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Authors: Mary Hooper
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me.’ And she ran off with the monkey chittering with fright at being taken so abruptly, while Beth ran after to retrieve him.
Mistress Midge set me chopping bones for a broth and, being in a good mood (for the neighbour hadbought a bottle of claret with her and this was now standing empty beside the water trough), began telling me more tales of her early life when she’d worked for Mistress Dee’s family, and how she’d come here to Mortlake with her mistress when she’d married Dr Dee ten years ago. She said that Mistress Dee was thirty years younger than her husband and was his third wife.
‘And she is said to have married well by being matched with him,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think so, for she’s still young and pretty and he’s just an old husk of a man that even
I
couldn’t abide near me.’
‘And how did his first two wives die?’ I asked.
‘In childbed,’ came the reply, which I might have guessed and answered for myself.
‘But my poor lady hasn’t won herself any great marriage, for this house is a warren of poor rooms and – my, to think Her Grace herself comes here! – ’tis most incommodious, for ’tis full of rats from the river and unwholesome draughts. The old dowager – the master’s mother – I swear died of an ague she got from breathing in the foul airs rising from the water.’
‘What was old Mistress Dee like?’ I asked.
‘A harridan. She posted rules in the kitchen that I had to abide to, if you please. Told me how I should scour my pans and keep my kitchen neat! And she was of the old religion, too, and – though this was before my time – set up an altar and took Mass in the library even after our queen came to power.’
I looked at her in wonderment.
‘Aye, she did,’ Mistress Midge confirmed. ‘And it’s said that somewhere in the house is a priest’s hidey-hole, so that he might be hidden away quickly if someone suspected that an illegal Mass was taking place.’
‘Oh,’ I said. So
that
was what my secret place had been: a priest’s hideaway. And it didn’t seem as if anyone knew it was there …
Chapter Eight
A few days later Mistress Midge gave me a sixpence (which I think was her own) and bade me go to the market to buy greenstuffs. Once, she told me, herbs and salads enough for the household’s needs had grown in the courtyard, but this had been neglected of late and little grew there now but tangles of ryegrass and nettles.
Merryl and I went together, leaving Beth at home to help Mistress Midge prepare a salve for little Arthur. His bottom and back were covered all over with a rash, they said, and he’d cried all night, which made me exceeding glad I slept far away from him. On the way there Merryl told me that her papa had cast a chart for Arthur so that he could ascertain what his future was going to be according to the positions of the stars in the heavens at the moment he was born.
‘Papa knows
many
things from looking at the stars,’she said. ‘Did you know that it was he who decided when the day of the queen’s coronation should be?’
I confessed I hadn’t known this.
‘And according to what Papa found out from the various configurations of heavenly bodies –’ she spoke with very learned words, like no other child I had ever known – ‘Arthur will become a scryer and be able to converse with spirits, so soon Papa won’t need Mr Kelly to do this.’
I nodded, thinking that Mistress Midge would be pleased to see the back of Mr Kelly, but also that it would surely be many more years before Arthur was ready to take up his responsibilities.
The market was held in a small square outside an ancient building which had once been the convent, when we’d had such things. It mostly consisted of farmers and goodwives selling their wares from planks raised up on logs or from wicker baskets, and was very busy and clamorous as they were all shouting the various merits of their wares at once. I bought what we needed: a rope of
Mistress Midge set me chopping bones for a broth and, being in a good mood (for the neighbour hadbought a bottle of claret with her and this was now standing empty beside the water trough), began telling me more tales of her early life when she’d worked for Mistress Dee’s family, and how she’d come here to Mortlake with her mistress when she’d married Dr Dee ten years ago. She said that Mistress Dee was thirty years younger than her husband and was his third wife.
‘And she is said to have married well by being matched with him,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think so, for she’s still young and pretty and he’s just an old husk of a man that even
I
couldn’t abide near me.’
‘And how did his first two wives die?’ I asked.
‘In childbed,’ came the reply, which I might have guessed and answered for myself.
‘But my poor lady hasn’t won herself any great marriage, for this house is a warren of poor rooms and – my, to think Her Grace herself comes here! – ’tis most incommodious, for ’tis full of rats from the river and unwholesome draughts. The old dowager – the master’s mother – I swear died of an ague she got from breathing in the foul airs rising from the water.’
‘What was old Mistress Dee like?’ I asked.
‘A harridan. She posted rules in the kitchen that I had to abide to, if you please. Told me how I should scour my pans and keep my kitchen neat! And she was of the old religion, too, and – though this was before my time – set up an altar and took Mass in the library even after our queen came to power.’
I looked at her in wonderment.
‘Aye, she did,’ Mistress Midge confirmed. ‘And it’s said that somewhere in the house is a priest’s hidey-hole, so that he might be hidden away quickly if someone suspected that an illegal Mass was taking place.’
‘Oh,’ I said. So
that
was what my secret place had been: a priest’s hideaway. And it didn’t seem as if anyone knew it was there …
Chapter Eight
A few days later Mistress Midge gave me a sixpence (which I think was her own) and bade me go to the market to buy greenstuffs. Once, she told me, herbs and salads enough for the household’s needs had grown in the courtyard, but this had been neglected of late and little grew there now but tangles of ryegrass and nettles.
Merryl and I went together, leaving Beth at home to help Mistress Midge prepare a salve for little Arthur. His bottom and back were covered all over with a rash, they said, and he’d cried all night, which made me exceeding glad I slept far away from him. On the way there Merryl told me that her papa had cast a chart for Arthur so that he could ascertain what his future was going to be according to the positions of the stars in the heavens at the moment he was born.
‘Papa knows
many
things from looking at the stars,’she said. ‘Did you know that it was he who decided when the day of the queen’s coronation should be?’
I confessed I hadn’t known this.
‘And according to what Papa found out from the various configurations of heavenly bodies –’ she spoke with very learned words, like no other child I had ever known – ‘Arthur will become a scryer and be able to converse with spirits, so soon Papa won’t need Mr Kelly to do this.’
I nodded, thinking that Mistress Midge would be pleased to see the back of Mr Kelly, but also that it would surely be many more years before Arthur was ready to take up his responsibilities.
The market was held in a small square outside an ancient building which had once been the convent, when we’d had such things. It mostly consisted of farmers and goodwives selling their wares from planks raised up on logs or from wicker baskets, and was very busy and clamorous as they were all shouting the various merits of their wares at once. I bought what we needed: a rope of
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