THAT NIGHT, while we waited for my father’s return, I remained with Edward in his bedchamber. As Jameson brushed Edward’s suit, I perched near the window, feeling an ache so fierce, I feared I might never recover. Staring at my hands, I recalled the sharp look of hope Maud had worn as I argued with Isaac.
I wondered what would have happened if I had held firm and refused to cooperate with my father or Isaac unless they’d done something for her. Even a half-decent boarding school would have been better than just setting her down and walking away—leaving her with unmet hope. Here was another life made worse for having met me. Had she died disappointed that I hadn’t come back? My head clunked against the window frame as I looked skyward.
“Juls, what’s troubling you?” Edward asked.
Seeing his and Jameson’s concern, I sat forward. “My heart just aches and aches. I’m not sure I can take much more sadness or pain.”
Jameson’s smile was kind. “That’s not a bad thing. It means you’re still able to love and be loved.”
I buried my face in my hands, thinking he didn’t have to go downstairs and sit at the dinner table with the ice king next. “If this is healing, I’d rather be sick. I need my ability to shut everyone and everything out, but it’s gone. I can’t cope.”
To my surprise, Jameson laughed, then crossed the chamber to join me on the window seat. Looking at Edward, he asked, “Does she know the story about the lame man whom Peter healed?”
Edward threw his palms up as if to say my religious training was still a mystery to him and that Jameson should leave me be.
“I know it,” I said, not in the mood to hear it recited. Gritting my teeth, I looked toward the door, feeling as trapped as I used to with my former vicar. I couldn’t handle people acting as though everything could be solved with the Bible.
“All right, I won’t repeat it, then.” Jameson held up innocent hands. “But have you ever considered how costly and painful that healing was for the man?”
I rolled my eyes, unable to hide my antagonism toward receiving a religious lecture. “Yes, how he must have hated being able to walk.”
“Oh, I’m certain it was exciting at first. A huge miracle, center of attention, a great testimony, and all that.” Jameson rested one foot on the bench, then laced his fingers about his knee. “But afterwards there’s still the business of living to get to. What do you suppose he did for work the following morning?”
I touched my temples, not certain how I’d fallen into this conversation and wondering the quickest way out.
“Think about it, Mrs. Auburn. He was lame from birth, which meant he was a beggar by trade. He’d never been trained for any occupation, never been apprenticed. Likely he couldn’t read or write. He had to learn to adjust to a half life to survive. The entire way he viewed the world, structured his life, and adapted, all gone—” Jameson snapped his fingers—“in the blink of an eye.”
I said nothing but looked at him. At least he wasn’t telling me what I ought to be feeling or thinking. And like it or not, I was now captivated enough to listen.
“Everywhere he went, he likely was stared at. Some probably suspected he’d faked being lame for pity and money. To be healed ended up costing him everything he knew. His entire world was deconstructed, leaving him the hard task of rebuilding it.” Jameson’s voice grew tender as I only stared. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I’ve known full-grown men to collapse under less strain than you’ve endured. You’ve been crippled from birth, too, just in a different sort of way. It hurts to be healed, but would you honestly rather be lame at the gate?”
He was serious about wanting an answer, so I gave a silent shake of my head.
He patted my hand. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing splendidly, and I’m proud of you.”
“Perhaps—” Edward was closer to us than I realized—“that’s why Jesus waited until people came to him, desperate to be healed. And he asked permission first.” The orange light of the setting sun reflected off Edward’s face as he pondered. “You know, that’s not a half-bad thought.” He retreated and opened his notebook of ideas, paging through it for a blank space. Finding one, he dipped his pen and began to scrawl. “I may do a series on the necessity of giving God permission to work in our lives.” He glanced up. “Though who knows the next time I’ll get to preach.”
“Bah!” Jameson stood and motioned the idea away from him. “Logic, boy; use your logic. You can’t open with a Scripture about a lame man who wanted money instead of God—and end the sermon with how God requires our permission.”
Edward held up a hand for him to be quiet. Brow furrowed, he paged through a Bible.
“Change your sermon,” Jameson ordered. “Why not use your wife as your starting point! For I don’t think God is asking her for permission. But he just keeps shaking her world apart anyway.”
I swung my legs over the window-seat ledge, unable not to smile.
“She wanted a husband—like the lame man, something to meet her immediate needs—but no!” Jameson thwacked his hand on the nightstand. “Instead God chose something completely different, something that astonished everyone. Only that part hasn’t happened yet.”
“Yes, well, I need to keep my text to Scripture and not to the fact that she’s Macy’s missing bride.”
“Use Jonah, then. For here sits a Jonah if ever there was one!” Jameson rubbed his hands together. “And to think, I’ve always wanted to meet a Jonah! Fear rules her, she refuses to do what she ought, so a whale has to swallow her to get her attention. But again, that part is still to come.”
“Will you stop saying that?” Edward frowned. “She’s not Jonah, and there is no whale or disaster coming. I wish you would stop predicting dire things. You’re starting to irritate me.”
“And because she’s married to you,” Jameson continued, not heeding him, “when she’s forced to do what God has planned, she’ll likely be filled with self-righteousness, wrath, and indignation! How delightful! You’re turning your wife into a Jonah!”
Edward set down his pen and rubbed his eyes, clearly annoyed. “Jameson, go downstairs. I’ll dress myself.”
“Well, don’t be upset with me,” he retorted. “If she’s Jonah, I’m the worm. For is not my role to expose what’s really there? How can that irritate you? I compare her to a prophet, one who has an entire book of the Bible all to himself, while calling myself a worm!”
Edward stood. “Now, Jameson! And don’t let me catch you calling her Jonah ever again!”
“Well, right there is one of your fundamental problems.” Jameson stooped and gathered Edward’s shoes, which he’d polished and moved near the suit of clothing. “God uses all sorts of people and temperaments. Why should we willfully deceive ourselves into thinking God only likes Davids and Deborahs? Not everyone can walk your role, Edward. What’s wrong with Jonah? God himself chose to speak with him.” Jameson made a dramatic figure at the door, where he paused, pointing in the air. “God even jested with him.”
“I don’t agree that God jested with him.” Edward stood and leaned over his desk in order to be heard as Jameson retreated. “The worm was a lesson, not intended to be a joke!”
“Jonah,” Jameson bellowed down the hall, “was swallowed by a whale and had to sit in its belly while he reconsidered plans. If that doesn’t show a grand sense of humor, what does?”
Edward rubbed his brow, then turned to me. “I’m sorry. Jameson sometimes thinks he’s a vicar too. I told him he’s not to preach at you, given your past. I’ll speak to him.”
Downstairs, the bell sounded that it was time to dress for dinner. I rubbed my arms, realizing it meant encountering my father.
“Don’t worry yourself over Jameson,” I said, rising. “He doesn’t offend me. That bell means my father will be home for dinner. I’d better go dress.”
Edward nodded that he’d heard as he picked up a book and searched its table of contents. “Don’t fret about him. I’ll be there too.”
>
I started to leave, then turned back. “Have you heard any more about whether Jameson intends to accept my father’s offer?”
Edward slowly grinned, looking up. “Trust me, it will never happen.”
I rubbed my neck. “I can’t imagine how he won’t. He needs to make his living like everyone else.”
Edward’s eyes crinkled as he returned to his book. “Have better faith in our herd than that. We won’t lose him after the story you told this morning. He’s like us, only . . . well, friendlier. Nothing offends him deeper than seeing a soul trampled.”
Edward’s chair sat empty as James tipped mine back. I stared at it, dismayed, for I’d purposefully waited until the last possible second to enter so I would not be alone with my father and Isaac. Head bent, I placed my hands in my lap and waited.
My father punished me with glares that deepened every minute that passed. Five minutes after the dinner hour, I cast questioning glances at James, asking if he knew where Edward was. His shoulders lifted in the slightest motion. Once again, I avoided looking directly at Isaac. When two more minutes passed, beads of perspiration formed along my brow.
“Is your husband ill?” my father finally demanded.
I grimaced, wondering if he’d found out we’d visited the orphanage and this was his way of reprimanding us for going into an epidemic. But surely his face would be harsher than this. “He wasn’t an hour ago.”
My father exhaled a loud sigh of impatience. “All right. That’s it. Your husband is not—”
Hearing approaching footsteps, my father cast an angry glance at Isaac as if to demand why he should tolerate this.
“Give him time, sir,” was Isaac’s quiet but firm reply. “Trust me, if you refuse to make allowance for him, he won’t make any for you either.”
Astonished by Isaac’s comment, I glanced in his direction. He was giving James a significant look, rolling the blue of his eyes toward Edward’s empty spot. I understood as Edward stepped into the chamber. Before anyone could speak, James rushed forward and held out Edward’s chair, guaranteeing him a place at the table.
My father frowned, but the pride he took in his footmen’s ability to always follow protocol exceeded his impulse to censure James.
I gripped the edge of the table as Edward nodded his thanks to the footman and took his seat. Only then did I note that he still wore his brown suit, though I knew for a fact Jameson had pressed and attended his tails. As he sat, he ascertained that his frock coat was buttoned. Horrified, I realized that ink stained his right hand. I straightened in my chair, praying my father would somehow not notice.
He noticed. “Where are your tails, Reverend Auburn?”
Edward stood slightly and offered a bow. “Forgive me, but I find I cannot wear them.”
“What do you mean, you cannot wear them? Do they not fit you? We can have them altered.”
A gladiator armed and ready for battle could not have looked more determined than Edward. “You mistake me, sir. What I mean to say is that when I place them on, I cease to be me.”
My father shot me a look that clearly asked if Edward was touched with madness.
“To be clearer—” Edward tucked his napkin over his lap—“if I wear them, I will become that which I most detest.”
Isaac loudly swallowed his wine but, with a refined movement, set aside his goblet and blotted his mouth.
Thunder developed over my father’s face. “You detest the elite?”
Edward locked eyes with him. “I fear becoming like them. Yes.”
To my amazement, my father narrowed his eyes at Isaac, accusing him, but then signalled for James to begin dinner. His jaw tightened as he sank against his chair. “I want to make certain I understand this. You marry my daughter, an heiress, but then show lack of respect by coming to dinner at my house in rags? Whatever happened to becoming Greek to the Greeks? Or not arriving at the wedding in the wrong attire?”
Even I was shocked my father was so proficient in Scripture.
Edward bowed his head, hiding his face. “I’m sorry, sir, but neither may I spar verses with you. Those words were never meant as weapons to control or to wage war on others. Your interpretation may be superior to mine, but until the Spirit shows me so, I will live by my studies and conscience.”
“And how does your conscience justify offending me at my own table?”
As if purposefully avoiding eye contact, Edward straightened his flatware. “Personally, I’ve never imagined that when Jesus dined with the Pharisees, he changed clothing. They either took him as he was, or they were offended. If the Prince of Heaven clothed himself in the poverty of Nazareth, then surely as his disciple, I do no wrong in not rising above my master.”
A look of utter fascinated disbelief crossed Isaac’s face. I knew by the way his brow hitched that he practiced his logic, breaking down and rebuilding a response. I squeezed my napkin, willing him to glance at me so I could beg him not to interfere. Edward’s animosity toward him was still too strong.
To my surprise, Isaac did glance in my direction. When our eyes met, a visceral shock went through me, for it was my friend and brother, not his debonair self. But quicker than thought, Isaac receded behind his veneer once more.
My father said nothing but fixed his blackest look upon Edward as if mentally pressuring him to accede to his wishes. “I’m asking you to go borrow tails from Isaac.”
Edward’s Adam’s apple bobbed even as he stilled. “Sir, if you wish me not to dine with you, I will understand and respect that. But I cannot change clothing. I cannot live here under two identities: one that tells your staff all men are equal in the sight of God, and that as such, I have abandoned being privileged in order to better share life with all my brothers, and one that adds the clause ‘unless I’m dining with Lord Pierson.’”
“My staff?” My father sank back in his chair as though thoroughly confused. “What does eating in proper dinner attire have to do with my staff?”
Edward gestured to James and William as they carried dishes into the chamber. “We’re not dining in private. We never have. Every word, every action, matters.”
My father smoothed out the wrinkles over his forehead. “James, William, would you please turn and show Reverend Auburn your tails.”
My father’s staff were impeccable. With fluid grace, they turned their backsides to us and bent, splitting apart their coats.
“Honestly, sir!” Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “No member of your household should have to subject himself to this. James and William. You have my permission to turn about.”
My father paid Isaac no mind. “And my daughter? Is that why she clutched a beggarly looking shawl this morning? Is she to join you in this strange defiance of the elite?”
I stiffened in my chair, surprised he’d noticed what I’d worn that morning.
Edward’s hazel eyes moved onto me as if to imbue me with strength while he exposed my vulnerability. “If you mean her mother’s shawl? No, sir. My guess is it was her attempt to feel connected somehow, someway, to one of her parents.”
My father waved for his wine to be refilled, then, resting his elbow on the arm of his chair, dug his knuckles into his cheek as he considered Edward. As James bent over with the platter, he signalled for his footman to select his cut.
I crossed my feet beneath the table. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that my father nearly felt pride over his new son-in-law’s insubordination. Amusement, even.
Edward sensed it too, for he frowned and added, “And as far as this being in defiance of the elite—” he gestured over the glittering table—“what makes you think that any of this is the measure of success?”
My father acknowledged his question with a respectful nod. He retrieved his utensils. “For one who claims this life is secondary to living in rags on the street, you certainly came running quickly enough when in need.”
Edward reddened. “I have a wife, which means I laid down my freedom to become a servant, yes.”
>
“Servant!” My father gave a laugh of disbelief.
“Servant,” Edward affirmed, lifting his eyes for a brief second.
My father shook his head as he cut into fried sole, releasing the scent of lemons and butter. “Explain that mystery to me, and as a return favor—” he turned his angry stare on me—“I’ll make certain my daughter is aware that you’re the head of your household.”
Isaac’s chest heaved as if once again the conversation was moving past his endurance.
“And how will you manage that?” With an upturned hand, Edward declined the fish James presented. “I’ve already proven that my influence over Julia far surpasses yours. But let me ask, would you truly rather teach me to reign over her with a fist of iron than to serve her needs above my own?” He paused, giving my father space to answer; then, when he didn’t, “So, yes, I said ‘servant’ because that is the role I elected to take on when I became a husband.”
My father’s chuckle contained anger. “You dare to preach to me by condemning my life. You insult my table by refusing to look and act the part of my son-in-law. You censure the way I treat my daughter. Yet your own household, sir, is in shambles. You need me to pay your servants, feed and clothe your wife, and provide you with food, bedding, and transportation. You’re educated, which means you’ve reaped the benefits of being privileged. Tell me, Edward, where do you draw the line on being fanatical versus practical?”
Edward ruminated a moment, swirling, then sipping his wine. “Why do you consider your way practical? Is it so impossible to think this version of life is not the best choice? Each one of us is either building his own kingdom or God’s Kingdom on earth. Which of those two realities do you suppose we’re in as we sit here, putting on airs, congratulating ourselves on having figured out life to our advantages, amassing our comforts for the sole benefit of our families? While outside our doorstep people are desperate for food. Desperate to know their existence matters. Desperate for us to give them acceptance.” Edward fingered the bottom of his goblet. “No. This is not practical. This is the height of being naked and blind and too witless to even know it. If experiencing starvation and homelessness has kept me disillusioned, then I shall consider myself blessed.”
Price of Privilege Page 21