Free Leading Lady by Lawana Blackwell

Father had once said, allowing one’s mind to mull over schoolwork during a worship service was just as irreverent as bringing along textbooks.
    The Fisher family filled its usual back pew to the right of the aisle. Anna turned to send a quick smile. Bethia smiled back and moved on up with her schoolmates to fill a pew on the left side. The stanzas of opening hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” mingled in soprano and alto, tenor and bass voices, most harmonious, some disharmonious, some high and childish—the blend surely as pleasing to God’s ears as a patch of discordant wildflowers to an artist’s eyes.
    Three minutes into the litany, Bethia was gripped with a faint nausea. My shoes, she thought, wiggling her toes in the summer doeskin slippers. Because she had lost track of time while reading over her composition this morning, she had dressed in haste, which meant no time for the tedious ordeal of lacing boots with a buttonhook. Had not Mother warned her a dozen times that chilled feet could bring on a cold, or worse? But surely the fifty-degree temperature outside was not enough to cause illness unless she were to pad about barefoot.
    “That it may please thee to bless and keep the magistrates, giving them grace to execute justice, and to maintain truth,” Vicar Groves read aloud.
    You haven’t time to be ill, Bethia thought as a chill snaked down her back. But at least this was Sunday, when a simple meal of soup and sandwiches would be available to those students not taking lunch in Cambridge. All her life Bethia had heard their cook, Trudy, declare that no scientist would ever invent a medicine more effective than a bowl of hot soup.
    Bethia had to smile. Her mind was so filled with the adages of family and servants that it was a wonder she had roomfor any original thoughts. Realizing that the congregation was halfway through the response, she opened her mouth to join in.
    “ . . . to hear us, good Lord.”
    Another shiver caught her shoulders. That voice, from close behind. Oddly familiar, yet she could not recall ever hearing it in Saint Andrew’s.
    She swallowed. He wouldn’t.
    “ . . . to bless and keep all they people,” Vicar Groves was reading.
    This time Bethia held her breath, listened.
    “We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”
    There could be no mistaking that voice. Bethia pressed the palms of her gloved hands together.
    “That it may please thee to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord,” the vicar read on.
    At her left Hannah Middleton, a fourth-year student with curly brown hair, looked at her during the congregational response and mouthed Are you all right?
    “We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”
    Bethia gave a slight nod, but felt Hannah’s eyes linger upon her for another second.
    Leave now, Bethia thought, face rigidly aimed toward the pulpit as she felt a pair of hazel eyes upon her back. But one could not simply slip out from the middle of a pew without disturbing the worship service.
    You wouldn’t be the first to leave, she reminded herself. Nature’s promptings could not always be ignored. A discomforting mental picture came to mind. What would stop Douglas Pearce from leaving as well, from stalking her through the empty churchyard? Not that she feared any physical injury—though she could recall Father’s admonition the first time she left for Girton, that the infamous Jack the Ripper’s victims had probably thought his appearance harmless enough. What she feared most was another scene.
    There was safety in numbers. She sat still as Lot’s wife,listening to her own breathing, while the nerves on the back of her neck threatened to creep out of her skin. For all she could absorb of the sermon, Vicar Groves might as well have been reading Shakespeare. After what seemed like hours, pews creaked and the soles of shoes shuffled as the congregation rose for the benediction.
    “. . . We stand to bless thee, ere our worship cease,
    And still our