Chapter 6
Unlikely as it was, Ian was looking forward to a quiet day. Many pastors took Mondays off to recover from the stresses and business of the weekend. The tradition at St. Conan’s was for the women of the church to quilt on Mondays, followed by a once weekly cleaning on Tuesdays to cover in one fell swoop any needed maintenance following the cumulative damage from any special events held on Saturday, Sunday services, and Monday’s activities.
Thankfully, the women more or less took care of themselves, the telephone was usually quiet, and since many people and most of his peers assumed he had Mondays off, he rarely had visitors.
The quilters had promised freshly made caramel shortbread to start off the day, so he rose bright and early, showered, dressed, and headed next door to the kirk.
The first thing he heard was, “Well, you know now!” followed by Edith’s tearful voice countering, “But what am I to do about it? She loves the laddie. Nothing any of us has said has made a whit of difference so far. She takes after her Granny Downey, that one.”
“Stubborn as a mule,” someone else said. “I remember the woman well.”
“I had no idea,” Edith said, blotting her eyes just as he leaned around the corner. “Does he see the children? Share custody? Will Chelsea be expected to feed and clothe them? Am I to treat them like grandchildren? Oh, my poor baby.”
Ian stepped back into the shadows of the massive beams that framed the doorway from the chancel to the nave.
“And while she was seeing him, too. If he’s been unfaithful to her twice in as many years, who’s to say it will ever stop?”
“You can guarantee it willnae,” Margaret said.
“Oh, my poor baby!” Edith wailed again.
“We have to do something. We can’t just sit on our bahookies and watch the girl throw her life down the crapper.”
“We’ve all known scoundrels like this Greg whomever he is. We can’t stand by and let him ruin Chelsea’s life.”
He was just ready to announce his presence when he heard one of the ladies say, “What about Pastor Ian? He’s as fine looking as her Greg is, and has a heart o’gold to go with the pretty face.”
“What a wonderful idea!”
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Didn’t Pastor Ian consider going into law when he was younger?”
“See how much they have in common?”
“He is a wee bit older than she is.”
“He’s closer to Emily’s age, isn’t he?”
“But Emily already has a good man. It’s Chelsea who needs our help.”
“They’ve already met,” Edith said. “Chelsea and Greg were in for counseling just yesterday.”
Put a stop to it right now, he told himself, trying to convince his feet to move. But they appeared to have grown roots and planted themselves in the solid stone floor.
“Then the seed has been planted. How could anyone sit in a room with Pastor Ian MacCraig and that louse of a man and not see who was the better catch?
Get in there right now and put an end to it. Pure nonsense.
“Did she say anything after the meeting? Any comments about how good-looking Pastor Ian is, or what a good listener he is, or how considerate he is of other people’s feelings?”
He peeked around the corner to see who was saying such nice things about him. It was flattering that they thought so kindly of him, even though their scheme was utterly ridiculous.
“Now that she’s met Pastor Ian, I can’t imagine she’d still be interested in that jerk Greg.”
“If only things were that simple,” Edith lamented.
There was a slight pause in the conversation whilst they evidently considered the complexity of life. He was just inching his foot forward when another unidentifiable voice took up the refrain.
“How did you find the dirt on this Greg anyway?”
“He’s friends with my oldest daughter on Facebook.”
“I thought he was homeless? How can he afford a computer?”
“Practically homeless. The members of his band all live in a caravan. No one knows quite where they’re parked at any given moment.”
“One little camping car for the whole lot of them? Won’t that be cozy after the wedding.”
“And they all have mobile phones.”
“Isn’t that the way it always is? The more assistance they get from the government, the fancier the tablet.”
“Isn’t he afraid Chelsea will find out what he’s up to?”
“Poor thing is always so busy studying for her classes, and now, her Professional Competence Course and her provincial bar examination, that she doesn’t have time for social media.”
“From what I hear, it wouldn’t make any difference what this Greg says on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere else. Everyone says that Chelsea is so smitten with the laddie that she’d not walk away from him no matter what he did.”
“So ye’re sure she knows about these children he’s fathered with other women?” Edith asked again.
“Yes. At least she knows the women claim Greg is the father. And from what I’ve seen on Facebook, the one little laddie looks just like him.”
“Who knows what Greg has told her? Lying goes hand in hand with sneaking around and always has.”
“Ye cannae have one without the other.”
“But she’s such a smart girl,” Edith said. “How can she not see it?”
“She’s not the first woman to be sucked into a toxic relationship by a silver-tongued devil like Greg.”
“It’ll have to be up to you to stress Pastor Ian’s finer qualities to Chelsea, Edith.”
Someone snorted. “Stress? The girl has eyes, doesn’t she?”
“Don’t be too obvious,” a familiar voice recommended. Probably Bertha Cleary. “Just a hint here and there to water the seed.”
“That seed of yours better be one that germinates pretty quickly. We don’t have much time.”
He was just ready to walk into the room and put an end to their silly notions when he heard his mobile ringing from afar. He must have left it on his desk.
The ladies would have to wait. He tried never to let his telephone ring unanswered in case someone was calling with a pastoral emergency.
He followed the ring tone and rushed to grab his mobile. When he discovered it was the church’s insurance agent on the line, he was almost disappointed that no one was calling to report a crisis - especially once he’d learned the reason for the call.
He sighed with frustration. “So you’re saying that our insurance will go up by forty percent unless we raise our deductible to 10,000 pounds.”
“You’d still have adequate coverage in the event something catastrophic should occur,” his agent was quick to assure him.
“But any petty instances would have to be handled by the congregation?”
“If you stop and think aboot it, there’s rarely such a thing as a small fire, or a wee bit o’ flooding. If something’s going to happen at a property as old as and the size of St. Conan’s, it’s going to be a major occurrence. And as far as the rest – well, your liability coverage will stay intact, and – who would steal from a church?”
“I guess we do have a certain amount of inherent protection from most occurrences of that sort.”
“It’s not like you’re down in Glasgow or over in Edinburgh. If you can’t trust the folks in your neighborhood, then what have ye got?”
“The Lord is good to watch over us.”
“A built-in, protective hedge of prayers hovering round the whole kit and caboodle.”
“I suppose we have no choice,” Ian said.
“Well, now that you mention it, St. Conan’s is already almost half a year behind with their premiums. It’ll all be a moot point if they don’t bring the account up to speed and soon. Ye have to do what ye can to trim down your expenses without sacrificing your liability coverage.”
“I understand. I’ll phone round to the members of the
Kirk Session this evening and see what they recommend.”
“I’d be scheduling a work day while you’re at it. Our annual inspection of the property revealed a great deal of dangerous underbrush surrounding the property. There’s also a broken step that’s an accident waiting to happen.”
“The rhododendrons and the wild roses do need to be trimmed back.”
“There’s a lot of recent deterioration of the outside structure, and loose, crumbling rock on the steps and walkway around the flying buttresses on the back side of the building.”
Ian knew what the man was saying was true. It had been a roller coaster ride of a winter and the constant freezing, thawing and refreezing had taken its toll on the old rocks that comprised the steps, pillars, and walkways along the loch. The church had employed a full time groundskeeper until the previous fall, when budget cutbacks had necessitated the elimination of the position. Volunteers were the key they relied upon to take care of such things now, but while their intentions were good, rounding people up to actually do the work was another matter entirely.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ian promised.
The agent thanked him and said he would call again in the morning to see what the response of the Kirk Session had been.
Ian sighed and set his mobile back on its base to recharge. Time to face off with the church ladies then.
Before he could move, his mobile rang again.
This time, it was his overseer, a man for whom he shared a great mutual respect and much camaraderie.
“Ian, I’m calling to ask you to speak at the Argyle Ministerial Association’s Retreat for Pastors this summer.”
Ian smiled broadly and felt his spirits lift. It was a great honor to be asked to speak before your peers, and the invitation confirmed what he’d always felt from his overseer – that the man valued and appreciated him – a much more satisfying affirmation than the fact that the church ladies of St. Conan’s thought he was “cute”.
He accepted his overseer’s invitation without reservation, and his supervisor promised to email him the specifics about the time, date, and location of the convocation as well as the theme and scriptures that had been selected for the retreat.
When he returned to the room where the ladies were quilting, he found the caramel shortbread gone. The topic of conversation had changed from Chelsea’s prospects for the future to the manure Margaret Ainsworth’s neighbor had spread on the field adjacent to her house and the resulting stench. He considered reintroducing the question of whom Chelsea Downey should marry, but decided against it in the end. He didn’t want to offend Edith, and of course, he was sure nothing would come of the conversation anyway.