God and the Wedding Dress

by Marjorie Bowen

  He could not believe this, but thought that some message had gone astray and that Jack Corbyn would return. It was possible that he had gone to fetch physics and doctors from Derby, but though the Rector tried to keep this in his mind as a probability, he knew it was fantastic. Jack Corbyn could have helped in more immediate ways, and there were doctors and physic enough nearer than Derby, at Bakewell, for example, or Buxton.

  Neither this matter nor that of the plague was spoken about at the Rectory.

  When the funeral service was over, William Mompesson went towards the tailor’s house. He had visited the young man twice every day, since he had fallen sick, and never seen any change in him, save one evening when he seemed in a mild delirium and had talked foolishly about his work, making a movement of his hands as if snipping with the scissors or stitching with the needle.

  It was a peerless evening; gold and blue and tranquil, the spendthrift sun scattered largesse everywhere. Despite his grave cares and wonder, the Rector felt his spirits lifted into some divine contentment that was beyond his immediate circumstance.

  When he entered the little shop, he found George Vickers, as he had bid him do, smoking, for it was well known that tobacco helped to keep contagion away, and with the bowl of spices smouldering in the window so that the low room was full of bluish smoke.

  “He is better this afternoon, sir — the lad,” said the tailor cheerfully, “and I think, after all, I shall not send for his parents. He was sitting up and speaking cheerfully before noon, soon after your visit.”

  The Rector stood silent, but his slender fingers gripped closely on the silver-bound Prayer Book that he held and his whole spirit seemed to be stilled into an ecstasy of thanksgiving. This dark shadow, then, was to pass away. And what a lesson it would have taught him! There would be no more repining, no more idleness, no more nice disdain of these rude people among whom he had been sent.

  “You give me,” he breathed at last, “very good news. I will see the boy and join with him in thanksgiving.”

  And he went quickly up the small, winding stairs to the apprentice’s bedroom. The pure golden light came in at the low-set window beneath the slanting ceiling and fell over the young man who lay half-stripped upon his truckle bed, the patchwork quilt twisted under him.

  ‘Doubtless he is asleep.’

  The Rector approached. But young Fulwood was too still, his face too clay-coloured for sleep; there were patches on his neck, his mouth was dragged.

  The Rector felt his joyous relief vanish like sunshine before a storm-cloud, his soul, like the tempest-smitten landscape, was suddenly dark and bleak; the boy was dead and in an agony.

  Mompesson took first the coverlet and the blanket between his fingers and pulled them down. Then he opened the shirt the young man wore; the young body that had been so lately firm and fresh was livid, and on the thighs and legs and on the chest showed large blains, puffing up the skin, a sure ‘token’ of the plague.

  Without a change in his face, save a light twitching of his brow and lips, the Rector performed those offices that he had performed so often before, when he had attended the poor tenants of Sir George Savile’s estates. He closed the dim, staring eyes, he crossed the hands over the breast, he composed the drawn up limbs, marking the loathsome disfigurements the while and then he drew the sheet over the corpse and prayed beside it; the sun was hot on him and the body stank.

  Then he rose and, looking at the outline beneath the coarse sheet, he murmured: “But go thou thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot, at the end of the days.”

  Then the priest went downstairs and said to George Vickers, who was seated comfortably by the door taking his rest on the Lord’s Day:

  “It is the plague. The youth is dead, and on him are the spots that the physicians term the buboes.”

  “The plague!” whispered the tailor. “Then I am a dead man, too, sir!”

  “It does not follow,” replied the Rector firmly. “Thou art no more a dead man than I am or any other in this place. Now take heed to thy ways, Vickers, obey me, and we may yet stay the disease to this one case. I will go up to my laboratory and see what I have there in the way of fumigants and medicine that might be preventive. And I will come back here and put this lad in the coffin myself.”

  “Nay, sir, I shall help you,” said Vickers coolly, losing his fear now the test had arrived. “I have no more fear than you.”

  “You may help me if you will. There should be a coffin ready, there was one made for old Riley, of the Dale, who was to be buried on Tuesday. Go to the carpenter and ask for that.”

  “To get it I must tell him the whole story, sir.”

  “We cannot keep the story secret, but must put all on their mettle to behave bravely. If you treat them as brave men you will make them so.”

  William Mompesson shut himself in his laboratory that sunny afternoon, and when Kate tapped on the door he told her he would take no supper, that he had urgent business afoot.

  He studied the medical tracts that he had once again, and looked over his stores of physic. Then he made up a compound to serve as a powerful fumigant and set it in a brazier and burned it at the door of his laboratory so that the fumes went all over the house.

  When the family supper was over he came down and read the prayers as usual. And when they were over he asked his household to remain; there was his wife and Bessie, the two little children, Ann Trickett, Jonathan Mortin and three other servants, a maid, a gardener, a groom.

  To them the Rector told the story of how the plague had come to Eyam, that no one was to blame for it, and there might be no ill consequences if precautions were taken.

  “For,” said he, “just as these things come in a mysterious way, so in a mysterious way they may be prevented. Nay, I use the word mysterious, but so it is not. It is only our ignorance, which is clouded and blinded and may not understand these things.”

  And he told them how he was going down himself that evening to put the young man in his coffin. He must be buried that night.

  “George Vickers, the tailor, who is a brave man, and the sexton will carry the coffin the short distance to the churchyard, and there must be no one present save myself, and it is my duty to be there. God,” added the Rector, with a firmer note in his voice, “protects those who do their duty.”

  This speech was received in dutiful silence. The only sign of alarm that he had observed, for he was watching them closely, was the quick looks that all the women had given the two children, who were kneeling on their little cushions in front of the other worshippers, Kate supporting the little girl and Ann Trickett keeping the restless boy in his place.

  When all but Kate and Bess had gone, Ann Trickett taking the two children away to their beds, Mrs. Mompesson broke out:

  “This is a horrible thing! You run a grave risk and I should like to come with you. I am not afraid of dead bodies, nor of the plague.”

  “I well believe this, Kate, that you are afraid of nothing, but you must obey me without question. I stand in no danger.” And to comfort her he added: “I know a good, nay, a certain preventive for the plague.”

  Then Bessie, who had been standing silent, half leaning against one of the heavy dining chairs, said:

  “But what of Jack? Is there no word from him? And why did he leave me?”

  These questions had been in the hearts if not on the lips of all of them for the last four days, but the Rector could not answer them now.

  “Surely you will hear from him soon, Bessie. He could not have left you willingly. Something must have gone astray.”

  “No,” said Elizabeth Carr, with a bitter little smile, which wiped all the youth from her face and made her seem older than her married sister, “you may stop your preparations for the wedding, Kate, and you, sir, may announce in the church that it will not take place. For even if Jack should return now, save he had a very good explanation, I would not have this wedding go for
ward.”

  “Hush, hush, Bess,” said Kate, taking hold of her and clasping her tight, “you must not speak thus. And we must think of it neither; remember only that the plague has come to Eyam and that we must stand by our posts and see how we can help.”

  But that night, when Mr. Mompesson had gone to the tailor’s shop and was helping George Vickers to put the body of an apprentice into the coffin that had been made for another, a horseman came to Eyam and riding to the Rectory delivered a package to Bessie. It was from Madam Corbyn and sent from a house in Yorkshire.

  It said that the Corbyns had been called away by the sudden illness of a relative, an old uncle from whom they had great expectations, the very man who was to have lent his house to Bessie and Jack. Although the wedding had been so near ‘it behoved them,’ the good lady wrote, ‘to go at once.’ And lo and behold! they had come into the house when the old man had recovered and Jack himself had been taken ill. Now, this illness was but a slight thing and Bessie was by no means to be disturbed. Still less was she to think of trying to come and nurse him. The worst was over, but Jack was still weak and was not likely to leave his bed for several days yet. Therefore, Madam Corbyn begged the postponement of the wedding. In a short while further news would be sent, and in a short while more Jack would return to claim his beloved.

  This letter arrived on the sixth day after the departure of Jack Corbyn from the old Manor House, and when Kate Mompesson questioned the messenger, after he had been refreshed in the Rectory, she found that the place he had come from was no more than a good day’s riding.

  “So,” said Bessie sharply, “allowing that it took Jack a day to get there, and this man a day to return with his letter, that allows four days for him to fall into a bad illness, to recover, and to lie languid.”

  Kate questioned the messenger as to the state of his young master. But the fellow was a stranger, one from the Yorkshire household, and seemed wary in his replies. And the women thought that he had been told what to say. He could only assure the ladies that young Esquire Corbyn had been ill and abed. But he added that he did not think the illness was of much gravity, since he had seen him at his chamber window, fully clothed, and playing with some pigeons on the sill.

  When the man had gone, the sisters turned into each other’s arms.

  “Oh, Kate! Oh, Bessie! What are we to think?”

  Not until this moment did Bessie Carr realize how strong her hope had been that there might be some credible explanation for her lover’s behaviour, since she had loved him so utterly. All her heart had been set upon her approaching marriage and the long vista of happiness behind it. She could not believe that all had been a deception; she could not believe it now.

  With trembling hands she took Madam Corbyn’s letter and read it over and over again.

  Then she was for setting out at once and taking the twelve hours’ ride to the Yorkshire house, but Kate restrained her, telling her that it was not in womanly dignity nor maidenly honour to do such a thing. But poor Bessie was impatient and declared that nothing mattered but her love for Jack and she would go.

  And into the middle of this agonized scene the Rector returned, not breaking in upon the women who were closeted in Kate’s chamber, but they heard his steps go past as he went straight into his laboratory, only on his way calling out to Ann Trickett to bring him ewers of fresh water and clean cloths.

  He had attended the funeral of young Fulwood, he had helped put the body in the coffin and had noted that it was already putrid and the stench had been such as to overcome the perfumes from the fumigations and from the burnt vinegar.

  So, on the seventh day of September the first victim of the plague in Eyam was buried. And within a week George Vickers was dead, and the woman who came in to do his work, and the children of the cobbler who lived next door — two little girls.

  The Rector watched by the death-beds of all of them and helped put them into their coffins and carry them to the churchyard.

  Then the terrible alarm died down, for it seemed as if the disease was stayed. For fifteen days passed, then Edward Cooper died. Then there was a month and more until October the twenty-eighth, when Jonathan Cooper, his brother, died, and the plague had spread into six other families, of which twenty-five had died; two named Halksworth, six Thorpes, six Sydalls, four Bands, four Torres and three Ragges.

  So, from the death of young Fulwood until the end of October, twenty-nine had perished.

  Now, up to this time, none had known with perfect certainty, save the Rector, that this disease was the plague, for some had had no tokens upon them at all and others were very young children or very old people, such as might have been supposed to die naturally. But though the villagers had become fearful over so many deaths, the word ‘plague’ had not gone round Eyam, and the household of the Rector was loyal and none breathed a word.

  But by November some travelling from Derbyshire heard the tale of this illness, and the symptoms described, and said roundly that it was the plague and had gone away again immediately. And when the doctor from Chatsworth had been asked to his face what this disease was, he admitted that it was the plague.

  Yet, even as this terror came to the inhabitants of Eyam there was some relief, for there were but three deaths during November, and with December came a sharp frost that seemed to stay the infection.

  Though there was so much desolation in the little place, so many families being in mourning, still the villagers’ spirits soon recovered, because there was no more than the usual amount of illness during December and the plague tokens were not found upon any that died during that month. And everywhere the villagers manifested joy to think they had been saved from the terrible scourge with the loss of only thirty-one persons who, young and old, lay buried in the churchyard close together under the linden trees.

  It seemed that the height of the malignant destruction had passed and that they might now consider themselves safe, and Mr. Mompesson and his wife believed that their anxiety and their toil were now at an end with the melancholy clouds and whistling winds of winter.

  The sharp frosts, the severe snowstorms fell like a purification on the mountain village and passes; the Rector, the sexton, the constable and two men sent from Chatsworth by my Lord went down to the barracks or pest-house that had been built upon the green and took out all the bedding and materials used for the sick people and burned them between the falls of snow that blotted out the hills.

  Mr. Mompesson had observed that those who lived in the better, western part of the village beyond the stream that divided Eyam and the lych-gate had not been visited by the infection at all, and he wondered if the stream had not served to check the disease, acting as a barrier to the infection.

  These months had passed for him very quickly, for he had been concentrated on his labours, on much watching and praying, but that had not prevented him from giving a sharp attention to the affairs of Elizabeth. She had refused to allow him to interfere between herself and Jack Corbyn. Letters came from Yorkshire, but always the young man, though in no danger and on the mend, was languid and could not travel and the marriage had been postponed until the spring.

  Mr. Mompesson noticed that all the work on the old Manor was suspended, the servants had been withdrawn, the house was shut up and the man who farmed the land knew nothing of the doings of the Squire and his son.

  ‘It is well,’ said the Rector to himself in deep anger, ‘that if he be that manner of man who would forsake his bride because of fear of a disease, that Bessie is free from him.’

  This was but a hollow consolation, for he had seen how the girl, though brave and silent, pined. And it was hardly to be endured to watch the women putting away quietly all the preparations for the wedding festivities and locking apart the clothes and giving to the poor the cakes, the jellies and the comfits.

  But William Mompesson thought: ‘When the plague is over, I shall deal with Jack Corbyn.’

  Chapter IV


  ‘GOD’S TRUCE WITH DUST’

  The Peak district was still covered with thick snow, the frosts were heavy at night and lay white in all pockets and hollows on the moorlands. But the streams were relieved from the ice and began to flow freely through the stiff mosses and dead grasses; here and there was a celandine or the bright blades of a strong lusty weed. The firs showed pale tips at the ends of their blue-black winter boughs, and on the thorn-trees and larches in the dells was a faint bloom of bud. The plague was over and spring returning to the mountains.

  Elizabeth Carr went on foot alone across the heath beyond Middleton Dale. The air was still sharp and the bright sky colourless above the snow-streaked hills. The girl kept her woollen hood pulled over her face and her mantle wrapped tightly across her bosom. Light was receding from the air and an arrow-shaped flight of birds above her head was speeding homewards.

  As she entered the dell, so different now from what it appeared in its summer splendour, with the bare trees and limestone rocks and sandstone hollows showing, and the broken flags and tarnished weeds of last year, she paused and looked round her apprehensively.

  She felt as she looked — small, lonely and helpless in the wide majestic landscape.

  And when a man, who had been seated on one of the boulders near a grove of ash at the top of the dell, moved forward, so that his figure was outlined against the sky, she gave a little sob of alarm. But it was instantly checked as she saw that the tall elegant figure in the gray coat was her brother-in-law. She waited proudly defiant as he came down the side of the dell.

  “Elizabeth, you have been out alone? Did I not ask you always to go attended? This place is wild, the inhabitants savage. Besides,’ he added sadly, “I think I know your errand.”

  Elizabeth began to excuse herself nervously as they walked slowly by reason of the uneven ground and the breaking rills of water between the smooth boulders through the dell.