Chapter 24

Benjamin

"It is easy to go down into Hell, but to climb back again, to retrace one"s steps to the upper air—there"s the rub." ― Virgil

Luncheon had been a torturous affair. Benjamin had been forced to play the genial host while that handsome rogue made cloying love to Sarah. He had kissed her hand and said sweet nothings to her throughout the proceedings. What made it even worse in Benjamin's view was that these words of affection were meaningless to Templeton. The man was not in love with Sarah. That much was clear. He was using his charm and his knowledge of her long-held affections to spin a web around her, dazzling her with his momentary attention. All for what purpose, Benjamin could not say.

Sitting in church earlier that day, Benjamin had seen from afar Templeton's overt display of affection. He had been hit with pain and fury all at once. That was when Sarah had caught his stare, and he had been forced to look away. As the priest intoned the words of a prayer, it had taken all of Benjamin's strength to bank the fire of his anger. He would not make a spectacle of himself. There, in the hallowed space of the church, he had sent a plea—or more accurately a pledge—to God that he would take himself and his anger in hand. He would become a better man, worthy of Sarah even if she was not meant to be his.

Help had come from a surprising quarter, as it often does with divine intervention. As he had stared at a stained glass window and battled the emotions roaring in his breast, it was as though he saw the face of his long lost friend, Jimmy, smiling at him through the window pane. Jimmy had looked down at him with his habitual carefree smile. His face had seemed to say, "Do not feel any sadness on my account. I am where I am supposed to be and perfectly happy."

The longer that Benjamin had stared at his friend, the more the tightness in his chest had eased. He had found himself smiling back at Jimmy. And then, just as he had been about to wonder if he was going mad after all, he had heard the priest's voice in his ear, sounding peculiarly like Jimmy's, reciting the words of Saint Paul, "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."

The vision of Jimmy had faded and he had looked ahead to the benevolent face of the priest at the pulpit and listened to his parting words to the congregation. "As you leave this church today, remember this. Our lives are ridden with pain and difficulty, but through it all we are being made more into the image of God. Jesus is greater than every misery, every calamity and every adversity. He is victorious over every pain. So I say to you this. Do not dwell on your afflictions. Do not mire yourselves in self-pity. Do not bring forth to your minds every injustice done to you. Today, I ask you to rejoice in God's love and feel gratitude for His eternal grace, for only through gratitude will you forge a path out of despair."

It was as though the priest had spoken directly to him. Benjamin had stood then and made a hurried exit from the church. He had found his way to the waiting carriage and sat there with his head in his hands, feeling a wondrous sense of release. It was not quite a moment of epiphany, for he knew as sure as he would take his next breath, that there would still be pain to bear and challenges to overcome on the road ahead. Side by side with this pain, however, there was new hope that something worthwhile could be salvaged out of the wreck of his life. He recalled a saying from Virgil that his mother often liked to repeat, "Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance." He felt a new wave of determination settle upon him. He would persevere; he would endure.

And so it was that when Sarah had come upon him in the carriage, he had been able to speak to her with a newfound equanimity, and to maintain a sense of calm throughout the rest of that torturous meal. Now, he bid Sarah and Ambrose goodbye and watched them as they walked down the avenue towards Ivy Cottage. He frowned, thinking again about Templeton and the man's obvious lack of true feelings for Sarah. She did not deserve to be bound for life to a man such as he. Why was it she did not see this?

He had sensed her melancholy just now. Though her mind refused to tell her the truth, she felt it in her heart. It saw through Templeton's sweet nothings, but she was too dazzled by the sudden reversal in her fortunes, by the victory of having won this much coveted prize, to listen to what her heart told her.

Benjamin consoled himself with the thought that there were still several more months to go before her nuptials to Templeton. All hope was not yet lost that between now and then, she would see sense and put an end to the betrothal. He would cling to that hope, and in the meantime, show her in all the ways he could, what true love truly looked like. Had he not come to England to woo her? Then woo her he would, though it would have to be more subtly done than he had anticipated.

With a vigour in his step, he went up to the library and searched the large collection of books for words of inspiration from his mother's beloved classical philosophers. After a browse through the shelves, he pulled out a volume of Ovid's Metamorphoses, then he settled himself in an armchair and began to read.