God and the Wedding Dress Read online

  So he stood apart, in the shade beyond the flare of the lamps and torches, with his hand at his chin and looked with a thoughtful melancholy at the wild scene.

  The mummers put on a little miming show and young Corbyn applauded it, called for more wine and drank again and made some jest that was applauded with loud laughter, while he played with the question whether or no he should try to wrestle with Sythe Torre.

  ‘He’ll have his ribs cracked and his neck broken if he does,’ thought the Rector. And he decided that if the young fool was dared into accepting the challenge he would step in to interfere.

  But the idea left the young man’s fuddled brain soon enough, and he turned his attention to a woman who appeared on the stage and who recited in a sweet voice some crudely indecent doggerel. The lines did not lack a spice of coarse wit, and the charm and innocent air of the young actress held her half-circle of audience enthralled.

  The Rector, stepping a little nearer, regarded her closely, for he supposed that she was the heroine of the mock-marriage ceremony at Bakewell. And though to him, with his high fastidiousness and nice narrow preciseness, she was a creature utterly lost, smirched and degraded, yet he acknowledged her bright seductive comeliness.

  She was no older than Bessie Carr and her life, which the Rector thought must be utterly foul, had left no trace upon her. Her face was smooth, her limbs were rounded, the lustre of her comely youth showed even through the coarse paint upon her cheeks and eyelids and lips. Her pale yellow hair, crisply curled, was half-hidden by a gilt cardboard crown; a chemise of pale-blue silk fell loosely open and left her almost naked to the waist where a belt of black satin held up trailing skirts of stained and tattered rose tiffany.

  So young was she, so charming, and her air so naturally innocent and ingenuous, that she reminded the Rector, with an indescribable pang, of Bessie and even of Kate. It was as if she recited her ugly lines and made her ugly gestures without knowing what they meant.

  When she had finished she stepped from the platform and went round the crowd collecting money in a shell. When she came to John Corbyn he put his arm her waist and gave her a smacking kiss, first on one cheek and then on the other, and taking a piece of money from his pocket put it, amid the drunken applause from the crowd, not into the shell that she carried, but into her open bosom. The froward girl resisted only sufficiently to give a relish to the scene, and struggled languidly, half-naked, leering up at the youth while the cardboard crown slipped over her heavy eyes.

  At this exasperating sight the Rector became past all prudent and dignified consideration. He tried to push aside two men standing in front of him and to move out of the shadow into the circle of light in front of the booths. But there was another who was quicker than he, one whom hitherto he had not noticed, but who must have been close beside him in the dark hurly-burly of the fair.

  This was Thomas Stanley, who, in his rough patched country clothes with no sign of his calling about his robust, thick-set person, suddenly forced his way to the front and demanded silence in a loud voice.

  At the same instant, and with no heed of anyone, he put his thick-set hand on Jack Corbyn’s chest and pushed him from the girl with such considerable force that the young man staggered into the arms of those behind him and the girl, cursing, fell down in front of the mummers’ booths.

  “Leave thy trull,” commanded the dissenter coolly, “and go home, John Corbyn, and cleanse thyself for thy wedding day. Hang thy head and groan for thy sins.”

  William Mompesson stepped forward instantly and the two clergymen stood side by side in the glare of the lamps from the rude platform. The Rector had thought that the half-drunken crowd would turn upon the dissenter and maltreat him and that it would be necessary for him, the Rector, to intervene in order to avoid dangerous and disgraceful consequences to Mr. Stanley’s bold intervention.

  But he was, as he soon discovered to his chagrin, mistaken. At the first sight of Thomas Stanley the crowd seemed awed and John Corbyn sobered, while two of the strolling players dragged the screaming girl between the dingy curtains, the spectators fell back so that the landlord of The Bull, the constable and the potboys were soon able to clear them away. Some, to the Rector’s amazement, even muttered excuses and pulled at their forelocks; during the time that he had been in authority Thomas Stanley must have made himself feared if not beloved. As for himself, the Rector of Eyam, few took any heed, least of all the man whom he had sprung forward to protect. The dissenter looked with grim satisfaction on the scattered merry-makers and remarked dryly:

  “Here is enough ungodliness, blasphemy, and wantonness to draw down a judgment as severe as that predicted by last year’s comet.”

  “When you were Rector here were you able to restrain this licence?” asked Mr. Mompesson.

  “Such scenes as these were not witnessed under my ministry,” replied Mr. Stanley. And he gave but a casual attention to his successor; his eyes, gleaming in the weather-beaten face with the intensity of his feeling, were turned towards the young esquire who, with a sick look, was leaning against one of the supports of the booths chewing a nugget of tobacco. He was dishevelled, soiled and degraded from his gentility.

  “I have marked you, John Corbyn, since you were brought to me as a little, wilful child,” said Mr. Stanley, “and I see no mending of your ways, no patching up of your errors.”

  And he continued to preach at the young man in the conventional language of clerical reproof. The Rector was amazed to see that Esquire Corbyn did not seem to resent these reprimands, and though Mr. Mompesson was glad to see these signs of grace in his future brother-in-law, he thought that the Puritan had ranted long enough and his sympathies began to veer towards the man who was, after all, of his own Church and his own class, young, and shamed publicly.

  So he went up to John Corbyn and put his hand through his arm, saying:

  “Let’s get away from this, here’s enough of it. Soon everyone will be drunk and lying senseless on the green. Let’s leave them to it.”

  The young man looked at him, smiling a little sadly, and remarked irrelevantly:

  “There’s the sleeping sickness in Derby. I heard from one who came from Bakewell; the grass grows in some of the streets.”

  “Alas!” replied the Rector. “Is there not always sickness somewhere? If it be not the pox or the Gallicus morbus, it is scurvy or measles. But we are safe in this fastness. Come, Jack, let us away.”

  “Tender my regards to Bessie and say nothing of my behaviour to-night,” begged the young man earnestly, with a more chastened look than William Mompesson had seen him use before. “I’ll home to the Manor House; see me to-morrow when I am in better trim.” He added: “I chew this tobacco against the infection, they say there is nothing like that and cloths soaked in vinegar.”

  As he lurched away, Mr. Stanley, who had not moved from his post beside the mummers’ booth, remarked with satisfaction:

  “See how his mind runs — on punishment for his sins. Sickness cannot come within fifty miles of his doors, but he is afraid of it.”

  “It is not fifty miles from here to Derby,” replied the Rector with a little smile. “But I have never been afraid of sickness. How should a man live if he were, it being so frequent among us?”

  The Puritan was now moving away through the subdued revellers towards the western part of the village where the stream ran across the road not far from the lych-gate and was crossed by two rude foot-bridges.

  Mr. Mompesson followed him and with a selfish pleasure said:

  “My sister-in-law, Elizabeth Carr, bought the gray horse that you forfeited for non-payment of your fines. She wishes it to be returned to you and I have agreed to her request. Will you tell me of some place where I may deliver the beast?”

  The Rector was gratified by seeing the Nonconformist at last moved in a human and personal fashion. He paused, pulled off his broad-brimmed hat, put his hand to his brow, looked on the ground and then at the
Rector, who regarded him with a faint; smile in his eyes.

  “My gray horse, Merriman?” he asked at last. “The young gentlewoman bought it for me?”

  “For you indeed. I did not know you had an acquaintance with my wife?”

  “I have met them sometimes when they have been abroad in the dells, and spoken a word in peace. I had not thought of this. Now, shall I take it or not?” The sturdy man looked upwards to the stars, as if he sought an answer from on high.

  The Rector instantly rebuked himself for finding this ridiculous. How did he know whether or not this other human being had a means of communicating with his God?

  “I will take the animal,” said Thomas Stanley simply. “If you will send your man with him to the head of Middleton Dell to-morrow at noon I shall be there to receive him. I know one who will stable him for me, yes, and feed him too.”

  “Both that one and I,” said the Rector, with a deepening of his smile, “are breaking the law in aiding you. But my advice, nay, I might call it my command to you, is to use this horse to leave my parish. Get, if you can, a licence to preach. Do not use it here.”

  “Thou hast said! Thou hast said!” replied the dissenter casually. And then added: “I thank you for your good offices. Perhaps some day I can repay the young gentlewoman’s kindness.”

  He crossed the bridge and, going towards the unguarded lych-gate, was soon lost in the shadows that were thick beyond the circle of lamplight and torchlight on the green.

  ‘He, not I, should be in charge of these people. They fear, obey and respect him, but me they count as nothing. Surely they do not like me nor do I love them.’

  And the young Rector, as he turned towards the green, wondered how it was that God had chosen as his instrument the heretic and not himself, the loyal son of Holy Church. Unless he were to be false to his vows, a traitor to his holy profession, the Rector must believe that Thomas Stanley was mistaken at least in his belief, if not wholly misled and blinded by the Devil. How then was it possible for him to be an upright, godly man as he so manifestly was, one who despised all earthly things and lived only for spiritual matters? The Rector could not resolve this problem. He walked sadly across the village green, the desecrated fair ground. Fatigue had fallen upon the revellers and the sudden appearance of the Puritan and the withdrawal of the young esquire had damped their spirits.

  The mummers had put out their lamps in front of their booths, the wrestling was over and Sythe Torre, inert from heavy drinking, lay asleep on a bundle of sacks beside the painted pillars of the gaudy little stage. Other drunkards, men and women, lay here and there in their soiled and torn holiday clothes, wreaths of crushed flowers hanging over their brows, paper, cardboard and tinsel crowns beneath their tousled heads.

  Weeping children were being led away by tired mothers; a languid fight between three gipsy men was going on outside The Bull, the constable and the landlord were separating them with the blows of a tipstaff and a cudgel. The torches had flared out, most of the candles set in the windows had guttered away, the moonlight lay pure and clear over this scene of disorder.

  There was a faint sound of running water audible now that the tumult of the fair had subsided. This came from those underground streams known as the wallows, which passed under the village to fall down the mountain-side waterbreaks into the neighbouring dells. The northern heights that shut in the village were crowned with darkness and showed purple-black against the silver pallor of the sky.

  The Rector made his way across the grass strewn with platters, papers of sweetmeats, dropped garters and favours. Dogs were nosing about to pick up what they could of the broken meats and bones.

  Very few took any heed of the Rector, only here and there a toper raised himself upon his elbow and muttered: “God save you, sir!” and pulling at his forelock, sank back to snore.

  Mr. William Mompesson was glad to be free from these sights and the stenches, glad to be near the great lindens of the churchyard. It was past their flowering time, but a faint perfume seemed to come from their large leaves, and the starlight gave a dignified, serene beauty to the commonplace outline of the old church that was now but a vast shadow on the spangled sky.

  The young man, always responsive to peace and loveliness, felt soothed and uplifted. He would have liked to put his hand into the cool water, to splash it over his face to wash away the sour remembrances of the tawdry night.

  He looked towards the Manor House, which he could see on the slopes beyond the village. There was a light in one of the upper windows; he hoped that Jack Corbyn was there, praying perhaps, composing himself for sleep. And the Rector put up his own prayer — that light-hearted, kind Bessie, so ignorant and simple, who had never known anything except childish happiness, and dissolute young Jack Corbyn, who was, nevertheless, no doubt a humane, brave and generous man, should be happy together in their marriage.

  As Mr. Mompesson approached the Rectory, he was surprised to find that there was a light also in one of his rooms — in Kate’s chamber. This was a late hour for his wife to be sitting up, and it was with a little prick of alarm that he entered his quiet house and went up to Kate’s fine room.

  Was one of the children ill, or Kate herself indisposed? Or had Betty proved wilful because she had been denied her wish to go to the fair on the green?

  But his alarm was allayed as soon as he opened his door. His wife was smiling; she was seated on the bed-step by the round table with the embroidered top. On this stood two candles that had given the light he had seen as he came round the churchyard wall.

  “My dearest dear, you should be in bed. I went abroad to see what they were doing at the wake, but I made but a poor business of it.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is very late,” replied the young woman placidly, “but I had not noticed how the time went, I had such happy thoughts.”

  He stood beside her, looking down at her tenderly and deeply moved. How sweet and fair she was and all the atmosphere she had about her, how refreshing to the spirit it was to come into her presence and into this pleasant chamber after the rude sights and sounds he had been mingling with on the green.

  Kate rose and rested against his bosom; her hair and her pale gray linen bed-gown, which was tied with cherry ribbons, smelt of the dried violet flowers that she kept under her pillow and in her wardrobe. The air of the whole room was full of the mingled clean, sharp smell of the odours of lavender, bergamot, bay and cinnamon.

  For Kate kept a little cupboard of aromatics beside her bed and the door was open and the stoppers out of some of the bottles, and Ann Trickett had come to her that evening complaining of a cold on the chest.

  “See how untidy I am,” she said, comfortable in her husband’s arms. “I did not even shut up my little cabinet, I was thinking so much of how happy I am with you.”

  “Be sincere with yourself and with me. Are you not happy merely because you feel you ought to be happy? For that is my trouble, Kate. I count my blessings morning and evening and still I have to say to myself I am not grateful to my God as I should be. Is it so with you, sweet Kate?”

  “Perhaps you have read my mind a little,” she confessed with a sigh. “Yet it is true I am very happy with you and the children and Bessie. And even with Ann and Jonathan Mortin — yes, with everyone.”

  “But you are a little lonely here, Kate? You don’t like these people! You find this solitary place dreary to your pleasant spirit?”

  “It is true, Mompesson, that I have longed for the town or for Rufford Park. Oh, I don’t know! Yes, perhaps there is a melancholy on my spirits. But it is true what I told you just now, I am happy.” And her clear eyes looked at him with valiant defiance. “We should be ungrateful people if we were not happy, shouldn’t we, Mompesson? Besides,” she added, with a sophistry that made her husband laugh despite his grave intention, “we can ask Sir George to move us soon.”

  “We should not do that, dear Kate. We should take the path that lies to the hand, we s
hould try to help these rude people. The dissenter, Thomas Stanley, endeavours to do so.”

  “He is a holy man,” interrupted Kate thoughtfully, fingering the fine ribbons at her husband’s throat.

  “A holy man! Yes!” William Mompesson was serious. “That means that you do not think that I am one.”

  “You are but twenty-six years old,” she laughed up into his face. “I don’t want you to be so holy yet.”

  “There have been saints and martyrs younger than I,” replied the Rector. “My failure is not due to my lack of years. And now, Kate, why do you sit up so late? Have you something to say to me?” for he knew that that was her custom, when she had some little matter on her heart, to wait for him and tell him before they went to bed. She had done this before, when he had been busy in his laboratory or his study, and sometimes had not come upstairs until the dawn had paled the stars.

  “Yes, I have something to tell you. Bessie had her little confession the other night, and now I’ve mine. Now you must not be angry, William, but I have disobeyed you. You know,” she went on with such an eager, pretty breathlessness that he had no heart to check her, much less to chide her, “that I am worldly and foolish”

  “Well, what is it, Kate? Out with this dreadful secret.”

  “Well, you know you told me we were not to spend too much on Bessie’s marriage — either of thought or time or money. But I am afraid we have spent far more of all than will please you. But I wished everything to be fine for Bessie. And, after all, she will have a good estate, and if we have exceeded our means she can pay us back.”

  “I am sorry she borrowed the five pounds from John,” he interrupted. “She must take that to him.”

  “Why, William, that is foolishness. In but a matter of days she will be Mistress John Corbyn and have her own settlement. You know how they have been generous.”