"I must say, Martha never bores me—in fact, it's quite the reverse. She studied my schedule and booked us into a villa in Aruba for a week. Aruba! What an astonishing choice. England, I would have thought, or France—but Aruba? I don't even know where it is. She says I need sun and a place where people aren't so serious about themselves. She says I must stop being a bishop for an entire week."
"Tough call."
"Perhaps the chartreuse swim trunks she bought me will help."
Laughing, they raised their glasses.
"To you, Stuart, your good health."
"And you, Timothy, your long life."
It was all in the past; it seemed as if he had never been in love with the petulant creature who had nearly caused the loss of his senses. Yet, he was tempted to ask more about Peggy Cramer. Was she married? Any children? But no, he wouldn't ask.
"She's married to a brain surgeon. Two kids, five grandchildren. She showed me their pictures. Anything else you'd like to know?" Stuart grinned.
Stuart had always had that odd sixth sense.
"You should know that she asked about you. When I told her you never married, she had that ohpoorbaby look on her face, so I preached her a sermon about your dedication, your devotion, your popularity with your parish, ad infinitum: Thank God, it was all true. She was impressed."
The bishop leaned down to scratch Barnabas behind the ears. "So, what's up? Where's the boy?"
"Reading a veterinary journal in his room. He'll be down to greet you in a bit. Doing pretty well, all things considered. Singing. Playing football. A fine and interesting lad. I believe in him."
"What else?"
"Not much. Terribly pushed right now, but who isn't?"
"Are you going to force me to pry?"
"Into what?"
"Into the women in your life."
"If you must know...do you remember Edith Mallory?"
"Yes. She gave a dinner party when Martha and I were here a few years ago. Married to a fellow in plaid pants, as I recall."
"Now dead."
"And something tells me she's after you."
"It's as if you're crossing the street, minding your own business, when suddenly you look up and there's an eighteenwheeler about to nail you."
"It's serious, then."
"And frightening, somehow. She doesn't take no for an answer. What would you do?"
"Nail her first. Tell her hands off."
"She doesn't hear that. She has the deranged notion I'm lusting for her."
"Classic. You should know that. Clergy attract them like flies."
"That's the prognosis, but what's the cure? Frankly, she calls out something violent in me. I think I understand how a woman feels when a man won't back off."
"You'll have to confront her. I've had to do it in my time and not very long ago, either. Sometimes the problem disappears, like so much summer fog. You say she's a new widow. Maybe time will take care of it."
"I don't think so."
"Well, I trust your instincts. Do it soon, and get it behind you. I can tell it's eating at you."
"A bit, yes. Feels good to talk about it. You know how that is..."
"Absolutely."
They looked into the fire. A consoling thing, a fire. But clearly, the wind was getting up. The snow churned and swirled against the windows.
"Wonderful sight," said Stuart, turning his attention to the snow. "I wish I could relax and enjoy it. But I cannot miss that meeting—it could be worth a million to the diocese. Literally."
"We'll get you out of here. You've got a good vehicle. How about a glass of port? Not as old as your host, but getting on in years, nonetheless."
"Splendid! And then to bed."
He delighted to see Stuart Cullen sitting in front of his fire, scratching his dog's head, drinking his port.
"I'm waiting," the bishop said, his eyes gleaming with mischief.
"For what?"
"Blast it, Timothy, a fellow has to beg on bended knee to get a word out of you."
"But I've talked your arm off, as they say."
"You sly rube. Cynthia! Remember her? Tell me everything, and for heaven's sake, don't tell me there's nothing to tell."
"Well. Where to begin?"
"You're going steady?"
"Yes. I asked her, and she said yes."
"And? So?"
Stuart was leagues ahead of Walter and Katherine when it came to sheer nosiness. But what were bishops and friends for? Why was he holding back at this perfect opportunity to spill it all and perhaps get some decent advice? "So, when I called her apartment in New York, a man answered."
He saw that Stuart nearly burst into laughter but controlled himself. "What did he say?"
"He said, 'Cynthia is getting dressed.'" He felt his face burn and the churning in his stomach. Galling. "He said, 'I'll have her ring you tomorrow.' "
"Did you say who was calling?"
"No."
Stuart drummed the table with his fingers, a habit he had always despised. "Ask her about it," he said at last, stopping the drumming.
"I considered that."
"How long have you considered it?"
"Several days."
"Too long! Call and ask her about it right now, why don't you? Then you can put it out of your mind. We can't be accumulating baggage, you and I, especially this time of year."
"Well, then..."
"I'll wait right here. I haven't sat in front of a fire, alone, in a hundred years."
When he went upstairs, he looked into Dooley's room and saw that he'd fallen asleep over his veterinary journal.
The phone rang three times before she answered. "Hello?"
His heart hammered. "Cynthia?"
"Timothy?"
"How are you?" That wouldn't do. She didn't care for casual conversation. She'd want something more direct, more specific, like "I miss you dreadfully."
"I miss you dreadfully!" he said, meaning it.
"You do?"
He had no intention of saying what followed, not now, anyway. But out it rolled, like so much change from a vending machine: "Who was the man who answered your phone when I called Sunday before last?"
There was a long silence. It might have been the silence of a tomb. Then the phone went dead. Zero.
He jiggled the buttons on the phone cradle. "Cynthia? Cynthia!" She hadn't hung up; he was sure of it. It was definitely the phone. The wind howled and screeched around the corner of his bedroom. That was the culprit! How many times had he lost his phone service in these mountains, from weather of every known kind?
He slouched into the study, stricken.
"She gave you back your frat pin?"
"I asked her the question, and the phone went dead. The wind probably blew a line down somewhere."
"I prayed for you both as you went up the stairs."
"It's hard, being in love."
"No question. Then again, it's hard not being in love. You know how I feel about that, about finding Martha and what it's meant to me. It's meant everything, literally."
"I envy you. It seemed so easy for the two of you. For me—I don't know, I don't seem to...understand the process. From here, it looks like other people do it naturally, with ease and grace, while I fall in a ditch every two or three paces. So, in the end, it all seems a great bother. Too much aggravation."
"I have the sense that you haven't really given yourself up."
"Given myself up?"
"You're holding on to something, guarding yourself—just in case. I call to mind what George Herbert said—you know, the English cleric— 'Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back.' Am I right?"
He thought about it. This was no time for selfdelusion. "You may be right. I haven't...surrendered anything."
"So, there's a sense in which you're playing with her feelings?"
"Perhaps."
"I can tell you that a woman will find that out, and she will not like it."
"After the man answered, I felt...f
oolish, somehow. I had pitied her up there alone, never going out in the evenings, without friends. It took days to find the heart to write her. It was only a note, the best I could summon. Here was her answer."
He recited the indignant missive about the kippers and toast.
Stuart roared. "I like this woman! I like her better every time you talk about her. She doesn't beat around the bush, and she doesn't let you get away with anything. My friend, a woman like that is one in a thousand, one in a million. You'd better hunker down and be willing to give yourself, Timothy, or you could lose her."
"I think about the thing with Peggy..that was a stunning blow, all of it."
"Right, it was. But it was also more than thirty years ago. Why are you still sporting the bruise from that encounter? Good Lord, man, we've all been knocked around. Wasn't Susan Hathaway my Peggy Cramer?"
"Possibly."
"No possibly about it. I could have taken a dive along with you. Right into the pool, with no water. I can still break a sweat just thinking about it. But I don't hold it against myself, and the Lord has thrown the whole matter as far as the east is from the west."
"Bottom line, Stuart..."
"Bottom line?..."
"Marriage. That's what it all comes to. At my age, it's all or nothing at all. There's no inbetween."
"Quite. But look here, inbetween is precisely where you seem to have stationed yourself. Going steady, but no real commitment. Loving, but afraid of the future."
Barnabas yawned and rolled over on his side before the fire.
"Don't kid yourself," Stuart said. "It's not easy for other people, either. Martha and I had our own struggles. I was fortyone, she was forty-three, and neither of us had ever been married. But we knew, Timothy. I knew I wanted the shelter of this woman, and God only knows what she wanted in me, but apparently she's found it.
"What do you want, in the long run? To end up tottering around on a walker, muttering to yourself, having missed the bliss and the hell of love?"
"The bliss and the hell. I'm afraid of both those things. I never thought of that before. I've never admitted such a thing in all my life." He felt astonished to discover something so new, and raw, in himself.
"Good! We're getting somewhere. This woman wants a funloving, unpredictable relationship, and who does she pick? A seriousminded, rather predictable fellow who, just underneath the zipper, is everything she's looking for."
"But is it all worth...unzipping for, if you'll pardon the expression?"
Stuart smiled. "I've found it to be so," he said.
At six o'clock in the morning, the Bronco was fairly buried. Though the streets had been cleared, the plow had knocked an even greater pile of snow onto the vehicle.
The phones were working again. He called Rodney at the police station.
"Any passage down the mountain?"
"If you're goin', better hop to it. Th' roads are pretty clear, but more snow's comin'. They're closin' th' mountain at eight o'clock. I just got a call."
He and Dooley worked with the bishop under the light of a street lamp for a full hour, shoveling the car out. Bundled to the eyes, Stuart got in the Bronco. "Pray for me!" he called before closing the door. Then he turned his car around in the frozen street and disappeared in a cloud of vapor from the exhaust.
White on white, as far as the eye could see. But a million bucks was a million bucks.
They stomped back into the house as a gray dawn broke.
Around noon, the snow started falling again.
Barnabas bounded to the hedge, making a path wide enough for a small sleigh, did his business, and returned at once. White on black, racing through the house, shaking snow from back door to front. "Good fellow!"
"Good ol pooper," said Dooley.
Lord, he prayed, don't let us lose power. There was enough wood in the garage to last two days, maybe less, and no one would be hauling logs in weather like this.
He set the Christmas baskets on the counter, finished filling them, and tied the bows, then looked for the furlined boots that laced to his knees. He mustn't sit around mooning, as Puny called it. He needed to move along smartly. No argument could convince Dooley to accompany him.
"Listen, buster," he snapped, "you want Santa Claus, you'll help me take it to others." He was inevitably cross in foul weather. It worked, however. They each carried two baskets, leaving the fifth behind until the weather cleared. There would be no walking along the creekbank to visit Homeless Hobbes today, nor would his Buick get farther than the sidewalk, if he bothered to back it out of the garage.
At Evie Adams' house, he warned Dooley. "We mustn't get Miss Pattie started or we'll be here all day."
Dooley looked daggers at him as Evie opened the door.
"Oh, Father!" she said, bursting into tears. "I'm so glad to see you! And Dooley! How you're growing! Come in, come in. Oh, do come in!" He felt rather like the pope.
There was only one thing to make of her tears. "What's Miss Pattie done now?" he asked. They were standing in a puddle.
"Crawled under the bed and won't come out!"
That ought to be a godsend, he thought.
"Under there, singing to beat the band, and won't come out unless I buy her a baby doll with long, blonde hair and a blue pinafore. Where am I going to get a baby doll in weather like this—much less in a blue pinafore?"
"Would you like me to talk to her?"
If looks could kill, Dooley Barlowe would have dropped him right there, dead as a doornail.
At the sagging Porter mansion, he had a word of caution. "Don't eat anything here."
"I'm about t' starve t' death," Dooley said, glaring at the rector.
"You'll live. After all, you're full of baloney."
"Real funny."
"I thought so."
Uncle Billy opened the door. "I'll be et f'r a tater if it ain't th' preacher! Rose, come an' look! It's th' preacher an' th' boy!"
He heard some rustling sounds, and Miss Rose appeared, looking fierce. "The preacher? What's he want?"
"Wants t' give us Santy Claus, looks like."
"Tell him to come in, then."
They dripped a large puddle in the foyer, where a handcarved banister railing lay on the floor exactly where it had fallen years ago. He looked up at the portrait of the handsome, intense Willard, who was almost certainly turning over in his grave.
Dooley handed them a basket stuffed with fruit, nuts, candy, a tinned ham, and a pecan pie. "Merry Christmas!" he said.
"Looky here, Rose," said the old man, obviously elated. "Ain't this th' beat? Well, come on back to th' warm place. We'll all be froze t' popsicles standin' here. Rose baked a cobbler that'll melt in y'r mouth. You'll have t' set an' have a piece."
"Oh, no, no, Uncle Billy. Can't stay, have to run. They're calling for eight inches tonight and high winds. Have to get along."
"I'm sure this boy would like a piece," said Miss Rose, looking fiercer. "Preachers don't eat like the rest of us. All they like is fried chicken."
"I b'lieve it's th' Methodists as like chicken," said Uncle Billy.
Miss Rose grabbed Dooley by the sleeve. "Come along! Let these men stand an' jaw 'til th' cows come home. We'll have us a bite to eat. I like boys!" She grinned, revealing a frightening display of dental conditions.
Dooley looked back in desperation as she hauled him through the tunnel of newspapers that packed the dining room toward the heated apartment at the rear.
Ah, well, no rest for the wicked and the righteous don't need any, the rector thought, following meekly.
They stomped up the hill to Fernbank, against an increasingly bitter wind, and down the winding driveway that was thigh-deep in snow. Miss Sadie gave Dooley a set of shoelaces, wrapped in aluminum foil and tied with a ribbon, as they stood in another puddle in another foyer.
"Father, I'm so upset. I ordered you the nicest can of mixed nuts, but if this weather keeps up, UPS will never get through."
"Don't even think about it," he
said.
"Louella, why couldn't we just give him a check for the value of the nuts?"
"You askin' th' elf, Miss Sadie. You th' Santy!"
"You wait right here," she said, leaving the room and returning with a check. In her spidery handwriting, she had made out a check for five dollars and thirtytwo cents. "Merry Christmas!" she said brightly. "Just in case the nuts don't get through! I didn't include shipping and handling, but I did add state tax."
He literally dragged himself to the door of Betty Craig's snowbound blue house. It was exhausting to walk through the heavy drifts, uphill and down, hither and yon, and keep a smiling face while crawling under beds and eating cobbler you didn't want.
He had never been so glad to see the rectory, which looked like a cottage on a Christmas card, set as it was into a deep bank of snow with a drift of windtossed smoke rising from the chimney.
"I'm give out," Dooley announced at supper, over a fried bologna sandwich. "You can git yourself somebody else next year. That's church stuff. You need to git you some church people t' carry that stuff around."
"My friend, you are church people."
"I wouldn't be if you didn't make me."
"I make you?"
"I reckon you think I'd go if you didn't make me."
"Well, then, I'll quit making you. Why don't you just stop going?"
"I might."
"Nobody should have to go to church against their will." Sometimes he had to, but that was beside the point.
At a quarter to seven, Dooley came into the study. "I'm outta here," he said vaguely, putting on his down jacket.
"Out of here to where, may I ask?"
"Church. Choir practice."
"You don't have to go, you know."
"Yeah. Well, bye."
"Bye, yourself."
He went at once to the phone and dialed her number. He was too tired to speak, but it had to be done. No answer.
Nobody but Dooley and Jena Ivey had shown up at the Youth Choir rehearsal.
At eight, Martha Cullen called, distraught. Stuart had not arrived at the meeting, nor had he called home.
"I bought him a car phone, but he said it was too elitist, and it's still in the box. Timothy, I'm beside myself. He always calls."