St. Edmund Wood

by Caitlin Luke Quinn

  Emily felt a cold sweat over her entire body and avoided Mary’s gaze. “Will you defame a man not so long in his grave?” she hissed.

  “The grave is best for him. The world is better off,” Mary said.

  Emily finally looked at the girl and said nothing, but began to weep. “If you only knew, child! What I had to endure! Women are born to bear heavy burdens and be thankful for their lot! What could I have done? Who would have believed me? I beg of you, Mary, I beg of you—!”

  “Yet you shamed me and despised me for what they did! That proves knowledge of a kind,” Mary replied.

  “I fear we’ve upset Mistress Witherslack, my love. Let’s call at the friary in Wellston. Perhaps we shall find rooms there? We can be back tomorrow morning in time for the wedding.” Nathaniel suggested, and rose, taking Mary by the hand.

  “You will not stay?” Emily asked, suddenly calm, her tears wiped away. “I can ask Mr. Bede and Mistress Galthwaite to dine with us. It will be a lovely party. Surely you will not go elsewhere? It will be said…”

  “It will be said that Mistress Godwin goes where she is welcome.”Nathaniel and Mary left, Emily’s protests dissolving into new tears.

  The next morning when Nathaniel and Mary entered the church three ladies of the parish were decorating the nave for the wedding that afternoon: white lilies and tulips, freesia, carnations were everywhere, festooned with white ribbons. Mary’s eyebrows rose and she uttered a cry of surprise to find her fair linen gracing the altar in the sanctuary. Nathaniel noted it too, noting also the frowns and stares of the women. He brought Mary to the sanctuary steps where they’d declared their love a year ago. He kissed her gently and bade her wait. Talbot entered from the porch as Nathaniel was climbing up the steps to the sacristy. He turned when he heard his name shouted.

  “It’s true, then! You dare to return, you stupid fool!” Talbot hissed, mindless of the activity around them, of the smirks and smiles of the ladies at their work. “I should have you run out of Knowstone on a rail, or better, tarred and feathered! Leave at once! Both of you! I am expecting the new Dean of Salisbury Cathedral today and will not have you disgracing this church!”

  “You’re strangely truculent and angry where it concerns others’ sins, Talbot,” Nathaniel remarked, stepping forward. He reached into pocket of his topcoat and took out a document heavy with seals. “Here is a letter from the Dean.”

  “Let me guess; by some artifice or invention you’ve managed to become secretary to the Dean! God forbid you should earn anything by merit alone!” Talbot now spat and tore open the letter. “How would a fool like you come into his confidence. . .” Suddenly Talbot made guttural sounds as if he was being strangled and the document dropped from his hands, falling into the path of a woman placing candles on the altar. She stooped to retrieve it but Talbot managed to recover and snatched it away, tearing it into pieces. The great seals clattered to the pavement and caught the attention of those preparing for the wedding.

  “I trust you understand the charges against you?” Nathaniel queried in a voice no one but Talbot could hear. He continued, saying, “What you have in your hands is your death warrant, or something like it, Talbot. Did you not think eventually you’d have to pay dearly for your sins?”

  While Talbot trembled in fury and tried hard to control his temper, Nathaniel led Mary from the church and to their waiting carriage, which trundled off as soon as they were settled and the doors slammed shut. In the darkness of the swaying cabin, Nathaniel touched Mary’s face tenderly and let his fingers trace down to the swelling of her breasts.

  “Did I not say it would be easy, Darling Mary?” he whispered.

  “Let’s be gone. I will not be content until we are through St. Edmund Wood and returned to our home in Salisbury,” she sighed.

  “Our home,” Nathaniel echoed, wrapping her in his arms. He rested her head upon his shoulder and kept her in his safe and loving embrace as the London coach trundled up and down through the narrow streets of Knowstone, past the ruined abbey and to the observer, nothing more than a firefly speck of light in the darkness of St. Edmund Wood.

  About The Author

  Caitlin Luke Quinn is the pen name of Berkeley, California writer Ellen L. Ekstrom. She is the founder of Whyte Rose & Violet, Scribes, publishers of literary fiction.