Connie Willis - Winter's Tale

“Is the will here?” he said. “I need …”

“Thou hast no need of wills,” I said, putting my hand upon his poor hot brow. “You have but a fever, husband. You should not have stayed so late last eve with Master Drayton.”

“A fever?” he said. “Aye, it must be so. It was raining when I rode home, and now my head is like to split in twain.”

“I have sent to John for medicine. It will be here soon.”

“John?” he said, alarmed, half rising in the bed. “I had forgot Old John. I must needs bequeath the old man something. When he came to London—”

“I spoke of John Hall, thy son-in-law,” I said. “He will bring you somewhat for thy fever.”

“I must leave Old John something in my will, that he’ll keep silence.”

“Old John will not betray you,” I said. He hath been silent, lo, these twelve winters, buried in Trinity Church, no danger to anyone. “Hush, thee, and rest awhile.”

“I would leave him something of gaud and glitter. The gilt-and-silver bowl I sent thee from London. Do you remember it?”

“Yea, I remember it,” I said.

The bowl had come at midday as I was making the second-best bed. I had already made the best bed for the guests, if any came with him, airing the hangings and putting on a new featherbed, and was going into my room to see to the second-best bed when my daughter Judith called up the stairs that a rider had come. I thought that it was he and left the bed unturned and forgot. Ere I remembered it, it was late afternoon, all the preparations made and we in our new clothes.

“I should have stuffed a new featherbed,” I said, laying the coverlid upon the press. “This one is flattened out and full of dust.”

“You will spoil your new gown, Mother,” Judith said, standing well away. “What matters if the bed be turned? He’ll notice not the beds, so glad he’ll be to see his family.”

“Will he be glad?” Susanna said. “He waited long enough for this homecoming, if it be that. What does he want, I wonder.” She took the sheets and folded them. Elizabeth climbed onto the bed to fetch a pillow and brought it me, though it was twice her size.

“To see his daughters, perhaps, or his grandaughter, and make his peace with all of us,” Judith said. She took the pillow from Elizabeth gingerly and brushed her skirts when she had laid it down. “It will be dark soon.”

“ ’Tis light enough for us to make a bed,” I said, reaching my hands to lift it up. “Come, help me turn the featherbed, daughters.” Susanna took one side, Judith the other, all unwillingly.

“I’ll turn it,” Elizabeth said, squeezing herself next the wall at the foot, all eagerness to help and like to have her little fingers crushed.

“Wilt thou go out and see if they are coming, granddaughter?” I said. Elizabeth clambered over the bed, kirtle and long hair flying.

“Put on thy cloak, Bess,” Susanna cried after her.

“Aye, Mother.”

“This room was ever dark,” Judith said. “I know not why you took it for your own, Mother. The window is high and small, and the narrow door shuts out the light. Father may be ill pleased at such a narrow bed.”

It were well if he were, I thought. It were well if he found it dark and cramped and would sleep elsewhere. “Now,” I said, and we three heaved the featherbed up and over the foot of the bedstead. Dust and feathers flew about, filling the room.

“Oh, look at my doublet,” Judith said, brushing at the ruffles on her bosom. “Now we shall have to sweep again. Can you not get the serving boy to do this?”

“He is laying the fires,” I said, pulling at the underside.

“Well, the cook then.”

“She is cooking. Come, one more turn and we’ll be done with it.”

“Dost thou hear something?” she said, shaking out her skirts. She went out. “Have they come, Bess?” she called.

I waited, listening for the sound of horses’ hooves, but I heard naught.

Susanna stood still at the side of the bed, holding the linen sheet. “What think thee of this visitation, Mother? Thou hast said naught of it since word arrived of his coming.”

What could I answer her? That I feared this day as I had feared no other? The day the message had come, I’d taken it from Susanna’s hand and tried to draw its meaning out, though she had read it out already and I had never learnt to read. “To my wife,” it had read. “I will arrive in Stratford on the twelfth day of December.” I had kept the message by me from that day to this, trying to see the meaning of it, but I could not cipher its meaning. To my wife, I will arrive in Stratford on the twelfth day of December. To my wife.

“I have had much to do,” I said. I gave the featherbed a mighty pull and brought it flat across the bed. “New rushes to be laid within the hall, the baking to be done, the beds to make.”

“He came not to his parents’ funeral, nor Hamnet’s, nor to my wedding. Why comes he now?”

I smoothed the featherbed, pressing the corners so that they lay neat and smooth.

“If the house be too full of guests, you can come to us at the croft, Mother,” Susanna said. She folded out the sheet and held it to me. “Or if he … you ever have a home with us.”

“ ’Twas but a passing townsman,” Judith said, coming back into the room. “Think you he will bring friends with him from London?”

“His message said he would arrive today,” Susanna said, and bellied out the sheet, sweet with lavender, over the bed. “Naught else. Nor who should accompany him or why he comes or whether he will stay.”

“Come, he will stay,” Judith said, coming to fold the sheet against the side. “I hope his friends are young and handsome.”

There was a creak upon the stairs. We stopped, stooped over the bed.

“Bess?” Susanna inquired.

“Nay, my little grandniece stands outside all uncovered,” Joan said, and came, creaking, into the room. She wore a yellow ruff so high it seem’d to throttle her. It was the ruff that creak’d, or mayhap her leather farthingale. “I told her she will catch the sweating fever. I bade her put her on a heavier cloak, but she heeded me not.”

“Hath it begun to snow, sister-in-law?” I said.

“Nay, but it looks to ere long.” She sat upon the bed. “Are you not dressed, and my brother nearly here?” She spread her overskirts on either side that we might see her satin petticoat. “You look a common country wife.”

“I am a common country wife,” I said. “Good sister, we must make the bed.”

She stood up, the ruff creaking as if it were a signboard on a tavern. “A cold welcome for your husband,” she said, “the beds unmade, the children unattended, and you in rough, low broadcloth.” She sat down on the coverlid on the press. “A winter’s welcome.”

I stuffed the pillows into their cases with something force. “Where is your husband, madam?” I said, and putting the pillows to the bed, boxed them a blow or two to make them plump.

“Home with the ague,” she said, turning to look at Susanna, her ruff making a fearsome sound. “And where is yours?”

“Attending to a patient in Shottery,” Susanna said, still sweetly. “He will be here anon.”

“Why wear you that unbecoming blue, Susanna?” Joan said. “And Judith, your collar is so small it scarcely shows.”

“At least ’tis silent,” Judith said.

“He will not know you, Judith, so sharp-tongued have you become. You were a sweet babe when he left. He’ll know not you either, Good Sister Anne, so pale and old you look. He’ll not look so, I wot. But then, he’s not as old as you.”

“No, nor so busy,” I said. I took the quilt from off the bed-rail and laid it on the bed.