“What sort of roles do you perform, Mr. Garrett?” Edward asked. He had a round, pleasant face with a ruddy complexion and eyes so bright they looked feverish. “You mentioned Blue Boy. I never knew the painting was also a play.”
Simon slid his feet back and forth under the table. His shoes were pinching like the devil, and he wondered if he could get away with pushing them off. Probably not. He was getting away with very little this evening.
“Blue Boy is new; a comedy. Our performance wasn’t too successful, I’m afraid, which is one reason I came here so early.”
“I thought you were robbed,” Edward said accusingly.
“I said it was one reason, not the only one.”
“Where were you when it happened?” Edward persisted. “Did the magistrate offer you no hope for the recovery of your goods?”
“What? Oh no, he said there was no chance. And it happened in London.”
“London? Good lord, do you expect us to believe you traveled over a hundred miles on foot with no money?”
“Did I say London?” Simon asked, laughing loudly. “What’s wrong with me? I meant to say outside London, um, very far north of London, in fact.” He frantically tried to recall a map of England and Wales that he’d glanced at during the flight over the Atlantic. In a hopeful voice he added, “Birmingham, that’s where it was.”
Edward scowled and narrowed his eyes. A look passed between him and Alexander.
“And you travel with which acting troupe?” inquired Darby’s brother.
Darby brought her glass to the table with a crash, bringing every eye to her. “You are both grilling Mr. Garrett as if he were on trial. I have a different sort of question; a query for our clergymen, and anyone else who cares to offer an opinion.” Her glance flickered toward Simon, then lifted to her mother’s portrait on the east wall. “Do you believe in angels?”
Simon’s heart immediately began to pound. Was she going to give him away?
“What about you, Mr. Suttner?” she persisted, as no one leaped to answer her question. “This is something I have wondered about for awhile.”
The vicar peered past Evelyn and Alexander to look at her with interest. “Do you mean literal angels, Darby? Wings, robes, haloes, all of it? Or do you mean symbolic spirits, carriers of God’s good will?”
“Oh, how you go on,” Mr. White said. His voice was permanently hoarse, the result of too much loud preaching. “Confusing the girl, ain’t you? Yes, Miss Brightings, there are angels. It is my belief we each have one or several to help us through our earthly lives.”
“There must be a vast number of them, then,” Mr. Suttner commented in an amused voice. “And surely they have better things to do than watch us at all times.”
Mrs. White and Mrs. Suttner looked at one another across the table and exchanged feeble smiles.
“God can make as many angels as He needs,” asserted Mr. White, his face splotching, “and nothing is more pressing than guarding His greatest creation.”
“There are many learned men who would argue with your literalism,” returned Mr. Suttner. “Men whose intellects are strained to imagine myths, but who well understand the meaning behind the symbols.”
The footmen had already removed the plates of calves’ tongue—many of them uneaten—and were now serving poached salmon and side dishes of mushrooms, baked apples, and garden greens. They moved with unusual quietness, glancing back and forth frequently between the two theologians.
“Why are angels in the Bible at all, then?” asked Mr. White, spearing a mushroom with his fork. “I tell you, sir, your faith is a thin and wispy thing and no good to anybody. It may please you to tickle your mind with might-be’s and symbol-this-and-that, but ‘tis because you’re high-minded and over-educated. What use are the philosophies of your Oxford professors to a widow-woman coughing out her life in a hovel, with five children to be cared for when she’s gone?”
Mr. Suttner chewed a mouthful of salmon rapidly, swallowed, and directed a mildly condescending look at the other minister. “I suppose she does better shouting and shaking in the aisles of a thin-walled, whitewashed chapel. Is that what you are saying?”
Pushing his plate aside angrily, the Methodist minister leaned his forearms on the table and glared at the man across from him. Uncomfortable looks were exchanged among a few of the guests, and for awhile the only sounds were of knives and forks scraping against plates.
Aunt Gacia broke the silence. “Now then, Darby, this is your fault,” she said cheerily. “Discussing religion at the table. You should know better.”
“Hear, hear,” Uncle Richard agreed.
Darby looked up from her plate and stared directly at Simon. “I have but one further question. Saying that angels do exist, do you think it’s possible they can lie?”
Simon grew very still, returning her gaze levelly, though inside he quaked. So that was it. Now her brooding silences were explained. She’d begun to doubt him when he claimed to be an actor, and since then he’d piled one story on top of another.
If only he could tell her the truth; but the chances were too great she would never believe him, especially now that he’d started with the angel fantasy. With a chill, he recalled her reaction when he first tried to warn her about the fire; she’d thought he was crazy before he convinced her he was from heaven. If he changed his story again, she’d throw him out, he was sure of it; and he had to stay here, had to be nearby to put things right.
“No,” Mr. White was saying. “Angels never lie. They cannot.”
“Don’t be so hasty,” said Mr. Suttner. “What of Satan, who was an angel? He is the Father of Lies.”
Darby’s eyes, still fastened on Simon’s, widened in horror.
“Yes, that is true enough,” conceded the Methodist minister. “But I meant the angels of today, the ones who haven’t fallen. They are perfect creatures.”
“But what if they aren’t?” Simon blurted, hardly knowing what he was saying, but positive he had to prevent Darby from thinking he was the devil.
“Angels not perfect?” Reverend White asked, as if he could not believe his ears. “What can you mean? Explain yourself, sir.”
“Yes, pray do, Mr. Garrett,” Alexander said mockingly. “You appear to have an opinion on every subject.”
A surge of resentment kept Simon from speaking for a moment. He played with his spoon as he gathered his thoughts, idly admiring the reflection of the table candelabrum in the silver.
“Angels are perfect,” he said finally. “But what if there are degrees of perfection? Suppose an angel is in a situation where the only solution is to do something generally considered um, sinful?”
“Can’t happen,” Mr. White said with authority.
“No, think about it for a minute,” Simon persuaded. “Imagine that a small child is trapped in an abandoned mine, and the air supply is short. The only ones who can bring help in time are a group of laborers repairing a nearby road. The angel asks the foreman to release his men to dig out the child. The foreman is regretful but says he can’t; if the men don’t meet their deadline, they’ll lose their jobs, and their families will starve. What does the angel do?”
“ ‘Tis easy,” said the Methodist clergyman. “The angel flies into the cave and frees the child himself.”
“No, he can’t; he’s taken human form temporarily.”
“Angels ain’t limited by that,” argued Mr. White. “They can do anything, anytime. Didn’t those two angels masquerading as men strike the Sodomites blind—excuse me, ladies—when the townsmen tried to beat down Lot’s door to er, get at them?”
A fist closed over Simon’s heart. He’d forgotten that old story. Time to bluff again.
“But suppose this one angel can’t,” he said. “Maybe he doesn’t have all his powers. Perhaps he’s new at it.”
“Faugh!” declared the preacher. “You’re proposing things that don’t happen. ‘Tis no better than counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.�
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“What happens to the child?” Fiona demanded. “I want to know what happens to the child. Don’t let it die, Mr. Garrett!”
Simon wiped the moisture from his brow. Darby’s unyielding eyes were drilling holes in his head, and Alexander’s were filling the holes with heat.
“The child lives, Miss White,” Simon replied quietly. “He lives because the angel lies, telling the foreman the little one is his son.”
“I’m so glad,” breathed Fiona. “You tell good stories, you really do.”
“Unnecessary, I assure you!” shouted her father. “The angel could have sneezed the child out of that mine had he wanted!”
“Now hold on, Ralph,” Mr. Suttner said, his expression lively, “what of Rahab and the two spies Joshua sent to Jericho? Did she not lie to protect them, and wasn’t she rewarded for it?”
“Rahab was a fallen woman, not an angel,” growled Mr. White.
“Still, it is an interesting dilemma.” The vicar leaned forward. “You only see life in black and white, my friend. Things are not always wholly good, or wholly evil.”
“Oh yes, they are,” said Mr. White, an obstinate look crossing his face.
The vicar laughed. “If only life were so simple.”
“It is that simple. There’s no sense to this world if we can’t tell what’s right and wrong.”
Simon turned to Darby once more, dreading to see her reaction. Her features remained expressionless, giving him little hope that his arguments had made a favorable impression. There was an air of despondency about her as she leaned toward Alexander to hear something he whispered in her ear.
But the ministers were not quite done with each other.
“Oh, my treasured friend, we are making our companions uncomfortable,” the vicar was saying in a warm, yet slightly scornful, voice. He was slicing an apple, and popped a piece in his mouth before saying, juicily, “I suppose we will ever disagree, but I wish everyone at this table to know that I love you as a Christian brother.”
Mr. White straightened his cravat. Glancing to the right and left, he mumbled uncomfortably, “Yes, yes, sir. I also, er, love you. As a Christian, of course.”
The vicar slapped his hand on the table, threw back his head and laughed. “How you amuse—”
The minister could go no further. A large chunk of apple had lodged in his throat, and he began to choke, his face turning a brilliant red, his eyes straining outward in his desperation to breathe. Mrs. Suttner patted his back, her concern rapidly turning to alarm as her husband still struggled.
“Help him, somebody!” she cried. “He can’t breathe!”
Eustace jumped to his feet and began pounding his father’s back. “Cough it up, Papa!”
Alexander and Edward rushed to stand behind him helplessly. Several of the others half-rose from their chairs, and horror stamped itself onto the features of everyone.
“Don’t hit his back!” Simon commanded, stirring from his shock to leap onto his chair and bound across the table, managing to send Fiona’s glass crashing to the floor. He pushed Eustace aside and brushed away Mrs. Suttners hands, much to the fury of Alexander and Edward, who tried to wrest him back. Simon, who was half a head taller than either gentleman and possessed muscles that only a daily session at the weight machine can bring about, swatted them both backward easily, and was not so busy that he didn’t enjoy it immensely.
The minister’s color had drained to a greyish pallor. His hands clawed his neck in frantic efforts for air, but feebly now. Simon jerked the man from his chair, positioned himself behind him, circled his arms around his waist, and allowed the minister to slump forward. Although Simon had never done it before, never even practiced it, he began the Heimlich, pumping the heel of one hand with the other beneath the vicar’s rib cage.
“Work, work,” he chanted to himself, trying to block out the sounds of questions and cries surrounding him. “Please work.”
“What are you doing?” Alexander demanded. “Leave the poor fellow. Someone fetch the surgeon!”
Pump, pump, squeeze upward. He’d seen it done a million times on television. He could do it, he could.
The vicar slumped even lower.
“He is killing him!” screamed Mrs. Suttner. “Will someone not help me?”
“Dear God, deliver him,” Mr. White prayed loudly, tears floating in his eyes. “Send your angels to guard over my brother.”
“Come here, Claude, and put your lazy arms to work,” Alexander spat. “The three of us will get rid of this madman.”
There was a brief, disgusting sound as the apple segment shot from the vicar’s mouth onto his wife’s lap. Her scream cut off in mid-voice as her husband took a long, shuddering gasp of air. Immediately, she flung her arms around him and began to weep.
Simon returned the man to his chair—not without difficulty, because Mrs. Suttner would not let him loose—and undid the vicar’s cravat while the minister drew in many noisy breaths, coughed excessively, and cleared his throat over and over again. When his color returned to almost normal, Simon backed away and began to circle the table to resume his seat. As he passed Alexander and Edward, he was delighted to see their looks of amazement.
“What did you do?” Alexander asked grudgingly. “How did you do that?”
“I’ll show you sometime,” said Simon, unable to keep all the smugness from his voice. When he sat down, however, his knees buckled at the last moment and almost shamed him as he half-fell into the chair.
“Thank you, young man,” Mr. Suttner croaked over his wife’s shoulder. “Saved my life.”
Darby stood. “Mr. White prayed for the help of angels, and I do believe Mr. Garrett served very well in that capacity.” Simon’s heart leapt to see belief restored to her eyes. “Well done, sir.”
To his great surprise and embarrassment, she lifted her glass in a salute. The others followed, even Alexander, though distrust was still evident on his face. Simon waved their accolades aside modestly, but in his most secret heart, he was very pleased. It had been the finest role of his life.
Chapter Four
“But who is he, really?’’ Evelyn whispered, when she was finally able to capture Darby by herself an hour or so after the choking episode in the dining room.
They were not truly alone, for the parlor was filled with the soft murmur of women’s voices; women who, awaiting the arrival of the men from their enjoyment of cigars and claret, were pretending to revel in one another’s company but were on the whole so ill-matched that many pauses and uncomfortable comments could be detected in their conversation, did one listen closely. The ministers’ wives, for example, sat in chairs before one of the windows; and were it not for Aunt Gacia, who laughed often over nothing, and Mrs. Wallace, who commiserated tearfully with everyone, their discourse would have appeared as stiff as starched vellum.
The younger ladies fared little better. Seated on the sofa near the fireplace, Lenora, Evelyn, and Fiona had fired one question after another to Darby concerning her mysterious guest. Sitting across from them in her favorite winged chair, Miss Brightings gave them little satisfaction with her responses. In frustration the trio turned to other matters, hopping from local gossip to the recent arrest in London of a woman for stealing over a hundred of Queen Charlotte’s keys. That none of them found the subjects interesting could be discerned from the frequency the young ladies’ glances returned to Darby, whom they all believed hid much more intriguing news.
Finally, Darby had escaped, declaring she meant to freshen everyone’s tea with the service aligned on a table against the wall. Evelyn seized her chance and followed, saying she intended to help. And now, much to Darby’s dismay, she stood closely to her friend and awaited her answer.
“He has told everything already, Evelyn.”
Although she tried to sound convincing, Darby could not help feeling a weight in her chest as she spoke. She still had no inkling why her angel had found it necessary to lie. Could he not have appeared to her pri
vately, thereby keeping his true identity hidden, a thing he seemed determined to do?
But perhaps it was as he said at table. She knew he had been trying to communicate with her, reassure her, with his story about the child. Perhaps there were special circumstances when lies were the lesser of two evils. Yet the idea continued to have a feeling of wrongness about it; and for an eternity of time her doubts had again surfaced, heated and relentless. But he had cooled all that by saving Reverend Suttner’s life, merely by touching him.
Did the others only realize it, they had witnessed a miracle this evening. It had been a better miracle than the heavenly music she had heard in the wood, if less pleasing aesthetically. There could be no denying Simon was what he said he was.
She wished she could tell Alex the truth before he made real trouble for himself.
She also detested lying to her best friend; such a thing had never happened. Well, of course she had told temporary fibs necessary in the forwardment of the occasional prank, but those were always made clear in the end. This one, this very large one—could it ever be explained? Evelyn, Simon Garrett is my guardian angel.
It did not bear thinking about.
“Then you really did write him from an advertisement?” Evelyn asked, her normally flat, quiet voice inflecting with incredulity. “You hadn’t seen him perform before? Was that not a risk? He might have had a squint, or stunk like a pig’s foot.”
The tongs in Darby’s hand loosened and shook, splashing a lump of sugar into the pitcher of milk.
“Really, Evelyn, only see what you have made me do.” Darby scooped out the soggy lump and dropped it on the edge of the tablecloth, to the side of the tray. She wiped the milk from the tongs, then proceeded to transfer more pieces of sugar from the large bowl in the table’s cabinet to the small one on the tray.
“Here, allow me to hold that,” Evelyn said, reaching for the larger bowl and extending it in front of her. “You might place a sideboard here instead of this little table; then you could put an entire sack of sugar upon it. Who would have thought a few women could consume so much in their first cup of tea? By the by, this is too much work. You should ring for the maid.”
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