The Mill River Recluse (25 page)

“I don’t think she’s big enough for me,” he said as he climbed astride Ebony for the first time. Mary had suggested that they stay in the round ring so she could teach him proper posture and position in the saddle. “And what if she gets spooked and takes off?”

“Ebby doesn’t spook easily,” Mary said, adjusting the length of the stirrups to accommodate his long legs. “She’s a good girl. Strong, too. Morgans are smallish horses, but you’d be surprised at how they can out-pull much larger ones. Ebby could carry someone probably twice your weight. Just remember, keep your heels down and your back straight. And when she trots, support yourself with your legs and try to move up and down with her.”

Father O’Brien nodded, trying to process all of Mary’s directions.

“Are you ready?” Mary asked.

“I suppose,” he said, looking down. Even though Ebony was a small horse, the ground still seemed far beneath his feet now that he was in the saddle.

Mary flicked the long rein and the black mare began to walk in a large circle. Once he was accustomed to the gentle swaying of the mare’s gait, Mary flicked the rein again. As the horse broke into a trot, he lurched and bounced uncomfortably.

“Try to feel how she’s moving,” Mary called. “Keep your weight in the stirrups.” After a few minutes, he managed to post in rhythm with Ebony. Surprised at his accomplishment, he smiled at Mary.

“Good!” Mary called. “Let’s try a canter now, just for a few minutes.” Mary flicked the rein a third time, and Ebony tossed her head and began a slow, easy canter.

Father O’Brien liked this fluid gait the best. Leaning slightly forward in the stirrups, it was almost as if he were gliding around the round ring. He marveled as he felt the black mare’s strength gathering and pushing with each stride and his own exhilaration in being carried so effortlessly.

After a few times around the ring, Mary slowed Ebony to a walk. “You looked like you were having fun,” she said, watching the young priest settle back into the saddle. His tall, lanky form looked goofy astride the small Morgan. Even sitting properly with his feet in the stirrups, Father O’Brien was all elbows and knees. Mary couldn’t help but laugh when, after he dismounted, he walked slightly bowlegged, wincing at the soreness up and down the inside of his legs.

“Consider it penance,” she said, winking at him, and giggling at his open-mouthed surprise. “Don’t worry, Michael, we’ll toughen you up.”

She was right. With some practice and more careful instruction, Father O’Brien grew comfortable riding Ebony. He didn’t wish to ride either of the other horses, and Mary didn’t blame him. Being a Thoroughbred, Penny was a bit high-strung for a beginning rider. Monarch was a gelding now, but he had retained some stallion-like mischievousness and was sometimes difficult under saddle.

Both Ebony and Penny had delivered foals during the war, a result of leaving Monarch in the same pasture with them. Penny’s foal was a colt, a dark chestnut, while Ebony’s was a blood-bay filly who was a miniature copy of her sire. Mary was delighted at the foals’ arrivals, but she decided that five horses were enough. She asked Father O’Brien to arrange a visit from the veterinarian to see to Monarch, and had waited anxiously in the marble mansion until the priest had come up from the barn to tell her that all had gone well.

Sometimes, they didn’t go riding at all, but just walked around the pasture, talking, offering occasional treats to the horses. Father O’Brien had never seen young horses play, and he couldn’t get enough of watching their antics.

“They’re just like children,” he said one afternoon at the pasture, as the filly nipped and squealed at the little colt. The little colt squealed back, kicking up his heels and rushing over to hide behind Penny. “Squabbling and fighting! The way they lay their ears back and frown makes them look like they’re pouting!”

“They are pouting,” Mary agreed. “But they can be very sweet, too. See?” The filly had come to her and was nuzzling her fingers with a tiny muzzle. “And each of them will have a distinct personality, just like a person. It’s one of the things I really love about them.”

“I never thought of horses that way,” Father O’Brien said, “but I guess I’ll get to see these little ones grow up.” He smiled as the filly stretched her nose out to him. “She sure likes attention.”

They had named the filly Ruby, for her bright red coat. A name for the colt eluded them for weeks, though, until one day they saw him prance around and around, trying to get the attention of his mother and the other horses. Despite his squeals and circling, the other horses just grazed contentedly, and the little colt had finally flopped onto the grass in a dizzy, uncoordinated heap.

“What a show!” Father O’Brien said, holding his sides. Mary was laughing, too, although humorous baby horse antics were not such a surprise to her. Still chuckling, Father O’Brien wiped at his eyes. “I can’t remember the last time I saw something so funny,” he said. “He’s like a little jester, trying to entertain the royal court.”

And so the little chestnut colt was Jester. Mary thought the name especially fitting since his daddy was a Monarch.

~~~

As American soldiers returned home from the war, Mary’s life returned to normal, or, at least, as normal as it could get. She joined the Book-of-the-Month Club, as her appetite for new reading material was voracious. She added more shelves to the library upstairs and lost herself among the titles.

Conor was finally able to resume his frequent visits. Mary eagerly watched for his car and felt a surge of excitement when she spotted it coming through the center of town toward her marble mansion. She threw open the door and embraced him before he could even ring the doorbell. “Easy now,” Conor said, laughing. “Wouldn’t want to topple your Grandpop, now would you?” Of course, this was nonsense; the patriarch was as tall and stout as ever.

Mary had almost forgotten how much she looked forward to seeing his kind, cheery face. During his first visit back to her home, they talked for hours, with Conor telling stories of being cooped up with his family during the war.

“Stephen was so beside himself. All he seemed to do was complain that he couldn’t drive any of those cars of his. He still waxed and polished them every week. Then there was Elise, always fretting and worrying that Jake would be drafted into the military. She about drove us all crazy. The last straw was when Sara and Emma came to blows over who would wear the last unripped pair of nylon stockings. Jake and Stephen had to separate them, if you can imagine that! They insisted on keeping their nylons, you know, even though most other folks were turning them in so the government could use them to make parachutes. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but I tell you, they’re all spoiled and selfish.” Conor shook his head. “I had taken to walking in the evenings, just to get away from it all. I think we were all at our wits’ end, because the war went on so long and there was really nothing we could do.”

“You must have spent lots of time writing,” Mary said. “Your letters meant so much to me. I can’t tell you how much I looked forward to reading them. Each time I opened one, it was almost as if you were here. And you were so busy at the Marbleworks. Surely that helped keep you from feeling cooped up at home.”

“Well, yes. We haven’t done much with marble in some time, though. We’ve been making gun sights and rifle drillers and so many other things. As fast as the parts come in, we assembled them and shipped them out. Made my job easy, really. All I had to do was sign the papers at each end of the process.”

Mary nodded. “And what will you do now that the war is over?”

Conor shrugged. “Oh, we’ll go back to cutting marble at some point, but we’ve got to get some orders in first. Things have really slowed down. The country’s recovering, and I expect it will be a while before people start wanting marble again. Except for tombstones, maybe.”

“Well, I think you should spend your spare time out here while you wait for business to pick up again,” Mary told him. She smiled and bounced off the sofa. “Let’s go down to the barn. You won’t believe how the babies have grown.”

~~~

The next week, Mary was expecting Conor’s visit, but it was a whey-faced Father O’Brien who came to her door.

“Michael! What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Mary asked as she pulled him inside.

“No. Well, yes. I have some horrible news.” He watched her face shift from surprise to concern. He saw a spark of realization in her good eye, a kind of knowing, as if, perhaps, on some subconscious level, she had already guessed what he dreaded to tell her. “Bishop Ross phoned me a few minutes ago.” He lowered his voice and spoke more slowly in an effort to soften the effect of his words. “Conor died in his sleep last night. Oh, Mary, I’m so sorry.”

“What?” she gasped. He caught her as her knees buckled, helped her to a chair in the kitchen as she gripped his arm, shaking her head. “It can’t be,” she said. “He was coming to visit me today, in a few minutes.”

“I’m sure that he had every intention of doing so. I didn’t believe it myself at first, Mary.” Father O’Brien pulled up another chair and sat down beside her. She looked as though she was just starting to get her mind around the idea. At last, the tears began to fall, and her chin trembled when she tried to speak. “I am so sorry,” he kept repeating, but his words were pitifully inadequate.

“I don’t understand,” she finally said. “He wasn’t sick at all. There was no reason for him to die.”

“No reason known to us, anyway,” Father O’Brien agreed. Mary did not reply, and they sat in silence for several long minutes. He straightened up in his chair and cleared his throat. “The Bishop said that things are still chaotic at the McAllister house in Rutland, but that it looks as if the wake and funeral mass might be held the day after tomorrow. I would be happy to drive you, if you’d like.”

“No.” Her sharp refusal was tinged with terror. “No, I couldn’t go, with all the people that will be there, the rest of the family.” Her voice trailed off as her gaze focused on an invisible spot on the kitchen floor. “Besides, I don’t want to see him that way. I’d rather remember him as he was when he came here to see me.”

Her response was exactly what Father O’Brien had expected. He nodded, took her hand, and squeezed it. “I’m sure Conor would have appreciated that,” he said. “Here, let me get you a glass of water.” He began to stand up, but she shook her head.

“No, no water. Please, just sit here with me a little while longer?”

“Of course, Mary. I’ll stay as long as you’d like.”

~~~

Conor’s death brought to Father O’Brien a new understanding of the immensity of the promise he had made to the patriarch. He had become Mary’s sole source of human companionship and conversation. He still had every intention of keeping his promise, of course, but would he be able to honor it for a
lifetime
? He worried that something, some decision over which he had no control, some circumstance that he could not foresee, would force him from Mill River. What would become of Mary without him?

It was true, in the beginning at least, that he kept in touch with her purely out of obligation and, perhaps, pity. Now, though, he had come to value the relationship. He had become attached to her, though not in any way that was improper. He was sure that few people, if any, were aware of his visits to the marble house, and he thought this a good thing lest someone make any sort of unfounded accusation against him. Such an accusation would jeopardize their relationship, a relationship that was unlike any other he had known.

To visit Mary was to escape from his normal obligations. Her home was a place of refuge, her personality a fresh uniqueness among the people he saw on a regular basis. She was clever and delightful and totally uninfluenced by what others had or thought or did. She took in what information was available to her and formed her own opinions. Within the confines of her home and the boundaries of her property, she was a happy source of stability and confidence.

Of course, all of this changed if he made the slightest suggestion that she leave the grounds of the marble mansion, or if a person she didn’t know was required to stop by to see to a leak in the roof or a portion of fence that needed mending. She would never see the person, always asking Father O’Brien to supervise whatever the business was while she took refuge in her library or bedroom until the stranger had departed. She never answered the phone.

He did as she wished, all the while wondering what could possibly have caused her to develop the anxiety in the first place. Since he had first inquired about it on his first visit to the marble mansion, he hadn’t dared ask her again. But he felt confident that, if she would only venture out with him, he could help her. He could introduce her to people who would be accepting of her affliction and her appearance. Perhaps he could show her that she had nothing to fear from her neighbors.

Eventually, he got what he hoped for, but when she finally agreed to try to face people again, the results were disastrous.

One year, he convinced Mary to participate in Halloween.
A good opportunity
, he thought.
She can meet dozens of people while staying in the familiar surroundings of her home
. He brought her an enormous pumpkin, and together they scooped out the seeds and stringy innards and carved it into a jack-o’-lantern. Mary spent all Halloween day baking batches of cookies and wrapping small packages of them in aluminum foil. Toward evening, she insisted that he attend the Halloween celebration at St. John’s as he had planned, since she wanted to attempt to give out the cookies by herself.

He never should have left her.

When he came to check on her later that evening, he’d found the jack-o’-lantern smashed, the walkway littered with broken eggs. He still remembered seeing the cookie basket abandoned in the foyer and Mary crying in the closet.

“I couldn’t do it,” she’d said. “There were so many little children…they rang and knocked over and over, and they waited for so long. I wanted to open the door, and I really, truly tried, but I couldn’t. And then, a few of them came back. They were yelling horrible things and banging on the door. I was so scared, Michael. And I wanted so much for tonight to be happy.”