The Book of Hours

by Davis Bunn

  The audience granted Cecilia the highest accolade Brian could imagine. No one moved or made a sound. Cecilia’s footsteps sounded overly loud as she collapsed into her seat.

  The mayor granted her a quiet, “Well done.” Only then did they applaud.

  When order was restored, the mayor said, “Vicar, do you have anything further to add before we close?”

  Trevor showed the good sense not to approach the podium. Instead he stood by his chair and merely said, “Doctors know that regular exercise and a healthy diet are two vital components of good health. Why should such routine discipline not be true of our spiritual life as well?”

  The vicar granted them a moment to ponder that, then added, “The practice of praying the hours stayed with us until the so-called Age of Enlightenment. At that point, for the first time in human history, people began to suggest that they could do away with God and live on the power of science alone. I stand before you tonight to say it is not enough, it never has been and never will be. Every new bit of knowledge we gain leads merely to more questions. There is only one answer that is eternally satisfying. Our ancestors knew this, and our church bells are part of both this lesson and the heritage they have handed down to our care.”

  The hall filled with scuffling and quiet murmurs as Trevor resumed his seat. The mayor rose once more and announced, “Voting on this matter will take place Monday evening. This meeting is now adjourned.”

  Seventeen

  LONG AFTER THE FEAR HAD SUBSIDED, CECILIA LAY AWAKE, staring at the darkness around her. She remained ashamed to the point of feeling wounded from having done such a poor job. She could still feel the pity pouring about the chamber in waves as she seated herself. The silence that had at first greeted the conclusion of her talk remained as powerful as the night.

  Thudding as quietly as her shame was the sorrow over losing her home. Strange that with everything else she had to worry about, the night was filled with coming loss. Her sense of belonging to the village was so tied to her home that she could scarcely think of Knightsbridge without envisioning Rose Cottage.

  Yet what had disturbed her sleep the most lay deeper still. She could not escape from the sense that what she had said in front of the town meeting had not just accused her, but also left her convicted. She was as guilty as anyone else in the hall of placing science upon a divine pedestal. She had treated her church activities as a part of village society. She had welcomed the sense of connecting to the town, and the comforting peace most Sundays bestowed. But God had remained a benign father figure, safely ensconced upon a distant throne, watching benevolently as she scrambled about her daily life.

  Cecilia tossed and turned, knowing it had been a lie. Her smug rejection of God’s authority, the unspoken assumption that she could do it all on her own; she had mocked both her heritage and her faith with this conceited complacency.

  Brian lay on his pallet in the parlor, defeated by the night. The house creaked and moaned gently about him, the wind whistling about the eaves and drafty windows. Every time he shut his eyes, he found himself watching Cecilia upon the stage once more. The fact that she had been so terrified had been clear to anyone with eyes in his head. And yet she had mastered her fear enough to rise and speak. He remained more than impressed with the woman’s deed. He was awed.

  Her dedication to the village, and her conviction over what she had said, had pounded him hard. He had spent two years running from everything, even himself. He belonged to nothing and no one. His life held no more meaning than a leaf blown by wayward autumn winds. In the past twenty-four months, he had done nothing not directly tied to his own interests of the moment. Her commitment shamed him such that he could not sleep.

  He finally capitulated at four o’clock and went around turning on all the lights he could find. He spent another hour studying Heather’s new letter, trying to subvert the sense of warning with yet another riddle. But the windswept whispers did not diminish, nor did he find a space where he could escape from the vision of Cecilia there upon the stage. Not, that is, until he found himself staring out at the night and facing his own distorted reflection. The ancient hand-drawn glass turned him from a man in the prime of life to an ancient crone. His features ran, his hands shivered and flittered as they moved, his eyes looked rheumy, his skin mottled, his hair almost gone. Brian found himself unable to turn away. There before him stood the empty goal toward which he walked. Ahead lay nothing but the final isolation of a wasted life, and beyond that the unforgiving door of death itself. He wiped the perspiration that suddenly beaded his face and stared at an old man whose desperate gaze begged him to look beyond the moment and his own selfish needs. Pleading with him to turn, before it was too late.

  Sunday morning, Brian stepped very self-consciously into the manor’s front hall. Once again he wore Arthur’s jacket and tie, with the overcoat draped over his arm. As he walked down the stairs, he heard the elderly couple emerge from their downstairs apartment. He said in greeting, “I hope you don’t mind—”

  “Always glad to have reinforcements,” Arthur replied. “Even when the objective is the gates of heaven.”

  Gladys stepped up to give his lapels another affectionate sweep. “You really must stop by this afternoon, and I’ll let out those sleeves.”

  “Nonsense,” Arthur countered. “First thing Monday he’ll be able to buy his own gear.”

  “Not a chance,” Brian said, his discomfort rising.

  That raised two sets of eyebrows. Arthur demanded, “You are truly that skint?”

  “Down to my last couple of hundred dollars,” Brian replied, seeing no need to dress up the news. “Those weeks in the Sri Lanka hospital drained away time and money I couldn’t afford.”

  A silent communication passed between the two, then Arthur said gruffly, “You seem like a good enough sort. I suppose we could loan you the odd bob until you’re back on your feet.”

  “Don’t stand on pride,” Gladys urged him quietly. “We’ve all been there at one time or another.”

  Brian found himself rocked by the strength of his gratitude. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “That’s settled then.” Arthur started toward the door and cut off further discussion by a swift change of subject. “Our Cecilia did us proud last night, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” Brian agreed.

  “All of us have our terrors,” Arthur said, blinking as he emerged into the sunlight. “Meeting them alone is the hardest challenge any of us ever face.”

  Gladys’s hands fluttered excitedly as she tried to fit on her gloves. “Was it true, what Bill Wilke said last night? Did Heather leave you another puzzle?”

  After their offer of support, there was no way Brian could refuse them the chance to read the letter for themselves, no matter how personal its contents. Especially not since Bill Wilke had opened and read the letter before handing it over. Brian pulled the envelope from his pocket and gave it to Arthur without comment. The old man halted on the graveled drive and eagerly began perusing the pages.

  “Oh, come on now,” Gladys protested, almost dancing in her impatience. “Either read it aloud or hand it to me!”

  Arthur hesitated. “It’s rather personal.”

  “It’s all right,” Brian replied. “Really.”

  “If you say so.” Arthur adjusted his spectacles and began to read:

  “‘My dear Brian, I have not had a good night. This wasn’t at all what I had intended to tell you, but very little of my life is as I would have it just now. Last night I found myself looking back at a lifetime of mistakes, a theater in which you played a starring role. But it was not you who kept me awake. I thought of Alex. He was a good man, Brian. A very good man. You would have liked him immensely. He was kind and thoughtful and gentle as only a strong man can be. And I loved him. We had four years, two months, three weeks, and two glorious days together. Then he died.

  “‘I know you understand what that means, to love s
omeone more than your own life and then lose them. So I will not dwell upon the horror. He left me. I desperately wanted to go with him, but I was too much of a coward to take my own life. Part of me still wishes I had done so, as the years between then and now remain filtered by his absence. But some deeper portion of me clung tenaciously to what no longer held any meaning. And so I went a bit mad.’”

  Overhead a frigid breeze tossed the trees about, bonelike fingers pointing toward a cloud-flecked sky. The sound was musical, a constant sigh of quiet sympathy. Arthur’s quiet voice melted into the day and the song.

  “‘Two things saved me from going entirely off the deep end. The first was coming to God. I had no time for matters of the spirit before Alex left me. After, I clung to God with the desperation of a mad Englishwoman. And then there was your beloved Sarah. She was God’s greatest gift to my remaining years. She is the one reason I can turn to God even now, and give Him thanks for my lifetime after Alex.

  “‘But last night brought me face-to-face with what I never wanted to accept, not even to see before now. And that was, God had been ready to heal me. I don’t mean that He was ready to see me through my remaining days. I mean, He was prepared to heal me. But I did not let Him.

  “‘I have never permitted myself to look so deeply at my past and my burdens as I did last night. But I know the truth now, and perhaps at some secret level I have known it all along. I was afraid that were I to permit God to heal my sad and wounded heart, I would forget Alex. Not forget Alex the person, but rather forget the power of what we had. And perhaps I would have, in some small way. But I see now, Brian, that in turning away from the chance to be healed, I also turned from whatever life God might have prepared for me. I not only turned from a full healing, I turned from God’s intended future. It was my choice to dwell in sorrow all my remaining days. It was my choice to go a bit mad. In the dark recesses of my addled mind, I thought this might hold Alex a bit closer. And perhaps it did. But it was the closeness of the shroud, one I should have set aside after a proper time of mourning. But I did not. And the result was, I did not heal.

  “‘We are pushed ever closer to the eternal door and the question, how will we be received? I dread this meeting. I shall be brought before the throne of light, and I shall fall prostrate in shame to the floor. The fact that I know I shall be forgiven counts for little just now. I have failed to serve my Master as well as I should. Oh, the gentle hand turned aside, the gentle invitation ignored. Oh, the chances lost. Oh, my Lord, my Lord, forgive me.’”

  Gladys sniffed loudly and rubbed at her eyes. “Poor, dear Heather,” she murmured.

  The day’s wintry song took the words and joined them with the wind, weaving them into the fabric of light and Sabbath peace as Arthur continued reading, “‘Brian, I share with you as only one can who knows the cost of lifetime mistakes. Do not do as I have done. Do not bind yourself to what is now finished and buried. God will heal you, if only you allow. What you lose, in terms of closeness to your beloved Sarah, is in truth already gone. In God’s time, you will be rejoined. Until then, accept what God has in store for you. Accept His healing. Accept His future. Do this for Sarah, for God, for yourself, and for me.’”

  Arthur halted there, removed his glasses with the hand holding the letter, and wiped the edges of his eyes. The gaze he gave Brian was full of all the things that from necessity would remain unsaid.

  Arthur fumbled a bit as he replaced his glasses, cleared his throat, and continued, “‘Here, then, is your next riddle. There are times when only by facing one’s greatest fear can one grow. Remember Sarah’s own time of woeful childhood fright. Remember the treasure trove she found by growing beyond, by searching where it was hardest, by learning to do what did not come naturally. And heal,my dear sweet boy. Find the treasure of a worthwhile tomorrow.’”

  Eighteen

  AS THEY APPROACHED THE FRONT GATES, THE SOUND OF Rose Cottage’s front door halted them again. Cecilia held to the same sense of smallness and fragility that had shadowed her the previous night. Even her voice sounded tiny as she asked, “Do you mind if I walk with you?”

  “My dear, it would be an honor,” Arthur replied. “I can’t tell you how impressed I was by your—”

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” she replied quickly.

  “Of course, of course,” Arthur gestured toward the waiting day. “Shall we be off?”

  Brian walked alongside the village doctor and listened with one ear as Gladys spoke with forced vivacity about the continuing spell of good weather. Cecilia responded with single syllables, her face etched and drawn. As they approached the market square, all Brian could think to say was, “I’ll come by this afternoon and try to cover that hole in your roof.”

  The words only seemed to deepen Cecilia’s tense gloom. “It’s not worth the effort, is it?”

  “From the sounds of things, the weather around here can change at any time,” Brian replied lamely. “Anyway, I’d like to do it for you.”

  Hesitantly she lifted her gaze, only to flinch as she spotted the town’s meeting hall. But she nodded and said, “If you want.”

  “Very much.”

  Brian was halted from saying anything further by the sight of Bill Wilke approaching. The mechanic’s massive girth was inserted into a suit purchased at an earlier, leaner time. The mechanic pulled him aside and muttered,“Wanted to apologize for reading your personal mail.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Thought I was going to be reading a riddle, didn’t I.” Fingers darkened by years of oil and grime fumbled with his jacket, his sleeves, his tie. “Didn’t have no business in prying, as my dear wife has spent half the night reminding me.”

  Brian watched helplessly as Arthur and Gladys ushered Cecilia into the church without him. “You’ve called me a good mate. I can’t help but consider you the same.”

  The mitt-size hand reached across the distance. “Do us all a favor. Find a way to hang about, will you?”

  The service was already beginning when Brian stepped inside Knightsbridge’s central church. He slipped into a pew at the back and nodded to the young couple seated alongside. The church was not large, yet it overflowed with heritage and beauty. The polished stone floor dipped and weaved, a tapestry of muted colors. The nave was separated from the rest of the church by a hand-carved frieze dated 1319. The pews had the same rough-hewn look as the latticework of beams high overhead, with seat backs stained and polished by seven hundred years of hands gripped in supplication.

  Brian sat and rose and pretended to follow the ancient litany. In truth, his gaze remained fastened upon a dark head seated toward the front, sheltered on either side by Gladys and Arthur. Cecilia Lyons was all that he was not. She was deeply committed to her work and her life. Even her attitude toward the crumbling Rose Cottage was that of a devoted friend.

  All the words of Heather’s letter and the thoughts of his restless night bound together with the service, the choir, the Bible readings, and finally with Trevor’s sermon. The longer Brian remained seated there, the greater grew his sense of being goaded toward a future, and all the fear the unknown contained.

  He did not know what Heather’s riddle was about, but there was no question of his own greatest fear. He was terrified of having a future. Planning for tomorrow meant committing himself to a place and a course. Commitments meant the risk of sacrifice, of being called to give and do and go beyond the comfortable. Shadows of soul-racking pain remained draped about him, so close he could feel them even within these hallowed walls. Brian knew he had no choice but to go forward, yet doubted his own strength to do so.

  The sun was blanketed by a windswept cloud, and suddenly the church hall went gray and dark. Brian found his attention drawn toward the only electric light in the chamber, the one that shone upon the pulpit.

  The preacher’s rostrum was reached by a spiral staircase of intricately carved marble that wound its way around a vast central pillar. The podium itself was sheathed
in polished granite and inlaid carvings of saintly knights, and from it Trevor’s voice rang with quiet authority. “In the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, we read that when Jesus entered the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples,‘Who do men say that I am?’ There were a number of responses, from a reborn Elijah to a modern prophet. Jesus then asked them,‘And who do you say that I am?’

  “Jesus asked His disciples because He wanted them to go beyond opinion. He asked them for a verdict. He was telling them, ‘Now is the time to declare yourselves before God and man alike.’”

  Trevor looked out over the congregation and quietly demanded, “As we approach the holy day when we celebrate His birth, who do you say He is? Are you able to stand before the world and declare that the Lord dwells in your heart? When voices throughout the land are raised in criticism and condemnation, can you stand fast and say that you are living for Christ?”

  For Brian it seemed as though he listened to two voices. The vicar’s tired, drawn features added as much dignity and weight to his words as the shining robes. Yet behind this voice there echoed another, one carved from the same timelessness as the chamber, one that whispered to Brian’s heart, and beckoned, and challenged.

  “It was Simon Peter who answered for all the generations to follow. He was the very first to declare in openhearted certainty, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus responded with the same direct certainty that marked all His statements,‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah . . . You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church.’ Peter said the blessed name twice in that sentence—‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ He had removed himself from life’s spectators. Jesus rewarded Simon Peter for being courageous enough to declare.”

  The sun chose that moment to strike the stained-glass window, casting the vicar’s features in a golden glow. “Jesus did not reward Peter with an authority to erect earthly structures. Let us be perfectly clear about this. The word Jesus used, which today is translated as church, was the word for community. Jesus was saying, ‘You, in all your frailty and humanness, shall be remade into something so strong that not even the gates of darkness shall prevail against you. You, and others like you who commit to the truth of salvation, will be bonded together by the Spirit’s gift.’”