At Home in Mitford

  At times like these, his mind let down its daytime defenses, and the names of people whom he hadn’t remembered in months or even years came before him.

  Suddenly, he sat straight up.

  The red bicycle!

  It was standing in the garage, in plain view of anyone who cared to look.

  He crept out of bed, slid his feet into the old leather slippers, and quietly put on his robe. “Stay,” he said to Barnabas, who opened one eye, closed it again, and beat the bed with his tail. He did not want an alarmed Barnabas barking his head off and waking Dooley.

  The streetlamp shone through the wide hall window and was the only light he ever used to go downstairs at odd hours.

  He padded softly down the steps and along the hall, then opened the garage door and turned on the light.

  The bicycle stood next to his long-unused car. With its vast red ribbon and handmade card, it had transformed the garage into something quite magical.

  What if the boy had seen it standing there in broad daylight? All those carefully laid plans— dashed!

  He took several blankets from a storage cabinet and wrapped them around the bicycle. Then he gently laid the bicycle on its side, in the corner, and out of sight from the study door. On top of this bundle, he placed stacks of the Mitford Muse.

  “Excellent!” he said, standing back to survey his camouflage.

  He turned off the light, walked quietly to the stairs, and started up. He had nearly reached the landing when he felt a sudden and violent explosion in his head.

  As he reeled backward in a half circle and slammed against the stair railing, he saw a blinding light that was followed by a shooting pain in his temples, and then, everything went black.

  When he came to, he was sitting on the stairs.

  Dooley Barlowe was crying and staring urgently into his face. Barnabas was licking his ear.

  “What in God’s name . . . ,” he began, weakly.

  “I didn’t know it was you!” Dooley sobbed. “I thought it was a dern burglar tryin’ to git me!

  He felt exactly as if a train had struck him, but it was only Dooley’s tennis shoe, one of the very pair, ironically, that he had bought the boy before school started.

  “One time, a burglar broke in my mama’s house and it was jis’ us young ’uns by ourselves, an’ you sounded jis’ like ’im, a creepin’ up the stairs in th’ dark.” Dooley’s fear suddenly gave way to a rising anger. “How come you t’ creep up your own dern stairs, anyway? How come you couldn’t jis’ walk up ’em, like anybody else, so this wouldn’t ’ve happened?”

  Later, drifting toward a restless sleep, he murmured a deep truth. “It’s different having a boy in the house.”

  Tell Rodney about jewels—after Christmas.

  Talk to Hoppy about Olivia—after Christmas.

  On his list of things to do, these delicate issues hung suspended like icicles from a limb.

  The day following the incident on the stairs, Mitford was enclosed by a thick blanket of fog and rain. And since his parishioners were obviously busy with other affairs, he left the office early and went home. Even with the Tylenol, his head pounded furiously.

  “Dadgum!” Percy said with admiration, when he stopped at the Grill to pick up a cup of soup. “Somebody busted you good.”

  “I’ll say.”

  He paid $1.69 for the soup, which he thought was outrageous, and left without giving Percy the details. As he passed the window, he saw Percy standing at the cash register with a hurt look. If there was anything Percy thrived on, he mused, it was details.

  At four o’clock, he helped Dooley with his homework and put a cold washcloth on the enlarging bump that was slowly turning black, blue, and chartreuse.

  “I’m sorry,” Dooley said, miserably.

  “No sorrier than I. But all in all, I think you were brave.”

  “You do?”

  “Indeed I do. I have only one complaint.”

  “What’s ’at?”

  “You might have looked before you struck. There was, after all, some light on the stairs, so you could have seen the top of my head shine.”

  “I seen it shine! But you ain’t th’ only man in the world gittin’ bald-headed, y’ know. Burglars git bald-headed, too.”

  At nine o’clock, they had a report on Russell Jacks. Not faring well, but resting. Age was against viral pneumonia, Hoppy said. While Dooley took a bath, the rector made two calls asking for prayer and gave Miss Sadie an update.

  Then he stretched out before the flickering fire and closed his eyes. Puny hadn’t come today, which always made an astonishing difference. He was growing to depend on her, he knew that. And a dependable one she was.

  He would slip a crisp hundred-dollar bill into her Christmas envelope. And it would be out of his own happiness fund, not Pearly McGee’s. He realized that, in the space of a few days, he would have given out two bills of that stellar denomination, and decided he liked doing it. Very much.

  Dooley came into the room, smelling of soap, with Barnabas at his side.

  He looked at the pair, feeling a certain contentment. “Are you taking over my dog?”

  " ’is ol’ dog follers me ever’ where I go. It ain’t my fault he likes me.”

  “Well, go up to bed and read your book. I’ll come in a bit and say good night.”

  “I’m about give out,” Dooley said, sighing.

  “You and me both, pal.”

  At the door, Dooley turned around and looked back. “When you come up them steps tonight . . . ?”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t creep. I cain’t stand creepin’.”

  That boy needs a lot of teaching, he thought, putting his feet up. Starting tomorrow, we’re going back to something I hardly ever hear these days. We’re going back to “yes, sir” and “no, sir,” not to mention “thank you” and “please.” Driving that home ought to be at least as much fun as pulling teeth.

  He thought he might lie down and enjoy looking at the tree lights. But then, he’d be fast asleep in minutes, with Dooley waiting upstairs. He went into the kitchen instead and turned the burner on under the teakettle.

  There was a small, delicate rapping at the door.

  No rest for the wicked, he thought, quoting Russell Jacks.

  It was his neighbor, dressed in a yellow slicker streaming with rain.

  “Just one minute,” she said, “that’s all it will take. May I come in?”

  “Well, absolutely! Do come in.”

  “Here, I’ll just stand right here on the mat, so I won’t drip all over the kitchen. I just wanted to give you your Christmas present!” She had one hand tucked inside her slicker.

  “You shouldn’t have!” he exclaimed, truly meaning it. For heaven’s sake, why had he impulsively sent all those Belgian chocolates to the nurses at the hospital, when he might have kept a pound or two at home for emergencies? “I was just going to have a cup of tea, and I hope you’ll join me.”

  “Oh, I’d love that,” she said, with unabashed enthusiasm, “but I can’t. I finished your present a few minutes ago, and I couldn’t wait to give it to you.” He saw that earnest look in her blue eyes. “I hope you’ll open it tonight.”

  “Well, yes,” he said, feeling a bit rattled, “but wouldn’t you like to come in by the fire, and I’ll open it while . . .”

  “I promise I can’t. I must run. Here!” She withdrew her hand from the wet slicker and gave him a flat manila envelope. “Oh, good!” she said, looking at the envelope. “Dry as a bone!”

  She turned and bolted out the door. In the glow of the porch light, he saw her dash across the yard and through the hedge, water splashing around her boots.

  “Merry Christmas!” he called. But she was gone. And she hadn’t even mentioned the gruesome, multicolored bump on his head.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  An Empty Vessel

  The news from the hospital was not good. Russell Jacks was stable, but not improving.

&n
bsp; “Pneumonia takes a lot of forms,” said Hoppy. “For a man Russell’s age, this is the worst form. We’re doing all we can, and there’s still hope, but it’s like swimming upstream.”

  Russell’s name was listed on the prayers of the people at Lord’s Chapel and put on a community-wide prayer chain. Father Tim wasn’t surprised to see the concern of his parishioners. They cared about the taciturn old man whose tender heart was revealed only in the showy perennials, elaborate paths, and manicured borders of the church gardens.

  Food poured into the rectory, to assist with the unexpected duty of having a boy to feed.

  “Growin’ boys is bottomless pits,” said Percy, who sent fresh potato salad and pimiento cheese.

  Winnie Ivey delivered doughnuts, cream horns, and a coconut cake.

  Miss Sadie had Luther drive over with a bag of Swanson’s chicken pies and a Sara Lee pound cake, and the Altar Guild brought a roasted turkey.

  “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like ’is,” confessed Dooley, who was able to choose from more than a dozen lunch options.

  “I ain’t . . . I’ve never seen anything like it myself, and that’s a fact,” said Father Tim, as they sat at the kitchen counter.

  Soon, he would have to deal with Dooley’s English, but as he’d just begun dealing with “please” and “thank you,” he didn’t want to push his luck.

  His eye fell on the manila envelope that Cynthia Coppersmith had delivered several evenings ago in a drenching rain, and which he’d tucked among the books he kept on the counter.

  “I hope you’ll open it tonight!” she had said. He was deeply ashamed that he’d forgotten. How could he have forgotten? He had stuck it between a couple of books on the shelf so he wouldn’t spill tea on it, thinking he’d take it up to bed. Then, he’d forgotten it completely. Whatever might be inside, he clearly didn’t deserve it.

  He slipped the gift from the envelope and removed the wrapping paper so it wouldn’t tear. “You know how I could tell I was getting old?” his mother once said. “I began to save used wrapping paper.”

  It was a matted watercolor of a furry creature dressed in a dark suit with a clerical collar, and horn-rimmed glasses perched on the end of its nose. The little creature had small toes on its furry feet, a very large smile, and a pair of engaging eyes.

  “Father Talpidae,” read the caption at the bottom.

  " ’at’s funny,” said Dooley, peering over his shoulder.

  The rector thought it was the most charming creature he’d seen in years; better, even, than Beatrix Potter might have imagined.

  “Father Talpidae,” read a legend on the back, “is the good rector of a small parish, located under the green grass of Father Tim’s rectory garden in Mitford. Fr. Talpidae says he’s happy to announce that his congregation is growing and that he has absolutely no plans to retire.”

  “Mole,” Webster informed him, or "L., talpidae.” He laughed as heartily as he’d laughed in a long time.

  “It ain’t that funny,” said Dooley.

  “That’s your opinion.”

  “I like it when you laugh,” said Dooley. “It makes it more fun around here.”

  “Then I’ll try to laugh more often,” he said, still chuckling. Hadn’t he recently promised Cynthia Coppersmith that very thing?

  That evening, he and Dooley walked Barnabas to the monument and looked in all the shop windows. Boxwood wreaths hung on the doors, and windows were garlanded with tiny, winking lights.

  Mitford at Christmas was a fairyland. If only their Christmas snow hadn’t fallen at Thanksgiving!

  Dooley examined the displays in every window, from cuff links and sports jackets at the Collar Button to iron skillets, fishing tackle, and tree stands at the hardware.

  As they turned the corner and headed home, he was sure he saw Andrew Gregory’s gray Mercedes parked in front of the little house next door.

  “Hot chocolate?” he asked Dooley, when they’d taken off their coats. He felt oddly absentminded, unable to concentrate. He’d recently seen Andrew’s car parked in that precise spot at least five times.

  “No.”

  Maybe six, he thought, setting the saucepan on the stove. “No, thank you. Milk and fruitcake?”

  “No.”

  “No, thank you. What, then?”

  “Nothin’.”

  Dooley had recently turned mournful, as Russell called it. “You know what I’d do?” Puny had said on Wednesday. “I’d give ’im a swift kick. Just say bend over, honey, and whop, you’d see a diff’rent young ’un. My granpaw wouldn’t n’ more let me git away with bein’ ill to him than he could fly. Blam, he’d yank me up and preach me a sermon that’d scorch the hair off my head.”

  “I have great respect for that approach, but it’s not one I could administer effectively.”

  “You’d git along better if you was part Baptist.”

  “You may be interested to know that I’m precisely one-half Baptist.”

  She looked at him suspiciously.

  “My mother was a fervent Baptist, and my father was . . . a lukewarm Episcopalian.”

  “Lukewarm! I don’t even like my dishwater lukewarm!”

  “Puny, what if Russell Jacks doesn’t make it? What would we do with Dooley?”

  “Did you ever find out what’s th’ matter with ’is mama?”

  “Alcohol. I don’t know the whole story. She let all five of her children go.”

  Puny was silent for a long time, as she cleaned the silver and put it in soapy water. “Well,” she said, "maybe he don’t need a kick in the tail, after all.”

  "Oh?”

  “Maybe what he needs is jist . . . a whole lot of . . . lovin’.”

  Now, there! he thought. There’s an idea I can get my teeth into, in a manner of speaking. “Puny,” he said, “that is splendid thinking. So splendid, in fact, it deserves special recognition. Please dry your hands.”

  He went into the study and took the cream-colored envelope from his desk drawer and gave it to her at the sink.

  “Merry Christmas!”

  She looked in the envelope, saw the hundred-dollar bill, and burst into tears, just as Dooley came in with Barnabas.

  “Poop on ’at ol’ puzzle you’re makin’ me do,” he said, glaring at Puny.

  Father Tim saw the color rise in her cheeks.

  " ’at’s th’ stupidest thing I ever seen,” said Dooley. “I th’ow’d it in th’ trash.”

  “You know what I’m goin’ to do to you?” she snapped.

  “What’s ’at?”

  “I’m goin’ to jerk a knot in your tail!” She moved toward him, with fire behind the fresh tears in her eyes.

  Dooley backed into Barnabas, who yelped and fled down the hall.

  “But you know what I’m goin’ to do, first?” She grinned wickedly at Dooley, whose eyes were wide with alarm. “I’m goin’ to grab you and give you a great big hug!”

  “Oh, no you ain’t!”

  As he pounded up the stairs, Puny turned to the rector. “There,” she said, looking triumphant. “That’ll fix ’im for a while.”

  On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Father Tim and Dooley planned to visit Russell, who was sitting up and no longer needed oxygen.

  “Let’s drop by Mitford Blossoms,” said Father Tim, “and take Russell a gloxinia.”

  On the way, they stopped at the drugstore, where he bought a bag of jelly beans for Hoppy and a Reese’s Cup for Dooley.

  When they walked in the florist shop, he was surprised to see Hoppy standing at the counter, dressed in a hospital scrub suit, his navy pea jacket, boots lined with sheepskin, a worn khaki raincoat, and a cap with ear flaps.

  “Left the hospital on the run,” he said, grinning.

  “My friend, it looks like you were dressed by Miss Rose Watson.”

  Hoppy laughed. A glorious laugh, thought Father Tim, and one he hadn’t heard in far too long.

  “These are the best we have,” said Jena Ivey, as she came ou
t of the cooler with a bucket of roses. “Hello, Father! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas, Dooley!”

  " ’at’s my Sunday school teacher,” Dooley whispered to the doctor.

  Jena proudly set the bucket on the counter.

  “What do you think, pal?” asked Hoppy. “You’re the rosarian.”

  Jena’s roses were grown in Holland, a fact that made them considerably more expensive, but they never drooped their heads after a day in the vase, and they always smelled like roses. He nodded his strong approval.

  “Two dozen!” Hoppy said, taking out his wallet. “And, Jena, please deliver them right away. You know the house.”

  As Jena arranged the stems in a long, pink box, he turned to the rector. “She’s practically quit speaking to me,” he said.

  “She?”

  “You know, Olivia.”

  “Aha.”

  “From cool to freezing.”

  Father Tim felt his heart beat dully. He had an impulse to take Hoppy across the street to the church office and tell him the truth at once. But no, he had made a promise, and the promise was to tell him after Christmas—after the joy and trepidation of sending two dozen splendid roses, after Olivia’s delight and sorrow in receiving them. Good Lord, why did this have to happen to two of the finest people he knew?

  “You’re mighty quiet. Do you know something I don’t know?” asked Hoppy.

  The rector reached into his jacket pocket. “All I know is, this bag contains at least eleven green jelly beans, as I counted every one I could see through the wrapper. Merry Christmas!”

  Hoppy laughed as he opened the bag. “Are you going to see Russell?”

  "We are.”

  “My car’s out front, I’ll give you a lift.”

  As they were leaving with the purple gloxinia, Dooley tugged at Father Tim’s sleeve. “Wait a minute,” he said, and went back to the counter where he handed Jena Ivey his Reese’s Cup.

  At the hospital, they stood outside Russell’s open door and talked.

  “It’s a bit of a miracle,” said Hoppy. “I think he may pull out of it, but there’s another problem.”