A Crowning Mercy. Bernard Cornwell

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.

      ‘No!’ She had not meant to speak aloud.

      ‘My dear?’ He looked eagerly at her.

      ‘No, no, no!’ She could feel the tears now and she rushed her words, hoping the speech would hold them back, as her resolve to submit with silent dignity broke almost as soon as it was born. ‘I want to marry, sir, and I want to marry in love, and have my children in love, and raise them in love.’ She stopped, the tears flowing now, and she knew the futility of her words, the unreality, and her head throbbed with the horror of marriage to this slack-lipped, piss-splashing, wind-passing man. She was angry, not at him, but because she had broken into tears in front of him. ‘I do not want this marriage, I do not want any marriage, I would rather die …’ She stopped. She would rather die than have her children raised in Matthew Slythe’s house, but she could not say so for fear the words would be passed back to him. Despite her incoherence and her tears, she was seething with anger at Scammell.

      He was aghast. He wanted this marriage, he had wanted it ever since Matthew Slythe had proposed the settlement, because marrying Dorcas Slythe would make Samuel Scammell into a very rich man. Then, last night, he had seen her and he had wanted the marriage even more. Matthew Slythe had not described his daughter and Scammell had been astonished by her beauty.

      Last night he had not believed his good fortune. She was a girl of astounding beauty and of calm presence who stirred the fleshly lust in him. Now that same grave, dutiful girl had turned on him, scorned him, and he stood up, frowning.

      ‘A child must be obedient to its parents, as a wife is obedient to her husband.’ He had adopted his preacher’s voice, stern and full. He was nervous, but Matthew Slythe had impressed on him the need for firmness. ‘We live in God’s love, not an earthly love of flesh and pleasure.’ He was in his stride now, as if talking to the congregation of Saints. ‘Earthly love is corruptible, as flesh is corruptible, but we are called to a heavenly love, God’s love, and a sacrament holy to Him and His Son.’ She shook her head, helpless against the Puritan harangue, and he stepped towards her, his voice louder. ‘“Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth!”’

      She looked at him, bitterness in her soul, and she gave him a text in return. ‘“My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”’

      Scammell glared at her. ‘Am I to tell your father that you reject his wishes?’

      She was beaten and she knew it. If she rejected this man then her father would lock her in her room, feed her on bread and water and then, as the sun faded in the west, he would come to her, the thick leather belt in his hand. He would flail it at her, bellowing that this was God’s will and that she had sinned. She could not bear the thought of the bruises and the blood, the whimpering beneath the whistling lash of the belt. ‘No.’

      Scammell rocked back and forth. He dropped his voice to a whining, unctuous level. ‘It is understandable that you are upset, my dear. Women are prone to be upset, indeed and indeed. The weaker sex, yes?’ He laughed, to show that he was sympathetic. ‘You will find, my dear, that God has made a woman’s way easy through obedience. Let the woman be subject to her husband. In obedience you will be saved the unhappiness of choice. You must see me now as your shepherd, and we will live in the house of the Lord for ever.’ He leaned forward, magnanimous in victory, to kiss her on the cheek.

      She stepped back from him. ‘We are not yet married, sir.’