Page 56 of It Takes Two to Tumble
And yet Phillip was sitting in a hard-backed church pew anyway, because Ben needed him, and he would go wherever Ben required him. Perhaps Walsh had a similar motive; the very feminine pink parasol he held in his lap, the way Miss Crawford leaned towards him to whisper in his ear, and the expression of smug satisfaction on Mrs. Crawford’s face all indicated that an offer might be in the making.
Yesterday, when Phillip told his friend that he wouldn’t be returning to thePatroclus, Walsh hadn’t evinced any surprise. “The admiralty won’t be best pleased,” he had said. “I’m afraid we’ll both be in their black books.” Phillip had been too caught up in his own thoughts to ask what Walsh had meant, but now he wondered if Walsh meant to marry Miss Crawford and resign his own post on thePatroclusas well. Very interesting indeed. He turned his attention back to the pulpit.
Ben made a very striking appearance in his cassock and surplice. He looked grave and a bit sad.
“This will be the last sermon I give at St. Aelred’s,” Ben said. “Probably the last sermon I give anywhere.” A murmur went through the congregation. “It’s fitting for me to use this, my last sermon, to talk about charity. Love. People more learned than I could explain the finer points of translation, but all of us here today know that we are commanded to love one another.” He paused. “That’s not what I’m going to talk about.”
Phillip was not certain whether what followed was a good sermon, but the congregation followed with rapt attention and wide eyes as Ben spoke meanderingly of how the marriage of a friend was a fitting time for God to work a miracle. “Water into wine,” he said musingly. “It would seem a petty use of God’s power if it weren’t a wedding present.” Here his eyes strayed to Miss Crawford and Walsh. “And then there are the vows. There is that old, quaint promise to worship with one’s body, another mingling of love and prayer.” Phillip wasn’t certain he knew what that meant, or if anyone else did, but what he did know was that Ben meant what he said.
Ben fell silent for long enough that the people in the pew behind Phillip started to rustle. Peggy turned around to glare, causing Ned to elbow her firmly in the side.
“And then there are David and Jonathan.” Phillip had always been a lax student and couldn’t immediately place the reference. “We’re told that their souls were knit together. Jonathan gave David his robe and his sword, his bow and his belt. They loved one another and had a covenant. Not water to wine, but a different kind of miracle.
“Friendship and love,” Ben went on. “Vows and covenants. It’s the only kind of miracle most of us will experience, whatever shape it comes in.”
Perhaps some of the other churchgoers were confused or disturbed, but Phillip would never know because he couldn’t take his eyes off Ben. He knew Ben was saying this to him, and that it was important, and he didn’t want to miss a word.
Ben spent longer than usual in the vestry, hanging up his surplice and cassock with more care than necessary, partly because it was the last time and partly because he didn’t know what awaited him outside. He doubted most, if any, of his parishioners would have read between the lines to see his sermon as anything other than a meditation on the holiness of friendship and love. But Phillip had been there, and Phillip might have recognized it for what it was.
Ben had meant it as an offering, albeit a one-sided sort of one. He was trying to tell Phillip, in the only way he knew how, that he believed that the love between them was as good as any marriage that could be sanctified in a sacrament. He had officiated at too many weddings, believed too earnestly in the vows he witnessed, not to believe that those words had importance. Or, at least, they did to him. And he wanted, somehow, to tell that to Phillip. He told himself that he didn’t need Phillip to reciprocate; Phillip loved him, and Phillip wanted a life with him, and that was all that Ben needed from Phillip.
He fussed over the cuffs of his street clothes, laced himself slowly into his boots, all while listening for the quiet that would signal that the church was empty and the churchyard had resumed its usual sleepy air. Leaving through a side door to avoid any straggling parishioners, the first thing he saw was Phillip leaning against the lych-gate.
“I sent the children home ahead of us,” Phillip said, his expression too blank for Ben to guess his thoughts. “Go the long way with me?” he asked.
Ben nodded. The long way would circumvent the village. Probably the cleverest thing would be to let Phillip bring up the topic of the sermon, but Ben hardly made it twenty paces down the lane before he spoke.
“I meant every word of it,” he said quietly.
“I know you did. You always do. It was the most reckless damned thing I’ve ever seen you do.”
“It wasn’t that obvious.”
“Of course it wasn’t. But it would have been if I had climbed over the pews and thrown myself into your arms, which I might very well have done.”
Ben felt his pulse quicken and his heart pound madly against the walls of his chest. “Is that so?” he managed.
“It’s damned well so.” Phillip’s voice was gruff. Ben didn’t dare so much as glance at him. “But we can’t talk about it now.”
“Quite.” Ben tipped his hat at a couple walking in the opposite direction.
“Because otherwise I’m going to shove you against the nearest wall and get us both sent to prison.”
Once they were a safe distance into the wood, Phillip looked over his shoulder, then rounded on him and grabbed his arms. He made good on his promise by pressing him against the trunk of a thick oak tree and kissing him hard.
“Tell me again,” Phillip growled.
“I love you.”
“More. The rest of it. That night we first were together, you mentioned the marriage vows. I didn’t understand then, but I do now. It means something to you. So tell me.”
“I don’t have any worldly goods to endow you with,” Ben whispered.
“I’m not rich but I have enough for both of us to be comfortable. And you’ll accept it? Will you, Ben? Not just as an investor in your school, but because what’s mine is yours. You’ll understand that it’s nothing to do with freeloading or whatever it is your father did?”
Ben swallowed. “Yes. I understand.”
“Now keep going. I want to hear the good part.”
