A Respectable Trade. Philippa Gregory

a married woman now and an entirely new life was opening up before her. It seemed like a hard choice – matrimony at thirty-five – when many women were matrons already with a family around them. But anything was better than being a governess in a state of genteel servitude. Anything was better than watching her place move inexorably down the dining table until one day she would be asked to dine in the nursery with the children, and disappear from polite society altogether. It had been a hard choice, but in the end no choice at all.

      Frances started to plait her hair in a thick hank, ready for bed. The wedding dinner had been better than she could have hoped. Lord Scott had been as kind as always, although his cold unfriendly wife had cast a cool shadow over the proceedings. Frances had dreaded that Josiah would be rowdy and jolly but the evening had been as dignified as a funeral. Only Sarah and Josiah represented the Cole family so Frances’s other great fear – that there would be dozens of vulgar relations emerging from the Bristol woodwork – was stilled. The dinner had been well cooked, a little lavish for just the five of them. The wines – as you would expect in Bristol – had been excellent.

      Frances had sat at the foot of the table in the tiny airless parlour and smiled without flinching. Everyone at the table knew that marriage to such a man as Josiah was not her first choice. Everyone at the table knew that she had no choice. The coldness in her heart was reflected in the cool serenity of her face.

      Her calm had been threatened only once. When Lord Scott took her hand on leaving he had whispered to her: ‘God bless you my dear, it’s the best thing you could have done … considering.’ This tactful acknowledgement that she was orphaned and penniless sent a shiver through her. ‘I will pray it goes well for you,’ he said.

      There would be nothing he could do for her if it did not. Frances was owned by Josiah, body and soul. She had promised to obey him till death.

      ‘But it will go well for me,’ she whispered. She tied her nightcap under her chin and crossed the cold floorboards to the bed. She had wept the night her father died. She had wept the first night that she had slept in a strange house, far from the country vicarage, and far below the genteel status of the vicar’s only daughter. She had raged then against the unfairness of a life in which a woman is dependent completely on a man. A woman who lacks a father must find a husband. Frances had not married when she should have done, in the brief bloom of her youth. She had aimed too high and her father had been too proud. He had not understood that a man, any man at all, was better than spinster hardship. Her father’s death abandoned Frances to loneliness and to poverty and to the unending slights of the life of a governess.

      She got into the broad bed, and rested her head on the plain linen pillow. She would not cry tonight. She was a wife and she had a dinner table of her own, even though it was only a little table and pushed to one side in a tiny parlour. The rest of her life would be spent accommodating her desires to her husband’s fortune. If Josiah rose in the world she would rise with him; if he did not she must bear it with patience and be glad to have found such a haven as this little house. She pulled the covers over her shoulders as if the coldness in her spirit had chilled her very skin, despite the sultry night air. She felt as if tears or feelings would never touch her again. She was heartbroken and exhausted by heartbreak; and she mistook it for the calmness of old age.

      There was a tap on the door between Josiah’s room and her own and her husband came in, carrying his candle. He was wearing a plain linen nightshirt. He set the candle down on the bedside table and stood, looking at her. He was clearly at a loss.

      ‘I hope you enjoyed the dinner,’ he said awkwardly.

      Frances nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said in her cool level voice.

      Josiah’s feet in Moroccan leather slippers shuffled on the wooden floor. He looked intensely uncomfortable. ‘The wines were good,’ he volunteered.

      Frances nodded.

      There was silence. Frances realised that Josiah was painfully embarrassed. Neither of them knew how a husband claimed his marital rights. Neither of them knew how a wife consented. Her dry little cough rose up in her throat and she cleared her throat.

      ‘It’s quite late now,’ Josiah remarked.

      Frances turned back the covers. ‘Will you come to bed, husband?’ she asked, as coldly civil as if she were offering him a dish of tea.

      Josiah flushed scarlet with relief. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He stepped out of his slippers and slid into bed beside her. They lay side by side for a moment, taking care not to touch each other, then Josiah leaned over and blew out both candles. Under cover of the sudden darkness he reared on top of Frances and pulled her nightdress out of his way. Frances lay still underneath him with her eyes closed and her teeth gritted. It was a duty which had to be done. Josiah fumbled awkwardly for a few moments and then he exclaimed in a whisper and moved away.

      ‘It’s no good,’ he said shortly. ‘I have drunk too much wine.’

      Frances opened her eyes. She could see only the silhouette of his profile. She did not know what she was supposed to do.

      ‘It does not matter,’ he said, consoling himself rather than her. ‘It will come right in time. There is no need for us to hurry. After all, we neither of us married for desire.’

      There was a long, rather chilling silence. ‘No,’ Frances acknowledged. ‘Neither of us did.’

      ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ a voice said, and the curtains rattled on the brass rail as the maid drew them back and tied them to the bed posts.

      Frances stirred and opened her eyes. The maid who had waited at the dinner table last night was standing before her with a small silver tray bearing a jug of hot chocolate and a warm pastry. Frances sat up and received the tray on her knees.

      ‘Thank you.’

      The maid dipped a curtsey.

      ‘Master said to tell you that he is gone out early,’ she said. ‘But Miss Cole expects you in the parlour as soon as you are dressed. She is there already.’

      Frances nodded. She waited for the maid to leave the room and then bolted the food and gulped down the hot chocolate. She sprang from the bed and went over to the ewer of water to wash her face. Then she paused, remembering her new status. She was no longer the governess who had to hurry downstairs for fear of keeping the mistress waiting. Frances smiled at the thought and poured water into the bowl. She washed her face and patted it dry, enjoying the sense of leisure. Her clothes for the morning were laid out on the heavy wooden chest: a linen shift, a morning dress in white muslin, embroidered at the hem, with a frivolous silk apron to denote Frances’s intention of domestic work.

      The dress was new. Lady Scott had given Frances whole bolts of fabric when the marriage contract was signed. Her entire wardrobe had been renovated and improved with gifts from her cousins and her aunt. Frances knew it was the last thing Lady Scott would ever do for her and she accepted the old gowns and yards of silk with nothing more than polite gratitude. Her husband would have to provide for her new clothes, and there was an allowance of pin money laid down in the marriage contract. Frances would never again darn and re-darn her silk stockings.

      She slipped on the shift and turned as there was a tap on the door and the maid came in again. Frances sat at the dressing table and brushed her hair in steady sweeps of the silver-backed brushes, and the maid helped her plait it into two braids and pin them up on her head with a pretty scrap of lace for a cap. The woman was slow and not very skilful. She dropped the hairbrush.

      ‘I am sorry, Mrs Cole,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I don’t usually work as a lady’s maid.’

      ‘Does Miss Cole have her own maid?’

      ‘She dresses herself.’

      Frances hid her surprise. She had never heard of a lady dressing herself, she wondered how Sarah managed with the small covered buttons at the back of a gown. Even as a governess Frances had borrowed a maid to do her hair and help with the fastenings. For the first time Frances had a glimpse of her tumble in status. The maid shook out the morning dress and held it for Frances