A Crowning Mercy

The pie was finished without further talk and then, as Campion expected, the conversation was of religion. The Puritans were divided into a multiplicity of sects, disagreeing on fine points of theology and offering men like her father and Brother Scammell a splendid battleground for anger and condemnation. Ebenezer joined in. He had been studying Presbyterianism, the religion of Scotland and much of England’s Parliament, and he attacked it splenetically. He leaned into the candlelight and Campion thought there was something fanatical in his thin, shadowed face. He was speaking to Samuel Scammell. ‘They would deny our Lord Jesus Christ’s saving grace, brother! They would dispute it, but what other conclusion can we draw?’

Scammell nodded. ‘Indeed and indeed.’

The sky had gone ink black beyond the windows. Moths flickered at the panes.

Samuel Scammell smiled at Campion. ‘Your brother is strong in the Lord, Miss Slythe.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you?’ He leaned forward, his small eyes intent on her.

‘Yes, sir.’ It was an inadequate answer, one that made her father stir in suppressed wrath, but Scammell leaned back happy enough.

‘Praise the Lord. Amen and amen.’

The conversation, thankfully, passed from the state of her soul to the latest stories of Catholic atrocities in Ireland. Matthew Slythe warmed to the subject, anger giving his words wings, and Campion let the phrases hammer unheard about her head. She noticed that Samuel Scammell was stealing constant looks at her, smiling once when he caught her eye, and she found it unsettling.

Toby Lazender had said she was beautiful. She wondered what he did in London, how he liked a city ‘cleansed’ by the Puritans he so disliked. She had asked Charity, three weeks before, if a visitor had been in church and Charity had said yes. A strong young man, she said, with red hair, who had bellowed out the psalms in a loud voice. Campion was sad. She guessed Toby must have thought she did not want to see him again. She saw Samuel Scammell staring at her again and it reminded her of the way other men looked at her, even, though she found it hard to believe, the Reverend Hervey. Scammell seemed to eye her as a bull might a heifer.

The owl that hunted the beech ridge sounded in the night.

Samuel Scammell excused himself from the table and walked down the stone-flagged passage that led to the close-chamber.

Her father waited till his footsteps stopped, then looked at his daughter. ‘Well?’

‘Father?’

‘Do you like Brother Scammell?’

Her father did, so her answer was obvious. ‘Yes, father.’

Scammell had not closed the chamber door and she could hear him urinating into the stone trough, a sound just like that of a horse staling in the stable-yard. It seemed to go on for ever.

Ebenezer scowled at the candles. ‘He seems sound in his beliefs, father.’

‘He is, son, he is.’ Matthew Slythe leaned forward, his face gloomy as he stared at the remains of the apple pie. ‘He is blessed of God.’

The splashing still sounded. He must have the bladder of an ox, Campion thought. ‘Is he here to preach, father?’

‘Business.’ Her father gripped the table top and seemed to brood. A pulse throbbed at his forehead. The sound of Scammell’s pissing stopped, started again, then faded in spurts. Campion felt sick. She had hardly eaten. She wanted to be out of this room, she wanted to be in her bed where she could lie and dream her private dreams of the world beyond the high yew hedge.

Samuel Scammell’s footsteps were loud in the passage. Matthew Slythe blinked, then put a welcoming smile on his face. ‘Ah! Brother Scammell, you’re back.’

‘Indeed and indeed.’ He waved a pudgy hand towards the passage. ‘A well-appointed house, brother.’

‘Praise God.’

‘Indeed and indeed.’ Scammell was standing by his chair, waiting for the mutual praise of God to cease. Campion saw a dark, damp patch on his breeches. She looked at the table instead.

‘Sit down, brother! Sit down!’ Her father was forcing jollity into his voice, a heavy-handed jollity that was only used with guests. ‘Well?’

‘Yes, indeed yes.’ Scammell hitched up his breeches, scooped his coat aside and scraped his chair forward. ‘Indeed.’

‘And?’

Campion looked up, alerted by the inconsequential words. She frowned.

Scammell was smiling at her, his nostrils cavernous. He wiped his hands together, then dried them on his coat. ‘“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.”’

‘Amen,’ Matthew Slythe said.

‘Praise the Lord,’ Ebenezer said.

‘Indeed and indeed,’ Samuel Scammell said.

Campion said nothing. A coldness was on her, a fear at the very centre of her.

Her father looked at her and quoted from the same chapter of Proverbs. ‘“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”’

‘Amen,’ said Brother Scammell.

‘And amen,’ said Ebenezer.

‘Well?’ asked Matthew Slythe.

Samuel Scammell licked his lips, smiled, and patted his stomach. ‘I am honoured by your offer, Brother Slythe, and have laid it prayerfully before the Lord. It is my fervent belief that I must accept.’

‘Amen.’

Scammell looked at Campion. ‘We are to be united as husband and wife, Miss Slythe. A happy day, indeed and indeed.’

‘Amen,’ said Ebenezer.

Scammell looked at Ebenezer. ‘We are to be brothers, Ebenezer, in family as in God.’

‘Praise Him.’

She had known, she had known, but she had not dared accept the knowledge. Her fear burned, tears pricked at her, but she would not cry in front of them. Her father was smiling at her, not in love, but as an enemy might smile when he sees his foe humiliated. ‘Brother Hervey will read the banns beginning this Lord’s Day.’

She nodded, incapable of fighting him. She was to be married in one month. She would be Dorcas for ever. Dorcas Slythe would become Dorcas Scammell, and she could never be Campion.

‘Amen and amen,’ said Samuel Scammell, ‘a happy day!’

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.