A New Song

PENGUIN BOOKS

A NEW SONG

Jan Karon, who lives in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, was an award-winning advertising executive before following her dream of writing books. She is the author of five bestselling Mitford novels:
At Home in Mitford
;
A Light in the Window
;
These High, Green Hills; Out to Canaan
; and
A New Song
(all available from Penguin).
At Home in Mitford
was nominated for an ABBY Award by the American Booksellers Association in 1996, 1997, and 1998. Her book
Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny
will be published in 2000 by Viking Children’s Books.

VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

 

First published in 1999 BY Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

Copyright © Jan Karon, 1999

Illustrations copyright © Penguin Putnam Inc., 1999
All rights reserved

 

Illustrations by Donna Kae Nelson

 

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following
copyrighted works: “If Once You Have Slept on an Island” from
Taxis and Toadstools
by
Rachel Field. Copyright 1926 by The Century Company. Used by permission of Random
House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc. “God’s Way” by Kao Chung-Ming,
appearing in
Your Will Be Done
, Youth Desk of Christian Conference of Asia,
1986. By permission of the author.

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Karon, Jan, date.
A new song/ Jan Karon.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-0-140-27059-4

 

 

Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement
and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

Now you can visit Mitford on-line at
www.penguinputnam.com/mitford
.

 

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In memory of my aunt,
Helen Coyner Cloer,
who, when I was ten years old,
typed my first manuscript.
October 4, 1917- October 12, 1998
“. . . we shall be like Him . . .”
1 John 3:2

 

Brother Francis Andrews, BSG; Rev. Roy M. King; Flyin’ George Ronan; John Ed McConnell; Ralph Emery; Dr. Carl Hurley; Loyal Jones and Billy Edd Wheeler; Bonnie Setzer; Mary Richardson; Fr. John Mangrum; Fr. Jeffrey Scott Miller; Dr. George Grant; Austin Gragg; Roger David Craig; Frank Gilbert and his Mustang convertible; the Mitford Appreciation Society; Gwynne Crosley; Rev. Gale Cooper; Sue Yates; Dr. David Ludwig; Dan Blair; Linda Foster; Will Lankenau; William McDonald Parker; Blowing Rock police chief, Owen Tolbert; Officer Dennis Swanson; Bishop Christopher Fitz-Simons Allison; James F. Carlisle, Sr.; Betsy Barnes; Rayburn and Sheila Farmer; Fr. Scott Oxford; Bishop William C. Frey; Bishop Keith Ackerman; Rev. Stephen J. Hines; Larry Powell; Barry Hubert; Derald West; Sandy McNabb; Donna Kae Nelson for her outstanding cover illustrations for the Mitford series; Captain Weyland Baum, early keeper of the Currituck Light; Billy McCaskill; Major John Coffindaffer; “Bee” Baum; Drs. Melanie and Greg Hawthorne; John L. Beard; Greg and Kathy Fishel; Frank LePore; Garry Oliver; my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Downs; my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Sherrill; Dr. Michael C. Ain; Captain Mike Clarkin of
Fishin’ Frenzy
; First Mate Matthew Winchester; Dr. Sue P. Frye; Ross and Linda Dodington; Fr. Richard B. Bass; Colonel Ron and Cathey Fallows; Murray Whisnant; Robert Williams; Chris Williams; Michael Freeland; Rabbi David and Barbara Kline; Officer Kris Merithew; Bruce Luke; Johnny Lentz; Judith Burns; Wonderland Books; Tom Enterline; J.W.D.; Loretta Cornejo; Tex Harrison; Jerry Gregg; Officer Tracy Toler; Jeff Cobb; Walter Green; and Anita Chappell.

 

Dr. Bunky Davant, medical counsel to Mitford and Whitecap; Tony DiSanti, legal counsel to Mitford; Grace Episcopal Church, the lovely architectural model for St. John’s in the Grove; Fr. Charles Gill, rector of St. Andrews by the Sea; Fr. James Harris, friend and helper; Judy Bistany South, for her warm encouragement over the years; my valued assistant, Laura Watts; Captain Horace Whitfield, master of the
Elizabeth II
; hardworking booksellers everywhere; and, as always, my devoted readers.

 

 

Isaiah 42:10, KJV

CHAPTER ONE

Dappled by its movement among the branches of a Japanese cherry, the afternoon light entered the study unhindered by draperies or shades.

It spilled through the long bank of windows behind the newly slipcovered sofa, warming the oak floor and quickening the air with the scent of freshly milled wood.

Under the spell of the June light, a certain luster and radiance appeared to emerge from every surface.

The tall chest, once belonging to Father Tim’s clergyman great-grandfather, had undergone a kind of rebirth. Beneath a sheen of lemon oil, the dense grain of old walnut, long invisible in the dark rectory hallway next door, became sharply defined. Even the awkward inscription of the letter M, carved by a pocketknife, could now be discovered near one of the original drawer pulls.

But it was the movement and play of the light, beyond its searching incandescence, that caused Father Tim to anticipate its daily arrival as others might look for a sunrise or sunset.

He came eagerly to this large, new room, as if long deprived of light or air, still incredulous that such a bright space might exist, and especially that it might exist for his own pursuits since retiring six months ago from Lord’s Chapel.

As the rector of Mitford’s Episcopal parish, he had lived next door in the former rectory for sixteen years. Now he was a rector no more, yet he owned the rectory; it had been bought and paid for with cash from his mother’s estate, and he and Cynthia were living in the little yellow house.

Of course—he kept forgetting—this house wasn’t so little anymore; he and his visionary wife had added 1,270 square feet to its diminutive proportions.

Only one thing remained constant. The house was still yellow, though freshly painted with Cynthia’s longtime favorite, Wild Forsythia, and trimmed with a glossy coat of the dark green Highland Hemlock.