house has shuttered windows and no glass. The silver spoon the master gave us on our wedding day is tarnished and no longer repays any light. The worked copper on the brewing kettle picks up my shadow when Igo close to it but the reflection is so tooled and beaten that my face is too pockmarked to be recognizable. In fact, I cannot think there is a looking glass in the parish, though no doubt there are some wives who have a secret sliver with which to horrify themselves and which they wisely do not seek to share. No, as far as I’m aware, our nearest likeness is two days’ distant. The master, as is the husband’s custom hereabouts among the gentlemen, sharded his wife’s long looking glass and buried the pieces with her, for fear of being haunted by her trace. So, unlike the town from where I came, where everyone who stepped out in the street would first have turned themselves this way and that in front of mirrors and could not have stepped twenty paces more before reflecting on themselves in window glass, we in this village walk around in blinded ignorance. We close an eye and see no more than a side of the nose, or possibly some facial hair, the outer regions of a beard. We know our hands and knees but not our eyes and teeth. So truly I can only guess what widow Gosse can see in me. And I suppose it is the same for her. Perhaps, without a husband to be her informant, she doesn’t even know how lined she is. That is the state of widowhood. We’ve no idea; we must hope for the best.
When I first started calling at her cottage, Kitty Gosse and I would hardly look each other in the eye. I was thinking of my Cecily—though Cecily was never this unbridled in my arms—and she, I must suppose, imagined herself unwidowed and back beneath the gouty, puffing Fowler Gosse, who died it’s said between these very legs. Hugged to death, with hair in his teeth, some wag has claimed. But over time I’ve ventured to study every part of her and have found great pleasure in her enthusiastic limbs. Tonight, though, I leave neither of us satisfied. I am too anxious and too hurried. My purpose in coming here, in tapping on her cottage door, is not so much to spend myself in her and have her disburse herself with me, so that wemight deserve a full night’s sleep in company, but more to make myself forget or at least to banish from my mind for tonight the prospects I have overheard in Master Kent’s dark gallery.
I cannot say that Master Jordan has proved himself—not yet—to be a rough or thoughtless man, though he shows a stony disregard for proper burial. He is efficient, that is all. And unceremonial. He talks good sense, though sometimes sense is colder than an icicle. And sharper too. He listened patiently while Master Kent recounted the history of the newcomers: the doves, the fires, the bows, the pillory. And his replies displayed the mildest exasperation: “It is my judgment, cousin Charles, that you make problems for yourself by being kind.” The two men in the pillory had only got their just deserts, in his view. If one had died, that was still within the bounds of what the law allows. “A sturdy vagabond and fire setter” should expect to have his ears cut off and then be hoisted to the gibbet. That was not unusual. The younger man? Well, he should still serve out his week-long sentence: “What is the case for being lenient? He has given community offense and so should suffer justice in the full gaze of the community. Besides, cousin, you say he has already threatened you and holds you guilty of his kinsman’s death. Would you have him walking free, in such a vengeful frame of mind? No, we will take him with us, far from harm, when we depart. We’ll lash him to the saddle of a horse and set him free only when it is safe. Perhaps, we will equip him with a limp, as a reminder to be good, and wise. No doubt the woman you describe, the sister or the daughter or the wife, whoever she might be … well, no doubt she
When I first started calling at her cottage, Kitty Gosse and I would hardly look each other in the eye. I was thinking of my Cecily—though Cecily was never this unbridled in my arms—and she, I must suppose, imagined herself unwidowed and back beneath the gouty, puffing Fowler Gosse, who died it’s said between these very legs. Hugged to death, with hair in his teeth, some wag has claimed. But over time I’ve ventured to study every part of her and have found great pleasure in her enthusiastic limbs. Tonight, though, I leave neither of us satisfied. I am too anxious and too hurried. My purpose in coming here, in tapping on her cottage door, is not so much to spend myself in her and have her disburse herself with me, so that wemight deserve a full night’s sleep in company, but more to make myself forget or at least to banish from my mind for tonight the prospects I have overheard in Master Kent’s dark gallery.
I cannot say that Master Jordan has proved himself—not yet—to be a rough or thoughtless man, though he shows a stony disregard for proper burial. He is efficient, that is all. And unceremonial. He talks good sense, though sometimes sense is colder than an icicle. And sharper too. He listened patiently while Master Kent recounted the history of the newcomers: the doves, the fires, the bows, the pillory. And his replies displayed the mildest exasperation: “It is my judgment, cousin Charles, that you make problems for yourself by being kind.” The two men in the pillory had only got their just deserts, in his view. If one had died, that was still within the bounds of what the law allows. “A sturdy vagabond and fire setter” should expect to have his ears cut off and then be hoisted to the gibbet. That was not unusual. The younger man? Well, he should still serve out his week-long sentence: “What is the case for being lenient? He has given community offense and so should suffer justice in the full gaze of the community. Besides, cousin, you say he has already threatened you and holds you guilty of his kinsman’s death. Would you have him walking free, in such a vengeful frame of mind? No, we will take him with us, far from harm, when we depart. We’ll lash him to the saddle of a horse and set him free only when it is safe. Perhaps, we will equip him with a limp, as a reminder to be good, and wise. No doubt the woman you describe, the sister or the daughter or the wife, whoever she might be … well, no doubt she
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