Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [3]
“I don’t know why, Father—”
“Nor does it matter. I’ll speak to him, then, shall I?” It was a question asked gracefully, setting Martin at his ease. The priest turned quietly to bend over the bed. After a moment he said, “Mr. Baker? Herbert? It’s Father James. What can I do to help you?”
Baker opened his eyes, seemed to have difficulty focusing them, then blinked as he looked up at the white clerical collar, clearly visible against the black cloth. “Father James, is it?”
“Yes.” As a thin, trembling hand came out from under the blanket, Father James reached for it and the claw seemed to lock onto his.
“Send them away!” Herbert Baker said. “Just you and me.”
Father James glanced across at the anxious faces of Baker’s two sons and then at Dr. Stephenson. The three men nodded briefly, walked to the door, and went out, their shoes loud on the wide boards of the passage, then moving together down the stairs.
Father James, waiting until they were well out of earshot, looked around to collect some impression of this man lying in the bed waiting for death to come. He knew who the Bakers were, but had seldom exchanged more than a word or two with any of them.
It was a big room set under the eaves, with simple but sturdy furnishings, and a worn carpet on the floor. Someone had painted watercolors of the sea and framed them for hanging. An amateur’s hand, the sunrises and ships vigorous, but showing an untrained eye. The family had taken pride in them, to frame them. The single window faced the street, the shade pulled against the night and the curtains drawn across it.
So many houses in the town had this same air of working-class austerity, Father James found himself thinking. Osterley’s years of prosperity lay in the past—well before Herbert Baker’s time. No one starved, but people here worked hard for their bread.
As the priest turned back to the bed, he saw the woman’s photograph on the table beside it. The soft whisper of the rain faded, then revived as a squall, the wind sending a gust of drafts into the house and making the lamp dance to its fitful tune. Baker’s wife? She had died before the War, as he recalled, and this must have been taken some ten years before that. The daughter—Ellen?—looked much like her. The same dark hair and sweet face, staring at the camera with trusting and expectant eyes.
He sat down carefully on the bed’s edge, where Ellen and the Vicar had sat before him, and said in the voice that was his greatest gift as a priest, deep and steadfast, “I’m here. We are alone in the sight of God. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, tell me how I may serve you?”
Nearly half an hour later, Father James walked down the stairs of the Baker house, and found the family, the doctor, and the Vicar waiting for him in the small, very Victorian parlor. Tea had been brought and poured, but the cups were still more than half full, sitting forgotten. Wind rattled the shutters, a theatrical announcement of his appearance, like a drumroll.
Every face had turned toward the priest, all eyes pinning him in the doorway, concern mixed with weariness and not a little curiosity in their expressions. Father James cleared his throat and said into the expectant silence, “Your father is resting quietly now. He has asked me to reassure you that he wishes to be buried in accordance with his own beliefs, with Mr. Sims officiating. I have served him by giving him a little comfort. If he should require me again, you’ve only to let me know. And now, if you’ll forgive me, I must go. It is late—”
He was offered refreshment, he was offered the gratitude of the grieving family. Prevailed upon by Mr. Sims, he sat and drank a cup of lukewarm tea, out of kindness. Dr. Stephenson, watching him, was struck by the tension around his eyes, putting it down to the awkwardness of being in an unfamiliar household among strangers not of his faith. The two of them, doctor