Impossible Saints

by Clarissa Harwood

  He had no idea how the conversation had spiraled out of control, but out of control it certainly was. All the emotions he had felt during the riot and his vigil at Lilia’s bedside that night came back to him vividly. Tears stung his eyes and he rose from his chair and turned his back to her, struggling to regain his self-command.

  But Lilia followed him and stood before him, taking his left hand in both of hers. In her usual, quicksilver way, she was as contrite now as she had been angry a moment before.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking up into his face. “I had forgotten you were there. I’m not as careless with my own life—or as ungrateful to you—as I must seem. I haven’t even thanked you for jumping into the fray to rescue me.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said, still shaken. “I know I have no authority over you. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way.”

  She was standing very close to him, and they moved into each other’s arms. Paul was trembling, overwhelmed by the intensity of his emotions and the closeness of her body. The embrace lasted a long time, long enough for him to know he couldn’t let her go—not now, not yet. He loosened his hold on her just enough to rest his cheek against hers. She made no attempt to move away, and he realized she was trembling just as much as he was.

  Her perfect lips were too close and too tempting to resist. He kissed her gently, sensitive to the slightest reluctance on her part. There was none. In fact, she returned the kiss with a passionate eagerness that set his blood on fire. He lost all sense of time, intoxicated by the sweetness of her lips and the warmth of her body against his. Their tongues met as the kiss deepened, and her arms tightened around his waist.

  Suddenly Lilia pulled away and retreated to the sofa across the room, as outwardly breathless and stunned as he felt. Her face was flushed and her hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders, the hair ribbon having come undone during their passionate embrace.

  Paul followed her. Her response to his kiss had given him the confidence to speak, and he went down on one knee before her and took her hand.

  “Lilia, I love you. You mean more to me than anything else in the world and I can’t live without you. Will you be my wife?”

  A look of alarm replaced the confusion on her face. “Paul, please get up,” she said quietly.

  He did as she bid him but didn’t release her hand. Sitting beside her on the sofa, he fixed his eyes on her face, his heart pounding.

  She took a deep breath. “You know how I feel about marriage.”

  “I hoped you might make an exception for me.” He tried to smile but failed.

  She was deadly serious. “Marriage is a degrading institution. I’d be making a travesty of my beliefs if I were to marry.”

  “Put aside your beliefs for a moment, then, and consider me as an individual instead of a sinister representative of Man. Do you love me?”

  He searched her face. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, though she allowed her hand to remain in his.

  “You’re asking me to do the impossible,” she said. “How can I put aside my beliefs? How would you respond to someone who asked you to do the same?”

  “I’m putting aside my belief that I ought to marry a woman who believes in God. Surely that means something to you.”

  “It means we’d be a terrible match.”

  “Lilia, I want to take care of you. As my wife, you would still be free to work for the women’s suffrage movement, but you wouldn’t have to struggle to support yourself. You could do as you wish, work as much or as little as you like.”

  “What if I wish to struggle?” she shot back, pulling her hand out of his grasp. “I don’t want to be taken care of, and I don’t want to dabble in the women’s movement as if it were embroidery I might take up merely to pass the time. I’m committed to this fight; I’ll be in it wholeheartedly, or not at all.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “You talk about the women’s movement as if it were a religion. In fact, your religious fervor far outstrips mine. I see there’s no room for me in your philosophy, but what about your heart?”

  “It’s a poor belief system that can’t be lived out,” she said. “My ‘religious fervor,’ as you call it, is part of my identity. I don’t believe yours is the same. Is there anything at the center of your beautiful religious forms and ceremonies? Sometimes I think you don’t really believe any of it.”

  This took his breath away. What basis did she have for such an accusation? Frustrated and angry, he rose to leave. But his lips still tingled with the sensation of hers against them, and he wasn’t ready to give up yet. He sat down again and took a deep breath.

  “Let’s set aside the question of marriage for now,” he said. “All I want to know is this—do you love me? Surely you can answer that question without reference to your abstract philosophies or political agendas.”

  Her face was inscrutable. “It isn’t that simple,” she said.

  “For heaven’s sake, Lilia, it is simple.”

  “I consider you a friend. A dear friend. No more.” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “And do you kiss all your friends the way you just kissed me?”

  “Of course not.” She retrieved her hair ribbon from the floor and gathered her hair behind her head to retie it. “That was merely … sexual instinct.” She seemed to be deliberately choosing the words she thought would most offend him.

  “You’re being disingenuous,” he said. “I thought I could count on you of all people to be frank with me.”

  She finally looked into his eyes and said, “I haven’t answered your questions fully because I didn’t want to hurt you. Let me be absolutely clear: I don’t love you, Paul, and I will not marry you.”

  Mortified, he felt the blood drain from his face. He stood up and left the room, half expecting her to follow him or call him back. Surely she hadn’t really meant what she said!

  But she didn’t call him back, and he found his way to the front door to collect his coat and hat. Without bothering to put them on, he let himself out and walked away from the house, not knowing or caring where he was going. He had been insulted, apologized to, kissed, humiliated, and dismissed—all within half an hour—and it was a miracle that he made it to the station in time to catch the evening train back to London. The only thought in his numbed brain during the train ride was that he had failed the third test.

  Lilia’s ordeal was far from over. She retired to bed early that evening, before her family returned home, and when Emily came into the room and whispered her name, she pretended to be asleep. In reality, she didn’t sleep much that night. Her mind was far too disordered, her emotions too confused by what had she had experienced with Paul. She was sorry she had hurt him, but she had seen no other way out of the predicament in which he had placed her. Feeling trapped in her parents’ house and by their expectations of her was nothing compared to the way she’d felt when Paul had asked her to marry him. Becoming a clergyman’s wife would suffocate her as effectively as sealing her in a tomb.

  But she had underestimated the attraction between them. From the moment she saw him in Ingleford, she’d wanted to touch him. Had his layman’s clothing allowed her to imagine that he might be willing to free himself from the restrictions of his vocation?

  Her response to his kiss had been frightening, too. The mere touch of his lips seemed to turn her body to liquid fire. And even worse than her physical response had been her mental weakness, even helplessness, as if her mind had melted along with her body. In that moment, she would have submitted to anything he wanted, even something as contemptible as marriage. Fortunately, she had turned from his arms and had managed to hide this pathetic self from Paul. The weakness was temporary, she told herself, but she remained anxious. She didn’t know if Paul would try to wear out her resistance, but if he did, she had no idea how long she could hold out. And if she gave in and married him, she would be well and truly trapped. Giving in would also mean her convictions were not as firm as she’d always thought.
As contemptible as marriage was to her, she would be even more contemptible in her own eyes if she didn’t follow through on her long-held beliefs.

  Lilia devoted most of the sleepless night to devising strategies to avoid putting herself in danger, should Paul prove persistent. Were he any other man—specifically, not a clergyman—she would have suggested a free union. But he subscribed to conventional morality and would most likely consider such an offer vulgar and immoral. If the offer happened not to shock him as much as she expected it would, and in the unlikely event he accepted, he would despise himself. And if she married him, she would despise herself. Either decision would make one of them miserable.

  Lilia fell into a restless slumber and awakened at dawn, exhausted and even more confused than she had been the night before. Emily was still asleep, so Lilia dressed and tiptoed out of the room, hoping to go for a walk before anyone else stirred. But her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her nightcap still on as if she, too, had been awake most of the night. Lilia’s heart sank at the expectant look in her mother’s eyes, and she realized she couldn’t escape the inquisition.

  “You’re up early,” Mrs. Brooke said, peering at her daughter intently.

  “Yes. So are you.”

  “You were in bed when we came home last night. Naturally, I’m curious about what happened between you and Paul while we were gone.”

  “We talked. He left.” Lilia knew her cryptic response would frustrate her mother, but she had no intention of saying more than she had to.

  Mrs. Brooke looked more disappointed than frustrated. “So he didn’t make you an offer, then?”

  For the first time, Lilia understood her mother’s puzzling behavior of late. How could she have been so blind? Her mother’s excitement over Paul’s visit, the extra work she had put into dinner, welcoming him so warmly—it was all because she was hoping he would marry Lilia. The many times Lilia had told her mother she had no intention of marrying were apparently irrelevant when there was a potential flesh-and-blood suitor present.

  “He did ‘make me an offer,’ as you put it,” Lilia said stiffly.

  “He did? Oh, that’s wonderful!” her mother exclaimed. “I was so certain he would—after all, anyone would be after seeing the way he was looking at you during dinner. But you look so gloomy and downcast, Lilia, I could have sworn …” Her voice trailed off. “You did accept him, didn’t you?”

  “No, I did not.”

  A stunned silence followed this admission. When Lilia’s mother could find her voice again, she cried, unmindful of still-sleeping family members, “Have you gone mad, girl? Do you know what you’ve refused? Bianca told me Paul gets an allowance from Philip Harris. That, combined with his living, amounts to five thousand pounds a year!”

  “I don’t care,” said Lilia. “The last thing I want is to be some idle gentlewoman looking for useless tasks to occupy my time.”

  “Would you rather be like me? Would you rather raise six children with barely enough money to keep them properly fed and clothed?” Mrs. Brooke’s voice rose dramatically.

  Lilia sighed. “Our family isn’t poor, Mama. We just don’t meet your standards for gentility.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I wish we hadn’t sent you to Girton. Your education has done nothing but put ridiculous theories in your head that have nothing to do with reality. Don’t you realize marriage is your only chance to have a comfortable life?”

  “If so, there’s no problem. An uncomfortable life will suit me far better.”

  “Don’t be impertinent, Lilia. You may be a grown woman, but I’m still your mother and I’m entitled to some respect.” Mrs. Brooke’s distress had reached its apex, and tears began to run down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” Lilia said, “but I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing so ever since I left Girton, and there’s no reason why I can’t continue to make enough money to survive for the rest of my life.”

  “Survive is exactly the word! Your lodgings, the food you eat, your clothing—you can only just keep yourself alive.” Mrs. Brooke sighed and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “But you’ve always been a stubborn girl, and if that’s how you want to live, nobody can stop you. I just hope you realize you’ve turned down the best—and possibly the only—offer of marriage you’ll ever receive.”

  Lilia didn’t see the point of arguing that the quality or number of offers she might receive was immaterial, since she didn’t intend to accept one. She felt utterly worn out by her mother’s distress and looked longingly towards the front door.

  “I’ll never understand you,” her mother continued. “I want only the best for you, and yet you seem determined to make your life as difficult as possible. Don’t you become tired of struggling against all the injustice in the world? Don’t you sometimes wish to be like everyone else? Don’t you want to be loved—to be first in someone’s eyes?”

  In her exhausted state, Lilia weakened against this new, gentler approach. She stood, unhappy and mute, waiting for her mother to finish.

  Mrs. Brooke rose, approached Lilia, and put a hand on her arm. “You do care for him, don’t you?” she pressed. “I don’t think I’m wrong about that.”

  Lilia couldn’t respond, nor could she listen to another word. She whirled around and headed for the door, grabbing her coat on the way out.

  It was a cold, frosty morning, but Lilia barely noticed the cold or the beauty of the frost sparkling on the tree branches along the lane. She walked quickly but without a fixed direction, thinking only of escape. It didn’t take long for her to become tired and cold, yet she couldn’t return to the house to face Emily and her father, both of whom were probably now listening to her mother’s story of how Lilia had ensured that she would forever be an old maid. She didn’t have the strength to return to such a scene or to explain herself all over again.

  Eventually she found herself at James and Bianca’s house. It was still early, but James was just leaving with his medical bag, about to begin his morning rounds.

  “Uncle James, I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said. Her lips were so cold it was an effort to move them to speak.

  “What brings you here so early?” he said with a smile. As he looked at her more closely, his smile faded. “You’re half-frozen, my dear. Come in.”

  He immediately led her into the house and within minutes she was sitting in front of the fire in the kitchen with a blanket wrapped around her and a hot cup of beef tea in her hand. James pulled up a chair next to hers and looked at her with concern.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I hope I haven’t made you late.”

  “What’s the matter, Lilia? What’s happened?”

  In any other situation, she would have told him the truth, as that was what everyone did with James. Even if they had no intention of confiding in him, his gentleness, warmth, and concern were irresistible to anyone feeling burdened by a problem. But he suddenly seemed strange to her, not her familiar Uncle James but Paul’s natural father, whether Paul wished to acknowledge that fact or not. It was the first time Lilia had seen so much of Paul in James’s face and it startled her. Even the way he had drawn up the chair next to hers was exactly the way Paul would do it. She was momentarily speechless.

  As if he had read her mind, James said, “I’ll fetch Bianca. You can talk to her.” He stood up, patted Lilia’s shoulder, and left the room.

  Bianca entered the kitchen a few minutes later, looking disheveled, as if she had been rushing to dress. As she walked in, she pinned up a section of hair at the back of her head.

  “Lilia,” she said, taking the chair James had vacated, “what’s the matter?”

  “I’m so sorry to disturb you,” Lilia said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve had an argument with Mama, and I couldn’t stay in the house.”

  Lilia’s having an argument with her mother wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, so Bianca merely waited.

  “She’s
angry with me because Paul proposed to me yesterday and I refused him.”

  “Paul proposed and you refused him?” Bianca repeated slowly, looking stunned. It was unclear whether her surprise was due to the proposal or Lilia’s refusal of it.

  Lilia cast an agonized look at her aunt. “Mama didn’t even try to understand my position. I can’t marry him. I don’t … he wouldn’t …” Unable to muster the strength to explain her decision to yet another person, Lilia fell silent.

  “Of course you mustn’t marry him if you don’t love him,” Bianca said gently. “You have only to think of my marriage to Philip Harris to know what a mistake that would be.”

  Her nerves strained to the breaking point, Lilia covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

  Bianca slipped an arm around Lilia’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, dear. I doubt there’s any great harm done. You must do what you think is right and pay no attention to the expectations of anyone else.”

  Lilia felt like an overtired child. Fortunately, her aunt understood without being told that what she needed most was rest and silence. Bianca convinced Lilia to lie down on the sofa, and after ensuring that she was comfortable and warm, the older woman slipped out of the room. Less than five minutes later, Lilia fell into a mercifully deep sleep.

  13

  Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily candid—necessarily goes to the roots of action? Private prayer is inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections?

  —George Eliot, Middlemarch

  JUNE 1908

  Paul was sitting in front of the drawing-room fire in Stephen’s cozy vicarage in Stretham. He hadn’t seen his friend since Stephen’s Christmas wedding six months earlier, and Paul only now realized how much he’d missed the opportunity to speak freely with someone he trusted. Stephen’s wife, Rosamond, a modest, sweet-faced brunette, had brought the two men glasses of port and left them alone, despite Stephen’s invitation for her to join them.