Flower of Heaven (5 page)

“We will today cover the main attractions of Paris, stopping at each one to allow time for photographs and to walk inside some of the buildings. Please do not go off on your own since we will not stay long at any one location except for lunch at the Café Royal. If there are any questions I can answer, please ask. I will try to tell you as much about Paris as I can,” she said as she motioned to the driver to begin the tour by heading down Rue du Temple. It was then that she noticed the new driver. “You’re not the normal driver, where’s Maurice?”

“I am Rejean and I am taking Maurice’s place today. He is not feeling well and the director said you were the best person to start driving with on these tours. I will need some help though, I don’t know my way around the streets yet,” said Rejean.

Françoise smiled, as she always did, and introduced herself as she pointed out the direction he should proceed. As the bus slowly made its way through the maze of Paris, Françoise could feel Rejean’s eyes gazing at her at each stop. He was a terrible driver and had difficulty shifting the grinding gears of the bus, jerking it forward after every stop, and bouncing over the curbing at nearly every corner he made. This made it difficult for her to concentrate on her presentation to the tourists and Françoise began to get visibly irritated with these distractions.

“Please be more careful at what you’re doing,” she pointed out to him, “this is intended to be a way to enjoy the sights of the city, not a bumpy ride all over the streets.”

Rejean could not help himself. He was distracted by her every move and the slender lines of her body as she stood there next to him. The faint aroma from her cologne added to the urges he began to feel building inside of him. By the time the tour had reached the Café Royal, Françoise was so visibly upset with the terrible ride her passengers had just gone through that she apologized to them, explaining that the remainder of the tour after lunch would most definitely improve.

As the tourists exited the bus and entered the café, Françoise greeted her father and immediately proceeded to the public telephone at the rear of the restaurant.

“Hello, Françoise, what can I do for you, you didn’t get into an accident did you?” asked the director of the tour company.

“No, no, Monsieur Pontbriand, I am afraid we will be getting many complaints from the people on this tour,” Françoise explained. “The new driver you gave me is driving badly and the passengers are not able to enjoy the ride. I don’t think it is good for business if they tell other people at their hotels to stay away from our tours.”

“Where are you now, Françoise,” grumbled Pontbriand. “I will send another man over. The new boy is not experienced enough to drive in the city. I’ll send him instead on the tour that goes outside the city tomorrow. Let me talk to him.”

Françoise spotted Rejean already sitting at a table in the corner by himself. Françoise wondered if he sat alone because he was shy or because the passengers were furious with him from the morning’s bad ride. She motioned for him to come to the telephone because Monsieur Pontbriand wanted to speak to him and moved on to one of the tables where the tour passengers were seated.

Louis would always watch his daughter as she mingled with the patrons and he was pleased at how confident she had grown in her work. Monsieur Cardin had on several occasions thanked Françoise for arranging the tours so that they would stop at his restaurant for lunch each day. The small commission he had agreed to give the tour company for the extra business still brought many tourists to the café, tourists who often returned on other days, and mostly in the company of other friends. Monsieur Cardin had grown as fond of Françoise as everyone else.

“You pig, you lousy little bitch,” screamed Rejean as he darted straight toward Françoise. “You couldn’t give me a chance, could you? You had to call Monsieur Pontbriand on my very first day. I hope you’re happy now; I’ll probably lose my job and I can’t afford to.”

“Monsieur Pontbriand assured me you would be used on another bus until you know the city better. It’s for your own good. You were making the passengers nervous and without them you won’t have a job anyway.” Françoise said as she tried to calm him down before he made a scene and added to his already shaky start with the tourists.

In a fit of contempt, Rejean shoved Françoise aside and stormed out the door. She fell to the floor and her face turned red.

At a nearby table, a young man swiftly jumped to his feet and extended his hand to Françoise to help her up. As she still had her eyes on the door as the young driver bolted out, the helping hand motioned for Françoise to sit down at that table, occupied also by an elderly couple.

“Are you hurt, mademoiselle?” the concerned young man asked.

Françoise motioned to everyone that she was fine and attempted to compose herself with a few sips of wine from a glass placed before her by the young man. “Merci, merci beaucoup, monsieur, I am sorry for this trouble, I have never had this happen before,” she explained. “It is not good for you to have this happen to you, you are only here to enjoy the city, not to be insulted by this behavior.”

No problem, really,” smiled the young man as he sipped his own glass of wine. “To tell you the truth, it’s the most excitement I’ve had since I arrived in Europe last week. I’m only sorry you had to be the victim.”

Louis had already reached the table and was shaken at the thought of someone striking his Françoise. Once he was reassured that she was not hurt, he motioned to a waiter to be certain that her table was well taken care of throughout lunch.

“Well, shall we order, mademoiselle,” said the young man as he smiled again at Françoise. “What do you suggest? Oh, by the way, this is Mr. and Mrs. Quinlan from New York, and I’m Richard from Vermont. Richard Merrill.”

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CHAPTER 4

Richard Arthur Merrill was born in April 1926 in Rumney, New Hampshire, the son of Charles and Alice Merrill. The Merrills were lifelong residents of New Hampshire and lived in a farmhouse on a plateau at the foot of some mountainous terrain near Tenney Mountain. Charlie Merrill’s hens produced enough eggs to sell as far away as Plymouth, nearly a ten-mile ride in his old beat-up Ford pickup truck.

Every day he would make his rounds in Plymouth, stopping at the two restaurants, the local hospital, and the college on the hill to deliver almost all the eggs he had. What few he didn’t sell, he would bring back home to Alice so she could make pies and cakes to sell at the same establishments on the next day’s trip. When Charlie delivered his eggs, he would ask his customers what kind of cakes or pies they would need and when. Alice could bake practically anything they asked for and, depending on the season, the requests for her baked goods were almost always met on time, even if Alice had to spend late hours finishing someone’s orders for the next day. It was no wonder that the Merrill house always had a wonderful aroma to it, unlike the typical dairy farms where the smell of manure permeated the premises.

Farms in that central part of the state were some distance apart and Dick Merrill’s childhood was filled with a lot of solitude. The few friends he made were from school where a dozen or so children from the village were to be educated. Classes were mixed together and there was only one teacher, Miss Merriweather. She was a local woman in her fifties who had never married and lived alone in the house she had been born in, a few minutes away from the schoolhouse.

In the winter, when snowstorms came, as they often did, Dick Merrill would not go to school because the roads to the schoolhouse became impassable. On those days, he would help his father clear a path from the farm to the main road leading to Plymouth so that the delivery truck could be used for deliveries. Another good year, Charlie Merrill thought, would be all he needed to afford buying a plow for his truck so that he and Dick wouldn’t be wasting time shoveling when they could be selling. And besides, Charlie had it all figured out, he could use the truck to plow out businesses when deliveries were done and earn enough to expand the business.

The Merrills had no other children even though they had tried for years. Dick’s parents were both forty-five years old when he was born and the Merrills had all but given up on having children when word had come from Doc Hinkson that Alice was pregnant.

The Merrills’ farm was big in acreage but small in what was on the land itself. There were three hen houses holding about five hundred laying hens that each produced one to two eggs per day. The farmhouse was about two hundred feet in front of the coops and had only five rooms, the kitchen being the biggest. Alice had three stoves that she used constantly to bake her goods and a small kitchen table and counter area for the family to use when they sat at mealtime. The kitchen led to an open double parlor with one side being used by Charlie for his office and records and the far end with a wood stove, rug on the floor, and a parlor set complete with an old Emerson stand-up radio. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms and a new bathroom with running water from a pump that Charlie had recently installed.

Sundays were always special for the Merrills. After the early chores in the hen houses and a special breakfast prepared by Alice for her two boys, the family would dress up in their best clothing and head to church. There were not too many Catholic churches in New Hampshire and the Merrills had to drive clear to the southern side of Plymouth to reach St. Barnaby’s for eleven o’clock Mass. Charlie’s father had come over from Ireland at the turn of the century and had been determined to continue his family in the Catholic faith.

Alice, a local girl before marrying Charlie, converted to Catholicism only because the church insisted on it to allow the marriage to take place. She did not care that much what religion it was, so long as there was some spiritual bond that could keep the family together when they needed it. Charlie, like his father before him, was going to raise Dick to follow the faith of his ancestors; it just had to be that way. It was no surprise then when Charlie asked Alice to stop by the general store one Sunday to pick up some cloth. The cloth was to make altar boy cassocks for Dick since he had been selected by Father Gavin to become a junior altar boy at St. Barnaby’s.

As the years went by, Dick became more and more involved with the church. He had seen Father Gavin working on the church grounds often as he drove past the church on special deliveries that went that way. He had grown fond of Father Gavin and saw him as just a regular person who had chosen the priesthood as his occupation. He did everything else other people did, except maybe get married and raise a family.

Business was prospering and Charlie had added a second delivery truck with a full-time driver. Although the demand for eggs was thriving and that segment of the business was going as well as ever, it was the pie and cake business that was growing at an unbelievable rate. By the time Dick had reached the age of fifteen, in the early 1940s, Charlie Merrill’s business had grown to the point where Alice could not bake enough pies or cakes fast enough to keep up with the demand. Every resort restaurant in the White Mountain area of New Hampshire carried her pastries, which now carried the name Merrill’s Fresh Baked on each individually labeled package. Local stores carried the Merrill brand too and, as home-baking trends began to disappear with more women working in the Plymouth parachute factory, housewives now referred to Merrill’s pies and cakes as “almost like my own.”

Dick had done well in school and Miss Merriweather had already spoken to Dick’s parents about sending him to college following graduation.

Charlie had mixed feelings about the news. He had always expected Dick to join him in the family business on a full-time basis. The business was successful enough to support Charlie and Dick, with Charlie thinking about slowing down a bit as he approached his retirement years. Alice, on the other hand, wanted her son to have a better life without having to work the strenuous hours that were required in the business. She had visualized Dick as a doctor, a lawyer, even a priest, someone who would help people in trouble. Dick’s gentle and friendly manner was something that automatically emanated as he dealt with customers, school friends, or other active parishioners from St. Barnaby’s.

“You’ll be finishing your schooling soon, Son,” Charlie began one evening at supper, “Have you given any thought to what you’d like to do with your life?” Charlie leaned forward, his eyebrows raised as he awaited Dick’s reply. He was hopeful of a decision to join him in running the farm. Alice knew anything else was going to be a disappointment. Dick’s mother was more reserved and subdued as she quietly passed the roast to Charlie and reached for the mashed potatoes.

“Can we afford college, Dad?” Dick questioned. “I was thinking of going to Plymouth Teachers in the fall if I get accepted there. Father Gavin and Miss Merriweather both told me that I should consider it, if we can afford it. Father Gavin said that when he went to college, he didn’t know what he wanted either but it gave him time to think while he was getting more education. That sounds logical to me,” Dick said. “Father Gavin said that the experience from school could be put to good use whatever I decide to do. What do you think?” Dick asked.