After that, Father Urban and Monsignor Renton drove over to the Hill. “Busy, Father?” Wilf was in his office.
“Oh, I guess there’s nothing that won’t keep. Oh hello, Monsignor. I didn’t see you.”
Presently, Father Urban told Wilf what was on his mind.
“My God!” cried Wilf, but he wanted to hear more.
Later that afternoon, alone in the upper room at St Monica’s, Father Urban made himself a scotch highball, carried it to the little secretary desk, sat down, and took out several sheets of paper. For some time, he fingered the letter opener, which was like a little sword, and then, suddenly, he put it aside, took pen in hand, and wrote, “Dear Billy:”
Billy phoned the next day, about noon, from the railroad station in—Where? You’re kidding! Father Urban had sent Billy a very long wire at straight rates, but he hadn’t asked, or even hoped, for anything like this. “O.K., I’ll be right down to get you,” he said, and then, before he left the rectory, he rang up Monsignor Renton. “Great, good news, Monsignor!”
They met at the station, Father Urban, Monsignor Renton, Billy, and a Mr Robertson. Billy and Mr Robertson had taken the Blackhawk up from Chicago (“I’m not knocking it, but it used to be a better train”), and they’d made connections at St Paul that morning with the Voyageur (“Don’t knock it, Monsignor”). Monsignor Renton took them to lunch in the Greenwich Village Room (“Best we can do, I’m afraid”—“Don’t knock it, Monsignor”), and after a pretty fair meal, they drove out to Mr Hanson’s, Billy and Father Urban in the Plymouth, Mr Robertson and Monsignor Renton in the latter’s Imperial.
Mr. Hanson and the truck were elsewhere, but Rex showed the party around the farm. Most of the time they walked in silence, Mr Robertson occasionally raising small binoculars to his eyes. When they were back where they’d started from a half hour before, Billy said:
“Well?”
Mr Robertson gave the frozen ground, which he’d been eyeing from all angles, from close up and afar, one last kick, and said:
“I don’t see why not.”
“Let’s make it a standout course,” said Billy.
As they were getting into the cars, Monsignor Renton now alone in his, Rex spoke to them, and a moment later Mr Hanson and the truck appeared.
Billy, who had been told about Father Urban’s accident, said to Mr Hanson: “Paid that bill yet — that collision bill?”
“Yar, I got to pay it,” said Mr Hanson.
“Yar,” said Rex to Monsignor Renton.
“Don’t pay it,” Billy said.
“Yar, I got to pay it.”
“Don’t pay it,” Billy said, “and consider this place sold.”
“Yar, I got to pay it and I got to get my price,” said Mr Hanson.
“Help,” said Billy, and walked toward the car.
Father Urban took Mr Hanson aside and explained the nature of the deal to him. “We’ll pay your price and we’ll pay the bill from Cal’s Body Shop.” When Mr Hanson had got it straight, he was much taken with the idea of not paying the bill, and, of course, he was pleased to know that he’d be getting his price. Father Urban asked Mr Hanson, in a nice way, not to cut any more timber off the land, if he didn’t mind, for it seemed to Father Urban that there were fewer birches than he remembered in the thin little woods.
“Yar, O.K.,” said Mr Hanson, and, instructed by Father Urban, fetched Cal’s bill from the house.
Father Urban started to put the bill in his pocket.
“I’ll take that,” said Billy, from the car.
Monsignor Renton headed back to Great Plains, and Father Urban drove Billy and Mr Robertson to the Hill where he introduced them to Wilf. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr Cosgrove,” said Wilf, and offered to show Billy and Mr Robertson around. “This, of course, is the office.” And thus another tour got under way. It moved down the corridor to the refectory (“Mr Cosgrove, you have no idea how much we’ve enjoyed the set, and I trust you got my letter to that effect”) and then to the kitchen (“Electric mixer”) and then to the chapel, but there Father Urban remained on his knees and left the tour — recalling the one he’d taken in November.
The place was in better shape than it had been then. At the moment, there were a half-dozen retreatants in residence, not bad for the middle of the week. The absence of retreatants, in days past, had been one of the weak points in Wilf’s tours. Physically, too, the place was in better shape now. Still too many rocking chairs around, but the Rec Room now had four easy chairs (including the one that had been on loan to Father Urban), Parlors A and B had been redone (and renamed St Thomas Aquinas and SS. Cyril and Methodius), there was color TV in the refectory, there was a sacristy off the chapel, there were fresh new signs posted throughout the house, and the driveway was now designated as “one way.” And something, it appeared, was going to happen in the chapel.
Rising from his knees, Father Urban visited with Jack and Brother Harold, who had come in carrying a ladder. They were preparing for the morrow, they told Father Urban. Then, and there, in the chapel, after months of apprenticeship and weeks of planning, Brother Harold was to have his big chance as a sacred artist. Father Urban, glancing at the cartoons the artist had made, was relieved that Billy hadn’t seen them. “They’re not representational in the photographic sense,” said Brother Harold of some of his figures. “So I see,” said Father Urban. And still, he thought, once you accepted the idea that the chapel would be “contemporary” (to the extent that paint could counteract such evidences to the contrary as the pews and the altar), maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. “How’s it going, Jack?”
“I can’t complain,” Jack said.
Father Urban went to Wilf’s office and made a few telephone calls, mostly to pass the time of day. “No, nothing special, George. I happened to be thinking of you. How’s that virus? Good. And Marge? Good. No, I’m at the Hill. At the moment, yes. Nothing much, but I may have something to tell you in a few days. Good. ’Bye, George.”
“Say,” said Wilf, entering the office when the tour had ended. “If you can get away from St Monica’s for a couple of days, I think you’d better go down to Chicago. I’d go myself, but I can’t spare the time. Anyway, you’re the logical choice to put this thing over with Father Boniface and the others.”
“Whatever you say,” Father Urban said. “If I’m back for confessions on Saturday, it’ll be O.K.”
“I’m only sorry our guests won’t stay and eat here this evening. I believe it’s northern pike.”
“Don’t tempt us,” said Billy. His plan, though, called for them to be on their way. They had to catch the Empire Builder on which he’d reserved a suite (so Father Urban needn’t worry about space), and they’d rent a car in Great Plains, or take a taxi to the train.
Billy wasn’t kidding, Father Urban realized, though it would be a ninety-mile fare from Great Plains to the Empire Builder’s nearest stop. “No, we’ll take my car. I’ll pick it up on the way back,” said Father Urban.
After the guests had sampled the water, they said good-bye to Wilf and the Hill, and Father Urban drove them to St Monica’s. There he packed his bag and arranged for Johnny Chumley to borrow a parishioner’s second car. The next thing they knew, after a couple of drinks in the upper room, it was time to eat. They decided they couldn’t do better than the Greenwich Village Room. During dinner, and for almost two hours afterward, going from Drambuies to scotches again, they talked golf.
The fairways at the Hill would be shaggy for the first year or two, Mr Robertson said, but the soil would be ideal for growing grass. Most of the area to be used was already in acceptable grass. Stump clearance could begin at once, reseeding and rolling very soon. The greens had to be constructed from the bottom up, since they had to retain moisture as well as drain water, and they would be topped from sod. If all went well, they’d be playable by early summer. If Father Urban should ever want to expand the course to eighteen holes, or even to thirty-six, the land would always be there.