At the Sign of the Star (8 page)

“Oh, I always sleep well now that Joan warms the bed,” I said with a laugh. My stepmother laughed, too, and just then my father passed by and heard our laughter. This satisfied me and yet angered me, for I did not like to be bending to his will. The smile went from my mouth and as soon as my father was gone I got up and left the room in haste.

I did not change my ways all at once. For hours upon end I was as sullen as ever. But each day I tried to be nice to my stepmother at least one time. And each time I was nice to her, she smiled with such surprise and delight that for a moment it shamed me to be only pretending niceness. Then I would remind myself that it was she who had sent Hester from me.

One Sunday in late October I went with my father and mother to dine at the home of Philip Gosse, who was a wine merchant in the City, and his family. This visit had been talked of for some time, for Susannah had been long acquainted with the family, and thought I should know them. This was on account of their daughter Anne, who was fifteen. By Susannah's account, Anne was all that a daughter should be: skilled at women's arts, and helpful in the care of her younger brothers and sisters. I had seen her at the wedding but did not like her; I thought she would be silly and dull. Before my father threatened to send me away, however, I looked forward to meeting her, simply that I might make sly remarks which would confuse or shock her. But now I dared nothing, so I dreaded meeting Anne Gosse. I vowed I would sit silent and smiling all the visit, so that afterward the Gosse family would wonder to each other if my mind was not quite sound.

But it was not like that.

When we came into the room where Anne sat with her mother she was surrounded by her brothers and sisters. It was a large room, with a bright wood fire and a map of England mounted upon the wall. A little boy buried his head beneath Anne's apron and giggled whilst she tickled him, and a little girl tugged at her sleeve for attention, and an even smaller child tried to pull himself up on her skirt, but did not succeed, and plopped down on his bottom once more.

“Hush, hush, our guests have come,” Anne said when she saw us, and patted and smoothed the children, and then herself, as she smiled at us. She had had the smallpox, and her face was sorely pitted, but she had a lovely smile with good teeth, and a knot of fine, glossy dark hair upon her neck.

“Anne, this is my daughter, Margaret, who has long wanted to meet you,” Susannah said when I had been introduced to Mrs. Gosse. “She is hoping you will show her some of your embroidery.”

“Oh, may I?” said Anne. “I am very vain about it, I confess. I have just done the most lovely thing, all peacocks and grass. It was an enormous labor.”

I stared at her, for I had never heard a girl boast so.

“I'll get it, I'll get it,” cried the little girl, and ran off. Susannah left, too, with Anne's mother, and Anne and I sat down together on stools near the fire.

“I did that seat cover,” Anne said, just as I lowered my bottom onto a huntsman and two deer.

“You're very skilled,” I said politely.

“It took me forever to learn, you cannot imagine. My mother laughed at me, and said I would never be a needle-woman and had better darn and spin. But I was determined. Determination wins all prizes, does it not?”

I gave my head a quick shake in spite of myself, and tears came to my eyes. For it was not my experience that determination won all prizes.

I do not know if she saw my tears. But she said, “No, I suppose not. I wish it did, however.”

I felt an odd sensation on my knee, and looked to see a tiny hand there. The baby had pulled himself to stand using my stool, and now grasped my skirts.

“Tom, Tom, this is our guest!” Anne said, reaching toward him.

“No, please—let him stay,” I said. I reached out and petted his soft cheek with a finger. His face was plump under its white bonnet, and his eyes were brown and bright. “How old is he?” I asked.

“Nine months. He is the latest—and last, we all hope! For my mother has done her part—there are ten of us. I am the eldest. And though she is strong, and has lost but two, there is much to fear when a woman comes to childbed.”

“But where does he suckle? Why is he not in the country with a wet nurse?”

“My mother does not stand for it, not anymore. She says they are more likely to die if they are sent away.”

Just then the little girl came in with a runner draped over her arms. It was indeed beautiful. The stitches seemed to shine in the afternoon sunlight that came through the drawing room window.

“Thank you, Jenny,” Anne said, and then to me: “I know you do not really want to see my work. Why should you? But I am so proud, I must show you.”

So we bent over her work together, while Tom clutched at my knees and Jenny stuck her head in my way.

“You see this stitch, here in the eye of the peacock's tail? It was very difficult, I cannot tell you how difficult. I had to begin anew a dozen times. My father vowed he would buy me no more thread, but of course he did not mean it. Thomas, no!” For the baby was crumpling her work in his little hand.

I pried his tiny fingers from the cloth and lifted him into my arms. He was round and light, like good bread. His little white dress floated around him as I lifted him.

“How lucky you are to have a brother,” I said.

“He is so precious! But they are all precious. It's a hardship on my father that we are so many, but I mean to have as many myself when I marry, if I am strong enough. And you, do you want many children?”

“I will take what I am given, I suppose,” I said. “What is the good of wanting things when we have no choices? I would rather spend my time selling books than raising babies, but I suppose my fate will be like that of every woman.”

Anne looked at me a moment, considering. “No one can force you to marry,” she said at last. “It is not lawful.”

“There is so much more than law that binds us,” I answered her.

“You read much, I can tell. Tell me about your father's shop, and what you do there?”

Then I spoke of the trade, and of listening to Mr. Dryden and Mr. Wycherley speak on poetical subjects, and of lingering at Will's. I spoke slowly at first, but she listened with great attention to all I said, and asked many questions. It had been long since anyone cared to hear me talk, and as I spoke I felt like a stream that has shrunk to a trickle during the dry months, and now swells with the first rainfall. Anne Gosse seemed to know little of her father's business or any other; she was concerned only with women's things. But I did not care. It was a fine, fine thing to have conversation once more!

The little boy, who had gone from the room, presently came back with an older sister.

“Play with me!” he begged Anne.

“No, let us do some acrostics,” the sister, who was perhaps nine, suggested.

Anne shook her head. “Take Charlie away, please, Gertrude,” she said. She kissed Charlie's cheek. “We'll play Hunt-the-Slipper after dinner, won't we? Right now Margaret and I must talk.”

“You may call me Meg,” I said to her.

She smiled at me, a wide, bright smile. “Sometimes they call me Annie,” she said. “I don't mind it.”

We talked and we talked. She was a glad, cheerful girl, who laughed at all my jokes. Jesting with her made me think of Hester, and I missed her with a sharp ache, and reminded myself: I can go to her if I like.

The Gosse house was larger and grander than ours. In the dining room hung a portrait of the King in a rich gilt frame, the finest I had ever seen. Around the great table there were walnut chairs with velvet backs, so many that not one grown person sat on a bench or a stool while we ate. Dinner was very fine, with four courses, and baked bananas for dessert. I ate until my stomach ached inside its lacings. Gertrude was the youngest child at table; the younger children were fed elsewhere. But Anne's brothers were there: stout, loud, red-faced boys of fourteen and thirteen who talked mainly to each other, teasing one another with riddles or setting puzzles in arithmetic.

After dinner, when the last comfits were eaten, we all stood in a ring in the largest parlor and played Hunt-the-Slipper. Anne and I were next to one another, and passed the slipper slyly along behind our backs while Susannah sought for it, but at last she found it when it came to little Jenny who forgot what she was to do. Then it was Jenny's turn, but Anne came into the center of the ring with her and they hunted together for the slipper. There was much laughter, and I saw why Anne so enjoyed being part of a large family. At last, however, the children tired, and began to quarrel, and so were sent away. Then Anne and I were at liberty to talk once more.

“It has been such fun to have you here,” she said to me. “I seldom see other girls, for Mother says there are quite enough of us without inviting yet more children into the house.” I opened my mouth to say something pretty in reply, but she went on, “Sometimes I am afraid I will be married young, simply because there are too many of us at home.”

“I'm sure you need not think of it yet,” I said to comfort her.

“I know, I know! I am too young to think of it, my mother is always saying so. And yet,
they
think of it. I hear them when they think I am abed or busy with my needle, speaking of this merchant or that. There are so many of us, you know, and so many girls. I haven't the dowry I'd like, and as you see I am not beautiful.”

She did not look at me as she spoke, and though her voice was matter-of-fact, I could tell that her scarred face troubled her. I wondered how old she had been when it happened.

“So,” she continued in a bright, false voice. “They will pick someone old, who will take my youth as a marriage portion.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

Her smile faded. Then she said, very seriously, “Perhaps I will be lucky, like Susannah, who married your father.”

At that moment my father came into the room with his bride on his arm. His cheeks were red from port, and his smile was broad as he turned to Susannah. I looked at her, and saw that her smile was not so broad. I wondered for the first time if she had wanted him, or if she merely did her duty.

3

One day at breakfast time Susannah said to my father, “You can spare me from the shop, can you not? I had thought to take Margaret to the New Spring Garden at Vauxhall today.”

“Cannot—” I said quickly, and then stopped myself. I meant to say, “Cannot Joan go with you instead?” For I did not want to wander among bushes when I might be in the shop with my father. But I dared not speak my thoughts. I looked down at my breakfast platter, which that morning bore buttered bread and oysters. “Might Anne Gosse come with us?” I asked with little hope.

“No doubt Anne is needed to help her mother,” my father replied. “Theirs is a busy household.”

“It will not hurt to ask,” Susannah said. “We will send Godfrey with a message. It will give Mrs. Gosse kind feelings toward us, even if she cannot spare Anne.” She began to speak of the beauties of Vauxhall, but she could not interest me. I did not want to go there, unless indeed Anne could come with us, but that seemed scarcely likely.

However, the stars must have been well aligned for me that day, for Anne's mother let her go with us after all, and suddenly, instead of feeling cross, I felt alive with my good luck. Anne was as excited as I. There were four of us in the boat that took us down the Thames, for Joan came as well, of course. I have always loved the river, and had not been upon it for more than a year, so I settled myself happily next to Anne and watched the man at the oars with rapt attention. His muscles flexed and strained as he rowed. The wind mussed our hair and reddened our cheeks, and drops of cold river water flew through the air and landed upon our skirts, and the watermen, who were famous for their jesting, teased us and asked us if we had gallants we were meeting secretly at Vauxhall. It was glorious.

And the gardens! The gardens were lovely. The weather was fine. I believe it was the last fine day that year, and the air was soft and warm on the cheek, as though it remembered summer. The breeze sang in the trees, and golden leaves dropped from the arbors even as we passed under them. There were still a few flowers in surprising patches of crimson or purple. Anne and I walked arm-in-arm, trailing behind Susannah and Joan. First we exclaimed about the beauty of the place—it was her first time there as well as mine—but before long we fell into confidences, as I had hoped we would. I told her everything—that my stepmother and I did not get on well, and that my father had given me this cruel choice.

“I did not know she was so hard a woman,” Anne said in a low voice, so that Susannah and Joan might not hear. “She has always been kind to me. Does she beat you?”

“My father would not let her!” I answered.

“In what way does she show her cruelty, then?”

“She is not cruel. But she will not let me be who I am. She tries to make me into someone else, into someone who embroiders cushions and bakes tarts.”

“Into a woman, you mean,” Anne said, laughing gently. “But you
will
be a woman someday, Meg. Is that so bad a thing?”

“My mother was a woman. Aphra Behn is a woman. That sort of woman I do not mind becoming. But I do not want to become Susannah Beckwith.”

“You will not, I can assure you,” Anne said with a smile. “You need not fly to the country to avoid such a fate.”

I saw that I had lost her sympathy, and struggled to regain it. “She sent Hester away from me. I cannot forgive her.”

Her smile faded. “There is no injury like the loss of one you love.”

“I miss her terribly.”

Anne squeezed my arm. “Perhaps, then, you should go to Surrey after all.”

Just then the lane we followed met another. Susannah and Joan waited where the paths crossed, and Susannah pointed to a tree that was hung with lamps. “At night the lamps are lit,” she said. “There are hundreds. It is very bright on the main paths, bright as day!”