Out to Canaan

by Jan Karon

  “Stem to stern!” said Andrew, looking enthused.

  Two hours later, they were close to a deal.

  “The development firm has unfortunately asked for several of the finest pieces,” said Andrew. He referred to notes that he had hastily jotted as they toured the house.

  “Nonetheless, I’d be interested in the Federal loveseat in Miss Sadie’s bedroom, the Georgian chest of drawers in her dressing room, the three leather trunks in the attic, the chaise in the storage room, which I believe is Louis XIV, the English china dresser, and all the beds in the house, which are exceedingly fine walnut . . . now, let’s see . . . the six framed oils we discussed, which appear to be French . . . and the pine farm table in that wonderful kitchen! It must have been made by a local craftsman around the turn of the century.”

  “Anything else?” asked the rector, feeling like a traitor, a grave robber.

  “In truth, I’d like the dining room suite, but it’s Victorian, and I never fare well with Victorian. There are two chairs on the landing, however—I’m not certain of their origins, but they’re charming. I’ll have those chairs, into the bargain . . . and oh, yes, the contents of the linen drawers. I have a customer in Richmond who fancies brocade napery.”

  “Hardly used!” said Father Tim, knowing that Miss Sadie had certainly never trotted it out for him.

  Cynthia roamed around, sounding like a squirrel in the attic, as he went through the miserable ordeal of dismantling someone’s life, someone’s history.

  Miss Sadie’s long letter, which was delivered to him after her death, gave very clear instructions: “Do not offer anything for view at a yard sale, or let people pick over the remains. I know you will understand.”

  Was Andrew picking over the remains? He didn’t think so, he was being a four-square gentleman about the whole thing. Besides, something had to be done with the contents of twenty-one rooms and the detritus of nearly a century.

  “How about the silver hollowware?” asked the rector. He felt like Avis Packard who, after selling and bagging a dozen ears of corn, was trying to get rid of last week’s broccoli. “The, ah, flatware, perhaps?”

  “Well, and why not?” agreed Andrew, looking jaunty. “Who cares if it’s all monogrammed with B, I think I’ll have it for my own!”

  The rector drew a deep breath. This wasn’t so hard.

  “The rugs! How about the rugs?” After all, every cent he raised would go into the Hope House till . . . .

  Andrew smiled gently. “I don’t think Miss Sadie’s father did his homework on the rugs.” He jotted some more and offered a price that nearly floored the rector.

  “Done!” he exclaimed.

  Feeling vastly relieved, he shook Andrew’s hand with undeniable vigor.

  “While you and Andrew toured around like big shots, eyeing major pieces, I was burrowing into minor pieces. Look what I found!”

  His wife’s face was positively beaming.

  “An easel! Hand-carved! Isn’t it wonderful? And look at this—an ancient wooden box of watercolors, two whole compartments full! The cakes are dried and cracked, of course, but they’ll spring back to life in no time at all, with—guess what?—water!”

  He hadn’t seen Christmas make her so jubilant.

  “And look! A boxful of needlepoint chair covers, worked with roses and hydrangeas and pansies, in all my favorite colors! Perfect for our dining room! Oh, Timothy, how could we have neglected this treasure trove for a full year? It’s as if we stayed away from a gold mine, content with digging ore!”

  She held up a chair cover for him to admire.

  “Now it’s your turn to find something for yourself, like Miss Sadie asked you to do. She said ‘Take anything you like,’ those were her very words.”

  He stood frozen to the spot, suddenly feeling as if he’d burst into tears.

  Cynthia quietly put the chair cover down, and came to him and held him.

  He found it in the dimly lit attic.

  Though the box appeared to be of no special consequence, he felt drawn to it, somehow, and knelt to remove the lid and unwrap the heavy object within.

  The figure had the weight of a stone, but a certain lightness about its form, which rested on a sizeable chunk of marble.

  Back at the rectory, he set the bronze angel on the living room mantel and stood looking at it.

  It was enough. He wanted nothing more.

  “Mule! What have you got in a little rental house, maybe two bedrooms, something bright and sunny, something spacious and open—and oh, yes, low-maintenance, in a nice part of Mitford, maybe with a fireplace and a washing machine, not too much money, and—”

  “Hold it!” exclaimed Mule. “Are you kidding me? You’re talkin’ like a crazy person. Think about it. If I had anything like that, would it be available?”

  He thought about it. “Guess not,” he said.

  Cynthia’s interest was growing. “Let’s invite Pauline and Poo!”

  They sat in the kitchen, planning the dinner party while their own supper roasted in the oven.

  “Terrific idea. Louella, Pauline, Dooley, Poo, Harley, you, and me. Meat loaf for seven!”

  “Better make it for ten. Dooley has the appetite of a baseball team.”

  “Right! Ten, then.”

  “I’ll make lemonade and tea and bake a cobbler,” she said.

  “Deal.”

  “In the meantime, dearest, I’ve planned our retreat.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Next week, I’m taking you away for two days.”

  “But Cynthia, I can’t go away for two days. I have things to do.”

  “Darling, that’s exactly why I’m taking you away!”

  “But there’s an important vestry meeting, and—”

  “Poop on the vestry meeting. Since when does the rector have to attend every vestry meeting as if it were the Nicene Council?”

  “Cynthia, Cynthia . . .”

  “Timothy, Timothy. Let me remind you of all you’ve recently done—you’ve had three baptisms, a death at the hospital, you’re working on that project with the bishop which keeps you talking on the phone like schoolgirls, you do two services every Sunday, Holy Eucharist every Wednesday, not to mention your weekly Bible class. Plus—”

  “There’s no way—”

  “Plus your hospital visits every morning, and pulling together that huge thing for the mayor, and working on the benefit for the Children’s Hospital, and tearing down Betty’s shed—not to mention that on your birthday you made a wonderful evening for me!”

  She took a deep breath. “Plus—”

  Not that again. “But you see—”

  “Plus you still think you haven’t done enough.”

  What was enough? He’d never been able to figure it out.

  “Well, dearest, I can see you have no intention of listening to reason, so . . . I shall be forced do what women have been forced to do for millennia.”

  She marched around the kitchen table and thumped down in his lap. Then she mussed what was left of his hair and kissed him on the top of his head. Next she gave him a lingering kiss on the mouth, and unsnapped his collar, and whispered in his ear.

  He blushed. “OK,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  While Cynthia scraped and stacked the dishes, he sat in the kitchen, awaiting his cue to wash, and read the Muse.

  Violet was perched by the gloxinia, purring; Barnabas lay under the table, snoring.

  Four Convicted in Wesley Drug Burst

  He roared with laughter. This was one for his cousin Walter, all right! He got up and pulled the scissors from the kitchen drawer and clipped the story. Walter liked nothing better than a few choice headlines from the type fonts of J. C. Hogan.

  “Who discovered America?” He heard Lace Turner’s voice drifting up the stairs through the open basement door.

  “Christopher Columbus!” said Harley.

  “Who was America named for?”

  “Amerigo Vespucci!
Looks like it ought’ve been named f’r Mr. Columbus, don’t it? But see, that’s th’ way of th’ world, you discover somethin’ and they don’t even notice you f’r doin’ it.”

  Cynthia whispered, “She’s been coming over and teaching him for several nights, you’ve been too busy to notice.”

  “Who was th’ king of England when North Carolina became a royal colony?” Lace Turner sounded emphatic.

  “George th’ Second!”

  “When was th’ French and Indian War?”

  “Lord, Lace, as long as I’ve lived, ain’t never a soul come up t’ me and said, ‘Harley, when was th’ French and Injun war?’ ”

  “Harley . . .”

  “They ain’t a bit of use f’r me t’ know that, I done told you who discovered America.”

  “Who defeated George Washington at Great Meadows?”

  “Th’ dern French.”

  “Who was th’ first state to urge independence from Great Britian?”

  “North Carolina!” Harley’s voice had a proud ring.

  “See, you learn stuff real good, you just act like you don’t.”

  “But you don’t teach me nothin’ worth knowin’. If we got t’ do this aggravation, why don’t you read me one of them riddles out of y’r number book?”

  “OK, but listen good, Harley, this stuff is hard. You borrow five hundred dollars for one year. Th’ rate is twenty percent per year. How much do you pay back by th’ end of th’ year?”

  There was a long silence in the basement.

  The rector put his arm around his wife, who had come to sit with him on the top basement step. They looked at each other, wordless.

  “Six hundred dollars!” exclaimed Harley.

  “Real good!”

  “I done that in m’ noggin.”

  “OK, here’s another’n—”

  “I ain’t goin’ t’ do no more. You git on back home and worry y’r own head.”

  She pressed forward. “A recipe suggests two an’ a half to three pounds of chicken t’ serve four people. Karen bought nine-point-five pounds of chicken. Is this enough t’ serve twelve people?”

  “I told you I ain’t goin’ t’ do it,” said Harley. “Let Karen fig’r it out!”

  The rector looked at Cynthia, who got up and fled the room, shaking with laughter.

  He went to his study and took pen and paper from the desk drawer. Let’s see, he thought, if the recipe calls for two and a half to three pounds of chicken to serve four people . . .

  CHAPTER TEN

  Those Who Are Able

  He was changing shirts for a seven p.m. meeting when he heard Harley’s truck pull into the driveway. Almost immediately he heard Harley’s truck pull out of the driveway.

  Harley must have forgotten something, he mused, buttoning a cuff.

  When he heard the truck roll into the driveway again, he looked out his bathroom window and saw it backing toward the street. From this vantage point, he could also see through the windshield.

  Clearly, it wasn’t Harley who was driving Harley’s truck.

  It was Dooley.

  He stood at the bathroom window, buttoning the other cuff, watching. In, out, in, out.

  He didn’t have five spare minutes to deal with it; he was already cutting the time close since he was the speaker. He’d have to talk to Dooley and Harley about this.

  Dadgum it, he thought. He had a car-crazed boy living down the hall and a race-car mechanic in the basement. Was this a good combination? He didn’t think so . . . .

  Emma looked up from her computer, where she was keying in copy for the pew bulletin.

  “I know I’m a Baptist and it’s none of my business . . .”

  You can take that to the bank, he thought.

  “ . . . but it seems to me that people who can’t stand shouldn’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean all those people you get in th’ summer who don’t know an Episcopal service from a hole in the ground, and think they have to do all th’ stuff th’ pew bulletin tells ’em to do. I mean, some of those people are old as the hills, and what does th’ bulletin say? Stand, kneel, sit, stand, bow, stand, kneel, whatever! It’s a workout.”

  “True.”

  “So why don’t we do what they do at this Presbyterian church I heard about?”

  “And what’s that?” He noticed that his teeth were clenched.

  “Put a little line at the bottom of the bulletin that says, ‘Those who are able, please stand.’ ”

  Who needed the assistance of a curate or a deacon when they had Emma Newland to think through the gritty issues facing the church today?

  As he left the office for Mitford Blossoms, Andrew Gregory hailed him from his shop across the street.

  “We go three months without laying eyes on each other,” said the genteel Andrew, “and now—twice in a row!”

  “I prefer this arrangement!”

  “Before pushing off to Italy, I have something for your Bane and Blessing. I’ll be back in only a month, but what with making room for the Fernbank pieces, I find I’ve got to move other pieces out. Would you mind having my contribution a dash early?”

  “Mind? I should say not. Thrilled would be more like it.” He could imagine Esther Bolick’s face when she heard she was getting antiques from Andrew Gregory.

  Talk about an answer to prayer . . . .

  He climbed the hill, slightly out of breath, carrying the purple gloxinia, and stood for a moment gazing at the impressive structure they had named Hope House.

  But for Sadie Baxter’s generosity, this would be little more than the forlorn site of the original Lord’s Chapel, which had long ago burned to the ground. Now that Miss Sadie was gone, he was the only living soul who knew what had happened the night of that terrible fire.

  Ah, well. He could muddle on about the fire, or he could look at what had risen from the ashes. Wasn’t that the gist of life, after all, making the everyday choice between fire and phoenix?

  Louella sat by her sunny window, with its broad sill filled with gloxinias, begonias, philodendron, ivy, and a dozen other plants, including a bewildered amaryllis from Christmas.

  Dressed to the nines, she opened her brown arms wide as he came in. “Law, honey! You lookin’ like somebody on TV in that blue coat.”

  He leaned eagerly into her warm hug and returned it with one of his own.

  “Have you got room for another gloxinia?”

  “This make three gloxinias you done brought me!”

  That’s what he always took people; he couldn’t help it.

  “But I ain’t never had purple, an’ ain’t it beautiful! You’re good as gold an’ that’s th’ truth!”

  He set it on the windowsill and thumped down on the footstool by her chair. “How are you? Are they still treating you right?”

  “Treatin’ me right? They like to worry me to death treatin’ me right. Have a stick of candy, eat a little ice cream wit’ yo’ apple pie, let me turn yo’ bed down, slip on these socks to keep yo’ feet toasty . . .” She shook her head and laughed in the dark chocolate voice that always made a difference in the singing at Lord’s Chapel.

  “You’re rotten, then,” he said, grinning.

  “Rotten, honey, and no way ’round it. That little chaplain, too, ain’t he a case with them dogs runnin’ behind ’im ever’ whichaway?”

  “Are you still getting Taco every week?”

  “Taco done got mange on ’is hip and they tryin’ to fix it.”

  “You could have a cat or something ’til Taco gets fixed.”

  “A cat? You ain’t never seen Louella messin’ wit’ a cat.”

  “Are you working in the new garden?”

  “You ain’t seen me messin’ wit’ a hoe, neither. Nossir, I done my duty, I sets right here, watches TV, and acts like somebody.”

  “Well, I’ve got a question,” he said.

  Louella, whose salt-and-pepper hair had turned snow-white in the past ye
ar, peered at him.

  “Will you come to dinner at the rectory next Thursday? Say yes!”

  “You talkin’ ’bout dinner or supper?”

  “Dinner!” he said. “Like in the evening.” Louella, he remembered, called lunch “dinner,” and the evening meal “supper.”

  “I doan hardly know ’bout goin’ out at night,” she said, looking perplexed. “What wit’ my other knee needin’ t’ be operated on . . .”

  “I’ll hold on to you good and tight,” he said, eager for her to accept.

  “I doan know, honey . . . .”

  “Please,” he said.

  “Let ‘Amazin’ Grace’ be one of th’ hymns this Sunday and I’ll do it,” she said, grinning. “We ain’t sung that in a month of Sundays, an’ a ’piscopal preacher wrote it!”

  “Done!” he said, relieved and happy. He had always felt ten years old around Miss Sadie and Louella.

  He took the stairs to the second floor to see Lida Willis.

  He didn’t have to tell her why he’d come.

  Lida tapped her desk with a ballpoint pen, still looking stern. “She’s doing well. Very well. We couldn’t ask for better.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said, meaning it.

  He found Pauline in the dining room, setting tables with the dishes Miss Sadie had paid to have monogrammed with HH . A lifelong miser where her own needs were concerned, she had spared no expense on Hope House.

  “Pauline, you look . . . wonderful,” he said.

  “It’s a new apron.”

  “I believe it’s a new Pauline.”

  She laughed. He didn’t think he’d heard her laugh before.

  “I have a proposal.”

  She smiled at him, listening.

  “Will you come to dinner next Thursday night and bring Poo? Dooley will be with us, and Harley and Louella.”

  He could see her pleasure in being asked and her hesitation in accepting.

  “Please say yes,” he requested. “It’s just family, no airs to put on, and we’ll all be wearing something comfortable.”