A Crowning Mercy Read online

  Upstairs, in the bedroom she had to share with one of the maids, Campion sat on the wide window-sill and stared into the night.

  Once Werlatton Hall had been beautiful, though she did not remember it thus. Its old, stone walls had been hugged by ivy and shaded by great elms and oaks, but when Matthew Slythe had purchased the estate he had stripped the ivy and cut down the great trees. He had surrounded the Hall with a vast lawn that took two men to scythe smooth in summer, and about the lawn he had planted a yew hedge. The hedge was tall now, enclosing the clean, ordered world of Werlatton and keeping at bay the strange, tangled outside world where laughter was not a sin.

  Campion stared at the darkness beyond the hedge.

  An owl, hunting the great ridge of beeches, sounded hollow across the valley. Bats flitted past the window, wheeling raggedly. A moth flew past Campion, attracted by the candle and causing Charity, the maid, to squeal in alarm, “Shut the window, Miss Dorcas.”

  Campion turned. Charity had pulled out the truckle bed from beneath Campion’s. The girl’s pale, frightened face looked up. “Did it hurt, miss?”

  “Always does, Charity.”

  “Why did you do it, miss?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Campion turned back to the rich, sweet darkness. She prayed every night that God would make her good, yet she could never please her father. She had known it was a sin to swim in the stream, but she did not understand why. Nowhere in the Bible did it say “Thou shalt not swim,” though she knew that the nakedness was an offense. Yet the temptation would come again and again. Except that now she would never be allowed to the stream again.

  She thought of Toby. Her father, before he beat her, had ordered her to be confined to the house for the next month. She would not be in church on Sunday. She thought of stealing away, going to the road that led north to Lazen, but knew she could not do it. She was always watched when she was forbidden to leave the house, her father guarding her with one of his trusted servants.

  Love. It was a word that haunted her. God was love, though her father taught of a God of anger, punishment, wrath, vengeance and power. Yet Campion had found love in the Bible. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.” “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me”; “And his banner over me was love”; “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth.” Her father said the Song of Solomon was merely an expression of God’s love for his church, but she did not believe him.

  She looked into the dark over the Werlatton valley and she thought of her father. She feared him when she should love him, yet the fear had never struck at the very center of her. She had a secret, a secret that she clung to day and night. It was like a dream that never left her, and in the dream it was as if she was a disembodied soul merely watching herself in Werlatton. She smiled. She now found she was thinking of the disembodied soul as Campion, watching Dorcas be obedient, or trying to be obedient, and she had the sense that somehow she did not belong here. She could not explain it, any more than Toby Lazender had been able to explain how the cold fingers knew the pressure of a fish in the water, yet the sense of her difference had been the sense that enabled her to resist the savage fatherhood of Matthew Slythe. She fed her soul on love, believing that kindness must exist somewhere beyond the tall, dark hedge of yew. One day, she knew, she would travel into the tangled world that her father feared.

  “Miss?” Charity was shrinking away from the fluttering moth.

  “I know, Charity. You don’t like moths.” Campion smiled. Her back hurt as she bent over, but she cradled the large moth in her hands, feeling its wings flutter on her palms, and then she threw it to the freedom of the dark where the owl and the bats hunted.

  She closed the window and knelt beside her bed. She prayed dutifully for her father, for Ebenezer, for Goodwife, for the servants, and then she prayed, a smile on her face, for Toby. The dreams had been given fuel. There was no sense in it and little hope, but she was in love.

  Three weeks later, when the corn was the color of Campion’s hair and the summer promised a harvest richer than England had known for years, a guest came to Werlatton Hall.

  Guests were few. A travelling preacher, his tongue burdened with hatred for the King and preaching death to the bishops, might be offered hospitality, but Matthew Slythe was not a gregarious man.

  The guest, Dorcas was told, was called Samuel Scammell. Brother Samuel Scammell, a Puritan from London, and Charity was excited at the visit. She came to Dorcas in the bedroom as the sun was dying over the valley. “Goodwife says you’re to wear Sunday best, miss. And the rugs are down in the hall!”

  Campion smiled at Charity’s excitement. “The rugs?”

  “Yes, miss, and master’s ordered three pullets killed! Three! Tobias brought them in. Goodwife’s making pie.” Charity helped Campion dress, then adjusted the white linen collar over her shoulders. “You do look well, miss.”

  “Do I?”

  “It was your mother’s collar. It mended ever so nice.” Charity twitched at the edge of it. “It looks so much bigger on you!”

  Martha Slythe had been fat and tall, her voice competing with Goodwife Baggerlie’s for mastery over the dirt of Werlatton Hall. Campion lifted the edge of the collar. “Wouldn’t it be nice to wear something pretty just once? Do you remember that woman in church two years ago? The one the Reverend Hervey told off for dressing like a harlot?” She laughed. The woman had worn a lace collar, pretty and soft.

  Charity frowned. “Miss! That’s a wicked lust!”

  Campion sighed inwardly. “I’m sorry, Charity. I spoke without thinking.”

  “God will forgive you, miss.”

  “I’ll pray for that,” Campion lied. She had long learned that the best way to avoid God’s wrath was to pay Him frequent lip service. If Charity had told Goodwife about Campion’s wish to wear lace, and Goodwife had told her master, then Matthew Slythe would punish Campion. Thus, Campion thought, to avoid punishment she had been taught to lie. Punishment is the best teacher of deceit. “I’m ready.”

  Matthew Slythe, his two children and the guest ate their supper at the far end of the great hall. The shutters of the tall windows were left open. Dusk was bringing gloom to the wide lawn and hedge.

  Samuel Scammell, Campion guessed, was in his mid-thirties and there was a fleshiness to him that betokened a full diet. His face was not unlike her father’s. It had the same bigness, the same heaviness, but where her father’s face was strong, Scammell’s seemed somehow soft as though the bones were malleable. He had full, wet lips that he licked often. His nostrils were like two huge, dark caves that sprouted black hair. He was ugly, an ugliness not helped by his cropped, dark hair.

  He seemed eager to please, listening respectfully to Matthew Slythe’s growled remarks about the weather and the prospect for harvest. Campion said nothing. Ebenezer, his thin face darkened by the shadow of beard and moustache, a darkness that was there even immediately after he had shaved, asked Brother Scammell his business.

  “I make boats. Not I personally, you understand, but the men I employ.”

  “Sea-going ships?” Ebenezer asked, with his usual demand for exactness.

  “No, no, indeed, no.” Scammell laughed as though a joke had been made. He smiled at Campion. His lips were flecked with the pastry of Goodwife’s chicken pie. More pastry clung to his thick black broadcloth coat, while a spot of gravy was smeared on his white collar with its two tassels. “Watermens’ boats.”

  Campion said nothing. Ebenezer frowned at her, then leaned forward. “Watermens’ boats?”

  Scammell put a hand to his stomach, opened his small eyes wide, and tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a small belch. “Indeed and indeed. In London, you see, the Thames is our main street.” He was addressing Campion again. “The watermen carry cargoes and passengers and we build most of their craft. We also serve the big houses.” He smiled at Matthew Slythe. “We built a barge for my Lord o
f Essex.”

  Matthew Slythe grunted. He did not seem over-impressed that Samuel Scammell did business with the general of Parliament’s armies.

  There was a silence, except for the scraping of Scammell’s knife on his plate. Campion pushed the stringy chicken to one side, trying to hide it under the dry pie crust. She knew she was being rude and she sought desperately for something to say to their guest. “Do you have a boat yourself, Mr. Scammell?”

  “Indeed and indeed!” He seemed to find that funny, too, for he laughed. Some of the pastry scraps fell down his ample stomach. “Yet I fear I am a bad sailor, Miss Slythe, indeed and indeed, yes. If I must travel upon the water then I pray as our Dear Lord did for the waves to be stilled.” This was evidently a joke also, for the hairs in his capacious nostrils quivered with snuffled laughter.

  Campion smiled dutifully. Her brother’s feet scraped on the boards of the floor.

  Her father looked from Campion to Scammell and there was a small, secret smile on his heavy face. Campion knew that smile and in her mind it was associated with cruelty. Her father was a cruel man, though he believed cruelty to be kindness for he believed a child must be forced into God’s grace.

  Matthew Slythe, embarrassed by the new silence, turned to his guest. “I hear the city is much blessed by God, brother.”

  “Indeed and indeed.” Scammell nodded dutifully. “The Lord is working great things in London, Miss Slythe.” Again he turned to her and she listened with pretended interest as he told her what had happened in London since the King had left and the rebellious Parliament had taken over the city’s government. The Sabbath, he said, was being properly observed, the playhouses had been closed down, as had the bear gardens and pleasure gardens. A mighty harvest of souls, Scammell declared, was being reaped for the Lord.

  “Amen and amen,” said Matthew Slythe.

  “Praise His name,” said Ebenezer.

  “And wickedness is being uprooted!” Scammell raised his eyebrows to emphasize his words. He told of two Roman Catholic priests discovered, men who had stolen into London from the Continent to minister to the tiny, secret community of Catholics. They had been tortured, then hanged. “A good crowd of Saints watched!”

  “Amen!” said Matthew Slythe.

  “Indeed and indeed.” Samuel Scammell nodded his head ponderously. “And I too was an instrument in uprooting wickedness.”

  He waited for some interest. Ebenezer asked the required question and Scammell again addressed the answer to Campion. “It was the wife of one of my own workmen. A slatternly woman, a washer of clothes, and I had cause to visit the house and what do you think I found?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “A portrait of William Laud!” Scammell said it dramatically. Ebenezer tutted. William Laud was the imprisoned Archbishop of Canterbury, hated by the Puritans for the beauty with which he decorated churches and his devotion to the high ritual which they said aped Rome. Scammell said the portrait had been lit by two candles. He had asked her if she knew who the picture represented, and she did, and what is more had declared Laud to be a good man!

  “What did you do, brother?” Ebenezer asked.

  “Her tongue was bored with a red hot iron and she was put in the stocks for a day.”

  “Praise the Lord,” Ebenezer said.

  Goodwife entered and put a great dish on the table. “Apple pie, master!”

  “Ah! Apple pie.” Matthew Slythe smiled at Goodwife.

  “Apple pie!” Samuel Scammell linked his hands, smiled, then cracked his knuckles. “I like apple pie, indeed and indeed!”

  “Dorcas?” Her father indicated that she should serve. She gave herself a tiny sliver that brought a sniff of disapproval from Goodwife, who was bringing lit candles to the table.

  Samuel Scammell made short work of two helpings, gobbling the food as though he had not eaten in a week, and swilling it down with the small beer that was served this night. Matthew Slythe never served strong drink, only water or diluted ale.

  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 Dorcas. “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 forever.

  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 toward 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.

&
nbsp; “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 center of her.

  Her father looked at her and quoted from the same chapter of Proverbs. “‘Favor 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 honored 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.”