Page 53 of Lady Willa's Divinely Wicked Vicar
He slowed and composed himself as he should. “And it’s not like any of that can save one from the lure of drink or the human sorrow and disappointment.”
Stop that, Compton! It’s a wedding you go to!
He’d devised his message this morning to scour the topic of money and position as roots of despair. If he could, he’d burn it into the congregation that their focus on money and land and inherited snobbery made so many the poorer.
He snorted and shook his head. If they heard his words, had they the strength to turn his message to their benefit?
He paused in the middle of the lane.
For the first time since he’d resolved to escape his lot, the first time since he’d been refused the hand of the charming Willa Sheffield, Charlie doubted he had the ability to break free. He could write for years and still find himself scraping by, trying to feed his wife and, God help him, any children they might conceive. He’d rather starve alone than thrust malnutrition, illness and the helplessness of poverty on the woman he loved or any sons or daughters of their union. After all, lack of coin could kill not just the body, but the spirit. He saw daily how it destroyed love. George Billoughby’s wife and his children were as much proof as George himself.
“Good day, Vicar!” Three more of the tenant farmers’ wives greeted him as they came abreast of him and headed toward the chapel. “A fine day for love, would ye not say?”
“Every day is,” he said, but he no longer believed it. As Wills had said yesterday, even love cannot cure all ills.
* * *
The seats were full inside the tiny stone chapel. The sun beamed through the two stained glass lancet windows over the altar. The church, built countless centuries ago was jammed with guests of the Courtlands and parishioners. They sat, elbow to elbow, in the gnarly wooden pews. In one row, Willa sat with her closest friends. She looked ever so lovely this morning in pink and rose. He loved her in that. In anything.
He cleared his throat.Not the best thing to lust for a woman in one’s own church!
He scanned the group of women who sat with Wills. A lovely group of school chums, most of whom were not yet married. Fine young women who deserved loving husbands. They sat, patient, whispering to each other and smiling in anticipation of Esme’s nuptials.
Charlie checked his timepiece. Ten past nine.
Those in the pews glanced sideways at each other with increasing frequency.
Most women he had married here in this church were willing and eager. But Esme was not. Nor did she appear.
Charlie dug out his timepiece. Fifteen after nine. No Esme.
One well-dressed gentleman, to whom Charlie had been introduced last night, put his monocle to his left eye and cocked his head at him. Asking—was he?—where the bride could be.
As if I know!
But he winced. Perhaps he did. ‘Not here’ was the truest answer he had. And ‘not here’ because Esme feared for her integrity and that of those she loved.
Charlie’s gaze tripped over the feathers and ribbons of a dozen ladies’ bonnets. His gaze found Wills.
She focused on him with the wide-eyed look of an owl on watch. Her lips parted. “Where?” she mouthed.
He frowned in answer.
She shook her head once and looked down into her lap. Wills had agreed with Esme’s rationale. While he did too, he expected Esme would ignore her scruples and appear here. Because it is what is expected.
Just as he had. And he’d failed. Oh, certainly, he could continue to write articles and give lectures, couldn’t he? He could write a few more books. But the remuneration from all of that was tiny and pitifully slow to come. He could also hope for a promotion to a larger parish. But so many men, home from the wars and without work, looked to the church for employment. Truth was, a man with a good education could study and apply to the church. Abundance of faith was not necessarily the first qualification to become Anglican clergy. All of his efforts could take years. Decades. He could be an old man before he had the financial means and social standing to go to Wills and ask her to wed him.
He would continue to fail not because he would not work diligently for good of his charges, but because he was not called to saving souls. He was called to saving people here on earth. He must do that!That!And in the process save himself.
He swallowed his outrage. His cynicism.
The congregation grew restless.
He checked his timepiece again. Half nine!
Whispers rose, like a buzz of bees in the air. Ladies fanned themselves, their exasperation growing as high as the air they stirred. Gentlemen asked questions of their wives and daughters—and were less constrained than their feminine relatives in response. They snorted and gruffed, complaining in a rising chorus.
One lady sneezed.
