A Crowning Mercy - Bernard Cornwell

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looked at Campion. He was a thin man, his wiry forearms burned black by the sun. He was taciturn in household prayers, though he was one of the few servants who had learned to read and Campion had watched him laboriously mouth the words of the Bible. ‘Is that true, Miss Dorcas?’

      ‘No!’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know what it is!’

      ‘What is it, mister?’

      ‘A seal.’ The man seemed to be gauging whether he would have time to pull the pistol from his belt, but Tobias Horsnell kept his musketoon steady and his voice neutral. ‘Do you have the seal, Miss Dorcas?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘There, mister. That be your answer. I think you should go.’ The musketoon added force to his polite suggestion and Horsnell kept the weapon levelled till the stranger had left the yard. Only then did he drop the muzzle and give her a slow smile.’ ‘Twasn’t loaded, but the Lord looks after us. I hope you told the truth, Miss Dorcas.’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘Good, God be praised. He was an ungodly man, Miss Dorcas, and there be plenty like him outside these walls.’

      She frowned at the words. She had spoken little with Tobias Horsnell, for he was a man who stayed away from the house except for prayers, yet he seemed to have divined her intention of running away. Why else would he have stressed the dangers outside Werlatton’s estate?

      She smoothed the collar of her dress. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You thank your Lord and Saviour, miss. In times of trouble He’ll be at hand.’ He had stooped to pick up and fondle one of the kittens. ‘I could tell you tales of His mercy, Miss Dorcas.’

      ‘And tales of His punishment, Mr Horsnell?’

      It was a question she would never have dared put to her father, nor would her father have given her the answer that his stable-man now gave. He shrugged, and spoke as matter-of-factly as if he were talking of hoof-oil or dung shovels. ‘God loves us, miss, that’s all I do know. Wind or blow, Miss Dorcas, He loves us. You pray, miss, and the answer will be there.’

      Yet she knew the answer already and had been too blind to see it. She knew what she had to do. She had to do what the strange man had failed to do, what her brother had failed to do, and what Samuel Scammell had failed to do. She must find the seal and hope that it would be the key to a door which led to freedom. She smiled.

      ‘Pray for me, Mr Horsnell.’

      He smiled back. ‘Nigh these twenty years, Miss Dorcas, I’ve done that. Reckon I won’t stop now.’

      She would find the seal.

      Campion began that same evening, announcing that she would tidy up the mess which the stranger had made in her father’s study. The man had gone, saying he would visit Isaac Blood, though it was Blood’s signature on a letter of introduction that had let him into Werlatton Hall. He had shocked Ebenezer and Scammell by the violence and savagery of his search, but he had gone as quickly and mysteriously as he had arrived. The seal did not seem to exist.

      Scammell was pleased that Campion seemed to be emerging from her week-long oppression. He unlocked the study door and offered to help her. She shook her head. ‘Do you have the key to my room?’

      He gave it to her. He looked past her at the mess she had first glimpsed when the man had seized her in the passageway. ‘It’s a big job, my dear.’

      ‘I can manage.’ She took the key to the study too, shut the door, and locked herself in.

      Almost at once she realised that her impetuosity had led her into a mistake. This room had been searched more than once and it was unlikely that she would discover anything that her brother or Scammell had missed, yet now that she was inside she was overcome with curiosity. She had never been allowed in this room on her own. Her father had spent hour after hour in it, far into the night, and as she looked about the spilled wreckage she wondered what he had done in here. She wondered whether the scattered papers and books would yield a clue, not to the mystery of the seal, but to the mystery of her father. Why had a Christian man scowled through life? Why had he been so angry with his God, so brutal with his love? It seemed to her, standing in the musty smell of the room, that this was also a secret which needed to be uncovered if she was to be free.

      She worked all evening, leaving the room only once to stalk stealthily to the kitchen. She fetched two apples, some bread and a lit candle with which she could light the thick candles on her father’s table. On her return to the study, Scammell was standing silent at the door, his eyes gloomy, observing the mess. He smiled hopefully at her. ‘You’re clearing up.’

      ‘I said I would.’ She waited for him to leave which, obedient, he did. There were times now when she almost felt sorry for him. She was stronger than he was and she knew that he had come to Werlatton Hall expecting so much, only to be plunged into the misery of the household. She knew, too, that he still wanted her. He still stared at her with hopeless, lusting eyes and she knew that if she married him then he would be obedient and eager to please. Exchanging her body for obedience seemed a bad bargain.

      She lit six of the big candles and saw Goodwife’s face pressed against a window. Goodwife rapped on the glass, asking what she thought she was doing, but Campion simply drew the thick, heavy curtains, blotting out the mean, angry face. The candles and the shut, curtained windows made the room stuffy. She stripped to her petticoat, took off her bonnet, ate her food, then settled to her task again.

      A quarter of the papers were long, rambling essays on God. Matthew Slythe had tried to plumb the mind of God as Campion now tried to plumb Matthew Slythe. She sat with her long legs crossed on the floor and frowned over his tight, crabbed handwriting. He had despaired of God as a master impossible to please. Campion read wonderingly of his fear, of his desperate attempts to appease his unpleaseable God. There was no mention in the essays of God’s love; for Matthew Slythe it did not exist, only God’s demands existed.

      A greater part of the papers seemed to be explorations in mathematics and those she put aside because she had discovered bundles of letters that promised to be far more interesting. She felt like an eavesdropper as she read them, these letters that stretched back to the year of her birth, but through them she could trace the story of her parents’ lives and learn things they had never told her.

      The first letters were dated 1622 and they surprised her. They were from her mother’s parents to Matthew and Martha Slythe, and they contained not just godly advice, but admonitions to Matthew Slythe that he was a poor merchant who must work harder to gain God’s favour and prosper. One letter refused to lend him any more money, saying that enough had already been proffered, and hinting that he must examine his conscience to see if God was punishing him for some sin. At that time, the year of her birth, her parents had lived in Dorchester where her father, she knew, had been a wool merchant. Evidently, from the letters, a poor one.

      She read three years of letters, skipping the passages of religious advice, reading swiftly through the stilted news that John Prescott, her maternal grandfather, wrote from London. She came to a letter that congratulated Matthew and Martha on the birth of a son, ‘a cause of great rejoicing and happinesse to wee all’. She paused, trying to pin down an errant thought, then frowned. There was not one mention of her in any letter, except for general references to ‘the childrenne’.

      The letters of 1625 introduced a new name to her: Cony. Letter after letter talked of Cony; ‘a goode man’, ‘a busie man’, ‘Cony has written you, wee believe’, ‘Have you replied to Mr Cony? Hee deserves your answer’, yet not one of the letters gave the smallest hint why Mr Cony should be ‘busie’ for Matthew Slythe or John Prescott. One letter, evidently written after Matthew Slythe had visited London, spoke of ‘the busienesse wee had words on’. Whatever the business, it was too important to entrust to letters.

      Then, after 1626, there were no more references to Matthew Slythe’s

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