Gulliver's Wife, page 5
‘How long have we known each other?’ he says quietly, and when she doesn’t answer, he uncurls his fist and pretends to count, touching his fingers with his thumb. ‘Twenty years this Martinmas. Tell me.’
‘There’s a hole in your stocking,’ she says. Her throat is scratchy, her eyes hot. She feels feverish herself, as if she is sickening. ‘Leave it with Alice, she’ll see that it’s mended.’
‘You’re evading me.’
She looks up, bristling. ‘What would you have me do, Richard? Pay a quack to gawp at him before carting him off to Bedlam? Condemn him as a madman? Expose him to ridicule and neglect? And me, and the children as well?’
She shudders. Bedlam, and other asylums like it, are, in her opinion, worse than Newgate. They are prisons not only of the body but of the soul. In such places the maniacal ravings of the permanently distracted cannot be distinguished from those who might improve, were they not forced to bide together, men and women, the poor and the elderly, the criminal and the unfortunate orphan who has seen too much for one so young. Mary closes her eyes, but an image remains painted inside her eyelids. A grimed cell, a pair of chains, a woman’s face, filth crusted and partially obscured by long, matted hair. When Mary tries to plait the woman’s strands, they snap off her scalp like broken straw. Mother, your hair, she tries to say, her voice choked with dismay, but if her mother hears, she gives no sign.
‘Who said anything about madness?’
Richard’s words recall Mary to the present. She chews her lip, but what is the point of delaying the inevitable? Richard deserves the truth. He deserves to know what Lem said this morning, the strangest tale he has ever told. Is it real or myth? She cannot say, although instinct guides her to suspect he’s dreamed the whole thing. A result of sun exposure or fever, perhaps loneliness, stranded for so long without company. In all the years of their marriage, after everything they have endured, she has never felt so adrift.
‘Little people? That’s new,’ Richard says, when she has finished. He looks winded by the news. ‘Does he mean fairies, perhaps? There was a fairy tree outside our old village. People tied wishes to its branches. My old ma used to sneak out in the mornings and rub her face with the dewy bark. She said it was better than any peddler’s potions. It must have been good for something; when they laid her out, she didn’t look a day over thirty-two.’
‘Your mother died when she was thirty.’
‘So there, you see? These fancies run in the family and you know his history. I advise you to think nothing of it.’
She shakes her head. ‘It’s different this time, Richard. This isn’t some dog dressed as a lion or man with a tin heart. It’s not a singing pig or a fox which sheds its fur during the full moon. His tale is elaborate. He seems… utterly convinced. And…’ She cannot help glancing up at the diamond casement, as if her husband might appear and disprove her. ‘He told me to keep it a secret, for now. He waited until Charles Clements was out of the room before confiding the story to me.’
Richard frowns. ‘He instructed you not to repeat it? Well, that changes matters. If it’s true, then he needs proper help. A physician, as I suggested. I know a man – name of Gaunt. Lives in Warwick Lane. He treated one of my clients last winter. I saw him two weeks ago at the assembly rooms, dancing a gavotte. Shall I write, ask him to come?’
‘No,’ Mary says, quickly.
‘Why not?’ He looks down at Mary’s cat, which has detached itself from the shadows near the house and padded over to nudge against his leg. ‘Hello, fish breath.’
Mary crouches, holding out her fingers. The cat sniffs them before returning to Richard and the puzzling abundance of London smells trapped in his clothing. ‘Traitor,’ she says, pushing herself upright. ‘Why not? Because I could lose my job, if the Bishop catches word of Lem’s illness. He must stay here and be cared for. I’ve written to your uncle and asked him to keep Johnny at the grammar school until the holidays.’
‘How has Bess taken the news?’
‘I haven’t told her.’ They have arrived at the back door. Through the crack, she can see past the stillroom into the kitchen where Alice stoops over the stove stirring the pottage, swirling her spoon through the grains to prevent them sticking to the pan. ‘God’s truth, I’m afraid to. You remember how she worshipped him.’
Richard nods, his gaze full of sympathy. ‘I do. If Lem was in the room, the rest of us might as well be made of sticks. What will you say? About his… stories?’
‘I’ll keep them from her, if I can.’
‘Is that wise? Would it not be better to warn her? She’s older now, you won’t keep the truth from her, so explain the gravity of the situation. Give her time to adjust. She’ll see it for herself, as soon as he’s awake.’
‘I know that,’ she snaps.
‘You must enlighten her – gently,’ he says. ‘Banish all fancies and promises of putting to sea. She will not thank you, not at first. But you can’t allow them to persist.’
The weight of his hand on her arm softens her. ‘I’ll tell her,’ she says. ‘Today before I start my rounds.’ Mentally, she calculates the visits she must make – three parish women to be examined and two sickly infants who won’t feed. Eliza Lacey, who gave birth three days ago, needs her sutures checked and she must remember to pack the cordial broth for Catherine Wickes to ease her windpains. The normalcy of these thoughts assuages a little of her guilt as she imagines the confrontation with her daughter. How to explain the unexplainable? And how to keep Bess safe, if Lemuel continues to rave? She wishes she could ask Richard to speak to Bess. He’s always gotten along with her daughter better than she has herself, although perhaps that’s because Richard makes no demands of Bess. He has no claim to discipline or instruct her, after all. He is not her father, nor even her stepfather.
Their thoughts must be circling each other, because he takes Mary’s elbow before she can slip inside.
‘Why didn’t you marry again when I urged you to?’ He wears what she has come to think of as his fiduciary look, the one reserved for his most pitiable cases. She flinches but he continues as if he hasn’t noticed and she can tell from the way the words tumble rapidly that he has been rehearsing all morning. ‘I could have protected you,’ he says, lowering his voice. ‘Nobody would have blamed you. Death in absentia. I drew up the document myself.’
A sour taste coats the back of her throat, as if she’s chewed a wad of bitter lettuce. The memory of his proposal jars painfully. Six months after Lemuel’s funeral, Richard arrived on the Needle’s doorstep buttoned into his best suit and wearing the stockings he wears now, the ones she devoted precious hours to stitching, when she should have been helping Alice prepare supper or tear old petticoats into rags for clouts. She’d known he would ask; it was not unexpected. And yet, when the moment arrived, she found herself refusing. The timing felt wrong.
For months after the news of her husband’s death, Bess had been plagued by nightmares of drowning and Johnny’s school work had slipped, occasioning frequent visits back and forth to Nottingham. An influx of workers, employed by the Company of Shipwrights, had arrived in Wapping to construct a fleet of galleons. Naturally, their wives came with them. Mary’s client ledger was overflowing with new bookings. Each day’s work spilled into the next and she had her hands full managing the workload along with her domestic duties. Much as it pained her to refuse, she could not marry Richard. She could not chance causing Bess further distress in her fragile state, nor risk offending those neighbours who might offer up their hasty union as proof of an adulterous affair, begun months or even years before her husband’s death.
Glimpsing Richard’s disappointment, she’d squeezed his hands and assured him that everything had its season. Was her garden not living proof? Patience and faith, that’s what every good gardener and herbalist needs. A rose can bloom inside a snow-covered hothouse. A nest of bare sticks which has lain dormant all its life can burst, unexpectedly, into flower. A plant so brown and sickly looking it is surely destined for the scrapheap can surprise you by sprouting green stems all over. Where there is life, there is hope.
Only now, it’s too late. Any rights she claimed as a widow will revert to Lemuel. A husband owns his wife; she is considered femme covert. Reformers protest the unfairness of this law, which places women in the same category as lunatics, wards and outlaws. Mary Astell, advocating for the equal rights of women, asks: If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves? But Mary Astell does not have two children dependent on her income. She doesn’t have the responsibility of women who need protection in their most vulnerable moments, nor the burden of house repairs, servants’ wages and a job which hinges on an unblemished reputation. The only real safety for some women lies in marriage. And Mary has thrown away her chance to correct the mistakes of the past. She finds herself married to the wrong man twice. Her fate is bound with Lemuel’s. She tries to make light of the situation, although nothing has ever struck her as so utterly mirthless.
‘Who, pray, would have me? A working woman with two children… And where would that leave Lem? It’s not his fault he was shipwrecked, no matter what came before.’
Richard refuses to be distracted. ‘Mary. I’m so sorry for your troubles.’
She squirms, tugging her arm free. ‘Hark, do not look so grim. In a few months’ time Lem will recover. He’ll grow weary of us again and return to sea. Then things can return to the way they were.’
‘But how much damage can he do while he is home? And you will still be married at the end of it all.’
She makes no answer. Only yesterday she was a widow of independent means. Now she is some monstrous hybrid, a creature who has tasted freedom and knows too well how things might otherwise be. All her accomplishments – her midwife’s standing, her children’s welfare, her ability to employ and keep a servant – seem small and insignificant, dwarfed by the grander narrative of Lemuel’s return. They are fragile achievements, at risk of being scattered by a snatch of spiteful gossip. A cruel trick, she thinks, this loss of sovereignty. She needs time to grieve the loss of her old self but time has sped up, moving too fast for her to breathe, let alone think.
The cat squeezes past her into the stillroom, swinging her wide hips and switching her tail.
‘Will you at least allow a physician to examine him?’ he says, softly.
‘I’ll consider it,’ she says, hoping to placate him although she is beginning to regret writing. Their history is too complicated and Lem’s return has only made things worse. If her note was a little frantic, she is almost blameless. It was late. She was in shock. ‘I will think on it,’ she says, then adds, ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘You won’t.’ He is buttoning his coat, struggling to pull the little hooks through the stubborn clasps. ‘I know you. You’ve already made up your mind. Pass on my health to him, then. Let me know if you need anything. Anything at all. I am east bound tomorrow. One of my clients passed away and it seems he kept three families, all within two districts of each other; Lord knows how they never met. The will shall take some sorting. I’ll be lucky to return inside of a fortnight.’
Mary summons up a tired smile. ‘Thank you, Richard.’
Instead of turning, he stares hard at her. His eyes have cleared, now that they have moved away from the clouds of pollen or perhaps, as he often says, she is his protection charm, the only thing safeguarding him from seasonal allergies. Kind eyes, the warm green-brown of alder catkins. Eyes that know her, inside and out, better than she knows herself.
‘Your chin,’ he says.
She lifts her hand, expecting to find a streak of viscous sap. Perhaps the ivy left its mark? But there is only the gentle swell of flesh, the small burred notch where the smallpox once departed her body. She remembers her mother, a dim shadow through the fever haze, grinding and stirring, the slosh of liquid. A caudle of stewed herbs – her mouth filling with pennyroyal and yellow doxy and warm goat’s milk. The very same receipt she gave to Bess when she sickened. Praise God, her girl recovered, but Johnny has not yet suffered smallpox. It’s another worry to add to her bundle. Sometimes she thinks she can feel them, her fears, bumping about in the invisible sack she hauls with her at all times. If she is graced a minute’s peace at some labouring woman’s bedside, she brings out her troubles and examines them, fretting particularly over those that have lain dormant for more than a few hours. Has the rent been paid? Have they enough laid by to last the winter? What chores will Bess leave unfinished? Now, she can add one more: Will her husband recover his wits or will his return ruin them all?
She is still in thought when Richard leans over and strokes his thumb along the seam where chin meets neck. She shivers.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘There’s someone walking over my grave. What was it? A smut?’
He holds up his thumb for inspection and her initial suspicions are confirmed: in death, the ivy has had its revenge. She licks the back of her hand and rubs it along her jawbone.
‘Still as smooth as a maiden’s,’ he says, and when she looks up, he taps his chin.
‘Away with you. Go on.’
He grins and all at once, he is nineteen again and she is seventeen. They are standing in her father’s shop and the adult world of children, chins, wills, weeds and troublesome husbands has ceased to exist.
6
A few hours later, Mary is mixing up a tonic for Lemuel in the stillroom when a series of knocks disturbs her. Alice is at market with Bess so there is no one to answer but herself. Her friends are waiting on the front step, their mantles rippling in the warm breeze.
‘My dear,’ says the tallest, pinning Mary with sharp, black eyes. ‘We heard.’
‘We’ve brought supplies.’ Elinor hoists a glass carafe. Her face is stamped with the tall woman’s likeness and dark colouring but she is younger, with a soft, pleasing figure. She nudges the third visitor, a plain, neatly dressed girl who mumbles a greeting before gazing over Mary’s shoulder, shameless curiosity shining from every pore.
‘Come inside,’ she says, swinging the door wide. ‘What a world we live in. News travels remarkably fast.’
‘Now, Mary.’ The tall woman, Anne Clifton, picks at the ties knotted at her throat. Her advanced years show on her face, the soft skin pleated with fan-like folds. The dress she wears underneath her mantle is the rich red of cherries, shot through with brilliant silver threads. ‘There’s no need for embarrassment. Why did you not send for us at once?’
‘’Tis too late now.’ Anne’s niece, Elinor Banks, shrugs off her own mantle. ‘The whole marketplace is alive with news of his remarkable return. We would have come sooner, but we wanted to stop at Robert White’s house and ask after Lucy.’
‘She told us all about the villain,’ Susanna says. Anne’s young apprentice fluffs out the crimped waves of her ginger hair, flattened by the bonnet’s flax. ‘Wicked! I prayed last night for his capture.’
‘They’ve not caught him, then?’ Mary’s stomach plummets, thinking of Alice and Bess at the market. But the image of a man assaulting them both during broad daylight refuses to catch; the constable will have his watchmen on guard for any disturbance.
They move into the parlour, Susanna’s hungry gaze lingering on the pair of boots by the hearthrug. ‘Where is the master, please, missus?’
Mary hears a noise and glances through the open door, imagining a flutter of white nightdress in the dimness of the passageway. But there is nothing. ‘Mister Gulliver is abed,’ she says, distracted. ‘His fever is still troubling. I fear it will be a good few weeks before his convalescence is over.’
‘Let me attend him.’ Anne is rolling up her sleeves, the skin on her forearms loose and wrinkled like an old stocking turned inside out. ‘I’ve some things I wish to try.’
‘Simples?’
‘Not precisely.’ The old woman’s hand flutters inside her kit, rummaging. ‘I mean to say yes, there is a decoction to soothe his fever, but I’ve brought a tonic, too, to aid his balance. Tom Clements said he’s unsteady on his legs.’ In response to Mary’s raised eyebrow, she draws the bottle out and shakes it, the liquid contents roiling like a trapped ocean inside the glass. ‘Sea wormwood,’ she says. ‘Unless you’ve already tried it?’
‘No,’ Mary says. ‘He’s had nothing but an elixir of poppy. You’re certain the wormwood won’t affect his liver? It’s always been weak and gave him no end of trouble when he was a lad. I’ve read it can cause bleeding.’ She falls silent, reluctant to say more in case Anne mistakes her professional curiosity for impudence. There are some days where she wakes up feeling no wiser than when she arrived on Anne’s door six years ago to begin training as a novice midwife.
Anne’s lips quirk but Mary detects a hint of pride in those sparkling dark eyes. ‘’Tis common wormwood you speak of,’ she says, snapping her bag closed. ‘Not this variety, which grows by the seaside and is nourished and cleansed by the sea air. This sort is good for expelling worms and drawing out maladies of the mind. Trust me, dear. Would I wish him harm?’
Mary tries to ignore the memory of Anne’s oft-repeated threat to slip wolfsbane into Lemuel’s drink if he did not put the needs of his family before his own pleasure. But what was said in jest cannot be taken seriously and Anne’s reputation is more uncompromising than her own.
