A Crowning Mercy

‘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?’