Ember appeared in the door behind her.
“Exhausted? He’s not the only one. And if he’s tired, then it’s time he was in bed. I’m going that way myself. You, too, my love. I’ve brought your night things.”
“I beg your pardon?” Esme was beginning to feel out of her depth.
“I brought your night things from your bed at the parsonage. Have some sense, Esme. Look at the state of him. I’m tired, you’re tired, he looks like he died last week. What did you hope to do? Try and have a conversation with him? You’ll have to save that till the morning.”
“But where will I sleep?” said Esme.
Ember looked at her very hard. “Well, not in my bed, for that’s where I shall be in five minutes. You can work something out between you, I should imagine.”
Jabez pushed his hand, trembling with weariness, across his face and through his hair. “I’ll sleep on the sofa,” he murmured.
“I don’t think so,” retorted Ember, shortly. “You’ve let the kitchen stove go out, and you don’t look like you’re about to spring to your feet and build up the fire beside you. I certainly am not planning to forage for firewood at such an hour of the night. And I’ll want my blanket for my own bed, thank you. Seven miles I’ve walked for you this night, Jabez Ferrall. I’ve fetched her back for you. I’ve filched her night things out of her bedroom to satisfy your modesty. Pull yourself together! Think of a better way to keep warm.”
With that she unbuttoned her coat and produced from within its folds Esme’s nightdress, which she tossed onto the floor at his feet, dragged the blanket off his shoulders, and trailed it behind her as she clumped up the stairs. They heard the decisive closing of her door.
Jabez dropped his face into his hands. “Oh, my God,” Esme heard his groan, muffled.
She couldn’t help laughing. “Oh, for goodness sake, Jabez, it’s not so bad! We’re grown-up people. I’m forty-five, you’re sixty-eight, I don’t suppose it will wreak havoc with our innocence to share a bed together, will it? For one night?”
He didn’t move.
She stepped closer to him to pick up her nightdress, and as she stooped she put her hand on his knee. “Please, Jabez. Let’s go to bed.”
He rubbed his face and his eyes, then put his hand down to squeeze hers gently where it lay on his knee. He looking entirely dazed, bewildered with weariness and emotional exhaustion.
“Jabez?” she said.
Jabez sighed, a long, deep, shuddering sigh. He turned his head to look at her, and Esme had a sense of him drawing upon resources deep within, summoning the last dregs of energy to face this thing properly, say what he wanted to say. She knelt down on the floor beside him, waiting for him to frame what was inside him. His eyes dark and deep held hers, serious—all his soul looking out at her there.
“Esme, I understand the common sense of it. ’Tis late, I’m worn out, here are you, there’s one bed. But it isn’t as simple as that, is it? What’s held out here is a possibility to be one. What Ember has in mind, and what you and me are not saying, is this isn’t about sleeping, not one bit. It’s about you and me making love.”
He smiled then, and lifted his hand to her face, his fingertips delicately tracing the outlines of her cheek. “Tired I may be, but if I let my mind dwell on that, I don’t feel very sleepy, and I think you may know by now, I wouldn’t need much persuading.”
He hesitated a moment, then continued, finding the courage to be honest:
“I been so lonely, Esme. At night in bed sometimes I could have wept for loneliness. Just for a cuddle, to feel someone warm beside me. Some nights I been lying here hugging the pillow for some comfort. I been so terribly lonely. And I love you so much. It seems like forever I’ve longed for you and loved you. Only I never dared offer myself, because I’ve got nothing to give you, and I couldn’t see how I could fit in with your life. What we’re talking about now is what I’ve dreamed for, yearned for, wanted more than I can find the words to say. Don’t you know that? Surely you could see?
“But for all that, I got to say, I can’t really approve of this. Love is something faithful, something that endures. If what you’re planning is to move away from Wiles Green and leave me, then I think we’d do wrong to look for any kind of union more than the friendship we already have—and always will have. Oh, my dearest! You must know, my body’s yours, and my love, and all that’s mine to give, if you’ll have me; but I just think it should be not at all or forever. We got to sort ourselves out first, before we get into this. We got to have an understanding. Esme, I can’t reach out for something that’s only a mirage, a union for only one night. It’s too important to me. I love you too much for that. It would be unbearable. It would break my heart.”
Watching him, listening to him, Esme discerned the intensity of his soul unconcealed in his eyes searching hers and the vulnerable uncertainty of his mouth.
“Am I too old-fashioned?” he said, anxious. “Did you want us to—do you mind?”
Esme smiled. “Don’t worry, I think it’ll be all right,” she said gently. “We can talk about it in the morning. We’ve got each other. We’ve got time. It’ll be okay.”
Remembering her first swift instinct that here was a man who would never cheat her, gratitude and trust quickened in the very roots of her soul for the honorable patience of his love.
“Then, are we—” he hesitated. “I mean—do you want to be … Esme, what are we to one another?”
Esme did not reply. She lifted herself to kneel up, close against him as he sat on the couch, taking him into her arms. She held him to her, her heart opening to a flood of protective love, moved to compassion for his defenseless longing for her and the humility of his self-offering. She stroked him gently, brushing her lips against his face, until with a small, half-suppressed groan of yearning, his mouth found hers and he kissed her—hungrily, urgently—very thoroughly, she thought, for a man with so many reservations. Held close in the ardor of his embrace, she felt his heart beating against hers. It was answer enough. As he kissed her again, every trace of reserve in her melted. She closed her eyes and let her whole being open to his passion and tenderness, the exquisite gentleness of his love.
He kissed her brow, her cheeks, her throat, lost in his wanting her, the irresistible hunger of his love.
And then he just cradled her, his love enfolding her; for each of them homecoming, heart’s desire, completion.
“That’s all right, then,” he said eventually, and he sat back on the sofa, looking at her in the lamplight, his eyes shining with the joy of finding himself loved.
“For tonight, sleep in my bed, my lady. I’ll make up the fire down here. No doubt I’ve a bit of kindling in the kitchen; and I believe I may have another blanket if I look.
“Come on, then,” he said, as Esme stood up and he pushed himself up onto his feet. He stood a moment, letting his body adjust, cramped from sitting so long, then took her hand and led her toward the stairs.
“We got no electricity upstairs,” commented Jabez as she followed him up, “but there’s a candle in the bedroom.”
Esme felt the same sense of curiosity and excitement as she had on the first day he welcomed her into his cottage as he opened his bedroom door and lit the candle that stood by a box of matches on the windowsill just within the doorway.
The head of his bed, a big bed—his marriage bed, Esme thought—stood against the breast of the chimney that passed through on its way up from the living room below. A wardrobe with a simple door of boards had been built into the recess on one side of the chimney and shelves crammed with books into the other alcove. In front of the bookshelves stood a small table with a glass of water.
He turned back the covers of the bed. “Here ’tis, then. I hope you’ll be comfortable,” and with gentle and humble simplicity he took her into his arms and drew her to him one
more time. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips against her forehead, moving his face tenderly against hers.
“Good night, my dearest, my darling, my love,” he whispered. “Sleep well. God bless you.”
She settled her head against the curve of his shoulder, and Jabez pressed his lips against her hair. Here in his cottage, held in his arms, Esme felt a sense of homecoming and peace.
“Time for bed,” he said eventually, and smiled at her, leaving one last kiss upon her brow.
Jabez closed the door quietly behind him as he left her in his bedroom in the candlelight, and Esme listened to his footsteps on the stairs. She shivered as she changed into her nightdress and climbed into the cold, unfamiliar bed. It felt strange, and she missed him, wanting him there beside her.
Downstairs, Jabez, who had lied about both the blanket and the kindling, turned out the light and curled up as best he could under such warmth as his coat offered for a covering on the couch. He didn’t mind but closed his eyes in peace.
“Thank you,” he whispered into the grateful dark, “thank you, thank you. Oh, please let me have this. Please don’t let her leave me. Please don’t let her go.”
When Esme awoke from a deep and peaceful sleep, she felt completely disoriented for a minute to find herself in an unfamiliar bed. The room had filled with the clear light of day, and through the window, which Jabez kept ajar, poured the glory of a blackbird’s song.
As the night’s events reassembled themselves in her consciousness, Esme wondered about what lay ahead. She supposed that a properly responsible woman would have viewed the future with misgiving. But any such qualms were lost in the beautiful peace she felt, lying in the homely simplicity of Jabez’s bedroom washed in spring sunshine, aware of the distant household sounds of someone riddling the ashes in the kitchen stove, and of the absolute security of the cocoon of love she felt around her.
She stretched her body luxuriously in the bed and yawned. Then presently she got up and picked up her clothes discarded on the floor, dressed herself, and went down to find Jabez and Ember.
“Slept well?” asked Ember innocently. “Jabez has gone out to the shed for some kindling. We’ll have the kettle on anytime soon.”
“Where’s your car, Esme?” asked Jabez as he came in with his arms full of wood.
“I left it just off the road in the lane,” Esme explained—“Ember thought it would be tricky to turn around again in the yard.”
Jabez didn’t answer her at once. He slipped the logs into the basket and dropped the kindling wood in his hand onto the floor in front of the stove. Ember busied herself with getting together breakfast crockery.
“Atmosphere!” exclaimed Esme. “Now what’s wrong?”
Jabez squatted before the stove and poked in various twists of paper and torn card, striking a match to set light to these before slowly adding the kindling as the flames took hold.
“Two things,” he said. “Two things that Ember knows. First is that every car has a reverse gear and is well able to get out the same way it got in. Second is that Wiles Green gets up early, and if your car was in my lane at first light this morning, all the village will know it by midday, not sparing the chapel. Ember, you really have surpassed yourself, I hardly know what to say to you.”
Ember took the jar of oats and the saltcellar off the shelf in readiness for making porridge.
“You’ll just have to make an honest woman of her then, won’t you?” she replied, undented.
“Yes, I see what your intention was.” Jabez glared at her over his shoulder, really annoyed. “But I just think you should mind your own business for five minutes!”
Ember ignored this remark, but Esme smiled happily.
“I think it’ll be all right, Jabez. Diplomacy and subterfuge come easily to ministers. It’s the only way to come through the job alive. Let’s say a pastoral visit—you know; you weren’t well. Didn’t Ember walk all the way to Southarbour to find me? Surely that must have been a pastoral emergency? Anyway, I thought you wanted to marry me. That seemed to be what you were saying last night.”
Ember leaned past him to get the kettle from the hot plate and took it to the sink to fill, all without a word, but Esme could see the mischievous grin on her face as she carried the water back and set it on the top of the stove.
Jabez continued slowly to feed the firebox with wood, blowing gently on its contents.
“I did hear you,” he said after awhile, “but I expect you’ll be wanting a cup of tea as well as an answer.”
Having satisfied himself it was well alight, he fitted in a small log and closed the door, adjusting the draft to get it burning briskly.
He stood up and wiped the soot and wood ash from his hands onto his trousers.
He turned around in the small kitchen and contemplated her. The evasion, the quick glances, the wild creature hiding had all gone. His eyes looking down at her were purely happy.
“I can’t think why you would want me,” he said. “I am nothing and I got nothing and that’s how it’s likely to stay. But I do like to go about things properly. If you and me are going to be together, then it’s going to be for real.”
And he went down on one knee before her and took her hand in his. “Esme, I’m yours if you want me. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, yes,” said Esme, wondering how much joy the human spirit could contain. “Oh, yes! The details we can work out later on.”
On both knees then, he drew her close to him and touched his lips to hers. “I’d like to kiss you properly too,” he said, “but not while we’ve got an audience. That’s private.”
“Private! Ha!” Ember opened the tea caddy and ladled two spoons of tea leaves into the pot. “If you’d been let to keep your private life private, you wouldn’t have one at all, Jabez Ferrall! I reckon I deserved to be a witness to that.”
She regarded them with shining, inscrutable eyes.
“And I’m very happy for you both, except I think you took a devil of a long time about it. Hang back? I’ve never seen a man like it, so help me I have not. I’ll get the milk in then, for I don’t suppose you have.”
On the shingle beach at Southarbour, Esme found a spot where the banked pebbles and the wooden groyne, green with weed, made a shelter against the sharp spring wind that cut so cold.
Sitting there, no one and nothing between herself and the meeting of the supple ocean with the wide grey sky, she allowed the thoughts to come.
There would be no future, then, such as she had planned. No career. There would be the satisfaction neither of success nor of admiration. Her friends and acquaintances—most of all, her family—would have come to see the solid, respectable, unimaginative amplitude of the suburban parsonage, unwitting temple of complacency; and they would have been impressed. Should she against her better judgment allow them to see her in the setting of Jabez Ferrall’s cottage, they would most likely think she had taken leave of her senses. And then—how could they visit her there without meeting Jabez and (even more to the point) Ember? Esme brooded on this. She couldn’t get as far as visualizing her family’s reaction—it was impossible to imagine introducing Ember to them at all. Her movement from full-time itinerant ministry to the precarious territory of local appointment—an honorarium or a half stipend at best; filling gaps in colleagues’ absences, gleaning unwanted funerals and helping out with weddings—it would draw puzzled pity, questions, along with the inevitable inability of modern people to understand Jabez and his sense of home. It would be impossible to explain that he would expect to live with his wife—and live with her in his own cottage, and that was just how it was; a way of being that had no dialogue with contemporary employment structures. In today’s world, a professional woman with savvy tended her career, watched her back, and saw to her pension. If Esme chose Jabez, she would grow old into grinding poverty, torn at times
no doubt between the necessity to earn a living and being there to care for Ember and Jabez as the frailties of old age began to make themselves felt.
She wondered, “What have I done?” but at the same time registered with mild surprise her lack of dread or regret or apprehension. Her place in the institution of the church with its bureaucracy and liturgy and petty feuds failed to fix her attention. Without noticing the shift, as she looked out over the patient tides of the ocean waves, her mind drifted, and she began to think about silver. Silver had been tarnished in the narrow world of tradition that shuts out life, reduced to thirty coins that betrayed a man to death. But even silver, the currency of human greed, had kept its beauty if she remembered to open her vision to the living earth.
The silver of the clouds in this overcast day, underlit by a barred wash of rose as afternoon drew toward evening. The muscular rippling of the sea, reflecting the brightness of the sky like pewter, silvery bright along the paths of the light. The silver, clear light of day; not the squinting glare of cloudless midsummer, but this cool and lucid dove-light. She thought of Jabez’s hair, as the sunlight caught it, the faintest suggestion of auburn warming its stranded silver fall—youth’s last allusion.
Jabez … the look in his eyes. Observant. Perceptive. Shy sometimes, bright glances other times. Fleetingly, in the midnight garden, the utter longing of his love. Warm in laughter. The downward gaze of controlled annoyance when Ember needled him to exasperation. Quiet gaze, intelligent, focused on a piece of machinery. Shafts she had glimpsed, steep drops to remembered pain; dizzy, acute, frightening. Jabez, his eyes dark and deep in the shadow and moonlight, drawing her to himself, gentle.
She had made her choice, and there were no regrets.
Jabez had little or nothing to offer her but himself and the willingness to share with her everything he had. To take this path, considered prosaically, was to embrace poverty and insecurity.
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