my dear, and ended, most curiously, in a point." She shook herself like a wet dog. "I advised my sister to stop having children immediately. Never saw the sense in birthing more than one, especially if the first is a boy. There are surely enough children about already; if there was a shortage, one might understand the necessity. My nephew met with a sad end, took a fall down a flight of stairs, while reaching for a dropped coin. As I said to my sister, it was inevitable that such an accident should befall him, with a head so vast in circumference."

  Frances eventually realized a conversation was going on, other than her own. A long silence followed as Lady Talbot grew bored with heads and nobody else cared to speak. At last Frances took her leave. "You must come and visit me soon," she lisped, as I showed her out.

  Lady Talbot came up behind us. "I advise you against it, my dear," she said to me. "‘Tis all disease and squalor of the most wretched kind, especially at that end of town."

  This time, Frances definitely heard. "I cannot think what you mean, Lady Talbot."

  Ambleforthe was immediately summoned to retell the story of a recent trip out, when a mob of rowdy beggars pushed and rocked Lady Talbot’s litter, until she was obliged to throw them some coin. "The streets are filled with riotous misdoers and gypsies with feverish eyes," she shivered. "Drunks, whores and lepers are rampant." She patted my arm. "Much better you stay in and enjoy a game of whist."

  "There are no lepers near our house," Frances muttered.

  "But drunkards and whores aplenty."

  She did not know if Lady Talbot was being deliberately rude, or simply senile. It was a line the old lady walked frequently and happily. Suffering frequent, unapologetic bouts of what she termed "the tympanies", Lady Talbot could render the air around her with a pungent stench, probably conjured on command. Now, having let out some of her most noxious gas, she shuffled away across her worn tiles. Ambleforthe waited until Frances was through the door and then, giving her a low bow, his face somber, he closed it on her scarlet face.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  As I played chess with Lady Talbot, a few days prior to Millicent’s wedding, Ambleforthe approached his mistress with a glum announcement.

  "Master Hugh is here, my lady. Again."

  Millicent dropped her sewing, so I knew who it was, even before he bounced in. Lady Talbot was clearly unaware that Master Hugh was married to Lady Frances. Her grip on facts was tentative at best, and she really only took in snippets of trivial information to amuse her grim sense of humor. At her time of life, she was allowed to be selective.

  Glancing at Millicent, I noted the careful arrangement of her features in preparation for every look he gave her: from pleased to interested, to amused, to bashful. Evidently, Hugh had used the incident with those letters to his own advantage. He knew how to play upon a woman’s vanity, just as he once did mine, and clearly he now tended the "delicate flower" of her womanhood.

  "Are you well set for your wedding?" he asked her, feigning a brotherly interest while fixing his beautiful eyes on her face. "Any little errand that must be done, do not hesitate to call upon me. I am, as ever, at your disposal."

  The candlelight shimmered under her lashes, like sunbeams through thick pond scum. "If I am in want, Master Hugh, I shall be sure and let you know."

  "Lord Edmund Percy is a very lucky gentleman. He has plucked from the night sky one of its brightest stars."

  I rolled my eyes to the Tudor roses of Lady Talbot’s checkerboard ceiling. "Young Master Nathaniel Downing grows in leaps and bounds," I said casually. "Thanks to a tutor, paid for by your brother."

  His smile faded. Reaching for his goblet, he managed a terse, "I am glad to hear he progresses."

  Lady Talbot demanded to know of whom we spoke and my cousin explained sulkily that Nathaniel was another of her father’s strays, taken in out of charity.

  "My son-in-law was such a soft heart," Lady Talbot muttered. "I am surprised his house was not overrun with beggars and gypsies."

  Bagobones snorted in disgust, looking at me. "It was!"

  But already Lady Talbot was off on another ramble. "When my daughter married him, I knew nothing good would come of it. She liked her luxuries, and I warned her that life amid the rustics would be hard. She argued that I merely sought to keep her here as my companion." She croaked with laughter. "As if I would want that girl hovering over me in my dotage. She was a scrawny wretch with an unpleasant disposition. Never heard a word from her lips that was not an accusation of someone mistreating her. Sooth, she was a sulker!"

  Millicent glared viciously at her grandmother. Eventually, Hugh persuaded her to play the virginals for us, but Lady Talbot shouted above the music, "I never understood why women, who have no talent for it, must play music. Does no one any good – not the woman herself, whose time would be better spent, and certainly not the poor folk who must listen to it."

  Across the room Millicent banged away, taking her anger out upon the instrument, and Lady Talbot’s floorboards shook beneath my feet.

  * * * *

  The wedding day of our Bagobones dawned bright and sunny. Although Lady Talbot warned that rainy days were generally believed to be the luckiest for a bride, Millicent was too excited that morning to care.

  I wore my new tawny
orange gown, so patiently sewn by Tilda, and Lady Talbot was betaken by enough kindness to say, "That color suits you very well, my dear," adding, "So it is not the fashion now to have so much bosom on display. Why should you hide it?"

  I feared they would all think me very unsophisticated, but then I thought of Tilda, working so hard on the sewing, and of Will, picking out this cloth for me. He probably never even knew that such a thing as fashion existed and had remarked, several times, upon his fondness for my bosom.

  Despite Lady Talbot’s misgivings, the Earl laid on a lavish feast for his son’s wedding, no doubt relieved to get the boy married at all and Millicent, for all my teasing, was still a nobleman’s daughter, however impoverished.

  When I saw Frances at the feast, she hung on her husband’s arm, bending her head toward me in a single nod of greeting, but made no move to approach; so much for dear, old friends. Mary and Sir Brian also gave me a wide berth. Arriving at the wedding on horseback, amid much pompous splendor, they certainly would not want any association with someone in an unfashionable gown. Lady Talbot was my sole companion and, as usual, eager to give me her opinion of every guest.

  "That," she pointed, "is Hermione Whitlocke. Observe that creature upon her head. I would not have my floor scrubbed with such a rag, and yet she wears it upon her head and calls it a wig! And there, at her side, is the Lady Whipsnade, who disguises her rotten meat with expensive spices." She arched an eyebrow, adding, "I speak not of the food on her table, you understand."

  I nodded, careful not to spill wine on my new frock.

  "And there is Kat Asher." She wrinkled her nose. "Lady Asher – humph! Lady in title only, I promise you."

  My heart stopped for one long moment, my eyes following her pointing finger.

  "A simple trollop, my dear, whatever she calls herself."

  I could barely exhale, much less form words. She was elegant, tall and slender, a little fair hair showing under her headdress, her individual features not remarkable by any means, but altogether forming a pretty enough picture.

  Lady Talbot continued, "I remember years ago, there was bloodshed between two young men who fought over her. One was only baseborn – a sailor, if memory serves. He had a hot spur temper and upon discovery that he was not the only man sharing her abundant favors, he took a knife to his competitor. The two men fought up and down Cheapside, but ultimately, she chose the wealthy lover, who had more to offer than a good roll in the hay. Some women are never satisfied. I know, my dear, were I thirty years younger, I should not have turned him away from my bed."

  Across the crowded hall, Kat Asher’s cool eyes encountered mine. Quickly assessed, I was just as speedily dismissed. Suddenly the sticky stench of perfumed oils filling the overheated hall was too much for me. Lady Talbot, thinking me about to faint away for lack of food, called her manservant over. "Ambleforthe, go and fetch me those little cakes over there – by the ugly woman with the bad posture and shady squint. Quickly, before she eats them all."

  The unfortunate woman, who was within easy enough distance to hear this, paused with a cake halfway in her mouth.

  "Yes, yes, Ambleforthe – the whole platter. Leave none behind. I daresay she has had enough and, if she has not, she ought to be told that she has. My young friend and I wish to choose for ourselves, before she devours them all." As he began his slow shuffle, she held him back by the sleeve and he bowed to hear her next comment. "And if anyone stops you, tell them they are for me and I am one hundred and eight in years. Let them try to take food from a starving old woman’s mouth."

  "Yes, m’lady," he muttered dolefully, setting off again in the direction of his target.

  Although I determinedly looked away from the notorious harlot, Kat Asher, I could not concentrate on a single other thing within view. My bodice was too tight again and I was shamefully aware of my unfashionable appearance. When the herald blew his horn for silence, I jumped, thinking I was about to be thrown out of the place, exposed as an interloper – a common rustic who did not belong. But the Earl rose up from his seat at the head table and began a long, boring, pompous toast. While he droned away, I looked down at my hands and the ink stains on my fingers, wishing I had never come here. Suddenly I wanted to go home to Souls Dryft and never leave it again.

  Turning to the newlyweds, the Earl announced that he had another wedding gift to bestow. "His Majesty, the King, has, in great benevolence, granted my son Edmund the property of Deptford Keep."

  Shocked out of my self-pitying reverie, I looked over at Bagobones, who strained to hold her smile, her lips working independently of her anguished, verdigris eyes. After so many years of longing for more civilized company, she was to be sent back to exile. Somewhere in the crowd, her sister laughed.

  Lady Talbot exclaimed suddenly, "Here comes Master Hugh to dance with you."

  Sure enough, Hugh crossed the floor determinedly, just as the musicians struck up a galliard. Desperate to escape, I turned to my right and encountered another gentleman with his hand out, inviting me to dance. Had I not just suffered the sight of my husband’s mistress, I daresay I would not have gone with him, but I was weak in that moment and also eager to avoid Hugh. I whispered to the gentleman that I had never danced a galliard, and he kindly advised me to follow his lead.

  As we took our place in the dance, my unfashionable figure attracted several disapproving glances, but, unlike the ladies present, the gentlemen did not know how grievously I offended. Many smiled and bowed as I passed. Kat Asher’s nauseating face appeared again in the crowd; Frances, up on tiptoe, whispered in her ear.

  My dancing partner spun me around clumsily and when I finally regained balance, I saw my pirate, at the back of the crowd. It was surely him, yet unusually well-groomed. Dressed oddly in a long jerkin with matching sleeves, he shouted into a small object held up to his ear. I could see the smooth white cuffs of his shirt.

  I left my dancing partner at once, but the crowd would not part for me, not seeing that I was a poor, put-upon heroine; to them I was an outsider and most likely the villain of the piece. Eventually winning my exit, I escaped into the narrow vestibule, where it was cooler, the music only a distant sound.

  "Looking for me?"

  There he was, leaning against the paneling, his arms folded, an almighty scowl on his weathered face. My eyes must have played tricks before, as he now wore his usual crumpled shirt and slashed leather doublet; the familiar sight of his shabby appearance, welcome as that of an old, much-worn cloak.

  "You are returned," I cried, "and you never sent word."

  "If I was expected, I would never see how you behave without me." Clearly, he did not know whether to shout at me, or kiss me.

  "How long have you been here?" I demanded.

  "Long enough to see you make entertainment for that prancing popinjay." He unfolded his arms, but they hovered at his sides.

  "Shall I go back and finish my dance then?"

  He was hesitant, battling with doubts.

  "Do you like my new gown?" I spun about to show him. "’Tis the cloth you sent."

  His gaze rolled over me. "Hmm."

  My heart leapt about madly. "If you do not wish to dance with your wife, mayhap there are other things you would like to do with her?"

  A shy twitch turned up one corner of his lips.

  I tucked my arm under his. "Then let us go now. Make haste!"

  He grumbled, "I begin to think there is only one thing you want from me."

  "What else would I want you for? Poetry?"

  He did not know whether to laugh, or scowl. He had yet to know my humor well. So I soothed his ruffled feathers with a kiss. I had almost forgotten how blue his eyes could be. It was a shade I never found anywhere else, except in clear skies on certain summer days and in those bluebells that grew every spring under the pines.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Much later, when we were finally sated, entwined in his bed, he asked me for news of home. I was too drowsy and content, preferring to
lay quiet in his arms, watching the dying sun as it poured, like mead, through the window of his lodgings and dripped over his warm shoulder.

  "There is naught worth the telling." I yawned. "It has all been very dull without you. To quarrel with."

  "And Nathaniel? He progresses well?" His voice was low, barely disturbing the air.

  "Yes," I replied quickly. I did not want to mention Robert Culpepper, for fear it might spoil our time together. Apparently his mother had written him a letter, as soon as she knew he was back from sea. Her primary purpose, it seemed, was to tell him how I gallivanted about London, but she had not thought it necessary to tell him where I might be found. He tracked me down today, only because he heard of my cousin’s wedding and knew I might be there.

  I wondered what else she told him in that letter.

  My eyes followed the sun around the room, taking in clues of his life without me: maps upon his desk, shuffling about in the breeze through the open window; two empty cups playing host to a couple of drunken flies, and a knife, as long as my forearm, hanging from a leather strap over the bedpost. Was this the knife he once took to his rival? Slithering from the long coils of his body, I reached for it, but he moved quickly, his own fingers closing over the hilt.

  "Let me see it," I purred.

  "No." He warned, as if I was a child. "’Tis sharp!"

  "Of course ‘tis sharp!"

  "Why would I ever let you hold a knife in my presence again?"

  I scoffed at his cowardice. "Give it to me, old man!"

  But his lips were set firm. The sun caught on the blade’s edge as he turned it. I put my hand over his. "Trust me."

  "Trust you? You cannot even stay where you are put, but flit off to London the moment my back is turned. I can only imagine what else you get up to."

  "You must learn to trust me, as I must trust you. To be sure you would not want me to question you."

  This comment was not even granted the respect of an answer, but he regarded me churlishly. "I hear you have written a book."