A New Song (32 page)

Otis was carrying what appeared to be a half bushel of shrimp in a lined basket. “Cain’t have a party without shrimp!” Otis said, grinning. His unlit cigar appeared to be fresh for the occasion.

“Otis! What a surprise!” Surprise, indeed. His wife would not take kindly to cooking shrimp fifteen minutes before her big tea, and he wasn’t excited about it, either.

“Already cooked, ready to trot. A man over on th’ Sound does these for me, all we do is peel and eat. Where you want ’em set?”

“Thanks, Otis. This is mighty generous of you.” He hastily cleared one end of the table they’d brought out to the porch and draped with a blue cloth.

“Marlene’ll be comin’ along in a minute or two with somethin’ to dip ’em in.” Otis wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Maybe I could get a little shooter at th’ bar?”

“The bar? Oh, the
bar
! We don’t have a bar. But there’s tea!”

“Tea.” Otis chewed the cigar reflectively.

“Or sherry.”

“Sherry,” said Otis with a blank stare.

“Good label. Spain, I think.” He recalled that Otis had sent him a bottle of something expensive, but couldn’t remember where it was. . . .

“Oh, well, what th’ hey, I pass. Father Morgan always set out a little bourbon, gin, scotch . . . you know.”

“Aha.”

Otis squinted at him. “You raised Baptist?”

“I was, actually.”

“Me, too,” said Otis. “But I got over it.”

“Let me get you a glass of tea. Wait ’til you taste it. You’ll like it, you have my word.” He certainly wouldn’t mention where the recipe came from.

 

The soprano, no worse for wear from her brief career in Sunday School, shook hands vigorously. “Gorgeous day, Father!

“Glorious!” said Sam Fieldwalker. “Good gracious alive, what a day!”

“The best all summer!” crowed Marion, exchanging a hug with her priest.

Also receiving rave reviews were the flowers, the table, the refreshments, the hostess, and even the straggling garden in which he’d labored the livelong morning.

His dog’s great size garnered a good share of cautious interest, and Jonathan, dressed in a new sailor suit, was busy eluding all prospects of being dandled on knees or pressed to bosoms.

Father Tim had to admit there was a magical air about Dove Cottage this afternoon; he felt as expansive as a country squire. His wife floated around in something lavender, leaving the scent of wisteria on the breeze and making the whole shebang look totally effortless. The truth was, she’d been up since five a.m., cutting flowers and baking final batches of lemon squares while he installed new lace panels in the living room.

“Lace
belongs
there,” she told him. “It filters the morning light and makes patterns on the floor.” He had nothing but respect for the miracles wrought via UPS.

Cynthia’s workroom was of great interest to the parish children who showed up; eager tour groups processed through the minuscule space, once a large closet, pointing at walls adorned with drawings, book jackets, and—a particular favorite—rough sketches of Violet beneath a beach umbrella. The real Violet positioned herself atop the refrigerator, glowering at anyone who sought her celebrity.

Ella Bridgewater arrived, dressed entirely in black, and looking, he thought, even more like a crane adorning an Oriental screen. She was what his mother would have called “a sight for sore eyes,” coming through the cottage gate with a bright rouge spot on either cheek.

Cynthia trotted their new organist around to various groups convened in the garden. “Penny, I don’t believe you’ve met Ella Bridgewater. Ella, meet Penny Duncan. You’ll have to see the lovely ice mold she made with fresh peppermint.”

“Penny used to be a hippie!” said Jean Ballenger. She proclaimed this as if announcing a former background in brokerage services or marketing. “She grows all their vegetables, raises chickens, and makes goat cheese!”

“Heavenly
days
!” Ella wagged her head in disbelief. “The cleverest thing I ever made was a cranberry rope for the Christmas tree!”

“Penny once made her own shoes,” Jean continued, causing everyone to look at Penny’s feet, which were shod in pumps for the occasion. “And,” said Jean, ending on a triumphal note, “all her children say yes, ma’am!”

He moved away to join Leonard and Marjorie, who had thumped into two of Marion’s folding chairs by the crepe myrtle and were busily shucking shrimp and tossing shells into the bushes.

If Violet knew what was going on out here . . .

“Seen anything of your neighbor?” asked Leonard.

“I’ve seen precisely nothing of my neighbor! But I certainly hear a good deal of him.”

“We hope he doesn’t make too much racket,” said Marjorie.

“Racket! We enjoy it, actually. He’s an outstanding musician.” Leonard dunked a shrimp into the sauce that appeared to be setting his lemon square afloat. “Some say he could have been a concert organist. I believe he was schooled at Juilliard. But he never liked the spotlight, as you can imagine. He’s a real hermit. I haven’t laid eyes on him in years.”

“His grandaddy once got in Walter Winchell’s column!” said Marjorie. “You remember Walter Winchell?”

“Oh, yes,” said Father Tim, feeling suddenly antiquated. “What did he get in there for?”

“Going out with chorus girls in New York City!”

“Aha.”

“Joan Crawford came to Whitecap to visit the Loves,” Marjorie told him. “And Betty Grable, too, or let’s see . . . maybe it was Irene Dunne!”

“It was Celeste Holm!” Jean Ballenger, who enjoyed moving from group to group, plunked into a chair.

“I never much cared for Celeste Holm, Father, did you?” asked Marjorie.

“I don’t believe I remember Celeste Holm.”

“You see,” said Jean, “I told you Father Tim was younger than we thought.”

He sucked in his stomach. “What age had you thought . . . exactly?”

“Marjorie said going on seventy.”

“Why, Jean Ballenger! I said no such thing! I said with all your wonderful background and experience, Father, you
could
be going on seventy, but in the end, I guessed you to be sixty!”

“Thank you!” he said.

“Who else used to come down here and visit Redmon Love?” wondered Leonard.

Jean smoothed her bangs, which were going haywire in the humidity. “Somebody said Winston Churchill, but I never believed it for a minute. Mr. Churchill certainly had no time to be lollygagging around Whitecap, what with winning Nobel Prizes and putting out wars all over the place.”

Leonard licked his thumb. “Well, anyway, we heard the family hid Morris whenever the bigwigs came around. They say Morris spent a lot of time in the attic as a boy. Redmon built him a room up there and put an organ in it, a small version of the big one downstairs. Morris was never allowed to play his music when guests were in the house. I guess they didn’t want anybody to know he existed.”

“The terrible meanness of people!” said Jean, pursing her lips. “They ought to have been horsewhipped. But, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ ”

“Did his grandparents raise him, then?” asked Father Tim.

“Pretty much. His parents stayed in Europe most of the time. I went to school with Morris in the fifth or sixth grade, but the kids made it so tough on him, he never lasted to junior high. I’m sure they must have gotten him a tutor.”

“What exactly . . . is his problem?”

“You mean you don’t know?” asked Leonard.

“Not at all.”

“Well, you see—”

“Father!” exclaimed Ella Bridgewater, joining the group. “As I’ve just said to your wife—your party is delightful, and this tea is
heavenly.
” She clinked the ice in her glass, looking appreciative.

“Well, thank you! As for the tea, I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Marjorie squinted up at the new arrival. “Miss Bridgewater—”

“Call me Ella!”

“Ella, we hear you live on Dorchester Island.” Marion, like the natives, pronounced it
Dorster.
“Lovely over there, quite remote.”

“Remote isn’t the word for it! I drive ten miles from my little coop by the sea, go over the causeway, come down Highway 20 for fifteen miles, take the bridge to Whitecap, and drive to St. John’s at the north end. It’s a trek and a half.”

“And we thank you for doing it!” said Marjorie. “You nearly took the roof off Sunday. It’s been ages since we heard our old organ give forth such a noise!”

“A
joyful
noise,” said their priest, wanting no misunderstanding.

 

“Do come to Dorchester, Father, and bring Cynthia. I’d like nothing better than to behold your faces at my door!”

For the first time, he noticed Ella’s gold brooch—it was in the shape of a hot-air balloon.

“We’d like that. We haven’t seen much of the area since we came.”

“I know how busy your schedule must be with the summer people to shoehorn in, so just pop up whenever—except, of course, Wednesday, that’s when I get my hair washed down at Edna’s. Louise and I would love seeing you.”

“Louise?”

“Louise is my canary. You should hear her sing, Father, you won’t believe your ears!”

“I’m sure!”

“Louise is full of years, as they say in the Old Testament. But the older she gets, the sweeter her voice.”

“Aha.”

“I’ll show you around little Dorchester, it’s like going back in time. You’ll see the oldest live oak on any of these islands, it’s right by my house, and we’ll visit Christ Chapel, it’s hardly big enough to hold the three of us, it has the most glorious rose window above the altar! Then we’ll walk over to the graveyard where Mother is resting. Did I tell you how we buried Mother?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Holding the 1928 prayer book clasped to her heart.”

“A fine way to go.”

“You must come for lunch!” Ella’s rouge spots appeared to brighten. “Are you fond of sea bass?”

“Fond is an understatement. One of my great favorites!”

“Miss Child taught me how to poach sea bass on TV. I miss Miss Child, don’t you? I loved the way she dropped things on the floor and picked them up and went right on, a good lesson for us all, I think!”

“Indeed!”

Sam Fieldwalker joined them as St. John’s organist drew herself up to her full height, which was impressive. “I’m a good hand at plum wine, into the bargain!”

He chuckled. “Yet another incentive to visit. Sam, Ella’s asked us to Dorchester.”

“Oh, my gracious, we love Dorchester. They do a good bit of fishing business up there. It’s nice and quiet, without the tourism we get on Whitecap.”

“I think you’ll like my little house, Father, it’s quite historic. Built in 1902 of timbers that washed up from shipwrecks. I like to say I live in a house that once sailed the sea!”

“When you go over to Miss Bridgewater’s,” Sam suggested, “that could be a good time to visit Cap’n Larkin. He’s the old fellow I told you about who was a longtime member at St. John’s. He lives with his twin brother now, on Dorchester.”

“Their house is just a skip and a jump from mine,” said Ella. “They keep an old pickup truck parked at the front door, that’s where their dog sleeps.”

“You could take him communion,” said Sam. “That would thrill him. Father Morgan never . . . got around to doing that.”

“Consider it done! Of course, if we come anytime soon, Ella, you may have to entertain a three-year-old, as well. How would that be?”

Ella eyed Jonathan clattering across the porch tailed by two self-appointed Youth Group baby-sitters.

“I have a little garden plot fenced with pickets,” she said. “We could stake him out there!”

 

He saw a group gathered to the right of the porch and walked over to see what was what. Cynthia stood by a lacecap hydrangea, holding Jonathan on her hip and peering into a variety of cameras. “Smile, Jonathan!” she urged.

“I declare,” Jean Ballenger said, “that child looks enough like your wife to be her own! Do you see the resemblance?”

He did, actually. Two pairs of cornflower eyes. Two winning smiles. Two heads the color of ripe corn.

“I hope Janette can come home soon.”

“It’s going to be a while yet. It’s . . . a hard thing.” It hurt him to think about it. He could scarcely bear to witness deep depression; he had seen it in his father for years.

“Step over there,” said Sam Fieldwalker, “and let’s get one of you, too!”

Cynthia put her hand over her eyes and squinted in his direction. “Yes, dear, come and let them record your tan.”

He hated photos of himself; in a picture in the new church album, he looked as if he’d been dug up by the roots.

Sheepishly, he put his arm around his wife, adjusted his glasses, and peered at the cameras.

“You better smile!” crowed Jonathan.

 

“First to come, last to go!” Otis Bragg shook his host’s hand with vigor. “Look here, they cleaned us out.”

Father Tim peered into the depths of the empty shrimp basket. “A grand contribution, Otis. Thank you again and again.”

“My pleasure!” he said. “Good to see th’ parish turnin’ out like this. It’s what makes us family.”

“I agree. Come back anytime, you and Marlene.”

Like the rest of the common horde, his landlord and parishioner definitely had some traits that were unlikable. Yet he was growing to appreciate Otis; he had the odd feeling that if the chips were ever down, he could count on Otis Bragg.

“We ought to go on a little run with Cap’n Willie one of these days.” Otis took the cigar from his mouth and eyed it fondly. “You do any fishin’?”

“I hardly know a hook from a sinker, but my good wife has bought me a chair on Captain Willie’s boat, and looks like I’ll be forced to go before it’s over.”

Otis pounded him on the back. “Do you good! Clergy has a tendency to think too much, you need a little fun in your life. Nothin’ like a good, hard fight with a blue marlin to get a man’s blood up!” Otis pounded him again. “Give me a call when you set a date, I’ll try to go out with you.”