TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

SCHERZO - STAVE XLIV

S T A V E

XLIV

“I find religion to be most sensual.” He said it in passing as he escorted her into St George’s Chapel. “Don’t you agree? High Church I mean.” He dropped to a whisper though his words expanded among the many empty pews. “How dour Low Churchmen – the Congregationalists completely angry and these evangelical Methodists – simply mad. The Great Awakening – I guess it gives a comfort.”

The few heads turned as Obedience shushed him.

“I mean all in all, if one participates, why not believe wholeheartedly? God knows we’re all damned whether He be or not.”

She shushed him again.

“And if He not be, we must make our own salvation and do what we can. You agree?”

They slipped into a side pew.

“You’re talking,” she said.

“And who’s to hear? That old couple in their private booth? There’s not a handful here to make a platoon. And they won’t mind – these few.”

The church, for its size, was empty, a spattering of worshipers here and there. They gave each other distance, a Luxury not often granted; so much of daily life crammed together – in the market, in the street, in the taverns and the clubs, always a roiling crowd. If a straggler came in, they would not sit too near. Each believer sought their own temple and in doing so, it gave them a communion they would not have had if jammed in.

“I imagine Heaven thus,” he could not help but whisper, “with a crowd when you want them, otherwise to be alone. A place of Body and Soul. Indeed, they’re one and the same.”

“Is this why you brought me here? To talk my ear off? We could’ve done it in the sled.”

“Can’t help it.” He looked up at the structure overhead, taking in the details – wooden angels mounted on the beams. “And we couldn’t have,” he said. “Nature’s beauty wouldn’t allow us. We’d be awed into silence before her scene. Here we have a manmade hall, an empty hall. We must fill it with noise. Hear how the voice rings out.”

“You are mad,” she couldn’t help but giggle.

A number of the churchgoers turned around. He lowered his voice. “It demands we be discovered.”

In the choir, the organ sounded, an air by Balbastre, like a soft road blunting the hurried step, throwing off distractions and slowing all activity in body and head so one may reflect. Obedience and Dalrymple turned to look up, the music rendered sweetly. Who could be playing? No amateur – that St George’s would have such a musician on this snowy day.   

“A Molly,” Dalrymple whispered. “The best of ‘em are you know. They have the Art. Gives them expression with their hands.”

As the final note rose, it paused, and then opened the processional hymn. Obedience and Dalrymple, knowing it, need not crack the hymnal.

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,

Pilgrim through this barren land.

     I am weak, but thou art mighty;

     Hold me with thy powerful hand.

     Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,

     Feed me till I want no more;

Dalrymple looked into her eyes.

Feed me till I want no more.

She smiled.

Open now the crystal fountain

     Whence the healing stream doth flow;

     Let the fire and cloudy pillar

     Lead me all my journey though.

The rector in surplice and cassock processed down the aisle, no accompanying vicar or deacon, but one lone server instead of three. Crossing the rail, he stepped toward the altar and bowed, and turning to the sparse congregation, his eyes lit upon each worshiper until they stopped on the couple whose voices soared. His expression flickered. Obedience marked him. Had he seen her before? A guest at one of the parties or balls? Too familiar, her impression, although she’d never seen him with his tabs, parson’s wig and jowly face from too much good eating. She would’ve remembered. A judgment in his eyes though, a look of scorn as if he’d found her out, but as she stared, it was him Undone; she knew the look, mostly in older men, the conflict in the back of their eyes. Her palms chilled, the sensation rising into her arms and across her breast. She pressed against Dalrymple and shivered.

The organ swelled at the ending and the minister, pulling away his stare, opened the Book of Common Prayer.

“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he hath committed, doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive,” he read. “I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

A chill through Obedience and she squeezed her thighs together.

“Almighty and most merciful Father,” the congregation joined, their twenty-odd voices loud. “We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts . . .” 

She pressed Dalrymple harder and stared at his hands – broad, clean and well proportioned. Good hands, so they seemed – the repository of cares and woes. One gives and receives with the hand. It speaks its own language. The voice may cheat, the countenance deceive, but a soul’s substance pools in the fingers. By touching them, what does she touch obliquely? Worlds. She squeezed her thighs again.  

“Almighty God, the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather he may turn from wickedness, and live; and hath given power and commandment to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins . . .”

A numb feeling.

“Amen” – the congregation.

“Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name . . .”

His hands – how beautiful. She rested her own a breath from his and lifted her little finger to touch. He read from the prayer book unresponsive. She pulled away.

“O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost.”

The congregation sat as the rector ascended the pulpit and read:

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may be your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

She didn’t hear, their shoulders touching.

“Amen,” Dalrymple said and settled back.

She fixed on Dalrymple’s hands, heat in her breast.

The rector, his voice soothing like the beams of oiled wood. Indeed, a sensual experience as Dalrymple had stated: the patina of oak, the tissue of the onionskin pages, the grassy notes from the prayer book’s binding. This, with the smoke of frankincense and charred terebinth, caressing like an arm about the shoulders, a warm breath upon the neck and ear. Comforting, and in the comfort – security, and in the security – freedom, and in freedom – a blithe spirit. When under grace, are not all things good? Didn’t God make it so in the beginning? Isn’t sin the unnatural state? A mechanical universe knows nothing of this.   

Again she brushed his hand.

Doesn’t he know, she thought. How obtuse – Or does he? He does. A game. But he doesn’t play it like a game. He’s attending to the sermon. He truly prays. He doesn’t care. I’d swive until raw and pull the last juice out of him. I would do it and would want to do it . . . and he doesn’t care.

She fidgeted. He glanced.

That – he noticed, she thought and inched away. And with the space, the heat began to ease – in a manner of minutes. Good space, she thought, feeling the weight of Conscience, seeing how she would’ve thrown it all away. Her better Self, her smarter Self, pulling her from the action, the Obedience she thought she should be. She diced it into manageable pieces, never once allowing he might turn her away. What man turns her away? Did he?

He did. He saved me. Saved us both – a Rake, a Man ‘O ‘the Town –

She too settled back, though part of her could walk to a vestibule corner, lift up her skirt and do him while the music played and Holy Communion given at the rail . . .

Don’t – for MacEachran’s sake. She owed him that. More than she did for Billy, not that he deserved it – that any of them deserved it. Sex is what one simply does. One eats. One sleeps. One fucks. It’s supposed to be a pleasure . . . most times. Men assuredly do it and not always with their wives – a strange glue to bond a couple – better suited for Lovers than Man and Wife. Would she and MacEachran be Man and Wife if she’d not had him under that tree? It was him who insisted on marriage. And what does sex have to do with Fidelity? My husband is my husband whether we do it or not, but my lover ain’t my lover without a fuck – like the lilies of the field, glorious in their raiment, here and gone. You must say No, God wants, as the minister plied his sermon. So much Prohibition, and cruel; no wonder the Enlightenment cast God off . . .

And Dalrymple next to her. She could hear the brush of his clothing.

Don’t.

Just a poke . . .

No.

To be desired . . .

No . . . And no . . .

And with the sermon’s end, they prayed:

Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name

     Thy Kingdom Come. Thy Will be done in Earth,

     As it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

     And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that

     Trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation;

     But deliver us from Evil.

Deliver us, she thought. Dalrymple turned and smiled.

     O LORD, our heavenly Father, high and mighty. King of

kings. Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy

throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily, we beseech

thee, with thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lord King

GEORGE; replenistith him with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that he may always incline to thy will, and walk in thy way : Endue him plentebuily with heavenly gifts; grant him in health and wealth long to live; strengthen him, that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies -; and finally after this life may attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

More prayers and the final hymn.

Obedience, depleted, received Dalrymple’s arm. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what reason?”

“Your forgiveness.”

“Yours as well.”

They walked out to Pluto and the sleigh.

“Where shall we go?” Dalrymple like a schoolboy. “To breakfast at a coffee house? I know a marvelous one.”

“I doubt any are open,” she said. “You should take me back to Grisham’s.”

“On such a winter’s day? One you might not have in twenty years? Look, the countryside is before you. The very Hudson frozen. We can dash between the Heights and the Palisades and come back to the city from Harlem.” He helped her to the bench and covered her with blankets.

“To Mrs. Grisham’s,” she said.

“Very well,” he said.