Lamb in Love (43 page)

The light in the lane is so beautiful, she thinks, watching how the shadows of the leaves ripple over the two men, the light so gentle and fine. Disappearing into it would be the easiest thing in the world, the sweetest passage, the gentlest vanishing.

And she thinks of the church then, the parish gathered there, the little children leaning over their mothers' laps, the men with their hair dampened, their hands clean, the nails white and sharp from trimming, all their features, family to family, bearing traces of the familiar. There will be flowers, she knows, gathered from every garden. The vicar will be smiling, rubbing his hands, his bald head shining. Lamartine Ramsey, breathless, will have finished her solo, the people grown restless and irritable before the piercing reach of her voice, the ladies of the village crocheting madly beneath the window of the virgins. And Norris and Manford will step forward then, Norris adjusting the light so that Manford's shadow looms up suddenly, huge and dark, against the wall behind the altar, the congregants drawing a collective breath as he pauses there, shifting, his dark shape hunched, unresolved. He will turn to Norris then, she knows, for reassurance. And Norris will steer him, will show him what is to be done.

One by one the shapes will rise up against the wall, the children's mouths opened to tiny Os in delight at the crouching cat, the tattered birds, the arching mongoose, the begging dog. From Manford's hands the fish will swim, the birds soar forth in pairs, the elephant incline his delicate trunk, the giraffe step lightly forward. A low murmur will pass through the people as they raise their eyes, smile, point, motioning to their children to look, look and see! So clever! Who'd have thought it? Isn't it grand!

It will be something to remember always, the night Manford
Perry made his shadow shapes in church, all the creatures of the world in stately procession through the vaulted nave of St. Alphage, the children's eyes wide in wonder, Manford become a benevolent Pied Piper, beloved and adored.

It is what she has always wanted for him.

S
HE GOES UPSTAIRS
then and fetches her cases and Manford's valise. He will stay at Mr. Lamb's; she's already sent over most of his things.

It had been all Mr. Lamb's idea, to have Manford stay with him. “I have in mind to teach him the organ,” he'd said. “I think he might just catch on to it.”

Stopping round for Manford's belongings the day before, he'd shown her a book he'd been reading,
The Language of the Idiot Savant.
He'd been very excited. “I think he may
be
one of these,” he'd said to her, waving the book at her, flipping the pages. “We shall do some experiments, with mathematics and so forth.”

He had sat down in the sitting room, his finger on one of the pages, reading bits aloud to her. After a while, she had ceased to hear him, exactly. She had sat very quietly, her hands in her lap, gazing at him, the bright, hot light from the window falling upon his head. Already, it seemed to her, her place in the world was widening, growing brighter and brighter.

She had come to only when his voice had stopped. She'd found him again, her inward gaze sweeping away from the blue, humpbacked promontories of the Albanian coast across the water, the greenish sheen of the shags darting a meter above the sea.

He'd been looking at her.

She'd met his eyes. “‘The sun may rise and fall, but nothing shall ever eclipse your beauty,'” she'd said abruptly.

He'd blushed, looked down at his feet. “It's true.”

“I never guessed you, you know,” she said. “Not till the end.”

“I know.”

“It's that you were right there, all the while,” she said. “I thought it was someone—I couldn't see.”

“You don't have to explain,” he said. “You don't have to promise.”

“I know. You've said so. But I will—”

“
No, don't.
” His face had been pleading. “I'd rather you didn't. I'd rather I could just—hope.”

And she'd had to accept this. She loved him for that, especially for that. That he was willing. She felt the absolute freedom of her heart to choose. And she would be changed, she knew, but not as much as she might once have expected.

She had stood, walked to him where he sat in her sitting room, his head bowed. She had dropped to her knees, placed her forehead against his thigh. After a moment he had lifted his hand, rested his palm against her cheek.

“I shall always know where to find you,” she'd said, not looking up. “Beacon in the dark.”

And he had smiled.

“R
EADY
, M
ANFORD?”

Norris touches his shoulder, waits until Manford looks up and meets his eyes, the immense kindness there.

Norris smiles. “Now. The animals,” he says, and raises his hands, sees the strange long shape of his own fingers pour over the stones, his reach miraculously long, as if he could caress each head in every pew, graze each figure in each stained-glass window, Adam with his spade for cultivation, Melchizedek with his offering of bread and wine, Joseph bearing a sheaf of corn, Elijah
surrounded by the ravens, David with his crown and scepter, Ezra poised with quill and book, King Solomon with the model of the temple offered on his outstretched palm, doubting Thomas recoiling from the wound of Christ.

How full the world, Norris thinks, touching Manford's hands, making them rise. How old the stories. How miraculous the ending.

And then he climbs the narrow stairs to the organ, breathes in deep, and begins to play.

Published by
A
LGONQUIN
B
OOKS OF
C
HAPEL
H
ILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

©1999 by Carrie Brown.
All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used ficticiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.

E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-763-0

Also by C
ARRIE
B
ROWN

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The Hatbox Baby

The House on Belle Isle

Confinement