The Garden of Eden, page 29
“I saw some entries in the church ledger, gifts from you in Junior’s name.”
“Sssh! That’s a secret. Junior would be embarrassed if he knew.”
Mrs. Carcano smiled. “As you can see, I am still learning my way around my parish, still sorting out the personalities.”
“You will find them no better and no worse than people anywhere else,” Mrs. Armbrecht said. “They struggle to earn their livings, to do what they believe to be right, to raise their children properly, just like people everywhere.”
“Tell me about yourself, Mrs. Armbrecht. I would like to know you better.”
The old woman laughed and asked the day girl to bring more tea.
Cecile Carcano was ready to leave a half hour later when Anne Harris arrived. “Anne is my grandson’s wife,” Mrs. Armbrecht explained to the minister. “Marrying her was the smartest thing Ed Harris ever did.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Harris,” the minister said. After a few pleasantries, she brought up another subject. “We’re having a meeting tonight at the Eden Chapel, Mrs. Harris, and I wonder if you could come? The hymnals are wearing out and need to be replaced. Perhaps you could help us with some ideas on fund-raisers for that purpose?”
Anne Harris agreed to come. Cecile Carcano kissed Sarah Armbrecht, then shook Anne’s hand.
When she and Sarah were alone, Anne said, “You didn’t have to say that, Granny Sarah, about Ed. You know I’m not living with him right now, and you must be loyal to your grandson.”
“I am loyal to him,” the old lady said firmly. “I was simply telling the unvarnished truth. At my age, I’ve found that people expect it.”
“I hadn’t met Mrs. Carcano before.”
“I like her. She asked if I would like to join her in prayer. I told her yes, if it wasn’t too long. So we said the Lord’s Prayer together. I thought it very touching.”
A few moments later Anne got around to the point of her visit. “The last time I was here you asked me why Lane gave me half the bank stock, and I didn’t know. I still don’t, though I have been thinking about it. Would you care to hear my thoughts?”
“If you wish to share them.”
“I think Lane liked me, but he also pitied me.”
“Pity?”
“He didn’t think I was very resilient. Or not resilient enough. I believe that he thought I didn’t understand life very well, so I was probably not going to do a very good job living it. Consequently he gave me the bank stock so I would have something to fall back on.”
“I see.”
“One can never be sure, of course,” Anne mused. “But looking back from this vantage point, I think that is what motivated him.”
“Was he correct?”
“There is some truth in all opinions.”
“The battle to understand is never won,” Sarah Armbrecht said. “Take me, for instance. Last week I had the strangest dream. My mother came to me, sat beside my bed and talked to me. I haven’t dreamed of her in, oh, so many years. She died when I was just fifteen. She was in her thirties then, a beautiful woman. Naturally I got over the loss as the years passed and other things filled my life.
“Then last week she came to my bedside. Her hair was done up the way they wore it back then, and she was wearing a long, ivory-colored dress that came to her ankles, long sleeves with lace, a high collar…I can still see her, even now.”
“What did she say? In your dream.”
“I can’t recall exactly…now. She sat beside my bed, my mother, young and beautiful as I remember her, and I was old, very old, and we talked and talked…of woman things, I believe…I am not sure, and perhaps it doesn’t matter. But she was mother and I was daughter, although she was young and I wasn’t.”
Anne Harris realized the old lady was weeping.
In a moment Sarah spoke again. “Here I am, all these years later, a great-grandmother many times over, and I miss my mother.”
Later she whispered, “Life is too complex to understand completely. Too rich.”
When the driver unloaded the horse from the trailer, Jirl Ice’s heart sank. He had paid a thousand dollars for the horse—a gentle, sixteen-year-old chestnut gelding that would make a good riding horse for his daughters—three days ago, and he looked fine then.
He didn’t look good now. His head was down, he showed no curiosity in its new surroundings, he refused handfuls of sweet hay—in short, he just stood listlessly, like a sick horse.
Jirl telephoned the seller, who sounded surprised. “The horse was fine when he left here an hour ago. Maybe he’s carsick. He’ll probably snap out of it in a few hours.”
Jirl wasn’t so sure.
“Wouldn’t hurt to call a vet,” the seller suggested. “But he’s your horse now. It’s up to you.”
A thousand dollars was a thousand dollars, so Jirl Ice called the veterinarian, who arrived in the late afternoon. The horse looked no better, Jirl thought.
The vet examined the horse in a stall in the barn. “This animal is sick, Mr. Ice,” she said. “I’m going to give him an antibiotic and take some blood samples, but I’m not optimistic.”
“How sick is he?”
“Very sick. A horse this old…”
“How old?” Jirl asked suspiciously.
“Twenty-two or -three, I should say.”
A thousand dollars gone, poof, just like that. Plus the vet’s bill…Jirl Ice was so depressed that he could scarcely eat his dinner.
“Go to church this evening,” his wife advised. “The new minister is holding a meeting about the hymnals.”
“I don’t have money to donate for hymnals.”
“It’ll take your mind off the horse. Go.”
So at seven o’clock Jirl was sitting in the Eden Chapel with a dozen or so other people listening to Cecile Carcano talk about hymnals. She passed the books around and asked people to carefully examine the bindings and pages.
“We will need five hundred dollars to purchase new hymnals,” Mrs. Carcano said. “The suggestion has been made that we hold a raffle. What do you think?”
They discussed it. Naturally the question became, What would be the prize of the raffle? It was here that the idea occurred to Jirl Ice. At first he dismissed it as foolish, but when no one offered to donate something of value as the raffle prize, he scratched his head and pondered and finally gave in to temptation. “What about a horse?” he asked.
“A horse? That would be good, if we had one.”
A murmur of approval greeted this remark, and all eyes turned to Jirl.
He cleared his throat before he spoke. “I have a horse. He’s a gelding, chestnut, very gentle, and he’s worth a thousand dollars. I’d be willing to donate half his value, but I’d need five hundred for him.”
More discussion. A horse would certainly be a nice prize, everyone agreed, but the mechanics of funding a payment to Mr. Ice merited some thought.
Mrs. Carcano cut through the controversy with her usual aplomb. “Perhaps we can sell a thousand tickets for a dollar each. The first five hundred dollars in sales will go for hymnals. All the money in excess of five hundred will go to Mr. Jirl Ice in partial payment for his horse. Would that be acceptable, Mr. Ice?”
Feeling more than a little guilty, Jirl agreed to this proposal. Several people shook his hand after the meeting. Mrs. Carcano gave him a warm smile.
“Very generous,” Richard Hudson told him at the door as he shook his hand. “I’m going to buy a hundred dollars’ worth of tickets myself, even though I don’t need a horse.”
“I don’t need him, either. But he’s a good horse.”
“I know your sisters very well, Mr. Ice.”
“Hmm,” said Jirl, who was anxious to be on his way.
“Too well,” Richard Hudson muttered, and glanced back over his shoulder at Mrs. Carcano, who was talking to Anne Harris and Matilda Elkins.
After Jirl departed, Richard Hudson waited alone outside the chapel in the hope of getting a few minutes alone with Mrs. Carcano. She was deep in conversation with Anne and Matilda. Richard Hudson walked to his car lost in thought.
TWENTY
The next morning Richard Hudson came home whistling. Earlier, when Diamond and Crystal arrived, he had put them to work cleaning bathrooms. Then he drove over to Mrs. Carcano’s house, picked her up, and took her to Doolin’s for coffee and rolls. After a very pleasant hour, he was home again.
He strode into his house still whistling and went to his study. He flipped on the computer, then took off his coat and hat and hung them on the rack. He flexed his fingers while he thought about Prince Ziad. He saw the story now, saw his characters, the situation, how the action had to go, saw precisely how he could bring this tale to a smashing climax that would leave the readers gasping.
Whistling aimlessly, he dropped into his chair at the desk and started tapping the keys.
He was hard at it some time later when he realized Diamond Ice was standing behind him reading over his shoulder.
He pushed a button to save what he had written. She put her hands on his shoulders and began a slow massage.
He pushed her away. “We need to have a serious talk.”
“So talk, sweet man.”
“You, Crystal, and me. In the living room. Would you ask her to come, please?”
When they were seated in the living room facing him, he dropped the bomb. “There is another woman.”
The sisters looked at each other, then fastened their gaze upon him, dumbfounded.
His announcement was a bold stroke. Daring, even. And he had thought it up himself, a fact of which he was rather proud. He had cleared it this morning with Cecile—he called her that now, at her request. “I have a very large favor to ask of you,” he told the minister on the steps of her porch when they returned from Doolin’s. “With your permission, I want to tell the Ice sisters that I have fallen for you, so there is no hope for them.”
Surprise registered on Cecile Carcano’s face. “You understand,” she said, “that tidbit will become the talk of the county?”
“Which is precisely why I have come to you for permission before I tell them. I don’t want to compromise you in any way, nor to damage your reputation. You can always deny that you have any interest in me, truthfully deny it, so it will appear to our many curious neighbors that I am a frustrated suitor.” He smiled hopefully.
When she didn’t reply immediately, he added, “There are a lot of frustrated suitors in Eden, so I’ll be in good company. These people have raised romantic frustration to a high art. Believe me, they understand it, though they understand little else.”
Cecile Carcano seated herself on the top step as she considered his request. “The only problem I see, Richard, is that you are compromising your personal integrity.”
“I don’t think a little white lie is going to scar me,” he said lightly. “After all, I am a professional liar. I tell lies for a living.”
“A personal lie is not fiction written to entertain,” she replied. “And a lie about a matter of the heart is the worst sort of lie. Only you know what you deeply feel. A lie like that will haunt you.”
Richard Hudson didn’t want to hear this. “Let’s concentrate on the effect on you,” he said. “I have a major problem that I hope this will help solve, yet I don’t want to injure you in any way.”
She ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t suppose anyone will be shocked. We are both mature adults, both single, and neither of us has any other romantic attachments.”
“Precisely. That is why I thought of you.”
“But are you sure there is no truth in it?”
“It’s just a ploy, Cecile, although I’ll tell it in such a way that Crystal and Diamond will believe it.”
“I see,” she said, and rose from her seat.
He nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot. “May I say it, then?”
“If you believe it will help you.”
“Thank you. You are a very nice lady.” He skipped back to his car and paused by the door to wave.
Now he was using his little tale. The silence grew and grew as the Ice sisters digested the first bite. Crystal was the first to speak.
“Who is it?”
“Mrs. Carcano.”
“The woman preacher?”
“Yes. I have fallen for her. I don’t think she returns my affection, but I have fallen head over heels. She is so wonderful, so decent, so pleasant, so very, very wise…All in all, she is the woman I have looked for all my life. I have finally realized that and, in all honesty, felt that you two should be the first to hear.”
“Doesn’t she know?” Diamond demanded.
“Yes, she does. I have discussed my feelings with her. But…” He let the “but” hang in the air, twisting slowly.
“You can’t control your heart,” Diamond said thoughtfully, hugging herself.
“I hoped you would understand,” Hudson told them warmly, sensing victory. “You are two wonderful human beings, caring, sensitive, with hearts full of love to give, but…” The first “but” worked so well, he decided to loft another.
“I don’t think that I am in love with you, Richard,” Crystal said. “I like you, care for you greatly, and admire you ever so much. Your stories have moved me deeply. I guess I hoped my admiration would grow into love. On my part and yours.”
The bubbling, efflorescent optimism that had fired Richard Hudson all morning vanished in a twinkling. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured. “I’ve always been afraid of that. I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I don’t want anyone hurt over me.”
Diamond rose from her chair and reached for her coat. “I think you are also afraid of being hurt, Richard. You think that when a woman sees who you really are—sees the man who hides behind all the words—she will lose interest. That you will be the one in pain.”
She pulled on her coat, then knelt in front of him and placed her hands on his knees. “I don’t think you’ve ever been in love before, Richard Hudson. Love is an opening of the heart, and when the heart is open, it can be hurt. That is the way of it. Nothing can change that reality. Finally, you have opened your heart to Mrs. Carcano, which is good, but you must be brave. Be brave, Richard! Have faith in this fellow human being.”
They left him then.
He wandered around the house feeling so very alone, so guilty. They were two good people and he had hurt them.
He was standing looking out the window when he realized that Cecile Carcano had been correct: He had compromised his integrity. How blithely he had told her that the lie wouldn’t scar him! He recalled those words with bitterness now. Three people had been hurt because he had been willing—eager—to tell a lie: the Ice sisters and Richard Hudson.
He stood staring at the clouds building over the mountains on the horizon thinking about these things.
The ringing telephone brought Sheriff Arleigh Tate out of his doze. He reached for it, but he still had his feet on the desk, and with his ample tummy, there was no way. He got his feet onto the floor, then went for the instrument.
“Sheriff Tate.”
“Sheriff, this is Rose Westfall in the circuit clerk’s office. That civil matter you were waiting for has been filed. It needs to be served.”
“Which lawyer filed it?”
“Hayden Elkins.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” He sighed. “I’ll be right up.”
He checked to ensure his shirttail was tucked in and his trousers were down over his boots, then opened his office door. Delmar Clay was behind his desk, sitting on two pillows, piddling over a report.
“How are those hemorrhoids today, Delmar?”
“Awful sore, Sheriff. Glad I got them doctored, though.”
“Those things can fret a fellow for years if he doesn’t bite the bullet and get them worked on,” the sheriff said politely.
If Delmar attached any significance to the sheriff’s macabre choice of words, he pretended not to. “Be back on patrol in just a few days, so I will.”
Tate leaned forward so he could see Delmar’s face better. “That looks like a nasty bruise on your chin, all purple and yellow. How did you get that?”
“Ran into a door.”
“Oooh, I hope your luck changes soon,” the sheriff rumbled. “It’s good to have you back.” And he strolled out of the office.
The circuit clerk’s office was next to the courtroom, two floors above the sheriff’s office. Tate went in, circled the counter and took the seat beside Rose Westfall’s desk.
“Here it is,” she said, and handed him a complaint and summons.
The sheriff scanned the style of the case. “Lucinda Beach Clay versus Delmar Eugene Clay, an action for the dissolution of marriage.”
“There’s a photo on the back of the complaint,” Rose said. “First one like that that I’ve ever seen.” A nervous giggle escaped her. “The clerk told us not to tell anyone about it.”
Tate flipped to the back page, which was a black-and-white photocopy of a photograph of Delmar watching a woman with her face blacked out climb into the backseat of a sheriff’s cruiser. Neither of them was wearing a stitch. The photocopy was marked EXHIBIT A.
“You know what they say about idle tittle-tattle,” the sheriff cautioned Rose, who he knew to a certainty could be relied upon to broadcast the delicious news of Delmar’s transgression to the farthest reaches of the county before dark this evening. “Still, it does look like Delmar has been sowing some very wild oats. And doing it in a county car, darn it. Guess I’ll have to look into that.”
He scrutinized the photocopy for a long moment, made a tsk-tsk noise with his tongue, and murmured for public consumption, “Poor Mrs. Clay.”
“It’s just amazing,” Rose Westfall said with conviction, “the things that go on around here that a person never suspects!”
“Indeed.”
