by Anne Perry
“Please come in, it’s a wretched night, and it’s Christmas tomorrow.” She backed up a little further and he closed the door and followed her, grateful for the enveloping warmth. “What can I help with?” she asked.
He had already decided to tell her at least that he had found Seth Marlowe’s daughter. She would know sooner or later, and he preferred to be open. “I was looking for Seth’s daughter,” he began. “I found her. Brought her back to our home, because she had nowhere to go. She’s on the streets, Clementine, just as Seth told us.”
She took a deep, shaky breath and nodded, the realization of all that that meant dawning in her face.
“She had nowhere to go,” he continued, “so I took her there. I need to borrow a dress, if you have one you can spare. She needs it for tomorrow.” He saw her look of confusion. “She needs something more…suitable,” he said gently. “She was working…on the street. Looking for customers.” His voice wavered as he said it. It sounded like a judgment, and it was, but of Marlowe, not of his daughter.
She bit her lip. “I was hoping her father was exaggerating,” she whispered. “Is she…all right?” She was clearly struggling.
He decided to tell her as much of the truth as she would discover anyway. She would hear Seth Marlowe’s side of the story, but Hooper would tell her Flavia’s.
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “She wrote the letters he received. Her hatred for him is very deep. And, if she believes what she is saying, I’m not surprised.” Briefly, choosing very few words, he told her what Flavia had told him. It was not until he finished that he realized how harsh it sounded. The understanding of it was in Clementine’s face. It would be a lie if he tried to moderate it now, and she would know it.
“What are you going to do?” she asked softly. There was a very real fear in her eyes. Did she believe him, or was she already trying to think of a way in which it was not Seth’s fault?
He hurt almost as much for her as for Flavia, perhaps because hers was a new wound, a fall rather than a crash from a greater height.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “For now, she is warm and fed and has somewhere to spend Christmas. She shouldn’t be alone, certainly not on the street in this freezing weather. I think it’s going to snow tonight.” That was irrelevant. The real bone-aching coldness was inside, and they both knew that.
“And after tomorrow?” Clementine whispered.
“I don’t know,” he admitted again. “But I can’t send her back to the street.”
“Of course not,” she agreed. “Perhaps…perhaps we can bring about a reconciliation? Seth often speaks of repentance and forgiveness.” Her face looked pinched with the struggle to hope, and the pain of knowing that perhaps she was asking for a miracle. But he knew that she wanted to believe.
“Of course,” he agreed. What else could he say? They spoke a little longer, then he said good night and wished her a happy Christmas. He went out again into the bitter night, carrying the clothes that Clementine had lent: pretty clothes, suitable for a young woman.
While Hooper was making his way home, Celia was listening to Flavia struggling through her account of her life after her mother died and Flavia took to a haphazard life on the streets, always hungry, often cold. She swore it was better than returning to live with her father. It was clear that she was terrified of him.
“I did fight back once,” she said, looking up at Celia as if her belief in Flavia’s courage mattered.
Celia found it painful to watch the girl struggle to maintain some dignity.
“I watched her walk into the sea, without even looking back,” Flavia said, her eyes not moving from Celia’s. “I was on the beach. I ran into the edge of the water, not feeling it, calling after her. But she wanted to go into the water, and the darkness, and not exist anymore.” The tears were running down her face now.
Celia moved toward her. She had to think of something positive to say, anything at all. “Maybe if he’d known, he would have tried to stop her. You don’t know how sorry he could be now. Perhaps he just doesn’t know how to say so. Some people don’t.”
“He isn’t sorry!” Flavia said with total conviction.
“You can’t know that,” Celia started.
“Yes, I can. We were close to the long wharf that goes right out into the deep water, dragging anything under. I felt how strong it was when it was up to my knees.” She choked and control slipped away from her. “I saw him! We’d gone, just my mother and me, onto the beach and he had been looking for us, and found us. I saw him standing on the wharf, watching us…watching her die. He didn’t do a thing. Not anything!” She looked at Celia’s face. “He just watched.”
There was nothing to say. Celia slipped forward onto her knees and took the girl in her arms, holding her more and more tightly, gently stroking her hair, and putting her cheek next to Flavia’s, which was soft and warm, despite being wet with tears.
It was sometime later that Celia reached a decision. She must speak to Arthur Roberson, who was going to repeat his sermon on the gift of universal forgiveness brought back into the world by the birth of Christ. He had to change the topic. She did not know exactly what she would say to him, but she would say it this evening, while there was still time for him to change it. Tomorrow would be too late.
Celia slowly let go of the girl and sat back. “I’m going to see the vicar.”
Flavia’s eyes filled with fear. “About me? You can’t let me stay here because I’m a…I’m a bad woman?”
“What?” Celia was appalled. “Great heavens, no! You are welcome here as long as you like! But definitely for Christmas…and Boxing Day. And after. I want to tell him what he must say in his sermon. I know what he’s planning to say, and it’s wrong.”
“You tell him what to say?” Flavia was confused.
“Not usually,” said Celia, with a little smile. “But I’m going to this time. He talked about forgiveness a little over a week ago.” It seemed like forever since that Sunday.
“Don’t you believe in forgiveness?” Flavia was confused, but she said it as if she urgently needed to know.
“Yes, I do. Of course I do,” Celia answered. “But I’ve got to explain something to him. Stay here. Keep warm. Put more coal on the fire when it needs it. But keep the guard up so nothing falls out and burns the carpet. And have more biscuits, if you would like. I’ll be back.” She kissed the girl gently on the cheek, then went into the hall and put on her coat and scarf. She opened the door and went out quietly into the still-rising wind and the rain.
She walked quickly, reluctant to leave Flavia, but she could not have Arthur Roberson say with passion, on Christmas Day, when the whole village would be there, something he would bitterly regret. She must persuade him of it tonight, while there was still time for him to change his sermon.
The dark path stretched ahead of her, deserted by everyone else. They would be home with their families, or else with their cats and dogs, sleeping to the crackle of flames, unaware of the power of the wind. She pulled her scarf tighter and made her step a little faster.
Finally, she reached the vicarage and knocked on the door. Several minutes went by and she had to knock again before Arthur Roberson finally answered.
“Celia! Is something wrong?” He looked startled and almost immediately anxious. “Come in! Come in! What’s happened?”
She closed the door, having to push it shut against the wind, then followed him into his study, where the fire was roaring up the chimney.
“Oh dear,” Arthur said, regarding it. “I rather overdid it.”
Celia did not say so, but she thought that it might be habit when he was alone. She, too, had needed more warmth, the life of a fire, when she had been by herself and it was dark and cold outside.
“What is wrong, my dear?” he said again.
“John has found Fl
avia, Marlowe’s daughter,” she said, keeping it as brief as possible. “She’s at our house and will stay there as long as she wishes.”
His face filled with joy. “Seth will be delighted. I—”
“I doubt that,” she cut across him. “She’s all that he said of her, Arthur. She lives on the street as a prostitute. And he was right, Rose did take her own life.”
His face crumpled.
“It’s worse than that, Arthur, much worse,” she said quietly, hating to have to do it. “He was so cruel that Rose would rather die than live any longer with the possibility of seeing him. She walked into the sea until it took her and she couldn’t come back.”
He shut his eyes and his face was filled with pain.
Celia had to finish it. “Flavia told me she ran along the shore, calling after her mother, but Rose did not look back. She went into the darkness and the cold willingly.” Her throat was tight with the effort it took to continue. “And that isn’t all. Flavia saw Seth on the wharf above them, watching as well…and doing nothing.”
“Oh, sweet God!” he said in horror.
“She told me he saw her, and at first she was too paralyzed with horror to fight him. But eventually she did. He tried to hold on to her, but she bit him and kicked him until he let go of her, and she ran away. A life on the streets was better than going back with him.”
She looked up at him. “Arthur, when you speak tomorrow, speak about repentance and promise the forgiveness of God. But also remind us that it is useless, without understanding what you did was wrong, and deciding it is not who you want to be ever again. Only then do you begin to heal. Then you can so easily be forgiven,” she went on, “by anyone who cares at all for you. Because you are no longer the same person. Of course, you also have to forgive others. But you have seen ugliness, right inside yourself, and you understand how easy it is to make excuses, and how hard to face the truth and change.” She took a deep breath. “Then you forgive others as a deliberate act, because you couldn’t do anything else. In a sense, you are acknowledging your inner self.”
He searched for words but did not find them, his hands knotted in front of him.
“Arthur, say it all! Repentance is no use without understanding, and then the real healing can begin! Change. Then God can’t help but forgive you, and forget the sin, because it is no longer who you are!” She gazed at him steadily, willing him to understand, to turn around the simplicity of the forgiveness he had imagined in his mind, and instead accept her more complicated world, but one that seemed so much easier to believe.
“Blind, unconditional pardon doesn’t heal, Arthur,” she went on. “And we need to be healed. All of us, but Seth the most, if he really watched Rose walk into the sea because she wished to die, and saw Flavia desperate on the shore, crying out. He could have prevented her death, and all he did was watch. He may tell you he has repented, but he hasn’t even understood the nature and the depth of those faults.”
Roberson struggled to know what he wanted to say. “He knows he has faults, Celia…” he started, then hesitated. “Faults. You’re right: if we can’t look at them and name them, then it’s not repentance.”
“We all have faults, Arthur,” she agreed. “It’s not hard to admit that, and impossible to deny it. Naming them, the real ones that are shaming, ugly, revealing of your weaknesses, is quite another thing. That’s embarrassing, even humiliating, but it means you see them, they’re real. It’s…owning the ugliness of them.” She stopped. She saw in his face that he needed time to grasp the difficulty of what she was saying, the enormity. And the truth. She remained silent and unmoving. She saw the moment when he believed it, like the slow dawning of a deeper radiance inside him. He did not even ask her how she knew it was the truth; it did not matter. He knew it now for himself.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
Before either of them could say anything more, there was a crash as the front door slammed open against the wall, and the impact shivered all the way to the study. Arthur rose to his feet as Seth Marlowe flung open the study door. His face was twisted with fury, his eyes glaring. For a moment, he saw only Arthur Roberson. Then he saw Celia and the last vestige of control slipped from him. “You interfering woman! How dare you bring my slut of a daughter here into this village, into my home? On the doorstep of my wife-to-be! Clementine has told me everything.”
Arthur held up his hand and stepped in front of Celia, as if to prevent Marlowe from physically attacking her. “Be quiet, Seth, you’re only making yourself ridiculous. It’s time for the truth. Your wife walked into the sea, intending to die. And you did nothing.”
“How dare you?” Marlowe was shaking with rage, the veins standing out on his temples and his neck.
“And what is just as bad,” Roberson continued, “perhaps even worse, was how your daughter, your child, ran along the shore crying out to her mother, and you still did nothing.”
“You know nothing about it, you interfering fool! I know people! I will have you thrown out, defrocked for breaking the seal of confession! You’re finished…”
Arthur shook his head. “Seth, what is wrong with you? Have you no shame, man? No pity?”
“She betrayed me!” Marlowe snorted, his face, even the angles of his body, reflecting his fury. “Rose took her own life! That is a sin for which you can’t repent, because your time is finished by your own hand!”
“For God’s sake, Seth! I’m not talking about Rose! God will take care of her, or your child, whom you abandoned. I’m talking about you: your sins, your arrogance, your cruelty to those most vulnerable, over and over again, week after week.”
“They’re conspiring to poison Clementine against me!” Marlowe shouted back. “Do you expect me to simply let them?” He drew breath to continue, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Hooper, who was standing in the study doorway, his arm around Clementine’s shoulders.
Hooper looked at Clementine’s face, expecting horror and pain. It was there, the realization. Nevertheless, her eyes were full of tears. Something inside her was deeply wounded.
She turned to Seth Marlowe, no fear in her face, only pity. “You are not sorry for what is really wrong, Seth. It is always everybody’s fault but yours. And yet you have not forgiven them, because you have not forgiven yourself.” She took a deep breath. “I thought I loved you, and I so desperately wanted to belong, to be part of a family, to have children.”
Marlowe’s face was contorted with rage and confusion. “How dare you?” he shouted, but he choked on the last word. He looked around the room: at Clementine, who stared back at him unflinchingly; at Arthur Roberson, who had moved up beside her and put one hand gently on her arm. And then at Hooper, who appeared immovable, both physically and emotionally.
“You have no place here, Seth,” Arthur said quietly. “Unless and until you accept humility, and above all, the gentleness of heart to forgive.”
“Never!” Marlowe said furiously. He spun round and glared at Celia, then at Hooper. “Go to hell, all of you!” And then he turned on his heel and stormed out. There was, for a moment, the roar of the rising wind, and then the crash of the front door slamming shut behind him.
There was a moment’s silence; Hooper turned to Celia.
She knew what he was going to say. The same thought had occurred to her. “Yes,” she said, before he could speak. “Get Flavia. She mustn’t be alone in the house if he goes there. He’s enraged enough to smash a window to get in.”
“Yes,” Roberson agreed. “We’ll lock the door behind you, but I don’t think he’ll come back here. We’ll be fine.”
No one protested. No one denied the danger.
Hooper put on his coat and scarf, glanced at Celia once more with a brief softening in his eyes, then went out. Roberson closed the door behind him and shot home the heavy bolts.
There was a moment’
s silence, then Celia spoke. “Arthur, have you enough milk and cocoa to make hot drinks? John and Flavia will be frozen stiff when they get back.”
He looked at Clementine and smiled tenderly. “Of course we have cocoa; it’s required in every vicarage. And there’s brandy, too.”
“Thank you,” Celia said, meeting his eyes in a moment of gratitude. Then she turned to Clementine and put her arm around her. “Come and help me,” she invited.
Clementine leaned into her. “Yes, of course.” As if slowly coming back to life, she asked, “Do you know where everything is? Show me…”
They went together and set about the task. They did not speak. It was a silent companionship, but Celia kept glancing at the younger woman whose world had just been so hideously shattered, and saw in her face a slight understanding of what she had lost, and that it had never really existed.
When Hooper returned with Flavia, the door was unbarred for them and they came inside. Clementine stared at Flavia with disbelief, then a slow, radiant smile spread across her face. “Bessie? Flavia…?”
As Flavia’s fears dissolved, her body relaxed. Her eyes shone with amazement and relief. “You…I?” She was lost for words.
Clementine stepped forward, put her arms around the girl and held her close.
Roberson’s smile grew wider and wider.
And then, quite suddenly, clear and pure, came the sound of church bells pealing a carol of joy into the night. It was calling them to the midnight service that heralded Christmas morning.
To all who, in these most difficult times, dare to believe.
THE CHRISTMAS NOVELS OF ANNE PERRY
A Christmas Journey
A Christmas Visitor
A Christmas Guest
A Christmas Secret
A Christmas Beginning
A Christmas Grace
A Christmas Promise
A Christmas Odyssey
A Christmas Homecoming