Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  She glanced his way and appeared to stare for a moment as he helped Uncle Billy along the pavement. He turned his head at once, and when he looked again, Edith Mallory had disappeared into the Sweet Stuff Bakery.

  On his way home from Uncle Billy’s, where Miss Rose was still cloistered in the bedroom, he dodged into Happy Endings.

  Margaret Ann, the orange cat, was sprawled on the counter by the register; Hope Winchester sat on a stool reading…he couldn’t see what.

  “What’s new?” he asked, thinking that Hope looked unusually attractive today, rather like a youthful Jane Austen character dressed in jeans.

  “Something old,” she said, holding up the book for his view. “Angela Thirkell!”

  “Anything on the rare books shelf that I haven’t seen?”

  “I have something coming next week, you’ll find it uncommonly egregious.”

  “Give me a clue.”

  “Oh, I’d like it to be…”—she thought for a moment—“a peripeteia.”

  “Aha,” he said. “Call me when it comes in. And by the way, a friend of ours is moving to town in June, he’ll be needing a job. If you hear of anything…”

  “What are his skills?” Hope adjusted her tortoiseshell-rim glasses.

  The truth about George Gaynor would be out the moment he hit town, so Father Tim might as well start the ball rolling.

  “Do you remember the Man in the Attic?”

  “Why, yes! Who could forget? And he’s coming to live in Mitford?” Her eyes fairly shone.

  If she was this excited about a convicted jewel thief living among them, he thought, maybe the rest of the village would feel the same way. In truth, the whole town had taken to George Gaynor for the way he’d turned himself in to authorities during a Sunday morning service at Lord’s Chapel. He recalled that Mitford School’s first grade had sent drawings for George’s jail cell, and his unusual confession of wrongdoing had been lauded in several local sermons.

  He took Hope’s bright countenance as a good sign.

  Why go for a medical checkup now? Why not a day or two before their trip to Tennessee? That way, everything would be up-to-the-minute. He trotted to the downstairs powder room where he stashed his glucometer, opened the kit, shot the lance into the tip of his left forefinger, and spilled the drop of blood onto a test strip.

  Barnabas came in and sat at his feet, curious.

  “Hello, buddy.”

  He slid the strip into the glucometer and waited for the readout: 180.

  Not good. But not terribly bad, either. He could bring it back into line.

  He went to the study, called Hoppy’s office, and rescheduled.

  “Mail call! Mail call!”

  Cynthia came down the hall and into the study, trailed by Violet, and dumped the pile onto the sofa. Her letter opener, in permanent residence by the potted gardenia on the coffee table, was snatched up and held at the ready.

  “OK, darling. Bill, bill, fan letter, fan letter, junk mail, junk mail, junk mail, ugh, junk mail, fan letter, Southern Living, fan letter…oh, my.”

  “Oh, my, what?” he asked, taking a sip of tea.

  “This is from the awards commission.” Violet leaped onto the sofa and settled in Cynthia’s lap.

  “Awards commission…”

  “Yes, of the Davant Medal. No one in New York has said anything to me. Surely they would have said something….”

  She opened the letter slowly and began to read.

  “‘Dear Ms. Coppersmith:

  “‘We are delighted, indeed, to inform you that your most recent Violet book, Violet Goes to the Beach, is being awarded the prestigious Davant Medal, which will be presented at a formal dinner on July 14, at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

  “‘Congratulations!

  “‘We are thrilled that this will be your second Davant Medal, and though this acknowledgment of your outstanding work is no surprise at all to a distinguished awards committee of your peers, we do hope it will be a most pleasant surprise to you.’”

  His wife looked faint.

  “Oh, Timothy…”

  He reached out to her as she burst into tears.

  Local Pastor’s Wife

  Grabs Big Award

  He rolled up the latest editon of the Muse, put on his cap, and, ignoring his dog, went at a pace down Wisteria Lane and hooked a right on Main Street.

  He blew past the bakery, made the front windows rattle in the two-story office building, and charged into the Grill, where he marched to the rear booth, opened the door to the back stairs, and bolted up them two at a time.

  “J.C.,” he said, speaking through clenched teeth.

  The editor looked up from his layout table. “What?”

  He shook the rolled-up newspaper. “My wife is not a pastor’s wife….” He regretted that he was puffing and blowing.

  “You could’ve fooled me,” said J.C., looking bewildered.

  “She is her own person, she has a name, and I would greatly appreciate seeing you use it henceforth. She has just been given one of the most distinguished awards in publishing, and you have demeaned this high honor by removing her name from the headline and casting her as my wife!”

  “Are you drinkin’? She is your wife!”

  Father Tim lowered his voice. “This award was not won as a pastor’s wife, it was won as a hardworking writer and illustrator who has slaved over a drawing board for more than twenty years and has earned the right to be called by her own name.”

  “I called her by her name, dadblame it.”

  “In the headline.” J.C. glared at him. “You’re goin’ to fall down with a stroke if you don’t watch out.”

  He saw that his hands were trembling, put them behind his back, and drew a deep breath.

  “I just wanted you to know,” he said, and turned around and went down the stairs and through the Grill and out to the street, where he stopped and wiped his forehead and wondered what, exactly, had just happened to him.

  “Hey, Granpaw!”

  “Hey, Granpaw!”

  Twin girls, twin tousles of red hair, twin hugs—and yet, two thoroughly individual hearts, souls, minds, and spirits.

  “Hey, yourself!” he exclaimed. “Come and tell me everything.”

  Ah, but he fancied the grandchildren Puny had allowed him to adopt as his own. There was, however, no Granmaw in the household; no, indeed, Cynthia did not take to this folksy appellation, it was just plain Cynthia for all comers, regardless of age or station.

  “This is for you!” said Sassy, removing something from her book sack. “It has my name on the bottom.”

  He looked at the watercolor—a man sleeping in a wing chair with a huge black dog at his feet. The man possessed a large nose and was not wearing shoes.

  “That’s you!” she said, looking pleased.

  “Umm. Are you sure my nose is that big?”

  “Miss Cynthy says it looks just like you!”

  “An’ see, Granpaw, this is mine!” Sissy held up her own watercolor—a man lying on a sofa with a huge black dog sprawled beside him on the floor. “It’s you an’ Barnabas, I put Vi’let under the sofa, that’s her tail, do you like it?”

  There was that turnip-size nose again. He reached up and felt the thing that extended from his face. “I couldn’t like it better. Why on earth were you painting me today?”

  “Miss Hellman said do somebody, not your mama or your daddy, that you like really a lot.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, maybe you wouldn’t mind being seen around town with me.” The twins began to jiggle on the balls of their feet, entering into an after-school game the three of them often played.

  Father Tim scratched his head in mock puzzlement and inquired soberly, “But where on earth could we go?”

  “Sweet Stuff !” they shouted in unison.

  “I didn’t know you had grans!” Ada Rupert, who was buying a dozen oatmeal cookies for a visit of her own grandchildren, looked suspicious.

  “I do
n’t,” he said. “Well, not exactly. I borrow my grans, you might say.”

  “Humph,” said Ada. “I guess when there’s nothin’ to do all day, borrowin’ grans helps pass th’ time. As for me, I’ve got all I can say grace over without grans comin’ this afternoon to spend two days!”

  He noticed Ada was huffing and blowing as if she’d run to the bakery from the top of the hill.

  “Chocolate chip cookie!” said Sassy, standing on tiptoe and placing her order with Winnie.

  “Cream horn!” proclaimed Sissy, indicating her choice by touching the glass case and leaving a smudge.

  “Well!” said Ada, collecting her purchases and turning to leave.

  “You can borrow mine anytime! Help yourself!”

  He was ashamed to realize he’d fallen victim to Ada Rupert’s notoriously sharp tongue. Nothing to do all day? Nothing to do, indeed!

  His face flamed as the bell jingled on the door, and he reached into his pocket and removed his wallet. “A cream horn, a chocolate chip cookie, and…” He stared into the case, stricken.

  “And?” asked Winnie, peering at him.

  His heart hammered. “And a napoleon!” he said, surprised to hear the forbidden order issue forth in his pulpit voice.

  After dinner at the yellow house, he knocked on the rectory’s basement door.

  Harley opened it, looking sheepish. “Law, Rev’ren’, you done caught me fryin’ onions! Step on in, I hope you don’t mind th’ smell.”

  “Smells good! Won’t take but a minute, just wanted to say a friend is coming to town. He’ll need work and a place to live, says he can restore old cars and he’s willing to learn a trade. If that rings any bells, or if you hear of anything…”

  “I’ll keep m’ eye out. Can you set down an’ visit?”

  “Can’t do it tonight, thanks, we’re going to take a little stroll through Baxter Park. His name is George Gaynor. He’s…a convicted felon, out on parole after eight years in prison.”

  Harley looked dismayed, then dropped his gaze to the floor.

  “What is it, Harley?”

  “Well, Rev’ren’, they’s one thing I ain’t never tol’ you. I was meanin’ to, but…th’ reason I didn’t never tell you is ’cause you didn’t never ask me.” Harley raised his head and looked his landlord in the eye. “I served time.”

  “Aha.”

  “What done it is, I was runnin’ from th’ police back when I was haulin’ liquor. I didn’t want t’ run, nossir, but I was s’ scared, I couldn’t think whether I wanted to keep a-goin’ and maybe git caught som’ers down th’ road, or stop an’ face th’ music.”

  Harley sighed. “I kep’ a-goin’. They run me all th’ way to Cumberland County with fifty gallons of lightnin’ in m’ fender wells, an’ th’ harder they run me, th’ madder they got, ’cause I had a ’62 Chevy V-8 that went like a scalded dog.” Harley sighed again. “Pulled three years. Hit sobered me up, in a manner of speakin’.”

  Father Tim nodded.

  “I hate t’ tell you that, hit pains me.”

  “What’s done is done.”

  “When they let me out, I never hauled another drop. An’ not too long after that, I quit drinkin’ th’ lowdown stuff—just quit foolin’ with liquor all th’ way around.”

  He put his hand on Harley’s shoulder. What would he do without this good man the Lord had dropped in his lap? “That hard thing had a bright side, then.”

  Harley nodded, then grinned with relief, displaying pink gums entirely vacant of teeth.

  “Keep your ear to the ground for George, if you will. He’ll be arriving sometime in June. You’ll like him, he’s a strong believer.”

  “I’ll do it. An’ Rev’ren’…”

  “Yes?”

  “I wouldn’t want th’ boy t’ know, hit’d not be right f’r th’ boy t’ know what I tol’ you.”

  “He won’t hear it from me.” He turned to go.

  “Rev’ren’?” Harley swallowed hard. “I thank you f’r…lettin’ me tell you that.”

  “I thank you for telling me,” he said.

  He’d done everything possible to trace Dooley’s missing siblings. Sammy and Kenny had, in fact, been missing for more than nine years, and nothing, no matter what he did, seemed to result in useful clues. Dooley’s stepfather, Buck Leeper, was doing his share: He’d worked on a false lead to Kenny for a full year and it had turned into a dead end.

  Locating the first two Barlowe children had been miraculously simple. Father Tim and Lace Turner had hauled Poo out of the Creek community, and Jessie, then five years old, had been traced to Florida. On the oddest of hunches, he and Cynthia had made the long trip to Lakeland with Jessie’s mother, Pauline, and now, thanks be to God, three of the five siblings were safe and accounted for. More than anything, yes, more than anything, he wanted to see the whole family reunited with their utterly transformed mother who had surrendered her life to Christ and married a believer who loved her kids.

  He tried not to despair over the mounting discouragement he felt, and firmly denied the thought that occasionally came to him; the thought that, deep down, he had given up hope.

  “Sit still,” he told his wife. “I’ll get it.”

  He’d always rather liked a ringing doorbell. One never knew what surprise or even amazement might be waiting. It was a great deal like the mail in that regard.

  He could scarcely see Jena Ivey, owing to the enormous basket of flowers she was delivering to their threshold. Jena ducked her head around the ivy that trailed profusely from one side.

  “Congratulations!” she crowed, shoving the vast thing into his arms. He staggered backward from the weight of it.

  “Congratulations? What did I do?”

  “Nothing, as far as I know, it’s for Cynthia!” The hardworking owner of Mitford Blossoms was positively beaming.

  “Of course! Yes, indeed. Good gracious….”

  “It’s the most money anyone ever let me spend on an order,” she called after him. “I used everything but the kitchen sink!”

  He trotted down the hall, peering carefully around a thicket of maidenhair fern so he wouldn’t crash into a wall, and delivered the basket to the study.

  “There!” He set it on the hearth, nearly poking his eye on one of the several lengths of grapevine stuck capriciously into the moss. “I don’t know what it is; possibly a complete shire from the west of England!”

  “How wonderful !” His wife bounded from the sofa, streaked to the thing, and buried her face in it, wreathed in smiles. “Heaven! Oh, my! What joy!”

  He observed that she was now down on all fours, crawling around the basket, which was fully the size of Johnson County and loaded with everything from yellow tulips and lavender foxglove to pink roses and purple verbena.

  “Umm! Oh, goodness! Look, dearest, could it be heliotrope? And there! See the tiny mushrooms growing in the moss?”

  “Who’s it from?” he asked, squatting down to where the action was.

  She removed the card from the French wire ribbon. “Let’s see…. Well! Have you ever?”

  No, he had never. “Who?” he asked.

  “Dear James!”

  “Dear James?”

  “You know, darling, my editor.”

  “Aha.”

  “‘My dear Cynthia,’” she read aloud from the card. “‘Please accept this smallest of tokens for the joy you have brought so many. Congratulations!’”

  “Dear James, dear Cynthia?” This inquiry, spoken with uncharacteristic sarcasm, was out of his mouth before he knew it. His face flamed.

  Just as it took very, very little to make his wife happy, it took very little, indeed, to wound her deeply. She looked as if she’d been dashed with ice water.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, dumbfounded by his feelings. Where had that sudden, bitter jealousy come from?

  He reached toward her, but she drew back. “I’ve never heard you…speak that way before,” she whispered.

  Tears s
prang to his eyes. “I don’t know, I’m sorry, please forgive me.” He felt oddly lost, bereft, as if a great chasm had opened between them.

  She leaned her head to one side and looked at him for a long moment. Then she smiled. “It’s all right, dearest,” she said, taking his hand.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Future Hour

  He settled into his chair in the study, swiveled around to the desk, and tore off several calendar pages.

  May 21st, vanished!

  May 22nd, defunct!

  May 23rd, out of here!

  Where had time gone? He hadn’t penned a word in nearly a month. But there’d be no guilt; he’d sworn to enjoy the process and not kick himself for failing to churn out a predetermined volume of work. The book would happen when it happened.

  He put his mind to the thing before him.

  “‘Enough, if something from our hands have power,’” he recited aloud, “‘to live and act and serve the future hour….’”

  This new essay would address the couplet from Wordsworth; it put forth an issue he’d been searching in his heart, whether indeed he’d done anything in nearly forty years as a priest that would truly serve the future hour. He needed to know the answer, the honest answer. Writing to search the soul had often helped; more than once this had enabled him to arrive at a better understanding of a personal issue. He thought, too, that the whole subject might be of interest to others—didn’t everyone fervently desire to leave a mark, to make a difference? In truth, mortality had been one of mankind’s most devouring disappointments—having only a brief time to make a difference, one forever felt the pressure to get cracking.

  He picked up the black pen and relished its solid heft; for years, he’d wished for a fine pen, something more than the annual Christmas ballpoint from The Local, or the sundry poor excuses in his pen cup that multiplied like wire hangers in a closet. And now, in honor of this book of essays, his good wife had given him a black roller ball with a white emblem on the cap; he couldn’t imagine what it might have cost—it had bucks written all over it. Maybe he’d use the pen today instead of his typewriter; after all, had Montaigne used a typewriter, or Proust, or Emerson?