But before he could sink any further in the dismals, the door flew open. He had forgotten to close the heavy outer oak door. A jovial voice broke into his solitude. “Famous mill on Pease Hill. Shame you missed it, Ryder. I’d have come for you, but wasn’t time once it got started.” Freddie flopped into the nearest chair and propped his feet, muddy boots and all, on a small spindle-legged table.
“It was top-of-the-trees. Caps flying everywhere, women watchin’ from second-story windows. We put on a good show for ’em. Handy with my fives if I do say so.” He held up his slightly bruised fingers and paused long enough in his narrative to look at his friend. “I say, you in the sullens?”
“Precisely. I am determined to extricate myself, however—from the sullens of sin.”
“I knew it. You shouldn’t have gone to church yesterday. Wrestling with your soul depresses you every time. Won’t do.”
In spite of himself, Granville grinned at his friend. “That’s easy for you to say, Perkins. You haven’t a soul to wrestle with.”
“Have too.” He moved his hand around searchingly on his chest. “Right here somewhere—sure of it. Just more concerned with my stomach right now, that’s all. Late for Hall.”
Granville was quiet during the meal, gathering his willpower for the task he had set himself. The prospect was not pleasant, but surely the most arduous effort would seem as nothing once he had earned his way into a state of grace. At the conclusion of Hall, force of habit carried Granville toward the Combination room with his friends until his conscience smote him. Before turning away to his own room, he made one last attempt to explain to Freddie.
How far short of success he fell became evident when he heard Freddie tell Moly, “Ryder ain’t cornin’ to Combi. Gone off after some female.”
“Female? You mean a lightskirt? That doesn’t sound like Ryder. He’s not in the petticoat line. You must be mistaken.”
“No. No mistake. Her name’s Grace.”
But two who did understand were those who shared his staircase—Anderson, the impecunious but scholarly divinity student upstairs, and John Henry Rennard, the elderly bachelor clergyman whose presence downstairs had more than once curbed Granville’s activities. He now turned to them repeatedly for counsel, and they were unflagging in their encouragement.
“You judge yourself too hard, Ryder.”
Rennard seconded Andy’s statement. “My thought precisely. You see yourself much too low. Now have some more coffee, and let us begin again on this passage.”
Obediently Granville took a sip of the weak coffee and applied his attention to the open Bible before him. Three nights a week, for three weeks in a row, the stairmates had met in Rennard’s rooms after Hall to study God’s Word. The flame of the oil lamp flickered, then burned more steadily as Rennard turned it up. The study continued to the end of the chapter.
“Excellent.” Rennard closed his Bible and reached for another volume. “My brother has sent me a book of sermons by the American preacher Jonathan Edwards. I want to read a bit to you that you may be thankful that your mind and your steps have been turned to spiritual things. Edwards gives a stirring picture of what the godless have in store for them.”
He increased the oil flow to the lamp one more turn so that it sent long shadows across the room. Then he began reading in dark tones that surely could not have been exceeded by the Puritan preacher himself: “‘Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell. If God should let you go, you would immediately sink, swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf. Your healthy constitution, your own care and prudence, your best contrivance, and all your righteousness would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock…’”
Granville shifted in his chair. Was this meant to comfort him? Comfort one who was already so painfully aware of his own unworthiness in God’s eyes? Comfort one who knew how little progress he had made on the path to righteousness?
Rennard looked across the table at his two listeners, curled his thin lips in a half smile, and continued with a slight nod: “‘The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire… looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight…
“‘O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in. ’Tis a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of condemnation, that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell…”
A log in the fireplace snapped and sent a shower of sparks onto the hearth, causing Granville to start in alarm. The reading continued, but Granville needed to hear no more to be convinced of God’s displeasure with him.
Late that night after a painful time of tossing and turning, Granville finally fell asleep only to find his dreams filled with the images Rennard’s voice had invoked. Granville saw himself hanging by a slender thread with flames of divine wrath flashing about it, ready every moment to singe the string and burn it asunder. The heat of the flames scorched him. The acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils and stung his eyes. As he looked upward at the unraveling cord, his mind filled with terror. Only one thread, as frail as a spider’s web, held him from eternal doom.
A cry tore from his throat as a flash of lightning leapt at the thread. Sweating profusely, Granville sat up in bed clutching his bedclothes. Then with a great rush of released breath, he realized that the rumble shaking his windowpane was the thunder of a November storm, not the voice of divine judgment.
But as he crossed the room to shut his window against the coming rain, he knew that someday, however far distant, he must face the eternal Judge. And he knew with equal certainty that there was nothing he could lay hold of to save himself—nothing to keep off the flames of wrath. Nothing that he had ever done or could do would be enough to persuade God to spare him for one moment.
Ten
The next morning in chapel, however, it was not the heat of the flames of hell that enveloped Granville, but the numbing coldness of a universal void. He shivered in the frigid iciness of a world without God. The rain outside made the chill of the cheerless chapel even more penetrating as Granville took his seat. He looked down the long, narrow room with its black and white marble floor and the indistinguishable picture above the altar. Even the stained-glass windows high in the white walls were dim and obscure, for they received little illumination today from the gray sky behind them.
It was all as cold as Granville’s heart, and it matched the sterile words of the devotional being delivered to the sleepy, sullen gownsmen. All was meaningless ritual. If there was a personal God, why would He hide Himself? Of all places, He should be in chapel. But if this cold ritual of religion was God, or if the vengeance-seeking, flame-throwing figure of his last night’s dream was God, Granville could well do without Him. He could find more meaning in a good horse race.
And a few days later, that is exactly what he set out to do. The frost-tipped, sun-gilded air made his horse step higher and pull his perch phaeton more briskly than usual as Granville joined his friends en route to Newmarket. At the junction with the London road, the carriageway was choked with traffic.
“Whole world going racing.” Freddie, beside him on the carriage seat, flashed his open smile. “Glad you are, Ryder. Missed you. Not cut out to be a monk. Told you so.”
“Yes, you did, Perkins. Who are you backing today?”
“Merry says Rubini. Won a pot at Epsom. You thinking of havin’ a flutter?”
“I might hazard a bit if anything takes my fancy.”
Then a familiar tilbury pulled alongside them, and Freddie leaned out to pass a flask of Black Strap to Merry and Frank. When they returned the drink, Merry raised his ribbons and left Granville and Freddie in the dust.
“I sa
y, you gonna take that?” Freddie cried.
Gran took up the challenge and sped his chestnuts forward, the many capes on his dun-colored driving cloak rippling in the breeze as he dodged the heavy traffic on the narrow road. Frank Molyneaux looked back and waved his curly-brimmed beaver hat with a shout just as Somerville cracked the whip. His horses shot forward with a jerk that almost unseated Molyneaux.
If Granville’s way had not been blocked by a large barouche carrying two elegant ladies, he would have given Merry a good race. Instead he accepted defeat gracefully and raised his hat to the young women who appeared to be escorted only by their groom.
The irrepressible Freddie went further in his greetings. Holding to the side of the phaeton, he stood and executed a deep, sweeping bow, much to the amusement of the ladies.
The little town of Newmarket was so packed it was nearly impossible to negotiate their way up High Street toward the clock tower. “Bad ton—all the hoi polloi these races attract.” But Freddie didn’t seem to be worrying about his social standing as he waved again to the ladies in the barouche. “Would you ladies care to join us for some liquid refreshment at The Bushel?”
Granville raised his eyebrows at such forwardness, but the ladies showed no inclination to stand on points.
“I’ll take the one in yellow if it’s all the same to you, Ryder,” Freddie said, hopping down from the phaeton as soon as they pulled up in front of the inn.
Granville gave instructions to the stable lad and then joined Freddie. On closer inspection he doubted the correctness of the term “ladies,” but the women were extremely pretty. Clad in a peacock blue pelisse with an openwork white ruff accenting her blonde curls, the female Freddie had just handed down from the barouche approached Granville.
“I’m Clarissa. It’s very kind of you and your friend to invite us to take lunch with you. We brought a hamper for later. You must let us return the favor.”
Granville extended his arm. Freddie’s invitation for a cold drink had suddenly expanded into a meal. But Granville was rather hungry, and it was still two hours till post time.
Unfortunately, all the private parlors were already taken, so they were forced to eat in the public rooms. But the inn offered a fine cold collation of meats, cheeses, and jellies, and their companions didn’t seem to be the least dismayed at the prospect of dining in such a squeeze.
“I say, this is Fifi.” Freddie introduced his dark-haired companion who, Granville discovered, was not so young as a first glance at her ruffles and curls would lead one to believe. Nor, he suspected, was her French lisp genuine.
“I’ve just had a grand idea.” Clarissa fluttered her eyelashes at Granville, who preferred not to look much lower since the removal of her pelisse had revealed a shockingly low-cut gown. She reminded him of the women who had thronged the port cities.
“Well, don’t you want to hear it?” Clarissa’s slightly nasal voice and a touch on his arm brought Granville back to the present.
“Yes, yes, of course.” He wasn’t as sure as he sounded, but innate gallantry forbade insulting even one of low station.
“Why don’t we all go to the race course in my barouche? There’s plenty of room, and it’s nonsensical to take an extra carriage.”
Granville would have declined, but Freddie immediately accepted. So shortly after luncheon the party made its way across Newmarket Heath where Clarissa’s groom wrestled with the Herculean task of parking the barouche amid the crush of revelers, picnickers, and sporting men thronging the track side. “Oh, good, Jason. Just a little farther up if you can. I simply must see my favorite win.”
“You ladies planning to sport the blunt?” Freddie examined his racing card.
“I’m seemply wild about ze races!” Fifi’s pink feathers and yellow flowers bobbed atop her high poke bonnet. “Zey are so exziting, non? And so much more exzitement if one has ze small wager, are they not?”
“Well, come on then. Let’s go have a flutter.” Freddie led the way to the betting post where wagers were struck. It was obvious the ladies had no intention of wagering any of their own funds, so Granville and Freddie did what was expected of them and placed their companions’ bets with their own money.
“All mine on Gimcrack!” Clarissa ordered. A few minutes later Granville handed her a ticket and pocketed one of his own.
“I shall take Rubini az you suggested, Freddie.” Fifi was all smiles and flutters.
They were returning to their carriage when Merry and Frank hailed them. “There you are! Thought we’d lost you.”
Clarissa and Fifi were delighted to have their party enlarged by two more handsome young men, especially since they had brought a large hamper of port, and Moly was offering a share all around. He was pouring while holding spare glasses under his arm, when a trained dog act caught Fifi’s attention. “Oh, ze darlings!” Three French poodles in little pointed hats rolled balls and jumped through hoops to the delight of a circle of viewers.
The dog act was followed by a strolling band going in the direction of Clarissa’s carriage. They followed the musicians back to the barouche where the holidayers watched a pair of jugglers in red and yellow striped costumes with red pom-poms on their shoes and bells on their hats.
The first three races drew little attention as none of their group had money on any of the horses running, and the band, jugglers, and port provided plenty of entertainment. But Rubini was running in the fourth.
“Oh, pull ze carriage closer! I must see everything!” Fifi clutched her racing ticket to her ample curves.
The starting gun fired, and the thoroughbreds sped down the field in a pack on the far side of the ring before the grandstand. “Oh, which one ez he? Ze glasses, where are ze glasses? Oh, Freddie, eezn’t eet fun?” As the horses pounded around the field, Fifi stood up in the carriage and clung to Freddie. “There, zat one—ze jockey with green silks! No? Yes! Yes! Zat ees Rubini!”
By the time the horses reached the curve at the top of the field, Rubini’s jockey made his move. The gleaming chestnut horse began to move ahead, passing one, then another of the leaders. “He’s doing eet! He’s doing eet!” A flash of green silk crossed the finish line ahead of all the rest.
“I won! Oh! I won!” French accent forgotten, Fifi hugged Freddie with such force that he lost his balance. They both tumbled from the carriage in a pile of yellow flounces.
“Are you hurt?” Freddie scrambled to his feet and tried to help Fifi up. “Most awfully sorry and all that. Afraid you caught me off balance. What?”
Fifi took his hand, then plumped down again with a sharp cry. “Oh, my ankle—eet eez in pain!” She raised her skirt to reveal a shapely leg.
“Any trouble here?” A man in a brown and yellow checked suit who had been standing nearby approached them.
Clarissa answered him. “Nothing we can’t handle. Thank you.”
The man looked at her for a moment and then turned away.
“Shall we fetch a doctor?” Granville asked.
“Oh, no, I beg you, please. I do not weesh to spoil ze party. I will just sit here until eet eez better. I know! Get out ze hamper, and you weel all sit weeth me and celebrate zat I won.” In a few moments rugs were spread on the grass, and the party dug into the roast chicken and veal pie. Fifi’s appetite was undiminished by her misadventure, but the ruffled skirt remained just below her knee so as not to put any undue pressure on the injured limb. Granville noticed the loudly dressed stranger eyeing them once more.
The highly favored Gimcrack was to run in the final race of the day. Although Fifi didn’t have any money riding on him, she insisted on being lifted back into the carriage to watch the race. Clarissa, clutching her ticket for good luck, sat on the top of the seat back with her feet on the cushions for a better view. Granville, who also had money riding on the horse, stood beside her with the glasses to his eyes.
From the moment of the starter’s signal, Gimcrack showed that he was in every way a champion. “Magnificent piece of hor
seflesh! Look at the flow of those muscles,” Granville said to Freddie, who had mounted the box by the driver.
“Champion. Sure thing. Shoulda put a monkey on ’im.”
The horses swept around the first curve of the long oval track. Already the front runners were beginning to edge ahead, Gimcrack among them.
“Absolute perfection. Never saw a horse run so well.” Granville watched the horses pass in front of them shaking the ground with their pounding hooves. The cheers of the grandstand reached them from across the track. The shouts from their own side of the course were equally loud, vibrating painfully in Granville’s sensitive ears.
“Gimcrack!”
“Come on now!”
“Make your move!”
The band played, dogs barked, carriage horses stomped and whinnied, banners fluttered in the air—all mingling with cries, shouts, and laughter.
At the top curve Gimcrack moved to the front of the lead pack. The roar of the crowd was deafening. In the home stretch, three horses from the front group moved ahead. Gimcrack was not among them. For a moment it was impossible to distinguish what was happening. “Your whip! Use the whip,” Granville growled between clenched teeth.
The cheers of the crowd turned to an angry rumble as a furiously spurred and whipped black took the lead, followed closely by a gray who seemed to emerge from nowhere. Gimcrack and a long-legged bay went nose to nose over the finish line for third place.
“Can’t be.” Freddie shook his head. “Don’t believe it.”
“He was pulled.” Granville sat down heavily.
“Pulled?” Clarissa tossed her ticket to the floor of the carriage. “How can you tell?”
“Did you see the jockey? He was riding with his whip in his mouth! Can you credit it? I’d like to ram it down his throat.”
Granville regretted the money he had lost, but he regretted even more allowing himself to be in a situation where a fool and his money were so soon parted. If the wages of sin weren’t immediate death, they were possibly financial ruin. He wanted to be rid of Clarissa and Fifi and get back to the quieter scenes of Cambridge. But Fifi’s agonies over her sprained ankle made it difficult to abandon them.
Where Love Restores (Where There is Love Book 4) Page 10
