Time's Echo by Pamela Hartshorne

he shook Hap off, but the next moment he was smiling again and congratulating me on my fierce guard dog, so I must have been mistaken. I hope I was.
    Francis even carried my basket for me, although it wasn’t heavy: a dozen eggs, brown and shit-spattered, some green peas, a large pat of butter, that was all. I pleated my fingers in my
skirts because I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
    He told me about his master, Mr Phillips, about how the Lord President had sent for him especially, and how much his master valued him. There was something pompous about the way Francis spoke. I
told myself it was just his southern accent. I wanted to like him, but I couldn’t help noticing how pleased with himself he seemed, and then I chided myself for being critical. Who was I to
expect perfection, after all? And Francis was a Londoner, I reminded myself as we walked back that day. There was a sheen to him that the young men of York lacked. It made it all the stranger that
he would want to be with me.
    ‘Tell me about London,’ I said when the conversation flagged.
    ‘York is but a village in comparison,’ he told me. ‘London is bigger and noisier and crueller. Folk walk more quickly there. There is a hastiness to everything they do. You
would not want to go there, Mistress Hawise.’
    I opened my mouth to contradict him, to tell him how many times I had dreamt of going to London, but remembered just in time that I mustn’t be different. I must be quiet and agree and
forget my strange ideas.
    Truth to tell, I was shy of him. Something about him made me uneasy, but at the same time I was intrigued. Francis Bewley was so different from anyone I had met before, and when he suggested
that we meet again, of course I was tempted.
    I felt restless and reckless that day, I remember that. I wanted to know what everyone but me seemed to know. I wanted to be like Alice and have a sweetheart of my own. Perhaps if I hadn’t
been envious of her, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet Francis outside the bar walls today. I would have remembered everything Mistress Beckwith had to say about modesty, and my master’s
distrust of southerners. I would have thought about Hap baring his teeth, and the shiny reflection of Francis’s eyes, and I would have shaken my head and stayed at home.
    But I was jealous and I was curious, and I agreed.
    I fold up the cloth. The best damask today, because Mr Hilliard is here. He is a wealthy merchant, and no doubt has fine cloths of his own, but he is a widower, and perhaps is lonely in that big
house of his in Coney Street, for he comes to dine with us often. His wife died in childbirth, I heard, and after that he came to York from somewhere in the east. It seems he is in no hurry to
marry again, although his friends are no doubt in search of a suitable bride for him. It shouldn’t be too hard. He is a stranger still, with no kin in the city, and his neighbours think him
outlandish, I’ve heard, but what does that matter when he is rich? A man as wealthy as Ned Hilliard will need a wife to give him a son, else what good is all his gold?
    I like Mr Hilliard. He does not seem odd to me. He is a quiet man, and not well favoured with his pox-pitted cheeks, but he has good teeth and he looks at you when he talks to you. There is a
stillness to him that is surprising when you think how far he has travelled. He has stood on the quaysides of Rouen and Lübeck and Venice, bargaining for bags of pepper and saffron, filling
his ships with ginger and nutmeg and sugar, with oils and almonds and exotic dyes. Sometimes when we have finished our chores, Meg and I sit on stools and listen to him talking with Mr Beckwith and
our mistress, and it is the next best thing to going myself.
    Why am I thinking about Mr Hilliard? I catch myself up. I should be thinking about Francis. But the truth is that I am nervous. My mistress is right. I have been clumsy and fidgety all day.
    I, Hawise Aske, am going to meet a young