Hamnet(94)

She is aware of Judith leaning over her shoulder, of her saying, What, what is it? and of course she cannot read the letters, cannot string them together to make sense to her – strange that she cannot recognise the name of her own twin – and she is aware of Susanna holding steady the corner of the playbill; her own fingers are trembling, as if caught in the wind from outside, just long enough for her to read it. Susanna tries to tweak it from her grasp but Agnes isn’t letting go, there is no way she’s letting go, not of that piece of paper, not of that name. Joan is looking at her, open-mouthed, taken aback at the turn her visit has taken. She was evidently underestimating the effect of the playbill, had no idea it might produce such a reaction. Agnes’s daughters are ushering Joan from the room, saying that their mother isn’t quite herself, Joan should return another time, and Agnes is able, despite the playbill, despite the name, despite everything, to hear the false concern in Joan’s voice as she bids them all goodbye.

Agnes takes to her bed, for the first time in her life. She goes to her chamber and she lies down and will not get up, not for meals, not for callers, not for sick people who knock at the side door. She doesn’t undress but lies there, on top of the blankets. Light streams in through the latticed windows, pushing itself into cracks in the bed-curtains. She keeps the playbill folded between her hands.

The sounds of the street outside, the noises of the house, the footsteps of the servants coming up and down the corridor, the hushed tones of her daughters all reach her. It is as if she is underwater and they are all up there, in the air, looking down on her.

At night, she rises from her bed and goes outside. She sits between the woven, rough sides of her skeps. The humming, vibrating noises from within, beginning just after dawn, seem to her the most eloquent, articulate, perfect language there is.

Susanna, scorched with rage, sits down at her desk-box with a blank sheet of paper. How could you? she writes to her father. Why would you, how could you not tell us?

Judith carries bowls of soup to her mother’s bed, a posy of lavender, a rose in a vase, a basket of fresh walnuts, their shells sealed up.

The baker’s wife comes. She brings rolls, a honey cake. She affects not to notice Agnes’s appearance, her untended hair, her etched and sleepless face. She sits on the edge of the bed, settling her skirts around her, takes Agnes’s hand in her warm, dry grip and says: he always was an odd one, you know that. Agnes says nothing but stares up at the tapestry roof of her bed. More trees, some with apples studding their branches.

‘Do you not wonder what is in it?’ the baker’s wife asks, ripping off a hunk of the bread and offering it to Agnes.

‘In what?’ Agnes says, ignoring the bread, barely listening.

The baker’s wife pushes the strip of bread between her own teeth, chews, swallows, tears off another shred before answering: ‘The play.’

Agnes looks at her, for the first time.

To London, then.

She will take no one with her, not her daughters, not her friend, not her sisters, none of her in-laws, not even Bartholomew.

Mary declares it madness, says Agnes will be attacked on the road or murdered in her bed at an inn along the way. Judith begins to cry at this and Susanna tries to hush her, but looks worried all the same. John shakes his head and tells Agnes not to be a fool. Agnes sits at her in-laws’ table, composed, hands in her lap, as if she can’t hear these words.

‘I will go,’ is all she says.

Bartholomew is sent for. He and Agnes take several turns around the garden. Past the apple trees, past the espaliered pears, through the skeps, past the marigold beds, and round again. Susanna and Judith and Mary watch from the window of Susanna’s chamber.

Agnes’s hand is tucked into the crook of her brother’s arm. Both their heads are bowed. They pause, briefly, beside the brewhouse for a moment, as if examining something on the path, then continue on their way.

‘She will listen to him,’ says Mary, her voice more decisive than she feels. ‘He will never permit her to go.’

Judith brings her fingers up to the watery pane of glass. How easy it is to obliterate them both with a thumb.

When the back door slams, they rush downstairs but there is only Bartholomew in the passage, placing his hat on his head, preparing to leave.

‘Well?’ Mary says.

Bartholomew lifts his face to look at them on the stairs.

‘Did you persuade her?’

‘Persuade her in what?’

‘Not to go to London. To give up this madness.’

Bartholomew straightens the crown of his hat. ‘We leave tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I am to secure horses for us.’

Mary is saying, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and Judith is starting to weep again and Susanna clasping her hands together, saying, ‘Us? You will go with her?’

‘I shall.’

The three women surround him, a cloud wrapping itself around the moon, peppering him with objections, questions, entreaties, but Bartholomew breaks free, steps towards the door. ‘I will see you tomorrow, early,’ he says, then steps out into the street.

Agnes is a competent if not committed horsewoman. She likes the beasts well enough but finds being aloft a not altogether comfortable experience. The ground rushing by makes her feel giddy; the shift and heave of another being beneath her, the squeak and squeal of saddle leather, the dusty, parched scent of the mane mean she is counting down the hours she must spend on horseback, before she reaches London.