The Preacher's Bride (27 page)

The tension inside him mounted. “Tell me everything.”

Gibbs studied his boots, then lifted his eyes. The sadness in them sucked the breath out of John. “The baby, your son, was born dead.”

“But Elizabeth will live?”

“They tell me she’s fine, that only a strong woman could have survived such a birthing.”

A torrent of emotions poured through him and pushed against his chest, making it ache until he felt it would burst with the pressure. He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes to hold back the threatening mist.

A small part of him grieved the loss of the baby. A man never wanted to lose his flesh and blood, especially a son. But babies died all the time. There seemed no way to prevent that.

But to lose Elizabeth?

His legs began to tremble. He sank into the chair and lowered his head into his hands.

“You’ve grown to care about Elizabeth, haven’t you, my friend?”

“I love her.” With sudden clarity he knew he loved her.

He wasn’t sure when he had first started loving her. But sometime, somehow, he had fallen in love.

“If only I’d realized earlier.” He rubbed his face with his hands. Weariness settled over him. She had offered him her love, had given herself to him wholeheartedly. And he had spurned her.

Shame fell over him, and he groaned again. Instead of accepting Elizabeth’s love and the time they could have had together, no matter how long or short, he’d pushed her away. He should have done as she’d suggested—love and be loved, if only for a day.

“It’s never too late to let her know how you feel,” Gibbs said.

“All she wanted was for me to be her husband the way God intended in marriage. She was right—I got too caught up in my preaching and thinking how important I was and how much God needed me to preach.”

Gibbs was silent.

“And now look at me. My ministry is gone. My preaching is over. I’m truly a nobody.”

“God will still use you, my friend. But in His way and His time.”

“Perhaps. But He doesn’t
need
me. The burden of sharing the Gospel does not rest upon my shoulders. And I don’t know why I thought it did.”

“God has gifted you mightily, and we all put a great deal of confidence in you and still do.”

John studied the haggard lines in his friend’s face and then sighed wearily. “I am tempted to give in to their demands, Gibbs. If I forsake preaching, they’ll let me go free. Then I can be with Elizabeth and the children.”

Again Gibbs was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t believe God is asking you to give up your calling, my friend.” His voice was gentle. “He gave you the gifts and will not revoke them. He would have you cling to them even if you must suffer.”

John nodded. Deep inside he knew he could not give in to the demands of his enemies, no matter how much he longed to be with Elizabeth and the children.

“No,” Gibbs continued. “You must hold fast to your gifts—but at the same time you must learn to use them more wisely.”

“How so?”

“God would not have us use our gifts to the detriment of our families. I have heard it said: ‘Fathers, first reform your families, and then you will be fitter to reform the family of God.’ ”

John bowed his head. Gibbs was right.

If only he could go back and give Elizabeth the time she’d wanted while they’d been together. And if only he could go back and take pleasure in spending time with his family.

Heat seared his chest and into his throat. But he’d thrown it away, and now only God knew if he’d ever have the chance to do it over and do it right.

Chapter
33

What had she done wrong to deserve such punishment?

Elizabeth dug her hands through the sticky trough of bread dough and pushed it around listlessly. She didn’t have the energy to give it the heavy mixing it needed. She couldn’t seem to find the strength to do much of anything. Her body had healed, and she had survived without illness or complications. But she felt as if her lifeblood had drained from her drip by drip, until only an empty corpse remained.

“Henry is ready for the dough.” Jane came alongside her. “Perhaps I should finish?”

Elizabeth shook her head and pummeled the dough harder. “I can do it.”

Jane regarded her with the sympathetic look she was beginning to despise—a look she received too frequently from everyone.

A tiny wail from a wooden cradle in the far corner drew Jane’s attention away from her and to her babe born only a fortnight past. The babe’s cries dug deep inside Elizabeth and ripped at the ravished flesh of her heart. It should have been her baby.

He would have been over six weeks old.

She bit back an anguished cry and pounded the dough with new energy borne of pain. She should have been the one feeling the fullness of her milk, ready to press him against her bosom and breathe in the sweet newborn scent of his head.

Instead, her arms and womb were empty, utterly barren of the life she had carried for those many months.

She beat her fists into the dough, and tears began to slip down her cheeks. She hadn’t been able to see him or touch him. By the time she’d recovered enough to know what had happened, they’d already buried him.

The door to the bakehouse rattled.

Elizabeth brushed at her tears with her sleeve. She was sure it was her father returning from the quarter sessions at Chapel of Herne. Her heart lurched with the foolish expectation that by some miracle they’d let John go.

“That was no trial,” her father boomed as he swung open the door. The cold winter air swirled past him, rushed at Elizabeth, and extinguished the flicker of hope she’d harbored all afternoon.

Her father shed his heavy woolen overcoat and his hat. “It was more of a bear-baiting contest, if ye ask me. Nothing more than a pack of spiteful, ravenous dogs tearing to bits a shackled bear.”

Elizabeth’s hands came to a standstill in the dough. Even though she was trying to convince herself not to care, she couldn’t keep from inclining her ear every time John’s name was mentioned. As much as she despised herself for it, she longed for news about him.

“They’ve indicted him for not coming to the parish church to hear the Divine Service.” Her father limped with his cane to the oven that Henry had lit in preparation for the baking. “I say we’re all guilty of that charge. Since King Charles came back, none of us have gone to the Divine Service.”

She hadn’t wanted to think about John’s trial, but Catherine had made a point of telling her all of the rumors surrounding it, and none had been favorable. The judges were staunch Royalists who had suffered much during the Protectorate. They hated the Independents.

“And they’re accusing him of holding unlawful meetings, to the disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of the kingdom.” Her father gave a wry laugh. “
Disturbance and distraction
from their Book of Common Prayer is all.”

He added more gorse to the oven, needing to bring the masonry to the right temperature before they could bake the bread. Henry pricked the loaves across the top with the sharp bodkin and then stamped them with the Whitbread mark.

Her father had asked her to help at the bakehouse and in exchange was giving her bread for her family. It wasn’t enough to survive on, but it was something. Others in the congregation had been kind enough to bring her the things she could no longer buy at market: eggs, fish, fowl.

“Brother John did nothing to win their favor by telling the judges that he, for his part, could pray very well without the Prayer Book. They weren’t too pleased with his remark and accused him of being possessed with the spirit of delusion and of the devil.”

Elizabeth could picture John standing tall, his wide shoulders stiff with defiance and passion. He wouldn’t cower from the fight. He was too skilled with his tongue and would surely thrash them back no less than they deserved.

“What’s his judgment, then?” Henry asked quietly. He darted a glance toward Elizabeth before meeting Jane’s gaze in the corner, where she nursed the babe.

“He must endure three more months of prison.” Her father turned to look at Elizabeth, his eyebrows furrowed over sad eyes. “After that, if he doesn’t submit to go to the parish church and agree to leave off preaching, they’ll banish him.”

“Do you think he’ll agree to what they ask?”

“Ye know John.” He sighed. “He’s a stubborn man. He told them if he were let out of prison today, he would preach the Gospel again tomorrow.”

Elizabeth looked blindly on the dough in front of her. It was hopeless. John was as good as dead to her.

“He asked about ye, my daughter.” He paused, as if waiting for Elizabeth to say something. When she didn’t, he continued. “He asked if ye were well enough yet to visit him.”

She shook her head. Tears sprang to her eyes again. “No. I’m not well enough.”

“He sounded concerned about ye.”

She ducked her head and squeezed the dough, wishing she could hide. She’d never shared John’s rejection with them. It was too painful to think about, much less discuss.

Elizabeth gulped down the sobs that came all too easily these days. He’d wanted a strong woman. And that’s what he’d gotten. She didn’t want or need John’s concern.

* * *

The three months until John’s next trial dragged. Elizabeth tried not to think about it, but the question always lingered somewhere in the recesses of her mind: Would John submit and go to the parish church and leave off preaching, or would he choose to leave England forever?

When the time finally came, she learned the justices sent the clerk of the peace on their behalf in an attempt to try to reason with John, to extract a promise from him that his preaching would come to an end. ’Twas no surprise to hear he had refused again. But it was another blow, and it hit her harder than she wanted to admit. The justices gave him three more months in prison to reconsider, and by the midsummer assize expected him to yield to their authority or face worse consequences.

Part of her was glad for a little more time in which John might possibly be convinced to change his mind. The other part was weary of the waiting and the worrying about what would happen.

Most of the time, however, she was too busy to think. In addition to spring sowing and helping with the bread-making, Sister Norton had instructed her in bone lace-making. Elizabeth struggled with the intricate patterns that took hours of work for only four, maybe six pence a yard when it sold.

The demand for it had increased with the return of King Charles. England had gladly adopted the king’s lavish tastes and had readily thrown off the simple, plain clothing styles that Oliver Cromwell had enforced during the Protectorate.

On warm spring days she sat outside to do her lace-making. Sometimes Sister Norton joined her and brought Lucy’s children with her. The sister had grown to love the two she had taken in, and they adored her and called her Nana. If they did remember Lucy or Fulke, Elizabeth was sure it was only a distant nightmare.

“Your work is very beautiful, my dear.” Sister Norton leaned over and studied the pattern beginning to emerge on the pillow in Elizabeth’s lap.

Elizabeth sat forward on her stool and arched her back, ready for a break. Pulling the linen thread tight for too long cramped her fingers. And staying focused on the pins she had pricked into her pillow to make a pattern wearied her eyes.

She carefully laid the bobbins in a neat row. ’Twould waste precious time to have to detangle the thread wrapped around each small fish bone.

She looked in the direction of the heads bobbing among the tall grass, Johnny and Thomas and Lucy’s children. Elizabeth had sent Johnny to collect any edible greens he could find and hoped he would return with enough dandelion leaves for soup and possibly burdock taproots or watercress to add more substance. ’Twas the hungering season, when the food stores were low, and this year Elizabeth could not silence the rumbling in her stomach. She was having to feed a family with a pittance and was sending John food every day too.

“We have been blessed, haven’t we, my dear?” Sister Norton followed her gaze to the children.

“Blessed?” What could the old woman possibly mean?

“Blessed, indeed.” Sister Norton rolled her neck.

“I do not see the fruit of a blessed life.” ’Twas a barren, dry life of late. Anything that could go wrong had. Where was the blessing in that?

“Ah, ah, my dear. Maybe you’re not looking for fruit in the right places.”

“No, Sister Norton. Somehow I’ve failed to please the Lord. He’s withheld His blessings from my life and given me only hardships to endure.”

“My dear, do you think hardships are the sign of His displeasure?”

“Doesn’t He promise reward to those who faithfully serve Him? I’ve tried. I’ve done everything I could. But it hasn’t been enough.”

“Elizabeth.” Sister Norton’s eyes filled with compassion. “Do you think only the
good
things that happen are blessings?”

Elizabeth’s throat tightened, and she couldn’t answer the widow. The pain in her heart threatened to overwhelm her, as it often did.

“Our troubles themselves are blessings.”

“No. They can’t be.” Elizabeth shook her head. “How can troubles ever be a blessing?”

“Hardships are the Lord’s greatest blessing to the believer. Without them we would love the Lord only for what He does for us. Our troubles teach us to love Him for who He is.”

Elizabeth bridled her response. Had she been serving the Lord for what He would do for her?

“We’re back!” Mary’s voice called to them.

“I think I shall try it on my own next time.” Mary rounded the cottage with Betsy skipping along beside her.

“You’ve memorized the route?” Elizabeth asked.

“I didn’t let Betsy help me at all today.”

Betsy dashed off to the field to join the others.

“Father told me to tell you he appreciates the soup.” Mary relayed the same message every day. “And he wants you to deliver it next time.”

“No, Mary.” Her answer was the same every time. She wanted to bury her feelings for John. Seeing him again would only dig up her longings and drag them back to the surface where they would taunt her.

No matter how adamant Mary was about John’s desire to see her, Elizabeth wasn’t willing to subject herself to the misery of being near him.

Mary was silent for a long moment.

Elizabeth could tell by the girl’s thoughtful expression she had more to say.

“I overheard the gaoler speaking about the king’s coronation,” she finally ventured.

“Yes. ’Twill be on the twenty-third of April.”

“They say it will be a big celebration,” Sister Norton added.

Mary nodded. “The gaoler said the king will set some prisoners free to show his kindness and goodwill.”

Elizabeth’s heart lurched.

The girl hurried to speak. “Maybe you could appeal to the king. If you went to the king and told him about Father’s arrest and how you’re working so hard to take care of four children . . .”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I could never do such a thing. Why would the king listen to me?”

“But that’s just the point. You’re the poor wife, left alone to struggle to survive. Surely he will hear your story and have pity.”

“It would be a good story,” Sister Norton said.

“No. I could never go to the king. That would mean traveling to London, and I’ve never ventured beyond the bounds of Bedfordshire. It would never work.”

With passion transfixing her dainty features, Mary reached for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth caught the girl’s hands.

“It would work. Truly it would. You know how to argue just as well as Father. If any woman could convince the king, you could.”

“Mary’s right about that, my dear.”

Elizabeth’s mind began to spin slowly, like a wheel stuck in mud. Could she, a mere peasant woman, go to the king to beg for John’s pardon? Did she have a chance to help win his freedom?

Mary squeezed her hands. “You could be just the one the king will listen to.”

A flicker of hope rekindled in Elizabeth’s breast.

“Besides,” Mary said, lowering her voice, “this might be just the way to make him finally love you.”

Elizabeth could only stare at the beautiful girl in front of her. Her blind blue eyes, with the color so like John’s, sometimes saw everything. Was now one of those times? Would an appeal to the king for royal clemency be the key to unlocking John’s love?

Perhaps it was worth a try.

* * *

When the elders came to her the next day with the same suggestion, Elizabeth knew she had no choice in the matter. They’d decided that Elizabeth, the helpless, lonely wife who’d lost a babe and had four remaining small children, one of which was blind, would be their greatest asset in the battle for winning John’s freedom.

The men made all the arrangements for her travel and lodging. They wrote out the petition for her and rehearsed what she needed to say.

She made herself do what she knew she must. She withheld her complaints during the uncomfortable three-day carriage ride to London and tried to stifle her surprise at the massiveness of the city itself, the crowds, the stench, the noise, the commotion.

When the time came for them to make their visit to the king, she lifted her chin and went forward, praying she could hide her trembling, reminding herself she was doing this for John. If she succeeded in securing his release, she might—just might—earn his favor again.

“I would like to help you,” Lord Barkwood said after he’d finished reading her petition. “But I’m afraid we must have a recommendation from the local authorities to consider your husband a candidate for the royal clemency.”

Elizabeth wanted to melt into the thick rug and disappear. Everything about Westminster Palace and the House of Lords made her feel small—the high ceilings, the grand staircases, the extravagant paintings. From where she stood at the foot of the long polished table, even the lords were unapproachable, too important for someone as insignificant as she.