Whatever differences Agnes and Mary have – and there are many, of course, living at such close quarters, with so much to do, so many children, so many mouths, the meals to cook and the clothes to wash and mend, the men to watch and assess, soothe and guide – dissolve in the face of tasks. The two of them can gripe and prickle and rub each other up the wrong way; they can argue and bicker and sigh; they can throw into the pig-pen food the other has cooked because it is too salted or not milled finely enough or too spiced; they can raise an eyebrow at each other’s darning or stitching or embroidery. In a time such as this, however, they can operate like two hands of the same person.
Look. Agnes is pouring water into a pan and sprinkling the powder into it. Mary is working the bellows, taking the wood from Hamnet, instructing Susanna to go to the coffer next door and bring out sheets. She is lighting the candles now, the flames flaring and lengthening, spreading circles of light into the dark corners of the room. Agnes is handing the pan to Mary, who is setting it to warm over the flames. They are both climbing the stairs now, without conferring, and Agnes knows that Mary will greet Judith with a smiling face, will call out some rousing and unconcerned words. Together, they will see to the girl, lift down the pallet, give her the medicine. They will take this matter in hand.
t is past midnight on Agnes’s wedding night; it might even be near dawn. It is cold enough for her breath to be visible with every exhalation, for it to collect in droplets on the blanket she has wrapped about her.
Henley Street, when she looks through the windows, is drenched in the darkest black. No one is abroad. An owl can be heard intermittently, from somewhere behind the house, sending its shivering cry out into the night.
Some, Agnes reflects, as she stands at the window, blanket clutched around her, might take this as a bad omen, the owl’s cry being a sign of death. But Agnes isn’t afraid of the creatures. She likes them, likes their eyes, which resemble the centre of marigolds, their overlapped, flecked feathers, their inscrutable expressions. They seem, to her, to exist in some doubled state, half spirit, half bird.
Agnes has risen from her marriage bed and is walking about the rooms of her new house. Because sleep won’t seem to come for her and fold her in its plumes. Because the thoughts in her head are too many, too crowded, jostling for space. Because there is too much to take in, too much of the day to go over. Because this is the first time she has ever been expected to sleep either in a bed or on an upstairs floor.
And so she is drifting through the apartment, touching things as she goes: the back of a chair, an empty shelf, the fire irons, the door handle, the stair rail. She moves to the front of the house, to the back, and again to the front; she goes down the stairs, she comes up again. She runs a hand down the curtains surrounding the bed, given to them as a wedding gift by his parents. She pulls aside the curtain and contemplates the form of the man within, her husband, ocean-deep in sleep, sprawled in the middle of the bed, arms outstretched, as if drifting on a current. She looks up at the ceiling, beyond which is a small, slope-roofed attic.
This apartment, now her home, has been built on to the side of the family’s house. It has two storeys: downstairs there is the fireplace and the settle, the table and the plate, up here the bed. John had been using it for storage – for what exactly has never been mentioned but Agnes, sniffing the air, the first time they came in here, caught the unmistakable scent of fleece, of baled wool, rolled up and left for several years. Whatever it was it has been removed and taken elsewhere.
Agnes has a strong sense that this arrangement has something to do with her brother, and was perhaps part of his terms for the marriage. Bartholomew had been there when they first came over the threshold. He had looked over the narrow rooms, going up the stairs and coming back down, walking from wall to wall, before nodding at John, who had remained standing at the door.
Bartholomew had had to nod at him twice before John turned over the key to his son. It had been an odd moment, interesting to Agnes. She had watched as father slowly, slowly, held out the key to son. The father’s reluctance to relinquish it was matched – perhaps outdone – by the son’s unwillingness to accept it. His fingers had been listless, slack; he hesitated, examining the iron key in his father’s hand, as if unsure what it was. Then he plucked it from him with only finger and thumb, and held it, at arm’s length, as if deciding whether or not it might harm him.
John had attempted to smooth over the awkwardness, making a remark about hearths and happiness and wives, reaching forward to slap the son on the back. It was a gesture intended to be kind, in a gruff, fatherly sort of way, but was there not, Agnes would think later, something uneasy about it? Something unnatural? The slap had had a little too much force, a little too much intent. The son wasn’t expecting it and it made him stagger sideways, lose his balance. He had righted himself, quickly, almost too quickly, like a boxer or a fencer, raising himself on his toes. They looked for a moment, the pair of them, as if they might begin to exchange blows, not keys.