The Captive Bride

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Oh, all the Winslows look alike,” Matthew remarked with a shrug.

  “There are refreshments outside,” Bunyan offered. “Will you join me?”

  He led them all outside where tables were set up and soon filled with cold cuts and fresh bread. Bunyan and Miss Smith were soon in conversation, and Matthew found himself sitting by the niece, who was eating with a healthy appetite.

  “You’d better fortify yourself, Mr. Winslow,” she said with an arch smile. “Pastor Bunyan hasn’t really begun yet. We’ll have the second half of the sermon after lunch.”

  Matthew Winslow could have been eating sawdust instead of cold beef! He was gazing into the blackest eyes he’d ever seen, and it took all his powers to keep his mind on the conversation with Lydia.

  Realizing he was staring at her like a fool, he took himself in hand and began asking her about her background. He learned that she was an orphan, her mother and father (French, of course!), having died in a plague. She had then been taken in by her spinster aunt, Martha Smith. The sermon interrupted the conversation, and he was forced to content himself with glimpses of her beautiful face and form as Bunyan preached.

  All too soon it was over, but Bunyan might have preached on the gray beard of Daniel’s Billy Goat for all Matthew knew!

  One thing he did know, however—he was invited to tea the following week at Miss Smith’s!

  On his way back to Bedford, Matthew was like a drunk man. His jovial mood didn’t entirely fool the tall preacher, who gave him a quiet smile as they arrived at the street where Matthew turned to go to the Goodmans’.

  “It was a fine sermon, Mr. Bunyan,” Matthew said warmly, shaking his hand.

  “What did you think of the second part?” Bunyan asked with a straight face. “Was it as interesting doctrinally as the first?”

  “Why ...” Matthew saw the faint smile on Bunyan’s lips, and returned it. “Why, as to that,” he said, “it was true enough—and the congregation was very fine.”

  “Yes, she was, wasn’t she?” Bunyan stated. Then he laughed. “You’d best sit on the front row next Sabbath, Brother Winslow. I can’t compete with a beautiful woman like Miss Lydia Carbonne!”

  Matthew flushed, but finally grinned. “You have sharp eyes, Mr. John Bunyan.”

  Bunyan clapped him on the shoulder and said, “I was young myself once, you know!”

  That night Matthew’s journal recorded one line:

  Lydia—Lydia—Lydia—Lydia—oh, Lydia Carbonne!

  CHAPTER THREE

  A YOUNG MAN’S FANCY

  “Lydia, you must stop seeing this man at once!”

  From where she sat in front of a small table brushing her hair, Lydia Carbonne looked up defiantly at the tall figure of her guardian. Her full lips compressed and a rebellious light smoldered in her dark eyes. She had heard this statement in one form or another for the past two months from Martha Smith. At first she had submitted with a sigh, but now she shook her head, causing the mass of raven-dark ringlets to sweep her shoulders.

  “There’s nothing wrong with seeing Matthew Winslow.”

  “There’s something wrong with a young girl making a spectacle of herself over a man in public!”

  “That’s not true! He walks me to the meetings, he comes here to tea, sometimes we walk together—is that what you call making a spectacle of myself?”

  Miss Smith stared at her niece in despair. “You’re every bit as stubborn as your mother!” She shook her head and wondered for the thousandth time how her sister Mary could have been so foolish as to marry a Frenchman. Her mind flew back to another time, another place, when she had faced the mother of this fiery young woman in precisely the same way.

  In this same room, less than a year after the death of their father, Mary Smith had met a dashing young foreigner, Andre Carbonne, had fallen in love with him, and agreed to marry him. Their mother had been a woman of no force, prostrated by the death of her husband, so the lot fell to Martha to do her best to stop the match.

  “He’s not even of your faith,” she had said in horror to Mary. “Your children, God forbid, will be brought up as idol worshipers!”

  “Not all Christians are outside the Catholic church!” her sister had shot back, and from that instant Martha Smith knew there would be no hope of changing the girl’s mind. “We’re going to be married and live in Dover, Martha. We love each other, and I must have him!”

  Now, twenty years later, Martha Smith had the eerie feeling that her sister Mary, dead along with her husband and buried in the soil of France, somehow stood before her. She’s Mary come back again! she thought helplessly. The same beauty— and the same rebelliousness—like the sin of witchcraft! The thought shocked her, and she said quickly, “You don’t know this man. He’s a stranger to us.”

  “I do know him, Aunt Martha,” Lydia shot back at once. She gave one more pull through her luxurious hair with an ivory comb, rose and came to stand by the older woman. Placing a hand on her aunt’s arm, she modified her voice and said quietly, “Don’t be afraid. I know it broke your heart when mother married out of the faith. It—it was hard on her, too, you know—to be cut off from her family.”

  “It was her choice, Lydia.”

  “I know, I know, but she had to follow the man she loved. Can’t you see that?”

  “Oh, Lydia, it’s just that I’m afraid for you!” Martha Smith had never married, and this girl had been the daughter she’d never had. Now she was losing her, and fear filled her at the thought that tragedy might strike her down. “Will Howard wants to marry you, and I’d hoped you’d make a match of it with him.”

  “I don’t love him, Aunt. I never could.”

  The statement left no room for argument, and Martha Smith stood there looking at Lydia, and finally asked the question she had not dared to ask before: “Are you going to marry this man?”

  “If he asks me, I’ll marry him.”

  Yes, the same as Mary! Martha Smith thought instantly. Mary stood in this very room, and she looked me right in the eye and said the same thing. “I’ll marry Andre if he asks me.”

  “Will you talk with Pastor Gifford about this? Will you at least do that for me?”

  Lydia smiled and suddenly pulled her aunt’s head down and kissed her cheek. “Of course I will. And you may have nothing to worry about, Aunt Martha. He may never ask me.” A thought struck her, and she smiled, adding, “Matthew is spending so much time with John Bunyan these days, he may forget me entirely!”

  The object of their conversation was, as a matter of fact, sitting in the Bunyan cottage at that very moment, engaged in conversation with the head of the house on the very subject of matrimony. It was not, however, Matthew’s marriage that they spoke of, but Bunyan’s.

  A light rain was falling, so instead of sitting outside the front door on a stool as he worked, Bunyan was seated at the table putting a series of small rivets in a utensil made of pewter. He held it up to the light and then looked across the table at Matthew and asked, “Some tea, my boy?” He glanced across the room where his daughter Mary was seated on a stool sewing. “Mary, would you brew a little tea for Brother Winslow and me?”

  “Yes, Father.” Matthew turned to watch as the girl rose, moved unerringly across the room to where the teapot sat on a table and began making the tea. Her blindness was a source of constant sorrow to Bunyan, Matthew knew, though the big man seldom mentioned it. But now there was a veiled grief in his eyes as he watched her.

  “She’s like her mother, Matthew. I wish you could have known her.” All four of Bunyan’s children were by his first wife who had died in childbirth. “She was a godly woman, indeed,” he went on, tapping the head of a rivet carefully, then holding it up again to the light.

  “I suppose you had a hard time, as most newly married couples do,” Matthew remarked.

  “Hard? Why, I suppose it was,” Bunyan remarked. “I had nothing, but she had a marvelous dowry which she brought to our marriage.”

  “I
ndeed?”

  “Yes, Matthew. I became a wealthy man with that dowry.” His lively eyes twinkled and he rose to go to a bookcase nailed to the wall. Taking down two books, he returned to the table and placed them carefully before his guest. “There it is.”

  Matthew picked up the worn volumes and read the titles aloud: “The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven by Arthur Dent and The Practice of Piety by Lewis Bayly. I don’t know these books, John.”

  “Well, they’re solid gold, my boy, solid gold!” Bunyan smiled. “You know I found the Lord in a most unusual way.” He touched Matthew’s arm, adding with a smile, “Perhaps I’ve told you the story before—but I want to hear it again.”

  “How was it, John?”

  “Why, I was in the army, you know, and we were about as holy as soldiers ever get. You can thank Cromwell for that! Sermons every day, and God help the poor devil who cursed and used the name of the Good Lord in vain! He’d be tied over a cannon and whipped until he was raw! But it paid off, my boy.” His eyes grew dreamy as he leaned on his hands across the table, thinking of the past. “We went into battle singing hymns of praise to God. I think that frightened the enemy as much as our guns! Well, anyway, I was mustered out and went home to Elstow. There I found Sarah, married her and we set up housekeeping. But I was a wild fellow, Matthew, aye, a very wild fellow!”

  “What form did this devilment take, John?”

  “Oh, playing stupid games like tip-cat on the Sabbath, ringing the church bell at odd times, midnight and such, and the worst was my filthy tongue. Oh, I was one for cursing in those days! But then one day I was walking along the street in Elstow and there were three or four poor women sitting beside a door into a room, talking about the things of God. I thought they spoke as if joy did make them speak; they spoke with such a pleasantness of Scripture language and with such appearance of grace in all they said that they were to me as if they had found a new world!”

  “A new world, John?”

  “Aye, nothing less than that!” Bunyan shook his head, marveling at it all, then went on in a low voice. “I knew nothing of Jesus Christ—except what little I’d heard in sermons. They spoke of Him as a dear friend whose company they shared. Well, I had to have that, Matthew, I had to! So I was drawn to their company, these poor women, into the fellowhship of which they were a part. It was like a voyage to a new world, indeed, and when I met Mr. Gifford a few months later, I was so hungry to find God that I moved my family here to Bedford, just to sit at his feet. And I’ve never regretted it.”

  “He’s a fine preacher.”

  “A man of God indeed.” They spoke of the preacher until Mary brought them two large cups, filled them with tea, and allowed herself to be drawn into Bunyan’s lap as he drank the steaming beverage. “Good to your poor old father, you are, sweetheart!” he exclaimed, giving her a hug. “And what a helper to her mother—I tell you, she’s a marvel, Master Winslow!”

  “I know.” Matthew watched as the two sat there, Bunyan holding the child close, her blind eyes turned up to his seeing ones.

  The two of them sat there listening to Bunyan’s talk until Elizabeth came in carrying an empty basket on her arm. “Still preaching at the poor boy, Husband?” she said with a smile. Elizabeth Bunyan was a tall full-bodied woman of twenty-three with the rosy cheeks and clear eyes of the Saxon blood. Her hands were roughened with work, but she had a natural winsomeness which Matthew admired. She had married Bunyan, taking on the care of his four small children, when she could have made a much better match.

  Bunyan rose at once, embraced her and said, “Now you sit down here and let me spoil you!” She smiled and obeyed. He brought cakes and tea to her, leaving a trail as he went. Matthew was amused to see that the tinker, so exact and careful in his work with metal, was so careless in his service.

  She told him of the poor people she’d seen that afternoon, and he shook his head sadly over each case. It was a pleasant scene, and Matthew, for all his desire to wade into action in the wide world, thoroughly enjoyed soaking in the atmosphere of the family group. The smaller children came in, clinging to either the father or the mother, and Matthew reached out and pulled Mary to his lap, laughing at her protests that she was too big.

  Finally, the children left to play, except for Mary, who helped her mother prepare the evening meal. “Looks like the rain has stopped,” Bunyan observed. “Let’s take a walk before supper.”

  They walked around the village streets, and Bunyan observed slyly as the neighbors all greeted young Winslow along with himself, “You’ve become quite a fixture here, Matthew. How long has it been since you came—two months?”

  “About that.”

  Bunyan said suddenly, turning to face Matthew, “You’re completely taken with the Carbonne girl.”

  “Well, she’s a charming young woman—”

  “Faw!” Bunyan snorted. “Don’t you think I have eyes? Even Mary, who can’t see a thing, asked me when you two were getting married.”

  Matthew stopped suddenly, then turned to lean against a rock wall that encircled a snug cottage. He pulled a piece of moss from between two smooth stones, stroked its silky texture, then tossed it to the ground. “I didn’t come to England to get married, John. I came to find—” He paused and once again he plucked a shred of the emerald green moss and seemed to be lost in thought as he stroked it with the tip of his finger. “To tell the truth, Brother Bunyan, I don’t know what it was I came to find. I thought maybe it was adventure—for I’ve always wanted that! But these last few days in this place have made me uncertain.”

  Bunyan nodded sagely and said, “I know, boy, I know. Didn’t I run off when I was only a lad to fight in the war? And there’s some of that in you. You’ll not be a man content to rust unburnished, I tell you! But war—that’s not the answer.” He shook his head and looked up as a swallow sailed gracefully to land in the chimney of the house beyond the wall. “No, men tire of that. But there’s another kind of action, the warfare of the spirit. Jesus calls us to arms, you know. He urges us to put on the whole armor of God, to train as athletes for the race. Being a Christian isn’t a soft, easy life—especially in this poor country of ours, in the year of our Lord 1659.”

  Matthew tossed the shred of moss to the ground and looked at Bunyan with excitement in his bright blue eyes. “I think I’d like to be part of that struggle, John.”

  Bunyan took in the lean form, the eager wedge-shaped face turned toward him, and then he shook his head sadly. “It won’t be easy, you know. I don’t think we can win this war. Some of us won’t die in our beds—and some will go to prison or be driven beyond the sea.”

  “I’m not afraid of that!”

  “No, not now, perhaps. But I tell you flat out, Matthew Winslow, the only ones who will survive this coming darkness will be those to whom the Lord Jesus Christ is a living reality! Can you say that’s true of you?”

  Matthew dropped his head, and there was a silence on the air so profound that he could hear the far-off cry of a curlew. The silence ran on, broken only by the tinkle of bells on a few sheep in a distant meadow.

  When he raised his head, there was a mixture of sadness and desire in his face. “No, John,” he said slowly, “I can’t say that. I’ve been watching the people here, and I confess to you—as I have to Pastor Gifford—Christ is not formed in my heart. Not yet! But I’m willing to throw myself into this battle you say is coming.”

  Bunyan straightened his back and looked carefully into the eyes of young Winslow. He liked what he saw but was not ready to say more than, “It’s a beginning, Matthew. God will guide you—and as I said, you’ll not be a dusty man of business! The spirit in you, why, it’s far too strong for that!”

  “I—I’ve been confused about just about everything, John, but one thing I’m sure of is that I want to marry Lydia Carbonne.”

  Bunyan stared at the young man, then shook his head. “Be sure of yourself, Matthew.” He held up his hand to cut off the protest that leaped to Matthew
’s lips. “In the first place, you’re young and have no profession. Now, I hear that you may do well in business, so Asa Goodman says. But that’s not enough for a marriage.”

  “But I love Lydia!”

  “There is one thing that few people know about Lydia, Matthew, not even her aunt suspects it.”

  “What is that, John?”

  “She seems flighty, not at all serious about her religion, but I tell you she is! Even her aunt mistakes her; being so much opposed to her mother’s marriage, she chooses to think that the French strain has corrupted the English piety. Tell the truth now, son, do you not think the young woman to be somewhat frivolous—though very beautiful?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, but—”

  “You are mistaken, and you will find out that there is a will of steel in her makeup. I have had more than one talk with her about her commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I tell you she will not be happy with a husband who is less of a Christian than she is.”

  “And you think I am not enough of a Christian to be her husband?”

  Bunyan smiled and put his large hand on the young man’s arm. There was a mixture of love and judgment in his direct gaze. Then he said, his voice low but firm, “I think you have not found yourself yet, my boy—and you have not found your God. I travail much in prayer for you.” Then he slapped the broad shoulder of the young man, saying with encouragement, “You will find your way! Now, let us go inside.”

  The two went into the cottage, but for once Matthew had little appetite for Elizabeth’s good cooking. He played with his food, then after supper spent some time with the children. Finally he left, thanking the Bunyans for their hospitality. When he went up to his room, he picked up his journal and struggled to put down on paper what was happening to him.

  October 3, 1659. Bedford.

  This country is in a fever! There is no government, and the talk is all of the restoration of Charles to the throne. Pastor Gifford says it will come within a month, and each Sabbath he exhorts the congregation to prepare their souls for the terrible times he says will come then.