I do not pray as Saint Augustine did in his wicked youth: “Grant me chastity and continency, but not yet.” Instead I beg You: Grant me chastity and continency—and Tessa. Grant me the strength to live without the touch of her flesh, but do not ask me to live without the sound of her voice and the sight of her face.
The sun was setting; but David would still be awake. Joseph must wait an hour or two longer. This was his last chance to think things through, to make the right choice once and for all.
He browsed the books in the library downstairs. Inscribed on these pages, there were a thousand reasons to remain in this sanctuary, to turn his back on Tessa. He’d read and recited the arguments so many times, they rattled around in his head—admonishing him, condemning him.“It is necessary, above all things, to abstain from looking at women, and still more from looking at them a second time. … Our intercourse with women should be passing, and as if we were in flight.”
Joseph noticed that someone had left a pink ribbon in one of the books. It was Saint Teresa’sInterior Castle—his own copy, though he hadn’t read it since seminary. He’d lent it to Tessa and later to Hélène. He opened to the page with the ribbon. Someone hadunderlined: “it is not so essential tothinkmuch as tolovemuch; do, then, whatever most arouses you to love.”
Joseph released his breath. Saint Teresa was speaking of lovingGod; but Joseph had asked for a sign. Writing in someone else’s book, the pink ribbon—these were traces of his sister, surely. She was guiding him even now, his Hélène—his light. Joseph closed his eyes, then the book, and pressed it against the key still nestled close to his heart. “I hear you, Ellie.”
He wondered if his sister had read Juliana of Norwich. Hélène would have liked her. Perhaps they were conversing even now.
CHAPTER 51
Thou art…a locked garden, a fountain sealed up.
Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates…
— Canticle of Canticles 4:12-13
Joseph left the theological library and the Biblical garden behind him. He tried to progress nonchalantly toward Church Street, as if he were out for an evening stroll. But the nearer he came to Tessa, the faster each step followed the last. By the time he reached Meeting Street, he was racing. Anyone who recognized him would think he was rushing to a deathbed. The truth was quite the opposite.
Yet he felt as if he were a skiff careening around breakers, as if this mad dash could end in no way but splinters. Then, on the corner of Longitude Lane, he found his bearings at last. The blue lamp was shining for him, like a lighthouse in the midst of a storm.
Before turning into the alley, he gripped the Stratfords’ wrought iron fence to steady himself. He remained light-headed from his fast, and sweat was collecting around his waist. He doffed his wool hat,unbuttoned his wool coat, and panted. Only April, and already so warm. This was Charleston, after all.
In the next moment, he noticed the ghoulish shadows the fence cast on the sidewalk and across his own body. He saw thechevaux-de-frisethat guarded Tessa’s house as if for the first time: the spikes meant to protect the inhabitants’ lives, their valuables, and the virtue of their women. To impale lustful negroes.
Joseph’s throat tightened with guilt for sins not yet committed—and so many which already had been. Beyond Edward, beyond even God, there remained this: Joseph’s deception of the woman he claimed to love. This was the barrier he’d not yet overcome: the amalgamation of his blood. He’d pushed it aside and refused to think about it at all, because he was terrified it would outweigh everything else.“For what communion hath light with darkness?”Before he put his colored hands on Tessa’s alabaster flesh, he must tell her the truth about his family. But when he did, these midnight meetings might cease before they began. Tessa might never again love him as anything but a brother.
Suddenly, he was literally cast into darkness: the blue lamp disappeared from the window. Joseph’s heart nearly stopped. Tessa couldn’t know what he was thinking. And Edward couldn’t have returned home; the carriageway entered the lot a few feet from where Joseph stood. Perhaps Tessa had grown tired of waiting.
Joseph had asked for a sign. This was it. He’d missed his chance.
Then the twin lights of the blue lamp appeared on the piazza and floated into the garden, toward the far gate. Tessa had seen him. She was coming out to meet him—but not here, where anyone could see. She was flying to their secret door.
Joseph released his breath. He replaced his hat and fled from the shadows of thechevaux-de-frise. He followed the scent of the Noisettes to their wall. The flagstones of Longitude Lane stretched out before him like twin paths, illuminatedjust enoughby the full moon and the street lamps at each end. Deserted, but for him and the roses.
First the white Lamarques greeted him, crisp and luminous in the pale light. Then the sweeter, muskier scent of the Jaune Desprez, luscious as pineapple with heads the color of flesh—unlessyou were a negro. And finally, from inside Tessa’s garden, the fragrance of gardenias.
She was waiting for him on the other side of her gate, holding their blue lamp. For a moment, she only grinned at him through the claire-voie. “You saw,” she whispered. “You understood. Youcame.”
He did not even need the key; she’d already unlocked her gate for him. One last time, he glanced right and left to ensure they were alone. As Tessa opened the door, Joseph stared down at the line where stone became grass. He thought of Saint Denis; and then he stepped over the threshold into Tessa’s garden.
As soon as he was inside, she clasped his hand. Joseph looked for the myrtle hedge—as if it might have vanished since February, exposing them to the slave quarters. But the myrtle kept their secrets.
“You needn’t worry about the slaves seeing the light,” Tessa told him in a low voice. “They know I come out to my garden at night sometimes: to inhale the moonflowers or to pray.” She looked not to her statue of the Blessed Virgin but to her Arbor Vitae, the tallest tree in her garden. “Thisis my cathedral, too.”
Shewasdescended from Druids who worshipped trees.
Tessa had changed her attire since the Vigil Mass; she was in glorious dishabille. If he’d been able to see as much through the claire-voie, Joseph might have thought twice about joining her. Tessa wore a wrapper of vivid blue edged in gold, the same colors as their lamp. A wide print bordered each hem, featuring scarlet flowers that resembled nothing so much as pomegranate blossoms.
Joseph sided with the scholars who believed the Tree of Knowledge was a pomegranate, the forbidden fruit of Paradise. But other scholars argued that the Tree ofLifewas a pomegranate.
Tessa had buttoned the pomegranate wrapper only to the gold sash at her waist; below, the openwork embroidery of her white petticoat peeked through. At least the shape of the bodice proved she’d not yet shed her corset. She still wore pearl earrings too. Neither had she let down her hair, her plait done up simply in the way that resembled a Renaissance halo.
The grass muffled their footsteps as he allowed Tessa to lead himwithin sight of the white piazza. Then, sweat rolled down his spine again, and he stopped. She turned, frowning at him in the light of the blue lamp.
Joseph looked back in the direction of the slave quarters. He couldn’t meet her eyes. He recalled Jefferson’s treatise on the differences between negroes and whites. Negroes“secrete more by the glands of the skin,”that great man of science claimed,“which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.”
