S. Parris - Sacrilege

‘I hadn’t thought I cared about such trifles any more,’ she continued, ‘but when she laid it out on the bed, I couldn’t conceal my pleasure. She told me it was an early Christmas present, and for a moment I really thought I had misjudged her, that there was a buried vein of human kindness under that crusty surface. I was soon disabused of that, of course.’

I was about to reply when the serving girl appeared at our table to enquire whether we wanted any more of anything. I asked for cold meat, more bread and another jug of ale; Sophia’s tale clearly demanded some effort and I felt she should keep her strength up. When the food had been brought and she had helped herself to the cold beef, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and resumed her story.

‘She made me put the dress on and turn around for her. She seemed satisfied with the result. When she had pinched my cheeks hard to put colour in them, she stood back, looked me up and down and said, “You shall do very well, as long as you keep your mouth shut. Only speak if he asks you a question, and then make sure it’s a ‘Yes, sir’ or a ‘No, sir’. Understood?” When I asked who she meant, she merely tutted and shoved her sour old face right up to mine. “Your husband,” she said.’

‘I imagine you took that well,’ I said, breaking off a piece of bread, a smile at the corner of my lips.

‘I screamed blue murder,’ Sophia said, a grin unexpectedly lighting her face. ‘I’d have bolted if she hadn’t locked the door. As it was, she had to slap me around the face twice before I would be quiet. Then she sat me down on the bed and made me listen. “Do you know what you are?” she asked me. “You’re a filthy whore, that’s what, with no respect for God nor your family. Plenty in your situation have no one to look out for them, and they end up making their living on the streets, which is no more than you deserve. But you can thank Providence that I have found a better arrangement for you. A decent man, respectable, with a good income, has agreed to take you to wife. You can change your name and leave your whole history behind you. You’re still young and can be made to look pretty. All you have to do is be obedient and dutiful, as a wife should be. If you’d learned those qualities as a daughter, your life might have been very different now,” she added, just to twist the knife. “What if I don’t like him?” I asked. She slapped me again. “It’s not for you to like or dislike, hussy,” she said. “You can marry Sir Edward Kingsley and live in comfort, with the good regard of society, or you can make your own way. Beg for bread or whore for it, I care not. Because if you mar this on purpose, girl, after everything I have done for you, don’t expect me to feed and clothe you for one day more.” So saying, she locked me in the room and told me I had until the afternoon to make my choice.’

‘Sir Edward Kingsley?’ I rubbed my chin. ‘A titled man. You’d think he’d have his pick of women – no offence, but why would he choose a wife whose history could bring him disgrace, if it were to become known? What did he get from the bargain?’

Sophia’s face set hard.

‘Control, I suppose. He got a wife who was young and pretty enough – though that’s all gone now,’ she added, passing a hand across her gaunt cheek.

‘Not at all,’ I said, hoping it did not sound insincere. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips.

‘The fact that I had a past to hide appealed to him,’ she continued. ‘He thought it would be a way of keeping me bound to his will. He imagined I would be so grateful to have been saved from a life on the streets that I would put up with anything, not daring to complain. Absolutely anything .’ She fairly spat these last words. ‘Of course, I didn’t learn any of this until after we were married. He could be very charming in company.’

‘So you agreed to marry him?’

There was a long pause.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Bruno. What choice did I have? I had nothing left – nothing. You of all people should understand that. The hot-headed part of me thought of running away, of course. But perhaps having the child had changed me.’ Her voice grew quieter. ‘I knew it would be hopeless – I had seen beggar women and whores in the street, I knew I would not survive long like that. Besides, I had formed an idea – you will think it foolish …’ She looked at me tentatively.

‘Try me.’

‘I thought that one day, when he was older, he might somehow be able to find out my name and come looking for me.’

‘Who?’

‘My son, of course. I had this idea that, when he grew, he would realise he did not look like the people he believed to be his parents, and then the truth would come out, and he might want to learn of his real mother. I didn’t want him to find me dead or living in a bawdy-house if that day came. And this Sir Edward seemed affable enough, when he came to visit. The way my aunt fawned on him, you’d have thought he was the Second Coming. So I made my choice. I would swallow my pride and marry a man I did not care for. I would not be the first woman to have done that, in exchange for security and a house to live in.’

She fell silent then, and picked at her bread.

‘Tell me about this Sir Edward Kingsley,’ I prompted, when it seemed she had become sunk in her own thoughts.

‘He was twenty-seven years older than me, for a start.’ She curled her lip in distaste. I tried to look as sympathetic as I could, bearing in mind that I was a good sixteen years her senior and had once desired her myself. And did still, if I was honest, despite the alteration in her. I could not help wondering how she would feel about that; would the idea prompt the same disgust that she expressed at the thought of this ageing husband?

‘He was a magistrate in Canterbury,’ she continued. ‘Do you know the city?’

‘I have never been, but of course I know it by reputation – it was one of the greatest centres of pilgrimage in Europe, until your King Henry VIII had the great shrine destroyed.’

‘The shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, yes. But the cathedral dominates the city even now – it is the oldest in England, you know. I suppose it would have been a pleasant enough place to live, in different circumstances.’

‘What was so wrong with your situation, then?’

She sighed, rearranging her long limbs on the bench in an effort to find a more comfortable position, and leaned forward with her elbows on the table.

‘Sir Edward was a widower. He had a son of twenty-three from his first marriage, Nicholas, who still lived at home. They didn’t get along, and he resented me from the outset, as you may imagine. But that was nothing compared to my husband. Sir Edward was of the view that behind closed doors a wife ought to combine the role of maid and whore, to save him paying for either, and do so meekly and gratefully. And if I was stubborn , which was his word for refusing his demands, he whipped me with a horsewhip. In his experience, he said, it worked just as well on women.’

She kept her voice steady as she said this, but I noticed how her jaw clenched tight and she sucked in her cheeks to keep the emotion in check. I shook my head.

‘ Dio mio , Sophia – I can’t imagine what you have been through. Was he a drinker, then?’

‘Not at all. That made it worse, in a way. There are those who will lash out in a drunken rage – that is one kind of man, and they will often repent of it bitterly the next day. My husband was not like that – he always seemed master of his actions, and his violence was entirely calculated. He used it just as he said, in the same way that you would beat an animal to break it through fear.’

‘Did anyone know how he was treating you?’