Searching for Caleb

She led them across sculptured blue carpeting into the living room, where Christ gazed out of gilt frames on every wall. Most of the furniture seemed to come in twos-two identical tables flanking the sofa, two beaded lamps, two ice-blue satin easy chairs with skirted ottomans. On the spinet piano in the corner there were two framed photographs, one of Arthur in a clerical robe and the other of Meg with some sort of shiny drapery across her bare shoulders-but so retouched, so flawlessly complexioned, her hair so lacquered, that it took Justine a moment to recognize her. Besides, what right did some unknown woman have to set Meg's photo in her living room? Justine picked it up and studied it. Meg said, "Oh, that's my-that's just the picture we put in the paper when we-" She snatched the photo away and set it down. "I'll get Mother Milsom," she said.

Justine sought out Duncan, who was slouched on the sofa leafing through a Lady's Circle. His feet, in enormous grease-spattered desert boots, were resting on the coffee table. "Duncan!" she said, slapping his knee. He looked up and then moved his feet carefully, picking his way between china rabbits and birds, candles shaped like angels, a nativity scene in a seashell and a green glass shoe full of sourballs. Justine let out a long breath and settled down beside him. Across the room, her grandfather paced the carpet with his hands clasped behind his back. He did not like to sit when he would have to struggle up again so soon for the entrance of a lady. He paused before first one Christ and then another, peering closely at a series of melancholy brown eyes and lily-white necks.

"Religious art in the living room?" he said.

"Ssh," Justine told him.

"But I was always taught that that was in poor taste," he said. "Unless it was an original."

"Grandfather."

She looked at the door where Meg had disappeared. There was no telling how much could be heard. "Grandfather," she said, "wouldn't you like to-"

"They've got him in the dining room too," said Duncan, peering through the other doorway. "Praying in the garden."

"Oh, Duncan, what do you care? When did you ever give a thought to interior decorating?"

He frowned at her. "So you're going to take their side," he said.

"I didn't know there were sides."

"How's that?" asked her grandfather.

"Duncan thinks I'm defecting."

"Hmm?"

"Defecting."

"Nonsense," said her grandfather. "You're as smart as anybody."

Duncan laughed. Justine turned on him. "Duncan," she said, "I certainly hope you're not going to go into one of your silly fits here. Duncan, I mean this. For Meg's sake, now, can't we just try to-"

But then whispery footsteps crossed the carpet, and a lady in white entered the room with Meg just behind her. "Mother Milsom, I'd like you to meet my mother," Meg said. "And my father, and my greatgrandfather Peck." Meg's face was stem and her forehead was tweaked together in the center; she was warning her family not to disgrace her. So Duncan rose to his full height, keeping one thumb in his magazine, while the grandfather touched his temple and Justine stood up and held out her hand, Mrs.

Milsom's fingers felt like damp spaghetti. She was a long, wilted lady with light-brown hair parted in the center and crimped tight to her head, a pale tragic face, eyes as black and precisely lidded as a playing-card queen's. Her dress, which was made of something crepey, hung limp over her flat chest, billowed hollowly at the waist and wrists, and dripped in layers to her skinny sharp legs. She wore pointed silver pumps from the Sixties. When she smiled her eyes remained wide and lusterless, as if she were keeping in mind some secret sorrow. "So finally we meet," she said.

"We would have come before but Duncan was buying Prince Albert tins,"

Justine told her. Nervousness always did make her talk too much.

"I understand. Won't you be seated? Margaret, darling, would you care to serve the iced tea?"

Meg looked at her mother. Then she left the room. Mrs. Milsom floated slowly downward into one of the satin chairs, parts of her appearing to settle whole minutes after other parts. She laid her hands delicately together. "Arthur I hope will be joining us shortly," she said. "At the moment he's napping."

"Arthur naps?" said Duncan.

"It's a fourth Sunday. His day to preach. Preaching takes so much out of him. Naturally we had been hoping that you would be here in time to hear his sermon, but apparently things did not fall out that way." She gave Justine a deep, mournful look.

"Oh well-" said Justine. They would have come for the sermon, even Duncan-anything for Meg-but Meg had specifically told them not to arrive till after lunch.

"Generally on fourth Sundays he awakes with a headache," said Mrs.

Milsom, "and sustains it during the entire service and even afterward, until he admits that I am right and takes to his bed. He suffers real pain. This is not some ordinary headache."

"Maybe he should switch to fifth Sundays," Duncan said. "Sixth, even."

Justine shot him a look.