The Engagement (continued)
Williams agreed to officiate at our wedding. Nobody bore anyone any hard feelings in that relationship.
Cross-Examination
“In fact,” Mr. Shorter interrupted, “Mr. B forgave Williams’s bond of money.”
Judge Hardcastle made a note.
Gary snorted. “He should have apologized to the man.”
Mr. B’s response was mild. “Williams was good-hearted but imprudent.”
Mr. Shorter said, “Pamela’s account records Mr. B’s many gracious acts to Williams and later to her parents.”
“Oh, sure,” Gary said. “That makes everything okay.”
“Well, yes,” Mr. Shorter said.
“He was putting on an act.”
“An act with results,” Lonquist pointed out. “Williams did eventually get the living he wanted with a generous income.”
“A show. Mr. B hadn’t really, uh, repented.”
Mr. B said, “But I could only demonstrate my repentance by a show. How else would anyone, especially Pamela, know that I’d changed?”
Lonquist said, “You weren’t supposed to do things, Mr. B. You were supposed to declaim, My patriarchal ideology was clearly the error upon which hegemonic and unequal subservience was created in my household.”
Mr. Shorter said, “Huh?” and the judge wished he could. He got rather tired of academics using English to do everything but communicate.
Mr. B, however, shrugged. “I’m not sorry for being male or for being the head of my household. Saying ridiculous things won’t change that.”
“I thought you valued language.” Gary was red-faced.
“I value communication,” Mr. B said, unconsciously echoing the judge’s reaction.
“Even if it conflicts with your behavior? You must admit, you are hardly a good man.”
“By the standards of his world, he is,” Leslie Quinn said, looking up from her laptop. “He takes care of his land and servants. He serves his government as required. He doesn’t smuggle, set things on fire, steal, or kill—not on English soil anyway. He pays for everything he uses. And he doesn’t interfere with his neighbors.”
“That’s hardly a morality—” Gary began.
“If more people practiced it, this world would be a better place,” the judge said tartly.
Deborah said, “Yeah, like it would be nice if people would stop interfering with this story.”
The judge agreed, so Mr. B was allowed to continue.
The Engagement (continued)
The next few days of our engagement went smoothly. The Darnfords did not snub Pamela nor did the Peters. I am the wealthiest of the landowners in that area of Lincolnshire. Power has its privileges. It was obvious that with me as her husband, Pamela would have no problems “fitting in.”
Pamela’s father showed up the same day the Darnfords dropped by to meet Pamela officially. Mrs. Jewkes told me an old man wanted to see me in the parlor. And there was Mr. Andrews, looking surprisingly presentable with a shaved chin and clean shirt despite his copious tears.
“I must have my child,” he cried with Pamela-like fervor.
I went forward, took his hand, and got him to sit. “She has written you that she is happy. I am her prisoner now and about to put on the most agreeable fetters a man ever wore.”
“Is she virtuous?” he said and tears aside, if I’d answered no, I doubt I would be here telling this tale.
“Yes,” I said, giving him a direct look.
As you might imagine, reunion between father and daughter was suitably touching. I confess, I arranged for it to take place before my neighbors. They liked Pamela already, but I wanted to ensure her entry amongst them as well as her reputation. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, in our world, a woman’s wholesome reputation can smooth her path to a respectable and stable future, while a damaged reputation can block that path for a lifetime. I would become the villain of our story to ensure Pamela’s role as heroine.
In retrospect, it is possible I sold my part too well.
When Pamela saw her father, she rushed to him, overturning a table. “Daddy,” she cried, then sagged. The ladies got her water while her father picked her up. I decided I’d given the Andrews family as much dramatic license as it could bear and escorted Pamela and her father to the back parlor.
In the long parlor, the ladies dabbed their eyes and even Sir Simon blew his nose. I smiled to myself. There’s nothing like a reunion to overwhelm people’s sensibilities.
The Andrews family was much calmer when I went to check on them. They sat in the window seat overlooking the terraced garden, heads close together, and I felt a sudden pang for the parent I had lost not so long ago.
“Make this your home,” I told the old man. “The longer you stay, the more welcome you’ll be.”
“You see what goodness there is in my once naughty master,” Pamela said as I was leaving, and I winked at her.
Pamela and her father joined us later while the guests were at cards. Her father had brought her first packet of letters, and she handed them over to me with a pretty bow. I read them after the party broke up, and Pamela and her father had gone to their beds.
It was not pleasant reading. These were the letters Pamela wrote immediately after arriving in Lincolnshire. She had turned down Williams’s marriage proposal but was uncertain whether she’d made the right decision, especially since her parents were not averse to the match.
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| Dutch garden: rectangle garden space |
| often enclosed by hedges, using |
| symmetrical designs. |
“I had no notion of being anybody’s.”
“It would have been inevitable, and your father was for it.”
“I little thought of the honor you would bring her,” Mr. Andrews said. “When I discovered she didn’t want to marry the man, I didn’t urge her.”
“Yes, yes,” I said shortly. “Everyone was sincere, honest, and open.”
They gazed at me, and I realized—with some annoyance—that they were being sincere, honest, and open. I sighed.
“She is a blameless daughter and a witty writer,” I said and took Pamela’s hand. “Williams has agreed to officiate at the wedding. I will order my little chapel cleared.”
Cross-Examination
“To satisfy Pamela’s ineffectual religious feelings, I suppose,” Gary said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Dr. Matchel looked uncomfortable at Gary’s tone, but she gamely added, “She could hardly care so much for religion if she agreed to marry a man who rarely went to church.”
Mr. B’s voice was harsh. “My wife’s religious beliefs are sincerely held. She has never clung uselessly to anything except, possibly, my good self.” He began to rise, but Mr. Shorter pressed his shoulder. “Does this court encourage the denigration of a woman’s soul and values?”
The courtroom was breathless. Mr. Hatch glared at his compatriots. Deborah shook her head. Lonquist smiled faintly. Leslie Quinn made a note.
Judge Hardcastle said, “Excellent point, Mr. B. We will continue without attacking anyone’s religious beliefs, people.”
“We weren’t—” Dr. Matchel said, but the judge waved an impatient hand, and she sucked in her lips, looking put-out.
The judge said affably to Mr. B, “Did Pamela’s father stay for the wedding?”
Mr. B wiggled his shoulders loose and took a breath. “I didn’t get the license until after he left. We married the next week.”
Dr. Matchel said stiffly, “If I might interject—it is a fact that Pamela didn’t want to get married so quickly.”
The judge glanced at Mr. B who nodded reluctantly and ran a hand across his face. “I may have urged Pamela to marry me before she was ready. But my sister was already causing problems in Bedfordshire. I was afraid she might cause problems in Lincolnshire.”
“She couldn’t stop the marriage, could she?”
“She could have made things difficult. The Davers’ name has some sway; my neighbors may have withdrawn their support. Barbara bullied her husband into writing me a scolding letter three days before the wedding.”
