Perhaps not for her. Tessa’s thumb hovered dangerously close to his lips. Eyes still closed, he lifted his hand and found her wrist. He meant to pull it away, but his arm refused to obey him. “Then…I was wrong, when I told Sophie that love is never a sin.” Slowly, painfully, Joseph allowed himself to gaze upon the beautiful woman before him. Tears stained Tessa’s cheeks, but her eyes shone; they resembled nothing more than halos in stained glass. He swallowed. “Do you understand, Tessa? We can never touch like this, ever again.” Even as he swore it, he brought his other hand from the earth and slid his fingers along her slender neck into her silken hair. “We can neverspeaklike this again.”
New tears overflowed from those luminous eyes, spilling down her cheeks and her neck till they reached his wrist, warm and wet against his skin. Her fingers stroked his face desperately.
When she brushed his lips, he finally gathered the strength to wrench away from her, standing violently and turning his back.“At seminary, they warned us: ‘Alwayskeep a piece of furniture between yourself and any woman.’ Andneverbe alone with one!” He jammed his fingers into his hair and pulled. “But I didn’t listen!”
Behind him, Tessa was sobbing. He had been a fool to come here. At the edge of his vision, he watched Tessa stagger to her feet. He almost stepped back to help her—but then he saw the black streaks he’d left on her wrist and neck. Filth from his fingers marring her alabaster flesh. As soon as he saw the marks, Tessa whirled away from him, still unsteady but with enough fortitude left to flee.
All he wanted was for her to come back. All he wanted was to hear his name on her lips again.
CHAPTER 43
The true priest immolates himself on the altar of duty… His whole life is a perpetual sacrifice…
— James Cardinal Gibbons,The Ambassador of Christ(1896)
If he was going to remain in Charleston until Hélène’s surgery, he must find a mortification that would drive Tessa from his mind. On the advice of his confessor, Joseph resorted to the discipline. As Pope Clement XIII had written: “we cannot avoid God’s punishment in any other way than by punishing ourselves.”
At first, taking the discipline did not help at all. The throbbing of his back forced him to sleep on his stomach, which his rebellious flesh found arousing if he shifted even an inch.Don’t let me feel this,he pleaded over and over.I don’t want this pleasure; please God, take it away from me…
He begged his patron to help him:Guardian of virgins, holy father Joseph, look mercifully upon my infirmity…Saint Joseph, who had slept chastely beside his beautiful young wife—Blessed Mary, ever virgin—who had never once defiled her with his touch.
You must follow his example, Joseph told himself.That is the only way to a happy death. Gnash your teeth now or in the hereafter.As Saint Paul hadwritten, as Joseph’s confessor reminded him: “‘present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God.’ We please Him only if we keep ourselves pure, Joseph—reserved for Him alone, like the unblemished lambs of Passover. Remember how God accepted Abel’s sacrifice but rejected Cain’s, becausehetried to offer God second best? Our God ‘is a jealous God’—He will not accept tainted meat on His altar.”
Think of your own Confirmation name,Joseph told himself.Think of your Great-Granduncle Denis. He gave up hislifefor his faith. Surely you can give up a woman!
But this is not “a woman”—this is Tessa!
Joseph began sleeping on the floor. He scourged his thighs instead of his back, and these welts proved more effective. Compared to an eternity in Hell, the pain was minor; but it lingered as a constant reminder of his sinfulness and the path he must follow to salvation.
Joseph envied all the Priests who did not have this hot African blood surging through their veins, and thereby committed yet another mortal sin. They seemed indelibly intertwined, envy and lust. Sometimes he added anger toward Edward—that he had had the audacity to be born, that he should treat Tessa like a possession, a brood-mare, a disappointment. Edward was unworthy even to kiss her feet.
But lust was always the strongest. As he struggled to become master of his flesh and his thoughts, Joseph practiced all the tricks they’d taught him in seminary:Imagine her as an old woman. He meditated on the wisdom of Petrus Cantor:
Consider that the most lovely woman has come into being from a foul-smelling drop of semen; then consider her midpoint, how she is a container of filth; and after that consider her end, when she will be food for worms.
Joseph’s wickedness always found some rebuttal:But while Tessaisyoung and soft, beautiful and breathing; while sheisclothed in ephemeral, magnificent flesh…
When he thought such things, he would be forced to take his discipline again.She is not yours, he reminded himself with each blow.She has never been yours. She will never be yours.
Joseph completed the fortieth dayof his fast and ended it, since that hunger had done nothing to quell his hunger for Tessa. He had less than two weeks’ reprieve before the Lenten fast. He joined his family for dinner again.
Hélène informed him: “Tessa is ready to be churched.”
Joseph did not raise his eyes from his slice of ham, which he was trying not to devour whole like a ravenous wolf. “Then she should ask Father Baker.”
“She wantsyou, Joseph.”
Rather too forcefully, he cut another piece of meat. Fortunately, he did not crack the plate.
“If you won’t do it forher, Joseph—do it for me?”
He decided he could manage this one last ritefor Tessa. The Blessing of a Mother after Childbirth was simple, and he’d done it hundreds of times. Joseph resolved not to speak a word of English. He would use the Latin as a shield. If Tessa did not understand, Thomas could translate.
Hélène accompanied Tessa to the cathedral grounds. Thismustbe important to his sister: Joseph knew she ventured out as little as possible now. No alteration could keep her corset from pressing painfully against the distended flesh of her diseased breast. The largest tumor was nearly the size of a hen’s egg.
His sister sat on one of the stone benches in the Biblical garden, cradling Clare but watching him. Her stare seemed a warning.
At the edge of the garden, Tessa knelt with a lit candle, her head covered in a white lace mantilla. The veil was distressingly similar to the one she’d worn as a bride.
