Lament for a lost lover

“Indeed, yes, mistress. Everybody hereabouts knew Old Jethro. Some said he was mad. His religion turned his brain. He used to beat himself with whips and wear a hair shirt just to make himself suffer. He thought it made him holy.”

“What did people hereabouts think of him?”

“Well before the King came back they reckoned he was a good man. He was all for the Parliament, but I think even they would not be stern enough for him. He once killed his dog for going with a bitch.”

“I had heard that.”

“He was all against maidens who forestalled their marriage vows. He’d be there in church when they was called to atone. He wanted ‘em beaten and their bastards killed at birth.”

“A good Christian!” I said with sarcasm.

“It depends on what you see as Christianity.”

I thought I must go carefully, for Jasper had remained a stern Puritan and I would never forget how he had thought a pretty button was an object of the Devil. “They say Young Jethro be as bad as his father and growing more like him every day.”

“Young Jethro?”

“Oh, he’d not be so young. I reckon he must be nearly forty now.”

“So he had a son. I am surprised, since he disapproved of dogs propagating their kind.”

“Old Jethro were married once. Oh, he was a bit of a rake in them days, so I heard.

Then suddenly he saw the light. That’s what he says. God came to him in a vision and said, ‘Jethro, what you’re doing here is sinful like. You get out and preach my Word.’ So then he was reformed. His wife left him. Young Jethro was about five then. He kept the boy and, as I said, he’s made him another such as himself.

Used to keep him chained up on his knees praying four hours a day.”

“Old Jethro died, then?”

“Yes, some time ago. Some said he starved himself to death and all them whippings didn’t help.”

“Where does Young Jethro live? Is it near here?”

“Not far. On the edge of the estate. In a sort of barn. Very rough it is and Young Jethro be his father all over again. He’s got a nose for sin. If there’s a bit of sin hereabouts he’d sniff it out. Polly, one of our kitchen girls, was in a bit of trouble. Jethro knew it before the rest of us ... almost before Polly knew herself. Took her in his barn and told her she was damned and how the Devil was laughing his head off and getting his imps to stoke up the fires for her. Poor Polly: she went to her grandmother’s place and hanged herself. ‘Wages of sin,’ said Young Jethro. Poor Polly, ‘twas only a little frolic in the stables. If she hadn’t got caught, she’d have been no worse than the rest.”

“This Young Jethro sounds a very uncomfortable sort of person to have about.”

“Them that’s over good is often uncomfortable, mistress.”

I agreed.

By an odd chance a few days later when I was riding with the boys, we tethered the horses and went down to the beach near that cave where I had sheltered with Harriet and Edwin when we had come back to England. I had a morbid fancy for returning to such places and conjuring up visions of the past.

There on the shingle the boys took off their boots and dabbled their feet in the sea while I sat watching them.

The waves were a little rough on that day and every time one came in they would shriek with laughter, run forward daringly and then run back. Then they amused themselves by sending pebbles skimming over the water.

The noise of the sea, the odour of seaweed, the happy shrieks of the boys were a background to my thoughts. I remembered the boat’s coming in. I pictured Edwin and Harriet exchanging looks. I tried to remember what they had said, and how they had said it. Tr was there for me to see and I had been blind I was aware suddenly of a crunching of boots on the shingle and looking up I saw a man coming along. He carried a basket in which he had some pieces of driftwood and perhaps other things he had picked up during his beachcombing. He was muttering to himself “Sinful Should be beaten.” I knew instinctively that I was face to face with Young Jethro whose father had murdered my husband. I could not let him pass “Sinful?” I cried “Who is sinful?” He pulled up and looked at me with fierce, fanatical eyes shaded by brownish yellow brows so untidy that they sprouted in all directions and threatened to cover his eyes themselves His great pupils stood out, for the whites of his eyes showed all round them so he had a look of fierce surprize and horror His mouth was tight and drawn in, turning down at each side “Them bits of sin,” he said pointing to the boys. “I can assure you that they do not know the meaning of sin “

“You go against God’s Word, woman. We be all born in sin “

“Even you?”

“God help me, yes.”

“Well since you share in the sin, why are you so eager to point it out in others?”

“Laughing, shrieking ... two days off the Sabbath!” I felt angry with him. His father had killed Edwin. But for his father Edwin would not have died I might never have discovered his infidelities. But could he have gone on through his life pretending ...