A Bride of Honor

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  The missive in his hand crumpled and he realized he’d crushed it in his fist.

  He looked at it now, a stark reminder of his failings. Perhaps the future he so feared was rearing itself up at last.

  He would just have to wait until the appointed day. With a sigh, he turned back to the sermon he’d been working on. The scripture he’d jotted down jumped out at him. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

  If he was called on to suffer because of his role as a brother to Jonah, he must be prepared to see it through. With renewed inspiration, he began to write, his heart lifting as the words began to flow and he pictured the sufferings Jesus had had to endure for the sake of all humanity.

  A short while later, his study door opened and Lindsay came in with a vase full of flowers. “I brought you some lilies and delphinium and, let’s see,” she said, and eyed the large bouquet. “A few daisies, foxglove and roses.” She set it on a corner of his desk.

  Damien couldn’t help smiling at her. She always brought brightness to his life. “Thank you,” he finally remembered to say.

  Instead of moving away from his desk, she leaned over it and continued arranging the flowers. She was so close her skirt, with its tiny rows of embroidered green leaves, brushed his knee. The light muslin dress was as airy as the flower petals, revealing the contours of her slim figure. Her arms were bare, her hair mussed as if she’d just flung off her bonnet. He clutched the edge of his desk to keep from grabbing her and pulling her into his lap.

  She stood back and eyed the flower arrangement. “There. That should sweeten your study.”

  You are all the sweetness I need. He stopped himself from saying half the things he’d like to say to her. He’d never even told her he loved her—dared not tell her in his desperate effort to keep her heart free of him, knowing all the while that the tightest cords had already been forged by his own weakness.

  What would happen when she got tired of her life at the parsonage and wanted to return to her proper station in life?

  Lindsay’s smile faded. “Damien, why are you frowning so?”

  He shook his head and attempted a light tone. No need to spoil the companionable moment with his troubles. “It’s nothing.” He inhaled deeply. “The flowers smell lovely.”

  She pondered him, a somber look in her large brown eyes.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “You have had such an air of sadness about you ever since we became man and wife.” She removed a daisy from the vase and twirled it between her fingers. “Is it because of me?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then what is it? Is it wrong of a husband and wife to pleasure each other?”

  They’d never spoken so directly of their…relations. He hardly dared look at her. As he harnessed his thoughts, he pretended to straighten the papers on his desk.

  “Is it because of your leg?”

  Involuntarily, his fingers began kneading his kneecap. “Let us say this stump is symbolic of so many things,” he said in a low tone, feeling her gaze on the missing limb.

  “What do you mean?”

  She was waiting for an answer, and she deserved to know why he held back from her. Too restless now to sit still, he stood and walked a few steps away from her. “I mean, yes, my leg, or lack thereof—” he gave an abrupt laugh “—kept me from seeking a wife early on in my life. Later it only helped remind me of the reasons for remaining unmarried.”

  “Why ever should having lost part of your leg keep you from having a wife?”

  He swung around to her, running a hand through his hair. How difficult it was to express things that had been part of him for so long, but which he’d never confessed to another living soul. “I’m a man devoted to God’s work. I’m single-minded in my focus. There are perhaps other clergymen to whom the church is merely a comfortable living. They make admirable husbands.”

  He spread out his hands. “For me, it’s my life. It would be unfair of me to ask a woman to follow me. It is monstrous of me to ask it of a gently bred young lady—an heiress—like yourself.”

  She jutted out her pretty lower lip. “And what if I wanted to share that life with you, Damien? What if it fills me to see souls being helped? You’ve hardly let me accompany you to your ministries outside the chapel—”

  “A whole man could protect you,” he interrupted angrily. “A cripple is not only an object of ridicule, but can scarcely protect himself.”

  Before he’d finished speaking, she was standing close to him. “The Lord protects you each time you leave this house and go out to minister to the poor. He protected us both that day. Why do you doubt He’ll continue protecting us?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face, unable to answer her but knowing she didn’t understand the dangers fully. As the seconds dragged out, he couldn’t help reaching to take a ringlet of her hair between his fingertips, smiling sadly. “You are very noble and kind, and I know you are very brave in wanting to share in my life. I never meant to know you as a husband when I agreed to marry you. I fully meant to return you to your father and your old life.” He swallowed. “Each time we know each other as man and wife, I feel I’m digging a hole deeper for you, a hole you’ll never be able to climb out of. And it’s all my fault.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “I never want to go back to my father’s house, to my old life.”

  “You may say that now, but you are very young.” He returned to his desk. “You don’t realize how grueling this path of mine is. I can never forgive myself for robbing you of the life you were meant to enjoy…nor can I afford to become double-minded in my work, fretting every time I think of how I ruined your life, when all I meant was to protect you from your father’s wrath.”

  She touched his elbow. “How can I ever convince you you haven’t ruined my life but made it complete?”

  He looked down at her and felt himself go weak in the knees. What love and trust he saw written in her eyes. However, that only deepened his guilt. “I have robbed you of your rightful future. You have become my wife through my own fleshly weakness without having a chance to discover what your future truly held.”

  Her hand tightened on his arm, and his gaze dropped to her just-parted lips. He bent his head and gently kissed them. “You are my temptress and I have no idea how this will end.” His eyes fell on the letter from the bishop and he felt a further weight.

  She put her arms around him. “Don’t sound so sad. You make me feel I have wronged you.”

  “No, absolutely not. It is I who have wronged you.”

  He stepped back reluctantly. How easily he could have continued kissing her right here in his study.

  She turned to his desk as if she, too, had to get her thoughts under control. When she noticed his papers, she touched the bishop’s letter. “What is this? It looks very formal.”

  “It’s from the Bishop of London. He wants me to call upon him.”

  She turned to look at him. “Is it about hiding Jonah here this past spring?”

  He nodded, then shrugged, trying to make light of it. “Most likely it is.”

  She frowned, still studying the paper. “I thought that had all blown over by now.”

  “The wheels in the church move slowly and it has probably taken the bishop this long to assemble all the facts in the case.”

  She turned worried eyes to him. “You can’t still be held responsible for that, can you? Not when the prince regent himself issued Jonah a pardon.”

  He smiled, making his voice as reassuring as possible. “I’m sure you’re right. In any case, I shall soon discover what the reason is.”

  “Will he—the bishop—also question you about your hasty marriage?” Her gaze was directed back at the letter and her tone sounded offhand.

  Damien hesitated, not fooled by her tone. “I believe my written statement will have more than adequately answered any questions he might have regarding my conduct. I don’t anticipat
e any more questions in that area.”

  She nodded and said nothing more, but the memory of her false accusations hung between them and Damien wondered if they would come back to haunt them at this late date.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The closed room of the bishop’s quarters was stifling on this August day. Damien looked from Reverend Doyle to the elderly Bishop of London. He felt as if the two men had discussed him at length already.

  “Your conduct of late has been questionable at best,” the white-haired bishop said from his chair behind his desk. “Reprehensible at worst.”

  Damien looked down at his clasped hands, then back to the bishop. “If I could know the charges, Dr. Randolph.”

  The bishop glanced down at the thick document in front of him. “You aided and abetted a criminal in his escape from the law.”

  Damien leaned forward. “Sir, in the report I submitted to you, I explained the unusual circumstances surrounding Jonah Quinn, a man innocent of the charges he had been sentenced for.”

  The bishop glared at him. “Reverend Doyle has described to me thoroughly how you took upon yourself the initiative in a way that cannot be condoned in a man of the cloth who is under the authority of others. You knowingly and willingly deceived your superior.”

  Damien clenched his hands, frustrated in his desire to make the bishop understand. “I know I was wrong to keep this from Reverend Doyle.” He glanced at Doyle, but read no hint of yielding in his stony countenance. “But a man’s life was at stake.”

  “A criminal of the lowest order,” Doyle put in.

  Damien stifled a sigh of impatience at his mentor and friend of so many years. Why couldn’t Doyle understand? Why wasn’t he interceding on Damien’s behalf?

  They debated at length but it was clear the bishop did not accept Damien’s defense. Rector Doyle had too thoroughly laid his own version of events before the bishop.

  “If that is little enough,” the bishop continued, “you compromised a young lady—the daughter of a prominent gentleman—and were forced to marry in haste. Scandalous behavior for a member of the clergy of the Church of England.”

  “Sir, I can assure you, there is nothing in my conduct—”

  The man shot him a stern look from under his gray eyebrows. “Do you deny that the young lady accused you of compromising her virtue?”

  Damien fell silent at the question. In the stillness of the office, the bishop’s words rang a death knell for any hopes he had for this interview. Clearly Reverend Doyle had informed the bishop in the worst possible way what he’d witnessed the night Lindsay had come to the parsonage. Damien’s deepest fears were coming to pass.

  He felt his collar tight around his neck. Clearing his throat, he attempted an answer. “It’s true that our betrothal was a bit sudden.”

  The bishop tapped the document with his forefinger. “This report states that your wife was betrothed to be married to a gentleman of good standing, a man chosen by her father, and that she broke that engagement and accused you of compromising her virtue.” His bottle-brush eyebrows seemed to twitch at Damien.

  Damien wiped the perspiration beginning to sheen his upper lip. He glanced at Reverend Doyle, but found him staring straight ahead. “Miss Phillips—that is, Mrs. Hathaway—my wife came to me, asking for my help. Her father was forcing her into a betrothal against her wishes.”

  “Is that reason to compromise a young lady of virtue?” The question was delivered in a cold, uncompromising tone.

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you or did you not behave dishonorably with Miss Phillips outside the sanctity of holy matrimony?”

  The seconds ticked away. If he denied the charge, he would be calling Lindsay a liar and compromise her reputation. He felt caught between damnation on one side for lying and damnation on the other for accepting a charge he was not guilty of.

  “Well? Answer me, Reverend Hathaway.”

  He swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he whispered, his eyes shifting down to his lap. His fate was sealed.

  “Speak up, man!”

  He raised his eyes slowly until he was once more staring into the remorseless eyes of his accuser. “Yes, sir.”

  The bishop thumped his fist on the documents. “Despicable! For one of our clergy to behave so abominably, and on the heels of the Quinn affair.” He spoke to the vicar now as if Damien were no longer present. “We cannot condone such behavior in the church. You were right to bring such a report to my attention.”

  Damien looked at Doyle, the words hardly registering. The rector ignored Damien, replying to the bishop in the soothing tones Damien was familiar with.

  Damien sat staring at the rector. Why would the man who had nurtured Damien’s dream of becoming a pastor since he was a boy now destroy him? Of course he had to report such misconduct to the bishop. But what astounded Damien was that Doyle himself had believed Lindsay’s accusation. It was almost laughable. Any other friend would have doubted and come to him to demand the true story. But not Doyle. He had immediately carried the tale to the bishop, as if only waiting for the opportunity to denounce Damien.

  He remembered King David’s words, “mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.”

  “His conduct has been of great concern to me for many months,” Doyle droned on. “A decided evangelical strain to his sermons…teaching those in the workhouse to read…poor example to those in his congregation…” The list of his crimes and misdemeanors mounted. When had Doyle prepared such a compilation of grievances?

  Damien’s focus rested on the black onyx ring on the rector’s long, pale index finger. There had been a breach in their friendship ever since Doyle had discovered that Damien and Florence had hidden Jonah. But the cooling of their relationship had actually begun earlier. Damien thought back. It hit him. Ever since Florence had turned down Doyle’s offer of marriage and then accepted Jonah’s instead! Could the man who had almost single-handedly defined Christianity for Damien prove to be so spiteful and small-minded?

  A disappointment so profound settled upon Damien that he no longer heard the discussion going on around him. The church he had served so faithfully all his life was condemning him for behaving out of love and a desire to serve others.

  It was with a start that he realized the bishop was addressing him. “You have disgraced the sacred office you were given. You are a reproach to the orders you took.” The bishop folded his hands before him. “There is no course open for you but to resign your curacy.”

  Damien waited for the pronouncement to shake him to the core. Instead he felt numb. He bowed his head. “As you wish.”

  Doyle rose, and Damien followed his example.

  The two said nothing to each other until they stood outside the bishop’s chapel on Aldersgate Street.

  Damien turned to his superior. “Tell me, sir, do you really believe I compromised Miss Phillips’s virtue before I married her?”

  Doyle’s nostrils seemed pinched in disdain. “I have no reason to suppose otherwise. I heard the young lady accuse you myself.”

  “She was not accusing me. She was begging her father not to force her into a marriage which was abhorrent to her.”

  “Are you saying she lied?”

  Damien looked down at the pavement, unwilling to say so. Then hardening his jaw, he faced the rector again, feeling only contempt for a man he’d respected and looked up to for so long. “I’m saying, in all the years you’ve known me, do you think I would be capable of such a thing?”

  The two men eyed each other steadily. “Frankly, your behavior has become increasingly worrisome to me for months. Since your part in Quinn’s evasion from the law, nothing you do would shock me.”

  “I see.” There was nothing more to be said. “I will remove myself from the parsonage as quickly as possible.”

  The older man merely gave a curt nod of his head. “I will begin a search for your replacement immediately.”

 
Damien cleared his throat, hating to have to ask this man anything more, but knowing he couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to his flock. “Will you permit me to address my congregation a final time?”

  The man was silent a moment as if weighing the benefits and disadvantages. “You may announce to your congregation your departure at this Sunday’s sermon.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, his voice not quite steady.

  He headed swiftly down the street, not sure where he was going. All he knew was he wanted to be away from the man he’d called friend for so many years.

  Receiving no answer to her knock on Damien’s study door, Lindsay opened it and peered in. His desk looked as neat as he’d left it several hours ago. She turned away, unsure where to look next.

  She bit her lip, her concern growing. It was nearly suppertime. Where could he be? Surely his meeting was over. She’d been praying for him off and on all day. Although he’d reassured her it was nothing extraordinary, she couldn’t help feeling a sense of disquiet.

  In the few months they’d shared their lives, she’d learned one thing about her husband. He rarely confided in her. He spent many hours in prayer or studying God’s word, closeted in his study or sitting on a stile far out in the fields, but whenever she tried to draw him out about his deepest thoughts, he made light of things.

  Surely, he couldn’t always feel even-keeled and content about all situations. His frank words about their marriage earlier in the month had been a rare revelation. Even though they had pained her, his words had also encouraged her. Perhaps Damien was beginning to trust her love for him enough to share his apprehensions with her.

  She wandered down to the front of the house and checked the coatrack again. His hat and walking stick were still missing. Finally, able to stand it no longer, she grabbed her parasol and left the house, uncertain where to look, mindful that she would miss him if she left, but tired of being on the watch for him.