Anne O'Brien - The Scandalous Duchess

‘No. I have no time for such things. Nor will I.’ My reply was as sharp as her stare. ‘I have two children at home who need my care. And my husband’s estates…’

Mistress Saxby tossed her head, the veil attached to her hat dislodged from its neat folds. ‘Your children will grow and move away. Your land will bring cold comfort. You need a man in your bed.’

I took a breath. ‘That’s the last thing I need,’ I remarked.

It was as if I had not spoken. ‘Your youth will be gone and forgotten before you know it. Without your pretty face, how will you attract a husband? You’ll be a lonely old woman.’

‘Do you speak from experience?’ I retorted, but she took no ill-humour from my sharpness.

‘Not so. I have had three husbands. And more than one… admirer , shall we say. I am a widow at present, but I have my eye on a likely man.’ Mistress Saxby pursed her lips at the prospect of the man in question. ‘Are you courted?’

Was I?

I would like to put the light back into your eyes…

‘Yes,’ I said, lured into indiscretion before I could stop myself.

‘Is he a worthy man?’

‘Too good for me.’

‘Nonsense. No man is too good for a good woman.’ She slid a glance over me, her smile widening. ‘Do I suppose it is not marriage he offers?’

And I found myself replying to her catechism. ‘No.’

‘Is he wed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do they live together?’

‘They spent Christmas together in Dorset at Kingston Lacy.’ That much I knew. ‘She travels to London to join him. She carries their first child.’

Mistress Saxby’s ample lips became a thin line as she contemplated. ‘It doesn’t sound too hopeful. I’d be wary of him, if I were you. Conflicting loyalties make for difficulties. But the question is: do you like him?’

I shook my head, turned my face away.

‘If you wish to keep your own counsel, it’s your choice.’

This made me feel churlish. ‘How do I know if I can trust him?’ I asked this worldly woman.

‘Has he given you a gift?’ I shook my head. ‘If he does it shows he has designs on your respectability.’

‘Oh.’ I thought about this. Not that any gift had been offered. ‘So I should refuse any such gift?’

Her eye gleamed. ‘I’d not say that. I’d say accept any gift he makes you.’ The gleam brightened to a twinkle as if she had been the recipient of many gifts in her past life. ‘It may well be that it is the sign of a true regard, if he is willing to spend money on you and he matches the gift well to your inclination. And before you argue that it is too particular, the great Capellanus says—have you read Capellanus?—well, he says that a woman who is loved may freely accept from her lover a mirror or a girdle or a pair of gloves.’

‘So if he gives me a gift of a mirror he loves me true?’ I found myself smiling.

‘Of course.’ But her answering smile was sly. ‘Unless he merely wishes to lure you into his bed. Only you can tell. You need to balance the good against the bad in any relationship, mistress. But I’d say take him, if you would. I have taken a lover, and enjoyed the experience.’

I thought about this too. I could well imagine, as I took in the expanse of her comfortable figure, assessing the quality of her enveloping cloak and her stocky grey palfrey. She was not without means.

‘And sin?’ I asked bluntly, startling even myself. ‘What about sin? What about adultery, if I take this man to my bed?’

‘Sin!’ She brushed the word away as if it were a troublesome gnat. ‘Will God punish us for snatching at happiness in a world that brings a woman precious little of it? I say not. I live a good life, I give charity to the starving, I confess my sins and find absolution. Would God begrudge me a kiss or the warm arms of a man on a cold night? I’m too old to look for marriage, I think. Now you’ll be an object of admiration and desire. You’re comely, and doubtless fertile, mistress.’

And Mistress Saxby raised her harsh voice—much like the raucous jays that hopped along the hedgerows—in song.

‘Love is soft and love is sweet, and speaks in accents fair;

Love is mighty agony, and love is mighty care:

Love is utmost ecstasy and love is keen to dare ,

Love is wretched misery: to live with, it’s despair…’

She leaned to nudge me with a knowing elbow.

‘But to live without it is even worse,’ she added in an aside accompanied by an arch look.

I was sorry to see her go at Lincoln.

‘I need to offer a prayer for inflammation of the knees,’ she said with a roguish wink. ‘And other bits of me. I’ll not be able to go on pilgrimages for ever.’ The badges on her cloak glinted in the cold light. ‘Make the most of your youth, my girl. You’ll regret it if you don’t.’ With broad fingers, surprisingly agile, she unpinned one of her badges showing the Virgin seated in Majesty under a canopy, with the Christ child in her arms. ‘Take this. One of my better ones—pewter rather than lead—can’t afford the silver. From Our Lady’s Shrine at Walsingham. She’ll keep you safe.’

Mistress Saxby patted my hand as her face grew sombre. ‘If you do take this man, what I would say is: beware of the wife. It’s easy to be carried away by the glamour of stolen kisses, but a wife can make your life a misery. Take my word for it.’

‘I have no intention of crossing the path of his wife.’

Mistress Saxby’s sharply cynical smile returned.

‘As you wish, mistress, as you wish. Depends how fervent his kisses are, I’d say. Or how bottomless his purse!’

A hitch of her broad shoulders and she was gone, but her advice occupied my mind, all the way to Kettlethorpe. And then I abandoned it, because what Mistress Saxby might choose to do with her life was not for the Lady of Kettlethorpe. Besides, there was no choice for me to make. The Duke, in typical Plantagenet manner, had swept me aside as if I were no more than a young hound under his feet. Something much desired in one instance could become a matter for boredom in the blink of an eye.

The rank poverty of Kettlethorpe settled over me in a desolation, as thick and dark as one of the boiled blood puddings that my cook was too keen on stirring up. Three thousand acres my son held here, and all of it either sand or stone or thick forest. Of good soil there was none; the land was incapable of producing anything other than a poor yield of hay, flax or hemp, and the meadows flooded regularly. Ruinous was the only word to come to mind as the mean houses came into view. The village looked run down, grim with deprivation, and so did my manor.

No surprise then that Hugh had sold his soldiering skills. Not that life as a soldier was anything but his first preference. If it was a choice of riding off to war or tilling the land, farming came a long way second, even if it meant being absent from me for most of our short married life. I considered, not for the first time, how I had managed to conceive three children. But I had, and they were my blessing.

For a moment the hall was silent except from the drip of water into a wooden bucket and the distant irritable bark of a dog. Then a rush of feet, followed by an authoritarian voice. I opened my arms, and into them fell Margaret, growing awkwardly at six years, and Thomas who at four had more noisy energy than he could control. I kissed Margaret, as self-contained as Blanche, and hugged Thomas until he squirmed for release. Hugh’s heir. Hugh’s pride and joy and hope for the future.