God and the Wedding Dress Read online

  “When you speak to me,” replied Mr. Mompesson coolly, “you must leave Mr. Stanley out of your speech. He is a dissenting minister. If he preaches or tries to instruct any of you, it is against the law. He might be laid in Derby gaol for that.”

  “Ay, ay, so he said,” replied the giant, unmoved. “But I wanted to come to the matter of the murder, sir. There was one man that murdered another, and it was not discovered. And he didn’t repent. Is his soul damned?”

  “To all Eternity,” replied Mr. Mompesson. “Poor man! Have not these awful truths been impressed upon you yet?”

  “Who’s to tell me they be truths?” asked the huge fellow obstinately. “That’s what you say and that’s what Mr. Stanley said, and I went to The Brass Head in Bakewell…”

  Mr. Mompesson interrupted sternly.

  “You must not come here to talk such blasphemous nonsense! These astrologers and witches are but quacks and charlatans, telling lies and performing tricks for money. There is no shorter cut to Heaven than by repentance.”

  “Ay, ay,” replied the giant unexpectedly, “but, sir,” and his small eyes were earnest, “the magician told me, too, that there’d be a judgment for it, and maybe not only on the murder, but on the place where he lived. He said that God sent judgment like thunder and lightning and earthquake.”

  “There was Sodom and Gomorrah,” replied Mr. Mompesson with a slight smile, “but these are deep matters to argue with you. If you know one who has a crime upon his conscience, bid him confess, give up his body to the law and his soul to the Church so that he may be saved from eternal damnation.”

  Sythe Torre stroked his small beard with his coarse hand and looked doubtfully on the ground.

  “The murder might have been in a fight, and the one that killed the other might have had the right of it,” he argued, “and it might have happened down the lead mines when no one was looking or prying.”

  “I will not hear these tales save you give them to me as a sincere confession. I suppose you speak of your own case, Sythe Torre?”

  “Nay, nay,” protested the giant quickly, “I talk of a friend.”

  “Be that as it may,” said the Rector, rising, “I cannot hear these half-confessions nor pass judgment upon problematical cases. Learn, poor wretch, that sin must be punished in this world and in the next, and that the Lord will send judgment on those who offend Him.”

  “Til think on it,” muttered the miner, shuffling uneasily towards the door, pulling again at the ribbon that bound his dirty shirt at the neck. “But there’s many who’d rather risk damnation in the next world than be hanged in this. Who knows,” he added, with a simplicity that robbed his words of offence, “if God really tells you and Mr. Stanley how things be? There’s none comes back either from Heaven or Hell to tell us what the places be like. There’s ghosts and spirits enough, but what do they do but gibber nonsense?”

  “I cannot help you,” replied the Rector, “until you speak to me more frankly. I entreat you to come to church, I entreat you to suffer me to give you some instruction.”

  “I’d rather go to Mr. Stanley for that,” replied the giant. “He’s a brave man and means what he says.” The Rector flushed slightly; these sincere words seemed a reflection upon his own courage and his own good faith.

  “I warned you about Mr. Stanley,” he said swiftly. “If your mind is burdened either by your own secret or by that of another person, I can only entreat you to relieve it by a full confession.”

  “That’s as may be,” said the giant, with his hand on the door. Then looking up quickly, he added: “There’s something you should know about young Esquire John Corbyn.”

  “There’s nothing I should know of Mr. Corbyn from you, Sythe Torre,” replied the Rector haughtily, “he is about to marry my sister-in-law.”

  “For that reason I should tell you, sir,” said the miner confidentially, thrusting his thick neck forward and speaking in a hoarse whisper. Before Mr. Mompesson could stay him he added quickly:

  “The young master was drunk down at Bakewell, at The Derbyshire Arms, and all the miners was about him and I was there. So was the mummers coming up to St. Helen’s Wake. They’d got a wrestler with them and I tried a fall with him…”

  “Sythe Torre,” put in the Rector, “this has naught to do with me.”

  “But it has! Esquire Corbyn had one of them wenches — Nell, they called her — on his knee, and after all had been boosing together a little, she suggested he should marry her. And he had another glass or two and said ‘yes.’ And then the Common Prayer Book was brought out, and one of us took on a sad air and read the whole ceremony. And they said their parts, like a couple do in church. And so it was done, sir. And the young Esquire was roaring drunk.”

  “You saw this yourself, Sythe Torre?” asked the Rector.

  “Yes, sir, or I’d not have spoken of it. Your lady has been kind to my poor wife,” he added sheepishly. “It’s a long while since we saw a fine lady here.”

  The Rector again interrupted.

  “It was a jest, the jest of a drunken man,” he said. “You must forget it.”

  “No one will forget it,” replied the giant, with his disarming air of simplicity, “for many thought that the young master would have done in earnest what did in jest. He kept the wench with him all night — his wedding night, he called it — and we made a music beneath the windows. I wonder you have not heard of this, sir,” he added, looking half-apprehensively at Mr. Mompesson.

  “Something I heard, but not this. If you have, as you say, some respect for my wife and her sister, Sythe Torre, you will not repeat this tale in Eyam.”

  “I’ll only tell it to you,” replied Torre, “but there’s many saw it besides myself.”

  “But it was not this,” said Mr. Mompesson, with an effort, “that you came to see me about, but some trouble of your own.”

  “No more of that, now,” replied the giant, opening the door and clumsily taking his leave. “I’ll let you know, sir, when I have more to tell you on that matter.”

  When he found himself alone again, Mr. Mompesson went to the window, pulled the curtains sharply aside and flung wide the casement. He felt unnerved, slightly confused with anger, and was glad of the cool, fresh mountain air upon his face. The halting, incoherent talk of Sythe Torre’s own troubles the Rector had completely forgotten; he did not recall the look of questioning agony in the man’s small brutal eyes, as he had appealed to him for his ghostly advice on such terrible matters as crime and punishment, death and damnation.

  No, William Mompesson was thinking of the insult that had been put upon Kate’s sister, thinking of the foul behaviour of John Corbyn, of the obscenity of the marriage with the mummer’s wench, of what must have taken place in that inn parlour with the loose women and the swilling peasants, and Betty’s Jack reeling in the midst of these vagabonds and pimps with their bawdy tricks.

  It did not occur to him to doubt the tale, because it coincided so exactly with other reports he had heard of young Corbyn’s riotous behaviour.

  This was no husband for Betty. Yet Mr. Mompesson knew, even as that thought came to his mind, that he would never be able to break the match off now. The girl’s heart was deeply engaged. Kate would support her, too. She would say, if he were able to tell this story to her, that it was only a jest, a young man’s drunken frolic, something that no one would think very much of a few days after it had happened.

  And Mr. Mompesson knew that that view would be the one taken by most people. If he were to appeal to the Earl, to Sir George Savile, they would at the utmost give but a few words of cool rebuke to the young man and tell him to take his wife and be true to her and to forget his wayside doxy.

  William Mompesson, too, remembered his cloth. He could not, like another gentleman, defend his honour or that of his womenkind with the sword. Jack Corbyn had already mocked at him because of that. And if he were to go to him again, speak to him sternly, he would be t
ermed a ranting parson and mocked at. Then he recalled with an unpleasant pang the five pounds that Betty had borrowed from her lover, and that he had spoken of so keenly.

  With a sigh the Rector sank down on the cushioned window-seat. There was a strong west wind blowing and the stars were thick like a gilded mist in the dark blue heavens. The lamp flame fluttered in the glass globe, and the loose papers on the table stirred as the breeze passed round the room.

  Mr. Mompesson took no heed of these light sounds, so absorbed was he in his reverie, nor did he hear a soft footfall behind him, and he started when a hand was laid on his and a laughing voice said:

  “Sir, are you not coming down into the parlour?”

  The Rector turned to look into the smiling face of Betty Carr.

  She sat down beside him at once and took his slim hand in hers and added gaily:

  “But I’d rather you stayed here for a while, for I have something to say to you. Yes, a little confession to make.”

  ‘Confession!’ the word hung oddly in the Rector's mind. He smiled at Betty, not speaking, and she said anxiously:

  “You look tired, sir. Kate thought you were displeased with us to-day when you found us with the patterns of the wedding clothes, but that was not so, was it?”

  “No, no, why should I be displeased? But what was it you wanted to confess, Betty?”

  “To show you something, sir. Indeed, I would not confess if I did not want your help. I thought I could do this for myself, but it seems I cannot. Women, sir, are strangely handicapped.”

  Betty, with the light restlessness of youth, was on her feet again and tugging at her brother-in-law's hand.

  “Must I come with you now, Bess? I am tired — with idleness, I confess, but still — tired.”

  She drew the Rector gently from his study. He was not in the mood for childish games, but had not the heart to rebuke her when she was in post for pleasures.

  As they passed down the shallow stairs he saw Kate leaning over the upper banisters and so knew that the two young women were in a conspiracy against him. No doubt all their design was some frivolous matter, but it irked him that they should so intrigue against his peace; they knew not how they disturbed his ease of mind and tranquillity of soul with their fond pranks.

  He wished that his Kate, at least, had a steadier mind, and rather that they had not the company of poor Bessie, who seemed to have come between him and his wife, drawing her back into childish ways from that graver demeanour which he preferred.

  Yes, it seemed to William Mompesson as he followed Bessie out of the house into the sweet-smelling garden and the cool mountain air, that the deep affection between himself and his wife had been thinned and distracted since they had been at Eyam.

  “Bessie, dear child,” he said, “where would you take me? I have been idle too long, indeed there is some work I must do if only it is to prepare my sermon for Sunday.”

  “There are too many Sundays and too many sermons in your life,” replied Bessie, lightly. “Think rather of the Fair that is coming.”

  “St. Helen’s Wake?” smiled the Rector sadly. “Ay, there are fairs enough in the Peak, but even that must be a serious matter to me, child, for I have six couples to marry besides yourself and John Corbyn. Think of the homilies I must compose.”

  He felt her small, warm fingers squeeze closely into his palm.

  “I am very happy,” she sighed, with a bright simplicity that smote him into poignant remembrance of Sythe Torre’s tale of the mock wedding at Bakewell. “But come, you must see my secret and I must make my confession.”

  The eager girl was leading him to the stables; the Rector was almost painfully conscious of the still beauty of the scene that overran his heart. There was a perfume of lavender and thyme enriching the thin air, the haze of stars had a hard, clear sparkle; the dark shapes of the orchard boughs and the white shapes of the beehives could be but dimly seen, though there was not a trace of mist. The square tower of the church showed beyond the boughs of the linden trees and the warm light of the Rectory windows cast squares of pale gold on the grass.

  The Rector drew an excitement from this peaceful scene, expectancy seemed to him to be in the crystal-clear air. He wondered how men could walk with heads on the earth with these wonders around them, speaking the name of God with so much ease on their lips, and thinking of nothing save their own petty trifles.

  Bessie led him to the stables.

  “Why do you want me to go abroad?” he asked.

  She pulled her hand from his, unlatched the stable door and showed him a new-comer standing at the manger — a stout gray horse, not very handsome, but healthy and well kept, who turned on them a large, soft eye.

  “That is Merriman,” explained Bessie in a low, eager voice. “I bought him for seven pounds — five of them I had to borrow from John. Do you think that was an unmaidenly thing to do? I did not dare to come to you, for we have cost you so much, but the first pin money that John gives to me, I will return him those five gold pieces.”

  “Why did you want to buy a horse, Bessie? You have your own mount and Kate has hers, and if you require another…”

  Bessie put her fingers first on her lips and then on those of the Rector.

  “It is Mr. Thomas Stanley’s horse,” came in an excited whisper. “You know it was taken from him and sold, because he would not pay the tithe and other money they said was due from him.”

  The Rector, in amazement, interrupted.

  “What do you know of Mr. Thomas Stanley and his adventures, then?”

  “Oh, I have met him,” replied the girl, “and so has Kate. When we go abroad in the dells, as we have done, you know, often enough, and you have been in your study or at church. He is not very civil, indeed, he rebukes us for many things, for our fine clothes and our playings. But he is kind and steadfast, too, and I think that what he says is just.”

  More than amazement held William Mompesson silent. He had to suffer the pang of guessing that these two young women had accepted from the errant dissenter advice and even rebukes that they had refused to take from him. Was it possible that Thomas Stanley did possess a spiritual power totally denied him, the Rector of Eyam?

  He spoke against Bessie’s light chatter that yet was serious enough, though given in the tones of a chirruping bird.

  “I cannot understand how you could have met this man! It is against the Law that he lurks here! What do you mean, you and Kate, making the acquaintance of this dissenter?”

  “We were sorry for him,” said the girl, caressing the patient horse. “Do you know how he lives? He has nothing! All he had when he was Rector here he gave back again to the people, he did not save a penny. And now he lives in a little hut that he has built for himself on the moor. He does what service he can for these poor people and they in return give him his bread. His horse was very necessary to him — Merriman is a queer name for a Puritan horse, is it not, sir?” Bessie laughed, despite her own gravity. “But such the beast was called and he would not change it. And he used to go abroad with it, to visit friends and people whom he would succour. But that he cannot do now.”

  “Hush, Bessie! What is all this?” The Rector firmly closed the stable door and led his sister-in-law away towards the orchard. “Why should your head be full of these things? You know the law against dissenters. I have been very tolerant with this Thomas Stanley. Perhaps, he is not so harmless — do not let pity obscure your judgment. Did he ask you to buy this horse for him? You should have come to me with that tale.”

  “No, he did not,” said Bessie firmly. “We heard about it and wondered to ourselves how he existed without the horse. And we knew the men who had it, and I got Mortin to buy it for me.”

  The Rector exclaimed sadly: “You went to Jonathan Mortin instead of to me?”

  “He is kind and faithful, and I knew that you would have forbidden us. But now that the horse has been bought I want your advice as to how to give it to Tho
mas Stanley. Neither Kate nor I can lead it about until we meet the preacher and I do not like to send Mortin on this errand. So I thought you could arrange it.”

  Even in the midst of his discomposure, William Mompesson could hardly forbear laughing.

  “You are a child, Bess, indeed, and I were foolish and unkind were I to try to thwart your charity, though it is wild and wasteful. I shall see that the gray horse is returned to Thomas Stanley. Perhaps I am sorry that I did not think of this myself.”

  “Why should you?” said Bessie, at once loving and affectionate. “You have so much on your mind. Kate says you are really a great man and have wonderful thoughts when you sit alone in your study.”

  “Poor Kate over-praises me,” sighed the Rector, profoundly touched by this ingenuous tribute. “I am so far from being a great man, Bessie, that I cannot even learn to manage my own small affairs. When I am pensive, dear child, it is not because I dwell on any fault of thine or Kate’s, but because of my own demerits, and maybe because of a lethargy I misname peace.”

  He drew the girl’s arm through his so that her hand rested on the cuff of his fine grey-cloth coat, and they paced together through the short grass of the orchard and between the beehives and beneath the twisted boughs where the small green apples showed dimly in the starlight.

  “Bessie,” continued the Rector, in a warm, hurried tone, “thou hast a true, kind heart, and I value thy happiness above that of any other creature, save Kate and my little ones. Nay, all are equal in my eyes. Now, hearken! This marriage of thine! Is it wholly to thy liking? Thy Jack is truly all thou wouldst have him?” The girl fetched a doting sigh.

  “I love him,” she stated, a little wondering at the severity of his tone, “and have done so since I first met him. He is my dear treasure.”

  “Hast though thought upon his qualities,” said the Rector earnestly. “Whether he is all that you would have in a man — true, and loyal, and brave, and pious?”

  “He seems these things to me.” Then unexpectedly, with a mature gravity, Bessie added: “What will it help me to con all this over now? If he has more vices than virtues, how will it help me to know it? I am bound to him, I shall soon be his wife. I love him with a love that does, I think, lead up to God.”