Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [134]
At Amending, Daphne confessed in a low voice that she had spoken rudely to her grandfather. “I told him to quit bugging me about a job,” she said, “and I called Ian an old maid, and I said Bert could go to hell when he showed me where I’d skipped on a bookcase.” Sister Nell was murmuring something long and involved about a dispute with a neighbor. Agatha said nothing, wouldn’t you know. This meant she got to hear everyone else’s sins and pass judgment. “Talk about an high look!” Daphne whispered sharply, and then Reverend Emmett said, “Let it vanish now from our souls, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.” After that they stood up to sing “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”
The Benediction was hardly finished before Agatha was in the aisle, making her way toward Clara as she put her coat on. Daphne followed, but then Brother Simon stopped her to talk and so she arrived at Agatha’s side too late to introduce her. “I’m Agatha Bedloe-Simms,” Agatha was saying. (Only the rawest newcomer mentioned last names within these walls, but no doubt she wanted to establish her connection to Ian.) “I believe you must be Clara.”
“Why, yes,” Clara said in her ladylike, modulated voice. “And this is my father, Brother Edwin, and my brother, Brother James.”
She was probably making a point, with all those “Brothers,” but if so it passed right over Agatha’s head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Agatha told them. “Clara, Ian has talked so much about you.”
“Oh! Has he?” Clara asked, and a blush started spreading upward from her Peter Pan collar.
Daphne felt confused. Had he really? Before she could find out, though, Reverend Emmett reached their group. “Sister Agatha,” he said, “I’m so glad to see you here.”
He gave no sign of recollecting that Agatha had spurned his church for years and insisted on a city hall wedding. And Agatha herself seemed unabashed. “So tell me, Reverend Emmett,” she said, “what does a fifty-year-old bottle of wine taste like, anyhow?”
“Oh, it was vinegar,” he said cheerfully.
“And don’t you think mentioning it to us was another form of mouthwash, so to speak?”
“Ah,” he said, smiling. “Something to confess at our next Amending.”
He turned to Stuart, who had shown up behind her with Ian. “You must be Agatha’s husband,” he said.
“Brother Stuart,” Stuart announced, with the prideful smirk of someone speaking a foreign language.
There was a bustle of introductions and small talk, and then Reverend Emmett moved off to greet someone else and Agatha whispered to Daphne, “Do we have enough lunch for three extra?”
“Three?” Daphne asked.
“Her father and brother too?”
They didn’t, but that wasn’t the issue. Daphne said, “Agatha, I really don’t think—”
Too late. Agatha turned to Clara and said, “Won’t the three of you come home with us for lunch?”
Clara was still blushing. She looked over at Ian. “Oh, we wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” she said.
“Right,” Ian said. “Maybe some other time.” And he took Agatha’s arm and propelled her toward the door. Daphne and Clara were left gaping at each other. Daphne said, “Um …”
“Well, it was lovely seeing you,” Clara said melodiously.
“Yes, well … so long, I guess.”
Daphne hurried to catch up with the others. Ian still had hold of Agatha, who was looking cross. Outside, when they regrouped—Agatha walking next to Daphne once again—Agatha muttered, “What a dud.”
“Who, Clara?”
“Ian.”
“Maybe they’ve had a fight or something,” Daphne said.
“More likely they’ve just withered on the vine,” Agatha told her.
Up ahead, Stuart was asking all about the Church of the Second Chance. He wanted to know how sizable a membership it had, when it