by Peter McAra
‘I was torn,’ Martin said eventually. ‘I wanted so to comfort you. But if I’d come directly after the funeral, there’d have been gossip.’
‘Thank God you’re here now.’ She eased her lips away from his. ‘You could not dream how I’ve pined for you, Martin. Longed for you to hold me, kiss me.’ She looked up at him from within the circle of his arms. ‘I remembered your breath in my hair. My neck tingles where your lips touched it — before.’ She pulled him close. ‘Hold me, Martin. Hold me forever. I need you so. Comfort me, my love.’
She led him into the small room which held the marriage bed and closed the door. As she sat in the dark, she sensed that he stood hesitant, frozen, a yard from her. He might have been an able scholar at Oxford — indeed, he’d once told her that he’d graduated in theology with the highest honours in his year. But at wooing an eager woman, he was a dunce. It was as if she must teach him all over again. She pulled her nightdress over her head and flung it into a corner. Then she sat naked, waiting in the cool dark, quivering with desire. She felt him sit beside her.
‘I’m not sure what you — ’ he said.
‘Give me your hand, my Martin. For a scholar, you’re very slow to learn.’ She pulled him down beside her, rested his hand on her belly. The spell which had frozen him was broken. He cupped her breast and leaned over to kiss her forehead, so softly it felt like a breath.
‘I love your hair, my angel,’ he said as he breathed a kiss into her tresses. ‘I want it to cascade over me. Like a waterfall.’
‘Patience, wild youth,’ She smiled as she felt his shyness thawing. ‘You must earn such beneficence.’
‘How?’
‘By giving me pleasure, of course. And don’t ask me how you must do that. Last time, you nearly drove me to — ’
He embraced her shoulders, led his lips on a winding track down her neck, her back, her shoulders, until finally his mouth stole a brushing kiss from her nipple. Soon, Charlotte was transported to another world — a world where soft rain ended drought, warmth succeeded cold, closeness drove away loneliness, fleshly delight ousted aching need. With every movement of her lover’s body, she found herself lifted to a higher state of being. She began to feel she could not enjoy more pleasure without fainting. Still he drove her to new heights. She abandoned herself, floating like a bird wafted upwards by a wild wind — higher, faster — swooping, swirling, swept through space by sensations she could not control. These mountain peaks of pleasure reached their climax in a string of explosions so sublime, so transcending all other experiences in her life, that she knew, as she subsided into a cloud of bliss, that she would be changed forever.
They lay in each other’s arms, spent, still. Charlotte felt she was but one half of a single being. She must share every thought, every feeling with her lover.
‘I have something beautiful to tell you, Martin.’ She had held her secret close, like a child hides a loved toy from jealous playmates, fondling it in private moments, but resolving never to be seen with it by anyone. ‘I have your child in my belly, my love.’
He fell silent for a long time.
‘How do you know it’s mine?’ he said eventually.
‘What! Do you think I lie with every man in the village?’ She suppressed her anger. Martin liked to play with words, she knew. Words were his tools of trade. He had once told her he liked her for her wit as much as her body.
‘Silas?’ he said.
‘Silas? It’s been a year; more.’
‘When he came home drunk?’
‘I always bolted this door. He’d fall asleep outside it.’
‘Well… I…’ It was not like Martin to stumble for words.
‘I’ve been so happy since I’ve known,’ Charlotte said. ‘I thought you’d weep for joy.’ She slid a hand up his belly, felt his muscles tense. ‘It’s a blessing on our love. When you…when we were…together, I felt…sanctified. It was as if God had reached down and touched us. Imagine, a child the two of us made in love. Surely our love is — ’
‘I…have some thinking to do,’ Martin said.
‘What about?’ Why did he choose to tease her so? She wished that there was enough light to see his face.
‘How I can…care for my flock.’
‘You have your parson’s stipend.’
‘But…what will people say? I am but servant of The Lord. I must kneel before him. Beg his permission.’
‘What’s so shocking about a man and a woman marrying and having children?’
‘Marrying?’
‘You love me, do you not? That’s what people do when they’re in love. You should know. You must have married dozens of them. Said God’s holy words over them. The very words of the marriage service. Do they not say that it’s God’s intent that men and women should come together and have children?’
‘People might think the child is Silas’s.’
‘So we’ll tell them it’s not.’
‘Er…when did you…first know?’
‘Oh, perhaps a fortnight.’
‘So it could be Silas’s.’
‘Really, Martin. Why do you keep saying that? I’ve told you, it isn’t.’
‘But people will think it is.’
‘Perhaps they will. Do you care? We’ll know it’s ours. A blessing from God.’ Still he lay silent beside her in the dark. ‘He’ll rejoice that two of his creatures have found the love He created for them,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘Love is God’s most precious gift. I’ve heard you say so in your sermons.’ He held his silence. ‘I hope it’s a girl.’ Charlotte smiled to herself. ‘And I hope she has your curls.’
Martin slid out of Charlotte’s bed. As she lay awake, silent, he dressed. He let himself out of the bedroom without saying goodnight. In the dark, he opened the door, slipped through it, then closed it with the same care he had shown as he entered.
Charlotte lay quiet. When he had left, she looked out through the tiny window, noting that there was no moon. She watched him in the vestige of light shed by the stars until his shape could no longer be seen. Then she slid back into her warm bed, smiling at the thought of his lying with her during the week and preaching chastity on Sundays. He was but a man. A man driven by an intensity of passion spawned by years of self-denial and the frugal existence of a dedicated man of God. She stretched her legs between the blankets made warm by their exertions, and fell asleep smiling.
CHAPTER 3
Martin Townsend had taken up his post in Marley two years before his first tryst with Charlotte. As soon as the young man, newly graduated from Oxford, had moved his meagre cartload of possessions into the vicarage, Viscount De Havilland, lord of the manor in the Dorset village of Marley, requested a meeting.
‘I will provide your stipend, Martin,’ he said. ‘But I do not wish the village folk to know this.’
‘Thank you, sir. In the seminary, we were daily taught the precept that The Lord will provide. But your…bounty is truly generous.’ He must overcome his awe of the man, and the estate of Morton-Somersby, occupied by the De Havillands since the days of William the Conqueror. He fought the intimidation projected down on him by the room’s grandeur. Whenever the viscount’s gaze was diverted for a moment, Martin seized the opportunity to look up at the ornamented ceiling, the heavy chandelier, the burgundy drapes that kept the room in perpetual gloom. When he saw the older man’s eyes studying his face, he gripped the carved arms of his chair, let his fingers explore the complexities of the craftsman’s work. This might distract him from the fear he felt for the man who now addressed him.
‘Of course, sir, you may depend on me to preserve your confidence.’ The young parson forced himself to look into the eyes of his benefactor for a moment before returning his gaze to the ceiling. ‘Let God be my witness.’
‘Good. And I should like you to consider yourself almost a member of the family.’ The viscount leaned back in his chair and refilled his glass from the decanter. ‘A little more port, Martin.’ He filled his compa
nion’s still almost-full glass to the brim. ‘I have a mind to tell you something of my family.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Martin raised his glass and sipped a token portion.
‘As you know, I have two young children, a boy and a girl,’ the viscount began. ‘Their poor mother died in childbirth. What you may not know is that I have another daughter, Hepzibah, aged nineteen. She spends most of her time in London, living with the aunt who raised her. Hepzibah is the sole issue of my first wife.’ He paused. As Martin watched his patron from the corner of his eye, it seemed that the man was taking time to shape his facial expression into a more solemn one.
‘God rest her soul,’ the viscount continued a moment later. ‘She too died in childbirth.’ John De Havilland looked at his glass, found it empty, reached for the decanter and refilled it. ‘Now Hepzibah is not handsome, I acknowledge,’ the viscount continued. He drank slowly and stared into his glass before he spoke. ‘But she brings a goodly portion with her. Her poor mother’s will saw to that. Hepzibah is her sole heir. My first wife was an extremely wealthy woman, Martin. It’s most…unfortunate that she was taken from us so young.’ He paused. His young guest waited, maintaining his sideways glance.
‘Hepzibah is but a child, Martin,’ he said eventually. ‘Though a buxom one, to be sure. She will need much help in the nurture of her immortal soul. And I remind you that I count on you to provide that help, my boy. She plans to spend more of her time with her father now that she is, er, a young woman of means.’ He took another drink, looked down at the carpet. ‘I think twenty one is the perfect age for a maid to marry, Martin. Hepzibah will be old enough to have developed a modicum of common sense, but young enough to encourage her husband in his enjoyment of the rightful pleasures of the married state. Think on that, Martin. Another drop of port before you go?’
A month before Martin’s last night in Charlotte’s bed, Hepzibah had celebrated her twenty first birthday. After the celebrations, the viscount had pointedly addressed the young parson. ‘You will understand, sir, that a woman of one-and-twenty should marry soon. Otherwise she will likely be consigned to a future as an old maid.’
Charlotte had expected Martin to lie low during the days following their times together. Throughout the whole of their affair, he had shown extraordinary timidity. That this was offset by his intense ardour during their lovemaking was some compensation to Charlotte. She came to expect that their trysts would be infrequent because he was so fearful of discovery. However, now that she was a widow, she believed she might expect his visits more often. The joyous reality of the child in her womb should bond the two of them with an even deeper love than they had already shared. As the days passed without word from him, doubts began to prickle at the edge of her happiness.
She wiped those doubts from her mind. Had Martin not told her, as they lay fulfilled in each other’s arms, that he had never in his life been ravaged by such desire? Had he not confessed the first time they made love that he had nursed a passion for her since the morning he first saw her walking through the village, basket on arm? She received his letter a long fortnight after their last evening together.
The Vicarage
July 14, 1805
My Dearest Charlotte,
Since our last meeting, I have given much prayerful thought to our conversation. A thousand times I have thought of our child growing in your womb. A thousand times I have wanted to take you in my arms and tell you what I have to say in the warmth of your love. But it is not to be.
Above and beyond all my fleshly weaknesses, I am a man of God. I am the shepherd charged by Him to watch over my flock, and I will go to Him to be judged according to the dedication with which I put aside my own fleshly gratifications and tend my sheep.
Although I have prayed long and earnestly, God in His wisdom has chosen not to lead me on an easy path through this wilderness. He has shown me that if I take you to wife, I cannot serve Him in the ways He requires of me. He has set me apart from the village folk so that I may be to them as a shepherd unto his sheep — a loving but separate being, formed from different clay, the better to show them the way to His mercy. If I were to partake in a union with you, it would be against God’s purpose.
I expect that when your child is born, the village folk will think it is Silas’s. And I trust that you will not disabuse them. It will be so much the better for your reputation, and for the child’s welfare, if it is so.
My thoughts and prayers are with you for eternity. May God’s blessings rain upon you for ever.
Martin
PS. Please take pains to destroy this letter so that not another eye on God’s earth ever sees it.
Charlotte received the letter on a dull, chill afternoon which threatened rain. That morning she had decided to give the cottage a good cleaning. Now she found she lacked the will. She picked up her needlework, intending to sew a dress for the child she carried. She pictured the little dress as a love token to her child, sure that it would be a girl.
Before she broke the letter’s seal, she divined its message. As she read the first words, she felt struck like a beast led through a slaughterhouse killing gate. She sagged onto the bed they had made hot with their passion, and let a river of tears flow, hour upon hour, until she seemed fit to drain herself of life. As she lay wretched, looking up at the broken ceiling of her mean cottage, she knew she did not want to live. She gave thought to ways she might end her life — quickly, tidily. As she took this thought and teased it into small threads with the intention of examining each one to its end, she came to a conclusion. She look the letter and put it behind the loose stone above the lintel where she hid spare coins from Silas, and the silver cross her father had given her before he died.
When Charlotte’s belly began to show, Mother Turlington, the widow who knew the business of everyone in the village, smiled and spoke to her one morning as she walked through the high street to deliver some dressmaking.
‘Oh Charlotte. T’is God’s blessing indeed that Silas has left you with a new life to replace his own, so sadly broken off. I’m sure it will be a boy. Perhaps you will call him Silas?’ Charlotte thanked her and made to go about her business. But something in the old woman’s smile hinted at unspoken confidences. She would not be brushed aside until she had finished her homily.
‘My dear, I hope Vicar is giving your immortal soul good care. It’s at times of sorrow a body can begin to doubt the will of Providence. I noticed that he was most kind to you after the funeral. Perhaps he…you and he…might — ’
‘Thank you, Mother.’ Charlotte felt as if she were suffocating. ‘Our vicar has many other people in his flock to care for. He was most generous with his help after Silas died. But now I must make a life for myself.’ She hurried on her way. The sympathy of her neighbours was becoming almost as hard to bear as the loss of her lover.
A few weeks after her conversation with Mother Turlington, the village rejoiced in the news that the vicar was engaged to be married to Hepzibah, the viscount’s eldest daughter, only child of his first marriage.
‘T’is good that Sir John will have his daughter back from London to comfort him as he grows older,’ Mother Turlington said when she waylaid the depressed Charlotte as she walked home from the village. ‘And no doubt, there will be the blessing of grandchildren for him one day. But the poor girl is plain. Very plain.’ She sighed and wiped the corners of her mouth with a lace handkerchief. ‘Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I always say. I’m sure the poor girl has a loving heart. And she brings a fair portion with her. T’is said her dead mother came from a family of great means. That will be a blessing for Vicar.’ She eyed Charlotte’s belly. ‘And it looks as if it won’t be long before you’ll have the joy of your little Silas. You’ve looked quite peaky of late. He’ll soon put an end to your loneliness, my dear.’
‘You’ve given birth to a beautiful girl child, Charlotte.’ The midwife wiped bloodied hands on her apron and bent to the ear of her semiconscious patie
nt. ‘She has golden curls.’ Then the middle-aged woman slipped the newborn child into her mother’s arms. Charlotte opened her eyes for long enough to look down on the little head. She took in the golden hair plastered over the roundness of its pink scalp, wet from its first washing, springing tiny tendrils of damp curls at the sides. She saw its tiny nose, its clenched fists, its eyelashes pale against the purple skin of closed eyelids. Charlotte’s eyes closed against her will. She felt the midwife take the child from her arms.
‘You are the most special child,’ Charlotte whispered. ‘You were made in sublime love. You will shake the world, my little one.’ Then the lethargy she had fought for hours dragged her down into numb unconsciousness. She ached to hold her child again, but some barrier stood in her way. At times she knew that helping hands put the baby to her breast, then took it away after it had suckled with a will and lay dozing in her arms. She felt a tingling on her skin where the baby had lain against her.
‘The blood, Mary. It won’t stop.’ Charlotte heard voices seeming to come from a cloud floating far above her.
‘I know. T’is The Lord’s will. We can but pray.’
CHAPTER 4
Charlotte died from loss of blood in the small hours of the following morning. The young vicar presided over her funeral as she was buried in the village churchyard beside her husband. Mother Turlington noticed Martin Townsend wipe away a tear as the gravediggers shovelled earth onto the coffin. As he turned away from the grave, a biting wind rattled the bare twigs of the oak trees which bowed over the old churchyard.
‘Such a caring soul, our poor vicar,’ Mother Turlington said to those standing near. ‘So young to be the bearer of other folk’s burdens. It will be a blessing for him when, God willing, his new wife has a child. He’ll find fatherhood such a joy.’
