The merry mistress, p.8
The Merry Mistress, page 8
“You would not betray me?” he asked in a low hurt voice.
“How can you think it!” I cried. “Why should I be so wicked? It’s Agnes who makes you think like this. She hates me and would do anything to hurt me. It’s only that you give me no peace, and it’s an insult to doubt me as you do. Other husbands don’t go on like that.”
“Other husbands,” he said wearily, “don’t love their wives as I love you.” He turned and I heard him sob. “I’ll trouble you no further,” he muttered. “I’ll never question you again. I promise.”
My contrition before his misery almost made me call him back when he moved towards the door; but thought of his kisses, his embracements, made me so weary that I clenched my teeth and let him go. Gratefully, I heard the latch click into place and lay down again, sinking into dreams more satisfying than ever his clumsy embrace could have proved; and I was startled to find ’that my legs were trembling and my breathing noisy, while a trickle of sweat running between my breasts made me shiver as though it were a ghost’s caress.
*
For days, fear of Hastings’ coming made me tremble. Should he say, as he would be sure to say, that I had invited him, I would be proved a liar, having sworn I had not seen him, and would never be trusted again; while my husband’s jealousy was such that, spurred by Agnes, he was capable of killing me in a moment’s rashness. And I was troubled also by Simon. Whenever the lad saw me, questioningly he raised his reddish brows, silently asking the date of payment; and although I ignored these signals, I knew that the time must come when he would catch me alone. For this reason, I went out less than I used to and only when I was certain that the quieter Henry would be my guardian. Most of the time, to the shy delight of my husband and the sceptical amusement of Agnes — who seemed able to read my thoughts — I lolled about the solar, eating sweet things and sipping honeyed wines, or I gazed for hours into the street.
Then the hour came which I had feared. I blinked and gasped to see Hastings, cloaked and hooded, stride into the shop.
“What is it?” asked Agnes, seeing me start back.
“Nothing, nothing,” I muttered. “I think a flea,” and sat down again, trembling, on to the window-seat while, to explain my agitation, I made pretence to seek the insect within my skirt. But all the while as I turned the cloth, I strained to hear noises from the shop. And I heard nothing, only the ceaseless rattle of traffic in the street and the shouting of apprentices and beggars and hucksters. In such uproar, sounds from the room below could scarcely reach me, yet I knew that Hastings, the rogue, would blab of our meeting, and then, God knows, I feared I would be beaten, mayhap flung out of doors… No, I assured myself, my husband would never throw me out. He was too greatly my slave for that. Only I wished that Agnes had not been in the solar to watch. Besides, she would make certain that my husband’s choler did not cool. Alone, with caresses I could have lulled his rage, but with Agnes to prick him on with jeers, ever alert to frustrate any gesture of forgiveness he might make, I felt defeated from the outset. My only resource then would be tears.
Still, I heard no raised voices from below. No sounds of brawling. Only the clatter from the street and silence in the shop. Then, at last, I heard Hastings. He was in the street, and quickly I turned to the window to gaze down. At the shop-door he stood, his dark hair ruffled, his face purple with fury, Simon, cudgel in hand, confronting him.
“You will pay for this!” he shouted, dusting his cloak. Then he laughed shrilly. “It will be different when the king comes hunting, Master Shore!” he cried. “You’ll not throw him out!”
I shrank back lest he see me and found Agnes watching.
“Who was that?” she asked quietly. “My Lord Hastings?”
“I know not,” I muttered, feeling I stifled and not knowing where to put my shaking hands. “I couldn’t see. There are so many people.”
“Yet you shiver, girl,” smiled Agnes. “Your fingers twist between your knees, and your cheeks are scarlet.”
“I am not well, the heat…”
“I thought it cold,” she said. Hearing steps on the stairs, she placed the embroidery on her lap. “Here comes your husband,” she said with satisfaction.
The curtain over the door swept. up and my husband stumbled in. For a moment or two he could not speak while dazedly he looked about him. Then he lurched to a stool and sat down.
“I will be murdered for this,” he groaned. “He swore that he would kill me, and he’ll do it, so great a man… He dared not do it in my shop. He’ll have his bullies waiting. I cannot go out-of-doors again. Never.”
“What is it, William?” said Agnes.
“Hastings,” he moaned. “He tried to push his way up here. He said that Jane had asked him here.”
“Perhaps she had,” smiled Agnes.
“No, no!” he squeaked, then turned imploringly towards me. “Did you, Jane?” he asked in a low voice.
“How could I ask him here?” I cried, pretending indignation, though yet I trembled. “How could I meet him when I never go out alone? Ask Henry, ask Simon, they’ll tell you. No use for me to speak when you’ll not believe a word I say.”
“I believe you,” he croaked. “The rogue was lying. How could you have asked him? And would you be such a fool? That is true, is it not, Agnes? How could she have asked him here when she’s never out alone? No, no, beloved, I trust you. I’d die if you did wrong; it would kill me; but you’d not do it, would you, honey?”
I shrugged, myself again now that I saw that I had naught to fear. “I have no opportunity,” I said boldly. “I do not know Lord Hastings.”
“Of course, of course, you’ve seen him only twice, and then but fleetingly. Oh, God!” he sobbed, beating his temples, “he’ll have his bravoes waiting! They’ll cudgel me and stab me and spit into my eyes. And he is going to get the king to come here. Yea, yea, he told me so. He threatened me. The king! And you know what the king is, no woman safe within a yard of his fingers, a roaring lecher who beds them by the dozens, Christ help me! O, Mother of God, what shall I do? I cannot throw the king out, like Hastings. You must leave here, Jane, you must hide in the country. Yea, yea. You must go into hiding in a dirty smock so that none will know you. I will get you a vizard. I will send you out under a truss of hay. We’ll cheat them yet, by God!”
“Send me away!” cried I, aghast. Thought of the green country, no shops, no fashionable garments, no one to blind with my jewels, no adorers sniffing after me in the street, was so appalling that I almost wept. “And never see you again!” I cried. “So that’s your love!”
“I’ll come to you,” he babbled, “never fear. I’ll steal away at times when we’re not busy. You needn’t go too far. Hampstead. Stepney. Kilburn. Chelsea. Yea, I’ll see you when I can.”
“To be caught and murdered? I want no dead husband,” said I, drawing up my skirt and crossing my legs that he might see above the ankle. “Do you doubt me, sir, so greatly,” I cried, “that you think I might tiptoe off with whatever lewd fellow whistles under my window? Hastings first. And now the king. Were he the King of Jerusalem I’d not leave you for him. There must be two to make a bargain, and though he were to come with barrels of jewellery, I’d never stir from you. I have a soul to be saved, I hope, and I will not leave London.”
“Just for a time,” he begged me.
“Nay,” said I, “I have been patient with your wicked doubts, but now I weary of them. You swore there’d be no more ferreting, yet here you start again. Doubts, doubts, doubts. ‘Tis intolerable and most insulting. A pretty husband who cannot trust his own poor wife! Oh, sir, sir… I am so wretched!” I wailed and put my hands over my eyes, rubbing the lids to make them weep, and loudly sobbed.
“If it were anyone but the king,” he groaned.
I turned my back that I might spit on my fingers to wet the lashes. “I can bear it no longer,” I sobbed. “I’ll talk of it no more. If you send me off like this, as though I were a sinner, everybody will gab about it and think the worst, as they always do, and I’ll be blamed, when I’ve not a bad thought in my head. It shows how much you care. And Hastings will murder you when you try to visit me…”
“I’ll go cloaked, they’ll never know me, and I’ll take Hal and Simon with me. Please, my love, just for a short time, to please me… Oh, I beg of you, do not weep!”
Noisily, I wept, sniffling and snuffling, and did not answer him, realizing that argument was futile and that I was upsetting myself about nothing important. Let him talk, let Agnes gloat; before long it would be nightfall and once I had him alone in bed I always won the argument.
Chapter 6: The King in a Hood
I did not leave London nor was the subject mentioned again, although my husband’s fears remained as strong as ever. Once in my arms, his mouth on mine, the touch of my skin driving his wits helterskelter, he would promise anything. It would seem as though my hands were stained with vervain, that amorous herb, or that I had given him to eat fruit kept under my armpit to soak in my sweat; ay, or had fed him on cockle-bread, salty and exhilarating. But I needed none of these tricks which other wenches used to excite a tardy lover. My golden hair was witchery enough, my smooth skin and wide firm bosom. By such natural magic alone, I enslaved him, robbed him of manhood; and even while he twisted against this bondage, his male pride raging under it, he exulted in it and would kiss my feet and press the soles against himself, weeping with adoration of them, and making me despise him more. The way he grovelled, one would have thought he enjoyed being humiliated; and the way he fretted his fears, one would have believed he liked his sufferings; and mayhap he did, so strange are men in their desires at times…
I had only to remain silent and he would shiver, like a child, lest he had offended me; a shrug of my shoulders sent him into suicidal despair; and when at night I turned my back, I would hear him weep and he would demand to know why I was angry with him, what had he done? These bouts of humility alternated with fits of frenzy in which he would accuse me of the most diabolic sins which I had never even considered committing. After visitors had left, always he swore that I had ogled this man, had whispered to that one, making an assignation, or had responded to their kisses too freely, or had lounged lewdly against another fellow that his arm might touch my breasts. Should I return late from shopping or visiting, he would chase me upstairs with weeping accusations and would tear at my garments to see whether I had disrobed recently or had put on my things inside out or carelessly in the hurry of a love-meeting, and he would feel me all over as though to feel another man’s embraces.
“You will drive me to it,” I warned him again and again. “I cannot bear this life.”
Instantly, the moment I threatened him, he would turn slavish, imploring my forgiveness, swearing never to behave like that again… and wearily, that the scene might end, I would forgive him.
*
Although at times these unjustified suspicions became well-nigh unbearable, I was happy enough. Not often did my husband lose control. His fits went with the moon’s phases, it seemed, and days would pass without an argument. Usually he was my dog, wagging at a pat, ready at a smile to curl into my lap; and following a quarrel, his remorse was pitiable. He shook like a drunkard after a long debauch, and he would bring me gifts, his richest cloths or some gay jewel. And I have always loved beautiful things. When he burst out in one of his maniacal moods, his long face turning purple, the veins swelling on his temples and the sinews hardening in his throat, I would sigh and try to be patient while I waited for it to pass and I would wonder what precious thing he would give me to appease my anger. And I knew, no matter how tiresome it could be on occasions, that I could always tame him when able to force my reluctant body to my will.
This power astonished equally as it gratified me. Power I had, not only over my husband, but over Hastings and Simon and the strangers who followed me in the street, inexplicable yet flattering as it was; and I marvelled at the change in myself. Not many months since I had been a frightened child in my father’s house, my courage with my curiosity almost thrashed out of me; and fearfully had I come to my husband, frightened of both him and Agnes. Now I feared neither of them; I feared nobody. Although at times I was dissatisfied, feeling a lack in life, I was proud of this achievement; and when unhappy moods clouded my heart, making me restless and fretful, I had only to open the chest to see the layers of garments or to go to my caskets to have my coloured jewels splutter at me in the light, to become satisfied again, desiring nothing beyond these ornaments for my flesh that I might infuriate my friends by wearing different jewels or a different headdress each time I called on them. They could triumph over me with their babies keeping them at home and tugging their bosoms out of shape; but jewels to me outweighed a family at my knees while my breasts remained firm and my belly unmarked.
Even more than my husband’s outbursts was I afraid of Simon. From questioning glances he had turned to glowering at me; and he held my secret. Yet how could I repay him with even so little as a kiss of my palm? and I saw in his eyes that he was not the lad to be satisfied with so tasteless a return. My husband’s jealous eye was at every crack in the plaster and, since Hastings’ threats, he dared not venture out of doors, so that he was always in the house, watching, listening, sniffing; and Agnes went out only when goods were needed for the kitchen.
Although as well as I was able I attempted to elude having the youth as escort, there were times when I could not avoid it; and as we pushed amongst the crowds he would mumble at my back, accusing me of treachery and saying that he would tell about me and Hastings.
“You dare not do it,” once I taunted him over my shoulder, being exasperated by his endless grumbling. “You would expose yourself as much as me.”
“There’s much I’d do,” he growled, almost tripping on my skirt-hem, “to have revenge on such a cheat.”
“I did not cheat.”
“Then when?” he demanded eagerly; “when do you pay?”
“How can I tell,” I grumbled back while smiling and nodding at friends. “He’s never out and Dame Agnes is always watching.”
“Steal down at night when I sleep in the shop.”
“How can you ask it!” I hissed, as though outraged at the thought of meeting him in the dark. “Never, by Mother Mary, no! You swore you wanted nothing beyond a kiss.”
“We can kiss in the shop.”
“I’d not do such a thing! I’d not think of it! Alone with you. I couldn’t trust you! How little you must think of me to suggest such a thing!” I wailed.
“I’ll have you yet,” he muttered, falling back as friends stopped to talk to me.
Troublesome though this Simon proved, I half enjoyed the danger. It made my heart beat fast and brought blood to my cheeks. Self-assurance wrought by my power over my weakling husband had made me believe that I could master all men, even young men; desire, I thought, seemed to weaken them while it strengthened me. Such little things contented them, a kiss, a squeeze, a smile, and they placed so high a value on loving that it astounded me who as yet thought little of it save as a duty, pleasurable enough to be sure but often irksome, a gift bestowed on females whereby they might subdue men. Often in my husband’s arms had I drowsed, my mind on tomorrow or on my clothes or my jewels; although a spasm half of fear, half of joy would sometimes shake me when I remembered Hastings or the king or Simon and I would clutch Shore to me, jewels and clothes temporarily forgotten.
“Can’t you send him out tomorrow?” whispered Simon while we edged through the Cheapside crowd.
“He will not go,” I hissed. “He is afraid.”
“If I could get him out, would you… ?”
“We will see,” said I, smiling to myself at the boy’s persistence.
“Would you?” he urged.
“Yea,” said I, being certain that nothing could entice my husband out of doors.
*
Being so much troubled by Simon who grew more reckless every day — on one occasion when he was shouting at the door while I passed through he pinched my bottom and I dared say no word, my husband watching us — I had almost forgotten about the king and Hastings. They had faded into the past while Simon, being always in the shop and often guarding me abroad, was someone whose presence I could not ignore.
There was a certain pleasure in the danger, in the fear that he might lose control and say or do something in front of my husband, yet I did not want any further quarrels and hoped he would subdue his passion, at least in public. He had also much to lose, his apprenticeship and any hope of being taken into the company, apart from a flogging; but men are fools in love, may God be thanked, and when they are crazed for a woman they care not whether they be slain so long as they might clasp her in their arms, so wonderful is love, so mysterious and so exciting, that I had to pity Agnes after whom no man had padded, snorting and panting, for a kiss.
In the exciting sport of eluding Simon, I had, as I say, forgotten the king and Hastings, and therefore I could have swooned with joy and excitement when my husband staggered one afternoon into the solar and gasped that the king was coming up and I must run off and hide. I could only gape at him, thankful that Agnes was abroad, when he gripped my arm and tugged me from the window-seat, spilling the plate of candied fruits from my lap.
Pretending not to understand, I looked at him stupidly.
“The king,” he hissed, and he sweated, “he’s coming up. He wouldn’t stay in the shop. He’s coming up for some cloths. For the love of God, woman, hide!”
Too late, as I had intended it to be too late. Over the door the curtain was lifted and the king strode in.
