Impossible Saints Read online

  Stephen greeted him cheerfully and said, “You did a fine job with the Eucharist.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What do you say to a walk before we eat?” Stephen said. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  Paul agreed, and the two men headed down the street, Stephen adjusting his pace to match Paul’s quicker one. They had met as students at Oxford, and Stephen was now the vicar of Stretham, a village fifty miles from London.

  As soon as they were a safe distance from the cathedral, Paul exclaimed, “He ought to be ashamed to call himself a clergyman!”

  This violent outburst didn’t mystify Stephen, who said placidly, “Ah, Thomas Cross is at his tricks again?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he do this time?”

  Paul related his exchange with Cross, adding, “He loves to make a public display of his so-called faith in action and to criticize me for spending too much time in private study and prayer. I’ll be preaching in a few weeks and I’m sorely tempted to include a few of my thoughts on his ‘faith in action.’”

  “Harris, don’t do it. You’ll only lower yourself by entering a contest of dueling sermons with him.”

  Paul sighed. “I know, but the temptation is strong. What would you do in my place?”

  “I’d be far too lazy to do anything at all,” Stephen said. “Besides, his actions are motivated by jealousy. Not only are you his intellectual superior, but you also have the ear of the bishop. If you could ignore his attempts to provoke you—or better yet, kill the man with kindness—I’m sure he’ll tire of the game and leave you alone.”

  “If I had your temperament, Elliott, it would be easily done. But I’m too susceptible to his provocations. He loves to twist my words to make my position on any subject seem ridiculous. And he loves to contradict me. If I were to say there are three persons in the Trinity, I should not be surprised to hear him insist on four.”

  Stephen laughed.

  Paul noticed that his friend was short of breath. “Shall we sit down?” Paul said. They had just entered Regent’s Park, and they made their way to the nearest bench. They sat, enjoying the cool breeze and the birdsongs in the trees above them.

  “There are times when I think Cross is right, for all his distortions of my weaknesses,” Paul went on. “I find pastoral duties difficult. Although I do visit parishioners, I can’t help wishing I were alone, writing in my study, or even preaching from the safety of the pulpit. I don’t understand so many of my fellow men. I wish to help them, but I don’t know how.”

  “We all have our weaknesses,” Stephen said, “and the best we can do is struggle to overcome them. I half wish I had a Thomas Cross to make me more aware of mine. Mark my words, Harris, he’ll make you a better man. As our Lord himself said, ‘Take up your Cross, and follow me.’ Ha-ha!”

  Paul smiled wryly and shook his head. “I don’t see how that man will do anything to improve my character.”

  He changed the subject, asking Stephen about his life, and Stephen regaled him with tales of eccentric parishioners, rodents in the church pantry, and his unrequited love for the village squire’s daughter, Rosamond. By the end of the afternoon, thanks to Stephen’s calming influence, Paul’s mood had brightened considerably.

  Monday was a precious day of solitude and a respite from Paul’s duties at the cathedral. He spent the morning and most of the afternoon working on his book, tentatively entitled Anglo-Catholicism in the Nineteenth Century.

  He had just finished his tea when his housekeeper, Mrs. Rigby, appeared in the open doorway of the study. Mrs. Rigby had come with the house, which had always been occupied by cathedral clergymen. The cathedral’s proximity to the house and its small but richly furnished rooms would have made the house irresistible to any unmarried priest with the means to afford its rent. Paul had such means, and he made no objection to the landlord’s requirement that Mrs. Rigby and the house not be separated.

  “Canon Harris, there is a Miss Brooke at the door asking to see you. She claims to be a family friend.” Mrs. Rigby was a stately woman with steel-gray hair and a forbidding aspect, and she uttered the word claims with particular emphasis.

  His head was filled with the intricacies of connecting Anglicanism to its Catholic roots, and Paul at first had no idea who Miss Brooke might be. Then he realized she must be Lilia Brooke from Ingleford. When he thought of Lilia, it was never as a family friend, only as a wild little genius girl from a part of his past he’d rather forget.

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “Show her in, please.”

  A few minutes later, Lilia entered the room and Paul rose to greet her. She was tall for a woman; they stood nearly eye to eye.

  Paul’s first impression of her was in fragments. She wore the businesslike dress of the New Woman, a long, slim black skirt and white linen blouse. Stray wisps of dark hair escaped from under her shabby straw hat. Her lips were perfect—full, yet finely cut. He was struck by the incongruity of such a beautiful mouth on a young woman who clearly took no pains with her appearance.

  She shook his hand firmly, like a man. “I’m sorry to drop in on you unannounced,” she said, “but I’ve been meaning to visit for ages.”

  “It’s no trouble,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad to see you.”

  Lilia turned away suddenly, as if he weren’t there, and went to the bookshelves. She swept her fingers along the spines of the books, then let them rest on the polished wood of Paul’s desk. When she met his gaze again, she said, “This is a beautiful room.”

  “Thank you.” He offered her one of the chairs in front of his desk and pulled up another for himself. “Congratulations on your achievements at Girton. My mother wrote that you ranked above the Senior Classic in the classical tripos. First Philippa Fawcett in the mathematical tripos, and now you. You’ll change the way universities treat women.”

  Lilia gave him a guarded look, as if he had spouted some frivolous gallantry. He noticed her eyes resting on his clerical collar.

  “Thank you, but I don’t think that will happen soon,” she said. “Until Oxford and Cambridge award degrees to women, we won’t be taken seriously. It’s too easy to dismiss women’s achievements as the exceptions that prove the rule. Why should it be shocking or sensational for a woman to rank above the senior wrangler in anything?”

  “Change doesn’t happen quickly,” he said, surprised by her forcefulness.

  “It won’t happen at all if people don’t act. I have no patience for those who propose theories for reform without putting them into practice.”

  “You’re just as frightening now as you were twelve years ago.”

  “Was I frightening?” Lilia gave him a curious look. Her eyes were an unusual dark blue, the color of the sky during an electrical storm.

  “Don’t you remember the first time we met in Ingleford? You were playing Jeanne d’Arc and your siblings were the French army. I tried to save your little sister from the battle—she couldn’t have been more than two or three—but then you were angry because she was the Dauphin of France and I was interfering. And then your dog pushed me to the ground and muddied my shirt.”

  She laughed. “I do remember now. Was it really so traumatic for you?”

  “Of course. You forget I had no siblings and lived a quiet life. It was a great shock to meet such boisterous, active children.”

  “We were just playing.” Once again her manner changed. In a voice that was both serious and warm, she said, “I don’t think I ever thanked you for the trouble you took to teach me the ancient languages. That summer I spent in London with your family was the best one of my childhood.”

  Paul couldn’t keep up with the quicksilver shifts in her manner. It was like trying to catch a wildly thrashing fish, only to have it repeatedly slip out of one’s grasp.

  “So what am I to call you now?” she went on. “The Very Honorable Reverend Father Canon or something just as ridiculous?” She smiled at him in such a way that he couldn’t take offense.
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  “Call me Paul, as you used to.”

  She contemplated him. “You surprise me. You’re not what I expected.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “A humorless, stuffy, pedantic bore.” She hesitated, then added, “Excuse my plain speaking.”

  “I’m relieved I don’t meet your expectations,” he said. “Were they based on my association with the church?”

  “Yes, partly, but you were rather stuffy when you were fifteen. I didn’t think there was much hope for you.”

  “I was shy around other children, especially girls. It was easier to speak to you in Greek and Latin about books than in English about … anything else.”

  She gave him an arch look. “You speak English very well now.”

  He laughed. “Are your siblings well?” Since he had met them only once, he couldn’t remember which of her four brothers was which, and he remembered her sister, Emily, only as the toddler Dauphin of France.

  “Yes, indeed. Harry went into the navy and has just been commissioned as a lieutenant. Edward is a sculptor. John and David are at Rugby, enjoying the games far more than their lessons, and Emily’s only fourteen, so she’s still at home. She has the sweetest disposition of the lot of us.” She beamed with pride, adding, “You really ought to come to Ingleford for a visit when everyone is home for the holidays.”

  Paul frowned. He had avoided the place for twelve years as if it were the portal to Hell itself, and he saw no reason to change his mind now. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  The best summer of Lilia’s childhood had been the worst one of his. While he had enjoyed tutoring Lilia in Latin and Greek, the summer had ended with his mother leaving him and his father to live with James Anbrey. James might have been Paul’s natural father, but he was also the destroyer of the only family Paul had ever known.

  Lilia must have been thinking of the events of that summer, too, for after a brief pause she asked, “How is your father? Mr. Harris, I mean.”

  “He is well,” Paul said. It was a polite falsehood designed to protect Philip Harris, who had aged prematurely after his wife left him. He was quieter, more guarded, no longer gregarious, though he brightened whenever Paul was with him. Philip hadn’t granted Bianca the divorce she had asked for, but he never spoke ill of her or James. Paul considered Philip a saint, not only for this restraint, but also for having married a fallen woman in the first place and loving her baby son as his own.

  “Are you a Papist, then?” Lilia asked.

  The non sequitur confused him. Had she seen through his falsehood about his father being well, and had it prompted her to express anti-Catholic sentiments? But then he saw that she was looking at his bookshelf and realized she was merely changing the subject.

  “Not exactly. I prefer the term Anglo-Catholic,” he said. “What gave me away?”

  “One of our family friends in Ingleford was a Dissenter and he taught us to recognize the signs. John Henry Newman’s Pro Vita Sua sits in the place of honor on your bookshelf, you’re clean-shaven, and you’re wearing the clerical collar and cassock, even though you’re at home. I don’t see the Mark of the Beast waistcoat, though, so perhaps you’re not completely lost to Romish practices.” She sat back with a smile, clearly proud of herself.

  “I’m impressed,” he said, and so he was. “I would never have pictured you as a Dissenter, though.”

  “Oh, I’m not, I assure you. As happy as I am to dissent from almost anything, I’m not one of that party. I can’t stomach Puritanism in any form. The last time I attended my family’s church, the curate preached such nonsense about the proper role of women that I left in the middle of his sermon. I haven’t returned to any church since.”

  “Are you an atheist?”

  “I consider myself agnostic. Being an atheist would require far too much effort. If there is a God, I’m quite sure He is as content not to believe in me as I am not to believe in Him.”

  “I see.”

  “Have I shocked you?”

  “Not at all. I am of Tennyson’s opinion that ‘there lives more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds.’”

  “That’s generous of you,” she acknowledged. “You’ve also cleverly found out my weakness: how can I dissent from anything when my opinions are met with such kind responses?”

  He smiled. “You’ve said nothing about your life. What are you doing in London?”

  “I’m about to begin teaching at a school my friend Harriet Firth helped to found. We went to Girton together and talked a great deal about reforming girls’ education. We share the same vision of creating a nation of self-respecting women who have no doubts about their equality with men.”

  “That seems a noble goal. What sort of curriculum does the school have?”

  “It’s a small school, with only three teachers, but their curriculum is equal to that of the best boys’ schools. Harriet’s friend Miss Chapman teaches history, art, and literature; Harriet teaches science and mathematics; and I’ll teach Greek and Latin, of course.”

  “There are already a great many private girls’ schools in London. Has your friend had trouble finding students?”

  “Not at all. Harriet is a member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and most of the pupils are daughters of their members.”

  “I see.” Some of his parishioners were members of the NUWSS, but Paul knew very little about the society.

  Lilia leaned forward and said, very seriously, “May I ask a favor of you?”

  “Of course.”

  “If my mother writes to you to ask about me, could you tell her we see each other every week?”

  He frowned. “Do you mean you want me to lie for you?”

  “Well, not exactly.” She bit her lip, looking uncomfortable. “My mother is upset about my move to London. She thinks I’ll run wild and get into constant scrapes, as if I’m still a child. Your mother convinced her that if you’ll watch out for me, I’ll be fine. But I think it’s ridiculous to have to report to a man, respectable family friend or not, about my activities. I don’t want to put you in a difficult position, though. It’s not really the thing for a clergyman to lie. Not on purpose, anyway.”

  He tried to hide a smile. “Not really. But I’d be delighted to have such a commission. We could have short weekly meetings and I could send honest reports to my mother, which she could then pass on to yours, assuring her of your well-being.”

  “I suppose we could try it,” she said, looking doubtful. Then she glanced at the clock on the mantel and jumped to her feet. “I had no idea it was so late. I must go at once—I promised to meet a friend. She’ll be cross with me; I’ve been late the last two times we’ve met.”

  Paul rose also. “Thank you for coming. May I visit you, or do you prefer to come here?”

  “Of course you may! Have you a paper and pen? I’ll write down my address.” He produced the requested implements and she wrote quickly, pausing once to look up at him. “I didn’t mean to suggest I wouldn’t enjoy your company. I’d be ever so glad to see you again.”

  Paul found the suddenly uncertain look in her eyes and girlish effusiveness endearing. “The Archbishop of Canterbury himself couldn’t keep me away,” he said.

  She smiled, then raised her hand in farewell and left.

  As glad as he was to have seen her, Paul was unsettled by Lilia’s visit. He saw nothing wrong with women’s well-established positions as lovely, gentle creatures whose main purposes were to support and comfort the men and children in their lives, and it seemed to him that women were generally happy with these roles. But, clearly, Lilia was a different sort of woman. Still, he was disappointed by how utterly conventional she was in her unconventionality: he could identify the signs of the Girton-educated New Woman in her just as easily as she had identified his Anglo-Catholicism.

  He thought of the first time he had seen her, as a twelve-year-old Jeanne d’Arc with her ill-assorted French army. Perhaps that was the problem
. She could never live up to that first impression. A Jeanne d’Arc who grew up to be a schoolmistress instead of dying a triumphant martyr at the stake was bound to be a disappointment.

  3

  “You’re too fond of your own ways.”

  “Yes, I think I’m very fond of them. But I always want to know the things one shouldn’t do.”

  “So as to do them?” asked her aunt.

  “So as to choose,” said Isabel.

  —Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

  Lilia made her way to the podium, feeling more anxious than she had expected. She was used to speaking before an audience: after all, she had made many speeches in college and in front of her pupils in Ingleford, not to mention the impromptu speeches she had subjected her siblings to throughout her childhood. She was used to bored, even hostile, audiences.

  But this was different. It was her first official, invited speech. Harriet had introduced her to Lady Fernham, an influential member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies who had also provided most of the capital for Harriet’s school. After talking to Lilia about her ideas for reforming girls’ education, Lady Fernham had been sufficiently impressed to arrange the speaking engagement, and Lilia didn’t want to let her or the NUWSS down.

  Before she started to speak, she took a deep breath and paused to survey her audience. It was mainly women, but there were a few men, too. The small public hall they were in was full. There weren’t enough seats for everyone, so some people had to stand at the back.

  She began her speech with examples of the ways a poor education limited a girl’s prospects in life. After the first few minutes, her anxiety fell away and was replaced by a surge of excitement. Everyone was listening intently, waiting for her next words in expectant silence. Especially enthralled was a girl sitting beside Lady Fernham in the front row who looked hardly old enough to be out of the schoolroom herself. Her delicate, ethereal frame reminded Lilia of Anna Martin, but something about her dark, mournful eyes suggested she was older than she looked. She seemed ill at ease in her fashionable burgundy silk gown.