They crossed a little hunting bridge in silence. Then, as they joined the larger track that led from Far Beeches to Bedgebury, Doctor Bowler said, ‘I had thought I might compose an epithalamium.’
Zeal beamed. ‘Dear Doctor Bowler!’
‘But what of Doctor Gifford?’
‘Master Wentworth seems to know how to deal with him. I’m sure that if I say I want your epithalamium, we shall have it.’
They smiled at each other with the delicious relief of truce.
‘Would you also deck the chapel?’ she asked. ‘If Master Wentworth and I are to be united by that dispiriting Scot we can at least cheer ourselves with the sight of ivy and green boughs.’
‘And sheaves of ripe corn,’ said Bowler. ‘And pumpkins. All the bounty that autumnal Nature provides.’
‘Apples.’
‘Grapes and peaches.’ Bowler flushed with excitement. ‘It will give me great pleasure both to decorate and to compose a celebratory piece for you.’ He gazed up into the trees. ‘Seth must re-string his viol so we can march on the firm ground of his continuo.’ He hummed a few notes in an exploratory way. ‘…great pleasure.’ He seemed as relieved as she was at his relenting.
She had heard it said that Bowler failed as a clergyman because he always understood both sides of any question with equal conviction. He could not find it in himself ever to condemn. Anyone who wanted to know exactly where he or she stood in relationship to Heaven and Hell or whether to play shove ha’penny on Sunday, had to attend church in Bedgebury, where Doctor Gifford delighted in firm pronouncements, invited or otherwise.
She smiled sideways at her parson as they trudged onwards towards Bedgebury. He continued to frown and hum, waving his hands from time to time, even voicing a few notes.
How dare Doctor Gifford dismiss him as a clergyman? Though perhaps an over-forgiving shepherd for wayward sheep, Doctor Bowler gives us rich gifts of the spirit in return for his milk and eggs.
She glanced over her shoulder at the straggling procession behind them.
From among those walkers Bowler had formed a chapel choir of an excellence surprising in such a rural backwater. For this choir, he composed psalms and hymns exactly suited to their voices. From among those same estate residents, he also mustered and tutored a consort of instruments, which included his own fiddle, a double bass viol, a viola da gamba, several pipes, a tabor and the smith’s great drum. He and this crew played for church festivals and for dancing on secular feast days with equal fervour and delight. But Bowler’s unique gift was his voice.
It was high, but not falsetto, nor was it a simulacrum of a woman’s soprano, like the voice of an Italian castrato. Its piercing purity of tone suggested some other instrument than a human voice, an instrument not known on earth, the vibrating of a silver reed blown only in Heaven.
Bowler loved to sing as much as he disliked making judgements. For feverish children, who saw wolves and demons among the bed curtains, he stood diffidently in the sick chamber and sang light into the shadows and smiling faces onto the foot of the bed. He sang a small green grass snake into his pocket and a robin onto the corner of the pillow.
For the dying, he sang stars of light into dusty folds of hangings. He sang the smell of fresh pine and the sweetness of witch hazel blooms. He sang long-vanished faces around the bed. He sang clear still water. He sang rest.
For the others, he sang rising barn walls, candles, leaping flames, magic cups that were always full. Sweet meats and diamonds. Golden arrows for the hunter’s bow. God. He could sing warmth around the heart, lightness beneath the ribs, fizzing in the belly. He could lift the hair on your neck with the sound of hope.
For Zeal, Doctor Bowler’s music would bless her strange, uncomfortable marriage with a joy she saw nowhere else. She did not see that she had just declared war against an unreasoning enemy, with her little parson as both ally and cause.
Gifford nodded with gratification when he saw their party arrive in the Bedgebury parish church. Heads turned in the congregation. Some bent together to whisper. Elbows nudged ribs.
Zeal missed the pleasure of singing hymns and had difficulty suppressing yawns during Gifford’s long sermon on the spiritual perils of revolt. She found the undecorated stone walls of the parish church astonishingly plain for a house of God. Otherwise all seemed well enough, until they left.
Doctor Gifford stood in the porch bidding farewell to his sheep. As Zeal and Bowler stepped out into the sunlight, he gave the parson a letter.
‘But I am certain, madam, that you will wish to note the contents.’
Zeal knew instantly that she would not wish any such thing but, mindful of the caution voiced by Wentworth and Sir Richard, she bade the minister a civil farewell.
Bowler clearly shared her premonition about the letter. He fanned himself with it, unopened. He shoved it into his pocket, then took it out again. He studied the outside as if for a hint of what lay within. He sighed.
‘We both know we won’t like whatever’s in it,’ she said. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
Bowler nodded and broke Gifford’s seal. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said after a moment. All colour drained from his cheeks. He held the letter out to her. ‘What are we to do now?’
Doctor Gifford wrote:
…I am gratified to inform you that at the last vestry meeting it was agreed to ban the decadent Roman practice of playing music in church services of any sort, throughout the parish from this date forward. All Psalms are henceforth to be read, not sung. All prayers must be spoken. Any making of music during holy worship (full list of occasions given below for avoidance of confusion) will be deemed a return to the outlawed practices of the Church of Rome. All violations will be punished with fines or other more severe penalties, at the discretion of the vestry council. May God’s hand guide you always, Yours most sincerely, in Christian brotherhood…
‘We ignore it,’ said Zeal. ‘If I don’t have your music to buoy up my spirits, I don’t think I can go through with the wedding at all.’
‘Oh.’ Bowler looked both pleased and alarmed. ‘My dear. Goodness.’ He blushed but bit his lower lip at the same time. Then he looked at her with concern.
‘I’ll pay the fines,’ she said, pretending to misunderstand his real question. ‘I’ll say I ordered the music. Don’t fear. What with summer plague and a war in Scotland, and no parliament and all the new taxes, people have more important matters to worry about than whether I have music at my confounded wedding.’ She folded the letter and stuffed it into her sleeve. ‘Don’t tell anyone else about this yet.’
They turned back onto their own track along the river and walked a silent, thoughtful furlong. Then Bowler began to hum. ‘“Praise Him with timbrel and dance,”’ he sang quietly. ‘“Praise ye the Lord.”’
‘And so we shall!’ She felt lighter for having at last hinted to someone how she really felt about the marriage, in spite of all those approving nods from Reason.
Having been given licence by Zeal, Bowler went to work with fervour. She sometimes wondered whether it was wise to defy Gifford. Then she heard Bowler’s plangent counter-tenor leading the estate children in rehearsal among the trees beyond the ponds. From time to time, the heavy clanging rhythms from the forge gave way to the boom of the smith’s drum. Twice she caught groups of girls practising a dance with garlands.
Mind you, she reassured herself, Gifford’s letter did not forbid dance. She knew that she should warn Sir Richard of all they planned. He must have had a letter