“Got an early start this morning, did we?” said Angela, sidling up beside Albert. He enjoyed it when she sidled. She put her arm through his. He liked that, too.
“You mean me?” said Albert. Whenever possible, he had resolved to have things perfectly clear in his mind before he answered a question.
“Yes, Albert. I said ‘we’, but meant ‘you’. It’s a figure of speech.”
Albert was familiar with the term. As near as he could make out, it was when what somebody meant had nothing to do with the words coming out of their mouth, leaving you to figure out what they were trying to say; a principle that, in his estimation, applied to just about everything. “Yes. I came here early, because I . . .” he suddenly wondered how forthcoming he should be. If his suspicions were true, and he was sure they were, and word got out, then the press would find out, and Langar would be transformed forever into the kind of place Huffy loved.
He would hate to be responsible for that happening.
“I was helping the . . .” the proper title slipped his mind. Pastor? Priest? Pope? No, the Pope wore a beanie. Whenever Albert met the him, he meant to ask if somebody had taken his propeller, but he kept forgetting. Probably for the best; it might be a sore point. “James . . .”
At that moment Simon emerged from the church and approached them with a warm smile and an outstretched hand which he passed around liberally. “Good to see you all. Great! Wonderful! Too late to help us clean up, I’m afraid.” He laughed good naturedly as his visitors exchanged uncomprehending glances.
“Clean up?” said Angela.
Albert didn’t want the conversation to go where it was going. “Do you have some money?”
“Some,” said Jeremy Ash, at whom the question had been directed. Why?”
“I told him I’d give him some to. . .to fix the church.”
“Sure, I’ll can drop a fistful of doubloons in the old collection box. Which is where?”
“In there,” said Albert, pointing, quite sensibly, toward the church. “Put fifty thousand dollars in.”
Jeremy Ash was not stunned, which could not be said for Angela or Huffy. James just scuffed his feet.
“You told him you’d give him fifty-thousand dollars?” said Jeremy Ash.
“Yes. For the church.”
The boy looked at James. “He does things like that from time-to-time.”
Simon fully expected the next words to be: ‘obviously, he’s out of his mind, so you should take promises like that with a grain of salt’, and was, therefore, surprised when Jeremy continued. “I’ll get Mrs. Bridges to send you a check. To you care of Langar Chapel?”
Simon nodded and gurgled. “I’m really, really most . . . I mean . . .”
Jeremy Ash help up his hand. “It’s okay. I’m sure you can use it to keep this old place from fallin’ down on your head.” He jerked a thumb at Albert, who was being guided toward the car park by Angela and Huffy. “He won’t miss it, and Mrs. B. will make sure he gets a tax break or whatever.”
“I’m really, really most . . . I mean . . .”
“You said that already,” said Jeremy Ash with a smile. “So, what’s he been up to?”
Simon became very animated. “You wouldn’t believe—speaking of the place falling down around my ears—we’ve beaten gravity at its own game!” He gestured toward the church and, taking a handle of the wheelchair in hand, propelled Jeremy to the sanctuary. “I don’t know what prompted him to it, but he felt there was something special about this little wall. . . there, you can see it for yourself beneath the celestory, where the steps are?”
Circumventing the regimented congregation of chairs, they negotiated the sanctuary circuitously. “You can see where we took the plaster down there. I can’t believe we did that! But he got me so caught up in. . .”
“And he promised you money.”
“That, too. One can’t always distinguish between a miracle and something that sounds too good to be true, so I decided I’d take a step of faith.”
Jeremy Ash smiled. “A few years ago, someone let him in on the secret that he’s filthy rich. Now, if he wants something, he’ll just toss out a figure and see what happens. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he tries a bigger number. It gives him a kind of control he’s never had before.
“He doesn’t have a clue how much anything’s worth. Told me to write myself a check for a hundred-thousand dollars when Mrs. Gibson reminded him it was my birthday.”
“A hundred-thousand!”
“I didn’t, of course.” Jeremy looked at the plasterless rectangle in the wall.
“No. No, of course not,” said Simon, who felt like a pirate for entertaining the notion of accepting fifty-thousand dollars for what would amount to an inconsequential repair job. “It was very generous of him to make the offer, but. . .”
“Don’t give it a thought, Rev. Like I said, you need it, and he won’t miss it. As far as he cares, that’s what it’s for. Besides, he makes five times that much for playing one two-hour concert. Of course, the School takes its cut, and his agents, still . . .”
Rector Simon, who could completely renovate two churches for so lordly a sum, drew a sharp breath.
“I know,” said Jeremy Ash. “Go figure, huh? So, what’s the big discovery?”
The rector drew his attention to the brick-sized indentation in the bare wall. “See this? He thinks it’s the original location of the Foss cartouche. . .” he nodded across the room, toward the Foss wall. “And I think he’s right.”
Jeremy Ash reached up and traced the irregularity with his fingertips. “He knew it was here?”
“He did. He stood over there,” the rector pointed across the nave, “by the baptismal, and, when I arrived, was just studying the sanctuary. Then he asked about this.” He slapped the top of the shelf with the flat of his hand. “Because it wasn’t symmetrical—no counterpart on the other side, and had no point to it, as far as he could see.” He leaned toward Jeremy Ash. “Nor can I, though I’d never even had the sense to notice it before. It was just there, like . . . I don’t know . . . moss on a tree.”
“So he thinks this is what the man in the painting was looking at, this wall?” Jeremy Ash drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair. “But why? What does this wall have to do with a dwarf?”
“And why did somebody go to the trouble of moving it?” said Simon, joining in the spirit of the thing.
“Is there anything in the church records? Any mention of when that FOSS brick or whatever it is appeared where it is now?”
“Now that’s an excellent question! And one I think one of our parishioners, might be best equipped to answer. Her name is Agnes Porthwright and she’s sort of our unofficial church historian; great one for rummaging through the old records and what-have-you; always on the lookout for something older than she is.” He leaned in confidentially toward Jeremy Ash, “Just between us, it’s not hard to imagine Agnes having been a slip of a girl when the place was built. I shouldn’t be stunned to find she knew Foss personally!” The laughter with which he greeted his own joke was completely without malice. “I’ll ask. I’m sure she’ll jump at it.”
“We know it was there when the painting was made in . . . whatever that was.”
“Sixteen sixty-two, as I recall,” said Simon. “Four years before the Great Fire . . . that’s how I remember things. Morbid, I suppose, but there it is.” He slipped into a brief reverie, which he summed up with a wan smile. “No shortage of morbid signposts in the history of our little island.”
The mention of little islands reminded Jeremy Ash of the errand that brought them to Langar. The ancient stones echoed his synopsis as Simon threaded him across the sanctuary. They pulled up at the door just as Jeremy Ash concluded: “So he could die any minute. He could live a hundred years. Nobody knows.”
Simon looked across the churchyard toward the trio standing by the car park gate. The orange evening sun filtered through golden leaves creating shadows of purple and blue, giving the scene t
he feel of a Maxwell Parish mural, except the characters in this tableau weren’t lounging languidly, but engaged in ernest conversation.
“I can’t tell you how sad I am to hear it,” he said, more to himself than to Jeremy Ash. “I don’t suppose I’ve spent more than an hour with the man, all told, but I feel closer to him than to some people I’ve known all my life.”
He stopped thoughtfully. “No. That’s not true. I can’t say I feel close to him. He’s not . . .It’s not. . . I feel.” He looked at Jeremy Ash and shrugged. “I have no idea what I’m trying to say, so I’m going to stop speaking now.” But he didn’t. “He’s like a brand new soul. Completely untainted.”
“This is a good man, Al,” said Huffy, flicking at the letter he had brought with him that now hung limply in Albert’s hand. It fell to the ground. He picked it up and handed it back. “A specialist. The School picked him; sent him all the way over from Boston. Least you can do is see him.”
Angela sensed the urgency in Huffy’s plea. “Perhaps you should, Albert. Wouldn’t it be good to know what it is, that island thing? Maybe it’s something they can take care of,” she snapped her fingers, “no problem.”
“What if it’s not no problem?”
“Well, if they do a biopsy, it will tell them what they’ve got to contend with.”
Huffy was glad of an ally. “Right lass. She’s right, Al. Once they know that, they’ll know what needs to be done to set things right.”
Albert had never thought much about his brain. Now, apparently, it wanted his attention, and he was ambivalent. What did ‘set things right’ mean? Granted, it had probably been wrong all along, but what was right?
Whose right? Right according to Huffy? Right defined by the School?
“What if I don’t?”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t see the doctor. Don’t do anything.”
Angela squeezed his elbow. “That could be very serious, Albert. You could have a stroke.” She hesitated. “You could die.”
Albert had seen people in the hospital who had had strokes. Some were a lot like Marky Lindquist.
Marky smiled all the time, as if it came naturally. Albert seldom smiled except when he knew he didn’t understand something. Or when everyone else was smiling.
He’d smiled at his joke about Sister Edna, but he wasn’t sure that was a legal smile, because there hadn’t been anyone else there to confirm it.
Maybe he’d smile more if he had a stroke. If he did, and the world smiled back, would that be such a bad thing? He’d much rather make people smile than applaud.
What about dying?
Albert scanned the graves in the churchyard. They all seemed peaceful enough. No one was struggling to escape, or anxious about not having the biggest headstone, or upset about not being alive, or resentful of those in the grave next door.
Under a big tree near the stone wall separating the cemetery from the car park was a grave that hadn’t been tended in a very long time. The name on the stone had worn away. The dates were gone. Time and neglect had long ago erased the occupant from anyone’s memory.
The grass atop the grave was tall and waved in the breeze that, having nowhere particular to go, wandered this way and that among the graves, trying to reclaim in whispers the sound of voices it had once carried. From time to time it would adorn the little hillocks of the dead with leaves the color of flowers, as if it knew it had forgotten, and was apologizing.
Nearby were graves with crew-cut grass and crystal vases overflowing with flowers that clearly didn’t want to be there. Albert could almost hear the occupant begging people to go away and leave him alone.
I’m dead.
And you’re going to be
In no time at all
Composting with me.
Albert laughed. He wished he’d thought of that.
Huffy intruded on his thoughts. “What are you laughing at? I don’t think you understand how serious this is.” He snatched the letter from Albert’s fingertips. “The girl’s right. You could die!”
“Only my body,” Albert replied philosophically. “Tell the doctor to go back to Boston.”
Angela was just about to protest when he turned to her. “I’m going to go to Castle Combe tomorrow. Will you come with me?”
“Well, of course, but first, Albert, I really think you . . .”
Albert turned to Huffy. “You can go now.”
“But . . .” Huffy shook the paper again.
“We’re not going to talk about that anymore,” said Albert. “I don’t want my brain to be put right. If I have a stroke. . . If I die . . . you know where to bury me.”
“I don’t like the way you’re thinking, Albert,” said Huffy whose alarm at the possible demise of the client from whom he derived ninety-four percent of his income far outweighed the logistics of getting Albert’s body back to Maine and burying him beside Melissa Bjork on the family farm. Sweat puddled in the furrows on his brow.
Chapter Twenty
Albert was quiet on the ride back to Oxburgh Hall. What if the bus driver was waiting for him at Langar, and he didn’t show up? A whole bus full of people would have had to wait, and they’d all be angry at him.
Huffy’s car was not made for four people, even if one of them didn’t need any legroom and his wheelchair was strapped to the boot. Albert and Angela were wedged in the tiny back seat, in constant contact that made him, with every turn in a very turny road, unavoidably aware of female emanations; invisible spores impregnating his brain with a host or microscopic sirens beckoning response from slumbering regions. He tried, consciously, to summon music to dispel them, but it just hid in the corner and semi-quavered.
Was he falling in love again? If so, it wasn’t the same love he felt for Melissa Bjork; but it was definitely something; something powerful reaching right down inside him and stirring things up.
It didn’t feel like love, but maybe love adapted itself to its subject.
Huffy was talking non-stop, as always, and seemed to be using up all the oxygen, making it hard for Albert to catch his breath. The doctors had been half right, hewas in danger of exploding, but they had misdiagnosed the epicenter.
He was glad to climb out of the car when they got back to Oxburgh. He went straight to the grand piano in the conservatory and played non-stop until dinner was called. In the morning room, Angela was reading, unaware of the musical seduction taking place at the fringes of her subconscious. Suddenly she awoke to a primitive, pulsing movement in the maelstrom of notes and conflicting rhythms she’d never heard in Albert’s music before.
Balfour materialized in the doorway of the conservatory, where he waited in aural bliss until the music stopped. “Dinner is served, sir.”
Having exorcised himself, Albert rose from the piano and prepared to follow, but the butler held a silver serving tray, on which a folded piece of paper resided portentously. “This is for you, sir, a telephone message from Miss Corliss.”
“Corliss?”
“Gloria? Rector Simon’s academic friend.”
“Oh, yes,” Albert took the paper from the tray, unfolded it, and, skipping the salutation read aloud. ‘I have come upon a very odd document among the Scrope family archives which I would like to share at your earliest convenience.’ He looked from the note to Balfour. “What did she find?”
“She didn’t say, sir. I took down her phone number if you would care to call.”
Albert didn’t care to call. “Will you?”
“Of course, sir,” said Balfour with a slight inclination of the head. “Would you like me to arrange an appointment?”
That is just what he wanted. Albert thought how much like Jeremy Ash the butler was. Except he dressed better, and spoke better, and had legs. But those were incidental conditions. They both Knew What To Do.
“Yes.”
“When would be a convenient time for you to meet her?”
“In the morning. At breakfast.”
“Very good,
sir. I will see if her schedule will accommodate.”
“‘see if her schedule will accommodate.’”
“Pardon, sir?”
Albert was unaware that he had spoken aloud. “You said ‘see if her schedule will accommodate.’”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s like you’re reading from a book,” said Albert. “You always know what comes next, and what to say.”
“I strive for clarity of communication,” said Balfour, only slightly nonplussed.
Where had he been when they passed out that gift? Albert wondered, and how quickly he would exchange whatever gift he possessed for the ability to negotiate the world as confidently as Balfour did; to think as clearly and communicate as concisely and eloquently. “‘I strive for clarity of communication’,” he whispered to himself as, with his hands folded behind his back, he followed Balfour down the hall.
More music without notes. Maybe if he let the doctor ‘set things right’, he’d talk like Balfour.
Probably not.
As it turned out, Gloria worked from nine-to-five, making a breakfast meeting inconvenient. “However,” said Balfour, as he delivered the news to Albert at the conclusion of dinner. “She is free tonight, if you would care to meet her at the museum in Swaffam.”
“Don’t forget your workshop at Leeds College of Music day-after-tomorrow,” said Huffy, relative to his personal agenda. He wiped a dollop of creme caramel from his mustache. “Next thing on the schedule after that is Paris, then Birmingham, then Dusseldorf,” he ticked off the rest of the itinerary on his fingers, “Geneva, Vienna, Florence, and Milan. I’m still working on Istanbul and Haifa. Looks like Oslo’s out this trip. They’ve fallen behind schedule on the repairs to the concert hall.”
The only place of recent mention that registered on Albert’s mental map at the moment was Swaffam. “Will you take me there?”
“Where? Oslo?”
“Swaffam.”
“Well, I’d been planning to head back to town tonight,” said Huffy.
In other parts of the world, Albert had learned, ‘town’, to Huffy, meant the nearest place with a bar, but when in the U.K., even if they were in Scotland, or Wales, it meant London.
Coda: The Third Albert Mystery (The Albert Mysteries Book 3) Page 26