The Vicar Takes a Wife

by Victoria Kovacs

Seething, Sir Simon hurried from the room to change his clothes. Susanna urged the card game to a hasty conclusion, thus she and Hosea were gone before he returned.

  “How are preparations for the ball progressing?” Hosea asked as they rode home in the carriage Sir Simon had sent for them.

  “Finished, I hope,” she murmured.

  “Sir Simon seemed most amused,” Hosea observed. When this elicited no response, he began to nervously tap his foot. “What were you talking about?”

  Susanna sighed and rubbed her temples. “Vicar, you have no reason to be jealous.”

  “Jealous? Not at all,” he said a bit too hastily and commenced drumming his fingers on his knee. “I’m merely curious as to what he found so amusing. He did seem to be enjoying himself immensely. I mean, who wouldn’t when conversing with you? You are an immensely enjoyable person.”

  Susanna stared out the window into the darkness. “Nothing, Vicar,” she replied. “It was nothing at all.”

  Chapter 10: Destruction of the Temple

  HOSEA and Susanna knocked on the third cottage door to no reply. “How curious the family isn’t home. I know they were counting on our visit.”

  Susanna saw a curtain move in an upstairs window. “Everyone is avoiding me.” She turned from the door.

  “That can’t be true,” Hosea protested, hurrying after her.

  “Why won’t you admit it? They don’t like me. I’m not welcome here.”

  “You’re very welcome here,” Hosea insisted. “It’s just we English aren’t as effusive in our welcome of new acquaintances as, let us say, Miss Edna.”

  “Edna’s effusive welcomes of new acquaintances are based on economics, not on being neighborly,” Susanna pointed out.

  Hosea reddened. “Even so, we must give them a chance. When they come to know you as Mrs. Fitzgerald and I do, they will appreciate your fine qualities.”

  “Which fine qualities are those?” she scoffed. “Seducing the vicar? Corrupting the doctor’s wife?”

  “No,” he said, offering her his arm. “I refer to your musical talent.”

  “I’ve had lots of practice,” she said, taking it. “What else?”

  “You have a keen sense of fashion.”

  “It comes from being vain.”

  Hosea paused to think of a quality that couldn’t be excused away. “You chop wood with exceptional fortitude.”

  “Now there’s a fine quality,” she relented. “Proverbs thirty-one, verse nineteen: ‘She layeth her hands to the wood pile, and her hand holds the ax’—though I think only Mr. Cowdry is impressed by that. My musical skills and sense of fashion have offended the rest.”

  “In time, they will see your other qualities,” Hosea said.

  “Which are?”

  He bit his tongue. Her other qualities weren’t those that would be noticed by the parish.

  “Well?” she pressed.

  Once more he summoned the courage to look her in the eye. “When you smile, it’s like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. When you come down the stairs each morning, you look brighter than the dawn. When you read by lamplight at night, your glow is more charming than the moon.”

  She didn’t expect such an answer and felt self-conscious. Lately he was having that effect on her. “A preacher and a poet. Vicar, you’re full of secrets.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. Keep talking like that and you’ll win any woman’s heart.”

  “I will?” he said. Was poetry the key to her heart? The problem was he was more tongue-tied than poetic when talking to her.

  “You don’t want for admirers, that’s for sure,” said Susanna. “There’s the Miss Sneeds, Edna, Alice, and Fanny.”

  “Miss Edna is sweet, but she scared me,” Hosea admitted.

  “Edna scared you?” Susanna said. “Why?”

  “As I said, she is rather effusive in her manners. When she kissed me—”

  Susanna stopped. “Edna kissed you? Why, that hussy! I’ve a good mind to write her and give her a piece of my mind. Of course, I’ll have to do it in small words so she can read the blasted thing.”

  Hosea shuffled from one foot to the other. “It was a goodbye kiss, rather spontaneously bestowed and most unwillingly received.”

  “Oh,” said Susanna, embarrassed by her reaction.

  Hosea was pleased by it. “Your concern for my welfare is another of your fine qualities.”

  “Someone’s got to look out for you, especially where Edna’s concerned,” she said. “What’s so funny?”

  Hosea was chuckling. “Mrs. Fitzgerald used to scold me for not taking care of myself. She said it was a good thing she was there since I didn’t have a Mrs. Honeywell to look after me. Now I do—at least for a while.”

  His gaze made her nervous. “And you got a prostitute for a wife, just as the Lord commanded,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said faintly.

  Was that regret she heard? She tossed her head. “When I’m gone, you should put your talent for poetry to work. Mrs. Fitzgerald won’t be around forever to keep you out of trouble.”

  “Yes. Who knows what tomorrow may hold?” he said. “Who knows what tonight may hold? I may have another dream from the Lord.”

  “It can’t be any worse than being told to marry a prostitute,” said Susanna. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, unless the Lord tells you to marry Edna.”

  “That would be a revelation,” Hosea admitted.

  Speaking of revelations,” she said, “what does pistological mean? You used the word on the train leaving Black Creek.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes. You said you couldn’t back down from a pistological challenge.”

  Hosea’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember saying it. It means the theology of faith, from the Greek word for faith, which is pistis.”

  She thought for a moment. “I see.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I told you jumping on the train was a leap of faith, and you called it a pistological challenge.”

  “Indeed, it was,” Hosea smiled. “Though I certainly wasn’t myself to make such a statement.”

  “I don’t know about that. It sounds like something you’d say.”

  “Because I say the craziest things?”

  She squeezed his arm. “Yes, because you say the craziest things. It’s one of your many fine qualities.”

  Hosea’s heart leaped. Did she really think he had fine qualities? “Which ones are those?”

  “Let’s see,” she began. “You sing well.”

  “I’ve had lots of practice,” he said.

  “You’re a good instructor of reading and dancing, and not that bad of a preacher,” she continued. “I like your sermons.

  They’re theologically sound and short.”

  “I’m pleased they meet with your approval,” he said.

  “And let’s not forget your good luck at cards.”

  “It wasn’t luck. It was divine intervention that caused me to win so you could be free.”

  Susanna eyed him curiously. “Are you saying God made you win? Why didn’t he allow me to win since it was my freedom at stake?”

  “I don’t know,” said Hosea. “But all his ways are just, so we should trust rather than question them.”

  “Easy for you to say,” said Susanna. “You weren’t the prize.”

  Before Hosea could reply, thunder rumbled across the sky, and big drops of rain began to fall. He shrugged off his coat and held it over them as they hurried for the shelter of a high, stone bridge spanning a narrow river. “Should we wait it out or make a run for it?” he asked.

  “This is England,” said Susanna. “We might be here a long time.”

  “I have time,” said Hosea.

  Susanna’s heart skipped a beat. “I don’t. Mrs. Fitzgerald’s waiting for me, to help me finish my ball gown.”

  Hosea recalled his alarm at the scarlet fabric when it was delivered to the vicarage. “Red is rat
her fetching, though not very meek and quiet.”

  “It’s the color of the blood of our Lord and Savior and will keep me mindful of my new-found humility,” she countered.

  He was about to protest this near-sacrilegious comparison when he realized he was being teased. He found he quite liked being teased by Susanna. “Humility is indeed exemplified by the color red.”

  “True, but for the rest of the day, I’ll be wearing blue.”

  “Blue? Why?” Hosea asked.

  There was a twinkle in her eye. “Blue is the color of the first-place ribbon I’ll win when I beat you back to the house.”

  “Beat me?” said Hosea, but she was already running through the rain.

  The sight of the vicar and his wife racing through the parish shrieking and laughing and splattered in mud was the topic of everyone’s conversation at supper. Mr. Biddle wrote the bishop.

  “Do go for a walk, Miss Gomer. You’ve been cooped up all week,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald on Thursday. “We’ll finish your gown later.”

  Susanna stood and stretched. “I won’t be long.” She’d been sewing an endless row of fringe onto the train of her ball gown.

  “Take your time,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald. “Mr. Honeywell won’t be back for tea for another hour. He never used to be on time for tea,” she added. “You know, I’ve never heard him hum and sing so much or pay attention to his looks. He’s always straightening his waistcoat and collar and patting down his hair when he hears you coming,” She smiled at Susanna knowingly. “I don’t think he’s read a book since you arrived. He spends all his time pretending he’s reading while he’s watching you.”

  Susanna knew it, for she watched him often enough, wondering what it would be like to stay with him. After all, he was hopelessly in love with her. He was also kind, good-hearted, and generous, but equally insecure and infuriating in his denial of people’s low opinion of her.

  She grabbed her hat and rushed out the door, glad to be alone with her increasingly confused thoughts instead of listening to more of Mrs. Fitzgerald’s prattle about the vicar.

  He’s just trying to spare my feelings because he loves me, she thought. Yet how long would it last? Once his feelings grew cold, what was left for her? A small house, a smaller income, and a parish that despised her—not that they could stay there for long with Sir Simon nearby. After that, how long would it be before he tried to control her with Scripture? If she was still able to have children, their expenses would increase while their income stretched further with less to show for it. Is it what she wanted, when she could live in London and move in the first circles, rubbing elbows with nobility, maybe even royalty?

  “No,” she said aloud. Then why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? No man ever spoke as sweetly and sincerely to her the way Hosea did. No man answered her angry words with forgiveness and forbearance. He has an infatuation that will pass, she concluded, and he’s a minister. Why does he have to be a minister? We could never be happy together.

  She was so engrossed in this debate that she didn’t notice a chaise turn into the lane behind her until its driver began to sing.

  “Oh! Susanna, oh do not cry for me, I come from Eastleigh Hall with my banjo on my knee.”

  She spun around. Sir Simon lifted his hat in greeting. “I jumped aboard the telegraph and traveled down the river. The electric fluid magnified and killed five hundred vicars,” he warbled.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

  Sir Simon reined in his horse and jumped down. “It means I’d kill five hundred vicars if they stood between us. As it so happens, there’s only one.”

  Susanna felt cold. “You wouldn’t dare hurt him.”

  Sir Simon pulled off his gloves. “You’re right, but he deserves a whipping. Imagine: a courtesan for a wife. Hardly an appropriate choice for a man of the cloth.” He reached to caress her face, but she batted his hand away. Angered, he grabbed her and held her close. “Why do you resist me?”

  “Because I prefer gentlemen and you aren’t one,” she struggled.

  He gripped her face. “What is your opinion of a gentleman? Honeywell?”

  “Yes,” she spat. “He treats me with respect. You just use me.”

  “Use you?” he snickered. “Isn’t that what you’re paid for?”

  “Let me go or I’ll scream.”

  He held her tighter. “I can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried, but I can’t, Ruby or Susanna or whatever your real name is. To think you shot me! When I awoke, do you know what my first thought was? Where is Ruby? Did they hang her? God no, don’t let them hang my Ruby. I spent months in bed recovering from infection after infection. It’s a miracle I’m alive. My family doesn’t know what happened. I told a few of the fellows at the club about us, but I can change that. With a word I can ruin any hope you entertain of setting up shop in London. It’s what you plan to do, isn’t it?”

  The shock on Susanna’s face told him his guess was correct. “Well, well, we can’t have you putting holes in my friends, can we?”

  Susanna raised her hand to slap him. He caught it and kissed her hard just as Emma Sneed stepped into the lane. Seeing the two, she jumped behind a tree.

  Susanna bit his lip. He yelped as she shoved him away.

  “You’ll pay for that,” he said, wiping blood from his mouth.

  “Don’t ever do that again!” she yelled.

  “Why? You don’t have to work in London. Be mine and you won’t have to sell yourself.”

  “You forget that I’m married,” she said.

  Sir Simon laughed. “To that fool? He hasn’t touched you. Why pretend anymore? Poverty and piety are not your style.”

  “I’d rather be with someone who’s poor and pious than with you,” said Susanna.

  “Let us not indulge in fantasies, Ruby,” said Sir Simon. “You are tainted by your trade. He can never forget you’ve been with hundreds of men. Are you really the woman he wants by his side? You know he deserves better. Even my sister has her eye on him. Isn’t the virgin daughter of landed gentry better than used goods?”

  “Used goods?” she echoed. “This is how you talk to the woman you claim to love? You’re sick and I hate you.”

  Sir Simon held out his hands. “Darling, I’m sorry. You know I can’t think straight when I’m around you. I’m trying to get you to see reason. I offer you wealth and comfort and all that is worthy of you. Think of the misery of being shackled to Honeywell with Eastleigh Hall only a mile away, knowing it might have been your home. Why live in shame?”

  “Shut up!” she yelled. “Leave us alone!” She turned and ran.

  Sir Simon smirked. “See you at the ball, my dear.”

  Trembling with excitement, Emma hurried toward the village.

  Hosea sat in the parlor staring at a pearl ring. When Mrs. Fitzgerald entered with the tea tray, he quickly put it in his pocket.

  “That’s a pretty ring you have there,” she said.

  Hosea flushed. “It was my mother’s.”

  Mrs. Fitzgerald poured milk into a teacup. “It will look very pretty on Miss Gomer’s hand.”

  “If she accepts it.”

  “If? Why wouldn’t she?”

  Hosea sighed. “I fear Miss Gomer doesn’t share my feelings.”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” She looked at him curiously. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  He nodded. “What if her secret is discovered? I’ll be cast out of the church.”

  “Her secret? You mean your secret,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said hotly. “If the bishop strips you of your title and home for obeying the Almighty, I say good riddance to a church that doesn’t practice the grace and forgiveness it’s supposed to. Really, Mr. Honeywell, Miss Gomer is too good for you, and you don’t deserve her!”

  Hosea jumped up from his chair. “You’re right. I don’t deserve her. I don’t know how to be a good husband. I always offend her when I only want to show her how much I love her.”

>   They heard the front door open, footsteps on the stairs, a door shut. Mrs. Fitzgerald laid a hand on his arm. “Start by telling her.”

  “What about the parish?” Hosea lowered his voice. “Lady Godfrey isn’t here for the ball. What good have any of our plans been? Without her acceptance of Miss Gomer, it’s all been for nothing.”

  “Now, now, Mr. Honeywell, Lord and Lady Ellis will be there, as will Colonel Jackson and his wife and the Duncans. They’re the most prominent families in the county. They’re sure to be delighted with her.”

  Hosea looked doubtful.

  “There’s only one thing left for you to do,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  She pointed to a cross hanging on the wall. “Trust the Lord.”

  Hosea didn’t propose that day or the next, which was Friday, the day of the ball. He felt he could propose with reasonable expectation that Susanna might accept him only after the higher-ranking company at the ball accepted her publicly.

  “What else shall induce her to stay?” he asked himself not for the first time, tying his best cravat as he dressed for the ball. “Certainly not I or this house or my income.”

  He was still fretting over his lack of marriage-inducing qualities as he paced the passageway at the bottom of the stairs when Susanna emerged from her room. Any misgivings he had over the gown’s color were forgotten. The night was warm and she wore no wrap. Her arms were bare between her long white gloves and the smallest puffs of sleeve on her shoulders. Around her neck was a black, velvet ribbon, just like the one she wore to the street dance in Black Creek, matched by the same in her hair. That glorious mane was piled high on her head and cascaded down her back in curls.

  Hosea was struck dumb as she rustled down the stairs. Susanna interpreted his silence for disapproval, even though the gown’s décolletage was modest. This assumption, coupled with her fear of spending an evening near Sir Simon, put her on edge. She had delayed their departure for as long as she could and even considered faking an illness, but knew Sir Simon would get even with her somehow.

  Hosea still couldn’t speak by the time he helped her out of the carriage at Eastleigh Hall. “So many people,” Susanna noted. Dozens of carriages, drivers, and footmen milled about the circular drive in front of the hall, which shone brightly with lights in every window. She swore inwardly for purchasing a color that would make her conspicuous.