Communion...

Here's the next installment of The Communion of the Saint:

Chapter 3

     

     

      Sunlight poured through floor to ceiling windows. White table linen, sharp crystal, and gleaming silver flung brilliance into my eyes.

      The dining room was busy, filled to the doors with the clatter of people eating. Glass and china clinked. Waiters and diners murmured offerings and orders. Silver rang like bells against plates. Tea and water sloshed down throats.

      All the sounds melted together. No one gave a look to my questioning presence.

      The clerk watched me again traverse the distance from the dining room to his desk. His predatory smile should have warned me.

      I introduced myself. “I have an appointment with a Lady Phelps, but she isn’t here yet. Would it be possible—”

      “It would not.”

      “You don’t know what I was going to ask,” I objected.

      “Lady Phelps is waiting for you.”

      I glanced back into the cavernous room. The clerk inclined his head toward a great, green wing back chair in the lobby. From its depths, the museum woman smiled in our direction.

      “You don’t mean—?”

      “Oh, but I do.” He turned and busied himself with some papers.

      I started away.

      “Dr. Griffin—” he called.

      I turned back.

      “Have a pleasant lunch,” the clerk said, so softly that only I could hear. “Chef says that the crow is rather good today.”

      I tried not to give him the satisfaction of reacting, but I know there was a wobble in my step. I hate ladylike shoes.

      The clerk wasn’t the only one with a good eye for what went on around him. Lady Phelps watched as I returned from the desk. I readied my apology as I approached her.

      “Don’t bother,” she said, her “received pronunciation” perfect and graceful. If I hadn’t heard her earlier slip, when I startled her, I would have sworn she was at least a baroness. “Why don’t we start over? I must have caught you at a bad moment in the museum.”

      The thing about English grace is that it works. Her statement acknowledged that we all have bad moments, that they come on us unawares, and that, from her position, she could not only afford to make allowances, but felt it her duty to help.

      “I’m so sorry about that, Lady Phelps,” I apologized. “I do hope you’ll forgive my rudeness at the museum. I was deep in thought, and when you spoke, it startled me.”

      We needed each other. The Communion was on the dicey side of historical research, and I was out of work. I only hoped I wasn’t laying it on too thick.

      Grace must have been in short supply in her life, because she accepted my apology.

      “Please, call me Leslie.”

      She led me to a private dining room. A waiter held her chair first, then mine. Leslie had already decided the menu.

      The private room might have seated eight, but there were only the two of us side by side at the round table. A wainscot of deep green surrounded us. Above it, a smooth, creamy wall stretched toward an ornate Victorian cornice. Paintings—originals, or at least very good copies—graced the walls. To one side, a door led off to a hall that must have communicated with the kitchen. Everything felt very indirect.

      “You come awfully well recommended,” Lady Phelps said, “but we couldn’t help but notice that you’re currently not employed.”

      I was ready for that one.

      “I left the college voluntarily. This opening gave me a chance to visit here and get some work done. If you offer the position, I’ll be ready to start; if not, I’ll still have the chance to do some research.”

      We paused as a waiter brought our meals. I wondered why the royals had stayed here. The food didn’t do a thing for my appetite, so I asked the question that had been nagging at me.

      “I can’t help but ask, Lady Phelps, why you’re considering an American for this work. Wouldn’t an English scholar lend your group more credibility?”

      “Leslie, please.”

      “Leslie, then.”

      “Clio.” Her smile came as an afterthought. This was a woman who wanted her way and wanted it now. She hadn’t been born to the status she held, but had climbed up the social ladder the hard way, on the shoulders of others. “You’re quite right. The Communion of the Saint is a group of people fascinated by our local history, which we wouldn’t have were it not for the existence of our patron, Alban. We have indeed approached some British scholars about working with us, but academics here form a closed society. No one is allowed to drift off the beaten track.”

      That was something I knew about. Lady Phelps—Leslie—kept talking. What I got out of the conversation was that they were pretty close to scraping the bottom of the barrel. When they offered me the job, I’d take it, if I could just figure out what it was.

      “Exactly what would my duties be?”

      “Dickensian.” Leslie lit a cigarette. The old familiar smell tickled my nostrils. A wave of longing swept through me, and I tried to put it away. I had quit a year before, and now spent entire days without thinking about cigarettes. Sometimes as many as two in a row.

      “I—we—want you to write a series of articles, initially to be published in the newspaper, then as a series of pamphlets, finally, if all goes well, collected into book form. We’ve even thought of posting it on the Internet. There is a local branch—the Chiltern Freenet or some such thing. We want nothing too scholarly, which, frankly, is one reason we chose you.”

      “Thanks.” I reined in my sarcasm, mostly.

      “Each article should be a story, really, about local history, which also has a bearing on why we chose you. You are a respectable historian. You’d be surprised how few there are available. You are to produce work which can be both entertaining and academically respectable. We want to put Saint ‑ back on the map.”

      I struggled to hide my glee.

      “Of course,” she went on, “you’ll be expected to share your results with the executive committee before publishing, but I shouldn’t worry about that. It’s just a safeguard. A formality, really. I’ve set up a meeting with the editor who will handle your material at the newspaper.”

      My own forum, my own voice—the temptation slipped sweetly into my imagination and found a spot to snuggle down in, warm and cuddly—but Leslie was still talking.

      “We’d like to see you spend the first bit developing a plan of attack,” she said. “Something you can bring to the committee to show us how you’ll proceed.”

      If I handled things right, I would get a book—a big one—out of this project. I’d made the right choice after all.

      There were others to meet, now that I had, in spite of my earlier gaffe, gotten over the first hurdle. We set a time for later in the day.

      I went back to Mrs. Fern’s to change. The unseasonable heat, the tension of the meeting, and all the walking made me want a bath. Saint Albans is a hilly town, perched on a steep rise above the river. Each time I went somewhere, I felt like a mountain climber.

      Everyone I’d met so far, even the hotel clerk, seemed to know more about my situation than I did, but it was a small sample. I wondered about the Communion of the Saint—were they a bunch of civic boosters, pious folks interested in propping up their patron, or worse, were they hearing the same voice I was? It felt as if we were being herded together.

      Mrs. Fern was out. I had the empty house to myself for a bath and fresh clothes. I gave thanks to whomever that the voice—the ghost—was silent for a while. Maybe he was taking the afternoon off. I scrubbed out the tub, as instructed. I still had some time before the afternoon’s interview with the Communion, and I had not yet been in the abbey cathedral.

      I entered through the western door. Spears of sunlight shot through the vast space. Stone arches, buttresses, and columns stood guard within the church, old Roman flint cut before Jesus was born. I felt safe. Even the gargoyles seemed beneficent, their grotesque grins smiles of welcome.

      The nave, which seemed large enough to generate its own weather, beckoned me in. I wandered through it, ticking off the items I’d read about. Finally, I reached the east end, past the choir, the presbytery, and even the empty shrine of the saint, to the Lady Chapel, named for the Virgin Mary. In front of the altar was a prie-dieu, a kneeler for those who wanted to pray. I sat on the low, deep sill of a window. The stone was hard and warm under me. The air smelled of beeswax candles. Red and yellow light streamed down on my neck.

      I fell in love with the small chapel. If I’d felt at home on entering the cathedral, now I was in my own room, in a window-seat.

      I took the brooch from my purse. My fingers picked at the crust of corroded metal while I tried to think things through.

      The brooch was like a message. Without it, the voice was nothing, a shadowy remnant of fatigue and psychological stress. But the voice, whatever it was, had shown me to the brooch. It had taken me to a specific place and put my hands on an ancient bronze artifact. There was no spot in my mind where that simple but undeniable fact could fit. None of the categories I was used to thinking in contained it, and the more I felt the fact’s sharp edges in my mind, the more my heart pounded, the more my head ached, the more I thought about Mama, and worried about myself.

      I clutched my relic until my hands hurt, and looked up to the cross, but the Figure on it didn’t answer. Not so much as a wink.

      “What are you doing?”

      The voice startled me. I startle easily, but it wasn’t the voice I had been half expecting now.

      “I’m sorry.” I turned in my seat. A man, dressed in jeans and a sweat-stained work shirt, stood in the aisle between the pews. I shoved the brooch into a pocket in my skirt.

      “It’s cleaning time. No one’s supposed to be here now. Evensong won’t be till dark.”

      “I didn’t know.”

      “Everyone knows. You sneaked in.” He held out a beefy hand. “Where’s your ticket?”

      Stupid, I thought. Nothing is free any more.

      “Ticket?” I temporized.

      “Yes, miss, your ticket. They shouldn’t have given you one, not on a Tuesday.”

      “Why not?”

      “I told you. You’ll have to leave. I’m to clean in here.”

      “The door was open.”

      “That was a mistake.” He strode toward me. I scooped up my purse and skittered around to put the prie-dieu between us.

      “I’m leaving.” But I didn’t want to get close enough to get around him. He threatened, without an overt word, but I didn’t know why. I hadn’t done anything to him or his precious chapel.

      “Tourist, are you—American?” He spat the word like a curse.

      I nodded.

      “Bloody wogs are everywhere,” he muttered. I wasn’t meant to hear the words, but I did. Years of living inside a dark skin make your hearing sharp.

      “You can get a ticket in the bookstall, during proper hours.” He pointed. “It’s only fifty pee.”

      He stood aside just enough to let me by. With the open area behind me, I turned to look back at the man.

      “Who are you?” I asked.

      “Sexton.”

      I didn’t know if it was his name or his job. His eyes narrowed. “Who’re you?”

      “Tourist.” I should have resisted the temptation, but didn’t. The momentary look of confusion on his face was small reward for the wisecrack. “Where is the bookstall? I’ll get my ticket. For tomorrow.”

      Sexton’s eyes narrowed more. Squinting made his cheeks bigger and hid his eyes almost completely. The last I saw of them, they were shifting to the south transept, where the book shop might be.

      “Are you havin’ me on?” he demanded.

      I shuddered. The bookstall indeed sounded like the best place in the world for me to be, second only to the outdoors. I tried not to run away, but my shoes clicked loud and quick on the stone floor.

      Once outside, I kept moving away from the church. Was everyone in Saint Albans a lunatic? I needed someone sane, but all I had was time to get to my meeting with the executive board of the Communion of the Saint, the group that would make the decision.

      Walking calmed me down. With every step away from the sexton, I walked back into a world that felt normal. The afternoon sun glowed in my face and warmed the chill inside me. I even forgot about the voice, because work was the perfect distraction, if only I got the job. If I didn’t—but that didn’t bear consideration.

      I wasn’t worried, exactly, because I didn’t think there were many candidates for the position—at least no British hopefuls. It was one of those academic side trails that could poison a respectable career. Once you went down that path, there was no track of bread crumbs that you could follow home. I was going to take it, anyway, if offered.

      I stopped at a stationer’s to buy a map and found the street. The walk to the society’s meeting house lifted me up and over three or four hills. I wanted a car if this kept up. Blisters stung my heels. I should have worn my tennies, appearances be damned.

      The trek took me into a neighborhood of once-stately Victorian homes. Many of them were now professional offices, some divided into flats. The small lawns were neatly tended. At several, roses grew. Some climbed up the walls, others arched with thorny, floral grace over open gateways.

      I don’t know what I had been expecting. There was no sign except for a small white rectangle, a business card, in the corner of a window in the door. Its proclamation was so muted, that I had to wonder whether the Communion of the Saint was so well-known that it didn’t need a sign, or so embarrassed that it didn’t want to advertise its whereabouts.

      There were no cars around. My watch showed three-twenty-eight, just in time for the interview. I pressed the door bell and waited, took in the sunshine, the quiet street, the stillness. Rang again. Waited. Knocked some. Checked the address and the map. I was in the right place, but no one answered.

      “Aw, Jeez,” I muttered. “Not another screwup—please.” In the instant after I spoke, I realized it was a prayer.

      Try the door.

      The voice was back.

      I took a deep breath, then another. Not now, not when I was just getting back in control.

      The doorknob was one of those bumpy pieces of Victorian glass. I turned it. The door opened.

     

      A proposition: Answered prayer, while suggestive, is insufficient to prove the existence, let alone the beneficence, of the super-natural. Coincidences happen, thank God.

     

      Hinges squealed. Where the hotel had been all light, the house was dark. The bare oak floor gleamed up at me, reflecting the foreign glow that came through the open door.

      “Is anyone here?” I called.

      I moved through the entry hall. A huge stairway curved up to the left. At the right, through open pocket doors, a formal dining room loomed. I stuck my head in, but no one was there.

      I pushed on, deeper into the house, through a parlor, sitting room, kitchen, pantry to the back of the Victorian building.

      The house felt lifeless. A home has clutter. Here, magazines lay perfectly fanned on a coffee table. A fine, nearly invisible coating of dust dulled the polished oak floor. Not even foot prints marred the deadness. The kitchen smelled faintly of cleanser, not of cooking, or of life.

      Finally, I reached the back door. They sat outside, in white wicker furniture, basking in the sun and sipping from tea cups. I watched as half a dozen people talked inaudibly, their mouths moving between liquid and speech, speech and liquid.

      The sun was behind Lady Phelps—Leslie—and fell on the glass between us, making me invisible. She had changed since lunch and was now wearing a soft, white cotton dress against the heat. There was something languid about her that I hadn’t seen before. She felt secure, here, where at the hotel she’d been slightly out of place.

      At her left, on a wicker chaise lounge, was, to my chagrin, Sexton—or the sexton—from the cathedral. He must have driven to get here before me. He was still dirty from his work. How he fit into the group, I didn’t know.

      At Leslie’s right perched an Anglican priest on the edge of his wicker chair. He balanced a cup of tea on one knee and a plate of cucumber sandwiches on the other. He was about thirty-five, just under six feet tall, with a bald spot that looked like a monk’s tonsure.

      The other three had their backs to me—two women and a man. I had as much information as I was going to get. I pushed the door open. Their mouths stopped moving. Everyone looked up at me.

      “She’s so young.” One of the women, a tall matron in her fifties, said to the woman next to her.

      “She’s so dark,” came the answer from the second. She stayed in her chair, twisted in what looked like an uncomfortable position. She was in her forties and dressed in that cool certainty that comes with old wealth.

      The priest rose and came toward me. “Doctor Griffin.” His smile would have melted ice. “Welcome to Saint Albans. I’m Tom Dorcas. You’ve met Lady Phelps.”

      “Leslie,” she reminded me, extending her hand. Somehow, I had drifted down from the back porch to their level. “We didn’t hear the bell.”

      I took her hand. Despite the warmth of the day, it was cool and clammy. I offered up a smile.

      Father Dorcas finished out the introductions.

      “We met,” Sexton said. It was his name, as well as his job. He did not offer his hand.

      “I’m so sorry, you must think me just awful,” said the woman who had mentioned the color of my skin. I forced a smile to avoid saying what I was thinking. Father Dorcas told me her name, and I promptly forgot it. Some people have that effect on me.

      “My mother came from Jamaica,” I told her. “Dad was from Philadelphia.”

      “I spent some time there, during the cold war. It’s mostly fallen to ruin now. Not much to see.” I must have stared at the older man who had had his back to the door. “A mid-eastern tour of duty,” he offered, but it only confused me further.

      “Jamaica?”

      “Philadelphia—in Asia Minor.”

      “No,” I said, “Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. In the States.”

      “Never been there. Sorry.”

      The older woman, Joan Elspeth, patted the wicker chair left empty by the ex-spy, Major Hewitt. The flood of names was giving me trouble.

      “Come, dear, have a seat by me.” She turned to face her companion, the racist. “Helen won’t mind, will you? She can’t help herself, and she really doesn’t mean anything by it. You took her by surprise, that’s all.”

      I sat. Helen sniffed at Joan. The bodies rearranged themselves, with the priest, Father Dorcas, standing by the refreshments, Leslie Phelps back in her original chair, Sexton across from me in the priest’s seat, and Major Hewitt in Sexton’s—all without speech, like a practiced routine. I listened in vain for the music.

      I hate job interviews. The questions are predictable, the tension unbearable, begging the approval of strangers distasteful. The woman whose name I refused to remember started off with rudeness.

      “We were expecting someone rather—different. Someone who would—how can I say this without sounding—”

      “You can’t, Helen,” Joan Elspeth countered.

      “I don’t like her.” Sexton’s words fell into the conversation like trash into a virgin stream. We all stared at him. “Mrs. Hardesty is right. She has no respect for the old things. She’s one of these modern women, and no good will come of her being here.”

      It was a relief, in some ways, to get the racism out in the open. The score was two against, the rest undecided. How the rest of the Communion handled this would decide whether I stayed or not.

      “Mr. Sexton and I met at the cathedral less than an hour ago,” I said. “Obviously, he already has his opinion. I believe that he referred to me as a wog, if I’m not mistaken. Is that correct, Mr. Sexton?” I wasn’t going to hide behind race—I never have, or I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I did. But race matters, despite what people say, and I wouldn’t let this lie hidden. Sexton was just more open than most. I closed my mouth and let the committee stew. How they worked this out wasn’t my problem, but I could leave tomorrow if necessary.

      There was a long, expectant silence.

      “Well, Sexton?” Leslie Phelps took control of the meeting back. The others had the grace to look ashamed.

      “I were angry.” Sexton growled the archaic usage out. He looked down at this hands, which were wringing his cap, but his eyes peeked sidelong in my direction.

      “That’s not an adequate excuse for rudeness.” Leslie waited for an answer; none came. The awkwardness ratcheted up several notches when Sexton stood. Lady Phelps had the good sense not to patronize him. He towered over the rest of us, who were still seated in our proper wicker chairs. Only the priest, who was already standing, seemed his equal.

      “She’ll not be what you want,” Sexton said. “She’s not one of us.”

      “You’ve said more than enough.” Father Dorcas put himself in front of Sexton. “Go away. You have no place here.”

      The two males glared at each other. Major Hewitt harrumphed softly. We women waited, as always, to see what would happen. Leslie Phelps looked stricken. Joan Elspeth had a face full of expectancy. The Hardesty woman blushed.

      “She’s a bloody wog, you’ll see.” Sexton twisted away from Father Dorcas and trod out of the garden. The priest followed him as far as the gate and caught it before it slammed. He walked back to the group. No one spoke, until he took Sexton’s seat, directly across from me.

      “Doctor Griffin, you’ve seen us at our worst. I’d like to be able to say that that’s the worst you’ll see, but England is no better than the States on race, and there are those who will never see beyond the color of your skin. I beg your forgiveness.”

      That he made no excuse intrigued me. Most preachers, most liberals, would have been all over themselves trying to prove that they weren’t prejudiced. Shrinks call that projection.

      “It’s better to know,” I said, “than to wonder.” I couldn’t help but look towards Helen Hardesty. The others looked toward her, too. It took a long moment before she realized that we were all staring at her. She avoided our eyes.

      “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just didn’t think—”

      “Precisely, Helen. You never do.” Joan Elspeth turned from her sister to me. “Doctor Griffin, your grace under difficult circumstances gives me confidence in you. I came here hoping to find a scholar. I find that, and a woman who has strength of character and honesty, who can speak her mind without giving in to anger and resentment.”

      Was this me she was talking about?

      “I’ve read some of your work, Doctor Griffin, and I’m impressed. You’ve gone further than a lot of your peers, and frankly, you’re the best we can find. We don’t have anyone else on our short list. And then your prospects, apart from us, are not precisely glowing, as I understand the situation. Tell us your credentials.”

      I launched into a quick oral curriculum vitae. Honors at Girl’s High in Philadelphia, B.A. in history at Fisk cum laude, master’s and Ph.D. from Penn, and four years’ teaching at Schuylkill College in Philly.

      “You’ll do for us,” Joan said. “Will we do for you—that is, if you’ll have the job after meeting us?” She rolled her eyes at Helen.

      Major Hewitt harrumphed softly. Helen looked down her patrician nose at Joan. The priest blushed. Lady Phelps smiled; it made me nervous. “How direct of you, Joan.”

      “It’s the truth. Why waste Dr. Griffin’s time and ours?”

      Not all of the leadership was vested the hands of Lady Phelps. Joan Elspeth understood things better than anyone else on the board.

      I had small questions—matters of officing, salary, allowances, length of service—and we disposed of those quickly. As Joan had said, it was a fit.

      “Now that that’s out of the way,” Joan said, “I wonder if you’d say how you plan to proceed. All of the old chronicles have been mined for centuries. I doubt that there’s much left to find. How will you start?”

      So we began.