Chapter One
Angel of Light
Dappled by its movement among the branches of a Japanese cherry,
the afternoon light entered the study unhindered by draperies or
shades.
It spilled through the long bank of windows behind the newly slipcovered
sofa, warming the oak floor and quickening the air with the
scent of freshly milled wood.
Under the spell of the June light, a certain luster and radiance appeared
to emerge from every surface.
The tall chest, once belonging to Father Tim's clergyman great-grandfather,
had undergone a kind of rebirth. Beneath a sheen of
lemon oil, the dense grain of old walnut, long invisible in the dark rectory
hallway next door, became sharply defined. Even the awkward inscription
of the letter M, carved by a pocketknife, could now be
discovered near one of the original drawer pulls.
But it was the movement and play of the light, beyond its searching
incandescence, that caused Father Tim to anticipate its daily arrival
as others might look for a sunrise or sunset.
He came eagerly to this large, new room, as if long deprived of
light or air, still incredulous that such a bright space might exist, and
especially that it might exist for his own pursuits since retiring six
months ago from Lord's Chapel.
As the rector of Mitford's Episcopal parish, he had lived next door
in the former rectory for sixteen years. Now he was a rector no more,
yet he owned the rectory; it had been bought and paid for with cash
from his mother's estate, and he and Cynthia were living in the little
yellow house.
Of course--he kept forgetting--this house wasn't so little anymore;
he and his visionary wife had added 1,270 square feet to its
diminutive proportions.
Only one thing remained constant. The house was still yellow,
though freshly painted with Cynthia's longtime favorite, Wild Forsythia,
and trimmed with a glossy coat of the dark green Highland
Hemlock.
"Cheers!" said his wife, appearing in jeans and a denim shirt, toting
glasses of lemonade on a tray. They had recently made it a ritual to
meet here every afternoon, for what they called the Changing of the
Light.
He chuckled. "We mustn't tell anyone what we do for fun."
"You can count on it! Besides, who'd ever believe that we sit
around watching the light change?" She set the tray on the table, next
to a packet of mail.
"We could do worse."
They thumped onto the sofa, which had been carted through the
hedge from the rectory.
"One more week," he said, disbelieving.
"Ugh. Heaven help us!" She put her head back and closed her eyes.
"How daunting to move to a place we've never seen . for an unknown
length of time . behind a priest who's got them used to the
guitar!"
He took her hand, laughing. "If anyone can do it, you can. How
many cartons of books are we shipping down there, anyway?"
"Fourteen, so far."
"And not a shelf to put them on."
"We're mad as hatters!" she said with feeling. During the past
week, his wife had worked like a Trojan to close up the yellow house,
do most of the packing, and leave their financial affairs in order. He,
on the other hand, had been allowed to troop around town saying his
goodbyes, sipping tea like a country squire and trying to keep his
mitts off the cookies and cakes that were proffered at every turn.
He had even dropped into Happy Endings Bookstore and bought
two new books to take to Whitecap, a fact that he would never, even
on penalty of death, reveal to Cynthia Kavanagh.
She looked at him and smiled. "I've prayed to see you sit and relax
like this, without rushing to beat out a thousand fires. Just think how
the refreshment of the last few weeks will help you, dearest, when we
do the interim on the island. Who knows, after all, what lies ahead
and what strength you may need?"
He gulped his lemonade. Who knew, indeed?
"The jig, however, is definitely up," she said, meaning it. "Next
week ."
"I know. Change the furnace filter next door, weed the perennial
beds, fix the basement step, pack my clothes . I've got the entire,
unexpurgated list written down."
"Have your suit pressed," she said, "buy two knit shirts--nothing
with an alligator, I fervently hope--and find the bicycle pump for
Dooley."
"Right!" He was actually looking forward to the adrenaline of their
last week in Mitford.
"By the way," she said, "I've been thinking. Instead of loading the
car in bits and pieces, just pile everything by the garage door. That
way, I can check it twice, and we'll load at the last minute."
"But it would be simpler to--"
"Trust me," she said, smiling.
Barnabas would occupy the rear seat, with Violet's cage on the
floor, left side. They'd load the right side with linens and towels, the
trunk would be filled to the max, and they'd lash on top whatever
remained.
"Oh, yes, Timothy, one more thing . stay out of the bookstore!"
She peered at him with that no-nonsense gleam in her sapphire
eyes, a gleam that, for all its supposed authority, stirred a fire in him.
As a man with a decidedly old-shoe nature, he had looked forward to
the old-shoe stage of their marriage. So far, however, it hadn't arrived.
His blond and sensible wife had an unpredictable streak that kept the
issues of life from settling into humdrum patterns.
"Anything wonderful in the mail?" she asked.
"I don't know, I just fetched it in. Why don't you have a look?"
His wife's fascination with mail was greater even than his own,
which was considerable. William James, in his opinion, had hit the
nail on the head. "As long as there are postmen," James declared, "life
will have zest."
"Oh, look! Lovely! A letter from Whitecap, and it's to me!"
He watched her rip open the envelope.
"My goodness, listen to this.
"`Dear Mrs. Kavanagh, We are looking forward with great enthusiasm
to your interim stay in our small island parish, and trust that all
is going smoothly as you prepare to join us at the end of June.
"`Our ECW has been very busy readying Dove Cottage for your
stay at Whitecap, and all you need to bring is bed linens for the two
bedrooms, as we discussed, and any towels and pillows which will
make you feel at home.
"`We have supplied the kitchen cupboards with new pots, and several
of us have lent things of our own, so that you and Father Kavanagh
may come without much disruption to your household in
Mitford. Sam has fixed the electric can opener, but I hear you are a
fine cook and probably won't need it, ha ha.
"`Oh, yes. Marjorie Lamb and I have done a bit of work in the
cottage gardens, which were looking woefully forlorn after years of neglect, We found a dear old-fashioned rose, which I hear your husband
enjoys, and liberated it from the brambles. It is now climbing up your
trellis instead of running into the street! We expect the hydrangeas and
crepe myrtle to be in full glory for your arrival, though the magnolias
in the churchyard will, alas, be out of bloom.
"`Complete directions are enclosed, which Marjorie's husband, Leonard, assures me should take you from Mitford straight to the door
of Dove Cottage without a snare. (Leonard once traveled on the road
selling plumbing supplies.)
"`Please notice the red arrow I have drawn on the map. You must
be very careful at this point to watch for the street sign, as it is hidden
by a dreadful hedge which the property owner refuses to trim. I have
thought of trimming it myself, but Sam says that would be meddling.
"`We hope you will not object to a rather gregarious greeting committee, who are bent on giving you a parish-wide luau the day following
your arrival. I believe I have talked them out of wearing grass
skirts, but that embarrassing notion could possibly break forth again.
"`When Father Morgan joined us several years ago, he, too, came
in the summer and was expecting a nice holiday at the beach. I'm sure
you've been warned that summer is our busiest time, what with the
tourists who swell our little church to bursting and push us to two services! We all take our rest in the winter when one must hunker down
and live off the nuts were gathered!
"`Bishop Harvey was thrilled to learn from Bishop Cullen how
greatly you and Father Kavanagh were appreciated by your parish in
Mitford! We shall all do our utmost to make you feel as welcome as the
flowers in May, as my dear mother used to say.
"`Goodness! I hope you'll forgive the length of this letter! Since
childhood, I have loved the feel of a pen flowing over paper, and often
get carried away.
"`We wish you and Father Timothy safe travel.
"`Yours sincerely,
"`Marion Fieldwalker, vestry member of St. John's in the Grove, and Pres. Episcopal Church Women
"`P.S. I am the librarian of Whitecap Island Community Library
(35 years) and do pray you might be willing to give a reading this fall
from one of your famous Violet books. Your little books stay checked
out, and I believe every child on the island has read them at least
twice!'"
His wife flushed with approval. "There! How uplifting! Marion
sounds lovely! And just think, dearest--trellises and old roses!"
"Not to mention new saucepans," he said, admiring the effort of
his future parishioners.
She drank from her perspiring glass and continued to sort through
the pile. "Timothy, look at his handwriting. He's finally stopped
printing and gone to cursive!"
"Let me see"
Definitely a new look in the handwriting department, and a distinct
credit to Dooley Barlowe's Virginia prep schooling. Miss Sadie's
big bucks, forked over annually, albeit posthumously, were continuing
to put spit and polish on the red-haired mountain boy who'd come to
live with him at the rectory five years ago.
"`Hey,'" he read aloud from Dooley's letter, "`I have thought about
it a lot and I would like to stay in Mitford and work for Avis this summer
and make money to get a car and play softball with the Reds.
"`I don't want to go to the beach.
"`Don't be mad or upset or anything. I can live in the basement
with Harley like you said, and we will be fine. Puny could maybe
come and do the laundry or we could do stuff ourselves and eat in Wesley
or at the Grill or Harley could cook.
"`I will come down to that island for either Thanksgiving or
Christmas like we talked about.
"`Thanks for letting me go home from school with Jimmy Duncan, I am having a great time, he drives a Wrangler. His mom drives a
Range Rover and his dad has a BMW 850. That's what I would like
to have. A Wrangler, I mean. I'll get home before you leave, Mr. Duncan
is driving me on his way to a big meeting. Say hey to Barnabas
and Violet. Thank for the money. Love, Dooley.'"
"Oh, well," said his wife, looking disappointed. "I'm sure he
wanted to be close to his friends"
"Right. And his brother and sister"
She sighed. "Pretty much what we expected."
He felt disappointed, himself, that the boy wouldn't be coming to
Whitecap for the summer, but they'd given him a choice and the
choice had been made. Besides, he learned a couple of years ago not to
let Dooley Barlowe's summer pursuits wreck his own enjoyment of
that fleeting season.
It was the business about cars that concerned him . Dooley had
turned sixteen last February, and would hit Mitford in less than three
days, packing a bona fide driver's license.
"Knock, knock!" Emma Newland blew down the hall and into the
study. "Don't get up," she said, commandeering the room. "You'll
never believe this!"
His former part-time church secretary, who had retired when he retired,
had clearly been unable to let go of her old job. She made it her
business to visit twice a week and help out for a couple of hours,
whether he needed it or not.
"I do it for th' Lord," she had stated flatly, refusing any thanks.
Though Cynthia usually fled the room when she arrived, he rather
looked forward to Emma's visits, and to the link she represented to
Lord's Chapel, which was now under the leadership of its own interim
priest.
Emma stood with her hands on her hips and peered over her
glasses. "Y'all won't believe what I found on th' Internet. Three
guesses!"
"Excuse me!" said Cynthia, bolting from the sofa. "I'll just bring
you a lemonade, Emma, and get back to work. I've gobs of books to
pack."
"Guess!" Emma insisted, playing a game that he found both mindless
and desperately aggravating.
"A recipe for mixing your own house paint?"
"Oh, please," she said, looking disgusted. "You're not trying."
"The complete works of Fulgentius of Ruspe!"
"Who?"
"I give up," he said, meaning it.
"I found another Mitford! It's in England, and it has a church as
old as mud, not to mention a castle!" She looked triumphant, as if
she'd just squelched an invasion of Moors.
"Really? Terrific! I suppose it's where those writing Mitfords came
from--"
"No connection. They were from th' Cotswolds, this place is up
north somewhere. I had a stack of stuff I printed out, but Snickers sat
on th' whole bloomin' mess after playin' in the creek, and I have to
print it out again."
"Aha."
"OK, guess what else!"
"Dadgummit, Emma. You know I hate this."
She said what she always said. "It's good for you, keeps your brain
active."
As far as she was concerned, he'd gone soft in the head since retiring
six months ago.
"Just tell me and get it over with."
"Oh, come on! Try at least one guess. Here's a clue. It's about the
election in November."
"Esther's stepping down and Andrew Gregory's going to run."
She frowned. "How'd you know that?"
"I haven't gone deaf and blind, for Pete's sake. I do get around."
"I suppose you also know," said Emma, hoping he didn't, "that the
restaurant at Fernbank is openin' the night before you leave."
"Right. We've been invited."
She thumped into the slipcovered wing chair and peered at him as
if he were a beetle on a pin. Though she'd certainly never say such a
thing, she believed he was existing in a kind of purgatory between the
inarguable heaven of Lord's Chapel and the hell of a strange parish in
a strange place where the temperature was a hundred and five in the
shade.
"Will you have a secretary down there?" she asked, suspicious.
"I don't think so. Small parish, you know."
"How small can it be?"
"Oh, fifty, sixty people."
"I thought Bishop Cullen was your friend," she sniffed. She'd never
say so, but in her heart of hearts, she had hoped her boss of sixteen
years would be given a big church in a big city, and make a comeback
for himself. As it was, he trotted up the hill to Hope House and
the hospital every livelong morning, appearing so cheerful about the
whole thing that she recognized it at once as a cover-up.
Cynthia returned with a glass of lemonade and a plate of shortbread,
which she put on the table next to Emma. "I'll be in the studio
if anyone needs me. With all the books we're taking, we may sink the
island!"
"A regular Atlantis," said Father Tim.
"Speakin' of books," Emma said to his wife, "are you doin' a
new one?"
"Not if I can help it!"
He laughed as Cynthia trotted down the hall. "She usually can't
help it." He expected a new children's book to break forth from his energetic
wife any day now. Indeed, didn't she have a history of starting
one when life was upside down and backward?
Emma munched on a piece of shortbread, showering crumbs in her
lap. "Do you have those letters ready for me to do on th' computer?"
"Not quite. I wasn't expecting you 'til in the morning."
"I'm coming in th' morning, I just wanted to run by and tell
you all th' late-breakin' news. But," she said, arching one eyebrow, "I
haven't told you everything, I saved th' best 'til last."
His dog wandered into the study and crashed at his master's feet,
panting.
"If you say you already know this, I'll never tell you another thing
as long as I live. On my way here, I saw Mule Skinner, he said he's finally
rented your house."
She drew herself up, pleased, and gulped the lemonade.
"Terrific! Great timing!" He might have done a jig.
"He said there hadn't been time to call you, he'll call you tonight,
but it's not a family with kids like Cynthia wanted."
"Oh, well ." He was thrilled that someone had finally stepped
forward to occupy the rectory. He and Harley had worked hard over
the last few months to make it a strong rental property, putting new
vinyl flooring in the kitchen, replacing the stair runners, installing
a new toilet in the master bath and a new threshold at the front
door . the list had been endless. And costly.
"It's a woman."
"I can't imagine what one person would want with all that house to
rattle around in."
"How quickly you forget! You certainly rattled around in there for
a hundred years."
"True. Well. I'll get the whole story from Mule."
"He said she didn't mind a bit that Harley would be livin' in the
basement, she just wanted to know if he plays loud rock music."
Emma rattled the ice in her glass, gulped the last draught, and got
up to leave. "Before I forget, you won't believe what else I found on th'
Internet--church bulletins! You ought to read some of th' foolishness
they put out there for God an' everybody to see."
She fished a piece of paper from her handbag. "`Next Sunday,'"
she read, "`a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of a new
carpet. All those wishin' to do somethin' on the new carpet will come
forward and do so.'"
He hooted with laughter.
"How 'bout this number: `Don't let worry kill you, let th' church
help.'"
He threw his head back and laughed some more. Emma's life in
cyberspace definitely had an upside.
"By th' way, are you takin' Barnabas down there?" She enunciated
"down there" as if it were a region beneath the crust of the earth.
"We are."
"I don't know how you could do that to an animal. Look at all that
fur, enough to stuff a mattress."
Barnabas yawned hugely and thumped his tail on the floor.
"You won't even be able to see those horrible sandspurs that will
jump in there by th' hundreds, not to mention lodge in his paws."
Emma waited for an argument, a rationale--something. Did he
have no conscience? "And th' heat down there, you'll have to shave 'im
bald."
Father Tim strolled across the room to walk her to the door.
"Thanks for coming, Emma. Tell Harold hello. I'll see you in the
morning."
His unofficial secretary stumped down the hallway and he followed.
He was holding the front door open and biting his tongue when
she turned and looked at him. Her eyes were suddenly red and filled
with tears.
"I'll miss you!" she blurted.
"You will?"
She hurried down the front steps, sniffing, searching her bag for a
Hardee's napkin she knew was in there someplace.
He felt stricken. "Emma! We'll . we'll have jelly donuts in the
morning!"
"I'll have jelly donuts, you'll have dry toast! We don't want
to ship
you down there in a coma!"
She got in her car at the curb, slammed the door, gunned the motor,
and roared up Wisteria Lane.
For one fleeting moment, he'd completely forgotten his blasted
diabetes.
* * *
"I'm out of here," he said, kissing his wife.
"Get him to leave something for the island breezes to flow
through, darling. Don't let him cut it all off."
"You always say that."
"Yes, well, you come home looking like a skinned rabbit. I don't
know what Joe Ivey does to you."
Considering what Fancy Skinner had done to him time and time
again, Joe Ivey could do anything he wanted.
* * *
"Leavin' us, are you?" Joe ran a comb through the hair over Father
Tim's left ear and snipped.
"Afraid so."
"Leavin' us in th' lurch is more like it."
"Now, Joe. Did I preach to you when you went off to Graceland
and left me high and dry?"
Joe cackled. "Thank God I come to m' senses and quit that fool
job. An' in th' nick of time, too. I'm finally about t' clean up what
Fancy Skinner done to people's heads around here, which in your case
looked like she lowered your ears a foot an' a half."
"My wife says don't cut it too short."
"If I listened to what wives say, I'd of been out of business forty
years ago. Do you know how hot it gits down there?"
If he'd been asked that once, he'd been asked it a thousand times.
There was hardly anything mountain people despised more than a
"hot" place.
"I'm an old Mississippi boy, you know."
"An th' mosquitos .!" Joe whistled. "Man alive!"
"Right there," he said, as Joe started working around his collar.
"Just clean it up a little right there, don't cut it--"
Joe proceeded to cut it. Oh, well. Joe Ivey had always done exactly
as he pleased with Father Tim's hair, just like Fancy Skinner. What was
the matter with people who serviced hair, anyway? He had never, in all
his years, been able to figure it out.
"I hear it's a ten-hour trot t' get there," said Joe, clearly fixated on
the inconvenience of it all.
"Closer to twelve, if you stop for gas and lunch."
"You could go t' New York City in less'n that. Prob'ly run up an'
back."
"There's a thought."
Joe trimmed around his customer's right ear. "I'm getting t' where
I'd like t' talk ."--Joe cleared his throat--"about what happened up
at Graceland."
"Aha."
"I ain't told this to a soul, not even Winnie."
There was a long pause.
Father Tim waited, inhaling the fragrance from Sweet Stuff Bakery,
just beyond the thin wall. Joe's sister, Winnie, and her husband,
Thomas, were baking baklava, and he was starting to salivate.
"You couldn't ever mention this to anybody," said Joe. "You'd have
to swear on a stack of Bibles."
"I can't do that, but I give you my word."
Joe let his breath out in a long sigh. "Well, sir, there towards th'
end, I got to where I thought Elvis might be ."
"Might be what?"
"You know. Alive."
"No!"
"I ain't proud t' admit it. Thing is, I was gettin' in th' brandy pretty
heavy when I went up there. My sister's husband, he was laid off and
things was pretty tight. Plus, their house ain't exactly th' Biltmore Estate
when it comes to room, so ever' once in a while, I'd ride around
after supper t' give Vern and my sister a little time to theirselves."
"That was thoughtful."
"I took to lookin' for Elvis ever' where I went, 'specially at th' barbecue
place, they all said he was a fool for barbecue. My sister, when
she heard I was lookin' to sight Elvis, she started pourin' my brandy
down th' toilet. A man can't hardly live with somebody as pours 'is
brandy down th' toilet."
"That would create tension, all right." Heaven knows, he'd tried
for years to get Joe to quit sucking down alcohol, but Joe had told him
to mind his own business. Something, however, had happened in
Memphis that sent his barber home dry as a bone.
"Then one night I was drivin' around, I said to myself, I said, Joe,
Elvis wouldn't be cruisin' through a drive-in pickin' up a chopped
pork with hot sauce, he'd send somebody. So I said, if I was
Elvis,
where would I be at?
"Seem like somethin' told me to go back to Graceland, it was
about eleven o'clock at night, so I drove on over there and parked
across th' street with my lights off. I hate to tell you, but I had a pint
in the glove department, and I was takin' a little pull now and again."
Joe took a bottle off the cabinet and held it above his customer's
head. "You want Sea Breeze?"
"Is the Pope a Catholic?"
"First thing you know, I seen somethin' at th' top of the yard.
There's this big yard, you know, that spreads out in front of th' gate an'
all. It was somethin' white, and it ."--Joe cleared his throat--"it
was movin' around."
"Aha."
Joe blasted his scalp with Sea Breeze and vigorously rubbed it in.
"You ain't goin' to believe this."
"Try me."
Joe's hands stopped massaging his head. In the mirror, Father Tim
could see his barber's chin quivering.
"It was Elvis . in a white suit."
"Come on!"
"Mowin' 'is yard."
"No way!"
"I said you wouldn't believe it."
"Why would he mow his yard when he could pay somebody else
to do it? And why would he do it in a suit, much less a white suit? And
why would he do it at night?"
Joe's eyes were misty. He shook his head, marveling. "I never have
figured it out."
"Well, well." What could he say?
"I set there watchin'. He'd mow a strip one way, then mow a strip
th' other way."
"Gas or push?"
"Push."
"How could he see?" Father Tim asked, mildly impatient.
"There was this . glow all around him."
"Aha."
"Then, first thing you know ."--Joe's voice grew hushed--"he
th'owed up 'is hand and waved at me."
Father Tim was speechless.
"Here I'd been lookin' to see 'im for I don't know how long, and it
scared me s' bad when I finally done it, I slung th' bottle in th' bushes
and quit drinkin' on th' spot."
His barber drew a deep breath and stood tall. "I ain't touched a
drop since, and ain't wanted to."
Father Tim was convinced this was the gospel truth. Still, he had a
question.
"So, Joe, what's that, ah . bottle sitting over there by the hair
tonic?"
"I keep that for my customers. You don't want a little snort,
do you?"
"I pass. But tell me this . any regrets about coming back to
Mitford?"
"Not ary one, as my daddy used to say. It's been a year, now, since I
hauled out of Memphis and come home to Mitford, and my old trade
has flocked back like a drove of guineas. Winnie gave me this nice
room to set my chair in, and th' Lord's give me back my health."
Joe took the cape from his customer's shoulders and shook it out.
"Yessir, you're lookin' at a happy man."
"And so are you!`' said Father Tim. "So are you!"
After all, didn't he have a new haircut, a new parish, and a whole
new life just waiting to begin?
* * *
He couldn't help himself.
As the bells at Lord's Chapel pealed three o'clock, he turned into
Happy Endings Bookstore as if on automatic pilot. He had five whole
minutes to kill before jumping in the car and roaring off to Wesley for
a bicycle pump, since Dooley's had turned up missing.
"Just looking," he told Hope Winchester. Hope's ginger-colored
cat, Margaret, peered at him suspiciously as he raced through General
Fiction, hung a right at Philosophy, and skidded left into Religion,
where the enterprising Hope had recently installed a shelf of rare
books.
He knew for a fact that the only bookstore on Whitecap Island was
in the rear of a bait and tackle shop. They would never in a hundred
years have Arthur Quiller-Couch's On the Art of Reading, which he
had eyed for a full week. It was now or never.
His hand shot out to the hard-to-find Quiller-Couch volume, but
was instantly drawn back. No, a thousand times no. If his wife knew
he was buying more books to schlepp to Whitecap, he'd be dead meat.
He sighed.
"Better to take it now than call long-distance and have me ship it
down there for three dollars."
Hope appeared next to him, looking wise in new tortoiseshell
glasses.
No doubt about it, Hope had his number.
He raked the book off the shelf, and snatched Jonathan Edwards'sThe Freedom of the Will from another. He noted that his forehead
broke out in a light sweat.
Oh, well, while he was at it .
He grabbed a copy of Lewis's Great Divorce, which had wandered
from his own shelves, never to be seen again, and went at a trot to the
cash register.
"I'm sure you're excited about your party!" Hope said, ringing the
sale. Margaret jumped onto the counter and glowered at him. Why
did cats hate his guts? What had he ever done to cats? Didn't he buy
his wife's cat only the finest, most ridiculously priced chicken niblets
in a fancy tinfoil container?
"Party? What party?"
"Why, the party Uncle Billy and Miss Rose are giving you and
Cynthia!"
"I don't know anything about a party." Had someone told him and
he'd forgotten?
It's the biggest thing in the world to them. They've never given a
party in their whole lives, but they want to do this because they hold
you in the most edacious regard."
"Well!" He was nearly speechless. "When is it supposed to be?"
"Tomorrow night, of course." She looked at him oddly.
Tomorrow night they were working a list as long as his arm, not to
mention shopping for groceries to feed Dooley Barlowe a welcome-home
dinner of steak, fries, and chocolate pie.
He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. He'd be glad to leave
town and get his life in order again.
"I'll look into it," he muttered, shelling out cash for the forbidden
books. "And if you don't mind, that is, if you happen to see Cynthia,
you might not mention that, ah ."
Hope Winchester smiled. She would never say a word to the
priest's wife about his buying more books. Just as she certainly wouldn't
mention to him that Cynthia had dashed in only this morning to buy
copies of Celia Thaxter's My Island Garden, and the hardback of Ira
Sleeps Over.
* * *
He knocked on the screen door of the small, life-estate apartment
in the rear of the town musuem.
"Uncle Billy! Miss Rose! Anybody home?"
He couldn't imagine the old couple giving a party; his mind was
perfectly boggled by the notion. Rose Watson had been diagnosed as
schizophrenic decades ago, and although on daily medication, her
mood swings were fierce and unpredictable. To make matters worse
for her long-suffering husband, she was quickly going deaf as a stone,
but refused to wear hearing aids. "There's aids enough in this world,"
she said menacingly.
He put his nose against the screen and saw Uncle Billy sleeping in a
chair next to an electric fan, his cane between his legs. Father Tim
hated to wake him, but what was he to do? He knocked again.
Uncle Billy opened his eyes and looked around the kitchen,
startled.
"It's me, Uncle Billy!"
"Lord if hit ain't th' preacher!" The old man grinned toward the
door, his gold tooth gleaming. "Rose!" he shouted. "Hit's th' preacher!"
"He's not supposed to be here 'til tomorrow!" Miss Rose bellowed
from the worn armchair by the refrigerator.
Uncle Billy grabbed his cane and slowly pulled himself to a standing
position. "If I set too long, m' knees lock up, don't you know. But
I'm a-comin'."
"Tell him he's a day early!" commanded Miss Rose.
"Don't you mind Rose a bit. You're welcome any time of th' day or
night." Uncle Billy opened the screen and he stepped into the kitchen.
The Watsons had cooked cabbage for lunch, no two ways about it.
"Uncle Billy, I hear you're giving . well, someone said you're giving
Cynthia and me . a party?"
The old man looked vastly pleased. "Got a whole flock of people
comin' to see you! Got three new jokes t' tell, you're goin' t' like 'em,
and Rose is makin' banana puddin'."
Father Tim scratched his head, feeling foolish.
"Y' see, th' church give you 'uns a nice, big party an' all, but hit
seemed mighty official, hit was anybody an' ever'body, kind of a free-for-all.
I said, Rose, we ought t' give th' preacher an' 'is missus a little
send-off with 'is friends!" The old man leaned on his cane, grinning
triumphantly. "So we're a-doin' it, and glad t' be a-doin' it!"
"Well, now--"
"Hit's goin' to be in th' museum part of th' house, so we can play
th' jukebox, don't you know."
"Why, that's wonderful, it really is, but--"
"An' me an' Rose took a good bath in th' tub!"
He had seen the time when Uncle Billy and Miss Rose could
empty two or three pews around their own
Miss Rose stood up from her chair in a chenille robe and unlaced
saddle oxfords, looking him dead in the eye. He instantly wished for
the protection of his wife.
"I hope you didn't come expecting to eat a day in advance," she
snapped.
"Oh, law," said her mortified husband. "Now, Rose--"
She turned to Uncle Billy. "I haven't even made the banana pudding
yet, so how can we feed him?"
"Oh, I didn't come to eat. I just came to find out--"
"You march home," said Miss Rose, "and come back tomorrow at
the right time."
Uncle Billy put his hands over his eyes, as if to deny the terrible
scene taking place in front of him.
"And what time might that be?" shouted Father Tim.
"Six-thirty sharp!" said the old woman, looking considerably
vexed.
* * *
His wife went pale.
He felt like putting his hands over his own eyes, as Uncle Billy had
done.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know how to say no. Uncle Billy is so
excited They've never given a party before."
"Why in heaven's name didn't they let us know?"
"I think they invited everybody else and forgot to invite us."
"Lord have mercy!" said his overworked wife, conveniently quoting
the prayer book.
They had collapsed on the study sofa for the Changing of the
Light, having gone nonstop since five-thirty that morning. He had
made the lemonade on this occasion, and served it with two slices of
bread, each curled hastily around a filling of Puny's homemade
pimiento cheese.
"I can't even think about a party," she said, stuffing the bread and
cheese into her mouth. "My blood sugar has dropped through the
soles of my tennis shoes."
Ah, the peace of this room, he thought, unbuttoning his shirt. And
here they were, leaving it. They built it, and now they were leaving it.
Such was life in a collar.
"Timothy, are you really excited about going to Whitecap?"
"It comes and goes in waves. One moment, I'm excited--"
"And the next, you're scared to death?"
"Well ."
"Me, too," she confessed. "I hate to leave Mitford. I thought it
would be fun, invigorating, a great adventure." She lay down, putting
her head on one of the faded needlepoint pillows that had also made it
through the hedge. "But now ." Her voice trailed off.
"We're pretty worn out, Kavanagh. This is a stressful thing we're
doing, pulling up stakes. I've hardly been out of Mitford in sixteen
years. But we'll get there and it will be terrific, wait and see. You'll love
it. The freedom of an island ."
"The wind in our hair ."
"Gulls wheeling above us ."
"The smell of salt air ."
It was a litany they'd recited antiphonally over the last couple of
months. It always seemed to console them.
He pulled her feet into his lap. "How about a nap? We've got a
tight schedule ahead."
"Tonight," she said, "Puny helps us clean out all the cabinets
Dooley comes tomorrow evening just before the Watson party, and
will have supper with his mother. Then a day of shopping with our
threadbare boy and moving him in with Harley, followed by your
meeting with the new tenant, and Dooley's steak dinner. Then, of
course, there's the grand opening at Lucera on Thursday night after we
finish packing the car, and on Friday morning we're off. I don't think,"
she said, breathless, "that we'll have time to celebrate your birthday."
His birthday! Blast! This year, he would be sixty-six, and just
think--in four short years, he would be seventy. And then eighty. And
then . dead, he supposed. Oh, well.
"Don't be depressed," she scolded. "And for heaven's sake, dearest,
relax. You're sitting there like a statue in a park."
"Right," he said, guzzling the lemonade.
He had noted over the last few days that the late June light reached
its pinnacle when it fell upon the brass angel. Because of the exterior
overhang of the room, the direct light moved no higher than the mantel,
where the angel stood firm on its heavy base of green marble.
He had found the angel in the attic at Fernbank, Miss Sadie's rambling
house at the top of the hill, now owned by Andrew and Anna
Gregory. Only months before she died in her ninetieth year, Sadie
Baxter had written a letter about the disposition of her family home
and its contents. One thing she asked him to do was take something
for his own, anything he liked.
As Cynthia rambled through Fernbank seeking her portion of the
legacy, he had found the angel in a box, a box with a faded French
postmark. Though the attic was filled with a bountiful assortment of
inarguable treasures, he had known as surely as if someone had engraved
his name upon it that the angle in a box belonged to him.
The light moved now to the angel, to its outspread wings and supplicating
hands. It shone, also, on the vase of pink flowering almond
next to the old books, and the small silhouette of his mother, which
Cynthia had reframed and hung above the mantel.
As long as he could remember, he'd been afraid to sit still, to listen,
to wait. As a priest, he'd been glad of every needy soul to tend to; every
potluck supper to sit to; even of every illness to run to--thankful for
the fray and haste. He'd been frightened of any tendency to sit and let
his mind wander like a goat untethered from a chain, free to crop any
grass it pleased.
He was beginning to realize, however, that he was less and less
afraid to do what appeared to be nothing.
In the end, he wasn't really afraid of moving to Whitecap, either;
he'd given his wife the wrong notion. He had prayed that God would
send him wherever He pleased, and when his bishop presented the
idea of Whitecap, he knew it wasn't his bishop's bright idea at all, but
God's. He had learned years ago to read God's answer to any troubling
decision by looking to his heart, his spirit, for an imprimatur of peace.
That peace had come; otherwise, he would not go.
He inhaled the freshness of the breeze that stole through the open
window, and the fragrance of oak and cherry that pervaded the room
like incense.
Then, lulled by the sight of his dozing wife, he put his head back
and closed his eyes, and slept.
