“So where are the girls in Sarum?”
Abigail Mason’s face was always perfectly still. Edward had noticed that for a long time.
Her broad, pale brow was always placid; her brown hair pulled tightly back; her face, which receded to a firmly chiselled angle at the chin, was never allowed to give way to any animation.
It was as though a Tudor painter had depicted her face and body in severe, chaste lines on a wooden panel before she had been allowed to step into the world and assume a life in the flesh. Her mouth was carefully held in a modest line. Was there a hint of bitterness there he sometimes wondered? If so it was perfectly controlled. Her eyes were deep brown but gave nothing away. There were often dark rings under them. A generation earlier, instead of being a Protestant, she might have been a nun.
Abigail Mason wanted a child. She was twenty-eight.
Once, when she was twenty-five, she had thought that she was pregnant, but it had turned out to be a false hope. She did not know why she had failed. True, her husband had not been able to arouse her to any great passion, but she was sure that this was not important.
Was it her fault they had no child? She knew most people supposed it must be. The Mason family was plentiful; her husband’s cousin Robert who lived at Fisherton nearby, had six healthy children. And yet some instinct told her that she could have one still. She did not know how she knew, but she was sure it was so.
How she longed for it. When she saw a baby carried in the street, she was irrepressibly drawn to it; when she saw Robert’s wife suckle her child, she could not help an almost greedy expression coming over her placid face as she ached to do the same. Was it a sin to long for a child of her own? She prayed for it every night. And still it had not come.
She was firm with herself. Her father, a dour London bookbinder who had taken up the Lutheran persuasion, had taught all his children that they must suffer: it was to be expected. She suffered.
Peter Mason was of medium height and, unusually for his family, thin. But on his rather delicate body there rested, cheerfully, a large, round, balding head. He was a gentle, simple man and it was a tribute to Abigail’s calm sense of duty that his broad face lit up with an innocent smile of pleasure whenever he saw her.
They occupied the same house where old Benedict had had his bell foundry; but they only rented half the space. The bell foundry had been discontinued thirty years ago and Peter made cutlery now. He, too, hoped for a child; apart from this he was contented.
She wished, sometimes, that he had more ambition. She wondered if, without her, he would even have served God as he should. It had taken her much persuasion to bring him to destroy the idolatrous window in St Thomas’s church. But if Peter Mason was not all she might have hoped for, “I must be grateful for what I have,” she would remind herself. And life in their house was quiet and pleasant enough.
Except for one thing: about that, she knew, something must be done; it was as important as the church window; and as she walked back with Peter that morning she reminded him:
“You must act now, husband. You promised me.”
It was a confrontation he dreaded. He wondered if he could put it off until tomorrow.
When Nellie Godfrey left the George Inn with the merchant from Antwerp that evening, she had a feeling that he might give trouble. He was a large man and though he had taken a quantity of wine, she was not sure whether it had made him drunk or not. She glanced up at him shrewdly. She thought she could handle him: she could most men. Carefully but firmly she steered him towards her lodgings, and when the Fleming swung his great arm to pull her to him in the street she laughed and disentangled herself.
“Wait.”
Nellie Godfrey had a remarkable combination of gifts which made her attractive to men. She knew about them, but they came naturally: a gay, lively, outgoing nature combined with a body of such heavy sensuousness that the air around her seemed almost palpable with the aura of it.
She was below medium height, so that her head with its short, dark brown hair hardly came up to the Fleming’s chest. She wore a bright red half-open bodice laced across the front with ribbons and with high red and blue pads on the shoulders. Under this was a chemisette of thin white linen. She wore a full-bodied skirt to the ankles, dainty leather shoes and a jaunty little linen cap. Her best features were accentuated by her short stature: a pair of dazzling blue eyes with a flicker of hazel around the irises, that were always staring up beguilingly, a brilliant smile that revealed two rows of small, perfectly white teeth, and a pair of magnificent heavy breasts. It was when she came close however, that men became aware of a rich, thick sense of warmth that seemed to rise from below her breasts, carrying with it the heady sensuous scent of musk with which she perfumed herself whenever she could afford it.
“That woman,” Thomas Forest remarked to Shockley, “was made to be loved by many men.”
She liked her sensuousness: she was excited by it herself.
But she had a greater gift still. All her lovers felt they had received – as well as the rich warmth of her magnificent body, the triumph of holding her through her titanic orgasms – a share of her genuine affection, and a sense of an inner softness, a vulnerability in her nature that was touching.
Nellie often considered it, and she was satisfied that she liked most of her lovers. True, she sometimes had to sell herself to men she did not care for; but most of the time she had made her living by being the mistress of a few chosen men in the city. They paid her, of course, she had to eat; but it was their presents, which she did not ask for, that were important to her. She would take them out when she was alone, sit up in bed with them and survey them, murmuring: “He loves me a little, I think,” or even: “He loves me more than his wife.” And when, satisfied, she put her presents away again, she would sometimes cry a little; but this was something nobody ever saw.
It was over seventy years since old Eustace Godfrey had become a hermit, sixty-five since he had died. Three generations had passed since then, and none of them had done well. By her grandfather’s day, the last of the Godfrey money had all gone. Her father had been a drunkard and she and her only brother Piers had been orphaned when she was thirteen. Piers was a carpenter: a worthy, quiet fellow who often did small jobs for Shockley, who had befriended him. He had supported Nellie when she was a girl and he still loved her; but he was ashamed of her now. She could not help that.
“Our family was noble once,” he reminded her; it was two centuries, seven generations since any Godefroi had lived at Avonsford though and her brother’s foolish idea meant little to Nellie.
“Won’t buy me anything, will it?” she would retort fiercely.
Indeed, the fact that they bore the same name as the brother and sister was now an embarrassment to the worthy merchant Godfrey family of Salisbury whom Eustace had once despised. They had reached the apex of the town society, had even supplied a mayor of the city.
“Nellie Godfrey’s no kin of ours,” they were quick to say if her name was mentioned.
At the age of twenty-two, Nellie made a modest living. She owned several small pieces of jewellery, though they were worth less than she thought; she had a few fine dresses a rich merchant had given her. But though she was not unhappy with this achievement, the future was beginning to look uncertain. And when her brother pleaded with her: “What will you do next, Nellie?” she could only cry impatiently: “Something,” and refuse angrily to discuss the matter any further.
She had never wanted to sit at a spinning wheel or marry a poor artisan like her brother: the boredom of the prospect appalled her lively mind; but what were the alternatives?
“You won’t even get any husband,” Piers warned. “Your reputation’s gone.”
She knew it was true. She would not admit it but she was frightened. Yet some force inside drove her onward.
“I’ll think of something,” she would repeat defiantly, as her bright blue eyes looked out at what she could see of the world in Sarum, and watched for an opportunity.
She reached her lodgings in Culver Street. The Fleming had been ambling contentedly beside her, swaying a little and humming to himself; now he looked at the modest tenement and cried:
“Today I see a fine house like a chequerboard. Now I see a house I like even better – because it has a woman in it!” And his laugh echoed down the street.
“You must keep quiet,” she whispered, and hustled him through the doorway of the little courtyard and up the stairs.
Nellie Godfrey had never been in trouble with the authorities. This was partly owing to a certain tolerance among the town authorities and the bishop’s bailiff, partly to her own friendly relations with some of the leading merchants, and not least because she was discreet. The inn-keepers of the larger inns were glad to have her available for their more prosperous clients and she was careful never to offend the more straight-laced part of the city population by flaunting herself in public. Once or twice there had been murmurings, but each time powerful men in the town had either quashed them or warned Nellie to go away for a while.
The big Fleming knew nothing about this; nor did he care. He had just saved his wife and family; the arrangement with Forest and Shockley had given him a new lease of life. He was not drunk with wine, but he was maudlin with happiness and once upstairs in Nellie’s two chambers he would not be quiet. Moving heavily about on the creaking floors he continued humming to himself; then he began to sing, and though Nellie took his arm and tried to kiss him in order to quieten him down, it had no effect.
Quickly she began to unlace the heavy front of her dress, peeling it down over her wonderful breasts.
“Come,” she begged.
It seemed to work. His broad face lit up into a happy smile; stepping across the room he took her breasts in his big warm hands, lifting them slowly with an almost childish wonder.
She might have guessed, but she had not realised the big Fleming was so strong; only now did she discover that she was completely in his power.
He meant no harm. He was only happy. But as he sat his huge frame on the bed, she was astonished that he could lift her on to his lap like a child. Holding her still with one arm, he undressed her, gently but firmly, inspecting every inch of her pale skin with the same placid concentration she had seen earlier, when he had inspected the Wiltshire cheeses at the inn. He was humming to himself as he did so: strangely, she felt like a child again and the big man’s power was curiously comforting. For no particular reason, she laughed.
“At least he’s quiet,” she thought as this methodical performance went on.
But when he had finally completed his work and she was entirely naked, he calmly picked her up and placed her on the heavy oak bed – “Just like a piece of meat he’s going to baste,” she smiled to herself – as he peeled off his heavy stockings and tunic. Then placidly picking her up again, he began to make love to her.
At first he was gentle, still humming to himself as though in a dream and she found his slow caresses – his huge hands surprisingly sensitive – were not unpleasant. His breath smelt a little of wine, more of cheese; she was used to that. But soon the Fleming began to pant. His tongue and hands seemed to want to explore and possess every part of her: they roved, felt, squeezed. “He’s kneading me like a lump of dough,” she remarked to herself, and wondered how to respond. The big merchant did not require any response. His face was growing red, his eyes bulging: their stare of lust seemed hardly to see her at all.
And now, as his excitement mounted, he grew wilder. He picked her up, whirled her round the room, his voice rising to a shout of joy and lust. She was helpless to do anything about it. She tried to put her hand up to his mouth to restrain him, but it was the last gesture she could make before he crashed with her on to the bed and thrust hungrily into her.
For a moment her eyes opened wide. He was huge; she could only hold on to him as best she might while he thrust wildly, again and again until she wondered if even the stout oak frame would give way. She thought the climax must soon come; but she was mistaken.
It lasted over an hour. Sometimes he carried her in triumph round the room; then he would hurl himself with her upon the bed. Several times they fell together on the floor with a crash that shook the whole house. Her attempts to quieten him broke like futile waves upon the shore. He broke into song; he roared his triumph; he handled her as easily as if she had been a child’s doll, while every board in the room seemed to creak in protest as he cavorted about. He fairly bellowed in the exultation of his power, his happiness, and his relief from his debts.
“He’s not a man, he’s a bull,” she thought. It was half exciting, half comic. After a time, realising that the huge Fleming was, and would remain, completely out of control, she could do nothing but give in, and, as he crashed with her once more upon the bed, come again and again.
It was dawn when the big merchant rolled contentedly out of her lodgings.
And it was soon after dawn, when Nellie was still asleep, that the group of her neighbours, commandeered by Abigail Mason and led, shame-facedly and unwillingly by Peter, met to discuss what must be done.