“Julie, it’s cheeky of me to ask this. Do you kiss others the way you did me that night?”
“No, I do not.”
“I’m glad . . .” Then he stopped, obviously embarrassed. “Not that I’m against your kissing other young blokes, it’s just that you are such a, well, warm person,” he finished lamely.
“That’s nonsense,” I said, annoyed. “What you’re telling me is that you had this lovely fantasy going about my being some kind of wide-eyed young sister to you and then I proceeded to spoil it.”
Rand looked uncomfortable for a moment, then laughed. “There you go, pinning me to the wall again.”
“You should be pinned to the wall for all that talk about kissing. The truth is, you played your role so well that the princess really did fall in love with the prince. Silly, maybe, but true. I don’t know much about kissing and I don’t like trying to analyze it. I just wanted you to know how I felt about you.”
“Well, it shook up my world.”
“Why, why did it change things between us?”
“Because I was suddenly obliged to look at you differently. The fantasy world was wiped out. All at once you were a very alive woman in my arms. I loved it, but I wasn’t ready to handle it. I’m . . . I am not in a position to fall in love.”
I shook my head. “You make it sound so . . . so heavy. Being in love doesn’t mean that you put on a ball and chain. I’d never want that.”
Rand looked intently into my eyes. “I don’t think you are a mite casual about love. You’re an all-out person. I’ve never known anyone like you for single-minded intensity. Your poems show that.”
“Oh, you read that poem. It wasn’t supposed to be in the Sentinel.”
“What poem?”
“Then you didn’t see it in yesterday’s paper?”
“No, should I?”
“Please don’t,” I said, wanting to bite my tongue. Then, realizing that Rand had to have an explanation, I told him how “Rhapsody” had escaped my journal and gotten into print.
“I should enjoy enormously reading your journal sometime.”
“No, you wouldn’t. It might confirm your opinion of me as a love-starved woman.”
He grinned for a moment, then turned serious again. “Julie, the problem lies with me, not you. You have every right to condemn me roundly. But I think you’re a delightful, wonderful person—”
“Who is in love with love,” I interrupted.
“Who does not need the handicap of someone from another country, reared in a different culture and with a different goal in life.”
“How are our goals different?”
“Well, you are—or will soon be—a journalist with a passion to help the poor, to expose wrongdoing, and to bring justice to the underprivileged. I’m not against any of those goals, but I have been reared and trained in business management, to make money, to manage our landholdings.”
“Rand, I don’t think our goals are incompatible. I have no passion to be a career woman, nor does it seem possible at the moment for me even to go to college.”
“Which is too bad. You are college material if ever I have seen it.”
“That can come later. Since I have such a passion for reading and learning, some type of schooling will be going on all my life.”
Rand took both my hands and looked at me intensely. “I won’t play games with you any more, Julie. I care about you too much to take advantage of your love in any casual relationship. You are an all-out person and I can’t fill the role you would have for me.” Despite all my efforts at control, the tears began sliding down my cheeks. I pulled myself away, turned my back on Rand, and flicked at them angrily with one wrist.
“Please don’t.” Rand’s hands patted my shoulders, then his arms slipped around my waist. I leaned my head back against his shoulder. Slowly he turned me around and kissed my forehead, then each eye, then my mouth.
The magic was back. A thunderbolt shot down my spine, and sobbing, I clung to him. When the fierceness of the kiss abated, he stroked my hair and brushed his lips tenderly over my forehead. “I love you, Julie . . . I love you . . . I love you.”
His words kindled the fires again until Rand pulled away and led me to one of the big rocks where we sat side by side. “You see what happens.”
“Yes, I see.”
“When we are together, it’s frighteningly inevitable. So do you think we can have a casual relationship?”
“No.”
There was pain in his eyes and something new stirred inside me. How to describe it? A chipping off of that big mass of selfishness inside me. For I not only loved Rand, but I cared about him in a new way. Compassion? No, stronger than that. I could begin to feel what he was feeling, even though it was not what I wanted him to feel. He had a problem with me—he couldn’t marry me, or did not want to marry me, or wasn’t ready to marry me. But he loved me. I could live on that for a while.
Rand noticed the change in me at once as we walked, hand in hand, back to the house. “You’re not upset with me?”
“No.”
“And you understand what I was trying to say?”
“Yes, I do. That you are not in a position to be serious just now, that you do not feel it’s even right to see me.”
He was silent for a while. “Have I hurt you?”
“Yes. But your love was healing.”
“I had no intention of saying that, but I cannot take those words back.” He smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
On the front porch, he still held my hand. He was struggling inside again. I brought his hand up to my lips and kissed it gently. “You helped me to grow up a little today, Rand. I understand the real world better than you think. You’re caught in it and I will pray for you every day. Count on that, even though I don’t know how good my prayers are.”
Rand grinned at me. “They’ll be good enough.”
He was reluctant to leave even then, but forced himself to do so. As he climbed into his roadster and drove off, I wondered when I would see him again.
On the big wall calendar above Dad’s desk at the Sentinel he had circled August 12 with red crayon and written: “Meloy’s moment of truth.”
Everywhere I went, people were talking about the upcoming vote. In a large town the size of Alderton, church disputes would ordinarily create little attention, but there was something unfamiliar, indeed novel, in the conflict now swirling around Spencer Meloy. For one thing, he was an attractive, personable man, who had demonstrated a genuine desire to lighten the plight of society’s underdogs.
For another, folks generally sensed the courage in the man: he was not intimidated by the wealthy or powerful, else why had he bucked them and not quietly resigned and left town?
Finally, the church’s method of handling the situation was different. In most denominational churches, a crisis involving the pastor would never come to a congregational vote. An ecclesiastical higher-up in a distant city would make the decision. Baker Memorial, being independent, had its own constitution, and the procedure necessary to oust its pastor offered the potential for real drama.
The Church Council had drawn up this set of ground rules for the meeting, then had them circulated to all members:
1. Only communicant members of Baker Memorial Church in good and regular standing will be eligible to vote.
2. Each side will be allowed to have three persons speak publicly at the meeting prior to the voting.
3. Voting will be by secret ballot.
4. No visitors or nonmembers of Baker Memorial will be allowed in the meeting.
The night before the church meeting there was a brief but tense scene between my parents. Mother had been silent during dinner, then went to the kitchen. Dad had followed her.
“Why are you so upset, Louise?” I heard my father ask.
“I don’t think you should get involved in this Meloy fight.”
“How you’ve changed! In Timmeton you said I didn’t fight hard enough.”
/> “That was different. That was your battle. This one isn’t. This one could cost you the Sentinel.”
“Meloy has asked for my help. I can’t turn my back on him.”
“Will you pray hard about this before you act?”
“Of course I’ll pray.”
On the night of the congregational meeting, my father, mother, and I walked to the church while Tim and Anne-Marie remained at home with a neighbor. It was a beautiful starlit evening, redolent with honeysuckle. My father held Mother’s arm to support her over the rough places where tree roots had upheaved the bricks in the sidewalk.
“Ken, are you speaking tonight?” I heard Mother ask.
“Yes, Louise.”
The subject was then dropped, as if by mutual consent.
Ahead of us, the church was in darkness, while the Sunday School building behind the sanctuary was lighted, the door standing open; people were streaming in.
As we walked up to the door, we were stopped by a trustee, Sheldon Wissinger, president of one of Alderton’s banks.
“Sorry to detain you,” he said affably enough, “but I’ve been given the job of checking everyone against this membership list.”
He glanced down at the sheaf of papers in his hands. “Let’s see now, Wallace. Ah, yes, here you are.” He reached into a box on a small table beside him and handed a printed ballot to each of us. “You may go on in,” he said.
Finding it hard to believe that a banker could be taking such a routine job so seriously, I searched the man’s face for any hint of a smile or dry humor. None—none at all.
It was only ten past seven, but the assembly room, which seated two hundred people, was already more than two-thirds full.
After finding seats, my first move was to look closely at the ballot Mr. Wissinger had handed me. It was a slip of paper somewhat larger than most tickets or ballots, perforated down the middle. On one side were the block letters: FOR RETENTION; on the other side: FOR DISMISSAL. I sat staring at the slip. The wording was so stark. There was an increasing air of unreality about this entire drama.
Dressed in a blue business suit, Spencer was sitting on one end of the front row of chairs. His long legs crossed, one arm across the back of the chair beside him, he smiled or nodded in greeting to his parishioners as they entered the room.
In contrast to Spencer, the church trustees were in perpetual motion, checking lists, moving chairs and tables. Their constant whispering to each other lent a note of conspiracy to the proceedings.
Neal Brinton and Margo walked in together and took seats near us. Both McKeever men arrived, along with the seldom-seen young Mrs. McKeever, who wore dark glasses because, the rumors went, she had a drinking problem. When Bryan followed them, he caught my eye and waved.
Then I froze. Strolling in behind the McKeevers and taking a seat directly behind them was Randolph Wilkinson! My mind almost exploded. Rand had never said he was a member of Baker Memorial. I had never seen him at a service. Yet he was obviously on the approved list.
While adjusting to this startling development, my eyes caught a movement at one of the windows. I saw faces crowded there, peering in.
“Mother, look!” I nudged her.
Every window was filled with faces. Apparently, curious nonmembers and those who had been turned away by Wissinger’s checklist were determined to see the meeting anyway and to hear as much as they could. Some probably included the seventeen applicants for membership, on which the Council had postponed action until after tonight’s vote.
To one side of the small speaker’s stand, a folding chair was now placed. Then a white-haired man with a huge stomach ambled up and deposited himself in the chair with a grunt. Following that, someone lugged in an oversized wooden box and carefully deposited it on the fat man’s lap. On the floor beside him sat a large wastebasket.
“What’s that box?” I asked the lady sitting to my right.
She smiled. “That is the town ballot box from Mills Ford, used there in all local elections. Someone has borrowed it, I imagine.”
I could only stare at the man, whose stomach protruded over the edge of the ancient contraption. The box had a stained oak finish, brass handles, a hole in the top in which to deposit the ballots, and a large crank at one end.
Donald Whipkey, comptroller of Trentler Wireworks and chairman of the Church Council, rose behind the speaker’s stand and called the meeting to order. Since extra folding chairs had been set up, I guessed there were about 250 people jammed into the hall. “Reverend Meloy, would you open the meeting with prayer?” he asked.
At least one gracious gesture, I thought.
A resonant voice filled the room. “Lord, whenever and wherever we are gathered together in Your name, You have promised to be in our midst. This is Your church, not ours, Lord. We ask You to guide all that happens here tonight in this room. We ask only that what we say and do here will further Your kingdom on earth and be to Your glory. Amen.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Whipkey said smoothly. “According to the bylaws adopted by our congregation, all procedures are to be handled under Roberts Rules of Order. Therefore, under this authority, I hereby declare this meeting an executive session.”
He paused. “First, then, we need to appoint three tellers to count the votes. The Council has nominated the following men. Will they please rise as I read their names?”
Mr. Piley was one of the three named.
“Are there any objections?” Mr. Whipkey challenged.
Barely pausing, he continued, “Then these three are hereby asked to serve.”
A man near the back rose and was recognized by the chairman. “I understand that there were thirty signatures requesting this meeting on the original petition submitted to the trustees. I would like to ask that those thirty names be read out loud, here and now.”
Mr. Whipkey paused, then answered crisply, “Request denied. I must refuse to read those names because friendships and business relationships in Alderton are involved.”
The man in the back persisted, “Who validated those signatures then?”
“I did, together with the secretary of the Board.”
Another man raised his hand and was acknowledged. “Are those names being withheld at the request of the signers?”
“Yes, they are,” the chairman answered. “So now let us get on with the business of the evening.” He then explained that the six speakers, three for and three against Pastor Meloy, would alternate as agreed upon previously.
The first was a white-haired older man, a former corporation executive. He explained how running a church depended on close cooperation between the pastor and members of the Church Council, that the pastor had bypassed the Council or gone over their heads.
“Perhaps this is due to Mr. Meloy’s youth and lack of experience,” he said. “I’m sure he’s sincere enough. But the question has arisen, is Mr. Meloy too immature to handle a church like this one? Regretfully, I conclude that he is. I think our church cannot move forward with Spencer Meloy at the helm.”
A doctor, one of Alderton’s general practitioners, was the first to speak for Meloy.
“I would like to make two points,” he began. “Baker Memorial Church has a responsibility to this entire community. Our pastor, by establishing the Community Center in the Lowlands, is helping to fulfill that kind of responsibility to Alderton. That should be cause for gratitude, not persecution, which is what we are doing here by this courtroom type of meeting.
“Second, I am a professional man. So is our pastor. What’s happening here tonight is no way to deal with a professional man. I find even the wording printed on the ballots offensive. Mr. Meloy can stand severance from this church, but can this church stand severance from Meloy?”
He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “I have here a letter from one of the seventeen people who were denied permission to join this church last Sunday. May I read it?”
Several loud no’s were shouted at him.
> Mr. Whipkey raised his gavel and pounded. “We must keep order here. I’m sorry, but if the writer of this letter is not yet a member of Baker Memorial, then reading a written statement would be as much out of order as a statement delivered in person.”
With a look of disgust, the doctor returned to his seat.
The second speaker, an undertaker, attacked Meloy on a spiritual basis, claiming that the church was in great danger from Socialist preachers who put their emphasis on doling out bread, when Jesus had made it clear that “man does not live by bread alone.”
Following that, a middle-aged woman, the mother of three teenagers, said that Meloy’s preaching had made God real to her, and that his friendship with her teenagers was helping them to find themselves.
The wife of one of the trustees then spoke against the pastor, stressing his insensitivity to older people, an articulate argument that impressed me. The clock on the wall read 8:45.
Then Mr. Whipkey said, “Our last speaker before we cast our vote is Mr. Kenneth Wallace, publisher of the Alderton Sentinel.”
As Dad made his way to the front, I darted a quick look at Mother’s tense face. Was she still opposed to his taking sides in the issue?
“I have felt great emotion here tonight,” Dad began, his voice deep and clear. “This bothers me because, regardless how each of us feels, we need to make this decision on the basis of facts, not emotions.
“My family and I are relative newcomers to Alderton. Since our arrival, I have learned about the areas of need in this community. The depressed state of our economy has brought some agony to all of us, but especially to people in the Lowlands. They’re a part of our community. Therefore I was delighted when I learned of the thoughtful generosity of Tom McKeever and his father on behalf of Yoder Steel in making a building owned by them available as a Community Center. What a wonderful gesture by a business enterprise!”
The room was very quiet. The authority in his voice had captured everyone’s attention. I glanced at the McKeevers. Their eyes were riveted on the Editor’s face. So were Rand’s.
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