Ester,
You will find here the sum of ￡7 to maintain the household of Rabbi HaCoen Mendes, and those who live with him. I know you will not be so foolish as to refuse such aid, for though you might deny yourself, you won’t deny those in your household.
Consider this gift, and from whom it comes to you.
I leave soon for the countryside, which is untouched by the seeds of the plague that sprout now in some parishes of the city. At present I plan to go alone. That need not be so.
Manuel HaLevy
Half the coins that had arrived with Manuel HaLevy’s letter had been spent immediately on household provisions. The rest Rivka was carefully husbanding. Ester had not yet replied.
She drew out a blank page now.
To Manuel HaLevy,
I thank you for your letter, and for the support it grants us in our need. Your act is generous beyond expectations. We could not hope for more.
She sat for a long time, searching for further words that would not betray her. Beneath Manuel’s letter lay a page inked to de Spinoza and signed under a man’s name—a letter that told the truth of her spirit. Yet the truths of her body were undeniable: the hunger in her belly, the ache of her feet from treading the streets in shoes worn past repair. And another hunger she hardly dared acknowledge.
I cannot consider your offer of marriage, she wrote slowly.
At the sound of the clock chiming the hour, she rose and washed the ink from her hands. Upstairs she hesitated a moment over a dress Mary had had her purchase long ago, when Catherine first insisted that Ester accompany her daughter. She’d worn it but few times, yet surely it would still fit as she recalled, the elegant cloth falling away smoothly from her waist? For a moment she ran her fingertips along the pale blue taffeta.
Stilled, one hand on the crisp fabric, she acknowledged it. Yes: she betrayed herself, and hoped. But for what? That an Englishman with kind eyes forgive her for being a Jewess? That he love her . . . and then what? Marry her? And in his kindness make her relinquish, more gently but as surely as Manuel HaLevy would, the thing that animated her spirit?
She turned and pulled her plain daily dress from its hook, nearly tearing the seam when the fabric caught. Cursing, she watched the figure fumbling over the buttons in the narrow glass. A hate welled up in her for her life.
A sound from the street; the da Costa Mendeses’ coach arrived. Hurriedly Ester descended the stair, as Rivka opened the door to Thomas Farrow.
“Good morning,” Thomas sang.
His worn red doublet was unbuttoned to show a waistcoat of blue silk, his breeches open at the knee above blue hose, red-heeled shoes with their red lining turned down in the shape of a bow. He stared frankly at Rivka—as though he’d heard of thick-bodied, scant-haired Tudesco Jewesses with smallpox-rubbled cheeks and whiskers on their chin, but had not until now believed that such creatures existed. Rivka, in turn, stared back: first at Thomas’s bright attire, and then up at his face, its own fainter smallpox scars nearly masked by an application of ceruse—the patent, careful vanity of a man pretending to be younger than he was.
Slowly Thomas doffed his black velvet riding hat to Rivka, who didn’t twitch a muscle in response. It occurred to Ester that Rivka wouldn’t weep to see Mary’s reputation trounced, nor by such a man.
Ester parted the leather curtain and entered the coach, settling beside John, who greeted her, quickly shifting to make room. He too was dressed in doublet and hose, but the difference between Thomas’s attire and his was the difference between a peacock and some self-contained brown-and-white river bird.
“A fine day,” John said to her as the coach began to move.
“Yes.” He sat too close for her to look at him. Instead she looked at Mary, seated beside Thomas on the bench opposite. Mary had dressed in a pale yellow moiré with a petticoat of peach silk. Adhered to her cheek and bosom were several small black velvet patches—one in the shape of a galloping horse, another a boat with sails swelling, and a crescent moon on her breast. Seated together, she and Thomas were a pageant of color and fashion. But the expression on Mary’s face differed entirely from that on Thomas’s. Her lips were parted distractedly, her eyes shining and unfocused—Ester saw that she’d used belladonna drops to dilate them, sacrificing the day’s vision for the chance to seem to Thomas more melting, more womanly.
Yet who was Ester to judge Mary? She herself had yet to say more than a single word to John. She knew how to block the path to flirtation, but not how to open it.
Over the clatter of the coach’s wheels, Thomas addressed them. “I was of a mind that we might see the lunatics on show at Bedlam, or the puppets at Charing Cross. But those places are too thronged up, and Mary fears the plague.” He accepted a jumbal cake from the small sack Mary offered, chewed, then took a flask from his pocket and unstoppered it. “So I thought the India House, but Mary’s so afeared of serpents, she might faint to see the great one they have there. So this decided me: today we go up the river and down it.” He drank again.
John’s whisper brushed Ester’s ear. “The plan was ever the river, but he struts thus for Mary. Thomas’s London is made of theaters and alehouses.”
Grateful to have grist for speech, Ester whispered back in a rush. “Yes, though it’s Mary who’ll pay for the boat, I’m certain, and food and drink.”
John didn’t answer. She ventured a glance. He was watching intently out the window, his cheeks bloomed pink.
She hadn’t meant to shame him. It was absurd—what did it matter to her if he himself didn’t pay for their outing, but allowed the da Costa Mendes fortune to provide all?
She’d no understanding of his air of protected English decency. Propriety, the notion of a fair world with codes that must be upheld—it seemed absurd to her. The piercing practicality of a man like Manuel HaLevy, Ester had to acknowledge, felt to her more honest. Yet the thought that her words might have stung John’s pride made her frantic.
She wished to understand him—and it seemed to her that he was as hidden as she.
She turned, abruptly, to face him. Almost comically he started back from her.
“Why are you here?” she said.
His expression tipped between laughter and alarm. “On this bench?”
“In London,” she said.
“I respect my father’s calling,” he shot back—as though this defense had been spooling out in his mind even before she posed the question. “But he wished for me to align my studies to follow in his profession. He’s a virtuous man and held in much honor, but I told him I wished to study more widely. If I return to his profession, I wish it to be as a man with his eyes opened to the world.”
“And what do you study?”
“Poetry, history, art, a bit of natural philosophy.” He laughed a quick laugh, as though expecting her to demean these pursuits. “I completed my university studies months ago, but with the universities wholly concerned now with theology and law, a man who wishes broader learning must find tutors. I linger in London on the last of my allowance to attend lectures as long as I still may. Each week now I receive a letter calling me home to my father’s estate, yet I’ve no wish to return before I must.” He searched her face; what he saw there seemed to reassure him. “I hold my father’s wisdom in esteem, yet his thinking is like the gardens of his estate,” he said. “Each plant or tree is trimmed into stately form, yet each is rooted in only its place in the landscape and has touched no other.” He glanced at her once more, then out the window, a flush of a different sort spreading on his cheeks.
At a stair on the river, their driver called the horse to a halt. A brief conference; then Thomas and John stepped down from the coach and left them. Mary sat doll-like in the carriage, blinking.
“Shall we step out?” said Ester.
There was no response, save a small huff of air meaning no.