Dawn in My Heart

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  “Oh, Tertius, I can only rejoice that the Lord has answered my prayers.” She smiled. “I’ve prayed and prayed for you for a long time.”

  “Thank you, dear sister.” He shook his head, still feeling overwhelmed with his new self. “You know, I feel a completely different person. The moment I awoke, I was about to utter a silly profanity and the word died on my lips.” His expression sobered. “Althea, can you ask Gillian to come and see me?”

  She looked downward, and he was aware that she must have sensed the estrangement between him and his wife. “Of course, I shall get her immediately.”

  Nigel found Althea leaving his master’s room, and he approached her.

  “Miss Breton?” he asked when she had stopped attentively before him.

  “Yes, what is it, Nigel?”

  “I wish to know your God.”

  “Oh, Nigel, of course. I shall be glad to introduce you,” she said with a smile.

  “He be more powerful than all de evil I have seen on de island.”

  “Yes, He is.” She considered then said, “I have an idea. Lord Skylar is eager to know about His God and I have been reading to him from the Scriptures. Why don’t you join us and you can discover Him together?”

  He nodded eagerly. “I should like that above all.” He hesitated. “May I ask permission for Miss Katie to join us as well? She believes in dis God but says she has never seen de evidence of His power so clearly.”

  “Of course she may join us. How wonderful. We shall have a Bible study together. Let us gather together this evening.”

  Gillian looked up from her game of patience. Although the snow had nearly all melted, it was a cold, rainy day, and she was confined to the house this afternoon.

  Althea entered the sitting room. “I don’t mean to disturb you, but I wondered if you wouldn’t mind sitting with Tertius a while, perhaps read to him for a bit? It is tedious to be lying in bed, yet he’s still too weak to get up.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m occupied at present,” she replied, flipping over a card from her pile.

  “You could finish your game in a little while, couldn’t you?”

  Gillian felt the resentment well up in her bosom. She looked Althea straight in the eye and said in a hard tone, “No, I’m afraid I couldn’t.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Althea replied immediately, clearly taken aback by Gillian’s tone. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “That’s quite all right. You didn’t disturb me at all,” she answered serenely, and turned her attention back to the cards laid out on the table.

  Althea returned to Skylar’s room.

  “Well?” he asked as soon as she’d entered the room.

  “I’m sorry, but she’s…occupied,” she answered lamely, sitting back down and smoothing her skirts.

  “I see.” He looked beyond her with a sad smile. “I shouldn’t have sent you.”

  “Don’t worry about that, but Tertius, what is the matter between the two of you? I realize you are recently married and you’ve been sick most of that time, but I don’t understand.”

  “There was a misunderstanding between us. Quite a major one, as a matter of fact. I haven’t treated her very well, I’m afraid. I have much to make up for.” He gave a rueful smile. “But it seems she isn’t going to make it easy for me. And I’m too weak yet to do much but lie here and wish I could do better.”

  “Don’t be impatient. Your body needs to grow strong. And think, this time isn’t wasted. You are learning about your Savior. Each day you’re gaining insights that it took many of us years to learn.”

  He nodded. “I thank God every minute for the privilege of knowing Him. For so many years, I misjudged you. I dismissed you as a pious evangelical—a heretic even—when all along, you were the only one of us who knew the truth.” He sobered. “What about Edmund? Did you ever get to talk with him?”

  “A little. He didn’t seem to feel he had anything to be saved from.”

  “Poor Edmund. He had everything and for so long I envied him—or at any rate, I measured all my accomplishments against his.”

  “I never realized that. I always saw the two of you in much the same light—two aristocratic young men with no blotch on their name—two full brothers with no need to recognize an illegitimate half sister.”

  He reached out his hand and she met it with her own hand and they smiled in understanding at each other.

  “It’s good to have a full-fledged sister.”

  “It’s good to have a brother,” she replied.

  Gillian groaned in annoyance. These days she could never count on having her pets beside her. She knew where she’d find them!

  Always curled up on or around or under Skylar’s bed!

  Well, she’d had enough. She wouldn’t be cowed from going and fetching at least one of them.

  But when she stood outside his door and heard the voices and the laughter, she paused, as if suddenly faced with a ten-foot-high wall instead of an opened door with light spilling from it.

  She viewed the scene around Tertius’s wide bed. There sat Althea with her Bible in her lap, her face smiling and animated as it never was when she was with Gillian. As usual she was expounding on some portion of Scripture. Gillian gaped at Tertius. His face was more expressive than she’d ever seen it. He was laughing. He, too, had a Bible on his lap where he lay propped up in the bed.

  She surveyed the rest of the immediate area surrounding the bed. There on the other side sat the black valet, a Bible on his lap! He, too, was smiling and asking a question of his own. Beside him, on another chair, with her Bible, sat her own personal maid, Katie, her eyes fixed on Althea as if she were relating the most fascinating story.

  Since when did one sit with one’s servants as if they were one’s equals? And since when did reading the Scriptures become a festive occasion? They seemed to be having more fun than at a party.

  Gillian almost drew back from the cozy tableau, but then annoyance grew in her. This was her home! She had been relegated here as a virtual prisoner and now she was being made to feel she was the intruder.

  She would see about that!

  Taking a deep breath, and ignoring her beating heart, she stepped into the light. Immediately all four pairs of eyes turned in her direction.

  “Good evening,” she said through stiff lips.

  An immediate chorus of “good evening” greeted her. As she stood there, hesitating about crossing that large expanse between the door and bed, Tertius said, “It’s good to see you, Gillian.”

  She cleared her throat, her fingers playing with the ribbon hanging from her dress. “I just…just came to look for my pets.”

  Tertius waved to the two sleeping cats at the foot of his bed. “Here they are, as comfortable as you please. Won’t you come in and join us?”

  She looked away from him. “No, thank you. I’ll just take one of the cats, if you don’t mind.” Why was she so unsure of her actions? She marched across the room and scooped up one of the furry balls curled up by Tertius’s legs.

  “We’d love to have you join us.” Althea’s soft invitation came to her.

  She used the cat to hide her face in as she answered. “No, thank you just the same.”

  She left, their silences, like their expressions, weighing on her and angering her. By the time she entered her own room, her cat scrambling to be let down, she felt as if she were fleeing. Fleeing her own domain!

  What did he want? Why had he come here? Since he’d regained consciousness, she felt his presence wherever she went in the house. Why hadn’t he remained in London? Why couldn’t she go back to London?

  She must go back! Somehow she must find the means. Once more she went to her jewelry box and removed the necklace and earrings. She would find a way to sell them. Perhaps tomorrow.

  In the light of her lamp she glanced down at the rings on her finger. A pinpoint of red light reflected off the diamond from where the lamplight hit it. She shifted her finger a fraction and
the pinpoint turned bright blue; another fraction and it transformed to brilliant green, then back to red. Gillian continued shifting her hand back and forth, watching the colors in fascination.

  Suddenly she stopped and yanked the rings off her finger. Why was she still wearing them? She was nothing to that man lying in the next room and he was nothing to her.

  Husband! The word was an affront.

  As she began to lay the rings beside the necklace in her jewel case, she noticed the inscription inside the wedding band. She had never realized it contained an inscription.

  Slowly she picked it up and held it up to the light, deciphering the minute script.

  To Jilly Girl, My Wife.

  The words brought a sudden lump to her throat. Was that how he had thought of her before…

  The endearment conjured up a loving partner, a man to honor and cherish her. How she had longed for such a man to love and be loved by.

  Through her own perfidy and lies, had she been the one to forever destroy her chances at having such a husband?

  She wiped angrily at a tear that ran down her cheek.

  Her father had always called her Jilly dear.

  Without giving it conscious thought, Gillian replaced the wedding band on her finger, telling herself it wouldn’t fetch much anyway, an inscribed band of gold. She gathered up the other jewels and put them in her reticule.

  The next afternoon, Althea knocked on the side of the sitting-room door and asked, “May I come in?”

  “Of course,” Gillian replied, where she sat sewing. Once again her plans for going into town were thwarted by rainy weather.

  Althea took a seat beside her. “Tertius is coming along very nicely. He even was able to stand this morning. Soon we won’t be able to keep him in bed.”

  Gillian concentrated on her stitches. “How nice.”

  “I wanted to ask a special favor of you.”

  Gillian met her gaze then. “Yes?”

  “Could you take a turn at reading to him? He is getting tired of lying abed, and I’m afraid my voice will give out.” She gave a hesitant smile.

  Gillian looked away, wondering how to turn down her sister-in-law’s request. Why did she fear being in Tertius’s presence? Would he be able to read the treachery in her eyes?

  “I’m afraid I’m not much for Bible reading,” she finally replied.

  “You don’t have to read the Bible.” She glanced around at the tables in the room and, seeing the books, suggested, “You could read to him whatever you are reading.”

  “Are you sure he’d be interested? It seems to me all he cares about now is hearing Scriptures,” she asked in an acid tone.

  “That’s what he cares about most, but I’m sure having your company would be far more important than the subject matter you were reading.”

  Gillian sighed, suddenly tired of dissembling. “My husband almost died, and if he had, I would have had my freedom. As it is, I am still his prisoner. So don’t expect me to share your joy at his recovery or join your cozy Bible parties upstairs. As far as I’m concerned, his life is at the expense of my freedom.”

  She jabbed her needle into the muslin to punctuate her point. There! Let the good Althea think the worst of her. It was no more than she deserved, she thought, remembering the letter she had written to Gerrit.

  She saw the shock and distress in her sister-in-law’s eyes and felt a perverse satisfaction. It would come as no surprise, then, when Althea found out Gillian had run away from her husband.

  “He’s your husband. The two of you were joined in holy matrimony,” Althea began quietly.

  Gillian stood, unable to bear the confines of the chair. “My husband, as you call him, is a brute! I was forced to marry him, but I never dreamed he’d be such a monster. I hate him! I hate him!” The more she voiced the feelings that had been pent up inside her for so long, the more justified she felt.

  “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m sure Tertius didn’t mean to hurt you—”

  Gillian covered her ears. “I don’t want to hear any more. Leave me alone! All of you! I shall soon leave here and you can have your private little gatherings, spouting Scripture!”

  Unable to bear Althea’s sympathetic expression, Gillian rushed from the room.

  A few days later Gillian finally received a reply from her friend Charlotte. Gillian’s heartbeat quickened. Could it contain a reply from Gerrit?

  She took it up to her room and locked the door behind her. Breaking open the seal, she breathed a sigh of relief when from the letter fell another which had been tucked inside the first. Her salvation had come!

  She immediately recognized Gerrit’s handwriting on the inside letter. He had answered her letter—her plea—for help!

  She unfolded it and scanned its contents.

  My dearest Gillian,

  You’ll never know the joy your note gave me. When I saw you last, I thought you would never consent to see me again. My heart was broken for a second time, thinking you lost to me forever. Then I received your letter, describing your cruel treatment and I was ready to go and snatch you from your prison. But your next words stopped me. Now I await the day you will be free again. My heart has been true to you all these years. Fighting on the battlefield, torturing myself with thoughts of you with other loves. I await the day we will be together again.

  Yours forever,

  Gerrit

  Gillian hugged the letter to her breast. He still loved her! He would wait for her! She did have a place to go! She needn’t be left to feel an outsider by these people around her.

  She sat at her desk and reread his letter. He still thought Tertius lay at death’s door. Of course now she would have to tell him of Tertius’s miraculous recovery. But if Gerrit loved her, it shouldn’t make any difference. They could flee England together. Now that Napoleon had been defeated, they could live in France or Italy. Isn’t that what so many others had done in the past for the sake of true love? Even Princess Caroline, the Regent’s poor wife, was living the life of a virtual exile since he wouldn’t grant her a divorce. And hadn’t the poet Shelley eloped this summer with Mary Godwin, even though he already had a wife and child?

  She and Gerrit could have a good life on the Continent. Anywhere but here. Her fevered thoughts grasped at this opportunity to escape.

  By mid-March spring had come to the West Riding. The grass turned vibrant green, and the sheep were let out to the pastures on the sloping fields.

  Tertius was determined to regain his strength as quickly as possible. He felt an urgency on him to do the work the Lord had for him. For the first time in his life, he felt he had a purpose to fulfill, a purpose with eternal value. But he knew he could do nothing without first making things right with his young wife.

  Althea and Nigel continued to nurse him, but he no longer wanted to be treated like an invalid. The times he enjoyed most were gathering together, the four of them, he and his sister with the two servants and discussing what they had read in the Bible. Second to this was reminiscing with Althea about their childhood.

  He was unprepared, then, for the day Althea told him as the two sat in the drawing room, “I must return to London.”

  He turned from surveying the parkland from the window. He’d been watching Gillian walk along a tree-lined lane toward the moors.

  “What? When?” he asked in alarm.

  She smiled. “I left many things pending when I came here so hurriedly.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “At the mission. I have many responsibilities there.”

  He came to sit beside her. “Forgive me. I haven’t asked you much about your present life. I’m sorry you had to come here in such haste.”

  “Don’t be. I came here gladly. I know the Lord led me to you. He has blessed me with seeing the fruit of my prayers,” she said with a smile, then sobered. “You know, I don’t wish to leave so soon. You haven’t fully regained your strength, and I don’t want you to overtax yourself. Give your body time to h
eal properly. You also have only just begun your discipleship. I hate to leave you only a babe, but I sense the Lord would have me go at this time.”

  “But what am I to do without my teacher?” he asked, merely half in jest.

  “Depend on the Lord even more. He shall teach you Himself.” She opened the Bible that was never far from her side and flipped through it. “Listen. ‘The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him.’”

  He took the book from her and read for himself. “I never would have understood these words before. They were meaningless to me. It’s about revelation, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. The Lord has opened up the Scriptures to you. He has much, much more.” She smoothed down her skirts, as if still wishing to say something more.

  “What is it, Althea?”

  “There is another reason I feel I need to leave now.”

  He waited.

  “You have a lovely young wife who has been deeply hurt. I believe the two of you can begin mending things the sooner you are alone together.” She sighed. “But I shall miss you, Tertius. I feel I’ve only just begun to have a brother.”

  “I shall miss you, too. Terribly,” he said with a grin. “But we’ll see each other again soon in London. I promise.”

  “I look forward to that. I shall be praying for you and Gillian.”

  “Thank you. I shall be praying for you and your work, too, dear sister.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The evening after Althea left for London, Nigel came into Gillian’s sitting room.

  “Yes?”

  “The master requests you come and read to him for a little while.”

  “Tell him—” She had been at the point of telling him that she was not going to take his precious sister’s place, but she stopped herself. She had hardly seen Sky since he’d recovered, and she was curious to see if he indeed was “cured.”