Where Love Illumines (Where There is Love Book 2) Read online

  Mary agreed. “And the Wesleys were—” She groped for the right word. She had meant to say enchanting, but that seemed too frivolous for music so profound.

  “Quite sublime, are they not?” Selina finished for her. “Would you like me to present you to Sally? She’s one of the people I most admire in the entire world—an opinion shared by all who know her, but most especially by her husband.”

  “Yes, I could tell, just seeing them together. I was quite taken by the radiance of it. She is so beautiful in spite of—”

  “The smallpox? Yes, they had been married just five years when Sally’s sister Becky, who was living with them, was inoculated. She brought the illness home with her. Their tiny son, Jacky, died of it, and for weeks Charles despaired of saving Sally. But when the fever was spent and she was left as you see her now, Charles declared he loved her more than ever. This disease removed the one barrier to the perfection of their union. You see, Sally is twenty years younger than her husband, but now they look the same age. And she thanked God she had chosen not to be inoculated.”

  Mary shook her head in silent awe of a love that could be so self-sacrificing, so unhindered by outward appearance. Just then Colonel Hastings joined them, tall and handsome in his regimentals. When Mary saw the smile that passed between him and Selina, she felt sure that another such match was in the making. “Yes, I should be most honored to be presented to Mrs. Wesley,” Mary said.

  Sally Wesley was as gracious in person as she had appeared on the platform. She welcomed Mary to their circle, and then went on telling the countess of their two musically gifted sons—whom Charles felt certain would far outshine their father in the world of composing and performing—and of their six-year-old daughter, Selina, named for the Countess of Huntingdon.

  Also noting the special bond between Charles Wesley and his wife, Rowland had separated the preacher from the others to question him about Berridge’s advice.

  Charles Wesley spoke thoughtfully. “Certainly, if Berridge feels it would be wrong for him to marry, then it would be. God leads us each according to His holy will. I can speak only for myself. God gave Sally to me to love. And she has been of inestimable value to my work.”

  “To your work?”

  “Indeed. My brother John for a time shared Berridge’s views and was opposed to our attachment on that grounds. But he came about and finally married us himself.”

  “And there was truly no cause for his concern? I beg your forgiveness if I seem to pry, but I have wrestled much with this lately.”

  “A valid question for any young man. Certainly, marriage changed the nature of my work. I have undoubtedly done more hymn-writing with Sally’s fine musicianship to help me, and my ministry has been in a more settled area around Bristol. Not many family men can put in thousands of miles of circuit-riding in a year. But who is to say one is of more value to the Kingdom than the other? And the slack left by one man is always taken up by another.” He looked over at the other man who had shared the pulpit that evening. “Our dear Fletcher is a case in point.” He gave the name its Swiss pronunciation, Flechaire. “His beloved wife was taken from him at an early age, but she worked with him heart and soul during the short time their union lasted upon Earth. She was of enormous service to his presidency of Lady Huntingdon’s College at Trevecca and made their vicarage at Madeley a haven for all who came to them weary and heavy-laden, sick and sorrowful.”

  Others joined them, and the conversation became general; but Rowland could not rid his mind of Wesley’s phrase as the hymn-writer looked across the room at his adored wife, “God gave her to me to love.”

  The next day was an exciting one for the Tudway family. Mary’s father was to arrive about noon, and the family would go together to Thomas Gainsborough’s house at the Royal Circus to see the finished portraits. Now that the work was completed, Mrs. Tudway was filled with anxiety and she plagued her youngest daughter with questions: What if her husband was displeased with the outcome? What if he still refused to have his portrait painted, and her picture would be required to hang alone in the dining room? Had she been wrong to wear her emerald green gown for the sitting? Perhaps the amber would have been more becoming. Was it a mistake to pose in her white lace calash? Perhaps a smaller cap with lappets would have been more flattering.

  Mary did her best to reassure her mother, to little avail.

  Rowland joined the family to see his sister Elizabeth’s portrait. As it was a fine day, the entire party chose to walk the short distance down Brock Street to the studio.

  The painter met them at the door of his home, clad in teal velvet coat and breeches, with a red waistcoat. His rich brown hair was tied back at the nape of his neck. His clear eyes shone with pleasure as he led the way to his studio. “I am so happy you could join us today, Mr. Tudway. I believe you will be most pleased with your wife’s portrait—and those of your son and daughter-in-law as well.” His arm swept an arc around the room, as if he were presenting the company to the portraits, rather than the other way around.

  Mary was the first to speak. “Oh, Mama, you look perfectly lovely! Exactly the sensible, competent creature you are. And how clever of you to choose your green gown; it just sets off your eyes.” Hannah visibly relaxed under her daughter’s approval.

  “And your choice of cap,” Rowland added. “It shines like a halo against the dark background.”

  When her husband agreed, Mrs. Tudway could have been no closer to Heaven. “Fine work he made of you too, Clement.” Squire Tudway stood before the head-and-shoulders portrait of his son wearing a red coat with brass buttons, his powdered hair curled just above his ears. “Very fine, just the right degree of dignity for a Member of Parliament.”

  He continued on around the room to the easel bearing the waist-length portrait of Elizabeth. “Well, Hill,” he addressed Rowland, “did you know your sister to be such a beauty? Very fine, very fine.” He turned to the artist. “I congratulate you, sir.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, it’s perfect,” Mary said. “You couldn’t have chosen a lovelier ornament than the pearls in your hair and at your neck and at the yoke of your dress.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “I’m glad you approve, Mary, but it was Mr. Gainsborough who selected the pearls. The blue gown was my selection, though.”

  Gainsborough rang for refreshments, and soon his housekeeper was handing around wine and biscuits while the family continued to discuss the details of the portraits. “Papa, you must be painted full-length like Mama,” Mary said abruptly, and with that note of decision in her voice that her family knew all too well. “Perhaps outdoors,” she continued. “As Mama is sitting by an open window, it would be a charming idea to think that you are in her view.”

  Charles Tudway considered for a moment while Hannah held her breath. “In my brown frock coat, do you think, daughter?” His smile spoke his consent.

  The rest of the family was to return to the Crescent to dine, but Mary had hoped to do some shopping that afternoon. Her sister-in-law Maria had informed them that, indeed, the wonderful event Mrs. Tudway had hoped for would occur in the summer, and Mary thought this an excellent excuse to visit the toymaker’s shop in Milsom Street. “May I accompany you?” Rowland asked. “Or would you prefer your maid to go with you?”

  Mary returned his smile. “Indeed, sir, as you are much stronger than Minson, you will do much better as a package-bearer.” Mary was surprised by the warmth that had returned to Rowland’s attitude toward her. She was still mystified as to the cause of his earlier aloofness, but was glad it had passed.

  The toymaker presented a delightful assortment of cleverly carved toys and beautifully dressed dolls, tiny china tea sets, and bags of shiny marbles. After careful consideration, she chose a small carved bear with jointed legs on a stick. Mary and Rowland laughed together as she made the brightly painted bear dance on the end of his stick.

  That errand completed, Mary and Rowland both seemed undecided whether to turn their steps back to the Crescent
or continue on downhill toward town. “Would you care to stop at Mr. Gill’s for a jelly tart or a basin of vermicelli?” Rowland suggested, as the pastry shop was only two doors down from them.

  Mary considered. “I would like something, but perhaps not vermicelli right now. Are you acquainted with any tearooms?” They were quite near a coffeehouse, but that den of masculine gossip and politics was not a place to which a gentleman could escort a lady.

  “Why, yes. Just on the other side of Abbey Green is Sally Lunn’s House.”

  They proceeded at a leisurely pace, admiring the goods arranged in the various windows to tempt the casual shopper. At a jeweler’s they halted to take a closer look at his merchandise. Jeweled fans, hair ornaments, and gold snuffboxes took their places among the necklaces, brooches, and earrings. But one item caught Mary’s eye. “Oh, Rowly, look at those silver filigree shoe buckles! Have you ever seen finer workmanship? They have been made by a true artist.” The delicate openwork buckles were ornamented with silver-petaled roses in a setting of pink jade. Mary gazed at them for a full minute and then turned away.

  “Let us go on. I am getting hungry,” she said.

  They had taken no more than six steps, however, when the door of the milliner’s shop they were passing flew open, and Sarah dashed out. “Mary, just the person I most wanted to see! You must come in at once. Mama and I are having a most dreadful row over the suitability of this exceedingly charming hat with blue lace bows and lavender ostrich feathers. Do tell her it’s not at all too old for me.”

  Mary was drawn into the shop by her friend, but Rowland asked to be excused, saying he would rejoin them in a moment. Mary looked at the hat in question and then pointed out another hat lavishly trimmed with pink silk roses. “This one is beautiful.”

  Both mother and daughter agreed. “Oh, thank you, Mary. I knew I could rely on you. Look, Mama, the roses just match the embroidery on my new silk petticoat, do they not?” Sarah turned this way and that so all could admire the hat perched atop her coiffure.

  At that moment Rowland returned, and he and Mary resumed their walk. As they neared the Abbey, a small dog ran out into the street in front of them and then sat in the gutter looking forlorn. “Oh, poor creature,” Mary cried. “Do you suppose it’s a spit dog?”

  The back alleys of Bath abounded with scraggly dogs that spent most of their lives running in metal wheels attached to geared machinery turning the spits roasting sides of beef in the huge fireplaces of the kitchens serving Bath’s well-fed patrons. “Indeed, I expect it is.”

  “Can’t we do something for it?”

  “Shall I see if he’ll come to me? We could at least treat him to a meaty bone that he didn’t have to cook himself.” Unconcerned about his coattails, Rowland knelt down on the cobbles and held out his hand. “Here, fella; come on, boy.”

  At the sound of a kind voice, the mutt perked up his ears but didn’t move. “Come on, this lady wants to be your friend.” The dog took a step to the side, but didn’t run off. “Atta boy.” Rowland reached out and scratched the little brown-and-white ears and then scooped the dog into his arms. “What shall we call him?”

  Mary considered for a moment “Spit. What else?”

  Rowland laughed and scratched the dog again. “Spit it is.” Then Mary took the small bundle of matted hair into her arms. “What a horrid practice, putting such sweet animals in wheels!”

  “It is. But it’s much worse making small boys sit by the fire and turn the crank for hours on end.”

  “Is there no alternative?”

  Rowland considered for a moment. “Perhaps a system of weights attached to a wheel, something like a hall clock.”

  “Excellent! If I am ever mistress of a large kitchen, I shall require such a contrivance for the roasting.”

  Spit snuggled comfortably in Mary’s arms and went to sleep. Just a step down off North Parade brought them to the Abbey Green and a small white house with a bow-fronted window. A card in the window proclaimed this to be the Sally Lunn House in a flowing script. A tiny bell tinkled when Rowland held the door open for Mary to enter. A hostess smiled at them, then frowned at the blissfully dreaming Spit.

  “The lady’s particular pet,” Rowland explained, as he removed his tricorn. The hostess showed them to a table in the window. No one would question the right of a lady of quality to take her lapdog with her wherever she chose, even if it was a scruffy specimen.

  Rowland requested the waitress to bring coffee and a Sally Lunn apiece. A moment later, Mary gasped at the size of the bun placed before her. “That’s not a bun—it’s an entire loaf!”

  “Don’t worry,” her companion assured her. “It’s all cloud.” One bite proved it to be the lightest bread one could imagine. They began making jokes about the difficulty of baking buns that insisted on rising and floating about the oven.

  It seemed to Mary that she had never known time to pass so swiftly or so pleasantly. But then the happy haze dissolved as reality intruded. “So now that the portraits are finished, you’ll be leaving Bath?” Rowland asked.

  Mary nodded, not willing to admit how little she looked forward to the departure—especially now that Rowland had come.

  “Has it been a profitable time for you, Mary?”

  Not for the world would she admit that the revels she so longed for had been the least bit of a letdown. “It has been exceedingly diverting,” she said with forced enthusiasm.

  Rowland regarded her levelly. “Mary, you needn’t pretend with me. I don’t know what’s wrong. But I do know something has happened to put you in a pother, which you are trying very hard to bottle up.”

  “Oh, dear. Is it so obvious?”

  “To me, yes, though I doubt anyone else would have noticed. I wish you would tell me what has destroyed your tranquility.” He paused. “But if you don’t choose to, I won’t press you.”

  She stroked the soft head of Spit curled drowsily in her lap. “I have become a bit wearied with all the gaiety. Sarah says I need a rest, and I expect she’s right. But the thought of returning home to an endless round of neighborhood calls and needlework—” she gave a small shudder, “is not invigorating.”

  His long solemn look made her catch her breath. It was as if his eyes spoke words his mouth would not—words he was not ready to say nor she to hear. If the moment had held and gone no further, it would have been perfect. But Rowland had a way of looking beyond her mind and heart to her very soul. And when his gaze seemed to touch a sore spot, her defenses came up.

  “And have you no deeper need than being delivered from needlework that you wish to speak of, Mary? I am your friend. I would do anything in my power to help you.”

  “La, and what ‘deeper need’ could that be, sir?” She unfolded her fan and fluttered it at him. “Unless you propose taking up embroidery yourself, that is.”

  “I was thinking of spiritual matters, Mary.” His voice was so soft that for an instant she thought she had imagined the words.

  Then her temper flared. Was he accusing her of being an infidel? “Pray, and do you imagine yourself a Romany priest that I should confess to you? I was baptized as an infant and have attended church all my life. My soul is quite the property of myself and the church—not of an enthusiastic divinity student, I thank you, sir.” She snapped her fan shut.

  “No, Mary. One’s soul is not the property of any person or institution—even of the church. It belongs to God, just as one’s commitment must be to God. The church’s rituals are merely formality and will lead to death of the soul if relied upon for salvation.”

  “La, tell that to the mobs you preach to in the fields, sir. Sally Lunn’s House is not the place for your irregular preaching. When I want advice for my soul, I shall ask a bishop, not your female pope.”

  Rowland’s smile only fed her anger. “Ah, yes, the countess is often called Her Holiness behind her back; but for all her dogmatic ways you’d do better to listen to her than to your Bishop of Raphoe.”

  “Ro
wland! How dare you abuse a bishop? Have your Methodistical manners made you lost to all sense of propriety? The bishop is a fine gentleman of elegance and learning and fashion and—”

  “And refinement,” Rowland finished for her. “May I never be the retailer of a whipt-syllabub divinity. Better to keep a cookshop to satisfy the craving appetite than a confectioner’s shop to regain the depraved appetite of the dainty. Good brown-bread preaching is best after all.”

  “A whipt-syllabub religion! Sir, is that what you would call the established church? Why, I—”

  In her agitation she leaned forward and knocked Spit’s head against the table, causing him to give a sharp yap, which rang through the small room.

  Mary instantly leaned back in her chair and took refuge behind her fan until the murmur of voices in the room resumed. But the moment was all that was needed to cool the argument.

  “Mary, I am to leave day after tomorrow. Tomorrow, if your mother permits, will you accompany me to Wotton-under-edge? I am to preach there, and you may see and judge for yourself that which you argue against.”

  Mary agreed to the plan, and Mrs. Tudway gave her permission for the excursion, although Mary declined to mention the preaching, so the next day Rowland and Mary drove northward out of Bath almost to the border of Wales. As it was to be a long drive, they left early and made such good time that they arrived ahead of the appointed hour for the service. Rowland drove on through the town and turned toward the Severn River. “Let me show you what I believe to be the most paradisiacal spot I have ever seen. I would that someday I might live here—or that Heaven might be like this.”

  He stopped the carriage opposite a hillside that formed a perfect amphitheater—three sides clothed with a wood, the other side open to a richly fertile dale. Rowland offered his hand, and they walked to the top of the hill. Mary caught her breath at the landscape before her. As she turned slowly in all directions, the panorama changed from the Welsh mountains, the Malvern Hills, the rich vale of Berkley, to the broad course of the silvery and majestic Severn. And in the foreground, grassy knolls and hanging woods blended in a scene of unspeakably lovely harmony. Before them a rocky path wound through a sloping wood of beech. They followed it to an orchard where branches of bursting buds promised frostings of pink and white flowers, to be followed in due course by succulent fruit.