I wiped my arms and hands clean of the whey and took off my apron and folded it neatly, as I meditated what I should say. Then I went out, in no haste, with Trunco blubbering at my heels. Well, I had no sin on my conscience and feared no person living, not even my mother, though I might expect so great a drubbing from her with a holly-stick as I had never before felt. As I went across the hall and came towards the door of the little parlour, I seemed to hear Mun’s voice speaking low in my ear, and saying: “We two, my love, we two! Alpha and Mun and Marie and Omega. There is nothing can hurt or harm us while we are conjoined in spirit and commune, we two together.”
This voice refreshed me wonderfully. I drew a deep, sighing breath, pushed open the door and went in.
My mother was the first to speak. It was a wonderful surprise to me, after what Trunco had told me and what I had feared, that she addressed me so sweetly and lovingly. I soon understood that, however wroth against me she might be, it was her evident duty as a mother to defend me against all accusers as a spotless innocent, even had I been caught in the very act. For, however it may be in other countries—I know not—a spoilt virgin is not accepted in marriage by any gentleman of Oxfordshire; no, not though a great fortune be offered for dowry, will he accept her.
My mother laughed a little, though it were a forced laugh, and says she: “Marie, my she-darling, here’s our new man of God has come to your father with an absurd, far-fetched tale and dares stand and call you whore!”
This emboldened me to answer, pat: “The two elders in the scripture accused Susanna of the same fault and, as it proved, with as little truth. I am not much astonished that this rogue is bare-faced enough to come to you with the tale after the passionate manner in which he used me this morning early. Madam, I was charitable enough to bring no complaint against him, but since he seeks to shield himself by making false accusations, then I must tell you how it was. Waking beyond my custom early this morning, I felt strangely drawn to go towards the Church. I pulled on my clothes and went downstairs and out into the yard; and coming to the Church I found the porch door unlocked and unbolted, and went in to pray. In what manner I prayed is between my Maker and myself, and I know not how long I was there; but presently one comes in, who was Ned the Sexton here, and began tolling his bell for a death. I continued praying the more fervently, but then a rider went down the road and passed with a clatter, who I suppose was my Uncle Jones; and this broke the spell of my devotion. I rose up and asked Ned for whom he tolled, and he answered, ‘For Mother Catcher who was found drowned in Bayardswater.’ This cut me to the heart and I went running from the church and came to the gate. There his reverence your curate, lurking in the bushes like a cut-purse and clad in a very unseemly fashion, caught me by the shoulder and threatened me with his bill-hook, mouthed a few drunken words at me, called me harlot and dragged me by my arm into the Church. Then he took up his lantern and thrust it at me—I know not why—and grimaced and said that it was yet warm. Then he called me Babylonian witch, as honest Ned here will agree; and I was so affrighted, judging him to be stark mad, that I swung at him with the lantern and ran off.”
“Aye, Dick,” says my mother, “your St. Luke is a very sorry rascal, I believe. I counselled you against sending away our good John Fulker, who served you well and faithfully for fourteen years and was beloved of the whole parish.”
Then the curate broke out with: “‘John Fulker, John Fulker,’ says she! An acknowledged adulterer, an ale-house haunter, a wolf in shepherd’s smock, a prelatical poison, a touch-me-and-die fungus, a Pope’s lap-dog, a stink! He who in one of his sermons publicly wished that every knee which would not bow at the name of Jesus might ache sciatically! Your Worship, this daughter of yours vaunts herself as a chaste Susanna; but Susanna was proved innocent of the accusation made against her by the elders because they contradicted each other in their testimony. Here the matter is altogether another-gates. For I, with these two eyes of mine, just before dawn, saw a lantern shining through the north windows of our Church; and rose hastily and waited in the bushes, and heard voices within. Presently out comes a young gallant with a drawn sword in his hand, swearing horribly; whom I let go by, being myself armed only with a hook, and he takes the road to Wheatley. Then Ned comes by and goes up into the Church and begins tolling the bell, and I wait behind the bushes, and then out comes your daughter, running with her dress disordered, and I catch at her civilly, and she gives me filthy abuse. What is this, Madam, but plain chambering and wantonness? And has not your second daughter, Mistress Zara, declared without any prompting from me that she awoke at the noise of stones thrown at the chamber window, a little after midnight, and that she heard a man say something in a low pleading voice, and that then she slept again, but woke once more about dawn and found her sister gone from the bed?”
This was good news to me. I understood at once at what door the wind blew. It was evident that my deceitful sister had feigned to be sleeping when I went out, and had come downstairs softly after me; and that it was she who, for a prank, had bolted me out; and that now she had lied to save herself from a drubbing.
“Zara often has strange fancies in the night,” said I, “and I can swear before Almighty God that no gallant threw stones or pebbles at my window last night, unless when I was sleeping. Now then, in despite of these accusations, to prove myself a very Susanna—though indeed she had a handsome young lawyer to plead for her and confound the Elders in cross-examination, whereas I must undertake my own cause—now, tell me this! If I am accused to have arisen shortly after midnight because, forsooth, someone threw stones at my window, then how is it that the door by which I went out bolted itself behind me, or that the shutters locked themselves again? For I believe that if you question the servants you will not find any of them hardy enough to swear that they found the house so ill-guarded with bolts and shutters as our Church now is, since this man became our curate.”
Here my father nodded his head to mark his approval, and said: “Mark that, Mr. Proctor, mark that well!”
This encouraged me to greater boldness. Hitherto, I had told no lies, though I had omitted a great deal of the truth; but now that the two witnesses had lied—Zara in the matter of the man’s voice, and the curate when he covered up and excused his cowardice with a ridiculous tale of Mun’s coming out of the Church with a drawn sword and horrible oaths, and when he pretended that my dress was disordered—well, now I felt myself absolved from tedious truthfulness. I said to my father: “Yes, indeed, sir, I rose up very early and heard from the kitchen the noise of the fire being blown up, and I found the yard door open by which the cook, so soon as he rises, lets the hounds run out to ease themselves; else, how could I have gone undiscovered, unless I leaped head foremost from my window in the dark?”
This defence was too strong for the Reverend Proctor to pierce, yet he asked me how the lantern came to be in the Church.
I pressed my advantage with: “That, Sirrah, is for you to answer, not me. If you keep the Church door unlocked all night, you may expect to find the chalice and vestments stolen, with old iron and rags left in their place. As for the disorder of my dress, why, you churl, you rumpled and tore at it yourself in your rude struggles with me! The Rev. Fulker may have been an ale-house haunter, but that was a sociable fault in him and a world better than drinking solitary, as you do, at your villainous brandy wine and other strong waters.”
Then my father very judiciously dismissed me, lest I spoilt my case by saying a word more. I know not what phrases he used to the curate, but certain it is that he reproved him in a grave manner for his negligence in the matter of the Church door, and for his drunken and violent behaviour towards me; and hoped that he would walk more warily in future, for otherwise he would find himself without a cure of souls.
My mother then began railing violently at the curate, but my father rebuked her and desired her to be no less charitable than I, though he had wickedly slandered innocence itself. However, she threatened him the more violen
tly, and would not cease until my father had screwed a promise out of him to say nothing at all upon the matter to any living soul, except to deny what he might already have said; and Ned, who had stood blinking all this while, and turning his hat round in his hands, gave the same undertaking.
My mother and my father understood each other very well, and played their parts in this comedy off-hand without either prompting the other. Both knew that there was no smoke without fire, and that they would be unwise to dismiss the curate, for if they did he would take his complaint to my Uncle Jones of Sandford, who had recommended him to my father, and who was the very man who had met Mun in the road. Were his tale and the curate’s put together they would meet in a dovetail joint; and then it would go very ill with us all.
I knew that when my mother spoke privately to me again she would not smile and call me her she-darling, nor presume with such confidence upon my chastity; and so it was. After dinner she took me up into her own chamber and locked the door after her, and said to me: “Marie, you are a shrewd lawyer and, I confess, I did not give you credit for such slippery tricks as you showed the curate: ay, you took him down handsomely, my bold girl! Nevertheless, you are a plain whore, as you well know, and as I well know, and as your father well knows. My meaning is, that however subtly you may have contrived your exit from this house last night, yet you lay all night in fornication with young Verney on the floor of the Church. You have spoilt your maidenhead, I say, and unless God be kinder to you than you deserve, you will in nine months’ time breed us a bastard, to your utter ruin. In the meanwhile, I intend to give you the fiercest beating that ever I gave you, or gave anyone else, in all my life!”
When she waited for me to speak, I looked her between the eyes and answered her: “Madam, you are my mother, and for that reason only I do not scratch out your eyes for this idle accusation. I did not fornicate with Captain Verney last night, nor with any other man, nor have I lost my maidenhead, thank God; but I am as chaste as our little Betty—and this I will swear to you by the most sacred oath you please to put into my mouth. As for the castigation you have promised me, go about it, if you please, madam; but remember that when I come weeping and bleeding from this chamber, and when the household sees what a rage and resentment possesses you against me, it will be thought I am indeed the whore you name me; and if I am everywhere called whore, why, you will be called bawd, conformably.”
That struck home, and she said: “Upon my soul, King Harry did very ill when he dissolved the nunneries hereabouts! If there were yet nuns at Minchin Court, my daughter, we should soon find a close cell that would hold you, and a scourge for your mortification, I dare undertake. But, alas, what may a mother do now who has a spoilt virgin on her hands?—pray tell me that! No gentleman will marry such an one, and she gives the house and her sisters an ill reputation. Marie, you have undone us all!”
“I am no spoilt virgin, I tell you,” cried I in sincere indignation. “And, lest you should ask me any further unnecessary questions, I am ready to take my oath upon the Scriptures, first, that no gentleman with a drawn sword in his hand came out of the Church while I was yet in it; second, that Zara lies if she says that any man threw stones at our chamber window; third, that I had no letter nor other message from Captain Verney before he came to our house yesterday, nor exchanged any words with him while he was in our house, but what you yourself heard; fourth, that I rose up early and went to the Church upon a spiritual compunction only, not by any agreement with Captain Verney or with any other man—and so I could go on, splitting my text (from the Book of Susanna) into one hundred, forty and four slivers, as confidently as ever Woodman Luke splits his.”
At this I burst into tears like an infant and cried: “Indeed, Mammy, ’tis true, ’tis true; believe me, I do not lie to you.”
My mother took pity on me, and though she guessed that there was something that I yet hid from her, she knew at least that the Curate had been mistaken in calling me whore. She kissed me and stroked my head and at last told me to go about my business as though nothing untoward had happened; and she undertook to treat me as cheerfully and lovingly as before, arid said we must then hope that tongues would soon cease wagging.
So I dried my tears and wiped my nose and thanked her dutifully, and curtseyed, and left her.
However, though my mother was true to her promise and showed, in public at least, a greater love and affection towards me than ever before, I was soon made aware by the looks that the servants cast my way in the house, and that the townsmen gave me when I walked down the street, that the slander against me had gone the rounds. I believe that the Curate had emboldened himself for his complaint to my father by a dram or two of strong drink and a consultation with two or three parishioners of his confidence; and afterwards there was no recalling the tale he told them, for it spread like fire through a barley field. For my part, I cared not what was spoken of me, for I felt sufficiently rich in Mun’s love to laugh at sour looks and whispered slanders; but I was grieved for my mother and father that they had suffered by my imprudence.
The village came to Church in a great expectancy on the Sunday following, believing that the curate would withhold the Communion cup from me when it came to my turn; but they were disappointed in this, for the curate offered it to me in a gracious manner, and I could see that he was in anxiety.
One day, in the week before Christmas, James met with young Mr. Ropier (the same who had ill-treated the fiddler) as he rode out from the gates of Sir Timothy Tyrrell’s house, where he was a guest. James saluted him civilly; but young Ropier, hardly slackening his pace, said to him with a sneer, “I hear that your mother now chains your hot sister Marie to the bedpost every night with a padlock!”
He was riding on, but James turned his mare about and spurred her sides and coming after young Ropier, caught him by the collar and hauled him out of the saddle upon the hard road. Then, dismounting, he picked him up and set him upon his feet and gave him a buffet on the ear and cried: “Now draw your sword, you rogue, and I’ll draw mine.”
Yet nothing came of that, neither, for when young Ropier looked about him and saw that nobody had observed the quarrel, he declared that he scorned to fight with a little boy; upon which James kicked him for an abject knave and struck him another buffet (which broke a tooth for him) and remounted and rode off. James was honest enough to tell nobody of the encounter, but me only; and young Ropier held his tongue for shame.
That was not a gay Christmas for England generally. The weather was tempestuous, with much snow and severe frosts. The plague that had raged in London throughout the year now slew two or three hundred persons each week. The quarrel between King Charles and the Parliament had grown so bitter that on St. Stephen’s Day there was bloodshed in the streets of Westminster, the King’s officers running out with their naked swords against the riotous rabble of citizens and blue-aproned apprentices.
For me particularly, Christmas was a very sorry, mirthless time. I did what I might, in the way of forced gaiety, to show that I cared not for whispers and glances and petty slights and insinuations; but I could not have missed them except I had been both deaf and blind. I shall make no detailed account of these trifling pricks and pinches, for my soul loathes to dwell upon such mean things. Yet because of them I began to wish that Mun and I had exchanged keepsakes, after all, or that I had some evidence which I could touch and handle in proof to myself that our loving discourse together, under the bells, had not been a fantasy of my sick brain.
What galled me was that I could not know for certain where Mun might be, whether still in England, or crossed over to Ireland; yet I felt a suspense in my thoughts of him, which argued him still on this side of the water. This afterwards I found to be true: for he was wind-bound at Westchester until Christmas, when he sailed thence with his company, and in the New Year of 1642 came safe to Dublin.
CHAPTER NINE
An Account of Mr. John Milton
The New Year opened in a manner no less om
inous than that wherein the Old Year had closed. The King was beside himself with vexation against Parliament, which had proceeded against twelve bishops on a charge of high treason and had packed them off to prison as companions in misery to Archbishop Laud, who was already fast by the heels; so that only six bishops were now left at large, and our own Bishop Skinner not among them. His Majesty would yield in almost anything, except in this one matter of suffering his bishops to be shorn of their temporal power; and two days before my sixteenth birthday, that is to say on January 4th, 1642, he could not restrain his passion, but came striding into the House of Commons, which was in session in the Chapel of St. Stephen’s, with a band of about four hundred armed men behind him; and these attempted to seize five members, among them Mr. John Pym, leader of the Country Party, and Esquire John Hampden, a relative of Sir John Pye and the richest gentleman in all England, whom he roundly called traitors. This entry was a grave abuse of ancient privilege, and besides it was ill managed, for the members had timely warning of his project. His Majesty, looking around the House, saw, as he said, that his birds had flown, and withdrew after making a poor, slight apology.
These were busy days in the printing-houses, pamphlet-warfare being very hot on the battle-ground of “Bishop or No Bishop”; which since the King had taken his stand firmly upon the side of the Bishops, opened upon a second and wider ground, which was “Court or Country,” “King or Parliament.” But as yet the fight was openly fought upon the narrower ground only. My brother Richard one day brought up from Oxford a budget of pamphlets written upon the King’s side of the prelatical question—seven of them sewn up in a single cover and entitled: “Certain Brief Treatises, written by Diverse Learned Men Concerning the Ancient and Modern Government of the Church.” I confess I did not read the book then, nor have I read it since, but it occasioned a deal of sharp disputation in our house, my father and my brother Richard holding that the pamphlets, which were written with greater moderation than most, were conclusive and not to be gain-said; my Uncle Jones and the curate finding fault with them, as tending to idolatry; my mother holding them to be (as she said) not idolatrous enough to content her. My mother was a common Protestant, which she held to be a virtuous medium between Papist and Puritan. The Moultons and Archdales had left popery only because it grew out of fashion (like balloon hats and great starch ruffs) and in their hearts still inclined that way.
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