Chapter 50
I and my bosom must debate awhile…
Joseph returned to Charleston differently than he had come, so he could minister to other parishioners.
The way these people greeted him, the way they honored him—as if he were an angel, or Christ in their midst…
They thought Joseph holy and pure; they thought he desired only God.
How could he ever bless them with hands that had groped a woman’s breast?
Saint Alphonsus had much to say on the matter:
The priest who, while he is defiled with sins against chastity, pronounces the words of consecration, spits in the face of Jesus Christ; and in receiving the sacred body and blood into his polluted mouth, he casts them into the foulest mire…
Such priests are worse than Judas… How horrible to see a priest that should send forth in every direction the light and odor of purity, become sordid, fetid, and polluted with sins of the flesh…
And yet…these were abstractions. Was Tessa sordid, fetid, or polluted? Was her perfect mouth a foul mire? How then could touching her defile him? Surely God understood that Joseph wished only to honor Him, only to venerate the beauty He had created?
Joseph closed Dignity and Duties of the Priest and opened Juliana of Norwich’s Revelations. In many ways, she reminded him of Saint Teresa; yet Juliana was different from any theologian Joseph had ever read. The God who had spoken to her would never condemn an unbaptized child to Hell.
Juliana wrote:
I saw verily that Our Lord was never wrath, nor ever shall be: for He is God, He is good, He is truth, and He is peace…
His love excuseth us, and of His great courtesy He doth away all our blame, and beholdeth us with compassion and pity…
I shall do right naught but sin, and my sin shall not hinder His goodness working…
Before he entered Charleston, Joseph paused at St. Patrick’s Churchyard to visit Hélène.
He stood inside the Lazare mausoleum and placed his palm on the cool limestone that held his sister’s name and her body, but not her spirit.
“I’ll never forget you, Ellie,” he whispered.
“I couldn’t even if I tried.” He prayed her sojourn in Purgatory would be brief.
“If you’re already in Heaven, will you pray for me, sister?
” If he followed her advice, if he accepted her gifts—the lamp and the key—it would be almost like she was still with him.
He knew now that he would remain in Charleston as long as he could.
Their next Bishop might very well make Joseph a mission Priest; but these two weeks on the road had proven he would be a poor one.
He would yearn not only for Tessa, his mother, even his father’s company—Joseph would miss the ocean, his garden, and his library too.
Joseph would miss returning to his own bed every night, however humble that bed.
The night before his sister’s surgery, he’d stopped sleeping on the floor and stopped using the discipline.
He’d decided Hélène deserved more than a pale shadow of her brother.
He did not resume these mortifications now. His head was clearer without them.
Furthermore, despite Prince’s smooth action, Joseph had developed saddle sores on his journey.
They were worse than any wound from the discipline.
He refused to remove his trousers and drawers for his father, but Joseph described the sores.
While trying not to chuckle, his father mixed him a balm that proved blissfully effective.
Joseph tried to find out more about Juliana of Norwich; but she had largely been lost to history. The Church had not canonized or beatified Juliana, but neither had it condemned her.
Joseph longed to wrap himself in the promise Christ had made her: that whatever choices Joseph made, whatever sins he committed, God would forgive him; God would forgive Tessa; and all would be well.
Joseph wanted so much to believe those words were divine revelation.
But in the Gospel of John, Christ commanded the adulteress: “Go, and sin no more.” How could the same God have said “Sin is necessary”?
And yet…Christ forgave the adulteress when no one else would.
He made the Pharisees see they were all sinners.
Joseph had been neglecting both the Biblical garden and his parents’ garden.
He took up his tools again. Tessa was often visiting his mother.
She must understand how isolated his mother was, especially since losing Hélène.
On this side of the Atlantic, only a handful of people knew his mother’s language; but Tessa was one of them.
This kindness made Joseph love her all the more.
He was careful not to linger near Tessa.
He would smile at her in passing, but he was determined not to touch her or speak to her again till he had made his decision.
Tessa had the perfect way to reply without saying a word.
When she was certain only Joseph could see, she pressed both hands to her heart. She was signing: I love you.
Joseph retreated to his father’s empty office—not to stare at the Blessed Virgin’s bare breast or at Mary Magdalene reaching for the half-naked Christ but to meditate on the painting that had been here the longest: Saint Denis picking up his own severed, haloed head.
This third-century martyr had lent his name to Joseph’s great-granduncle Denis, who perished during the Terror, and to Joseph himself at his Confirmation.
His great-granduncle’s presence at an Ancien Régime salon had inspired the famous exchange between the Cardinal de Polignac and the Marquise de Deffand.
When he was a child, Joseph’s great-grandmother Marguerite had passed the story on to him.
First, Cardinal de Polignac had described Saint Denis’s martyrdom: even after pagans beheaded him, Denis remained undeterred.
He was a Bishop, and his work was not yet complete.
His decapitated body stood up and reclaimed his head, which preached a homily as he walked.
Denis refused to die until he’d finished this homily.
By that time, he’d carried his head an entire league.
“Some say it was two leagues!” Cardinal de Polignac had exclaimed.
“The distance doesn’t matter,” the Marquise de Deffand had observed. “It is the first step that is difficult.”
Joseph forced himself to finish rereading Dignity and Duties of the Priest. “Let us tremble: we are flesh,” admitted Saint Alphonsus. He related:
Blessed Jordan severely reproved one of his religious for having, without any bad motive, once taken a woman by the hand. The religious said in answer that she was a saint. But, replied the holy man: “The rain is good, and the earth also, but mix them together and they become mire.”
No, Joseph thought, as he watered the soil around his pomegranate tree and admired the scarlet buds. Mix rain and earth together, and they become life and beauty.
As long as there was not too much rain. That was the key.
Even Father Wallace had assumed Joseph and Tessa would not fully consummate their union.
“You’ll find a line and you won’t cross it,” Liam had said.
Joseph would never ask Tessa for more than she wished to give him. He would take nothing at all.
On the Feast of Saint Joseph, the day he completed his thirty-first year, he returned to his father’s house and climbed the stairs to his sister’s dressing chamber.
He opened the drawer of her wardrobe and found the key to Tessa’s garden still nestled inside, like a seed awaiting planting.
Joseph searched Hélène’s jewelry-box for a long silver chain.
He threaded the key onto it and fastened the chain around his neck.
He undid his choker and tucked the key beneath his shirt.
No one else would know the key was there. But he would know.
He resisted the temptation to try the key in advance; yet throughout Passiontide, Joseph haunted the corner of Church Street and Longitude Lane, watching for the blue lamp. He would not answer till after Lent, but he wanted the assurance that Tessa would still welcome him.
On Good Friday, Joseph finally saw the lamp in the right-most window on the second floor, just as she had promised. Even across the front garden and through the wrought iron fence, the double-burner lamp shone like a beacon. Calling him into her bedchamber.
Joseph could not answer it—not on Good Friday, even if this was his last chance.
It might well be. Surely Tessa’s husband would return from Stratford-on-Ashley tomorrow.
His appearances at the cathedral were erratic, but he’d always managed Christmas and Easter.
After that, Edward might remain in Charleston till the fall.
It was already the middle of April, and planters never spent summers at their plantations—the risk of fever was too great.
By fall, they might have a new Bishop, who might send Joseph to a faraway parish. He might never see Tessa again.
Apprehension descended instead of sleep.
Joseph’s total fast made waiting no easier.
He would consume nothing but Christ until after Easter Mass.
At Lauds the next morning, his breviary directed him to pray Psalm 62: “For thee my soul hath thirsted; for thee my flesh, O how many ways!” Joseph wondered if King David had meant those words only for God, or for Bathsheba, too.