This day I did the accounts for this household, the first for two months. My wife’s tallies are most neat; nor did I find fault. My position being better even than last quarter, I called her and told her that for the next twelve months she shall have thirty pounds for all expenses, clothes and everything. She was much content, not having expected half that much.
My daughter Judith came in to kiss me, for she shall have a new dress, of sarcenet, and new stockings too. She sat upon my knee and twirled her curls, which I have noticed is the way with her when she wishes me to give her aught.
‘Winter’s days are short,’ she said.
This being true, I did not reply.
‘But they are brighter with good company to dinner.’
‘We will have guests over Christmastide. And Susanna and good Dr Hall bring the sun even into winter’s dullness,’ I said.
Susanna plays the harpsichord, which neither my wife nor Judith have accomplished. With her loss, we have music and dancing only when she visits.
Judith pouted. I hid my smile. This was not how she had planned the conversation.
‘We could ask new people to dine, Father,’ she offered.
‘That is indeed possible,’ I said. ‘If angels can dance upon a pin, a man can have new faces at his table.’
‘Thomas Quiney has a most interesting face.’
I stood, removing her from my knee. ‘You have had dealings with Thomas Quiney?’
The landlord of Atwood’s tavern was as free with his affections as his ale. I remembered how he had bowed to us at the Mop Fair.
‘I have but seen him in church and at the market, no more,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Not even to talk to him.’
The lady doth protest too much.
‘He is not a man I will see at my table.’
‘Because he is in trade, not a gentleman?’
‘Because though he be a man, I doubt his gentleness. And that is all to be said of Thomas Quiney, or ever will be said. You understand?’
‘But, Father —’
‘Do you question your father’s word?’
‘No, Father,’ she said. ‘I do greatly love thee.’ She smiled and kissed my cheek again.
Oh, John Kneebone, I thought, my tenant farmer Lear. How will your daughters smile when you have naught to give them? My daughter’s smile today is for the new sarcenet dress, not for a father.
I may have put my books away but yet they follow me. The squire’s son and pretty Bess for Romeo and Juliet, for today I saw Bertram in the field below our house, and he was not there to milk our cows, but to stare at pretty Bess. Old Kneebone is our Lear; and it is whispered that Mistress Feathergale may be a witch, having no husband nor son to bring her meat to table, yet at three score and ten she still has all her teeth. And when she walks in the woods, it be not just to gather firewood for her cottage. Does she mutter prophecy, like the hags in my Macbeth? Nor must I forget Thomas Quiney, for he would make a right good Bottom, his handsome face hiding his true nature as an ass.
Dinner: beef steaks with anchovy; hare, jugged; saddle of mutton, boiled then roasted; beef marrow bones with mustard; pickled artichokes; a jelly of pippins and rhubarb, and one of quince, of which I did not eat; cheese; May butter; raspberry wine of my wife’s making, two years old and fine.
Bowels: steady once again, and waters clear.