Flowers From The Storm (70 page)

Christian walked to the desk where Timms sat and pulled up the chair on the other side. “What problem… do you want me to look at?”

Timms had brought no papers or carved figures. He briefly described an equation so straightforward that Christian didn’t even have to write it down. He suggested an obvious redefinition of the problematic variable.

“Ah.” Timms gave another faint smile, as if the answer were more ironic than pleasing. “Of course.”

Christian waited for the other man to present his real challenge. Timms said nothing.

“You never came… only for that,” Christian said at last.

“I thought it might take a little longer,” Timms said wryly.

So Christian would have wished. He asked, “The paper goes… otherwise?”

“I have not made progress,” Timms said. “I fear I was much caught up in thy fine mathematical library at the castle, and indulged myself there.”

“Will you stay to dinner?”

“I cannot. My daughter does not know that I am come here.”

Christian pushed away from the desk suddenly. He walked to the window. “She would be… angry.”

“Not angry, perhaps. I don’t wish to distress her further.”

“Distressed?” He closed his eyes.

“Tomorrow is Monthly Meeting. She’s to read her paper there. Meeting has required that she send a copy also to the newspapers and thy friend Durham, that performed the marriage.”

Christian turned his head. “Her paper,” he said. “What paper?”

Timms rose, his hands resting lightly on the edge of the desk. “Come thee to Meeting, friend,” he said,

“and thou wilt hear.”

Maddy walked every morning with Constance to the workhouse, where they took food to the old ladies and the children. She went this morning just like any of the others, though it was the day of her disgrace, when she was to be censured in Meeting.

Their route was along the back of the village, past fields and nurseries. Across a plot of winter-plowed soil, a strange image was visible well before they reached the institution, at the corner where the lane turned into the workhouse court.

The jersey cow was tied to its barren tree, munching at a pile of hay: a daily sight on this spot. But today, in the middle of the dirt lane next to it stood two bewigged footmen in white livery, flanking the bizarre apparition of Lady de Marly seated in a gilded chair, her feet placed delicately upon a matching stool. A closed carriage waited beyond, completely blocking the way past.

Constance only said, “What can this be?” and kept walking toward the waiting troop. Maddy’s feet went slower and slower. She finally stopped, twenty yards from the barricade.

“I think I must go back.”

Constance looked at Maddy, her round, soft face as tranquil as the jersey cow’s. “It is only worldly persecution,” she said, so calm that Maddy took courage. “We will simply walk on.”

They continued, coming closer to Lady de Marly, until Maddy could see the carved jade bottle of salts that lay in the old lady’s lap.

“How very touching.” The aged voice rang clear and hard in the empty air. “We’re going about our little charities, are we?”

Maddy made no answer. She started to swerve past, but a footman stepped into her path.

“We
will
speak, Duchess,” Lady de Marly said. “Here and now, or at another imminent time and place.”

Maddy moved away from the footman. “I am not a duchess.”

“No. ”Twould appear you are a coward merely.“ The duke’s aunt was wrapped in rich shawls, her lap covered by a fine woolen rug, her hands thrust into a sable muff.

“Come, Archimedea,” Constance said, turning to the side.

“Why not let her listen?” Lady de Marly asked. “If I’m the Devil come to tempt her, is she not strong enough to resist?”

“Thou art not the Devil, but only another trouble to her,” Constance said. “She has trials enough to bear today.”

“No.” Maddy was stung by the suggestion that anything Lady de Marly could possibly offer as temptation might be enough to overcome her vocation as a decided Friend. “Let her speak, then. She has nothing to say that will disturb me.”

“Jervaulx is not well,” Lady de Marly murmured.

Maddy turned quickly, her throat closing. “Not well?”

Lady de Marly chuckled. “And you say I can’t disturb you.”

Blood prickled in Maddy’s cheeks. She felt it rush in her head, a beating fever that was too visible.

“It is by the grace within her that Archimedea is concerned for the welfare of a fellow creature,”

Constance said.

“Is it indeed?” Lady de Marly commented, with dry amusement. She leaned forward, adjusting a shawl behind herself in her gilt chair. “He’s well enough, girl—well enough to damn my eyes for a meddler. I had to locate you on my own resources. You know what my interest is.” She fixed Maddy with a penetrating eye. “Is there any expectation?”

Maddy understood her. She thought of the “parcel,” the bundle in the girl’s arms, his own blood, left to bide in an alley. But such a child as that would not answer for what Lady de Marly demanded.

“No,” she said, briefly. Absolutely.

The old woman gazed long at her. Then her mouth pursed, and she sighed. “Well, then. That is that, I suppose.”

“I am moved to speak Truth to thee,” Constance said, with a firm pitch in her voice. “Whilst I earnestly desire that all blessings may come to thee and thine, I would have thee understand that this marriage was an ill-done thing. A terrible thing, to force Archimedea to wed out of unity. I would have thee know what courage it has taken, and will take, for her to return to her covenant with God.”

“Ah, yes.” Lady de Marly nodded toward their baskets. “Carrying your little loaves and fishes to the poor.”

“Thou mockest what thou dost not understand.”

“No doubt you know God’s mind better than I,” Lady de Marly replied, “but I understand your Archimedea pretty well. She’s no courageous saint.” She looked at Maddy. “Are you, girl? Not at all.

You’re only afraid of the real task that God chose to set on your plate.” She pulled her hand from her muff and groped for her stick, poking it at Maddy’s basket. “This doesn’t take much thought, does it? A kindly gesture, oh, yes—but does it put menfolk to work?”

“It is for children, and the elderly. I have not the means to put men to work,” Maddy said, “or I should do it.”

“Oh, you foolish girl. You foolish girl. You don’t know what you had. You were too afraid to take your hands down from your eyes and look.” She carefully set her feet on the dirt and pushed herself up. The footman moved swiftly forward and supported her to the carriage door. She stopped and turned back to Maddy, leaning on her stick. “You will feed— how many? Ten, out of those basins. Think of it, girl.

When you might have fed ten thousand, if you’d only had the nerve.”

“Will you go to Brooks’s with us?” Durham came up the stairs two at a time. He dangled a tiny mirror tied to a string. “For the ravishing Diana.” He handed it to Christian, following him into the guest room.

“The ladies like to get an early start on their toilette. What do you say? Fane’s to meet me as soon as he’s off duty.”

Christian tried out the mirror on Diana. She burbled and grabbed it. He played tug-of-war with her.

“Not today,” he said.

“When?” Durham said. He strolled to the window and leaned on it, looking out. “Someday, do you think?”

There was a definite you-can’t-put-it-off-forever tone under his lightness.

“Not today,” Christian repeated. He looked sideways. “Durham. You had a letter from Maddy?”

His friend ceased the restless tapping of his fist against the shutter. He didn’t turn around. “Something…

yes—I think I had something,” he said vaguely.

“Something?”

“Some sort of letter. I don’t know. Certain you don’t want to go to Brooks’s, old man?”

“Tell me… what it said.”

Durham was still looking out the window. “A lot of spiritual this-and-that. Very Quakerly. I didn’t really read it too closely.”

“Quakerly?”

“Listen, it was a rubbishing letter. I’m off, if you don’t think you’ll come.”

“She reads it out today to Quakers. And it goes in… newspapers.”

Durham turned from the window. “Then, old man, I’d heartily advise you not to purchase a paper.” His expression belied his flippant tone. Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he walked out of the room. “Come along to the club, if you should change your mind.”

Christian had let himself in the door hardly knowing what to expect: an inquisition, a tribunal, some silent worshipful gathering. What he found was rather more like a restrained board meeting without a chairman.

In the large stark room they sat on benches and took no votes; anyone appeared welcome to speak: clumping and shuffling echoed off the floorboards and the roof as members stood up one by one to intonate their feelings, and then at length someone would make a statement that drew general approval and it went down in the record.

Christian had not sat, but remained by the door. The row of men on the raised dais across the front of the room had looked askance at him when he’d entered. None moved to evict him, but one continued to stare at him gravely—he recognized the head of the dour group who’d come to see her at his house.

Christian stared back, not moving.

There was only one female present. She sat alone on one of the forward benches, just below the dais, facing front—a white bonnet and shawl over black, anonymous. Finally a lull came in the meetinghouse, with only the scratch of the secretary’s pen as he completed the latest minute.

“Is Archimedea Timms in attendance?” a quiet voice asked.

Christian felt a sinking scarcity of breath as she rose. He could not see her face, but she was shaking.

From where he was, he could tell it.

She stood with her head bowed, her back to the room.

“Archimedea Timms,” one of the men in the front gallery intoned, “thou hast been summoned here in the matter of thy marriage by a priest to one of the world, and certain other miscarriages. Friends have asked thee to clear truth by writing a paper of condemnation of thy actions.”

The congregation made a soft noise of agreement.

“I ask thee now to read it out,” someone said from the pews.

Christian took hold of the framing of the door behind him, gripping it hard.

With her head still down, she lifted the paper in her hands and began reading, her voice trembling and low, unintelligible except for the sound of it, a sound so familiar and sweet that he felt it like a physical ache.

“Friend,” a man in the back complained loudly, “thee must turn and speak clear.”

She was still for a moment. Then she turned to the room. “I do not doubt—” she said downward—and then, as if determining to face them truly, she lifted her eyes.

Over the heads of the congregation, her look came instantly to meet his.

Her lips had parted to speak, but she did not. Light from the high round windows fell down on her, white bloodless stillness.

He looked at her, defiant.

Say it
, he thought.
Say it to me, if you can say it to them
.

She seemed to lose the sense of things. Her gaze faltered away from him. She cast an unsteady glance back and forth over the rows between them, a hunted, searching look, as if she thought she would see something, as if she could not recall what she was to do.

“Archimedea.” The large, low-voiced man who’d visited her spoke. “Thou must go on.”

The paper lay in one of her slack hands, resting against her black skirt. She lifted it. It shuddered like a broken bird’s wing as she looked down at it blindly. “I do not doubt—” she said in a shaking voice. She stopped and visibly gathered herself. “I do not doubt—it’s being right for me to suffer— and I—am content that it should be so—” She raised her head and her voice came clearer. “—for it is awful to me, that though I have walked among Friends I was not one of them, for if I had been, I would never have done this thing— and if I had taken counsel of the Lord, or of Friends, I would not have done it.” She wet her lips. Her words took on a new, higher quaver. “When I was in the steeple house before the false minister, I said there that I had received a charge from the Lord to love him, and I called him husband, but that was contrary to Truth, and when I was there I said I was his wife, but that was contrary to Truth, also.” She was gazing now at a back corner of the room, a distant look, away from the paper, away from him. Tears began to slide down her cheeks. “I knew when I had done it that I had done a dreadful thing,”

she said, “and that I ought to disown it, and I told him so, but I had not the courage to act even when the Light from above seemed to beat upon me. The visitation was strong, but my will was stronger. I—”

She paused. She was weeping openly, standing before them all, a single lonely figure with the paper slowly disintegrating in her restless hands. She pressed her lips hard together, and her gaze wandered up to the ceiling and down to the floor and everywhere but at anyone who watched her.