Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [442]
“Dost thou not grieve that we are unable to go to God’s city of Geneva?” she several times asked him and Peter, wanting to please her but plainly confused, would look troubled before replying hopefully:
“Are we not doing God’s work here?”
And she knew that he was relieved because he was not being asked to move from his little workshop.
Most of the time Abigail was silent. But sometimes alone with her husband and hearing of the raising of a new altar in some Wiltshire church, or the celebration of a dirge in the city, she would cry out:
“How can you smile, Peter Mason, when such things are done? How long are we to suffer the Roman Antichrist – or will you just stand weakly by?”
At such times, Peter would hang his head, confused and ashamed more on account of the scorn he sensed in her voice than any clear perception that he had sinned. On three occasions he led Shockley to one side and asked his advice.
“She will speak out in public one day,” he told the merchant. “I fear it and I fear for her, Master Shockley.”
Hearing it, Edward Shockley too was troubled – for he, too, feared that Abigail’s resolute nature might bring her into direct conflict with Bishop Capon, and he dreaded the consequences.
It was on the third occasion that Peter had said quietly:
“My wife is not like me: she is brave and strong.” And Edward, though he agreed, had been sorry to see the cutler look so ashamed.
Strangely, though he even went to mass upon occasion, Abigail felt less friction with Robert at Fisherton. Unusually for the family, he had a thick shock of dark hair; he had a powerful, burly figure, and firm convictions.
“This rule is a great iniquity,” he told her. “But I’ll not oppose it until these children are grown,” and he gestured towards his six children.
“Does thy conscience trouble thee?” she asked.
“Yes,” he told her frankly, “every day. But this is a time to suffer in silence. That’s my judgement.”
And though she was not sure if he was right, she understood his decision, and bowed her head in respect.
“May we pray to God in the proper manner in private?” she asked.
To this Robert Mason did agree; with Robert leading their prayer, Peter, Abigail, the six children and several of their neighbours would meet discreetly in Fisherton and conduct their Protestant services each week with a good conscience.
There was no question about one thing at least: Robert’s children needed her. It was a comfort in her adversity to have them about her. The baby in particular she cherished; indeed, it was hard sometimes to draw herself away from it, and often when she arrived back in Culver Street she would stand silently at the door of her husband’s little workshop and gaze at him wondering:
“Will God perhaps, after all, grant us a child?”
If she could not quite respect her husband over the all-important matter of religion, she could not fault his conduct. Not only did Peter try to help her, but he never complained. Often she was at Fisherton longer than she had intended, but when she came to him at last and apologised for her long absence he would smile sweetly and answer: “I am well enough here,” so that at times she wondered if perhaps her absence was a relief to him.
Was it that thought, she asked herself, that several times made her burst out at him in renewed anger at his indifference to the terrible events of Mary’s reign?
Edward Shockley watched all these developments in the Mason household with mixed feelings. Sometimes, when he looked at simple Peter and his intense, passionate wife, he could not help feeling a tinge of contempt for the cutler; but no sooner had he felt it than he rounded upon himself:
“And you, Edward Shockley, who understand these things more plainly than Peter Mason. Aren’t you going to mass with the rest like the coward you are?” he would demand of himself.
For certainly there were no more perfect Catholics in Sarum now than Edward Shockley and his wife Katherine.
Each week, with her brother