A Crowning Mercy

‘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.

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