Free Wishful Seeing by Janet Kellough Page A

deliver them into the arms of full membership. He made a point of greeting each person warmly. Honestly, he thought, he had enough sinners and backsliders to keep him more than busy. He needn’t go looking for trouble with the Howells when he had so much work right in front of him.
    Still, after the meeting was completed and he made his way to the Gordons for his dinner, he resolved to ask about the bruise if the opportunity should arise.
    It was a long time coming. The table talk over dinner was all about Jack Plews and the railway. According to Old Mrs. Gordon, half of her neighbours were annoyed with Plews for instigating the lawsuit and the other half with George Howell for sharp practice in the first place.
    â€œEveryone’s afraid the dispute may delay the completion of the line,” she said. “They can see all the money flying away.”
    â€œSurely it won’t come to that?” Thaddeus said.
    â€œOh no, I expect the railway company will just make good on the difference in price,” Leland Gordon said. “But they’ll do it with investor money. In the end, it’s the shareholders who will pay.”
    â€œIn the end it’s always the people who pay,” Old Mrs. Gordon pointed out, and Thaddeus could think of no argument to counter this, but he was distressed that even here, in this remote village, all anyone could think of was how rich they were about to become.
    â€œI was at a meeting in Port Britain last week,” Thaddeus said. “There was an old, old man there who claimed that Plews couldn’t have had title to the land in the first place. He said there was some problem that prevented his uncle from buying it years ago. Of course, the old fellow couldn’t remember which uncle it was, so nobody took his story very seriously.”
    â€œI don’t see how that could be,” Leland said. “Plews had been on the property for five or six years, and it had always been farmed before that. If there’s a problem, wouldn’t it have turned up before this?”
    â€œI’m not so sure it hasn’t,” Mrs. Gordon said. “There were some disputes here a few years ago.” She began to chuckle. “Well, maybe not so few. I forget how old I am sometimes. But I remember my father talking about one of them.” Her face creased into a thousand wrinkles while she tried to recall the details. “It might have been Margaret Dafoe’s family.” She turned to her son. “You remember Margaret. She married a Palmer.”
    Gordon shrugged a little. What was so clear in his mother’s memory had never registered with him. It’s the way of old age, I guess, Thaddeus thought. I must tell Martha to ignore me if I start talking about people she’s never heard of.
    â€œAny road,” Old Mrs. Gordon went on, “it must have been sorted out somehow, because I don’t remember hearing anything more about it.”
    â€œI don’t understand how you could get a mortgage on a piece of property you don’t own,” Thaddeus said. “There would be nothing to secure the loan.”
    â€œI expect you can if you get it from D’Arcy Boulton,” Mr. Gordon said darkly. “Let’s not forget who most likely engineered the whole purchase in the first place.”
    The talk turned then to the excellent turnout at the local meeting, and how Thaddeus’s fine showing during the debate had engendered so much interest in the church. It wasn’t until he was about to leave that he ventured to introduce the topic that remained uppermost in his mind.
    â€œI have something to ask you. It’s a bit of a delicate subject, and I don’t know if I’m speaking out of turn.”
    â€œOh, Mr. Lewis, I doubt you could ever speak out of turn,” Mrs. Gordon said. “Go ahead. Ask away.”
    â€œIt’s about Major Howell’s wife. I noticed a very nasty bruise on her arm the other