She almost threw the chicken at him. She was in love.

Eight

For two days, it seemed, they did nothing but talk. Mrs. Swan was an easy chaperone, always ready to put her feet up and “let you young things go on without me,” though if anything truly interesting was promised she was assiduous in accompanying them. On the second evening they went to a play together. The theater had been banned by the Puritans, but dramas were still privately staged in some large houses, and Campion was astonished by the experience. The play was Bartholomew Fayre, and there was an added spice to the occasion for they could all have been arrested simply for watching the actors.

Campion had never seen a play and did not know what to expect. Her father had preached that such things were spawned of the devil and the performance was not without moments of sharp guilt for her. Yet she could not but find it amusing. The audience, unsympathetic to London’s new masters, revelled in Ben Jonson’s mockery of the Puritans. Campion had never known that the mockery existed, that people despised and hated men like her father, yet even she could see that the character Zeal-of-the-land Busy was both typical and ridiculous. The audience roared their approval when Zeal-of-the-land Busy was finally clapped in the stocks, and for a moment Campion was appalled by the hatred she sensed around her. Then the actor who played Zeal-of-the-land Busy made such an amusing face, one that reminded her of her father’s scowl, that she laughed out loud. Toby, who was sensitive to her moods, relaxed beside her.

Campion was luckier than she knew. Toby’s father, who was a sensible man, often thanked God for his fortune in his only son. Toby Lazender was someone to be proud of. He had inherited his mother’s independence and spirit, but he had also taken his father’s intelligence and sympathy. Toby knew that his parents would disapprove of Campion, his father would say Toby must marry money, for the sake of Lazen’s roof, and preferably well-born money, while what Lady Margaret would say, Toby could not predict; his mother being a lady difficult if not impossible to predict. Campion’s parents, her birth, her station, all conspired against Toby, yet he would not give her up. To his own mind their first meeting had seemed as fortuitous and miraculous as it had to Campion, and now on this second meeting it seemed instantly that they had shared a lifetime, so much did they have to say. Even Mrs. Swan, who was rarely short of a word, marvelled at their loquaciousness.

Toby would inherit Lazen Castle with all its fertile lands in the Lazen valley and its flocks in the higher land to the north. He was twenty-four now, more than ready for marriage, and he knew that his mother kept a memorized list of girls suitable to take her place in Lazen Castle. Toby now dismissed them all. It was foolish, he knew, wildly impractical, yet nothing now would deflect him from the Puritan girl he had met beside a summer stream. He had fallen in love with all the unexpectedness, suddenness and impracticality that love is capable of, and Mrs. Swan, observing it, was delighted. “It’s like Eloise and Abelard, it is, and Romeo and Juliet, and Will and Beth Cockell.”