God and the Wedding Dress

by Marjorie Bowen

  “Surely you take matters too heavily,” replied the young man. “It may be but an ordinary sickness.”

  “So one must hope. Yet, Jack, you have not answered me as to whether you will marry Elizabeth at once and take her away to that house in Yorkshire where you propose to live for a while.”

  “It will mean the altering of plans,” said the young man, “and mean the unsettling of many people, and a great disappointment to poor Bessie herself, yes, and your Kate, too.”

  The Rector had no answer to this protest, which was moderately voiced, and therefore more effective. Indeed, Mr. Mompesson felt himself, now that he was in these tranquil surroundings in the old Manor, that perhaps he had made too much of a trifle. And at that moment his most poignant regret was for the disappointment of the two young women whose finery had been burnt on the sacrificial stone on the moor.

  He seemed to see the whole thing also as something slightly ridiculous, as if had cut a foolish figure in his over-anxiety; he stood silent, a little downcast.

  Again young Corbyn began probing him as to what the clothes were and who had been foolish enough to send for dresses from London. And finally came at the truth, saying:

  “I suppose it was Bessie herself, who would not be content but must have the best of everything.”

  “Well, it was Bessie — and Kate,” admitted the Rector. “But we must not say too much about that, Jack, we do not wish to humiliate them.”

  “Did they do it in defiance of your orders?” asked the young man, frowning and plucking with unsteady fingers at his soft cheek.

  “I cannot say that, I do not seek to give them orders. I try to keep a check upon their extravagance.”

  “Ay, she’s extravagant enough, Bessie. Perhaps that’s what the five pounds went on,” interrupted the young man. “The proud thing! And you thought me foppish!”

  “I must return that five pounds to you as soon as I can obtain it,” said the Rector sternly. “I do not think it becoming in you that you should mention it so often. And Bessie did not require the money for clothes, but for an act of charity.”

  “And who is to be charged for these London gowns that have been burnt?” demanded the young esquire, frowning more deeply.

  “That will be at my charge,” replied the Rector, and he thought, with a pang, of how heavy the expense was — twenty pounds or more — to compensate Vickers and the London men.

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” Jack Corbyn stood squarely in the window place, his hands folded on his chest. He seemed alert now and to have thrown off the fumes of last night’s revelry.

  The Rector thought: ‘Surely in him I shall find a staunch friend, a valuable ally.’

  “I’ve told you what I want you to do, Jack, it’s to marry Bessie. But perhaps that was unnecessary. We’ll see if we have the plague in Eyam.”

  “Well,” said the young man, “supposing we do? We’re high in the mountains here and the air’s fresh, the people healthy! Why should it get a hold on us? There’s sickness everywhere; I told you, the grass grows in some of the streets in Derby.”

  “Remember that,” said William Mompesson quickly, “if you feel inclined to blame Bessie or Kate. The plague might have been brought here in a dozen different ways.”

  He would have liked to add: ‘The strolling mummers could have brought it,’ but thought this would be too unkind a cut at the young man’s behaviour the night before.

  “Certainly,” he admitted, “I feel more reassured now than I did a few hours ago, when I stood by that poor lad’s bedside. It may be, as you say, nothing. But these are my plans. If it should prove to be the plague, you, who have been nowhere near this sick boy and therefore cannot carry any infection, should go up to Chatsworth and tell my Lord, and he will make arrangements, possibly to send his surgeon here and certainly to keep his people from visiting the place.”

  “What, you would cut us off? You would keep people from coming here?”

  “Ay, and others from going out,” replied Mr. Mompesson. “We have no right to spread the infection abroad. And this will be your part, Jack. You will go to my Lord and explain these things to him, offer to keep your own people quiet.”

  “Ay, I’ll do that,” replied young Corbyn, who was grave enough. “I’ll ride over to Chatsworth this morning, and when I return you shall let me know how your patient progresses.”

  At this moment, Mistress Corbyn, the young esquire’s mother, entered the room and Jack put his finger on his lips hastily as a sign that she was not to be told the ill news. So the Rector passed some idle compliment with her and went his way.

  But as he picked a path through the poles, barrows, blocks of stone and slabs on which the wet cement lay that filled the courtyard, he glanced back and he saw mother and son in the window seat in what seemed close and agitated conversation.

  ‘Perhaps,’ thought the Rector, trying to make excuses for Bessie’s betrothed, ‘he is telling her that he must ride unexpectedly to Chatsworth. But that should be a light matter and not one for such close converse. Is it possible that he has, after all, taken her into his confidence?’

  Mr. Mompesson hoped this was not so, for Mistress Corbyn, though a good housewife and a pleasant woman, was not one of much wit, control, or learning and would be likely not only to send the bad news all over the place, but to make panic of it, with strange, fantastic tales.

  Still, the Rector had to put this out of his mind. He had his own task before him, and it was not a pleasant one; uneasily it clouded upon him like a mist.

  He found his Kate in the still-room, where the air was heavy with mingled sickly perfumes from small bottles of essences and flavourings from which she was concocting her syrups and comfits for the wedding feast.

  She smiled up at him happily; it was not often she was employed in these hosewifery arts, for though the Rectory was finely run, that was owing to the care of Ann Trickett. Kate herself was too much given to be idle and to spending her time at her music and her embroidery. But now, under the excitement of her sister’s marriage, she had taken an interest in these things, and though, as her husband tenderly guessed, it was not with very skilful fingers that she was making her concoctions, still she put loving goodwill into her task.

  He broached his dismal subject briskly, for he had no courage with which to beat around the bush.

  “Kate, I find that there is sickness in the tailor’s house and I have destroyed Bessie’s wedding gown.”

  Kate had seldom heard her husband speak so sharply and she was both amazed and alarmed…As he went on, hurriedly, and in stern tones with his tale of the infected dress, she gave little heed to what he was saying. She was convinced that his action had been intended as a punishment for her frivolity, and when he came to a pause and took her hand, and said earnestly:

  “You understand, do you not, Kate?” she returned, her lips quivering, and her eyes flashing through tears: “No, I do not, Mompesson! I do not understand at all! Or rather, perhaps I understand too well, and to the contrary of what you have said. You are angry with me because of my extravagance. But I tell you that Lady Halifax would have paid for the dress, or Bessie, when she had her pin-money.”

  He tried to hush her, but she was too hurt and angry and went on protesting and railing, while she sat down in the little kitchen chair in front of the still where the perfumes lay in their bottles and dishes, and began to weep, the dark, tumbled curls falling over her fingers as she pressed her face into her hands.

  “It’s no use, Mompesson, I was never intended to be a clergyman’s wife or to live mewed up in a place like this! I can’t endure it, indeed I can’t! And you know you anger everyone with your prim ways.”

  “Prim?” The Rector could not forbear echoing the laugh, sad and bitter enough. “Why, Thomas Stanley railed at me because I was not prim enough.”

  “I’m not clever with words,” protested Kate, pulling her kerchief out of her bosom and dabbing her eyes, �
�and I want to be a dutiful wife to you, Mompesson. But I don’t know what it is about you, since you have come to Eyam. But at Rufford Park we were so happy.”

  “Ay, at Rufford Park,” he said, interrupting harshly, “because we were both cradled in silk and too much at ease. But I can tell you, Kate, why I do not please you so much, nay, nor others either. It is because I am a man divided. I am half your husband and lover and a man of the world, half a man of God, unresolved, undecided.”

  Kate sighed. She was a sweet-tempered woman and her anger was soon spent, always.

  “Perhaps my heart is hard,” she murmured, “and set in vanities. And I, too, have behaved ill, doubtless. But if you had but let this wedding go by, Mompesson, if you had but let us enjoy ourselves, then indeed I should have been patient and put aside all worldly gear.”

  But he interrupted again impatiently:

  “Kate, don’t you understand? I’m not talking of the wedding festivities or of anything of that kind! You might have done as you would, and I should have paid the bills. But this dress is infected. Fulwood, the tailor’s apprentice is ill.”

  “How can it be from that?” she asked incredulously. “The plague’s in London. I blame myself, I did not tell you, I did not want to disturb you and I thought there was no possible connection between us, and the capital. We knew no one there. Who would have thought,” he added with heavy emphasis, “that from a place, though we have no acquaintance, danger would come in a box of finery?”

  “I don’t believe it has, Mompesson,” said Kate, comfortably. “The lad overdrank at the festival, or has the sleeping sickness, or perhaps the pox. And all our brave clothes lost for that!” Then, with a pathetic feminine curiosity that touched her husband’s heart, she asked wistfully: “Tell me, what was the gown like, Mompesson? You know, I never saw it.”

  “I saw but little of it myself, my dearest dear. It was hung upon a horse in front of the fire, which had gone out by the time I saw it. They say it was damp and Fulwood put it there to air. Oh, it was fair enough, curled and puffed and braided. A lustrous piece of work.”

  “And lovely would Bess have looked in it,” lamented Kate, beginning to weep again.

  “Peace, child,” replied her husband. “If thou had’st put Bess in that wondrous gown thou mightest have put her in her gorgeous winding sheet.”

  “Well,” said Kate, with deep sighs, “I must even find her something else, and the time is short enough.”

  “Kate, I want the time to be shorter still. I have been to the old Manor this morning and asked Jack Corbyn to marry Bess to-morrow. I’ll have everything in readiness and then he can take her away to Yorkshire. If we are to have the plague in Eyam it is better that all who can be safe.”

  “The plague? And Bess to be married on a day’s notice? I’ll believe no such thing! I’ll have no such thing! Where’s Mistress Corbyn? I’ll go down and see her.”

  “She is with her son. But leave this matter with me, Kate, there are things in which women should not meddle.”

  “Ay, meddle’s the word for us,” sobbed Kate, weeping again. “And yet you must do what you will and we must call it Divine providence!”

  “Perhaps it was,” said the Rector. “Perhaps God did direct me to destroy the wedding gown and save all my flock.”

  “Then I suppose it was the Devil,” asked Kate, innocently, “who inspired me to send for the stuff from London?”

  The Rector had no answer for this; his faith was not to be argued out on these lines of feminine logic.

  “We’ll argue no more, Kate. I have done what I have done and you know my desires. Go now to Bess and tell her the news.” And he added mildly: quoting from St. John: “‘If ye love me take my commandments.’ Remember, that, Kate, as I must try to remember it, and do not dote upon this world’s fancies that loves but the silly snares of shallow pleasure and all such vanities.”

  She did not answer him, but with downcast head left the room, not having stayed to put aside her comfits, syrups, and essences. He smiled at this disorder, thinking how characteristic it was of Kate to show enthusiasm and then leave her task half-done. Yet he must blame himself for her distraction, for he feared that he had saddened her as she had not been saddened in her life before. It was difficult, as he knew, for him to realize how the women had counted upon this wedding and all its attendant pleasures.

  Chapter III

  THE TAILOR’S APPRENTICE

  MRS. MOMPESSON, Elizabeth and Ann Trickett, the serving-woman, went down the afternoon of that day to the old Manor House to consult with Mistress Corbyn as to the change in the plans for the wedding.

  Bessie had felt the disappointment perhaps less keenly than her sister, for all her thoughts were on becoming united to her darling Jack, and after the first pang was quickly past she was willing enough to marry her lover immediately and to leave Eyam with him if so willed and as originally planned. Though she declared that, if there were the least danger, she would stay with her sister.

  The news of young Fulwood was reassuring and the Rector nursed some hope that he would be made a fool of and the illness proved not to have been the plague. The lad lay in something between a sleep and a swoon and seemed not to suffer. Fumigants were burned before his bedroom door and in front of that of the tailor’s house.

  It was impossible to prevent the story of the box of clothes coming from London from getting abroad, but George Vickers, the tailor, with a touching loyalty towards the Rector, gave out that the case had contained nothing but patterns. And he went up to young Fulwood’s bed and ordered him to give the same tale when he recovered. But the young man did not seem to hear him, so sunk was he in his flaccid trance. The day was very hot and people, sick and sorry after the revels, moved slowly about their business.

  The two young women, going on foot from the Rectory to the old Manor, discussed this illness of young Fulwood, for indeed they could not get anything else in their thoughts. And what amazed them both was, not so much that one of the villagers had fallen sick, but that the Rector should take the matter so seriously.

  “It is those books he is always reading,” pouted Kate; “you know when he was at Rufford Park what a time he spent in his laboratory and perusing the tracts of old physicians. And who knows what it has put into his head.”

  “William is very wise,” said Bess, “and probably knows far better than we do. And now that the dress is burnt — and really, Kate I do not mind so much — expect we are all free from danger. And even if poor young Fulwood has the plague, and even if he should die of it, what is there for the rest of us to grieve over? And as for the wedding, do not agitate yourself so much, dear Kate. We will hear what Mistress Corbyn has to say.”

  When the ladies reached the old Manor they were surprised and even alarmed to find that in the early afternoon Jack Corbyn had ridden away, not saying where he was going, and had been followed immediately afterwards by Mistress Corbyn, who had gone riding pillion behind a manservant. Several of the other servants were under orders to follow them; no explanation had been given to those that remained, save that instructions would arrive in a day or so.

  Good breeding saved Mrs. Mompesson and Bess from showing their dismay. They stood among the blocks of masonry and watched the workmen moving leisurely in the golden sunlight, planing wood, mixing mortar, chipping stones to embellish the rebuilding of the Manor.

  Then, followed by Ann Trickett, they moved aside and crossed the Hall yard and paused by the fish-pond where William Mompesson had talked to Jack Corbyn.

  Then Bessie said faintly:

  “Why should he go away, hurriedly, like that, and the wedding but a week off?”

  “It’s worse than that,” whispered Kate. “Mompesson told him this morning that he would like to have it in twenty-four hours.”

  Fear, like a quickly moving shadow, fell over the spirits of the two young women, even the bright sunshine about them seemed chilled.

  “He will hav
e sent a message to the Rectory,” said Kate, pressing her sister’s hand. “Mompesson asked him to go to Chatsworth. These stupid servants have misunderstood. Jack has gone there, of course.”

  “But his mother? Why should his mother go? And his father has not returned. Did they send a messenger warning him to keep away?”

  “Fie, Bess, we should not think of such things.”

  In silence the two young women left the Manor garden and returned to the Rectory. There was no message there from the young esquire.

  William Mompesson could not believe this news. He thought, as Kate thought, that there must have been some mistake, and he himself went down to the old Manor and sharply examined the servants. But the story was always the same. And so, in suspense and anxiety, three days went by, like a lull before the approach of storm shadows.

  Kate bravely continued her preparations for the festival and Bess allowed her sister to alter one of her gowns into the semblance of a wedding garment, trimming the pale silk foundation with gold and silver lace, fashioning a deep falling collar for the shoulders; while Mompesson went over himself to Chatsworth and waited upon my Lord. And then he discovered that none of the Corbyns had been there, but there was news of them travelling towards Yorkshire to the house of that friend where Jack should have spent the first week of his married life.

  These things were by no means to be concealed in a small village. A sadness fell over the little place, which had been so full of high spirits during St. Helen’s Wake.

  When the Sunday came there were a large number in the church and a different reverence paid to the Rector’s brief sermon, which he spoke on a text appropriate to such a mountainous district:

  ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my strength.’

  That sweet Sunday afternoon he had to officiate at the burial of an infant that he had but lately christened, in the churchyard under the golden linden trees, and an unusually large crowd gathered and they were very quiet. Mr. William Mompesson supposed that they were pitying him and his Kate and Bessie, who seemed to have been forsaken but a few days before her wedding, and scorning the false lover who had seemed to show a blackness of heart.