A World Apart (2 page)

‘Thank you, Martha.' She slid an arm round her neighbour's waist. ‘It must have been cold for you. Lonely. All the others have gone.' Charlotte was glad her voice did not quaver. Her sobbing was done.

‘I wanted for to be with you till they comes for him, Charlotte,' Martha whispered. ‘The fellows at the inn. They'll…take him away.' The rumble of a cart could be heard in the dark. ‘Here they comes.' A lantern light traced the cart's bumpy progress. ‘They'll have toasted his memory already, I'll warrant,' Martha said. ‘Molly will wash him, and…and…tie something over his head. Lay him out. He'll have a Christian burial and it won't cost you a penny.'

‘Thank you. I'd have — '

‘Say naught, Charlotte. The villagers knows how it was for you.' Martha smiled. ‘You'll find some new-baked bread in your cupboard when you gets home.' Her voice lifted. ‘And Mary
milked your cow. It was bellowing fit to burst.' A cart loomed out of the dark, stopped. Silent men lifted their drinking companion's body and laid it on the cart.

‘I be terrible sorry, Mrs Downing.' Old Tom spoke reluctantly. ‘It were I as were driving the wagon. Then Silas jumped up beside me — he were…' He paused.

‘Drunk.' Charlotte supplied the word.

‘Well, not so as... I mean, he were jolly-like.' Old Tom's voice took on a ragged edge. ‘He tried to snatch the reins off me. Then he fell. Right under the wagon. I'm as sorry as a man can be, Missus. I'll — '

‘Thank you, Tom. It was no fault of yours, I know.'

‘Thank you, Missus. God bless you.' Old Tom touched his forelock and climbed onto the tray. He flicked the reins and the cart clattered away into the dark. The grey mound bouncing on the floor of the jolting cart was the last she would ever see of Silas. As she walked back to her empty cottage alone, the evening chill speared into her aching back.

Over the week that followed, Charlotte spent a string of sleepless nights. Why did not Martin come? He was the village's vicar. The villagers would see no wrong in their parson visiting a bereaved wife. What they would never know was that Charlotte loved him — sensed in her heart that he loved her. For the thousandth time she revisited the evening she had first heard the knock on her cottage door. All afternoon she had lain on her bed, hurting from the blows Silas had rained on her cringing body as he bellowed his rage. She had hidden the pennies she needed to buy flour and sugar, and Silas had demanded she give them to him. When she refused he had beaten her until she screamed that they were hidden under a loose stone in the lintel. Then he had pocketed the coins and made for the inn, snarling his goodbyes as he slammed the door.

A few hours later Reverend Martin Townsend had knocked on that door. A gentle knock that told of a caring soul outside, wishing to comfort her. The man who stepped inside had barely reached his mid twenties. His curly golden hair had been ineptly flattened and combed so that a few wayward strands sprang out from the back of his neck. He held his pale hands stretched in front of him, wrists bent, fingertips touching, as if in supplication. Though tall, he stood stooped. His starkly wrought features were pale in the afternoon light — a prominent, thin nose, wisped blond brows and lashes, hollow cheeks, lips that looked as if he were wont to bite them often. An earnestness cloaked his body like a dark shawl. His tight black jacket was buttoned high, stained with grey streaks which spoke of ineffectual attempts at sponging them away. Fraying strands of black thread showed at his jacket's lapels and cuffs. The whole effect was knit together by the parson's white collar round his neck. He slipped inside and eased the door closed soundlessly.

‘I…lately saw your Silas in the village, Mistress Downing.' Charlotte stood dumb as she framed the doorway, looking up into the tall scholarly man's face, peering into the blue eyes that blinked behind thick spectacles, wondering if the wounds on her face and arms would tell her story. ‘He was…somewhat the worse for liquor.' Reverend Martin Townsend cleared his throat. ‘Bragging about…how he had taken the pennies from his…sanctimonious wife. Then The Lord spoke to me. I knew I must — '

Charlotte abandoned her struggle to stand as she clutched the doorpost. She felt herself slide to the floor, unable to speak. Then the loving arms hoisting her, cradling her, taking her to her bed, kneeling beside her to pray. That visit had been the first of several. In time, the love welling in Charlotte's battered body had overflowed. One afternoon, while she sat beside Martin as he prayed, she kissed him. She had known it was sinful. That a peasant woman should even think of familiarity with a man of the cloth — educated, learned, dedicating his life to minister to his flock — was shocking. Yet her animal need had swept aside those barriers. And to her unspeakable joy, he had returned that kiss.

The saintly man of the cloth, having spent all his life in self-denial, piety, devotion to a higher being, yielded to the primal lust that binds male animals in thrall to desperate in-season females. They took to spending loving hours in bed, followed by Martin's passionate prayers for forgiveness, for the strength to resist the charms of the woman he must never love.

Charlotte heard the soft tap on the door round midnight. She flew out of bed in an instant, smoothed her nightdress, swathed her let-down hair into a long golden rope and flicked it over her shoulder. As she turned towards the door, she pinched her cheeks to give them colour, then licked her fingers and smoothed her eyebrows. Heart beating hard, she took the lighted candle she'd left by the window for the last three nights, set it on the table, tiptoed to the door, and opened it.

‘Oh, Martin. It's been so long. I thought you'd never come,' Charlotte whispered. ‘I've missed you — desperately. Hold me, my love. Close. Like we were — before.' As he stooped awkwardly to embrace her, she crushed him against her body. They kissed. Like a thirsty animal given water, she drank in the warmth of his lips. The moment she had hungered after for too many long nights had come. They stood thus for a long time, lips blending.

‘I was torn,' Martin said eventually. ‘I wanted so to comfort you. But if I'd come directly after the funeral, there'd have been gossip.'

‘Thank God you're here now.' She eased her lips away from his. ‘You could not dream how I've pined for you, Martin. Longed for you to hold me, kiss me.' She looked up at him from within the circle of his arms. ‘I remembered your breath in my hair. My neck tingles where your lips touched it — before.' She pulled him close. ‘Hold me, Martin. Hold me forever. I need you so. Comfort me, my love.'

She led him into the small room which held the marriage bed and closed the door. As she sat in the dark, she sensed that he stood hesitant, frozen, a yard from her. He might have been an able scholar at Oxford — indeed, he'd once told her that he'd graduated in theology with the highest honours in his year. But at wooing an eager woman, he was a dunce. It was as if she must teach him all over again. She pulled her nightdress over her head and flung it into a corner. Then she sat naked, waiting in the cool dark, quivering with desire. She felt him sit beside her.

‘I'm not sure what you — ' he said.

‘Give me your hand, my Martin. For a scholar, you're very slow to learn.' She pulled him down beside her, rested his hand on her belly. The spell which had frozen him was broken. He cupped her breast and leaned over to kiss her forehead, so softly it felt like a breath.

‘I love your hair, my angel,' he said as he breathed a kiss into her tresses. ‘I want it to cascade over me. Like a waterfall.'

‘Patience, wild youth,' She smiled as she felt his shyness thawing. ‘You must earn such beneficence.'

‘How?'

‘By giving me pleasure, of course. And don't ask me how you must do that. Last time, you nearly drove me to — '

He embraced her shoulders, led his lips on a winding track down her neck, her back, her shoulders, until finally his mouth stole a brushing kiss from her nipple. Soon, Charlotte was transported to another world — a world where soft rain ended drought, warmth succeeded cold, closeness drove away loneliness, fleshly delight ousted aching need. With every movement of her lover's body, she found herself lifted to a higher state of being. She began to feel she could not enjoy more pleasure without fainting. Still he drove her to new heights. She abandoned herself, floating like a bird wafted upwards by a wild wind — higher, faster — swooping, swirling, swept through space by sensations she could not control. These mountain
peaks of pleasure reached their climax in a string of explosions so sublime, so transcending all other experiences in her life, that she knew, as she subsided into a cloud of bliss, that she would be changed forever.

They lay in each other's arms, spent, still. Charlotte felt she was but one half of a single being. She must share every thought, every feeling with her lover.

‘I have something beautiful to tell you, Martin.' She had held her secret close, like a child hides a loved toy from jealous playmates, fondling it in private moments, but resolving never to be seen with it by anyone. ‘I have your child in my belly, my love.'

He fell silent for a long time.

‘How do you know it's mine?' he said eventually.

‘What! Do you think I lie with every man in the village?' She suppressed her anger. Martin liked to play with words, she knew. Words were his tools of trade. He had once told her he liked her for her wit as much as her body.

‘Silas?' he said.

‘Silas? It's been a year; more.'

‘When he came home drunk?'

‘I always bolted this door. He'd fall asleep outside it.'

‘Well… I…' It was not like Martin to stumble for words.

‘I've been so happy since I've known,' Charlotte said. ‘I thought you'd weep for joy.' She slid a hand up his belly, felt his muscles tense. ‘It's a blessing on our love. When you…when we were…together, I felt…sanctified. It was as if God had reached down and touched us. Imagine, a child the two of us made in love. Surely our love is — '

‘I…have some thinking to do,' Martin said.

‘What about?' Why did he choose to tease her so? She wished that there was enough light to see his face.

‘How I can…care for my flock.'

‘You have your parson's stipend.'

‘But…what will people say? I am but servant of The Lord. I must kneel before him. Beg his permission.'

‘What's so shocking about a man and a woman marrying and having children?'

‘Marrying?'

‘You love me, do you not? That's what people do when they're in love. You should know. You must have married dozens of them. Said God's holy words over them. The very words of the marriage service. Do they not say that it's God's intent that men and women should come together and have children?'

‘People might think the child is Silas's.'

‘So we'll tell them it's not.'

‘Er…when did you…first know?'

‘Oh, perhaps a fortnight.'

‘So it could be Silas's.'

‘Really, Martin. Why do you keep saying that? I've told you, it isn't.'

‘But people will think it is.'

‘Perhaps they will. Do you care? We'll know it's ours. A blessing from God.' Still he lay silent beside her in the dark. ‘He'll rejoice that two of his creatures have found the love He
created for them,' she whispered into his ear. ‘Love is God's most precious gift. I've heard you say so in your sermons.' He held his silence. ‘I hope it's a girl.' Charlotte smiled to herself. ‘And I hope she has your curls.'

Martin slid out of Charlotte's bed. As she lay awake, silent, he dressed. He let himself out of the bedroom without saying goodnight. In the dark, he opened the door, slipped through it, then closed it with the same care he had shown as he entered.

Charlotte lay quiet. When he had left, she looked out through the tiny window, noting that there was no moon. She watched him in the vestige of light shed by the stars until his shape could no longer be seen. Then she slid back into her warm bed, smiling at the thought of his lying with her during the week and preaching chastity on Sundays. He was but a man. A man driven by an intensity of passion spawned by years of self-denial and the frugal existence of a dedicated man of God. She stretched her legs between the blankets made warm by their exertions, and fell asleep smiling.

Martin Townsend had taken up his post in Marley two years before his first tryst with Charlotte. As soon as the young man, newly graduated from Oxford, had moved his meagre cartload of possessions into the vicarage, Viscount De Havilland, lord of the manor in the Dorset village of Marley, requested a meeting.

‘I will provide your stipend, Martin,' he said. ‘But I do not wish the village folk to know this.'

‘Thank you, sir. In the seminary, we were daily taught the precept that The Lord will provide. But your…bounty is truly generous.' He must overcome his awe of the man, and the estate of Morton-Somersby, occupied by the De Havillands since the days of William the Conqueror. He fought the intimidation projected down on him by the room's grandeur. Whenever the viscount's gaze was diverted for a moment, Martin seized the opportunity to look up at the ornamented ceiling, the heavy chandelier, the burgundy drapes that kept the room in perpetual gloom. When he saw the older man's eyes studying his face, he gripped the carved arms of his chair, let his fingers explore the complexities of the craftsman's work. This might distract him from the fear he felt for the man who now addressed him.

‘Of course, sir, you may depend on me to preserve your confidence.' The young parson forced himself to look into the eyes of his benefactor for a moment before returning his gaze to the ceiling. ‘Let God be my witness.'