He said, ‘I will speak to her father.’
‘Thank you.’ Richard’s words were clipped, as though it cost him dear to say them. ‘I will take up no more of your time. I bid you good day.’ He dropped his head in the briefest of bows and took a step to leave before he halted and looked back at Ben, as though there were more he wished to say. He hesitated, undecided.
Curious, Ben waited. The moment lingered. The murmurs of the voices at the wake downstairs rumbled through the floor.
‘What is it you would say?’ Ben asked finally, but without impatience.
Richard lifted his eyes, ran his tongue across his lips, still hesitant.
‘Tell me.’
The other man took a breath. ‘It was not me that betrayed you,’ he said.
Ben said nothing. He wanted to believe him, unsure if he should.
‘As God is my witness I did not betray you. You must believe me.’
‘Then I am glad,’ Ben replied. He met his friend’s gaze briefly, saw the pain in his eyes and looked away. How had they come to this? he wondered. Such mistrust, such sorrow. The narrow gate was so difficult to find, the demands of faith a hard burden to bear. For both of them. For a moment, he wondered if such sacrifice was worth it, so much pain. But then he remembered the darkness after Cecily’s death, the godless Hell he had inhabited, and knew that his faith was everything. Without it he was damned.
The two men stood silent, neither knowing what else to say. He was moved by his friend’s assertion, relieved that the love remained after all, but the breach between them was still impassable, a void they could no longer reach across.
At last Richard spoke. ‘I will wait to hear from Alice.’
‘Yes,’ Ben replied, nodding. He could think of no other answer.
Richard waited, apparently expecting the other man to say more. Then, realising there was no more to be said, he dipped his head. ‘I bid you good day.’ Then he turned, and his shoes rang loud on the boards to the door.
Ben made no bow in return but stared after him, watching the door long after it had closed behind the retreating back.
He rose before the dawn. The house was not yet astir, its creaks in the darkness still the groans of night-time, and beyond the curtains at the window, the stars were still lit above the city. He dressed hurriedly, hoping to slip out unseen before the servants were up to ask questions and report back to his mother. His stockinged feet were noiseless on the stairs, a silence learned in childhood, and beyond the front door he stopped, squatting to pull on his boots and to button up his doublet against the chill morning air.
Thieving Lane was already awake in the light of lanterns burning low, flickering at the doors of the houses. A young man stumbled past, labouring under the weight of a sack across his shoulders and, beyond him, a dog raised its hackles and barked. Above the roofs the sky began to lose its blackened depth, day creeping slowly in and extinguishing the stars.
He stepped out into the street and, striding with purpose, made his way along Thieving Lane toward Broad Sanctuary, where he headed for the church at St Margaret’s. Ahead of him the Abbey loomed up darkly out of the dawn, and he turned his face away.
His footsteps slowed, reluctant, as he approached the church. He lifted his head and cast his eyes across the white towers high above him, remembering the bells ringing out for his marriage. A different lifetime it seemed, but the memory still raised a flush of shame. Finally he came to a halt and stood a moment with his hand on the worn, crumbling wood of the gate.
With a prayer on his lips he found the courage to lift the latch, and stepped through into the churchyard. His heart was racing but it was not from the exercise. It was many years since his feet had trodden this path towards the graves that lay behind the church: the wound had been fresher then, but though the years had dulled the edge a little the cut was still keen enough to hurt him.
Picking his way through the mounds in the half-light of early morning, he found the grave he was seeking easily, sheltered under the west wall, the wooden cross lopsided now and rotting with neglect. In a few more years, he thought, there would be no sign to show that they had ever been here, Cecily and the child that never lived to draw breath. They would exist only in his memory, no one else that would remember them, no one else who cared.
‘Forgive me,’ he whispered.
Painfully, he let himself down to kneel at the graveside, and the familiar sickness rose in his gut, the sense of unworthiness before her that no amount of prayer would ever ease. Leaning forward, he fought to straighten up the cross, hands scrabbling in the black earth at its foot, dirt getting caught under his fingernails, but he could not get it to stay upright, so in the end he left it at the tilt and sank back on his heels.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing here, Cess,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know why I came. You’re not here, after all. You’re up there with God, looking down on me, poor foolish sinner that I am. But I never got to say goodbye to you before. Not properly. And this time it’s for good. I won’t come back again.
‘I’m leaving England. I made a promise to my father to go from here, to be safe. I pray we are all of us going, the whole congregation, to settle in Holland and build a new English Church. A Church of the true and the faithful as Christ commanded. I should have gone years ago when I could have taken you with me. You and little Ben. Others went, but I was too proud and too stubborn and I thought with God’s help we could change things in England. I thought we could build a true Church here.’ He shook his head at the folly of his youth. ‘But I’ve grown wiser in the years since then, and I know now that things here will never change. You were right. Too many are against us. Too many walk in sin. I should have listened to you, my love. I should have understood.’
Pausing, he dragged a dandelion out of the earth on the edge of the grave, then settled the earth neatly again with his fingertips.
‘We buried my father yesterday, just over there.’ He lifted his gaze and gestured with his head towards the new dug grave, the cross still upright and sturdy. A solitary seagull stood on the mound, probing the fresh dirt for worms. ‘He bid me leave these shores before he died and made me promise I would go. So I will go. All of us will go. And you’ll be with me in my heart, Cecily, always, to remind me of my pride and my sin and my foolishness.’
He sniffed and wiped a savage palm across his cheek. He would not permit himself the luxury of tears: he did not deserve them. Then slowly he got to his feet, like an old man aged with grief and regret. For a moment he remained beside the grave. ‘May God forgive me for what I did to you,’ he whispered.
Then, without another backward glance, he turned and strode across the churchyard, head down, jaw clamped tight, fists clenched inside his cloak. The walk back to Thieving Lane was too short, his emotions still roiling when he reached the door, but he swallowed them down, put on his mask, then went inside to meet the rest of the day.
Chapter 25
January 1607
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply they sorowe and thy conception. In sorow thou shalt bring forth children: and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and hee shall rule ouer thee.
(Genesis 3:16)
* * *
It was a relief to leave London at last, to set his face towards the future and leave the past behind. It had been a sombre season at Thieving Lane, with no Christmastide celebrations, and his mother’s every look had carried a reproach that he would soon be leaving. But she had Ellyn and Merton to take care of her, and God had willed a different road for him.
The weather had turned in the last few days, the hard, dry cold giving way to winter rain. The road was bogged and slippery, Bessie’s hooves sliding in the mud, and the going was slow. He met few other travellers, most preferring to wait for less miserable conditions. He should have left earlier, he reflected, when the sun was still shining and the road still hard underfoot. Drawing his cloak tighter round him, he sat hunched in the saddle, and by the end of each day
’s travelling he was shrammed and shivering and eager for a warm hearth and dry bed.
He had stayed in London for Ellyn’s confinement, which came hard on the heels of the funeral, giving his sister no time to rest or prepare herself. He had sat with Merton through the sleepless night of her labour, his mother and Alice and the midwife in the chamber above, their footsteps sounding busily overhead. Above the hollow roar of the fire they could just hear Ellyn’s groans, his sister strong in her childbed as in everything else, and he wondered if Cecily had been as quiet or if she had screamed out in the pain of her slow death as he sometimes dreamed. The hours passed with agonising slowness.
The Abbey bell had not long tolled six when Alice finally appeared at the door. Both men swung towards her. Her hair had come loose from her cap and her face was flushed as she wiped her hands on an apron that was stained with blood. They could no longer hear Ellyn’s cries.
‘She is delivered?’ Merton managed to ask.
Alice nodded.
‘And?’
She hesitated.
‘For the love of God!’ Ben cried. ‘Tell us, woman.’
‘Ellyn is well … but the child … the boy … did not live. I am sorry.’
‘Thank you, Alice,’ Merton said, lips tight, eyes flicking across the floor in front of him. ‘May I go to her?’
She nodded and stepped aside to let him pass. They heard his heavy footfalls on the stairs, two steps at a time, then the murmur of his voice in the room upstairs. Alice let out a sigh.
‘Come sit down,’ Ben said. ‘Have some wine.’
She stared at him blankly, eyes clouding with tiredness and tears. She looked as though she might collapse at any moment. Gently, he took her hand and guided her to one of the chairs by the fire, then poured her some wine.
‘Drink it,’ he coaxed. ‘It’ll help.’
She managed a smile and sipped at the wine.
‘How is she?’
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. ‘Weary,’ she said. ‘And sad.’
‘But she is … well?’
She looked up at him then, caught by the fear in his tone. ‘The midwife says so, and that she can bear again.’
‘God be praised.’ To lose his little sister as he had lost Cecily would be a grief too great to bear.
They sat in silence a while until Merton’s boots sounded on the stairs again, thudding down hard and quickly. The door swung open.
‘Ben. She’s asking for you.’
Surprised, he drained his wine and made his way up the stairs. At the door he paused: he had never attended a childbed before – he was uncertain of what he might see, if imagined memories would overwhelm him. He swallowed, knocked and pushed open the door.
The room was dark, the dancing glow from the hearth the only light, and the air was stifling; he felt the sweat break out along his back. His sister was propped up in bed and his mother sat in a chair close by, but her gaze was far away and weary. He could not tell what her thoughts might be. In the corner of the room, the midwife was busy clearing up bundles of blood-soaked linen and she made no pause in her work as he entered, as if she were unaware of his presence. He wondered what she had done with the body of the boy.
‘Ben?’ Ellyn’s voice was weak, her face pale and unwholesome-looking, like uncooked dough. Strands of hair lay slick across her cheek. He hesitated, unsure for a moment until he mastered his fear and went to sit beside her on the bed. Reaching out, his fingers brushed the hair away from her face. She tossed her head back from his touch with surprising vigour, and in spite of himself he smiled.
‘The boy …’ she breathed, nodding towards the midwife. ‘He is unbaptised … he was already dead when he … and it was too late for the midwife to say the words …’ She clutched at his arm, small fingers digging into the muscle. ‘Will he be saved, Ben? Will he be saved?’
Ben laid his hand over hers. ‘Baptism is the symbol of God’s grace only. A confirmation. Nothing more. So don’t fret, Nell. The boy is safe with God now.’
‘You’ll see him buried? Properly?’ she whispered.
‘I’ll see it done.’
She nodded, tearful and exhausted, overcome by the rigours of her labour and her grief, sinking back into the pillows, weariness overtaking her. He held her hand a while longer, watching as her breathing deepened, soft and regular, her face turned towards him. When he guessed that she was finally asleep he leaned across to kiss her forehead. She did not stir and gently, he let go of her hand, sliding the cool thin fingers from his own. Then he turned to his mother. She had not moved, her eyes watching the movements of the midwife without interest, expression blank. She was weary too, overcome by the trials of her family and no will left to fight against it. She seemed very old suddenly, and frail, and he regretted all the pain he had ever caused her. He should have left England long ago, he thought again, when he was young and Holland beckoned, offering him a different path. A safer path. It was not just Cecily who would have been spared.
He said, ‘You should go and rest now too, Mother. It has been a long night.’
She turned to him as though surprised by his presence, taking a moment to come to herself. Then she nodded and gave him a small smile before she got up and slipped quietly from the room, the door closing noiselessly behind her. He watched her go, and all the sadness of so much loss threatened to rise inside him. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes a moment, a silent prayer for strength:
Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry upon Thee continually.
When he opened his eyes again, the midwife was before him, standing with a bloodstained bundle in her hands. Without a word she held it out for him to take. He stood up, nerves and muscles tense with reluctance as she placed the tiny body in his arms. Tears prickled at the edges of his eyes, grief for his own lost son reawakening, the child he never saw.
The midwife said, ‘May God have mercy upon you.’
Ben nodded, no voice to speak. Then he bowed his head, the precious child held tight in his arms, and allowed the tears to come. He did not notice the midwife leave.
He arrived at Scrooby Manor as the light was just beginning to leave the sky and the downpour was easing to a drizzle. He was exhausted and drenched. The last miles through the flooded lanes had taken much of his strength, the going slow and dangerous, the mare unwilling. At the manor house the curtains were drawn across the windows, but a bright warm light peeped through a chink between them and a lantern blazed on a hook by the door. It was a most welcome sight. He settled the horse in the stables, his presence unnoticed by the family within, then stumbled in through the door, his feet numb with cold and the log fire beckoning.
William Brewster turned from the pages he was reading at the fireside and smiled with pleasure. ‘Welcome back, Benjamin.’ He stood to embrace the younger man, in spite of the sodden cloak. ‘Come by the fire, get warm.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Get him spiced wine – he is half-frozen to the core.’
Ben needed no second telling. He shrugged off his cloak and settled himself in the hard-backed chair at the hearth. Childish footsteps clattered along the passage and stopped abruptly at the threshold, and when the door opened, the children showed no signs of their haste, waiting politely to be invited in. Ben beckoned to them with a tilt of his head and they ran to him. He put his arms around them and they leaned in close against him, their little bodies warm against his.
Mistress Brewster came with the wine and shooed them away from him. ‘Get away, he doesn’t want you hanging off him the second he gets home. And look at your clothes … soaking wet already …’
They hung their heads beneath the scolding and retreated to the table to sit and watch from a distance. Ben took the wine their mother had brought. It was good and warming, a different spice from what he had become used to in London. More cinnamon, perhaps? His father would have known. And Merton too, he guessed.
Brewster took the chair across the hearth and sat down.
‘We are sorry for your lo
ss,’ he said. ‘It was good of you to write. And it is very good to see you safely returned to us.’
‘It’s very good to be here.’
‘And the rest of your family is well?’
He hesitated, thinking not to burden Brewster with any more cares, but Brewster caught the indecision.
‘Your sister?’
Ben nodded. ‘She lost her child. It has been a sad season.’
‘But she is recovered?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. But she had still been tearful and weak when he at last took his leave of her, and it had wrenched his heart to go. He was uncertain if he would see her again, or if the farewell had been their last.
There was a silence. Mistress Brewster set the children to a task at the table, clearing away the papers and books in readiness for supper. They worked silently, listening to the adults talk around them.
‘What is the news?’ Ben asked. Their letters to him in London had risked no information, and he had no idea of the situation now. It had been many weeks since he left.
‘The same as when you left us,’ Brewster answered. ‘Gainsborough is ever a wicked place, filled with drunkenness and bawdiness, and a clutch of base-born children. Scrooby is quieter but we have our share, and there is much unrest. Rents have got higher and food is short. Such conditions breed ungodliness.’
‘And the community?’
Brewster allowed himself a small sigh. ‘Things are growing worse for us. The new Archbishop …’ He shrugged. There was no need to explain the Archbishop’s role: Ben knew it well enough. ‘We are beset and hated on all sides. They watch us constantly and many have been fined for non-attendance. For some it’s too heavy a burden and they’ve left us because of it. The fear of prison is ever present. It’s a sorry realm when godly people are afraid to worship.’
‘I’m sad to hear of it,’ he said, though he had expected nothing different. It was a sinful world they lived in, vice and wickedness all around and the faithful punished for their love of God.
The King James Men Page 29