Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [133]
“Where is Mrs. Jordan? Shouldn’t we stop by and pick her up?”
“She has to drive now, on account of her rheumatism.”
“This is depressing,” Agatha said.
It did seem depressing. Or maybe that was just the season, the thin white light of January; for in spite of the sunshine the neighborhood had a pallid, lifeless look.
The church was barely half full this morning, but there weren’t six empty chairs in a row and so they had to separate. The men sat near the front, and Daphne and Agatha sat at the rear next to Sister Nell. Sister Nell leaned across Daphne to say, “Why, Sister Agatha! Isn’t this a treat!” Daphne felt a bit jealous; she was never called “Sister” herself. Evidently you had to leave town before you were considered grown.
Two years ago Sister Lula had willed the church her electric organ—the very small kind that salesmen sometimes demonstrate in shopping malls—and Sister Myra was playing “Amazing Grace” while latecomers straggled in. Under cover of the music, Agatha murmured, “Show me which one is Clara.”
Daphne looked around. “There,” she said, sliding her eyes to the left. Clara sat between her father and her brother—a slim woman in her mid-thirties with buff-colored hair feathered perfectly, dry skin powdered, tailored suit a careful orchestration of salmon pink and aqua.
“Why isn’t she sitting with Ian?” Agatha asked.
“Because she’s sitting with her father and brother.”
“You know what I mean,” Agatha told her. But just then the music stopped and Reverend Emmett rose from behind the counter to offer the opening prayer.
He was getting old. It took Agatha’s presence to make Daphne see that. He was one of those people who hollow as they age, and when he turned to reach for his Bible his back had a curve like a beetle’s back. But his voice was as strong as ever. “Proverbs twenty-one: four,” he said in his rich, pure tenor. “ ‘An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.’ ” Then he announced the hymn: “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.”
Daphne loved singing hymns. She had forgotten, though, what a trial it was to sing with Agatha, who talked the words in a monotone and broke off halfway through to ask, “Where are the young people? Where are the children?”
Daphne wouldn’t answer. She went on singing.
The sermon had to do with arrogance. Nothing was more arrogant, Reverend Emmett said, than the pride of the virtuous man, and then he told them a story. “Last week, I called on a brother whose wife had recently died. Some of you may know whom I mean. He was not a member of our church, and had visited only a very few times. Still, I was surprised to see him bring forth a bottle of wine once I was seated. ‘Reverend Emmett,’ he said, ‘you happen to have arrived on my fiftieth anniversary. My wife and I always promised ourselves that when we reached this day, we would open a bottle of wine that we’d saved from our wedding reception. Well, she is no longer here to share it, and I’m hoping very much that you will have a glass to keep me company.’ ”
Daphne held her breath. Even Agatha looked interested.
“So I did,” Reverend Emmett said.
Daphne started breathing again.
“I reflected that the Alcohol Rule is a rule for the self, designed to remove an obstruction between the self and the Lord, but drinking that glass of wine was a gift to another human being and refusing it would have been arrogant. And when I took my leave—well, I’m not proud of this—I had a momentary desire for some sort of mouthwash, in case I met one of our brethren on the way home. But I thought, ‘No, this is between me and my God,’ and so I walked through the streets joyfully breathing fumes of alcohol.”
Agatha fell into a fit of silent laughter. Daphne could feel her shaking; she had a sidelong glimpse of her white face growing pink and convulsed.