Cromwell’s Blessing. Peter Ransley

his arms to Luke. Before Luke reached them, he turned, his voice ringing with injustice.

      ‘He said so. He said she would go to hell.’

      ‘Who did?’

      ‘He did.’

      Luke pointed to a figure crouched in a pew, before flinging himself into his grandfather’s arms in a fresh burst of sobs.

      ‘Who?’ I repeated, reluctant to approach the man, who was deep in prayers.

      ‘Who does tha’ think?’ Sarah’s voice came from the shadows of a pillar, cast by moonlight beginning to filter through the windows. ‘George won’t waste a candle until he’s sure minister will do a service.’

      I walked up the aisle where George was on his knees. His mumbled prayers became louder as I approached. ‘God deliver this evil back into the pit from whence it came.’

      I touched his shoulder. ‘Light the candles.’

      He drew away with a shudder, his face bowed into his clasped hands. ‘Protect us, and protect us even now from this evil he has sired –’

      His bones seemed to grind together as I dragged him up from the pew. He was as grey and pallid as the moonlight, except for his eyes. They had a strange, greenish hue, glittering at me with a mixture of fear and hatred.

      ‘Would you strike me even here?’ he said, shaking his head with a kind of resigned sadness.

      I had tried. I could never make peace with him. It may have started from jealousy, when Mr Black took me, a strange, unlikely child, as an apprentice, but it had become an obsession, a belief that I was evil. He believed I was evil as much, perhaps more, than he believed in God. Perhaps he was right. I no longer cared. All I cared about was the tiny choked-off cough behind me, the murmur of Anne comforting Liz, the desperate need for God’s blessing before – no, I could not, would not, think of that.

      I released George. ‘For pity’s sake, George! Where is the minister?’

      ‘I have sent for him. I can do no more.’

      At the same time I heard an approaching horse, and glimpsed a light in the vestry. A single candle was burning. I lit others as a tall man entered. Drops of rain gleamed on his riding cloak and in his bushy eyebrows as he gazed round with eyes as black and small as currants. He had either lunched late or dined early, for his stomach rumbled and I smelt food on his breath as he was introduced to me by George, with a stream of obsequious apologies for disturbing him, as the Reverend Samuel Burke.

      I pleaded with him to carry out the ceremony straightaway, but he said with a belch that there were certain formalities that could not be dispensed with, whatever the urgency. He had to be sure who we were, and whether we were married, whether we had been properly instructed.

      ‘Please! Please. She is very ill! Can you not understand?’

      Anne’s voice, ringing round the church, would have moved a stone pillar. Burke moved towards Anne, saying with a small bow to me as he did so, ‘You are Lord Stonehouse’s grandson?’

      From his manner, I judged that was the only reason he had allowed himself to be disturbed from his meal. I did not care. ‘Yes. Yes. We wish her to be baptised Elizabeth –’ The Stonehouse name stuck in my throat. I said the name I had always whispered to her. ‘Elizabeth Neave.’

      ‘No!’ Anne cried.

      Burke gave a rich, fruity laugh and declared he had had many a dispute over given names, but never over the surname.

      ‘All right, all right,’ I said to Anne. ‘What you wish.’

      During this, George had taken Burke by the elbow and drawn him to one side. I heard him mention Edwards and the bookshop in Cornhill, whispering, ‘He declared he has no soul.’ Burke’s manner changed. He gave me a long, cold stare. But a burst of coughing from inside the swaddled bundle cut through all arguments.

      It was a cough of stops and starts, beginning with a wheezing and ending in a strangulated whoop before beginning again. We went through every stop, every start; all her strength seemed to be in that cough; we willed her with every gasping breath to fight on. I put out my little finger and she grasped it with her hand. I felt as if I was fighting for my own life as I must have done when, after just being born, I was left out on a cold wet field to die. I even fancied I saw, in the dim shadows of the church, Kate Beaumann who had put me there and Matthew, who after flinging me in the plague cart, rescued me after I cried and kicked and struggled my way back to life.

      The cough, the struggling, even broke through the barrier of Burke’s stony formalities. He beckoned Anne forward into the church. She did not understand until he rapped out that he would baptise the child, but not at the font as that was not part of the Presbyterian Directory of Worship.

      She went forward falteringly, the shawl slipping from her. I followed her, keeping it round her shivering shoulders. She hesitated, her teeth chattering as she spoke. ‘Will you give her the sign of the cross?’

      George shook his head sadly. ‘Ah, Mr Burke, there you have it – how Mr Tooley tainted his flock with Romish heresies.’

      ‘I will not perform such papist ceremonies,’ Burke said. ‘I feared this. No signing, no font and no godparents.’

      ‘No godparents?’ Anne said falteringly.

      I saw then that Matthew and Kate were not fantasies, but part of the small congregation.

      ‘Do you wish the child to be baptised or not?’

      ‘I want Mr Tooley to baptise her,’ Anne cried.

      ‘Mr Tooley has been dismissed,’ Burke snapped.

      My voice shook, however much I tried to keep it level. ‘I am sorry we disturbed you. We no longer need your services. Please go.’

      His eyebrows knotted together. ‘It is you who must leave my church.’

      I wanted to tell him it was not his church, it belonged to the people, but Liz began to cough again. That stuttering, feeble cough was the end of diplomacy for me. What was the use of diplomacy when people would not listen?

      I went up to him. ‘Get out.’

      He looked as though he might stand his ground, but George said, ‘Have a care, Reverend. He tried to kill me once.’

      All the violence that had built up in me when George had the tender care of my soul returned. But it was now hardened and tempered with the discipline of a soldier.

      ‘The next time I will make a better job of it, George.’

      George was in such a hurry to get down the aisle that he knocked over a pile of newly delivered copies of the Presbyterian Directory of Worship.

      Burke retreated more slowly. ‘Your connections will not protect you from God or Justice, sir, I promise you that.’ A fanatical light shone in those small, currant-like eyes. He had seen the enemy and would not rest until he was destroyed. He stared round the congregation, his voice stern and inflexible. ‘Evidently, it is God’s will to take this child from such a family.’

      I went for him then, but a hand stopped me. Matthew was old, but he still had the grip of the shipyard worker he once was. He did not release his grip until the porch door banged. ‘Kill him outside,’ he said. ‘When God’s not looking.’

      I pulled away. ‘I must find Mr Tooley.’

      ‘Mr Black’s gone for him.’

      Mr Tooley was hiding at the pewterer’s in Half Moon Court. Hiding! It had come to this. He entered wearing a surplice, holding the old prayer book. Liz coughed at intervals but more quietly, as if the peace that had entered the church had entered her. More candles were lit, brought in by the candle-maker, Mr Fellowes; not tallow, but his best candles. Mr Tooley stood before the font in the old way.

      ‘Dearly beloved, I beseech you to call on God … to grant this child