Sadness at Epworth
Sadness at Epworth
Amid the thatched stone-and-clay cottages of Epworth stood occasional buildings of brick, some even with shake roofs. The population, Susanna had heard, was well in excess of two thousand—probably more like twenty-five hundred—with another thousand in the nearby farms and hamlets. Epworth had real shops, and its church of St. Andrew, Sam’s new bailiwick, hardly looked its age at all. Epworth was no London, but neither was it wee South Ormsby.
Little Sammy put into motion his nonstop monologue of questions and comments. Emilia, the former babbler of the family, had no space left to insert her own constant commentary. That didn’t slow her down, of course; toddlers thrive on cacophony. What would Susanna do when Sukey and Molly started talking? Make rules, that’s what—strict rules regarding silence and conversation.
Was Epworth any more sophisticated than South Ormsby when it came to news and gossip? Probably not; it was still too small to be urbane. No doubt most of the curious eyes who noticed the Wesley wagon’s passing knew that this was the new rector.
They passed St. Andrews and within the block arrived at the rectory. Silently, for the children were still devoted to filling the air with words, Susanna gave copious thanks to God. The rectory was three stories tall!
Sam sat with the lines loose in his hands and scanned the house with a critical eye. “Badly in need of repair.”
“So large. At last; enough room.”
“Going to have to replace some of the timbers in the barn. It’s starting to lean.”
“It’s a barn. How far does our glebe extend?”
“I’m no farmer, but Hiram Wilkes back in South Ormsby could calculate the acreage of a piece of land shaped like a spilled pudding. I’d say, based on how Hiram did it, that we have a good two or three acres. Maybe a bit more, since the land dips away into that little glen.”
Two or three acres of church land devoted specifically to the rector’s use! “Sam, we can keep a couple cows, plant a garden—”
“You’re no farmer either, Sukey.”
“If I can master Greek and Hebrew I can learn to bury seeds and milk a cow. It will be an important saving for feeding the children.”
“We don’t have to worry so much about saving; two hundred pounds a year, remember?”
She skewered him with a sharp eye. “A hundred and fifty pound debt, remember? We will scratch and save until we’re square with the world.”
Was he angry? She watched his face.
No. His eyes twinkled. “Yes, mum!” Sam hopped to the ground. “Samuel, you’ll help unload. So will you, Emilia. Ah. Here comes a welcoming committee, I trust. Sukey, you look white as bleached bones. Go sit. You’ve been overtaxed already.”
Susanna didn’t argue. She let Sam help her to the ground. Slowly, wearily, she settled herself beneath a gnarled old oak to rest. A delightful tree this, with sprawling branches and dark, hushed leaves. Susanna took a deep breath. Another. That was not the aroma of oaks or grass. She called to Emilia to mind the babies and climbed shakily to her feet to go exploring.
The rectory was half-timbered, its roof thatched. The clay between the timbers sloughed here and there; it really ought be patched before winter; but Susanna wasn’t interested in the house itself just now. That aroma—
She paused by a creaky garden gate. The gate should be painted before winter, its latch mended. The latch was a project for little Sam. In fact, the painting just might be, too. She pushed through and out into the garden.
Yard-high tufts of grass obscured the paths. Weeds and ragged herbs fought for control of the herb beds. The dill was fallen over, the oregano scraggly, the rosemary completely died out. Someone had tried to raise roses without pruning them. Berry wands tangled with the unkempt rosebushes. That aroma— Susanna walked, not knowing exactly where and why, among the ruin to—to—Here it was, banked high along the back wall. Sweetbrier.
The courtyard and flower gardens of Spital Yard came rushing out from the past to smother her with memories. How often as a child had she marveled at its beauty. How often had her mother before her, in the midst of raising a sprawling family, taken a few quiet moments to bask in its sweetness.
Spital Yard. Sweetbrier. Epworth. Susanna had come full circle.
“Mother? The neighbors have brought a lovely stew, and a Mr. Cooper is starting a fire inside. Papa suggests you might come.”
“Thank you, Sammy. I’m coming.”
“Mother, are you crying?”
“No, dear, rejoicing.” Susanna took her son’s hand and started back toward the house, slowly, for the weariness was attacking fiercely. “The garden here should be put in order before autumn. That will be a first priority. How good are you at painting gates and mending latches?”
“Oh, may I?” His face brightened and sparkled, like his father’s. He held the gate for her and pushed it more-or-less closed behind him.
“You’ll pull your share of weeds, as well. Then when the bad weather descends upon us you’ll go back to your schoolwork. You have made much progress so far. This winter we’ll tackle Latin and mathematics.”
“I’m getting big, huh?”
“Very. Now here are the neighbors to greet us.”
Before long Susanna was delivered of another girl, and she named her Mehetabel—Hetty. She liked the name partly because its translation was “God is doing good.” Not only was God doing good in her life, to her the quintessence of God was to do good. And mostly, Susanna simply liked the way the name burst eagerly over the tongue and lips.
Then Susanna’s world crumbled bit by bit. She had felt a certain frustration, an impatience, with the petty factions in South Ormsby. After all, the village wasn’t that big. She was soon dismayed to learn that although Epworth was ten times the size of South Ormsby, its factions were a hundred times as strong. The local Whigs, known as isle men, sought to limit the power of the crown but couldn’t even agree on what their party stood for. Sam, the enthusiastic Tory, faced stiff opposition in his congregation. All the nasty little side-taking and people-politics Susanna had endured in the past were multiplied in this cranky and miserable town.
The rectory, so in need of repair, remained in disrepair. Baby Hetty came before Susanna could put her little back garden in good order. She could see the sweetbriers out there beyond, but the herbs remained choked, the grass persisted.
Susanna wanted to rent out the glebe to good farmers, on shares. But Sam caught farming fever and eagerly went another fifty pounds into debt setting himself up as a farmer—and failing miserably as a farmer. A city man does not quickly succeed at an alien rural trade, for the skills of farming are as much inherited and absorbed as they are learned. The seed would not come to fruit simply because Sam the dreamer enthusiastically hoped it would.
The factions with which Susanna had to contend were far worse than she first surmised. The crown had decided to drain much of the swampy land nearby and make it suitable for farming. To do the task, the crown brought in Dutch engineers who knew a thing or two about drainage canals. The Dutchmen brought their own laborers, men paid handsomely, while the local men, poor to start with, lacked jobs and watched the project money fly away to the Netherlands.
To recompense the Dutchmen for their work, it was rumored, the crown determined to divide the new-made land into three portions; a third for the Dutchmen, a third for the crown, and a third for the local farmers. It was then that Epworth exploded.
Some begged to let things go whatever way they would. Others championed outright rebellion. Then all the minor factions lined up themselves between. No matter what Sam said from the pulpit, one group or another would misconstrue it. He could not win.
Nor could Susanna. She learned to her sorrow that most of the men in town could neither read nor write and almost none of the women were literate. That made both Sam and Susanna freaks from another world. Less than half grown, little Sammy was already better educated than any deacon in the church.
The locals might be illiterate, but they could count the shillings and pence—oh my, but they could! The two-hundred-pound debt shrank not a farthing. With time, it grew larger.
One expense was a maid. Illness plagued both the children and Susanna. She could not manage the household and five small children when she was bedridden.
Between the years 1697 and 1701, Susanna bore five more babies, including another set of twins.
All five died.
Her family had frozen in place, struggling but never growing. Sam’s congregation listened to his preaching and failed to either repent or revive; the church kept struggling, never growing. Her little garden hung on, but she was usually too ill to tend it properly. It struggled with its weeds and neglect, hardly ever growing.
The normally ebullient Sam showed the strain. He studied his books and exercised his theology, preparing deep sermons to feed a hungry flock. The flock refused to eat. Almost to a man his congregation abhorred theology and despised book learning. If Sam couldn’t even get his barley patch to come into head, he sure as sundown couldn’t be trusted on issues that couldn’t be seen.
Sam spent hours and days alone in his study writing rich and elaborate poetry. It didn’t sell. In fact, the sort of poetry John Dunton had been so fond of calling doggerel didn’t sell either.
Susanna watched Sam plan new sources of income, listened to him wax enthusiastic about some new project or idea. Their debt grew. In the hands of a prudent man, the living at Epworth would have supported the family adequately. Sam was not a prudent man.
One thing became increasingly clear. Life could not continue this way. Susanna saw no hope of changing Sam, nor could she see moving to some more urban parish in the near future—somewhere where Sam’s profound insights and theological learning could be used and appreciated. Susanna could see that Sam was in the wrong place shepherding the wrong sort of people, but the church obviously didn’t think so. Indeed, not even Sam noticed. He continued beating his head against stone walls, preaching repentance and book learning to people who could not even read.
Very well. If life as it was seemed difficult to endure, and neither Sam nor their circumstance would change, then Susanna must change. She would start with the farming.
The glebe had lain fallow for several years. Susanna purchased a couple of cows, shaggy little beasts with pretty horns and ragged brown coats, and turned them out onto her abandoned acreage to graze. She invited not one but two farm wives in for tea and from them learned the basics of cow care. From her own maid she learned how to milk them, should she be required to. She grew to like her cows immensely. Their big brown eyes were most appealing. But best of all they, like she herself, appreciated an orderly, methodical routine, with prompt milking at the same hour each day, week in, week out.
Now and then she would buy a shoat and raise it to butchering size. The pigs foraged across the glebe along with the cows and did especially well during acorn season. She dickered with the local farmers for vegetables from the fields, tops and husks still on, for a cheaper price than cleaned vegetables, then fed the pods and leavings to her pigs. She recalled how much she had hated dickering with the fishwives at Spital Yard. Oh, if she had only known!
She was reasonably successful raising chickens, much less so raising geese. A local huntsman sold her some shelducks he had captured in the fens, but she didn’t know to clip their wing feathers again after moult, and they decided to live elsewhere.
The milk, meat, and eggs from her little farmstead helped out financially, but it still wasn’t enough. She had been drifting away from God to an extent. Oh, true, she prayed each day and had taught the children the Lord’s Prayer as soon as they could speak. But she didn’t feel the old closeness, and she knew why. Very little personal study, very little meditation. And that condition she could change.
When she was very young (about age five?) she had vowed to God that for every hour she spent on pleasure she would spend an equal time on prayer and devotion. She had always kept that pledge, but these last few years, precious little time was left for pleasure. It was time to change the pledge.
She assigned two hours daily to meditation and devotion. It was very difficult at first, even with the help of her maid. Five small children do make demands, and she was teaching Sammy and Emilia six hours daily. But she had promised God two hours, and two hours He would get.
Her regimen of devotions did indeed bring her closer again to God, but it didn’t help their living situation at all. Oh, how she yearned to live comfortably and free of debt! She had changed what she could and still that nagging dissatisfaction persisted. Might not God, prithee, work some changes also?
Change came, all right.
Susanna should have sensed it coming at morning prayers, as cold wind rattled the shutters and promised another dreary day. Sam went through his daily list of prayer subjects just as usual, but afterward she noticed him looking at her oddly, even suspiciously. He was definitely not his normal, cheerful self. If something was bothering him he would come out with it before too long; Sam could never hold a thing back.
It came out that very evening after family prayer. “Sukey, why didn’t you say ‘Amen’ this morning to my prayer for our king?”
“You know my feelings. I believe the Prince of Orange to be a usurper. Mary had some claim, perhaps, but she’s dead. A Stuart should be on the throne. Not William.”
Sam’s face tightened. Susanna tried to read subtleties in it as his thoughts moved but could not.
He glanced around at the children and stood up suddenly. “Come to my study.”
“Bedtime, Sammy. Go tell the maid.” Susanna shooed her firstborn off toward the kitchen and followed Sam to his study. She sat in the leather chair and folded her hands. She disliked political arguments; why could God not mate people with similar political views?
Sam wheeled on her. “William is king by divine right, and you dare say he shouldn’t be.”
“I believe in divine right as firmly as you. Romans thirteen: ‘For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.’”
“And William is ordained by God.”
“William was ordained by Parliament; hardly the same thing. God’s will is expressed by bloodline, not Parliamentary notion, and William is not related by blood to the kingly line. There are Stuarts enough around to fill the throne.”
His eyes crackled. “If that be the case, then we must part, for if we have two kings we must have two beds.”
Susanna felt the heat rising in her neck. She was becoming angry at his blind stubbornness, and she couldn’t stop herself. She tried to keep her voice flat, but it kept rising anyway. “I am well aware of your fondness for William. I read the elusive poetry you sent them when he and Mary first came to the throne. You’ve always been a William-enthusiast, if you will. But that doesn’t make him worthy to be king; not with Mary dead. And I doubt very much that William cares whether you sleep in your wife’s bed or not.”
She regretted saying that last, but it was too late now.
Like ducks bursting up out of the marsh, Sam’s ire exploded. His face flashed fire and triumph. He dropped to his knees, clasped his hands and stared ceilingward. “God in heaven,” he intoned, “I pray Your judgment down upon my head if I should ever touch this woman or come into her bed before she has begged Your pardon and mine. Amen!”
Three lovely retorts came to Susanna’s mind, but she kept them short of her tongue. Already she had done damage. She would maintain silence in the face of this buffoonery. That should serve as well as any rejoinder.
He climbed to his feet. “I believe that will be all. And now if you’ll excuse me—” He sat at his desk and turned as much of his back to her as the angle of the desk permitted.
She stood. “If I’ll excuse you indeed. There is no excuse for this overweening display.”
His voice stopped her halfway to the door. “Feel free to knock and enter when you choose to beg pardon.”
She glared at him. “My only error, for which I beg your pardon, was the use of ‘overweening.’ It’s far too mild a term.”
She refrained from slamming the study door behind her, but she closed it firmly. How dare he! And to try to force her lip service by threatening to withdraw his marital duties—? Right is right, and principles are principles. Susanna had never shirked her responsibility toward either right or principle. Nor would she now. She stomped upstairs.
She took her time preparing for bed. She still had most of her slim figure. Her face showed a few lines that hadn’t been there before, but one must expect that at thirty-two years of age. No gray marred the rich raven color of her hair yet.
No, there was no reason to suspect Sam’s interest might be flagging because his wife had turned flabby and frumpy. His inane vow to God tonight was pure bravado, a tongue temporarily out of control because of anger. His temper was like that. He had always been like that. Why should she expect moderation this time?
She crawled into her cold bed and lay very still until the covers warmed around her. The wind blew as hard as ever, beating its icy fists against the shutters.
Sam would be in eventually, once his anger cooled. She dozed fitfully. Weariness won, and she slept.
When she awoke at dawn Sam’s side was still vacant. She dressed, arranged her hair with special care, and went downstairs. The household was just beginning to stir, following the patterns of activity it followed methodically every morning.
Sam’s study door stood open. She stepped inside. He had left a sheet of foolscap on his otherwise cleared desk. It was a note in his hand, written a bit larger than usual. His duties as the convocation man for the diocese called, and he had no plans to return in the immediate future.
Sam had gone off to Lincoln.