The Memory Palace. Christie Dickason

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СКАЧАТЬ might find use for my rods, if you’ll allow me to teach you to fish. Then you can leave them to the child…the thought pleases me. I might even leave the cub my books direct.’ He peered through the window again. ‘And here comes Sir Richard at last, to be our witness. I swear he’s making his horse trot on tiptoe to spare his head.’

      That image of her neighbour, short, round and undoubtedly sore-headed from his night of drinking, made Zeal laugh again.

      Wentworth again looked both startled and pleased.

      He’s grown used to amusing only himself, she thought. At the least, I can give him my laughter. I think he really does mean me well.

      The lawyer finished the last of his bread and brushed the crumbs from his long white collar as Sir Richard opened the bake house door.

      The old knight took off his hat and fanned himself. ‘Oho! The happy couple.’ He mopped his bald head and replaced his hat. His reddened eyes sat in their puffy sockets like specks of grit in two oysters. ‘Don’t know how you’ll take to this news, but Doctor Gifford sent me word that he can make time to marry you Saturday next, if I have no objections as magistrate.’

      ‘That’s only eight days!’ cried Mistress Margaret, returning with ale for Sir Richard in time to hear. ‘How can we prepare in eight days?’

      ‘But surely our own Doctor Bowler must marry us!’ Zeal protested. ‘If he’s willing.’

      Sir Richard and Wentworth exchanged glances.

      ‘Doctor Gifford is the parish incumbent and a strong voice in the parish council,’ said Sir Richard. ‘Doctor Bowler merely your estate parson.’

      ‘All the more reason for him to bless an estate union.’ Zeal folded her arms. ‘I don’t like Gifford. He will be a weight dragging us down. Doesn’t the man know that God resides above? He should lift spirits, not always be tugging them down towards damnation.’

      ‘I can’t stomach the man,’ said Sir Richard. ‘But it would not be politic to offend either him or the parish vestry.’

      ‘Why not?’ she demanded.

      Sir Richard and Wentworth exchanged another of those maddening male looks.

      ‘We must give no one any excuse to question the marriage,’ said Wentworth.

      Zeal pursed her lips and wound a sleeve ribbon around her finger until the tip looked like a ripe cherry. She tried not to think of the darkness that Gifford would cast over the wedding. The whole venture was already as fragile as a bubble. ‘He must agree at least to marry us here at Hawkridge in our own chapel. I shall tell him so.’

      ‘Best leave that to me,’ said Sir Richard hastily. ‘I’ve an examination to make in Bedgebury tomorrow in any case.’

      The lawyer cleared his throat politely to indicate that he was now ready.

      

      The next Sunday, as negotiated on the night of the inquiry into Sir Harry’s death, Zeal took herself and her household to their monthly service in Bedgebury parish church. Sir Richard, of course, had not been part of the deal and waved them off with too much gusto for Zeal’s liking. Wentworth had never attended prayers and apparently did not mean to begin now.

      He’s the blasted rudder after all, Zeal thought crossly as the little procession set off along the track downstream along the river to Bedgebury. But I don’t suppose Gifford is worried about his soul.

      Doctor Bowler, however, trudged glumly at her side, still avoiding her eyes. ‘All that sermonizing,’ he said. ‘I won’t be comfortable. And with no hymns or Prayer Book! I shall feel as if I’m talking to a stranger, not my own God.’

      ‘I wish you were marrying us, not Doctor Gifford,’ said Zeal.

      They both huffed and waved their hands to disperse a cloud of late gnats, which hovered in a sunny patch.

      ‘Will you want wedding music?’ Bowler enquired carefully as the shady tunnel closed round them again.

      ‘Oh, yes! But I feared to ask.’

      ‘Because Gifford will disapprove.’ He nodded in understanding of her difficulty.

      ‘Gifford can’t be allowed to order everything in the parish!’ She glanced at his long, hound’s face. He suffered so when he found himself at odds with anyone. ‘No, I didn’t ask because I know you don’t approve of the match.’

      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 СКАЧАТЬ