How am I to go to confession? It was the thought that truly bothered him. How can I confess to a sin with no intention of reform? He did not want to ignore the orders of a priest, but then again, hadn’t he done that before?
He went each morning to Mass in the local church, or High Mass if he was too lazy to get up, but it was several days before he stepped in the box and crossed himself. “Before I begin, I must ask—Father, are you a member of any of the monastic orders?”
“No indeed, me son.”
“I am excommunicated from my order and would be unable to speak to you if you were. That was why I asked,” he said, and crossed himself. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last confession.” He did not go through his entire history with this priest—he had confessed all those sins long ago and did not wish to go over them again. “I am living with an unmarried woman who is carrying another man’s child.”
“Who is dis oither lad?”
“I do not know him. All I know is that he told her to get rid of the child, and she ran away from him, and was living on her own before I found her.”
“Where is ’er family?”
“She said they would not speak to her after they discovered her condition.”
The priest paused. “Yeh ’av relashuns wi’ this woman?”
“Yes. Forgive me, Father, but I would be lying if I did not say that I have every intention of continuing.”
“Yeh intend ter marry ’er?”
He leaned back in the box. For some reason, he had not anticipated this question. “At this stage, I do not know. Marriage is a sacrament. There is more to it than physical pleasure or financial necessity.”
“Yeh are supporting ’er?”
“Yes.”
“In exchange for deese favors?”
He colored. “No. She was starving and I bought her food with no intention of things proceeding as they did. I was just returning from a pilgrimage to Jerpoint Abbey when I encountered her. I had no intention of staying in the region.”
“If yeh intend ter continue dees carnal relashuns, yeh must make an honest woman out av ’er.”
Grégoire swallowed. “I need time to consider it. I take sacraments very seriously.”
“But sexual prohibishuns, less so.”
He bowed his head. “Forgive me, Father. I was a celibate monk for most of my adult life. This is the first time I have ever been in a…relationship with a woman, aside from one other time, and I repented, and was forgiven. And that was when I was under oath. Now I have no such restrictions.”
“Yeh ’av de restricshun av bein’ a Christian lad.”
To this, he did not have an answer. He had not looked forward to this, and he would not look forward to future sessions. But he could not marry Caitlin—he barely knew her. “If we are meant for marriage, then I will happily make her my wife and raise the child as my own. But as of now, I cannot answer you.”
It was the turn of the priest to stop to consider. “Yeh are rational and considerate, and doin’ the woman a generosity. ’Owever, yeh are still livin’ in sin an’ must examine yer motives for doin’ so. We are meant ter learn from sin—it leads us astray, but in doin’ so, lets us see wha de right path wus so we can reclaim it,” he said. “Say ten Hail Marys and attend Mass at least once a week.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Go wi’ God, me son.”
He had never felt as though that box were such a prison, and never so relieved to be free of it. It was not the punishment—which was nothing in comparison with anything he had experienced in his past—so much as what the priest had said. If this continued, he would have to marry Caitlin. On the other hand, if this continued, maybe he would want to.
After a brief refresher course with Mr. O’Muldoon and acquiring the right materials, Grégoire set to work repairing the floorboards of the kitchen, especially the ones that had a tendency to pop up when one stepped on the other end.The project would take hours. Work is prayer. So said St. Benedict, even though Grégoire was still required to set aside time for prayer itself, and to attend Mass, and, of course, services on Sundays.
“Are yeh sure yer not still a monk?” Caitlin said as he finished Sext and joined her in the kitchen for lunch. With the right spices and after some failed attempts, she had finally managed to get some good dishes together.
“Why? Do you want me to act like one?” he said, kissing her.
“T’be sure not,” she said, and began putting out the food. “It’s just—all the people I know who are runnin’ to church are either priests or so—”
“Self-righteous?”
“Aye.” She stopped her conversation and bowed her head as he said grace in Latin, and then they ate at a leisurely pace.
Caitlin took a sip of tea. “I jist mind dis lady hittin’ me wi’ a rod for runnin’ up an’ down de aisles whaen oi wus wee.”
“I don’t think Christ would have hit you when you acted like a child,” he said. “I don’t think he would ever have hit you.”
“Yeh shoulda told ’er that,” she said. “’S like, yer just all good, nothing bad in yeh a’tall—” She stood up. “Excuse me.”
He was used to her running outside after eating—she was with child and not used to such good food—but he sensed something was the matter. When she was done being ill, she sat down on the front steps, weeping.
“Caitlin? What is it?”
She just shook her head, trying to shoo him away. He would not be shooed, and sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her. “What is it?”
“’S nothing.”
“It is not.”
She tried to meet his eyes, but failed, collapsing into his tunic. “I’m so sorry, so sorry—I shouldn’t be doin’ dis ta yeh.Yer so good—”
“You’re not doing anything to me,” he said, “except making me happy.”
But she just kept sobbing, until she was so exhausted that he picked her up and carried her to her bed, where she remained for the rest of the day. Grégoire looked at the abandoned floor project and shook his head. He spent the rest of the day in prayer, even if he did not know precisely what he was praying for.
CHAPTER 29
Sacred Sacraments
THERE DIDN’T SEEM TO BE ENOUGH hours in the day. He had prayer, Mass, Caitlin, and chores around the house. He needed to get it into some semblance of shape. She was consuming food at the normal rate of a woman entering her fourth month, so it was not a surprise that he was at the market almost every day. Initially not a good cook, she was a fast learner, and Grégoire was a happy teacher.
One day, shortly after he had returned from the market and was trying to properly spice the potatoes before they went in the stove, she asked, “Why do yeh go ta Mass every day? Is it so Jasus’ill fergive yer sins?”
“Every person is a sinner,” he said, “but no, that’s not why I go. I go because it’s a sacrament.”
“Dat’s somethin’ the priest used ta say.”
It didn’t mean, of course, that she understood it. He turned to her, wiping the last of the salt from his hands over the pot. “Through performing the sacraments and leading good lives, we thank the good Lord for all that we have been given. Even when it’s not much, even when it’s so terrible we can hardly bear it—it’s the only life we have.”
“Yer ’onestly believe dat?”
“Have I ever said anything I did not believe?”
He put a cover over the pot. The potatoes could sit for a bit. “Let me take you somewhere.”
She was all obliging as he led her into the forest, to the little ruin where he had spent the night. It was much easier to see inside now, with full daylight instead of rain. Some dirt obscured the mosaic, and he wiped it clean again. “When I was lost, I found this.”
“’S St. Patrick,” she said. “I seen it before. In other churches.”
“I thought it might be.You see where he’s pointing?” He gestured. “In the direction of your h
ouse. I didn’t know which way to turn, so I followed him to you.”
Caitlin giggled, and then, realizing that he was serious, leaned into him. He kissed her. “I don’t know what I would have done without him.”
Time passed, but Grégoire did not pay much attention to the calendar. He went to Tullow to check his mail and found a response from his brother, saying that he would be looking into the business of the missing soldier.
The summer heat was beginning to set in, and he was sweating by the time he returned to the house. Dropping off his bundle on the porch, he took the soap from it and headed off to the stream behind the house.The cow mooed at him as he passed; she was doing much better now that she was regularly fed.
Only in the privacy afforded by the forest and the bushes around the stream did he remove his outer tunic, and then his undershirt, which he proceeded to wash carefully in the tiny flow of water. Afterward, he hung it in the sun to dry and then sat down by the stream, bare chested. Removing his sandals, he let the water cool his aching feet.
“Didja get de feed?”
He scrambled to his feet, which involved a lot of splashing, to reach for his tunic. “Caitlin, please don’t—”
She was standing in the sun, a wrap covering her hair. “I’ve seen de rest of yeh, yeh know.”
He held his tunic up over his bare chest. “I know—but this is quite different.”
“Well, now it’s out, yeh might as well not be hidin’ in shame.”
He blushed. “It is not…” but he couldn’t contradict her. It was shame. “I’m sorry.”
She held out her hand, and he sighed and put the wool tunic in it. They sat down together on the grass, waiting for his shirt to dry. He had not seen his back in a long while—not since once in the mirror at Pemberley, some months earlier—but there were scars that would remain, and times when it was still tender and easily made raw.
“Does it ’urt?”
“Sometimes.”
Caitlin removed her headscarf, which was little more than a random piece of yellow cloth anyway, and dipped it into the stream. She took the soaked cloth and gently applied it to a shoulder blade. Beyond the initial contact with cold, he stopped flinching and his body relaxed.
“Does it fale better nigh?”
“Oh, goodness, yes,” he said. “I’ve never—I never had anyone else to do this for me. I mean, doctors did it, but it wasn’t quite the same.” He played with his rosary as she applied the compress to his back. The feeling was heavenly. “Most of it I did for myself. The white stripes are from where they sewed me up the last time. I was being punished for disobeying the Rule—the monastic rule book—and my flesh was too weak. It broke. There was so little left after infection that the doctors had to take skin from my arm. That part, I don’t remember. There are some things in between—I remember the abbot telling me he had to excommunicate me from the order. I remember talking to the archbishop of Oviedo. I remember sitting on the coast.” He shook his head. “It is all a jumble. I dreamed I was being hammered on an anvil, and it was the saints, taking turns with the—” he broke off. He couldn’t continue. He had dreamed many dreams as he lay in fever, but he remembered only a few, and all of them haunted him.
“Some t’ings—’tis best just ta forget,” she said. He had a mental flash of what Mrs. O’Muldoon had told him about Caitlin when she came to the area, broken and bruised, not to mention with child. Meanwhile, the actual Caitlin put down her cloth and leaned over to kiss him. “Yer not so terrible ta look at. Not loike yer missin’ an eye or somet’in’.” She smiled. “In fact, I kinda loike the way yeh look.”
He returned the kiss. “That is comforting to know, as I find you beautiful.”
His shirt had dried by the time they stepped back into the sunlight. Grégoire’s mind was in a pleasant haze as he dressed himself and they returned to the house. While Caitlin sorted the packages and prepared lunch, Grégoire reread the letters from his family, which included one from Georgiana, eager to know if he would return home in time for Robert’s first birthday. Had that much time really passed?
“’Sat from yer brad’er?”
“Sister,” he said. “Her name is Georgiana. Her first son was born last spring.”
“Yeh never blather aboyt yer family,” she said as she put his soup in front of him.
“You never talk about yours.”
“I ’ad a brad’er, little Connor, but ’e died of de fever a few years ago. And me ma and pa, but dat’s it. Nothin’ excitin’. Just a little farm. Not loike a great English house.”
“I didn’t grow up in England,” he said. “I was born and raised in Mon-Claire, which is a wasteland at the top of a mountain in France. My mother went into exile after being fired from her job as a maid. I never would have known about my father if he hadn’t come before he died to meet me. I was ten, I believe.”
“Why did ’e coom?”
“He was trying to make amends for the things he had done in his life. My mother was his wife’s personal maid. She was with child with Georgiana when I was conceived. When Lady Anne found out, she fired my mother on the spot, and never forgave my father. She died after childbirth, and her last words were to curse my father.”
“And your brad’er?”
“He’s more than ten years older than me. He inherited everything and found out about me through some odd banking reports about an account in France. This was nine or so years ago. It came as quite a shock to him.”
“But he didn’t toss you off?”
He shook his head. “He embraced me as though I were his real brother, not his fathers’s…bastard. He did everything he could do for me—everything that I let him. He would have let me use the Darcy name if I could, legally.”
“’S not a noble, is he?”
“His mother was. And our sister married an earl.” He saw her look down in embarrassment at her plate. “It does not matter to me. I have no rights to anything under English law, being born out of wedlock. Father was just being kind when he left me an inheritance.”
“‘An inheritance,’” she said, as if the notion itself were absurd. “Can I ask yeh a question?”
He smiled. “Of course.” The soup was a little heavy on the ginger. She was not yet familiar with many roots and spices, but there were more successes than failures.
“What are rich people loike?”
He laughed. She hadn’t meant it seriously—there was no way that she could have. That didn’t mean he was exempted from providing an answer, so he took a piece of potato floating in the soup and put it in his mouth, chewing on it to give himself time to mull over the question. “Do you wish to know a secret?”
She squealed. “Aye!”
“They are terribly, terribly bored.”
Neither of them could hold back their laughter at that. He was glad that he had swallowed his food properly, as he could not have held it in. “They have their servants do every menial task. They do not even dress themselves, and are left with nothing to do. So they read books and go on walks and then sit down for long dinners where they discuss reading books and going on walks. And then write people about it, because writing takes time.”
“Yer jokin’!”
“I was once privy to a discussion of how they were planning on replanting the garden so it might look more in fashion with something someone had read in a magazine. I nearly fell asleep! I mean, there is intelligent conversation, but still…” He shook his head, still smiling at Caitlin’s bemusement. Whatever amused her amused him.
“One day, ye’ll read me a letter.”
“One day, you’ll read it yourself,” he said.
Time and time again, she resisted his attempts to teach her to read, mainly because of her own prejudices against her intellect, and because it seemed to be such a wasteful thing to do with her time. The unspoken message was clear: she did not know where her life was going beyond the birth of her child, if she even lived. They seemed to be neck-and-neck in terms of their estee
m of themselves. Perhaps that was why it was so easy to relate to her, this other lost soul.
The days and nights fell into an easy pattern. He went to church without her. She had her own reasons, both societal and personal, not to show her face in the house of God, especially beside a man who was not her husband while carrying a child that was not his or a husband’s. “Pray fer me,” she would say, and kiss him good-bye every Sunday.
Maybe she noticed all of the little improvements around the house and kept track of them and what they would have cost her, or maybe she didn’t. He never fully revealed his wealth (she would have found the number imaginary), but he found ways to slip things into her life on some pretense or another. They needed a new leg for the table, so he found one.They needed new sheets for the bed, so he bought them. Expensive items, such as soap and sugar and even chocolate, found their way onto the shelves. After a bad rain, he had Mr. O’Muldoon come over to help him repair the roof.
“The Missus is goin’ ta ask me, so I might as well ask yeh—are you t’inkin’ a marryin’ her, or are yeh not de type?”
“Marry your wife? That would present some difficulties.”
The man laughed so hard he nearly fell off the roof, but insisted on an answer to the question.
“I don’t know,” Grégoire said. “I have no experience in this area.”
“Who has experience in marryin’ someone before dey get married?”
He could not fault his logic there. “I suppose you’re right. I just never imagined I would be considering this question.”
But he was. He would be lying to himself if he thought otherwise, and his confessor (the only priest in the church) kept reminding him of it. If Caitlin was not married in four months, her child would be a bastard. Although Grégoire was himself a bastard, he could not imagine what Caitlin would do. Mr. Darcy had given his mother money to go back to France—enough money for her and Grégoire to live on for years in Mon-Claire.
The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy Page 29