At Home in Mitford

  “Coffee,” he said curtly to Emma, removing his jacket and hanging it on a peg.

  Just open up your shirt collar, thought Emma, and I’ll pour in a whole cupful.

  “No cream unless it’s the real thing.”

  Or, she thought, maybe you’d like it in your left ear.

  When coffee had been poured all around, the appraiser removed the canvas from its Bubble Wrap, stacked five books on Anglican church history on the rector’s desk, and propped the painting against them.

  “This painting has been the subject of grave discussion among the finest Vermeer scholars in America.

  “In fact, a paper will be published soon that finely details the depth and distinction of the research it has undergone.”

  The rector heard himself sigh. Although he’d read that sighing was common to Southern women, he knew for a fact that this unfortunate habit extended also to men.

  The appraiser went on for some time, extolling the virtues of the scholarship. Miss Sadie toyed with the diamond cross at her neck. Emma was furious. Harry Nelson could stand it no longer. “Just give us the bottom line!” he blurted.

  The appraiser turned to him with a frosty look. “The bottom line?” he asked imperiously.

  “That’s right,” Harry snapped.

  “The bottom line is that this painting is not by Vermeer.”

  “Hallelujah!” shouted Emma.

  “Hooray!” said Miss Sadie, clapping her hands.

  Father Tim crossed himself, joyfully.

  Harry Nelson, however, was devastated. Leaning against the bookcases by the visitor’s bench, he brought out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Then he sat down, shaking his head. This was a blow. “So who did it and what is it worth?”

  “We don’t know who did it, but we can safely assume it was done during the time of Vermeer or shortly after his death. It is not one of the famous Vermeer forgeries of the last century.

  “As to its market value, we can comfortably expect it to fetch around seven or eight thousand dollars, if properly offered.”

  “And how much do we owe you for finding this out?” Harry asked, hoarsely.

  The appraiser dipped into his jacket pocket and brought forth a crisp envelope, which he handed to the senior warden.

  Harry opened it, unfolded the sheet of paper, and read aloud:

  “For services of appraisal, as outlined below, four thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two dollars and seventy-three cents.”

  “That includes my travel expenses,” the appraiser said, adjusting his glasses.

  “Thanks be to God!” he exclaimed over and over, as he walked to the Grill the next morning.

  He had just come from the hospital, where he had put his arms around a very ill patient, doing for someone else what God had so often done for him. While some priests, he knew, dreaded their hospital visits, he looked forward to his. It was one of the divine mysteries that he came away feeling stronger, and refreshed in spirit. “My hospital visits,” he’d been known to say, “are good medicine.”

  He was surprised, frankly, that he could fit so much into a morning these days. He was dutifully jogging three times a week and now vowed to increase his schedule to four. Would wonders never cease?

  Today, he’d even followed his impulses and worn his new sport coat.

  “Got you a new neighbor comin’ in next door,” Mule Skinner said at breakfast. “Be in there in th’ fall sometime.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Pretty nice lookin’.”

  “What does he do?”

  “It’s a she.”

  “Aha.”

  “You remember ol’ Joe Whatsisname lived there, that was her uncle, the ol’ Scrooge.”

  “Percy’s outdone himself on these poached eggs.”

  "Blonde, blue eyes,” said Mule, looking at the rector. “Real nice legs.”

  “Who? Percy?”

  “Your new neighbor.”

  He had nearly forgotten about the small house next to him, shielded as it was by the rhododendron hedge. Maybe there would be children in the family, he thought. It would be nice to hear the laughter of children.

  Later, as he approached his office, he did hear laughter. It sounded like Emma.

  He looked at his watch. Too early for Emma, he thought, opening the door and going in.

  There, wearing his mailbag and leaning over her desk, was Harold Newland, the postman. And there, too, was Emma, quite frozen with surprise at the sight of her rector, whom she believed to be in a meeting at town hall.

  “Preacher, I mean Father, good mornin’,” stammered Harold, blushing like a girl.

  He looked at Harold’s bare legs. Apparently, it was the season for short pants on mail carriers.

  “Good morning to you, Harold! Was there too much mail for the box today?”

  “That’s right, too much mail,” said Harold, backing out the door. “Couldn’t get it in the box and had to bring it in. Bye, Father. Bye, Emma. Have a good day.”

  The rector picked up the very slim packet containing only three letters and a copy of the AnglicanDigest.

  “Aha,” he said, with hardly any surprise at all.

  “I regret to say that lunch isn’t chicken pie, Father.”

  Miss Sadie searched her rector’s face for any sign of disappointment. “It’s a sandwich with low-salt ham and low-fat cheese.”

  He felt a bit disappointed, after all.

  “With potato chips!” she assured him.

  To say that he was happy to be at Fernbank, at the top of Old Church Lane, was an understatement. He felt as if he’d fled to some other country. Up here, the air was drenched with birdsong, the apple orchards were dappled with sunlight, and the broad, cool porch was as consoling as the nave of Lord’s Chapel.

  From a cut-glass decanter, she poured her guest a glass of sherry, which, he thought, tasted precisely like aluminum foil.

  “Three ninety-eight at Cloer’s Market!” she announced.

  From the porch of Fernbank, he had a commanding view of Mitford. It was a toy village that lay at his feet, like something one would find under a Christmas tree, with an electric train running around it.

  There was Main Street, which sliced Mitford neatly in half, and the green circle of the town monument at the north end. And, between the shops, the colorful patches of flower beds made it all appear orderly and safe.

  He could see the bell tower of Wesley Chapel, the grand bulk of First Baptist, and the empty lots, as green as jade, on either side of the tree-enveloped Lord’s Chapel. Away to the west, blue mountains rolled like waves.

  “Wouldn’t it be marvelous, Miss Sadie, if life could be as perfect as it looks from your porch?”

  “I’ve thought that very thing many times. When Hoppy’s wife lay dying, I often looked down at his house and thought, we never, ever know what heartache lies under those rooftops.”

  “I heard a Mississippi preacher say that everybody is trying to swallow something that won’t go down.”

  “Well, he’s right about that.”

  She had put the glass plates on a green wicker table, with a sprinkle of white lace cloth. There were old-fashioned roses in a vase, and a tall pitcher of sweetened tea. They sat down to lunch, and Miss Sadie held her hands out to the rector.

  “At Fernbank,” she said, “we always hold hands when we say the blessing.”

  He prayed with a contented heart. “Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you’ve done for us. We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side. Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whose name we pray.”

  “Amen!” they said in unison.

  He found, with some surprise, that his sandwich looked remarkably inviting, even though it was on white bread.

  After lunch, the two sat on the porch, sipping tea. He had wisely cleared his calendar for the afternoon, wanting nothing to
interfere.

  “We’ve got chocolate chip ice cream for dessert.”

  “I hope it’s not that low-fat ice milk stuff.”

  “When we get to dessert at Fernbank, there’s no low anything! My mama taught me that dessert should be high.”

  “I like your style,” he said, getting up to help his hostess.

  What he was going to hear today, he didn’t know. But he felt relieved that he could trust the content. Curiously, some parishioners brought him the most ravishing morsels of slander, as if it were their bounden duty.

  He was sitting on the porch railing, finishing his ice cream, when Miss Sadie finally got down to business.

  That he nearly fell backward off the railing when he heard her plan was no surprise. In fact, he told Emma later, if he had fallen off, he would have rolled neatly down her steep lawn, through the apple orchards, and across Church Hill Drive.

  Then he would have tumbled down the hill toward town and landed on his barber’s rooftop, where he would have jumped to his feet and shouted the good news.

  The task at hand was to devise an immediate gathering of the vestry and to make it as splendid as humanly possible.

  He ran quickly through his list of things to do. A visit by the bishop. Confirmation services. A wedding. A special outing with the Sunday school children. A parishwide barbecue and car wash. Coordinating new artwork for the church letterhead. Two Sunday services. And now this.

  It would be enough to make even Father Roland’s head swim. If Jeffrey Roland thought he had his hands full out there in his big New Orleans parish, he should be here in Mitford where a mere 200 souls could occupy every waking moment.

  He made a phone call. “Miss Sadie, what is your very favorite thing?”

  “Well, let’s see. Listening to rain on a tin roof!”

  He laughed. “I should have been more specific. What is your favorite thing to eat? Besides chicken pie, that is.”

  “Why, peanut butter and jelly, I believe. Don’t you like that, too?”

  For the evening at the rectory, he prepared two platters of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut into small squares with no crust. One platter was crunchy. One platter was smooth.

  He set out napkins printed with a drawing of Lord’s Chapel. He lined up coffee cups, tea glasses, and dessert plates. He filled a small tray with chocolate chip cookies from Winnie Ivey’s, and set a fresh lemon pie from The Local on a cake stand.

  He cut several blooms from the fragrant Prosperity, and took a handful of blooms as large as peonies from his clove-scented Sarah van Fleet.

  Then he put them in a vase, and waited for what would surely be the most dramatic vestry meeting ever held in the history of his parish. Except the one, all those years ago, when the church leaders had to decide what to do after the hideous fire—the fire that had left only a blackened ruin overlooking the green valley.

  Miss Sadie sat in a straight-back chair, in front of the fireplace in his study. She was wearing a cut velvet dress of emerald green, with a high neck, and a brooch hand-painted by her mother. That she made a striking figure was an understatement.

  “I know you’ve wondered why I never gave any money to speak of, all these years.”

  “No, no, certainly not,” someone said.

  “And don’t say you didn’t, because I know you did.”

  There was a profound silence.

  “The reason I haven’t given as freely as you thought I should is simply this: I’ve been hoarding Papa’s money.” She looked slowly around the room, meeting every eye.

  “I’ve earned interest on the capital and invested the interest, and I haven’t spent foolishly, or given to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who held his hand out.”

  There was a variety of supportive murmurs.

  “So, what I’m prepared to do this evening is to give Lord’s Chapel a special gift, in loving memory of my mama and papa, and in appreciation for the church I’ve called home since I was nine years old.”

  She paused for a moment. “This gift is in the amount of five million dollars.”

  After a collective intake of breath, a cacophony broke out in the rectory study, something like what was usually heard at the Fourth of July parade when the llamas passed by.

  “Shush!” said Miss Sadie, “there’s more. This money is to be used for one purpose only. And that is to build a nursing home.”

  She looked around the room. “But I don’t mean just any nursing home. This home will have big, sunny rooms, and a greenhouse, and an atrium with real, live birds.

  “It will have books and music, and a good Persian rug in the common room, and the prettiest little chapel you ever saw. I want a goldfish pond, and a waterfall running over rocks in the dining room.

  “And above every door, there’ll be a Bible verse, and this is the verse that will be over the front door: ‘Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.’ ”

  Miss Sadie clasped her hands in her lap and leaned forward.

  “There, now!” she said, as radiant as a girl. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Of course, it was wonderful. There was no denying, in any way, shape, or form, just how wonderful it was.

  She appeared to sit even straighter in her chair. “You understand, of course, that this is only half the plan—but it’s enough to get us started.”

  When the meeting broke up at nine-thirty, those assembled had drunk two pots of coffee and a pitcher of tea, and had eaten every peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the platters. And though no one had said so, the traveling senior warden had not been sorely missed.

  In all, it had felt like a very grand party, with Miss Sadie Baxter the center of attention, the belle of the ball.

  Emma had told him over and over again that at one o’clock today, no sooner and no later, a printer was coming to pick up a purchase order for the new church letterhead.

  The printer, she said, told her to ask him the following:

  Did he want the line drawing of Lord’s Chapel printed in dark green or burgundy, or would he like purple, which was always a good religious color and, according to the story of the building of Solomon’s temple, one of God’s favorites?

  Also, did he want the address line run under the pen and ink illustration of the church, or at the bottom of the page, like the Presbyterians did theirs? And did he want a Helvetica, a Baskerville, or a Bodoni like the Baptists?

  He felt that, among other things this morning, he should look up the meaning of Helvetica, Baskerville, and Bodoni, and made a note to tell the printer that God also requested purple to be used in the temple Moses built.

  It was unusually cool for late June, and he savored his short walk to the office, noticing that he was feeling better than he had in years. He had dashed off a note to Walter after his morning prayers, quoting the encouraging message of Hebrews 4:16: “Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

  Boldly! That was the great and powerful key. Preach boldly! Love boldly! Jog boldly! And most crucial of all, do not approach God whining or begging, but boldly—as a child of the King.

  “I declare,” Emma said as she made coffee, “you’re skinny as a rail.”

  “That’s what I hear,” he said, with obvious satisfaction.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re not calling me ‘that portly priest’ anymore.”

  “I can fix that,” she said, and opened her bottom desk drawer to reveal several Tupperware containers. The open drawer also contained a glorious fragrance that wafted upward and soon filled the small room.

  “Pork roast with gravy, green beans, candied sweet potatoes, cole slaw, and yeast rolls.”

  “What in the world is this?”

  “Lunch!” said Emma. “I figure if we eat early, it’ll still be hot.”

  Just as his clothes were beginning to fit comfortably again, he saw temptation crowding in on every side. He could outrun W
innie Ivey, but in an office barely measuring ten by fourteen, it looked like it was going to be pork roast and gravy, and no turning back.

  “Emma, you must not do this again.”

  “Well, I won’t, and you can count on it. You’ve been meek as any lamb to the slaughter, and I thought a square meal would be just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Not exactly,” said her rector, who enjoyed it to the fullest, nonetheless.

  After lunch, Emma went headfirst into the deep bottom drawer, looking for something. She came up with a large bone, wrapped in cellophane.

  “For Barnabas,” she said, much to his astonishment. That she had called his dog by name was a landmark event. And to have brought him a bone was nearly a miracle.

  “I don’t know why you’re being so good to me,” he said, cheerfully.

  She glared at him and snapped, “I just told you, for Pete’s sake. Weren’t you listening?”

  For at least two weeks, he’d noticed that her moods were as changeable as the weather.

  “Emma, what is it?”

  “What do you mean what is it? What is what?” she demanded, then burst into tears, and fled into the bathroom, slamming the door.

  By the time she had mumbled an apology, and they’d decided on Baskerville type, burgundy ink, and where to put the address line, it was nearly one o’clock.

  “Put your sport coat on,” she said.

  “What in the world for?”

  “Well, just do it, if you don’t mind.”

  “Isn’t this the same printer we’ve been using? He doesn’t wear a sport coat.”

  “Peedaddle! Just trust me on this, and put your sport coat on. You might comb your hair a little, too.”

  Suddenly, the office had become so minuscule that he wildly imagined Harry Nelson to be right—what they needed to do was knock out the walls, and add a thousand square feet.

  As he put on his sport coat, she looked at her watch. “One o’clock,” she announced, crisply. She went to the door, threw it open, and shouted, “Here he comes!”

  He stared into a veritable sea of smiling faces. And they were all singing “Happy Birthday.”

  J.C. Hogan jumped in front of him with a camera, as Emma led him, dazed, down the step and onto the sidewalk.