Beneath the Dover Sky (37 page)

Dover Sky

“What did you do? Sell tickets to the event?”

“I did. There’s a grand prize.”

“And what is that then?”

“A free hop over the Ditch to Holland—with you at the controls.”

“Terrific prize!” Then Jeremy looked sourly at the control panel of the Fokker, a three-engine aircraft. “I’d like to win it myself.”

“Maybe you will.” Ben continued to taxi the plane over the grass airstrip while working the rudder with his metal feet. “I think I have the hang of this.”

“We could crack up, and you’re as chipper as a lark.”

Jeremy stared through the glass at the people standing shoulder to shoulder nearby. Everyone in the family except Catherine and Libby were watching. All the servants were out, along with dozens of neighbors.

“I don’t see any other way of doing this except with a bit of levity.” Ben glanced at Jeremy’s white face. “Our roles have reversed over the past few weeks, haven’t they? You were always on the positive side of things and telling me to take everything on. You prayed with me. Read the Bible with me. Now I’m walking, and today we’re in a plane. And you’re the one who looks like he’s a fog bank.”

Jeremy’s smile was thin. “And you’re the sunshine?”

“We’re going to be fine.” Ben grinned. “Can’t help myself, Jeremy. I love being in an airplane again. Love the feel of it, love the smell of the cockpit and the leather gear, love the throb of the engine. I thank God I’m here. I can’t do the stark and stoic look today, mate. Sorry.” He turned the plane around and headed east, keeping tabs on the red
windsock. “You’re one of the reasons I’m in the plane at all a year to the day after the crash at Cape Town. That’s why you’re along for the ride. My crazy way of honoring you.”

Jeremy stared straight ahead. “It felt like an honor a fortnight ago. Now I feel like I’ve been asked to take over a coronation at Westminster Abbey without a shred of advice from the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“I
have
given you advice. Showed you how to work the stick and watch the gauges. In fact, the only thing that really can go wrong is my feet not being able to handle the rudder. In that case, you just do the dance with your feet like I tell you to do. I’m not going to keel over and pass out, Jeremy. Heart and lungs are fine. Stop fretting. It’s going to be the kind of day that redeems the day everyone remembers so far as a tragedy.” Ben laughed and shook his head. “Can’t believe I’m about to fly again. It’s marvelous.” He opened up the throttle and the engine roared. “Enough fooling around. I’m more than ready. Whisper a prayer, my good vicar. We’re up and away to where angels soar.”

“I wish you wouldn’t put it that way.”

The Fokker streaked along the grass. Victoria clamped her hands onto both her sons, and Emma put her knuckles to her mouth. The aircraft lifted smoothly and gained height rapidly, soon disappearing to the south over the Channel.

Kipp kept a pair of Zeiss binoculars trained on it until the plane was a black dot. “Well, at least they’re up and away safely,” he said.

No one else spoke. Even the children were silent, picking up on the nervousness of the adults. Harrison had the three shepherds on leashes, and they were quiet as well, sitting on their haunches, tongues out, sensing the mood, and waiting for a different moment to arrive. Six or seven minutes went by before the plane’s engines could be heard again, this time coming from the direction of Dover. Kipp raised his binoculars to his eyes and laughed.

“What do you find amusing?” snapped his father.

“Jeremy’s at the stick, and he’s doing very well for himself—for an Anglican cleric, I must say.”

“What!” Emma reached for the binoculars. “I don’t believe it.”

“Go ahead. Take a look. You can see right into the cockpit.”

Victoria’s dark-green eyes were on Kipp. “Is Ben all right? What’s happened? Why is Jeremy flying the plane?”

Kipp smiled and put his hands in his pockets. “No doubt Ben is sitting up straight and tall and grinning ear to ear.”

“I can see Jeremy!” Emma shouted holding the binoculars to her face. “It is him! Why, he’s doing splendidly!”

The Fokker howled over their heads. Lord Preston clapped a hand to his straw hat to hold it on. “Good heavens, sir!” he yelled. “Slow down! You’re a man of the cloth!”

Kipp took the glasses from Emma. “Right. They’re coming in. Jeremy is leaning back with his eyes shut so Ben’s back at the helm. This is the tricky part. Let’s see how he does with the landing. After all—”

“Do stop, Kipp. Please.” Victoria was staring at the Fokker as if she could make it land perfectly by force of sheer will. “I’m trying to pray.”

The Fokker touched down, bounced once, and then all the wheels met the grass together.

“A three-point landing!” Kipp chuckled. “Marvelous.”

A number of people clapped.

“Well, sis?” Kipp looked at Victoria. “God or Ben’s skill?”

Victoria was standing with her eyes closed and her hands still clamped tightly on Ramsay and Tim. “The two should never be far apart, Kipp Danforth, should they?”

Hartmann Castle, the Rhine River, Germany
 

Libby found her sister high up on one of the Hartmann Castle’s battlements, wind blowing her dark hair straight back.

“How on earth did you get through that door?” Libby asked. “It’s been locked tight ever since we arrived.”

Catherine was leaning with her arms folded on the parapet and taking in the view of the Rhine River Valley. “To keep the children out. All of the turrets are locked up, but I have the key.”

Libby stood beside her. “It’s breathtaking.”

“I agree. I never tire of it. I don’t know which I prefer—Pura or the Rhine.”

“Fortunately you don’t have to choose. You can have both.”

Catherine nodded. “I can.”

“The summer’s almost spent, and we’ve never returned to the conversation we had in Tubingen, Cath.”

Catherine didn’t reply immediately. She kept looking out over the valley. “Maybe there’s a good reason,” she finally said.

“What’s the good reason?”

“I love Albrecht.”

“I know you love Albrecht.”

“So there’s nothing more to discuss.”

Libby folded her arms on the parapet next to Catherine. “So you don’t mind if Terry pops over for a visit?”

Catherine’s jaw tightened. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Start fights.”

“If you love Albrecht and don’t have a problem with Terry—”

“I love Albrecht, and there is no problem with Terry.”

“Except you love Terry too.”

Catherine’s face darkened. “I don’t. I can’t.”

“Oh Cath.
Don’t. Can’t
. What do they do to help you when you have feelings that frighten you?”

Catherine put a hand to her face. “Please don’t bring this up. I honestly don’t have answers for you.”

Libby watched a rolling swarm of blackbirds swirl past the top of the castle. “Soon it will be autumn.” She leaned over and kissed her sister’s head. The wind was blowing Libby’s ginger hair and Catherine’s dark hair about their faces. “If the day ever comes when I want to see Terry, I will not bring him to Tubingen, Pura, or to this castle on the Rhine.”

Catherine didn’t respond. After a moment she lifted one of her hands off the parapet and grasped Libby’s shoulder.

“And if a day ever comes when there is much more emotion between
Terry and me,” Libby went on, “well, that day is far, far away. Michael still has my heart. But should life happen again with another man, and if that man is Terry, we will not live within a thousand miles of you, my dear. I would not wish to see you in turmoil and pain over things you can’t control or understand.”

Catherine whispered, “I wouldn’t want that—wouldn’t want you so far away. Please. There’s conflict between Mum and you, and Mum and Dad, and Edward is in his high-and-mighty snit because I married a German and you adopted a girl from a Chinese family. No more rifts.”

“You’ve been hurt enough in your life, Catherine. I don’t need to add to it.”

Catherine turned her head and touched her other hand to her sister’s cheek. “You said once you were a big girl. So am I. We’ve both lost so much. I’ve tried to make a new start. You deserve a chance too. How can I stand in the way of something like that?”

“Just so you understand Terry and I are talking—only talking. There’s no hand of God in this, Cathy. No touch of the divine driving us forward.”

Catherine smiled crookedly. “You don’t know that.”

DEAR MUM AND DAD

WE HAVE A BABY GIRL AS BEAUTIFUL AS SHANNON AND AS BIG AS HER FATHER. NINE POUNDS FOUR OUNCES. BORN ON 3 OF SEPTEMBER. MOTHER DOING FINE BUT IT WAS A LONG DELIVERY. WE HAD TO COAX OUR GIRL OUT. JANE FINALLY HAS A FEMALE COUSIN. WE’VE NAMED HER PATRICIA CLAIRE. SHE REALLY IS LOVELY. WE HOPE TO HAVE FURLOUGH NEXT YEAR SO WE CAN BRING HER TO ENGLAND TO SEE YOU. GOD BLESS AND THANK THE FAMILY FOR THEIR PRAYERS.

ROBBIE

Old City, Jerusalem

Robbie nudged the toe of his boot against the shattered panel of wood. “Tell me what you saw, Sergeant.”

They both looked as nurses and doctors helped wounded men and women into ambulances. Above the massive stones of the Western Wall, hundreds of Muslim worshipers gazed down from the Dome of the Rock at the splintered wood and wounded bodies and listened to the cries of pain. British soldiers and police were everywhere.

“Sir.” The sergeant had a strong Scottish accent. “The worshipers here at the Wall—the Jews—they had brought some chairs for the sick and the elderly, which they’ve done before. But they also brought a prayer screen covered in a kind of cloth—this is it here at your feet—so’s men and women could pray together; the screen separating one group from the other.”

“Who took exception to this?”

“Well, sir, the sheikhs did so far as I could see. I know they were warning the Jerusalem commissioner who was visiting up on the Rock there. He came and told the rabbi to take the screen down. I overheard that part of it word for word. The rabbi asked if they could leave it up until the prayer service was over. The commissioner, Mr. Keith-Roach, he said that would be fine.”

“So did they take it down?”

“They understood from the commissioner they could finish their prayers first. Ten minutes later a great shouting starts: ‘Death! Death! Kill the Jews! Strike down the Jewish dogs!’ ”