“Hello,” she said, scrubbing at a pan with steel wool and soap powder.
Stephen’s first impulse was to send her away. Quite all right for dumpy matrons to work in a priest’s house. But this heart-faced young creature bursting the seams of her cotton dress sang in quite a different choir. Yet, as she scraped and scrubbed without looking at him, Steve’s accent on propriety gave way to curiosity.
“Where’d you get that stuff you’re rubbing on the pans?”
“Brought it along.” Her airy drollness came straight from Hercule.
“That was thoughtful of you.” Stephen despised the priggish note in his voice, but didn’t know what other note to strike. Lalage struck it for him.
“You needn’t pay any attention to me, Father. I’ve just come home for a couple of weeks’ vacation, and my mother told me you were doing all the work up here yourself.” Sudsy platter in hand, she faced him squarely: “You don’t mind my helping, do you?”
“Not at all. In fact, I’m grateful.”
“That’s all settled then. Have you had supper?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And him?” Lalage’s chin indicated Ned Halley’s room.
“I gave him some tea around six. He’s in for the night.”
Lalage appraised the disorderly kitchen in terms of work to be done. “It’ll take me about an hour to straighten things up here.”
Her natural acceptance of the Martha role in this untidy house reconciled Stephen to her presence. His task, he decided, was to match her generosity of spirit; any other attitude would be a confession of prudishness and mean regard. He tried to convey all this in his casual “Good night.”
Next morning, wearing her white nurse’s cap as a passport, Lalage invaded Ned Halley’s sick chamber. She gave the bed and room a thorough cleaning, sponged the old pastor with alcohol, and varied his luncheon with a bowl of soup. Stephen almost laughed at the startled look on Ned Halley’s face as he felt himself tenderly bounced around like an infant in the hands of a capable mother.
“Who—is she?” he asked once, when Lalage left the room.
“A professional nurse. Daughter of Hercule Menton, the fiddle-maker. Shall I tell her to go away?”
Ned Halley’s perplexity shifted to alarm. “No, no. Don’t send her away. She seems very—competent.”
“Probably the most competent female now alive,” said Stephen. He was glad to have his pastor’s approval of Lalage; it cleared him with himself, stilled lingering scruples of propriety. On the practical side, Lalage’s competence relieved him of a hundred household duties, freed him to think his way out of the deep financial morass into which parish affairs were sinking. But most important of all, she made Ned Halley’s last days comfortable.
Stephen spent longer hours now reading or talking to the old priest. Mostly the pastor was silent, but occasionally he would emerge from enveloping shades to speak of the past, much as a retired clipper-ship captain might speak of youthful voyages to China and Ceylon. He knew well enough that he had not been a successful voyager. Instead of bringing home rich packets, he had always returned with an empty hold, or with goods not particularly in demand. He would tell Stephen of his failures at this parish or that, making no attempt to gloss the record, yet regretting, as only a sensitive lieutenant can, that he had not succeeded in discharging his mission.
“Something always balked, betrayed me,” he told Stephen. “What was it?” he went on, interrogating the nature of the betrayal. “What was it that failed me when I stepped out of the simple office of the priest—saying Mass, hearing confessions, visiting the sick—and tried to take on a pastor’s problems of organization and finance?”
Would it be an act of mercy to tell this dying priest that the only betrayal had been the mysterious canker of disease that had spoiled his middle years? Stephen tested him with a question.
“Did you sometimes feel—not physically well or strong?”
“There were such times. A lassitude—a fatigue when faced by responsibility.” He smiled wanly. “But no, I must not accuse the flesh. Perhaps it was only that I had a poor brain or no brain at all for administrative affairs.” He pondered his record of failure. “For myself I would not care so much. But when I remember the chances that His Eminence gave me …” Ned Halley’s voice was fluttering in his throat. “Ah, I have displeased His Eminence many times.”
“Did you know him personally?”
“Know him? Larry Glennon and I grew up together. I used to call him Larrybuck; his name for me was Nedboy. We were ordained on the same day. As ordinands we lay prostrate on the floor, side by side; trembling with joy and fear, we were bound and blessed by the same bishop, rose and embraced each other as brothers in Christ.”
The priest’s sunken eyes traveled inward, backward. “Larry was a fine, able priest. The chancery welcomed his talents, advanced him rapidly. While I was still a curate, Larry was a monsignor. As auxiliary bishop he gave me my first pastorate. St. Anselm’s in Stowe. A small church—like so many others—with a big mortgage.”
His tired shoulders were back in Stowe, trying to lift the mortgage. They tensed for the effort, then gave up. “I could not lift it. Larry sent me to Needham, a prosperous parish with money in the bank. I ran Needham into debt. His Eminence warned me, sent me to Maiden, to Taunton, Ipsfield—always lower in his great favor until there was no more favor. Only disappointment and bitterness at my”—tears streamed down Ned Halley’s cheeks like raindrops down a car window—”at my failures.”
“They were not failures,” said Stephen gently, wiping the old man’s eyes and mouth. “Many in those parishes remember your goodness. And in his heart of hearts, the Cardinal knows you to be a just and holy priest.”
The rector of St. Peter’s smiled feebly. “It is kind of you, Father, to comfort an old man. But I know how His Eminence prizes success—and I have not been successful.” A leaf of yearning trembled. “I wish I might see Larrybuck once more. Would he but come, call me Nedboy, forgive me my failures, I could die in peace.”
Across Ned Halley’s yearning fell the obscenely loud voice of Victor Thenard. “Viande de boucherie, bas prix …” he cried from the seat of his filthy meat wagon drawn up at the front door of the parish house. He rang his bell noisily; its metallic clatter broke in with tidings of man’s mortality. “Cheap meat, cheap meat,” the bell and voice were crying. Father Halley opened his eyes, smiled a little at Stephen bending over him. There were gleams of irony, humor, and self-recognition, but not a trace of self-pity in the old man’s glance.
THE FINANCES of St. Peter’s grew more and more desperate. Ready money was needed to pay for Ned Halley’s medicines, the soap that washed him, and the special foods that sustained his ebbing strength. Because John Byrne could not always be driving up from Boston, Stephen sometimes had to call in Dr. Sylvester. The Litchburg neurologist reduced his fee to fifteen dollars, but wanted it in cash. To meet these demands, Stephen sent begging letters to his family and friends. The responses were prompt, but pitifully thin; at the end of August Stephen was down to his last two dollars. Whether he wanted to or not, he must seek help from ecclesiastical quarters.
The nearest and properest quarter was Monsignor Andrew Sprinkle, pastor of St. Jerome’s in Litchburg, and head of the local deanery. Monsignor Sprinkle was a provincial cleric who had forgotten nothing and learned nothing since coming to Litchburg thirty-five years before. Now he sat in his shabby deanery snuffling (he was a martyr to hayfever) as Stephen told him of Ned Halley’s illness and the fearful pinch for cash at St. Peter’s.
The latter part of the tale was an old story to Andy Sprinkle. He made a temporary clearing of his inflamed nasal membranes, and launched into a worried homily. “Frankly, Father, St. Peter’s has been a question mark in this deanery for many years. I am surprised that the Cardinal keeps a resident pastor there at all. In my judgment, the best course would be to close the church up, write it off as a dead loss.”
“Bu
t there are still two hundred Catholics in St. Peter’s,” argued Stephen. “At least forty of them are children, needing the sacraments and religious instruction. You just can’t shut the door on them.”
Monsignor Sprinkle was unimpressed. “All such matters could be easily handled by a mission priest sent out from Litchburg on Sundays. I shall—ha-choo—recommend the mission idea to the Cardinal in my next report.” The Dean made a note on his memo pad. “Meanwhile, what about Father Halley? From what you tell me, he’s not long for this world.”
“It’s a matter of weeks—maybe days.”
Andrew Sprinkle made a magnanimous offer. “I can get him a free bed in our hospital here. The Benedictines are in charge. He’d get good care.”
Stephen wanted to ask, “How would you like to be snatched from your pastoral berth to die on a charity bed?” But cash urgency made him tactful. “Both Father Halley and I would prefer that he stay where he is.” Stephen measured his man for the touch. “What I came for specifically, Monsignor Sprinkle, was to request an advance from deanery funds.”
Andy Sprinkle having expected the touch, now turned it down with measured regret. “The deanery has no authority to advance money in such cases, Father. As you may or may not know”—he settled back for a disciplinary lecture—”the Cardinal expects every parish to be self-supporting. When a pastorate ceases to stand on its own feet financially—as is the case with St. Peter’s—reorganization is—ah, overdue.”
Monsignor Sprinkle dabbed his handkerchief at his nose. “Mind you, Father, I make no charges against your pastor. His personal piety is known to us all. But I am very much afraid that his lack of physical energy puts him at a disadvantage as an administrator.” The Monsignor concluded his homily on parish management with cold finality. “Officially I cannot advance you a single penny on such a poor risk as St. Peter’s.”
Stephen rose despondently, his ambassadorship a failure. What had he expected? Showers of bank notes, a letter of credit? His hand was on the doorknob when Andy Sprinkle said in unofficial tones:
“But as a private matter, Father—a personal gift—would twenty dollars help?”
“It would help a great deal, Monsignor.”
From a green tin box Andy Sprinkle counted out four five-dollar bills and handed them to Stephen. “From one priest to another,” he said not unkindly.
“Thank you, Monsignor.” Stephen was genuinely grateful. “And as a special request, will you please postpone your report to the Cardinal until—?”
Andy Sprinkle nodded sympathetically. “Very well, Father. But you understand that sooner or later something—um—constructive must be done about St. Peter’s.”
“I understand perfectly,” said Stephen.
FIFTEEN PRECIOUS DOLLARS slipped away when Dr. Sylvester made his third visit. Within forty-eight hours Stephen was again down to loose change. Sleepless, cornered for cash, he lay on his straw mattress, figuring ways and means of raising quick money. What did other people do in similar pinches? They begged, borrowed, stole, sold or mortgaged household furniture, pawned jewelry. …
Jewelry? Orselli’s ring was jewelry! It might have a pawning value. Stephen leapt from his mattress, lit the kerosene lamp, and rummaged in the drawer of the commode where he had last seen the bishop’s ring. Its cool amethystine beauty reassured him. He had no idea of its value, but estimated that the gem and the exquisite workmanship of its setting might be worth one hundred dollars.
It was two-thirty A.M. when Stephen decided to take the milk train into Boston. Exactly eight hours later he walked into the pawnshop of Susskind and Flatto, 8 Scollay Square. Stephen had never been in a pawnshop before, but he knew the right question. “How much will you give me on this?” he asked, laying the ring on the marble-topped counter.
Moe Susskind fixed a dubious eye on the amethyst ring, then picked up his jeweler’s glass to scrutinize the bezel of seed pearls around the violet-colored stone. Hmm … Florentine work. His glass magnified the name “Dolcettiano”: Firenze—a rare hallmark in goldsmithery. Moe Susskind had seen that mark only once before. In Dresden, as an apprentice jewelsmith. Mr. Susskind never forgot a hallmark, but he had no interest now in the handiwork of Messer Dolcettiano. Nor would his clientele be likely to bid it up if the piece went unredeemed. Moe laid the ring on the worn marble counter.
“Pawn value, five dollars.”
“I had expected more.”
“Sell outright, you get more.”
“Fine,” said Stephen. “I’ll sell it to you.”
“By police regulations, pawnbrokers cannot buy. But there is yet a way, Father.”
“Let’s keep it legal,” said Stephen.
“Ja, legal. Forty years in Scollay Square. Immer legal.” Moe Susskind scribbled a name on a piece of paper. “Brothers Karaghousian … you should find them by Marliave Court, Number Twelve.”
“Much obliged,” said Stephen. At the Marliave Court address, a region of curio dealers, he found the shop of the four Karaghousians. Three of the brothers were elsewhere at the moment, but Nicolaides Karaghousian sat amid his rugs, laces, clocks, ceramics, jewelry, and silverware equally poised to buy, sell, or swap. The blood of the entire Levant—Armenian, Greek, Turkish, and Syrian—throbbed through Mr. Karaghousian, putting him under constant and intense pressure to do business at any margin of profit between a hundred and a thousand per cent.
By temperament Mr. Karaghousian preferred not to buy anything unless he knew beforehand where he could sell it. Temperamentally, therefore, he was much pleased by the Dolcettiano ring. He knew exactly where he could dispose of it, and how much he could get.
“For a defective specimen like this,” Mr. Karaghousian began, “I make a final one-price offer. Thirty-five dollars.”
Stephen had never haggled for anything in his life, but the wine of Karaghousian’s personality was heady with possibilities of a dicker.
“Seventy-five dollars,” said Stephen, trying hard to act as though he meant it.
“I must think of my brothers. Forty.”
“Sixty or I go next door.” Stephen had no notion of who or what he would find there, but evidently the menace was real to Mr. Karaghousian. He examined the ring again.
“My regard for the priesthood moves me.” He crossed himself like a pilgrim at a shrine. “Forty-five …”
“Fifty and done.” Stephen held out his hand. The dealer unsnapped a rubber band from a thick bundle of bills, peeled off two twenties from the outside, and nine ones from the inside, then put the bundle back in his pocket. “Appraisal fee, one dollar,” he said, handing Stephen the forty-nine dollars. “Now, write me a bill of sale, full name and right address.”
Stephen made out the bill of sale, hastened away from Marliave Court, swallowed a cup of coffee in the North Station, and was back in Stonebury by suppertime.
THREE DAYS LATER the ladies of St. Elizabeth’s Guild were holding their annual garden party at broad-lawned Fenscross, the Auburndale estate of Cornelius J. Deegan. The contractor-Knight, newly returned from successful missions in Dublin and Rome, sauntered genially among the tables set up beneath the fine magnolias that had once sheltered the Protestant Frothinghams. Corny had snapped the place up for a song, a mere sixty thousand dollars, and had placed title in the name of his wife Annie, “just in case.” Today might well be the peak of Annie’s social career, because His Eminence Lawrence Cardinal Glennon was due to arrive any minute now, retinue and all, in public recognition of the fine charitable work performed by the Guild among the deserving poor of Boston and environs.
Behind tables laden with every conceivable knickknack, gewgaw, bauble, gaud, and wearable, including lace blouses, hand-knitted sweaters, castoff furpieces, outmoded gilets, organdy jabots, bone-supported lace collars, strips of ruching, and hand-me-down scarves, stood the ladies of the Guild. Because the lady presiding over each table was in competition with every other lady to secure the largest possible amount of cash, each eagerly cried her wares.
> For three years now, the lady amassing the largest receipts had been Mrs. Daisy Lamping-Boland, a convert and widow, who spared neither energy nor expense in rounding up what she called articles de vertu for her table. Daisy Lamping-Boland had a natural flair for collector’s items, which she indulged with a ready checkbook. She specialized in such objects as gold chatelaines, enameled pillboxes, jeweled lorgnettes, mother-of-pearl opera glasses, diamond-crusted combs, and the usual line of brooches, pins, pendants, and lavalieres. She had a reputation to maintain and was quite willing to lay herself out to maintain it.
A hum of chitchat, first-name calling, and high-keyed exclamations of delight at snatched bargains rose above the five-piece stringed orchestra playing behind the shrubbery. The buzz mounted to a sudden crescendo. “The Cardinal is here.” Then it died away entirely as the Cardinal stepped out across the lawn. Attired in a scarlet cloak and biretta, attended by numerous clerical aides and secretaries, all with a touch of purple, he swept across the sward, this prince of the Church, prepared to spend, say, half an hour and half a thousand dollars, in honoring one of his favorite charities.
Graciousness poured from his smile, gestures, gait, and purse as he stopped at the various tables to make the purchases expected of him. The Cardinal would select an object, then at a signal Monsignor Dave O’Brien would step forward with the privy pocketbook and pay for it. His Eminence stopped now at the table of Daisy Lamping-Boland, received her curtsied genuflection, and gazed at the articles de vertu spread tastfully on folds of black velvet. The Lamping-Boland wares always brought out the connoisseur in His Eminence. His large hazel eyes traveled appreciatively from brooch to buckle and hovered with genuine delight over an amethyst ring framed in a bezel of seed pearls. He leaned forward, picked the ring up to examine it.
“A bishop’s ring,” he exclaimed. “A really superb specimen of Florentine work. How in the world did you come by it?”
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