A Crowning Mercy

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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‘Apoplexy,’ Dr Fenderlyn said.

‘Sir?’

‘Apoplexy, Dorcas.’ Fenderlyn stood beside his horse at the entrance to Werlatton Hall. ‘Too much blood, child, that’s all. I could have bled him last week, if I’d known, but he wouldn’t come to me. Power of prayer!’ He said the last scornfully as he slowly climbed the mounting block. ‘Urine, child, urine! Send your physician urine regularly and you might have a chance, you might …’ He shrugged, drawing in a hiss of breath that suggested everything was doomed anyway. ‘You’re not looking well, child. Too much yellow bile in you. I can give you an emetic, it’s better than prayer.’

‘No, thank you, sir.’ Campion had been given one of Fenderlyn’s emetics in the past, dark brown and slimy, and she could still remember the desperate breath-stealing vomit that had erupted to the doctor’s grave approval.

He gathered the reins of his horse, swung his leg across the saddle and settled himself. ‘You heard the news, Dorcas?’

‘News, sir?’

‘The King’s taken Bristol. I suppose the Royalists will win now.’ He grunted approvingly. ‘Still, I suppose you’ve got other things on your mind. You were to be married tomorrow?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Not now, child, not now.’ Fenderlyn said it gloomily, but the words were like an angelic message in her head. The doctor pulled his hat straight. ‘It’ll be a funeral not a wedding. Fine weather, Dorcas! Bury him soon. I suppose he’ll want to rest beside your mother?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll make sure Hervey opens up the grave. Heigh ho. Another one gone.’ He looked up at the eaves of the Hall where the house martins had their nests. ‘It comes to us all, child, comes to us all. Apoplexy, the stone, strangury, the gout, epilepsy, leprosy, botches, plague, fistula, cankerworm, dropsy, gut-twisting, rupture, goitre, fever, the pox, tetterworm, the sweat, gripes.’ He shook his head, relishing the list. ‘It’s only the young who think they’ll live for ever.’ Dr Fenderlyn was seventy-eight years old and had never had a day’s illness in his life. It had made him a cheerless man, expecting the worst. ‘What will you do, Dorcas?’

‘Do, sir?’

‘I suppose you’ll marry Mr Scammell and breed me more patients?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’ There was a joy in Campion, a leaping joy because she did not know what the future held. She knew only that the marriage had been postponed and she felt as a condemned prisoner must when the gaoler announces a reprieve.

‘I’ll bid you good day, Dorcas.’ Fenderlyn touched his whip to the brim of his hat. ‘Tell that brother of yours to send me some urine. Never thought he’d survive weaning, but here he is. Life’s full of surprises. Be of good cheer!’ He said the last miserably.

Ebenezer had found his father dead, slumped over his study table, and on Matthew Slythe’s face was a snarl that had been there so often in life. His fist was clenched as if, at the last moment, he had tried to hold on to life and not go to the heaven he had looked forward to for so long. He had lived fifty-four years, a good length for most men, and death had come very suddenly.

Campion knew she should not feel released, yet she did, and it was an effort to stand beside the grave, looking down at the decaying wood of her mother’s coffin, without showing the pleasure of the moment. She joined in the 23rd psalm, then listened as Faithful Unto Death Hervey rejoiced that Brother Matthew Slythe had been called home, had been translated into glory, had crossed the river Jordan to join the company of Saints and even now was part of the eternal choir that hymned God’s majesty in the celestial skies. Campion tried to imagine her father’s dark-browed, ponderous scowl in the ranks of the angels.

After the service, as earth was shovelled on to her father’s coffin, Faithful Unto Death Hervey took her to one side. His fingers gripped her arm tightly. ‘A sad day, Miss Slythe.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet you will meet in heaven.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Hervey glanced back at the mourners, out of earshot. His straw-coloured hair fell lank on his thin, pointed face. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. ‘And what, pray, will you do now?’

‘Now?’ She tried to pull her arm away, but Faithful Unto Death kept firm hold of it. His eyes, pale as his hair, flicked left and right.

‘Grief is a hard burden, Miss Slythe.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And not one that should be borne alone.’ His fingers tightened on her upper arm, hurting her. He smiled. ‘I am the shepherd of this flock, Miss Slythe, and I stand ready to help you in any way I can. You do understand that?’

‘You’re hurting me.’

‘My dear Miss Slythe!’ His hand leaped from her arm then hovered close to her shoulder. ‘Perhaps together we can pray for the balm of Gilead?’

‘I know you will pray for us, Mr Hervey.’

It was not the answer Faithful Unto Death wanted. He was imagining emotional scenes in the Hall, Campion perhaps prostrate on her bed with grief while he administered comfort, and he began to blink rapidly as his imagination stirred thick with the image.

Samuel Scammell walked over to them, breaking Hervey’s thoughts, and thanked the minister for the service. ‘You’ll come to the Hall tomorrow, brother? Mr Blood has the will, indeed yes.’ He licked his lips and smiled at Hervey. ‘I think our dear departed brother may have remembered your good works.’

‘Yes. Yes.’

The household waited for Scammell and Campion beside the farm cart that had brought Slythe’s body to the churchyard. Ebenezer was already mounted beside the cart, drooping in the saddle, his twisted left leg supported by a specially large stirrup. He held Scammell’s horse. ‘Brother Scammell?’ He held the reins out, then looked at his sister. ‘You’ll go in the cart with the servants.’ His voice was harsh.

‘I shall walk, Ebenezer.’

‘It is not seemly.’

‘I shall walk, Ebenezer! I want to be alone!’

‘Leave her, leave her!’ Scammell soothed Ebenezer, nodded to Tobias Horsnell, who had the reins of the carthorse and Campion watched them go.

It took all of her control not to run across the ridge down the hayfields to the stream, and there to strip naked and swim in the pool for the sheer, clean joy of it. She dawdled instead, relishing the freedom of being alone, and she climbed part way up through the beeches and felt the wings of her soul stretching free at last. She hugged one of the trees as though it was animate, clinging to it in joy, feeling the seething happiness because a great weight was gone from her. She put her cheek against the bark. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

That night she slept alone, ordering Charity from her room, insisting on it. She locked the door and almost danced for the joy of it. She was alone! She undressed with the curtains and windows open and saw the touch of the moon on the ripening wheat. She leaned on the sill, stared into the night, and thought her joy would flood the land. She was not married! Kneeling beside the high bed, hands clasped, she thanked God for her reprieve. She vowed to Him that she would be good, but that she would be free.

Then Isaac Blood came from Dorchester.

He had a white face, lined with age, and grey hair that hung to his collar. He was Matthew Slythe’s lawyer and, because he had known Slythe well and knew what to expect at Werlatton Hall, he had brought his own bottle of malmsey wine which he eked into a small glass and sipped often. The servants faced him, sitting on the benches where they gathered for prayers, while Samuel Scammell and Faithful Unto Death flanked Campion and Ebenezer on the family bench. Isaac Blood fussed at the lectern, arranging the will over the family Bible, then fetched a small table on which his wine could stand.

Goodwife Baggerlie, in memory of her good, loyal and God-fearing service, was to receive a hundred pounds. She dabbed her red-rimmed eyes with her apron. ‘God bless him! God bless him!’