— Father Richard Baker, 1842 letter
To see death approaching made it no easier. Since Rome, Joseph had watched Bishop England’s vitality ebbing away. This last year had been worst of all. His Lordship drove himself to exhaustion. He led retreats for the clergy, the laity, the Sisters of Mercy. He made another tour of his diocese. He crossed the Atlantic again to raise funds and recruit Priests and nuns.
He also made another visit to Philadelphia to assist at an episcopal consecration. Castalio accompanied his master as he had on so many other journeys; but this one was different. Bishop England allowed him to disappear. Philadelphia had long been a haven for runaway slaves.
Everywhere His Lordship travelled, Catholics and Protestants alike clamored to hear him speak. They would crowd into the churches and halls till many had to be turned away. He could not refuse any opportunity to bring souls to God. Even in his fatigue, he was transcendent. Was this what it was like to witness Christ preaching His Sermon on the Mount? his listeners wondered. Certainly that was Joseph’s reaction.
In December, Bishop England had returned to Charleston in a state of collapse. At first, it seemed he would rally as he had so many times before. He was barely fifty-five years old. Surely God would not take him so soon. Now and again during Advent, His Lordship managed to celebrate Mass or preach in the cathedral. But his once-vibrant body was now stooped, his once-resounding voice now hoarse.
Soon after Christmas, Bishop England became unable to rise from his bed. For three long months, his diocese waited anxiously for either his recovery or the grace of a happy death. Not only the Catholic churches but also Protestant congregations and the Synagogue offered prayers for him.
By Holy Week, they abandoned their last hopes. His Lordship’s principal physician consulted with Joseph’s father and other doctors, but nothing more could be done. Bishop England’s affliction was complex, though it most resembled dysentery. That the holiest man Joseph had ever known should be felled by refractory bowels seemed a ridiculous injustice.
Through Father Lynch, His Lordship dictated his wishes to the Archbishop: Father Baker should be his successor. Joseph often returned from his duties to hear the younger Irishman conversing with their Bishop in low voices. His Lordship left his friend a great burden, but Father Baker knew its weight: he had served as Vicar General for years now during the Bishop’s travels.
His Lordship called the seminarians and the Sisters to his bedside in turn. He spoke of his own sister, Joanna. Stranger’s fever had taken her fifteen years before, yet in these final days, the memory of her goodness returned to him. “I should have been a better man—a better Priest—if she had remained here to guide me,” Bishop England lamented.
Every evening before he retired, Joseph knelt to kiss His Lordship’s episcopal ring. Such power had flowed through those fingers once—the power that had made Joseph a Priest. It was painful now to see that skeletal hand, that sunken face. This will be me, Joseph thought selfishly on the day he turned thirty. He knew he would not serve in Charleston forever. In another thirty years, he too would succumb to exhaustion; he too would die alone, thousands of miles from his family.
“So much I have attempted over these two decades has ended in failure,” Bishop England observed, when Father Baker had gone. “The mission to Haiti, the school for black children… When my cathedral was first erected, it was simply pitiful. Now, it is dilapidated. This very building is falling apart.” He glanced to the stained ceiling. Though His Lordship’s face remained white as death, his eyes brightened then, and he managed a smile. “But I look at you, Joseph, and I know I have done one thing right: I have enabled an uncertain boy to become a capable Priest—and a teacher of Priests.” Weakly, Bishop England squeezed Joseph’s hand. “You are a credit to your race, son—living proof that through the grace of God, anything is possible.”
Joseph could only nod.
In April, all the Priests from the cathedral, St. Mary’s, and St. Patrick’s gathered to celebrate a Solemn High Mass for their Bishop. Afterwards, they processed across the Biblical garden to his bedchamber in order to offer him the Last Sacraments. One final time, Father Baker helped His Lordship vest in his episcopal robes.
Propped against pillows, Bishop England addressed them: “Tell my people that I love them… Be with them, be of them, win them to God. Guide and instruct them. Watch as having to render an account of their souls, that you may do it with joy and not grief. … Remember me, I beseech you, in your devotions…”
Joseph and his fellow Priests promised to obey. As they knelt around the episcopal bed, many of them were weeping. Their Bishop blessed each of them one last time.
Before dawn the next morning, his great soul went to God. His Lordship’s final word on Earth began in a moan and ended in a gurgling cry. It was: “Mercy!”
All across the city, bells tolled the news of Bishop England’s passing. Businesses remained closed that day, and courts did not meet. Even the ships in the harbor hung their flags at half-mast. Theirs was a missionary Church in a hostile land; such an honor was unprecedented. They laid His Lordship to rest beneath his episcopal chair in their sad little cathedral.
His beloved sister Joanna was reinterred beside him. “Now,” Father Baker murmured over them that evening, “they may commingle their dust in death as they did their hearts in life.” There was a strange catch to his voice, as if he envied them. “They only await the blast of the Archangel’s trumpet, at which they are to spring forth from their lowly bed, and hand in hand go forth to glory. May you and I meet them there.”
“Amen,” Joseph whispered.
Chapter 38
The mortality among foreigners during the summer months at Charleston is incredibly great. He, whose veins glowed but yesterday with health, shall today be undergoing the agonies of the damned.
— John Davis, Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America, 1798-1802
Sometimes, as Joseph made his parish visits, he would cut through Longitude Lane between Church Street and East Bay. For much of the way, the fine old brick wall draped with climbing Noisettes was all that separated him from Tessa’s garden. And then, for a moment, nothing separated them—only the narrow gate and its claire-voie half-hidden by petals. He might have pushed his fingers through the opening and touched someone standing on the other side. The delicate tracery of the wrought iron reminded Joseph of the rose windows he’d seen in French cathedrals. Here, there was no stained glass, yet the claire-voie framed splashes of color nonetheless: glimpses of Tessa’s flowers.
No properly bred Charleston lady dirtied her hands, just as no properly bred Charleston gentleman peered into a lady’s garden. But Tessa was Irish; she loved the land. He was French—and she’d invited him to look. She wanted that sliver of garden to be beautiful.
“It’s like a glimpse into Paradise,” Joseph assured her. “Like the Garden of Eden.”
“There’s even a fig tree!” Tessa laughed. “Should I plant a pomegranate?”
David inhabited the garden only if he had a book in hand; but just as Tessa had hoped, Sophie played there often. In May, Joseph was passing the garden gate when he heard his niece giggling on the other side. He paused to peek through the claire-voie. If he leaned in, he could just see the statue of the Blessed Virgin, crowned now with blossoms as they’d done at the cathedral. Nearby, Tessa was trimming the thorns from roses and then handing each flower to Sophie, who tucked them into another crown.
“If ’tis not for you…” Tessa mused aloud, “is it for your brother?”
Joseph’s niece shook her head and giggled again. “He’d look silly!” Sophie finished the crown and held it up proudly. “This one is for you, Aunt Tessa!”
She smiled as bright as the sunshine. Tessa removed her bonnet and bowed her head so the little girl could crown her.
Joseph smiled too, before he went on his way. To anyone else peering through the claire-voie—though he hoped no one did—Tessa and Sophi
e might have been mother and daughter. They were mother and daughter.
When Joseph visited his niece and nephew on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, Sophie met him breathlessly at the front gate on Church Street. “Uncle Joseph! I’m going to have a baby brother after all!” Sophie grabbed one of his hands and towed him toward the piazza steps.
“Is that so?” Joseph stammered. He’d been secretly relieved that Tessa and her husband no longer shared a bedchamber. But apparently, their two separate countries still merged on occasion.
At the top of the steps, Sophie nodded eagerly. “Aunt Tessa told us this morning. Grandpa thinks he’ll be born around Christmas—just like baby Jesus!”
Reclining on a chaise-longue, Tessa smiled nervously. “It might be a baby sister instead.”
“That would be even better!” the girl declared.
After Sophie darted off again, Tessa murmured: “Or it might not remain with us at all…” She kept her eyes on her bodice. “I didn’t want to tell the children—not yet. But they could see I was ill. And I keep thinking: ‘This is the seventh. Perhaps he—or she—will be lucky.’ Perhaps Our Lord will allow me this miracle.” She looked up to Joseph. “I’ve been clinging to that verse in the Psalms: ‘He causeth the barren woman to be a joyful mother of children.’ The morning sickness has been worse than with any of the others. Your father says that’s actually a good sign. In all other ways, my health has been better since we came to Church Street. Your father speculated that it might have been something about the old house, that… He is hopeful. Cautious, but hopeful.”
“Aren’t you a seventh child yourself?” Joseph remembered.
Tessa nodded. “The Irish would say that the seventh child of a seventh child is destined for great things. That he or she will be a healer.”
“You know we Priests do not subscribe to superstition,” Joseph smiled. “But this child will be blessed: I can promise you that.” He himself blessed it immediately.
On the Feast of the Assumption, as soon as the butler admitted Joseph to the Stratfords’ entry hall, they heard quarrelling on the second floor. The negro opened his mouth, but the harsh words plummeting down to them made communication impossible. Finally, the butler simply bowed and retreated. Joseph supposed he should wait on the piazza. He turned back to the door.
Above him, Edward demanded: “Do you expect me to predict the future now?”
“This is August and we are in Charleston! There is a risk every year!” Compared to her husband’s, Tessa’s voice was hushed, but every bit as passionate. “I said it months ago: ‘We should take David and Sophie to your sister’s in Greenville till fever season has passed’!”
Joseph’s hand paused on the doorknob, and he held his breath.
“And then you admitted you were with child again!” Edward shouted. “You know what the mountain roads are like! Are you trying to kill this baby?”
Even a floor away, Joseph heard Tessa’s sharp intake of breath. “How can you ask me that?”
“Because you seem to care more about a dead man’s children than you do about mine!”
“David and Sophie are our responsibility now! And you don’t seem to care about them at all!”
Edward sounded like he was speaking through clenched teeth. “After everything I have done for those brats—”
“Throwing money at David and Sophie is not the same as being a father to them!”
For a moment, Edward only fumed incoherently. “They were born in Charleston! They’re supposed to be protected from stranger’s fever!”
“Only if they have a mild case and survive it!”
“Maybe that’s what this is!”
A door slammed, and then the house went eerily quiet. Only Tessa’s sobbing drifted down to him. Finally a small thump drew Joseph’s attention to the parlor. Mignon appeared on the threshold and mewed up at him, as if he were asking: Is it safe to come out now? In the next moment, Joseph realized David had been sitting in the parlor a few yards away all this time. The boy must have heard everything. Joseph stepped toward his nephew.
David kept his eyes on Mignon. “Sophie is sick,” the boy explained. “We’ve already sent for Grandpa.”
“Stranger’s fever?” Joseph whispered.
“Aunt Tessa thinks so.”
Joseph closed his eyes in dread. But perhaps in this one instance, the children’s black blood would be a boon: far more negroes than whites survived the onslaught of this disease.
Over his niece, Joseph prayed: “O God…extend Thy hand upon this girl who is afflicted at this tender age; and being restored to health, may she reach maturity, and ceaselessly render Thee a service of gratitude and fidelity…”
Joseph’s father confirmed their worst fears. He administered quinine and rhubarb. Still Sophie’s skin took on the jaundice that gave stranger’s fever its other name: yellow fever, the scourge of port cities from Philadelphia to Havana. To prevent another epidemic, Charleston’s militia dragged their cannons through the streets, firing off gunpowder to drive the miasma from the air.
No one knew what caused stranger’s fever (animal or vegetable putrefaction? some combination of heat and humidity?) but most scientists were convinced the disease was not contagious. Decades ago, a doctor had attempted repeatedly to infect himself without success. So Tessa defied her husband: despite her advancing pregnancy, she remained at Sophie’s bedside throughout that awful week. Every day, she assisted Hannah in bathing the girl’s body with the coolest water they could find.
In her delirium, Sophie murmured: “But I want to be a big sister…” and “We can’t leave him! He’s our brother!” For a while, this puzzled Joseph—was she speaking of baby Ian?—but finally he dismissed it. Joseph knew many children could not accept the finality of death.
Even he struggled to do so, as the fever abated and then returned without mercy. At last Sophie coughed up the black vomit that meant she’d reached the crisis: the girl would either recover or… Joseph anointed his niece, but she was too ill to receive Viaticum or make a final Confession. She was all of eight years old. Surely no mortal sins lay upon such a young soul.
“I cannot bear to watch her suffering like this,” Tessa wept. She fisted a hand against her rounding bodice. “I thought it was agony to lose my babies. But I never knew them—not like I’ve known Sophie. They never embraced me. They never called out to me. This is worse.” Tessa turned away from Joseph, shaking her head. “I never should have adopted David and Sophie. My reasons weren’t pure. I should have known this would happen. I am like poison, and—”
“You are balm, Tessa, not poison.” Joseph allowed himself to caress her face, but only for an instant. “I’ve seen the difference you’ve made in the children’s lives these past months—especially Sophie’s. Her fate is in God’s hands, not yours. It always has been. He will decide whether to take her.”
He took her.
Joseph prayed over his niece’s coffin: “God, Who art the Lover of holy purity, Thou hast now in Thy great mercy called the soul of this child to the Kingdom of Heaven. Deign, likewise, to dispense Thy mercy to us, so that we too may possess happiness without end…”
In the seven years of his Priesthood, Joseph had celebrated the Rites of Burial for hundreds of children. None had been as difficult as Sophie. She had survived so much. Two thousand miles from her parents’ graves, she had found contentment and a second chance, only to fall like this, barely a year later… Saint Paul’s words rang in Joseph’s head: “How incomprehensible are His judgments!”
The Lazare tomb would stand empty no longer. In the wall of the mausoleum, beneath the cenotaph for her parents and baby brother, Sophie’s coffin looked tiny inside its crypt. David stood staring at it for so long, Joseph feared he never intended to leave. His father urged Tessa and Hélène to retire from the August heat, so Joseph remained alone with his nephew.
When he touched the boy’s shoulder, David muttered: “It was all for nothing. I did it for nothing! I should
have just stayed at Independence Rock and let us all die together!”
“David!” Joseph turned the boy away from his sister’s coffin and knelt before him on the floor of the mausoleum. “Your bravery wasn’t ‘for nothing’! I cannot tell you how much it meant to us—to every member of your family and to Tessa—to have known Sophie, even for a little while. Her faith and resilience were shining examples to the rest of us.” He grasped his nephew’s limp arms. “Most of all, David, you got yourself to safety. You have a bright future here! You can go to medical school and save the lives of thousands of people like you saved Sophie’s.”
His nephew scoffed. “For thirteen whole months?”
“Every one of those days is a gift, David. We must not say that Sophie was ‘only eight’ when she died. We must say your sister had eight long years full of adventures and love, and now she has gone ahead of us to Heaven where she will never know pain or sadness again. She is with your mother and father and baby Ian—with the God Who made her and loves her more than any of us ever could.”
David glared at him. “What’s the use of becoming a doctor, then? Why don’t we all just stop eating and go to Heaven, if it’s so wonderful?”
“Because Our Lord has placed each of us on this Earth for a reason, David. Only He knows when we have fulfilled our mission and are ready to go to Him.”
“What about babies who die?” David challenged. “What is their mission?”
For a moment, Joseph averted his eyes. “I know the death of an infant is hard to accept. But God’s ways are not our ways. Someday, we will understand. For now, we must trust that He will make all things beautiful in their time.”
The day after Sophie’s funeral, Tessa felt her baby quicken. Never before had she carried a child so long. Soon Joseph’s father heard its heartbeat through his stethoscope. Everything seemed normal. They still prayed fervently.
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