Catherine, standing above him, replied with a nod, and opened her mouth to speak. But Mary spoke first—not to the rabbi, but to Ester. “We’re here to see you!” Mary said, as though the announcement were a gift.
None had asked to visit with Ester since her arrival in London—she couldn’t fathom what Mary might wish with her. Dumbly she gestured at the quill and paper on the table. “I’ve yet to finish,” she said. “It’s for the rabbi . . .”
But a lift of the rabbi’s head in Ester’s direction said she’d find no shelter in this excuse.
She stood, straightened her skirt, and followed the two women to the small side room where Rivka was setting two bowls of coffee—not hot enough to steam, Ester noticed—on a small table between two seats. The room was cold, having no hearth, and musty from disuse. Until now, Rivka had kept the door shut, to prevent this chamber from stealing heat from the larger room.
Catherine claimed the larger chair beside the window. Mary plumped down on the smaller seat, the fabric of her skirt covering most of the cushion and leaving only a narrow space beside her. “Sit,” Mary said to Ester.
Ester lowered herself into the space.
Mary looked at her mother with evident satisfaction, as though Ester’s obedience proved a point in an argument Ester hadn’t been privy to. Then, sitting so close that the abundant layers of her dress overwhelmed Ester’s paltry muslin skirt, Mary turned to face Ester full on. Ester found herself edging away until her leg pressed against the hard wooden railing of the seat.
From the doorway, where she stood with her back to the closed door and her arms tucked behind her in a pose of compliance, Rivka spoke flatly. “Is the coffee to your liking?”
Her tone invited no answer and the women gave none.
“What’s your age?” Mary said abruptly.
It took Ester a moment to muster an answer. “Twenty-one.”
“Only?” said Mary, disbelieving.
Catherine cast a glance at her daughter: I told you.
A pout flickered across Mary’s lips; evidently she’d thought Ester older. “But the hair,” she said. As Ester’s hand floated to her hair, Mary let out a ripple of eager laughter. “See her hair, Mother! A half silver and a half sable. Like a woman thrice her years, except her brows are black. She might as well don a periwig and be a proper Royalist gentleman.” She tugged a loose lock of Ester’s hair. “Or perhaps it is a periwig, you seditious girl.” Mary’s face shone with pleasure at her own daring. Then, as though Ester were a pet newly adopted, she tucked Ester’s arm under her own. “Well,” she said. “Lost color may be had again. We’ll turn it black soon, or whatever color suits.”
Catherine frowned at her daughter, then addressed Ester. “How do you amuse yourself?”
There was a silence. At last Ester echoed, “Amuse myself?”
Catherine gestured loosely, impatient to be understood. “What are your amusements?”
“I’ve none.”
Catherine lifted her eyebrows. “Good,” she said.
Ester withdrew her arm carefully from Mary’s. “I don’t understand the nature of this visit.”
“Well, then.” Catherine drew herself up. “Here’s the nature.” She waited through two shallow breaths before continuing. “All London is eager for folly. I don’t call it wrong. The city has been overfed with strictures, and now clamors to shake off Puritan ways. New entertainments now begin. And our Mary is enamored of every one that’s dreamt of—whether or not it be madness.” For a moment Catherine gazed at the wall as though it were a window. But this dignified show of distraction was, Ester sensed, only a way to rest from the taxing act of speech. Even through carefully applied powder, Catherine’s face showed marks of long and heavy strain. Ester was surprised at an impulse to stand, loosen the woman’s stays, rub her broad back. The desire tightened her own chest. It was a feeling she hadn’t known she still possessed: the wish to tend to a mother.
“Mary is overfond,” Catherine continued at length, “of being at the fore of every new fashion. Nonetheless, a young woman wishing to marry well requires to be seen in society. Within certain limits.” There was little tenderness on Catherine’s face as she spoke, Ester noted, but rather a weary fear that seemed to have long ago vanquished all other maternal feeling. “My daughter,” she said, “is in need of a companion. And as perhaps is evident, I am hardly in constitution to accompany Mary on foolish errands through London.” Catherine fixed Ester with a stare. “Breathing,” she said faintly, “no longer seems to agree with me.” She turned away. “The country air improves it, but my husband requires his household and business here in London.”
She seemed to have finished.
In the silence, Mary’s soft, cautious breaths mingled with Ester’s own. Ester shut her eyes to savor the sound. In memory it merged with the steady long-ago sound of her brother’s breathing. A foolish thought welled in Ester: what might it be to have a sister?
She spoke swiftly to counter such indulgent visions. “I can’t serve as Mary’s companion,” she said. “The rabbi requires my presence.”
“The rabbi,” said Catherine, “will release you as we require.” Her gesture took in the furnishings, the small room, the house. She said drily, “I’m certain he’ll feel he owes us at least that thanks.”
Mary had turned once more and was surveying Ester. “She’ll need to learn the English manner of dress.”
Without warning Rivka spoke from her station by the wall, her voice harsh. “We shame them,” she said. She was addressing Ester, and the direct force of her small brown eyes was shocking, wrenching Ester from what remained of her reverie.
When Catherine answered, her eyebrows lofted slightly, she addressed her words only to Ester, as though it were a matter of good taste to ignore such unaccountable rudeness. “It’s no matter of vanity,” Catherine said levelly. “Though you may look on us and think it so. You are still foreign and unaccustomed to London ways. We”—a slow sweep of her hand—“we dress and speak as Englishwomen do. You sail here from Amsterdam, make house in the place provided by my husband, and proceed to walk about the parish dressed in such manner that a placard saying Jewess might as well be hung on your back. It’s your choice to do so, I’ve maintained—though other women of the community have disagreed with me. But if you’re to accompany my daughter about London, then it becomes very much my concern how you dress.”
“It concerns me, Mother,” Mary interrupted. Her voice had turned both prettier and harder-edged. She seemed both affronted and puzzled by Ester’s disinclination to follow her about London. “I agree with the others. These two do shame us. Now that all London knows there are Jews about, do you wish the ladies promenading on St. James to be whispering about Jewesses who dress like”—she hesitated, then gestured at Rivka in her cap and work dress; then more vaguely at Ester, who flushed in sudden awareness of how she’d allowed the quality of her own dress to degrade—“like nightsoil men?” Mary let the merry question hang for a moment, her high, round cheeks and rosy lips sweet under black brows and bright black eyes—but Ester noted that Mary’s flickering gaze landed near but not quite on her mother’s face.
Then, seeming to tire of defiance, Mary twisted to search out something in a soft cloth pouch she’d set beside her. Straightening, she reached over without warning and her finger slid hard across Ester’s lips, spreading something slick.
As Ester recoiled, Mary laughed. “Rose madder,” she said. “Here.” She thrust a small wood-framed glass into Ester’s hand, just large enough to nestle in her palm.