The Chymical Wedding

by Lindsay Clarke

  “See,” she urged, “I at least have learnt my lessons well. And what says Trismegistus in his Golden Treatise? – ‘Know, my son, that that which is born of the Crow is the beginning of the Art.’”

  Eyes closed, he fetched a great sigh from a heart foundering on its own despair. “Dear God, Louisa, I am seventy years old…”

  “And all the wiser for those years.”

  “But there is so little time.”

  “Yet we know the Lord will hasten all up at last, and quickly enough. Where is the trust you taught me?” In some concealed distress herself, she saw the shaking of his head. “I think perhaps you stand in your own light. If you would look, you might see, at least, that I am by to help.”

  But guilt still kept bitter company with such consolation. “And if I am not poet enough?” he demanded.

  She reached out a hand, turned his face towards her. “Do you dare tell me you are not, sir?”

  What Agnew dared not do was let his eyes meet hers. Never before had she encountered such resistance in him. It was as though something perverse in his will was bent against her; something that must be exorcized before its grip should tighten. Louisa considered a moment then decided that where gentleness had failed sternness might serve. “Well,” she insisted, “if that is so, then say it. Say it aloud to me. Say ‘I am not poet enough for this essential task’.”

  For a moment longer Agnew tried to hang his head. Her pride, her certainty, shamed the act. He must look up and when he did so the fire soul shining in those eyes was irresistible.

  “You see,” she exclaimed, “the thing will not be said.” She took in the sadness unassuaged by his reluctant smile, “… though I know how bitterly the thought must come to trouble you. And will,” she added, lightening her voice again, “as long as you persist in brooding longer at your desk than common sense would commend. Now come, sir. Close your book. If you remain here a moment longer, I vow I shall fetch a crop to you.” She held out a summoning hand.

  Certain only that he could not bear to disappoint the confident trust those eyes reposed in him, Agnew took the hand in his own. Perhaps she was right; perhaps he had simply sat here too long, stupefied by his own company. This was not, after all, the first time he had been overwhelmed by gloom. But his heart was heavy still as he lifted himself from his chair.

  Short of actual catastrophe there can be few more nerve-racking experiences than moving house, and when one has spent many years assembling a precious collection of chattels that must now be carted on rough roads across three counties from an old home to a new, it is not to be expected that the upheaval will be completed without loss. Nor could a woman who placed such high value on order as Emilia Frere be expected to cope with the consequent period of muddle without, at some point, showing signs of strain.

  Frere himself was not a handyman, and his determination to be of assistance in places where fingers might be trapped or questions of weight, volume and angle of approach must be nicely calculated, proved less of a help than a hindrance to the stout fellows in his employ. Too often his eager person was situated in precisely the wrong place, and his apologies were rarely reserved for the moment when a heavy armoire had been put down, or other more pressing matters had been given the full attention they required.

  The move was, in fact, achieved. By the end of it, the Rectory at Munding was in handsome order. However, the translation from Cambridge to Norfolk was made only at some cost to the wife’s esteem for her more spiritual than practical husband. Perhaps it was for this reason that only the day after their arrival they found themselves in dispute.

  Already Emilia was impatient with the way Edwin bumbled about the rooms, questioning her disposition of the ornaments, fretting over misplaced books and generally impeding her. “Have you no business of your own,” she demanded eventually, “that you must hinder me at mine?”

  Surprised by the asperity, Frere stood blinking. Emilia sighed over a list from which fewer items than she would have liked had been deleted. “Surely there are things in this parish that require your attention?”

  Frere saw that he was indeed procrastinating, and on a matter which must be addressed before he could take confident charge of his Munding flock. For a moment it felt almost as though Emilia had intuited the need, though that was impossible, for the absurd name that whispered in his thoughts had never been mentioned between them. It remained a private care, one that – now they were here, the carters gone, the commitment irrevocably made – had returned to trouble him. It left him nervy and restless. Irrationally so, he recognized, but it was a trial to him as he had now become a trial to his busy wife, and something must be done. Immediately.

  Without explaining himself, he left the room, reached for his topcoat, hat and cane, and strode out of the house. Even then, though it stood only a little way down the lane, he did not go directly to the church. There were people about and, for what he had in mind, he must be unobserved. How was it that his moments of resolve were rarely timely?

  After the morning’s rain there was a scent of decay on the air. It rose from the mulch of fallen leaves. It drifted on the breeze. There was already a taint of winter on its breath. His nostrils flared, and he decided that a long walk out across the water meadows might serve his present need. It would pass the time till dusk and would, moreover, act upon his mind in the manner of a pilgrimage, bringing him back at last to a pacifying encounter with the source of his unease.

  Quietly he went back indoors to change his shoes.

  Almost two hours later, under a sky that was all pearl and madder where it was not yet touched with dusk, Frere approached the church across the water meadows. His mind had been fortified by prolonged meditation on the psalms. The 115th – Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? – had restored perspective. The idol on his church was not of silver or gold, but it remained the mere work of man’s hands. Like the images David had derided, it had a mouth but spoke not, and eyes which did not see. Furthermore, David’s prayer for the remission of sins resounded in the dark places of Frere’s own soul: Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me. But, lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts, and shall make me to understand wisdom secretly.

  Frere was resolved: here, in Munding, his ghosts should at last be laid. Alone, by dusk, he would stand beneath Gypsy May and christen her, as once, centuries before, the first founder of the little parish had elected to do. He would make a reconciliation there.

  His purpose was forestalled, however, by the discovery that he was not alone in the churchyard. As he rounded the chancel, Frere saw the figure of a small boy in a patched shirt standing near a gravestone, whistling. The shirt was too large for the pinched chest and bulged about his trouser tops. He had not observed the parson’s approach.

  Frere halted, at a loss. Then he moved into the shadow of a buttress, wondering what was to be done about this unanticipated audience to his rite. Some minutes passed, and the boy showed no sign of leaving his post. He might have been appointed sentinel for the very purpose of obstructing Frere’s intent. The dusk was gathering quickly. Rooks complained. A breeze had got up and it fetched to Frere’s impatient ears the tuneless sound of the boy’s whistling. Frere took out his watch – it was late, would soon be later than he had intended. He was fretful, angry even. He had taken such pains to prepare himself for this moment, and was he to be driven off by the half-starveling figure of a ten-year-old idling the dusk away in grubby trousers? The child had no business here, whereas he…

  After a further indecisive moment, Frere stepped out of the shadow. “What are you doing here, boy?”

  The urchin jumped, turning a pallid face in the direction of the voice. Beneath a cowlick of ash-blond hair the eyes were bright with terror. Instantly Frere felt a pang of remorse to have startled him so. He saw that the child was about to turn and run and, before he could do so, said, “Stay where you are.” The moment for which he had prepared himself was vanished n
ow, and he would not have the child rush round the village with tales of hobgoblins among the graves.

  The command tethered the boy to the spot. He was shivering a little in the thin shirt. Frere’s hand impeded further thought of flight. “Well, boy, I asked you a question. I am the Reverend Frere, your new parson, and I believe I deserve an answer.”

  The boy said nothing, looked around, askance, as though for aid. Frere asked his name, more mildly now. The child looked down at his clogged feet and mumbled.

  “Louder, boy, and look at me when you speak.”

  Gulping, the boy glanced up. “Sam Yaxley, sir.” His first terror was passing now, though only to be replaced by a second anxiety which pinched his narrow features: that his trousers offered thin protection from the parson’s cane. Frere saw it, and the residual irritation in his manner fell away. “Well, Sam Yaxley, I ask you again: what are you doing alone here at this hour?”

  “Nothin’, sir.” The face was feral almost, rueful that its name had been so unwisely surrendered.

  “Is that the truth, Sam?” Kindly but with the bulk of his clerical dignity looming large, Frere looked down into those shifty eyes. “I don’t believe it was. Tell me, now – what were you up to?”

  Again no more than a mumble.

  “I don’t understand you, boy. Speak up.”

  Sam Yaxley sniffed and cast his eyes around the gravestones for inspiration. Regrettably he found nothing but the truth and some possible mitigation in sharing of the blame. “Nelly Jex,” he said.

  “Nelly Jex? What about her?”

  “She have bet me I dares n’t stand here… not in the dark.”

  Frere remembered it was All Souls’ Night. “Among the graves, you mean?”

  “Under ’er, sir.”

  Frere frowned, incredulous. “Under whom, Sam?”

  The boy nodded upwards. “’er, sir. Gypsy May.”

  Involuntarily Frere looked up. He took a moment to recover himself, and when he did he smiled. “But you weren’t afraid, eh?”

  Reassured by the smile, Sam answered derisively, “That’s only a lump of owed stone.”

  Frere’s smile broadened, then he remembered himself. “I see. And do you believe in the Lord Jesus, Sam?”

  Sam perceived that much might depend on his answer. Solemnly he said, “That I do, sir.”

  Again Frere smiled at the instant innocence and the guile of it. That scruff of blond hair reached right back to the Angles. He remembered Gregory in the slave market at Rome. “Non Angli sed Angeli,” he muttered aloud, and then, seeing the boy’s bewilderment, cautioned, “The churchyard is no place for games, you know.”

  “No, sir.”

  “But you’re a brave boy, Sam.” Frere reached into his pocket. “Here’s a penny for you and be off with you now. And tell Nelly Jex I shall want a word with her after church on Sunday.”

  Amazed at his good fortune, omitting any sign of gratitude in his relief, Sam turned on his heel and ran. Smiling, Frere watched him go. A few moments later he heard a muttering and giggles in the gloom beyond the wicket gate, and the sound of children running.

  Well, the time had not been entirely lost – a start had been made with the youngsters at least. He must remember to seek out the boy’s home, for there was poverty there, a need for kindliness. Sighing, Frere looked up again among the flints where the image of Gypsy May was shrouded in shadow. Nothing of more account than a bogey to frighten naughty children, Miss Agnew had said. Frere saw how disproportionate his own lonely thoughts had been.

  “What a booby you are, Edwin Frere,” he whispered quietly. And then, a moment later, “I think you are going to be happy here.” A little laugh escaped with his breath. This was not at all the encounter for which he had summoned strength, but how much more satisfactory, how much more sane. Whistling, he walked towards the lychgate through the failing light. He looked back at his church and felt a sudden elation.

  It was in this happier condition, eagerly anticipating his return to the new home, that he came upon Amy Lamer, crouched beneath the blood-red hips of the dog-rose hedge in the lane outside the Rectory. When she looked up, he saw that she was in tears.

  Again he was discountenanced. He stood for a moment over the weeping housemaid, then bent slightly and put his fingertips to her shoulder. “Come now, Amy, what is all this?”

  The young woman looked up at him through ruined eyes, then released a further, louder sob of inconsolable misery before covering her face with her apron.

  “Come, come,” he said. “Hold up your weeping awhile and let’s see if I don’t have a moment’s comfort for you.”

  Amy sniffed and shuddered, looked up into his gentle eyes for an instant and then, as if the very thought of comfort only exacerbated her wretchedness, she burst into a further torrent of tears. The apron was lifted to her face again. It was clutched in both hands, so Frere could see only her whitened knuckles. He tried another tender question or two, apprehensive that some calamity must have befallen either the girl or her family to provoke such speechless grief. “What is it? What is it now? You must tell me and share the burden of it, or how am I to help you?” But Amy could only shake her head while biting her lip so fiercely that Frere was certain it must bleed. “Come inside, my dear,” he said, “…we may speak more easily there.” The invitation elicited only a broken howl. Then Amy pushed herself to her feet and ran off sobbing down the lane.

  For a moment Frere wondered whether to pursue her but decided that further enlightenment was needed before he could be of any real help. He turned into the house and found Emilia rearranging the pictures in the sitting room, white-faced and overly precise in her gestures.

  “The strangest thing, my dear,” he said. “I just came upon Amy in the lane, sobbing out her heart beneath the hedge, and when I tried to comfort her, she ran off without a word of explanation.”

  Studying her adjustment to a picture, Emilia drew a taut breath and said, “If she had nothing to say, I am quite sure it was shame that silenced her. She is dismissed from our service, Edwin.”

  “Dismissed?”

  Emilia nodded, and returned her attention to the unsatisfactory tilt of the frame.

  “But why? What has she done? Has she been impertinent?”

  “She is not a suitable person for this house.”

  “But I had thought her such a good-natured soul.”

  “I had thought so myself. We were deceived. I can only be thankful that Mrs Bostock informed me of her true character in good time.”

  “Mrs Bostock? She was here?”

  “She arrived shortly after you had left and was disappointed not to find you at home. However, she took advantage of our solitude to caution me about that young woman. I was left with no choice but to dismiss her instantly.”

  By now a clearer picture had begun to form in Frere’s mind. Frowning, thinking quickly, he said, “I see.”

  “I very much doubt you do. But I have no desire to discuss the matter further except to assure you that I have acted in our best interests.”

  Frere studied his wife in silence a moment as she sighed, shook her head and took the picture down again. Then he said, “I should have preferred to be consulted on this.”

  Holding the picture at her breast, his wife looked across at him, surprised by the sharpness of his voice. “I assure you there was no need. Had you too been apprised of… the facts… you would have felt compelled to do the same.”

  Frere sat down, fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. “I presume,” he said quietly, “that it is the matter of Amy’s relationship with my predecessor to which you refer.”

  Emilia had been about to hang the picture once more but she froze at his words and then, in stark amazement, turned to face him. “You knew of this?”

  Frere swallowed. “Sir Henry Agnew informed me of… the matter, at our first meeting.”

  “And you did not think to share it with me?”

  He looked away.

  “Yo
u could allow me to take that… that woman into my employ when you knew what scandal she must bring upon the house?” Emilia’s face was glacial. There was a spark of cold fury in her eyes that only an act of will restrained to pained bewilderment in her voice.

  “I gave much thought to the matter.”

  “But little wisdom, it seems. I cannot say whether it is your secrecy or your poor judgement which has injured me more.”

  She turned away again with only the gilt frame in her hands to control her trembling. Frere was alarmed by this coldness. Such temper was alien to their exchanges. They were both unnerved by it.

  “There was no injury intended,” he said. “I meant only to spare you…”

  “To spare me! To spare me what? I assure you a greater candour on your part might have spared me much humiliation. I cannot think what possessed you.”

  Distressed that his renovation of spirit at the church should have no warmer reception than this, Frere said quietly, “I was weighing the benefits of charity against those of retribution. I was remembering that forgiveness of sins is at the heart of the ministry. I was considering how it might be thought doubly unjust if one parson were to cast a harsh stone at a woman whose fall was directly attributable to the frailty of another. It did not seem to me a simple matter, or one that I could share without embarrassment to us both. And so I took it upon myself to keep silent in the certain knowledge that there was more hope for the young woman under our influence than in Saxburgh workhouse, or on its streets…”

  “And you gave no thought to the scandal that must attach itself to your own name in the circumstances? Or to the consequences it must have for me – without my knowing it – each time I showed my face in society? I must be thankful that Mrs Bostock has a firmer grasp upon reality, and proved friend enough to risk some embarrassment to herself in sparing me the shame of it.”

  “I had trusted that a charitable act would be perceived for what it was, and not be perverted by gossip in such an ignoble manner. It seems that I was wrong.”