Valeria Vose

by Alice Bingham Gorman

  “Do they still have the Cotton Carnival?” Ian asked, as if wondering out loud whether his memories were real and if it were still possible to have that degree of fun.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Jenny said quickly. “No one I know cares anymore.”

  Mallie nodded agreement. She had not thought of Cotton Carnival in years. “Actually, it’s all changed now,” she said. “Since the death of Martin Luther King, Memphis is a different place today.”

  “What a pity,” Ian said. “It was such jolly good fun.”

  Mallie kept her thoughts to herself. She knew it would have been inappropriate to mention that the institutionalized segregation that existed in those days was not “jolly good fun” for everyone. It was fun for some—certainly her group of friends—and a perpetuation of inequality and subjugation for others. It mortified her that, at the time, she had been as blind as the rest of her crowd to what was going on around them in the black community in Memphis. Thank God, the old way of a “white Carnival parade” and a “black Carnival parade” that had once been a part of the Cotton Carnival was gone forever.

  When dinner was finished, Elizabeth ushered the three of them into the parlor. “You must forgive me,” she said. “I have to shut the doggies in the dining room for a bit. We’ve got a slight problem tonight.” She then scurried the two Jack Russells into the dining room and closed the doors.

  Within seconds, scratching, barking, ripping sounds emanated from behind the doors. Mallie looked at Jenny who shrugged in disbelief. It seemed to go on for many minutes, becoming wilder and louder. Mallie thought of the long dark green velvet curtains hanging from the double windows, pooling on the floor. Were the little doggies ripping up the curtains?

  “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “We have to do this every now and again,” Elizabeth said. “These old houses are prone to the invasion of horrid little creatures. The Jack Russells are our best ratters. They’ll get them.” Mallie shuddered at the thought of the benign and friendly little doggies turning into voracious killers.

  Presently, all was quiet. When Elizabeth opened the doors, the Jack Russells rushed toward her, still panting from their successful activity. “Good doggies,” she said as she bent down and praised the wiry little hunters. After surveying the positive results behind the curtains in the dining room, she closed the doors again and walked calmly into the parlor. “Sorry for the intrusion,” she said. “Will you have coffee or tea?”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  On Saturday morning Elizabeth gave Jenny driving directions to St. James Church in the nearby town of Arundel. She explained that for over a hundred years the Carlisle family had been contributing members of St. James—the church had been founded in the fourteenth century—but she and Ian had long since stopped attending services. Still, she had a fondness for the place and admired the current vicar.

  “I think you’ll like Father Jonathan,” she told Mallie and Jenny. “Actually I believe they refer to him as Father Jon these days. He sat in the hospital with me while Ian was having his gallbladder removed a few years ago. Such good company. Very well-read and he loves the theater. I’m told he and his wife take in paying guests at the vicarage to support their London theater jaunts.”

  Mallie instantly thought of Tom. Tom loved theater, too. He had attended all the plays at the Front Street Theater, the resident professional company in Memphis, before it closed for lack of funds. Maybe Father Jon would remind her of Tom. It had been over a week since she had seen him, the longest period away from him in nine months. Looking out the car window as they drove toward Arundel, she felt an ache of loneliness. She would try to put Tom out of her mind and concentrate on the picture book landscape of the English countryside.

  A semi-walled city, a Disney creation, Arundel centered around a medieval Camelot castle with flags and turrets and a cathedral with huge stained glass windows and a rising bell tower. Weathered gray stone buildings and narrow streets, people on bicycles or briskly walking, dogs of all shapes and sizes. Mallie wanted to get out of the car and poke around. Everywhere she saw places and scenes that she wanted to draw: colorful pub signs, inns, flower shops, butcher shops, bakeries and greengrocers with their wares displayed out front. She could see herself standing in any number of spots with her pad and her colored pencils.

  St. James was on the other side of Arundel, smaller than the cathedral, but still imposing with its ancient stone façade. According to Elizabeth, the church was a relative newcomer compared to nearby St. Andrew’s by the Ford, an eleventh-century building without electricity, lit entirely by candles. Mallie instantly imagined the contrast with tiny, modern St. Michael’s Chapel in Memphis. Within seconds she could travel the many miles, as well as the many years, between her student experiences at the American Church in Florence, St. Michael’s Chapel in Memphis, and St. James in Arundel. The American Church and St. Michael’s had both appeared in her life at exactly the time she needed them. She hoped St. James would prove to be of such timely spiritual value as well.

  As they entered the side door from the parking lot of St. James, a short, stout woman came bustling toward them with a nametag pinned to her blouse. “Welcome,” she said, offering both her hands to Mallie and Jenny. “You must be the Americans. I’m Jane Brady. I’m a member of the vestry. We’re so very delighted to have you here with us.”

  Unlike the sophisticated, snappily dressed Louise Mohr that Mallie remembered from her arrival at the Faith at Work conference, Jane Brady wore no makeup, with a simple white blouse and gray cardigan over her gray knitted skirt. With her clipped accent and her bird’s nest hair, she appeared to Mallie straight out of a Miss Marple novel.

  “Come, come,” Jane Brady beckoned, taking quick steps ahead of them. “We must get you coffee and a sweet before we start.”

  Mallie and Jenny followed her into a baronial, paneled reception room. Immediately Mallie spotted Father Jonathan. She was sure it had to be him. Very tall, with thinning gray hair and a large paunchy build, the priest was distinctive in his long black robe with a yellowed ivory cross hanging from his neck. His shiny black shoes reminded her of her first patent leather pumps. He seemed to be in rapt conversation with another man, perhaps sharing a confidence, Mallie thought. It occurred to her that she had never seen Tom in conversation with another man.

  Tea and coffee were being served at a lace covered round table in the center of the room. The surrounding group, mostly middle-aged and older women, stopped refilling their cups and choosing between the offerings of scones and muffins just long enough for Jane Brady to introduce the newcomers.

  “These are the Americans,” she said, obviously proud of the visitors coming all the way to her church in Arundel. “This is Jenny—she’s Elizabeth Carlisle’s sister, you might remember—and this is her friend Mallie Vose.”

  Shortly, a tinny bell rang and the various small groups in the room broke away from their conversations and found seats in the semi-circular rows facing the lectern. Jane led her new friends to seats that had been saved for them in the third row. Father Jonathan took his place at the lectern.

  He looked from one person to another in silence for a few seconds. “Before we actually begin our work together,” he said, “I would like to quote from the book we will be studying: A Summons to Life: The Search for Identity Through the Spiritual. Here are Martin Israel’s own words from the Prologue: ‘In the mad rush for security and peace, there is too often an escape from the person to an outer world of authority, where responsibility may be laid at the door of someone else. Yet there can be no peace that does not come from the depths of our own being, no security that does not arise from the love within, and no knowledge that does not proclaim the unity of the person in the greater community of creation.’” He closed the book and put it down on the lectern.

  “It is that message from the text we will be considering,” he continued, “through today’s meditations, group sessions, individual conferences—if you should c
hoose to have a conference with me—and tomorrow’s worship services. I look forward to knowing and sharing this time with each of you.”

  He seemed to shift gears, becoming more informal, leaning over the lectern. “Before I tell you a bit more about Martin Israel, I want to introduce myself. I’m Father Jonathan Parrish, but you’re welcome to call me Father Jon. I’d like for each of you to stand and introduce yourself—just give us a brief description of the reason you’ve come to St. James for this retreat.”

  Mallie’s heart immediately began thumping against her chest. She hated the thought of standing up and speaking in front of a group, particularly a group of church people. She always felt transparent in front of a group, as if they could read her mind. She feared that they would instantly know that she had her doubts about being a good Christian and that she was going through a divorce. She had come to Arundel and to St. James because Jenny had invited her to come and she wanted to get away from the heat of Memphis. But she also had to admit that there was a part of her in search of a new life: to find her identity as a new person “through the spiritual.”

  She had been moved by the opening quotation from Martin Israel’s book: the idea of peace coming from the depths of one’s own being. As vague as the idea felt to her, she knew it was the truth. That truth was what she wanted for herself. She decided that she would not waste time second-guessing Father Jon and the people of St. James. She would trust them in the same way that she had learned to trust the people at Faith at Work.

  Most of the people in the large room seemed to know each other. One by one each person stood and gave a brief statement of introduction. The women and a few men had come from all over England—the Lake District to London to Brighton. “I’ve read Dr. Israel’s book and believe it to be most provocative,” one woman said. “I’d like to know more.”

  “I’m a surgeon at the City of London Hospital,” a man said. “I’ve known Dr. Israel as a colleague and I admire him. I want to know more about his views of the spiritual life.”

  When the introductions reached Mallie and Jenny’s row, Jenny stood up first. “I’m Jenny Bolton from the United States, my sister Elizabeth Carlisle lives in Arundel. I’m here visiting her and to study Summons to Life. My priest at home discovered the book on a trip to London last summer and recommended it to me. I’m very happy to be here.” She smiled and sat down.

  Mallie took a deep breath. With determination, she stood and looked directly at Father Jon, as if imploring him, as well as everyone else in the room, to hear her—to help her. “I’m Mallie Vose from Memphis, Tennessee. I’ve come here with my friend Jenny. I don’t know anything about Martin Israel, but I admire the subtitle of the book: The Search for Identity Through the Spiritual. I’m searching. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Father Jon smiled and thanked her for her introduction. Jenny patted her knee and whispered that she had said exactly the right thing. Mallie turned her attention to the remainder of the people, relieved that she had spoken from her heart and had, apparently, not made a fool of herself.

  “Thanks to you all,” Father Jon said after the last person spoke. “We have a good beginning. Now, before we attempt to study the chapters of the book, I would like to tell you a bit about Martin Israel. I had the distinct pleasure of being one of his teachers in seminary. Of all my students through the years, he was the most brilliant and the most spiritually gifted.

  “He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to rather wealthy Jewish parents. His early years introduced him to the inequities of the races in South Africa and taught him about the loving spirituality of the black people as their only path to rising above their most difficult plight. Martin’s parents recognized his intellectual genius as a boy and sent him to England for schooling. He never returned to South Africa. He became a medical doctor—and later, he had a Christian conversion. Eventually, he became an Anglican priest. That is the simple version. But, as all of us in this room can attest, living life to the fullest, balancing the sacred and the secular, is never quite so simple.”

  Mallie listened intently as if Father Jon were speaking directly and solely to her. She thought of her childhood and the inequities, as Father Jon put it, of the black people in her life in Memphis. Her nurse Bernice often came home from her day off exhausted because she had to climb the stairs of the fire escape on the outside of the Malco Theater to see a movie. No “colored” person, as black people were called in Memphis in those days, was allowed in the theater with white people. She remembered the segregated “white” and “colored” drinking fountains as well as “white” and “colored” restrooms. She had been unaware until years later that Bernice could not enter a department store in downtown Memphis without the company of a white person. Without her and Anne at her side, Bernice would have been required to sit in the back of the bus. Mallie had always known that something was wrong, but unlike Martin Israel, she had accepted the reality of the racial divide and continued to live with it. It made sense to her that no real spiritual life—no belief in a loving God—could exist with racial inequality. Fortunately through the years, particularly after the death of Martin Luther King, there had been many changes in Memphis. It seemed sad to her that Martin Israel had never returned to South Africa to try to change life there.

  “Here are the words of Martin Israel,” Father Jon continued. “‘True life is liberation from the bondage of matter to the mutual communion of all creatures in God, Who is our home. When we know ourselves we begin to live with meaning and purpose. The world expands, and our hearts respond in joyful radiance. This is the life abundant, which alone is worth having.’”

  That phrase “life abundant” bothered Mallie. She had always associated the word “abundant” with a picture of a cornucopia, an object filling the center of an expansive Thanksgiving table, brimming over with gourds and vegetables and pomegranates. That image made a cornucopia “matter.” Martin Israel had also referred to “the bondage of matter.” It was difficult for Mallie to envision an abundant life of the spirit. Perhaps it was a cornucopia of good feelings. Maybe it was what she felt when she fell in love with Larry, or in that moment when each of her boys were born. Maybe life abundant could mean all of her experience with Tom Matthews. Perhaps it could also have something to do with the thrill she felt when she watched a blank piece of paper or a canvas come to life with one of her paintings.

  She decided that she would sign up for a private conference with Father Jon to discuss the idea. The conferences were entirely voluntary, she understood, and only a few could be scheduled during the two day period. She had come all the way to England; she might as well take advantage of the opportunity to talk to Father Jon.

  At the first break of the morning session, she found Jane Brady, who showed her where to sign up. She took one of the last remaining spaces on Saturday afternoon for a private conference.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The second half of the morning was spent in silent meditation, some individuals with their eyes closed, others quietly reading portions of the Martin Israel book.

  Lunch was served picnic-style in the walled garden outside the reception hall. Mallie loved the warm sun on her face, so different from the oppressive, enervating heat of an August day in Memphis. The manicured border garden, like Elizabeth’s garden, was at its height. Rows of hollyhocks, with their soft pink and white blooms, nestling in green leafy pockets along the spiky stems, stood tall against the old gray stones of the church walls. In front of them, roses, mixed with other varieties of annuals and perennials, created a mass of texture and color. Again, Mallie felt the desire to paint what she saw. There was something that struck her as “abundant” about the church garden. Surely a garden was not merely “matter.”

  At four o’clock, she entered Father Jon’s small office. It was very different from Tom Matthews’s expansive, messy study with its fraying rug, rumpled couch and books everywhere. Father Jon’s Spartan quarters had only two straight back chairs and a small,
uncluttered desk on a bare wood floor.

  “Come in,” he said. He stood up behind his desk, greeted her and pointed to the chairs in front of his desk. “Do have a seat, my dear.”

  Mallie thanked him. She looked at his face, the becoming English ruddiness in his cheeks, his midnight-blue eyes, small and very deep set, with white, brushy eyebrows nearly covering his forehead above them. He had a kindly, grandfatherly demeanor. His black robe and cross further reminded her of Father Peter, a Catholic priest she had loved as a child.

  “I liked the way you introduced yourself,” Father Jon said, sitting back in his chair. He folded his hands, crossing his fingers on his lap. “In truth, we’re all searchers.”

  Mallie was pleased with his compliment. “Elizabeth says you like to go to the theater in London,” she said.

  Father Jon sat up, tilting his head, a childlike delight in his eyes. “Oh yes, I do! My wife and I go to a matinee every other Wednesday.” He leaned toward her. “Do you like theater?”

  “Jenny and I will be in London next week and are planning to go on Tuesday night to see The Threepenny Opera at the Prince of Wales Theatre,” she said. “I go to a theater in Memphis where I live, but I haven’t been to the London theatre since I was a student in the fifties. I remember seeing a wonderful musical called Salad Days. Did you ever see that?”

  “Of course, I saw Salad Days. It was classic British whimsy. How delightful that you saw Salad Days.” He beamed and sang a bar from the musical: “It’s easy to sing a simple song, if you sing it after me.”