Chapter 23
Rosalind had come to look the most forward to the days the choir came to the church to practice. She had even changed her teaching schedule at the clinic so that she could be home to listen to them from now on.
Today had been planned for picking the figs before more could fall and get spoiled in the dirt while she and Matthew listened to the new hymn book songs coming from the open doors of the sanctuary, but sadly, he had been called away early in the morning to see to the last rites of an elderly and ill parishioner, one who had been sick for such a long time that Rosalind had never even met her, only her children and grandchildren.
Mr. Green, however, had offered to assist with harvesting the figs, and the two of them passed the early afternoon to the sweet sounds of choral rehearsal while they filled their baskets with ripe fruit.
At one point, Rosalind had gotten so much pink fig juice on her brow and in her hair that Mr. Green had offered her his scarf, which she’d looped around behind her ears while giggling at the mess she’d made.
It was, she thought, perhaps the first time she was aware that this place now felt like home.
“I have always wondered, Mrs. Everly,” said Mr. Green, “if kirk is just a word that came about from Scots saying church with an accent, or if it is a word in its own accord, come from the Gaelic.”
“Oh, now, Mr. Green,” she'd replied, thickening her brogue on purpose, “how d’you know church isn’t just the English mangling the word kirk, which God himself chose?”
They’d giggled together at that, and when she’d asked him why he hadn’t asked anyone that question back when he studied in Edinburgh, he looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments before answering.
“Is it not evident to you,” he asked softly, “that I am terribly shy?”
She blinked. “It isn’t, no,” she answered. “But perhaps only because I always have been too.”
“I should like to have you and the vicar for dinner some night soon,” he replied, turning briskly to adjust the ladder to another section of the tree. “And you can meet my cats. I think they would like you.”
“I’ve always liked cats,” she answered. “But we were never allowed to have any. My father and brother both think they’re wicked.”
“Oh, well, I suppose they are,” said Mr. Green from the fourth rung, looking down at her with a raise of his brows. “But that is part of the charm.”
She smiled at him, opening her hands to catch a fig as he tossed it down to her. “Would you believe that my brother’s most esteemed enemy in all of London is a one-eared cat in Bloomsbury?”
Mr. Green chuckled. “Of course I would. The only thing to doubt is whether said cat considers him an equal nemesis in turn.”
Rosalind grinned, turning and taking up her basket just in time to see the visitor breach the gates of the parish, his top hat gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. His eyes fell on her immediately and he raised a hand in greeting, making a sharp turn and taking rapid steps in her direction.
“Oh, Lord Keaton!” she called, surprised to see him on a Tuesday and in such formal clothing. “You’ve just caught us at a bit of gardening.”
“Mrs. Everly,” he replied, blinking at the figs and then squinting up at Mr. Green in the tree. “Is your husband here?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid he’s with the Mason family, overseeing last rites for the grandmother. Might I take a message?”
“Oh, Mrs. Mason is dying?” Keaton asked, his eyes widening with what looked like genuine upset. “That … I suppose that was bound to happen soon, wasn’t it? Terrible shame. She was an upright woman.”
“I have heard,” Rosalind answered respectfully.
A clang of organ music from within the church was followed by a bit of frustrated lecturing from the choirmaster spilling out of the doors, which drew their attention around.
After a moment, the music started back up and a tentative resuming of vocals fell into place, presumably more correctly than it had been before.
“New music?” Keaton inquired, frowning. “It seems this parish is determined to continue to modernize every facet, isn’t it?”
She kept her smile in place, blinking at the way the sunlight glanced off the brim of his hat. “Speaking of changes,” she said, “the statue repair is complete. It is good fortune that you visited, in fact! I wanted to speak to you about where we should install it.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean? It was meant to be installed just here, under the tree.”
“Yes, but look at the mess here,” she said, gesturing around at where several figs had fallen and spattered to the ground in the night.
“Poor Seth would look to be covered in gore if he’d been out here these last few weeks.
If we do still wish to put him outdoors, the restoration man said we ought to pour a small foundation for him so he is more steady and will not topple over in the future, but after seeing what a mess the outdoors sometimes makes of things, I thought you might have a change of heart about his final home. ”
Mr. Green, at this moment, jumped down to the grass again, a few figs bundled in the crook of his arm, and strode over to greet them. “Can we interest you in some figs, Lord Keaton?” he asked. “I’m afraid we’ve a surplus.”
Keaton turned to squint at Mr. Green as though he’d been asked a very difficult question indeed. He cleared his throat, coloring a little. “Would you believe,” he said, “that I’ve never actually tried one before?”
“Oh, you must!” said Rosalind, reaching her hands forward to cover his without thinking and seeing his startle at the gesture.
“Did you know they are flowers, Lord Keaton? They are inside-out flowers. Isn’t that delightful?
They are so very sweet. Let us find you a very good one and clean it up so you may have your first taste, and then I will bring you inside to look at the statue and ensure you are happy with its restoration. ”
Keaton looked a little overwhelmed but nodded in assent as Mr. Green turned to pick through the basket and Rosalind ushered him toward the church doors.
“We had the restoration done in the basement to ensure no moisture or grit could get into the marble while our expert worked,” she said, realizing as the words left her mouth that it sounded perfectly plausible and not like her friends had tossed poor Seth down there on her wedding day like a prisoner in an oubliette.
“Luckily, when I fainted that day, I held on to the piece that broke off, so the repair was a simpler matter than it would have been if the chunk had gone missing.”
Lord Keaton almost tripped at the word chunk, glancing at her in alarm. “Oh, erm … and you are … well, now?” he asked, discomfort punctuating every syllable. “I notice your limp is gone.”
“Oh, I’m very well now, yes,” she assured him, pushing him into a pew. “Here comes Mr. Green with the fig, and we get to hear a preview of a new hymn at the same time. What a treat!”
Mr. Green split the fig in half and handed it to the other man. “You can bite right into it,” he said. “The flesh is soft and edible.”
Keaton held the fruit and looked at the two onlookers with a wary little wince. “I feel like I’m on trial. If I do not like it, will you both be very cross?”
“Yes,” said Rosalind, and then smiled. “No, of course not. But what is life if not trying new things, my lord?”
He made a huffing sound at that but bit into the fruit anyway, his expression going thoughtful and then pleased as he chewed. “I say,” he said after swallowing. “That is delightful. Quite good!”
The way Rosalind exhaled when he said that struck her as a bit dramatic, but it felt like a window into redemption, somehow, all the same.
They stayed to listen to the hymn and then went down to the basement to behold the statue, which did indeed look just as it had on the day of its unveiling, though they agreed to revisit the matter of its final home at a later time.
It wasn’t until she was leading him back out through the gates with a small bushel of figs to take home to his wife and daughter that she remembered the oddity of his visit in the first place.
“Did you have a message for Matthew, Lord Keaton?” she asked, touching his elbow before he departed.
It seemed to startle him too, his posture whipping around and coming up a bit more rigidly than it had been before the question.
It might have been her imagination, but he appeared to color a bit then as well, right at the apples of his cheeks.
“Oh, yes,” he said, not quite stammering, but with a halting hesitancy in his tone.
“Yes, I wanted to inform him that the bishop has written to me and will be visiting soon, and that he should prepare to receive him for a Sunday service, likely this week or the next.”
“This week?” she repeated, surprised. “That’s very soon, Lord Keaton. I’ve a wonder as to why the bishop did not write to my husband directly.”
He certainly was redder than he had been before, she noted. “I couldn’t say, madam,” he answered, looking at least a little bit more miserable about the news than he might have been upon his arrival, when his arms were not filled with figs. “I only thought it proper to alert the reverend myself.”
“Yes, of course,” she breathed, fluttering her lashes at him so that she would not lurch forward and grip him about the throat.
This man had come here to harm Matthew. To threaten him.
She ought to slap those figs right out of his hands.
“You are most courteous to inform us, Lord Keaton. You have our thanks indeed. And please, come back if you wish for more figs after you finish those.”
“Oh, I …” he said, looking down at the fruit and up at her again, grimacing. “Thank you, Mrs. Everly. You … you are not what I expected you to be.”
“Am I not?” she asked softly. “What did you expect?”
He cleared his throat and shrugged. “One imagines Presbyterians as something quite severe. I picture them dressed and behaving and speaking something like the Puritans of old, I think. Not nearly so … so open and … well, Christian.”
She smiled at him, her fingers itching now to slap rather than squeeze. “I am pleased to have surprised you in this way,” she said, privately planning to name her firstborn son Calvin just to upset this man. “I hope I will continue to do so.”
“I hope so too,” he said, touching the tip of his hat. “Good day, Mrs. Everly.”
“Good day,” she said after him as he went through the gate and trotted down the sidewalk. She held her smile until he had turned the corner and then sagged, annoyance flashing through her body. “Bawheid.”