Flowers From The Storm (71 page)

“I went,” she said in a slender voice, “to his house and lived in it an abandoned woman—”

Christian made a sound, letting go of the wood and stepping forward, but she did not stop.

“—among luxuries and selfish, earthly satisfactions and comforts, and even when I knew that I was not married in Truth, and was steeped in the sins of fornication and carnal pleasure, still my will was stronger, and I could not and would not comply with Gospel order, but ran further into the enemy’s snare, and returned to him even as I tried to free myself by withdrawing to my father.”

Christian was shaking his head. He looked at her, willing her to look back at him, shaking and shaking his head no.

“I have said often in my heart that I loved him, and that it must be Truth, but it was an illusion of imagination or the suggestion of Satan and not the blessed influence of the Holy Spirit,” she said, going on relentlessly in that high quivering tone, “and I know that to be so because I had a sense that I was doing what I should not and when I saw Friends afterward I was ashamed to look on them.” She stood with tears streaming. “And I am sorry. I am unworthy. I have disowned this thing I did and I beg Friends will not cast me off, for I have turned my back on him.” She blinked, an empty look at nothing. “I feel deeply the weakness of my nature.” She bowed her head. “And I wish now—to sink down in the light and live according to Truth.”

“Truth!” Christian exclaimed, the word ringing loud in the silence.

He made her look at him at last, she and everyone else. He stood square in front of the door, out of place—dressed wrong, angry, humiliated—only Maddy was as human as he amidst the rows of sober faces.

“Truth!” he shouted, staring at her, a mindless echo of himself, the only word that came. His voice went around and around the bare cavern of the room.

Upon the gallery, the low-voiced man rose. “Friend,” he said to Christian, “we feel a tender compassion toward thee, but we must inform thee that thou art out of the Divine Life, and an intruder upon this Meeting.”

Another stood, in the pews. It was Richard Gill. “We desire thee to depart.”

Christian gave a wild laugh. He walked down the center aisle and snatched the tattered sheet from Maddy’s hands.

“Who wrote this?” He held it before her in his fist.

She looked at him as if he were a delusion, as if he spoke in some mad babble that she could not understand. Her expression enraged him. Blank scared pain, stupid weak, not
you
, not Maddygirl, lies lies
lies
!

He glared back with the paper crushed in his hand, felt the Quakers behind him, saw her in front of him, standing there lying false pious speech wrong!
Wrong
! He had to tell her that. He tried to tell her and hit the wall—the bars, the jacket and chains and words throttled before they ever got to his throat, words imprisoned in his brain.

It happened; he lost it; he’d known it would vanish when he most needed it. They were staring; he was a circus freak
shrinking shriveling can’t talk lunatic Quakers judgment thee thou stare
!

But in his furious desperation he held his ground. He stood there pulsating with shame and ferocity, breathing like a jungle creature, a miserable mad idiot standing in front of them.

Quakers! Quakers pious
Richard Gill
!

“
Better
!” The word slammed through, a shout. He spread his arms. “Look! Me! Can’t talk
sinner
!” His voice battered the bare walls of the room as he pointed at Gill. “Think he’s…
better
?” He sneered at the Mule. “Think you… so holy… deserve… my
wife
?” Turning his back, he lifted the paper toward the solemn men in the galley. “Who wrote this? You?” He brandished it at the sober faces. “Or you? Not her. Not her… say I’m—
enemy
.” Christian shook his head and made a disbelieving groan. “Maddy…

”fornication‘?“ He was halfway between a laugh and tears. ”I called it… love for you. Before God…

love… honor… my wife… cherish all my days. I said it. Still truth, Maddy. Still the truth… in me, and always.“

She stared at him, standing straight and fixed. The tears dripped down her face.

“
Helpmeet
!” he shouted at her, at the blank weeping facade of her. “God… a charge…
love
! No rule but love!
Duchess
!”

Her lips moved. She moistened them.

“Think…
not
?” he demanded. “Think you’re a meek mild little Quaker?” His reckless laugh at that echoed to the rafters “Stubborn… self-will… pride opinionated
liar
. Won’t curtsy to the
king
, damn you! Walk in madman’s cell—head up… no fear… I could have killed you, Maddy. Killed you a hundred times.”

“It was an Opening,” she whispered.

“It was…
you
,” he said. “Duchess. You… took me out of there. You married… duke. You said… no powder on the footmen.” He pointed at the floor. “You tell me now—go down on my knees, and I will do it. The Devil’s gift.” His mouth curled. “Not pearls, flowers… gowns. Something unholy in truth. I give you… selfish arrogant bastard… what I am, and all I can do. I give you… my daughter… because I’ll keep her… because I’ll ruin her name to please myself… because only you—only you, Duchess…

understand why I do it. Because only you… can teach her courage enough… teach her not to care… the scorn… what they say. Only you… can teach her to… be like you. A duchess.” He opened his hand and let the paper fall to the floor. “A duchess inside!”

With one sweeping fierce look at the rows of Quakers, he turned away and strode down the aisle.

He stopped at the door and looked back. “I’ll wait outside… five minutes!” he snarled. “You…
come
!

Or never!”

Across from the meetinghouse, in the shadows of a small churchyard—a tree and some old graves squeezed between buildings—Christian held to the railing. He was still shaking: the reaction had hit him the instant he’d walked out of the door, wild aftereffect, outrage and dread coursing through his veins.

Traffic bustled in the street. Only the tiny churchyard and the meetinghouse stood without life and motion, facing one another like islands of hush amid turmoil. He waited much longer than five minutes. He waited, with diminishing hope, for full an hour, and then two, knowing he should go, knowing the futility of issuing stupid ultimatums, finally knowing that, foolishly, he was waiting for a glimpse of her—one glimpse—just one more before she was gone beyond his reach.

Gripping the rail, he watched the traffic press on in a businesslike stream. A canvas-covered wagon lumbered along, drawn by two oxen, in no hurry, but plowing steadily forward. When it had moved past, he saw her standing on the steps of the meetinghouse.

The iron points of the railing made blunt pain against his thumbs. No one else came out. He frowned, unable to be sure of her expression beneath the bonnet, only certain that she was alone.

She seemed to search, turning to look up and down the street. He saw her descend the steps and walk toward him.

A paralysis seized his limbs. He only watched her; he could not move or speak as she stopped at the curb, waiting for a gig to rattle past. She picked up her skirt and crossed the street.

He pressed his palms down on the pointed shafts. The wrought iron separated him from her as she stopped on the walkway. She lifted her face. It was marked with tears, but without sadness. In the little dusk of the churchyard, the white brim of her bonnet seemed to catch the light and make her glow.

A terrible uncertainty rushed over him. He let go of the railing and walked a few feet away, back into the churchyard. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to hear that the source of that illumination in her was an accord with her Quaker meeting.

“The child.” His voice came out harsh, echoing and alien in the narrow churchyard. “Eydie’s and mine.”

He looked up at her with a curve of his lips that was not humor. “That is… what’s called ”fornication.“ ”

“Yes,” she said, standing still on the outside of the railing.

He felt a compulsion to tell it all, every skeleton in his cupboard, so that she could not say he was false again. He looked down on the faded lettering of a marble slab. “Sutherland… the family knows… she’s mine. They don’t like it, but they will… take her.” He shrugged. “She has a pedigree. She does not ever… need to know.” He smiled fiercely at the gravestone. “If I am the unnamed benefactor.”

He could not look at her. It was too hard. His shame—his mistakes—his sins. He had driven her away with them long before he had ever met her. She was luminous and calm, unworldly. The aura of tranquility about her made him bleed inside.

“Thou wilt keep her?”

“My daughter,” he said bitterly. “My bastard daughter. As well brand her… by name.”

“Yes,” she said. “But thou wilt keep her?”

He bent his head. An unexpected strangeness gripped his chest. The lichens on the gravestone began to slide into the letters. He blinked and laughed. “I just think… ”she’ll be cold, and they won’t care.“” From where he stood the sound of traffic was like a distant grinding, queerly softened, as if from some other world. “I didn’t know… it would be so hard.” He wiped the heels of his hands over his eyes. “Maddy!”

With ajar of the gate latch, she came inside. She walked to the tree and stood before him, serene and upright, a fine ruthless angel. She would come to tell him, of course. She would not shrink from it or slip away quietly just to save him pain.

“They will… have you stay a Quaker?” he asked dully. “Your paper passed?”

“It was not Truth,” she said simply. “And I have come to thee.”

The sound of everything still receded, falling away and away from him. “To me?” he repeated numbly.

Her mouth took on a faint, wry curve. “Thou art my husband, and I am thy wife—helpmeet, with no rule but love between us.” She touched his sleeve, lightly, like a schoolteacher’s admonishment. “I will repeat that last part to thee every morning.”

He caught her hand, gripped it. The words in him were like birds dashing themselves against glass.

“If thou wilt have me,” she said at last in the silence, diffidently. “My paper—I stayed to rewrite it, and read it again, to speak the real truth—that we have no resource but our Lord and Master who speaks to our souls by His spirit, and He alone can determine for us what our service shall be— and when, and where, and how it shall be performed.” Her fingers twisted in his. She lifted her eyelashes. “It’s been longer than thy five minutes.”

He still had no command of himself, no way to answer but to go down on his knees and press his face against her body, with a groan that was yes and yes and I love you and are you sure?

He felt her fingers push through his hair. She lowered herself, sitting on the marble slab, her hands on either side of his face. Her eyes were level with his.

“Not Gill?” he asked painfully. “Not… better man?”

She watched her hands as she smoothed his hair. When she didn’t answer, he made a low miserable growl, shaking her slightly.

“Thou hast not guessed it yet?” She smiled. “I fear I’m only good enough to be thy duchess.”

“You… make me… better.”

“Oh, I will try.” She played with a lock at his temple. “But thou art the duke, a bad wicked man, and I love thee too well to make thee something different.”

“Bad wicked… idiot,” he said wryly.

“No,” she said. “A star that I could only look up and wonder at. Thou perceivest my true covetous nature—I’m glad thou fell, and I can hold thee in my hands.”

He gave a hoarse laugh. “Tinsel… star.” He looked down at her lap. “Don’t deserve you, Maddy, but too… reprobate to give you up.”

“There,” she said. “We are equal in selfish iniquity.”

He laughed again, ironically. “Not quite. Not quite, Maddygirl.” He found his fingers locked with hers and the ambush of stinging heat in his chest and eyes.

After a little silence, she said, “What is thy daughter’s name?”

“Diana.” He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Diana Leslie Sutherland. The—her—family christened her.” He shook his head. He was still staring at her lap. “Maddy. Do you understand how it will be? They will… look down. Talk about her. About you. They… will be cruel.”

She made a little disdainful flick of her fingers. “I will teach her how to care for such worldly trifles.”

He lifted his head. “Will you?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, with a peaceful certainty.

A strained laugh escaped him. “Upside down, Maddy. You turn… my world upside down.”

She lowered her eyes. Her fingers found his again and slid between them. “And thee with me.” She held their hands together. “I’ve been afraid of that. That with thy kisses, thou canst make me—wanton.

And—jealous—and fearful that thou wilt not save them all for me.”

He looked at her pink cheeks, her lower lip worried between her teeth, and saw that she was serious.