by Ann Swinfen
‘I warned you.’
It could not be the same as Alice’s wedding last year, when food was abundant, when I had plaited a crown of flowers for her, and when for the first time I had danced with Gideon. Nevertheless, I remembered something from that wedding. Before I went to bed that night, I opened my clothes coffer and gently lifted out the silk shawl that my great-grandmother, Mary Dillingworth, had brought with her when she married the yeoman farmer, Thomas Bennington, against the wishes of her family. Both my mother and my father were descended from them. I would wear it at my hand-fasting to the man I loved, and again in a week’s time, when Amyas Cooper would make us man and wife in the eyes of God, as well as in the eyes of the law.
For once in this cold spring, the sky was clear and there was a little warmth in the sun. After the morning work about the farm was done, I dressed in my best bodice and kirtle, which I had not worn since that day last year when I was the May queen, for times had been hard in the months since, with little to celebrate. I wrapped Mary Dillingworth’s shawl about my shoulders and marvelled, as I did whenever I saw it, at the shimmer of the silk, and the wondrous colour, the very shade that you may see on a peacock. Jack once told me that the sea sometimes took on that colour. He had seen it in the fjords of Norway during the years he went for a sailor. I had never seen the sea. Sometimes, when the light is falling in a particular way, the colour of one of the meres in the Fen make take on, just for a moment, something of the same colour, but it never has this richness and depth. And the silk is so light, you can hardly believe you are wearing it, yet it is warm too.
Clad in my finery, I made my way slowly down the stairs. Gideon held out his hand to me. He had no need to speak, for I could read his thoughts in his eyes. With Kitty and Nehemiah following, we turned to go.
Mistress Norton had come to stay with my mother, for we feared that she would find the ceremony confusing or distressing, yet my heart ached that my mother could not be with me when I pledged my faith to Gideon. It was the one cloud on my beautiful day.
When we reached the village, Alice came running up and set a small garland of flowers on my head.
‘I managed to find a few wildflowers,’ she said, ‘but I am afraid it does not match the one you made for me.’
‘It is lovely,’ I said, kissing her on the cheek. For some foolish reason I wanted to weep, yet I was so happy I felt like a child, swept away by my joy.
All the villagers were gathered about the church door, and all the Dutch settlers too. Griet was holding her children by the hand and gave me a broad smile. Every one who had endured our time crowded together in the church during the flood was here. Everyone, except the soldiers, who had still not returned from their military training.
Gideon led me to the threshold of the church, then we turned and faced the villagers. He took my right hand in his. Without any further ceremony, he spoke the words of the hand-fasting, which would make us one flesh for life.
‘I Gideon take thee Mercy to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forth, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God's Holy ordinance, and thereto I plight thee my troth.’
Both our hands were trembling. He gently released mine. Then in my turn I reached out and took his right hand in mine.
‘I Mercy take thee Gideonto my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forth, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish and to obey, till death us depart, according to God’s Holy ordinance, and thereto I plight thee my troth.’
He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. I found that my legs were shaking and I kept hold of his hand, to steady myself.
There was a cheer from somewhere in the crowd of villagers. It sounded like Tom’s friend Toby Ashford, then it was echoed by several others of the young men. Will Keane was pushing forward through the crowd. With a grin, he handed something to Gideon.
‘I have no gold, Mercy,’ Gideon said, ‘but I did have a pair of silver shoe buckles. Will has melted them down and fashioned us a pair of rings. He set aside everything to make them, since I gave him the buckles yesterday.’ He opened his hand to show a pair of silver rings. Each was fashioned of three strands, plaited together, simple but beautiful. I did not know that Will could do such fine work.
‘We should not wear them until we are truly wed, by the church,’ I said.
‘Aye, but you may wear this on a ribbon about your neck for this next week, and I shall do the same.’ He placed the smaller ring on my palm and folded my fingers over it.
‘I have ribbons at home,’ I said.
‘I think Alice has already thought of that.’
‘Was everyone in the village in on the secret except me?’
‘Not everyone.’
Alice came forward with her ribbons and soon the ring was hanging inside my bodice. I touched the lace on my stomacher, where the ring lay, and felt a great surge of happiness, so great I was almost dizzy with it.
‘Come,’ Alice said, ‘I know you wish to save the celebrations for the church ceremony, but Mistress Sawyer and I have prepared a dinner for your betrothal. It could not pass quite unmarked.’
Soon we were sitting around the table at Jack’s house, with Kitty and Nehemiah too, eating roast mutton and drinking Mistress Sawyer’s own brew of ale. It was an act of great generosity, for meat was still in short supply.
It seemed strange to return to the farm, to don my ordinary clothes, and to work for the rest of the day as though nothing had happened that morning to change my life for ever, although from time to time I touched the ring which lay between my breasts. When all the rest of the household had retired that night, Gideon took me in his arms, crushing me so hard I could barely breathe. With my cheek pressed against his chest, I could feel the rapid beating of his heart, matching my own.
‘I shall not take you to my bed tonight, my love, though the law permits it. We must wait, even if it seems almost unbearable.’
‘Aye, we must wait. I would be your wife in God’s eyes first.’ I tried to speak calmly, though I burned with desire to lie with him. I reached up and took his face between my hands. ‘Only a week to wait.’ And then I kissed him, feeling our bodies and souls burning with one flame.
Amyas Cooper arrived a day earlier than he had expected, on the evening of Saturday, the twenty-ninth day of April, riding out at once from the village to Turbary Holm. He was a serious-faced man, like Gideon about thirty years old, but already balding, so that he looked older. He greeted me warmly and the smile that lit up his face erased some of the stress left there by the trials caused him by expulsion from his parish and his present lowly occupation.
‘I am glad Gideon has found you, Mistress Bennington,’ he said. ‘I knew as soon as he began to talk of you that he had discovered his true love. Few are so fortunate.’
I found it difficult to answer him, for Gideon had told me that Amyas had been in love with the daughter of the local lord in his Kentish village. The marriage had been refused and the girl married off to some friend of the father’s. Within a year she was dead in childbirth. Amyas had never married. It seemed, however, that he would not allow his own sad history to mar our happiness, and I stumbled out some response, asking him to call me Mercy, and not Mistress Bennington.
Gideon had arranged for Amyas to stay with Will at the smithy, so that there should be no obvious connection between this traveller and ourselves. As Will saw to the shoeing of carters’ horses, it was not unusual for him to provide a bed for a traveller, especially if the yel-hus had no room.
They went off together, and when Gideon returned he seemed a little anxious.
‘Jack has heard that the Reverend Edgemont is conducting one of his hellfire services here tomorrow. I hope he is not bringing his friend, our new rector, early, else all our plans will fall apart.’
‘But he was not to come until some time in May!’
‘
Aye, but plans change.’
All our household, except Gideon, walked to the village on Sunday morning for the service. Gideon must remain concealed, for the Reverend Edgemont knew him and might seek to have him driven away or even arrested. Since the flood, which had kept him away for weeks, the Puritan preacher had only visited us occasionally, no doubt feeling that his fine three hour sermons were as wasted on us as if he preached to a field of goats or to the empty wind. I entered the church in trepidation, fearing that this visit might mean that he was bringing the new rector.
As usual he rode up to the church door only just in time for the service. I let out my held breath in a sigh of relief, for he was alone, and I sat back to endure his sermon while thinking of other more pleasant things. When he spoke – as he always did – of the agonies of Hell, Kitty reached out for my hand. I laced my fingers through hers and gave her a reassuring smile. The seemingly interminable sermon came to an end at last, but before he dismissed us with a curt blessing, he had a message.
‘You will all be relieved to hear that you will not much longer stumble in darkness, without a sound hand to guide you. Your new rector, the Reverend Webberly, will arrive sometime during this following week. I want the rectory made clean and ready for him, so see that it is done. And if any animals are still grazing on the glebe lands, they must be removed. I observe that the arable fields of the glebe land have not yet been ploughed. That too must be done at once. Reverend Webberly will instruct you on what crops he wants planted, as soon as he arrives.’
With that he muttered a brief blessing as though he did not mean it, and rode away.
As soon as he was gone, there was a burst of indignant talk.
‘Clean the rectory! Plough his fields! We have no tied service to the rector!’
The village was angry. When Gideon was rector, he paid one of the village women to clean the house from time to time and do his washing. He prepared his own food, though I think he fared poorly in those days. As for ploughing, the men of the village ploughed and planted his land in return for grazing the stock on the higher ground of the glebe when the winter floods were out, an arrangement beneficial to all, which had existed for many years, through the incumbency of many rectors. And at harvest time Gideon wielded scythe and pitchfork along with everyone else.
Jack was all for refusing to comply with Edgemont’s high-handed orders, but wiser counsel prevailed. We must not make a bad start with the new rector, for he had the power to make our lives miserable, if he so chose.
When I repeated Edgemont’s speech to Gideon, he looked worried.
‘This new man is coming so soon, this very week?’
‘So he says. Though how he expects the fields to be ploughed by then, I do not know. At least nothing needs to be done at the rectory. After the last of the soldiers moved out, every nook and cranny was cleaned.’
‘Perhaps the new rector will be a less difficult man than Reverend Edgemont,’ Gideon said. ‘We must not hasten to blame him for another man’s highhandedness.’
‘Perhaps.’ I was not convinced. This man Webberly was, after all, a Puritan friend of Edgemont. ‘Jack has said that Ephraim told him the people of Crowthorne are growing weary of their Puritan vicar. They are beginning to drift away from his extreme views.’
‘It is not to be wondered at,’ Gideon said. ‘He and his like suck all the love and kindness out of Christianity and replace it with guilt and shame and sorrow. Man cannot live with so much misery. And as for teaching that every man is either saved or damned at birth, the doctrine itself is damnable, and contrary to the teaching of Our Lord.’
I thought it was good news about the villagers of Crowthorne. I had felt less hostile toward them ever since we had worked together last year to rescue our confiscated livestock, under the cover of a football game. At the time, the company of adventurers, together with the soldiers sent to enforce their drainage works, had counted on support from Crowthorne. Things were changing, especially since work had begun on the fenland surrounding the neighbouring village. The parish of Crowthorne was also covered by the charter granting our common lands. If Tom could secure it, they too would have a weapon against the drainers.
‘It will be safe, do you think, for us to go ahead with the marriage tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘Aye,’ he said with a smile. ‘We shall not allow the fear of this man’s arrival to put a stop to it.’
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘the women of the village would never forgive us if all their preparations for the wedding feast were to go to waste.’
The next morning, as I dressed again in my best clothes, I saw Nehemiah through the window, driving the cows back to pasture. He must have risen very early to ensure all the farm work was done before we needed to leave for the village. There were already two calves at foot, and more due soon. I had baked the day’s bread the evening before and Kitty would let the hens into the run when she collected the eggs. For today I should live like a gentlewoman, with no farm tasks to occupy me.
It had rained in the night, heavily, so that the lane was deep in mud.
‘You cannot walk through that mud in your finery,’ Gideon said. ‘We will take Blaze.’
I was not sure that, sitting astride Blaze, I would fare much better, but Gideon and Nehemiah between them had thought of that. Gideon mounted first, and laid a folded blanket in front of the saddle, then Nehemiah lifted me up to sit sideways, with Gideon’s arms around me, holding the reins. It felt very strange to be so cosseted, but I was glad that I would not arrive at my wedding mud bespattered. Gideon’s arms tightened around me and he whispered into my hair.
‘Are you ready?’
‘Aye, my love,’ I said, ‘I am ready.’
As we rode down the lane I thought of last May Day. The very May blossom itself was barely open this year, and the eglantine no more than tight buds. But the birds were singing as if they cared little that the spring was late. For the first part of the way, a male blackbird followed us, winging from branch to branch in the hedgerow and singing joyfully each time he perched, until he flew off at last to his own mate.
At the church door, Jack and Abel both reached to lift me down, so I felt as light as a child – for to tell truth, Nehemiah had struggled a little in lifting me on to Blaze. I shook out my skirts, and there were Alice and Griet with a fresh crown of spring flowers, much more elaborate this time, with ribbons of blue and white fluttering from the edge. Once again the whole village was gathered, though they were a little quieter this time, for this was a service in God’s name. Amyas stood at the door in his surplice, his prayerbook in his hand.
The marriage ceremony itself is quite short. It is a wonder that something which changes the lives of two people for ever is so simple and clear. We repeated our vows and this time slid the silver rings on our fingers. Amyas joined our hands together and blessed us.
I was trembling. It seemed much more solemn than the betrothal, here in the sight of God. Gideon kissed me when Amyas finished speaking, but it was a chaste kiss, then we followed him into the church, the rest of the village crowding in behind.
Amyas did not prolong the service. I think we were all a little nervous after Reverend Edgemont’s visit the previous day, but he did preach a brief sermon on the blessings of matrimony in promising love and companionship for life. I gripped Gideon’s hand throughout, thinking of Amyas’s own lost love. The sermon ended with a few light-hearted memories of their student days in Oxford, then we sang a psalm, and it was over.
‘And now the festivities begin,’ Alice said, when she was able to draw me away from all the men of the village who wanted to exercise the privilege of kissing the bride. ‘Let us lead them away from here to the tithe barn. Rafe, bring Gideon before he is swamped by all the matrons.’
Gideon was indeed somewhat red in the face. Never before had the women of the village had the opportunity of kissing their handsome rector, and they were seizing the chance now. My husband, I thought.
I was astonish
ed when we reached the barn, for I did not believe there was so much food left in the village.
‘It is too much, far too much,’ I protested, but Alice and the other women merely laughed. Soon everyone was feasting happily, for none of us had eaten so well for months, though we all knew it would mean short rations for the coming weeks. Spring can bring starvation, as winter supplies run out before the new season’s food is ready.
They had even made a bride cake. It was not very large, but there was just enough for everyone to have a mouthful. The rain having begun again, it was too wet outside for dancing, so we cleared away the trestle tables and danced in the barn. Robin Morton, Alice’s brother, brought out his fiddle and then one of the Dutchmen shyly offered to play his as well. Johnny Samson had his pipe, so the three of them struck up a lively tune as Gideon led me out to the centre of the floor to begin the dance.
I was already dizzy with the strangeness of the day and the thought that now I was indeed married to Gideon. A generous helping of ale had contributed to my sense of floating somewhere a few feet above the ground. I had not meant to drink much, but someone kept filling my cup when I was not looking. Soon everyone was joining in the dancing, except the old and frail. Even little Rob Higson had dragged Kitty into the dance, though he was two years younger and six inches shorter. Her eyes were bright as they whirled past me.
The music grew faster, the laughter and shouting louder, so that at first we did not hear the noise from the door. Robin stopped playing, then the others. The chattering of the company died away. My back was to the door, but I felt Gideon stiffen. I twisted round to see what was amiss.
The young soldier Ben stood there, gasping and holding his side. He was red in the face and so short of breath that after the first shout he could not speak. He waved his hand desperately to the east. Gideon took his arms from around me and strode over to the door.
‘What’s to-do, Ben lad? Take a deep breath now, and tell us what is the matter.’