These High, Green Hills (2 page)

She seemed dumbfounded that it didn’t fit, and there they had gone, like pack mules, carting it through the hedge again.

The decision to keep and use both houses had been brilliant, of course. The light in the rectory would never equal that of her studio next door, where she was already set up with books and paints and drawing board. This meant his study could remain unchanged—his books could occupy the same shelves, and his vast store of sermon notebooks in the built-in cabinets could hold their place.

Marrying for the first time at the age of sixtysomething was change enough. It was a blessed luxury to live with so few rearrangements in the scheme of things, and life flowing on as usual. The only real change was the welcome sharing of bed and board.

Over breakfast one morning, he dared to discuss his interest in getting the furniture settled.

“Why can’t we keep things as they were ... in their existing state? It seemed to work....”

“Yes, well, I like that our houses are separate, but I also want them to be the same—sort of an organic whole.”

“No organic whole will come of dragging that armoire back and forth through the hedge. It looks like a herd of elephants has passed through there already.”

“Oh, Timothy! Stop being stuffy! Your place needs fluffing up, and mine needs a bit more reserve. For example, your Chippendale chairs would give a certain sobriety to my dining table.”

“Your dining table is the size of something in our nursery school. My chairs would look gigantic.”

She said exactly what he thought she would say. “We could try it and see.”

“Cynthia, trust me on this. My chairs will not look right with your table, and neither will that hand-painted magazine rack do anything for my armchair.”

“Well, what was the use of getting married, then?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, if no one is going to change on either side, if we’re both just going to be our regular, lifetime selves, what’s the use?”

“I think I see what you’re getting at. Will nothing do, then, but to cart those chairs to your house? And what about my own table? It will be bereft of chairs. I hardly see the point.” He felt like jumping through the window and going at a dead run toward the state line.

“One thing at a time,” she said happily. “It’s all going to work out perfectly.”

He signed the note, typed on his Royal manual, thankful that Stuart Cullen was not merely his bishop, but his closest personal friend since the halcyon days of seminary.

He could see, early on, that beds were a problem that needed working out.

They had spent their wedding night in his bed at the rectory, where they had rolled down their respective sides and crashed together in the middle.

“What is this
trough
doing in your bed?” she asked.

“It’s where I sleep,” he said, feeling sheepish.

They had been squeezed together like sardines the livelong night, which he had profoundly enjoyed, but she had not. “Do you think this is what’s meant by ‘the two shall be one flesh’?” she murmured, her cheek smashed against his.

The following night, he trooped through the hedge with his pajamas and toothpaste in a grocery bag from The Local.

Her bed was a super-king-size, and the largest piece of furniture in her minuscule house.

He found it similar in breadth to the state of Texas, or possibly the province of Saskatchewan. Was that a herd of buffalo racing toward him in the distance, or a team of sled dogs? “Cynthia!” he shouted across the vast expanse, and waited for the echo.

They had ordered a new mattress for the rectory immediately after returning from their honeymoon in Stuart Cullen’s summer house. There, on the rocky coast of Maine, they had spent time listening to the cry of the loons, holding hands, walking along the shore, and talking until the small hours of the morning. The sun turned her fair skin a pale toast color that he found fascinating and remarkable; and he watched three freckles emerge on the bridge of her nose, like stars coming out. Whatever simple thing they did together, they knew they were happier than ever before in their lives.

One evening, soon after the new mattress and springs were installed at the rectory, he found her sitting up in bed as he came out of the shower.

“I’ve had a wonderful idea, Timothy! A fireplace! Right over there where the dresser is.”

“What would I do with my dresser?”

She looked at him as if he had toddled in from the church nursery. “Put it in the alcove, of course.”

“Then I couldn’t see out the window.”

“But how much time do you spend staring out the alcove window?”

“When you were parading about with Andrew Gregory, a great deal of time.” His face burned to admit it, but yes, he’d been jealous of the handsome antique dealer who had squired her around for several months.

She smiled, leaning her head to one side in that way he could barely resist. “A fireplace would be so romantic.”

“Ummm.”

“Why must I be the romantic in the family while you hold up the conservative, let’s-don‘t-make-any-changes end?”

He sat down beside her. “How quickly you forget. When we were going steady, you said I was wildly romantic.”

She laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “And I was right, of course. I’m sorry, old dearest.”

He regretted being anyone’s
old
dearest.

“Old dearest, yourself,” he said grumpily. “I am, after all, only six years your senior.”

“By the calendar,” she said imperiously, referring, he supposed, to something decrepit in his overall attitude about life.

In any case, the fireplace issue did not come up again.

In truth, he had no words for his happiness. It grew deeper every day, like the digging of a well, and astounded him by its warmth and power. He seemed to lose control of his very face, which, according to the regulars at the Main Street Grill, displayed a foolish and perpetual grin.

“I love you ... terribly,” he said, struggling to express it.

“I love you terribly, also. It’s scary. What if it should end?”

“Cynthia, good grief ...”

“I know I shouldn’t talk of endings when this is a blessed beginning.”

“Don’t then,” he said, meaning it.

That Barnabas had so willingly given up the foot of his master’s bed to sleep on a rug in the hall was a gesture he would never forget. Not only did his dog enjoy eighteenth-century poets and submit to his weekly bath without rancor, his dog was a gentleman.

The decisions were made, and both parties were in amicable accord.

They would sleep at the rectory primarily, and on occasion at the little yellow house. Though she would work there, as always, they would treat it much as a second home, using it for refreshment and private retreat.

He promised to have his sermon well under control each Saturday afternoon, with time to relax with her on Saturday evening, and he would continue to make breakfast on Sunday morning.

He showed her where his will was, and promised to have it rewritten. She confessed she didn’t have a will, and promised to have one drawn up.

If they should ever, God forbid, have a misunderstanding, neither would dash off to the other house to sulk.

He would continue to have the cheerful and enterprising Puny Guthrie, née Bradshaw, clean the rectory three days a week, and Cynthia would use her services on a fourth day, next door.

They would go on with their separate checking accounts, make some mutual investments, counsel with the other about gift offerings, and never spend more than a certain fixed sum without the other’s prior agreement.

He suggested fifty dollars as the fixed sum.

“One hundred!” she countered.

He was glad he had opened the bidding low. “One hundred, then, and I keep that old jacket you earmarked for the Bane and Blessing sale.”

“Done!”

They laughed.

They shook hands.

They felt relieved.

Getting a marriage off on the right foot was no small matter.