Authors: Susan Higginbotham
Bess looked wishfully at a dusty table, where in one of Hugh's castles a welcoming loaf of bread and some wine or ale would have stood. She had arrived too late for dinner, she knew. “Might I have something to tide me over until supper? Or am I expected to hunt my food?”
Will laughed. “Come, sister, it's not that bad. We’ll get some wafers for you, and you can wait in Joan's chamber until she arrives.”
Her brother led her to Joan's chamber, which as Bess had expected was richly furnished, with a brightly colored songbird hanging in a gilt cage. She smiled, remembering that Joan had always vowed that when she no longer had to share a chamber with Bess, she would have a bird. Bess had never been partial to their chirping. At least marriage had allowed Joan to realize one of her ambitions.
“So, tell me. Are you enjoying life as Hugh's wife? Is it strange being married to someone nearly our father's age?”
“It's not so bad,” she admitted. “He's not elderly, after all, and he's pleasant and treats me well. How about you and Joan?”
“Oh, you know Joan. She has her moods, but mostly she's fine. Actually, I forget sometimes we’re husband and wife, we’ve known each other for so long. Although we have—”
Joan, followed by a manservant laden with goods, hurried into her chamber and stared at Bess, aghast. “I thought you were not coming until tomorrow. Perhaps you just made good time?”
“No. In fact, rain delayed me for half a day.”
“Just your forgetfulness, Joan. Her chamber's dirty too. I counted ten fleas.”
“Well, why didn’t you remind me?”
“Because that's your job to remember these things. I’m not the lady of the castle.”
“Still, what harm would it have done to remind me? It's the same as with your mother last month. Sometimes I think you want me to look bad in front of your family, Will de Montacute!”
Fearing that she was about to witness a full-scale battle, Bess put in, “It is all right, really. These things happen.”
“A lot around here,” Will muttered.
“The area around here looks very beautiful. Perhaps we could ride?” She put in coaxingly, “Joan gave you that fine horse for your wedding, Will. I’ve yet to see you on it.”
“Oh, all right,” Will said.
Bess's stomach growled, just as a servant brought in a tray of wafers. “After I have a couple of these, please.” She bit into one. “Delicious,” she proclaimed.
“A recipe I brought with me,” Joan said smugly.
As Bess rode beside Will and Joan, who to Bess's relief appeared as content and compatible as their matched greys once they left the castle for the fresh air, she noted a little to her chagrin that Joan was looking more beautiful than ever. Bess had not been unmindful of her own maturing and improving looks, and she had noticed Hugh's eyes traveling toward her body on more than one occasion. Though she knew she could never approach Joan in beauty, she had at least hoped, therefore, that the contrast between them had become less sharp. But as Bess had been maturing and improving, so had Joan, and the distance between them in terms of appearance was as wide as ever.
Life, Bess reflected, was deeply unfair. The more so, she thought after she had been in Joan's company for a day or two, in that Joan did not appear to appreciate her good fortune. Though she was animated enough when Will was around, when he was off attending to business she was distant and strangely quiet, and half of the time she scarcely seemed to be listening to what Bess was saying. Bess found herself deeply missing the companionable Emma, who had gone to her manor near Hanley Castle to take care of some business while Bess was at Mold. “I don’t know why you asked me here,” Bess said after a day or so of having to repeat herself so often that one might have thought Joan was hard of hearing. “First you forgot when I was coming, and now you can’t be bothered to attend to me.”
“I am sorry. I have not been a good hostess, I know.”
That was strange too, this meekness. As Will could no doubt attest, Joan, like all of the king's close relations, was possessed of a temper; Bess had felt it on more than one occasion. Perhaps she was ill, Bess thought for the first time. “You are not quite well, perhaps?”
“I am fine.”
“I know you and Will squabbled the other day, but you always have, really. How do you get on with him?”
“Why do you ask? Do you think I am not a good wife to him?”
This, sharply spoken, was more like the Joan whom Bess knew, but as Bess had not meant her words to carry any sting, she was flummoxed as to how to continue. After a moment she said, “Of course, I think you are a good wife, Joan. I meant no harm.”
Joan shrugged. “Do you like Hugh?”
“He is kind to me and very good-natured.”
“Have you lain with him yet?”
“No. My father told him he had to wait a year.”
“It's almost been that, you know.”
“I know.” Bess studied her wedding ring. Perhaps it was simply Joan's sour mood, but she had been surprised to find herself missing not only Emma but also her husband during this visit to Mold. The prospect of bedding with him, however, was not one she welcomed, Anne le Despenser's reassuring words of the year before notwithstanding. The idea of Hugh—or anyone—touching her most private places was so strange, and the idea of touching or even seeing his was stranger yet. She wondered if Joan had lain with Will, but it was hardly a question she felt she could ask about her brother.
“I have lain with my husband,” Joan announced. “We started on Will's birthday.”
“What is it like—with a man, I mean?” She hastened to add, “Not with Will in particular.”
“It hurts the first time, and then you ache the next day. Dreadfully, as if you’ve been on horseback far too long. Will was nervous the first time and had too much to drink. I didn’t like it.”
“Do you now?”
Another shrug. “It's all right. Perhaps I shall get with child soon. Then perhaps—”
She started sobbing, quietly at first and violently, so violently that Bess shoved open the chamber door and screamed for assistance. Joan's attendants raced inside, followed by Bess's, but all were shoved aside by Joan's nurse, who like Bess's had stayed with her old charge to tend her as a bride. “It's all right, my lady. Come. Let's put you to bed.” Gesturing toward the others to stand aside, she helped Joan to her feet and led her toward the inner chamber where Joan had her bed. Soon she returned alone. “My lady is sleeping.”
“Matilda, what ails her?” Bess asked. “Joan has never been sickly in the past.”
Matilda shook her head. “I don’t know, Lady Despenser.” “Has she seen a physician? Does my brother know? I am sure he would be most concerned if—”
“She just needs her rest, my lady. It is a—female thing.”
Bess was inclined to remind Matilda that she too was a female, but recognizing the futility of pressing the matter further, she left the room for her own bedchamber. She hoped to garner some more information later from Joan herself, but she was never alone with her thereafter. In any case, Joan was cheerful throughout the rest of Bess's stay, and quite affectionate toward Will, so Bess convinced herself that there was no great cause for concern. Remembering the couple's quarrel of a few days before, she guessed that Joan had probably been feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities of running the household and of being a wife to Will. Had Will perhaps been overbearing? Bess decided that she herself could have made more allowances for her friend; after all, Bess had come to Hugh's household after it had been years in the running, while Joan and Will had been required to start a brand-new household. No wonder Joan forgot things here and there!
Irritating as Joan could be to Bess sometimes, she was still fond of her and wished her well, so Bess determined to exert her one year of seniority over her brother and to speak to him seriously about his wife. Her opportunity did not come until the day before she was to return home. Catching her brother alone by the stables, Bess said, “Will, the other day you and Joan had that argument about my chamber, and I think it upset her a little, maybe more than you realized at the time. I hope you don’t expect her to be perfect at running your household. After all, she is only a little older than you, and she is learning things, just as you are.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you become such a font of wisdom?”
“I am not, but I am a woman, and women get upset at such things. And as you said once, Joan is dramatic. Such things upset her more than other women, perhaps.” She said in a more wheedling tone, “Please, Will? I hate to see either of you unhappy over such trifles. Joan really did seem miserable the other day.”
“Women are strange,” said Will cheerfully. “That's something I know. But maybe you’re right.”
“And I’ll give Joan a hint or two about how to be a better manager,” Bess said doubtfully. “That is, if I can think of a way to do it without offending her.”
Will shook his head. “Give Joan advice? I wouldn’t chance it. The Countess of Kent will be coming for a visit soon. Let her hazard it.”
“Now I think
you’re
right,” said Bess. “Well, are we to go falconing today, or not?”
“Leave without showing me that bird Hugh gave you in action? Not a chance.”
Satisfied that she had done all she could to promote domestic happiness between Will and Joan, and modestly congratulating herself that she had succeeded to some extent, Bess traveled home in high spirits. Hugh and his household were at Cardiff Castle, where Hugh was busy assembling his men, for he had received a long-expected message from the king: He was to sail from Dartmouth to Gascony, where his troops would aid in diverting the French from Brittany. So preoccupied was everyone with the raising of men that Bess's homecoming did not merit as much attention as she would have liked. Nonetheless, Bess helped with the preparations as best she could, and by the time all of the men had arrived at Cardiff, from where they were scheduled to leave for the coast the next day, she was tired and eager to be left to herself. But the men had to be fed, and as it was perhaps the last time they would see comfortable quarters for quite a while, they had to be fed and entertained in style that last night in Wales. When after a long evening Hugh came in to her chamber for his nightly visit, Bess prayed silently it would be a short one, as indeed all of their encounters had been over the past few days.
After Emma and Mary left the room, Bess smiled at Hugh as he parted the bed curtains and sat down next to her. “I shall miss you, Hugh,” she said politely. “I hope this business won’t take long.”
“Who knows?” Hugh shrugged a bit too elaborately. Though he was by no means drunk, he was slightly tipsy, Bess thought; the wine had flowed particularly generously in the castle's great hall that night. Bess herself had had a little more than to which she was accustomed, but the effect had been only to give her a headache in addition to fatigue. “It could be weeks. Could be months.” Hugh toyed with a pillow for a moment or two, then looked into Bess's face. “Sweetheart,” he said. “We’ve been married for over a year.”
“Yes, Hugh.” Her heart began to pound.
“We may not see each other for months, Bess. We may not see each other ever again, you know. It's always a possibility. Do you understand, Bess? It's time we became man and wife, truly.”
“Hugh—”
“I won’t hurt you.” He took her in his arms, then gently eased her backward onto her pillows. “I promise, sweetheart.”
He seemed to believe that the discussion was over, for his hands were exploring under her shift. But Bess was not ready to acquiesce. She tried to push him off her, but he was far stronger than she. “Hugh! I—I am not ready yet. I am—”
“Nonsense,” said Hugh, whose lips were roving now. He stopped for air and smiled. “Haven’t you seen yourself lately? You’ve grown up, Bess.”
“Please, Hugh!”
He shook his head and began to push the shift up toward her waist, not roughly but insistently. “My love,” he whispered. “It’ll be fine. I promise.”
Bess felt not fear now but anger, anger that he was paying no attention to her wishes. She pounded on his back and hissed, “You are only a bully, Hugh! No better than your father!”
Hugh pulled away instantly and got off the bed. His face was ashen. Then he said quietly, “I will not trouble you anymore, my lady. Good night.”
She lay motionless for a while after she heard her chamber door close behind Hugh. There was no sound from Mary or Emma in the anteroom where they slept; probably they had guessed what was in her husband's mind and had made themselves scarce. She sat up, rearranged her shift, and closed the bed curtains herself. Then she lay back beneath the covers. It was a warm night, but she was shivering.
What had she done? It was a husband's right to take his wife when he wanted, Bess knew full well, and Hugh had been waiting patiently enough for over a year. He had spoken truly; her figure was no longer that of a child. With Cardiff packed full of Hugh's men, she had seen glances sent her way when she moved about that had left her in no doubt of that, even if she had not had the additional evidence of the fabulously expensive mirror Hugh had bought her as a belated New Year's gift.
And Hugh had not been brutish about the affair. Bess had seen women whose husbands were cruel to them, women with bruises on their faces even while they were big with child. Hugh, she was well aware, despised the husbands of such women; once in Bess's presence he had taken aside a tenant of his whose wife had appeared with a purple welt on her face and had spelled out to him, in no uncertain terms, what would happen to him at Hugh's own hands if his wife displayed such bruises in the future. The man had taken heed. Hugh was not this sort of man; his hands had been ardent just now, but not rough.