At Home in Mitford

  “Is this heaven?” inquired Cynthia, who was also lying on her back, looking up at the clouds. “Well, of course it is! Just look over there to the right, you see that chariot with an angel driving it? Look, Timothy, do you see?”

  One thing he liked about his neighbor. It didn’t take much to entertain her.

  “I was looking at the face of Beethoven myself.”

  “Where?” she asked eagerly.

  “Straight up. See that wild mane of hair?”

  “Why, that’s not Beethoven at all,” she said with urgent sincerity. “That’s Andrew Jackson!”

  He surprised himself by laughing so hard he couldn’t stop. Nor did he want to. Being joined by his neighbor in this foolish collapse made it even better.

  When the spasm had passed, Cynthia fetched a handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and blew her nose with some abandon. “Doesn’t it feel grand to laugh over nothing?” she wondered. “Why don’t we laugh more?”

  “I think we forget,” he said, wiping his eyes.

  “How can we possibly forget to laugh, when it feels so good and cures so much? How can we possibly?”

  He had no answers. Ever since he was a child, he had been prone to forget about laughing.

  “When I was a girl, I used to get tickled in chapel. I must tell you that it was the most delicious laughter I ever enjoyed in my life, because it was so forbidden. But, oh, it was terribly painful, too. I would laugh ’til I hurt, and the tears would be streaming down my cheeks, but I had to keep all the rest of it inside, because if one single little bit of laughing slipped out, well, you know.”

  “Sudden death!”

  “Dear Cynthia, they said, she sits in chapel and cries, what a tender heart! Oh, dear.”

  He smiled. How good to lie on his back and talk of nearly nothing, and feel the breeze now and then, and hear the bawling of a calf, and the song of the juncos in the hedges. He could not remember when he had been so supremely contented.

  He reached over and took her hand, and turned his head to look at her. He thought that if he dared kiss her, he would devour her. He would kiss her lovely cheek and the tip of her nose, her forehead and her hair, he would not be responsible, he would come undone. It seemed dangerous merely to breathe.

  “Timothy, look at that funny cow staring at us.”

  He raised his head slightly and froze. “Do not move,” he said. “That is a bull.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she whispered, “this happens in comic books, not real life. Will we be gored?”

  He did not feel confident about sitting up, but he felt less confident about lying down. So he continued to hold his head up, gazing at the bull somewhere over its left flank, feeling that the eye contact was not advisable.

  “I think that what I should do is stand up slowly, and then you should run for the woods.”

  “I’ll take the basket,” she volunteered in a low voice. “I will not share my raspberry tart with that oaf.”

  He forced himself into a sitting position. How would J.C. handle this story? In the obituaries or on the front page?

  The bull looked at him with consuming interest, as he managed to stand, albeit unsteadily. His knees had nearly gone out. “OK, run,” he said evenly to his neighbor. He heard her do that very thing.

  Were frequent-flier points refundable? he wondered.

  The bull gazed at him steadily. Then, it lowered its head and turned to lumber down the hill to a shade tree at the edge of the meadow, without looking back.

  The rector picked up the quilt and trudged to the edge of the woods to meet Cynthia, who was standing by a pine tree, shaking with laughter.

  “It’s stressful in the country,” he said, grinning.

  “I vote that the best picnic lunch of my life!” she declared. “The best cold chicken, the best French bread, the best cheese, the best raspberry tart!”

  “I agree with all of that!” he said, trying to ignore his increasing appetite for holding her in her arms.

  She took a small sketchbook out of her skirt pocket, and a box of pencils. “I don’t suppose you’d care to put one corner of the quilt over your head?”

  “Not particularly. Why, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I’m starting on the wise men, and this is my very last chance at you, you know. All you have to do is sit over there and pull the quilt up around your head, like this.”

  “That’s all? How long will it take?”

  “Five minutes! I’ll hurry. Then, when I get to my drawing board, I’ll use the sketch as a model for the watercolor.” She peered at him. “Actually, if you get on your knees, it will be easier.”

  “For who?”

  “For me, I think. Here, get on your knees, and I’ll fix the quilt like a burnoose, sort of.” She took the raffia that he’d used to keep the napkin wrapped around the bread, put the quilt over his head, and tied it.

  “There!” she said approvingly, “You look just like you’ve come from afar!”

  He was relieved that the ordeal was nearly over, when he looked up to see an old man and woman coming along the path leading from the woods to the knoll. They were carrying burlap sacks filled with newly dug ferns, an occupation pursued by a number of locals.

  As oddly stricken as if he’d been caught thieving chickens, he could not seem to budge from his knees, nor remove his burnoose. “Good afternoon!” he called, weakly. They paused, looked at him quizzically, then turned and hurried back into the woods.

  “An’ that feller’s a preacher!’ he heard the man say to his wife.

  They sat on the grassy knoll until the shadows lengthened over the quilt. They had found peace here today, and laughter, and he was thankful.

  “Cynthia,” he said, quietly, holding both of her hands, “I’ve thought about it.”

  She tilted her head and gazed at him. There was a happy light in her eyes that spoke her own thoughts.

  He had decided to be simple and direct. “I can’t make that decision yet,” he said. “I’d like to think about it while I’m away. But if that’s asking too much, then you’ve only to . . . deny me the privilege of thinking about it anymore, at all.”

  She listened without speaking, but her hands clasped his tightly.

  “I won’t try to kid you. I honestly don’t know what I want to do. All I know is that I want the decision to be right and good. If I were younger, it would be an easier decision. But I’ve been so one-track minded, for so long, that I don’t know if I can run on two tracks without causing a collision.”

  She smiled, nodding.

  “I care very much for you, Cynthia.” He had a sudden foreboding that he might begin to croak, so he was silent for a while, simply looking at her.

  He saw in her spirit such a tender willingness that he was touched. She had a gift for touching him—with laughter, with delight, with deep feeling, with hope.

  “At first,” she said, quietly, “I was hurt that you didn’t answer right away. But I think I’ve come to understand you better just recently, and I feel good about what you’re saying. Yet, there’s something in me that says, you fool, you’ve been pushy and presumptuous, he doesn’t care for you any more than all the other people he’s so lovely to, and you’ll frighten him off if you don’t back away, and then . . . and then the path through the hedge will grow over . . .”

  The path through the hedge will grow over.

  Hadn’t she been the one with the courage to blaze that path in the first place?

  He took her into his arms and held her close and kissed her hair. They were silent for a time. Then he kissed her cheek and the bridge of her nose. “We must not let the path through the hedge grow over,” he said with feeling.

  “Good mornin’, good mornin’, good mornin’,” said Mule Skinner, coming through the door in an orange and turquoise shirt with an Indian blanket motif.

  “I follered that shirt in th’ door,” said Rodney, who was behind him, “and you’re under arrest.”

  “What for???
? said Mule.

  “For disturbin’ th’ peace.”

  “You want to arrest somebody, pick on that feller right there,” said Mule, pointing to J.C. Hogan in the back booth with Father Tim.

  “What’d he do?”

  “Forgot t’ run my ad this week, an’ it a half page.”

  J.C. was sopping his toast in sausage gravy. "I’ll run it next week and give you a free one th’ followin’ week.”

  “That’s no more’n anybody at the Wesley paper would do,” said Mule, who had often threatened to take his real estate advertising elsewhere.

  “So, how about if I give you two free ads?”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “Go for it!” said Rodney.

  “Deal,” said Mule, incredulous.

  “Quarter pagers,” said J.C.

  The rector grinned. How accustomed he’d grown to the simple familiarity of friends in this small place on the map. Mitford had given him an extended family, with cousins galore, and no two alike.

  “The usual,” Mule told Percy, “an’ squeeze th’ grease out.”

  “I’ll squeeze you some grease—on your bald head.”

  What would he find in Sligo? Considering that half of Mitford had Irish blood, with a liberal dose of Scottish thrift, what he’d find might not be so different, after all. He hoped there would be a warm place like the Grill, in the village near the farmhouse.

  “Percy,” said J.C., “there’s somethin’ unusual about these grits.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Percy said suspiciously.

  “They’re real good ’n’ thick an’ got plenty of butter, th’ way I like ’em.”

  Percy beamed. “I never used t’ eat grits, but now that I’ve started eatin’ ’em of a mornin’, I make ’em th’ way they taste good t’ me.”

  Was something different about J.C.? Father Tim wondered. Maybe so, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Th’ only thing is,” said J.C., “this gravy’s got lumps the size of banty eggs.”

  The rector finished his coffee and got up from the booth. “Boys, I’ve got more to do than I can shake a stick at, and Emma’s picking me up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Hold it in the road ’til I get back.”

  They all got out of the booth and stood up. It wasn’t every day that one of their own went off to a foreign country.

  Mule slapped him on the back. “Don’t take any wooden nickels, buddyroe.”

  “Drop us a line,” said J.C., “but keep it short and axe th’ big words.”

  Rodney shook his hand. “Take it easy, Father. I’ll miss all th’ business you’ve been givin’ me lately.”

  “God bless you,” said Percy, choking up. “And put y’r money back in y’r pocket, it’s on th’ house.”

  There, he thought, untying Barnabas from the bench leg on the sidewalk. It’s official. I’m really going to go through with this thing.

  They walked down to see the place where Dooley was currently catching his fish bait, down into the cool, sweet-scented woods where the only sounds were birdcalls and running water. How thankful he was that Dooley Barlowe could have this golden time in his life. It would provide nourishment the rest of his days.

  “So, I wanted to come out and say good-bye,” he said, squatting down on the creek bank beside the boy.

  “Good-bye, y’rself,” said Dooley, slapping the water with a stick.

  “I’m going because I need to, son, not necessarily because I want to. And I want to say that I’ll miss you.” He tousled the boy’s hair.

  “You don’t need t’ miss me,” said Dooley, looking at him frankly. “I got plenty t’ do. I prob’ly won’t miss you.”

  “Well, heck. I was kind of hoping you would.”

  “Oh, I might, once in a while, y’ know, if I don’t have nothin’ else t’ do.”

  “That’s fair enough. Hal and Marge say you’re doing all right out here, keeping up your end. They’re old friends, and they mean a lot to me, so I thank you for helping them.”

  “They need help,” Dooley said, flatly. “’at ol’ Rebecca Jane, she cries a lot an’ all, and crawls around eatin’ dog food outta Bonemeal’s dish, and peein’ in ’er pants, an’ Doc Owen, he don’t have nobody t’ help ’im clean out th’ horse poop, ’n’ look after th’ kennel. He even gits me t’ help ’im deliver calves.”

  He had never seen Dooley looking so proud. And he could have sworn he’d grown an inch or two just since he saw him ten days ago.

  “You’ll learn something from Hal Owen.”

  “You know what ’e told me?”

  “What’s that?”

  “He said I could be anything I want to be.”

  “That’s true. You can.”

  Dooley slapped the water with the stick. “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  There was long silence, broken by the call of a cardinal seeking its mate.

  “The Owens will take you in to visit your grandpaw. You’re good medicine for him, you know. And I’m hoping you’ll keep an eye on Barnabas.”

  “When you comin’ back?”

  “In September. School will have started, and Puny’s coming to live with you. I’ll be back by the time you’ve made your first A in math.”

  “I like ol’ Puny.”

  “Puny likes you.”

  “Has Jenny bin around, lookin’ f’r me?”

  “No, not that I know of. She’s a pretty girl.”

  “Yeah.” He jabbed the stick into the moss on the bank.

  “Something on your mind, Dooley?”

  He hesitated. “I bin prayin’.”

  “You have? Tell me about it.”

  “Is it all right to ask for dumb stuff?”

  “I sure hope so, I ask for a lot of dumb stuff.”

  “I mean, like, help me do it right when Doc Owen asks me t’ do somethin’ in th’ barn, or hand ’im somethin’ when a calf is comin’ . . .”

  “That’s not dumb stuff. God wants us to ask Him for help. And speaking of how to do something right, you know what God has to say to you, Dooley?”

  Dooley looked startled. “What’s ’at?”

  “In the Thirty-second Psalm, He says, ‘I will instruct you, Dooley, and teach you in the way which you should go. I will guide you with my eye.’”

  “Did he put my name in like ’at?”

  “He did. Just like He put my name in, and the Owens’ name, and Cynthia’s name. The Bible speaks to everyone who trusts Him.”

  “I cain’t set here jabberin’,” Dooley said, leaping to his feet. “I got t’ feed ’em ol’ dogs. You want t’ come?”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  The boy set off at a trot, up the winding path that led to the barn and the kennels. Then, he heard a booming bark and saw Barnabas race to Dooley, who threw his arms around the black dog and rolled to the ground with him, shouting his name and laughing.

  One thing he could say for his secretary. If he’d had any reservations about this trip, any dread of going, the ride down the mountain to Holding with Emma Garrett had made him positively ecstatic about getting on the plane—and the sooner, the better. She had queried him so relentlessly about what he had packed or forgotten to pack that he finally admitted that he didn’t know any of the answers, that Puny Bradshaw had packed absolutely everything—with his blessing. She was mortified that he’d allow anyone else to do something so personal. How could he be sure what he’d end up with over there across the ocean, and no running home to get it?

  When he saw that the first leg of his journey would be on a small aircraft that looked like a bathtub, and was patently made of tin, he did not flinch. Never mind that he had heard horror stories about small planes crashing into people’s bedrooms, or that they could be as airless as breadboxes.

  He took his luggage out of the trunk of Emma’s lilac Oldsmobile and, staggering under the weight of the suitcase and the suit bag, gave her a kiss on a cheek wet with tears, and vanished into the terminal
building.

  He sat looking out at the runway, which was baking in a fierce summer sun. He was the one who was leaving; why did he feel rejected, somehow? Why had they all let him go? Now, here he was, forced to do this thing, to travel thousands of miles away, across an entire ocean, and have an adventure—whether he wanted one or not.

  The little plane took off with a rattle and groan so ferocious, he felt the whole thing would come apart under him. If this was the so-called, much-touted technological age, how had they failed so miserably to make a plane that didn’t do its job any better than this?

  He held on to the leather briefcase in his lap, the one the vestry had given him years ago for Christmas. What had he forgotten, after all? He was mildly alarmed that everything seemed to be taken care of, that there were no loose ends. And why on earth should that be alarming? For the simple reason that it happened so seldom in one’s life that it encouraged suspicion, that’s why.

  He opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder with a legal pad and a pen, and began to make notes about a sermon topic that had occurred to him only yesterday. There. That felt better. Next, he’d make a list of things to write home about, like how had the Rose Festival done? He’d forgotten to ask. And would someone make sure the new bathtub at the Porter place had a rail to hold on to? And when Cynthia heard from her agent about Uncle Billy’s ink drawings, would she let him know at once? And had he put the premium increase notice on the Mortlake tapestry in his desk drawer, or given it to Ron for the next vestry meeting? He was surprised at the list he could make if he just put his mind to it.

  He happened to look out the window.

  They were flying over lush, rolling countryside, with his own blue mountains to the right. He thought it might be the most beautiful thing he had seen in a very long time.

  There was a peaceful farm with acres of green crops laid out in neat parcels, and a tractor moving along the road. There was a lake that mirrored the clouds, and the blue sky, and the shadow of the little plane as it passed overhead.

  Away toward the mountains, there was a ribbon of water flung out on the land, glittering in the sunlight, and beyond the river, a small, white church with a steeple catching the brilliance of the sun.