The Lace Makers of Glenmara - By Heather Barbieri Page 0,22
to anything.
“A thimble like that is meant to be used. The time will come. Perhaps sooner than you think.” He snapped the reins. “I have to push on if I’m to make the next village before nightfall. But I’ll be back on market day to see how you’re coming along.”
“Soon, then.” She waved until he crested the next rise and was gone.
Kate had to summon the energy to make the day’s final delivery. She coasted along the road to the church. Apparently the local priest was a subscriber to the Gaelic Voice. As she approached, Kate thought she saw movement in the cottage next to the chapel, a shadow in the window by the door. No one came out to greet her, but she was sure she was being watched.
She had mixed feelings about her faith. She prayed every night, out of habit, and because some small part of her still believed. She hadn’t gone to mass in a long time, keeping her faith, such as it was, in her own way. She wondered if the priest was as conservative as people said. “Hello?” she called.
There was no answer, not that she expected one. God worked in mysterious ways, if he worked at all, sometimes the men who served him more so. What good had prayers done her mother? What good had faith? Kate still hadn’t made sense of it. Maybe she never would.
She tossed the newsletter up the walk. The rolled bundle hit the door and landed on the porch next to a pot of purple pansies. The door opened partway, and the stern-faced priest appeared at the entrance. He wasn’t a particularly large man, but his expression was formidable, his features set in such a way that suggested he rarely, if ever, smiled.
“You aren’t Bernadette,” he observed, his eyes an overcast gray.
“No. I’m Kate. Kate Robinson. I came into town Saturday night—” She couldn’t complete the sentence. He was the sort of person who could make you feel as if you’d done something wrong just by looking at you.
“I am Father Byrne,” he said, adding, “I didn’t see you at mass Sunday morning.”
Mass. Yes, she’d overslept, branding herself a heathen. Was excessive slumber a cardinal sin? Bernie had gone to the service while she’d been in bed. Not that Kate would have attended anyway. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been inside a church, not that she’d tell him that. Next he’d be asking her when she made her last confession.
“What brings you to Glenmara?” He didn’t advance beyond the threshold. Didn’t offer his hand or name. He stood as if he had a metal rod in his spine, she below him on the path, holding the bike by the handlebars, wishing to be gone, but not wanting to be rude.
“I’m traveling,” she said.
Such a statement usually prompted questions about where she was from, where she’d been. Not from him. “Traveling,” he repeated, turning the word over in his mind like a stone on a beach, searching for what lay beneath. “And somehow you ended up here.”
“I did.” She felt as if she were being cross-examined, damning herself with everything she said.
“There’s little in the way of public transport in the area,” he said. “How did you arrive?”
“On a traveler’s wagon.” She decided it would be best to keep her answers short, in keeping with the brevity of his remarks. She sensed he’d already formed an opinion of her—and that it wasn’t good. Maybe it was her slightly disheveled appearance from the fall she’d taken. She tugged the hem of her skirt, pushed her hair out of her face, to little effect.
“Indeed,” he said, taciturn as ever.
“His name is William. Perhaps you know him?” She was annoyed for letting herself be cowed by him, yet felt helpless to change the dynamic between them. He’d made up his mind about her—and a keen, unbending mind it was.
“No, I don’t. He isn’t one of my parishioners.” He squinted at her. “I surmise that this traveling doesn’t involve attending mass. Or perhaps you’re not Catholic?”
The sky was a brilliant sort of gray that afternoon, the kind backed with steel, matching the priest’s eyes, as if heaven itself were frowning on her. “I slept in—I’d been on the road for so many days—”
“Yes, I suppose you were.”
She shivered.
“Our climate takes some getting accustomed to,” he said. He did not invite her inside.
“I come from Seattle. I’m used to the rain,” she offered with a smile, trying to charm him.