The Dandelion Seed (15 page)

Annabelle had watched this garden drama from behind the parlour window, and now she waited white-lipped and nervous for Thomas’ knock on the door. What could she say? Was he to be trusted? Her mind was in a whirl. She would have to tell him the truth; he would never be content till he knew it. ‘Oh God protect us,’ she whispered.

There was a gentle tap on her door and Thomas entered, hat in hand. His dark eyes looked perplexed and his mouth set in that downward curve that had earned him the name of Dour Thomas. Annabelle was usually delighted to have any visit from Thomas but today she was nervous because she knew that he was furious. Her white hand hovered shakily over the silver tray as she poured wine into two crystal goblets and handed him one.

Once the ritual of hospitality was over, she sat silently in her chair waiting for him to begin the conversation.

He was certainly abrupt. ‘It would probably be no surprise to you, Madam, that I wish to marry Marcelle.’

‘It’s as I expected,’ Annabelle replied. ‘And she has refused you.’

‘But she tells me an impossible story, insisting that she has had a lover and is with child.’ He half smiled as he repeated the story. He felt reassured, for it was all so improbable.

Annabelle clutched her hands nervously in her lap. ‘I regret to tell you, Thomas, that it is quite true.’

He stared disbelievingly at her. ‘You mean that someone has tampered with that young girl?’ He rose, the veins in his forehead showed thick as the blood rose to his head. ‘What soundrel did that?’ he shouted. ‘And whatever possessed you to allow it, Annabelle, while she was in your care?’

Annabelle stood up to calm him. ‘Please, Thomas, listen to me,’ she pleaded. ‘I am at my wit’s ends, it is such a strange story.’

Thomas’ dark eyes glowed with temper as he sat listening to Annabelle’s tale of her late-night guests, and of how she had recognized the prince and of how, without her knowledge, Marcelle had tried to help the prince and taken him back to his bed. That, she told him, must have been the time when this dreadful fate had befallen her.

‘Oh my God!’ Thomas held his hands to his head until Annabelle had come to the end of her story. ‘They will crucify her, poor little Marcelle,’ he burst out. ‘Annabelle, swear to me that no one else knows the identity of her lover, not even Marcelle, I hope.’

‘She does not know,’ confirmed Annabelle. ‘He left here without even a farewell wave in the early morning.’

Thomas stood up and then began to pace the room. ‘Are you sure that the secret will remain with us?’

Annabelle immediately remembered Frances and hesitated. Thomas’ dark eyes bore down on her but she remained calm.

‘No one knows but us,’ she replied hesitantly. ‘Not even Abe.’

‘Good! Then your next duty is to persuade Marcelle to marry me.’

‘But Thomas,’ Annabelle protested. ‘Would you deliberately cuckold thyself?’ Her mouth dropped open, she was well and truly shocked.

‘I would go to any lengths to protect that girl,’ he replied. ‘You know the fate of an unwedded woman who tries to take care of a child in this part of the country.’

‘I do indeed,’ Annabelle whispered, ‘and a house of correction would kill her, poor child.’

‘Well, do be sensible, Annabelle. Tell her that today I will go and set up the banns and in three Sundays we will be wed. In that way she will have the protection of my name and even if I do not return from this voyage, whatever I possess will then be hers.’

Annabelle was wiping away her tears. ‘You are a great man, Thomas Mayhew,’ she cried. ‘There are very few who would be as noble and as generous as you in these circumstances.’

‘Never mind,’ he said curtly. ‘Talk to the child. I’ll wait downstairs for an answer.’

Annabelle departed upstairs to Marcelle’s room, where she talked to her of the forthcoming baby, of how if it were to be born out of wedlock the stigma would last all its life, and how Thomas would give her and the baby protection if she married him. ‘Please, darling. Thomas loves you and wants to look after you,’ begged Annabelle.

Marcelle was a soft gentle person but weak and easily swayed. In no time she had consented.

When the women returned downstairs to Thomas, Marcelle placed her hand in his and said: ‘I am sorry, dear Thomas, for what I have done, but if you take care of my baby I will be a good and devoted wife to you, this I promise with all my heart.’

There was a lump in Thomas’ throat as he put his arms protectingly about her. ‘I will go to the New World and make a peaceful happy place for us and the child out there. But first of all I will return in three weeks, when we will be wed.’

‘Farewell, my love,’ he said, as he rode away.

The date for the wedding had been fixed. It was to be kept a secret, though in a small village it was not easy to do that.

The priest always gossiped with his parishioners about the births, deaths and marriages in his area and besides, Annabelle owned a fair-sized property and she was obliged to include her servants in the festivities. In no time, word was sent around the village that a wedding was to take place at Craig Alva in a couple of weeks. The maids retrimmed their best dresses, the Morris dancers rehearsed every day, and the old folk of the village eagerly looked forward to the extra food and drink.

Marcelle continued with her work taking little or no interest in all the preparations for her wedding, and Annabelle became quite impatient with her. After all, getting married was to be the girl’s highest honour.

Only Abe showed kindness and came to see Marcelle with cool drinks after her bouts of early morning sickness. Thomas had sent her a pretty green gown to be married in, and Will, who had brought the gown from London, was full of good humour, for he was to join the King’s Players.

Will had brought with him a friend, an actor and a fine musician named Ned. Ned had a strange-looking head, and his hair seemed to start way back from his forehead, but he had a pleasant, soft-speaking voice and was a restful sort of young man. At night they all sat around the fire in the inn while Ned read parts from the various plays he had acted in.

Soon the big day arrived. It was a clear, cool crisp October day and there was a light layer of frost on the rooftops which foretold the coming of winter. Marcelle looked from her bedroom window to the garden below. A late yellow rose bloomed still on an isolated bush, and she surveyed it with affection for she had grown very fond of Annabelle’s garden. She had had strange dreams in the night. She had heard that young man sobbing again but this time so loud that she had gone to the dark, unlit guest chamber, and it almost seemed as though the slim, red-haired young man held out his arms to her. She grew afraid and, shivering and sweating, she ran back to her room. Perhaps it was the devil whom Annabelle had suggested had seduced her.

That same morning, in his lodgings, Thomas dressed for his wedding. The finished product certainly looked very dandy. He had discarded his messenger’s uniform and replaced it with his best brown velvet knee-length coat with a smart white collar and slightly lighter tight pantaloons. He brushed his hair and trimmed his beard, while all the time receiving wry comments from his two very dissolute room-mates who had had a very late night.

‘My, Thomas, do not tell us that you have at last found a lady to please you?’ One mocked. ‘I was beginning to think that a gentleman would be his choice.’ They nudged each other and went into fits of giggles like young girls.

Thomas, however, only scowled at them and continued with his toilet.

‘So you have left dear Robert,’ said one. ‘I heard news that will surprise you.’

But Thomas paid no heed to their gossip.

‘They do say his Royal Highness is very ill. He collapsed at a tennis match yesterday.’

This time Thomas stopped what he was doing and looked round at the youth who had spoken. He was lounging on the bed. This rumour had been around before, Thomas thought, and then pulling impatiently at his shirt cuffs, he swore out loud.

His friends looked at each other, for it was not like Thomas to be foul-mouthed.

Then in an even louder voice, Thomas said: ‘Curse him! I hope he dies. And curses on the whole damned lot of them – old Jamie as well.’

The youths were too shocked even to answer.

Picking up his bag, Thomas said; ‘The rent is paid till the end of the year. I will not be back and you two bastards can take the quickest road to hell as soon as you like.’ The door slammed and Dour Thomas had left.

‘God,’ said one to the other, ‘what is wrong? Maybe he got a dose of something.’

‘It’s just pre-nuptial nerves, I fear,’ said the other.

Thomas made his way to the Temple, where he handed to his friend expert in legal affairs a file containing his will and advice on the family property he was likely to inherit in Dorset.

The white-haired lawyer shook hands with Thomas and wished him Godspeed. Thomas then went to the stables, collected his horses and set off for his own wedding which was to be at three o’clock that afternoon.

The little church was bright and gay with flowers and the parson in his new cassock peered short-sightedly at Marcelle and Thomas Mayhew as he joined them in holy matrimony. Indeed, he thought they were an unusual couple, and both seemed rather unhappy. But the parson knew that in these troubled times one did not ask too many questions. He himself was still a Baptist at heart and glanced furtively to one side as the bride, at the end of the ceremony, made the sign of the cross. The young maid did look very sweet, he thought, in a green dress with large slashed sleeves which revealed glimpses of yellow satin to match the handmade flowers on her little cap.

Will gave the bride away and Annabelle was the only other witness to sign any legal papers.

As Marcelle held on to Thomas’ arm, she thought how different she had once thought her wedding would be. She had once believed that it would be a great exciting day, a day to remember all her life. But instead she felt sick and depressed. Tears ran down her cheeks and fell in drops upon her dress.

Thomas held her hand tightly, and worried how she would manage while he was away. But go he must – partly for pride and partly for money. ‘Please, God, take care of her,’ he prayed as she swore to love, honour and obey him.

Outside the church, the village children, dressed in their Sunday best, threw rose petals in the path of the bride and groom and one woman called out good wishes to them. Marcelle and Thomas climbed up into a farm wagon and set off for their reception with all the villagers marching along behind singing and laughing, all ready and willing to join in the grand feast that had been prepared for them.

Several hours later Thomas stood surveying the scene at the end of the long garden. The rowdy villagers were still in full swing celebrating his wedding, while on a small hillock, under a tree, stood Will and his new companion. Will was plucking at his viol while his friend Ned scraped frantically on the fiddle. Young men and maids held each other about the waist and whirled round and round. In the centre near the lawn, the elderly guests sat in troupes, drinking from long jugs, their voices joining in the songs or telling lewd jokes. They were crouched together, their red caps on their heads all awry. Thomas looked at Will’s friend more closely and thought how much he looked like Will Shakespeare with that same head of chestnut hair receding from his forehead.

Beside Thomas sat Abe very full of beer, and next to him was the stout form of the village innkeeper. Together they talked of simple pleasures – badger hunting and fishing in the land of hills and dales, where they had both come from. Their voices were loud and merry, such straightforward men, with no axes to grind, and free to live and work without caring for the world outside. It was the sort of life Thomas dreamed of for Marcelle and himself.

Annabelle had taken Marcelle to her room. The guests in their lusty way had wanted to bed the bride and groom themselves, taking them to the bridal chamber, undressing them both and putting them to bed together with many rude jests. But Annabelle would have none of this, and no one dare defy her. So the guests contented themselves with eating and drinking as much as possible, but not a few were heard to remark that being refused the honour of bedding the couple had spoilt the wedding, and they sat desolate over their beer.

It was beginning to get dark and soon the guests would depart. Thomas thought that he should go up to Marcelle but a strange shyness held him out in the garden watching the gambols of the villagers, and so he lingered on. Just before twilight, a breathless hush came over the countryside and the sky shone red just before the hovering sun disappeared. It was at this moment, under the tall eves of the house, that a small shuttered window was flung open, and there appeared a head with thin, untidy locks and a straggly beard. The musicians stopped playing, the dancers stopped and everyone looked up. Merlin put his strange thin face out of the window and looked down just as the church bell boomed out in the distance. All eyes turned in the direction of the tall steeple. Again and again the bell boomed out. It was not the gay call of wedding bells or even the calling to church; just the dull clang clang of the toll of death. The maids screamed and hid their faces and their escorts put an arm of protection about them while the old folk huddled close together.

Merlin let out a strange cackle, pulled back his shaggy head, and slammed the shutters.