A New Song (56 page)

“I developed an image of my father over the years, based upon my grandmother’s view of his wicked and profligate conduct, his willful neglect of duty, and his great and selfish wealth. He became monstrous to me, yet I can’t tell you how I longed to love him a little, if only a little, but I could not.”

He didn’t like the ashen look on her face.

“Would you care for some water, Miss Pringle?”

“
Non, merci.
But then, yes, that would be—”

“I know just where it is,” he said, sprinting toward the kitchen.

He realized he was shaking his head again, as if to clear it and make some sense of all he was hearing. His kitchen seemed strange to him, as if he’d never stepped foot in it before.
Lord,
he prayed,
may Your peace be upon this house. . . .

He took a glass from the cabinet and ran the spigot for a moment and filled the glass and went along the hall to the rectory parlor.
And bless this woman in ways I can’t think to ask. . . .

“There,” he said, as she drank it down. He took the glass from her as if he were a nursemaid and returned to his chair and sat again, holding it.

“Before my grandmother died fourteen years ago, she contended that a trip to Mitford would be a completely sensible thing to do. She believed the angel would be found sitting on someone’s mantel, ripe for the picking.”

“And so it was,” he said gently.

“I determined that I would do this thing for my mother, who, by the way, married Albert Pringle and went to live in Boston about the time I finished college. They were married for seven years before he died of pneumonia. He was a lovely man. I took his name out of gratitude for his kindness. I think he helped relieve my mother of some of the anger. She became almost . . . almost kind again, and every so often, with Albert, I heard her laugh.”

“Ahh.”

“I always loved my mother, even when her malice removed her from me over and over again. A year ago, when our finances became so . . . strained, I promised her I would come to Mitford. I didn’t tell her I would look for the angel, Father, I told her I would come to Mitford and find it.”

“I admire confidence, Miss Pringle.”

“I could not believe my good fortune when I discovered that you and Miss Sadie had been dear friends, and that your old rectory was for lease, right next door to your home. I believed then with all my heart that I’d been sent on a mission that would . . . would redeem all the hurt, somehow.” She looked at her hands again.

“A mission?”

“Yes. I don’t know much about God, Father, that is your forte, but I felt somehow that God had a hand in my coming here. I hope you don’t think it’s impertinent of me.”

“No, Miss Pringle, not impertinent in the least.”

“I suppose you wondered why I would bring my furnishings and set up a piano practice with only a six-month lease.”

“That did cross my mind.”

“I wanted . . . let me say that all my life since I was a young child, I’ve felt the need of a fresh start, a new beginning. I came here to find the angel, but very deep down, I also hoped I wouldn’t find it. I came thinking that perhaps Mitford could be . . .” She sighed and shook her head slowly.

“But then, I’ve spent my life devoted to the desire for retribution—perhaps there are no new beginnings for someone like me.”

“New beginnings are always possible,” he said. “What of your mother? What are her circumstances?”

“My mother is in a nursing home outside Boston. Her mental faculties are keener than my own, but a series of health problems causes her to require care I cannot give. Albert left us a bit of money and I’ve gotten on rather well with my piano lessons, but . . .”

He saw the toll this was taking on her, that it would take on almost anyone to recite a legacy of suffering and loss.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I lost my point, somehow.”

“Take a deep breath,” he said. “Let’s rest for a moment, shall we?”

“Rest?”

There! For one fragile instant, he thought he saw Miss Sadie in Hélène Pringle’s face.

“Oh, no, Father, I can’t rest until I’ve told you everything.”

He nodded.

“I was very bold that day to look into your window. I stacked one cement block on top of another. Can you imagine my great joy and consternation when I peered into your lovely, sunlit room and spied the angel?”

He nodded.

“It was precisely where my grandmother contended it would be found. I was dumbstruck. I hadn’t realized I might have to . . . to thieve something that in a sense didn’t belong to me, but which, in quite another sense altogether, was mine.”

“Yes,” he said. A conundrum if ever there was one.

“Perhaps I deceived myself that if I located it, I could buy it, or . . . I suppose I never thought it through. And so, I began to watch your housekeeper come and go, and one afternoon I saw that she failed to lock the door when she departed. At dusk, I slipped to your house and let myself in. I was as quiet as a breath, and it was all done very quickly.

“My good fortune was alarming, Father; to want something so terribly for so many years, and then . . . it was unthinkable! I began to believe that circumstances had been formed just for me, just for this moment, it was a sign that all I was doing was destined. I brought the angel here.”

Relief flooded her face. She seemed immediately stronger as she openly confessed the theft to him.

“I drew all the shades and draperies, and placed it on my bed, where I used the little key to unlock the base, and there . . . there were the papers, never once disturbed for more than a half century. I wept like I had never wept before, to hold something of my father’s in my hands. I read the letter, and in it, I found a tenderness of feeling which I’d never hoped he might possess. The letter opened its secrets before me like the petals of a flower, and I discovered my father’s true affection—and his humanity. I know that his behavior was very wrong, but you see, for all his wrongdoing, I was able at last to love him a little.”

Now he heard a clock ticking somewhere, perhaps in the hallway, as if the bubble had been pierced and life was flowing into them again.

“I sent the papers to my mother’s attorney in Boston. I was fearful to have them copied, fearful of being seen using the Xerox machine at the post office, and knowing no other way to proceed, I sent the papers by registered mail to Monsieur d’Anjou. He encouraged me in this thing which others might deem merely a bizarre and frivolous gamble.

“After I sent the papers, I became frightened that the angel would be found here, and so I hid it in the trunk of my car.

“I express to you again my sorrow at having done something that grieved you and the trustees at Hope House.”

“It is a cloud,” he said, “with a silver lining.”

“Do you really believe so?” she asked, anxious again.

“I can’t know so, but I do believe so.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking at him directly. “I went up to Hope House before Monsieur d’Anjou served the lawsuit, and looked around. It is . . . a wonderful place, the sort of place I wish for my mother.”

“It was all Sadie Baxter’s idea,” he told her, “every bit of it, from the rooms overlooking the valley to the Scriptures over each doorway ... the atrium, the fine medical help, the chaplain, all.”

“I know the consequences of my actions, Father. I know that I can go to prison for what I have done. Nonetheless, I must tell you that I’m glad I did it. Very, very glad. I took something from you, yet I gained far more than the temporary possession of an angel on a marble base. There’s a surprising sense, now, of owning something deeply precious—I don’t yet understand what it is. But I know . . . it is in here.” She placed her hand over her heart.

“I’ve grown to feel almost at home in Mitford. I’ve never known what it is to feel completely at home anywhere, but here, there’s a solace I never found before. And so, I have gained even that.”

Now it was he who got up and walked to the window and stood with his hands behind his back, peering without seeing through the sheer panels. It was hard to take it all in, to know what to do with all he had heard, but he knew this:

Something must be done with it. For Hélène Pringle; for Sadie Baxter, who, in heaven, would not be judging wrongdoing on anyone’s part; and for himself; for his own peace of mind; and certainly for God, who may, indeed, have brought this woman to a crisis of renewal.

“Miss Pringle,” he said, turning around, “I’m prepared to drop all charges against you. That may take some doing. I understand I’ll have to meet with the district attorney, who may not take kindly to dropping the charges. But that is what I intend to do.”

“Father,” she said, standing. “I withdraw the lawsuit.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And the angel is yours.”

“
Non! Ce ne serait pas juste!
That would not be fair. . . .”

“It is completely fair. It was the rightful and intended home for the letter and the will. They are all pieces of God’s puzzle, and I believe the pieces must be kept together.”

She stood by the sofa, awkward and moved; he wanted to go to her and give her a hug, but clergy had been historically advised to avoid such intimate contact, with no one looking on to approve.

“Well,” he said, swallowing hard.

“Thank you, thank you, Father.
Mon Dieu, encore des larmes
!” She retrieved the handkerchief from her cardigan pocket and pressed it again to her eyes.

“Miss Pringle,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his own pocket, “we are a pair.”

 

He walked across to the rectory before they left for Whitecap, and knocked on the door. He hardly recognized Hélène Pringle. She was holding her shoulders erect; she was looking him in the eye.

“May I have a moment?”

“Please!” she said, opening the door wide.

Aha. There was that blasted cat, curled on the sofa and staring him down. “I won’t come in; I just wanted to give you something.”

He handed her an ivory envelope.

“Whatever you find inside, please receive it in the spirit in which it is given. Promise me that.”

She looked dubious for a moment, then smiled. “Well, then. I shall do it, Father!”

“Good. And Miss Pringle?”

“Yes?”

“We hope you’ll stay on in Mitford.”

“But ...”

“I know it’s too soon to say, but we trust you’ll think about it.”

Tears swam in her eyes.
“Oui,”
she said.
“Oui. J’y penserai.”

Passing from the rectory into the bright midday of Mitford, he looked again at the sign in the yard.

He thought it might as easily have read,
Lessons for the Heart, Inquire Within.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

On the morning of the second Sunday of Easter, seven wild ponies trotted through the open gate of the corral near the lighthouse. Cropping grass with seeming contentment, they were spied by a jogger, who managed to close the rusting gate and then ran on, shouting the news along his route to whoever was up and stirring.

The marvelous sight drew Whitecappers of every age and disposition, all gleeful that the ponies from up Dorchester had escaped the government fence that ran into the Sound and, swimming around it, had struck out for Whitecap.

Penny and Marshall Duncan packed up their brood and drove the derelict Subaru to the corral, where they proffered a thank offering of hay and a large scoop of oats purloined from their lean-to barn. On Monday, the
Whitecap Reader
announced that the government would be coming to cart the ponies back where they belonged, so if anybody wanted to observe their brief homecoming, they’d better hop to it.

In the village, merchants prepared for the wave of tourists that would wash over them only two or three weeks hence. They were eager to see an economy that had slowed to a trickle once again surge like the incoming tide: quite a few prices were discreetly raised and the annual flurry of stocking nearly empty shelves began.

The dress shop reordered Whitecap T-shirts printed variously with images of the lighthouse, the historic one-room schoolhouse moved from the Toe to the village green, and the much-photographed St. John’s in the Grove; the grocery store manager decided to dramatically expand his usual volume of hush puppy mix, much favored by tourists renting units featuring a kitchen; and Whitecap Flix, the sixty-two-seat theater rehabbed from a bankrupt auto parts store and open from May 15 through October 1, voted to open with
Babe
, convinced it was old enough to bill as a classic. To demonstrate their confidence in the coming season, Flix scheduled a half-page ad to hit on May 15, and included a ten-percent-off coupon for people who could prove it was their birthday.

Hearing of the advertising boom coursing through the business community, Mona elected to run a quarter-page menu once a month for three months, something she’d never done before in her entire career. Plus, she was changing her menu, which always thrilled a paltry few and made the rest hopping mad. She figured to put a damper on any complaints by offering a Friday night all-you-can-eat dinner special of fried catfish for seven ninety-five, sure to pacify everybody. Due to space too small to cuss a cat, she had resisted all-you-can-eat deals ever since she opened in this location, since any all-you-can-eat, especially fried, was bad to back up a kitchen. All-you-can-eat was a two-edged sword, according to Ernie—who could not keep his trap shut about her business, no matter what—because while you could draw a crowd with it, in the end you were bound to lose money on it since people around here chowed down like mules. In the end, all-you-can-eat was what some outfits called a loss leader. Mona did not like the word “loss,” it was not in her vocabulary, but she would try the catfish and see how it worked, mainly to draw attention from the fact there was no liver and onions on her new menu, nor would there ever be again in her lifetime, not to mention skillet cornbread which crowded up the oven, cooked cabbage which smelled to high heaven, and pinto beans. Lord knows, she couldn’t do everything, this was not New York City, it was Whitecap, and though she’d been born and raised here, it was not where she cared to spend the rest of her life, she was investing money in a condo in Florida, even if Ernie had expressed the hope of retiring to Tennessee. Tennessee! The very thought gave her the shivers. All those log cabins, all those grizzlies stumbling around in the dark, plus moonshine out the kazoo . . . no way.