A New Song (28 page)

Authors: Jan Karon

BOOK: A New Song

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“I sketched Jonathan today,” she said.

“Aha!”

“For the new Violet book. I think he’ll weave into it beautifully, just what I’ve been needing to . . . round it out, I think.”

He heard someone knocking, and Barnabas flew at once to the door, his bark as throaty as the bass of St. John’s organ.

He zipped his shorts and padded down the hall barefoot, stunned to see Father Jack and Earlene peering through the screen.

Good Lord! He’d completely forgotten to tell Jack Ferguson they weren’t going home to Mitford!

Beet-red with embarrassment, he let the eager but surprised couple into the living room, and braced himself for the inept explanations he’d be forced to deliver, not only to the Fergusons but to his
wife.

Dadgummit, now Father Jack would have a story to tell on him, which would spread through the diocese like fleas in August.

“Welcome to Dove Cottage,” he said, trying to mean it.

They had gone to Mona’s and eaten fried perch, hard crabs, broiled shrimp, yellowfin tuna fresh off the boat, hush puppies, french fries, and buckets of coleslaw. They had slathered on tartar sauce and downed quarts of tea as sweet as syrup, then staggered home in the heat with Jonathan drugged and half asleep on Father Tim’s back.

As they walked, Cynthia did her part to deliver after-dinner entertainment, loudly reciting a poem by someone named Rachel Field.

“If once you have slept on an island
You’ll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name.
You may bustle about the street or shop;
You may sit at home and sew,
But you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.”

“I declare!” said Earlene. “You’re clever as anything to remember all that. I wonder if it’s the truth.”

“What?”

“That part about never being quite the same.”

“I don’t know,” said Cynthia. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

They sat on the porch and watched the gathering sunset through the trellis, where the Marion Climber had put forth several new blooms.

“Now, Jack,” he said, “don’t go home and tell this story on me.”

“I make no promises.” Father Jack chuckled.

He gave a mock sigh. “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

“Not as long as Jack’s around,” said his wife.

He wondered if Jack had discussed his Mitford trip with the bishop. Very likely they’d talked and Jack had mentioned it, a casual thing.

“Talked to the bishop lately?” he asked.

“Nope. Not a word. Saw him at the convention a while back. He’s put on a good bit of weight.”

“Who hasn’t?” asked Father Tim, feeling relieved.

“I guess you heard what happened at Holy Cross over in Manteo.”

“All I know about this diocese is what you tell me, Jack.”

“More’s the pity. Anyway, Bishop Harvey was making his annual visitation at Holy Cross, got there and saw about eight people sitting in the congregation. He was pretty hot about it, as you can imagine. He got vested, kept looking for somebody else to arrive, they didn’t, so he asked Luke Castor, said, ‘Father, didn’t you tell them I was coming?’

“Luke said, ‘No, but obviously they found out somehow.’ ”

“You have to take Jack with a grain of salt as big as your head,” said Earlene.

The sunset delivered a great, slow wash of color above the beach-front cottages and turned the patch of blue to violet, then scarlet, then gold.

“Oh, the blessing of a porch,” sighed Earlene. “When Jack and I walk out our front door, we just drop off in the yard like heathens.”

“That’s one way to put it,” said her husband.

Earlene gave her hostess a profound look. “Don’t let anybody talk you into a retirement home!”

“Never fear!” exclaimed Cynthia.

“It’s not that bad, Earlene,” said Father Jack. “You may not have a porch, but somebody else does the cooking three meals a day.”

“You’ve got a point, dear,” said Earlene, feeling better about lacking a porch. “And after supper in the dining room, some of us play gin rummy, or sometimes pinochle.”

“Lovely!” said Cynthia.

Father Tim peered at his wife, thinking she was holding up gamely, though she appeared to be gripping the arms of her rocker with some force.

Earlene Ferguson did not care for silences in conversation, and was doing her level best to caulk every chink and crack, so he didn’t know how long the music had been drifting across the street.

“Listen!” he said, during a chink.

“What’s that?” asked Father Jack.

“Just listen.” César Franck . . .

There was a brief silence on the porch.

“Goodness!” said Earlene. “Somebody’s sure playing their radio loud. That’s a problem we have at the retirement home, with so many being half deaf, plus, of course, our walls are thin as paper—”

“Hush, Earlene,” said Father Jack.

He’d never quite appreciated the wisdom of having a king-size bed until his wife introduced him to its luxuries on the second night of their marriage. As a bachelor, he’d spent several decades rolled into the middle of a sagging mattress like a hotdog in a bun.

Now, with the addition of a three-year-old in their lives, the chiefest virtues of a large bed were amply demonstrated. He looked in on Jonathan, who was sprawled across Cynthia’s pillow, and went to the guest room and tapped on the door.

“Jack? We’re going to step down to the beach for a few minutes.”

Jack came to the door and cracked it. “How long have you been married?” he asked, grinning.

“Not too long,” said Father Tim.

He unrolled the blanket and they spread it on the sand.

“Full moon, my dear, and no extra charge.”

“Heaven,” she breathed, kneeling on the blanket. “Heaven!”

“Didn’t I tell you I’d give you the moon and stars?” He sat next to her and smelled the faintest scent of wisteria lifted to him on the breeze. He would go for months, used to her scent and immune to its seduction, then, suddenly, it was new to him again, compelling.

“How are you holding up being married to a parson?”

“I love being married to my parson.”

“The Fergusons didn’t throw you too badly?”

“Goodness, Timothy, what kind of wimp do you think I am? I don’t know much, but I do know that the wife of a priest must be ready for anything.”

“That’s the spirit!”

She lay back on the blanket, and he lay beside her, loving her nearness, loving the sense that sometimes, if only for a moment, he couldn’t tell where she left off and he began.

Lulled by the background roar and lap of the waves, he gazed up into the onyx bowl spangled with life and light, and took her hand. “ ‘Bright star,’ ” he quoted to her from Keats, “ ‘would I were steadfast as thou art . . .’ ”

“You’ve always thought me steadfast,” she said, “but I’m not, I’m not at all, Timothy. I’m sometimes like so much Silly Putty.”

“You’re always there for me, sending off for new clothes, taking in children, drumming up the parish tea, standing with me at the church door. I don’t deserve this, you know, it scares me.”

“You’re all I have,” she murmured, drawing him close, “and all I ever wanted. So stop being scared!”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll try.”

The windows and front doors were thrown open to a fickle breeze, the creaking ceiling fans circled at full throttle. Here and there, an occasional pew bulletin lifted on a draft of moving air and went sailing.

Peering loftward through a glass pane in the sacristy door, he couldn’t help but notice that the soprano had returned to the fold and was cooling herself with a battery-operated fan. He also saw that every pew in St. John’s was filled to bursting.

Air-conditioning! he thought, running his finger around his collar. Next year’s budget, and no two ways about it.

Standing next to him in the tiny sacristy, Marshall Duncan pulled the bell rope eleven times.

. . . bong . . . bong . . .

On the heel of the eleventh bell, Ella Bridgewater, fully rehearsed and mildly fibrillating with excitement, hammered down on the opening hymn as if all creation depended on it.

Marshall opened the sacristy door and crossed himself reverently as the crucifer led the procession into the nave.

Glorious! His congregation was standing bolt upright, and singing as lustily as any crowd of Baptists he’d ever seen or heard tell of.

“Lift high the cross
the love of Christ proclaim . . .”

He threw his head back and, with his flock, gave himself wholly to the utterance of joy on this morning of mornings.

“. . . till all the world adore
his sacred Name.
Led on their way by
this triumphant sign
the hosts of God in
conquering ranks combine.”

The organ music soared and swirled above their heads like a great incoming tide; surely he only imagined seeing the chandeliers tremble.

“Blessed be God,” he proclaimed at the end of the mighty
Amen.
“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!”

The eager congregational response made his scalp tingle. “And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever!”

He lifted his hands to heaven, and prayed.

“Almighty God, to You all hearts are open, all desires known, and from You no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify Your holy Name; through Christ our Lord.”

“Amen!”
they said as one.

He didn’t sense it every time, no; if only he could. But this morning, the Holy Spirit was moving in the music and among the people of St. John’s; He was about the place in a way that left them dazzled and wondering, unable to ken the extravagant mystery of it.

For this moment, this blessed hour, heaven was breathing its perfume on their little handful in the church on the island in the vast blue sea, and they were honored and thankful and amazed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Worms to Butterflies

“Father?”

“Puny!”

“Th’ most awful thing has happened, I don’t know how to tell you. . . .”

He sank into the office chair. “Just tell me,” he said, feeling suddenly weary.

“Your angel . . .” Weeping, nose blowing.

“My angel?”

“Th’ one on th’ mantel! I was runnin’ th’ dust rag downstairs, you know I run th’ dust rag every time I come because of th’ work goin’ on in th’ street, you knew they was relayin’ pipes, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Well, I was runnin’ th’ dust rag an’ . . .” More nose blowing.

“It’s all right. Whatever you’re going to tell me is all right.” She was dusting and the angel toppled off the mantel and fell to the floor and a wing broke off, or an arm. How bad could it be?

“Well, th’ angel . . . it’s not
there
anymore, it’s gone!”

“Gone?”

“Today I was dustin’ downstairs because I dusted upstairs last week, and when I come to th’ mantel, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was jis’ this empty place where it used to set!”

“Well, now . . .”

“I mean, th’ other day when I called you about th’ door bein’ unlocked, I looked all around an’ didn’t see nothin’ missin’, I mean, I thought somethin’ seemed different about your study, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, I didn’t notice anything bein’
gone
, so what I’m sayin’ is, maybe it was gone last week, I don’t know!”

“Have you talked with Harley? And Puny, stop crying, it’s all right. Just sit down, take a deep breath, and tell me everything.”

“I talked to Harley, he said he hadn’t seen nothin’ goin’ on at your house, ’cept me goin’ in an’ out.”

“Was anything else missing, anything moved around?”

“No, sir, an’ I promise you I really looked, I’ve went over th’ whole house with a fine-tooth comb, even th’ closets, an’ checked th’ windows an’ basement door, they’re locked tight as a drum. I feel terrible about this, Father, I’ll pay for th’ angel, whatever it cost, me an’ Joe will pay ever’ cent.”

“This is a mystery. I remember having a fifty-dollar bill and a credit card in my desk drawer. I wonder—”

“I’ll go look!” she said.

Very odd, he mused.

“Your money and credit card’s in th’ drawer on th’ left-hand side.”

Odder than odd. “I wonder if Dooley would know anything.”

“I don’t think Dooley was in th’ house a single time.”

“I’ll call him at school and ask. I don’t know, Puny, I’m as baffled by this as you are.”

“I’m real sorry.”

“It’s OK, I promise. We’ll figure it out, don’t worry. Just . . . lock up good when you leave.”