Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  Cynthia was beaming as she handed him the manila envelope he’d waited for.

  “Congratulations, darling.”

  They hugged, wordless.

  They were the proud new parents of a hundred-and-sixty-pound boy.

  Dear Father Tim,

  The Mitford Muse kindly shared your address.

  You won’t remember me, but Frank and I attended the nine o’clock at Lord’s Chapel when we came up from Fort Lauderdale each summer.

  Frank has passed on, and I am emptying our honse, Overlook, just two doors from poor Edith Mallory’s Clear Day. You would be so welcome to our piano! Frank played it at every single one of our parties for thirty years! Gershwin was his favorite, esp. “I’ve Got Rhythm!”

  And while we’re at it, could you use a nice card table and four chairs, a hall runner, an umbrella stand (very nice, only one dent), and a lamp made from the horns of a rinoscerous (sp?)?

  I am downsizing.

  Yours sincerely,

  Marsha Ford

  P.S. I hope all this would be tax deductible. One must think of these things. Anytime Tuesday would be convenient for you to pick everything up.

  Dear Mrs. Ford,

  Of course I remember you. You enjoyed wearing hats, a fashion which clergy are known to appreciate! And Frank was fond of giving out round tuits; I believe I still have mine.

  We would be delighted to take the whole kit and caboodle and yes, indeed, all should be tax deductible. I will supply something on paper four your records.

  I know precisely where you are and shall be there on Tuesday at eleven.

  My sincerest condolences; Frank was a very cheerful and upbeat fellow who made a difference in our midst.

  Yours in Him Who loved us first,

  Fr Timothy Kavanagh †

  The letter written, and his wife painting like a maniac, he preheated their fastidiously clean oven to 375, according to instructions.

  There was a sense of waiting in the air, something palpable; he was listening for a step on the porch, a knock on the door, the ringing of the phone; his shoulders were hitched up around his ears.

  He would try to forget what he was beginning to think, and surrender his all to this cake ...

  He plucked three brown eggs from the blue bowl and went about the exceedingly mysterious ritual that would result in laughter and happiness on Wilson’s Ridge.

  “It’s beautiful!” she said, meaning it.

  He’d gone up to heaven and beseeched his wife to come and see the common miracle he’d performed.

  It sat on a cream-ware cake stand in the center of the pine table, and he was smitten with it.

  “It worked,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”

  Even Buster and Lloyd had been impressed.

  “But it took two hours,” he lamented. “And that’s out of a box. Think what it would take from scratch.” He was mortified.

  “Two hours’ work,” she pronounced, “will last a mere fifteen minutes at Holy Trinity.”

  He could hardly wait ’til Sunday.

  “I can’t be brave any longer,” she said. The sun had just disappeared behind the mountain, and they sat, worn from waiting, in the old wicker chairs on the porch.

  “I don’t feel brave at all,” he confessed. “Worried sick is more like it.”

  “Me, too.”

  “The police, then.”

  “Yes.”

  He rose from the chair; the enormous weight of his body astonished him.

  Unconsciously, he shook his head all along the hall to the library. The prospect of a revolving blue light provoked in him a mixture of nausea and dread.

  He prayed as he dialed.

  Our Lord Emmanuel, thank You for living up to Your name and being with us ...

  He had walked out to the porch to wait for the county police when he heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel. He knew at once ...

  Sammy ambled toward the porch, his tall, thin frame a silhouette in the dusky half-light.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. Where have you been?”

  “Around.”

  “Around where?”

  Sammy shrugged.

  “Answer me, please.”

  Sammy sat down on the bottom step, his back to the vicar. “I spent th’ n-night in th’ b-barn.”

  “Come up to the porch. We’ll talk face-to-face.” He was giving it all he had to keep his voice calm.

  Sammy took his time rising from the step and walking up to the porch.

  “Sit down,” said the vicar. “Tell me everything.”

  “They’s snakes in y’r barn.”

  “Not that.”

  “I hitched t’ Wesley this mornin’.”

  “Keep going.”

  “I waited ’til th’ p-pool hall opened. B-Bud wadn’t there.”

  Sammy jiggled his leg and looked at the floor.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “I lost all m’ m-money.”

  “All.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes, sir.

  “Yes, sir. Dunn whipped my ass.”

  “You asked for it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “All your life there’s been no one to care where you are or what you’re doing. The minute you stepped foot on this place a few weeks ago, that changed. Now you have someone who cares very much where you are and what you’re doing. You also have someone to report to—and that someone is me.”

  Silence.

  “Listen carefully, and mark my words: This won’t happen again.”

  Sammy shrugged.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes, sir. What did I say?”

  “It w-won’t happen ag’in.”

  He heard the wheels of the county car crunching on the gravel.

  “It’s the police. Walk out with me.”

  “W-what’s happenin’?”

  “Walk out with me.”

  Father Tim went down the steps and out to the parking area. He turned around and waited for Sammy, and they walked to the car as it wheeled in. He was thankful there was no flashing blue light.

  An officer opened the driver’s door and stepped out. His partner stepped out the other side.

  “I’m Officer Justice; that’s Officer Daley. This th’ right place?”

  “Father Tim Kavanagh.” He shook hands with Justice. “It is the right place, and I owe you an apology. There’s been a mistake.”

  “We were told somethin’ about a missin’ boy.”

  “Yes, well, he isn’t missing at all. Standing right here in the flesh.”

  “Hey,” Sammy croaked.

  “You big, fat bonehead!” Cynthia punched Sammy on the arm. “Do that again and I’ll clean your clock.”

  Sammy burst into laughter.

  Cynthia laughed through her tears.

  Father Tim felt the eighteen-wheeler roll off his shoulders.

  “Anybody want a piece of cake?” he asked.

  “Lily’s doin’ th’ mayor’s party; she does it ever’ year an’ they all love it! Course, if it was at night, like it used t’ be, I’d sing, but they quit havin’ it at night; said a little hanky panky got t’ goin’ on.”

  “Uh-oh.” Violet was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt; he hardly recognized her. “Well! We didn’t know anybody at all was coming today.”

  “Oh, yes, if one don’t come, another’n does. When Lily said she was doin’ th’ mayor’s party, I reckon she thought you knowed you’d git a replacement. We always give a replacement.”

  “Wonderful. Well! Do you bake,Violet?”

  “Bake.” She pondered this. “In what way?”

  “Cakes.”

  “Lily bakes. I clean.”

  “Couldn’t you bake and clean?”

  “I wouldn’t want to, t’ tell th’ truth. But what did you have in mind?”

  “I baked a cake yesterday ...”

  “Git outta here! No way did y’ do t
hat!”

  He saw Lloyd stick his head through the opening in the blue tent, and smoke over their house help.

  “... and then, last night,” said the vicar, “we had a sort of... celebration and Cynthia and Sammy ate most of it. So I need another one for Sunday.” She seemed unmoved. “For the children!” he said, trying to close the deal.

  She gave forth a moan. “OK, I’ll do it f’r you an’ Miss Cynthia. But jis’ this once.”

  “Preheat the oven to three seventy-five,” he said. “You can’t just pop it in there, you have to wait ’til the oven heats.”

  “I ain’t as dumb as a rock. I have baked a cake or two in my life; I jis’ ain’t made a callin’ of it.”

  He remembered his life as a bachelor and how simple it had been.

  Taking the red leash from the coatrack, he had a thought. When Sissie, Rooter, Sammy, Roy Dale, Gladys, and seven Millwrights got hold of that cake, it would be history. Sunday was a very special Sabbath, indeed, and wouldn’t the adults be thrilled to find their own chocolate cake on the table at the end of the service?

  He cleared his throat. “Violet?” he said.

  He zoomed along the state road with Barnabas sitting stoically in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. He had to get the papers notarized, pick up provisions at The Local, zip over to see Harley and Lew, then head back to the sticks, ASAP. His sermon was sitting in the library on the back burner and needed to be moved to the front.

  He wanted to get it under wraps before Dooley arrived on Saturday night, probably a little worse for wear after driving an antediluvian Jeep all the way from Georgia.

  He took a left on Lilac Road so he could run up to Church Hill and get a glimpse of the new paint color on Fernbank, now home to Andrew and Anna Gregory’s three-star restaurant, Lucera.

  He could barely glimpse the late Victorian Fernbank through the trees, but saw that it sparkled. The new paint appeared to be a pale yellow, which he hoped the former owner might view with approval from her post on high.

  He swooped right onto Old Church Lane and, realizing that his good dog might need a pit stop, pulled alongside the curb at Baxter Park. “Just a quick one,” he said, putting on the leash.

  It was good being back in the park; it seemed years since he’d entered the leafy glade where he courted his wife and she courted him back.

  He noted the patrol car parked beneath the walnut tree. On occasion, an officer pulled into the park to check it out, though the worst, and possibly only, crime that ever occurred here was an attempted assault years ago on a Wesley college student.

  Aha! The car was Adele Hogan’s. Yes, indeed, brand spanking new and looking good. As he walked Barnabas to the bushes, he noticed that the heads of the two people in the front seat were very close together. In truth, they appeared to be ...

  ... kissing.

  He felt his blood turn to ice. He looked away and then looked again.

  Yes! Kissing! Clear as day.

  He gave the leash a yank and bolted from the park, his heart sick within him.

  “Is it something you could do ... gently?”

  “I could take it down, but who’d put it back ag‘in?” asked Harley. “An’ come t’ think of it, how could Miss Sadie have took down part of th’ head liner and got it back t’ look right? I don’t b’lieve that’s th’ place t’ go messin’ around.”

  He hadn’t yet checked with Andrew for permission to give the Plymouth a more thorough going-over. He wanted to see what Harley had to say first.

  “Maybe she used a tool of some kind to hide this ... thing.”

  “Wonder if she could of hid it under th’ hood? Y’ know that ol’ car’s got a Golden Commando V8 engine in it. Man, that thing was a stroker; it’d run like a scalded dog! Had y’r dual four-barrel carbs, had y’r special dual exhaust system ...”

  Father Tim checked his watch. “My hunch is, it’s not under the hood. Miss Sadie wasn’t an under-the-hood type.”

  “What’re you lookin’ f’r ... exactly?”

  “Something about this high, this wide, and this long.” He made a series of gestures.

  Harley appeared perplexed.

  “Think about it, if you would. I’ll check back. And Harley ...”

  “Yessir?”

  “Don’t mention this to anybody, please. Not a soul.”

  Harley nodded, sober. “You can bank on it, Rev’ren’.”

  He stepped inside where Lew was counting bills from the register.

  “Hey, buddyroe,” said the vicar.

  “Hey, how’s it goin’?”

  “Good. Who do you think the character was who came looking for me?”

  “Don’t have a clue. Asked ’im ’is name; he didn’t say nothin’. Just said he’d find you.”

  “Old? Young? Tall? Short?”

  “Prob’ly late forties. Hard livin’ on ’is face, so couldn’t say for sure. Medium.”

  “Walking? Riding?”

  “Walkin’.”

  “There but for the grace of God go us,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Full House

  The truckload from Meadowgate arrived early, trailed by the Jeep.

  Last Sunday, Dooley had wrangled permission to sleep in, having pulled into Meadowgate at one a.m., “fried,” as he said, from a week of exams and the long haul home.

  This Sunday, Dooley wanted to see what his brother was up to at Holy Trinity. Though Sammy felt humiliated when Dooley learned of his involvement in Sunday School, Dooley’s approval and interest had changed everything.

  Toting his vestments in a dry-cleaning bag, Father Tim hurried into the church with Sammy, while Cynthia and Dooley lingered at the wall, admiring the swoop and glide of hawks above the gorge.

  He was happy, instead, to admire their spinet piano, and the burgundy runner along the center aisle, and the four chairs folded and leaning against the rear wall in case of an overflow, and the card table in the narthex where the pew bulletins would greet one and all each Sunday. Sammy thumped several full egg cartons onto the table, along with a homemade tent card: first come, first served, and headed for the sacristy with the cake box.

  Who needed a full choir and stained glass with riches such as these?

  “You look divine,” said his wife, who was helping him vest. “In a manner of speaking, of course!”

  He noted that his scarlet chasuble and gold-embroidered stole made him feel splendid—yes, that was the word!—and full of hope. Indeed, their resident male cardinal was also vested for this glorious Whitsunday.

  “Oh, and Timothy ...”

  “Yes?”

  “John the Baptist.”

  “Already? I just had it cut.”

  “That was Lent. This is Pentecost.”

  If it wasn’t one thing, it was two, as his grandmother had been fond of saying.

  He was checking the altar that Agnes had prepared when someone trotted down the aisle. “Hey-y, Father!”

  “Violet! My goodness, this is a pleasant surprise. Hey, yourself!” Violet was decked, to say the least.

  “Lloyd said he’d give a dollar if I’d go t’ church with ’im, so here I am! An’ here’s th’ dollar.” She waved it around for his inspection.

  The vicar grinned. “I guess a dollar goes a long way, after all.”

  She gazed at the altar, the carved pulpit, the kneelers. “I ain’t never been in a church like this, so y’all’ll have t’ s’cuse me if I step in it.”

  He laughed. “Not to worry. When the heart’s right, it’s impossible to do anything wrong.”

  “My gosh,” she said, looking pleased, “that’s a sermon right there.”

  Come, Holy Spirit, heav’nly Dove

  With all thy qnick’ning powers

  Kindle a flame of sacred love

  In these cold hearts of ours.

  See how we trifle here below

  Fond of these earthly toys

  Our sonls, how heavily they go

  To
reach eternal joys.

  In vain we tune our formal songs

  In vain we strive to rise

  Hosannas languish on our tongues

  And our devotion dies.

  Come, Holy Spirit, heav’nly Dove

  With all thy quick’ning powers

  Come, shed abroad a Savior’s love

  And that shall kindle ours.

  At the time of announcements, he looked out to his congregation with a certain gladness.

  Given Sparkle’s increasing confidence with their hymnbook, Miss Martha’s flat-out volume, and Violet’s impressive vocal skills, the a cappella singing at Holy Trinity had picked up.

  Way up.

  “Our Lord has given us yet another day of perfection, and we’re going to do our part to savor every moment. After the offering, we’ll process into the churchyard and have Holy Communion at the wall. Then, at the close of our service, we’ll come back inside, finish up with chocolate cake ...”—he liked the approving murmur that rippled through the nave—“and learn Rooter’s new hand sign.

  “Now. What’s different today about Holy Trinity?”

  Rooter’s hand shot into the air.

  “Rooter?”

  “’At pianna.”

  “Yes, the piano! As you’ll read in the bulletin, it’s a gift from God—via a thoughtful and generous lady in Mitford. And now we need but one other gift from the One Who is, Himself, the Perfect Gift: we need someone to play it.”

  He looked at his parishioners; they looked at one another.

  Much shaking of heads, followed by silence.

  After a moment of sober introspection, Sparkle raised her hand.

  Their vicar’s grin spread ear-to-ear.

  This morning, he’d seen three parishioners sign last week’s greeting, Peace be with you, to Clarence.

  “And also with you,” Clarence had signed back. Good medicine for their amiable and gifted crucifer, he reckoned, and very good medicine for them all.

  Father Tim figured his own hand-signing vocabulary consisted roughly of most of the alphabet, Rooter’s installment of last Sunday, How’s your work coming along?, A thousand thanks, I love you, and, of course, How are you doing, man?