Necessary Sins

by Elizabeth Bell

“The tumor remains small and movable. It is not growing rapidly, and it is not affecting Hélène’s lymphatic system. We must simply watch and wait.”

  “I didn’t want to add to your troubles, Tessa.” Hélène’s face begged forgiveness as she looked to each of them. “Joseph, you have a whole parish to worry about. And Liam, I—I know I should have told you. But I was so afraid you’d want to end our betrothal.”

  The Irishman stood abruptly, his right hand a fist. “That is precisely what I am going to do.”

  Joseph saw the tears spring into his sister’s eyes. She dropped her head. “I understand.”

  “Liam!” Tessa cried in admonishment and disbelief.

  “I meant—” He held up a finger. “Wait.” Liam turned his back on Hélène, not to flee but to ask Joseph: “Father, how many weeks do you have to announce the banns?”

  “Three…”

  “Dr. Lazare, sir, I know I’ve not been admitted to the bar yet, that I cannot offer your daughter the home she deserves—but I should like very much to marry Hélène in three weeks’ time.” Liam turned back to her. “That is, if you still want to, Ellie.”

  “Of course I do!” She gripped his offered hand as if he were pulling her from a whirlpool. Hélène was weeping in earnest now, but she had never looked happier.

  “Liam,” Joseph’s father warned, “if this is cancer, my colleagues and I will do everything in our power to extirpate it, or at least slow it, but you understand…” His voice failed him.

  “I’ve seen the drawings in Papa’s books,” Hélène whispered. “It might become—I might become—very ugly…”

  Liam nodded solemnly, staring down at their joined hands. “I understand. But the way I see it, we haven’t a moment to waste.”

  Joseph’s father rose and grasped Liam’s shoulder. “You may marry my daughter in three weeks’ time on one condition.”

  “Anything, sir.”

  “You will not take her away from us. You will come to live here. You can make the third floor into an apartment.”

  Liam hesitated and avoided his future father-in-law’s eyes, but he answered: “Yes, sir.” Hélène too nodded reluctantly.

  “The quarters will be somewhat close,” Joseph’s father acknowledged. “You are afraid Hélène’s grandmother, mother, and I will hinder your new-wed bliss?”

  Liam went red as a pomegranate.

  “Hopefully not as much as you think. I am frequently out visiting patients of an evening. Hélène’s grandmother retires early and sleeps soundly.” His mouth began to quirk. “And as you know, her mother is deaf.”

  Everyone smiled—his sister actually giggled—except for Joseph.

  Then even his father sobered. “You will have to think carefully about whether you wish to try for children,” he added in such a low voice that Joseph barely heard him.

  Hélène and Liam obviously intended to consummate their marriage. Was Joseph’s father advising them to prevent children? They knew that was a mortal sin! Joseph knew he must speak. He could not allow them to pervert the Sacrament of Matrimony. “Wouldn’t it be better if you remain as you are?”

  His father scowled. “Better for whom?”

  Joseph tried to imagine how he would advise strangers in such a case. “Better for Hélène and Liam—for the health of their souls.” He turned to them. “I know it is difficult, but you must resign yourselves to God’s will, not impose your own. He is allowing you to suffer for a reason. He is trying to teach you to rely on Him, not each other.” At the edge of his vision, Joseph saw Tessa lower her eyes and nod. “If you endure this trial patiently and reverently, God will reward you, either in this life or the next.”

  For a moment, no one said anything. Then his sister responded quietly: “Doesn’t Christ say there are no marriages in Heaven?”

  “Exactly! That is the perfect union: with God. Not with a fellow sinner. If you rush into Matrimony now, merely out of lust—”

  “It’s called love, Joseph,” his father interrupted.

  Standing beside Liam, still grasping his hand, Hélène raised her chin in determination. “I want this, Joseph. I need this, for what is to come. Please say you’ll still marry us.”

  Joseph sighed. He looked between his sister and her intended. He knew they’d already made up their minds. At last he nodded. He was glad he was not their confessor.

  How different Hélène and Liam’s wedding was from Tessa and Edward’s. The bride’s dress was not satin but wool. For the decorations, Joseph and Tessa did their best, but it was October; they could not compete with a plantation full of summer flowers. The bride and groom grinned at one another throughout the Mass, as if they could hardly wait to say “I will.” In the kiss, they lingered unabashedly. Clearly, neither was thinking of God’s pleasure.

  They spent a week at White Sulphur Springs in the Virginia mountains. When Joseph dined in their company again, Hélène and Liam were still delirious with each other. It was impossible to believe anything threatened his sister’s future; she radiated well-being.

  Fortunately, their mother had already left the room when their father observed: “I think Matrimony agrees with you, ma poulette.”

  “It does, Papa,” she answered dreamily, never taking her gaze from Liam. “More every night.”

  When their father guffawed, Hélène realized what she’d said. Her eyes widened and darted to Joseph, who was choking on his claret. “Day! I meant: ‘More every day’!”

  Chapter 32

  At that time when a man moved out West, as soon as he was fairly settled he wanted to move again…

  — John Bidwell, “First Emigrant Train to California,” Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (1890)

  At Christmas that year, Cathy acknowledged receipt of their grave news and imparted her own:

  We each have our cross to bear, sister. My husband has only half the sense of yours. Perry has pledged himself a member of the Westward Emigration Society. This means that he has promised to pack us all into a wagon and drive us across the prairies and the mountains until we reach California, or die in the attempt. If your mouths have fallen open, you know how I myself greeted Perry’s announcement. But I am his wife, and it is my duty to obey.

  Perry thinks Missouri is too crowded. We are struggling, it is true. It is hard to compete with the farmers who have slaves. Perry says everything will be different in California. He says its soil is fertile year-round. David and Sophie will grow up healthy and strong, because malaria and stranger’s fever are unknown there.

  Perry is not the one who has to sew the wagon cover, tent, and extra clothing. Nor does he have to calculate how much flour, coffee, and soap we’ll need. He does not have to decide which belongings he can bear to part with. Perry has his tools and his rifle and he is ready to leave, though we will have to wait until spring.

  “But California is a different country!” Joseph’s grandmother protested, amongst many other exclamations.

  At least, Joseph reflected, the Mexicans were Catholics.

  A fortnight after their departure, Cathy passed a letter to a band of trappers returning to St. Louis:

  You would hardly recognize me. When one is out in the open, hour after hour without respite, a bonnet can do only so much—already I resemble a squaw. Much of the color is not even from sun; it is dust, dust, dust. It stings our eyes and invades our noses and mouths. And the mosquitoes! They fling themselves even into my dough!

  Earlier today, there was a break from both harassments, but only because we had a thunderstorm instead: hail the size of goose eggs and a tornado we were certain would carry us away. Now we are battered and filthy. As soon as we pry our wheels, shoes, and animals out of one mud hole, we become mired in another. Yesterday we were nearly scalped by marauding Indians. Perhaps California is Paradise, but it seems we must traverse Purgatory to reach it.

  I have not yet told you my greatest burden: I am expecting another child. I will bear this little one somewhere in the wilderness. There ar
e no true doctors or midwives in our party, but there are four other mothers. At least we can commiserate about the folly of our husbands.

  I know Perry is worried about the baby too, though he shows it in his own way. He fashioned me a cart that would make me a laughing-stock in Charleston—an ugly, rough thing pulled by mules. But the other women are envious. No one can ride in the wagons for long—they jar your bones something fierce and turn your stomach worse than biscuits black with mosquitoes.

  Perry drives our oxen by walking alongside them. The pace of the wagons is so slow that Sophie can pick flowers—when she has collected enough “buffalo chips.” There is so little wood here, I am forced to cook our food with dried dung!

  David kept running up to listen to the trappers spinning their yarns about grizzly bears—until I forbade it. These men dress like savages, and I am sure they taught him appalling new language. Now that he is nearly ten, my son is too proud to ride with me, so David walks beside us and sulks with his nose in a book. I worry that we have not brought enough shoes.

  God’s will be done, I tell myself. He has already blessed this mad venture. Just as the men in our own party were admitting their ignorance of the route, we met a band of missionaries also heading west. These holy men were far better prepared for the journey than we. They are six Jesuits who go to minister to a tribe of heathens in the mountains. Would you believe, these savages actually sent messengers to St. Louis and asked for “Black Robes,” because they have heard of the “great medicine” of the white man.

  ‘Jesuits are not a comfort!’ Joseph’s mother argued. ‘They embrace martyrdom amongst the savages!’

  Chapter 33

  God wishes to punish me for having loved myself too well… What I suffer will no doubt help my salvation…

  — Anne of Austria, on breast cancer, Mémoires, par Madame de Motteville (1723)

  The pecan trees in Charleston were beginning to give up their bounty. Joseph could already taste the pralines. He’d promised to help Henry harvest his family’s tree. But as Joseph approached his parents’ house, he saw his sister wrench open their gate and flee inside as though someone were pursuing her. Puzzled, he peered down the sidewalk, but he saw only Tessa.

  She was running herself. When she stopped, she caught the gate for support. It was ajar, yet Tessa stared forlornly through the slats, as if she would be refused admittance. Unshed tears shimmered in her eyes. “Oh Ellie…” She glanced to Joseph. “If I’d known…”

  “What happened?”

  “We were visiting invalids this morning. I chose the last call: a widow named Mrs. Gordon. I knew she was dying, but…” Tessa shuddered. “Mrs. Gordon has cancer of the breast. Her nurse was changing her dressings.” Tessa closed her eyes. “I don’t blame Hélène for fleeing. I could hardly breathe myself.” She looked back over her shoulder. “But I must return. I must make our apologies.”

  “Permit me to walk you—”

  “Thank you, Father, but ’tis only on the corner of Queen Street. Then I will meet Hannah and return home.”

  Reluctantly, Joseph watched Tessa disappear. He closed the gate and found Hélène at the back of the garden. She knelt before their statue of the Blessed Virgin, in the shadow of their pecan tree.

  Henry’s basket lay forgotten beneath the branches. “Are you sure you don’t want me to find your father?” he asked Hélène.

  She nodded fiercely, though her cheeks were stained with tears. She did not raise her eyes from her clasped hands.

  Henry saw Joseph and left them alone.

  Joseph knelt beside his sister. He knew how difficult this past year had been for her. Their father and his friend Dr. Mortimer had experimented with both internal remedies and external applications, but the tumor in her breast continued to grow: from the size of a pea to the size of a sparrow’s egg. The growth did not pain her—though uncertainty caused a distress all its own. “Tessa told me about Mrs. Gordon.”

  His sister’s breaths became even more ragged. “The smell, Joseph! Like she was already—like she was rotting alive! Her chest is this oozing black mass… That’s going to happen to me.”

  “You know Father won’t let it progress that far. The moment he believes surgery to be the wisest course—”

  Hélène looked up at him miserably. “I begged Dr. Mortimer to tell me the truth. He admitted that even if they take my breast and scrape away all the cancer they can see, it almost always grows back—worse than before, like some kind of Hydra.”

  “But we don’t know it is cancer, Ellie.”

  “I do know. I can feel it. You can’t understand what it’s like, Joseph, to have a part of your own body betray you.”

  Actually, he had a very good idea how that felt. “Has there been a change?”

  She nodded and lowered her gaze again. “There are two now—a second tumor growing beside the first.”

  Joseph caught his breath. “Does Father know?”

  “He said we should still watch and wait, that it isn’t proof of malignancy…but I could see how worried he was.” Desperately Hélène met his eyes. “Will you pray for me, Joseph? Right now?”

  “Of course.” He pleaded for her in words he had spoken so many times, over his sister, Tessa, and other parishioners, that he no longer needed his Ritual. “Réspice, Dómine, fáulum tuam in infirmitáte…”

  “Amen,” Hélène echoed. “Will you tell me what it means?”

  The prayer sounded strange in English. “I said: ‘Consider, O Lord, Thy faithful one, suffering from bodily affliction, and refresh the life which Thou hast created; that being bettered by chastisement, she may ever be conscious of Thy healing which saved her.’”

  “‘Being bettered by chastisement…’” his sister echoed. She averted her eyes again. “I remember what you said when I first told you: that God gave me this cancer for a reason. Mama told me the same thing. ‘You must examine your behavior,’ she said, ‘and determine what you have done to displease God. Perhaps, if you repent, He will spare you.’ At first, I didn’t want to believe either of you. But the more I think about it…and seeing Mrs. Gordon today… Have you heard the rumors about her?”

  He had.

  “If it’s true for her…” Hélène wiped fresh tears from her eyes. “Do you know how rare it is for a young woman to suffer from cancer of the breast?”

  Joseph nodded. Privately, he wondered if their mixed ancestry was responsible.

  “Mrs. Gordon, the case histories in Papa’s books, the other patients Dr. Mortimer has treated—they are twice my age! There was only one other woman less than forty years old—and she was a prostitute!”

  “Ellie. Your sins are hardly equivalent—”

  She shook her head to silence him. “I never told you how I discovered the first tumor.” Hélène covered her face with her hands. “Waiting to be with Liam was driving me mad…lying in bed at night, I would imagine he was there with me, and sometimes I would— Papa says it is better that I caught it early; but I keep wondering: ‘Was the tumor there because I touched myself?’ I am trying to correct my sins, to be less wanton and less gluttonous.”

  Joseph had noticed she’d lost weight. He’d thought it was because of the regimen Dr. Mortimer had recommended.

  Hélène dropped her hands. “But it is too late to correct my greatest sin—the sin I committed against Tessa.”

  Joseph frowned.

  “I claim to be her friend, but when it mattered most, I betrayed her. When Tessa told me Edward had proposed, I encouraged her to accept him! I was envious! I was dazzled by Edward’s wealth and his station—I knew what that connection would mean for Liam. I was so blinded by my own love—lust—that I couldn’t see Tessa felt nothing for Edward. If I questioned it at all, I told myself: ‘Everybody loves differently. I may be shameless, but Tessa is shy.’ If I had been a true friend to her, Tessa would never have married Edward. She would never have lost her children.”

  “But—”

  “If Tessa had married
a man she loved, a man who truly loved her—their children would have lived. My selfishness is the cause of all that suffering.” Hélène fisted a hand against her diseased breast. “You and Mama are right. I deserve this.”

  “Did Father or Dr. Mortimer also tell you that cancer of the breast is more common in religious women? That some people actually call it ‘the nun’s disease’?”

  “Dr. Mortimer said it’s more common in women who don’t have children,” his sister acknowledged. “But I want children! We are trying, Liam and I!”

  Joseph reached out to cradle Hélène’s face in his hands. “I cannot imagine that Our Lord should need to punish so many holy women who have already dedicated their lives to Him. We all must search our decisions for how best to please God; and if this disease has made you follow Him more faithfully, then I am glad of it. But I do not think He scourges us so neatly. Here on Earth, the wickedest people rarely suffer the most. God has blessed you by sending you these tumors, Ellie. He is allowing you to endure your Purgatory not after death, when you would cry out alone, but here in life, while you are surrounded by people who love you.” Joseph did his best to smile. “Perhaps that is what God intends for Tessa, too.”

  Still he wondered what transgressions Tessa could have committed to require such suffering. Her sins were not carnal; at least he knew that.

  Chapter 34

  If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

  — Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind” (1819)

  When Joseph saw his father at Vespers, he knew something was wrong. The man seized on any excuse not to attend Mass. Hélène sat beside him, and she did not look any worse than the last time Joseph had seen her. It must be their grandmother. Had another palsy struck her?

  Joseph was forced to speculate until after Benediction, when his father and sister motioned him into the Biblical garden. “We’ve had another letter,” his father began.