Against my expectation, Helena received my suggestion that we attend church with sober, if not eager, agreement. I had considered it carefully, thinking that it might be an occasion for her to be seen by Yedder and his friend Thomas Aikin, and decided I should not let it stand in the way of what was right. There was little likelihood of them recognising my wife in her Sunday attire as the wild creature they had danced with by moonlight in the lane.
I had mentioned it to her that evening, and she had agreed before firmly closing the door to her room once more. She had not re-emerged; she refused all offers of sustenance. I protested that she was not thinking clearly and that she must eat, but I made my protest to the blank, closed door. Church, at least, was another promising sign that she was feeling somewhat improved.
Now God’s sun shone down upon sinner and saint alike and all was harmonious. Helena emerged from her room wearing the same pale grey gown she had worn for Lizzie’s funeral, but I pushed that remembrance aside; I had our future to think of and I was determined not to dwell upon the past, not today. Divine service would be refreshing for us both, body and soul. We could think upon our Creator and the world and our little place within it, and it would be just the thing to restore Helena to herself.
I could not help but speculate upon what might pass for a Sunday service in these parts. The parson had shown himself capable of droning dullness and lightning admonishments; I wondered which he would loose upon the world today. And the congregation—surely they would be capable of all kinds of hoydenism and clownishness? I pictured a seething mass of them in their smock-frocks, all crossing themselves at the name of our Saviour, spitting at the name of the Devil and smiting their breasts at the name of Judas.
As for those who seek them out—those who go looking to find evil—why, they shall find it, sir, and only harm shall come to them!
I sighed. They might do well to spit and cross themselves at such things, if it only helped them remember not to listen to such foolishness.
But the parson hadn’t really thought it foolish, had he?
At that moment the distant sound of the church bells rang out, calling all men to worship. I took a deep breath and held out my arm for Helena. She took it, as silently as she had done everything else.
I had hoped that we might fall in with Mrs. Calthorn and her son, possibly even receive an invitation to join them in their pew, since they had shown Helena some kindness—it would not only be hospitable but it would surely remove another difficulty, that of where to sit. Each pew was no doubt rented and paid for, the province of a particular family; doubtless it would have been for generations.
This led me to no little sense of awkwardness as we entered through the old grey door and passed into the shady, stone-smelling narthex. There was much rustling of skirts and the murmur of voices, all rising and mingling in a ceaseless whisper. The squire’s mother was already in her place in the most easterly seat of the foremost pew, her head bowed. She looked at no one, and her son, leaning back with his arms spread along the back of the seat, stared only upwards. His posture would have been more suited to a settle in the inn.
Farmers and their wives, labouring men with their boots newly polished, maids, mothers, grand-dames, all were taking their places in some social order of which I could make out nothing. Of course, the wise woman was not present. I had not for a moment thought she would be.
The air remained warm inside the church, despite its stone walls filled with shadows. The parson was ready, standing to one side of the pulpit, his hands clasped. His lips were twisted into a semblance of permanent displeasure in spite of the size of the congregation. I half expected that he would notice us and usher us into a pew, but he did not; he was focused not upon the faces around him but a little above their heads, seeing only the ineffable rather than the earthly.
I handed Helena into a seat a little towards the front of the church, and turned to see a burly farmer, barely smothering his indignation at our imposition. I opened my mouth to make some apology, but he turned away, shaking his head. He squeezed onto another row, making rather a noise about it, to some little sound of protest. I ignored it; surely all men could find a place here without turning the admittance of strangers into a matter of disruption? Where had these people been hiding when the time had come to bury my cousin, one of their own? My hand, unbidden, went to my pocket, where I had been wont to find that little lock of hair, but Helena grasped my fingers before I could, with a wiry clutch that did not speak much of affection. Her own hand remained quite cold.
A whisper came from somewhere behind me. “Aye—that’s ’im.”
There was something else I could not hear, then, “Thowt ’e would ’ave gone ’ome. Mustn’t ’ave owt to do.”
“Likes it up there, does ’e? Pokin’ about—”
I scowled at their insolence and looked around, but I could not identify the speakers. I did notice Ivy, sitting two rows behind me, and next to her Mrs. Gomersal and her other daughter, but they stared straight ahead. The boy was as blank as ever, and his mother turned his head with her hand, correcting his wandering attention.
There was no young girl with an infant anywhere within the church.
The parson cleared his throat. “Sun and rain,” he said. “Rain and sun: both fall alike on a land blessed by God and both are needed, though they may not be welcomed alike. Without God’s bounteous gifts the wheat will not grow. Without the rain, it will wither where it stands.” He looked about, though his stern eyes fixed on nothing.
“But what of the land that turns its face away—what of the land that pays no heed to God’s ways? Why then should we blame the Lord when His people reject His bounty? What should He care if they should choose to take care of their own? It is God’s judgement if they do not live. It is God’s judgement if they do not flourish. And they shall not flourish!” He slapped his hand down upon the pulpit next to the open Bible, which I do not believe he had once glanced at. I thought of a cup of tea jumping in its saucer, but the sound rang louder and longer, echoing from the rafters, and something stirred up there, an almost inaudible rustling. Helena, next to me, let her head fall back and stared upward. I squeezed her fingers, but it was like touching something inert and an image rose before me: another hand, a cold, blackened hand.
“They shall—not—flourish!” The parson enunciated each word, this time glaring into each face before him, one after the next. In the brief silence, no one moved; no one even breathed. Then came the tap of an idle boot swinging against its seat from somewhere behind me and I knew that it was her child: Mrs. Gomersal’s elfin boy. Next to me, Helena let out a breath. I looked at her, startled, not so much because of the volume of the sound but because it had been laced with amusement.
“They shall be unwelcome in God’s house.”
I shifted uncomfortably. Of all the gathered host, the ones most unwelcome in God’s house must have been my wife and me: outsiders, unwelcome; we did not understand the lives being lived around us.
“They shall not lie in consecrated ground,” the parson went on, speaking as if one point had led to the other, though his meaning was dark to me. “Exiled!” He thumped the pulpit again and Helena let out a spurt of air, not a sound of alarm but again, thinly veiled amusement. She tried to remove her hand from mine and I endeavoured to hold onto it; then it was gone. I had felt no response, no warmth, no familiarity. It was as if we were not connected in any way at all.
“We shall join our voices in hymn, ‘Lord, Ever Bridle My Desires’. We shall remind ourselves of the fruits of temperance and goodness. When we are joined, it must be within God’s fold and under His eye and within His love. Then, and only then, we become a family; when we are within the greater family of this village and, greater still, within God’s family. Then, and only then, will that family last—when its foundation is built upon a rock!”
I thought I could begin to make out which way his words tended. I could not think why he had chosen today for his execrations; had he too expected the girl to attend? Or was he ever harping upon this? Did he take pleasure in seeking out any hint of unseemliness so that he could delight in reproving it?
“Children are born within that love of a man and a woman, joined in the sacrament of marriage. Within that fold. Then, welcomed and Christened, they are safe within God’s family for always. They will never be lost. They will never wander in the wilderness—”
From somewhere behind me, someone shifted; there came a low grunt.
“—they will grow beneath the sun, draw sustenance from the rain, and from the love of both mother and father, and from the love they hold for one another—”
A sharp sound escaped Helena’s lips. I stole a glance at her. Her hand was pressed to her mouth, but she was smiling under it. I could see it plainly; anybody could.
“Helena,” I whispered, my tone one of warning, but it was of no use. As if in answer, a bark of laughter emerged from her lips, as sudden as a convulsion. It was louder than the parson’s voice.
I did not see those around me, but I heard them shifting, turning to look at her; to look at us. I saw the eyes staring from the corner of my vision. The parson did not speak. Was he too staring at my wife? My wife—my dear Helena, my modest, calm, composed Helena, who now let out another peal of coarse laughter.
My eyes opened wider as she rocked in her pew. “Helena!” I did not know what to do. I had never before experienced such a thing. I looked around helplessly, seeing the worst: the shocked eyes watching us, judging us, unblinking with the force of their disapprobation—nay, of their disbelief—and then Helena laughed again, dissolving with it so that tears poured down her cheeks.
I did the only thing I could think of. I grasped her more tightly, my fingers sinking deeply into the flesh of her arm, and I began to pull her towards the end of the pew. Thankfully, no one had been seated next to us; there was none to bar our way.
The parson did not react. As I watched, a ray of sunlight speared through the window at his back, bright as a sudden bolt of lightning, casting his face into darkness. I could no longer see his expression; I did not need to, for it was echoed in the faces all around us. The whole village was staring.
“Pardon me,” I said, my voice low but audible enough in the silence following my wife’s strange fit. She did not laugh now, but tears still spilled from her eyes; I did not know if they were of sorrow or mirth.
“My wife is ill,” I said again. “Pray, excuse us.” I half dragged her to her feet, thinking for an awful moment that she would sink to the floor; and then she stood and I put my arm around her and supported her. I did not look back until we reached the door, which I dragged open with one hand. It scraped dreadfully against the stone, underlining our egress, and then we once more stood in the burning heat of the day. I shut it after us, and all sound from within was mercifully cut off.
Helena stared at me as if she did not know what could be the matter, or how she came to be standing there. I grasped her shoulders. It took great effort to refrain from shaking her. I had expected this day to bring examples of ill behaviour; I had not expected them to arise from within my own family. My shame redoubled the heat bearing down upon us from the sky. I did not admonish her as I had intended; I closed my eyes and swayed. I murmured, Wife—nothing more than that.
She did not answer until I opened my eyes. She was peering at me just as a student of the sciences might examine a specimen under a microscope, as we had once looked upon the exhibits in the Crystal Palace—
No. No, that had not been Helena—
Her mouth twisted, as if she could see all my thoughts and knew my mistake.
“Am I?” she whispered. “Am I your wife, Albie? Do we love one another? Is our child to feel the sun and rain upon its face?”
I did not understand. Sun? Rain? I cared for none of her words; I could see none of it, only this ruined moment, here, now; our disgrace and our shame. I turned from her and began walking towards the cottage, seizing her arm as I did, drawing her along with me. She stumbled and would have fallen but I held her up, kept pulling her with me.
What must they think of us? All had seen, except the girl I had thought to hire as a maid—a girl mired in debauchery—and yet now we were as shamed as anybody. Who would deign to cross our threshold now?
There was no choice left to me. I must take Helena away. We must flee this place and hope this did not follow us all the way to London.
I stopped suddenly. What if it did follow us? Worse still, what if Helena behaved in this fashion in the City—before our acquaintances—before my father? No, I could not countenance it. I could not permit it. There might be no place remaining for us here, but we surely could not return home. There was no choice left to us at all.
With gratitude, I saw that we had reached the bridge. At least I could be thankful for the isolation of the cottage, which was as peaceful and calm and quiet as it had ever been; there, we should be away from it all. It had become our little haven, a gift from my cousin.
The back of my neck burned. I did not know if it was from the sun—God’s sun—or from the thought of the church somewhere behind me, or of those eyes . . .
Helena began to sing, softly, and in a mocking tone. I half expected the folk tune she had sung before, something about a sweet morning and a fairy girl, but it was not:
All things bright and beautiful . . .
I whirled, and this time I did shake her, until she could sing no longer; her teeth rattled in her skull. “What do you think, to sing that song?” I demanded. “It is hers—hers!”
She stared at me, shocked, at last, as she should have been.
I went on: “It was my cousin’s song. Her voice was sweet—yours—”
Her expression hardened. “Mine is not? Is that what you meant, Albie? Ah, little Lizzie, the sweetest little Linnet, her song so much more beautiful than my own.”
“It was. It was!” I pulled away from her, breathing heavily. The words had spilled from me without thought; it was too late to take them back.
I did not know how she would reply, but for a moment she said nothing. She merely pointed towards the sky. “Do you hear that?”
I realised there was something: a bird’s voice, rising into the air. At first all was music, then it gave way to a rough chatter that was almost unpleasant. It went on in that way, richness interspersed with shrillness, until I became conscious once more of Helena’s stare.
“There is your linnet, is it not?” she said, and she laughed to see my expression. “How it shrieks!”
My eyes narrowed in fury. I wished to tell her just what I thought: that her actions had made her ugly to me; but I did not say it; I only drew away from her in disgust. Shadows hung about her face like a cloud and I could no longer read what was written there. Had she only been teasing me with some notion of her recovery? I wanted to remonstrate, to question her, to say anything to establish that yes, here was my own dear wife; but not a sound emerged. It was as if my voice had been witched away.
Querulous, I thought. Unnatural. Shrew.
Her expression was blank, and yet there was a sense of brooding power all about her, concentrated in her once-beautiful eyes. I did not like the way she stared at me. I felt that she could see my every emotion, my every thought, and it made me unaccountably afraid; yet I could do nothing. For a moment I could not even move. I could not look away, nor hide myself, nor change into something that would please her. I was only what I was; I could not fathom what she had become.
In the next instant she had turned and was hurrying ahead of me, away onto Pudding Pye Hill. I did not go after her. I would not take her arm. I gazed up at the summit. I could just make out the rough outline of the barrow against God’s pure blue sky. I do not know how long I stared. I did not know what it was that I should do.