At the Sign of the Star (4 page)

“Well? Speak, Daughter!”

Perhaps he meant that I should talk my way out of it, as I talked him round on so many things. I wanted to. But I could not find the words, could not speak. I only looked at the bundle of sticks and straw he held in his hand and thought: He will not do it. He cannot do it.

But he did. He lifted the broom and swung it at me and it caught me on the shoulder. My body was as surprised as if my brain had given it no notice, and I fell. He struck again, and I felt the sting of straw on my arm. Then he dropped the broom and walked away.

The stones of the floor felt cold, though I was so near the fire. They felt so cold. I did not want to cry, lying there alone in the great kitchen. But I cried anyway.

2

I stayed in my chamber all that day. The room I shared with Hester was small and dark, with no window and no cabinet, only a chest for our clothing and a row of pegs along the wall. But there was a night table on either side of the big wooden bed, each littered with candle stubs and mine piled high with pages.

I did not come down for supper that night. I said I was not hungry, but Hester brought me apples and bread and butter and part of a quince cake left over from dinner, and I ate it all. I ate as though apples were my enemies, for I was very angry and did not mean to be defeated.

“What roused him so?” Hester asked, while she rubbed ointment onto the red welt on my arm. She had made the ointment herself, in the stillroom. I sat on our bed while she knelt before me, and watched the candlelight move in the dark, silky hair that was pinned behind her neck. Her face was truly pretty, and her teeth fine and white, but the hands she used to soothe my burning skin were large and red and rough.

“Susannah Beckwith rouses him,” I answered her.

“But what did you say, Meg, that angered him?”

“Nothing. Only I asked Mr. Pennyman if a man of means who married a woman much younger than he might not expect that she had married him for money instead of love.”

“Oh, Meg!” She stopped rubbing and sat back on her heels. “For shame.”

“It was only a question. Only words. Can there be shame in words?”

“You know there can be, and most of all in a woman's mouth.”

“I am not a woman yet.”

“And ought not to be allowed at table, in consequence. I suppose you will be allowed no more.” She rose to her feet and began wiping her hands on her apron.

What she said was very likely to be true, and made me want to cry again. To keep the tears back I said stubbornly, “If there is any shame it belongs to those who do the deed, not to those who speak of it.”

Hester shook her head. “There is no shame in a widower marrying again, Meg.”

“Not her. Not Susannah Beckwith. There is something very wrong with her, I know.”

“That's foolish talk. You know nothing of her.”

“You're wrong. I've heard—I
know
there is something very ill in her, something that would keep my father from marrying if he but knew.” In truth I had heard nothing of the girl, but I was so sure I was right it did not matter to me that I bent the truth a little.

“Why, what have you heard?”

“Nothing to prove, so we must find out the rest. You know the kitchenmaid at the Beckwiths, do you not? Perhaps she has heard secrets that can help us. You must go to her—”

“Stop it! Stop it!”

Hester took my shoulders and gave me a shake. “You must stop this, Meg! You will bring yourself to ruin! Pity your poor father, who has been so good to you all these years and taught you his trade and shared his gossip and had you at table to meet famous men. Is this the gratitude you give him, at a time that should be all joy for him? Margaret, Margaret, you forget yourself.”

And then I knew that I was indeed alone, abandoned by friend as well as father, scorned by all because I would not do a daughter's duty.

“I'm tired,” I said. “I will go to bed early tonight.”

Hester was silent a long moment. “Pray well,” she said at last. “And I will pray, too, that God and your father will forgive you.” She reached to the row of pegs that lined the wall and handed me my nightdress.

*   *   *

The next morning I went to my father and said, “I beg your pardon, Father, that I forgot myself at table yesterday and said things that so displeased you.”

He looked at me as though bewildered and said, “I could not believe it when you spoke so.”

So I knew that he had not forgiven me. I saw myself through his eyes, and I began to feel shame.

Trade was slow in the shop that day. On some slow days I was sent with Robert to open a stall at St. Paul's Churchyard, and vie with the other booksellers there for the buyers who passed. I hoped it would be so today, that I might be away from my father, but it seemed he could not bring himself even to speak to me, so instead I sat on a three-legged stool near the window and read, and he turned his pages behind the counter.

I read
The Ladies' Calling,
by Richard Allestree. I had not cared to read it before, though I had heard it much admired. But that morning I was filled with fear that I had driven from me all who once loved me, and I read with the hope of redeeming myself.

This is what I learned from Richard Allestree:

Nothing is more important than modesty. Modesty appears in the face in calm and meek looks. Nothing gives a greater luster to feminine beauty. If there is boldness in a woman's face, it blots out all the lines of beauty, like a cloud over the sun.

A modest woman does not show earnestness or loudness in discourse. A woman's tongue should be like the imaginary music of the spheres, sweet and charming, but not to be heard at a distance.

Talkativeness is a fault to be found in none but the bold. There can be no greater indecency in conversation than that a woman should monopolize it.

All that I learned threw me into despair. I understood better now how very ill I had behaved, and what a coarse, bold girl I was, and how I must disgust all who knew and met me, most especially my father and Hester. But it did not seem likely to me that I could amend my ways, for they were very set indeed. I could not keep my tongue from galloping, for it merely raced to the command of the thoughts and feelings which rode upon it. I could not keep meekness in my face, for I felt it not, and had not sufficient discipline of mind to keep a lie upon my features for more than a few seconds at a time.

My face must have been honest indeed when Paul Winter walked into the shop. “Come,” he said. “It can't be as bad as that.”

I looked across at my father, but he was examining the pages of a book on navigation and mathematics newly sent from the printer, and paid no heed. “Good morning, Mr. Winter,” I said as brightly as I could. “Are you here for
Paradise Lost?
”

“Nay, I finished it at last. What a wondrous book it is! Have you read it?”

“A little, only. I am more fond of plays than poetry, especially Puritan poetry.” As soon as I spoke I remembered that it would not do to give my views so freely. Now Mr. Winter, too, would think me bold and coarse and no proper daughter to my father. “I beg your pardon, sir,” I said, looking down at the pages of Mr. Allestree's book.

He looked surprised, but did not ask me what I meant. Instead he said, “I am looking for something new to read. Can you recommend something?”

“There is Mr. Wycherley's play,
The Plain-Dealer
—it is selling very well.”

“I saw it when it was at the Duke's Theatre.”

“There is a new book of dialogues from Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury.”

“That is more like. I am in the mood for philosophy. What is it you read yourself?”

I was nearly embarrassed to tell him, as though he would know at once why I read it. “
The Ladies' Calling,
sir.”

“Ah, I have heard much of it. Do you find it advises you well?”

“Very well, sir. But I fear I have much to change in myself before I can acquire the virtues Mr. Allestree commends.”

Mr. Winter smiled so broadly that I felt affronted, though I hardly knew why. He saw it in my too-honest face and made his own face grave. “And what virtues does Mr. Allestree commend that you lack?” he asked.

“I am too talkative, sir.”

He could not keep himself from smiling again, but this time I smiled, too. Mr. Winter glanced over at my father, but a gentleman had come in and they were much engaged in discussion. “Did you know that not everyone agrees with Mr. Allestree in his ideas?” Mr. Winter asked. “Margaret Fell believes women can be preachers, and has written an essay to say so.”

“Margaret Fell is a Quaker,” I said.

“At the sign of the Three Balls they sell a pamphlet by Bathsua Makin in which she argues that women should be taught Latin and Greek. And I have read a book of poems by Katherine Philips. Have you heard of her?”

“I have … but we do not sell her work, so I have not read it.”

“Many women are speaking their minds in these times. I hesitate to mention Aphra Behn…”

This time we both looked at my father, who was just bidding the gentleman goodbye. He had not heard us. Aphra Behn was a woman playwright, the only one in the history of the world, as far as I knew. There were many scandalous rumors about her and she was known to have low companions. Mr. Allestree certainly would not have allowed her near his wife and daughters.

“Going to buy something today, Mr. Winter?” my father asked, as though he thought Mr. Winter had been standing about too long without money changing hands.

“I only wish I had the means,” Mr. Winter replied, taking a coin from his waistcoat pocket. “But if I might have a look at Hobbes's new dialogues here in the shop…”

“Of course, of course,” my father said, and took the money with one hand, while with the other he reached for the book where it lay unbound on the counter.

3

The banns were read for the second time on the next Sunday, and for the last time the Sunday following. I waited hopefully, but was twice more disappointed. If Susannah Beckwith had indeed been secretly married, her husband was keeping himself busy elsewhere.

“She has sent him to the country to hunt for deer, for she means to have venison at the wedding feast,” I said to Hester.

“Nay, he has gone to Spain to buy silks for her gown,” Hester answered.

“To Portugal for brandy, that she might be drunk on her wedding night.”

“To Bristol for soap, that she might be clean!”

“To the wise woman in his village, for a cordial to make my father strong enough to withstand his bride when she comes to the bridal bed.”

“Meg, you go too far,” Hester said.

I did not mind her reproof. It was enough that she was bantering with me once more, as we used to do. She did not truly mind what I said of Susannah Beckwith behind my father's back, so long as I did not offend his ear or try to stop his happiness. As for my father, he, too, had forgiven me, and was only too glad to be smiling and nodding until the curls of his wig bobbed, and pretending things were the same as they ever were. But of course they were not, and we all knew it.

During those days I was most careful of my conduct in my father's presence. I spoke courteously, did not interrupt, did not ask impertinent questions, did not forward my views. Mr. Allestree would have been proud of me. By the day before the wedding I thought I would die of meekness.

There were few customers, and the day was fine, and I was angry at my father for marrying and equally because he made me stay within doors when the sun was shining. He was nervous himself, and made the apprentices come running when he needed them not, and fretted because he believed he had lost things that were there before his face. At last he looked at me without pleasure and said sharply, “Go, leave.”

“Where ought I to go?” I asked, thinking he meant to send me on an errand.

“Anywhere you like,” he said, and fished a shilling from his pocket.

I could not believe my good fortune. I had never before in my life had an afternoon of freedom with all of London to enjoy and a shilling with which to enjoy it. I ran from the shop, and nearly bumped into our neighbor Mr. Turner, who was passing our door at the moment. Mr. Turner lived with his father and his brother and his two grown sons—five Mr. Turners in one house and not a woman among them, except for the servants.

“Margaret, Margaret, do not be so hasty!” he chided me, catching me by the shoulder that I might not collide with him. “Where do you go in such a hurry?”

“I do not know, sir,” I answered him, and indeed, I did not. This was London Town, full of noise and riches and marvels, and there were a thousand things I might do.

I could watch the Punch and Judy, or listen to ballad-singers on the street corners. I could pay tuppence at Charing Cross to see a dead calf that had been born with two heads; Godfrey had seen the crowds around it the day before while carrying a message to the printer. I could follow a great coach through the town and watch the lords and ladies alight at journey's end. I might even see the King.

Or I might seek out a play by Aphra Behn.

The idea was sudden and bold. I stood staring at Mr. Turner's broad back in its dark velvet jacket as he made his way down Little Britain, and when I could see him no longer I looked cautiously about. I was not sure who sold her plays. There might be a copy right in this street, where so many booksellers had their shops. But I did not want my father to see me inquiring of our neighbors. Instead, I made my way to St. Paul's Churchyard, where the booksellers kept their stalls.

It was not far to walk, but I walked slowly, as though this were my last chance ever to enjoy London. I peered into every dim shop to eye the wares: bright cloth or copper pots or newly printed pages. I paused near the turnip peddler's cart, and turned over his roots as though I meant to buy. I drew a deep breath by the door of a cookshop, and smelled the spicy meat pasties baking within. I spent not a farthing, but by the time I reached the bookstalls I was nearly sated with the pleasure of things I had not bought.