Morte D'Urban

by J.F. Powers

  This was unfortunate for Father Excelsior who firmly believed that editor and publisher should work together and try to understand each other’s problems. One of Father Excelsior’s problems was getting out a prospectus for, and not knowing what to expect from, Eight Seasons Editions (under which imprint certain titles of the Millstone Press would be issued, so Publishers Weekly had reported back in May). There had been a certain amount of correspondence between publisher and editor since May, but lately this had ceased on the latter end, and now, far call from the ideal, publisher couldn’t even find editor. Publisher had last heard from editor in July, and enclosed a copy of the communication received then, a communication to the effect that Father John had agreed, under terms to be arranged later, to prepare a scholarly children’s edition of Le Morte d’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory. That was all Father Excelsior knew. Could Father Urban help him? No, it seemed not. Dickie was just away.

  There was a tower on one of the little islands they passed on their cruises, a battlemented tower of rough red granite, one wall of which, windowless, with iron rungs set into it, and a diving board at the top, rose out of deep water like a cliff. “Sally’s castle,” Mrs Thwaites said the first time Father Urban saw it. “Andrew had it built for her when she was twelve.” The word cut over the door of the tower, “Belleisle,” probably came from some romantic tale, Mrs Thwaites said. Sally had been a great reader. Mrs Thwaites, wife and mother, worried a great deal about Andrew and Dickie, but not as she did about Sally and herself.

  Father Urban, listening as to a royal complaint, had a vision of life in late medieval times, when nothing and nobody was for sure, when kings and prelates were selling out right and left. They were on a Highland loch, the old queen with her blowball of white hair, the rosy-cheeked Irish girl ever true to her queen and Pope (as her queen hadn’t always been), and the tall handsome gentleman whose darkness of skin and subtle manner gave him away as Spanish—a traveler lately arrived from the Continent on business of church and state, the success or failure of which would be revealed in the histories, atlases, and stud books of the future. In this vision of Father Urban’s, which, of course, derived from his current reading, there were flaws—the putt-putt of the royal barge, the black sunglasses worn by the queen, the Spaniard’s cigar—but the conversation rang true.

  “I can see myself in her, Father.”

  “I’m told she favors you, ma’am.”

  “I was out of the Church myself for a time—does that surprise you, Father?”

  It did not, of course, since Monsignor Renton had said as much, and more. “You might say St Peter himself was out of the Church for a time, ma’am. Not a very long time, it’s true. The important thing is he came back in and went on to become our first pope.”

  Mrs Thwaites made no reply. It was the last day of Father Urban’s stay, and they’d just sailed past Sally’s castle.

  “Pray for her, ma’am.”

  “Father Udovic thinks I should make a pilgrimage.”

  “You’ve talked this over with him then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lourdes?”

  “Yes. Father Udovic’s leading a tour next summer. When I was there some years ago, I said I’d never go again, but maybe I will. I understand the accommodations are better now.”

  “So I understand.”

  “I’d be grateful, Father, if you’d stay another day or two. Sally and Norris will be here tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Ah, ma’am, these things are best left to God. But since you ask it, yes, I’ll stay.”

  The next morning, after Mass, Father Urban ran into Monsignor Renton and told him that the Hopwoods would be arriving from Minneapolis that afternoon.

  “Sally?” said Monsignor Renton. “She’s the best of a bad lot.”

  Father Urban asked what Mr Hopwood was like.

  “Norris? He’s a wheat broker. Say, how’s the old head?”

  “Needs a haircut, as you can see. That’s all,” said Father Urban, though he was still troubled by headaches. He didn’t like the way Monsignor Renton looked at him—at his head, as if there might be something wrong with it.

  “I see the girl’s still driving you around.”

  “There’s a reason for that, and it’s not what you think, I’m afraid.” There was no longer any need for Katie to drive him around, Father Urban explained. He let Mrs Thwaites go on thinking there was, though, and thus Katie got a chance to attend daily Mass. There was another reason why Father Urban wasn’t driving himself, but this he didn’t mention to Monsignor Renton who would have made too much of it. The key to the car had to be checked in and out with Mrs Thwaites, who kept it on her person, pinned to her breast when the car wasn’t in use.

  “Here’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” Monsignor Renton said, and then seemed to think better of it.

  “Go ahead. Shoot.”

  “Well, at the time of your accident, when the ball hit you—”

  “I thought somebody’d opened a bottle of champagne,” said Father Urban, and looked him right in the eye.

  Returning to Lake Lucille, Father Urban noticed that Katie was weeping. “Hey, what’s the matter?” he said, scooting forward on the back seat. “Pull over to the side.”

  It took Father Urban a while to find out what was wrong. “All right,” he said. “So you’re homesick. So why don’t you go home for a visit? If you like, I’ll speak to Mrs Thwaites about it. Now, how’s that?” Then it came out that Katie didn’t have the fare back to Ireland. During her first months with Mrs Thwaites (Katie had been with her about a year), she had sent most of her earnings home, but she hadn’t been doing that for some time. For the last six months, Mrs Thwaites had been winning Katie’s wages away from her. “At dominoes! I never heard of such a thing. How much?” Katie didn’t know how much, all told, but a lot. Katie was broke, and worse than broke. She owed Mrs Thwaites close to seven hundred dollars. “Well, I’ll be damned. Look. You leave this to me.”

  Mrs Thwaites was beginning her day. Father Udovic had brought her communion, she’d had her breakfast, and her sets were on. She turned down the sound.

  “I’ve just met a damsel in distress,” Father Urban said, smiling. “Katie. The poor kid thinks you mean to hold onto this money. ‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘She’s just keeping it for you. She’s just having her little joke. Just trying to make it interesting.’” Father Urban was offering the old lady a role that would greatly become her, and before she could reject it, he presented the case for being good to Katie. While he did so—splendid type . . . alone in a strange country . . . very high regard for you, ma’am . . . hard to find another like her . . . could be arranged so there’d be no question of her not coming back to you—while he did so, Mrs Thwaites stared hard at the floor. When Father Urban paused, to give her a chance to speak, she turned up the sound.

  So. Even so, Father Urban was serene. There was nothing in his attitude that would hinder Mrs Thwaites should she wish to change her mind and accept the good offices of one who was not only friend to her but to her house and therefore solicitous for its well-being. However, he did step over to the table and examine one of the dominoes. The truth was he thought the old lady must be using a marked deck. He saw nothing suspicious about the domino, though, and dropped it—plink—back among its fellows. Then he walked to the door, taking his time, hoping she’d call him back. She didn’t. “I’ll leave the door open, as I found it, ma’am,” he said, which got no response at all, and, so, he left her—hoping she’d see the significance of his last remark.

  When Katie brought his breakfast, he said, “Well, I spoke to her, Katie. Don’t worry.” When Katie brought his tray again, at twelve-thirty, he asked for news from the front.

  Katie said that the dominoes had disappeared from the table.

  “Oh? And was anything said?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Well, don’t worry, Katie. This may take a little time.”

  But Father Urban wasn�
�t hopeful. Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God. And still Father Urban did not despair.

  The Hopwoods arrived from Minneapolis in the middle of the afternoon. Their voices, coming from Mrs Thwaites’s room across the corridor, reached Father Urban in his room. He heard them before, during, and after tea. For some time after that, he kept listening for a knock on the door, and found it difficult to concentrate on his reading. Finally, as a discipline, he took up his pen and wrote to Billy, intending to describe events leading up to his recent accident, which, apart from his headaches, might be regarded as a means to a good end (as is so often the case with our misfortunes), and to describe the beauty of summer at Lake Lucille, as seen from one man’s casement window, earth, sun, sky, and water, the green, the gold, and the blue, blue, blue of God’s plenty, and all for us, and so on. But, as it turned out, Father Urban said nothing about his present surroundings, about summer, or about his accident. His position in the household was now so odd and uncertain that he didn’t care to dwell on it. He preferred to await developments. And there was really no way to describe his accident that wouldn’t perhaps lower him in Billy’s estimation.

  When the knock did come, it was Katie with his evening meal.

  “What’s going on around here?” he asked.

  “Just the usual, Father.” Katie said that Mrs Thwaites had spent the afternoon talking business with Mr Hopwood—he helped her with her investments—and that Mrs Hopwood had gone out with “Tilly.”

  “Oh?” said Father Urban, though he’d seen Sally doing this from his window. “Alone?”

  “She often does that, Father.”

  “And now what’re they doing?”

  “Now they’re eating downstairs.”

  “The Hopwoods.”

  “And Mrs Thwaites. She sometimes does that when they’re here.”

  Father Urban thought about this for a moment. “Do they know I’m here?”

  “The Hopwoods? I don’t know that they do, Father. Would you like me to tell them?”

  “No, of course not,” said Father Urban, and when Katie returned for his tray later, he said nothing.

  That evening Father Urban got his things together. He was downstairs, returning books to the library, when Mr Hopwood walked in—“to investigate the noise,” he said. “Heh, heh.” Mr Hopwood was perhaps forty-five, bespectacled, a neat, smallish man, with a large head such as illustrators for the old American Weekly used to give members of the human race in the not-too-distant future. “Thought you were a ghost,” he said. “Heh, heh.”

  “Afraid not,” said Father Urban, and introduced himself. “I had an accident a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been recuperating here, but perhaps you knew that.”

  “No, to tell you the truth, I didn’t. We just arrived this afternoon. Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “The accident? No.”

  Mr Hopwood, of course, was waiting for more.

  And so Father Urban, rather than have it thought that there hadn’t been an accident and that he was the kind of clergyman who preyed on rich old women, said, “As a matter of fact, I got hit in the head by a golf ball.”

  “Sometimes a thing like that can be serious.”

  “Not with a head like mine,” Father Urban said, with a smile.

  “Heh, heh. Will you be here long?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Early the next morning, Father Urban wrote a brief note—“My thanks for your hospitality, Yours in Christ, Fr Urban”—and stuck it under the old lady’s door. Then, carrying his attaché case and bag, he went downstairs to the car. Parked alongside it was the Hopwoods’ car, a new Ford convertible, a white one. Presently, Katie, who was usually there first in the morning, came out of the house and told him that Mrs Thwaites had lost the key to the car.

  “I see,” he said. He saw, too, that Katie had been crying. “Well, in that case, maybe I’d better call a cab.”

  One afternoon about a month later, late in September, Father Urban was summoned to the office. “Long distance for you,” said Wilf, and gave up his swivel chair.

  “Hello,” said Father Urban. “Hello!” It was Billy, calling from Chicago. According to Billy, he had been sitting there in his office, not feeling so hot, when a little voice had said to him, “Hey, let’s go fishing.” The little voice hadn’t succeeded with Billy, though, until it said, “Hey, take Father Urban along.” That had done it. Billy was hoping to get in about three days—no more, unless they just couldn’t pull themselves away—at a place he liked about a hundred and fifty miles northeast of Duesterhaus, near the Canadian border. “How’re you fixed for time, Father?”

  “Gee!” said Father Urban. “I’m afraid this is something for Father Wilfrid. I’ll see what he says. Fortunately, he’s right here.” Father Urban explained to Wilf what Billy wanted, making use of Billy’s words. Wilf, he knew, would make no objection, but would appreciate being consulted. “Here, Father. Why don’t you say hello?”

  Wilf took over then. “What’s this about a little voice? Yes, this is Father Wilfrid. What’s this about a little voice?” Wilf said, getting quite a bang out of himself. Soon he was giving a glowing account of his stewardship at the Hill. He never did say whether it would be all right for Father Urban to go fishing. He was all for it, of course.

  The plan was for Father Urban to meet Billy and Paul the next day at the station (they’d be arriving on the Voyageur), and for the three of them to have lunch at the Hill, perhaps play a round of golf, and then drive north. Father Urban was to provide the car.

  This was a problem. Father Urban called several laymen, but for one reason or another they all failed him. By bedtime that night, he was down to three possibilities, none of which appealed to him. There was Monsignor Renton, but would he care to lend his black Imperial for a fishing trip? There was a used-car man in Great Plains who had somehow learned of Father Urban’s need and was offering to rent, sell, or trade a station wagon that couldn’t be trusted if what the man said was true: “Just the thing for a fishing trip, Father.” And there were the regular car-rental agencies in Great Plains and Olympe—they wanted a bit more than Father Urban was prepared to pay, in view of the other possibilities.

  There was also Sylvia—the Beans had two cars besides the little Barracuda—but Father Urban hadn’t seen her lately. No trouble, no. Sylvia had taken him out to see Ray’s farm, where, among other things, Ray raised Morgan horses, and where, when Sylvia and Father Urban arrived that day, two hired men were about to breed a mare. Dear God! Father Urban’s first concern was for Sylvia’s sensibilities. But, much to his surprise, Sylvia got right into the act, so to speak. The last Father Urban heard (for he went off to have a look at the ducks) Sylvia was crying encouragement to the stallion and being cross with the mare. Ray, whom Father Urban had been expecting, and then hoping, to see drive up at any moment, hadn’t appeared at all. Since that day—and this happened shortly after the trouble at Lake Lucille—Father Urban hadn’t asked for the little Barracuda, nor had he seen Sylvia, or Ray.

  Wilf, in all seriousness, offered Father Urban the pickup truck for the trip north. Father Urban, knowing Wilf’s admiration for the vehicle, said solemnly, “I wouldn’t want to leave you without transportation.”

  The next day, as it turned out, Father Urban had to meet Billy (and Paul) in the pickup truck. He had the promise of Monsignor Renton’s Imperial, but he had to drive to Great Plains to get it—and the pickup truck simply refused to start until it was too late for him to do anything but go to the station. “A comedy of errors!” he cried before Billy (or Paul) could hear him, and ran up to shake Billy’s hand. A smile did for Paul. Billy was wearing a tan suit of whatever cloth it was the Army used in warm weather, a primrose shirt, with dotted navy-blue tie, and a dark straw hat with a dark-red band. Paul was wearing the pants to his off-black whipcord chauffeur’s suit and a conservative sports shirt. He had on a silly straw cap that Fathe
r Urban disliked intensely.

  “I don’t see no Indians,” Paul said.

  “Spoken like a true Chicagoan,” Father Urban said, and began again. “A comedy of errors! I had hoped to meet you in another car.” He looked over at the pickup truck with which Billy and Paul hadn’t yet associated him and told them of his trouble with it.

  Billy and Paul stared at the thing. With its motor running—Father Urban had been afraid to turn it off—it seemed to tremble under their gaze.

  “What happened to the old job you had when I was here last spring?” Billy asked, meaning Phil’s Plymouth.

  “I’m afraid that one didn’t belong to us.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Father Urban said that they’d have lunch, which was doubtless being prepared at that very moment, and then he and Brother Harold would drive to Great Plains, and he, Father Urban, would come back in Monsignor Renton’s car.

  “Good God,” Billy said.

  “I’m afraid it means a delay of an hour or so.”

  “I don’t like it,” Billy said.

  “Why not play a little golf? I’ll catch you on four or five.”

  “Not in the mood for golf.”

  It seemed to Father Urban that Billy was blaming him for a situation he had done his best to prevent, but he said nothing. If you failed, as he had, it was better not to seek credit for trying, and Billy rather liked picking up the pieces anyway. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the Clementines.