„Indeed not,” Kate agreed.
„Of course I didn’t tell him I knew his reputation. There was no call to embarrass the fellow.”
„Quite right,” Kate said and squeezed her lover’s arm. Luis appeared behind them, driving a small dusty gig that had been stored in the Quinta’s stables and to which he had harnessed his own horse. Christopher stopped halfway to the village and picked some of the small delicate wild narcissi that grew on the road’s verge and he insisted on threading the yellow blossoms into Kate’s black hair, and then he kissed her again and told her she was beautiful and Kate thought this had to be the happiest day of her life. The sun shone, a small wind stirred the flower-bright meadows and her man was beside her.
Father Josefa was waiting at the church, having been summoned by Christopher on his way to the Quinta, but before any ceremony could be performed the priest took the Englishman aside. „I have been worrying,” the priest said, „that what you propose is irregular.”
„Irregular, Father?”
„You are Protestants?” the priest asked and, when Christopher nodded, he sighed. „The church says that only those who take our sacraments can be married.”
„And your church is right,” Christopher said emolliently. He looked at Kate, standing alone in the white-painted chancel, and he thought she looked like an angel with the yellow flowers in her hair. „Tell me, Father,” he went on, „do you look after the poor in your parish?”
„It is a Christian duty,” Father Josefa said.
Christopher took some golden English guineas from his pocket. They were not his, but from the funds supplied by the Foreign Office to smooth his way, and now he folded the priest’s hand around the coins. „Let me give you that as a contribution to your charitable work,” he said, „and let me beg you to give us a blessing, that is all. A blessing in Latin, Father, that will enjoin God’s protection on us in these troubled times. And later, when the fighting is over, I shall do my best to persuade Kate to take instruction from you. As I will too, of course.”
Father Josefa, son of a laborer, looked at the coins and thought he had never seen so much money at one time and he thought of all the difficulties the gold could allay. „I cannot say a mass for you,” he insisted.
„I do not want a mass,” Christopher said, „and I do not deserve a mass. I just want a blessing in Latin.” He wanted Kate to believe she was married and, so far as Christopher was concerned, the priest could gabble the words of the funeral rite if he wanted. „Just a blessing from you, Father, is all I want. A blessing from you, from God, and from the saints.” He took another few coins from his pocket and gave them to the priest, who decided a prayer of blessing could not possibly hurt.
„And you will take instruction?” Father Josefa asked.
„I have felt God pulling me toward your church for some time,” Christopher said, „and I believe I must heed His call. And then, Father, you may marry us properly.”
So Father Josefa kissed his scapular and then draped it about his shoulders and he went to the altar where he knelt, made the sign of the cross and then stood and turned to smile at Kate and the tall, handsome man at her side. The priest did not know Kate well, for the Savage family had never been familiar with the villagers and certainly did not attend the church, but the servants at the Quinta spoke approvingly of her and Father Josefa, though he was celibate, could appreciate that this girl was a rare beauty and so his voice was full of warmth as he enjoined God and the holy saints to look with kindness on these two souls. He felt guilty that they would behave as married people even though they were not married, but such things were common and in wartime a good priest knew when to close his eyes.
Kate listened to the Latin that she did not understand and she looked past the priest at the altar where the gently shining silver cross was hung with a black diaphanous veil because Easter had not yet come, and she felt her heart beating and felt her lover’s hand strongly entwined in hers and she wanted to cry with happiness. Her future seemed golden, stretching sunlit and warm and flower-strewn ahead of her. It was not quite the wedding she had envisaged. She had thought to sail back to England, which she and her mother still considered home, there to walk up the aisle of a country church filled with her rubicund relatives and be showered with rose petals and wheat grains and afterward go in a chaise and four to some beamed tavern for a dinner of beef, beer and good red wine, yet she could not have been happier, or maybe she could have been happier if only her mother had been in the church, but she consoled herself that they would be reconciled, she was sure of that, and suddenly Christopher squeezed her hand so hard that it hurt. „Say I do, my dearest,” he ordered her.