Cornish did not show himself, with or without Patience, the following day. Nor did Mister Biggin. A farmworker we had never seen before drove the cart, bearing a plain deal coffin, round to the laundry door. Caro had washed the boy’s shirt and done what she could with his other garments. Izzy folded them neatly next to the deal box and I lowered the lad in my arms until he was lying snug within it.
‘It’s him for sure?’ asked the cart driver.
For answer, I drew back the linen shielding the corpse’s face. The boy’s freckles showed greenish against the dull white skin.
The man took off his hat. ‘That’s him. God ha’ mercy.’
I pulled the shroud across again, seeing in my mind the wound with its clean folds lying one against the other. The man led the horse about, mounted to the front of the cart and cracked his whip. Our false friend jogged away over the cobbles, lapped in borrowed linen and in a silence all his own.
We never went to the funeral, for which I was glad. But our talk was of little else, and while we tormented ourselves about Walshe, Cornish and Patience, the date of my espousal to Caro was almost upon us. Lying in bed, I gave myself up to voluptuous imaginings of my wedding night, almost too sweet to bear; but when I slept there came nightmares in which I was seized by Cornish or the officers. Sometimes Christopher Walshe walked before them, pointing me out. Starting out of sleep, I would dry my face on the bolster and consider whether I dared make away with myself, rather than be arrested. Once, when my groaning had woken both myself and Izzy, my brother whispered to me, ‘Do you truly wish to be wed? Better cry off now than repent it after,’ and I answered that the dreams had nought to do with my wedding, it was the boy, sunk deep into my mind. He put his hand on my brow, to cool it, and said he also dreamt of Walshe. Izzy was the only man there that ever touched me softly, as if I were capable of being hurt.
By day, these fears seemed foolishness. None had witnessed the boy’s death, and none was come for me though he was laid in the ground.
Less than a week after the pond-dragging, I looked out of a window to see our mother crossing the courtyard. I at once ran down to her, my head filled with sudden panic, fancying that the men were in her cottage, throwing the pots about in the scullery, ripping up every bed in the house and carrying away my father’s Bible.
When we embraced her cheek lay against the buttons of my coat, and I remembered how as a child I had looked upwards into her face. The tables had been turned for many years now.
‘I hope there is nothing wrong at home,’ I said, pushing open the stiff oak door to the hall. I would never have called the cottage home except to Mother. ‘Or are you come to see Caro?’
Mother ignored Caro’s name. When the two first met, I had seen by numerous signs, which none but sons could read, that she disapproved of my choice. Having nothing however to dispense or withhold, she was forced to bow to it.
‘What should be wrong at home? I am come to thank the Mistress for a present she made me,’ she said. ‘So I might make a good show at your betrothal.’
I flushed. ‘Do we beg money now?’
‘No, son! It came without asking. O my boy – you’re grown so handsome—’ she pulled my head down and kissed all over my face—‘she’s a fortunate lass that gets you.’
Hoping that Caro would not choose this moment to come by, I held Mother off from my kiss-dampened cheeks. ‘The luck is on my side, to have such a one to wife. And such a mother,’ for her eyes told me that to praise Caro was, in my mother’s view, to dispraise herself. ‘Pray wait here a while. I’ll announce you to My Lady.’
‘You’ll take me to Zeb and Izzy after?’
I groaned inwardly. ‘Of course,’ and leaving Mother near the stairs I went up to My Lady’s chamber.
It was Caro who opened to my knock, and on seeing me she at once laughed. I guessed by this that I was the subject of their talk, but said only, ‘Will you tell Her Ladyship that my mother is here to give her thanks in person?’
‘I will come down,’ called a voice inside the room. We stood aside as the Mistress swept past.
‘Going down!’ Caro whispered.
‘Going to be fawned on for a present she made,’ I returned. ‘I had as lief not see it.’
‘Should I not go to your mother, after?’
I hesitated. ‘Let Mother see her darling boys first.’
‘Very well. Come here, Signior Jacob—’ Caro put her face up, and from her kisses I did not pull away until we heard a door open downstairs.
‘You are lucky to get me. So my mother says,’ I murmured as we listened for the sound of the Mistress coming back up.
She pinched my cheek. ‘I’d say the luck’s all the other way. My Lady has promised more—’
‘But it is agreed,’ I said, surprised. Lady Roche had already settled a dowry of thirty pounds on Caro, who said over and over that the Roches were none so bad after all, while I thought the money would be best spent in getting away from them.
Caro explained, ‘Other things. There’s a gown for the day, not so old, neither. Earrings also. And I am to have a chaplet from the gardener, with roses, or gilded wheat and rosemary.’
‘Earrings? You have not had your ears pierced?’ I did not want my wife’s lobes punctured to suit the Mistress. Lifting the edges of her cap, I was reassured to find them still whole.
She laughed. ‘The loan is only for the day. We will tie them on with silk.’
‘I would gladly have got you a gown,’ I said. ‘But we are to have an espousal, not a church wedding.’ And I dislike the Mistress making you her poppet, I thought.
‘Yes, but since we are to be espoused de praesenti, where’s the difference?’
‘I mean only that—’
‘O Jacob, you will not be thwart, I hope? There will be a bridebed and all, why not a gown? Besides, her lending it is a sign of high favour!’
‘She may well favour you. No maid else could endure her white lead and belladonna.’
Nonetheless, I found myself smiling back at her. Her gown had been hard earned.
Caro went on, ‘It is all of blue. For constancy. And heeled shoes, with silver thread—’
We kissed again.
‘Shall I not have the ring inscribed?’ Caro wheedled. ‘Eh, Husband?’
‘No,’ I said at once. We had already been over this. I did not want a ring at all, preferring a simple and godly joining of hands before our friends, but I had bent so far to her wishes as to purchase one. I would not, however, have some doggerel such as Our Contract, Was Heaven’s Act cut into it. I had done much that foolish custom requires: gloves had been purchased to give to all our friends, and a fine embroidered pair for Caro herself. In this last instance, Zeb had threatened that if I did not give way, he would shame me by furnishing the bridal gloves in my stead. I had also presented her with wedding knives, those scissors as necessary as the groom himself. All of it was very much against my will, not through meanness on my part, for I grudged the cost of nothing that I thought seemly, but I disliked this courting of good luck through