A Crowning Mercy Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked at the table instead.
    'Sit down, brother! Sit down!' Her father was forcing jollity into his voice, a heavy-handed jollity that was only used with guests. 'Well?'
    'Yes, indeed yes.' Scammell hitched up his breeches, scooped his coat aside and scraped his chair forward. 'Indeed.'
    'And?'
    Campion looked up, alerted by the inconsequential words. She frowned.
    Scammell was smiling at her, his nostrils cavernous. He wiped his hands together, then dried them on his coat. '"Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."'
    'Amen,' Matthew Slythe said.
    'Praise the Lord,' Ebenezer said.
    'Indeed and indeed,' Samuel Scammell said.
    Campion said nothing. A coldness was on her, a fear at the very centre of her.
    Her father looked at her and quoted from the same chapter of Proverbs. '"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised."'
    'Amen,' said Brother Scammell.
    'And amen,' said Ebenezer.
    'Well?' asked Matthew Slythe.
    Samuel Scammell licked his lips, smiled, and patted his stomach. 'I am honoured by your offer, Brother Slythe, and have laid it prayerfully before the Lord. It is my fervent belief that I must accept.'
    'Amen.'
    Scammell looked at Campion. 'We are to be united as husband and wife, Miss Slythe. A happy day, indeed and indeed.'
    'Amen,' said Ebenezer.
    Scammell looked at Ebenezer. 'We are to be brothers, Ebenezer, in family as in God.'
    'Praise Him.'
    She had known, she had known, but she had not dared accept the knowledge. Her fear burned, tears pricked at her, but she would not cry in front of them. Her father was smiling at her, not in love, but as an enemy might smile when he sees his foe humiliated. 'Brother Hervey will read the banns beginning this Lord's Day.'
    She nodded, incapable of fighting him. She was to be married in one month. She would be Dorcas for ever. Dorcas Slythe would become Dorcas Scammell, and she could never be Campion.
    'Amen and amen,' said Samuel Scammell, 'a happy day!'
3
    'You must be happy.' Goodwife's words before breakfast sounded to Campion like an order.
    'I'm so happy for you,' Charity had said glumly, wishing herself to be married.
    'Praise be, Dorcas,' Myrtle said and Myrtle was perhaps the only happy person in Werlatton Hall, for the dairy maid was half-witted.
    'You're much blessed in your intended,' said Ebenezer, his dark eyes unreadable.
    She knew she had no right to be unhappy. She had always known that she was a chattel, to be disposed of as her father wished. That was the way of fathers and daughters, and she could not expect anything different. Yet even in her darkest moods she would not have dreamed of Brother Samuel Scammell.
    After morning prayers, when she turned to the door to go to the dairy, her father checked her. 'Daughter.'
    'Father.'
    'You are betrothed now.'
    'Yes, father.'
    He stood, big and powerful beside the lectern, Scammell a few paces behind. Light from a stair window slanted on to Matthew Slythe's dark and ponderous face. 'You will no longer work in the dairy. You must prepare yourself for marriage.'
    'Yes, father.'
    'You will acquaint yourself with the household accounts.' He frowned. 'You have the freedom now to walk to the village in Brother Scammell's company.'
    She kept her head low. 'Yes, father.'
    'You will walk there this morning with him. I have a letter you must give to Brother Hervey.'
    They walked between hedgerows heavy with cow parsley and ragwort, away from Werlatton Hall and down the slope to where lady's smock and meadowsweet grew. Beyond the stream, where a bank climbed towards the beech trees, Campion could see the blaze of pink-red where the campions grew. The sight almost made her cry. She was now to be Dorcas for ever, the mother of Samuel Scammell's children. She wondered if she could ever love children