Winter Is Past (30 page)

When Simon reached her, she was laughing so hard she couldn't speak. She just pointed at him, and he realized how covered with snow he was. He looked down at his greatcoat and started brushing off the worst of the snow, which only made her laugh harder. She looked so joyful, her cheeks reddened by the snow and her laughter, her bonnet askew, that he began to chuckle.

She made several attempts to tell him how funny he looked, but she couldn't get the words out. Each time she thought her laughter had subsided, she began afresh. She finally could not sustain herself any longer, but sat back in the snow. “Y-you sh-should have seen y-yourself! Y-you didn't know wh-what hit you! And your glasses! They're all covered with snow. Y-you look like a s-snow monster!” She put a hand to her mouth to try to stop laughing, but to little avail.

He smiled down at her, enjoying her laughter as he removed his glasses and wiped them off with his muffler. She looked like a young girl. He wished he could join her down there, take her in his arms and roll in the snow. He clenched his gloved hands, knowing that was not possible. Not now. She must never know how he felt about her.

When she finally lay relaxed, he said, “Come, now you've had your laugh at my expense, I'll help you up.”

She narrowed laughing eyes at him. “Can I trust you?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You have little choice, do you not?”

“I trust you,” she said, extending a gloved hand. He pulled her up easily.

“Now,” he said, eyeing her, “if you think I look as if I've just come from the worse end of a snowball fight, I think you should see yourself.” He brought up his hand to her cheek. “Did I hurt you with that last one?” He removed his glove, wishing he had a handkerchief, but it was inside his coat pocket, beneath the greatcoat. With his bare hand he attempted to wipe the snow off her face. Her skin felt cold.

She shook her head. Her lips looked so red and inviting that he had to concentrate all his attention on his task. If at one time he might have considered putting aside all the reasons why he could never consider marrying her, now it was certainly out of the question. He could never offer himself to any woman now—a man who had lost all reputation, all honor.

He began brushing the snow off her cloak.

“Oh, don't bother.” She giggled again, pointing at him. “It's obvious who got the beating today.”

“I think we need an impartial judge to decide the outcome. I see less of your cloak than mine beneath the snow.”

“Are you going to be a poor loser?” she asked, an innocent gleam in her eyes. Today they looked gray against the gray of her cloak.

“Funny, I never took you for a cheat and liar, Althea Breton, amidst all those stellar qualities.”

She laughed.

He finished cleaning off his greatcoat. “I can't think when I last threw snowballs. Possibly once or twice at Cambridge.” He stopped just in time, before adding that it had usually been after a night of carousing in a tavern when they were returning to their rooms in the wee hours.

“I must confess it hasn't been so long for me. When there is a snowfall in London, before it becomes all dirty and sooty, we usually have one good snowball fight with the children.”

After their hilarity, the silence between them felt awkward and self-conscious. She began to say something at the same time as he.

He gestured for her to continue. “No, it was nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. When he insisted, she smiled sheepishly. “I was just going to say something trite about how lovely a first snowfall is.”

The two looked ruefully at each other, acknowledging the embarrassment between them. Abruptly he said, “You implied once that I would make you forsake your God. Do you really believe that of me?”

She had removed her bonnet and was shaking the snow off. At his question, she stopped, surprise and wariness in her gray eyes. Did she think he'd forgotten the circumstances?

He watched her place the bonnet back on her head and tie its ribbons. She seemed to be taking her time to answer his question.

Finally she said, “You would not do it deliberately.” She gave a final tug on the bow and looked at him. “But slowly you'd chisel away at my devotion. You perhaps might not even realize you were doing so. But with your expert use of mockery and whatever other weapon the enemy gave you, you would try to weaken my dedication and service to the Lord. You would come to use anything to undermine my faith in the Lord in order to mask your fear of confronting Him for yourself.”

She smiled sadly. “I know of what I speak. I lived with unbelievers for a time, people who loved me in their own way but made life impossible by their remarks, their criticisms, their unbelief. I went to a church where I was accused of idolatry because I was reading the Bible. The vicar held me up as an example in his sermons, as he considered reading the Word excessively a form of overzealousness.”

She sighed, gazing down at her mittens. “Finally you would force me to choose between my Lord and you, without ever understanding that without loving Him, I can never truly love anyone else. Love comes from Jesus. He
is
love.”

She looked at him earnestly. “You can't love, Simon, really love, until you understand how much He loves you!”

“I see,” he said, glancing away. He should be relieved; she had
made things easier for him. “I cannot say I understand fully what you are saying, but I want you to relieve your mind of all concern on that score.” He resolved on the spot to put an end to any other feelings he might have for her. “I have grown to love you as a sister—despite your assertion that I can have no concept of love. But you have become as dear to me as Tirzah or Simcha.

“Please forgive me for any liberties I ever took with you, or for anything I have ever said to offend you.” He met her gaze and knew they were both thinking of that night. She had made it plain then and she was making it plain now that she would never accept a man who did not accept her Lord Jesus as his Savior.

“You have no need to reproach yourself for anything,” she said softly.

He couldn't know what she was thinking. But he knew with his words, he was putting to death hope of anything more between the two of them. Already, he had lost all honor in the eyes of the world. He wouldn't have it on his conscience that he had weakened her faith in any way.

He held out his hand to her. “Sister?”

She took his hand in agreement, though neither smiled as they accepted their new relationship.

By end of their holiday together, Althea had convinced herself that all the Lord intended between her and Simon was brotherly love and fellowship. She was thankful he had spoken the way he had, although it had initially reawakened all the longing in her.

Her sister-in-law brought up her friendship with Simon one afternoon shortly before the end of the holiday. “I can see Simon is very fond of you,” she remarked, her eyes intent on the frock she was embroidering for Judith.

“Yes, he cares for me as for one of his sisters.”

Gillian smiled around the thread she had between her teeth. “He told you that?”

Althea quickly looked at Gillian. “Yes.”

“Be that as it may, the look I catch in his eyes is far more than brotherly.” She laughed a deep, rich laugh.

Althea turned away, her heart beginning to beat faster. “Please, do not speak of it.”

Gillian was immediately contrite. “I'm sorry.” She held out the embroidery hoop and observed it for a moment before turning her attention to the skeins of thread. Carefully she chose another color and separated a thread. “He has gone through much of late, has he not?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn't talk of it, not even to Tertius, for he would have told me of it.” Gillian threaded her needle and knotted it. “But he did say one thing to him.” She paused as she began her first stitches. “Simon told him that there had been nothing between him and Lady Stanton-Lewis. He believes it is precisely because he refused any sort of liaison with her that he made an enemy of her.”

Althea sucked in her breath. “You mean—”

Gillian nodded. “The lady and her husband are very powerful. They could do much damage to a person's reputation if they had a mind to do so.”

“How terrible,” she whispered, thinking of all the ugly things Simon had been accused of over the past months. “Tertius had told me how quickly Simon's career was taking off. He predicted great things for him in Parliament.”

“Yes, Tertius told me Simon was on the verge of being nominated for junior lord of the treasury.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Then, it was doubly harmful for him to have been forced to resign his seat at this time.”

“Yes. It certainly seems like a conspiracy against him.”

“I've prayed so much for him,” Althea said. “Since meeting him, really. He seems so far from the truth.”

“I don't know,” Gillian remarked, looking at her stitches. “No one could have been more rebellious than I, and yet I was very close indeed to knowing my Savior. But no one, except He, could have supposed it, least of all myself!” Gillian put down her embroidery and came over to where Althea sat.

“You must continue praying for Simon,” she told her, taking both Althea's hands in hers. “And I shall join you in this plea.”

Althea smiled into her sister-in-law's warm eyes, feeling immeasurably reassured. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“You know what the Word says. ‘How should one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight…?' We shall prevail, sister.”

S
imon had been back in London for a few weeks. It was now the new year, that grim month of January when he knew winter was just finding its stride.

He had returned to his house just before Christmas, not finding it in himself to celebrate the birth of a child, savior or otherwise, just then. He knew, as well, that Althea's family would only stay at Pembroke Park until Christmas Eve, then head for London on Christmas Day to be involved in the festivities and charitable work they had planned at the mission for that day.

Simon had been touched by their celebration of Hanukkah, and had joined in, explaining to them the significance of things. But deep down, the nightly ceremony had only augmented his alienation, showing him how far he was from his own family, and causing him to fight down the memories of the holiday celebrated for the sake of Rebecca's childish wonder. He wasn't yet ready to relive those times.

In London, he shut himself up again in his library, pretending to be immersed in his book, but in reality spending long hours star
ing off into space. Whenever Giles knocked discreetly on the door and Simon bade him enter, Simon would bury himself among his papers, picking up his pen and answering only in monosyllables.

Other times, he would turn his chair around and sit staring out at the dead garden, thinking of Althea. What had he missed there? Had he done the right thing? Of course he had. She had her destiny, he his. She was light, he darkness. Didn't the Bible say something about that? What has light to do with darkness, or something to that effect? Indeed, what could one so immersed in death have to do with one so unaffected by it? For Althea and her kind, death was merely a change of garments.

Simon's nights were spent once again roaming the passages of his house. One night, thinking he was surely and irreversibly sinking into a pit, he put on his things and went outside, not bothering to call for his coach. It was bitterly cold and he picked up his pace, muffling his face as he turned into the wind and walked toward Piccadilly, in search of life. He knew people were still going about: Wednesdays to Almack's, Thursdays generally to someone's ball, tonight perhaps the opera or theater. His own stack of invitations had dwindled down to nil. The silver salver had lain empty since the eruption of the scandal.

What would Althea's set be doing on a Friday evening? he wondered idly. He headed toward a hack stand and gave instructions for Tower Hill. That would bring him close enough to the East End. The man demanded a hefty fee for going all the way there at that time of the evening. Simon agreed with a curt nod.

When he disembarked, Simon walked the few blocks to the mission, where all looked quiet and dark. Still, he couldn't prevent himself from knocking on the door. To his surprise, someone answered almost immediately. A night watchman, he presumed, taking in the stoop-shouldered man.

“Yes, who are you seeking?”

“Miss Althea Breton, is she here?”

“No, they've all gone preaching down at the Docks this evening, I believe.”

Simon swallowed his disappointment, telling himself it was best that way; he had been possessed of some momentary madness to be seeking Althea out again.

He turned away from the door. “Well, yes, thank you. Good evening.”

He was halfway down the block when the man called out to him. “If you're interested in going there, I could send a boy to show you the way.”

Simon half turned back, waging a battle with himself. Before he could say anything, the man was shouting down the corridor, “Jake! Hey, Jake!”

A boy came running up. “You know where Brother Alston is preaching tonight?”

He nodded vigorously. “Down by the Dock House.”

“Take this gentleman there, will you?”

The boy looked at Simon and quickly assented. “Let me get my jacket.”

Simon remained where he was, awaiting his return. The boy didn't take long, and Simon looked at him a moment. “You don't have much on for a walk in this weather.” The boy huddled in a short jacket and long muffler.

He shrugged, his shoulders hunched against the cold. “That's all right, sir. I'll stand by the fire, once we get there.”

He gave Simon no time to argue, but took off in rapid strides down the street. Just as he had the last time, Simon found himself at the mercy of a street urchin, this time in the darkened streets of the East End. For better or worse, he was committed to this undertaking.

After walking for about a mile, they arrived at the waterfront. Tall warehouses loomed over them on one side and towering masts hedged them in on the other as they walked along the dark waterfront. The evening was in full swing in this neighborhood, the harbor taverns offering their welcome light to the passersby.
Every once in a while a door would open, and they would hear the noise and smell the smoke within. They had to skirt a few areas where a brawl had broken out in the street. Finally they arrived at a wide-open square. A small crowd had gathered and was singing lustily in the icy night air. A bonfire had been kindled toward the front. Simon remained in the back, although Jake left him immediately and headed for the warmth of the fire.

Simon searched the crowd until he spotted Althea. She was standing with another woman, dishing out soup from a big cauldron. A queue of people stood to receive the food from the two women. The older woman Simon had seen at the mission was leading the singing. She stood on a box for a platform and waved her arms in time to the music. The songs were hymns like the one he had heard Althea play on the pianoforte at home. A small group close to the front was singing along with her, but much of the crowd stood silent. Along the fringes, others jeered. Many were sailors or prostitutes who called out obscene things to the singers. The singers ignored them and continued singing with all their hearts. Simon watched their red faces and swollen cheeks, heard the dull clapping of mitten-covered hands.

It was a curious sort of service, like nothing he had ever seen before. He had been to several chapel services in school and to a few as a young man. But those services had no singing. Worship meant the dignified chanting of psalms.

Simon turned his attention back to Althea. He frowned when he recognized the young surgeon who approached her. The two began talking, their expressions serious. Russell seemed to be insisting on something and Althea holding back. Finally, he saw her wipe her hands on her apron and remove it. He watched as she and Russell switched places and the surgeon began to ladle out soup.

Simon watched curiously to see what it was the doctor had convinced Althea to do. He didn't have long to wait. As Althea went to retrieve her Bible, the woman on the makeshift platform ended the last song and began to speak.

“Brother Alston has had a mishap on his way here tonight.” At the reaction from the audience, she quickly held up her hands. “The coach overturned on the Great North Road, but, God be praised, his life was spared. We shall lift him up before the Lord so that he may soon rejoin us.”

She led them in a fervent prayer that reminded Simon of the one Althea had prayed with that giant of a man at the mission who had threatened her.

“Amen!” rang out across the front part of the crowd. Those on the fringes surrounding Simon raised a chorus of jeers. He surveyed them—rough-looking men, their faces unshaven, their bodies tough as oak trees. He judged them to be the men who loaded and unloaded the cargo from the hundreds of ships that made their way up and down the Thames from every corner of the world. The women were just as tough looking, their faces painted, their hair and garments dirty.

“Although Brother Alston will not be with us this evening to share the Word of God with us, we are not without a preacher. Although you've never heard her preach before, many of you know our own dear sister Breton. You know she is a true servant of the Lord.”

Simon turned his attention immediately back to the platform, sure he had not heard aright. He couldn't imagine anyone preaching to these individuals, whose loud taunts embodied irreverence, much less the soft-spoken Althea.

At the sounds of dismay from the audience, the lady raised her hands and voice again. “I know you are not accustomed to a lady preacher, but God is no respecter of persons. To Him ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female—for ye are all one in Christ Jesus'!” Her last words were said in a shout, bringing an answering clamor from the standing crowd. Simon heard the words in bemusement; did the Bible really say that about Greek and Jew?

His glance went quickly to Althea. She stood at the edge of the crowd, her eyes closed. At the last words of the woman on the
platform, Althea opened her eyes, gave her characteristic straightening of the shoulders and began to walk toward the platform.

The other woman ceded her the box. While a few of the faithful gave her amens or words of encouragement, he could see their dismay as well. The majority of the crowd called out insults. Simon noticed the painted prostitutes along the sidelines, mimicking the faithful: “Preach it, sister! Give it to us good tonight!”

Simon shoved his gloved hands under his armpits, prepared to hold out against the cold, curious to see what the quiet Althea he knew would do.

She started softly; her voice was almost inaudible to those in the rear, and what Simon did catch sounded wobbly and unsure. For a second it seemed as if she had seen him, her eyes intent on him, but that was impossible, hidden as he was by the crowd and the dark.

She opened her Bible, her fingers nervously riffling the pages. Simon felt anguish for her, knowing how shaky he had been the first time he had given a speech in Parliament. A few seconds in, an object landed at her feet. Simon straightened, shocked at the rotten fruit that had been aimed at her. She paid it no heed, finally having found her place. She began reading then, looking up after every few words, her voice growing stronger with each verse. By the time she finished, it seemed as if she had grown in stature.

 

Althea braved the scornful crowd and continued speaking in an apologetic tone. Inwardly she was quaking with fear, unsure if she was doing the right thing. Had she just allowed Brother Russell to persuade her to do something, merely because there was no one else at present to fill the preacher's shoes?

Suddenly she saw Simon's face at the rear of the crowd. He did not even form part of the gathering, but stood behind them. She strained her eyes, thinking she was seeing things. But no, it was him. He was looking at her attentively, and suddenly she knew why she had been called to preach tonight. She had resisted, thinking it wasn't right. A woman didn't preach.

Just as swiftly the message she was to preach came to her. It
was a message she had been harboring in her heart, letting it brew and form and coalesce for many months. The sight of Simon's pale bespectacled face confirmed it. She opened her Bible, instructing the others to open to the Book of John. Her heart was pounding; her gloved hands only got in the way of the thin pages. But finally she arrived at the Scripture she sought.

Her voice grew firm as she read: “‘The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly….'”

She continued reading, ending with “‘I lay down my life, that I might take it again.'”

By the time she finished the passage, all fear and uncertainty had left her. Her voice was not her own, it rang sure and true. She knew the anointing of God was upon her, and she knew God had meant her to preach this evening. The burning, yearning desire she had felt for so many years to preach the Word would be fulfilled.

She looked out at the crowd, which had fallen quiet, and asked them boldly, “Do you know who the thief is? The hired servants? Are they the ones who have led you astray? Have they seduced you into thinking you needn't serve God? Have you been enslaved by their promises?”

Althea looked at them intently, seeing the uncertainty in their eyes as they began to question themselves. “I shall tell you clearly who the thief is—Satan. And those hired servants who run away when you need them—they are his hirelings, those demons, which entice you to do whatever your flesh craves, but which you know is not right. And when you've fulfilled every craving, pursued every passion, what are you left with? Have you found that abundant life? Or are you broken and bitter? Is the same emptiness still in your soul?

“Let me ask you this—when you are broken and empty, is the thief there to put you back together? Are the hirelings—those companions you allowed to lead you—are they there when you're drowning? After they've enticed you and led you to make a mess of your life, will they rescue you?”

The words flowed from her; she didn't even have to think about what she was going to say next. The catcalls stopped as the Spirit of God brought conviction upon the crowd. She hit them hard, and then preached the message of hope. She knew she was preaching to Simon, even though she hardly looked at him throughout the message. She preached all the things she had longed to say to him but hadn't had the boldness to, in the time she lived under his roof.

 

Simon did not approach Althea that evening. He didn't even wait for Jake to escort him back. As soon as the preaching was over, and Althea began calling forward those who wanted to repent of their sins and receive Jesus as their Savior, Simon fled. He just walked until he came back to the Tower of London, where he secured a hack to return to Mayfair.

But the next night he was back.

Althea preached every night following Brother Alston's accident. After their initial suspicion the first night, the crowds began to increase. They usually began by jeering and taunting her, but ended convicted of their sin, kneeling at the makeshift altar in tears.

Some of the preaching began to penetrate as Simon listened night after night. One night, Althea seemed to be talking directly to him when she read a passage about the “other sheep.” “Do you know who Jesus was preaching to at this time? He was preaching to the Jew—one of His own, and He was telling them there would be other sheep. Those are we the Gentiles—the pagans of that time. He promised us that there will be one fold—made up of Jew and Gentile alike—and one shepherd.” Her gaze cut through the crowd, piercing the darkness that separated him from her.