In the Still of the Night

Read In the Still of the Night for Free Online Page A

Book: Read In the Still of the Night for Free Online
Authors: Dorothy Salisbury Davis
asking you to come and see the work in progress.” They were standing beneath the scaffolding, before the mural of the crucifixion, the figures life-size. The garments and much of the background had been vividly repainted, so that the unfinished hands, feet and faces were pale and strangely ghost-like; the heads put her in mind of executioner’s hoods. “You don’t think the colors are too gaudy?” the old man ventured.
    “Monsignor, shall I speak frankly?”
    “Would I ask you otherwise?”
    “You’ve put the restoration into the hands of a man the museum recommended. He’s far more competent than I am.” Kate was several notches above amateur status, but she was keenly aware that if it weren’t for her husband’s patronage, his financial influence, her standing in the art world wouldn’t be much above that of a dilettante. Furthermore, she suspected the monsignor knew it as well as she did. He was courting favor with Martin. But to give him the benefit of the doubt, she said, “We’ve got to remember the restorer is working toward the original colors, not the faded pictures we’ve grown used to.”
    “You must be right. I only know what I like and I like what I’m used to. I’ll get accustomed to this if I live long enough—and if I’m not shipped out.”
    “They wouldn’t dare,” Kate said.
    “Wouldn’t they now? Just watch in the next months. It will be me or Father Morrissey. I’ll go to pasture, but they have their eye on him as a comer. And it’s time. These young priests now—not that he’s a youngster—but he goes along with the new generation: to them the priesthood is a profession, not a divine calling.”
    Kate murmured something. Her lips had gone dry. Her heart had gone dry. Not that she and Dan were unaware of the possibility of his being transferred. She sometimes thought Dan prayed for it, since he still prayed. Or so he said. Now and then they assured one another that they had no guilt, as though it were not bred in their bones. A parish of his own, what he had always wanted before his collision with her. Now it would be a kind of solution, however desperately she dreaded it. She waited while the monsignor stepped carefully over the drop sheets and turned off the floodlights.
    “We’ll go bankrupt keeping him in light,” the monsignor said, returning to her side. “But I don’t suppose Michelangelo was bargain basement either.”
    “I’d better get back and relieve Father Morrissey,” Kate said.
    “Did you ever meet Melodosi?” the monsignor asked, staying the course of his own thoughts. “It’s funny. I thought you knew him, too.”
    Kate waited for him to let her go, giving no sign of her impatience. The light of day had all but disappeared in the November twilight, the color of the stained glass high in the chancel window all but vanished. A stooped, shuffling, white-haired old man was silhouetted against the glow of many votive lights as he approached the statue of Virgin and child. He selected a taper and lit yet another candle among the glowing bank of them. The monsignor detained her, watching the petitioner. Kate could not remember having ever lighted a candle in church. It was a practice belonging to an earlier time than hers, or to a different class of people of whom, for some undefined reason, she felt envious at the moment.
    The monsignor cleared his throat and a few seconds later a series of noisy clangs reverberated through the church as the petitioner dropped coins into the metal box.
    The monsignor chortled quietly. “There’ll be a few pesos in that lot,” he whispered. Then: “Kneel down and I’ll give you my blessing.”
    Kate went down on one knee and made the sign of the cross in unison with his.
    The monsignor left her at the door to the passageway between church and school, and went on himself to the vestry and office, passing behind the main altar.
    She felt choked, as though something in her chest was blocked. She sucked in the dead air

Similar Books

Beyond Justice

Joshua Graham

Wicked Obsessions

Marilyn Campbell

The Chocolate Run

Dorothy Koomson

Curse Of Wexkia

Dale Furse

Date Rape New York

Janet McGiffin