whither thou goest
Title: Whither Thou Goest
Author: mswyrr
Rating: G
Pairing: William Garrow/Lady Sarah
Spoilers: 2x04
Summary: Coda to 2x04. They are not beaten. But where do they go from here?
Author's Notes: I wrote this months and months ago but I got hung up on re-writing. I owe enormous thanks to paracletelux for her beta work, which helped me get through. And for inspiring me with the gorgeous fic she's writing!
Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.
-- Ruth 1:16
"We are not beaten," Sarah said, her gloved fingers enlacing with his.
Will spoke no reply. He had none. Unbeaten though they may be, she would know her son only as Sir Arthur wished it. Will feared to see her torment at the hands of that man's mercurial whim. Samuel was the only portion of Sarah's heart that Sir Arthur still owned, and Will suspected that he would not use that knowledge lightly.
He had promised her the good company of both her loves. It was a promise he could not keep. It weighed heavy on him to hold her hand and enjoy the press of her torso and hip against his body as they sat intimately together and know himself to be forsworn. But there was no remedy for it, save to beg mercy from a man who had shown none.
And her child was not all she had lost. Their association was fatal to her character and prospects in life in a way it would never be to him. The coverture of marriage was a legal death for women, but to live unwed with a man was to be socially dead. To him she was lover, beloved, but the only titles society allowed his love to give to her were base slurs and euphemisms. Mistress, fallen woman, strumpet, whore. He had so little earthly possessions. He could not give her land or riches. He wished only he could give her a position of respect as his wife.
These thoughts did so remove him from the present moment that when Sarah spoke sometime later he felt drawn back to her as if from an unpleasant dream.
"This is a fine bench, Will," she said, a hint of humor in her voice, "but not ours to keep. And so we may not long keep to it."
She must have noticed his distraction.
"We cannot tarry here forever," she continued, grasping his hand tighter by way of emphasis. He heard her draw in a breath slowly. She seemed to steel herself. "I would go with you now," she said, "to the place where you live and there make my home with you." There was a moment's hesitation, and then she added, "If you wish it still."
Will raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "It is my wish," he said, lowering her hand back to rest on his thigh and stroking his thumb soothingly over her fingers, "that you should first go with me to become my wife and from there," he gestured with his free hand to convey motion, "thence to our home. You well know how little I respect customs whose purpose I cannot countenance," he continued, trying to speak his heart. "While you were about the business of my defense with Lady Fox, Mr. Southouse did in his defense of me acquaint this court with the very many failings of my manners." Will smiled in bemusement at the memory. "But the customs of love--where domestic life follows after matrimony--I do not so easily part with these. We have seen today in the sad condition of Lady Fox how well a breach of those manners does reveal the low nature of a man's affections." He shook his head. "Sarah... it is an abuse of trust that does not lie easy together with love."
He saw her lips tighten. Her grip on his hand relaxed. "This court has denied me the right to give myself to you," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "It has set me as a piece of property that may not choose itself to transfer. Would you do the same? Will you say now that I have given myself to you that you will not scruple to allow me the exercise of my own free choice?"
Here she withdrew her hand.
"I mean but to say that it will go hard for you," Will said quickly, trying to make her understand.
"Think you I would choose without having first counted the cost? Or is the cost not truly mine to pay? Do you agree with this court and think me property for which you should presume to take upon yourself sole responsibility?"
Will cast his eyes down. "I fear only to see you further injured by our association."
He heard her sigh. She reached out and touched his forearm gently.
"We cannot keep each other from suffering," she said kindly, "though love would make us wish it. And I would more happily bear the sufferings of my choosing than the ones that have been recently thrust upon me by others."
Will nodded, reaching up to grasp her hand where it rested in his arm. He thought on their situation, staring across at the judge and jury's chairs.
Inspiration came to him when he glanced across at the prosecutor's chair. Society would deal cruelly with them. Cruelty was its nature. But they could know each other to be true beyond all slander and perhaps it would be enough to hold fast to that.
"In his final statement," Will said, "Mr. Erskine did speak here today of angel voices. I think he believes that the fear of punishment is their truest voice. But I have learned how punishment may speak against the innocent and acquit the guilty. I do not believe we need law to follow our conscience when the law so often proves an impediment to the very good it may express." Here he turned to look full and straight at her, "If I did here promise you my life and all that I have until the day I die, is it less true than if I speak my promise before a multitude? Who need hear it but you?"
Her eyes widened and she leaned forward to press a kiss upon his hand. "None but I," she said. "And I would hear it gladly."
He felt suddenly terrified, reaching through the ledger of his memory for the best words, the finest words to which to express his promise. They seemed to fall short, every one he found. So he spoke the simple feeling of his heart.
"You are all that I would wish for," he said. "For the rest of my life. None other." Will looked down at their embracing hands and up again to her face. "I plight thee my troth," he whispered, his voice catching on the sacred vow.
"All of me that is my own to give," Sarah replied with such dignity and grace that his heart clenched to see it, "I freely give to you this day and for the rest of my life."
A solemn moment passed as their vows, he imagined, went upward to the only other ears that need hear them. Then the weight of their exchanged lifted and they smiled at each other. Will felt his eyes drawn up to the expanse of the grand room’s high ceiling as he let the joy of the moment settle deep into his heart. This place had borne witness to many things. He doubted any were as happy as this.
“You will note,” Sarah added, her smile turning impish, “I said nothing of obedience, as the official vows require.”
“For that I am grateful,” Will replied. “I would not wish for your obedience. I would not know what to do with it! Should I desire your assent on any matter, I will trust your own good judgment and seek to secure it by appeals to your reason. I am told by some,” he added, hearing the sound of mischief in his own voice, “that I own some small facility with oral argument.”
Their most irregular vows were then celebrated with the sound of Sarah’s laughter. Will reflected that a life’s worth of laughter lay before them. It would be accompanied by tears, as all things were, but those bright shining moments of joy sang out to him with such sweet melody that he felt he could withstand anything.