A Light in the Window (2 page)

 

 

He had missed the old rectory, too, with its clamor and quiet, its sunshine and shadow. Never before in his life as a rector had he found a home so welcoming or comfortable—a home that seemed, somehow, like a friend.

He spied the thing on his counter at once. It was Edith Mallory’s signature blue casserole dish.

He was afraid of that.

Emma had written to Sligo to say that Pat Mallory had died soon after he left for Ireland. Heart attack. No warning. Pat, she said, had felt a wrenching chest pain, had sat down on the top step outside his bedroom, and after dropping dead sitting up, had toppled to the foot of the stairs, where the Mallorys’ maid of thirty years had found him just before dinner.

“Oh, Mr. Mallory,” she was reported to have said, “you shouldn’t have gone and done that. We’re havin’ lasagna.”

Sitting there on the farmhouse window seat, reading Emma’s five-page letter, he had known that Edith Mallory would not waste any time when he returned.

Long before Pat’s death, he’d been profoundly unsteadied when she had slipped her hand into his or let her fingers run along his arm. At one point, she began winking at him during sermons, which distracted him to such a degree that he resumed his old habit of preaching over the heads of the congregation, literally.

So far, he had escaped her random snares but had once dreamed he was locked with her in the parish-hall coat closet, pounding desperately on the door and pleading with the sexton to let him out.

Now Pat, good soul, was cold in the grave, and Edith’s casserole was hot on his counter.

Casseroles! Their seduction had long been used on men of the cloth, often with rewarding results for the cook.

Casseroles, after all, were a gesture that on the surface could not be mistaken for anything other than righteous goodwill. And, once one had consumed and exclaimed over the initial offering, along would come another on its very heels, until the bachelor curate ended up a married curate or the divorced deacon a fellow so skillfully ensnared that he never knew what hit him.

In the language of food, there were casseroles, and there were casseroles. Most were used to comfort the sick or inspire the downhearted. But certain others, in his long experience, were so filled with allure and innuendo that they ceased to be Broccoli Cheese Delight intended for the stomach and became arrows aimed straight for the heart.

In any case, there was always the problem of what to do with the dish. Decent people returned it full of something else. Which meant that the person to whom you returned it would be required, at some point, to give you another food item, all of which produced a cycle that was unimaginably tedious.

Clergy, of course, were never required to fill the dish before returning it, but either way, it had to be returned. And there, clearly, was the rub.

He approached the unwelcome surprise as if a snake might have been coiled inside. His note of thanks, which he would send over tomorrow by Puny, would be short and to the point:

Dear Edith: Suffice it to say that you remain one of the finest cooks in the county.
That was no lie; it was undeniably true.

There.

He lifted the lid. Instantly, his mouth began to water, and his heart gave a small leap of joy.

Crab cobbler! One of his favorites. He stared with wonder at the dozen flaky homemade biscuits poised on the bed of fresh crabmeat and fragrant sauce.

Perhaps, he thought with sudden abandon, he should give Edith Mallory a ring this very moment and express his thanks.

As he reached for the phone, he realized what he was doing—he was placing his foot squarely in a bear trap.

He hastily clamped the lid on the steaming dish. “You see?” he muttered darkly. “That’s the way it happens.”

Where casseroles were concerned, one must constantly be on guard.

“Edith Mallory’s lookin’ to give you th’ big whang-do,” said Emma.

Until this inappropriate remark, there had been a resonant peace in the small office. The windows were open to morning air embroidered with birdsong. His sermon notes were going at a pace. And the familiar comfort of his old swivel chair was sheer bliss.

“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?

His part-time church secretary glanced up from her ledger. “It means she’s going to cook your goose.”

He did not like her language. “I am sixty-one years old and a lifelong bachelor. Why anyone would want to give me a whang ... why anyone would ... it’s unthinkable,” he said flatly.

“I can tell she thinks about it all th’ time. Besides, remember Father Appel who got married when he was sixty-five, right after his social security kicked in? And that deacon who was fifty-nine, who married th’ redheaded woman who owned the taxi company in Wesley? Then, there was that salesman who worked at the Collar Button ...”

“Spare me the details,” he said curtly, opening his drawer and looking for the Wite-Out.

Emma peered at him over her glasses. “Just remember,” she muttered.

“Remember what?”

“Forearmed is forewarned.”

“No, Emma. Forewarned is forearmed.”

“Peedaddle. I never do get that right. But if I were you, I’d duck when I see her comin’.”

I’ve been ducking when I see her coming for twelve years, he thought.

“One thing in her favor,” said Emma, recording another check, “is she’s a great hostess. As you have surely learned from doin’ your parties, a rector needs that. Some preachers’ wives don’t do pea-turkey, if you ask me. Of course, if anything’s goin’ to happen with your neighbor, and Lord knows, I hope it will—you ought to just go on and give ’er a nice engagement ring—then Edith would have to jump on somebody else.”

“Emma,” he said, ripping the cover off the typewriter, “I have finally got a handle on the most important sermon I’ve written in a year...”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she replied, pressing her lips together in that way he loathed.

At noon, Ron Malcolm appeared at the door, wearing boots caked with dried mud and a red baseball cap.

Being away for two months had given everyone the rector knew, and Mitford as well, a fresh, almost poignant, reality. He had scarcely ever noticed that Ron Malcolm was a man of such cheering vigor. Then again, perhaps it was the retired contractor’s involvement in the nursing-home project that had done something for the color in his face and put a gleam in his eyes.

“Well, Father, we’re off and running. Jacobs has sent their job superintendent over. He’s having a trailer installed on the site today.” He shook the rector’s hand with great feeling.

“I can hardly believe it’s finally happening.”

“Five million bucks!” Ron said. “This nursing home is the biggest thing to happen around here since the Wesley furniture factory. Have you met Leeper?”

“Leeper?”

“Buck Leeper. The job superintendent. We talked about him before you left for Ireland. He said he’d try to get by your office.”

“I haven’t met him. I’ll have to walk up—maybe Wednesday afternoon.”

Ron sat down on the visitors’ bench and removed his cap. “Emma around?”

“Gone to the post office.”

“I think it’s only fair that I talk to you straight about Buck Leeper. A few months ago, I told you he’s hardheaded, rough. I know I don’t have to worry about you, but he’s the kind who can make you lose your religion.”

“Aha.”

“His daddy was Fane Leeper, so called because a preacher once said he was the most profane man he’d ever met. Fane Leeper was also the best job superintendent on the East Coast. He made three contractors rich men, and then alcohol got ’im, as they say.

“You need to know that Buck is just like his daddy. He learned contractin’, cussin’, and drinkin’ from Fane, and the only way he could get out from under the shadow of his father was to outdo him in all three categories.”

Ron paused, as if to let that information sink in.

“Buck’s on this job because he’ll save us money—and a lot of grief. He’ll bring it in on time and on budget, and you can count on it. Out of respect to you, Father, I talked to Jacobs about sending us another man, but they won’t send anybody but Buck on a job this size.” He stood up and zipped his jacket. “We’ll probably hate Jacobs for this, but before it’s over, we’ll thank him.”

“I trust your judgment.”

Ron opened the door and was backing out with his hat in his hand.

“You might look softhearted, Father, but I’ve seen you operate a time or two, and I know you can handle Buck. Just give ’im his rein.”

The rector looked out at the maple across the street, which had taken on a tinge of russet since yesterday. “I can’t imagine that Mr. Leeper will be any problem at all,” he said.

“Timothy?”

It was Cynthia, his neighbor, peering through the screened door of the kitchen, her hands cupped on either side of her eyes. She was wearing a white blouse and blue denim skirt and a bandanna around her blond hair.

“You look like Heidi!” he said to his neighbor. Though she admitted to being fiftysomething, there were times when she looked like a girl. Again he was struck by the fresh, living way in which he saw people, as if he had lately risen from the dead.

She walked past him, unfurling the faintest scent of wisteria on the air. “You said to think of something we could do to celebrate your return.”

She went to the stove and lifted the lid on the pot of soup he was making. “Yum,” she said, inhaling. Then, she turned to him and smiled. Her eyes were like sapphires, smoky and deep with that nearly violet hue that always caught him off-guard.

“And have you thought about it?” he asked, afraid he might croak like a frog when he spoke.

“They say walls have ears. I’d better whisper it.”

He had completely forgotten how easily she fit into his arms.