In Tom's view, Faith and Hope were somehow exceptions. No other children had ever been raised there.
Another thing Tom was firm about was not using any of Faith's trust fund. He considered that it was for Faith's future (read lonely old age, widowed at ninety) and the children's. It wasn't that Tom didn't like money and what it could buy. He was as pleasantly hedonistic as the next parson—or lawyer or firefighter or anyone else. And he was happy for Faith to work and bring home "beaucoup de bacon." A sophomore year in France had left him fluent, permanently in love with the country, and prone to such expressions.
Faith agreed with him about the money—up to a point. She had replaced what she had initially withdrawn with Have Faith 's profits and was happy to have the fund merrily accumulating "beaucoup de interest.”
As for the trust, she decided to let the matter lie for the time being. Certainly they would educate their children well and then the darlings were on their own.
She had no intention of a frugal old age trying to make ends meet on a parish pension when her arms were no longer capable of beating egg whites in her copper bowl. The trust fund could make those golden years a little more golden, preferably somewhere sunny like Provence. But it was not something that concerned her now. She figured she had years ahead to convince Tom.
Meanwhile the only exception she was quite firm about was clothes. Faith could not see herself in Filene 's Basement beating other women over the heads for a skirt from Saks that no one had wanted to buy in the first place ; nor was she about to plug in a Singer and start running up tea gowns. No, she would pay for her own clothes and Tom, blissfully ignorant of what a little black dress cost these days, gracefully acceded. She would also be allowed to give him an occasional present, and it was her fervent hope to wean him away from Brooks and a little closer to Armani. Tom was heir to the Yankee pride in the longevity of one's wardrobe. He would gleefully point out articles of clothing from days gone by that Faith would have donated to charity years ago.
Now more than a year and a half later as the Tavern on the Green faded into the grass of the village green, she had Tom. And she had a baby.
Said baby wriggled against her and she felt inexplicably happy. So I'll get the business going again and meanwhile what better way to spend one's time than sitting with this lovely little brown-eyed bundle, she told herself.
Faith had reached the end of her journey and turned to enter the belfry. The doorway was low and she had to duck slightly. Sitting down, she reached into her pocket for the sandwich and .put it on the bench beside her, while she started to unloosen the straps of the Snugli. That was when she realized she wasn't alone.
In the dim light inside, she had not noticed that the bench against the other wall was occupied. Whoever it was was awkwardly slumped over in sleep. Faith stood up to leave. She would eat outside. Benjamin could be waking up any moment and would no doubt disturb him or her. Benj was not an easy waker and protested the abruptness of the transition from sweet dreams to rude awakenings with a particularly lusty cry. She took a step closer to the other bench as she went out and all at once several things became abundantly clear.
First, it wasn't a stranger. It was Cindy Shepherd, a member of the parish and in fact, President of the Young People's Club.
Second, Benjamin wouldn 't disturb her. She was not sleeping. She was dead.
At least Faith assumed she was, since there was a kitchen knife sticking out of her motionless rib cage.
A kitchen knife that also impaled a single pink rose.
Having taken in all these details with the precision of a slow-motion camera, Faith suddenly covered Benjamin 's already closed eyes with her hand while she moved quickly to the center of the belfry.
A murder had occurred and that meant a murderer. There was only one thing to do.
Faith grabbed the bell rope, pulled with all her might, and sounded the alarum.
2
In the days that followed, the actual murder itself was almost eclipsed by the debate that raged within the town over whether Faith should have rung the bell or not. Leading the group that opposed the action was Millicent Revere McKinley, great-great-great-granddaughter of a distant cousin of Paul Revere. It was this progenitor, Ezekiel Revere, who had cast the original bell.
“I don't know what Grandfather would have said," Millicent remarked in a slightly sad but firm tone that went straight to the hearts of many of her listeners—in the post office, the library, the checkout line at the Shop and Save. Wherever she could gather a crowd. Faith grew accustomed to dead silence and slightly guilty smiles when she entered these places.
Millicent wasn 't smiling, though. It was her belief that Faith could have run down the hill as quickly as possible and then screamed loudly. Millicent did grudgingly admit that screaming from the top of the hill, however therapeutic, would have been useless.
After the grandfather line, she would generally add, " It's just not going to be the same on Patriot's Day when we sound the real alarm," and drift out of whatever public site she happened to be in toward home.
Best actress in a supporting role, Faith thought bitterly.
This was not Millicent's first foray into local controversy. She was also the main and most impassioned supporter of a proposal, which surfaced at Town Meeting every year, to change the name of Aleford to Haleford. She averred that the H had been inexcusably obliterated by the mists of time and the town was actually named for a family with the illustrious name of Hale. The fact that she was not in the least related to them gave her campaign a disinterested sincerity—as she was quick to point out.
Opponents logically argued that the very earliest town documents recorded the name as Aleford and there was no question in this case of s's that looked like f 's to confuse the issue. The town was probably called Aleford because of a well-known and well-frequented tavern conveniently close to the best ford of a branch of the Concord River that ran through the town. Ezekiel himself may have hoisted a few at said hostelry.
Any suggestion of this was enough to make Millicent see red, white, and blue. A member of the cold water army from birth, she scorned the base suggestion that either grandfather or the town had anything to do with ale. And so the battle raged.
Tom and Faith privately sided with the Aleford contingent as opposed to the Halefordians, and wished thatthe tavern hadn't burned down one particularly boisterous night. Millicent and friends had managed to prevent the licensing of any others. There was no Ye Olde Groggery in town. If you wanted a drink, you had to go to Byford, the next town. So called because it was near yet another ford, not as Millicent might have contended because of an ancient family named By. More familiarly it was known to some Aleford inhabitants as the Packy Run.
The question of the bell promised to be as engrossing as the Haleford/Aleford issue, and Millicent, or "Thoroughly Militant Millie" as she had been irreverently tagged, certainly must have felt just a tiny bit grateful to Faith in an unexplored corner of her heart.
For the bell had certainly been rung—furiously, conclusively, and with all the strength Faith could muster from arms that felt like limp strands of pasta. This done, she had raced down the path, literally colliding with the town police chief, Charley MacIsaac, several of his men, and almost everyone else within hearing distance. It was pretty hard to stop on Belfry Hill's sharp incline once you got going.