Not looking up from her own plate, Sister Ignatius said, “She’s sitting right across from me. Would you like me to get her attention for you?”
Father Poole felt utterly ridiculous. “Thank you, Sister,” he replied.
Sister Ignatius placed her left hand on Mrs. Keats’s right wrist, which rested on the table as she ate. Mrs. Keats quickly looked up from her meal, her lips soiled with food. Slivers of potato adhered to both corners of her mouth, and a shaving of meat hung from her bottom lip.
Without saying a word, Sister Ignatius motioned for the mute woman to face Father Poole at the other end of the table. Mrs. Keats obliged her. The priest, fearing now that his question might strike a nerve, asked boldly, “Why do you limp?” Mrs. Keats didn’t react. Poole assumed that she hadn’t heard him. He didn’t want to shout any louder, so he rocked his torso side to side and then pointed down at her feet. Mrs. Keats followed his finger down and then opened her mouth as though she were going to speak, but it was only a gesture as if to say, “Oh, right!”
She turned her index and middle fingers upside down and made a gesture of legs walking downstairs. Then she stuck out her chest, grimaced, and swayed her own torso from left to right. The priest understood this representation to be her abusive husband. Mrs. Keats suddenly made a pushing motion and then pointed to herself. Then, in a descending angle with her hand, she made tumbling motions.
“You were injured in a fall,” Father Poole said sadly. Mrs. Keats understood him immediately because she could read his lips. She smiled, nodded, and shrugged as if to say, “That’s life.” He beamed at Sister Ignatius, feeling victorious in his first communication with Mrs. Keats, but the nun was quietly eating her dinner with her head still down.
Father Poole decided that it would be a good idea to start eating himself. As he chewed his first bite of meat, he smelled a strange odor. He dismissed it as nothing since neither of the ladies scowled. After he swallowed his second mouthful of beef, he asked, “Whatever happened to her husband? You never said.”
Sister Ignatius sipped her lukewarm milk and replied, “Father Carroll went over to the house while I stayed with Mrs. Keats. By the time he got there, Mr. Keats had writhed his way to the front door. He was actually trying to go after her.”
As the nun continued her story, her eyes still downcast, Father Poole noticed that her tone was more even-tempered than when she had first begun her narrative.
Perhaps she loves to hear herself talk, the young priest thought.
She continued, “Father Carroll grabbed him by the collar, and the dog in turn grabbed Father Carroll by the throat. So Father Carroll reciprocated by grabbing the bloody mess where Keats’s balls once had been. I heard Keats’s screams from the rectory. As Father Carroll compressed the wound to stop the bleeding, Keats’s cries grew louder. Given his size, the Father was easily able to hold down that little man.”
As Father Poole listened, he couldn’t help but reflect on not only how much Sister Ignatius knew about the Keats affair but also how well she recounted it. The more eloquent her storytelling became, the more pronounced was her New England accent. Father Poole continued to listen to Sister Ignatius, treading a fine line between disgust and intrigue.
“Anyway,” Sister Ignatius continued, “Father Carroll grabbed that sorry son-of-a-bitch and said, ‘You’re going to pack up your things; you’re going to put this house up for sale; and you’re never going to set foot back on this hill. If you do, I’ll shoot you like the dog you are.’ And from that day on,” Sister Ignatius concluded, “Keats has never set foot on Holly Hill again.”
Father Poole then inquired, “What about the house? Who lives in it now?”
“No one,” the nun replied. “It’s been sitting vacant since the dog left. Keats never came back to claim it, and so a year ago a judge deemed Mrs. Keats the sole owner. But there are too many unhappy memories for her there. I dare say the woman won’t step foot back inside the place. When I asked her a few months ago what she wanted to do with the house, she kept pointing to the crucifix on the wall in the parlor. She wanted Christ to have her home. I know that’s what she meant. So, Father, now that you are head of our little church, if and when Mrs. Keats’s house sells, which I highly doubt, you will have to decide about disposal of the proceeds.”
Father Poole sat pensively. “How much would you say the property is worth? That is, how much was Father Carroll asking?”
“$8,000,” Sister Ignatius said matter-of-factly.
No wonder they haven’t been able to sell it, Father Poole thought to himself. It’s probably worth about half that.
Just then the front door swung open and in walked the third member of Father Poole’s new staff—Argyle Hobbs, the groundskeeper. Like Mrs. Keats, he too had a limp, but not as pronounced as hers. And her limp was on the right leg whereas Argyle’s was on the left. He walked into the dining room without removing his dirty boots and sat down at the table, his boiled meat, potatoes, and string beans waiting for him.
Father Poole waited for the groundskeeper to introduce himself, but he just dug into his food with his hands, neglecting to use the fork that had been set for him by Mrs. Keats, who by this time had taken her dirty plate and empty glass into the kitchen.
Argyle Hobbs was a tall, scrawny, pale man with tiny slits for eyes, sandy hair, and a bushy moustache. He looked to be in his late forties, although if someone were to tell Father Poole that Argyle Hobbs was fifty-nine going on sixty he would not dispute it.
Sister Ignatius saw Father Poole gawking at this man, who was eating with his filthy hands, and asked, “Would you like me to get his attention for you?”
“Don’t tell me he’s deaf too,” Father Poole replied, almost panicking.
In a slow and thick Yankee accent, with his mouth full of food, Argyle said sternly, “I ain’t deef! How you got to figure me deef when I can hear what you’re all sayin’? Deef!”
He looked Father Poole up and down, scoffed, and shoved another handful of food into his mouth. The priest was disgusted by this man’s personal hygiene but supposed he shouldn’t pass judgment too hastily. After all, this man had been working outside all day doing God knows what.
Father Poole waited a minute before saying, “Mr. Hobbs. I’m Father Phineas Poole. I look forward to working with all of you here. And If you ever are in need of anythi… .”
Argyle Hobbs interrupted the priest. “You look a mere boy, preacher. How old ah you anyway?”
Poole replied, “Thirty-three.”
Argyle chortled. By this time Sister Ignatius had already got up to sit in the parlor on the other side of the house. Motioning to her with his head, he said to Poole, “Same age as Sister, but neither one of you look it. She looks old enough to be your mother. But that’s not sayin’ too much since you look like a snot-nosed kid fresh outta his knickerbockers.”
The priest noticed the smell again. What is that? he thought.
Argyle Hobbs repeated, “Thirty-three. Humph! At least Father Carroll was an old man. He had a right to be my boss. Had a right to be boss of the whole place. Thirty-three! Jeo-dy!”
Father Poole was amused by Argyle Hobbs and decided he liked him at once. He seemed a harmless man, whose only vices apparently were that he didn’t much care for cleanliness and was fond of complaining.
“Well, Mr. Hobbs.” remarked Father Poole. “When I think of this place being built back in the same year I was born, and then reflect on the way it looks now, kind of old and run down, thirty-three doesn’t seem to be so insignificant, does it?”
Argyle Hobbs snorted and said, “Yep! 1892 was a busy year for everyone, wasn’t it?”
EIGHT
A Night without Sleep
That night, while he lay in bed, Father Poole’s mind swam with all the day’s events. He thought less about stuttering Father Carroll and more about Sister
Ignatius and Mrs. Keats. He couldn’t help but reflect on how opposite the two women were. One was authoritative, foul-mouthed, suspicious, perhaps mentally imbalanced; the other was ostensibly kind and child-like.
He also couldn’t get over how old Sister Ignatius looked for a woman in her early thirties. He half agreed with at least one thing that Argyle Hobbs had said: she did seem practically old enough to be his mother. And how red her nose was! If the color had extended to the rest of her face, he’d have taken her to be an alcoholic.
The coils below his mattress squeaked noisily as he tossed and turned. After the eighth toss he decided not to follow it up with a turn. The priest just lay there and continued to think. He attempted to check his watch but had trouble reading the time in the dark. The priest knew he’d have to get out of bed to read his watch, but however uncomfortable his bed he was too lazy to go to the window to see by the moonlight.
Then Father Poole thought about turning on the light, but the switch was on the other side of the room. He was closer to the window and could just as easily use the moon for light. It would also save on electricity, which he would now have to start thinking about. After all, he was the new head priest of St. Andrew’s, and it was certainly in his parish’s best interest to curb unnecessary expenditure.
Enough of this, the priest thought to himself, still lying halfway between toss and turn. This is ridiculous. Moon or lamp, what’s the difference? I only need to check the time.
Father Poole then decided how to break the stalemate. The window was to his left, the light switch to his right. He decided to count back and forth with a rhyme from his childhood. Let’s see, he mused. How did it go again? Eeny, meeny, miny, mo. Catch a nigger by the toe. If he hollers, make him pay you fifty dollars. No, not that one.
Father Poole didn’t like that rhyme because he hated the word “nigger.” Saying it made him sound like some Confederate half-wit from Tobacco Road. Not that New Englanders never said the word, but it rarely came up in casual conversation.
Blacks in New England were scarce at the time, largely confined to cities like Boston and Hartford. And when Yankees found themselves using the word, they didn’t use it as freely as many Southerners did. Instead, a New Hampshire Yankee might just mutter the word under his breath.
Father Poole started again. “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo. Catch a baby by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.” He realized how silly this was, but so was not being able to decide from which side of the bed to get up.
The moon lost. He got out of bed and shuffled toward the door. The light switch was just to the right of it. He hit the door sooner than he expected, hurting his knuckle. “Ouch!” he exclaimed as the pain registered a split second later. Father Poole switched the light on and immediately squeezed his eyes shut, as they were still accustomed to the dark. His right eye opened slowly. “Two thirty-six in the morning,” he sighed.
Father Poole had never been so wide awake this late at night. As he switched off the light and made his way back to bed, he thought about going down to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk. Then he figured it wouldn’t do much good since he’d had it with dinner, and it hadn’t made him sleepy at all.
With the light off and only a dim glow of moonlight shining through his window, Father Poole was almost back to his bed when he slammed a big toe into one of the legs. “Ouch! Mother f… .” The priest stopped, remembering where he was and wondering who might be sleeping nearby. He knew that his criticism of foul language among his staff would sound sanctimonious at best and hypocritical at worst if he were caught by Sister Ignatius using such words. After all, he was a man of the cloth, and even though some vices within the priesthood were acceptable, such as alcohol and cigarettes, swearing was not.
The young Father thought for a second as he bent down to rub his aching toe. He had screamed at the top of his lungs just that afternoon in the dining room when he hit his head underneath the table. He refrained a bit from rubbing his toe so that he could remember exactly what he’d shouted. Damn? Hell? he thought. Well, whatever it was, Sister Ignatius must have heard it.
He once again began to caress his aching toe along the nail, feeling a dull pain as he pressed on it. As he did this, he remembered the Sister’s telling him earlier, “And since you’ve come down from your room, I’ve been watching you.”
He exhaled deeply, put his foot with the sore toe to the floor, and walked slowly over to the window, following the moon’s faint blue light. He felt warm. While most June nights in southern New Hampshire were cool, that day had been hot and sticky. He went to open his window, which he did to his amazement with ease.
“So light and flimsy this window is,” he said, and hummed in approval as he waited for a cool wind to pass through the window. None came, however. After more than ten seconds of expecting some sort of breeze, he gave up, put his hands into his pajama pockets, and peered out into the darkness.
Father Poole surveyed the moonlit grounds below. After his arrival at the church, he had spent the afternoon and entire evening inside the rectory. Now by his tiny window, he could see the town of Holly. Aside from some faint lights in the distance, the town was as dead at two in the morning as the dearly departed buried in Eternal Rest Cemetery on the outskirts of Holly, where the priest could detect the dull blotches of white crosses and gravestones.
His eyes moved from the town and its environs to the top of Holly Hill itself. The first thing Father Poole noticed was that he had the highest vantage point in all of Holly. The rectory’s top floor seemed to be the tallest point on the hill other than St. Andrew’s steeple, which reached another twenty or so feet into the sky, and certainly the uppermost branches of the great maple tree behind the rectory. He could even see part of the façade of the church to his right as he stuck his head out the window. Father Poole then turned his head to the left. There wasn’t much else on the hill, but he remembered that in addition to the church, rectory, and maple there were two private houses, one of which still had its porch lights blazing.
It was the Benson porch. Father Poole quickly skimmed the front lawn again and realized he’d have better light in the morning to see whatever was out there. He then thought of going out to the Benson place after breakfast to introduce himself. After all, they were neighbors.
As he pulled his head in slowly, so as not to hit it against the paneling, the window descended. The priest jerked his head forward, striking his forehead hard against the sill. “God d… !” He stopped himself again, determined not to blaspheme like Sister Ignatius.
Father Poole backed up to his bed, lay down holding his forehead, and then decided to go down into the kitchen for some ice. He didn’t think that the aspirin he had packed in his suitcase would do any good unless he developed a headache. For now he was more concerned with the bump he was starting to feel in the center of his forehead. He walked to his door, opened it slowly, and then stopped as soon as he heard it creak.
He waited, peeking through the small crack. The bathroom light down the hall was on, and the door appeared to be open. Father Poole could tell that the door had to be fully ajar since the light emanating from the bathroom was substantial. Seeing no shadow there, he assumed that it had been left on simply as a night light. What a waste of electricity, the priest thought. I’ll have to talk to Sister Ignatius about this in the morning.
He now swung the door open, unconcerned about waking anybody because he knew Argyle Hobbs lived downtown and, as for Mrs. Keats, if the Wright Brothers crashed their plane here, she wouldn’t even know. As soon as Father Poole thought this, he was ashamed. He truly liked Mrs. Keats and felt nothing but sympathy and compassion for her. He would add that cruel thought to the others he’d have to confess.
As for Sister Ignatius, Father Poole wouldn’t mind waking her up. However, he did wonder about something, and he should have inquired earlier. It would be completely improper f
or a priest to sleep under the same roof as a nun, or any woman for that matter. And here he was with a staff of three people, two of whom were women. Where were they sleeping? Father Poole felt it necessary to find out and soon. Depending on the outcome of his investigation, he might have to leave St. Andrew’s rectory.
Father Poole spent the next fifteen minutes knocking on every bedroom door in the rectory. When there was no response, he jiggled the doorknobs to see whether they were locked. Not one was. So he opened them all, turned on each light to make sure the bedroom was empty, and closed the doors. Around the seventh room Father Poole began to wonder again why they had built such an enormous rectory for so small a church. It almost seemed to him as though nothing made any sense. When he came to the last door, he held his breath as he jiggled the handle. It opened as easily as the others had, and like all the others, including his own, squeaked terribly. This room too was empty.
By now it was 3:00 in the morning, and Father Poole was starting to feel the effects of sleeplessness. He found himself standing absentmindedly in the hallway on the first floor. With the stairs in back of him, the dining room to his right and the parlor to his left, the priest yawned deeply and put his arms up to stretch. As he did so, his raised hands collided with the low-hanging chandelier. He gave it such a knock that its diamond-shaped glass pendants clanked together, making a loud chorus of jingles that sounded like bottles violently clashing. Two years’ worth of dust simultaneously rained down upon the upturned face of the unlucky priest as he tried to steady the swaying chandelier in the dark.
Some of the dust got into his eyes, some into his mouth, and some even up his nostrils. He brought his hands down quickly and brushed off whatever he could. Father Poole then went over to the front door, opened it, and walked out onto the porch. It felt cooler in the rectory’s hallway than it did outside. The air was still and humid. Walking carefully down the wooden steps that surprisingly did not creak, he stood about ten feet away on the lawn and admired the sky, where the stars shone with startling clarity.
Embracing Darkness Page 6
