Peter Ransley: Cromwell’s Blessing

‘Go away! You stink, sir!’

I pulled her to me and kissed her. She shoved me away. I collided into the crib, almost knocking it over. Now really angry, she went to the door. Contrite, I followed to appease her, but the baby was giving startled, terrified cries and I returned to soothe her.

The encounter with Anne roused me. We had not slept together since I returned, but I resolved not to go to her room. Although I mocked Dr Latchford, I could see that, even when she had been out in the garden, her skin did not colour. Her blue eyes had lost some of their sparkle. She loved rushing round with Luke, but she left him more and more with Jane and Adams.

I was asleep when she came into my room and climbed into bed beside me.

‘Are you sure?’ I mumbled.

‘Sssshhh!’

‘Dr Latchford –’

‘Do you want me? Or do you want Dr Latchford?’ She leaned over me and kissed me on the mouth.

There was a violence, a hunger in that kiss that swept away the dry old doctor and all our arguments and fears, swept them away in the wonderful rediscovery of the touching of skin, bringing every feeling crackling back to life until her cheeks coloured and her eyes sparkled. We laughed at the absurdity of our arguments, at the sheer joy of being together.

We were side by side. I began to climb on top of her.

‘No!’

‘No?’

She twisted away and wriggled on top, which seemed unnatural, outlandish to me. I had heard some of the men, in their cups, talking of whores having them like men. I had reproved them, not just for the whores, but saying did they want to wear skirts, like cuckolded husbands shamed in a Skimmington? But, before I could utter a word, she had clumsily but effectively put me inside her. I was on the brink and could not stop, until she gave a cry of pain and pulled back. I checked myself but her nails dug into my back as she thrust me back into her and we came together in a confusion of pain and pleasure. She instantly rolled away and lay panting with her back towards me.

‘Are you all right?’

She nodded and curled up to sleep.

‘What was all that?’

‘Did you not like it, sir?’ she murmured. ‘It’s called world upside down.’

It was a well-worn phrase describing the chaos after the war, vividly illustrated in a pamphlet by a man wearing his britches on his head and his boots on his hands. Now it seemed to have entered the bedroom.

‘World – world –? Who on earth told you that?’

‘Lucy.’

I was outraged. ‘You talk about our love-making with that woman?’

Lucy Hay, the Countess of Carlisle, had been the mistress of John Pym, leader of the opposition to the King. Since he had died, there had been great speculation about who was now sharing her bed.

Anne sat up, fully awake, her gown half off. Her belly was slacker, her breasts full, but her neck was thinner, her cheeks pinched. ‘We talk about how a woman should keep a man when she has just had a child. About what to do when – when it is difficult to, to make love … That’s all.’

‘All!’

She hid her face on my neck and I held her to me. I could feel her heart pounding. ‘We should wait,’ I said half-heartedly. ‘You know what the doctor –’

She pulled away. ‘Wait? I want another child in my belly before you go off again!’

She spoke so loudly and ferociously I clamped my hand over her mouth. There was silence for a moment, then a cry from Liz, broken off by a stuttering cough.

‘I will not be going away again.’

‘You will. I know .’

Liz gave a long, piercing wail. ‘She’s hungry. Could you not go to her?’

‘Women who are in milk can’t conceive. The wet-nurse fed her. Don’t you want another child?’

‘Yes, but when you are well.’

‘I am well.’

I put my hand over her mouth again as footsteps stumbled past the door. I listened to Jane’s soothing, sleepy voice, the clink of a spoon against a pot of some syrup, until the coughing eventually ceased. Anne ran her finger gently down my nose and along my lips. She dropped her gaze demurely. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I will not do that again, sir, if it displeases you.’

I swallowed. I could not get out of my head the vision of her being above me and began to be aroused again. She laughed out loud at my expression. ‘You’re like a small boy who’s just been told he can’t have a pie!’ As I moved to her, she stopped me with a raised finger. ‘Wait, wait, wait! Promise me you are Thomas Stonehouse, and not that stupid Tom Neave.’

I put on my deepest gentleman’s voice. I enjoyed being a gentleman when it was a game. ‘I am Thomas Stonehouse –’

‘I mean it!’ She clenched her fists. ‘Why do you put on that stupid voice? Why do you quarrel with Lord Stonehouse? You can get on with him so well when you want to!’

‘When I do what he wants.’

‘ Please , Tom!’

‘All right.’

‘Promise? Promise you will not quarrel with him when he gets back from Newcastle.’

‘I promise.’

‘Touch the bed.’

When we were children we made solemn vows by touching the apple tree. Now we touched our marriage bed. Being a great lady was as much a game for her as being a gentleman was for me. But for her it was a deadly serious game. I looked at her knotted hands, her earnest, determined face, even lovelier in its fragile, faded pallor. I felt a deep, swelling surge of love for her. Being a gentleman at that moment seemed a most desirable thing to be. No more fighting. Sleeping in my own bed. Or hers. I touched the bed-head.

‘I promise.’

When the letter arrived next morning it felt like too much of a coincidence. I could not believe she had not known, before coming to my room, that Lord Stonehouse was on his way back. But she looked so shocked that I could ever think she would dissemble like that, and said it so charmingly, and was so full of excitement, and fussed so much over my linen and over a button on my blue velvet suit – in short, it was so much as if we had just been married all over again that I was completely disarmed and able to read the letter, if not with equanimity, with more composure than otherwise. Lord Stonehouse, as frugal with words as he was with money, presented his compliments and would appreciate me calling at Queen Street at noon sharp.

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