The Forbidden Path

by Jean Chapman

  She walked away to where the crush of people was more dense again, and was immediately aware of a difference in the crowd. Around the traction-engines had been a breed of men who wore smooth cloth trousers and jackets, dark suits and caps, and looked as if they would be quite at home clambering about the machines clutching an oily rag. Here there were hairy tweeds and corduroy jackets, appearing to have been moulded to their owners rather than donned each morning.

  Then there came shouts of ‘Mind your backs!’ and ‘Whoa. Whoa.’ She moved nearer the centre of interest. A horse neighed with the authoritative assurance and dcep-lunged capacity of a great shire, and she saw the ears and tossing, tasselled head harness of what could only be the champion Clydesdale stallion. Cato had come to where he knew Hall Farm’s interest would be.

  Once at the front of the crowd, she still could not see him. She hoped they would find each other before her father finished penning his animals and found his way here.

  The stallion’s massive oiled hooves stirred dust as it gently pawed the ground. Its great head arched as if concentrating on control, and its restrained action seemed to tell its might more than any great clattering or expansive pounding. In spite of herself she too was thrilled with the beast, with its gleaming bay coat, the red ribbons laced in its tight-plaited mane, its snowy leg feathers. ‘Well sprung, y’can see inside every shoe as he moves.’ ‘Good intelligent eyes.’ ‘Look at the height of his withers, and them forelegs well under the shoulders.’ ‘Ah! He’s a good lad.’ Complimentary comments came from all sides. Belle felt strangely stirred by the horse’s beauty and strength, feeling it was to ordinary horses as Cato was to average men — quite set apart.

  Two things happened at once then — she heard her father’s voice not far away, and felt a large hand on her wrist, enclosing it warmly and gently pulling her from the front of the crowd. ‘Don’t look round.’ Cato’s voice came as an undertone to the buzz of conversation. Like a child urged to close its eyes before being presented with a tremendous, glorious surprise, she eased herself from the front. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and the hand on her wrist was released. She stood just for two or three seconds before turning to see him moving ahead of her, towards the stands and booths on the perimeter of the market. She could barely restrain herself from running to join him, to touch his arm, but at the same time she half expected to hear her father’s voice calling her back.

  He led her between stalls where the smell of hot sugar advertised home-made sweets, and two red-faced women pulled and twisted gleaming ropes of blonde toffee; past the booth asking only one penny to see ‘A Man-Eating Fish’, and another bearing the legend ‘What Every Man Should Know’. These were only for the most gullible, or those seeking reason for a fight; she remembered her father telling her that the first would be a man eating a plate of fish, and the other most likely a man showing how to whittle a stick away from oneself.

  The fairground atmosphere had Belle atingle, and she was suddenly impatient with their caution and was just skipping forward to Cato’s side when he stopped abruptly. His whole attention was riveted by a small table set up between two canvas booths, and by the person behind it, and his manner changed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  ‘The same as you, mister.’ The tones of a Romany were very pronounced, and the woman had the look of gipsy about her: black hair, fresh colour. The sloe-dark eyes, Belle felt, could hold mysterious, unfathomable depths, but now were veneered with caution or even craftiness. At the same time, she was tall and had a dignified carriage, a graceful neck. Belle thought she reminded her of someone, but then realised that this was the woman she had seen gathering herbs from their hedgerows. The herbs lay, either fresh or dried, on her table for sale.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ he questioned again.

  ‘I mean I’ve come to live this way — like you.’

  ‘You’ve had plenty given you in the past…’ he began, but the woman interrupted him almost fiercely.

  My mother died!’ she snapped. ‘The provision made was for my mother! I’m here to earn my living, best way I know how, selling the adder-bite cures to your woodmen, and anything else to whoever wants it.’ She paused, her glance turning to Belle. ‘Here, missy, you might need these if you have any truck with his kith and kin.’ Belle automatically held her hand out for the string of brilliant red briony berries she was offered, but Cato snatched them from her fingers and threw them back on the table. ‘We want none of your poisons,’ he said acidly, and turned and walked away.

  ‘It was a necklace, Sur, just a bitty necklace.’ The woman’s tongue slipped back around the coaxing tones she had first greeted him with, but then her coarse, unrestrained laughter followed them.

  Cato’s back was stiff with anger as Belle followed him past the last straggle of side-shows.

  ‘Who is she?’ she asked. Intense curiosity mingled with annoyance, for Cato had hardly looked at her properly yet. This woman who, in spite of her red blouse and gold earrings, Belle judged to be more of her father’s generation, had driven their meeting to second place in Cato’s mind. She thought of standing still and refusing to move until she had an explanation, but recollected the chase from the osier beds, when the only person led on had been herself. She had no wish to appear so immature a second time, and contented herself by repeating the question.

  Cato slowed his stride and the look he at last gave her — lingering, eyes darkening and the tension of anger going from him - satisfied her utterly. She sighed involuntarily, and then his smile was full of amusement - and made her feel just an amusing child again. As defense, she repeated the question a third time.

  ‘The daughter of an old gipsy woman my father used to help. When we moved I did think this was one annoyance my father would leave behind—but it seems not.’

  Belle accepted the explanation, and yet felt there was more. Cato’s annoyance, and even shock, at seeing the woman had seemed to have a more personal edge to it. The matter, as her mother might say, ‘would bear watching’.

  ‘Has your father forgotten the fire?’ he asked.

  ‘He’ll never forget that!’ It was Belle’s turn to be surprised. ‘My father thinks it’s useful to have a grudge.’

  She tossed off the remark flippantly, but at the same instant each seemed to take on the solemn knowledge of just how difficult it made their situation. ‘He threatens to send me away if I ever speak to you again,’ she added. They walked on, leaving behind those going to the market and fair, but the road they were on would take them straight into the city centre, to the shops and the possibility of meeting her mother and her aunt, or at least some acquaintances very willing to pass on the information that they had been together.

  ‘Let’s go this way, towards the old priory,’ she suggested, turning left towards the oldest part of the city, where the remains of buildings that once belonged to an ancient order of friars were preserved in a public garden.

  The priory was now a mere stone blueprint: circles of stone denoted former rows of mighty pillars, low stone mounds of varying thicknesses told the outer and inner walls of chapels, cloisters and cells, inhabited now only by yellow and green lichens, mosses and ferns. Seats had been placed around the grass, but they found the footpaths were busy thoroughfares, obviously providing a short cut for many shoppers and workers.

  Cato would have lingered, but Belle was hoping for more privacy, and led on through the civic gardens, which in turn led to the church of St John. Once a parish church, it now served a city congregation, and was known as the ‘Little Cathedral’ because of its graceful gothic spire. Its stonework, black with city grime, retained a peaceful dignity against the mellowing autumn oranges of a score of great beech trees.

  Belle followed the path into the churchyard, where she recollected there was a bench, unlikely, she thought, to be in use at this hour of the morning.

  ‘Very cheerful,’ Cato commented as he sat looking on to the graveyard. The many Victorian tombstones
seemed disproportionately large: great crosses mounted on tiered plinths; white marble angels, some with wings folded as if in contemplative grief, others with wings spread as if flying upwards.

  ‘Oh! I don’t like it!’ Belle had sat sideways, facing him, but turned to look around, and shuddered. She read from the nearest stone: ‘“Jedidiah Looms, aged 59 years, laid aside this mortal coil October 13th 1835. Life’s Weary Labours Over.”’ The thought of a still and silent grave appalled her.

  ‘It’s a good place to talk,’ Cato said.

  ‘No, it’s morbid.’ She dismissed the idea and the graves in one gesture and got up quickly.

  ‘They all lived - and loved,’ he said quietly.

  ‘And died!’ She began to walk away.

  ‘You go, I’ll stay here for a bit.’ He guessed there would be no more private spot in the city on a busy market Friday. He watched as she hesitated, obviously surprised he did not immediately obey the very letter of her whim, yet realising she would defeat her own objective in guiding him to the bench if she walked away. She came back, giving a shrug, as if her compliance was unimportant.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to know how we can arrange to meet. I know so little about you, what you do - and where could your father send you?’

  ‘I’m not going to be sent anywhere!’ she replied defiantly, but he wondered how much weight her determination might have against someone who would so recklessly shoot between two groups of men. At the same time, his mind was distracted from any serious matters by her nearness and the memory of that same proudly held bosom under the tape measure.

  ‘I can always come to the farm, as the other night…’ he began, then remembered how he and John had finally escaped. ‘And you can always let the bull out?’

  ‘You should have seen those Langtons,’ she said scornfully, ‘they were frightened to death!’ She thought for a moment. ‘No, we must have a place where we can leave letters. I know!’ She sprang to her feet, quickly pirouetted and sat down again, her hands spread wide as she revealed her idea. ‘Have you seen Levi’s cottage and his well with the thatched cover? We could both get there without being seen. It’s near the spinney and we should be able to push notes between the thatch - it’s old. A broken old fir tree hangs right over, nearly touching. Push the note in where the tree touches,’ she ended triumphantly.

  ‘As long as Levi doesn’t know, we don’t want him…’ He stopped mid-sentence at the rapt expression she now directed at him.

  This is something special, isn’t it?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘It feels very special to me,’ he answered, breathing quicker as she prolonged her gaze, searching his face as if for any vestige of doubt. He wanted to possess her utterly at that moment, to sweep her off her feet, take her to some totally private place, at least to fold her in his arms, as he had done so briefly after the fire.

  Any further conversation between them was abruptly brought to a stop as a small elderly clergyman, his black clothes looking almost as rusty as the top of his bald head, came bustling somewhat agitatedly towards them.

  ‘Come along then, I’m waiting for you. I might never have found you sitting out here!’

  ‘I think there’s some misunderstanding,’ Cato began.

  ‘You’re the couple who don’t know what to do?’ He peered at them with short-sighted aggression, as if defying them to deny it.

  ‘You could say that,’ he agreed with a laugh, ‘but…’

  ‘Well, well, come this way then.’ He turned and scurried away looking like some small elderly creature from the riverbank, only to turn and impatiently beckon them to follow as he entered the church. ‘We’d better go and tell him he’s made a mistake, or he’ll only come back.’ They met him almost head-on in the porch. He indicated the way ahead of them. ‘This is the aisle; you know that much, I take it?’ He turned just as Belle had caught Cato’s arm and was urging him to leave the church. ‘Now, now, young lady, this will not do! I’ve a deal to do at home. Come along, come along!’ So persistently urged, they grimaced at each other and tacitly decided to humour the old man. They followed to where two steps ascended to the choir-stalls. Here the old man stopped, pushed books into their hands, adjusted his half-spectacles from the end to the bridge of his nose and said without further preamble, ‘Page 467.’

  The small red prayer book Belle found in her hand was much worn and the print small. Cato was still leafing through his book when she found the page. There was an engraving facing it, showing a couple in clothes of many centuries before kneeling before a priest who held open a book propped upon a cushion. Underneath, the caption read ‘Marriage’, and page 467 read ‘The Form of Solemnisation of Marriage’. She closed the book gently enough, but felt as if the Fates were playing a game with her. She could imagine the three old hags somewhere in the ether falling about laughing. They had better be careful, she silently warned them. She heard Cato say, ‘You’re making a mistake… .’

  ‘Good gracious me,’ the vicar exclaimed, ‘are you getting married, or not?’

  ‘Well, no.’ His voice wavered between laughter and a wish as he added with a glance at Belle, ‘Not today.’

  ‘Of course not today!’ The old cleric tutted his disbelief. ‘You really don’t know anything about the service, do you! I begin to believe that neither of you have ever attended any Wedding ceremony. Quite remarkable.’

  Cato laughed and closed his book. ‘No, there really is a mistake. We only came to – look at the church.’ The cleric blinked short-sightedly over his glasses, but any further explanation became unnecessary as they heard hesitant footsteps in the porch, and another couple entered. ‘These will be the people you are waiting for, I think,’ Cato said.

  Understanding at last, the old man seemed to surface and look around properly for the first time. He laughed and apologised, then added: ‘Would you stay? I’d like you to. It may help this young couple to have the feeling of a real service when there will be witnesses, and a congregation.’

  The couple who came hesitantly up the aisle were, Belle felt, well into their thirties, but both had a pale unworldliness about them, as if experience had passed them by. The woman leaned on her man’s arm with the same air of head-tilted subordination as the bride in the prayer book engraving. She and Cato automatically drew aside to let them take the central place.

  The clergyman explained their presence, then gesturing for Cato and Belle to seat themselves in the front pew, began to go through the wedding service. Belle felt deeply moved, listening to the old familiar words as she sat so close to Cato. When he reached the vows, the clergyman went quickly through the man’s, but then more slowly through the woman’s, as if displaying all the wealth of their meaning for the meek little woman’s attention. ‘Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’

  Belle, lost in a daydream of making just such vows to Cato one day, was startled as the woman spontaneously and loudly answered, ‘I will.’ Such certainty from such a mild-looking woman momentarily surprised them all. She glanced up at Cato. She felt she was just as certain as this woman, just as sure she wanted one day to make the same vows to him. The bridegroom-to-be had explained at the beginning of the rehearsal that neither of them had a relation in the world. Belle thought of the feud that had sprung up between her family and Cato’s and wryly thought it was possible to find advantages in being orphaned. Even as she thought of the mishaps that had heralded the Abbott family to the neighbourhood, the sun disappeared behind a cloud, the colours of the stained glass reflected on the brass lectern and on the brass monuments laid in the aisle-way were extinguished, and Belle smelt the dry stone, ever cold in the confines of such enclosed holy places. It suddenly seemed there was a vacuum around her, a space or
some coming time, which she must fill with mighty effort and resolve, or she would never in reality stand by her chosen man’s side making her marriage vows. The premonition of trouble and the tears in her eyes must have puzzled Cato as he stood up and offered her a hand, while she still sat, unaware that the rehearsal was over.

  Then the couple were thanking them and leaving the church, the woman still clinging to her man, looking up at him with a demure reverence. The clergyman shook hands with Belle and Cato, wished them well and, after saying he would leave them to continue looking around the church, gave them a blessing. ‘Go in peace, my children.’

  They were left alone, standing by the old stone font at the back of the church, where the worn slabs told of thousands of feet standing to witness hundreds of years of baptisms.

  ‘Shall we go?’ Cato asked. ‘I thought you looked suddenly cold…the sun’s out again now.’

  But Belle felt there was something more she had to do in this place, some instinct made her go darting to a small door in the panelled screen. ‘Where docs this go, I wonder?’ She opened it and without pausing began to climb the rough wooden stairs it revealed.

  ‘It’ll be to the ringing chamber,’ he called up after her, but she already had her hands on the trap-door above her head and was climbing up into the room. In the half-light from a single high gothic window she saw the long thick bell-ropes hanging in the circle, the red and white striped sallies seeming to invite hands to pull and give voice to the eight mighty bells above in the spire. She took one of the fluffy grips in her hands as Cato followed her up the steps. ‘This must be where they toll the passing-bell, three for a man, two for a woman and one for a child, then the age of the person.’ ‘They ring for weddings, too,’ Cato said. ‘I wonder if that couple will have bells and choir and everything, or just a quiet wedding.’