by Jan Karon
Harley sighed. “Lord knows I ain’t a miracle worker.”
He went out into the night, damp with perspiration, leaving his wife sleeping like a child.
Ten to eleven. No moon. Only a humid darkness that sharply revealed its stars as he looked up.
They weren’t used to heat like this in the mountains. Mitford was legendary for its cool summers, which brought flatlanders racing up the slopes every May through October, exulting in the town’s leafy shade and gentle breezes.
He walked with Barnabas around the backyard of the yellow house, stopping by the maple and hearing the stream of urine hiss into the grass.
The path through the hedge, he saw in the light from the study windows, had nearly grown over. Harley usually came around to the front door these days, and it had been three years or more since he courted his next-door neighbor.
He smiled, remembering the quote from Chesterton: “We make our friends, we make our enemies, but God makes our next-door neighbor.”
Once, the depth of their feeling for one another might easily have been judged by the smooth wear on the path through the rhododendrons. Now the branches on either side of the weed-covered path had nearly grown together; one would have to duck to dash through.
As he stepped under the tulip poplar. he felt a sudden coolness, as if a barrier had been formed around the tree, forbidding the day’s heat to collect beneath its limbs.
He thumped onto the sparse grass under the poplar, and Barnabas lay at his feet, panting.
Another party tomorrow night. He was weary of parties, of the endless goodbyes that stretched behind him since last December’s retirement party in the parish hall. He remembered feeling his head grow light as a feather, and could not imagine the occasion to be anything but an odd and disturbing dream. Then he found himself gone from Lord’s Chapel, the parish that had both succored and tormented him, and made him happier than ever before in his life.
Retiring had been precisely what he wanted to do, and yet, when he did it, it had felt awkward and unreal, as it must feel to walk for the first time with a wooden leg.
He rubbed his dog’s ear; it might have been a piece of velvet, or a child’s blanket that gave forth consolation, as he stared across the hedge at the rectory’s double chimneys rising in silhouette against the light of the street lamp.
It seemed an eternity since he’d lived there, quite another person than the one sitting here in the damp night grass.
For many years in that house, he had made it a practice to do what he’d learned in seminary, and that was spend an hour in study for every minute of his sermon. More than twenty hours he had faithfully spent; then fifteen, and later, starting a couple of years ago, ten. Where had the quiet center of his life gone? It seemed he was racing faster and faster around the tree, turning into butter.
On the other hand, wasn’t his life now richer and deeper and more solid than ever before? Yes! Absolutely yes. He would not turn back for anything.
God had, indeed, put Cynthia Coppersmith right next door, and given her to him. But marriage, with all its delight and aggravation, seemed to swell like a dry sponge dipped into water, and occupy the largest, most fervent part of his life. Surely that was why some priests never took a spouse, and remained married to their calling.
Barnabas rolled on his side and smacked his lips, happy for the cool night air under the tree.
He loved Cynthia Kavanagh; she’d become the very life of his heart, and no, he would never turn back from her laughter and tears and winsome ways. But tonight, looking at the chimneys against the glow of the streetlight, he mourned that time of utter freedom, when nobody expected him home or cared whether he arrived, when he could sit with a book in his lap, snoring in the wing chair, a fire turning to embers on the hearth. . . .
He raised his hand to the rectory in a type of salute, and nodded to himself and closed his eyes, as the bells of Lord’s Chapel began their last peal of the day.
Bong . . .
“Lord,” he said aloud, as if He were there beneath the tree, “Your will be done in our lives.”
Bong . . .
“Guard me from self-righteousness, and from any looking to myself in this journey.”
Bong . . .
“I believe Whitecap is where You want us, and we know that You have riches for us there.”
Bong . . .
“Prepare our hearts for this parish, and theirs to receive us.”
Bong . . .
“Thank You for the blessing of my wife, and Dooley; for this place and this time, and yes, Lord, even for this change. . . .”
Bong . . .
Bong . . .
The bells pealed twice before he acknowledged and named the fear in his heart.
“Forgive this fear in me which I haven’t confessed to You until now.”
Bong . . .
“You tell us that You do not give us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
Bong . . .
“Gracious God . . .” He paused.
“I surrender myself to You completely . . . again.”
Bong . . .
He took a deep breath and held it, then let it out slowly, and realized he felt the peace, the peace that didn’t always come, but came now.
Bong . . .
The tenant was a surprise, somehow. A small woman in her late forties, overweight and mild-mannered, she appeared to try to shrink into herself, in order to occupy less space. He supposed her accent to be French, but wasn’t very good at nailing that sort of thing.
They met in the late afternoon in the rectory parlor, now furnished sparingly with her own sofa and two chairs, and a Baldwin grand piano by the window.
The cherry pie he had brought from Sweet Stuff Bakery had been placed on the table in front of the sofa where she sat, her feet scarcely touching the floor. After a day of moving into a strange house in a strange town, he thought she might have been utterly exhausted; to the contrary, she looked as fresh as if she’d risen from a long nap.
“. . . very interested in old homes, Father,” she was saying.
“Well, you’ll certainly be living in one. The rectory was built in 1884, and wasn’t dramatically altered until a bishop lived here in the fifties. He closed the fireplace in the kitchen and rebuilt the fireplace in the study—a definite comfort during our long winters. I hope you don’t mind long winters.”
“Oh, no. We have those in Boston with dismaying frequency.”
“Mr. Skinner has shown you around—the attic, the basement?”
“Top to bottom.”
“You know you may call him at any time. He’ll be looking after everything for us—and for you.”
“Thank you, Father, and again, thank you for allowing me to lease for such a short time. It’s always good to test the waters, n’est-ce pas?”
“Of course.”
“Mr. Skinner mentioned that you and Miss Sadie Baxter were dear friends.”
“Yes, Miss Sadie meant the world to me. Did you know her?”
“Oh, no. I saw her lovely old home from Main Street and inquired about it. I’m sure she must have left you some very beautiful things.”
“I might have taken anything I liked, but I took almost nothing, really. My wife found some needlepoint chair covers she’s thrilled with, and so . . .”
He raised his hands, palms up, and smiled. At that moment, a large cat leaped into his lap from out of nowhere, its collar bell jingling.
“Holy smoke!” he exclaimed.
“That’s Barbizon,” said Hélène Pringle, unperturbed.
He sat frozen as a mullet. Barbizon had taken over his lap entirely, and was licking his white paws for a fare-thee-well. The odor of tinned fish rose in a noxious vapor to his nostrils.
His tenant peered at him. “Barbizon’s no bother, I hope.”
“Oh, no. Not a bit. Cats don’t usually like me.”
“Barbizon likes all sorts of people other cats care nothing for
.”
“I see.”
“He was named for my mother’s birthplace in France, just south of Paris. I spent my childhood there.”
“Well, well.”
“Do you speak French, Father?”
“Pathetically.”
“I imagine Mr. Skinner told you I’ll be giving piano lessons. . . .”
“That’s wonderful!” he said. “We need more music in Mitford.”
“He’s checking to see if I might hang out a sign.”
“Aha.”
“Only a very small sign, of course.”
“Not too small, I hope. We want people to see it!”
“‘Hélène Pringle, Lessons for the Piano, Inquire Within.’” She recited the language of her sign with some wistfulness, he thought.
“Excellent!” He glanced at his watch discreetly, and tried to rise from the chair, thinking the longhaired creature with yellow eyes would pop off to the floor. But no, it clung on with its claws, for which reason Father Tim regained his seat with a strained smile. “I must go. We’ve a great many things to settle at the last minute, you understand.”
Hélène Pringle nodded. “Parfaitement! No one could understand better.”
“Well, then . . .” He tried to detach the cat from his lap by picking it up, but a single claw was entrenched in his fly. Blast.
“Naughty fellow!” scolded Hélène Pringle, who rose from the sofa and came to him and took the cat, which relaxed its claws at once. He saw, then, the weariness in his tenant’s eyes, in her pinched face.
She set the great animal down and it disappeared beneath the Chippendale sofa. “Cats don’t like moving, you know.”
He sighed agreeably. “Who does?”
“I wish you well on your journey, Father.”
“And I wish you well on yours, Miss Pringle. May God bless you, and give you many happy hours here.”
“Happy hours . . . ,” she said, her voice trailing away.
“Oh, I nearly forgot. The key!” Harley had opened the house for their tenant and the movers.
He placed the key in her hand, and found himself staring at it, lying in her palm. She looked at it, also, and for the briefest moment, something passed between them. He could never have said what, exactly, but he would wonder at the feeling for a long time to come.
He hesitated to put the top down for the haul up the hill to Lucera, thinking it would only agitate Dooley’s car lust.
“Put it down, darling!” urged his wife. “That’s what it’s for !”
Oh, well. It was a warm June night, and Dooley would just have to grow up and take it like a man. . . .
“Hey, let me drive,” Dooley said as they walked to the car he’d been ogling all day. Father Tim thought their charge looked like something out of a magazine in his school blazer, a tie, and tan pants.
“You look great, like something out of a magazine,” said Father Tim, rushing around to the driver’s side.
“Let me drive,” repeated Dooley, staying focused. “It’s just up the hill.”
Cynthia took her husband’s arm and steered him to the passenger side. “Why not let him drive, Timothy? It’s just up the hill. But I can’t sit in the back, it’ll ruin my hair.”
Two against one.
What was left of his own hair was flying forty ways from Sunday as they roared up Fernbank’s driveway and saw lights blazing from every window in the grand house. He was still combing when they went up the steps and through the open front door.
He blinked. Then he blinked again.
“Wow!” said Cynthia.
“Man!” exclaimed Dooley.
Father Tim remembered flushing Miss Sadie’s toilets more than once with rainwater that had leaked from this very ceiling into soup pots and a turkey roaster.
“No way,” Dooley muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
Fernbank’s cavernous entry hall had become . . . what? Miraculously warm. Smaller, somehow. Intimate. He fairly shivered with excitement. Was this a dream?
And the music—by jove, it was opera, it was Puccini, he couldn’t believe his ears. The last time he’d heard opera was months ago, through the static of his car radio.
“Garlic!” rhapsodized his wife, inhaling deeply.
Along the walls in wooden bins were fresh tomatoes and crusty loaves of bread, bundles of fragrant herbs and great bunches of grapes, yellow globes of cheese and bottles of olive oil. The contents of the bottles gleamed like molten gold in the candlelight.
“Timothy, look! The walls!”
Good grief, there were some of those walls his wife had created in the rectory kitchen a couple of years ago—pockmarked, smoky, primitive—not Miss Sadie’s walls at all. Miss Sadie would be in a huff over this, and no two ways about it.
“Father! Cynthia! Dooley! Welcome!”
It was the hospitable Andrew Gregory, coming through the door of the dining room in a pale linen suit.
He felt positively heady with the rush of aromas and sounds, and the sight of Mitford’s favorite antiques dealer transformed into a tanned and happy maître d’.
Mule and Fancy dropped by the table where the Kavanaghs and Dooley were seated with the Harpers and Lace Turner.
“How do you say th’ name of this place?” Fancy asked in a whisper. “I can’t remember for shoot!”
“Lu-chair-ah!” crowed Cynthia, glad to be of help.
Fancy stared around the room, disbelieving. “There’s people here I never laid eyes on before.”
Mule sighed. “This is gonna be a deep-pocket deal,” he muttered, following Fancy to their corner table.
Father Tim was fairly smitten with his dinner companions, it all seemed so lively and . . . fun, a thing he was always seeking to understand and claim for his own.
Olivia hadn’t aged an iota since he married her to the town doctor a few years ago; he remembered dancing at their reception in the ball-room, across the hall from this very table. Her dark hair was pulled into French braids, such as she eagerly wove each day for Lace, and her violet eyes still pierced his heart with appealing candor.
Hoppy grinned at his wife and took her hand. “Where are we, anyway?”
“Certainly not in Mitford!” she said, laughing.
“I think we’re . . . in a dream,” said Lace, so softly that only he and perhaps Dooley could hear.
Enthralled, that was the word. They were all enthralled.
The large dining room, where he’d once eaten cornbread and beans with Miss Sadie and Louella, was crowded with people from Wesley and Holding, with the occasional familiar face thrown in, as it were, for good measure.
There was Hope Winchester waving across the room, and a couple of tables away were the mayor and Ray with at least two of their attractive, deluxe-size daughters, sitting where Miss Sadie’s Georgian highboy used to stand, and over in the far corner . . .
His heart pumped wildly, taking his breath away. Edith Mallory. Just as he spotted her, she looked up and gazed directly into his eyes.
He turned away quickly. Any contact at all with his former parishioner was akin to a sting from a scorpion. He had foolishly believed she would somehow drop out of sight, and he’d never be forced to lay eyes on her again. She’d been a thorn in his flesh for years—seeking to manipulate and seduce him, trying to buy the last mayoral race, treating the villagers like pond scum. . . .
Cynthia peered at him. “What is it, dearest? You’re white as a sheet.”
“Starving,” he mumbled, grabbing a chunk of bread.
A couple of years ago, Lace Turner had helped Dooley save Barnabas from bleeding to death when hit by a car. When minutes counted, Dooley and Lace had pitched in to get the job done, and a bond formed between them where only enmity had existed.
But time and distance had strained that bond, and they were now two new and different people.
Father Tim hadn’t missed Dooley’s fervent appraisal of Lace Turner as she studied her hand-printed menu. He found it more telling, h
owever, that Dooley feigned indifference each time Lace spoke, which wasn’t often. Further, he observed, the boy who was known for his appetite picked at his food, laughed nervously, eternally twisted the knot in his tie, and knocked over his water glass.
No doubt about it, Dooley Barlowe was interested in more than cars.
They had feasted on risotto and scallopini, on lamb shank and fresh mussels, on chicken roasted with rosemary from the Fernbank gardens, and on Anna Gregory’s freshly made pasta stuffed with ricotta and bathed in a sultry marinara from local greenhouse tomatoes; they had ordered gallons of sparkling water, Coke, and a bottle of Chianti from Lucera, and had all placed their order for Tony’s tiramisu.
Hoppy Harper sat back and looked fondly at Lace, who was seated next to him and across from Dooley. “Lace, why don’t you tell everyone your good news?”
Lace gazed around the table slowly, half shyly.
Father Tim observed that Dooley pretended to be more interested in drumming his fingers on the table than hearing what Lace had to say.
“I’m going away to school in September.”
The fingers stopped drumming.
“Lovely!” said Cynthia. “Where?”
“Virginia. Mrs. Hemingway’s.” Fresh color stole into the girl’s tanned cheeks.
“Oh, man,” said Dooley, rolling his eyes. “Gross.”
Father Tim bristled. “I beg your pardon?”
“Mrs. Hemingway has geeky girls.”
Father Tim could have shaken the boy until his teeth rattled. “Apologize for that at once.”
Dooley colored furiously, undecided about whether to stick up for what he had just said, or do as he was told.
He stuck up for what he had just said. “They hardly ever get invited to our school for parties, they’re so . . . smart.” He said the last word with derision.
“Lace has just told us good news,” Father Tim said quietly. “You have just shown us bad behavior. I ask once more that you apologize to Lace.”
Dooley tried to raise his eyes to his dinner partner, but could not. “Sorry,” he said, meditating on his water glass.