Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [61]
Mary hadn't eaten all day; she couldn't bear to see her last few coins trickle away until she knew how she was going to replace them. She'd pretended to be ill, but she suspected Niblett could see right through her. In the old days, she and Doll could have gone half a week on a few pints of wine and a dozen Essex oysters, but the Magdalen had softened Mary. She'd forgotten how to get by without food. And now she'd forgotten something else: her recent resolution of giving up the trade.
At midnight Mary was sitting on the creaking edge of a bed in the Swan Inn at Coleford. Twelfth Night echoed through the building: drums and bells and dirty laughter. She was taller than the Welshman, now his wig was off. He had to look up at her. Not a married man, she could tell; brown streaks all over his shirt tail. Mary shivered; the room was so damp that she hardly had to fake it. Her small breasts shook in the hollow where her white handkerchief was uncurling from her stays. Her eyes traced the dirty cracks in the floorboards. Her hair was beginning to fall out of its scarlet ribbon.
How she whimpered, how she swore that nothing but the last pitch of desperation would have made her approach a gentleman with whom she was so utterly unacquainted. 'If only I hadn't lost my mistress's purse or had it lifted maybe—if only Mr. Niblett weren't too mean to give me credit—if only you'd consider lending me the fare, sir, I'll give you my word to repay it as soon as ever I get home, may the devil fetch me if I don't...'
So easy; too easy. Mary stared into the Welshman's hot wet eyes under his tufted brows. She almost wanted to hit him when his hand floated around her, hovering on the stained counterpane behind her skirt. How could a grown man be so easily gulled? It must have seemed to him that all his ships had come in at once. This girl of such a tender age, alone and unprotected. In the tightening loop of his arms she sat so warm, so safe, she might not even protest...
But Mary knew how good girls behaved. At the first touch of his thick fingers on her stays she inhaled as if to let out a screech. The Welshman was obliged to press his hand over her mouth. She let her breath scorch his fingers. He wouldn't have meant to push on so far, but now the girl's handkerchief had come quite undone and her breasts leaped like frightened rabbits. He planted his shiny head between them, just for a minute.
It was clear to Mary that the man hadn't done this in years. She'd have to be careful not to kill him. In the barrel of his ribs his aging heart was butting like a fish. Her skirts heaved in protest; her petticoats frothed in his lap. 'But sir!' she hissed through his fingers. 'But sir!'
It took him three puffs to blow out the candle.
The Welshman weighed on her like a sack of coal, but Mary let him sleep awhile. She'd have liked to check his purse—to know how much to demand—but she couldn't reach it. Two floors below, she heard the refrain of a song about what the Three Kings kept in their saddlebags, and a crash, and whoops of laughter. Last year she and Doll had spent this evening at the Theatre, then went on to the festivities at the Exchange, stopping for a Twelfth-cake at every stall. But she wouldn't think about Doll now; she wouldn't let herself begin to shake at the thought of leaving her friend unburied in the alley behind Rat's Castle. Instead she'd think about the breakfast she was going to order this morning.
As dawn lightened the grimy window, Mary's stomach let out such a growl that the Welshman half-woke. He twitched and burrowed like a dog. Mary started to weep. The sobs were dry, at first, but she widened her eyes till they watered, and thought of Doll, and now she was crying up a storm.
The man's face was grey with worry. Mary wrenched herself out from under him and got to the edge of the bed. No, she wouldn't stay a moment longer; she wouldn't tell him her name, even. Watching him through her fingers as he buttoned up the flap of his breeches, she scorned his