A Light in the Window (64 page)

A film of sanding dust clung to everything, including the white canvas over the floor and the furniture, so that the whole room was a dreamlike shade of ivory in the early-afternoon light. The only color was on the ceiling, where robed angels burst from clouds and swept among the cherubim with blazing authority.

“Tell me what I can do to help,” he said. Somehow, offering to bake a ham didn’t seem right.

“Not one thing. The caterer from Charlotte is doing it all—food, flowers, music, chairs. And the cost? Through the ceiling, no pun intended. I just closed my eyes and jumped in.”

“I suppose you’ll be having a splendid new gown?”

“Certainly not! I’m too old for new gowns. There’s not enough time left to wear them out, you see.”

He put his arm around her shoulder.

“Let’s go to my bedroom, so we can relax while we talk. But first, I want you to take a look at something.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

She pointed her cane toward the ceiling. “See the angel just over there? That one with the smile—not all angels smile, you know.”

“On the far right ... with the rose in her hand?”

“It’s the only single rose on the ceiling. All the other roses are in garlands or swags. Now look how her robe flows behind her—and see her feet peeping out? Aren’t they beautiful?”

“Exquisite! In fact, she’s my hands-down favorite.”

“What do you think of the wings?” she asked.

“One might feel the very air moving through them.”

“Carry that in your mind’s eye,” she said, taking his arm.

Pleased at the prospect of a good story, they went up the stairs as contented as children.

“See down there, Father?”

They peered through her bedroom window, into grounds leading to the orchard.

“That’s the old wash house. Our home wasn’t even near to being finished when we came to this hill, so we all moved into the wash house like a troop of gypsies.

“China Mae had the room on the back, about the size of the hall cupboard at Lord’s Chapel—and not one floorboard was there in any square inch of that little place! Just bare dirt, swept clean and hard as tile.

“It was close living, Father, like sardines in a can, but it was the happiest time I ever knew. After a long day at the lumberyard, Papa would draw up to that big fireplace, and Mama would sit and do her sewing, and I would be making doll clothes as hard as I could go.”

She laughed gently and took his arm. “Let’s sit down before we fall down.”

They sat in the old wing chairs, facing each other, where she had confided so many painful secrets.

“Oh, the smell of cooking that China Mae could stir up in that wash house! If anything ever smelled better than chicken and dumplings, I don’t know what it is—unless it’s cornbread baked in an iron skillet—or a deep-dish apple pie!”

“Don’t even start, Miss Sadie ...”

“China Mae’s little room didn’t have a thing but a wood stove and our pots and pans and her cot—there was a Bible, too, even though she couldn’t read—and a peg for her clothes and a tin washtub hanging on the wall. We all used the same outhouse—at different times, of course!

“I think living that way got on Mama’s nerves something awful, but when our house was finished and we moved in, I cried. I did. I could have gone right on living in the wash house for the rest of my life.

“I remember Papa started talking about his master plan.

“He said the first thing to do was get the orchards planted.

“The second thing to do was get the ballroom ceiling painted.

“And the third thing was have Mr. Woodrow Wilson come for a visit. He didn’t want any cabinet members or senators, and nobody from Congress—he wanted the president!”

“Good thinking!”

“When the orchards were under way, Papa started sending letters to Italy. He was writing off for someone to come and paint the ballroom ceiling, you see.

“A man in Asheville wanted to paint it, but Papa saw his drawings and didn’t like them at all. He kept saying, ‘The artist must be
Italian.’

“In case someone really came from Italy, I learned three words out of a book. I had no idea what they meant, but I was very proud and made China Mae say them too.
‘Tempo è denaro!’
Do you know what that means, Father?”

“I don’t have a clue,” he said, smiling.

“Good! You’ll find out later. Well, now, to make a long story short ...”

“Don’t do that,” he said.

She laughed. “All this was a long time ago, and I was too young to pay attention to details. I just know that Papa wrote a lot of letters and got a lot of sample drawings in envelopes with strange stamps. Then he had scaffolding built in the ballroom—just like what’s down there now, except it was wood.

“One day two strangers showed up on the porch—a short, dark man with a happy face, and a thin, dark boy with a sad face.

“It was Michelangelo and his son, Leonardo! ‘My goodness,’ said Mama, ‘You send for Italian artists and look who you get!’

“Their last name was Francesca, and they were from Florence. I went around for weeks shouting, ‘Michelangelo and Leonardo Francesca from Florence!’ I had never heard such words in my life!

“Papa introduced us and I curtsied and said,
‘Tempoè denaro!’
And Angelo laughed and laughed, so we had a wonderful start-up, but they could hardly speak a word of English.

“Mama took them to their room down the hall, and China Mae cooked them a wonderful meal, and they rolled up their pants and went right to work.

“Wouldn’t you think an artist would roll up his sleeves? But these two always rolled up their pants. I’ll never forget it.

“Angelo and Leon did fresco painting. It’s like watercolor, but it’s done on wet plaster. And you must paint very fast, because when the plaster dries, it won’t take color. So they would mix what they might paint in a day, and if any plaster dried before they could paint it, they cut it away.

“I remember they began with the border around the ceiling. They must have worked on that for eight or nine months, every single day except Sunday. On Sunday, they disappeared into their room or packed a knapsack and went walking in the country and sketched in their books.

“I loved to peep into their room, for each had a beautiful cross over his bed, and they always left their room so neat, I could hardly believe my eyes.

“That’s where Leon did his studies every evening. Angelo was Leon’s tutor, and he was very good at carrying through with his lessons. In the meantime, Mama was teaching Leon English every day after lunch.

“It turned out Leon was sad because his mother had died, and Angelo was always laughing to try and cheer him up. Leon was only twelve years old, but he looked much older because of his sorrow. Dooley reminds me of Leon more than you know, Father.

“Anyway, my mother’s gentle way was good for him, and before you know it, he could say, ‘I like garden peas!’ Or, ‘The day is very warm.’

“I know my Mama didn’t teach him this, but one day he said, ‘Sadie, you are beautiful,
bella.’

“Can you imagine? I thought I was ugly as a mud fence. But I could tell he meant it. You should have seen his face when he said it.”

“Those Italians!” said the rector, grinning.

“Aren’t they something, Father? But good gracious, I was only ten and still playing with dolls!

“When they were through with the border, Papa pronounced it excellent. That was high praise from Papa. You had to work like a beaver to get such laurels from him.

“Then the work began on the ceiling itself. Oh, Papa was fussy. He would come home from the lumberyard and stand in the middle of the floor, looking up ’til his neck got a crick in it. He knew just where the angels were to be placed and how the roses were to spill from their hands.

“Slowly but surely, the angels began to fly on the ceiling, and behind them, Leon made the rose-colored clouds appear and painted their robes and their hair. Only twelve years old, Father, and
painting
like an angel!

“They worked so hard that Mama took it on herself to give them a special day off. ‘Just go!’ she said, ‘and I’ll deal with Mr. Baxter when he comes home.’

“ ‘May I go?’ I said.

“ ‘No, they need their rest,’ Mama told me, but Angelo said, ‘Please!’ and for a moment looked so mournful, himself, that I got permission and went!

“ ‘Til my dying day I’ll never forgot the happiness of roaming over the fields and hills with Angelo and Leon. Why, it was one of the loveliest days of my life, until that awful thing happened.

“You can’t imagine what was in their knapsack! Colored pencils and sketch pads and a book of verse, not to mention olive oil from Italy and apples and cheese and bread and chicken—and a handful of new potatoes from our garden. They dug a hole in the meadow and built a fire and roasted those little potatoes to a turn, and we broke them open and put coarse salt inside and a bit of the olive oil and—oh, my goodness!”

“Miss Sadie, I can’t imagine how Swanson’s Chicken Pie ever got to first base with you!”

She laughed. “Nothing ever tastes as good as it did in childhood, does it, Father?”

“Nothing!”

“Even colors were more intense. I remember the purple and aquamarine Leon used to paint some of the robes. I’ve never seen anything like it again. But it wasn’t the tubes of color, Father. It was my childhood eyes—how fresh it all was, what a gift!”

He nodded. Miss Sadie was preaching him a fine sermon without even knowing it. It was splendid to have the shoe on the other foot for a change.

“After we ate, Angelo wanted to lie down in the grass and sleep, and he told Leon to watch after Sadie. Leon always did what his father told him, and so we ran down the hill lickety-split and what did we find? An old orchard!

“I had never seen an old orchard before. Our trees were very small and new, and our orchard floor was raked as clean as a parlor.

“On this orchard floor, there were apples everywhere, a whole carpet of apples, and butterflies by the dozens—you could hardly see the grass! And the smell, Father! It was a perfume I’ve never forgotten.”

She shook her head slowly. “I forget what sweet memories come flooding out if only we open the tap.”

He kicked off his loafers, contented.

“Leon chased after a butterfly, and a little further down the hill, I spied an old tree just hanging full of red apples. They were different from those in the orchard, and they looked much redder and sweeter.

“I took off running toward that tree—then, all of a sudden, I started falling and everything went black as ink.

“I had stepped into an old well—the boards over it were rotten and soft as marrow. One minute, I was in an orchard with the sun shining and my heart beating for joy, and the next minute ...”

“Very much like life in general,” he said.

“I was stuffed in there like pimento in an olive. I fell with one leg down and one knee bent against my chest, and there was so much pain I thought I would die. I must have passed out, and when I came to, I was cold. Even though the sun was shining, I was freezing cold.

“I tried to call Leon, but my knee was so tight against my chest, and the pain was so horrible, I could only whisper. Whisper! Who could hear a whisper in a great big orchard on a great big hill?

“I heard Leon calling me. ‘Sadie! Sadie!’ There was real desperation in his voice because he couldn’t find the English words he needed. He called for a long time and finally shouted, ‘I like garden peas! Sadie, I like garden peas!’

“Oh, Father, I was so miserable. I wanted to die and get it over with. In a while, I heard Angelo calling too. Their voices would come close, then go far away, and I couldn’t move. My arms had gone numb, one leg was completely numb, and I felt like a cube of ice.

“Then the voices stopped, and I felt so alone, and it started raining.

“Believe me,
The Book of Common Prayer
was just words on a page ’til I fell in that hole. You’ve heard of foxhole religion? I got well-hole religion, and I thank the Lord for it, to this day.

“I’d said ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’ and ’Our Father who art in Heaven’ and ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ a thousand times. But I’d never once prayed a prayer of my own until then.

“I believe that’s when God first started speaking to my heart—the very day I started speaking to His!

“It rained and rained and rained some more. Over the years, the hole had filled with dirt and runoff, but it was still a long way to the bottom. I was stuck about six feet down, and if something didn’t happen soon, I knew I’d be six feet under.

“I remember hearing Papa call me, over and over. I would go to sleep, I think, and wake up crying. It was so hard to breathe. It was so horrible I can never express it to you.

“I found out later that the rain had washed away my scent, and the dogs from town couldn’t track me. They let them loose, but they just ran every which way and came back to where they started and lay down.