A Light in the Window (70 page)

He tried the suit on and stood before the mirror. Not bad. Slap a boutonniere on the lapel, and it would look good as new.

He went to the alcove window and saw the glow of her bedroom lamp under the eaves.

He wished she were here, sitting in the wing chair. She would know whether the suit needed taking in or whether it would get by with a pressing. Besides, he wanted to show her the picture of his grandfather and ask if she saw any resemblance.

It meant something to him to resemble somebody. He hadn’t looked like his mother, who was beautiful, or his father, who was handsome. “Woodpile kid,” some unkind neighbor had once been heard to say.

In any case, why did he suddenly need someone to help him make the sort of simple decision he’d made quite alone all his life?

The truth was, he didn’t
need
someone to do it; he
wanted
someone do it.

He received that truth as a minor revelation.

“Dooley!” He stood at his bedroom door and called across the hall. The guest room door stood open, thanks be to God, and was not only empty of his fraudulent cousin but clean as a pin. He hoped Puny Bradshaw was not lying in the emergency room at Wesley Hospital from having tackled the nastiest job since the Boer War. He had given her an extra twenty-five dollars, which had made her eyes light up, but only feebly.

“What?” said Dooley, coming into the hall.

“Please step in here a minute. I’d like your advice.”

Dooley walked in, glowering.

“What the dickens are you glowering about?”

“You ought t’ see th’ homework she give me.”

“She
what
you?”

“Gave
me!” said Dooley, raising his voice.

“You don’t need to raise your voice to speak proper English,” he said grumpily. “What about this suit? Is it too baggy?”

Dooley walked around him as if he were the Willard Porter statue on the lawn of the town museum. “You look huge.”

“Huge? Are you sure?”

“You look huge in the waist.”

Rats! The last place anyone wanted to look huge. “All right, I’ll take it in for alterations. Let me see you again in your blazer.”

Dooley didn’t waste a minute stepping across the hall to put the new blazer over his striped pajamas.

“Cool,” said the rector. “Here’s the tie I’m giving you to go with it.”

“Tie? I have to wear a tie?”

“You have to wear a tie.”

“Gag.”

“Gag all you want. You’re wearing a tie.”

“Puke.”

“Gag and puke. What a vocabulary.”

“I’m going to bed,” said Dooley.

“Good riddance,” said the rector, “and say your prayers.”

Homeless greeted him at the door.

“Come in! Come in! You must have a nose like a beagle—the’ coffee’s just perked.”

Barnabas bounded into the small room on the red leash, his own nose to the floor. “He’s looking for Barkless!” said the rector.

“Over yonder on ’is pallet.” Homeless pointed to the short-haired, spotted dog who blinked at them. “He cain’t bark, but he can blink. See there—blink, blink, blink. That’s how he barks at ol’ Barnabas, here.”

Barnabas barked back. Then he went to the spotted dog and sniffed it. Barkless didn’t flinch.

“Chippy, ain’t he?”

“I’ll say!” The rector moved to the stove. Though it was a warm day, the fire Homeless had built to perk the coffee was nonetheless inviting. “I’m glad to see you, my friend. It feels like I’ve come home when I visit the creek.”

“You’re welcome as th’ flowers in May—day or night, hard times or fair.”

“I thank you. Tell me how your crowd is taking to Pastor Greer.”

“Well, sir, they love ‘im, they do. He’s one of them. He once fought th’ Lord just like they’re doin’, and so they connect. He’s preachin’ on th’ big stump every Wednesday, and we’re drawin’ ’em in pretty good.”

“How’s the soup pot holding out?”

“Now and again, somethin’ leaks in. The Baptists sent a hundred last week, and out it went for five pairs of shoes.

“Th’ Presbyterians put in fifty back in February. That went for medicine for two sick young ’uns. As for th’ Methodists, I’ve not heard.”

“You’ll be hearing soon, is my guess. The summer crowd is back. Here’s ours.” He handed over an envelope.

“I like a preacher that makes house calls,” said Homeless, stuffing the envelope under his mattress, “and I thank you mightily. Now, set.”

He folded a blanket for his guest and put it in the nearly bottomless ladder-back chair. “M’ chair’s gettin’ bottomless to go with m’ dog named Barkless.”

Laughing, the rector sat down. As he did, the spotted dog sailed through the air and landed in his lap. He nearly tipped over backward.

“I like a dog with timing!” he exclaimed. Barnabas looked up and growled.

“Hold off, now.” Homeless stooped down to give the big dog a good scratching behind the ears. “How’re things comin’ with your lady friend?”

The rector sighed. Then he smiled. Then he sighed again.

“That’s a good place to begin,” said Homeless, going to the stove to pour two strong cups of coffee.

He had never before given away a bride.

That the bride was Puny Bradshaw supplied one of the great joys of his life.

He walked down the aisle of First Baptist Church as if on air and could not take his eyes off the lovely creature at his side. Every freckle sparkled, and under the little hat she wore, every curl of red hair seemed to glow.

As he stepped away from her at the altar, he briefly took her hand and felt the shocking roughness of it. This hand had mopped his floors, scrubbed his toilets, ironed his shirts, made his beds, cooked his meals, paired his socks, and fed his dog. He might have sunk to his knees on the spot and kissed it.

“Now we’re related!” Esther Cunningham said, loud enough to be heard to the monument.

“Mayor,” he said, “we’ve always been related. Philosophically.” When Puny marched into the reception in her enchanting dress, he had to gulp down his emotions. She flew to where he was standing with the Baptist minister and hugged him warmly.

“Father!” she said.

Father! He heard the name in a way he’d never heard it before.

I may have missed the boat in that department, he thought, but not, thank God, altogether.

When he arrived home from the wedding, Cynthia had everything under control.

The roast was coming along nicely, as were the potatoes. The fresh asparagus was washed and lying in the steamer. The butter was set out to soften, the rolls had risen, the salad greens were clean, the raw vegetables were chopped, the salad dressing was concocted, the Camembert was ripe, and the merlot was open and breathing.

As he came in the back door, she turned around from the stove and smiled.

Good Lord, what had she done to herself? She looked so positively breathtaking that he was stopped in his tracks.

“It’s the apron,” she said, reading his mind. “Men like seeing women in aprons.”

He kissed her tenderly. “Please!” she murmured against his cheek. “One mustn’t put dessert first.”

“Cynthia, Cynthia.” He caressed her shoulders. “What is this happiness?”

“You’ve been to a wedding,” she informed him. “You’ve seen someone with the bald courage to make a commitment. It’s invigorating!”

“Turn around,” he said.

“What for?”

“I’m checking you for hair curlers.”

They laughed hysterically. Hadn’t he taken her to visit the bishop last year, with a maverick curler banging around in her hair? She’d been gravely disinclined to forgive him for not bringing it to her attention—though heaven knows he’d tried.

At dinner, Dooley Barlowe looked a fashion plate, used his manners to a fault, and said ‘ain’t’ only once.

Cynthia Coppersmith made the bishop laugh and caused Martha to exclaim, and as for himself, he was hard-pressed to do anything more than pour the wine, compliment the cook, admire Martha’s dress, and ask the blessing. “I’m giving you a break,” he told Stuart, who appreciated it.

After Stuart and Martha went up to bed in the scrubbed, polished, disinfected, and thoroughly set-to-rights guest room, he put the blue velvet pouch in his pocket and led Cynthia into the study.

“I’ve already given you this once, so you don’t have to thank me again.”

“Good! I’m too tired to enthuse over anything more than the complete success of your dinner party.”

“Our dinner party.”

She sighed happily. “Whatever.”

They sat on the sofa, and he handed her the brooch.

“Thank you,” she said, sniffing. “It means more than you know.”

“Are you going to cry?”

“Certainly not!”

“Excellent!” He held her hand. “Will you wear it tomorrow?”

“With my bedroom shoes!” she said. He smiled, thinking of the time she met him in the street before church, absentmindedly wearing her embroidered scuffs.

He put his arm around her and looked into her eyes.

“In the morning, the bishop will be confirming you. But you confirm something for me every day.”

“What, for heaven’s sake?”

“That love is a divine gift and should not be held back. Thank you for not holding back.”

She put her head against his chest and he stroked her temple.

The Lord’s Chapel bells were chiming eleven o’clock when he discovered she had fallen asleep in his arms.