At Home in Mitford (22 page)

“I could leave out th’ bacon drippin’s, and use vegetable oil. But it wouldn’t be no good.”

“That’s right!”

“If my granpaw didn’t git cornbread once a day, he said he couldn’t live. I’d bake him a cake at night, he’d eat half of it hot. Then he’d git up in the night and eat what was left, crumbled up in milk.”

“Really?”

“Stayed a string bean all his life, too. He said preachin’ the word of God kept the fat wore off.”

“It has never served me in that particular way, I regret to say.”

Puny filled the scrub bucket and went to work with her brush.

Seeing her scrub the floor on her hands and knees continued to be among his least favorite sights. “Puny, may I be so bold to ask why someone with your fine abilities has never married?”

“Th’ good Lord ain’t sent the right one, is why.”

“And your family, is there family?”

She looked up. “My daddy died when I was little, and Mama raised me and my two sisters ’til we was all in junior high. My twin brothers went off to live with my aunt, ’cause she could send ’em to school. After that, Mama took sick and lingered.

“She said she lingered for one reason only, and that was to prepare us for life.”

Puny sat back on her heels.

“She knowed she was dyin’, and ever’ night after we done our schoolwork and got th’ supper dishes washed, Mama would call us in to set on her bed.

“ ‘Tonight I’m goin’ to talk to you about hard work,’ she might say. ‘I’ve only got one thing to say about it, and that is—don’t be afraid of it.’

“That was all the lesson on hard work, and she’d lay back and we’d brush her hair and paint her nails and just kind of play with ’er, like a doll.

“She liked that and would fall off to sleep that way, with us pettin’ ’er. Another night, she might say, ‘Girls, I’m goin’ to talk to you about men, and here’s what I’ve got to say: Don’t let a man pick you. You do the pickin’.’

“You know, if that’s all somebody has to say about somethin’, you’ll think about it more’n if they rattle on and on.”

He thought she had a point.

“Mama always told us, ‘I don’t want to look down from heaven and see my girls makin’ fools of theirselves.’ ”

“Well, I’m sure she’s pleased, Puny, for you’re a hardworking, good-spirited young woman who’d make any mother proud.”

“After Mama died, th’ church took my sisters, sent ’em hither an’ yon, an’ I quit school to go look after granpaw. Lived all by hisself out in th’ country, but he had a pretty little place, neat as a pin, wouldn’t hardly a leaf fall in th’ yard till he was out there sweepin’ it up. He was tough as a old turkey gobbler, but I liked ’im. He could preach up a storm! Make the windows rattle!” She looked at him soberly. “How’s your preachin’?”

“There’s any number of opinions on that subject,” he said, laughing. “You’ll just have to come and see for yourself.”

Puny had left baked chicken and green beans cooked with new potatoes, one of his favorite meals. He laid a tray and took his supper into the study to watch the news. World events continually reminded him of how blessed he was to live and work in the peace and tranquillity of Mitford. It was only by the grace of God, some said, that their village was still largely unspoiled.

A lot of the credit, of course, belonged to Esther Cunningham. The mayor was like a great, clucking hen, sitting on a nest which was the fragile ecology of their little town, and she was ready to defend it to the death.

Still, development had sprung up around the edges, like weeds encroaching on a garden. Just beyond the big curve from Lew Boyd’s Esso was the bright yellow motel with a huge green cactus outlined in neon. There was growing pressure for a shopping center, and a food store chain was pawing the very ground where the town limit sign was erected. It was only a matter of time, was the general consensus at the Grill. “Over my dead body,” said Esther, who stood firm on three Churchillian words: Never give up.

After the news, he put the dishes in the sink and went to his desk to make notes on his sermon. He was considering what J. Hudson Taylor, the English missionary to China, had said, in reflecting on the verse from Matthew: “Where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a great multitude?”

“What God has given us,” Taylor had written, “is all we need; we require nothing more. It is not a question of large supplies—it is a question of the presence of the Lord.”

That was a sermon that was almost unpreachable in today’s world. Why take off along that narrow and difficult path, when wide boulevards were generally more inviting to a congregation?

Barnabas barked gruffly, then leaped across the study floor and into the kitchen, where he put his front paws on the back door and barked again.

He heard a small knock.

“Your sugar!” Cynthia Coppersmith said when he opened the door. He was holding Barnabas firmly by the collar.

“You shouldn’t have bothered. Really! I’m just finishing up some notes, and we were going to settle in for a bit of Wordsworth . . .”

“I love Wordsworth!” she exclaimed, handing him the cup of sugar.

He was unable to think of anything to reply, when years of social training came to his rescue. “Won’t you come in?” he blurted, much to his surprise.

“Well . . . yes! Yes, I will, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Blast! he thought, tucking his shirttail in with one hand and holding Barnabas with the other.

As he almost never had unexpected company in the evening, he hardly knew how to proceed. A drink? Didn’t people offer drinks? Well, he didn’t have any to offer. It would have to be sherry, perhaps, or tea, and a plate of . . . what? Shortbread.

Giving himself time to think it through, he took Barnabas to the rear hedge, leaving his neighbor happily inspecting his bookshelves.

When he returned, she was sitting on the study sofa, poring over a book of lectures by Oswald Chambers and appearing oddly at home among the jumble of worn needlepoint pillows.

She looked up, quoting the Scottish teacher who happened to be one of his favorite writers. “ ‘Faith by its very nature must be tried,’ he says. Do you agree?”

He sat down in his wing chair, suddenly feeling more at home with his company. “Absolutely!”

“I’ve never been one for physical exercise,” she said, “but what God does with our faith must be something like workouts. He sees to it that our faith gets pushed and pulled, stretched, and pounded, taken to its limits so its limits can expand.”

He liked that—taken to its limits so its limits can expand. Yes!

“If it doesn’t get exercised,” she said thoughtfully, “it becomes like a weak muscle that fails us when we need it.”

He felt himself smiling foolishly, though his question was serious. “Would you agree that we must be willing to thank God for every trial of our faith, no matter how severe, for the greater strength it produces?”

“I’m perfectly willing to say it, but I’m continually unable to do it.”

“There’s the rub!”

When he went to the kitchen to make a second pot of tea, he was astounded to find that it was eleven o’clock. That hardly anyone in Mitford stayed up until eleven o’clock was common knowledge.

At noon, he walked briskly from the church office to Lord’s Chapel, with Barnabas on his red leash.

He had a pile of correspondence to tend to and another visit to make to the hospital in the afternoon. That’s why he’d brought a sandwich made from last night’s chicken, which he’d put in the parish hall refrigerator early this morning.

The sky was darkly overcast, but he hardly noticed the weather. He was thinking of last night’s unexpected caller and the visit that ensued.

He turned the key in the lock and went in the side door of the old parish hall. Though it was barely large enough for a party of fifty, they often squeezed in seventy-five or more for coffee after the late service.

Three walls displayed a collection of framed needlepoint that had been worked by parishioners since 1896 and included embellished crosses, a view from the ruined church on the hill (the first Lord’s Chapel), a crown of thorns, and his personal favorite: a mass of roses framing the Scripture from Psalm 68: “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits.”

The fourth wall contained a series of mullioned windows that looked out to the finest of the Lord’s Chapel gardens. As he passed the windows, he saw the rain begin.

He opened the refrigerator but didn’t see his lunch bag. “Odd,” he said aloud to Barnabas, “I put it right here with the wine.” With some bewilderment, he noted that the sacramental wine was also missing, a fact that was easy to establish since there was nothing in the refrigerator but two containers of half-and-half, and a jar of Sunday school apple juice.

“Did I dream we walked over here this morning and left that sandwich?” Barnabas yawned hugely and lay down by the kitchen worktable. “That’s the darndest thing. What in the world . . .”

Perhaps the Altar Guild had come in and cleaned out the refrigerator. But it was already clean. Feeling stupid, he looked in the broom closet and inspected the contents of the drawers. After all, he had once put a package of butter in the oven while wrestling with the idea of a sermon on greed.

The lunch bag was nowhere to be found. “Well, then,” he said, irritated. “We’ll give our business to Percy.”

As he locked the door, he thought he heard the barest whisper of singing, a mere wisp of last Sunday’s anthem. He listened but heard nothing more.

“Angels!” he said, as they set out in a light autumn rain.

“I’ve found out all about your neighbor,” Emma announced.

“Really?”

“She’s an artist and a writer. Paints watercolors for th’ children’s books she writes. That white cat she has? That’s the star of her Violet books.
Violet Comes to Stay, Violet Grows Up, Violet Has Kittens, Violet Goes to England.
You name it, that cat has done it.” She paused, hoping for some response, but got none.

She selected another choice piece of information, as one might poke through the caramels to find a chocolate. “She used to be married to somebody important.”

“Is that right?”

“A senator,” she said grandly.

“Aha.”

“Her uncle gave ’er that little house. Remember him? The old scrooge!”

He remembered well enough. He’d tried to be friendly and had even regularly prayed for his unkind neighbor, seeing that he needed it. Nothing he’d done, including the delivery of an apple pie, had softened the old man’s heart toward him. Then, two years ago, his neighbor had died, leaving the little house empty and unkempt.

“It wasn’t actually the uncle who gave it to her,” said Emma. “It was her uncle’s daughter. Called her up, said she didn’t want it, thought Cynthia should have it. Said Cynthia was the only one her old daddy ever liked.”

“Um,” he said, looking through his phone messages.

“Never had any kids. Kind of adopted her husband’s nephew.”

She waited, having gone nearly to the bottom of her information barrel. “Drives a Mazda!” she said at last.

“With such vast reportorial skills, you might talk to J.C. Hogan about working at the
Muse
.”

“That’s more than you’d ever find out in a hundred years!”

“You’re right, as usual,” he said, drily. “I think it’s especially fascinating to know what kind of car she drives.”

Emma pursed her lips. Down deep, she could tell he was thrilled she’d found out all this stuff.

He finished putting his phone messages in order. “And how did you learn all this, exactly?”

“I did what anybody would do. I asked her!”

He queried the sexton when he came by to collect his check. “Russell, did you go in the church yesterday?”

“Nossir, Father, I didn’t. I was goin’ to heat up some soup in th’ kitchen, but th’ rain looked like it was settin’ in for th’ day, so I went home and fried me some livermush. Dooley come home on th’ bus.”

“The Altar Guild wasn’t in there, either. It’s a mystery, all right.”

“How’s that?”

“Yesterday morning, I put a sandwich in the refrigerator, and when I went to look for it, it was gone, along with a bottle of sacramental wine.”

Russell scratched his head. “I was in th’ churchyard ’til around noon or so, when I seen you leave out to Main Street. I didn’t lay eyes on another soul.”

The rector shook his head. “Ah, well! Do you think you can get to those broken flagstones before winter?”

“I’m workin’ on it, Father,” he said, as the phone rang.

“Father,” said Olivia Davenport, “Pearly McGee just died.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

As he hung up the phone, it rang again.

Marge Owen had delivered a healthy baby girl. Seven pounds, eight ounces. Rebecca Jane!

Sorrow and joy, he thought, so inextricably entwined that he could scarcely tell where one left off and the other began.

He had taken particular pains about dressing for the art show at the Oxford. For one thing, he felt it would demonstrate respect for Uncle Billy. Here he was, dressed in his second new jacket purchase of the year, a circumstance he found just short of miraculous. If there had ever been a year in which he’d bought two jackets, he couldn’t remember it.

Of course, there was no way he could have resisted this particular jacket. Not only was it a color that Emma told him would be flattering, but it was comfortable, fit perfectly, would go with everything, and was on sale. So, what was he to do?

“English Copper!” the Collar Button owner said, grandly describing the color. “It will look stunning with your black clericals.”

Stunning? He wasn’t at all certain that this was how he wanted to look.

The Oxford was wearing its signature fragrance of floor wax, lemon oil, old wood, and worn leather. Andrew had even gone to some pains to buy flowers at Mitford Blossoms and arrange them himself in an ancient silver wine bucket, which he placed on a hunt table newly arrived from Cumbria.