***
BY HALF PAST THREE, the disappointing possibility that Christy wasn’t coming to the Weedies’ tea party had turned into a virtual certainty.
Despite that blow, Anne couldn’t help enjoying herself. It was, so to speak, another turn of the gem in her fingers, she decided as she sipped tea and ate scones with clotted Devon cream. Armed with her secret knowledge of the new relationship she would soon have with people like the Weedies and Miss Pine and Mrs. Thoroughgood, she was seeing them all in a different light. Gone was the uneasiness she’d always felt because of the social barrier they’d unilaterally thrown up between themselves and her while she was Lady D’Aubrey. Now that she was going to be plain old Anne Morrell, the minister’s wife, everything had changed. Changed so radically, in fact, that she was left to wonder how unilateral the barrier erection had really been. Was it possible she’d unwittingly contributed to the social atmosphere that had kept these kind people at a distance? Unconsciously acted the part of the viscountess because that was what was expected of her? A fascinating thought. It would have dismayed her if she hadn’t known that that time had passed. A new day was dawning, and she found it at once frustrating and titillating that she couldn’t tell them so.
“More tea, my lady?” Miss Weedie urged shyly, and smiled with pleasure when she said yes. Anne couldn’t get over the transformation in Miss Weedie. It wasn’t just the new dress—a soft wool crepe in dusty rose that was not quite but almost stylish—although that alone was cause for wonder. Even more surprising than the rose wool was the aura of exhilaration that hovered around her blooming cheeks and fluttering hands. Her graying blond hair looked more disheveled than usual, as if her excitement were coming out through her scalp and disarranging her hair, strand by strand.
The cause of all this pretty perturbation could only be Captain Carnock, big and bluff and blocky in his tan tweeds, and looking like a great shaggy mastiff in a roomful of tiny, well-behaved terriers. Even his voice seemed to rattle the dishes on the tea-table. His eyes followed Miss Weedie wherever she went with her teapot, and he inclined his massive body to catch every shy, infrequent utterance that passed her lips. Anne found herself observing the intriguing ritual with the same rabid interest that Mrs. Thoroughgood and Miss Pine were trying not to show. Old Mrs. Weedie, who ought to have been the most avid spectator of all, was, alas, largely oblivious to the romantic melodrama unfolding in her small living room. She’d recovered from her surgery, but she was still chair-ridden from her broken hip. From her comfortable place on the settle by the hearth, she nodded and dozed, slurped her tea and clicked her teeth, and conferred the same vague, placid smile on every remark she happened to hear.
“He says he’s a magistrate,” Miss Pine repeated, kindly trying to include her old friend in the conversation.
Mrs. Weedie cupped her good ear. “Who? A hatchet blade?”
“A magistrate! Captain Carnock!”
“A retching cough? Oh, dear.” She sent the captain a sweetly sympathetic look.
“A judge!” Mrs. Thoroughgood shouted at her. “Just got appointed! Sitting at the next quarter session!”
“Oh,” Mrs. Weedie said, enlightened, “a judge. Well, I declare, isn’t that something. My, my.” Her chin sank to her chest; she fell asleep.
Miss Weedie rushed over and snatched the empty cup from her hand before it could slip to the floor. “I’m sure we’re all very glad for you, sir,” she said softly, blushing, massaging the cup in her fingers. “I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful justice of the peace.”
“Well, I thank you for that, Miss Weedie,” the captain boomed, looking pleased and proud. “I take it as an honor and a serious responsibility, and I intend to do my best.”
“Will we have to call you ‘Your Worship’ from now on?” Mrs. Thoroughgood inquired playfully.
The captain threw back his head and laughed. Miss Weedie laughed with him, as if she found his good humor irresistible. “Plain old ‘Captain’ is still good enough for me. Vanstone wears a wig, you know, but I don’t plan to. Scratchy things; plus I’d look like a damned fool.” His bulbous cheeks turned bronze. “Oh, say, I do beg pardon.”
The old ladies tittered and coughed behind their hands, pretending they were shocked. But Anne suspected they liked his bluffness, and actually welcomed his refreshing male crudeness into their decorous female midst, like fresh air in a room that’s been shut up too long.
Four o’clock came, the unvarying hour in Wyckerley when all tea parties came to an end. Saying her good-byes at the cottage door, Anne recalled a conversation with Christy, before she’d agreed to marry him, in which he had repeatedly insisted that she was wrong about the residents of the village feeling respect but no real warmth toward her. Now that she was seeing them through new eyes, she was ready to accept at face value the words of gratitude and gladness Captain Carnock and the old ladies expressed for her company. More important, she was letting go of her own reserve and allowing her fondness for these kind people to show through, unrestrained. Small wonder that they all parted with true affection, and even the bashfully bold suggestion from Miss Weedie that in the future Anne might like to call her Jessie.
A most satisfying afternoon, thought Anne, standing in the lane beyond the Weedies’ sallow winter garden. Except that Christy hadn’t come. Silly to worry about him; half a dozen ecclesiastical chores could’ve kept him away. She missed him, though; she hadn’t seen him in three whole days. She felt off-kilter, out of rhythm, when that much time passed between their meetings. The prospect of trudging back to the Hall now in the gathering twilight depressed her. Did she have to? Giving her skirts a resolute shake, she turned around and began to walk west, toward the rectory.
The Wyck was a chatty companion as she went on her way up the High Street, nodding and returning the bows of all who acknowledged her. Her black-garbed, unescorted figure was a familiar sight by now and no longer excited the notice it once had, thank goodness. She passed a row of cottages, the town hall, the First and Last Inn, Dr. Hesselius’s house. The sweet smell of new malt followed her past the George and Dragon’s open door. Swan’s smithy, the center of village gossip and a source of current intelligence as reliable as a newspaper, was crowded with the usual gang of philosophers and hangers-on—perchers, Christy called them. The ones lounging on benches stood up when they saw her; everyone doffed his hat and bowed to her, and she thought Tranter Fox winked. What a funny little man. She quite liked him; Christy did, too, even though he never went to church and liked to boast about what a great sinner he was.
Strolling past the mayor’s pretentious Tudor mansion, she saw the front door open and Honoria Vanstone step out, followed by Lily Hesselius. Oh, bother, thought Anne, trapped; now that she’d decided to find out Christy’s whereabouts by going directly to his house and asking, she had no tolerance for frivolous delays, and there was nobody in Wyckerley she considered a more frivolous delay than Honoria Vanstone.
“Why, Lady D’Aubrey, what a delightful surprise,” exclaimed that lady when she saw her.
“Delightful surprise,” echoed Lily, Honoria’s constant companion these days. The two ladies unfurled their parasols together, never mind that the wintry sun had already slid behind the trees into gray oblivion. While they exchanged stiff chitchat about the weather and various village events, Anne mentally took note of Honoria’s interesting ambivalence toward her. She wasn’t as unctuous and flattering as she once had been, and it had started immediately after Geoffrey’s death. Anne was still Lady D’Aubrey, but it was common knowledge that Sebastian Verlaine was the new viscount, as well as the new owner of Lynton Great Hall—so where did one place in one’s social scale a widowed viscountess with no visible property? Honoria’s confusion was amusing, but only to a degree; she was such a disagreeable person that Anne couldn’t even enjoy her at an ironic distance for very long.
With Honoria, she’d learned, there was always a
point to the most trivial conversation, and she got down to the point of this one as soon as the pleasantries were decently out of the way. With an arch, artificial smile, she asked, “What news do you have of Sebastian, my lady?”
Sebastian? What impudence. “Nothing of any great moment recently,” Anne answered, and couldn’t help adding, “I wasn’t aware that you were acquainted with my husband’s cousin.” Indeed, it was her understanding that Geoffrey himself had met Sebastian Verlaine only two or three times in his whole life.
Honoria at least had the grace to blush while she said, “Oh, yes, we met as children—many years ago now, of course, but I shall never forget it. Sebastian—Lord D’Aubrev—was visiting at the Hall with his parents.”
“Oh, I see. So you met him at the Hall?”
There was a short but telltale pause. “Mm, the Hall, quite,” she said, suddenly vague, and immediately changed the subject. Silly old goose, thought Anne, irritated; Honoria had probably “met” the future viscount in the street; they might have fought over a ball or a mudpie, maybe jumped puddles together for twenty minutes. And for that, he was henceforth and forever going to be “Sebastian” to Miss Vanstone.
“We’re off to Miss Carter’s shop to buy ribbons before it closes,” piped up Mrs. Hesselius, as if it were the most delightful outing she could think of. Which it probably was. Of the two women, she was even sillier than Honoria, but for some reason Anne still had hopes for Lily. Christy had confided once that she was a terrible flirt and that she led poor, sweet Dr. Hesselius a merry chase—a circumstance which didn’t inspire an excess of sympathy in Anne’s harder heart; men who married pretty, flirty, much younger wives usually got what they deserved, in her opinion. Still, Lily wasn’t all bad. Silliness without malice was an easy sin to forgive; and for all Lily’s frothiness, Anne sometimes caught glimpses of a quick mind that, given time, might grow into a thoughtful one. The time would be shorter once she realized she could do better than to cast her lot with the likes of Honoria Vanstone.
“You’re in a hurry, then,” Anne said, relieved that the meeting was ending so quickly. “I won’t keep you standing in the street.”
She said good afternoon and parted from them before they could ask her where she was going—not that such a thing could stay a secret for long in Wyckerley. She didn’t doubt that a dozen people saw her continue up the street, cut the corner across the soggy green in front of Christy’s house, walk up the flagged path, and knock at the front door.
Mrs. Ludd answered. She had flour on her apron and ashes on her forehead—still there from the Ash Wednesday service. The sacrilegious thought crossed Anne’s mind that if she’d known she would miss Christy this afternoon, she might’ve gone to the service this morning, and at least gotten the imprint of his thumb on her forehead.
“Hello, Mrs. Ludd. Is Reverend Morrell at home, by any chance?”
“Why, no, he’s not, m’lady,” she said with a hasty curtsy. “He went to Mare’s Head for a noon christening. I thought he mighta gone direct to Weedies’ if he was running late.”
“No, he didn’t; I’ve just come from there.”
“Well, I hope nothing’s gone wrong with that Draper baby. Elly Draper’s lost three infants before now, two girls and a boy, all from general neshness of constitution. It’d break her heart to lose another.” The two women clucked their tongues and shook their heads in sympathy for Mrs. Draper. “Do you want me to give the vicar a message, m’lady?”
“Yes, if you would. Say I stopped by to have a word with him about a letter I received from the new viscount. It concerns the disposition of the glebe land.” This was true; she had had a letter. “Tell him I’ll be at home this evening if he would care to stop by and discuss the matter. It’s rather important.” This was not true; Sebastian’s letter had said, in essence, that she could do whatever she liked with the glebe land.
“I certainly will,” Mrs. Ludd said, impressed.
“Thank you.” She smiled at her future housekeeper, thinking it was a lucky thing that they liked each other, and took her leave.
***
The church clock was striking half past ten as Christy stabled his horse, and when he crept in the back door to his house, there was no one waiting up for him. Mrs. Ludd had left a light in the kitchen, a plate of food in the still-warm stove. He almost didn’t see the scribbled note, folded under the candleholder on the deal table.
So. Anne had come. The message made him smile—the sweet duplicity in it. But he was glad he’d missed her today. He had a choice to make, and seeing her would only have clouded his judgment. Without taking off his coat, without touching the food—Mrs. Ludd must’ve forgotten that he was fasting today—he went back outside, closing the door softly behind him.
It was the first of March, windy and a little too warm; pneumonia weather, his mother would have called it. In the high, cloudy sky, a moon rode but no stars. Spring was a faint but definite intimation in the odor of turned earth and the rustle of some burrowing creature in the garden humus. Deliberately skirting the cinder path that led to the sacristy, Christy walked around the church to the main portal—because tonight he was entering it as a man, not a priest. The familiar smells of stone and still air and dying flowers greeted him. The only light came from the tall altar candle, shrouded in red glass, a warm but lonely glow. His footsteps echoed quietly on the stone floor of the nave aisle; he sidled into a middle pew and sat down, shivering a little in the sudden cold.
He tried to clear his mind. At first nothing came to him but the prayer he’d been praying all the way home from Mare’s Head: “Thank you, God, for saving the Drapers’ child; please keep him safe.”
Thank you, God. Please, God.
Gradually the dark and the absolute stillness brought a measure of peace. He thought of Anne. If he were a Roman Catholic, he could go to a fellow priest and confess his sins, unburden his conscience in private. For the first time, that option appealed to him—interestingly, since before it had always seemed to him an intrusive, nearly offensive interpretation of the sacrament of penance. Now he could see some advantages—privacy, intensity, and immediate results: absolution.
The trouble with absolution was that it implied reformation. The sinner resolved to sin no more. But Christy’s love affair with Anne had never felt like a sin, not in his deepest heart, and resolving to love her no more felt like the vilest sacrilege. Was that Satan’s work? He smiled to himself, thinking how angry she would be if she knew he entertained such thoughts. In truth, he’d never had much use for Satan, and the concept of evil had always been more of an abstraction than a reality, something infinitely harder for him to take on faith than the existence of a merciful and loving God.
Anne joked that he and she were like Jesus and Mary Magdalene. A perverse analogy, since he made such a miserable stand-in for Christ—but what about her? Did God see sinfulness in one of his creatures who could not believe? Who did no harm, who lived a good, kind, gentle life, but could not believe? No—impossible; Christy felt it deeply, that Anne was God’s child as surely as anyone was. Then how could loving her be wicked?
Slipping from the bench, he sank to the hard wooden kneeler and covered his face with his hands. He felt as if he were on the brink of a conclusion to the chaos in his soul. He wanted to be silent and still in his heart, to hear God’s message, if there was one.
Noise. Confusion. He prayed the written prayer for guidance: “Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what thou wouldst have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straight path may not stumble.”
The tower clock struck eleven. In the quiet expanse of time after the last toll, Christy prayed out loud, “God, I don’t know if I’m still your servant or not. I know how easy it would be to delude myself, but lately I’ve been feeling that you’re not displeased with me for l
oving Anne, that I’m still doing your will—as imperfectly as usual, but still your will. Approximately. Help me to see the difference between what you want and what I want. Help me not to confuse them. I want to see the truth. I need your guidance, Lord, to know what’s right and what’s my own wishful thinking. Please help me. Show me the way.”
His mind stayed a jumble. “Please, God,” he prayed, more a chant than a prayer, eyes shut, hands clenched together. “Show me the right way. Please, God. Is it a test? Is Anne a trial you’ve sent me, or a free blessing? If she’s a blessing, help me to know what I’ve done to deserve it.”
No answer came. Please God, please God, he began again, to drive the noisy debris out of his brain. “Why doesn’t it feel like a sin to love her with my body? Give me the wisdom and humility to know what’s right. I thought I knew, but since she’s come I’m not sure if I know anything at all. Help me.”
Except for the intermittent tolling of the clock, he would not have known if time passed or stood still. The small light on the altar, the one he’d thought was dim, burned like a red sun in his eyes, even when he covered them with his hands. His knees went numb, then his fingers, then his toes. All the while he listened, listened. Sometimes God spoke softly, and he couldn’t afford to miss the news. Close to dawn, the early chirp of a chaffinch roused him from some kind of revery. Hedge sparrows twittered in the ash tree outside Saint Catherine’s window. Christy lifted his head from his crossed arms. Silver dawn light was invading the black shadow-corners; the white of the altar cloth gleamed palely, the brightest object he could discern, brighter even than the candle now. And something had settled inside him. He would pray again, pray forever, in the hope that it was true, not self-deception, but for now it seemed right. For now, that was enough. “Thank you,” he prayed, too exhausted for joy. That would come later, too.