Where Love Shines (19 page)

When the cabby pulled up at Portland Place, Betsy jumped out and hurried around to the servants’ door. Arthur took Jennifer up the walk and paused on the porch. “I shall not come in tonight. I would not wish to impose on your mother at such a late hour. But I must assure you that I have not abandoned that which is closest to my heart. When I return from Sheffield, we shall speak further. I must explain everything to you.” He raised her hand to his lips.

Friday was cold and dismal. Black clouds hung low in the sky, seemingly coming down to meet the dark fog that curled up from the river. Jennifer was glad for the warmth of her new flounced green plush dress trimmed with fringe and its matching mantle. She ran her fingertips over the deep, soft velour and smiled. That would feel good to a man who couldn’t see the richness of this particular shade of green. And she dabbed an additional drop of rosewater behind her ears. If Richard couldn’t see the carefully arranged curls, she would give him something else to enjoy.

Each pair of the four massive Corinthian columns fronting Exeter Hall in the Strand bore large notice boards announcing the performance. The great lamp hanging from the center of the porch over the front door cast a golden pool in the fog, but it barely lit the way for those exiting from cabs and carriages. The Nevilles’ carriage arrived just behind the Earl of Shaftesbury’s and Lady Eccleson’s, so the entire party entered the great upper hall together. Shaftesbury’s wife, the countess, had not come to the concert due to their son’s illness. Consequently the earl escorted Lady Eccleson, with Mr. and Mrs. Neville following close behind them. Jennifer turned gladly to take Richard’s arm.

Upstairs, the tall windows that lined both sides of the Great Hall were dark, but the long chandeliers hanging from the vaulted ceiling glowed warmly. Jennifer tightened her grip on Dick’s arm, fearing the brightness for him, but he did not slacken his pace.

The hall, which seated 3,000, was filled nearly to capacity for this great oratorio by Queen Victoria’s favorite composer. The choir tonight was only slightly smaller than the 270 voices of the original production. A hum of expectancy filled the air as the orchestra tuned up.

Richard was unusually quiet, even for him, only nodding to Jennifer’s small talk. Then he turned to her and said, “Jennifer, there is a matter on which I would speak to you. Perhaps at the interval.”

“Yes, fine.” She answered automatically, giving it little thought. Her mind was not on the event. She was still thinking about the question that was plaguing her again. What was she to do about Arthur? She was no longer sure about accepting his proposal. But what else was there? Now there was no war to run off to. There wasn’t even the school to teach in. What was she to do with herself?

From the opening chords of the oratorio, however, when the prophet Elijah dramatically called down punishment on the people for deserting the true God, Jennifer forgot her own problems, Richard’s request, and everything around her. She became absorbed in the gripping portrayal of God’s dealings with a nation that had forgotten Him.

Then, as Elijah fought the wickedness around him, Jennifer found herself thinking, not of the superb performance nor of the nation of Israel of which they were singing, but of her own nation; not of Old Testament times, but of today. Wasn’t the wickedness the same? The need of the people the same? Wasn’t God the same?

“Baal, we cry to thee,” the priests sang over and over. And Elijah replied, “O hear me, Lord, and answer me!… and shew this people that Thou art the Lord God, and let their hearts again be turned!”

Jennifer wondered if the hearts of those of her own nation who worshiped the Baal of money and industrial progress could be turned.

“Woe unto them who forsake Him! Destruction shall fall upon them.”

The Crimea, the London slums, the children abused in mills and factories—destruction
had
come upon them. Why was everyone too blind to see it?

“Open the heavens and send us relief! Hear from heav’n, and forgive the sin.”

Then, at length, the Lord heard and sent rain upon the land. Jennifer’s cheeks were wet as the hall rang with the cry, “Thanks be to God! He laveth the thirsty land. Thanks be to God, thanks be to God!”

Applause thundered around her at the interval, but Jennifer couldn’t move. She sat there with her eyes closed, her heart aching for God’s rains to pour down upon her own thirsty land.

The gas lights brightened overhead, and the audience began moving. But Jennifer remained motionless. Only her eyes shifted as she looked at the earl sitting to her right.

The dark eyes in the long, bony face smiled at her. Without a word he handed her a clean white linen handkerchief. She blotted her damp cheeks and handed it back to him with a smile of gratitude. She began almost in the middle of a sentence, as if Shaftesbury had been privy to all her thoughts. “The land is so dry, so thirsty: poverty, greed, disease, ignorance. Is there even a cloud the size of a man’s hand?”

The earl nodded gravely. “I know, my dear. I often ask myself that, and in my discouragement, I often answer that this time we’ve gone too far. This time there will be no restoration of the land. And then I see a small cloud—smaller than a man’s hand, perhaps, but an encouragement. As example, some time ago when I attended chapel at my old school, Harrow, 120 boys took Communion. I was amazed. When I was a student there, not a single boy would even have dreamed of attending Holy Communion. I believe this foreshadows a great change coming over England.”

Jenny nodded, hoping he would go on in his gentle, yet compelling voice. He did. “And though there is much, overwhelmingly much, to do, we must not lose sight of what God has enabled us to accomplish. Think of the coal mines. Ten years ago I saw girls, almost naked, chained to heavy carts drawing coal up dark, narrow passages underground; children of five years or younger incarcerated without light to work trap doors in rat-infested tunnels; children standing all day ankle-deep in water at the pumps—all this for twelve or fourteen hours a day, six days a week. It required years of struggle, but at last Parliament was made to see the right. Women and children have been freed from such slavery in the coal mines.” He paused, then added with great sadness in his voice, “But, of course, it is only a beginning—so much remains undone.”

Jenny looked at him hopefully. “So you truly believe that if we work hard enough, we shall win?”

Shaftesbury looked shocked. “Miss Neville, of course not.”

“Then why—”

“We must do what we can. It is the call of every Christian, but we will never win by human effort.”

Jennifer sank back against her seat. “That is what I feared.” She had come tonight hoping to find an answer to all that troubled her. The oratorio had seemed such a promise of hope. The earl’s words had been so encouraging, but here was the bare-faced reality of it:
We will never win.

Shaftesbury wasn’t finished, however. “Winning is not our job. We are merely chopping wood and stacking brush—as Elijah did on his altar. That is all that is humanly possible. It is for God Himself to strike fire to the brushwood we pile up. Elijah did not strike the fire that consumed his offering. This is a dry and thirsty land. We are spiritually parched. The land must have spiritual revival.”

Jenny frowned. “But there are churches everywhere. All Souls is packed every Sunday…”

“Indeed, Charles Baring is one of the finest preachers in all the land—and there are many like him. Their pile of brushwood will soon be as high as the spires of their churches. But they cannot strike the light themselves. We must pray God to send the torchbearers. England needs an Elijah.”

Jenny blinked. “Torchbearers?”

“Think, Miss Neville. How long has it been since this country has seen true revival?”

Jenny shook her head. She had no idea.

“You are right. Certainly not in your memory. Nor in mine. And yet it is for every generation to pass the torch, to light the fires against evil. But where are our torchbearers—our Wesleys, our Whitefields, our Rowland Hills? We have many good, even excellent preachers. But that is not enough. We must pray that the Lord will send a great one—an Elijah, a torchbearer that will turn thousands of hearts to Him.”

The words were inspiring and discouraging at the same time. “And all we can do is pray?”

The earl nodded. “That is as the Scripture says, ‘to pray the Lord of the harvest that He will send workers.’ Pray, and keep stacking your brushwood, Miss Neville, so that when the torchbearer comes, he may light a great bonfire.”

The chorus reentered, the 125-member orchestra took its place, and Jennifer turned from the intensity of her conversation with a start of guilt. Richard. He had said he wished to speak to her, and she had abandoned him. “Richard, I’m sorry,” she began. His mouth was set in a firm line as if resisting pain; the scars beneath the blond waves drew tight across his forehead. In the darkness of the room she touched his arm as the chorus sang. He did not pull away, but neither did he respond.

Throughout the second part of the oratorio, Jenny wrestled with her divided attention: the beauty and power of the music, her ache to reach out to Richard, her struggle to understand all Shaftesbury had said to her. Now she was more confused than ever.

“He, watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps…” Was God watching over England? Was He watching over her?

The chorus sang, “O come, everyone that thirsteth.” Jenny felt as thirsty as the drought-ridden land. All her hard work had accomplished so little, and now the mission wasn’t even there for her to continue her work. She had failed Richard in so small a matter as providing companionship for the evening. And Shaftesbury had confirmed her fears as to how little human effort could accomplish—even though he saw reason to labor on. She simply hadn’t the stamina to struggle more. Susannah Thompson was right. She must marry Arthur and do as society expected of her. But with that thought, it was as if a great black abyss opened in front of her, threatening to engulf her. She felt as much in darkness as Richard sitting isolated behind his dark glasses.

Finally the ending chorus rang through the room: “And then, then shall your light break forth as the light of morning breaketh… and the glory of the Lord ever shall reward you… Lord, our Creator, how excellent Thy name is in all the nations.”

Light break forth as the light of morning… light break forth… light…
The phrase rang and reverberated in Jenny’s mind as the walls echoed and reechoed the great chorus. She turned and looked at Richard.

And it was as if the light broke through her darkness and shone on her heart. The answer had been there all along. It was so simple. So obvious. She loved Richard.

The moment stood still as if the world had quit spinning. She couldn’t breathe. The light the chorus sang about was so bright she thought all in the room must be blinded. But she wasn’t blinded. At last she could see. All her other questions remained unanswered, but this one thing she knew—she loved Richard Greyston.

“Thou fillest heaven with glory. Amen.”

While the applause thundered around her, Jennifer turned to Richard. Surely he knew. Surely everyone in the great hall knew. A lightning bolt had passed through the building, but she was the only one who had seen it. Dick rose with the others, nodded in her direction, and with his fingertips brushing the tops of the row of seats in front of theirs, made his way out.

The crowd pressed from every side. Jennifer caught Richard’s arm, but there was no chance to talk, and he seemed more distant than at any time since she had managed to broach his wall on first coming to London. She understood her true feelings for him, but she had failed him.

Outside the hall he turned to her as the Neville carriage pulled up. “Miss Neville, I had hoped to speak to you at more length. I have determined to go north. I must make what effort I can to convince Father and George that conditions in our pottery must be reformed. I have spoken with Arthur Merriott. He is certain he can help me. I shall travel with him.”

“With Arthur? But he is leaving in the morning. You will leave so soon? Before we can talk?”

“I am disappointed on that matter, but perhaps it is for the best.”

“Jennifer, dear, are you coming? We mustn’t hold up the carriages.” Amelia Neville’s voice cut through the fog in Jennifer’s mind. Jenny felt as if she were drowning in fog, unable to reach Richard with the shining revelation she had experienced. He handed her into the carriage and closed the door.

J
ennifer was in no way prepared for the desolation she felt when Richard was gone. She had expected to miss her friend—this friend that she could only wish were so much more—but she had not realized that a city the size of London could seem barren with the absenting of just one person.

She passed compliantly through all the required Christmas festivities, a smile fixed on her face, her person appearing well-groomed and graceful. But her heart and mind were focused northward to the Midlands where England’s pottery furnaces belched out clouds of black smoke as the kilns produced the world’s finest white porcelain.

Daily Jenny insisted to herself that such a state of affairs was intolerable. She could not go on being such an imbecile as to think constantly of one who did not think of her. And she had no intention of becoming a pale, poetic maiden pining away for a lost love. She busied herself with parish visits—a festive activity, indeed, with many holiday food baskets distributed to the poor. Her greatest pleasure was the Christmas party for the shoeblacks at the Brigade Home, although she missed Josh’s shining white head and cheeky pertness—another piece of her heart that had gone northward.

But now the holidays were over, and the most distracting task she could find was sorting linens. So it was that, holding three sheets marked for mending, she smiled with eager anticipation when Hinson entered to announce a visitor. The name on the small ivory calling card the butler presented on his silver platter read, “Miss Susannah Thompson.”

“Oh, by all means, show her in,” Jenny instructed.