Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  “Give me ten minutes,” he said. “I won’t even brush my teeth.”

  Though they tried to keep their distance from the crowd that was buzzing around with cameras, they couldn’t help overhearing what Madge Stokes and Fancy Skinner were saying.

  “How long have you had it?” demanded Fancy, swaddled to the gills in a pink rabbit-fur jacket over stretch capris.

  “Three days,” said Madge, pale and cowering.

  “Three days? You’re still contagious, for Pete’s sake, get away from me, oh, please, the Mitford Crud and you’re out and about and breathing on people after only three days!”

  “Go jump in the lake,” Cynthia muttered into her coat collar.

  Fancy turned from Madge Stokes, who had gone paler still, and stumped the crowd at large. “That’s the way people do these days, they get sick as dogs, but nobody, and I mean nobody, goes to bed anymore and drinks plenty of liquids, they’re all out at the mall or dashing around grocery stores coughing on the cabbage!”

  They slunk homeward with their spent roll of Fuji.

  “Lookit,” said Percy. “That’s my shot right there.”

  The Main Street Grill had come up with its own photo contest—the wall to the right of the door was plastered with images of the Mitford maples, documented with varying degrees of skill.

  “See th’ fog? To my way of thinkin,’ that gives it . . . gives it . . .”

  “Mystery and intrigue!” said Father Tim.

  “That’s what I was goin’ t’ say. Look here, this is Mule and Fancy’s deal. Too dark on th’ left is what Velma said, like somebody was standin’ in their own shadow.”

  “That’s somebody’s thumb, actually. Whose shot is that? The one up top.”

  “Lew Boyd.”

  “Lew has a camera? He never struck me as the camera type.” “Everybody’s got a camera.”

  “Great color. And look at the way the light falls on the grass. How many entries so far?”

  “Thirteen so far. I got a sign in th’ window, we’ll let ’er rip ’til th’ end of next week.”

  “What’s the prize?”

  “Free lunch for two.”

  “Good deal.”

  “Tuesday only, an’ th’ winner has to claim ’is prize by Christmas Eve, or no cigar.”

  “Who are the judges?”

  “Me an’Velma.”

  “You’re not going to award the winner your Tuesday special, I fondly hope.” Percy’s fried gizzards were a prize, all right. . . .

  “They can order what they want to,” said Percy. “Up to a point.”

  “What’s the point?” He was just checking.

  “One entrée, one drink, and one dessert each. And by th’ way, no digital doodah or color Xerox, just straight four-by-six glossy, an’ print your name on th’ back.”

  “I think I’ll enter,” he said.

  Percy straightened his apron. “I heard you an’ Mule and Whatsisface was down at the tea shop chattin’ it up like a bunch of women.”

  “You heard right!” he said, slipping toward the rear booth.

  There was a brief silence as Percy decided whether to chase that rabbit or let it go. “So what’re you havin’?”

  “The usual.”

  “I’d rather be hit upside th’ head than poach eggs this mornin’.”

  “Come the end of December, you’ll never have to poach another egg as long as you live. So cut me some slack, buddyroe.”

  Percy grinned, a rare and astonishing sight. “I’m getting’ out of here b’fore th’ end of December. We’re closin’ shop Christmas Eve, right behind th’ last lunch customer.”

  “Christmas Eve?” It was all happening too fast. . . .

  “Amen!” said Percy, who wasn’t often given to liturgical language.

  Following yet another phone talk with Helen, Hope had bared her heart to Scott Murphy over dinner the previous evening in Wesley. He had held her hand and prayed for her, right there in the restaurant.

  Grateful and tremulous, she had come home to sit down with a notepad and gather her thoughts about writing to Edith Mallory, when suddenly the words began to tumble onto the page with scarcely any caution or forethought.

  In the end, it had been exactly what she wanted to say.

  She would transcribe the hastily composed missive to a sheet of ivory stationery and send it registered mail—something she had never before done with a document of any sort.

  The only concern she had in writing the letter was whether to mention Mrs. Mallory’s terrible injuries, which had rendered her unable to speak except in a fashion so garbled that not even her doctors could understand her meaning.

  If no reference was made in the letter to such a tragedy, it might be construed as coldness of spirit, or worse.

  She would take her cue, then, from rumor—that Mrs. Mallory was now able to communicate, though with painful slowness, to Ed Coffey, the man who had driven her around for so many years in that black Lincoln. A further rumor reported a recent removal of the bandages from Edith Mallory’s head.

  In this fearsome and thrilling thing she was about to do, she had every intention of looking always on the bright side.

  Dear Mrs. Mallory, she penned at the top of the ivory sheet . . .

  I was very happy to hear of your recent improvements, and trust that we shall have continuing good news of your recovery.

  I also trust that the following proposal will meet with your deepest approval.

  As you are perhaps aware, my longtime employer, Helen Huffman, has recently informed your attorney that due to pressing demands of her Florida business, she will not renew the lease on your old Porter building, long known as Happy Endings Books.

  Indeed, it is my heartfelt desire to renew the lease in my own name, and to assume full responsibility as Happy Endings Books’ new owner and manager.

  Mrs. Mallory, I speak to you as one businesswoman to another, and believe you will appreciate my wish to be entirely frank.

  The monthly lease is now $950 plus utilities, but I will be able during the first six months to pay only $800, plus utilities.

  On July first and thereafter, I expect to be fully able to pay the monthly sum of $950 plus utilities without further hindrance.

  In the meantime, I will, at my own expense, repaint the interior walls, which are in sore condition, and have a new toilet and front-door lock installed at my expense. These improvements are worth approximately $2,500 by today’s estimations, thus you would recognize a benefit of $1,550 at the very outset of our relationship.

  I will work hard, Mrs. Mallory, to make you proud to count Happy Endings among your most responsible tenants. I have had a lifelong love of learning and of books, and cannot express to you the joy it would give me to undertake such a rewarding endeavor—an endeavor which I believe enriches our community immeasurably.

  Should you consider my proposal with favor, I shall be happy to dispatch character references at once.

  Yours sincerely,

  Hope Winchester

  Happy Endings Books

  The effort to transcribe the letter in ink, without making mistakes, had been considerable. Should she have written instead to Mrs. Mallory’s attorneys? She didn’t know anything about attorneys. And should she have referred to herself as a businesswoman? “Yes!” Helen had insisted. “Absolutely!”

  She felt a heaviness between her shoulders, as if she’d toted a barge along Little Mitford Creek.

  Slipping the folded, two-page letter inside the envelope, she licked the seal and considered again the ways in which she hoped to make this impossible dream come true.

  Money would be scarce, very scarce, especially as Helen would be taking fifty percent of the profits during the first year, in payment for her inventory and for revenue earned from the rare-books realm. In addition to rent and utilities, that would be a heavy outgo. As for income, she had only her mother’s surprising legacy, the forty-seven hundred dollars she had saved since college, and, of c
ourse, the five hundred dollars per month she would save if . . .

  She drew another sheet of paper from the box.

  Dear Mrs. Havner,

  Thanks to your many courtesies over the years, I have been happy in my little nest above your tea shop.

  I’ve always been especially fond of Thursdays, for the smell ofyour delectable cinnamon rolls wafted up to my aerie and made it all the more a true home!

  It is with deep regret, as well as joy unbounded, that I write to tell you I will not be renewing my lease this year. . . .

  She drew a shallow breath.

  This letter couldn’t be mailed, of course, until she heard from Mrs. Mallory, which, she felt certain, would be only a few days hence.

  She spied the folded slip of paper that Scott had given her, lying by the stationery box. When he walked her to the door last night, he had proffered it like a fortune from a cookie.

  “This will help,” he said, smiling. “I promise.”

  She remembered the tips of his fingers brushing the palm of her hand. . . .

  She unfolded the paper now and read once again the inscription in blue ink.

  Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

  A white cake box had been delivered while he and Cynthia were shopping at The Local.

  “What is it?” he asked Puny.

  He hoped to the good Lord it wasn’t one of Esther’s orange marmalade cakes. The angst of not being able to eat the whole thing, much less a single, solitary piece . . .

  “Fruitcake!” she said, obviously disgusted. “Won’t people ever learn you can’t eat this stuff?”

  “Well, yes,” he said, “but Cynthia can, and you, and Dooley. A fine gift!”

  “Mister Cunningham made it, it’s your Christmas present. He brought it early so you can start soakin’ it in bourbon or whatever. He said he was willin’ to do th’ bakin’, but he draws th’ line on soakin’.”

  Their housekeeper, whom he loved as his own blood, and who had stayed home until the contagion passed, was roughly five months away from delivering a second round of twins.

  “You look wonderful, Puny. How are my new grans?”

  She grinned. “Kickin’!”

  “Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m going to stretch out in the study a few minutes.”

  “I’m bakin’ a pie with Sadie Baxter apples an’ fake sugar. I’ll try not t’ make noise.”

  “Oh, but make noise! Rattle those pots and pans! That’s what home is about.”

  A pie! He fairly skipped into the study.

  Cynthia was already prone on their bed. Following endless days of the Crud, the two blocks to the store and back had been right up there with swimming the English Channel.

  His good dog heaved himself onto the sofa and laid his head on his master’s feet.

  “Barnabas,” he murmured before drowsing off to sleep, “just wait ’til you see what’s coming.

  “Sheep! Shepherds! A camel! Angels! You won’t believe it.”

  “Miz Kavanagh, is it all right t’ give Timothy some of this candy fruit?”

  “Two cherries!” he said, extending both hands. Why did Peggy have to ask his mother everything? If it was up to Peggy, he could have almost anything he wanted.

  “Please,” he remembered to say.

  “Very well,” said his mother, “but only two.”

  He also wanted raisins and a brazil nut, but he would ask later. He liked a lot of things that went into the fruitcake his mother and Peggy made every year, but he didn’t like them in the cake, he liked them out of the cake.

  Coffee perked on the electric range, a lid rattled on a boiling pot, he smelled cinnamon and vanilla. . . .

  At the kitchen table, his mother wrote thoughtfully on a sheet of blue paper. “There’ll be the Andersons, of course,” she said to Peggy, “and the Adamses.”

  “What about th’ judge?”

  “The judge goes without saying. We always have the judge.”

  “An’ Rev’ren’ Simon.”

  “Yes, I think his influence is good for Timothy.”

  “Ain’t you havin’ th’ Nelsons?”

  “Oh, yes, and the Nelsons. Definitely!”

  “Them Nelson boys’ll be slidin’ down yo’ banister an’ crawlin’ up yo’ curtains,” Peggy muttered.

  He didn’t like the Nelson boys; when they came, it was always two against one.

  “Can Tommy come?” His father had never allowed Tommy in the house, but since this would be Christmas . . .

  “No, dear. I’m sorry. Perhaps another time.”

  His mother furrowed her brow and looked at the rain lashing the windows. Peggy stirred batter in a bowl, shaking her head.

  “What shall we serve, Peggy? Certainly, we want your wonderful yeast rolls!”

  “Yes, ma’am, an’ Mr. Kavanagh will want his ambrosia and oyster pie.”

  His mother smiled, her face alight. “Always!”

  “An’ yo’ famous bûche de Noël!” said Peggy. “That always get a big hand clap.”

  “What is boose noel?” he asked, sitting on the floor with his wooden truck.

  “Buoosh,” said Peggy. “Bu like bu-reau. Buoosh.”

  “Boosh.”

  “No, honey.” Peggy bent down and stuck her face close to his. He liked Peggy’s skin, it was exactly the color of gingerbread. “Look here at my lips . . . bu . . .”

  “Bu . . .”

  “Now . . . law, how I goin’ t’ say this? Say shhhh, like a baby’s sleepin’.”

  “Shhhh.”

  “That’s right! Now, bu-shhh.”

  “Bu . . . shhh.”

  “Run it all together, now. Bushhh.”

  “Bushhh!”

  “Ain’t that good, Miz Kavanagh?”

  “Very good!”

  Peggy stood up and began to stir again. “Listen, now, honey lamb, learn t’ say th’ whole thing—bûche de Noël.”

  “Bûche de Noël!”

  “He be talkin’ French, Miz Kavanagh!”

  He was thrilled with their happiness; with no trouble at all, he’d gotten raisins and a Brazil nut for talking French.

  “What does it mean, Mama?”

  “Log of Christmas. Christmas log. A few days before Christmas, you may help us put the icing on. It’s a very special job.”

  “Icin’ on a log?”

  “A log made from cake. We had it last year, but you probably don’t remember—you were little then.” His mother smiled at him; he saw lights dancing in her eyes.

  “Yes, ma’am, and now I’m big.”

  “You ain’t big,” crowed Peggy, “you my baby!”

  He hated it when Peggy said that.

  Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

  She’d heard that all her life. But in this thing she was praying and believing could be done, she wanted to get started.

  Why not spend the days of waiting, acting as if it were going to happen?

  If it didn’t happen, she would take the penalty of great disappointment as her just and rightful lot. Of course, if it didn’t happen, what would she do? She didn’t want to leave Mitford, not at all.

  If Edith Mallory refused to give her the lease, Helen’s moving truck would come and everything would be crated up and taken to Florida, leaving the store empty for an as-yet-unknown occupant. She had a fleeting image of herself, standing in the middle of the large and vacant room. . . .

  But, no! She mustn’t think that way. How, then, might she begin acting as if it were going to happen?

  “Dear God. . . ,” she whispered.

  No matter what the future held, the big room upstairs, long used for storage, would have to be cleaned out. She took a deep breath and allowed herself to examine again the wondrous possibilities.

  In that light-filled room, there would be space for all three of her bookcases.

  She would be able to use her mother’s lace curtains at the windows facing Main Street—without hav
ing measured, she knew they would fit.

  The faded Aubusson rug, which had for years been her grandest possession, would look beautiful on the old pine floor.

  Though customers had come in, she raced up the stairs to look again at the room with its three handsome, albeit unwashed, windows.

  Halfway along the stairs, she paused.

  What would she do for heat in the attic of this creaky old building? Suddenly weary, she sighed and sat down on the step.

  Then, a proverbial truth struck:

  Heat rises.

  “By George!” Father Tim fairly whooped.

  “What is it?” asked Andrew, looking up from a book on the Nativity.

  “See here, sanding the surface makes this hateful color almost pleasing to the eye.”

  “Why, yes! I agree. It’s just the color of my good wife’s pumpkin soup with a dash of cream, not bad at all. And I like the way the gilt underpainting comes forth on the sleeve.”

  “Do you think we can get away with sanding only? No painting?” One could dream.

  “We can’t know until you get at each one, but I’d say no, too easy. Let me have a go at one.”

  Andrew put the book down and was examining an angel as Fred came in.

  “What about me sittin’ in on this?” asked Fred, looking eager.

  “Here’s a sheet of sandpaper, pull up a chair,” said Andrew. “The doorbell will tell us if we have visitors. Probably won’t see a soul ’til the Charleston decorator arrives at two.”

  “I b’lieve I’ll try a sheep. My gran’daddy raised sheep, he let me feed th’ orphans on a bottle.”

  “Splendid,” said Father Tim. “Go to it!”

  “This figure has a truly beautiful countenance,” said Andrew. “What about her missing wing?”

  “I don’t think I’ll tackle it.” Truth be told, he was frightened of trying to build something so crucial with plaster, which was as yet a foreign material to him—it could result in an onerous lump instead of an arched and lovely wing. And then there were the feathers he’d be forced to create in the wet plaster. No indeed, this was Nativity 101, not Rodin’s atelier. “Besides, think how the missing wing depicts the human condition!”