A Court Affair. Emily Purdy

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СКАЧАТЬ about offending the Lord, she shouldn’t be wearing her bodices cut so low, but I’m too tired, and it’s more trouble than it’s worth to stand there bickering like hens who all want the only cock in the henhouse, so I let it go.

      “Humph!” Mrs Forster sniffs, and she gives a smart tug to her new goose-turd green and yellow bodice and tucks a stray wisp of hair back beneath her lace-bordered white linen cap. “Put on airs and play pious as you will, Lizzy Oddingsells, but I have been going to country fairs all my life, many upon a Sunday, and enjoyed them every one, and my blood is just as good as yours is, if not better, and you’ll burn in Hell just the same whether you go to the fair or stay home with a whole stack of Bibles—for being my husband’s whore!” And with those words and a flounce of her green and yellow skirts, she’s off with her nose in the air to gather her children and prepare them for a day at the fair, determined to enjoy herself all the more to spite Mrs Oddingsells, and I know that for many days to come she will bubble like a pot boiling over every chance she gets about what a fine time she had at the fair while some falsely pious hypocrites with jumped-up notions about themselves stayed at home.

      “Mrs Oddingsells is right. Sunday is the Lord’s Day”—like a judge, the grey-haired and grey-clad Mrs Owen solemnly weighs in, gravely intoning the words as if each one were as heavy as a granite boulder—“and a day meant for contemplation and prayer. After church I shall return to my chamber and spend the day quietly with my Bible.”

      “But you must go!” I insist, turning first to one and then to the other, fighting the urge to fall on my knees and actually beg them. Mrs Owen, I could bear—I know she would not bother me—but I do not want Mrs Oddingsells about. I want peace and quiet and privacy, not prying eyes and forced companionship when I would have none. And I know that if she stays home, forced to make do with her own company, Mrs Oddingsells will soon be so bored that she will gladly suffer any company, even mine; that woman would sit down and drink a tankard with Satan himself if it would save her from being alone half an hour. “I promise, you will have a good time, and there is no harm in it! I have been to many a fair on Sunday, and my soul has suffered no harm from it! And it is not nearly so rough and rowdy as you imagine; the common folk are jolly and good, and most are well-behaved.”

      Mrs Owen turns and sweeps her glacial grey eyes over me in a glance so cold, it makes me shiver. Her voice drips with disdain when she begins to speak to me. “You are mortally ill and abandoned by your husband, Lady Dudley, a man who leaves you alone to die of an incurable and agonisingly painful disease while he goes to court to dance and fornicate with the Queen. And, when last I looked, my fine lady, your name was not on the lease to Cumnor, nor is your lord’s. You have no home of your own and are merely a guest in this house, so what makes you think that you can give orders here, or to presume that God is not punishing you with your suffering for some transgression you have committed, mayhap even all those fairs you have attended on Sundays?”

      I gasp and reel back as if she had just struck me. If Pirto had not caught me, I surely would have fallen flat. I stare back at her, aghast, with tears of anger and surprise welling in my eyes. My chin quivers, but, as is often the case with me, I feel myself helpless and tongue-tied in the face of such bluntness and cruelty.

      Ignoring me, Mrs Oddingsells turns to Mrs Owen and asks if perchance she would like to dine with her.

      “Perhaps you would like to dine with me instead, Lizzy?” Mrs Owen counters with an invitation of her own. “My cook is preparing a fine suckling pig stuffed with apples and pears and raisins. The dear woman spoils me so; but it is far too rich and full a repast for a lonely old woman like me.”

      “Gladly!” Mrs Oddingsells beams. “Many thanks, Mrs Owen; you are an angel in disguise who has come down to earth to shower blessings upon me!”

      “And perhaps later we might have a game of cards?” Mrs Owen suggests as, arm-in-arm, they turn and start to walk away, down the Long Gallery, heading for the stairs. “Though since it is Sunday, all the winnings must go into the church’s poor box, of course.”

      “Of course!” Mrs Oddingsells readily agrees. “I would not have it any other way! I would not feel right even touching a deck of cards on a Sunday unless some poor soul were to reap some benefit from it. Win or lose, I know I shall have helped some poor soul in need.”

      “You are welcome to join us, of course, Lady Dudley,” Mrs Owen calls back over her shoulder. “If you find solitude weighs too heavily upon you, you will know where to find us. You know, Lizzy, I am not the superstitious sort,” I hear her say in a confiding tone as, arm-in-arm like the oldest, dearest friends, they walk away from me, “but my maid is, and she told me that Tom, the miller’s son, saw the Black Man.” At her words my skin crawls, and I can’t help but think of my husband’s sinister henchman, Sir Richard Verney. “Yes”—Mrs Owen nods as she continues her tale—“the Devil himself, in human form, by moonlight at the crossroads last night, out looking for desperate souls to sign their name in blood inside his big black book; it’s all ignorant country folderol of course, but just the same, I should not like to tempt fate by going to the fair today …”

      I pale at her words, and my knees buckle and shake, and Pirto has to put her arm around my waist to steady me.

      “I don’t think it was the Devil at all,” I say after Mrs Owen and Mrs Oddingsells have gone, as I sag weakly against her. “I think the Black Man is Death, and He is coming for me, mayhap even in the guise of Sir Richard Verney.”

      “Now, now, pet,” Pirto gently chides, “’tis no such thing at all, merely superstitious nonsense, just like Mrs Owen said. But are you sure you would not like me to stay with you? I don’t like to leave you alone when you’re so distressed,” she adds as, rubbing my back, she shepherds me back into my room and helps settle me in my chair again. “I’ve been to enough fairs in my lifetime, so ’tis no sacrifice at all.”

      “Dear Pirto.” I reach out and stroke her wizened cheek, so like the faces of the poppets we used to make from dried apples when I was a little girl. “Thank you, but I want you to go; I want you to enjoy this fair for me. I want one more fair before Death closes my eyes forever, but I have not the strength to go myself, so you go, for me, for both of us. Let your eyes drink in every detail, and bring me apple cider and cinnamon cakes, and ribbons for my hair, and sit here with me tonight when you come back and tell me all about it.”

      “Aye, that I will, though I hate to leave you even for a day, love,” Pirto says, stroking my hair and pressing a kiss onto my brow before she leaves me.

      “I’ll bring you a bit o’ gingerbread back as well, love,” she says brightly, just before she closes the door. “That’ll tempt your appetite—you always did love it so—and the ginger’ll settle your stomach and keep the nausea down.”

      I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear the heavy front door close behind them all, followed by the clatter of hooves and wheels in the courtyard. With a deep, shuddering sigh, I let the pretence fall away from me as I lean back in my chair, holding tightly to the arms, digging my fingers into the embroidered flowers, gasping, with tears rolling freely down my face, as a pain, like a lance driven all the way through me, pierces my breast and rings like a shrill, echoing bell up and down my spine and across my ribs, and Death gives my heart a little warning squeeze, toying with me, teasing me, like a braggart showing me what he can do. I wait until it has passed; then slowly, carefully, I raise myself from my chair and go to the shelf where the medicines are kept, all except the ones my husband sends.

      A pain shoots along the length of my arm as I reach up for the bottle I want. A sunbeam streaming in through the window catches it as I lift it down, causing the dark liquid to glow like the richest amber, agleam with honey and crimson lights. When he sent СКАЧАТЬ