by Jan Karon
Fred Addison looked up from his examination of a walnut chest and grinned. “Yessir, we always do. Good mornin’, Father. Wet enough for you?”
“I don’t mind the rain, but my roses do. This year, we exchanged Japanese beetles for powdery mildew. How was your garden this year?” Fred Addison’s annual vegetable garden was legendary for its large size and admirable tomatoes; Father Tim had feasted from that fertile patch on several occasions.
“Had to plow it under,” said Fred, looking mournful.
“Let’s look for a better go of things next year.”
“Yessir, that’s th’ ticket.”
Andrew led the way to the back room, where the Oxford hot plate and coffeepot resided with such amenities as the occasional parcel of fresh scones fetched from London.
“Careful where you step,” said Andrew. “I’m just unpacking a crèche I found in Stow-on-the-Wold; a bit on the derelict side. Some really odious painting of the figures and some knocking about of the plaster here and there . . .”
Father Tim peered at a motley assortment of sheep spilling from a box, an angel with a mere stub for a wing, an orange camel, and, lying in a manger of bubble wrap, a lorn Babe . . .
“Twenty-odd pieces, all in plaster, and possibly French. Someone assembled the scene from at least two, maybe three different crèches.”
“Aha.”
Andrew poured hot milk from a pot into a mug. “Not the sort of thing I’d usually ship across the pond, yet it spoke to me somehow.”
“Yes, well . . . it has a certain charm.”
“I thought someone might be willing to have a go at bringing it ’round.” Andrew handed him the mug. “There you are! Made with scalded milk and guaranteed to carry you forth with good cheer and optimism.”
Coffee and cocoa, all within the span of a couple of hours. Father Tim reckoned that his caffeinated adrenaline would be pumping ’til Christmas; he felt as reckless as a sailor on leave.
Mitford’s capable mayor, restaurateur, and antiques dealer beamed one of his much-lauded smiles. “Come, Father, I’ll show you a few of the new arrivals—and perhaps you’ll catch me up on the latest scandals in Mitford?”
“That shouldn’t take long,” said Father Tim.
He felt the warmth of the mug in his hands and saw the rain slanting in sheets against the display windows. Everywhere in this large room that smelled of lemon oil and beeswax was something to be admired—the patina of old walnut and mahogany, a tapestry side chair bathed in the glow of lamplight, and, over there, a stack of leather-bound books just uncrated.
He had a moment of deepest gratitude, and the odd and beguiling sense that he was on the brink of something. . . .
But what?
Something . . . different. Yes, that was it.
The day after his visit to Oxford Antiques, he realized that the angel had seized his imagination.
He was surprised by a vivid recollection of her face, which he’d found beautiful, and the piety of her folded hands and downcast eyes.
As for the missing wing, wasn’t that a pretty accurate representation of most of the human horde, himself certainly included?
The image of the Babe had also come to mind. The craziness and commerce of Christmas, so utterly removed from the verity of its meaning, had served to make the bubble-wrapped figure a profoundly fitting metaphor.
He hadn’t given much consideration to crèche scenes in recent years. They had used his maternal grandmother’s once or twice, but found the dull, base-metal figures so forbidding, he’d packed them away. Generally, he and Cynthia had been making do with hers, which she’d miraculously rescued from a hither-and-yon childhood. It was an odd and poignant thing, which she’d created from scraps of yarn, felt, and straw, and included clothespin shepherds for whom, at the age of fourteen, she had sewn silk robes.
Prior to arriving in Mitford, he had used his family’s Irish-made crèche, observing Anglican traditions taught him by his now-long-deceased father.
Though Matthew Kavanagh had been decidedly hostile to the church and its associations, he’d celebrated Christmas, and Christmas only, with certain feeling. And, eager to promote any stirring of his heart toward God, his wife, Madelaine, had carried forth the observance of Advent and Christmas with particular zeal.
As an only child, he, Timothy, had the privilege and pleasure of setting up the Nativity scene on the first day of Advent. He always began, as his father directed, by placing Mary and Joseph and the empty manger on top of a low bookcase in their parlor. Then he grouped the two donkeys, a doleful horse, a cow, a calf, and two sheep to one side, where they stood in a concert of expectation.
His mother and father sat in the parlor with him as he assembled the hand-carved, hand-painted figures into a scene that he tried to make fresh and different each year. During one year, he might place the horse so that it looked down on the manger. Another year, he might give the cow and calf this privilege of station.
He felt happy in bringing the small setting to life, and happier still that his usually dour and remote father seemed interested in his son’s effort.
“The horse will do well there,” Matthew Kavanagh might say. Or, “The manger wants less straw.”
“Father likes the crèche,” he said to his mother.
“Yes,” she said, “he has always loved it. Your great-grandmother brought it over from Ireland, and she taught your father to set it up exactly as he’s teaching you.”
He remembered being thrilled by this newfound connection with his father’s boyhood, and even with a great-grandmother he’d never seen. He turned his face from his mother so she couldn’t look upon the pride that laid his feelings bare.
During the heady days of Advent, with its special wreath and candles, and the baking done by his mother and Peggy, the house was filled with wonderful smells. These aromas, including an ever-present fragrance of chickory coffee perking on the stove, were dense and rich; he could sometimes smell them all the way to the rabbit pen, where his best friend, Tommy Noles, came to help “feed up.”
“Them little pellets go in, an’ th’ same little pellets come out, ’cept in a different color,” said Tommy.
“Yep.”
“What’re you gettin’?”
“I hope a bike. What’re you gettin’?”
Tommy shrugged, looking mournful. “Prob’ly nothin’.”
“Everybody gets somethin’ at Christmas,” he said.
“Not if they’re poor, they don’t.”
“You’re not poor.”
“Becky says we are.”
“But you’ve got a house and a barn and lots of things, even horses, and we only have rabbits.” He had always wanted horses.
“We got a cow, too, an’ a calf,” Tommy reminded him.
“Besides, she’s just your little sister. She’s dumb to say that. Y’all even have a truck, and we don’t have a truck, only a Buick.” He had always wanted a truck.
Tommy had seemed encouraged.
Four shepherds, in the meantime, waited in the dining room on the walnut sideboard, to journey to the manger on Christmas morning. In his mother’s sewing room, he knew that presents waited, too. His mother spent many hours in that room, always with the door closed, wrapping presents with yards and yards of her signature white satin ribbon and protecting with uncommon zeal the wonderful secrets that he tried diligently to puzzle out.
During the long days before Christmas, he could scarcely wait to put the Babe in the manger, and often made the trek to the silver drawer of the sideboard to peer at the infant resting safely in the bowl of a gravy ladle.
At a time when his friends had stopped believing in Santa Claus, he was still believing in the powerful reality of the small tableau—in much the same way, he supposed, that a boy believes his action heroes to be living, and the battles on the parlor floor to be real.
Years later, he had stored the Irish crèche in the basement of the riverside rectory in Hastings, where he was rector for
ten years prior to Mitford. He remembered driving home from a diocesan conference in a frightening storm, then opening his basement door and seeing the water risen above the bottom step.
Floating on the small, enclosed river in the lower portion of his house were the Nativity figures—camels without riders, shepherds without crooks, the stable with its pointed roof and fixed star, a miniature bale of sodden straw, and, here and there, a sheep or donkey along with other detritus loosed from cardboard containers and set free upon the floodwaters of southern Alabama.
He had rescued them and put them into a box and, in the upheaval following the flood, had forgotten them. When he opened the box months later, the figures were rank with a fetid damp that caused them to stick together in a mildewed and forbidding clump.
He’d felt a deep sense of loss, as well as relief, when, months later, he discovered that the movers had failed to load the box on the truck to Mitford.
Dear Hope,
Due to the serious nature of the following proposal, I’m not e-mailing or calling you. Instead, I’m allowing you ample time to consider my idea, and thereby give it the careful and positive thinking you’ve displayed in making Happy Endings a more profitable enterprise.
Mitford has great charm, but, as you’re aware, it has distinct limitations, as well. Of the entire population, scarcely a tenth enjoys a thumping good read or has any inclination to open the covers of a book. We’ve had to go further and further afield to pay the rent and stock our shelves, and no coffee bar or gallery of so-called amusing greeting cards could ever turn this distressing circumstance around.
Your clever marketing of HE to surrounding communities, your committed endeavors with the literacy council, and your development of a rare-books business on the Internet, have certainly paid off. But only to the extent that the rent, the utilities, and your salary are met each month, with barely enough left to restock the shelves.
In other words, though you work very hard and have made a far better go of it than I did while living in Mitford, the profit margin remains slim and tenuous. I don’t enjoy telling you this, but it’s best to make a clean breast of things.
The HE lease is up at the end of December, and I’ve decided I simply don’t wish to carry on in Mitford. Instead, I’m inviting you to join me at the store in Florida and help grow the business here.
Really, my dear, I see no reason at all for you to remain in Mitford. I assure you that your dull and solitary life there will be replaced by a very exciting life here. And—Peter and I have a charming guesthouse where you can live in great comfort until you get your wings!
I won’t ring you for a week, as P and I shall be in the Keys, and thus you shall have every opportunity to think this through and give me the answer I hope—and indeed expect—to hear!
Yours fondly,
Helen
P.S. We will, of course, pay all moving expenses, which should be minimal, given your minuscule accommodations over the Tea Shop.
P.P.S. I’ll contact Edith Mallory’s attorneys tomorrow, with a sixty-day notice. As you’re aware, the dreadful fire at Clear Day handicapped her severely, and though she’s proved to be a grasping and unlovely landlord, I admit to feeling a certain pity for the poor creature.
Don’t let the word out until Christmas is behind us—they’d all be wanting something for nothing, and I have no intention of putting on a going-out-of-business sale; remaining inventory will be moved here.
The first time Hope read this letter, her heart had raced with excitement. Now she felt it racing for quite another reason.
It was from fear of what lay ahead.
He had every reason in the world not to do it.
First, he’d never attempted anything like this before. Not even remotely like this.
Second, it was the sort of project Cynthia might take on and accomplish with great success, but as for himself, he had no such talent or skill—indeed, except for a fair amount of aptitude for gardening and cooking, he was all thumbs.
Third, there would hardly be enough hours left in the year to get the job done, though when he made an inquiry by phone, Andrew offered to help him every step of the way, vowing to call upon his professional resources for advice.
Fourth, the thing was too large, too out of proportion for the corner of the study: some figures were easily fifteen or sixteen inches tall.
Last, but definitely not least, he had enough to do. He was struggling with yet another piece of business for which he probably had no talent or skill—he was writing a book of essays. Truth be told, he’d hardly enjoyed a moment of writing the blasted things; he’d like to chuck the whole lot in the trash and be done with it. But, no, he’d invested untold hours. . . .
He put on his jacket and opened the door of the yellow house, inhaling the crisp morning air.
And another thing . . . there were the pulpits he’d agreed to supply before the year was out—five, total, including the Christmas Eve service at Lord’s Chapel, due to Father Talbot’s trip to Australia.
And what about the preparations he needed to make for his own trip? He and Cynthia would be going out to Meadowgate in mid-January, to farm-sit for Hal and Marge Owen for a year. As the farm was only fifteen minutes away, they could dash back and forth to Mitford with ease. Nonetheless . . .
Andrew Gregory was polishing a Jacobean chest when Father Tim arrived at the Oxford.
He went directly to Andrew and, without formal greeting or further deliberation, said, “I’ll take it.”
He thought his voice quavered a bit when he said this, as well it might.
He decided, as he walked homeward, that he wouldn’t tell a soul what he’d done. Andrew had given him such a wonderful price on the crèche, he figured he could hardly afford not to buy it. Better still, the check he’d recently received from the sale of his geriatric Buick had covered the purchase, with a good deal to spare.
He was relieved. Vastly! Without this unexpected income, he would have had to spill the beans to Cynthia, as they’d lately agreed not to spend more than five hundred dollars without consulting the other.
However—hadn’t his wife bought him a Mustang convertible that cost well above five hundred bucks, without saying a single word to him? And his Montblanc pen, which he’d learned cost more than some people’s monthly mortgages, had also been a complete astonishment. Clearly, his wife believed that if a thing was to be a surprise, there was no cause to go prattling about it to the surprisee. Therefore, he had no intention of feeling guilty over what he fervently hoped and prayed would bring special joy to She Who Loves Surprises.
Last, but not at all least, Andrew had offered him the south end of the Oxford’s back room in which to labor—“hard by the tap,” as he would need water for his plasterwork.
Plasterwork! That most daunting of proverbs came to mind: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
The Enemy was after him already—he could almost smell the sulfur—but he was refusing the bait. Besides, if that adage was true, Grandma Moses would have been out of work, big time.
A shimmering October light dappled the sidewalk as he passed beneath a tree. . . .
And while he was at it, what about Michelangelo’s pronouncement at the tender age of eighty-seven?
Ancora imparo! I am still learning.
He said it aloud, “Ancora imparo!” and walked up faster, humming a little.
Dear Hope,
You are faithfully in my prayers, as promised when I left Mitford. It is a great loss, I know, and I thank God that you now have His strength in your life. You will find in the days and months ahead that He will help you bear the sadness and lead you through the grieving with tenderness and grace. From the horrendous experience of losing three of my grandparents at once, I can truthfully say there will even be times when He blesses you with a certain joy.
My grandmother, Leila, is like a lamp with an eternal wick, and a great encouragement to everyone in her nursing home. Naturally, I went into my work mode and
had them dancing on Wednesday, making pizzas on Thursday, and producing a talent show on Friday. I wish you could have seen the guy, ninety years old, who played a harmonica—he was great. They’re all exhausted from my visit, and so are Luke and Lizzie, who have done double time. I’m really glad I came, and will tell you all about it when we get back. Thanks for praying for our trip, I really appreciate it.
I think about you a lot. Remember to save some time for me to take you to dinner when I come home to Mitford next week.
In His mercy,
Scott
In the back room of Happy Endings, Hope finished reading the second letter on her desk and held it for a moment close to her heart. She had never received a love letter before.
She was, of course, the only one who would think it a love letter, as there was no mention of love in it, at all. Yet she could feel love beating in each word, in every stroke of the pen, just as it beat in the heart and soul of the chaplain of Hope House and expressed itself in everything he did.
Scott Murphy was practically famous for the wonderful projects he encouraged the nursing home residents to do up at Hope House, like working an annual vegetable garden that donated produce to a food pantry for area churches. Then there were his Jack Russell terriers, Luke and Lizzie, whose job it was to make the elderly residents laugh.
Hope had no idea why God had caused this wonderful thing to happen to her—someone who had hardly ever felt pretty, though she’d often been told that she was; someone who, at the age of thirty-seven, had never been in love, though she had always wanted to be and twice, mistakenly, thought she was.
But maybe she was getting ahead of herself; after all, she had been out with Scott Murphy only three times.
“So what do you think?” he asked Mule Skinner over breakfast at the Grill.
“Beats me,” said Mule. “I’m sure not drivin’ to Wesley for some overpriced lunch deal.”