by Win Blevins
He smiled broadly. “The deacons don’t know you. I’ll never forget how bullheaded you were from the start. When I read Scripture aloud, you wouldn’t listen; you would read some book of your own.”
She shrugged. She’d just wanted not to be controlled every moment.
He was enjoying reminiscing. “You wouldn’t accept leadership at all. That’s the reason I told Mama you were a Jewel, not a Full.” He turned to her suddenly. “You were my favorite, you know. Because you had spirit.”
He turned serious. “Spirit in the service of the Lord, put to the uses God made for it, is the most precious of human virtues. Willful spirit is the most troublesome of vices. And now you see that.”
“I feel I do,” she said. She was determined to see it through.
“For those who have consecrated their beings to God,” Dr. Full began, “it is a question of understanding what His cause requires and entering into a compact to do it, whatever it is. Of surrendering self into the larger bliss of the whole. It is in that spirit I make this suggestion.”
Flare and Sima walked along the river. They talked.
Flare told about the competition he and Dr. Full staged, a contest to show Sima who was the better man, which was the better way of life. They both chuckled about that.
Flare told Sima about his grandparents, shopkeepers in County Galway, simple people, fiercely Irish, fiercely Catholic, fiercely anti-British. His father had been in love with poetry. Gone now, both of them. Maybe Sima would like to see Ireland one day. “A God-cursed country,” Flare said sadly.
He told Sima about his freezing journey across the North Atlantic to a brand-new continent, full of opportunities and dangers, and about how scared he was the first time he saw Indians.
After a while Sima said he wanted to sketch while they talked, and went to his packs for his sketchpad.
Flare sat and looked at the flowing river.
He loved rivers. He loved the way the water tumbled and played. He loved places like the falls downriver, where you could see water do its playing right on the surface. He also liked to think of all the little creeks that came into a river continuing to spin and undulate along, part of the river yet distinctly themselves, playing like otters in the greater mass of flowing liquid, separate melodies intertwining with each other, the inner music of rivers.
Aye, he thought, you truly can never put your foot into the same river twice.
“The criticism you’ve felt in the last few weeks,” Dr. Full said to Miss Jewel, “has been offered in Christian love. I have been aware of Christian love for you during every moment of it. And in this last year I’ve become aware of how much I admire you. You have strength, and intelligence, and a warm heart. You were a pillar of strength on the journey, and a pillar of strength when Annie Lee died.
“Wonderful gifts God has given you.”
He seemed to reflect a moment, and then he slid onto one knee. He seemed uncomfortable in that posture, but he plunged forward. “Now I come as supplicant,” he said.
He took one of her hands in his. “I’ve spent hours and hours on my knees to God about this,” he told her. He shifted self-consciously. He looked into her face. Since he could not read it, he dived in.
“Margaret Jewel, I ask your hand in marriage.”
Chapter Thirty-three
She hardly heard whatever else Dr. Full said. Something about his children, something about the integrity of the family, something about the isolation of the unmarried state, something about God’s will that man and woman should be one flesh, something about the two of them as a two flames become one bright fire for Jesus Christ. He even made some sort of joke about her finally getting to be a Full.
She didn’t laugh or respond in any way. She wasn’t attracted or repelled or anything else. She was a jumble.
Finally she withdrew her hand and stood up. “Dr. Full,” she said, “I thank you for this offer.” She had difficulty getting her breath. “It’s so sudden—I don’t know what to say. If I may, I’ll bring you back an answer. Soon. Tomorrow at the latest.”
She walked out without looking back. In front of his cabin she began to tremble. She could barely control herself well enough to walk. She broke into the shakes and had to sit down in the grass.
Finally she did walk. Down to the mill. She had not been to the mill since the awful night Annie Lee died.
She could not tell what her thoughts were. She felt heaved up and down randomly by crazy feelings, and she could hardly tell what her emotions were. Tears trickled now and then, but they brought her no relief. She walked aimlessly, flotsam in a heavy sea.
She sat on the grassy bank where she could hear the mill. She sat and listened to its river music. For her the mill was a thousand musical sounds—shoosh, gurgle, tinkle, whisper, rumble, murmur, creak, she was fascinated with them all. Sometimes they made a kind of harmony. Today they were a senseless clatter.
She did not think of being a child again, she simply felt like a child. She felt lonely, terribly lonely, as in the days when her ma was first gone. She remembered talking to the mothers and fathers who took her in and having no idea what was going on. She remembered how rejected she felt, these nice people meaning well but not understanding…at all. She remembered…lots of things, some of them good, some of them bad, all of them pungent as strong smells, old, ripe, sometimes rich, sometimes sour.
She began to sing. She wasn’t aware of when she started, but then she got going strong. She would sing and imagine that the mill was accompanying her. She sang old hymns, “Nearer, My God to Thee,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
Then she sang “Wayfaring Stranger.” It was one of her favorites, and she floated it out, plaintive, above the sounds of the mill and over the wide, slow river.
I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger,
While traveling through this world of woe.
Yet there’s no sickness, toil, nor danger,
In that bright land to which I go.
(chorus)
I’m going there to see my father.
I’m going there no more to roam.
I’m just a-going over Jordan.
I’m just a-going over home.
I know dark clouds will gather ’round me,
I know my way is rough and steep;
Yet beauteous fields lie just before me,
Where God’s redeemed their vigils keep.
(chorus)
I’m going there to see my mother,
She said she’d meet me when I come.
I’m just a-going over Jordan.
I’m just a-going over home.
Then she sang the one she’d heard the boatmen sing one night, floating down the Ohio River. She’d heard it before, but never in such a such setting, the rough, strong voices echoing eerily across the water. They were the voices of backwoodsmen, primitive men, men who couldn’t read or write but knew how it felt to be in a strange land far from home.
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you.
Away, you rolling river!
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you.
Away, we’re bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter.
Away, you rolling river!
I’ll take her ’cross the rolling water.
Away, we’re bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
Farewell, my love,
I’m bound to leave you.
Away, you rolling river!
Oh, Shenandoah, I’ll not deceive you,
Away, we’re bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
Somehow the singing made it all right. She could go back.
After she walked a little, she saw Flare and Sima by the river.
Right then, like a miracle, like a revelation, she knew what she wanted to do. Knew utterly, and found a kind of peace.
They bounded happily toward her. They told her how grand they
felt. They hugged each other. They laughed about how Dr. Full had tried to separate them by telling Sima the secret. Sima showed her his latest sketch of Flare, a head that caught his dash and style.
She had trouble keeping track of all their tales of joy. She tried to respond appropriately. At last she asked Sima if she could speak to Flare alone for a moment. She took his arm.
“Flare,” she said, “I want something important from you.”
“Anything,” he said.
“I must go speak to Dr. Full now. Will you take me to French Prairie afterward? For the night?”
“Sure.” He loved her, he’d do anything.
“Will you let me stay with you?” He was using Nicolette’s old cabin.
“Sure.” He searched her eyes. “What is it you want, Maggie?”
She looked at him. She supposed her eyes must look mad. She took her hand off his arm and tried to say it merrily: “I want you to take me to bed and jolly me good.”
“Tomorrow?” Dr. Full repeated.
She nodded. “At noon.” She kept her composure. “Would you ask Parky to marry us? I’d like that.”
“Of course.”
“Please excuse me now, Dr. Full. I have lots to do before noon tomorrow. The most difficult is to say good-bye to Sima and Mr. O’Flaherty.” She had told him how happy they seemed in their discovery of each other.
Dr. Samuel Full cocked his head at that. Then he considered his new opportunity in life, smiled admiringly at his woman, and said, “Things have worked out for the best, my dear.”
“You’re sure this is what you want,” said Flare at the front door of the cabin.
She nodded several times. She grinned a pretty good grin. “Carnal abandon,” she said.
She didn’t say that she had only a glimmer of what she wanted beyond tonight.
Maggie Jewel was flying, and she thought she damn well might crash.
At first light she got up. Ouch! She was sore. No one had told her losing your virginity made you sore. Losing it, the devil. She’d flung it to the four winds.
She woke Flare. She slipped back into bed with him one more time. He gentled her, whispered to her, caressed her. Then he found ways to make it not sore.
Afterward she made him shut up and listen. She told him exactly what she wanted. It took some explaining.
“At noon,” he said, making sure. “The wedding’s at noon sharp.”
“You bet,” she said. She gave him a cockeyed grin and headed for her horse and her cabin. She meant to get married looking her best.
Watching her go, Flare thought, Maggie Jewel is considerable woman.
Chapter Thirty-four
Susan Johnson and Mrs. Jick arrived five minutes after Miss Jewel got to the cabin, sent by Dr. Full to help her get dressed. She wondered if they’d stopped by earlier and found her missing, and wondered where the bride-to-be was before breakfast. The idea tickled her.
She loved the way her body felt this morning—tired and used, so that she moved slowly and deliberately, but alive and sensual and sassy, all mixed up together.
Time to get started. She had known from the time her ma died that no one would ever give her a proper wedding, so when the time came, she would have to stand up in whatever she had. She had collected some things bit by bit over the years. She got out the silk dress she had kept for nearly seven years and never worn. It was empire style, saffron, with a gay canary and tangerine sash, a sensible woman’s one gesture of flamboyance. Mrs. Jick set to ironing it.
Then Miss Jewel and Susan oohed and aahed over the dainty pair of silk shoes she’d saved for the occasion, and the elegant little hat. It was all a little colorful for a Methodist minister’s bride, but you didn’t get married twice.
“You’re going to look scrumptious,” said Susan several times. She acted delighted by the fancy display they were going to make of the bride. Thank heaven she wasn’t Old Sobersides. Miss Jewel wondered if Susan could smell carnality on her, a grand, fecund pungency.
Miss Jewel thought the congregation would be truly surprised by how fine she could look when she wanted to. And taken aback by her lack of sobriety. Which was just how she wanted it.
She had no cosmetics, she was no painted woman. She saw a certain grandeur in plainness.
Miss Jewel was glad for tradition. Dr. Full wouldn’t see her until she appeared at the altar. So he would just have to let her make as big a show as she wanted to.
At about a quarter to twelve the mountainmen began to collect outside the church.
Parky wasn’t surprised. They’d come from French Prairie before for a funeral or two. And Mr. O’Flaherty was a friend of Miss Jewel and Dr. Full, and would naturally come to their wedding and bring his friends. Well, maybe Parky was surprised so many mountain men came.
They made a fine sight in their brightly colored blanket coats, which they wore on this cool spring day, with calico shirts, knives in their belts, hair slicked back. And they brandished their smiles like flashing blades. Something about a mountain man was always a strut.
Parky was talking with the members of his congregation, who were far from mountain men. They dressed somberly and comported themselves soberly. They shone forth their sense of high purpose—they were not in the wilderness for adventure, or frivolity, or self-gratification, like the Frenchies. Parky thought they could use a little more frivolity. Nowhere was it written that life should not be enjoyable.
On his way into the church he stopped to howdy Yves, and Jacques, and Baptiste. He wanted to make them feel welcome, mostly Catholics, as they were, in what they saw as a house of heresy. Not that they were really Catholics. What they had was more superstition than religion, and it was pagan as much as Christian.
He spoke in passing to Old Young and Black Mac. He didn’t even know if they were Protestant or Catholic.
He howdied Mr. O’Flaherty, Mr. Skye, and the Indian boy Sima, standing together silently and watching everyone, and passed inside. He looked around the sanctuary. That was Parky’s favorite word for it, sanctuary. He always found it a place of quiet, peace, and communion.
Back home there would be plans to be made, ceremonies to be observed. Out here you just rough-and-ready married them. And they just rough-and-ready started keeping house together and went back to work the next morning, getting on with the business of pushing the wilderness back and raising high the light of the Gospel.
Parky thought that was fine. But he missed the small graces that made a real society. One day there would be a real society here, and it would be gracious because he and his kind prepared the way.
The pianist struck up the music, and Parky began to feel good. To him the piano was more than an indulgence. The human heart raised itself to God, he thought, through music. It had come all the way from the East Coast in the hold of a ship, and to Parky the expense was worth it.
The mountain men were standing around the sides of the church. Restless fellows, they always were, roving eyes and shifting feet, never content to sit, especially not in a chair, and perhaps nervous here in this Christian building.
Miss Jewel came from the back of the church, down the little aisle toward the altar. She looked splendid, under the circumstances. Mr. O’Flaherty was escorting her, and would evidently give her away. That was irregular, but the wilderness made everything irregular.
Parky felt dubious about this uniting of Miss Jewel and Dr. Full in marriage, but she had asked him personally to administer the vows, so he consented.
Dr. Full stepped to the altar from the side of the church, a fine figure of a man with his black frock coat, erect carriage, leonine head, and air of authority. Parky did not always think Dr. Full wise in the way of the human heart, but God had given the man great gifts, and he would grow as a man of the cloth. This morning he simply radiated that overawing energy of his.
When everyone was in place and the music paused, Parky began. “Brothers and sisters, we are gathered together in His sight today to see these two joined toget
her as man and wife.”
Dr. Full interrupted in a stage whisper. “Miss Jewel has something to say first.”
Of course. Parky knew and nearly forgot. Again irregular, but the bride and groom insisted.
“To bring herself before man and God as she chooses, Miss Jewel has a few words to say.”
She turned and faced the congregation.
She began, “I come before you to make a confession.”
She drew herself to her full height, conscious of the hair piled high so it would make her taller, and looked into the eyes of the congregation.
“I have sinned,” she told them, her voice low, intimate, as though she were opening her heart to each one.
“Yes, we all have sinned, but I have sinned particularly, and grievously. Now I want to start fresh with each of you, and with God, by unburdening my heart.”
Dr. Full felt as vigorous as he’d ever felt in his life. He stood beside Miss Jewel and looked on his congregation in raging pride. They all saw. They all understood. They all felt his triumph.
“The sin I committed was fornication.”
Though everyone knew, when she said the word, murmurs flickered through the congregation. Dr. Full smiled broadly.
“The word of God,” Miss Jewel went on, “tells us that sexual communication is reserved for a man and woman who love each other, and who are man and wife. I sought gratification outside those boundaries. Gratification of the body.
“It’s true I’ve denied this sin to this congregation for weeks. I’ve refused to confess, I’ve proclaimed my innocence.
“But I stand here this morning to confess my guilt, to ask your forgiveness, and to ask the forgiveness of God.”
Dr. Full started to turn back to Parky. It was time now for the saying of the vows. He was mildly surprised when Miss Jewel went on.
“I must make my confession more particular.” She could not have described the flood tide of emotion rising in her, overflowing into the next words.
“I committed this sin repeatedly, but with only one man, and only on one night.
