The Book of Hours

by Davis Bunn

  “Not anymore.” Brian was surprised at how weak he felt. Rising from the pallet and walking the hallway proved enough to exhaust him. He entered the kitchen and collapsed into a high-backed chair by the central table. “Passed it a couple of hours ago.”

  “Oh, well done.” The vicar hefted the pot. “Shall I do the honors?”

  “Please. I imagine there are some bowls around here somewhere.”

  “Yes, just over the sink here.” The vicar moved into the light of the western window, revealing the strong features and corded arms and neck of a serious athlete, which made his voice sound even milder than it actually was. “I wager the drugs have left you rather washed out.”

  “Limp as a wet rag,” Brian agreed. “You’ve been in this house before, I take it.”

  “Any number of times. I had the honor of calling Heather Harding a friend.” He set the pot on the stove, found the matches, lit the flame under one eye, and moved the pot into position. “I arrived in Knightsbridge just as she started her decline. Enjoyed many a pleasant cup of tea here at this table. Do you have any bread?”

  “Sorry. The cupboard is totally bare.”

  “Well, I’m sure Gladys can spare you a slice or two. Hang on a tick.” Before Brian could tell him not to bother, the vicar was out the door and gone.

  Brian sat at the table and felt the lowering sun warm him to his bones. The ruddy glow was kind to the old chamber, painting the dilapidated appliances and peeling walls and worn plank floor with glowing strokes. He heard pleasant voices echo from downstairs, and someone laughing. The faint sound convicted him of his own loneliness.

  The vicar returned swiftly, carrying a half loaf with him. “No good soup should go undipped.”

  “I’m surprised they were willing even to give me crumbs from the table,” Brian said, trying to respond with humor of his own. “Seeing as how they’re about to lose their home.”

  “Yes, Arthur showed a marked unwillingness to join me in my mission of mercy.” He fished in the drawer for a ladle, washed it and the bowl and the spoon thoroughly, then ladled out a generous portion. “All of which I find quite strange, I must say.”

  “I don’t see why.” Brian watched the vicar set the bowl down in front of him. The fragrant steam caused his entire body to clench with sudden hunger. “It must be hard to look around for a new home, especially at their age.”

  “No, what I meant was, I find it remarkable that Heather did not make any mention to me of the house being auctioned off.” Trevor slid into the seat across from Brian, observing the way the spoon trembled as it rose. “When did you last eat?”

  “Last night. Beans and rice. Only been back on solids a week.” The split-pea soup was as thick as goulash. “This is great stuff.”

  “Yes, Gladys is quite accomplished in the kitchen. You’ve been ill?”

  “Food poisoning. Sri Lanka.” The short responses were fit in between bites. Brian felt the first faint twinge and forced himself to slow down. But it was hard. His body seemed desperate, beyond famished, no matter what state his stomach might be in. “Spent over a month in a Colombo hospital.”

  The vicar grimaced in sympathy. “That must have been dreadful.”

  “Beyond belief.” He pushed the scenes away by returning to matters closer at hand. “You say Heather never mentioned anything about planning to sell the house?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Maybe she didn’t bother to think about death duties.”

  “She was frail; she was old. And she was very ill, particularly toward the last days. She was also a genuine English eccentric.” The memory brought a smile to the vicar’s face. “But one thing Heather was not, to the very last, was forgetful.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I only met Heather once. She despised me.”

  “Oh, I very much doubt that.”

  “Loathed the ground I walked on.” Even after all these years, the memory still rankled. “She came to Philadelphia the month after I asked Sarah to marry me. At least, she said it was to visit. What she really wanted was to convince Sarah to break off the engagement.”

  To his surprise, Trevor’s smile resurfaced. “Yes, I’m afraid that does sound like Heather.”

  “For the first week she was over, Heather and I fought constantly. I finally told Sarah I was leaving and would be back when Heather returned to England. That is, if Sarah still wanted me.”

  “Which she did, I take it.”

  “Heather wouldn’t come to the wedding, not even when Sarah traveled over and begged Heather to be her bridesmaid.” He scooped up the last spoonful. “I’ve never been to England. Sarah came over a few times more before she became ill, but she always made the trip alone.”

  “I never met your Sarah, of course. I believe her illness started around the same time as Heather’s own decline.”

  The sunset dimmed, the colors gradually washed of their glow. “That’s right.”

  “Heather talked of her constantly. Your wife must have been a remarkably beautiful woman.”

  Brian turned to the window, only to find his late wife’s face etched into the sky, the evening, the life that still remained to him. “Inside and out.”

  With a pastor’s understanding,Trevor rose to his feet and turned his back to Brian and his moment of remembered pain. “Should I put on some tea?”

  “I doubt there’s anything to make it with.”

  “Oh, Gladys thought to give me a few bags. Couldn’t see you go without a cuppa.” He turned around long enough to offer a quick flash of a smile. “Not even the man planning to rob them of their beloved home.”

  “It’s not my idea.”

  “So I gather.” Trevor opened the cupboard by the stove and exclaimed, “What on earth do we have here!”

  “What is it?”

  “A letter from Heather!” The vicar turned back around, holding a slender pink envelope yellowed with age. “It’s addressed to you.”

  Brian stood and felt the world swim. “Uh-oh.”

  Trevor was instantly by his side. “Let me help you.”

  Brian had no choice but to lean heavily on the other man. “Maybe I’d better go lie down.”

  “Of course. Slowly now, that’s it.”

  Weakness rose like a relentless flood tide. “I didn’t come here to sell the place. I promised Sarah I’d keep it.”

  “I must say, I find it baffling that Heather had not seen to the death duties.” Trevor waited until he had settled Brian on his pallet to ask, “Why are you down here and not upstairs?”

  “Two choices up there,” he mumbled, the fatigue tugging relentlessly at his eyes. “Heather’s bed or Sarah’s.”

  “Oh. Of course. I understand perfectly.” He rattled the letter he still held. “Shall I read this to you?”

  Brian was about to agree, when sleep rose up and covered him with the mantle of night.

  Brian knocked on the downstairs apartment door, then stood in the gloom and listened to the vague sounds within. The door finally opened to reveal the stern-looking older man. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Goodness, Arthur, that’s no way to greet the fellow.” His wife was shorter but about one and a half times as wide. She pushed by her husband and beamed at Brian. “How are you, dear?”

  “Much better. I can’t thank you enough for the soup.” He handed back the empty pot. “I just had a second helping, and it was better than the first.”

  She preened with pleasure. “Trevor says the nasty little stone things finally decided to leave you in peace.”

  “This afternoon.”

  The old gentleman was stiff in the manner of a man born to command. “Had four bouts of stones myself over the years. Terrible, they were. Dreadful.”

  Gladys added, “Arthur and I spent eighteen years in warmer lands. Africa, mostly. Stones develop more swiftly in hot climates. Dehydration.”

  “Plus three years in Delhi,” The old man said. “RAF. You know Delhi?”

  “I had planned to go there,” B
rian replied, surprised at his own gratitude for the old man’s willingness to unbend this much. “But I ate something that didn’t agree with me in Colombo.”

  “Arthur has been to Colombo, haven’t you, dear? With the queen.”

  That pushed Brian back a step. “As in the queen of England?”

  “Arthur flew her plane,” his wife proudly announced. “Twice.”

  But Arthur was fastened upon an earlier thread. “Gut rot is a risky business. Laid you up for long?”

  “Almost five weeks.”

  “A month and more in a Colombo hospital.” A faint hint of a smile appeared beneath the neatly trimmed mustache. “That must have been a lark.”

  “It was,” Brian replied. “A living nightmare.”

  It might have been a cough or perhaps a laugh. Then Arthur Wainwright said, “You’ll have to come down sometime; we’ll trade a few tales of war wounds and warmer climes.”

  “I’d like that. Very much.”

  “What must you think of us,” Gladys scolded. “Making you stand here in the drafty hall. Come in and have a glass.”

  “Actually, I was wondering if you could loan me a flashlight. I need to go upstairs, and I can’t seem to get the lights to work.”

  “Oh, they haven’t worked for years. Arthur, go bring the man the big torch. It’s on the bathroom sill.” To Brian, she added, “The electrics in this house are atrocious. Heather was always going on about them, promising to have the walls torn open and all the wiring replaced. But she never did.”

  “Never did get around to much of anything,” the old man grumbled, disappearing into the gloom of the apartment’s dusky interior. “More’s the pity.”

  Brian asked, “So my wife’s aunt never mentioned anything to you about planning to sell off the house?”

  “Not a word. Which is more than passing strange, seeing as how we were Heather’s closest friends.”

  A voice from the dark muttered, “Or we thought we were.”

  “Hush up, you.” Gladys leaned forward. “Did Trevor really find a letter from Heather amid the teacups?”

  “Yes.”

  “How utterly thrilling. Imagine, sitting there for two years, just waiting for you to show up.”

  The old man’s silhouette reappeared from the murk. “Just goes to show the sort of job the cleaner was doing.”

  “She didn’t have any reason to go fishing in among the china, now, did she?” Turning to Brian, Gladys explained, “The real estate agent sent his cleaning lady over once a month to do a spot of dusting.”

  “Spot is right,” Arthur grumbled. “And a ruddy lot of good it did us, having the hall floor swept when it’s so dark we can’t see a hand in front of our faces.”

  Brian caught the drift. “So the Realtor hasn’t been keeping up on the repairs?”

  “Now, don’t you start us on that.” She blocked Arthur with her girth. “You just go get some rest, and we’ll save all that for when you have time to come down for a spot of dinner. So nice to finally meet you proper, dear.”

  “Glad to see you up and about,” her husband added before the door closed.

  Brian stood and felt the air impacted by the shutting door and the voices within, Arthur grumbling and Gladys chiding, two people so used to living together that they could not consider a life alone. He started up the stairs, lit now by the flashlight’s gleam, and wondered if he would ever grow used to the void within.

  When the house had been refashioned to include a downstairs apartment, a wall and a set of grand double doors had been inserted on the upstairs landing. The sweeping twin staircase joined on what was now a broad balcony, as large as a parlor, and embellished with a chandelier that did not work. The doors opened into a wide hallway running the length of the house, leading to what had once been three grand salons and a library, with the eat-in kitchen at the house’s south end. Refrains of former grandeur were everywhere, crowded by shadows and age. Brian walked down the hall away from the kitchen, opened another door, took a deep breath, and started up the stairs.

  The envelope in his shirt pocket seemed to reopen and whisper to him. The voice of a woman he had met only once reached across the impenetrable distance and spoke in time to the squeaking stairs, repeating all the letter’s surprises.

  “My dear Brian,” Heather wrote. “I wish to apologize. My hands no longer follow my mind’s command, so my letter must be brief. In the space of too few words, I offer you years of repentance. I was horrid to you. Not because of who you were. No. Because I was a selfish old woman. I tried to force dear Sarah to choose between the two people she loved most, you and me. What a dreadful mistake that was. I deserve all the loneliness that life has punished me with.

  “You, however, do not. I understand the agony you are going through. Oh yes. Far more than you would ever imagine. For I, too, have lost a love. You probably never knew that. How could you? I never gave you a chance to know me at all. Until now.”

  The manor’s third floor was a narrow copy of the second, with lower ceilings and somewhat smaller rooms. The chambers and windows were modest only in comparison with those downstairs. The dust was thick enough to clog the chilly air, the scents stuffy and very old. No cleaning person had ventured up here in a very long while.

  Brian entered the room closest to the stairwell, and though all the furniture was draped in yellowed white dustcloths, he knew instantly he stood in Sarah’s room. To his vast relief, there was no sense of tragic longing. The room was just a room, despite matching her descriptions exactly. He tried the wall switch and was rewarded with a yellow glow from the dusty, fly-specked chandelier. It, too, matched his wife’s account, hand-blown in the shape of an hourglass. Brian turned slowly, reliving the nights they had spent sharing her happiest memories, almost all of which began here in this room. And all the while, Heather’s murmurings and the letter in his pocket kept him company.

  “Once I knew the love of a soul mate,” Heather wrote. “Forgive my brevity. It hurts to write of that time. Even saying these few words leaves my heart as pained as my hands. His name was Alexander. We were married three short years, and then God took him away from me. I fear the loss drove me a bit mad.

  “A year and five months later, a little princess arrived at my doorstep. She was eight years old and as beautiful as an English summer dawn. Her name was Sarah. She was sad, lonely, and terrified of me. And with every reason. It was her presence that drew me back from the depths of my own living death. And returned me to God. For I knew that alone I would not be able to find either the love or the answers that this little child required.”

  Each wall held a mural, painted at Heather’s request by a local artist. They depicted passages from Sarah’s favorite books. It had become part of Sarah’s excitement over returning to Castle Keep each summer, waiting to discover what Heather had ordered up. The entire right-hand wall showed a covered bridge from whose heights Christopher Robin and Pooh and Tigger raced twigs upon a smooth-running stream.

  The room was dominated by a four-poster bed, which beneath its dustcovers looked like an ancient vessel ready to sail upon the seas of night. Brian stared at the bed and felt the first heart twinges as he imagined his little Sarah nestled there, sent by parents who had never really been parents at all. Lost and frightened and alone, she had hidden deep within the covers of a bed so big it seemed to go on forever. She had felt trapped here, inside a house so huge it took even her tiny footsteps and echoed them over and over like ghostly drums. And watched by an aunt whose eyes did not seem able to track together, especially at night. That first summer, Aunt Heather had cast a terrifying figure, with a rat’s nest of graying hair and hands that danced to music Sarah could never hear. Yet somehow this strange old biddy had become Sarah’s grandest friend, introducing her to the wonders of a house filled with mysterious places and ancient secrets, acquainting her with other mysteries as well—those of faith and hope, those of laughter and belief in a tomorrow worth living.

  Heather’s quie
t chant was still with Brian as he turned from the room and its treasured yesterdays, and it sent him down the hall on a quest he still did not understand. “Sarah arrived wounded by her own past,” Heather wrote. “Don’t ever think children are incapable of harboring tragedy. Their spirits can also be stained crimson by the injustices of life. I wanted to help her, but could not do so alone. So I turned to God for help, and found that He had brought Sarah just for that purpose. Such wondrous subterfuge within the divine mind.”

  Heather’s own chambers were also as Sarah had described, a series of four adjoining rooms that flowed one into the other. Brian’s footsteps made a dusty trail across the ancient carpets as he walked and searched. Here in these rooms, with the covered paintings upon the walls staring at him like sightless eyes, Heather’s voice seemed clearer still.

  “To my delight, I discovered that Sarah loved puzzles. I turned this grand old house into one large maze and used its mysteries to teach her both to discover herself and to trust me. I found a healing in this. For me, and thankfully for Sarah as well. And in the making of my clues and watching her uncover the rewards, I found a bond growing between us. And a miracle. For it was not only Sarah who was learning to trust and love and laugh and live. I returned to life as well.”

  The bedroom opened into a small salon, with its high-backed padded chair and fainting couch both made lumpish and vague by yellowing covers. All the lights worked, revealing a blanket of dust upon the hardwood floors and making the tattered velvet wallpaper appear faded as sun-bleached parchment. From there he entered a dressing salon, with a marble-tiled bath beyond. Brian halted in the dressing room, took the letter from his pocket, and listened as Heather’s scratchy voice finished reciting the final passage.

  “This, then, is my gift to you. Rather, it is our gift. For Sarah has worked with me every step of the way. All those conversations through the good and bad times of our respective illnesses, this is much of what we spoke of. We recalled the past. Did you ever hear her laughing on the telephone with me, even when the pain and the weakness crippled her? What a miracle our memories can be. We spoke and remembered better times. And we planned, Sarah and I. We gave ourselves hope of a future, which illness had robbed us of, through hoping for you, dear Brian. I pray you will permit me to say those words, for through Sarah’s love and her sorrow of leaving you, I have learned to care for you as well. Dear, dear Brian, mainstay of my darling Sarah’s life. I pray that you shall heal. I pray that you will come to know hope in a future. Not the future you might have wished for yourself. No. But a future just the same.