When Father Urban arrived back at St Monica’s, as he did about 3:30 P.M. the next day, he saw Monsignor Renton’s black car parked in front of the rectory and hurried inside. Monsignor Renton wasn’t there, though. (“He must be in the church,” said Mrs Burns.) When Monsignor Renton entered the rectory, Father Urban was on the phone. “That was the Chancery,” he said, after hanging up. “I suppose you’ve heard the bad news.” Father Udovic, come Monday, would be pastor of St Monica’s.
Monsignor Renton sighed and said, “It may not be permanent.”
“Let’s hope not,” said Father Urban. Until a moment ago, until he’d asked who the new chancellor of the diocese would be, he’d had no particular reason to dislike Father Udovic. “Nobody,” Father Udovic had replied, “I’ll have two jobs. It shouldn’t be so hard.” Father Urban, feeling that the importance of the job that had been his in everything but name for so many weeks was being grossly underestimated, had let the man know what might be regarded as the lesser of his two labors: “No, I suppose not — not in a diocese like this.”
“Rather see it go to Cox or Box,” said Monsignor Renton, which showed how he felt about the appointment — and perhaps that he did regard it as permanent. “I thought the idea was for you to stay on here until ordinations in June, but something must have happened to that. You didn’t ask to be relieved, did you?”
“No,” said Father Urban, feeling, though, that he was responsible for Father Udovic’s appointment, and would be so judged if Monsignor Renton ever found out about the interview with the Bishop.
“Dear James should have his head examined,” said Monsignor Renton.
“By the way, how’d you make out?” Father Urban asked. He was asking about the third horse in his three-horse parlay, Billy and Father Boniface being the first two, and both winners. It had been left to Monsignor Renton to approach the Bishop (whose approval was required for any expansion) in the matter of the golf course.
“It’s all set,” said Monsignor Renton.
Father Urban phoned Wilf and told him that all was well, and then he said to Monsignor Renton: “How about a drink, Red?”
Monsignor Renton was in a melancholy mood. “No,” he said.
“Don’t take it so hard, Red. How about a cigar?”
Monsignor Renton felt better after lighting up a Dunhill Monte Cristo Colorado Maduro No. 1—Father Urban had replenished his supply in Chicago. They fell to discussing the course, and got so worked up about it that they just had to have a look at the site. They jumped into the Imperial, Father Urban taking the wheel and racing against darkness. Mr Hanson and Rex were home, and the thin little woods looked the same to Father Urban, but it did seem to him that Mr Hanson and Rex were less friendly than before. “Is something wrong?” Father Urban asked.
“Yar,” said Mr Hanson. He said he wanted a few days to think over the deal. “I better talk to the other fellers.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Father Urban. After a bit, after exercising great patience, he got at the trouble. It wasn’t greed. No, while Father Urban was away in Chicago, Wilf had visited Mr Hanson. Citing the condition of the house and the barn, Wilf had asked Mr Hanson, in effect, to show cause why he shouldn’t throw in the dog.
“Then you’re taking Rex to California?” said Father Urban, noticing that Rex was following the conversation closely.
Mr Hanson shook his head.
“You’re not? Did you tell Father Wilfrid that?”
“I didn’t tell him nothing. I got to get my price.” Mr Hanson seemed to think that Wilf, by harping on the condition of the barn and house, had been trying to beat down the price.
“Will you throw in the dog?”
“Yar.”
“It’s a deal,” said Father Urban. He asked Mr Hanson to meet him at a bank in Great Plains the next morning, and wrote down the name of the bank. “Rex’ll have a good home, Mr Hanson.”
“Yar, O.K.”
That evening Father Urban paid a call on one of the bank’s vice presidents, on the George whose virus he’d asked about earlier in the week. Father Urban had a check from Billy — a check for enough to purchase the land, to pay for building and furnishing the course, and more (“While you’re at it, why don’t you buy yourself a decent rowboat?”), but it was a personal check, made out to Father Urban, and that was where George came in. Father Urban and George worked it all out, while Marge, George’s wife, served them coffee. George’s bank would stand back of the sum to go to Mr Hanson until Billy’s check cleared, and thereafter St Clement’s Hill would do business with George’s bank. This was a big step up. Until then, there having being nothing much to put in a bank, Wilf had run the whole operation out of his shoe, paying bills by postal money order.
The next morning Father Urban and Mr Hanson met at the bank. Mr Hanson, after signing the necessary documents, was given a certified check, and thus he got his price, and his land and dog became the property of the Order of St Clement. Father Urban called up Wilf to tell him the good news.
“I’ve always admired that Rex,” said Wilf.
“Yes, I know,” said Father Urban.
“Guess what?” said Wilf.
“What?”
“Some guys in town, here, were after that property. Wanted it for summer cottages.”
“You don’t say.”
“I just got wind of it. That wouldn’t have been so good for us, you know. Loss of privacy. And guess who one of ’em was.”
“Who?”
“Wacker at the station.”
10. TWENTY-FOUR HOURS IN A STRANGE DIOCESE
EARLY IN APRIL, as stump removal began, the sound of dynamiting echoed over the land, two farmers who understood such things doing the job, with Father Urban, Wilf, Rex, and, sometimes, retreatants moving from eminence to eminence, away from the noise and flying debris. The open craters, some to be transformed into sand traps, awaited the coming of Mr Robertson. He came with a young assistant, and the two of them spent three days laying out the course, using only steel tape, stakes and string, the naked eye, and binoculars. “She’ll be a little jewel in a few years,” Mr Robertson said, in departing. “But always remember a golf course is like a fancy woman — you have to take care of it.” “I’ll remember that,” said Father Urban, with a smile. “And don’t think you can cheat your course,” said Mr Robertson. “No,” said Father Urban. “Take care of your course,” said Mr Robertson, “and your course will take care of you.” “O.K.” “And it’d be nice if those boys I’m sending up”—Mr Robertson was sending up a couple of expert workmen to do the greens—“could get in some fishing while they’re here.” “We’ll see what we can do, Chub.” “And I’ll be up again, maybe in June.”
By June, the course was beginning to feel and smell right, sweet and right, especially on warm days after mowing. Two mowers, a big one for the fairways, a small one for the greens, had been purchased out of the fund established from Billy’s check in George’s bank, and the course was now playable except for the greens. The workmen who’d built these had come and gone long ago, but their craft — it was really an art — lived after them. Father Urban watched over the greens, saw to it that they were given their formula of fertilizer, were gently watered, mowed, and weeded — by young men in bare feet. First Father Urban employed Brother Harold (who’d reached the point in the chapel where he needed to get away from it and think, before going on) and later a few youngsters from among those now arriving in shifts from the Novitiate. By their willing labor, the fairways, too, were kept spick-and-span. When their holiday in the land of sky-blue waters ended, not a few of these lads expressed the hope that they’d be stationed at the Hill someday. Father Urban made a point of walking and talking with them all (they took it as a special treat when he joined their bull sessions), and he was not content with hero worship. He tried to breathe into them a quality that he could only hope and pray would take root and become the mark of them all — as, say, scholarliness is the mark of the Jesuit — for there was no use denying that the Clementines lacked distinction and distinctiveness, or persona. What Father Urban would have called this special something he was trying to impart to the young, he didn’t know, but he felt that he had succeeded here and there, and that the Order, to say nothing of St Clement’s Hill, would be a better place for those who’d come after him.