Chapter 20
Matthew would not be jealous of a charitable clinic.
He wouldn’t.
He shouldn’t.
He was going to try to keep it under control.
Was it really so bad, after all, to want to keep his wife all to himself?
He sighed and scrubbed at the scuffs in the lectern a little harder than was strictly necessary, his polish rag groaning in protest.
The man Sir Ambrose had sent over to restore the statue was down in the basement with the cursed thing at present, attempting to restore its masculinity with a bit of spackle and the chipped fig leaf that Matthew had been keeping this whole time in the pocket of the cassock he’d worn that day.
Occasionally, from the open door leading down to the room where it was happening, he’d hear the man sigh to himself and click his tongue, as though Seth had disappointed him personally with his carelessness, becoming so disjointed.
The whole church was being aired out this afternoon, with the doors on all sides thrown open to allow in the cool early-autumn breezes while Matthew and Mr. Green gave everything a good dusting and polish.
This was their yearly ritual when half their congregation had finally fled to the country with the end of London’s social Season, and it was always a bit restorative as a ritual, as far as Matthew was concerned.
He remembered his father bent over the flagstones with a little brush, grinning down at the lichen that somehow made its way indoors in the warmer months as he excised it, as though he was fond of the mischief that had made its way through the parish doors.
He sighed to himself and shook his head, chuckling. “Is there lichen in the grout, Mr. Green?” he called to the curate from across the sanctuary. “My father always found some, didn’t he?”
Mr. Green’s head came up, his brows rising in surprise. “Yes, he did, didn’t he?” he replied, giving a soft smile. “Maybe he had an eye for it. I haven’t found any myself.”
“Ah, well, let it hide,” said Matthew. “It’s not harming anything. Do you want to take a break and have a spot of luncheon?”
They met near the altar and dug into the basket that Rosalind had put together before leaving that morning for her classes, an assortment of cold meats, bread, and cheese with a healthy spattering of pepper.
“Your bride,” said Mr. Green shyly, glancing up over a crusty roll. “Has she made you any Scottish dishes yet? Have you tried the haggis?”
Matthew chuckled, surprised at the question. “I’m not sure she’s that inclined in the kitchen, to be honest with you. Have you tried the stuff? It doesn’t sound particularly appetizing.”
“I have,” said Mr. Green. “It is tastier than you’d wager. If you have a chance, you should.”
“I will,” Matthew told him, leaning back against a pew as he bit into a bit of cured sausage and sighed. “This is my favorite part of the year, you know, the great autumn polishing. I hope it isn’t my last.”
Mr. Green frowned. “Have you spoken with the bishop yet?”
He shook his head. “No. The man is so taciturn, you’d think he uses a whetstone to hone his silence. Have you?”
The curate hesitated, his frown deepening, and reached up to pat nervously at the neat part in his hair.
Matthew immediately sat up straighter. “You have, haven’t you?”
He grimaced. “Not officially,” he said. “I didn’t wish to say anything because it is of no consequence. Lord Keaton only approached me and claimed to be speaking on the bishop’s behalf to ask if I had an interest in taking over the parish. I told him I did not.”
There was a long beat of silence punctuated by the obnoxious looping call of a mourning dove outside while Matthew stared at the other man.
“You told him you did not?” he finally managed to say. “Why not?”
Mr. Green shifted his weight, looking supremely uncomfortable. “It wouldn’t be right,” he muttered. “I couldn’t.”
“It wouldn’t be wrong, Hector,” Matthew blurted out, sinking a breadcrumb-dusted hand into his hair. “You have earned it many times over, I daresay.”
Mr. Green’s grimace only deepened at being called by his first name.
“I would love to have my own parish, of course,” he said.
“But I am not … I do not command the crowd the way you do, and that is well enough. I know my place. And I do not wish to be given my orders as the result of something so unjust. I could not face your father in the afterlife after doing such a thing.”
Matthew reached out suddenly, taking the other man’s hand and squeezing it. “You are a good man,” he said. “Any parish would be lucky to have you. My father was lucky to have you.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Green, blinking a few times, his expression a bit stunned. “Thank you. Thank you very kindly.”
Matthew smiled and released his hand, leaning back again and picking at his bread. “You think I command the crowd?”
Mr. Green gave a shy, twisting little smile. “Do you remember when you used to read the Lessons on Sundays, when you were a lad?”
Matthew nodded. “Of course. Father kept making me read from Isiah. Why Isiah? He never explained.”
Mr. Green tittered. “He said to me once that he ought to have named you after Mark, rather than Matthew, because of your talent for petty detail. It wasn’t a cruel thing. He said it fondly.”
The two men looked at one another for a moment and then burst into shared laughter.
“Is that why he planted that fig tree?” Matthew asked, his shoulders shaking. “So one day I could grow up and tattle if the Messiah had a bad day and shouted at it?”
“Well,” said Mr. Green, tittering under his breath, “Matthew did that too, I suppose.”
“Yes, but Mark was much, much cattier about it,” he returned. “Why we needed to preserve that moment for the remainder of human history remains a mystery. Poor Jesus.”
“Poor Jesus indeed,” agreed Mr. Green. “And then when you led Sunday school for two weeks, do you recall?”
“Ah,” Matthew said with a nod. “The child asked me why he turned her into salt. I said ‘I don’t know, child, God didn’t think she was going to turn around, he had to think quickly.’”
Mr. Green nodded, chortling. “And the child asked again, but why salt, specifically, and you said …”
“I said’ why is a tuppence bigger than a sovereign,’” Matthew finished for him. “‘Because life is full of inexplicable mystery.’ And was never allowed to do Sunday school again.”
Mr. Green sighed and chewed his cheese. When they gathered their things back up and put the remnants of the food back in the basket, he tilted his head to the side and glanced back at Matthew.
“Why is a tuppence bigger than a sovereign?” he said. “Why is the most valuable coin the smallest one? I think about that all the time.”
“Because Lot’s wife looked back at Sodom,” Matthew said solemnly, and took his polishing rag back up as the other man gave another tiny smile.
It was perhaps the cheeriest he had ever seen Mr. Green in his entire life, and he’d known the man since he was a small child himself.
They worked for another hour before a middle-aged couple appeared at the door, rapping gently on the giant, opened slab of wood as though any knuckles could make a meaningful sound on such a thing.
It amused Matthew enough that he leaped down from the altar and approached them grinning.
“Hello there,” he called. “How may I help?”
“We’re looking for our daughter,” the man said, a graying gentleman with a curling beard. “A Mrs. Everly?”
“Ah!” said Matthew, brightening as Mr. Green sidled out from behind the panel leading to the mezzanine. “Rosalind is teaching her class in Clerkenwell today, but she should be back in an hour or two. She’s always returned before sundown.”
“You see?” the woman said, turning her blonde head sharply to her husband. “We ought to have gone straight on to Abe’s and come back later.”
“But then we’d have interrupted her dinner, Abby,” he replied, frowning. “And I miss my girl.”
The mother scoffed, turning her eyes back onto Matthew. “You must be—”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Mr. Green said, breathless and wide-eyed. “Terribly sorry. I’m … it is only … I studied at Edinburgh … and … some years ago …”
Everyone turned toward him in surprise as he shuffled forward, pink-faced.
“Are you …” he said, twisting his fingers together, “Abigail Winterville?”
The woman blinked, a short laugh escaping her. “I was,” she said. “Thirty-some years ago. It’s Murphy now.”
“Oh!” Mr. Green exclaimed. “Oh, I attended your lectures. I have your book! On the moons of Jupiter. I named my cats Io and Europa, you know. I so admire … oh, Murphy!” He paused, looking wildly from Matthew to the couple and back again. “Oh, I married your daughter!”
Abigail Murphy blinked and then squinted at Mr. Green. “You did? I assumed this one did.”
Matthew cleared his throat.
“I … oh,” stammered Mr. Green. “I officiated. This is Mr. Everly, of course, of course. I am … oh, dear. I am sorry.”
Matthew was distracted, glancing behind the couple at the coach beyond the parish gate, piled high with trunks. There was a man leaning against the door, looking to be waiting for the Murphys to return.
“Do you want to come in?” he said suddenly, snapping his attention back to his new parents-in-law. “I see you’ve a guest out there. Does he want to come in too?”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Murphy, glancing over her shoulder with a frown. “No. No, we’re just dropping him off at his lodgings in Charing Cross. We only wanted to see Rosalind.”
Matthew grimaced. “The university lodgings?”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Murphy, an odd expression settling over his features as he peered closer at Matthew. “We ought to set a time to get acquainted properly, Mr. Everly, now that we’re family.”
Matthew blinked, tearing his eyes away from the crisply dressed, blond-haired man outside who was not at all like the rumpled visage of what he had thought a professor would be. That particular professor, in any event.
“You’re welcome to come back for dinner at seven,” he said, “though we’re also feeding a local journalist tonight, so we might be a bit sprawled in the parish house.”
“I don’t see why a sprawl is a problem,” Abigail Murphy said, “though I must insist you also invite your colleague here as well. I believe he and I have much to discuss.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Green, breathy as a bride. “Oh, I would be honored.”
Matthew chuckled. “Certainly. Your son’s family too, I presume? I’ll have it catered in, a little later than usual so we have time to prepare.”
“Catered?” she repeated. “Well, that sounds very complicated. Are you certain?”
“I am insistent,” he said. “Bring all the Murphys by at seven sharp, and we will ignite our acquaintance in well-fed style.”
He did not specify that Professor Golden Man out there by the coach was not invited, of course, but he hoped he did not have to.
Just to drive the point home, he added, “Dinner for nine. I shall go arrange it immediately.”
“Dinner for nine,” repeated Mr. Murphy, looking openly amused now. “Nine exactly. We’ll see you then, lad.”
Matthew insisted on walking them to the gate, if only to get a better look at the lingering threat on the cobblestones.
Up close, he was still very sleek and well turned out, handsome in a well-bred way, with glowing blue eyes and impeccably wrinkle-free clothes, somehow, even after what must have been most of a week on the road.
He nodded toward Matthew but did not smile.
Good, thought Matthew. He knows who I am too.
And then he waved them off as they rambled down the road, a friendly grin plastered on his face and his blood boiling in his veins.