“I have an announcement to make of a personal nature,” he began. “I have decided to marry.”
A collective gasp went up from the pews, followed by the marked swiveling of heads as those who knew his intended bride was not anyone they knew looked about the church for a likely candidate. Except, of course, everyone they looked at was doing the same thing. After a few seconds, their attention returned to Walter.
The moment of truth had arrived. A trickle of anxiety wound down his spine, but he ignored it. He focused his attention on Horace Finch, who sat in one of the pews nearer the front of the church, and announced, “I have asked Miss Artemisia Finch to be my wife.”
His future father-in-law nodded in support, but the response from the rest of the congregation was instantaneous and vehement. Calls of “What?” and “No!” and “You can’t!” went up from the crowd.
Walter held up his hands again. “Please, I have more to say.”
Someone in the back of the church yelled, “Ye can’t marry her. She’s a whore!”
In any other circumstance, Walter would have stalked to the back of the church and thrashed the man for the insult. A part of him wanted to even now. But the greater part of him knew this was to be expected, and this was when he would learn whether he’d had any effect on the people of this community or whether it had all been just wishful thinking.
He rested his arms around the back of the pulpit and leaned forward. “I assume, then, that all of you are without sin. That you are so unblemished in word and deed that you are fit to judge Miss Finch and find her unworthy of forgiveness.” A hush descended, though whether that was a good sign or a bad one, Walter wasn’t sure. “So be it. I understand your feelings, and I don’t expect you to keep me on as your vicar if you cannot accept my choice. But I would sooner leave the clergy than live without the woman I love by my side.”
Perhaps it was pure fancy on his part, but it seemed the sun chose that particular moment to break through the morning fog. A beam of light shone through the rose window at the far end of the nave, bathing the center aisle in brilliant color. He held his breath as the silence stretched to an almost unbearable tightness. His parishioners looked at one another, each attempting to gauge the other’s reaction.
Then someone in the middle of the pews stood up. Mr. Nicholson. “I, for one, don’t care if Mr. Langston marries Jezebel herself. He’s the best vicar St. Mary’s has ever had, and if he leaves the church, I reckon I’m leavin’ it, too.”
A small rumble ensued.
Thomas Forster was next. “I’m with Mr. Nicholson. If Mr. Langston leaves, so do I.”
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson followed him, and then Mr. Pearson and his wife, newly returned from her visit with her sister. Soon, what began as a trickle became a deluge. Within seconds, almost the entire congregation was on its feet.
Walter’s eyes stung with emotion. He felt both humbled and elated.
“Wait!” shouted a voice from the rear of the church. Walter thought it was the same man who’d called Artemisia a whore.
Everyone turned in search of the source of the voice. Its owner stood up. Robert Beaumont.
“What’s wrong with you people?” His voice cracked as he spoke, lending an almost fanatical edge to his voice. He pointed at Walter. “Your beloved vicar has been fornicating with a known harlot right beneath your noses. I saw them myself and in this very church!”
Walter was almost as shocked by this observation as their audience. Beaumont had been here the night of the assembly. Either that or he had made a very lucky guess. Whichever it was, Walter could not acknowledge the accusation in any way. To do so would be folly.
Beaumont, encouraged by the crowd’s rapt attention, rattled on. “And now he wants to marry her, and you’re going to allow it? Is that the kind of example you want for your children? How do you think you’ll enter into the kingdom of heaven?”
Walter stepped out from behind the pulpit. “Tell me, Mr. Beaumont, do you think you have earned the right to enter the kingdom of heaven?” He walked across the altar toward the stairs that descended to the choir.
Beaumont’s chin jutted outward. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Then you are claiming you yourself are not a fornicator?” Walter asked as he made his way down the staircase. “That you have never committed the sin of which you accuse me?”
His adversary sputtered. He could not, of course, claim that he had not. Not when his history with Artemisia was common knowledge to all assembled. “Well, I didn’t offer to marry a stinking whore,” he spat.
Before Walter could respond, Artemisia’s voice rang out. “No, you merely offered to keep her as your mistress.”
Now, the entire congregation swiveled their heads yet again to focus on her.
“That’s different,” Beaumont answered mulishly.
“No, it ain’t,” someone shouted. “’Tis worse.”
“Just so,” said Walter. “And what is even worse than the sin of adultery is what you did to Miss Finch a decade ago.” He stalked down the aisle now, his attention entirely focused on Beaumont. “You know what you did to her. She knows what you did to her. But I don’t believe the good people of this church really know. And it’s high time they did.”
“Please, Walter,” Artemisia said. “It’s past. It’s over. Let it go.”
He shook his head. “The past is never truly over; you’ve been living in the shadow of yours for a decade. The trouble is, the past you’ve been living in the shadow of isn’t even yours.” Reaching the end of the pew in which Beaumont stood, Walter nodded at the man. “Why don’t you prove you’re worthy of the kingdom of heaven and tell the truth, Mr. Beaumont?”
“What truth? That Artemisia Finch was a sl—“
Walter cut him off. “The truth that you seduced a fifteen-year-old girl with promises of marriage, and then, when you got her with child and were on the verge of having to make good on that promise, you induced your friends and servants to make false claims to destroy her reputation.”
“I—I did no such thing.” But he wouldn’t meet Walter’s gaze as he made his spurious claim, and his cheeks were flushed with what should have been shame but was more likely anger at having been exposed for the fraud he was.
“Come now, Mr. Beaumont, we both know that’s a lie. And, I rather suspect there are a few in this room aside from you and me and Miss Finch who know it’s a lie.” Walter looked around the church. “Who among you falsely claimed an intimate relationship with Miss Finch at Mr. Beaumont’s prompting?”
Shuffles and murmurs ensued, but no one came forward with an admission. Perhaps he was pushing them too far, too hard, too soon.
“You see!” Beaumont sneered with satisfaction. “It was the truth.”
Without warning, the balding man sitting next to Beaumont came to his feet. “Nay, ’twas a bold-faced lie.”
Beaumont turned on him. “Take that back, or I’ll sack you, you lily-livered piece of shit.”
Disapproval rumbled like thunder through the church at Beaumont’s foul language.
“That’s what you said ten years ago,” the man, who was gaunt and slight but whose moral authority seemed to dwarf his employer, “but you didn’t when I wouldn’t lie for ye then, and if ye do now, then so be it.”
“Jackson’s right,” someone shouted from somewhere toward the front of the church. “’Twas all lies. Beaumont said he’d toss m’parents off his father’s land if I didn’t claim I’d had Miss Finch in the Biblical way. I didn’t want to do it, Mr. Langston.”
“He paid me twenty pounds,” someone else admitted, rather more sheepishly. “And for that amount o’ money, I did want to do it, but I’m right sorry for it now.”
Beaumont’s fists were clenched at his side and an ugly snarl marred his handsome features. “They’re all just servants and commoners,” he cried. “You can’t believe a word they say.”
“So,” Walter said, taking care to ensure his tone remained reasonable and calm even a
s his voice was loud enough to carry throughout the church, “which words shall we not believe? The ones they say today or those they said ten years ago?”
“Also, ye’d do well to remember we’re most of us servants and commoners, ye lying toff!” Walter thought he recognized the voice as belonging to Mr. Nicholson, although he couldn’t be sure.
A chorus of “aye’s” punctuated by a few “amen’s” rang out. The entire congregation now had Robert Beaumont in its baleful sights, and they were none too pleased with him.
“I think it might be best if you left the church now,” Walter suggested gently. “Before these kind folk take it upon themselves to assist you.”
Beaumont looked from Walter to the increasingly restless crowd surrounding him and, somewhat to Walter’s surprise, made the wise decision. With a muttered curse, he pushed past his—now former, one assumed—servant, Jackson and headed for the church doors, his face a mottled mask of rage and shame. The heavy wooden plank gave a hollow thud as it closed behind him.
Good-bye and good riddance.
Walter looked at Artemisia. She stood in the far corner of the otherwise empty pew, her expression one of stunned bewilderment. In less than five minutes, she had gone from Grange-Over-Sands’ greatest pariah to…well, Walter wasn’t exactly sure. Oh, she was most certainly going to be his wife. The question was whether she would be a vicar’s wife or not.
If he was forced to choose, he would choose her. Of that, there was no doubt. But he hoped he would not have to choose.
He turned back toward the front of the church to find every last congregant on his or her feet. An unnatural silence filled the vaulted space, broken only by the sound of his pulse hammering in his ears. It was one thing for these people to realize that they had unfairly condemned Artemisia for sins she’d never committed; it was another entirely for them to forgive the ones she clearly had committed thereafter. Perhaps he was expecting too much to even hope they would accept her as his wife. What he was asking of them was well beyond the pale.
After an eternity that could not have lasted longer than five seconds, someone broke the silence. “Kiss her, vicar!”
The rest of the congregation cheered. “Yes, kiss her!” they shouted in unison.
No heavenly choir could have sounded more beautiful to Walter’s ears. Awe, gratitude, and love swelled in his chest until he feared he might float away on the buoyancy of the emotion. All his life, Walter had wondered what was wrong with him. Why he could find no pastime that fulfilled him, no pursuit that engaged his passions, no person who possessed him, body and spirit. But now he understood. He’d never had these people to minister. Nor this woman to love.
And that, it seemed, was what he’d needed all along.
Walter picked his way down the narrow pew toward her. She made no move to meet him in the middle, perhaps too stunned by this sudden change of fortune to engage her limbs. But he didn’t care, because her radiant smile told him everything he needed to know—that she loved him; that she would marry him; that she belonged to him every bit as much as he belonged to her.
Impatient with his slow progress, he gave up trying to negotiate the space between pews and jumped up on the seat. Cries of “Kiss her!” continued to echo off the walls and ceiling. He reached her in three long strides across the empty bench. Her eyes widened as, rather than stepping off to meet her level, he hoisted her up to stand on the seat beside him.
“Walter, I—“ she began.
Shaking his head, he pressed his finger to her lips. “Let’s not disappoint them.” Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her tight against him, bent her backward, and kissed her as applause and roars of approval went up behind them.
“Now you’ll have to marry her,” called a female voice. Mrs. Graham. The last person Walter would have expected to voice approval for this match.
Perhaps, he’d misjudged the good Lord all along. Everything that had happened, from the moment he’d been shot until now, had been leading inexorably not to some mysterious joke, but to this church, these people, and most of all, to this woman.
In other words, to right where he’d always belonged.
The End
Hot Under the Collar Page 12
