A Light in the Window (48 page)

“Purely business.” His toast suddenly tasted like so much Styrofoam.

“You know what people say ...”

“No,” he said coldly, “I don’t know what people say, and furthermore ...”

“They say she’s got you marked off with a red flag ...”

“I suppose you believe everything you hear?”

“Well, knowin’ you as I do, and knowin’ her as I wish I didn’t, I don’t put any stock in what I hear. But what I’m gettin’ at is this ...”

“What you’re gettin’ at is him suckin’ up to a snake,” said J.C. “If you ever opened the cover on your Bible, you’d see how that don’t work.”

Mule put his hand on the rector’s shoulder, looking earnest. “One word from you and this whole thing could be turned around. No skin off your nose whatsoever. ‘Scuse th’ language, but if she’s got th’ hots for you like people say, you could talk sense to ’er and she’d listen.”

“I appreciate that Percy’s been driven to the wall, but I won’t be thrown on the sacrificial fire. The answer is no.”

This was not the usual morning banter. It was serious business; he felt the life-or-death of it. Even so, he despised being made the goat on the altar. He had no intention of humbly submitting to this tactic.

“Nobody’s sayin’ do anything you’d be
ashamed
of,” said Mule, as if the rector’s speech had gone in one ear and out the other. “Just take her to a nice dinner over in Wesley. Tell her how th’ Grill is one of the oldest businesses in town. Percy’s daddy opened it fifty-two years ago. It’s a dadgum
historic
landmark ...”

“Listen. I don’t have a lobby with Edith Mallory—don’t give a blast what people say. If she wants two thousand dollars a month, and she can get it, what could I say that would change her mind? You think she’s going to turn down twenty-four thousand a year because she thinks I’m ... I’m ...”

“Yeah,” said J.C.

“Besides,” said Mule, “aren’t you in that business?”

“What business?”

“Persuadin’ people.”

“How’s it going?” said Ron Malcolm, sliding in beside the Muse editor.

“Rotten,” growled J.C., which seemed to express the feelings of the entire booth.

Ron took his cap off and looked at the rector. “Father, I’ve been thinking... you know Edith Mallory pretty well. I was wondering if there’s anything you could do, anything you might say. I get the feeling she’d listen to you.”

If J.C. Hogan had the guts to grin at him, or if Mule Skinner laid on that insipid wink he was famous for, he would puke, plain and simple.

They had swarmed over him like so many fire ants.

Then, Percy had joined them when the breakfast crowd thinned out, his eyes filled with some mute pleading that was clearly aimed straight at him.

It was a conspiracy.

Given the ten and a half she was now collecting, what could possibly make Edith Mallory give up an easy twenty-four thousand a year? Nothing that he would be party to.

So what was the use?

On the other hand, what if he got tough and came up with something that would, perhaps, result in only a token rent hike?

Maybe a room in her name at the town museum...

Under the circumstances, he thought he could talk Esther Cunningham into it. Sliding it by the town council, however, was another matter.

What about a garden planted in her honor? He and the rest of the Grill regulars would gladly grub the stumps out of the town lot with their own hands.

But he could forget that-the town lot was hidden behind the post office. Edith would want something people could see from Main Street, with a plaque they could read a block away—lighted at night on both sides, possibly by an eternal flame.

How did he get in a fix like this?

And, come to think of it, how
did
Cousin Meg dispose of her trash?

When the old man called the office, he felt instantly encouraged.

“Uncle Billy, how are you?”

“Pretty Good, considerin’ I done fell off a twelve-foot ladder.”

“Good Lord! Is anything broken? Why, it’s a miracle you survived!”

“Well, sir, t’ tell th’ truth, I only fell off th’ bottom rung.”

“Aha.”

Uncle Billy sounded disappointed. “That’s m’ new joke, don’t you know.”

“I was supposed to laugh?”

“That’s th’ general thinkin’ behind a joke.”

“Better get a new joke, Uncle Billy. You scared me with that one.”

“You ought t’ know I don’t git on no ladders, no sir. Th’ last ’un I got on, I left it leanin’ aginst th’ house to rot down. I don’t mess with ladders no more.”

“A good idea, all around. How’s Miss Rose?”

“Sly as a fox.”

“How do you mean?”

“Every day she gets in my money and moves a little bit around to her side of th’ mattress.”

“What are you doing about it?”

“Why, I’m comin’ along behind her when she ain’t lookin’ and movin’ a little bit back where it come from.”

“Makes sense.”

“How’s your boy? I seen ’im in church. He’s gittin’ gangly.”

“That’s right, he is. He’s prospering, I’d say.”

“We want you’uns to come up and have cobbler with us this summer when th’ berries are on. And bring that nice blond-headed woman what crawled in Rose’s playhole and found my ink drawin’s.”

He remembered Cynthia crawling behind Miss Rose into the dark space under the eaves that had been Miss Rose’s childhood playhouse.

“We’ll come,” he said, meaning it.

“Have you discussed it with him yet?” asked Miss Sadie.

“No, ma’am,” he said, feeling despondent.

“Have you come up with anything yet?” Mule wanted to know.

“No, blast it,” he said, feeling pressured.

“Have you done anything with those family papers yet?” Walter inquired.

“What do you think?”

“Ah, Timothy. And with an Irishwoman living right under your roof ...”

“So, sue me,” he said.

He had come home early and found her rifling through the shelves in his study. “How’s the book coming?” he asked.

“Straight on,” she said, burying her nose in a volume of Irish poetry. He thought she looked precisely like a barn owl in a bathrobe.

“I’ve been wondering... how are you disposing of your trash? We did give you a wastebasket, I hope?”

“I’m recycling,” she said.

“Aha.”

“Paper products in one bag, aluminum cans in another.”

“That’s terrific. We can take the bags to Wesley next trip, get them out of your way.”

“Right-o,” she said. “No hurry.”

“I’d like you to go with me to the Grill in the morning.”

“Ah, no. Too much staring at me just now.”

A cattle prod, that would be the thing. But he must be kind. After all, blood was blood. “I’ll knock at six, as before. And Cousin ...”

She pretended not to hear but licked her forefinger and turned the page.

“I’ll look for you at the dinner table this evening. Six-thirty.”

“I don’t think so ...”

“Sharp,” he said, meaning it.

His cousin sat at the kitchen table, glowering.

Where was the Irish wit, he wondered, the droll humor, the unending stories their ancestors were famous for? What was she, anyway—
Scottish?

He put Puny’s low-fat meatloaf on the table, still sizzling from the oven, and went to the stove to dish up the green beans.

“Man!” said Dooley.

He turned around to see that his cousin had helped herself to a vast portion and was going at it, full bore, with her fork and knife. “I ate only grapefruit on Sunday, so this will be my substitute day for flesh ...”

“We’ll wait for the blessing,” he said evenly.

Holding her fork in one hand and her knife in the other, she sat hunched forward in her chair. What in heaven’s name could he do that might bring a smile to those startled eyes?

At the blessing, he reached for Dooley’s hand, but hers was gripping the fork.

How could she eat so heartily and never put an ounce on her bony frame? Metabolism, he supposed. Where in the dickens had he been when the hyperactive metabolisms were passed out?

“How many times have you been to the States? I can’t seem to recall if you told me.”

“Several times, on and off.”

“Staying with cousins, were you?”

“On occasion.”

“And where was that?”

“Once in Oregon.”

“And where else?”

“Massachusetts.”

“Who were you seeing in Massachusetts?”

“No one you know,” she said.

“Try me.”

“Cousin Riley.”

“Umm. That wouldn’t be Riley Kavanagh, would it?”

She glared at him. “No, it wouldn’t.”

He took a deep breath, only to have it end in a sigh. “Dooley, what’s going on at school?”

“Nothin’,” said Dooley.