Simon Hawke - The Merchant of Vengeance

“And why, pray tell, should it be a matter of their patience?” replied Elizabeth, her temper flaring up. “Why is it a daughter’s place to do her duty by her father and not a father’s place to do his duty by his daughter? ‘Tis a parent who brings a child into the world, and I should think ’tis a parent’s duty to ensure that child is nurtured and protected. Why must a daughter grow up to be little better than a slave, destined to marry a man she did not choose, and to spend the remainder of her life at his beck and call, while a man may do whatever he desires?”

“Oh, Elizabeth, there are ways for a woman to do what she desires also, if she does so with careful judgement and discretion,” said Antonia. “Look around you at this handsome home. Is this truly what you call living like a slave? You have servants, for God’s sake. You have never raised a hand to do anything much more demanding than embroidery! Methinks you see too much of your-self in Portia’s plight, if we may truly call it plight. Indeed, how different has her life been thus far? Her father is one of London’s richest merchants, and from what he writes in his letter, ‘twould seem that he has made arrangements for a marriage for her that would improve her prospects even further. She shall marry a rich man of good standing and live a pleasant life of indolence, waited on by servants hand and foot, in return for which, in all likelihood, she shall be required to do nothing more than help entertain his friends and give birth upon occasion. This is a desperate plight? Good Lord! However shall we save her?”

Elizabeth stared at her friend, her mouth set in a right grimace. “I perceive that I have made a mistake,” she said after a moment. “I called upon you because I believed that you would care enough to help, but I see now that you do not care at all. Forgive me, Antonia. I did not mean to waste your time.”

Antonia raised her eyebrows. “Well, I see I have offended you, though such was not my intent. Should I take that as a dismissal, then?”

“Take it any way you please,” Elizabeth said curtly, turning away from her.

Antonia gazed at her for a moment, her head cocked thoughtfully, then she sniffed, stood, and made her way outside, back to her carriage, without saying another word.

Elizabeth heard the door shut behind her and bit her lower lip. She felt tom. She felt angry with herself for having become angry, and at the same time she felt justified in feeling so. She had known Antonia for a long time. Though she was a few years older, they had grown up together and she had always considered Antonia one of her closest friends. And even though she had not seen Antonia as often since her marriage, she certainly knew her much better than she did Portia. Yet it was to Portia that her heart went out, while Antonia had shown her a side of her character that seemed harsh and insensitive, even a little cruel. And that both surprised and disappointed her.

Yet at the same time, she had to admit that Antonia was not entirely in the wrong. Elizabeth had to acknowledge that she lived a life of privilege, as did Portia. Yet she was still dissatisfied with her lot in life. So did that make her ungrateful? Or was there, in fact, more to life than simply being well taken care of? Had every need truly been supplied?

If a woman were provided with a home, however comfortable that home might be, and if she were well fed and clothed and granted every material comfort that she might desire, then did that mean that she should not wish for anything more-or, if she did desire something further, pursue such desires quietly. “with careful judgement and discretion”?

Elizabeth looked inside herself… looked hard… and found that she could not accept that. It just did not seem right. “Gild a cage howsoever you may choose,” she murmured to herself, “and yet still ‘twill be a cage. Forge chains from gold or silver, and yet still they will be chains.” At the same time, she reminded herself that her own chains, such as they were, were certainly of silver, if not gold, and she wore them fairly lightly. There were many women whose lives were far more difficult than hers. She truly had very little about which to complain.

And yet… there was that cage. Let a woman try to step outside, she thought, and the world would gently usher her back in, or else revile her for a shrew and chastise her accordingly. If only I were born a man, she thought… and then realised that even if, by some strange and supernatural twist of fate, she could somehow have been given such a choice, it was not what she would have chosen. She would no more wish to be a man than she would wish to be a horse. No, what she wanted was the freedom that went with being a man. She wondered if the day would ever come when women could enjoy such freedom. Most likely, it would not, she thought. Men would never allow it. And women like Antonia would continue having to resort to “careful judgement and discretion.” Perhaps, as Antonia had advised, that was what she should do, as well.

Her thoughts were interrupted when one of the servants entered and announced, “Mistress, there is a Master Symington Smythe to see Miss Portia.”

She turned. ‘To see Miss Portia?“

“Aye, mistress, that was what he said.”

She frowned. Why would Tuck come to see Portia and not ask to see her first? “Show him in, Albert,” she replied.

“Aye, mistress.”

A moment later, Albert announced the visitor once more.

“Master Symington Smythe,” he said.

But instead of Tuck, to her surprise, a man that she had never seen before came in.

“How do you do, Madame?” he said, with a slight bow. “Symington Smythe II, Esquire, at your service. Have I the honour and the pleasure of addressing Mistress Portia Mayhew?”

The rain had abated slightly by the time Smythe and Shakespeare reached the London Bridge, but the sky was dark and the wind had picked up significantly, producing a sheering effect that came and went with the irregular gusts. There were still a few wherries out on the Thames, but there was a strong chop out on the water, and most of the boats had pulled in to await a lessening of the storm.

The water moving through the narrow arches between the twenty stone piers supporting the bridge was flowing very rapidly and churning with foam. Originally constructed from a ring of wooden beams driven into the riverbed, forming an enclosure that was then filled with rock and crossbeams, the piers had been rebuilt with stone, along with the rest of the bridge, and then widened a number of times over the years until the openings between them were made narrow enough to cause rapids underneath the archways of the bridge. Even wherry-men were wary of trying to “shoot the arches” at ebb tide, and among those who had tried, not a few had drowned. At flood tide, the arches were impassable.

As Smythe and Shakespeare stepped out onto the bridge, they could hear the loud creaking of the water-wheels powering the corn-mills beneath some of the archways. Two arches out from the south bank of the river stood the Great Stone Gate of London Bridge, originally constructed to help defend the city. Like a medieval castle, it was a gatehouse with large and heavy wooden doors set in a Gothic-arched opening with a portcullis. About a hundred years earlier, the stone gatehouse had collapsed. It had been rebuilt, but ever since, the citizens of London gathering in alehouses sang a traditional song about how London Bridge was “falling down.”

It was at the Great Stone Gate that heads of traitors were displayed on iron spikes, where they were left to rot and moulder and be picked at by the rooks until nothing but bone was left and the skull was eventually pitched into the river. Shakespeare paused at one such head as they came up to the gate, gazing at it quizzically.