In this, as in so much, Cardinal Kneeland’s faith was stronger that his own.
Determined to be better prepared for a return visit to the artist, two days ago he had walked over to the Port Fortune Museum of Art to familiarize himself with Will’s work, something it occurred to him he should have done sooner. The museum, a two-story Greek Revival, had been donated to the art association by the heirs of its original owners. Inside, the walls were filled with work he found somewhat predictable: oversized canvases of seascapes at sunrise, landscapes captured at sunset, smaller oils of pink roses draped over white fences, pastels of peonies in full bloom. A docent directed him to the second floor, where two rooms were dedicated entirely to Will Light’s work, the majority of which were portraits. They’d struck Father Gervase as Vermeer-like in composition. A teenage girl behind the counter of a coffee shop. A child crouching at water’s edge, surf sucking at her feet. A young fisherman in yellow oilskins, on loan from the permanent collection of a Boston museum. An older fisherman sitting on a barrel by a shack mending nets. A woman seated at a vanity, her image reflected in the mirror. Another painting of the same woman looking through a window out to the sea, her face drawn with sorrow. After he had seen the entire exhibit, he circled the galleries again, going slowly from room to room, this time looking more closely at each painting. Shadows reflected on foreheads and cheeks; soft smudges of vermilion furred edges; clear, translucent glazes from morning light filtered through clouds and raked flesh once vibrant as embers, now captured with mineral earth and linseed oil. He returned to the old fisherman, the child at the seashore, a young boy crossing a meadow captured on the cusp of manhood, the woman at her dressing table. Exact moments held in time—a morning light, a constant gaze, a flushed life—caught by a deft hand. As he studied the portraits he saw they had, at first glance, a quiet, contemplative focus, but there was also incorporated in each a second layer of suggestion and a meaning beyond the obvious. He could now understand fully why, beyond the artist’s fame, the archbishop was set on having Will accept the commission to paint the mural of the saints.
Movement at the periphery of his vision pulled Father Gervase from his reverie, and his eyes widened. As if his preoccupation with the artist contained a conjuring power, the priest saw standing at the edge of the garden Will Light. His heartbeat quickened and with it the knowledge that he was not as afraid of failing the cardinal as he was of failing Will. Well, no time now for a quick retreat, and he vowed to do better, to reach out and . . . What? Save? No, that was not yet in his mind. To help.
CHAPTER TEN
Just as I entered the garden the little priest looked up and caught sight of me, and the moment for a quick retreat escaped.
I’d planned on dropping the book at the rectory office, but it was after five by the time I arrived and the door was locked, staff departed for the day. In search of someone else to take the goddamn book off my hands, I’d wandered into the garden, where I ran into the priest.
“Will Light,” Father Gervase said and started to rise.
I motioned for him to sit. “No need to get up, Father. I won’t disturb you further.”
“Not at all,” the priest said, standing. “Not at all. I was just enjoying a few minutes in the garden. Glad to have you join me. You know what they say about pleasant moments.”
“What’s that?” The priest was even smaller than I remembered. And frailer.
“Pleasure shared is pleasure doubled.”
“Yes, well, I can’t stay. I just—”
“Is Sophia with you?”
I knew Sophie often stopped by to sit in the garden or the chapel at the end of a long day and that more than once she’d sought the priest’s counsel. If he didn’t know, I wasn’t about to tell him about Sophie’s move into a rented condo. “No, she’s having dinner with a friend.”
“Well, please tell her I continue to hold you both in my thoughts and prayers.”
“I’ll do that, Father.”
A silence stretched on so long it verged on awkward before the priest broke it. “You know, Will, it’s rather amazing that you came along just now. Rather amazing.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“I was just thinking about you, and then I look up and here you are.”
I managed a noncommittal shrug.
“Now some people would say that this is nothing more than coincidence. Happenstance.”
“Yes, well—”
The priest removed his glasses, held them at arm’s length, and checked the lenses. “But there are others who believe there is no such thing as coincidence.” He lifted his gaze from the glasses to me. “They believe that everything is connected and that these connections—what we call coincidences—are meaningful signals from the universe.”
“I guess that’s not something I think about much.” I wanted to get rid of the goddamn book, not be drawn into some inane discussion about coincidence. And my head still ached from the hangover.
“Oh, I’ve always been interested in these things.” Father Gervase slid his hand into his pants pocket and withdrew a soft green square of something that looked like silk. “You know what I mean. In astonishing occurrences of synchronicity that defy explanation.”
“Hmmm, well—”
“I remember reading of one story in particular. A story of identical twins who had been separated at birth and adopted by different families.” He polished the lenses with the cloth, attentive to the task until, satisfied, he returned the green square to his pocket and put the glasses back on, fitting one earpiece at a time behind each ear. “Amazing tale, really,” he said. “It was about two boys, separated at birth by adoption. They grew up to marry women with the same first name, who both gave birth to boys on the same day and named their sons the same name. Now that’s a coincidence that challenges belief.”
“This chance meeting hardly rises to that level, Father.”
“Perhaps not.” The priest reached out and absently stroked a fern. “Perhaps not. Still, I’ve read this interesting fact somewhere—” He looked up as if searching for an answer in the branches arcing above the bench. “Now where was it?”
I shifted the book from one hand to the other. “Listen, Father, I just wanted to—”
Father Gervase’s gaze again landed on me. “Well, I don’t remember where I read it, probably not important. The thing is, according to the article, and I’m probably not getting it exactly right, but the gist is that scientists believe we are hardwired to connect anomalies in meaningful ways. You see? The mind wants, even needs, to make these causal connections.”
I remembered too late the priest’s inclination toward conversational sidetracks. “No. No, I didn’t know that.”