A Crowning Mercy

3

‘You must be happy.’ Goodwife’s words before breakfast sounded to Campion like an order.

‘I’m so happy for you,’ Charity had said glumly, wishing herself to be married.

‘Praise be, Dorcas,’ Myrtle said and Myrtle was perhaps the only happy person in Werlatton Hall, for the dairy maid was half-witted.

‘You’re much blessed in your intended,’ said Ebenezer, his dark eyes unreadable.

She knew she had no right to be unhappy. She had always known that she was a chattel, to be disposed of as her father wished. That was the way of fathers and daughters, and she could not expect anything different. Yet even in her darkest moods she would not have dreamed of Brother Samuel Scammell.

After morning prayers, when she turned to the door to go to the dairy, her father checked her. ‘Daughter.’

‘Father.’

‘You are betrothed now.’

‘Yes, father.’

He stood, big and powerful beside the lectern, Scammell a few paces behind. Light from a stair window slanted on to Matthew Slythe’s dark and ponderous face. ‘You will no longer work in the dairy. You must prepare yourself for marriage.’

‘Yes, father.’

‘You will acquaint yourself with the household accounts.’ He frowned. ‘You have the freedom now to walk to the village in Brother Scammell’s company.’

She kept her head low. ‘Yes, father.’

‘You will walk there this morning with him. I have a letter you must give to Brother Hervey.’

They walked between hedgerows heavy with cow parsley and ragwort, away from Werlatton Hall and down the slope to where lady’s smock and meadowsweet grew. Beyond the stream, where a bank climbed towards the beech trees, Campion could see the blaze of pink-red where the campions grew. The sight almost made her cry. She was now to be Dorcas for ever, the mother of Samuel Scammell’s children. She wondered if she could ever love children who had his fleshy lips, his lumpen face, his gaping nostrils.

Stepping stones crossed the stream beside the ford and Scammell held a hand towards her. ‘May I help you?’

‘I can manage, Mr Scammell.’

‘Samuel, my dear. You should call me Samuel.’

The water ran fast over the gravel between the stepping stones, flowing north, and she glanced upstream and saw the dark, quick shape of a fish. This was the stream in which she swam. She almost wished that she had drowned yesterday, that her body had floated above the long weeds, a white and naked corpse drifting towards Lazen Castle.

The road turned south to negotiate the end of the high ridge. It was another hot day with white clouds far to the west and Campion’s long skirts stirred dust from the track.

Scammell walked heavily, leaning forward into each step. ‘I want you to know, my dear, that you have made me a very happy man.’

‘So you said at prayers, Mr Scammell.’

‘A very happy man. It is my intention that we shall be happy.’

She said nothing in reply. The wheatfield on her left was thick with poppies and she stared at them, blind to what she saw. She had always known this would happen, that her father would marry her to whomsoever he pleased, and she was surprised that he had waited so long. He had said that he would wait until she showed signs of Christ’s redemptive grace working in her, but she did not think that was the only reason. Ebenezer was Matthew Slythe’s heir, but Ebenezer’s survival had never been certain. He had always been weak, sickly and crippled, and Campion had always known that the man her father would choose as her husband might well become the heir to Werlatton. She supposed that Matthew Slythe had taken his time in searching out the right godly merchant.

Scammell cleared his throat. ‘It is a beautiful day, my dear. Indeed and indeed.’

‘Yes.’

She had always known this would happen, that marriage and childbirth were the events to follow her childhood, so why, she wondered, was she so saddened and horrified by the prospect? It was not as if any alternative had ever been offered to her, except in her own flimsy dreams, so why this sudden desolation at a fate she had been expecting for so long? She glanced at Scammell, provoking a nervous smile, and she could not believe that she was to marry him. She thrust the thought away. Her sense of difference was the basis of her daydreams and it was a sense that had betrayed her. She was neither special nor different, just a daughter to be disposed of in marriage.

Where the road turned north at the tip of the ridge there was a shadowed space beneath the great beeches, a place of old leaves, for beech leaves are slow to decay, crossed by a fallen trunk. Scammell turned into the shade. ‘May we pause, my dear?’

She stopped at the edge of the road.

Scammell wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, then brushed at the smooth, barkless wood of the fallen trunk and gestured for her to sit down. She could see that he planned to sit beside her, close beside her, so she shook her head. ‘I will stand, Mr Scammell.’

He pushed the handkerchief into his sleeve. ‘I wished to talk with you.’

She said nothing. She stood at the road’s edge in the bright sunlight, refusing to go into the green shadows with him.

He smiled his unctuous smile. The sun was behind her, making it difficult for him to see her. He stood awkwardly. ‘It will be a joy once more to have family. My dear mother, God bless her, passed away last year to be buried with my father. Yes, indeed.’ He smiled, but she did not respond. He moved heavily from one fleshy leg to the other. ‘So you see I am quite alone, my dear, which means my joy is doubled by uniting myself with your dear family.’ He sat down, plumping his large bottom up and down on the fallen trunk as if to demonstrate the comfort of the smooth wood. He subsided slowly as he realised that the gesture would not entice her from the dusty road. ‘Indeed and indeed.’ He seemed to sigh.

I could run now, she thought, run through the poppies and the wheat to the great stand of oaks that marks the southern boundary of father’s land, and then keep running. She had the thought of sleeping wild like the deer that sometimes came to the stream, of feeding herself, and she knew she could not run. She knew no one outside Werlatton, she had never travelled more than four miles from the house; she had no money, no friends, no hope.

Scammell leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped as if in prayer. He was sweating in the heat with his thick broadcloth clothes. ‘Your father suggested I talk to you of the future.’

Still she said nothing.

He smiled hopefully. ‘We are to live here in Werlatton with your dear family, so you will not have to leave home. Indeed, no. Your father, alas, gets no younger and he desires assistance with his affairs. Of course, when dear Ebenezer – I think of him already as a brother – is of age then our help may not be needed and then, perhaps, we shall return to London.’ He nodded, as if pleased with himself. ‘We have put all this before the Lord in prayer, my dear, so you may be sure that it is the wisest course.’

He frowned suddenly, shifting his buttocks on the trunk. He kept his concentrated frown and leaned forward in silence. It struck her that he was passing wind and she laughed aloud.

He leaned back, relaxing. ‘You are happy, my dear?’

She knew she should not have laughed, but she could feel the temptation to be cruel to this man. He waited for her answer which came in a low, modest voice. ‘Do I have a choice, Mr Scammell?’

He looked uneasy, unhappy, frowning again at her reply. There seemed small profit to him in answering her. He smiled again. ‘Your father has been most generous, most generous in his marriage settlement. Indeed and indeed. Most generous.’ He looked for a response, but she was still and silent in the sunlight. He blinked. ‘You know of the Covenant?’

‘No.’ Against her will her curiosity was touched.

‘Ah!’ He sounded surprised. ‘You are a fortunate woman, my dear, to be blessed by the Lord with wealth and, dare I say, beauty?’ He chuckled.

Wealthy? Covenant? She wanted to know more, but she could not bring herself to ask. If she had to marry this man then so be it, she had no choice, but she would not force herself to show a happiness and eagerness that she did not feel. She would resist the temptation to be cruel and maybe the love would grow, but she could feel the tears stinging her eyes as she looked over his head at the sunlight carving through the beeches on to the leaves of the previous autumn. By the time the leaves fell again she would be married, sharing a bed with Samuel Scammell.

‘No!’ She had not meant to speak aloud.

‘My dear?’ He looked eagerly at her.

‘No, no, no!’ She could feel the tears now and she rushed her words, hoping the speech would hold them back, as her resolve to submit with silent dignity broke almost as soon as it was born. ‘I want to marry, sir, and I want to marry in love, and have my children in love, and raise them in love.’ She stopped, the tears flowing now, and she knew the futility of her words, the unreality, and her head throbbed with the horror of marriage to this slack-lipped, piss-splashing, wind-passing man. She was angry, not at him, but because she had broken into tears in front of him. ‘I do not want this marriage, I do not want any marriage, I would rather die …’ She stopped. She would rather die than have her children raised in Matthew Slythe’s house, but she could not say so for fear the words would be passed back to him. Despite her incoherence and her tears, she was seething with anger at Scammell.

He was aghast. He wanted this marriage, he had wanted it ever since Matthew Slythe had proposed the settlement, because marrying Dorcas Slythe would make Samuel Scammell into a very rich man. Then, last night, he had seen her and he had wanted the marriage even more. Matthew Slythe had not described his daughter and Scammell had been astonished by her beauty.

Last night he had not believed his good fortune. She was a girl of astounding beauty and of calm presence who stirred the fleshly lust in him. Now that same grave, dutiful girl had turned on him, scorned him, and he stood up, frowning.

‘A child must be obedient to its parents, as a wife is obedient to her husband.’ He had adopted his preacher’s voice, stern and full. He was nervous, but Matthew Slythe had impressed on him the need for firmness. ‘We live in God’s love, not an earthly love of flesh and pleasure.’ He was in his stride now, as if talking to the congregation of Saints. ‘Earthly love is corruptible, as flesh is corruptible, but we are called to a heavenly love, God’s love, and a sacrament holy to Him and His Son.’ She shook her head, helpless against the Puritan harangue, and he stepped towards her, his voice louder. ‘“Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth!”’

She looked at him, bitterness in her soul, and she gave him a text in return. ‘“My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”’

Scammell glared at her. ‘Am I to tell your father that you reject his wishes?’

She was beaten and she knew it. If she rejected this man then her father would lock her in her room, feed her on bread and water and then, as the sun faded in the west, he would come to her, the thick leather belt in his hand. He would flail it at her, bellowing that this was God’s will and that she had sinned. She could not bear the thought of the bruises and the blood, the whimpering beneath the whistling lash of the belt. ‘No.’

Scammell rocked back and forth. He dropped his voice to a whining, unctuous level. ‘It is understandable that you are upset, my dear. Women are prone to be upset, indeed and indeed. The weaker sex, yes?’ He laughed, to show that he was sympathetic. ‘You will find, my dear, that God has made a woman’s way easy through obedience. Let the woman be subject to her husband. In obedience you will be saved the unhappiness of choice. You must see me now as your shepherd, and we will live in the house of the Lord for ever.’ He leaned forward, magnanimous in victory, to kiss her on the cheek.

She stepped back from him. ‘We are not yet married, sir.’

‘Indeed and indeed.’ He saved his balance by stepping forward. ‘Modesty, like obedience, is pleasing in a woman.’ He felt bitter. He wanted this girl. He wanted to paw at her, to kiss her, yet he felt a fear of her. No matter. In a month they would be married and she would be his property. He clasped his hands together, cracked his knuckles, and walked on to the road. ‘Shall we continue, my dear? We have a letter for Brother Hervey.’

The Reverend Hervey, vicar of the parish of Werlatton, had been christened Thomas by his parents, but in the sudden religious zeal that had swept England in recent years, a zeal that had erupted into war between King and Parliament, he had taken a new name. Like many Puritans he felt that his name should be a witness to the truth and he had prayed long and hard over the choices. One of his acquaintances had adopted the name of And I Shall Bind Them In Fetters Of Iron Smith, which the Reverend Hervey liked, but thought a little over long. There was also the Reverend His Mercy Endureth For Ever Potter who dribbled and had the shakes, and if Potter had been called to glory then Hervey might have taken that name, despite its length, but the Reverend Potter lived up to his adopted name by living into a sickly and senile ninth decade.

Finally, after much searching of the scriptures and much frenzied prayer seeking God’s guidance, he settled on a name that was neither too long nor too short, and which he felt was distinguished by force and dignity. He had made a name for himself and the name would make him famous and all England would know of the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey.

For indeed, the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey was a man of vaulting ambition. He had been fortunate, five years before, when Matthew Slythe had plucked him from an unhappy curacy and offered him the living of Werlatton. It was a good living, paid for by the Hall, and Faithful Unto Death received no less than thirty pounds a year from Matthew Slythe. Yet he yearned for more, for his ambition was overpowering, and he suffered torments of jealousy when other divines gained the fame that was denied to him.

He was now thirty-two years old, unmarried, and, despite his fashionable change of name, quite unknown outside the county. This was not entirely Faithful Unto Death’s fault. Two years before, in 1641, the Irish Catholics had rebelled against their English overlords and sent a shiver of horror through Protestant England. This shiver, Faithful Unto Death decided, would become the wave that would sweep him into prominence. He wrote a pamphlet, that lengthened to a book, that became a manuscript equal to two books, purporting to be an eyewitness account of ‘The Horrors of the Late Massacres Perpetrated by the Irish Catholicks Upon the Peacefulle Protestants of That Lande’. He had not been to Ireland, nor was he acquainted with anyone who had, but he did not see this as a hindrance to his first-person account. God, he knew, would guide his pen.

He equipped himself with a map of Ireland from which he drew the names of towns and villages, and had he kept his account brief and bloody, then he might well have been rewarded by the fame he sought so eagerly. Yet brevity was not within his power. Feverishly he wrote, night after night, his pen embellishing his nightmare thoughts. Rape came easily to his imagination, though at too great length, and by the time his catalogue of ravished Protestant virgins reached the London book publishers, two other men had already printed their own histories and had offered them for sale. The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey had missed the tide. His book was returned, unprinted.

If the world’s ignorance of his own abilities was one disappointment to Faithful Unto Death, then there was another equal sadness in his life. A clergyman with thirty pounds a year should not have lacked for a bride, but Faithful Unto Death had fixed his ambition on just one girl, a girl he thought a fit and meet companion for his rising life and a girl who could endow him with worldly goods. He wanted to marry Dorcas Slythe.

He had wanted her for five years, watching her from his low pulpit and seeking every opportunity to visit Werlatton Hall and stare at her beauty. The absence of other suitors had encouraged him to approach Matthew Slythe and propose himself as her husband, but Slythe had scorned him. He had been short, brutal, and unmistakable. The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey was never to speak of the matter again. Yet Slythe’s dismissal had not diminished Hervey’s lust. He wanted Dorcas so much that it hurt.

Now, sitting in his garden making notes on the sermon he must preach on Sunday, she was announced to him. His dream bride in person, come with her betrothed.

It was a bitter moment for Faithful Unto Death, bitter as gall, but he had no choice but to welcome them. He fussed about Samuel Scammell, knowing that one day this man could be his paymaster, and he hated inwardly what he fawned on outwardly. ‘Fine weather, Brother Scammell.’

‘Indeed and indeed. I was saying so to dear Dorcas.’

Dear Dorcas was staring at the grass, saying nothing. She did not like Hervey, had never liked him and she did not want to look at his raw, lugubrious face with its long neck and wobbling Adam’s apple. Hervey ducked to look at her face. ‘You walked here, Miss Slythe?’

She was tempted to say that they had come on broomsticks. ‘Yes.’

‘A fine day for a walk.’

‘Yes.’

Matthew Slythe’s letter was laid on the sundial while Faithful Unto Death fussed about bringing a bench from the house. Campion sat on the bench, moving away from the pressure of Scammell’s bulging thigh, while Hervey scanned the letter. ‘So the banns are to be read?’

‘Yes.’ Scammell fanned his face with his black hat.

‘Good, good.’

The religious turmoil of England might have driven the Book of Common Prayer from many parishes, but the forms were kept up for marriages and deaths. The law would be complied with, and the banns would be read on three successive Sundays, giving the parishioners a chance to object to the marriage. No one, Campion knew, would raise an objection. There were no objections to be raised.

The two men discussed the service, choosing which psalms would be sung and at what hour of the morning it should take place. Campion let their voices pass her by like the buzzing of the bees who worked the blossoms of Faithful Unto Death’s garden. She was to be married. It seemed like a judgement of doom. She was to be married.

They stayed an hour and left with many statements of mutual esteem between Brother Hervey and Brother Scammell. They had knelt for a brief prayer, ten minutes only, in which Faithful Unto Death had drawn the Almighty’s attention to the happy pair and asked Him to shower blessings on their richly deserving heads.

Faithful Unto Death watched them walk away through the village, his guts twisted up inside with envy. Hatred rose in him: for Matthew Slythe who had denied him his daughter and for Samuel Scammell who had gained her. Yet Faithful Unto Death would not give up. He believed in the power of prayer and he returned to his garden and there looked up verses in the book of Deuteronomy: ‘When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house.’

He prayed for it to come true, his thin face screwed tight in concentration, praying that one day Dorcas Slythe would be his captive. It was thus that his friend Ebenezer Slythe found him a half hour later when he arrived for his daily talk.

‘Brother Hervey?’

‘Ebenezer! Dear Ebenezer!’ Faithful Unto Death struggled to his feet. ‘Wrestling with the Lord!’

‘Amen and amen.’ They blinked at each other in the sunlight, then settled down with open scriptures and bitter hearts.

Campion dreamed of an escape that she knew was impossible. She thought of a red-headed man who had laughed in the stream, who had relaxed beside her on the grass, who had talked to her as though they were old friends. Toby Lazender was in London and she did not know if he would even remember her. She thought of running away, but where was she to run? She had no money, no friends, and if, in her desperation, she thought of writing to Toby Lazender, she knew no one who could be trusted to carry the letter to Lazen Castle.

Each passing day brought new reminders of her fate. Goodwife Baggerlie approved of the marriage. ‘He’s a good man, God be praised, and a good provider. A woman can want no more.’

Another day, listening to Goodwife list the possessions of the house and where they were stored, she heard another part of her future being planned. ‘There’s good swaddling clothes and a crib. They were yours and Ebenezer’s, and we kept them in case more should be born.’ ‘We’, to Goodwife, always referred to herself and Campion’s mother, two bitter women united in friendship. Goodwife looked critically at Campion. ‘You’ll have a child before next year’s out, though with your hips I’ll be bound it will be trouble! Where you get them I don’t know. Ebenezer’s thin, but he’s spread in the hips. Your mother, God rest her soul, was a big woman and your father’s not narrow in the loins.’ She sniffed. ‘God’s will be done.’

Faithful Unto Death Hervey read the banns once, twice and then a third time. The day came close. She would never be Campion, never know love, and she yearned for love.

‘By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth.’ And by night on her bed Campion tossed in an agony of apprehension. Would Scammell take her as a bull took a heifer? She cringed from her imagination, hearing his grunts, feeling the hanging weight of his great body as he mounted her. She imagined the fleshy lips at the nape of her neck and she cried out helplessly in her bed. Charity stirred in her sleep.

Campion saw her own death as she gave birth, dropping a sleek, bloody mess as she had seen cows drop. Sometimes she thought it would be simpler to die before the wedding.

Her father spoke to her only once about her wedding and that three days before the ceremony. He came upon her in the pantry where she was slapping butter into great squares for the table. He seemed surprised to see her and he stared at her.

She smiled. ‘Father?’

‘You are working.’

‘Yes, father.’

He picked up the muslin that covered the butter jar, twisting it in his huge hands. ‘I have brought you up in the faith. I have done well.’

She sensed that he needed reassurance. ‘Yes, father.’

‘He’s a good man. A man of God.’

‘Yes, father.’

‘He will be a tower of strength. Yes. A tower of strength. And you are well provided for.’

‘Thank you, father.’ She could see that he was about to leave so, before he could disentangle his hands from the muslin, she asked the question that had intrigued her since Scammell had spoken to her beneath the beech trees. ‘Father?’

‘Daughter?’

‘What is the Covenant, father?’

His heavy face was still, staring at her, the question being weighed in the balance of his mind. A pulse throbbed in his temple.

She would always remember the moment. It was the only occasion when she knew her father to lie. Matthew Slythe, for all his anger, was a man who tried to be honest, tried to be true to his hard God, yet at that moment, she knew, he lied. ‘It is a dowry, no more. It is for your husband, of course, so it is not your concern.’

The muslin had torn in his hands.

Matthew Slythe prayed that night, he prayed for forgiveness, that the sin of lying would be forgiven. He groaned as he thought of the Covenant. It had brought him riches beyond hope, but it had brought him Dorcas as well. He had tried to break her spirit, to make her a worthy servant of his harsh God, but he feared for her if she should ever know the true nature of the Covenant. She could be rich and independent and she might achieve that effortless happiness that Slythe sensed in her and feared as the devil’s mark. The money of the Covenant was not for happiness. It was, in Matthew Slythe’s plans, money to be spent on spreading the fear of God to a sinful world. He prayed that Dorcas would never, ever, discover the truth.

His daughter prayed, too. She had known, she did not know how, that her father had lied. She prayed that night and the next that she would be spared the horror of marrying Samuel Scammell. She prayed, as she had ever done, for happiness and for the love God promised.

On the eve of her wedding it seemed that God might be listening.

It was a fine, sunny day, a day of high summer, and, in the early afternoon, her father died.