To Love and to Cherish (27 page)

“After the shock wore off.”

“Right—you haven’t once argued with me about it. Do you know how grateful I am for that?”

“Why do you think I’m doing it?”

He smiled, but he wouldn’t let her tease him out of what he wanted to say. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve having you. Sweet Anne, you’re in my heart. You’re my delight—my heart’s desire.” He lowered his mouth to hers in the gentlest kiss.

She loved his soft breath on her cheek, the warm skin of his neck where she touched him, under his collar. His hands coasting lightly, lightly, up and down her spine. They shifted the angle of their mouths, shifted the mood. Hunger now—her breath quickening, his hands tightening on her waist, pulling her closer. She made a sound low in her throat, a purr of pleasure, and a warning.
Be careful
. But the slow slide of his tongue had her opening her mouth for him, welcoming him, light-headed from the taste of him. She stepped closer, wanting the pressure of his hard chest against her breasts, then wanting more.
Careful
. The hot, slick kiss deepened, and she was falling too fast.
Must not
. She made herself turn her face away, shivering from the heat of his open mouth gliding softly along the line of her jaw.

“It’s character-building,” he muttered against her neck. “We don’t have to stop yet.”

She realized she had the shoulders of his shirt wadded in her two clenched fists. Relaxing her hands, she smoothed the wrinkled white cotton over the bunched muscles of his upper arms. “This is not character-building,” she got out between unsteady breaths. “Christy, this is torture.”

Foreheads touching, they wailed in unison, “Three more weeks,” then groaned piteously.

They walked home the rest of the way with their arms around each other. When they reached the crossroads, they lingered, delaying the moment of parting as long as they could. Their secret hiding place was a hollow chestnut stump, a few feet from the main road in a thicket of gorse and straggly heath. “I left something for you,” Christy told her as they stood in the lane.

“Did you? I haven’t been to look, because of the rain. Is it a letter?”

“No, it’s nothing at all. Really,” he demurred when she started into the weeds to retrieve his gift, “it isn’t anything. Don’t go, the grass is wet. I’ll get it for you.”

She waited while he waded into the tangled brush. They might need a new hiding place one of these days—she noticed they were beginning to wear a path. He bent down to retrieve something from the mouth of the stump; she caught only a flash of yellow before he whipped it behind his back and returned to the road, wearing a sheepish look.

“It’s nothing,” he repeated, standing in front of her. “Not even worth bothering with.”

“Let’s have it.” She extended her hand, and he brought out his present: a sad, wet, wilted bouquet of very dead coltsfoot. She laughed, at Christy and at his silly flowers, but her throat caught and she was moved by a powerful emotion. “Did you come out in the rain to leave them for me?”

He shrugged. “Had my umbrella.”

“Oh, God, I have to kiss you right now. No, I mean it, I have to. Where can we go?” The only place was at the edge of the oak trees, twenty yards away where Lynton’s wooded parkland began. Stifling laughter, they walked up the road as fast as they dared, careful not to run. With a last glance around to make sure the coast was clear, they sidled into the trees, feeling like guilty poachers. Acorn husks crackled noisily underfoot. There wasn’t much cover; they had to go in a fair ways before the bare trees shielded them from the road.

Still clutching her bedraggled flowers, she came into Christy’s open arms with a laugh and a sigh. “I am absolutely mad for you,” she told him between soft kisses all over his face. “You make me feel like a girl again. A very silly girl who’s off her head most of the time.”

“Yes, and you’ve reduced me to this. Stripped my dignity away like a banana peel. Me, a man of the cloth—”

She kissed him on the mouth to shut him up—and in no time at all they were back to the dangerous stage, exactly where they’d left off. “This has
got
to stop,” Anne said with insincere firmness, ignoring the fact that she’d started it.

“Not yet, though.”

“No, not yet.” She let herself go, let him do what he wanted, leaving it in his hands. Oh, the aching sweetness of this!—the deep, yearning kisses and the soft-hard touching, the whispered words of love and desire. But then, quite suddenly, Christy froze. Ah, well, she thought, tottering on the edge between frustration and fatalism; it had to end sometime, didn’t it? She pulled back to tell him so, and saw his face. It was blank and staring, rigid with shock. Jumping back in a panic, she spun around.

Someone was watching them.

“Holy Mother of God,” breathed Anne. It was Mrs. Weedie. And she was stark naked.

Christy recovered first. “Find her clothes, Anne,” he said quietly, then moved past her toward the old lady with smooth, unhurried steps, trying not to frighten her. But she seemed to crumple up the closer he came; when he reached her she’d sunk to her hands and knees in the damp leaves and was peering up at him fearfully. “You’re too big,” she cried, cringing away. Her gray hair had come halfway out of a bun on top of her head, and a long lock of it fell almost coyly over one of her small, flaccid breasts. Christy went down on his knees beside her. When he put his hand on her shoulder, she fell to her side and drew her knees up, wrapping her bony white arms around them. “Too big!”

“Anne,”
he said again, and she finally reacted. Creeping forward, heart pounding, she found a white flannel nightgown and one cloth slipper on the ground a few yards away. She went a little farther toward the road, and something red caught her eye, hanging from the low branch of a spindle tree; it proved to be a quilted dressing gown, with most of its buttons torn off or hanging by threads. She snatched it up and hurried back to Christy.

He and Mrs. Weedie were having a conversation. She called him “Bobby” and kept asking him if he was home for good now. He spoke to her with gentle jocularity, soothing her with his voice as well as his words, and she smiled at him and put her hand on his head, ruffling his golden hair as if he were a toddler. He’d put his jacket across her lap, but she seemed completely unaware of her nakedness and didn’t even try to cover her bosom. Christy sent Anne a helpless look, and they changed places.

She must not have been naked for long; she wasn’t shivering and her skin was cool but not cold. “You’re not Jessie,” she accused, while Anne struggled to get her arms into the sleeves of her nightgown. It was a lot like dressing a small child—no cooperation.

“No, I’m . . . I’m Anne.” The situation was odd enough already; bringing
Lady D’Aubrey
into it, she felt, would only increase the absurdity.

“Do I know you?” Mrs. Weedie inquired politely.

“Oh, yes,” she assured her, pulling a dead leaf out of her tangled gray hair. “We’re neighbors, you and I. And very good friends.”

“Are we? I’m so glad. Now, where’s Bobby got to? There you are, you bad boy. Help your mama up, it’s time to go home. What are you doing out in these wet woods with—with—” Her lips quivered; she looked ready to cry. “I can’t remember your name.”

“It’s Anne. We’re friends.”

Her face cleared. “Anne,” she repeated with relief. Christy knelt down again and lifted her up in his arms. Anne put the lone cloth slipper on one of her cold feet and tied her own handkerchief around the other. “Ready to go home, Mama?” Christy asked softly.

Mrs. Weedie put her head on his shoulder and smiled.

Miss Pine was coming down the Weedies’ front path as they turned in at the gate. Hatless, hair awry, she looked worn to a frazzle. “Saints, you found her!” she cried when she saw them. “Jessica!” She whirled and ran back to the door, throwing it open. “Jessie, she’s here, the vicar’s found her!”

Miss Weedie bolted past her, red-faced, apron strings flying. “Oh, thank God!” she exclaimed, while grateful tears ran down her cheeks. “Is she all right? Where was she? Mother, are you all right? Come in, put her by the fire. Oh—Lady D’Aubrey, I didn’t see you!” Even in her distress, she remembered her manners and dropped an awkward curtsey.

“I think she’s all right,” Christy told her, setting his burden down carefully on the cushioned settle beside the hearth. “But you might want to send for the doctor anyway, just to be sure.”

“I’ll go,” Miss Pine said immediately, and scurried out.

Blankets were brought, tea poured, soup heated, new slippers put on the invalid’s feet. Anne stood quietly by while Christy explained how he’d found Mrs. Weedie. He didn’t tell any lies, but he left out a few particulars, such as her own presence from the beginning. She didn’t doubt that he would wrestle with his conscience later.

Mrs. Thoroughgood came, and several other ladies of the parish, members of an informal search party that had been scouring the neighborhood for the last half hour or so. Miss Pine came back with Dr. Hesselius, who said he’d run into the constable on his way and informed him that all was well. Christy carried Mrs. Weedie up to her tiny bedroom on the second floor, where the doctor examined her and gave her a sleeping potion. When he came down, he pronounced her tired but not much the worse for her adventure. Neighbors and friends began to drift away. The excitement was over.

Anne lingered uncertainly, then said good-bye to Miss Weedie—who thanked her profusely for coming, as if she’d done her an honor—and went outside. But she loitered in the gloom outside the cottage gate, waiting for Christy. After about ten minutes he joined her.

They stood in the middle of the street, in plain sight of any passersby, two acquaintances having a parting chat. Except that neither knew quite what to say. It was all so extraordinary—Anne wanted to talk about everything, but there wasn’t time now. “So she’s really all right, is she?” she said at last. “Lord, I hope she doesn’t catch cold.”

“No, I think she’ll be fine.”

“Poor Miss Weedie, this must be so hard for her. I wish I could do something to help.”

Christy shook his head in sympathy. “There’s not much anyone can do.” He looked at her speculatively, then said, “Captain Carnock’s asked her to marry him.” He interrupted her glad exclamation by adding quickly. “She’s refused him.”

“What? But why?”

“Because of her mother. She says she can’t leave her.”

“Oh, but can’t she—”

“It seems the original proposal didn’t include Mrs. Weedie. The captain’s added her on since then, but for Miss Weedie it’s too late. She says he’s just being dutiful now, and she won’t take advantage of his good nature. She’s adamant.”

“Why, what utter rot,” Anne exclaimed wonderingly. He raised his eyebrows at her. “No, but really, Christy—isn’t it too nice of her? Too delicate? And none of my business, I know. All right, I’ll shut up, before you say you’re sorry you told me. But really—” He raised his infernal brows again, and she subsided, with a put-upon sigh.

He clasped his hands behind his back and bent toward her a little, tall and priestly in his dark blue coat and trousers, his forehead creased with earnestness. Who would guess that an hour ago he’d had her up against a tree trunk, kissing her, and whispering words in her ear that could make her blush right now if she cared to think about them. “What’s the moral of this day’s interesting events, Anne? What lesson have we learned from them?”

This must be how he quizzed the Sunday school children on their catechisms. She laid her index finger on her cheek, pretending to think. “Mm . . . never kiss the vicar unless you’re sure you’re alone?” He sent her a severe look. “That’s wrong? All right, I give up.”

“The lesson,” he pronounced, “is that you and I are not really having such a bad time.”

“We aren’t?”

“Compared to other people’s troubles, yours and mine are embarrassingly trivial. Well, mine, anyway; I won’t speak for you.”

“Best not.”

He lowered his voice. “The one and only imperfection in my life at the moment is that I can’t take you to bed.”

“You call that
trivial
?”

He looked up at the sky, as if praying for patience. “What I am trying to—”

She cut him off with a gay laugh. “Oh, Christy, don’t you think I know how lucky we are? I’ve found my life’s mate. I love you more every day, and I’m so happy it frightens me. Poor, poor Miss Weedie, my heart breaks for her. All the things keeping you and me apart—in three weeks they’ll be gone, and you’ll be mine again, and I don’t know if I can—
live
with pleasure and contentment that strong. Oh, my.” She took a step back, whispering, “Say good-bye, Christy, before I start to cry!”

Somewhere in the lane behind her, a cottage door opened and closed. She didn’t dare turn around. Christy tipped his hat to someone, looking over her shoulder, and the effort he was making to look grave and ministerial restored her, composure—so much so that now she felt more like giggling than weeping.

“Well, good night to you, Lady D’Aubrey,” he said loudly, with an elegant bow—hand on his heart and everything. “Shall I see you on Saturday at the church bazaar?”

“You shall, Reverend Morrell. You might see me sooner if you come to the bridge tomorrow night. Or the caretaker’s cottage if it rains.”

A most unclerical grin split his face. “Your servant, my lady.” He took her outstretched hand, and for a second she thought he might kiss it. But he only bowed over it as he gave it a slow, intimate squeeze.

Her heart fluttered. “You’re driving me stark staring mad,” she murmured to him as they were both turning away. It halted him in midturn. She kept going and walked away from him without looking back. As she went, she imagined him standing in the street, staring after her. Going a little mad too, she hoped.

XIX

Come, ye sad and fearful-hearted,

With glad smile and radiant brow:

Lent’s long shadows have departed;

All his woes are over now.

C
HRISTY WAS DOING
his best to look priestly, or at least serious and thoughtful, while the men’s choir sang the hymn before the Gospel; at all costs, he had to hold in the wide, moronic grin that kept trying to take over his face. Joy was a commendable emotion at Eastertide, but laughing out loud at the Sunday morning service would be decidedly
de trop
, as Anne would say, especially in the celebrant.

It would help if he could stop looking at her, but he couldn’t. She looked more than beautiful, she looked . . .
angelic
in her Easter gown of rich midnight-blue. Today was the first day she’d been out of mourning in public for five months. Tongues would wag, but neither of them had it in them to care much anymore.

That she, not spiritual appreciation of the risen Christ, was the source of his euphoria made him feel guilty, but not excessively so. Today it was easier to believe God was rejoicing with him because the long Lenten abstinence was over. Forty days and forty very long nights. There had been times when he was sure it would’ve been less difficult to give up food than Anne; maybe water, too. But he’d persevered. Now it was over, and tonight they would come out of hiding and announce their engagement. Alleluia, indeed.

The last strains of the hymn died away; the choir members resumed their seats in the stalls. Christy read the Gospel from the chancel, and the congregation sat down. He had a simple sermon prepared for this Easter morning. He mounted the pulpit steps without trepidation or anxiety. The church was the Body of Christ, and the faces looking back at him from the nave of All Saints were his best friends; his heart felt swollen with love for every one of them. Without notes, he began to speak.

Anne listened with breathless attention. She’d heard him preach numberless times by now, on procrastination, pride, loneliness, parental neglect, forgiveness, the universality of suffering—but she had never heard him preach like this. He’d taken his text from Ezekiel, the passage about the valley of dry bones. His message was the usual one for Easter—joy in Christ’s Resurrection and hope for life eternal. But he’d hardly begun before she knew she was listening to something out of the ordinary.

She sensed a new attentiveness in the audience, too; everyone sat up straighter, and it seemed as if even the babies stopped squirming. Christy’s vestments were white—for joy. He began with simple word-pictures, homely parables to illustrate his theme. He kept his gestures subdued, sometimes leaning forward, sometimes straightening suddenly to his full height, as if upraised by the power of his thoughts. His voice was low, clear, penetrating; it seldom rose, and when it did, it wasn’t from loudness as much as feeling. Even so, his words stirred her because of what seemed a deliberate
repression
of emotion, all the more powerful for his obvious restraint. Everything came together; everything meshed. She was witnessing the conjunction of eloquence with deep moral earnestness, and she was profoundly moved.

I could pray
, she thought when it was over.
I actually feel like
praying
. She wanted God the way Christy had him, personally, like a soul’s mate, its other half. And when most of the congregation stood up and went to the altar to receive Holy Communion, she wanted to go with them.
I’m jealous
, she thought, in awe and wonder.
Oh, Christy, wait till I tell you
.

He liked to greet his congregation after Sunday services in his plain black clothes, not his vestments. Every week she watched him say the last blessing and then exit stage left, so to speak, into the sacristy—only to appear on the church steps seconds later, it seemed, vestment-less and not even breathing hard. It was either magic or impressive sprinting skills, and it was amusing to imagine the children starting rumors of miracles and transformations, tales that would intensify over the years and become full-blown, self-sustaining myths.

Today was no different: there he was, waiting for her—Lady D’Aubrey, due to her exalted station, was always first to file out of church—and they shook hands with even more decorousness than usual, both enjoying the last few hours of pretend-formality because it was so close to being over forever. Oh, but she wanted to kiss him! Not allowed. Wouldn’t be, not even after they were married, not on the church steps, for heaven’s sake. But she was a woman deprived; she wanted her man. Forty days and forty—nights; an unladylike expletive came to mind, and the wickedness of it made her smile at Christy in a way that had his ears turning pink.
Oh, I love you!
she told him with her eyes, then let go of his hand to move discreetly aside so others could speak to him.

She waited on the first landing—in a few minutes they were going to walk together to Mayor Vanstone’s luncheon party—watching him covertly while she exchanged Easter greetings with her neighbors and friends. She was especially pleasant to Margaret Mareton, whom she quite liked now that the Sunday school teacher was completely out of the running for the minister’s hand. Thomas Nineways annoyed her more than usual, because she knew he was a thorn in Christy’s side; but his wife, quiet and unassuming, with a wit so dry it could blow away in a stiff breeze, intrigued her as a possible friend. She was surprised to see William Holyoake walk away with one of the Swan sisters on his arm—Cora or Chloe; she could never keep them straight. She’d never thought of Holyoake as anything but the bachelor bailiff of Lynton Hall Farm, a man with no life outside his work, who might even find the company of young ladies somewhat tedious. Which showed what she knew. Still—sturdy old William and a
Swan sister?

It was a perfect day, with storybook clouds in a blinding blue sky, birds singing, tree buds sprouting. The village green had never been greener, and the children just let out of church were already sporting on it, giddy as mad hares. Anne watched them over Mrs. Thoroughgood’s stooped shoulder, exchanging small talk with the old lady while a bewitching fantasy teased at the corners of her mind—of her own child, hers and Christy’s, playing on the green while they watched fondly from a window in the vicarage.

A coach moving slowly up the High Street caught her eye; it was coming from the direction of the Hall, and from this distance it looked like the ancient D’Aubrey barouche. Since that couldn’t be, she kept her eye on the steadily moving vehicle, and stopped hearing what Mrs. Thoroughgood was saying to her when she recognized first the two chestnut hackneys pulling the coach and then the driver—Collie Horrocks, her own groomsman. How extraordinary. She hadn’t ordered the carriage, and yet here it was, stopping in the road at the very base of the church steps. Mrs. Fruit must’ve misheard her when she said . . . when she’d . . .

The carriage’s freshly painted green door was thrown open from the inside and a pale hand came out to turn down the step.
It’s a dream
, thought Anne, watching the long, tan-trousered legs swing out over the threshold. Geoffrey held on to the door when he jumped down to the ground and kept one hand on the handle, swaying a little while he scanned the crowded church steps.

Her vision dimmed. She turned jerkily, looking for Christy, and found him as if at the end of a long telescope, paper-white and staring. Around her, she heard gasps and broken-off exclamations. Geoffrey saw her. He had on a stovepipe hat. He snatched it off with a mocking flourish and made a short, shaky bow. His grin was ghastly. He threw his arms out at his sides, Christ-like, and croaked into the horrified silence, “He is risen!”

Captain Carnock saw her stagger, and caught her before she fell. His kind, worried face looming above her was the last thing she saw.

***

“Did I ever tell you, darling, about the time my father locked me in this cupboard?”

From across the room, Anne watched her husband drum his heels against the door to the low side cabinet on which he was sitting. She didn’t answer. She was trying to hold on to a delusion that if she didn’t speak to him, she could keep him from being real.

“I don’t remember how old I was; small, though, to fit in here, eh?” He gave the wood a hard smack with his boot. “Guess what my childish crime was. Come, darling, guess. You won’t play? Very well, I’ll tell you. I was
impudent
. Yes! Can you conceive of it? Lost to memory is the precise form my impudence took on that occasion—a facial expression, a certain tone of voice, perhaps. But I do recall the cupboard. Oh, yes, my recollection of that is quite, quite unclouded.”

Anne swallowed a sip of brandy and tried not to shudder. Odd—she was drinking, but Geoffrey wasn’t. Water; he was drinking water, glass after glass, as if he were parched, but so far no alcohol. Odd.

He got up and went toward the table in the middle of the drawing room; on the way he stumbled and almost lost his balance. “More for you, darling?” he asked while he poured another glass of water from the silver pitcher.

She stared at him in veiled horror. He’d gained weight, at least thirty pounds; his corpulent body looked sluggish and uncoordinated. His hair, once dark and sleek, had turned motley shades of gray, and grew out of his dry scalp in random patches.

When she didn’t speak, he toasted her with his glass and drank down the contents in a few noisy gulps. He was out of breath when he finished, and it took him a moment before he was able to say without panting, “Well, my love, did you miss me while I was gone?”

She passed her hand over her eyes, steeling herself for speech. “What happened to you, Geoffrey? Where have you been?”

“Which didn’t, he noted, quite answer the question,” he said with a facetious twist of his lips. “What happened? Why, you’ll hardly credit it, but I lost my memory. Amnesia, they call it. From the Greek, you know, for ‘forgetfulness.’ I’ve been in an army hospital in Hampshire for the last four months.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He shrugged. “Nevertheless, it’s—it’s true.” He leaned heavily against the table; sweat beaded suddenly on his forehead and under his nose.

“Are you sick?” she asked sharply.

“No, no.” But he went to the sofa and sank down on it heavily. “It’s nothing. Just the excitement of coming home to the arms of my loving wife.”

She couldn’t look at him anymore. His body, his voice, his face, everything about him repelled her; she felt nauseated by his very presence. “Do you want anything?” she forced herself to ask. He looked at her strangely. “I’ll ring for the maid if you want something to eat.”

“No, I don’t want anything to eat. Tell me, darling, how have you been? Tell me every little thing you’ve been doing.”

She felt like a thin sheet of glass. She wanted to scream and scream, scream the house down. But she was listless, too; bone-weary. She couldn’t summon the energy to get up and walk out of the room. Maybe they would both die here, entombed in the drawing room, done in by their own inertia.

“How’s Devil? Tell me that, at least.”

She blinked at him, as if he’d spoken in a foreign language. Far away, she heard a knock, then footsteps, voices. Violet stuck her sharp little face in the doorway, her nose twitching, avid for news. “Reverend Morrell’s here,” she announced.

Geoffrey tottered to his feet. “Christy,” he said with real pleasure, and hobbled to meet him in the center of the room. “My God, look at you.”

Christy’s blue eyes skittered over her for only an instant, long enough to make her heart contract. He looked ill. Speechless, he shook Geoffrey’s hand, trying so hard to smile.

If she stayed, she would break down. Her voice was a too-high trill. “Will you excuse me?” She got up from her chair stiffly, like an old lady. When she tried to say more, her throat closed. She looked at Christy helplessly. He couldn’t speak to her either, she saw. With her head down, she got out of the room.

“Well, well, sit down! Have a drink? Or tea, I’ll ring for it if you want.”

“No, nothing. I can’t stay, I just . . .” He trailed off, hardly knowing what he was saying. He kept seeing Anne’s ruined face, and he couldn’t string two sentences together. Why had he come here? To see her, of course. Now she was gone, and he must pretend he’d come to see Geoffrey.

“How are you?” he finally managed to say, sitting down in the chair she’d just left. Geoffrey looked ghastly, worse than ever before.

“I’ve been a little unwell.” He giggled—a terrible sound—as if conscious of the understatement; then his puffy, paste-colored face sobered. He poured out a glass of water from a pitcher on the table and carried it to the couch. “The old curse flared up again while I was out in the Crimea. Malaria, you know. Gave me a run for it this time.”

What if Christy told him he knew about the syphilis? Geoffrey might welcome that, be relieved to have it out in the open. But he couldn’t speak.

“Place looks different,” Geoffrey said, gesturing at the room with his glass. “Can’t say how exactly. Anne’s done well, better without me, I daresay. Thanks for looking after her, by the way. Mean it. Good show.”

Unable to acknowledge that, Christy said, “Has she told you about tenants from the Hall helping to cultivate the glebe lands this spring?”

“What?” He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye socket. “Yes, something in a letter, I think. Lifetime ago. I’d forgotten.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Later, right-ho. How’s Devil?”

Christy couldn’t make sense of the question. He stared uneasily, his heart pounding.

“My horse!”

“Oh, Devil, yes—I—I’ve been calling him Tandem.”

“The bloody hell you say. Do you ride him?”

“Yes, yes. Not as often as I’ve meant to, but between Collie and me we keep him in pretty good trim.”

“Good, that’s good. He’s a cracker, isn’t he?”

This was intolerable; the conversation was becoming more absurd by the second. He felt full of a sick, baffled rage. “What happened to you?” he blurted out. “We thought you were dead.”

“Yes, sorry about that. A misunderstanding.” When he smiled, Christy saw that his gums were a livid purple. The hand holding the water glass wobbled; he had to steady it with the other, and finally he set the glass down on the floor at his feet. “Listen, Christy,” he said in a rush, and the mockery in his voice was suddenly completely gone. “Do you know what happened at Inkerman?”