Slammerkin

  ***

  Gall makes a poor supper. That's how Mary's mother used to put it. And tonight Mary could taste bitterness going down like a nut, settling in her stomach. It planted itself, put down roots, and began to grow, nourished on her dark blood.

  Alone in the attic room, she shifted position on the bed now. The pain forced a little gasp out of her. She reached behind her with shaking hands and started to undo her bodice. The stays took longer to come away. But she was damned if she'd cry.

  What was it Doll had said once, waking out of a deep drunkenness on a winter's night? No use getting fond of folk. They'll always let you down in the end. Mary reached under the bed, wincing at the bruises and weals along her back. She scrabbled for her stocking, the little worm that contained all her hopes. She spilled its riches across the rough blanket, faintly cheered by their ring and shine. This was all that stood between her and all the other girls out there. This was all she could rely on: gold and silver and brass, firmer than steak between her teeth. She arranged her hoard in piles and made letters and numbers from them. They all spelled freedom.

  The candle was down to half an inch. She was tired to the bone. Pain moved back and forth across her back, like lines scribbled through a sketch to strike it out. All at once Mary couldn't keep her eyes open. She let herself sink down on the bed, embracing her dragon's hoard. She wondered, would she wake with a heart turned to stone.

  Mrs. Jones stood still. Not a sound from behind the door; barely a wink of light through the keyhole. She raised her hand to knock, but it was shaking. Her fingers still smarted from wielding the birch.

  She pushed the door open, and for a split second before the draught snuffed out the candle she saw Mary Saunders, slumped across the bed in her shift, like a child who'd fallen asleep unawares. The small light glossed her dark hair before it went out.

  Mrs. Jones heard a clink, and a half curse, and the scrabble of a tinderbox. 'No, please, my dear,' she began, 'I'm sorry—'

  'Wait,' ordered the girl in the darkness.

  When the candle had been lit again, Mrs. Jones stepped forward and sat on the very edge of the bed. There was a thin pillow between them.

  'I thought it was Abi,' said the girl, very cold.

  'No.' Mrs. Jones's voice was hoarse. 'Abi's to sleep with Mrs. Ash tonight. I thought you might rest easier with the bed to yourself.' She looked down at her closed fist. 'There's something I must say, my dear. Can you not guess what it is?'

  Those eyes, like scorch marks on a sheet.

  'It wasn't my own wish to punish you in that way. I know you meant no malice, with Mrs. Morgan...' She cleared her throat; the noise was deafening in the little attic. 'Well,' she said, very low, 'we have the same master, you and me both.'

  That bold eyebrow, inching up again, putting a question mark after everything.

  'Aren't we all servants, one way or another, Mary?' pleaded her mistress.

  The girl put her hands down on the pillow and leaned very close to Mrs. Jones. 'Maybe so, madam. But some get whipped,' she whispered with hot breath, 'and some do the whipping.'

  The older woman felt her eyes flood. She was blinded. She looked into her own heart, dusty as charcoal.

  She opened her hand, after a time, and offered the girl a tiny pot with a paper cover. 'Ointment. For your back. May I put it on for you?'

  She thought for a moment that Mary might throw it back in her face. But the girl turned away, and started lifting her shift. Her shoulders were creamy in the candlelight, as far down as the first red stripe. Mrs. Jones edged nearer on the bed. The pillow between them made a curious clinking sound. Mary froze, and it was that, more than the sound, that alerted her mistress. She lifted up the pillow and saw coins leaking across the narrow bed.

  'What's this?' Mrs. Jones's words were simple with surprise. Then she began to count. Her hand shuddered as it turned over the bigger coins as if they were stones in a puddle. Finally, she asked: 'How much is here?'

  The maid turned to look down at the money as if she had never seen it before. 'Eleven pounds, three shillings, and tuppence ha'penny,' she said.

  Mrs. Jones's mouth repeated the words without a sound. Her hands laid the pillow flat in her lap, and pressed down. For a moment she was tempted to get to her feet and walk away, and forget she'd ever climbed up the stairs to the attic tonight. Then she found her voice. 'Mary Saunders!' It was an accusation, a denunciation, but also a plea.

  'What?'

  'Where did you get this money?'

  'It's mine,' said Mary.

  'But how can it be?'

  Mary stared back at her, as blankly as a cat.

  Mrs. Jones's voice gathered strength and momentum. 'I know you lied to me about your old debts. But how can a maid in your position possibly have amassed such a fortune?'

  That eyebrow again.

  'Would you not call it a fortune, then?' asked the mistress, weakly. 'Eleven pounds!'

  The girl's wide lips were sealed.

  Mrs. Jones shut her eyes for a moment. She had to take control of this conversation. 'What matters is not how much it is,' she said more quietly, 'but where you got it.'

  'That's my business,' snapped Mary.

  Her mistress's mouth became a horrified O as the terrible thought occurred to her. 'I'll have no thievery in this house.'

  'I've thieved nothing.'

  'You must have. You must have robbed things from our patrons. You couldn't have got it any other way, if you hadn't a penny when you came to us,' said Mrs. Jones, panic hitting her like a wave going over her head. 'Tell me whose it is,' she insisted. 'The Misses Roberts's?'

  The girl shook her head.

  'Not Mrs. Morgan's, surely?'

  Another weary shake.

  A dreadful thought occurred to Mrs. Jones. 'From us, was it? Would you stoop to that? Did you steal things from your own family to sell? For we are your family, you know; we're all you've got.'

  The girl stared back in furious denial. Were those tears in her eyes, or just the shimmer of candlelight? 'I stole nothing. It's mine, I swear,' she said shrilly. 'Every penny of it.'

  'But where did it come from?'

  'What does it matter?' Mary's voice rose to a shriek. 'Money always comes from somewhere. From everywhere, more like. Think how many pockets these coins have lain in. What matters is that I earned it.'

  'Honestly?'

  A long pause. 'Yes.'

  'You're a liar,' said Mrs. Jones. Bile in her throat; she swallowed it down. 'I don't know what else you are. I don't think I want to know.'

  Mary shrugged again, mechanically.

  With a few desperate sweeps, Mrs. Jones shovelled the coins into her apron. Mary's hand reached out, and Mrs. Jones slapped it out of the way, without thinking. The girl's fingers stung from the touch. 'Do you know the law of this land, Mary Saunders?' She paused to strain for a breath; her apron sagged, heavy with coin. 'You'll hang if you're proved to have stolen so much as a handkerchief.'

  'I'm not a thief,' said the girl through her teeth.

  Mrs. Jones ran to the door, hunched over her apron. She turned once, her voice shaking, to say: 'Say your prayers.'

  The doors cracked shut behind her.

  Morning came in Mary's window as on any other day.

  She fitted her stays on over her bruised back, pulling them so tight she hissed with pain.

  All day she worked in the shop, with her eyes low, sweating through the September heat. All the movements of her body seemed to say, Remember. Remember what a good maid I am. Remember your promise to treat me as a mother.

  Mrs. Jones's face was waxy. There was no chit-chat over their sewing today; they didn't exchange a word except to ask for the scissors or thread. All their intimacy was turned to stone. Mary's hand shook as she worked. She felt perpetually on the verge of tears. Her thoughts went out like arrows: Trust me. I can't tell you where the money came from. But trust me anyway.

  They put the last stitches in the lowered neckline of Mrs. Morgan's
white velvet slammerkin without a word.

  By dinner time Mary's head was tolling like a bell. She pushed her food around her plate. Her thoughts moved sluggishly. She knew she was being a fool. She could hear Doll nagging, somewhere behind her eyes. Own up to whoring, my dear, and all you'll get is a whipping at the cart's tail or a spell in the lock-up at worst. But if this mistress of yours turns you in for thievery, it's the hempen halter for you, girl.

  There was something Doll wouldn't understand, though: how much Mary wanted to stay. Here, in the stuffy clutter of a small sewing room in the Joneses' house on Inch Lane in the town of Monmouth in England or Wales or somewhere in between. Despite the iciness of her mistress's eyes; despite everything that had happened. Till this endless afternoon, Mary had never quite known the truth: this was home.

  And how could she stay, if she ever said those words? Men, and Crow's Nest, and a shilling a go. There was no nice way to put it. Once those words were spoken, all was lost. Mrs. Jones would have had to be a different woman to bear the sound of those words. There was no room for a whore in this family.

  That Sunday Mary went to church with the Joneses, even though her skin was mottled with heat and there were spots in front of her eyes. She kneeled meekly, remembering the pose from the Magdalen. The sermon was on patience. The Reverend Cadwaladyr gripped his pulpit with sweaty hands and exhorted each of his parishioners to temper their misfortunes by meek and Christian resignation. 'If your schemes have come to nothing, if your plans have gone awry,' he urged, 'trust in the Almighty.'

  For a moment Mary tried to believe the man—despite all she knew about his profound hypocrisy. Would the Almighty save her from the thief's noose? Would the Mighty Master force Mrs. Jones to give Mary her money back and care for her again, in the old way? Would the Maker let Mary tell her mistress the truth and the sky not fall in?

  'Be like the reed,' said the curate, 'that bends and is not broken, in the same wind that uproots the tall cedar.'

  Mary thought of a high wind, of its teeth stripping leaves from branches that crashed down all around her. Now her heart was banging round her ribs like a rat in a trap. She felt nausea rise inside her and begin to spiral. Cadwaladyr's words had retreated to a great distance.

  'Mary?' A tiny whisper from Mrs. Jones.

  She would have liked to answer, but she was too far away. Her head whirled. She swayed on her knees. Her throat moved; she bit her lips to seal them shut.

  A soft arm around her, another on her face, the fingers cool as water. Mary was violently sick into her mistress's hand.

  Mary woke in the middle of a sweat-soaked night. A hand was pressing a cool cloth to her chest; she clutched it in her own. A small squeeze of the fingers.

  'I won't be sick much longer,' Mary croaked after a while. 'I swear it.'

  'Hush now, cariad.'

  'Don't turn me out.' Hot water ran from Mary's eyes, into her ears, down her neck.

  'Hush, child. Sure, you're one of the family, I've told you.'

  'I'll be a good girl if you'll only let me stay,' she sobbed.

  'I know you will.' The woman's voice was light as down.

  'Let me stay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.' Mary couldn't remember what for.

  'I know, I know.'

  Then it came to her, the awful thing. 'I'll never do it again, Mother. It was only for the ribbon.'

  'Shh.' The cool hand put the cloth to her forehead. 'There's no ribbon.'

  Mary panicked, tried to sit up. 'Where's it gone?'

  Her mother was pressing her down on the pillow, and kissing her on the forehead. So heavy, so soft. 'It's put away safe.'

  She let herself subside. 'Doll had one first.'

  'Doll?' The voice sounded bewildered. 'Who's Doll?'

  Mary turned her hot face into the pillow. 'Doll's in the alley.'

  She was plummeting back into the darkness.

  When she woke again there was a man leaning over her with a knife. She knew his devilish eyebrows. She screamed so hard she made him jump.

  'I'll hold her, Joseph, and let you try again.' That soft voice, that wasn't her mother, Mary realised. It was Mrs. Jones, of course.

  She spat in the man's face. 'I know you!' she shrieked. 'With your big knife and your robes. That'll be ten guineas to you, sir!'

  'Shush, now, Mary,' said Mrs. Jones. 'Cadwaladyr's kindly come to help with the bloodletting.'

  Mary began to buck and kick against the sheets that bound her.

  'You'll feel the better for it, my dear,' her mistress promised. 'It's the only thing to break a fever.'

  'There was blood on the sheet already,' she roared at the man. 'It was only wine!'

  Cadwaladyr had retreated to the corner of the room, his arms folded, the great knife sticking up. Mrs. Jones beckoned to him. 'Come back, do, Joseph. It's the fever talking.'

  Mary tried to spit again but her mouth had turned to ashes.

  Then the woman held Mary down while the man cut a line down the side of her neck. Mary said nothing, she only listened to the blood as it fell into the tin pail. Dimly she was aware that the woman was crying. 'We would save your life, Mary. We wouldn't do it except to save your life.'

  Mrs. Jones came downstairs with blood all over her apron. Her husband stood in the parlour and watched her walk about. He wanted to open his arms to her, but they were locked by his sides. 'How is the girl?' he asked softly.

  A violent shrug.

  'Is the fever easing?'

  His wife sat down at the table and rested her jaw on her fists. 'It comes and goes.'

  He nodded, like a puppet. If the girl died, he knew his wife would never forgive him.

  Then she looked up at him and said, 'I know you've no liking for Mary. You always hated her mother, didn't you?'

  He blinked in astonishment. 'Hated? Su Rhys? Not at all. How could I have hated the poor woman? I will admit,' he stammered, 'I do think ... I didn't think her quite worthy of your friendship, once you were grown women.'

  His wife's eyes were small bits of glass. 'You thought she made a bad choice, when she married Cob Saunders, and she deserved her punishment.'

  He didn't know what to say.

  'But sometimes, Thomas, sometimes punishment just happens.'

  All of a sudden her face was running with tears. In two leaps he was there; he was wrapped around her like ivy. 'What is it, my love?' he kept saying, as her whole body shook with her sobs. 'What is it?'

  'The baby.'

  He thought he must have misheard. He put his ear closer to her mouth. 'Which baby?'

  'The last one.'

  He held her in his grip while she cried and cried. He waited.

  Eventually Jane Jones sat up and wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands. She made a face that was supposed to be a smile, he imagined. She held in her sobs and kept her voice low. 'I lost it in May,' she said. 'I'm sorry now I didn't tell you.'

  All the air was punched out of him.

  'It only lasted a few months, this time. I don't know if it would have been a boy or a girl.'

  Her husband found himself kneeling on her skirt, gripping her elbows. 'We must try again,' he said very fast. 'The Maker will reward us in the end. We must trust in his justice.'

  She shook her head over and over. 'Thomas,' she whispered, and then, more firmly, 'Thomas. We have a daughter.' She stopped, as if to gather her strength. 'We have each other.' Another pause for breath. 'That's our lot.'

  They stayed pressed together in that awkward shape. His solitary leg went numb under him, and then his arms, until at last he couldn't tell his body from hers.

  The church of St. Mary's was empty. Mrs. Jones knelt at the back and offered up a prayer of thanks for the recovery of her maid.

  In her pocket, dragging her down on one side, a stockingful of coins. She'd counted it again this morning. She flushed as her fingers sorted out the gold and silver. Her heart was clanging like a horseshoe on an anvil. Where in the world? was all she could think. Where in the world d
id the girl get it ?

  Now Mrs. Jones pressed her head against the cool back of the pew. Her mind was moving in tight little circles; confusion was like a fog across the road. To make someone confess a crime, she'd read somewhere, you cut the tongue from a living frog and laid it on them when they were sleeping; they'd speak up in their sleep as honest as a child.

  Nonsense. She should simply have demanded of Mary Saunders where she'd got the money, asked the question over and over during her fever and her convalescence, till she'd got her answer. But she hadn't dared. There was so much she didn't want to know. Whatever the truth turned out to be, at the very least she'd have to throw Mary Saunders out into the bare countryside. Mrs. Jones's heart quailed at the thought. She'd come to rely on Mary—too much, she quite saw that now. She'd been weak. She'd made an intimate of a servant, a half-grown girl. She'd confided things to her maid that should only have been said to her husband. She'd trusted herself to a deceiver.

  Well, she knew what to do with the money, at least. She'd brought it here to slip it into the Poor Box. Charity was the highest virtue, wasn't that what Cadwaladyr was always saying in his sermons? Blessed are those who give. Mrs. Jones could do with some blessing.

  Cadwaladyr would never know where the eleven-odd pounds in the Poor Box came from; he'd marvel at such goodness, and wonder which of the local rich had made such a gesture. Then, afterwards, if anyone ever asked about money found in Mary Saunders's room Mrs. Jones could deny all knowledge. It was dirty money, to her, until it went into the Box. At least now it could feed some of the town's landless and jobless unfortunates for a few months, or pay for a dozen paupers' funerals.

  As Mrs. Jones stood up she felt the weight of it against her leg. Temptation ran through her like a wave of desire. It occurred to her for the first time that she could very easily keep the money. It could slip into her private savings that she kept in a box in the bottom of her wardrobe. It could recompense the family for the loss of the Morgans' commission. It could form another wall to shield them from disaster, in case all their plans of advancement went awry. No one need ever know.