A Vision of Light Page 8

  It wasn’t long after the church spires, low town wall, and the castle towers of the town had come into view that the mules were being led into the stable of Master Small’s establishment. It was more or less like the other petty merchants’ houses that flanked it on either side. The front of the house was flush with the street, and the lower story was just one long room divided up, the great hall at the center, with the kitchen, servants’, and apprentices’ quarters behind, and a shop at the front. There was an attractive little walled garden at the back. Below the hall were basement storerooms that stank of pelts, and above a bedroom and solar. In the first room, which was our own chamber, there stood a great curtained bed, with a chest at its foot for valuables. There was also a table and another chest by the window, which looked out upon the street. At the table my husband did his accounts. In the second room, where women’s work such as sewing and weaving was done, slept his son by his first marriage and the boy’s nursemaid. The room also had an empty cradle and another empty bed. It was clear that Lewis Small was expecting more children at the earliest possible date.

  Even if the servants had not been so grave and quiet, it was clear to me from the start that something was not right in the house. I thought I knew why when the nurse brought Master Small’s son to greet him. He was a pale little boy, not yet five years old, who stared unknowingly at his father with the wide, shining blue eyes of an idiot. He was incapable of speech. As I looked at his narrow, unhealthy face, I had a sudden mean little thought: I can make better children than that. I saw Small’s eyes narrow as he ordered the boy removed in a quiet, hard voice. A vain man, I thought, who cannot bear the public disgrace of a simpleton for an heir. But it was really I who was the simpleton. It didn’t take me long in Master Small’s house to find out how simple a girl with no experience of the world can be. If I had ever suspected how much less simple I was soon to become, I would have been more frightened than I was at the time.

  Having sent the child away, my husband called for water to wash the dust of the journey from his hands and face, and had a boy run to the vicar’s with word that he was back. This worthy soon arrived, followed by a boy with a censer, to bless the marriage bed and pray for sons. A crowd of people—I wasn’t sure yet which were relatives—stood about the bed, as the priest prayed at endless length for sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons, sprinkling the bed with holy water and censing the room.

  Outside, in the summery dusk, his friends howled and whistled in the street beneath the window. Small’s eyes flickered nervously at the sound, just as the candles flickered in the black iron sconces on the walls. The room was completely silent, except for his breathing, as he slowly looked me over, still dressed in my wedding clothes. His look frightened me, and I sat down on the edge of the bed, while he stood with his hands on his hips, still looking at me wordlessly. Then he suddenly strode across the room, bolted the door, and turned and addressed me, without any smile at all.

  “Take them off. I want to see what I’ve got.” He blinked rapidly, like a reptile. I looked at him in bewilderment. I could not imagine a wedding night without kisses and sweet words.

  “Didn’t they tell you your duty was to obey your husband in all things?” His voice was soft and sibilant, and a shadow of his cold smile had returned. “So kindly hurry, to show your desire to be obedient—and quit hiding under the covers; I didn’t buy a bride in a blanket.” I couldn’t bear looking at him; I hid my face in the coverlet.

  “Obedience means in everything. Nothing that a man does in marriage is improper. Do you understand? Just how much do you know?”

  In spite of myself I blushed. You’d have to be brought up in a box not to know quite a bit.

  “Enough, I see,” and he grabbed away the coverlet, his pale eyes glittering. But, having seen enough, he began to murmur nervously to himself, “This will be a night’s work, a night’s work indeed.” I was taken aback. What on earth did he mean? Things weren’t like this at home.

  He stood and removed his tunic, so that he stood in his long, white linen undershirt. He paced around the room, as if trying to make his mind up about something. Then he stripped off the shirt to reveal his baggy linen underbreeches. The same belt that held up his underbreeches also upheld his hose, suspended in front by two long laces. There is something droll about a man in underbreeches and hose. It just isn’t dignified. As he stood there, his eyes blinking, I began to be amused. It was even more amusing when it became clear to me that the man was as useless as a drowned earthworm. What a comical way I was going to be saved from my noxious marital duties! He made several fruitless attempts to do what is proper before he exclaimed in a rage, “The Devil is in this somewhere! This is witchcraft! Someone’s put a curse on it!”

  Something humorous rose like a bubble within me, and I was too slow in hiding my face. He saw the twitch at my mouth and turned on me suddenly, his eyes now wide and blazing.

  “You are the witch! You, just like the other! Well, I won’t be cheated again. I’ll beat that smile off you, you sly little slut!” He crossed the room and picked up the riding whip that lay on the linen chest, and strode back to grab me by the arm. “You need training, wife,” he said, with a flicker of that cold smile of his, “and I’m going to break you in properly.”

  I won’t go into the nature of his training, except to say that it was very painful. But it was then that I began to learn several new and unpleasant things about Master Lewis Small. The first was that he was excited by blood. As he inspected his work, he began to shake with lust. For a moment he paused, his eyes flicking me over in the same way that a snake inspects a mouse it is about to devour. Then all at once he renewed his attack, and when he had at last finished, without even a word, he opened the window shutters to hear the ribald congratulations of his friends, that strange icy smile stretching the bottom half of his face out of shape. After that he wrapped himself up in the coverlet and turned over to sleep.

  That night he slept as if nothing at all had happened, snoring horribly, as I sat up in bed weeping. And over and over again, I asked myself, Why me, why me? Why did he have to travel so far to find me and spoil my life, when there are dozens of girls in this town alone he could wed, girls with bigger dowries, girls with golden hair? Why would a rich man like him need a girl from the country? In answer to my unspoken thoughts I seemed to hear a sighing sound in the stillness of the room. The darkness seemed full of undiscovered grief.

  The next morning Small sat up in bed fully refreshed, though I did not feel so well myself. But it seems that fate had decreed that I had made an insufficiency of discoveries. That was the way it was with Small—always something new. As I hid my face from him, he said coolly, “A wife’s duty is to rise early and serve her husband. Sloth is a deadly sin. A woman should never add willful sin to her own naturally foul being. Must I use discipline to keep you from your own wickedness?” When I had staggered up he leaned over in bed, and picked up the whip from the floor, where he had dropped it beside him the night before.

  “Now,” he said, calmly, with a pleasant smile, “in token of your future obedience, I want you to kneel and kiss the rod and thank me.”

  “No,” I whispered, backing into the corner. I wasn’t going to let him near me so easily this time. I’d fly at him and scratch his eyes out if he came at me again.

  “No?” he said, never raising his voice. “Do I need to break you? Or will it be sufficient for me to tell you what happens to disobedient wives? I am a very lenient husband, for I do not wish you to lose the son you are doubtless carrying after last night. But were I not so thoughtful, I might break both your legs. It’s been done before, you know, and the man who did it was praised for a gentleman, because he arranged with a surgeon to set his wife’s legs before he did it. But of course, then she could not serve him, could she?” he asked, fondling the whip. My skin crawled with horror.

  “But I am a Christian, a civilized, forgiving man. I’ll overlook this disobedience if you mend your ways. You�
��ll live very well. Other women will envy you. But if you persist—do you know how many ways there are to discard a willful woman? I’ll have you declared mad, if you displease me with your rebellion. By the time you’ve been chained in the dark a few weeks, with no company but blabbering lunatics, you will be authentically mad. Then I’ll be free to forget you there forever, and seek a more pliant woman.” He smiled again. “And now, will you change your mind and kiss the rod?” I stared at him with horror. Never, in my whole life, had I imagined such a thing.

  “Come now,” he said. “Be forgiven, and I will buy you a new dress.” Oh, God, how shameful. I’d rather go naked.

  “You’ve taken one step, now take another. You have only three more,” he said, with that awful, cool smile. “Now kneel,” he prompted. He watched every movement with his icy eyes. “Now, was that so hard? Bow your head and kiss it.” He fondled my bent neck. “You see how simple it is? Please me, and bear my sons, and keep my house, and I will keep you. If you prove stubborn and disobedient, I will not.” Then he bade me rise and calmly called in his manservant as if nothing had happened.

  It was when his man came to barber him that the last shred of illusion, if I could be said to have had any left, vanished. I suppose I was curious, so I watched from the corner. First the man helped him with his shirt, tied up his points, and took his gipon and surcoat off the perch where they hung and smoothed and tidied them. Then he set a long-handled iron rod in the fire to heat while he shaved him. Having finished, he took the mysterious rod and held it up to Small’s head, winding his hair about it. A sizzling smell filled the room. When the hair was unwound, it was perfectly curled! Another winding, some more stink, and the next bit was done. Soon rows of even ringlets had sprung up around Small’s head. I stared like a fool. But as if that were not enough, the barber took out a little jar and dipped his fingers in it. With a swift little gesture he spread its contents on his patron’s cheeks, and before my eyes the ruddy color that the village women had admired so was restored. Having finished admiring himself in a little bronze hand mirror, Small suddenly spotted me goggling and spat out, “Seen enough, you backward little wench? Now get out before I have to teach you your place again!”

  So off I went to the kitchen to begin to learn the many things I needed to know to order his house and servants.

  It was no easy task for a girl fresh from the country, only fourteen and a half. I went and stood alone by the kitchen fire, probably looking as lost and forlorn as I felt, suddenly too shy to ask what must be done. The cook left her work and, with a cluster of silent serving maids, stood before me. After looking at me a very long time, as if measuring me, she began, in an oddly gentle sort of way, to explain the household schedule to me and show me where things were located in the kitchen. In the end it was the servants themselves who taught me how to go to market and order appropriate quantities of things for the household, to detect spoiled meats and doctored goods, how to plan meals, order sewing and the care of linens, and handle the great bunch of keys I now wore at my waist. Many kinds of supplies, such as spices, were kept under lock and key, besides the storerooms below and the chests containing valuables. It was all a great deal different than in the country.

  “Don’t trust Cook with salt or sugar,” said Nurse, “she steals.”

  “Don’t trust Nurse with wine, she drinks,” said Cook. Both women agreed that apprentices and hired men should be locked away from anything edible, and that dinner, our main meal, should be served by ten-thirty in the morning or the sky would fall. In this way my training in housewifery proceeded until I could direct the affairs of the household tolerably well. And I did throw myself into this work with all my energy, for grief only grows with idleness.

  But work could not cure the horrors of the night. I felt I could not bear the upstairs room. There was something in it, I fancied. Something invisible that filled me with a strange, heavy grief whenever I entered it. I tried to determine what it was in the daytime, when the dark and my fears would not cloud the picture. There was nothing to make it horrible then—no strange bloodstain or rotten smell that would betray some secret wicked deed that had been done there. The room was clean and finely appointed. The walls were neatly whitewashed, and no cobwebs hung from the rafters. Clean rushes were strewn on the floor, intermixed with sweet herbs. Neat iron candle sconces guaranteed light at night. Several smallish, bright wool hangings on the wall kept the chill from oozing in, and well-fitted shutters kept the cold night winds from coming through the unglazed windows. Several stout chests, one of which held my husband’s tallies and records, and a table at which he could do accounts, completed the picture. If it had been in another man’s house, I suppose I might even have liked it.

  I was relieved on the second night when my husband simply fell asleep without bothering me, and I lay there a long time looking through a half-opened bed curtain at the corner of the ceiling. I tossed and turned that night, dreaming of something in the room that I could not quite make out. The next day I awoke feeling weak, with my face pale and dark circles beneath my eyes. No one made any comment as, day by day, the circles grew deeper, until my eyes looked sunken. By that time I was weary with lack of sleep and my husband’s nocturnal attentions. I had never imagined that life could be this dreary and painful, and I began to wish I would fall ill and die.

  The only person who seemed not to notice was my husband, who went about his business with the same cold energy as ever before. Did nothing, nothing at all, ever touch his heart? I began to observe him, to try to discover what hidden thing moved him. It was as useless as trying to discover the thoughts of an insect wandering up and down a crack in the floor. But as he came and went, I gradually began to understand that there are degrees of wealth, even among the wealthy, and that Lewis Small was one of those little creatures doomed to wait forever at the door of great society, hoping that by some lucky chance of dress or association, he might be admitted to the company of his betters. It was this craving to be among the great that informed his every action. God, how he wanted to rise! Like the busy insect that has carried off too large a crumb to push into his den, he poked and prodded, pulled and pried—all entirely in vain. His endless, useless efforts to better himself at any cost were what kept him busy, and explained the many contradictions in his life.

  Once I had discovered this principle, I found that observing him from the outside, as if I were a stranger, changed the things that would ordinarily make me ashamed of being near him into a source of endless interest. I got a sort of spiteful pleasure in watching his endless efforts to push his too large crumb, and knowing that it would never fit. The slightest opinion of any grand person was his unfailing guide, and since grand persons have many opinions, he was constantly in motion, trying first one thing and then another. He paraded me to Mass in blue, only to find that green was more fashionable. And so I went in green, even though it turned my complexion yellow. When the head of the merchant guild conducted his business at Mass, receiving petitioners and sending orders in a loud whisper, then so did Small. When piety was in vogue, then Small knelt and rolled his eyes heavenward. His sleeves grew long and short, his shoes elongated their points, only to have them retreat again, his manners and the dishes on his table all varied according to the words that blew on the wind of fashion.

  But my newfound source of interest in his activities by day did nothing to abate the terrors of the night. My new clothes began to appear large on me, and when I combed my hair, it seemed to have lost its shine. A small thing, I suppose, but it made me feel like another person. When I looked in the little bronze hand mirror to fix my braids and set my veil over them properly, I thought I gradually saw my face take on the contours of another. Some other woman, pale and sunken-eyed, stared out with deep grief. Sometimes I was so tired that I fell asleep in the day, like an old woman instead of a young one. At night I turned and sweated. Something, something was there in the dark. I think I was dreaming, but sometimes I was awake and staring, or dreaming
I was sitting awake and staring—who knows which?

  Then for a while, his efforts took a new direction, one that gave me solace while it lasted. It seems that Small had overheard a greater merchant than himself praised for a love of learning that gave him “nobility of character.” Now, Lewis Small kept his accounts with tallies, and if he wished letters written or read, he hired a clerk, as most people do, for he could barely write his name. In short, he had no more learning, or love of it, than an old boot, and what many assumed to be intelligence in him was in fact not a high quality of mind, but a low craftiness and guile raised to its ultimate level. Thus he hired a poor priest as a reader, to beguile his evenings with high and holy works, that he might let it be known about town. While the man read, my husband inspected his fingernails, or the hem on his gown, or looked distant in a way that I knew meant he was speculating on a sharp deal. But the readings were not wasted. I gained much consolation, not only from the Psalms, and tales of the suffering of kings and noble ladies of old, but also from the elevated thoughts of Bridgit of Sweden and other holy anchorites, and the beautiful songs of Richard the Hermit. I have never since doubted why it is that wives turn to religion.

  But when my husband heard no one praise the learning of Lewis Small, he got tired of the priest and sent him off. Now he found someone even more interesting to engage himself with. He had made a new friend, who became for a while the arbiter of all things fashionable. This man’s trade was, I believe, to fasten himself on men such as my husband, who craved association with the great, and would settle for any semblance of it they could get. This John de Woodham was a landless fellow, a permanent esquire who lived on a dubious claim of great descent through bastardy. His stock in trade was an infinity of associations in noble houses, and a fund of extravagant tales that would test the belief of a five-year-old child. But my husband, always so sharp in the trade of furs, was dazzled into blindness by any story in which the name of a grand person was interwoven. And so he swallowed whole the account of the heir apparent’s tastes, the favorite pastimes of the queen’s ladies, and other such tidbits.