A New Song (14 page)

“We
love
perch!” they exclaimed in unison.

“ ‘Where two or more are gathered together in one accord . . .’ ” quoted the senior warden, laughing. Sam liked both the looks and the spirit of this pair.

In truth, he was vastly relieved that his prayers had been answered, and, as far as he could see, St. John’s hadn’t been delivered two pigs in a poke.

“Before we go inside,” said Marion, “take a look at your rose.”

“Ah!” said Cynthia.

They rushed to the trellis and buried their noses in the mass of blooms. “Lovely!” murmured his wife.

“It was running toward the street when we found it, and terribly trampled by the men who worked on the floors. But we loved it along and fed it, and came and watered it every day, and
now . . .
”

“What is it, do you think?”

“I have no idea. Marjorie Lamb and I searched our catalogs and rose books, but we can’t identify it to save our lives.”

“I believe I know exactly what it is,” he said, adjusting his glasses and inspecting the petal formation.

“You
do
?”

“Yes. It’s the Marion Climber.”

“Oh, Father! Go on!”

“It is, I’d recognize it anywhere.”

“The Marion Climber!” crowed Cynthia. “I never thought I’d live to see one. They’re rare, you know.”

“Oh, you two!” said Marion, flushed with delight.

 

“What do you think about your kitchen?” asked Sam.

Father Tim was a tad embarrassed to see tears brimming in his wife’s eyes. “It’s too beautiful for words!” she said.

“We couldn’t like it better!”

If last night had been a nightmare, this was a dream come true. The sun streamed through a sparkling bay window and splashed across the broad window seat. Bare hardwood floors shone under a fresh coat of wax.

“One of our parishioners bought this cottage a few months ago and had it completely redone,” said Sam. “Otis Bragg—you’ll meet him tonight—Otis and his wife offered it to the parish for the new interim.”

“You see just there?” Marion pointed out the window. “That patch of blue between the dunes? That’s the ocean!” She proclaimed this as if the ocean belonged to her personally, and she was thrilled to share it.

“Come and have your breakfast,” said Sam, holding the chair for Cynthia.

On a round table laid with a neat cloth, they saw a blue vase of watermelon-colored crepe myrtle, and the result of Marion Fieldwalker’s labors:

Fried perch, crisp and hot, on a platter. A pot of coffee, strong and fragrant. A pitcher of fresh orange juice. Cantaloupe, cut into thick, ripe slices. Biscuits mounded in a basket next to a golden round of cheese and a saucer of butter, with a school of jellies and preserves on the side.

“Homemade fig preserve,” said Marion, pointing to the jam pots. “Raspberry jelly. Blueberry jam. And orange marmalade.”

“Dearest, do you think it possible that yesterday in that brutal storm we somehow died, and are now in heaven?”

“Not only possible, but very likely!”

He’d faced it time and again in his years as a priest—how do you pour out a heart full of thanksgiving in a way that even dimly expresses your joy?

He reached for the hands of the Fieldwalkers and bowed his head.

“Father, You’re so good. So good to bring us out of the storm into the light of this blessed new day, and into the company of these blessed new friends.

“Touch, Lord, the hands and heart and spirit of Marion, who prepared this food for us when she might have done something more important.

“Bless this good man for looking out for us, and waiting up for us, and gathering the workers who labored to make this a bright and shining home.

“Lord, we could be here all morning only thanking You, but we intend to press forward and enjoy the pleasures of this glorious feast which You have, by Your grace, put before us. We thank You again for Your goodness and mercy, and for tending to the needs of those less fortunate, in Jesus’ name.”

“Amen!”

Marion Fieldwalker smiled at him, her eyes shining. “Father, when you were talking to the Lord about me doing this instead of something more important, I think you should know . . . there was nothing more important!”

Their hostess passed the platter of fried perch to Cynthia, as Sam passed the hot biscuits to his new priest.

Oh, the ineffable holiness of small things,
he thought, crossing himself.

 

Marion insisted on cleaning up the kitchen while they sat around the table, idle as jackdaws.

“You’re welcome at the library anytime,” she said, pouring everyone a last cup of coffee, “as long as it’s Monday, Wednesday, or Saturday from nine ’til four!”

“We’ll drop in next week,” said Father Tim. “And that reminds me, how’s the bookstore? I hear you have a small bookstore on the island.”

Marion laughed. “It’s mostly used paperbacks of Ernie’s favorite author, Louis L’Amour!”

“Ernie doesn’t sell anything he hasn’t read first and totally approved.” Sam’s eyes twinkled. “I hope you like westerns.”

“We’ve got fourteen boxes of books arriving on Monday,” Cynthia announced. “We can open our own bookstore!”

“By the way,” said Sam, “Ernie also offers a notary service and UPS pickup, and rents canes and crutches on the side.”

“Diversified!”

“Actually, you’ll pass Ernie’s every morning as you walk to church. It’s right up the road.”

“Sounds like the place to be.”

“Ernie has his quarters on one side of the building, Mona has hers on the other. In fact, they’ve got a yellow line painted down the center of the hall between their enterprises, and neither one steps over it except to conduct business.”

“Aha.”

Sam stirred cream into his coffee, chuckling. “Ernie likes to say that yellow line saved their marriage.”

Marion looked at the kitchen clock. “Oh, my! We’d better show you how your coffers are stocked, and get a move on!”

She took off her apron and tucked it in her handbag, then opened the refrigerator door as if raising a curtain on a stage.

“Half a low-fat ham, a baked chicken, and three loaves of Ralph Gaskell’s good whole wheat . . . Lovey Hackett’s bread-and-butter pickles, she’s very proud of her pickles, it’s her great aunt’s recipe . . . then there’s juice and eggs and butter, to get you started, the eggs are free-range from Marshall and Penny Duncan—he’s Sam’s junior warden.

“And last but not least . . .”—Marion indicated a large container on the bottom shelf—“Marjorie Lamb’s apple spice cake. It’s won an award at our little fair every year for ten years!”

Father Tim groaned inwardly. The endless temptations of the mortal flesh . . .

“What a generous parish you are, and God bless you for it!”

“We’ve always tried to spoil our priests,” said Marion, smiling. “But not all of them deserved it.”

Sam blinked his blue eyes. “Now, Marion, good gracious . . .”

“Just being frank,” Marion said pleasantly.

“Dearest, I think we should be frank, too.”

“In, ah, what way?” inquired Father Tim.

“About your diabetes. My husband likes to think that St. Paul’s controversial thorn was, without doubt, diabetes.”

“Oh, dear!” said Marion. “That means . . .”

“What that generally means is, I can’t eat all the cakes and pies and so on that most folks like to feed a priest.”

“But I can!” crowed his wife.

“It helps to get the word out early,” he said, feeling foolish. “Cuts down on hurt feelings when . . .”

Sam nodded sympathetically. “Oh, we understand, Father, and we’ll pass it on. Well, we ought to be pushing off, Marion. We’ve kept these good people far too long.”

“Everybody’s having a fit to get a look at you,” Marion said proudly. “We hope you’ll rest up this afternoon, and we’ll come for you at six. It looks like we’ve got lovely weather on our side for the luau.”

“Is the, ah, grass skirt deal still on?” asked Father Tim.

Marion laughed. “We nixed that. We didn’t want to run you off before you get started!”

“Well done! And how do we get to St. John’s? I’m longing to have a look.”

“Good gracious alive!” said Sam, digging in his pockets. “I nearly forgot, I’ve got a key here for you.”

He fetched out the key and handed it over. “Go out to the front gate, take a left, and two blocks straight ahead. You can’t miss it. Oh, and Father, there are a couple of envelopes on the table in your sitting room. From two of our . . . most outspoken parishioners. They wanted to get to you before anyone else does . . .”—Sam cleared his throat—“if you understand.”

“Oh, I do,” he said.

“If I were you, Father,” Marion warned, “I’d visit the church and take a nice nap before you go reading those letters. To put it plainly, they’re all about bickering. We hate to tell you, but our little church has been bickering about everything from the prayer book to the pew bulletins for months on end. I’ve heard enough bickering to last a lifetime!”

They walked out to the porch, into the shimmering light. For mountain people accustomed to trees, it seemed the world had become nothing but a vast blue sky, across which cumulus clouds sailed with sovereign dignity.

“Thank you a thousand times for all you’ve done for us,” Cynthia said.

“It’s our privilege and delight. You know, we Whitecappers aren’t much on hugging, but I think you could both use one!”

Sam and Marion hugged them and they hugged back, grateful.

The senior warden looked fondly at his new priest. “We’ll help you all we can, Father, you can count on it.”

He had the feeling that he would, indeed, be counting on it.

 

His wife notwithstanding, he had eagerly obeyed only a few people in his life—his mother, most of his bishops, Miss Sadie, and Louella. He thought Marion Fieldwalker might be a very good one to mind, so he lay down with Cynthia and took a nap, feeling the warmth of the sun through the large window, loving the clean smell of the softly worn matelassé spread, and thanking God.

 

Setting off to his new church with his good dog made him feel reborn. But he wouldn’t go another step before he toured the garden, enclosed by a picket fence with rear and front gates leading to the streets.

Along the pickets to the right of the porch, a stout grove of cannas and a stand of oleander . . .

By the front gate, roses gone out of bloom, but doing nicely, and on the fence, trumpet vine. Several trees of some sort, enough for a good bit of shade, and over there, a profusion of lacecap hydrangea . . .

He walked around to the side of the house, where petunias and verbena encircled a sundial, and trotted to the backyard. An oval herb garden, enclosed by smaller pickets, a bird feeder hanging by the back steps . . .

He made a quick calculation regarding the grass. Twenty minutes, max, with the push mower Sam had sharpened, oiled, and left in the storage shed.

A light breeze stole off the water, and the purity of the storm-cleansed air was tonic, invigorating. He thought he heard someone whistling as he went out the rear gate, and was amazed to find it was himself.

They cantered along the narrow lane, spying the much-talked-about street sign at the corner of the high fence. The fence was thickly massed with flowering vines and overhung by trees he couldn’t identify. It was wonderful to see things he couldn’t identify—why hadn’t he been more of a traveler in his life, why had he clung to Mitford like moss to a log, denying himself the singular pleasures of the unfamiliar?

He had the odd sense he was being watched. He stopped in the middle of the street and looked around. Not a bicycle, not a car, not a soul, only a gull swooping above them. They might have been dropped into Eden, as lone as Adam.

 

Ernie’s and Mona’s, he discovered, sat close to the street, with a dozen or so vehicles parallel-parked in front. Cars and pickups lined the side of the road.

Twelve-thirty, according to his watch, and more than five whole hours of freedom lying ahead. Hallelujah!

He tied the red leash to a bench, and Barnabas crawled under it, panting.

As the screen door slapped behind him, he saw the painted yellow line running from front to back of the center hallway. A sign on an easel displayed two arrows—one pointed left to Mona’s, one pointed right to Ernie’s.

He read the handwritten message posted next to the café’s screen door:

Should he follow the seductive aromas wafting from Mona’s kitchen, or buy a
Whitecap Reader
and see what was what?

He hooked a right, where the bait and tackle shop had posted its own message by the door:

“What can I do for you?” A large, genial-looking man in a ball cap sat behind the cash register.

“Looking for a copy of the
Whitecap Reader
,” Father Tim said, taking change from his pocket.

“We prob’ly got one around here somewhere. You wouldn’t want to pay good money today since a new one comes out Monday. Roanoke, we got a paper over there?”

Roanoke looked up, squinting. “Junior’s got it, he took it to th’ toilet with ’im.”

“That’s OK,” said Father Tim. “I’ll pay for one. How much?”

“Fifty cents. You can get it out of the rack at th’ door.”

He doled out two quarters.

“We thank you. This your first time on Whitecap?”