Time's Echo (9 page)

He never played with the other children on the beach. He didn’t play at all. He spent Christmas Day digging a complex network of channels in the sand, and I was fascinated by his
single-minded approach. When the channel he had planned cut across the bit of beach where Matt and I were lying, his parents tried to call him away. That’s how I knew he was called Lucas.
They were Swedish and lifted their hands in helpless apology when he simply ignored them.

‘It’s okay,’ I said, digging Matt in the ribs. ‘We’ll move.’

Lucas didn’t say thank you. His face was set and he carried on digging. Matt sighed and grumbled, but I picked up the spare spade and set it in the sand.

‘Here?’ I said to Lucas.

He did look then – one quick, fierce look – then he nodded. We dug for hours, side by side, Lucas directing occasionally with a pointing finger. We didn’t say another word to
each other.

Just that once, that’s all it was, but whenever I thought about that afternoon, my chest grew so tight that I could hardly breathe. I sat in Lucy’s sitting room and I kept my eyes
closed so that I wouldn’t have to look at the photos of all those beaches where Lucas wasn’t digging any more.

‘Hawise!’ My eyes snap open as my mistress bustles out into the yard and catches me with my face turned up to the sun, the tablecloth clutched to my chest.
‘What is the
matter
with you today?’ She looks at me narrowly. ‘You’ve been like a great gawby gawping at the moon all day!’

‘I was just thinking what a beautiful day it is,’ I say, hastily shaking the crumbs from the cloth. I don’t understand the sadness that welled up inside me when I closed my
eyes. It
is
a beautiful day, and I should be excited, not sad.

For today I am going to meet Francis Bewley in my father’s orchard.

He insisted on walking me back to the house after I’d made my purchases that day in the market, even though Hap went for his boot the moment I put him down. I thought I saw a flash of
something ugly in Francis’s face as he shook Hap off, but the next moment he was smiling again and congratulating me on my fierce guard dog, so I must have been mistaken. I hope I was.

Francis even carried my basket for me, although it wasn’t heavy: a dozen eggs, brown and shit-spattered, some green peas, a large pat of butter, that was all. I pleated my fingers in my
skirts because I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

He told me about his master, Mr Phillips, about how the Lord President had sent for him especially, and how much his master valued him. There was something pompous about the way Francis spoke. I
told myself it was just his southern accent. I wanted to like him, but I couldn’t help noticing how pleased with himself he seemed, and then I chided myself for being critical. Who was I to
expect perfection, after all? And Francis was a Londoner, I reminded myself as we walked back that day. There was a sheen to him that the young men of York lacked. It made it all the stranger that
he would want to be with me.

‘Tell me about London,’ I said when the conversation flagged.

‘York is but a village in comparison,’ he told me. ‘London is bigger and noisier and crueller. Folk walk more quickly there. There is a hastiness to everything they do. You
would not want to go there, Mistress Hawise.’

I opened my mouth to contradict him, to tell him how many times I had dreamt of going to London, but remembered just in time that I mustn’t be different. I must be quiet and agree and
forget my strange ideas.

Truth to tell, I was shy of him. Something about him made me uneasy, but at the same time I was intrigued. Francis Bewley was so different from anyone I had met before, and when he suggested
that we meet again, of course I was tempted.

I felt restless and reckless that day, I remember that. I wanted to know what everyone but me seemed to know. I wanted to be like Alice and have a sweetheart of my own. Perhaps if I hadn’t
been envious of her, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet Francis outside the bar walls today. I would have remembered everything Mistress Beckwith had to say about modesty, and my master’s
distrust of southerners. I would have thought about Hap baring his teeth, and the shiny reflection of Francis’s eyes, and I would have shaken my head and stayed at home.

But I was jealous and I was curious, and I agreed.

I fold up the cloth. The best damask today, because Mr Hilliard is here. He is a wealthy merchant, and no doubt has fine cloths of his own, but he is a widower, and perhaps is lonely in that big
house of his in Coney Street, for he comes to dine with us often. His wife died in childbirth, I heard, and after that he came to York from somewhere in the east. It seems he is in no hurry to
marry again, although his friends are no doubt in search of a suitable bride for him. It shouldn’t be too hard. He is a stranger still, with no kin in the city, and his neighbours think him
outlandish, I’ve heard, but what does that matter when he is rich? A man as wealthy as Ned Hilliard will need a wife to give him a son, else what good is all his gold?

I like Mr Hilliard. He does not seem odd to me. He is a quiet man, and not well favoured with his pox-pitted cheeks, but he has good teeth and he looks at you when he talks to you. There is a
stillness to him that is surprising when you think how far he has travelled. He has stood on the quaysides of Rouen and Lübeck and Venice, bargaining for bags of pepper and saffron, filling
his ships with ginger and nutmeg and sugar, with oils and almonds and exotic dyes. Sometimes when we have finished our chores, Meg and I sit on stools and listen to him talking with Mr Beckwith and
our mistress, and it is the next best thing to going myself.

Why am I thinking about Mr Hilliard? I catch myself up. I should be thinking about Francis. But the truth is that I am nervous. My mistress is right. I have been clumsy and fidgety all day.

I, Hawise Aske, am going to meet a young man, and the idea is both thrilling and unsettling. I know my mistress wouldn’t approve, and I know why. I shouldn’t be risking my reputation
with a stranger, but how can I give up my very first chance to be like everyone else? So I feel guilty, but excited too.

I wish I could remember better what Francis looks like. He won’t really be my sweetheart, of course, and he’ll be going back to London soon, so what harm will it do to pretend, for
today? If not today, when? There may never be another young man who will ask me to meet him in the crofts. Perhaps I will like him better this time.

I take the cloth back inside. My mistress has said that once my chores are done I can have the rest of the afternoon to visit my sister, Agnes. I just need to tidy the hall after the meal, and
then I can go.

The afternoon sunlight slants through the high window into the hall, and I watch the dust drifting lazily across each beam as I put the pewter dishes in the buttery and straighten the carpet on
the chest. Maybe it’s because I’m anxious to leave before I lose my nerve, but time seems suddenly languid, as if it is gathering itself for a leap into the unknown.

Or perhaps it is I – not time – that is poised on the edge of change. The thought makes me shiver with excitement. I am longing for change, for something to happen. Perhaps, I think,
I will look back on this moment, on this last hour before I met Francis, and realize that nothing was ever quite the same again.

I stand in the hall, the crimson velvet cushion embroidered with flowers of green clutched to my chest, and all at once I am conscious of how familiar everything is. Meg and I put down fresh
rushes the day before yesterday, and their sweetness mingles with the scent of the onions and garlic stacked in the corner, and the smell of the last bacon hanging from the ceiling. The windows are
open, and I can hear wood pigeons burbling on the roof. Dick is whistling in the yard, my mistress is scolding Meg in the kitchen. Brushing crumbs from his doublet with a napkin, my master has
taken Mr Hilliard into his closet and they are talking business over a cup of wine.

And I am going to meet Francis.

I set the cushion back on the turned chair by the fireside and draw a breath. I am stepping away, growing up, becoming a woman at last.

My hands shake a little as I untie my apron up in the chamber that I now share with Meg. I don’t dare change into my best gown – my mistress would be bound to notice – but I
brush down my kirtle, shake out my gown and straighten my cap. I am hoping to slip out quietly through the back gate, but Mistress Beckwith is in the yard, and she raises her brows when she sees
me.

‘I am going to visit my sister, Mistress. You said that I might,’ I remind her, and when she nods I bob a curtsey and sidle towards the gate. I have my hand on the latch when she
calls me.

‘Hawise?’

I turn. ‘Yes, Mistress?’

‘Be careful.’

I bite my lip. My mistress has a nasty habit of seeing more than I want her to, but I do indeed visit Agnes. That much is true.

As usual my sister is abed, and the air in the chamber at the top of the steep staircase is tired and stale.

‘It’s a lovely day,’ I say. ‘Shall I open the shutters?’

‘No! I can’t bear the noise, and the light makes my head ache so.’ Agnes leans back and lays her arm over her eyes. She is peevish and out-of-sorts today.

I sit on the edge of the bed, guilty as always for being the lucky one. I am scrawny, but I am strong, unlike Agnes, who has been sickly since she was a child. We are almost exactly the same
age. Her mother was a widow when my father married her after he came back to York. I think I have a memory of him throwing me up into the air and laughing at my squeals of delight, but perhaps I
have made it up. After he married Agnes’s mother, there was little laughter, that is for certain. My father began to spend more time in the alehouse than his workshop, and her mother’s
temper – never sweet to begin with – soured even further, so I was glad to get away when the Beckwiths offered me a place in service.

I was twelve then, and it was Elizabeth I grew up with, Elizabeth I giggled and whispered with, Elizabeth whose loss I mourn still as if she were in truth my sister.

Since her death I have tried to get to know Agnes better. The sickness carried her mother off two years since, and now she is alone with my father and Jennet, the sour old widow who cooks and
cleans. It is too much for Agnes to keep house, she says.

It is not much of a house, either.

Mr Beckwith’s house has twelve rooms as well as a shop, and it is richly decorated. My father’s has only six, and there is a slatternly air to everything. I look around the room. In
the dim light coming through the shutters, it is dreary. The curtains around Agnes’s bed are silk, but they are tatty and worn. There is no silver on my father’s table, no cushions in
his hall. Once he was a merchant and adventured across the seas, but his fortunes have dwindled to naught, squandered on dice and cards in the alehouses of York. He is a member still of the mystery
of mercers, but he is no merchant, no mercer. He is barely a chapman, eking out a living from his friends and his former reputation.

I feel sorry for Agnes, stuck here with little chance of marriage, either. Like me, she has no dowry, and like me, she is plain, but otherwise we are the contrary of each other. Where I am dark,
everything about my sister is pale. She has pallid skin and hair so fine it seems almost colourless. Discontent tugs at the corners of her pale mouth. Agnes is very devout, while I attend divine
service and let my mind wander outside the walls, where I used to run when I was a girl. She is sickly and I am sturdier than I look. I want to be friends with her, but she is not like
Elizabeth.

Still, I try.

I tuck my feet beneath me. ‘Agnes,’ I say, lowering my voice so that Jennet won’t hear. ‘I think I may be in love.’

I can’t remember exactly what Francis looks like, but I like the idea of being in love. I want to be.

Agnes drops her arm and pulls herself up on her pillow, her eyes sharpening. ‘In
love
? Who with?’

‘His name is Francis. He is from London.’

‘London! Who vouches for him?’

When my gaze slides away from hers, she purses her lips in disapproval. ‘Hawise, you cannot be so foolish! Where did you meet this man?’

‘In the market.’ I know where this is going. Who are his friends? Who are his kin? Do the Beckwiths know? ‘I just want to meet someone who’s been further than Fulford
Cross. I want to
talk
about something different. Is that so bad?’

‘Not if talking is really all you’ll be doing.’

For someone so pious, Agnes’s mind can dip surprisingly close to the gutter at times. I flush.

‘I just want to talk to him,’ I say, sulkily pleating my skirts. Elizabeth would have been excited for me. She would have understood.

‘Consider your reputation, Sister,’ says Agnes. ‘Do not go. Stay and pray with me instead.’

The room is stifling. I cannot breathe in here. Jumping up, I go over to the window and open the shutters in spite of Agnes’s protests, so that I can lean out. The street below is potholed
and flies swarm around the midden outside the door, but if I lift my eyes the sky is a beckoning blue, while a soft breeze stirs the leaves of the overgrown trees in the old friary garden.

‘Oh, Agnes, it’s such a beautiful day,’ I cry, swinging round. ‘Don’t you ever want to escape? I know!’ Seized by the idea, I run over to the bed and grab her
hands, though she shrinks back into the pillow. ‘Why don’t you come with me? How long is it since you went out of the house? It will be cool out in the crofts and the air will be
fresher. It wouldn’t be improper for me to meet Francis if you were with me, would it?’

‘Hawise, please, you’re giving me the headache!’ Agnes sags back into the pillows.

‘I’m sure you’d feel better if you got up,’ I try and coax her. ‘You never have any fun, Agnes. I’m sure you’d enjoy it if you came with me. Please
come!’

‘I’m too tired.’ She turns her face away. ‘If you have so little care for your reputation, you go. I will pray for you.’

So I leave her there, guilty at how relieved I feel to be out of that chamber with its stale, sluggish air. Hap scampers ahead of me along the street. Agnes doesn’t approve of him, and he
knows now to lurk outside the house and wait for me. He is a clever dog.