The Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries 1-3 (15 page)

“Well, then get me a new pillow case.  And show me where the
bathroom is.  The Manhattans are wanting a way out,” he instructed.

I guided him down the hall to the bathroom.  I retrieved a
clean pillowcase from the linen closet and went back to the blue room.  After
making the bed which I left unmade, bad habits from home, I gathered up my
pajamas and a change of clothes.  I left my things in the drawers and closet. 
I didn’t think Michael would be staying long, and I could just pop in and get
myself restocked.

Picking up my bra, which kept falling off the stack of
clothing in my arms, I looked up to see Michael standing in the doorway.  He
had taken off his alb and stood there hair ruffled, sleepy eyed, in his V
necked undershirt and black trousers.  I don’t know how long I stared at his
dark hairy chest, but it took reminding me that he was a man of God to get my
mind out of the gutter.

“Sweet dreams,” I said as I brushed by him.

“Thank you.  Don’t let me sleep too long,” he said as he
shut the door.

“I would bar that door if you knew what had been going through
my mind, Michael,” I barely whispered as I walked towards the stairs.  “Gee
God, you sure do make beautiful people.”  I continued talking to myself as I
climbed the stairs to the third floor.

I chose the bed farthest away from the girls and swore as I
remembered I would have to do the stairs again to get my linens.

“Such nasty language with a priest in the house.”  Angie
stood behind me, blessedly holding a set of linens.

“You’re a mind reader.”

“Well, between us girls, I was in the process of getting the
linen from the closet when Father Michael walked out of the W.C.  I was frozen
to the spot.  What a handsome creature he is.  I was so deep into my impure
thoughts, that before I could come out of it, I missed you.  You had already
started up the stairs before I could give you these.”

“Do you think he knows what he does to women?” I asked her.

“He’s a priest.”

“My son is handsome and knows it.  He uses it and his charm
to get what he wants.  What’s so different between Alex and Father Michael?”  I
patted the bed beside me.

“I am going to use the excuse it’s been too long since a man
has slept in this house,” Angie said as she sat beside me.

“I’m going to remind myself that Father Michael can be a big
pain in the behind.   Maybe that will keep me from the thoughts of mortal
sin.”  I looked at her and we broke out laughing.

We continued to break out in little fits of giggles as she
helped me make the bed.  There were no years between us girls as we each
recounted our experiences with boys in our early days.

“I’m really enjoying having this house full of people
again.  My mother grumbled a lot, but I know she secretly enjoyed spoiling each
class of boys.”

“Tell me about your mother.”

“Well, there isn’t a lot to tell, but the story will go over
much easier with a drink.  Let’s go downstairs.”

“Excellent idea.  Speaking of stairs, this stairwell is
beautiful.  I think I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Ah, this was my mother’s idea,” Angie lowered her voice so
we wouldn’t wake Michael.  She stood at the landing between flights and waited
until I joined her.  “I think she knew the boys sleeping up on the third floor
were a bit frightened of the country, being so quiet and all, so she decided to
lighten up the staircase and in doing so gave the travelers a sense of the good
part of Cornwall, the magic.  We used to have a ginger cat that would sun
himself on this ledge.  One of the boys sent these crystals back in a thank you
package.  He asked her to put them in the stairwell and she did.”

“Truly beautiful.  Funny thing about the ginger cat, I
thought about a ginger cat when I first passed this spot.”

“Nothing funny about it.  Magic.  Now let’s get downstairs
and to our girl talk.”

I followed Angie down.  We tried to suppress our laughter as
we passed Father Michael’s room.  Angie broke into a tiptoe run for the last
set of stairs.  We just made it to the bottom as the laughter bubbled up and
out.

“Could you be making me one of those Manhattans?  I do have
ice in the side-by-side.  That should do it up proper.  I want to dig out a
photo album.”  She disappeared into a large cupboard.

I was happy to be bartender.  My father makes the best
Manhattans, and recently he showed me his secret.  There’s still something
different between his and mine though.  He says I should use cheap scotch, but
I have a hard time following those instructions.  My hand reaches for the
bottle, but I just can’t do it.  It’s very similar to the dread I feel in
discount stores.  Can a person evolve into a snob without consciously doing
it?  When Luke and I were starting out we frequented discount stores and bought
cheap booze.  Hell, my first home was in a trailer park at the end of an
airport runway in North Carolina.  What had caused this transition?

My parents are well put, but they are still down to earth. 
My mother uses coupons and waits months to buy some material on sale so she can
sew an outfit and save mucho dollars.  It doesn’t make her any less classy. 
Must be the car, my beautiful topaz blue BMW Z3 convertible roadster.  I love
this car.  I would have never thought a girl brought up in Michigan’s auto
industry would feel comfortable in a BMW, but I did.  I let Alex drive it,
although he claims that I don’t.  He says, “people like me when I drive this
car,” which makes me laugh each time he says it. 

Back to the Manhattans, which I had just finished when Angie
reappeared with the album she was looking for.  We sat together on the love
seat and put the large album on both of our laps.  Angie took a drink.

“Heaven.  Burt said this was an old man’s drink?  He’s
crackers.  Now, let me tell you about my mother.”  She opened the album, and in
the first picture, which was more of a portrait than a snap shot, was a
beautiful curvaceous woman sitting with a cello between her legs.  Her gown
showed a little of her square shoulders.  It fit her snuggly at the waist under
an impressive bosom.  The skirt was full to allow for modesty while she played
her instrument.

“My mother’s name was Anna Wagner.  A relation yes, but not
too close to Wagner the composer.  She was playing professionally when my
father first met her.  She was very young and temperamental.  Her strong
attitude made conductors very wary of wanting to work with her.  She told me
she was angry because she felt she had wasted her youth practicing.  Her
parents pushed her when they became aware of how talented she was.”

Angie turned the page and we looked at playbills in German,
French and Italian that had Anna Wagner listed as the starring soloist.

“She didn’t want to be this public thing, beautiful girl
playing the cello in front of the social elite of the world.  My mother wanted
to go to the university.  She wanted to study and be a teacher, but her parents
forbade it.  It made her angry inside.  One night in Vienna she was performing,
and the conductor made an error and the orchestra was not with Anna.  She stood
up, tossed her cello to the floor and walked over and proceeded to beat the
poor man with her bow.  People ran to his aide and pulled her off of him.  She
was so worked up that she began tearing all the adornments off her dress as
they carried her off the stage.  My father was waiting in the wings - he was
the next soloist - and the stage manager told him to go on.  He just put down
his violin and went in search of Anna.  He found her in a dressing room tearing
her skirt into shreds.  Her mother had fainted and her father was making arrangements
to have Anna taken away.

“My father was a sensitive man of small stature.  He came
into the room and knelt before her.  ‘What is the matter my little flower,’ he
said to her in German.  She didn’t respond.  He repeated himself in French. 
Still nothing.  Finally he tried English.  She smiled through her tears.  ‘My
parents don’t speak the English.’  ‘Fine, then we will speak English.  What is
wrong?  How can I help you?’ he asked her.

“Her tears continued but she managed to say, ‘My fire is my
mind on.  The idiot cannot count, no.’

“My father remained serious even when her English was
comical.  He said, ‘he was in error, but that isn’t why you are upset is it?’ 
She thought a moment and said, ‘I am hating this cello, cello, cello. 
Practice, practice, smile pretty, play for the peoples.  I do not play – no – I
do not want to play anymore.’  At this point her father asked in German what
they were talking about.  My father explained he was trying to calm her down. 
My mother glanced at him oddly but seemed to understand that he wasn’t going to
let her parents know what they were saying.  He stood up, ‘If you don’t want to
play then don’t play.  Music should be a joy and not a weapon.

“My mother looked up at him and her eyes started to
sparkle.  ‘I want to go to the university, read books.  Not play.  My family
would not allow university.  I am in a cage and they have the key.  I have
misbehaved before and to the hospital I was sent.  That is where I am going
now.’  My father contained his shock and asked her father in German whether it
was true that he was going to take Anna to the hospital.  Her father said yes,
they were waiting for a cab.  My father looked at Anna and said in English.
‘Trust me.’  He then told Heir Wagner he had a car and would take her there
himself.  The Wagners discussed it amongst themselves, and her mother had
agreed to go with Anna and my father to the hospital.  Her father would follow
after he had collected her things.

“My father guided Anna and her mother to his automobile.  He
helped Anna in the car, and before her mother got in Anna cried out, ‘Oh
mother, I must have my bag get me my bag.’  Anna was very insistent.  Her
mother left the car and told my father to wait.  He didn’t.  They drove all
night stopping only for food.  My father left his violin and his reputation in
Europe.  He did this so his little flower - who towered over him a good eight
inches - could go to the university.  They were married aboard ship and entered
England as Anna and Robert Bathgate.”

She turned the page and there was a photo of Anna and Robert
standing at the rail of a ship.  Anna did tower over Robert, but she was very
happy.

“My father secured a post at a college and my mother
attended there.  She earned a degree in English literature.  Anna never played
the cello again.  She fell in love with books as her love grew for my father. 
She worked very hard to lose her German accent, and by the time Bobby was born
no one would ever associate my mother as being foreign.”

We turned the pages of the album and gazed upon each
picture.  Angie gave brief descriptions of some of them.  Some we just enjoyed
silently.  She closed the album and drank the rest of her Manhattan.

“When I met Michael and we first talked seriously, he told
me about his dream to raise plants.  He didn’t want to be a composer or a
musician for that matter.  He reminded me so of the story my father told me of
my mother.  I told him the story and told him I felt the same way.  If he
didn’t want to be a composer, he shouldn’t.  My Michael looked at me and I
could see love in his eyes.  Each moment away from him was dreadful.  When we
were together my love deepened till all I could see, feel and smell was Michael
and his flowers.

“War is war, and he was a patriot.  He left and never
returned.  Maurice came himself to tell me that Michael was missing and
presumed dead.  I held together long enough to wish a good life to Maurice, and
then I spiraled deeper and deeper into the pain that almost killed me.  My
parents were frantic and even though my mother hated the thought of her
daughter being put into a hospital she gave in because she had and would always
trust my father.  It took two years, but I was saved.  My mother came four,
five times a week to read to me.  Finally, I was able to come home to
Bathgate. 

“I remember how quiet it was.  My mother had taken out all
the radios.  She had all the musical instruments banned to the school, which my
father had given up on.  He stayed on at the university and visited us here. 
Bobby made a life for himself in America.  Very talented and well deserved. 
Anna slowly brought me to life again.  We started with baking and worked up to
other assumedly female pursuits.  When I became bored she and I learned how to
run a tractor together.  Soon Bathgate was known as a prosperous farm.

“When I became self-sufficient she moved back to the
university with my father.  I never married.  I don’t think that my heart could
ever love anyone but Michael.  I know this saddened my mother, but she never
said anything.  She taught school till she caught a bad bronchial infection in
her sixties.  Anna died, and I braved my way to the university to see her
buried.  My father stayed on there teaching, and I came back to Bathgate
alone.”

“It must have been lonely here.”

“Well, it was until I started to meet people.  Once the
matchmakers gave up on me, I really didn’t mind the social functions.  When my
father died, I had to go and pack up his things.  I was surprised at how strong
I had become.  I sold his little house and took the money and ventured into
London.  There I bought a flat.  I first used it as a vacation place.  Never
could get enough of the museums and the like.  Then when farming became
impractical I scaled down here and spent more and more time there.  Bobby came
back with Elizabeth every so often. Cornwall is magic the way it can heal, but
I miss my friends and the cold is getting to my bones.  I just couldn’t let go
of this place before now because it represented Michael to me.