A Vision of Light (13 page)

That night I had waited up, thinking that if I did not go to sleep at all, I would not dream of the terrible head. I lay very still until I heard my husband’s breathing change into snores, and then I propped myself up sitting.

As the time crept by, I know not how slowly, I ceased to hear steps in the street below, and everything grew completely silent. Even the timbers in the house had stopped creaking.

“So, dream! I have you now! I’ll just stay up forever and ever, and you’ll never come back!” I whispered boldly into the dark. By this time my stomach was becoming larger, so I locked my hands around it and my knees, and looked about the room.

But I had spoken too soon. When I glanced beneath the ceiling, this time with my eyes wide open, I saw a dim light, like a single flickering candle, in the area beneath the rafters. It was long and oval and glimmered as it swayed gently above the bed, just visible beyond the canopy. Once it had caught my eyes, I could not turn my head away from it. Gradually form took shape within the barely visible light. A shadow, shifting within the soft glow, like a drapery—a hand, I could see a hand, or something like it, hanging limply among the folds. And as I stared, the folds swirled to reveal the dreadful head, swollen and dangling. It was the body of a hanged woman, swaying gently from the rafters!

The rope was a thin trail of light above the poor, strangled neck. Long, ashy brown hair clung to the temples and swirled about the shoulders. A woman, holy Jesus! Was it me? No, it must not be me, it could not be me—there was a tiny cleft in the chin. I felt my own chin—it was still smooth and narrow. I looked at my hands—they did not have the childish plumpness of the hand among the soft, shadowy folds above. No, it was not me, even if it looked like me. It was not a vision of my own end, but of something else.

The rushing sound that my ears made in the silence sounded like silent weeping. If this were a ghost, it must have a purpose. As it swayed, the body turned, and the glazed eyes turned toward me. I blessed myself.

“I will pray for you,” I whispered into the darkness, “I will light a candle for you.”

“Do not pray for me. I have many who offer prayers for me. Pray for yourself. You are in a house of death. You will leave it only when you are dying. Pray for yourself, so that you will not be eternally damned, as I am.” Her soft voice was like an urgent whisper on the inside of my ears. Even while I heard it, it was at the same time completely silent in the blackness of the room. How can one hear and not hear? Who had this woman been, this girl-woman, and how had she been damned? The rope slowly unwound and the body swayed again. The hair swirled about the head as if caught by an unseen wind, and the head straightened up as if living. The glowing face of a pretty girl looked directly at me. Square and charming, it was marked by a neat, short little snub nose and a pointed chin with a little cleft in it, like a pretty baby’s.

“I hanged myself,” said the sweet child face, “because I gave my love to the Evil One himself, in human form.” The soft light began to fade, and the threadlike glow of the rope had vanished utterly. “I have come to warn you. You are wedded to him now, and only with God’s help may you save your soul.”

Darkness engulfed the swirling figure, as dread overwhelmed me. My life was given up, and my soul itself at risk! Not an insect, but a demon from the underworld! It put a whole new complexion on things. Through no choice of my own I had been wedded to a demon. A demon that passed among men as respectable. What had the girl said? That she’d loved him, chosen him. Well, maybe that’s how we were different. I hated him. I always had. I had begged to be saved from him, but he had blinded everybody. Being a demon explained it all. That’s how he’d tricked them, even my mother and the priest. But now I was married for life to a demon. Why hadn’t anyone listened to me?

But the next day, as close as I looked, my husband seemed to be engaged in no diabolical business. In fact, he seemed very pleased with himself, for a message had arrived to say that his goods might be expected on the morrow or the day after. In the afternoon his mood gave way to annoyance, for we had been invited to the wedding feast of the daughter of William le Draper.

“It is just his way of displaying the fact that he has three great sons,” remarked my husband with annoyance.

“But does he not honor his daughter as well?” I asked.

“Fah! He just shows off that he has got a son-in-law who has already made his fortune.” It rankled my husband that he had but one son, and that one, simpleminded. Perhaps what annoyed him even more was that he considered that William le Draper ought to be no greater than himself, but through some quirk of good fortune he had found favor with higher patrons than had Lewis Small. William le Draper had never sought my husband out, and unlike so many others, who thought my husband a pleasant fellow, William le Draper usually avoided him unobtrusively, even though they must see each other nearly daily in civic activities.

“A feast, a dance, how William does display himself and his good fortune,” remarked my husband sourly.

“You, too, will have good fortune,” I remarked with the proper wifely submission.

“When my son is born”—and he glanced at my swelling belly—“I will have a great christening feast—much greater than this wedding, you may be sure.” Then a little flicker of insecurity passed his face, but only for an instant, as he turned it away. “And you, Margaret, will take greatest care until then. I want nothing to befall my son through your carelessness”—and the friendly smile with the icy eyes showed as he turned his face back toward me.

“Husband, may I ask a favor of you?”

“Why, just ask, and if it is proper, you shall have it,” he answered blandly.

“May I go to church this evening?”

“Why, to pray for my son? Take Robert with you, for if you return at dusk, the streets are not safe for a woman.”

“Thank you, and may I have money for a candle as well?” No penny left his hand unaccounted for. It was best to be direct. He was in a rare mood of accommodation.

“Have two or three candles, if you wish,” he responded, and dug the pennies out of the wallet he wore, and then departed.

As I went to get my cloak, Berthe asked why I was going out. I looked at her directly, and said quietly, “I go to burn a candle for the hanged woman.”

“Merciful heaven!” she whispered. “Who told you? Who dared to? He’ll kill whoever talked.”

“
She
told me,” I answered. “And he can hardly kill her twice. Every night she hangs in the room where she died. She breaks my heart with her grieving, and I must pray for her soul if I ever want to sleep again.”

“You
see
her?”

“I see her, and in my mind I see her now. Her face is black; her eyes stick out. It is too gruesome to be borne.” Berthe crossed herself.

“That is just the way she looked when we cut her down, poor lost soul. And she had been so pretty too.”

“She was his first wife, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, his first wife, and a love match as well, at least on her side.”

“Love? That’s impossible! How could it ever be?”

“She was so pretty, and so young. Her father was a man of consequence, a dyer with city property. Small saw her in church, accompanied by her mother, and behaved so graciously to both that she fell in love with him, and her mother approved. At first they saw each other in church, but then Small sent a go-between to see if he could secure her hand. Her father opposed it, for Small had no particular means to speak of, and he wanted a better match for her. But Small was young and handsome and well spoken, and the women prevailed upon the father to secure the marriage. She was just past thirteen when she entered this house, which her father had bought for them.” Berthe wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.

“Go on, I must hear.”

“She was soon with child but, because of her youth, was not strong enough to bear easily. The boy was late and, as you can see, simple. Small was furious. She was soon pregnant again, but he screamed at her and beat her. She threatened to tell her father and flee home to him. Small did not want that, for she was an only child, and her father’s heir. He nearly strangled her that night, and in the morning the baby was born too soon.”

“What a dreadful thing—but the child was not lost, was it?”

“Not lost, not right away at least. But it was a terrible judgment on him. For it had no face.”

“No face? How could that be?”

“Well, it had part of a face. It had eyes. But where the nose should be, and the top of the mouth, there was nothing but a great hole. It mewled for days, but because it had no mouth it could not take milk, and so it gradually starved.”

“This is a terrible story. I have never heard of such a thing.”

“He said she was a witch, for she could bear only monsters. I say he was a devil, who could only beget monsters. But no matter what anybody says, after that she waited until he was gone one day and hanged herself in the bedroom, there. The child found her, you know. And from that day to this he has never spoken. He used to say a word or two, and sing, too, when he had a mind to, but now he only stares.”

“Thank you for telling me, Berthe. It makes it easier for me. Now I understand why she said others pray for her.”

“She said that? Poor girl. Her father died of grief, you know, and that left Small wealthy, for he deprived the widow of everything in court.”

So the mystery was explained. What honest parents who knew this story would ever place their daughter in the hands of such a man? If he wanted heirs, he must go far afield for another wife, to a country place, where the news couldn’t travel. In this town, surely, all decent parents must close their doors to him. Oh, mother, you shifted me from the kettle to the fire when you wed me to wealthy Lewis Small in place of poor Richard Dale!

So I took myself to Vespers, to kneel before the statue of the Virgin to light my candle and pour out my grief. All Saints’ was far larger than the little painted stone church of my childhood. The guilds had decorated it with many chapels and shrines. Offerings of silver glittered among the reliquaries and painted statues of the saints that lined the nave. But most beautiful of all, in my mind, was the statue of Our Lady that had been commissioned by the Merchants’ Guild. I often went to the Lady Chapel, for there was something in the face of the statue that reminded me of my own real mother. No matter what my trouble, it seemed to float away in her serene presence.

In the fading twilight the Lady Chapel sat in a cloud of silence that, like a solid thing, seemed to make the world outside fade and vanish. The last slanting rays of the sun through the rose window illuminated the high, shadowy arches of the church with shafts of colored light, which fell at last in bright, circular whorls upon the floor. In the half-dark where Our Lady stood, a forest of little candles lit before her flickered and shimmered. The sweet scent of beeswax and incense swirled about the carved hem of her gilded garments. Nearly the size of a living woman, she looked at the world with a gentle, solemn expression, the long ripples of her hair descending from beneath her heavy crown, cloaking her shoulders and sleeves. On one arm she held her plump and placid Son, and beneath her tender, bare feet lay a trampled, half-human demon, writhing in its death agony: Sin itself, unable to touch the Immaculate One, conquered by the force of love. The carved wood of her floating garments was richly painted and gilded. Only her face, hands, and feet were the naked wood, pale and polished, like living flesh. Her eyes, inset ivory and lapis lazuli, caught the glancing flickers of light, shining as if alive.

I had bought a very fine candle, and joined it to the melting forest before her. With all my heart I prayed that she intercede on behalf of the hanged girl, for cannot Our Lady perform any miracle she desires? As I prayed, I felt the bleak feeling in my heart dissolve. The shadows lightened around her, and as I gazed into the serene face, I thought I saw something—a trick of the candlelight, perhaps. The living eyes blinked and turned their gentle gaze on my upturned face for a moment, before lifting to stare once more outward to the souls that entered the Lady Chapel. As surely as if she had spoken, she had given me my answer.

The next day I began my duties with a calm detachment that was quite unlike me. The vomiting had long ceased, and I felt new energy. I had slept well in the night, and the dark shadows under the rafters contained no secret shapes at all, except for a little spider descending silently on her silken thread. There was a great hubbub in the house, for the returned mules were being stabled, the servants and the two apprentice boys were loading the new goods into the storeroom below, and a very large dinner was in preparation by way of a celebration. In the morning the silent child had wandered off, but was retrieved with ease, sitting in the gutter only two streets away. Very little trouble had marred the journey from London. There had been no attempted robberies, and the only event of note was that one of the grooms had taken ill on the return trip and been left to recover at a guesthouse on the road. Lewis Small was expansive, almost generous, and gave out rewards to those who had brought his goods safely home.

After dinner one of the apprentice boys had to be put to bed with a bellyache from too much gobbling. When Small had finished his lecture on the sin of Greed, I took the boy an infusion of peppermint, where he lay alone in his bed below.

“Mistress Margaret, I do hurt so, and I am very hot.” He could barely speak, and he lay all curled in a ball, on his side.