The Memory of Midnight (28 page)

And that was before anyone got wind of the fact that she had been experiencing life in the sixteenth century.

Shameful self-pity sloshed through Tess and she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes to stop herself giving in to tears. Wasn’t it enough that she had to deal with a vicious husband
who had been dead for more than four hundred and fifty years without one playing games with her mind in the present too?

Now you
are
sounding hysterical.

Luke’s cool words sliced through her rising panic and stayed in her mind like a knife stuck in cheese. As before, the thought of him was something fixed, something steady for her to hold
onto. Tess drew a quavery breath and set her jaw. She was not going to give in. Not now. Not now she had just found the strength to leave Martin and start again.

Stony faced, she closed the cutlery drawer and went back to work. She had lost her appetite. A vicious headache was building behind her eyes but she would not give in to that either. She wiggled
the mouse so that the screen leapt to life. Oscar needed her. She had to stay strong.

She had to stay strong. Under the cover of the table, Nell laid a hand on her stomach.
Sweet Jesù, let it be true. Let there be some hope.

‘The keelboats came in today.’ Across the table Ralph was brimming with self-satisfaction. ‘I have my merchandise from Hamburg at last.’

Hamburg. Where the moon still shone on Tom. The thought of him was like a skewer through her heart still and Nell’s ears rushed with the effort of not showing it to her husband.

Sometimes when she thought about Tom, it was like remembering another life, a life that had belonged to someone else altogether. Had she really been that girl, smothering giggles on All Hallows
Eve as Tom smeared honey on a door, or hunkering down on a step with him to share gingerbread hot from the pan? Could that maid who had tumbled so joyously in the long grass with him really have
been her?

If she let it, her life would narrow to a joyless sliver, so Nell was learning to take pleasure in moments: licking a finger to press it on a crumb of sugar crumbled from the loaf, letting the
sweetness burst on her tongue; folding the linen, crisp and clean from the laundresses in St George’s Close; listening to a bee bumbling drowsily through the lavender. Since Tom’s
mother had died, the garden behind the Maskewe house had been neglected, but Nell was bringing it back to life. She planted herbs for her still room – sweet basil, bay, borage, camomile,
mint, hyssop and purslane – and flowers for her pleasure. She grew daisies and goldenrods, and marigolds and poppies, and she pruned back the old roses so that they flowered. She set a bench
amongst them so that she could smell their fragrance.

She spun out each moment like a spider its web, stringing herself from day to day, not letting herself think about the night. The more pain she suffered, the more Ralph liked it, and Nell had
learnt to scream and whimper straight away, so that he got his business over and done with quickly.

After that first time in the chest, he was careful not to mark her face. For a man with such unnatural appetites, Ralph cared deeply for his reputation. It mattered to him that his fellow
citizens considered him a fine man. He liked it when they nodded and bowed and whispered behind their hands about his wealth and importance. He was generous with his gifts, generous with his
hospitality, and Nell was decked out in the finest silks and furs. Gold glowed at her throat and glinted on her fingers. She was the treasure chest Ralph threw open to display his wealth. It
pleased him to watch their neighbours ogle her with envy. No one must doubt that she was the most fortunate of women.

But what was their envy if he was not there to bask in it? He didn’t like Nell to go out on her own. He wanted her at home, where he could see her. Where he could watch her for the
slightest transgression.

Nell had learnt to be careful. If Ralph knew how much it meant to her to escape the house, he would forbid it altogether. So she told him that she needed to go to the market like a good
housewife.

Ralph scowled when she first raised the subject. ‘Send one of the maids,’ he had said. ‘That is what they are for.’

‘I need to teach her how to look out for short measures,’ said Nell, feeling her way carefully. His reputation was his vanity, the one weak spot she would exploit whenever she could.
‘You would not want it said that your wife does not know how to keep a house, would you? We must have the best of everything to set before your guests. I will not be fobbed off with anything
less the way a maid would be.’

So now she was allowed out to shop with a maid – but not too often – and sometimes she could take Mary or Eliza and show them which plants to gather from the hedgerows outside the
city. Those were the best times. Nell would look up at the sky and gulp in the sight of it. She wished she could preserve it like the leaves and seeds she dried, or make a decoction of sky and
light that she could unstopper and breathe in when she was back in the grand Stonegate house with its ostentatiously glazed windows and the wainscot walls that seemed to press in on her.

And sometimes, God forgive her, she looked at the hemlock that grew in cloudy swathes out on the common and she remembered how dangerous it could be, how easily its root could be disguised as a
parsnip, and she thought how much easier her life would be if Ralph would die.

But she couldn’t think of a way to make sure he was the only one to suffer, and when she caught herself pondering the problem seriously, she caught herself up. What was she thinking? She
could not kill Ralph. It would be a mortal sin and she would hang for it. No, she would tend her garden and she would endure. She would not allow Ralph to break her spirit.

Nell was surprised at first when Ralph gave her permission to attend a lying-in when one of her neighbours was in childbed. She had thought he would fear what she might tell the other women of
the way he treated her, but, of course, there was little she could say. He still held the debt over her father’s head, and he would not hesitate to punish her family if she stepped out of her
role as a dutiful wife.

Besides, she soon discovered that there was little that shocked the other women. The first time she attended a neighbour in childbed, she was reassured by the women gathered around in the
chamber. They talked frankly about their husbands and the problems they had with their servants and children, but when Nell hinted that her husband was rough with her at times, they only laughed
comfortably.

‘Oh, they all like to show how big and strong they are at times,’ they said. Nell was aghast to realize how many of them took a beating as a matter of course. It was nothing new to
see women in the market place with a black eye or a swollen lip, but her own neighbours? Marriage, it seemed, gave her access to a whole hidden world she had never suspected, and sometimes doubt
niggled. Would Tom have beaten her if she had married him, just because he could or because he felt like it?

Ralph told her what he did to her at night was normal. That he was a normal man with normal appetites, while she was the frigid, unnatural one.

If Nell hadn’t known Tom, she might have accepted it without question, but she remembered how glorious love between a man and a woman could be. It was not glorious with Ralph. It was
shameful and humiliating and it sickened her every night to lie with him. Once or twice she had dared to complain, but it wasn’t worth it, for she was simply punished for not appreciating how
lucky she was to be married to him. Everyone knew how much he loved her; how could she possibly complain at her fortune?

She was allowed to church, of course, but Ralph stayed firmly beside her and she knew to keep her eyes demurely downcast. When he invited guests to the house to impress them with his lavish
hospitality, it was the same. As his wife, Nell must sit modestly and display his wealth. She was not to laugh or smile or talk too deeply with anyone, especially not any man. And Nell did as she
was instructed, because it was not worth the pain of defying him.

It was not long before she had acquired a reputation for aloofness. Her old friends thought that marriage to a wealthy merchant like Ralph Maskewe had gone to her head and that she considered
herself above them now. Her neighbours were similarly aggrieved to find their overtures rebuffed. Who was Eleanor Maskewe after all? Just the jumped-up daughter of an unsuccessful mercer. She was
no one to hold her nose so high. Hoity-toity, they thought her.

Her family, too, were distant now, puzzled by her coldness. She hardly saw them any more and when she did, she had to be so careful not to show them affection. Ralph was jealous of the least
look, the briefest touch. He would not hesitate to take out his rage on her brothers if he chose, so the best Nell could do for them was to keep them at arm’s length. But when she saw Harry
and Peter grow stiff and formal with her, it broke the little piece of her heart that remained after Tom left.

Nell had long since abandoned the dream that Tom would find out what had happened and come and rescue her. She had not dared to send him word herself, knowing there would be no limit to
Ralph’s rage if he found out, but it seemed that Ralph himself had written. He would have enjoyed writing that letter, Nell thought afterwards.

They were dining alone in the parlour. The servants in the Maskewe house were banished to the kitchen now for their meals. It was the new way of doing things, Ralph insisted. It was for Nell to
sit in her chamber and let the maids do the work, instead of working beside them the way her mistress had always done. It was seemly for her to keep some distance, he said, and Nell acquiesced for
the meals, but she could not keep house sitting in her chamber. When Ralph went out, she pulled on her apron and went down to the kitchen so that she could direct the maids, Mary and Eliza, and
Janet who had been servant in the house since little Joan had killed herself, more than ten years since. There was little that Nell could teach Janet, but it was her duty to teach Eliza and Mary
how to keep house, just as Mistress Harrison had taught her.

Were it not for the servants, Nell would have no companionship, but now, God willing, there might be a babe, a child she could love. Surely that would not be denied her? Nell yearned for it, but
knew better than to let her husband glimpse the depth of her longing.

‘I trust the goods arrived to your satisfaction,’ she said to Ralph, careful not to make eye contact. She never corrected him. She never committed herself to a thought or an idea.
She made herself as bland and smooth as she could be so that nothing would snag his attention. It was like a game between them, she sealing herself like a nut, he needling, prodding, poking in
search of the woman he knew was hidden away inside her. Nell paid for it. If he failed to rouse her, her resistance would infuriate him and he would devise a special punishment for that night, but
still, it was a point of pride for her not to give in.

‘Indeed. I have some fine silks and tapestries to sell.’ Ralph paused to crack the leg off a roast chicken and Nell repressed her instinctive flinch as he gnawed at it with his
teeth.

‘Oh, and I had news of my brother.’

Nell went very still. She wasn’t sure how he wanted her to react to this news, and there was such a clamour of longing in her heart that she could scarcely breathe.

‘Oh?’ she managed, her voice a reedy whisper, and Ralph looked at her, his glance pin sharp with malice.

‘Are you unwell, my dear? You seem upset.’

‘I am quite well, I thank you.’

‘Yes, it seems Tom has abandoned Mr Todd,’ Ralph went on, sleek with satisfaction at his news.

‘I . . . I had thought he would be wise to continue his apprenticeship. He had not long to serve.’

‘Quite. It is most foolish of him. But Tom always was a fool,’ said Ralph.

Nell wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking why Tom had left. She already knew. Tom had heard of her marriage and he would not come back to York to see her wed to his
brother.

It was madness to continue the conversation, but now that Tom’s name had been mentioned out loud, she craved news of him. She had to know. She forced disinterest into her voice. It
wouldn’t fool Ralph, but her pride demanded it. ‘Does he find other employment in Hamburg?’

‘Nothing so sensible. He has gone adventuring, it seems. He has joined a ship to the New World and will be little better than a pirate. Mr Todd is most disappointed in him,’ Ralph
told Nell, his eyes fixed on her face, avid for a reaction. ‘As am I, of course. He brings dishonour to our name.’

Dishonour!
Nell thought in contempt.
Pretty good from a man who must hurt his wife before he can mount her!
But she kept her expression smooth as silk.

Her mind churned. She needed to be alone to understand how she felt. Tom had thrown away his chance to come back to York, but how would she have been able to bear it if he had?

And how would she bear it now that she knew he never would?

Tom had yearned so for the sea. Nell remembered how he had talked of his dreams of sailing out to the horizon and then beyond, to the New World where sugar grew and the sun beat hard and hot. Of
bracing his feet on a deck as the ship pitched and reared on the waves. Now the sea spray would sting his face, and he would be happy.

But she would never know where he was. She would never know if he was safe. She would never see him again.
Never
.

Only then did the truth hit Nell and she put a hand to her stomach which was pitching as if it too were at sea.

She would have to endure this life without Tom, and without the hope of him. It would be too much to bear were it not for the fact that it was two months since her flowers had come down. She had
started to wonder if the nausea she felt was less due to Ralph and more to a child growing inside her. The thought filled her with wonder.

And with hope. She might not have Tom, but perhaps she might have a child to light her life. Surely Ralph would not treat her so when it might hurt the unborn babe? But if she told him too soon,
and she was wrong, she would suffer for misleading him.