The Solitary Envoy (32 page)
Their footfalls sounded like softest rain.
That is what Erica would always remember. She and Anne Crowley had been taken to the home of Mrs. Long, a friend of Anne’s and a member of her congregation. Their hostess fretted over the rumors being true. Erica probably said a few polite words about the lady’s home. But the front parlor’s window drew her like a magnet.
Manchester was formerly a medieval trading center, and the center of town had held both the guildhalls and the city’s richest merchants. This was a very fine house, rebuilt any number of times and faced with Cotswold stone. Three tall sash windows overlooked St. Peter’s Field, the city’s central square. The sill where Erica leaned her arms was the color of soft butter in the dim light. It was a far cry from the squalor and dusty hovels on the outskirts of town.
Mrs. Long came and wrung her hands and fretted over the people and the riffraff and the soldiers and the state of the nation. Finally Mrs. Crowley recognized that Erica was trying hard to concentrate, to observe everything as Gareth would have wished. She took her friend by the arm and led her to the kitchen off the back hallway, where they could sit and have a nice chat in peace.
The marchers were not used to being here in the center of things. Erica was so close she could see the astonishment and hesitancy on many faces. That and the hunger. They entered the central square with rounded eyes and sunken cheeks. There was awe, especially on the children’s faces. And there was desperation.
They gathered over on the far side, where a makeshift stand had been erected. Upon this stood a trio of a man and two women. They were dressed in the same severe black as the regulars at the Audley Chapel. The first man rose and began addressing the crowd through a funnel-shaped mouthpiece, no doubt meant to amplify his voice. Erica saw that he held a book in one hand stretched out over his head. Another Dissenter, she decided. Probably a pastor. She debated whether or not to go out to the square. She knew her aunt would object. Strangely enough, this had come to mean a very great deal to her. She did not want to displease her newest friend. But the question was, what would Gareth want her to do?
Erica had no way of guessing the numbers, but she would have supposed there must have been five thousand or more. Some shouted back in response to whatever it was the leader was saying, but most of them huddled together, clutching at their children and listening.
More and more people continued to join them. The square was a quarter-mile wide, and before the first man finished addressing the crowd, the square was three-quarters full. Erica decided there was little to be gained by joining them. She could not have hoped to get closer to the front, the people were so tightly packed together. And at least from this perch she could see everything.
More footsteps began approaching from one of the side streets to her right. These were joined by more from her left. The footsteps were so loud many of those closest to where she sat turned to see what was happening. She saw their eyes go round a second time. Erica did not realize she had risen to her feet until her head bumped the frame of the open window. Those were not footfalls scraping against the cobblestones. They were hoofbeats.
The sight of the first line of troops froze her blood. They were royal horse guards, and they carried the long staves of combat. Their horses’ flanks were sweating in the sun. Their helmets and breastplates gleamed in the bright light. They looked menacing. Evil.
The spokesman on the makeshift stand faltered. The entire crowd was turning now as the cavalry began spreading out. Erica watched as they made a double-filed line around the back of the square, so that eight of them were almost directly below her window.
The horses stomped and pawed at the earth. The crowd began muttering and backing away. The dark-suited man upon the stand called for them to stand fast. They were unarmed; they had every right to gather.
The officer barked a command. Erica could not hear the words, but the front rank of horsemen swept back their cloaks and drew pistols. The officer barked again, and the horsemen took careful aim.
“No!”
She was not aware that she had screamed. The crowd was screaming as well now. Children were being passed back through the throng, away from the horsemen, stuffed into doorways and shunted down side lanes. People were streaming away, but the lanes were narrow, and there were so many people. Thousands of them.
“Fire!”
Erica screamed again, this time joined by the voices of Mrs. Crowley and their host. But none of them could even hear their own sounds, for the square was filled with shots and smoke and shrieks.
“Charge!”
The cavalry reslung their arms, aimed their staves, and drove straight at the crowd.
Erica’s legs would no longer hold her. Mrs. Crowley pulled the weeping Mrs. Long away from the sight. Then she came back and tried to draw Erica away from the window as well. Erica was sobbing so hard she could scarcely take in enough breath to keep from choking. She wanted to tell her aunt to leave her be, to get away from the window; there was no need for both of them to suffer through the anguish of what was unfolding down below. But she could not find enough breath to do more than weep. She could not even wipe away the tears. All she could manage was to hold on to the windowsill and keep her face pointed at the square and try her best to see through her tears.
When they managed to return to Anne Crowley’s home, it was to discover that Daniel already had the coach ready and waiting. They did not need to ask how he knew. Each person’s face was somber—a complete contrast to the bright sky overhead. Erica sent him to try and ascertain the numbers. It was hard to form the words, but again Daniel seemed to understand; he did not ask numbers of what. Erica knew that to say more than that would have broken her yet again. They packed in haste. The cook had prepared a fine meal, but Erica could not bear even to look at the food. Mrs. Crowley merely shook her head at the thought. The cook packed the food in two hampers for the return journey. As soon as Daniel returned, more grim-faced than ever, they were off.
They spent hours in silence, but now it was the quiet of two close friends, drawn ever more tightly together by the sharing of what they had just seen. It was late into the afternoon before Erica found the strength to say, “I do not see how God could permit that to happen.”
Her aunt nodded.
Erica squeezed the damp handkerchief to her cheeks once more. The scenes remained branded upon her mind and heart. “I want to understand.”
“I know.”
“But this horror …”
Mrs. Crowley slipped across the carriage to settle into the seat alongside Erica. “My late husband came to the cloth late in life. Previously he was a successful solicitor. He had such a gift when speaking on the eternal truths. Such fervor, such gentle passion. We lived in Nova Scotia for a number of years; then the church here begged my husband to return. At first we intended to preside over a revival and then go back to Canada. But while here we both felt called to remain and shepherd this flock. My happiest moments have been sitting and listening to my husband preach the Gospel to these people who have become my closest friends and family.”
There was no escaping grief that day. Erica’s heart was leaden, as though soaked in the tears she had shed. But sitting here in the rocking carriage with this fine woman eased her pain. She could not explain why hearing of the other woman’s loss calmed her so. Yet the carriage became filled with the companionship of two women sharing sorrow. She reached over and took Mrs. Crowley’s hand.
The older woman looked down at Erica’s fingers, but she didn’t seem to see them. “He began having pains. His back, his chest, his legs. They grew worse and worse. Then one day …”
Erica did not speak. She felt no desire to tell her friend to stop adding to the day’s darkness. Instead she sat with a patience that was most certainly not her own and listened.
“One day he could not rise from his bed.” She took a ragged breath. “Through those next eight months I prayed so hard. Night and day I prayed. At times I had the strongest feeling that God had heard me and my husband’s health would be restored. And life would go back to the way it was before.”
When she stopped this time, Erica knew enough to offer what the woman would have found so hard to say. “Then he died.”
“He left me all alone. My life was so empty. How could God have done this to me? Why was I left here when he was gone, and my heart was ashes, and my life an empty corridor with nothing ahead save dust and memories? All the assurances in the world that my dear man was with God meant nothing. I was still here, you see. And I wished to have nothing to do with a world where he was no more.”
Erica found herself nodding slowly, a motion in time to the carriage’s rocking. She was beginning to not only listen to the woman beside her but think in line with her. Was this the meaning of friendship, to feel without barriers?
Erica recalled something she had heard at Audley Chapel. The words had not meant anything at the time, but now they solidified into a reality so strong they shouted through her wounded heart long before she spoke them aloud. “This is not our home.”
“Precisely. This is an imperfect world. We pass through here, we cling to our Maker, we seek His guidance. There is so much
wrong
here. So much we would prefer to have otherwise. But life within His embrace is still a glorious thing. I have found that even in the midst of my own darkest hour.”
“Tell me how.”
Her aunt slipped back so as to meet Erica’s eye. “By asking the Father to give even the sorrow a purpose and a meaning.”
Erica looked out at the hills. “Perhaps we should pray, then.”
“You begin, my dear.”
Erica took a long breath. She closed her eyes. This was not a time for distance or formality. It was a time for two new friends to turn together to their eternal Friend. One who was there for them, in the good times and the bad. One who hurt with them. One who suffered with them. One who had come to die for them.
“Dear, dear heavenly Father,” Erica began and knew it was so.
The trip continued at a sad and steady pace. The minutes were paced out by creaking wheels and plodding, snorting horses. The hours were filled with recollections of what they had witnessed and with a few more tears. From time to time they prayed. They held hands and spoke in the fashion of longtime friends.
As they were preparing for bed that night, Mrs. Crowley asked Erica to call her by her first name. There was great comfort to be found in such small gifts, Erica decided as she closed her eyes upon a heavy day. She heard Anne saying her prayers from the bed across the room and wanted to listen, for she knew that this was a woman with a lifetime’s experience of talking intimately with God. But Erica’s eyes were too heavy, and she fell asleep instantly and did not dream.
Erica was awakened during the night by images so shocking they bolted her upright in bed. She sat there with her heart pounding, not recalling exactly what it was she had dreamed but remembering instead the previous day. Little things she had forgotten or perhaps only seen with one segment of her mind. A single small boot with a hole where the heel should have been, lying in the dust. Erica felt as though she could not find breath in the dark chamber.
Then she heard the sound of sobbing.
She tiptoed across the room and sat upon Anne’s bed and gentled the woman with a touch upon the shoulder. Eventually the older woman quieted and her breathing eased into slumber. Not a word was said. Erica returned to bed, her face dry. She knew Anne had wept for both of them.
The next morning Erica awoke to the sounds of birds and a rising wind. The whole world seemed to be rushing about. She stared out the window as the sun seemed to urge the wind to push all the remaining clouds out of the way.
“Good morning,” Anne said from the other bed.
“I hope I didn’t disturb you.”
“Not at all. What time is it?”
“Just gone seven.”
“Has something happened?”
Erica looked at the other woman. “What do you mean?”
“You seem so, well,
purposeful
I suppose is the proper word.”
“I don’t know,” Erica replied. “But I have this rather strong feeling …”
“Yes?”
“That something is pushing at me.”
Anne wore a beribboned head covering that had slipped down over one ear. She righted it as she swung her feet to the floor. “Come over here, and let us pray about it.”
Erica did as she was told. Afterward she opened her eyes and stared out the window. She could smell the sweet scents of a fresh summer day carried upon the breeze.
“Well?”
Erica looked at the older woman. “I really think we should hurry.”
The feeling of haste infected them all. It seemed a matter of minutes from when Erica followed Anne down the stairs and announced their desire to leave swiftly, to the moment when Daniel was ushering them into the carriage and they were setting off for London.