estate itself that I dreaded, so far from my beloved London, but Roger’s mother, who’d continued to live there after Sir James’s death at the end of 1658. She was a papist, given overmuch to dogged prayer. I’d known the old man had despised me and had pleaded with Roger to break with me, but his mother’s hatred ran even deeper. Roger was her only child, and she defended him like a mother lioness does her cub. Through Roger, I learned she blamed me somehow not only for beguiling her son but also as the cause of her husband’s death. No matter what the reputation might be for hospitality at Dorney Court, I’d guessed there’d be none for me, and I was right.
Roger and I came by the river, the best way, he claimed, to see the house the first time. I saw, and I was unimpressed: a rambling, old-fashioned pile from the time of Queen Elizabeth, brick and timbers and plaster and greenery all jumbled together in the mists. Roger often lamented how badly the house had been ravaged by the parliamentary army in the war, and how his father’s collection of rare miniatures and medals had been plundered, but I suspected the estate still looked much as it had for the last century or two.
We were given chambers far from the others on account of our near-newlywed status, certain proof that Roger hadn’t confided much to his family. The main chamber had floors that dipped and chairs that creaked, and a high, water-stained ceiling that I stared at whenever I lay in bed, turned away from Roger.
I’d been a guest there for three days before Roger finally introduced me to his mother, a weary, faded woman who mercifully kept her dislike for me locked inside her black woolen mourning, along with most of her conversation. The only question she asked was whether I was with child yet. I told her no, and she then ceased to have any further to do with me, which was perfectly agreeable by my lights as well as hers.
That night, I felt Roger’s hand upon my hip.
“You needn’t have looked so shocked when my mother addressed you, Barbara,” he said in the dark, his fingers spreading as they journeyed along my hip to my thigh and back again. “A child would be a great blessing to us.”
I curled my fingers into a ball, trying not to tense beneath his touch. By law I belonged to him, as every wife did to her husband, and though I could withhold my own pleasure from spite if I chose, I could not refuse him the use of my body. “I was no such blessing to my mother.”
“Your mother had no choice because of the war,” he said. “You know that. She sent you into the country, where you’d be safe during the war. If you had a child of your own—of our own—you’d understand.”
“I cannot say if I would or not.” Unlike most young women, I’d been raised without any siblings, in a household of two childless women who had always made it clear they kept me for my mother’s payment alone. I’d never seen children and babies as other than noisy, demanding, untidy, and costly—a plague more to be avoided than desired. Surely this impression was my own mother’s legacy to me as well; the only time when my presence had given her any pleasure was when she’d successfully pushed me into wedding Roger.
“I think you would, dearest,” he said softly, shifting closer to me on the lumpy mattress, so I could feel his thighs pressing against mine. “I’ve heard that a woman doesn’t know true contentment until she holds her firstborn in her arms.”
“Did your mother tell you that, too?” I asked, unable to contain my bitterness. I didn’t want a child now, not his or any other man’s. Childbirth was as great a fatal peril to women as war to men, and even those who survived the pain and suffering likewise bore the scars— lost teeth, withered breasts, fat stomachs—to prove it. “That you must breed your wild filly to tame the spirit from her, and make her your broodmare?”
“My mother would never say that.” He’d
Roger and I came by the river, the best way, he claimed, to see the house the first time. I saw, and I was unimpressed: a rambling, old-fashioned pile from the time of Queen Elizabeth, brick and timbers and plaster and greenery all jumbled together in the mists. Roger often lamented how badly the house had been ravaged by the parliamentary army in the war, and how his father’s collection of rare miniatures and medals had been plundered, but I suspected the estate still looked much as it had for the last century or two.
We were given chambers far from the others on account of our near-newlywed status, certain proof that Roger hadn’t confided much to his family. The main chamber had floors that dipped and chairs that creaked, and a high, water-stained ceiling that I stared at whenever I lay in bed, turned away from Roger.
I’d been a guest there for three days before Roger finally introduced me to his mother, a weary, faded woman who mercifully kept her dislike for me locked inside her black woolen mourning, along with most of her conversation. The only question she asked was whether I was with child yet. I told her no, and she then ceased to have any further to do with me, which was perfectly agreeable by my lights as well as hers.
That night, I felt Roger’s hand upon my hip.
“You needn’t have looked so shocked when my mother addressed you, Barbara,” he said in the dark, his fingers spreading as they journeyed along my hip to my thigh and back again. “A child would be a great blessing to us.”
I curled my fingers into a ball, trying not to tense beneath his touch. By law I belonged to him, as every wife did to her husband, and though I could withhold my own pleasure from spite if I chose, I could not refuse him the use of my body. “I was no such blessing to my mother.”
“Your mother had no choice because of the war,” he said. “You know that. She sent you into the country, where you’d be safe during the war. If you had a child of your own—of our own—you’d understand.”
“I cannot say if I would or not.” Unlike most young women, I’d been raised without any siblings, in a household of two childless women who had always made it clear they kept me for my mother’s payment alone. I’d never seen children and babies as other than noisy, demanding, untidy, and costly—a plague more to be avoided than desired. Surely this impression was my own mother’s legacy to me as well; the only time when my presence had given her any pleasure was when she’d successfully pushed me into wedding Roger.
“I think you would, dearest,” he said softly, shifting closer to me on the lumpy mattress, so I could feel his thighs pressing against mine. “I’ve heard that a woman doesn’t know true contentment until she holds her firstborn in her arms.”
“Did your mother tell you that, too?” I asked, unable to contain my bitterness. I didn’t want a child now, not his or any other man’s. Childbirth was as great a fatal peril to women as war to men, and even those who survived the pain and suffering likewise bore the scars— lost teeth, withered breasts, fat stomachs—to prove it. “That you must breed your wild filly to tame the spirit from her, and make her your broodmare?”
“My mother would never say that.” He’d
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