Bernard Cornwell - A Crowning Mercy

After morning prayers, when she turned to the door to go to the dairy, her father checked her. ‘Daughter.’

‘Father.’

‘You are betrothed now.’

‘Yes, father.’

He stood, big and powerful beside the lectern, Scammell a few paces behind. Light from a stair window slanted on to Matthew Slythe’s dark and ponderous face. ‘You will no longer work in the dairy. You must prepare yourself for marriage.’

‘Yes, father.’

‘You will acquaint yourself with the household accounts.’ He frowned. ‘You have the freedom now to walk to the village in Brother Scammell’s company.’

She kept her head low. ‘Yes, father.’

‘You will walk there this morning with him. I have a letter you must give to Brother Hervey.’

They walked between hedgerows heavy with cow parsley and ragwort, away from Werlatton Hall and down the slope to where lady’s smock and meadowsweet grew. Beyond the stream, where a bank climbed towards the beech trees, Campion could see the blaze of pink-red where the campions grew. The sight almost made her cry. She was now to be Dorcas for ever, the mother of Samuel Scammell’s children. She wondered if she could ever love children who had his fleshy lips, his lumpen face, his gaping nostrils.

Stepping stones crossed the stream beside the ford and Scammell held a hand towards her. ‘May I help you?’

‘I can manage, Mr Scammell.’

‘Samuel, my dear. You should call me Samuel.’

The water ran fast over the gravel between the stepping stones, flowing north, and she glanced upstream and saw the dark, quick shape of a fish. This was the stream in which she swam. She almost wished that she had drowned yesterday, that her body had floated above the long weeds, a white and naked corpse drifting towards Lazen Castle.

The road turned south to negotiate the end of the high ridge. It was another hot day with white clouds far to the west and Campion’s long skirts stirred dust from the track.

Scammell walked heavily, leaning forward into each step. ‘I want you to know, my dear, that you have made me a very happy man.’

‘So you said at prayers, Mr Scammell.’

‘A very happy man. It is my intention that we shall be happy.’

She said nothing in reply. The wheatfield on her left was thick with poppies and she stared at them, blind to what she saw. She had always known this would happen, that her father would marry her to whomsoever he pleased, and she was surprised that he had waited so long. He had said that he would wait until she showed signs of Christ’s redemptive grace working in her, but she did not think that was the only reason. Ebenezer was Matthew Slythe’s heir, but Ebenezer’s survival had never been certain. He had always been weak, sickly and crippled, and Campion had always known that the man her father would choose as her husband might well become the heir to Werlatton. She supposed that Matthew Slythe had taken his time in searching out the right godly merchant.

Scammell cleared his throat. ‘It is a beautiful day, my dear. Indeed and indeed.’

‘Yes.’

She had always known this would happen, that marriage and childbirth were the events to follow her childhood, so why, she wondered, was she so saddened and horrified by the prospect? It was not as if any alternative had ever been offered to her, except in her own flimsy dreams, so why this sudden desolation at a fate she had been expecting for so long? She glanced at Scammell, provoking a nervous smile, and she could not believe that she was to marry him. She thrust the thought away. Her sense of difference was the basis of her daydreams and it was a sense that had betrayed her. She was neither special nor different, just a daughter to be disposed of in marriage.

Where the road turned north at the tip of the ridge there was a shadowed space beneath the great beeches, a place of old leaves, for beech leaves are slow to decay, crossed by a fallen trunk. Scammell turned into the shade. ‘May we pause, my dear?’

She stopped at the edge of the road.

Scammell wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, then brushed at the smooth, barkless wood of the fallen trunk and gestured for her to sit down. She could see that he planned to sit beside her, close beside her, so she shook her head. ‘I will stand, Mr Scammell.’

He pushed the handkerchief into his sleeve. ‘I wished to talk with you.’

She said nothing. She stood at the road’s edge in the bright sunlight, refusing to go into the green shadows with him.

He smiled his unctuous smile. The sun was behind her, making it difficult for him to see her. He stood awkwardly. ‘It will be a joy once more to have family. My dear mother, God bless her, passed away last year to be buried with my father. Yes, indeed.’ He smiled, but she did not respond. He moved heavily from one fleshy leg to the other. ‘So you see I am quite alone, my dear, which means my joy is doubled by uniting myself with your dear family.’ He sat down, plumping his large bottom up and down on the fallen trunk as if to demonstrate the comfort of the smooth wood. He subsided slowly as he realised that the gesture would not entice her from the dusty road. ‘Indeed and indeed.’ He seemed to sigh.

I could run now, she thought, run through the poppies and the wheat to the great stand of oaks that marks the southern boundary of father’s land, and then keep running. She had the thought of sleeping wild like the deer that sometimes came to the stream, of feeding herself, and she knew she could not run. She knew no one outside Werlatton, she had never travelled more than four miles from the house; she had no money, no friends, no hope.

Scammell leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped as if in prayer. He was sweating in the heat with his thick broadcloth clothes. ‘Your father suggested I talk to you of the future.’

Still she said nothing.

He smiled hopefully. ‘We are to live here in Werlatton with your dear family, so you will not have to leave home. Indeed, no. Your father, alas, gets no younger and he desires assistance with his affairs. Of course, when dear Ebenezer – I think of him already as a brother – is of age then our help may not be needed and then, perhaps, we shall return to London.’ He nodded, as if pleased with himself. ‘We have put all this before the Lord in prayer, my dear, so you may be sure that it is the wisest course.’

He frowned suddenly, shifting his buttocks on the trunk. He kept his concentrated frown and leaned forward in silence. It struck her that he was passing wind and she laughed aloud.

He leaned back, relaxing. ‘You are happy, my dear?’

She knew she should not have laughed, but she could feel the temptation to be cruel to this man. He waited for her answer which came in a low, modest voice. ‘Do I have a choice, Mr Scammell?’

He looked uneasy, unhappy, frowning again at her reply. There seemed small profit to him in answering her. He smiled again. ‘Your father has been most generous, most generous in his marriage settlement. Indeed and indeed. Most generous.’ He looked for a response, but she was still and silent in the sunlight. He blinked. ‘You know of the Covenant?’

‘No.’ Against her will her curiosity was touched.

‘Ah!’ He sounded surprised. ‘You are a fortunate woman, my dear, to be blessed by the Lord with wealth and, dare I say, beauty?’ He chuckled.

Wealthy? Covenant? She wanted to know more, but she could not bring herself to ask. If she had to marry this man then so be it, she had no choice, but she would not force herself to show a happiness and eagerness that she did not feel. She would resist the temptation to be cruel and maybe the love would grow, but she could feel the tears stinging her eyes as she looked over his head at the sunlight carving through the beeches on to the leaves of the previous autumn. By the time the leaves fell again she would be married, sharing a bed with Samuel Scammell.