Havoc, in Its Third Year Page 17

  They brought him to Deborah. She was nursing Samuel. Elizabeth stood over her.

  “See how he feeds,” Elizabeth said, smiling from ear to ear. “Deborah put him to the teat more than an hour ago and he has not stopped to draw breath.”

  There was laughter, women’s laughter, full of relief and love and gratitude. A world made of such women, Brigge thought, would be a happy place; they wanted nothing more than that contentment and kindness should reign. But then, after he got over this great moment of happiness, he began to feel light—headed with anxiety. For now the child sucked, but would his cheeks keep up their happy work? Every quarter of the hour Brigge came to the women and every quarter of the hour their answer was the same: the child either sucked or slept contentedly.

  The following morning Elizabeth and Deborah unwrapped Samuel from his swaddling and displayed his swollen full belly for his father to see and marvel at. Brigge went to Starman to thank him for causing Deborah to come to them. Brigge’s head was in a turn and Starman’s pleasure in his master’s happiness was clear.

  In the morning he gave the first wet nurse six shillings and thanked her and said they would always be grateful to her. Then he took James Jagger and selected a sheep, one past its prime, that had not lambed and would not, and slaughtered it and had the meat carried to the squatters at the new bridge.

  Twenty-one

  A STRANGER IN THE WAY, HIS FACE CONCEALED BY HIS HOOD, asked James Jagger to deliver this message, that if his master wished for pure water to come he was that night to leave a candle in the window at the back of the house. The boy repeated the message as he was given it. He did not know what it meant, but Brigge did, and so did Elizabeth. The kitchen maids’ manner became sober and industrious and they set about cleaning and arranging the house. The household knelt together and prayed a Pater Noster and ten Hail Marys.

  Father Edward came soon after midnight, stealing into the back of the house, as the thief in the night, where the door had been left unfastened. He asked if Brigge was certain there was none in the house who would betray him and Brigge swore the priest would be safe. He roused James Jagger and sent him to see to Father Edward’s horse while the kitchen maids served roasted mutton and Elizabeth put out the best beer in the house.

  Father Edward, whom Brigge had not seen for the space of a year, took his supper with them at the table. He was a black and red man, his high, choleric complexion and large raw red hands flashing against the darkness of his cropped hair and the opacity of his dress. His lips were likewise bright against his unshaved chin. He wore a gentleman’s fine soft gloves and boots, and the name he went by was Maxfield. The kitchen maids moved as though the Savior himself had come among them. He ate quickly, refusing offers of more meat, put on his vestments and went to the parlor and closed the door so he might be private with each of them in their turn.

  When he had heard their confessions, they gathered in the parlor. From his bag he removed a chalice and a cross. Elizabeth brought Samuel to the parlor. The child’s look was tangled at being disturbed from his deep sleep, and he turned his head in quick curiosity but without alarm as they knelt and together heard mass and took the host, each of them that was of the faith and was able—Brigge, Elizabeth, Sara, Isabel and the boy James Jagger—while Deborah stayed abed in her room.

  When the priest blessed them at the conclusion of the mass, Sara took the child out of his swaddling while Isabel went to bring a bowl of water. Then the little congregation stood together, and the priest took the child into his powerful hands and asked what was his name.

  “His name is Samuel,” Brigge said. Such pride he felt in this, such joy, that when he looked to Elizabeth to smile a tear came down his cheek. She reached out and put a hand to his waist to say she loved him and they were together and would always be.

  A candle flickered at the movement of the priest’s arm as he dipped the infant into the water and named him and baptized him in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Samuel did not cry when the water came over him. The priest whispered in the Latin that by this baptism Samuel was received into Christ’s flock, and that he did sign him with the sign of the cross in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified.

  The priest returned Samuel to his father. Gazing down at the boy, Brigge saw his eyes, blue and with an ingenious, watchful cast from being more slitted than round, move carefully over his face. The hair, quite reddish at the birth, was turning fair like that of his mother, and the lips were very full. There were dimples in both cheeks.

  Not more than two hours after he stole in through the back of the house, Father Edward was gone again. He left them with the prophecy that the days of their persecution would end, that it could not be otherwise, for every believer that was brought to the hurdle and dragged through the streets to the ladder to be half-hanged and cut down and bow-eled and quartered raised a cry to heaven that would have an answer. When he spoke, his eyes shone with fervor for his religion and a terrible burning passion to suffer for it. He blessed water for them and gave Brigge a little leather pouch with a precious relic of St. Christopher, which, put into the highest room of a house, would ward off all harm to it by lightning and fire.

  That night Brigge and all in the house slept contentedly, and in the morning all reported their dreams had been sweet as honey. As Brigge was pulling on his boots, he heard Samuel, having fed and lying in his cradle, laugh a little hoarse laugh. All those in the room went quiet, then hurried as though on an unspoken command to the cradle to look down on the boy who, smiling up at his doting admirers, gurgled and laughed again.

  IT WAS ELIZABETH’ S greatest joy to go into the little garden at the side of the stable and take Samuel on her lap. Here she rested and sometimes doted and dozed. Samuel was transformed, and all in such small space of time. Would that we who are old with years had a child’s powers of recovery, they all said, then merrily talked of their stiffnesses and aches and poor eyes and ears. There was such bubbling and happiness with laughter and smiles and so much praising of Elizabeth’s beauty and delight in Samuel’s prettiness of behavior and appearance. His scrawny limbs were growing thick; there were creases at his wrist where the fat of his forearm met the fat of his hand. His cheeks were full and his eyes were quick and bright. His cry was loud and he sometimes vomited up stuff for feeding so hungrily. On these occasions there was some alarm, Elizabeth always fearing the worst, but Deborah was never flustered. She knew children and how they were to be fed and when and what to do when they complained and had colic and would not sleep. She appeared gentle and loving, but though correct and never forward with her master and mistress, she was of a close nature, speaking little and venturing nothing. How many children she had of her own or what had become of them, Brigge had no knowledge of, or of how she came to have milk and no child of her own to suckle.

  Elizabeth observed the lamentable condition into which her garden had fallen. She would remedy it, she said, as soon as there was occasion, and plant vetches and onions, parsley, colewort and beans. She grew excited at the thought of the work before her and Brigge smiled indulgently. After a winter so full of hardships, so teeming with despair, the warm spring days Brigge and Elizabeth spent together were like a term in paradise. The kind of loving that comes from the threatenings of death is quiet and profound.

  Brigge heard the short hard call of a mistle thrush and, looking up into a tree, saw the bird go anxiously from branch to branch. It called again, a dry clacking chatter. Samuel stirred in his basket, and Elizabeth took the child in her arms though he was still asleep. He complained at the disturbance and began to cry, and Elizabeth hummed and cooed to soothe him. Brigge saw a second mistle thrush come down from the sky in answer to the other’s call, grasses in its beak, and fly off again with its mate. Brigge tickled his son so the garden was filled with the sounds of the gummy laughter of this angel dropped out of the clouds.

  A LETTER CAME from Adam to inform Brigge
that he was detained in the town on press of business, he now being coroner, and that he had taken lodgings at the Swan. He and Dorcas would be married in three weeks. He made no invitation to Brigge or Elizabeth to attend the ceremony, and he said nothing of questioning Quirke, nothing touching Susana Horton or where she was to be found.

  Brigge did not care. Katherine Shay was no longer in his thoughts. Neither was Doliffe, nor the Master. In spite of Antrobus’s warning, he began to think the storm he had feared so much had already passed over his head, just as the winter, with all its hazards, had passed. Sometimes it is hard for men when they are frozen to believe that when the cold season comes spring is not far behind and they will be warm again.

  Lacy, visiting the house with his wife, reported that the special assize was still not yet held, it was said by reason that the Master, though pressed by Doliffe and Favour, had begun to have doubts of hanging so many. Every second man, Lacy related, now wore Savile’s blue ribbon, and many prophesied that it would not be long before the old lord came back to begin his rule again. Brigge listened to his neighbor’s tales, but with half an ear only. Brigge’s son now fed and was growing fat. His wife was well and whole again. His ewes had lambs and the weather continued mild for his crop. This was the new design and order of things. When Brigge dreamed that night it was not of whores and lepers. No one offered him a key or looked to him to deliver or say anything, or lead or liberate any man. He had a wife and a son. His dreams were gentle. When a man is content, he does not hear the approach of calamity.

  Twnety-two

  BRIGGE RODE TO THE MOUNTAIN SLOPES TO FIND S TARMAN. He discovered him in seeming familiar conference with a stranger. Coming close, Brigge saw the man to be Exley, the shepherd’s half-brother. Exley carried his fowling piece and had the same dirty black breeches and tattered gray coat he had worn when Brigge first encountered him at the new bridge, but though his face remained broad, his body was much shrunken and, being not tall, he appeared scarce larger than a child.

  On Brigge’s approach, Starman’s manner became suddenly fraught and meek, fearing a reprimand from his master. He whispered something to his brother and shifted a little apart from him, as though in hopes that these few inches might spare him hard words. Exley’s countenance did not alter in the least way; he was reduced in bulk but his spirit remained scornful and possessed.

  On another occasion Brigge would have questioned Exley as to what he did on his land, armed with a fowling piece as if he were hunting game, but he was no longer governor, nor even coroner, and was in no mood to be a lord over other men. He did not hail him familiarly, but courteously enough, asking how he did. Nothing flattered by Brigge’s gentleness toward him, Exley said he did well enough, his tone as reproachful as if he had been offered insults and blows.

  Brigge asked, still civilly enough, “How are the people at your camp?”

  “Hungry,” Exley replied, and mockingly thanked him for his inquiry.

  “I will send them what mutton, grain and whey I can spare,” Brigge said.

  Exley laughed. Starman, caught between his master and his brother, looked uncomfortable, not knowing where to put himself.

  “You are insolent, Exley,” Brigge said, his patience at an end.

  “Should I be grateful?” the vagrant asked, his voice sharp and angry. “Is it not enough for you that we must live as dogs on these blasted moors that are not fit for starved sheep, but must also give you thanks?”

  Starman said quietly, “Mr. Brigge is a fine Christian gentleman who has often relieved our wants by his charity.”

  “I say he is no Christian who lets another starve.”

  “He has offered you meat and corn, Robert.”

  “A pox on him and all his kind!” Hoisting the fowling piece to his shoulder, Exley declared, “They think they are lords who can smite the poor famished people of this nation. They should take note that we are not so humble. Let them know that blood shall be met with blood, and fire with fire, that flames can consume the great houses of the rich as they can the hovels of the poor.”

  Exley spat on the ground and strode away.

  “Your brother has a rash and troublesome spirit,” Brigge said as he watched him go.

  The two men inspected the flock. They found nothing to trouble them; there was no sign of the turn or the rot, for which Brigge prayed his thanks to God. Before long they would be washing the fleeces in preparation for shearing, and those to be sold for meat they would drive to market.

  Brigge looked over his shepherd. Since his release from his cure, Star-man had begun to take on the shape of a man once more, crippled to be sure and diseased, but no less than a man, with all that went of a man.

  Brigge questioned him about his infirmities and how the pain was, and asked if there was an improvement since Antrobus had attended him. Star-man assured him that by the doctor’s great skill he was much relieved in his body. Brigge had the sense that he was being gracious, not willing to criticize the doctor or appear ungrateful for his master’s efforts. Still, Star-man’s outward appearance was undeniably improved, the ugly blains that had covered his head and face being much reduced and the mustaches he had recently grown hiding his nose somewhat so it was not easy to see that the nostrils were beginning to be decayed and eaten back.

  After they finished their work, they sat on the grass to eat the cold mutton and apples Brigge had brought with him. Starman stared at the meat without taking any.

  “Are you not hungry?” Brigge asked.

  “I have appetite to eat,” Starman said.

  “Then eat.”

  “I will eat,” Starman said, reaching for the food, “though my brother goes hungry.”

  “You heard me tell Exley I would send food to the encampment,” Brigge said.

  “You are generous and kind, sir, but I doubt there will be anyone there to receive it.”

  “Why not?”

  “The reason for my brother coming to seek me out was because yesterday in the afternoon some men came from the town, led by the one who was formerly your clerk—” “Adam?”

  “It seems it was he, sir. He announced he and the gentleman that accompanied him, who was called Mr. Scaife, were governors of the town”—here Brigge could not prevent himself from laughing out of astonishment: Adam now governor as well as coroner? He had not been wrong to commend him to Dorcas as one ambitious and able and set for advance in the world—“and by order of the said governors had come to tell them they must leave their dwellings. My brother Exley and the other men were not then in the camp, being abroad to gather what food they could find, and on their return they discovered their cabins pulled down and the women and children crying lamentably in their ruins, saying that the governors had promised them that if they were not gone by morning they should return and set fire to whatever they found there.”

  Brigge listened but made no comment on what Starman related to him. After some moments the shepherd asked what he thought.

  “Exley should gather his family and friends and set off to seek shelter elsewhere,” Brigge said, “for Adam is most industrious in the pursuit of justice, and will keep his promise.”

  Starman looked to the ground and shifted uneasily. “If my brother cannot settle where he is and must move on, my place is with him.”

  “Are you a fool, Starman?” Brigge said. “Here you will have food and wages.” Starman looked at him as though distrusting what he heard. “Do you think you will find better employment elsewhere?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well then?”

  Starman considered for a moment. “I would be most content to remain in your service,” he said carefully. “But I should like to ask your honor if in my stead he would keep another.”

  “Who?”

  “Deborah,” Starman said. “She has greater need of your bounty and is more deserving of it, being so devoted to your son.”

  “I know nothing of her,” Brigge said, “nothing of her life before she took to trampi
ng the roads.”

  “She was born in Essex, as I understand it, your honor,” Starman said.

  “Was she married there?”

  Starman’s voice took on a guarded tone. “I have heard it said she had a husband there,” he replied.

  “What became of him?”

  “He was a bargeman and sometimes went to London about his work,” Starman said, his voice evasive. “One day he went to London and did not return.”

  “She had children by this husband?”

  Starman said nothing, and Brigge put the question again, frankly, so Starman would understand he was to answer and be plain with him.

  “Two, your honor, as I have since learned,” Starman said; he looked away over the mountain, hoping to avoid further interrogation.

  Brigge persisted. “What happened when her husband did not return?”

  Starman chewed his lip and dug at the earth with the heel of his shoe. “Having not the means to maintain herself and her children,” he began slowly, “she had no choice but to solicit relief, which, it being a poor parish already blighted with a great many begging poor, she could get but little of and so left her house and took her children to London to look for her hus-band.” “Did she find him there?”

  “She did not find her husband,” Starman answered, “but had news of him from his friends, other bargemen from Essex, and so set out on the road to Bristol, thinking him gone there by what she heard from them. She and the children wandered west and reached the city, preserving themselves with roots and acorns and berries, but nor was he her husband to be found in Bristol and, she thinking that his friends had mischievously deceived her and that her husband might yet be in London, she resolved to return but fell ill in the way near Oxford and there remained very dangerously ill and at her wits’ end and at a loss how to feed herself and her children.”