The merry mistress, p.2
The Merry Mistress, page 2
Even in my misery I was eager to hear of doings in the world I had lost; and the rascal realized it. As yet, not knowing my fate, uncertain whether I might not be released and be given great honours again — although King Richard was no amorous man — he treated me with respect; but I knew that once he discovered that I was friendless, I would find no mercy. I read it in his pig’s eyes and in the way he ran his tongue along his lips as though in anticipation savouring a dainty dish. He would quickly seize me were he to know the truth and I would be helpless in those great arms.
Imperiously I treated him as though I were still the royal harlot and I would make believe that I was expecting some great visitor; that quieted him a little. After my return from St. Paul’s where I had abjured my sweet sins, I had stripped off the tickling smock and had dressed again in the only gown that was left me of the many I had recently possessed. Living in this damp chamber above the street, rarely able to wash, had dirtied the velvet, the scarlet in places being scraped to grey; yet it remained beautiful and it fitted me well, being tight across my chubby bosom, the huge padded stomach arching out to throw back my shoulders so that, when walking, I had to bend forward, arching the spine. The headdress — and grateful was I to possess it that it might conceal my golden hair from this lewd fellow — was built on wires, shaped like horns, over which was swathed red cloth-of-gold, the metal already tarnishing.
Not daring to disrobe even at night — the jailor having keys and I no way of barring him out — I feared that even this thick cloth must soon wear through. Then I would become like some of the other women I had noticed in that prison, ragged and filthy and in such dolour that they no longer bothered to remember modesty, caring not what skin they showed. Dear God, I prayed and felt the tears hot on my lashes, dear God, do not let me end like that, beyond love or hatred, a beaten beast cringing to any master with a coin to toss in my lap.
I who was beautiful… No need to lie, pretending humility I do not feel, so many handsome men having called me beautiful and stood lolling and sighing before me… I who was, who am so beautiful to end in a London jail, grateful should any fellow condescend to buy a kiss that I might eat! I would hang myself rather than come to that, knotting my headdress to the bars or snipping my veins that I might swoon to death. In the past, I had been generous, for I am weak and easily moved, and when I saw some fellow sick with longing my belly would turn with sympathy and I would wish I might console him, although I dared not do it, so watched were we at court that our most innocent gestures were often turned to sound like villainy. But whoredom would be different. At court would my caresses have been largesse, gifts such as a queen or a goddess might bestow on her worshippers; but to be taken by strangers, feeling one’s entrails cringe at an uninvited touch, to be the sport of any man, young or old, depraved or stupid, cruel or timid, brutal or gentle… My pride hurt me at the base thought. I was not like certain silly women I had known, spendthrifts of love, laying down God’s bounty heedlessly to this man, that man, selling themselves for a gewgaw or a bite of bread and a sip of wine. Rather would I starve than act so dissolutely, I swore.
Ay, but to starve, to feel the body feed upon itself, sucking in the belly or blowing it out with wind that found no sustenance, to see one’s legs grow weak and to note the shape vanish from arms and legs, breasts dangling, eyes receding in dark rims, cheeks turning greenish… as I had seen in beggar-women crawling about the streets, their youth used up and their wrinkling womanhood scorned… Who can honestly say what they would or would not do in certain desperate corners? Who dare accuse any woman of iniquity who has not herself undergone temptation? That crooked-legged child I saw yesterday in this jail who with a harlot’s knowing eyes had sought to entice a prisoner to take her for a little food: who could call her sinful when she had to eat?
I wept, I who had once been called at court the Merry Mistress, I wept and did not brush away the tears as the moonlight flowed over me and crossed me with bars, because I knew my spirit was not strong and could be easily tempted. I would never starve. And God forgive me, should it come to that, I would far rather starve. Yet I knew I would not starve…
*
Endless seemed the night while I tossed on the straw and wondered what my old friends in the city would be saying after having watched me walk with the candle of penance into God’s house to hear the Bishop of London in his shining vestments prate of the woman taken in adultery, of Jezebels, Salomes and Delilahs, while I had stood, cold piercing through my naked feet from the tiles, with bowed head, pretending to listen to his baying. Through the doors had pushed the Londoners to gloat on my golden hair. I had heard their whispering like the shush-shush of a distant sea, and some girls giggling while men pinched them from behind, and the sound of amorous slapping; and I had not looked up lest I look into the face of a friend. Particularly had I dreaded to see the long face of William Shore who had loved me so greatly only to suffer yet more greatly after I became lost to him and Cheapside.
This night he would not sleep. Like me, he would toss and watch the moonlight; but unlike me on my straw pallet, he would be stretched on that great soft curtained bed I remembered well; while nearby, in her narrow chamber, Agnes would be grinning to think that her foreboding had come true. And all my friends, the lads who had yearned after me in the street, and the girls who had whispered to me their secrets and with whom I had dreamed a brave future: in their beds, their doors unbarred, they would be lying, some together, some alone, the girls mayhap triumphant that one more beautiful than they should have been humbled, and the lads conjuring my ghost into their arms.
Under the many Cheapside roofs, and under hundreds of other London roofs, men and women, boys and girls, would be thinking of me. To some I would appear as proof of God’s revenge visited upon sin, and haggard virgins would glory in their barren virtues because they had never known such ecstasies as had been mine, may God be thanked; and to some, to the younglings, I would mayhap appear the apotheosis of their half-formed longings, one who with her yellow hair and ample bosom had triumphed over a king even though, at the end, I might be tumbled from my high place.
Few hated me. That had been proved by the quietness with which the people had watched me undergo my penance; and certainly when I had possessed the power I had wronged no man or woman. Always had I striven to do good, helping the poor and begging the lives of those condemned to death; and this jail was my reward. Yet the people pitied my end. But were I free again, cleanly dressed and beautiful, what would they say of me? Quickly would wives lock away their husbands and shoo me from their doors, and the husbands would not dare offer a coin of pity. Weep for me though they might, doubtless my old friends would shun one who had been condemned by the church for having led a carnal, base, voluptuous and abominable life; and no man would wish to marry me. Not even my own husband…
He would not dare, no matter how he ached to love me. He would fear the mockery of his fellows, fingers lifted in horns behind his hood, the lewd chuckles when he passed, the compassionate leer of cuckold to cuckold… Sadly had he watched me walk with the candle: no hatred, only compassion, in his eyes; but behind him I had seen Agnes gloating, chuckling, ecstatic with hatred and the triumph of malice… I could not go back to that house. Not while Agnes remained there.
… even should Agnes go, such a return would be impossible, the ultimate degradation of my proud spirit. Better to become the common strumpet of the streets than to creep to the man I had betrayed so cruelly. And at first, I had thought, I had hoped we would be happy together.
Remembering that wedding day, I still can smile, sighing and stretching arms and legs… It might keep the phantoms of remorse and fear from springing at me, the menace of the future in the shadows, to recall those times, ten thousand years ago they seem, yet barely two years since when, a maid, I had stood beside the mercer William Shore while the priest had blessed us at the church porch.
Chapter 2: Marriage Night
In all Cheapside there was no girl so proud yet so apprehensive as I that day when I was married to William Shore of the Mercery. To stand at the porch of St. Mary Cole Church in West Chepe with envious girlfriends watching us, with the coveting lads who had sworn they loved me sullen with anger or misery, and with passersby turning for a second look at my hair naked in sunlight, that was excitement sufficient to blur the past and to blind me to the future, so that I scarcely heard the priest mumbling his Latin. Last day of maidenhood, with unhidden, unbound, unplaited hair and low-cut white gown sewn with bright ribbands for favours, I proclaimed I was yet, if for only a brief while now, a virgin. And the naked hair did not lie. No lad had more than mouthed me, grappling me through thick cloth for a hurried squeeze, eyes wary, hearts thundering lest our elders blunder on us in our awkward kissings. For the last time might strangers look on my golden head. After this night, that. hair would have to be concealed, becoming then the property of one man who behind locked shutters in the candlelight could uncap me for his private pleasure; and I was happy at the thought of that loss, being eager to skip from girlhood into woman. The ring — I have long since sold it — was of gold and had been beaten into the shape of two hands holding a heart; and no premonition iced the skin when he pressed it around the thumb of my left hand, whispering, “In the name of the Father,” then slipped it to my forefinger, saying, “and of the Holy Ghost,” until finally he squeezed it down my fourth finger. “Amen,” he croaked and I saw the diamonds on it spit when I raised my hand that my friends might envy me possessing such a jewel.
When now I try to recall that day I cannot remember how I felt, or whether I felt at all. It would seem that I was not I when I had been that maid, giddy with exultation and fears, but never with doubts of happiness. That had been a different girl, not this Jane Shore, who had stood at her tall husband’s side, fixedly smiling and shaking out her golden hair to twinkle in the sun. Through slitted eyes, I saw him peer down at me and I wondered what he thought, so stern he looked, and whether he loved me or had married me for money. There had been no courtship, only bargaining with gold for hearts, and I knew nothing of him save that he was a widower, a mercer and much respected. He was not old — and yet I thought him old, for I was then not fourteen and he was over twenty and he seemed so dry, so silent, so wise compared to me who knew little of the world beyond the windows of my father’s house.
His wife had died within a year of marriage while bringing to birth their stillborn son and since then he had been tended by her sister, Agnes, a young woman lacking sufficient money for any man to wish to marry her. That she disapproved of me, I knew. I saw it in her grey eyes wrinkled with suspicion and in the curl of her thin lips; and, young though I was, I understood what she must feel, after so many years being set aside, by a girl taking her place as mistress of the household. And I swore to myself that I would give her no cause to hate me but with time would make her love me.
The dust of Cheapside sparkled in the sunlight, dancing about us and our guests. Crushed against the walls, the people stood, the women lifting their skirts to keep the hems from the muck on the cobbles, while strangers grinned or cried lewd jovialities I pretended not to understand. Carts held up in the press made no attempt to move on while the drivers held back horse or ox that they might watch the performance at their ease, screwing up their eyes while they appraised me standing, a tiny thing in a mist of golden hair. Proud though I was to have so many watching, modesty bade me give no sign that I was aware of them. Demure, silent — save when the ceremony demanded speech and then I spoke clearly, if low-voiced, surprising myself by my own calmness — I remained as though shut in the ice of my maidenhood against which coarse jests and ribald singing melted without meaning. But fast and faster did my heart beat as the ceremony drew to an end.
So loud was the laughter, the whistling, the jests, that barely could the good priest be heard above the clamour. That did not trouble me, my Latin being weak, and all that mattered was that as many as possible should watch us so that, should there be argument later, they might swear they had seen us wed. For that reason we stood in the porch, that witnesses might be many, and only when the ceremony was ended, my finger bent on the ring, did we turn towards the shadows of the church to hear Mass. I remember feeling faintly giddy, yet with an impulse to laugh, while our friends pushed after us.
Out of the dusty sunlight and into cool shadows with the quire singing and girls in white upholding garlands of wheat, and the two boys ahead of us with rosemary, symbol of virility, tied to their sleeves, I walked, feeling very tiny beside my tall husband while I wondered what I would say to him when we should be alone together.
*
Perhaps it is well that God should shield the future. Had I known what the stars were spinning, never would I have entered that church at the side of William Shore. And thereby, much would I have lost. I would not have suffered early unhappiness, it is true, but also I would not have enjoyed that day of Cheapside triumph. In my simplicity, this husband was not so much a man as an image of achievement. There was no love between us — not on my side, at least — but all girls had to marry or prove themselves failures, and I was luckier, I thought, than most, Shore being not very old and having a shop stacked with those cloths that most delight a girl.
Fiercely had my father and mother ruled me, rarely letting me gad abroad and then never alone, while preaching endlessly of hell and of the wantonness of the flesh until I had been able to think of little else. That women should risk their immortal souls for this damnable pleasure made me marvel and hanker to know more of it, for rich, it seemed, must that pleasure be that, to taste it, thousands upon thousands now squirmed in lakes of fire. My parents gave me no opportunity to taste it and my father would grumble that of all property, children — “particularly females”, would he say, cocking one spiderish eyebrow at me — could prove least profitable. “I’ll take no risks,” he’d say, “that you’ll be cracked, my lass. You’ve cost too much already.” And he would calculate, item by item, how I cost him over a pound a year in food and clothing. “Fourteen-fifteen pounds,” he would groan, “an unprofitable investment, as yet. Already you’ve past twelve and should have been bedded then had I found a man with gold sufficient. And I’ll not lose my money. I’ve an eye at every crack and know you’re doings and I’ll not let you have me waste my outlay by itching at some rogue and calling it love.”
I had often been in love. Like most girls, I had been at times restless and sleepless with thoughts of some pretty boy. But I was so locked at home that I could do no more than flutter my eyelids at him from a distance, and it was only when we had visitors and I had to serve the wine and food that lads might huggle me a moment on the stairs. Terror of capture added to that ecstasy, and I have almost swooned under a kiss and a hand on my breast or leg; yet even in my swooning, I never dared close an eyelid. Such times were rare. Only from my upstairs window in Chepe could I watch the lads and pray that soon I might be free of home, like luckier wenches, able to speak with open eyes at men.
Shore had always been so quiet, so respectful when he visited us that I had never thought of him for husband; and when he kissed me in greeting he did not act like certain men — old men, too — who, once my father’s back was turned, would change a courtesy-kiss into a terrifying exploration which at times had bruised and even cut my lip against my teeth. He had merely brushed my mouth with his, the bristles faintly tickling; yet on occasions by chance I had found him staring at me and had been startled by the voracious look in his eyes. Always then had he shifted aside and I had believed myself mistaken. So good a man could not, I told myself, have wicked thoughts.
A stranger. In the church I stood beside him, a stranger, in the candlelit gloom. What was to happen that night I scarcely considered, and when I did think of it, I shivered, although whether with fear or anticipation I could not tell. That was the sacrifice I must offer to freedom that I might be quit of my parents and be able to eat and drink what I liked when I liked, have babies with which to play, and be able to walk abroad whenever I wished and to buy, that I might decorate my body to my own satisfaction, jewels and garments beyond counting.
A young girl cannot think emotionally because she does not know. She lives in a dream from which she both desires yet dreads to wake. At times there are great longings in her as though the imprisoned woman stirred and itched to escape, and then, in the protective night, she lies and marvels at the mystery of her body and how a touch can excite or soothe it, and she dreams of other hands, lads’ hands… Yet for all her speculations and her dreams, she does not know. Her newly married friends, puffed with pride, can tell her what they believe to be everything, making pretence to yawn as though exhausted, yet, I repeat, she does not know, words, even sketches, meaning nothing, for only reality can open the heart. Even then, though she wakens to life, the mystery remains, as it remains now with me who has been greatly loved. I have learned only that life can offer nothing better; yet what it is, to piece it into words, I cannot tell, for words tell nothing…
*
That warm day I was married, I thought more of my friends than of my husband. I was a little afraid of him and dared not let my fingers touch him when we turned and walked back down the stone steps into the sunlight. Dazzled, I stood there beside him as the thunder of the traffic deafened me, the bellowing of apprentices, the clash of iron-rimmed wheels, the lowing and the stumbling of oxen on the cobbles, the wailing of beggars and the singsong of hucksters. Behind us pushed our guests, laughing and squealing, and I felt uncomfortable with my stocking around my ankles, rascals having torn off my garters to keep as favours — in expectation of the assault, I had used silk ribbands — while my gown was slack because of the true-lovers’-knots that had been wrenched away. Although they had been stitched on loosely to be easily torn off, in the excitement some men had pulled at the gown itself, particularly at the bosom, and I feared it might slide down my shoulders. Into the road stumbled our friends to gather straw and dust and rubbish to throw at us, and while we laughed and shielded our eyes, making ready to race for my new home, I heard harshly, arrogantly the cry:
