God and the Wedding Dress

by Marjorie Bowen

  “Good evening, sir,” said the dissenter. “You see that the man whom you spoke of as likely to arrest me is my friend and sent for me. He has been unwell for two days, but did not like to speak of it. I was on my way to see him when I met you but now.”

  The constable himself spoke and the Rector stood silent, gazing at his livid face, his dragged mouth, his heavy eyes.

  “Sir, I meant no disloyalty nor disrespect to you nor to the Church. Mr. Stanley was my pastor for years, and I wearied after him as did others.”

  The dying man coughed and turned his head aside, and the dissenter gave him a glass of plain water, which he sipped slowly; his lips were strained and had a bluish look, his deep chest heaved painfully; he began to fall into a delirium, but through his broken words the Rector understood his deep desire that Mr. Thomas Stanley and the Rector of Eyam should work together at this time of distress.

  “Do you not think,” demanded the dissenter, looking straight at Mr. Mompesson, “that God speaks through this poor man’s mouth? The very man whom you would have made the instrument of my punishment? If you will not give me back my ancient post here, at least permit that I remain and help you in your task.”

  The Rector was silent, debating in himself, but as the neighbours came in to remove the constable to the pest-house on the green, he felt a strong conflict within himself.

  Easy to obey God, if one knew His commands! Had He spoken through the mouth of the village constable who in a few hours would be dead?

  “Let thy faith,” urged the dissenter, “take a practical turn, friend. Thou canst not do this work unaided; there is more even than we can contrive to accomplish together.”

  “I accept your help,” replied the Rector quietly. “While the plague endures, at least, let us bury ancient controversies and plan together, you and I, how we may meet this trial. First,” he added, “you must come to the Rectory. You can no longer live in the woods and fields, a fugitive from the law.”

  “I will come with you gladly, and we will stand together, shoulder to shoulder. There is no situation so terrible that there is not some wise and worthy way of meeting it. Even now, as I did in Derby gaol, I feel God in every breath that passes and every beam that falls.”

  That night three more cases of the plague were reported in Eyam, and the Rector and the Puritan sat together in the laboratory making their plans; the first suggestion came from Thomas Stanley.

  “You must send away your wife, her sister, and the two children. This sacrifice is not required of you. Have you friends or relations anywhere near?”

  The Rector thought of the uncle in Yorkshire, Mr. Beilby, who would very gladly receive Kate, Bessie, and the children.

  “Let the woman who has been so faithful — Ann Trickett — go with them.”

  “It might be,” smiled the Rector, “that I should never see any of them again.”

  “I do not disguise that you, as well as myself and perhaps everyone in this village, are doomed. It is because of the great danger that I advise you to send these women and children away.”

  “It shall be done, they shall go within two days. Though it is difficult now to get carriages and horses, since none who can avoid it come to Eyam, still there is a coach and there are horses at the old Manor Hall, and I think the Corbyns would not begrudge me the use of them.”

  “When you have sent away your dear ones,” continued the dissenter, “we must make our plans like good generals. The pest-hut on the green must be enlarged and more women employed to serve there.” “If such can be found.”

  “Such can be. They will obey me,” replied Mr. Stanley. “Then such houses as have been deeply affected, where all the family has died, must be shut up and fires burnt in the streets as they were in London. Some physicians say that coal-fires are better, and some prefer wood. But as here we have no coal and but little wood, we must use what we can get. And such rags, furniture, and mattresses from infected houses as we have will serve to feed the flames. All these people must be put upon strict rules. Brandy and strong waters must be forbidden, for those who drink them catch the plague the sooner. We must engage more stout fellows to dig graves, and if death continues at this rate, we must dig a pit in the churchyard and put them all in as they did in London and even in Derby. We must have a cart and a horse and warning bell, and we must have one who goes about and writes ‘God have mercy upon us’ on such houses as have the disease that the others may take heed.”

  Mr. Stanley made these statements with an authority and a decision that showed he had been long thinking out the case, and the Rector looked at him with admiration. But he added quietly:

  “There is one thing, friend, that you have not thought of, and that is that no one, when I have sent my family away, must leave this place, lest we spread the infection over the whole of Derbyshire.”

  “Do you think that we can induce these people to remain where they are? Many have fled already, too many.”

  “None of the gentry are left in the district,” admitted the Rector. “But there are still something near five hundred people in the village and the surrounding farms, and I propose to tell them that they must stay where they are. I believe they will obey me, even though they know that they might save their lives by flying.” The dissenter’s eyes flashed encouragement. Such a scheme, heroically bold, appealed to his stern nature. He had the temperament of a martyr, self-sacrifice delighted him.

  “Perhaps together we can do it,” he remarked thoughtfully. “I have some influence, as you have seen, with these people. We might put a cordon round the village and the outlying farms, beyond which they must not go. Though we were all to die here, it would be a triumph.”

  “There are provisions and medicines to be thought of,” said the Rector. “How are we to obtain those?”

  “We must, somehow, get a message to Chatsworth. One might go who was healthy and properly fumigated, and we might arrange that on some stone, say the well above Middleton Dell, or that heathen altar, provisions were placed in return for money. The coins could be placed in running water, or vinegar. My Lord’s physician might come and give us directions across the stream. All that could be contrived without delay or difficulty. For such as have business or trade in other parts of the district, they must be told to delay all such matters until the plague be stayed.”

  “A regiment of soldiers,” remarked the Rector, “could not keep these people in, there are so many ways of leaving Eyam — by the moors or the dells or the mountain paths.”

  “No,” replied the dissenter, “we shall not employ a regiment of soldiers, but the fear of God.”

  A considerable comfort had come over the Rector’s spirit since he had entered into a friendship and an alliance with Thomas Stanley. He felt, in a strange way, set aside from mean doubts and querulous fears and protected, and though the meaning and continuance of this scourge was a mystery to him, still his own part therein seemed now clear. It was with a courage that he had not shown for several days that he went into Kate’s bedroom; since his late great fatigue he had slept in his closet and Kate had taken the two children to sleep with her; she was still proud with life and love.

  The hired woman had gone to her people and there was only Ann Trickett to help with the house, and the shadow seemed to thicken on the dulled home, even when the sun shone.

  Mr. Mompesson thought: ‘How this cloud has come between us! It is almost as if we were divorced.’ And as he had felt so often a gloomy mist between himself and his God, so he felt, and had indeed felt for some time since, a darkness between himself and his wife.

  Since the first outbreak of the plague and the flight of Jack Corbyn his pleasant family life had been disturbed; since the death of Jack Corbyn poor Bess, a widow, as it were, before she was a bride, had been completely broken; all was jangled.

  The Rector was amazed now to think that he should ever have complained about the dullness of Eyam or drawn contrast between the life here and the comf
ort, nay, the splendour he had enjoyed at Rufford Park. He was smitten because of his own ingratitude. He tried to put all these private feelings at the back of his mind, and standing beside his wife he told her that Thomas Stanley had come to live at the Rectory and to help with the onslaught of the plague. She answered quietly that she was glad, for she thought the dissenter was a good, brave and able man.

  “Bessie likes him, too,” added Kate, looking at her sleeping babes, so peaceful in their little cots of wickerwork, with the coverlets and curtains she had made herself. And she asked if Mr. Stanley, who seemed to her an experienced person, knew of any fresh treatment for the plague.

  The Rector turned aside, he did not like to meet the hope that had been lit in her eyes and that he knew he was bound to quench.

  “No, dear heart, Mr. Thomas Stanley knows no more than I do. At least, I do not think he has studied the matter so deeply. He has experimented with the same drugs and medical antidotes, the same fumigants. He suggests that we light fires in the streets as long as we have materials. But while we lack wood for coffins, I do not like to use it for this purpose. He suggests, also, that we should add another hut to the plague-house on the green, get some more women to work there. There are those, who have had the plague slightly or come from houses where it has been and have not been infected, who might be willing.”

  “I will go among them to-morrow,” said Kate, “and ask them.”

  “No, Kate, you will go nowhere in Eyam to-morrow,” said the Rector firmly. And he told her of the plans he had made with the dissenter to send her, Bessie, Ann Trickett and the children away to Mr. Beilby, in York City; he bade her make everything ready, to fold up and pack the children’s wardrobe, putting a fumigant between the garments, to provide each with a pomander and a bottle of spirit and a bottle of water and to write a letter to her uncle.

  “I shall write one, too, Kate. There is not time to advise him of our plans, but I am sure that our little ones will receive a welcome. For what they may cost him, I will be responsible. George is old enough to have some schooling now and your uncle might look out for a learned man in York who could do this for us.”

  The Rector spoke of this matter to please and distract Kate, but he saw at once that this little subterfuge was useless, for she was not listening.

  “Oh, I’m a selfish, hard-hearted woman!” she exclaimed. “I should be so thankful to see my children so safe from danger, yet I can do nothing but grieve.”

  “Indeed, Kate,” said William Mompesson tenderly, “we can none of us do anything but grieve at this moment of dreadful affliction. Yet you may take comfort and retire from this cold, rude place with a good heart, knowing that nothing but our duties divide us, Kate, and our affections keep us close together. I shall write to you often. Neither malice nor neglect must come between us! Kate, don’t cry! York is not so far away.”

  “I am not going to York. You waste your words. I made my vows to you — ‘until death do us part’ — do you remember that, Mompesson? Well, it is not death yet. The children shall go, and Bessie and Ann Trickett, but I shall remain.”

  He saw her lips tremble, her bosom swell, her eyes become moist. Never, even when she had been younger and more beautiful than she was now, had she seemed so lovely to him. His whole spirit felt refreshed as a fountain that is dry and receives a fresh gush from the ground; the cloud between them cracked and showed vital gold.

  “Would you stay with me, Kate?” he asked; then putting a stern restraint on his emotion, he hurried on to tell her of the great danger she would be in, and of how neither he nor Thomas Stanley thought there was any hope of the abatement of the plague, nor could they see any means to stay it. And he repeated to her the resolve they had made — that all should be begged to stay in Eyam, “save only those, like yourself, my heart’s delight, who come from houses not yet infected and who wish to go at once. Any mother or old person or child may leave, and I will give them all help.”

  She made a sign for him to cease.

  “The children go to-morrow with Bessie and Ann Trickett. Say no more, my place is here, and you know it. Do you think I am such an easy, light creature that I could leave you now? Were our vows mere stage and show? Do you think fear could eclipse my heart?” She rose and put her small hands on his shoulders; her tired eyes searched his face.

  “You may be ill yourself, you look already worn. I know you suffer. I am so glad you have the help of this good man, Mr. Stanley. I can help, too, though I am young and inexperienced and little. I can nurse and go among the women, and when I am free from my own children, I can look after those of others.”

  He put his arms round her, unable to speak, and for a space they clung together, hardly able to believe that this terror had overtaken them in their harmlessness, when all life lay before them, a fair, fresh field.

  But she would not be moved; he could not force her away against her will. And he did not know even if he was in the right in trying to move her.

  “To be away from you,” she whispered, while he held her close, “is to be dead alive. I should be like a body without its soul. I should be blind and deaf and dumb! Mompesson, it cannot be! I am no spruce wanton to fade when sorrow comes. He who binds and loosens death will help me to be strong.”

  “But can you endure to part with the children?”

  She did not answer, but kissed him wildly, and he was quite spent with love and pity and wished for the ease of sleep, safe from passion, corruption and fear.

  William Mompesson put the case to his colleague, and Thomas Stanley agreed that Kate’s place, if she so chose, was in the Rectory by her husband’s side. But there was no question but that Bessie and the children must go. He himself, being a resolute man of action, made the arrangements within a few hours.

  He went to the old Manor Hall and engaged the servant in charge there to lend the carriage and horses in this matter of emergency. He spoke to Ann Trickett and to Bessie and both readily agreed to take the children to York. Ann made no comment; Bessie said she perceived a divided loyalty, but she would go with the children and try to be a mother to them. All was a mystery to her; she was glad to have a plain duty to perform.

  Then Mr. Stanley went to the Rector’s study and wrote out fairly a placard to affix to the churchyard porch. And this, which he got the Rector to sign, stated that the two children, the sister-in-law and the maidservant of William Mompesson were leaving the next day for York City, because of the plague, and if there were any other young children or young mothers into whose houses the sickness had not yet come, they were invited to leave the village themselves or to send their babes away, and all help would be given them in the hire of horses or waggons and the provision of lodging for them in some distant farms, if they had no friends of their own.

  But for the rest of the inhabitants, all those into whose homes the plague had already come, and all who were not young, having children, or being with child, were required to come to the church that evening, as the Rector had to speak to them on the matter of the scourge that had afflicted Eyam.

  Such of the villagers as could read had spelt out the placard by midday and told it to the others, so that there was a fairly large crowd to see William Mompesson’s children depart.

  Contrary to the Rector’s expectations, none seemed willing to send their children away. The mothers would not part with them and feared the dangers that might be beyond their native village more than they feared the plague. He had noticed before how isolated these people were from the outer world, and how they dreaded and disliked anyone, even from Bakewell, as a foreigner. They were extremely jealous of their descent and the entire village consisted of perhaps no more than six or seven families who constantly inter-married; therefore, even at this crisis, they were loth to trust their children to strangers. And the only women that were willing, and even these were somewhat reluctant to send their children away, were those in whose homes the plague had already been; and these the Rector would not
allow to depart.

  But such of them as were not at work in the mines or fields — and every day there were less and less of these through sickness and the apprehension of sickness — had gathered round the low churchyard wall under the golden linden trees and watched the carriage from the old Manor Hall and Ann Trickett, in her best gown and hood and scarf, and Bessie in a black mourning dress with white bands, and the two children come out of the Rectory and enter the carriage that was driven by Corbyn’s old coachman.

  There was not very much baggage, for there was but little accommodation for it — only the children’s toys, puppets and animals, made of cloth and wool, were put into the carriage with the children as were their wicker cradles, their bedding and their baskets of clothes.

  Little George in his blue tiffany suit was excited by the novelty of a long drive and by the tales his mother had told him of the splendours of York and the treatment he would have from his uncle, who would surely give him a fair entertainment. But little Bessie cried at leaving her father and mother and had to be lifted into the carriage with her rosy fists in her eyes; she was pale and pretty as a primrose; a heavy pomander hung from her neck.

  The curious, sullen villagers watched the sisters cling together, Bessie and Kate, with their sunk cheeks pressing close. Ann Trickett seemed cheerful, as if she too enjoyed the prospect of an escape from this place that was always dull and now plague-stricken.

  William Mompesson spoke as cheerful words as he could find and kissed the travellers gravely and with a passionate sincerity. Bessie put the letters to Mr. Beilby in her bosom and Ann Trickett had the responsibility of the money that would be required for the journey. So, in little commonplaces and exclamations and running to and fro, the departure took place.

  As soon as the little party started, Kate ran to an upper window to stare at the carriage, but it was soon out of sight. She came down the stairs again and without a word either to her husband or to those gathered about the gate, crossed the churchyard where the graves now lay so thickly. In the corner known as the plague spot, she entered the church and went up to the belfry by the stairs the ringers used on Sunday and that she had never trodden before.