by Jody Hedlund
“How much time?”
“Jane and Henry courted for two years.”
Beneath his scruffy beard and scraggly hair, Samuel’s face blanched.
She ought to mention that Jane and Henry hadn’t had a choice. Henry’s apprenticeship had delayed them. But ’twould not help her cause to bring that to light. “Don’t you agree we should help the Costins during this terrible time of need? Surely you cannot prohibit my offering them charity.”
“I don’t prohibit charity—”
“Would you have me leave the poor motherless children to fend for themselves?”
“No, of course not—”
“Then you cannot object to postponing our plans in order to extend a gracious hand of service to the Costins during this hardship.”
“I guess I can’t object.”
“Everyone will understand why we must postpone, and they’ll be grateful. They’ll laud you for your sacrifice.”
Her father cleared his throat and leveled a frown at her, a warning that she’d gone far enough in her efforts to convince Samuel.
“If ye are agreed, Samuel, my boy,” her father said, “then my Elizabeth will marry ye at summer’s end.”
“That’s more than three months.” Samuel plucked at his beard.
“Elizabeth must be ready by then.”
Her father’s statement was directed at her.
“I will be ready.” Would she, though?
“You will promise this?” Samuel asked.
Could she promise?
For the space of a few seconds she didn’t know if she could make such a promise. Then she shook off the notion. Samuel was a good man, even if he wasn’t handsome. He was like the big barrels he crafted—round and hefty. But she was nothing special to look at either, with her stocky bones and wide girth, her hair the color of bread crust, and her eyes plain and gray. Compared to Jane or Catherine, or any of her other sisters, she had missed inheriting their mother’s beauty. No wonder a man like Samuel Muddle had chosen her—she was one of the few he bargained he could win.
“Will you promise?” he asked again.
The scraping of the peel against stone echoed in the room as Henry finished taking the last brown loaves out of the oven.
“Very well. I promise.”
“Let there be an agreement betwixt us. At summer’s end, you’ll finish your housekeeping, and we’ll make haste to take our vows before the magistrate.”
“Agreed.”
“Only until summer’s end.”
“Summer’s end. I promise.”
* * *
Breathless, Elizabeth stood on St. Cuthbert’s Street before the Costin cottage. She had hoped to arrive before Lucy. From the sound of Thomas’s hungry cries, she guessed she had achieved her goal. She prayed Lucy would be faithful to wet-nursing or be lured back by the prospect of more money.
Elizabeth shifted the warm bread loaves under her arm and knocked.
She heard nothing but the babe crying. Was Brother Costin gone? Could he not hear her knock above the baby’s cries?
After another long moment, she pounded the door with her palm. “Brother Costin?” She listened, then pummeled harder. “Brother Costin? Are you home?”
At the sudden sound of crashing and a grunt of pain, she shoved the door open.
In near darkness, lying on the floor, tangled under an overturned trestle was Brother Costin. Platters and mugs littered the ground around him, along with the bones of last night’s meal.
“Brother Costin, are you hurt?”
He grunted.
She crossed the room and bent over him.
Blood ran from his nose across his mustache and dripped from his chin.
“You’re bleeding.”
Brother Costin touched the blood.
Elizabeth grabbed the nearest rag from the floor and shoved it against his nose.
“Ouch!” He squirmed.
“You must be still.”
“And you must stop pressing so hard.”
“Forgive me.” Elizabeth loosened her grip.
He held his head still.
She couldn’t keep from scanning the weary outline of his face. Even sprawled on the ground, his shoulders dwarfed hers, and the magnitude of his presence tugged at her long-held awe of him.
“My nose. It’s broken.” His voice was low. “Though ’twould not be the first time.”
In all of the years she’d known Brother Costin, she’d never had reason to speak to him or seek him out. He had joined their Independent Congregation five years prior. At that time, she’d been a girl of only twelve, and he’d seemed so much older, someone she respected, like Vicar Burton.
But she wasn’t a girl of twelve anymore, and he suddenly didn’t seem so old. Rather, he was very much a young, vibrant man. At that moment she was in a closer proximity to him than she’d ever been with any man—he was at her fingertips, with the heat of his breath brushing her wrist.
The impropriety of their predicament slapped her in the face.
She jerked her hand away and stumbled backward. Her legs bumped against the trestle, and the force of her body pressed it down onto Brother Costin.
He groaned.
She scrambled to get off, but her feet tangled in her petticoat, putting the bulk of her weight on the bench and on him.
“I think you’re killing me now,” he said through clenched teeth.
With a jerk of her petticoat, she fell off the trestle and landed in an ungracious heap.
He lifted the bench. Then with a wince he got to his feet and rubbed his side. “Methinks you would have been satisfied breaking my nose. It would have been most kind of you to leave my ribs alone.”
She cringed. How was it she’d only just arrived and was already failing to make a good impression?
He wavered then braced his hands on the table.
“Shall I send for the physician?” she asked, pushing herself up.
“I’m tired, is all. It was a long night. And I must have finally fallen asleep at the table.” He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “The beating on the door startled me.”
Elizabeth struggled to her feet and smoothed down her petticoat and apron.
He combed his fingers through his disheveled hair, but it only stuck up more. “You’re here too early.”
Thomas’s pitiful cries drew her attention. “It seems to me I’m late.”
“We won’t be departing for St. John’s until midday.”
“But you’ll need me before then.” In a dark corner of the room, Elizabeth spotted the cradle.
“I won’t have need of anyone. And I’d prefer to be left alone. Come back later when the parish bells ring.”
“That wouldn’t be wise.” Had she misunderstood Vicar Burton? Hadn’t he instructed her to begin housekeeping this morn? “You may not need anyone. But the babe most certainly does.”
He listened. Then he rubbed a hand across his eyes. Weariness stooped his shoulders with its weight.
What could she say to ease his grief? She hesitated, but the babe’s hoarse cries beckoned to her and dragged her across the room.
“Ah, little one,” she cooed when she reached him. His swaddling bands were unraveled and his dress in disarray. His thin arms and legs flailed at the air. She scooped him against her chest. His sourness assaulted her, and the moisture from his soiled clout pressed against her arm. Likely no one had shifted him since she’d done it the previous evening.
“You’re the wet nurse, then?”
“Would that I was.” She slipped her finger between Thomas’s lips and pressed it against the roof of his mouth. His crying faltered, then he began sucking. The trick would only soothe him temporarily. If only Lucy would arrive before he realized he wasn’t receiving nourishment from her finger.
“I’m Elizabeth, the daughter of Robert Whitbread, the baker.”
“Then you were the one who argued with Mrs. Grew over the wet nurse?”
“ ’Twas I.”
/> “You have a skillful tongue.”
The compliment caught her off guard with warm pleasure. “I don’t think Mrs. Grew was impressed.”
“Then you’re here to fetch the wet nurse?”
“I’m here to work as your housekeeper.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t need a housekeeper, nor do I want one.”
Heat infused her cheeks. She took a step back, grateful for the early morning shadows. It would seem Vicar Burton had been anxious to hire her but hadn’t been so anxious to tell Brother Costin the important information.
“I’m only a tinker. I can hardly afford a wet nurse. And now a housekeeper too?”
“Money or no, you have need of a housekeeper.”
“Need or no, I don’t want a woman in my home.”
The pain in his voice bridled Elizabeth’s quick response. How could she argue with a man in the depths of grief, the scent of the decaying flesh of his wife setting in?
On the other hand, how could she ignore this calling from the Lord to serve? And how could she allow this man’s despair-ridden reasoning to dictate the situation? Surely if she walked out the door as he wanted, she would leave the babe to certain neglect and death.
“Where are your other children?”
“They are in Elstow—with family.”
“They’ll be back today, won’t they?”
“To besure. For the funeral.”
“Who will care for them when they return? How will you look after them and labor to provide for their well-being? ’Twould be a most difficult task.”
“Mary is nigh eight. She’s old enough to help.”
“To help, perchance. But not old enough to shoulder the responsibility of the others, especially the babe.” She would refrain from mentioning that the major obstacle was not Mary’s age, but her blindness.
“Family and friends will surely aid,” he said, although his tone lacked conviction.
“You have no family in Bedford. And Elstow is not close enough for the daily supervision the children will require.”
He tilted his head back and gazed at the ceiling.
“If you can’t pay me what is due a housekeeper, then I shall accept whatever you can afford.”
Lucy barged through the door, breathing in heavy gulps. Her footsteps faltered when she saw Brother Costin, but then with eyes to the floor, she skirted around him and rushed to nurse the babe. Her movements were short and jerky, her hands trembling, her feet tapping while she hurried Thomas through his feeding.
“Feed ’im pap,” she said as she pried the sleeping infant from her breast after he’d filled his belly enough to lull him into an exhausted slumber. With shaking hands, she nearly dropped him when she handed him back. “If I can’t get here for his next meal, then make ’im pap—a paste of bread and water, thinned with milk.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Be careful, Lucy.”
Lucy didn’t respond. Straightening her bodice, she headed for the door.
“Lucy, wait.”
She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes sad and tired.
Elizabeth handed her a loaf of bread. “Don’t forget this.”
The woman took it and rushed out the door.
As Elizabeth turned to face the disordered room, she released a breath of relief. Brother Costin had disappeared into his closet, and she could begin her housekeeping duties without the worry of his sending her home—at least for now.
Chapter
4
By midday friends from all over Bedfordshire had gathered in front of the cottage for the funeral procession. John forced himself to leave his study and dress in his meeting clothes. He could hardly make his hands and feet move with the heaviness of his sorrow.
The men of the congregation had laid Mary’s body in the parish’s reusable wooden coffin and then loaded the simple box onto a wooden bier to transport her body from the place of death to its final resting spot. After draping the coffin with a black hearse cloth, John assigned his family and closest friends the job of carrying it. They lifted the bier by its handles onto their shoulders and led the procession from the cottage.
In a blur he followed the coffin, stumbling along with his children and other family members.
The funeral procession in Puritan style was simple and silent. In the days before the war, when the king ruled, the Anglican Church had dictated customs, and funerals had been ostentatious. But when Cromwell came into power, the Independent Puritans had eradicated much of the frivolity and pomp of the old traditions. The changes hadn’t always been easy for John, but today he received the solemnity with gratitude.
Vicar Burton met them at the stile and accompanied the coffin to the grave. The sexton had already dug a deep spot in an area without recent burials to avoid the probability of digging up the remains of another. Mary’s grave would be unmarked except the disturbance of earth.
The men gingerly lifted Mary’s body from the coffin and lowered it into the ground. Wrapped in a winding sheet, the outline of her delicate form was all that distinguished her. He wanted to shout at his friends to stop and unwind her, that she was only asleep. But he had sat at her side most of the night. She’d nary moved.
The women of their Independent Congregation had done all they could for her, but it had been a losing battle from the start. For over a fortnight she’d languished with fever and sweat, then skin dry and burning, pain in the head and back, vomiting, and swollen belly until she could not bear the lightest covering.
John gazed into the gaping hole in the earth, at the clods of dirt that had fallen onto the smooth white linen. His chest constricted.
He finally had to admit: the beautiful woman he’d wedded ten years past would never smile at him again.
Johnny’s small hand wound through his fingers. “Where’s Momma?”
John shifted his gaze to his son. The eyes peering up at him pooled with confusion. “Me want Momma.”
The ache in John’s heart pulsed outward. How could he begin to explain to this child that he would never see his mother again? How could one so young understand just how much he had lost?
Tears welled in the boy’s eyes.
John reached for him and swallowed him in an embrace against his chest. He breathed deeply of the boy’s soft hair. “I’ll be here, Johnny. I won’t leave you.”
Even as he whispered the words, a sliver of concern pricked him. How could he be there for his children in place of Mary? Over the past year, his preaching duties had slowly taken more of his time. People hungered for the true Gospel and were coming to hear him in greater numbers. He couldn’t pull back now, not when the harvest was so ripe.
John held the boy tighter. He numbly reached for a handful of dirt and sprinkled it on top of the woman they had loved.
“Earth to earth,” Vicar Burton spoke quietly, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life.”
Somehow, they’d have to survive without her. But how?
* * *
Elizabeth’s eyes stung with tears when young Johnny Costin, with his wide eyes and solemn face, tossed earth onto his mother. She could almost feel the moistness of the soil, the coarseness of it slipping through her fingers down onto the shrouded figure of her own mother.
She blinked back tears. Her mother had died during childbirth, along with a baby girl who would have been the eighth Whitbread daughter had she lived. ’Twas no secret her mother had hoped to give their father another son, one to replace his firstborn. ’Twas also no secret she had blamed herself for Robbie’s murder. No matter how much Elizabeth’s father had reassured her and had taken the blame upon himself for not having been there to protect his family, her mother had died with the regrets.
Thomas squirmed in Elizabeth’s arms with the grunts and fusses of hunger. ’Twas past time for another nursing. She’d instructed Lucy to meet her at the church. But it was becoming apparent this time she’d have to search for the woman if she wanted Thomas fe
d. He couldn’t survive on pap.
“Let’s go, Anne,” she said.
Anne, the more willing of her sisters and most like-minded, followed her as she made her way around the church, past the rectory that had been a hospital in ancient times. She glanced over her shoulder as they started up St. John’s Street, half expecting Brother Costin or one of his kin to come after her and accuse her of stealing the babe.
But amidst the large gathering no one had noticed their disappearance. She could only hope that grief kept them from showing an interest in the babe rather than a conviction he would die.
Their walk back over the River Ouse to the north side of Bedford was a short one. Past businesses and the homes of tradesmen like her father, they made their way into the area of town where the poor laborers lived.
When they approached the warehouse, the voices of children playing under the steps turned to stony silence. The children stared, the whites of their eyes too big against the dirt that covered their faces.
“Nick,” Elizabeth said, picking out Lucy’s oldest from amongst them. His matted hair still had enough red visible to set him apart from the rest. “Is your mother home?”
The boy nodded and his eyes darted to the upstairs door.
“Is she awake?” She jiggled the increasingly unhappy Thomas.
Nick shrugged his bony shoulders. None of the others said anything.
She listened a moment then started up the flight of steps.
“Mum said not to disturb ’em,” Nick blurted, taking a step toward her, his scrawny body tightening. “Or Fulke’ll beat our backs.”
“I’ll be quiet. I promise.”
When she reached the top, her neck prickled, as if someone was watching her. Of course half a dozen pairs of eyes from the children below were fixed on her. But the strange feeling didn’t originate with them.
She glanced over her shoulder, down the street, past the row of dingy cottages packed tightly together. There on the corner across from the school, not far from the poultry market, stood a man with a tall black hat. It shadowed his face, and she saw nothing but his short beard.
She may not have given the man a second thought—only to consider him a curious onlooker—except that when he realized she had spotted him, he ducked his head and limped away, almost as if he wanted to keep his identity hidden from her.