Manner of Devotion

by DJ Clawson

"Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion."

Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Author's Note: My policy: Update twice a week or when a chapter reaches 5-10 comments, whichever comes first. Sorry for the delay this time. I was away from my computer.

Warning: Accents ahead.

Chapter 29 – Sacred Sacraments

There didn't seem to be enough hours in the day. He had prayer, Mass, Caitlin, and chores around the house to get it into some semblance of shape. She was consuming food at the normal rate of a woman in her condition, entering her forth month, so it was not a surprise that he was at the market almost every day. She was initially not a good cook, but she was a fast learner, and Grégoire was a happy teacher.

"Why do yeh go ta Mass every day?" she asked one day, shortly after they had returned and he was trying to properly spice the potatoes before they went in the stove. "Is it so jaysus 'ill fergive yer sins?

"Every man is a sinner," he said, "but no, that's not why I go. I go because it's a sacrament."

"Dat's somethin' the priest used ta say."

It didn't mean, of course, that she understood it. He turned to her, wiping the last of the salt from his hands over the pot. "Through performing the sacraments and leading good lives we thank the Good L-rd for all that we have been given. Even when it's not much, even when it is so terrible we can hardly bare it – it's the only life we have."

"Yer 'onestly believe dat?"

"Have I ever said anything I do not believe?"

He put a cover over the pot, which could sit for a bit. "Let me take you somewhere."

She was all obliging as he led her into the forest, to the little ruin where he had stayed the night. It was much easier to see inside now with full daylight instead of rain. Some dirt obscured the mosaic, and he wiped it clean again. "When I was lost, I found this."

"'s St. Patrick," she said. "I seen it before. In other churches."

"I thought it might be. You see where he's pointing?" He gestured. "In the direction of your house. I didn't know which way to turn, so I followed him to you."

Caitlin giggled, and then realizing he was serious, leaned into him. He kissed her. "I don't know what I would have done without him."

The time seemed to be passing without his notice. He went to Tullow to check his mail, only to find a response from his brother, saying he would be looking into the business of the missing soldier on his response.

The summer heat was beginning to set in and he was sweating by the time he returned to the house. Dropping off the packages on the porch, he removed the soap from them and headed off to the stream bar behind the house. The cow mooed at him as he passed; she was doing much better now that she was regularly feed.

Only in the privacy afforded by the forest and the bushes around the stream that he removed his outer tunic, and then his undershirt, which he proceeded to wash carefully in the tiny flow of water. Afterwards he hung it in the sun to dry and sat by the stream, removing his sandals and letting the water cool his aching feet.

"Didja get de feed?"

He scrambled to his feet, which involved a lot of splashing, to reach for his tunic. "Caitlin, please don't – "

She was standing in the sun, a wrap covering her hair. "I've seen de rest of yeh, ye know."

He held his tunic up over his bare chest. "I know – but this is quite different."

"Well, now it's out, ye might as'well not be hidin' in shame."

He blushed. "It is not – " but he couldn't contradict her. It was shame. "I'm sorry."

She held out her hand, and he sighed and put the wool tunic in it. They sat down together on the grass, waiting for his shirt to dry. He had not seen his back in a long while – not since once in the mirror at Pemberley some months ago – but there were scars that would remain, and times when it was still tender and easily made raw.

"Does it 'urt?"

"Sometimes."

Caitlin removed her headscarf, which was little more than a random piece of yellow cloth anyway, and dipped it into the stream. She took the soaked cloth and gently applied it to his shoulder blade. Beyond the initial contact with cold, he stopped flinching and his body relaxed.

"Does it fale better nigh?"

"Oh G-d, yes," he said. "I've never – I never had anyone else to do this for me. I mean, doctors did it, but it wasn't quite the same." He played with his rosary as she applied the compress to his back. The feeling was heavenly. "M-Most of it I did to myself. The white strikes are from where they sewed me up the last time. I was being punished for disobeying the Rule – the monastic rule book – and my flesh was too weak. It just broke. There was so little left after infection that the doctors had to take skin from my arm. That part I don't remember at all. There are some things in between – I remember the abbot telling me he had to excommunicate me. I remember talking to the Archbishop of Oviedo. I remember sitting on the coast." He shook his head. "It is all a mess. I dreamt I was being hammered on an anvil, and it was the saints, taking turns with the - " he broke off. He couldn't continue. He had many dreams as he lay in fever, but he remembered only a few, and all of them haunted him.

"Some tings – 'tis just best ta forget," she said. He had a mental flash of what Mrs. O'Muldoon had told him about Caitlin when she came to the area, all broken and bruised, not to mention pregnant. Meanwhile, the actual Caitlin put down her cloth and took up by his side, kissing him. "Yer not so terrible ta look at. Not loike yer missing an eye or somet'ing." She smiled. "In fact, I kinda loike yeh."

"That is rather comforting to know, as I like you as well," he said, returning the kiss.

His shirt was dried by the time they stepped back into the sunlight. Grégoire's mind was in a pleasant haze as he dressed himself and they returned to the house proper. While Caitlin sorted the packages and prepared lunch, Grégoire reread the letters from his family, which included one from Georgiana, eager to know if he would return home in time for Robert's first birthday. Had that much time really passed?

"'sat from yer brad'er?"

"Sister," he said. "Her name is Georgiana. She her first son is was born last spring."

"Yer never blather aboyt yer family," she said as she put his soup in front of him.

"You never talk about yours."

"I 'ad a brad'er, little Connor, but 'e died of de fever a few years ago. And me ma and pa, but dat's it. Nothin' exciting. Just a little farm. Not loike a great English house."

"I didn't grow up in England," he said. "I was born and raised in Mon-Claire, which is a wasteland at the top of a mountain in France. She went into exile after being fired from her job. I never would have known about my father if he hadn't come before he died to meet me. I was ten, I believe."

"Why did 'e coom?"

"He was trying to make amends for the things he had done in his life. My mother was his wife's personal maid. She was pregnant with Georgiana when I was conceived. When Lady Anne found out, she fired her on the spot, and never forgave my father. She died after childbirth, and her last words were to curse my father."

"And your brad'er?"

"He's over ten years older than me. He inherited everything and found out about me through some odd banking reports about an account in France. This was nine or so years ago. It came as quite a shock to him."

"But he didn't toss you off?"

He shook his head. "He embraced me like I was his real brother. He did everything he could do for me – everything that I let him. He would have let me use the Darcy name if I could, legally."

"'s not a noble, is he?"

"His mother was. And our sister married an earl." He saw her look down shamefully at her plate. "It hardly matters to me. I have no rights to anything under English law, out of wedlock. Father was just being polite when he left me an inheritance."

"'An inheritance,'" she said, as if the notion itself was absurd. "Can I ask yeh a question?"

He smiled. "Of course." The soup was a little heavy on the ginger. She was not familiar with so many roots and spices to work with, but there were more successes than failures.

"What are rich people loike?"

He just broke into laughter at the question. She hadn't meant it seriously – there was no way she could of. That didn't mean he was exempt from providing an answer, so he took a piece of potato floating in the soup and put it in his mouth, chewing on it to give himself time to mull over the question. "Do you wish to know a secret?"

She squealed. "Aye!"

"They are terribly, terribly bored."

Neither of them could hold back their laughter at that. He was glad he had swallowed his food properly, else he was not likely to hold it in. "They have their servants do every menial task, so much to the point that they do not have to dress themselves, and are left with nothing to do. So they read books and go on walks and then sit down for a long dinner where they discuss reading books and going on walks. And then write people about it, because writing takes time."

"Yer joking!"

"I was once privy to a discussion of how they were planning on replanting the garden to it might look more in fashion with something someone had read in a magazine. I nearly fell asleep, G-d help me! I mean, there is intelligent conversation, but still - " He shook his head, still smiling at Caitlin's bemusement. Whatever made her happy made him happy.

"One day ye'll read me a letter."

"One day you'll read it yourself," he said. "But it will still be boring."

Time and time again she resisted his attempts to each her to read, mainly because of her own prejudices against her intellect, and it seemed like such a wasteful thing to do with her time. The undertone was obvious when he considered it: she did not know where her life was going beyond the birth of the child, if she lived at all. They seemed to be neck-and-neck in terms of their esteem of themselves. Perhaps it was why it was so easy to relate to her, this other lost soul.

The days and nights fell into an easy pattern. He went to church without her. She had her own reasons, both societal and personal, not to show her face in the house of G-d, especially beside a man that was not her husband while carrying a child that was not his or a husband's. "Pray fer me," she said, and kissed him good-bye every Sunday.

Maybe she noticed all of the little improvements around the house and kept track of them and what they might have cost, or maybe she didn't. He never fully revealed his wealth (she would have found the number imaginary), but he found ways to slip things into her life on some pretense or another. They needed a new leg for the table, so he found one. They needed new sheets for the bed, so he bought them. Expensive items like soap and sugar and even chocolate found their way onto the shelves. After a bad rain he had Mr. O'Muldoon come over to help him repair the roof.

"The misses is just goin' ta ask me, so I might as well – are you t'inkin' a marryin' her, or are you not the type?"

"Marry your wife? That would present some difficulties."

The man laughed so hard he nearly fell off the roof, but insisted on an answer to the question.

"I don't know," Grégoire said. "I have no experience in this area."

"Who has experience in marryin' someone before dey get married?"

He could not fault his logic there. "I suppose you're right. I just never imagined I would be considering this question."

But he was. He would be lying to himself if he thought otherwise, and his confessor (who could only be the only priest in the church) kept reminding of it. If Caitlin was not married in four months, her child would be a bastard. While Grégoire could not in all honestly bring himself to speak ill of children out of wedlock (being one himself), he could not imagine what Caitlin would do. Mr. Darcy had given his mother money to go back to France – enough money for her and him to live on for years in Mon-Claire.

However, marriage was more than charity. It was a holy sacrament, not to be done lightly, or at least in the ideal sense of the word, even though it often was done lightly or for any number of convenient purposes. Darcy, who had even more reason to marry and produce an heir to Pemberley, had avoided it until he was eight and twenty – but then again Darcy was not a social animal and mistrusted everyone while Grégoire heedlessly tried to see only the good in people, often to his disadvantage. He tried to see Caitlin in shades – she was scared, she was tough, she could be moody, she had little tolerance for stupidity (in terms of customs, not learning, of which she had basically nothing). She was not demure and soft (even though her skin was). She was not a church-going woman, but she had faith in her, even if it had no means of expression. He could not have a deep theological discussion on the influence of the Council of Trent on doctrine, but he could talk to her of G-d and she would listen. Not that he sought to engage her to alter her character as much as his own need to express his feelings to someone, and she was always a willing listener, and often would see the obvious where he would not. He told her of the places he visited, the things he had seen, the things in the world he could not understand and could not be explained in books. It was not a structured debate over a dinner table or in a parlor room as it was a bedside confession and an earnest response, however base it was.

"What do you think of Predestination?" he said, and explained the concept to her on a whim.

"Why worry 'bout a silly thing like dat?" she said. "Either tis true or tis'n't, but I'm not goin' go around wonderin' if people I meet are destined for heaven or hell or just goin' there because of someting dey did. Tis downright rude of me."

He laughed and tightened his hold around her. It was getting harder for them to lie so close together, at least at the torso, and he put a hand over her swelling stomach and kissed it.

"I luk loike I ate somethin' wrong."

"You look beautiful. Also, you look pregnant, which should not come as a surprise to you." It was his business to make her laugh. Otherwise, she was often increasingly anxious about her condition. They didn't speak of his staying on, or their relationship – that subject remained too uncomfortable, as neither of them had the answer. She didn't ask him to stay, but he didn't leave of his own volition, and for the time, they were both happy with that.

One late early summer day Grégoire walked to Tullow to find not only a letter from Scotland but one from Darcy, which while not uncommon, was longer than his brother usually wrote his missives.

Dear Grégoire,

My steward has located James MacGowan. He is alive but in debtor's prison outside London. I do not know the specifics in entirety, but in a particular engagement with the French he had a fight with his superior and made a movement that many interpreted as running from battle, a punishable offense. He was fined, and his pay after Waterloo was smaller than he had assumed, so he borrowed loans to pay it and found himself in debt overnight. He is there now, in whatever conditions they have there. His debts are to the sum of some 600 pounds; they may have been other loses from gambling or drinking while he was afield. Many people from his regiment are also housed there, as I am to understand.

I await your decision as to how to resolve this.

Your Brother,

Darcy

He purchased paper on the spot and penned a response in the post office, and sent it express.

Dear Brother,

Please see to it that the six hundred pounds is removed from my account to pay his debt, and any others he may have incurred. Also purchase him a ticket to Dublin, and some money for travel to Drogheda, to be given on the condition that he is to return to his parents immediately, as they are quite desperate to say him. You do not have to mention my name at any point in these proceedings.

Your grateful brother,

Grégoire

PS I apologize for the brevity of this letter. A longer one will follow about far less pressing matters.

If he was face-to-face with his brother, Darcy would probably say something against it even though it was a small amount for both of them, but then Grégoire would just remind him that Elizabeth had once told him how he paid their brother off (not knowing the brotherly connection) with ten thousand pounds just to save a girl's reputation.

Grégoire was apparently still smiling as he returned to the house, because Caitlin immediately grilled him on his grin. "My brother. Pound-wise, penny-foolish."

The next morning he forced his sister's letter upon her as they laid together in bed, "so – so ha – "

"He."

"So he seen – "

"So he can."

She shoved the letter in his face. "Jist read it."

He collected his sister's letter, and kissed Caitlin on the cheek. "You did very well."

"Rubbish!"

"I am most serious. I always am. Except when I'm not." He squinted, as he was without his spectacles and was not eager to remove himself from his particular position to retrieve them.

Dear Brother,

It is so strange that I miss you most terribly even though you are only a short distance away in comparison to Spain! I accept your apologies that you will not be attending Robert's first birthday. We do not need to hold him up so he can stand now; he does it on his own! Only with much falling over, so that I worry horribly for him, but William only laughs and the housekeeper tells us all children are the same way, covered in bruises as they find their footing. I can't imagine our brother or Elizabeth allowing their children to run about at such a young age, but I will hardly contradict my husband or the nurse.

Brother may come up and bring Geoffrey, but Elizabeth is reluctant to be so far north with her mother unwell, even though her condition has not changed. We have not had many English guests, but the Maddoxes and Mr. Mugen came up as they were traveling the country a bit. Mr. Mugen is set to leave in the late summer, and he has never been to the Scotland, and I am told the Japanese are great lovers of traveling, much like you I suppose!

Mrs. Wallace from the next estate has been over often to advise me on my garden, which I am afraid has been in neglect since my confinement, and she says that perhaps –

"It goes on about this for a while."

"Yer sisters sounds sweet," she said, "but spare me, please."

He closed the letter and put it on the new nightstand.

"What have yeh been tellin' 'em?" Because obviously, he had not been telling them the truth.

"This and that. That I am happy here, near the shrine of Saint Patrick, and am contemplating my future. All of which is true." He gave her a reassuring smile. "The English talk about many things in their letters, but not the things that are most personal. Only if the circumstances are dire."

"So is dat why yeh always take forever ta get ta de point?"

He laughed and kissed her.

... Next Chapter - Intruder