A New Song (2 page)

“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. . . .

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.

“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!”

“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 come-back 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?”