Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [139]
“I’m a bit worried,” Josie began.
“Tell me.” Emily sighed.
“It’s this money Mrs. Monty left to Charles.”
“Yes, and you’re giving it to the Statue Fund.” Emily knew all this.
“It’s just that we’re worried about how much it is,” Josie said, looking around her in a frightened way. “You see, it’s not just thousands … it’s hundreds of thousands.”
Emily was stunned.
“That poor old lady had that kind of money! Who’d have thought it!” Emily said.
“Yes, and that’s the problem.”
“What’s that, Josie?” Emily asked gently.
Josie was very perturbed. “It’s too much to give to a statue, Emily. It’s sort of different from what we had thought. We wanted a small statue, a community thing with everyone contributing. If we give this huge sum we could have a huge statue up straightaway but it’s not quite the same.…”
“I see.…” Emily hardly dared to breathe.
“It’s such a huge amount of money, you see, we wonder have we a duty to our granddaughter, for example. Should we leave a sum for her education or to give her a start in life? Or should we give something to Noel so that he has something to fall back on if times get bad? Could I retire properly and could Charles and I go to the Holy Land? All these things are possible, I know. Would St. Jarlath like that better than a statue? It’s impossible to know.”
Emily was thoughtful. What she said now was very important.
“Which feels right to you, Josie?”
“That’s the trouble. They both seem to be the right way to go. You see, we were never rich people. Now that we are, thanks to Mrs. Monty, could we possibly have changed and become greedy like they say rich people do?”
“Oh, you and Charles would never go that way!”
“We might, Emily. I mean, here am I thinking of an expensive tour to the Holy Land. You see, I tell myself that maybe St. Jarlath would prefer us to spend the money doing good in other ways.”
“Yes, that is certainly a possibility,” Emily agreed.
“You see, if I could only get some kind of a sign as to what he wanted.…”
“What would God have wanted, I wonder?” Emily speculated. “Our Lord wasn’t into big show and splendor. He was more into helping the poor.”
“Of course, the poor can be helped by a statue reminding them of a great saint.”
“Yes …”
“You’re going off the idea of the statue, aren’t you?” Josie said, tears not far from her eyes.
“No, I’m all in favor of the statue. You and Charles have been working on it for so long. It’s a great idea, but I think it should be the smaller statue you originally thought of. Greatness isn’t shown by size.”
Josie was weakening. “We could give one big contribution to the fund and then invest the rest.”
“From what you know about St. Jarlath, do you think he’d be happy with that?” Emily knew that Josie must be utterly convinced in her heart before she abandoned the cracked notion of spending all this money on a statue.
“I think he would,” Josie said. “He was all for the good of the people and if we were to put a playground at the end of the crescent for the children, wouldn’t that be in the spirit of it all?”
“And the statue?”
“We could have it in the playground. Call it all ‘St. Jarlath’s Garden for Children.’ ”
Emily smiled with relief. Her own view of God was of a vague, benevolent force that sometimes shaped people’s lives and other times stayed out of it and let things happen. She and Hat argued about this. He said it was a manifestation of people’s wishes for an afterlife and helped put more sense into the time we spent on earth. But today Emily’s God had intervened. He had ensured that Charles and Josie would help their son and their granddaughter. They would build a playground to keep the children safe. They would go to see Jerusalem and, most merciful of all, it would be a small statue and not a monstrosity that would make people mock them.
This was coming at a very good time for Noel. His exams were soon and he had looked strained and overtired in the past few days.
“Once you and Charles have agreed, you should tell Noel,” Emily suggested.
“We’ll talk it over tonight.