At Home in Mitford

by Jan Karon

  The weather was currently doing one of the one hundred and thirty-six things Mark Twain had given it credit for.

  The sun was shining gloriously, and the sky was as blue as the egg of a robin, as he set out across Baxter Park in his running clothes. He couldn’t remember any recent mission that had pleased him more.

  “Miss Sadie,” he said, out of breath, finding her on the porch with Louella, “I’ve been to the attic.”

  “Come and tell us about it!” she said eagerly, patting the green rocker next to hers.

  “Well, then, may I trouble you ladies for a Bible?” he asked, taking his reading glasses out of the pocket of his sweatpants.

  “We got one right here,” said a beaming Louella, who just happened to have a worn, leather-bound edition lying open in her lap. “’Course, if you lookin’ for some newfangled Bible, you won’t find it aroun’ here. We jus’ keep th’ King James.”

  “My lifelong favorite,” he said, taking it from her and sitting down in a rocker.

  “Miss Sadie, Willard’s letter said he hoped things would be different for the two of you someday, and that his inscription on the beam would signify his trust in a happier time. I believe he intended for you to stand with him where I stood today, as he revealed the name of the house he hoped to share with you as his wife.”

  She nodded, and he couldn’t help but notice that her cheeks had taken on color.

  “The name of the house, Miss Sadie, is . . . Winterpast.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “Winterpast,” she repeated slowly. “Why, that’s a lovely name.”

  “Willard left a further inscription for you, which leads us to the Song of Solomon.” He put his reading glasses on, turned the pages, and read:

  “ ‘For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come.’ ”

  Miss Sadie folded her hands in her lap and looked away. The only sound was, in fact, the singing of birds. She was silent for a while, then she spoke. “It’s good to have hope. I’m so glad Willard had hope.”

  “Many waters, Miss Sadie, cannot quench love. Neither can the floods drown it. That, too, is from the Song.”

  She looked at him with a small light in her eyes.

  “So be it,” she said.

  How could he have considered taking Monday off? Monday was the diving board poised over the rest of the week. One walked out on the board, reviewed the situation, planned one’s strategy, bounced a few times to get the feel of things, and then made a clean dive. Without Monday, one simply bombed into the water, belly first, and hoped for the best.

  To his astonishment, the bell crew met him in the churchyard promptly at eight, and it didn’t take long for his worst fear to be realized. The velvety lawn, which had lain under a persistent drizzle for two days, was so thoroughly mucked about with the heaving and hauling of three vast bells that it soon looked like a battlefield.

  At a little after one o’clock, the bells were chiming.

  “Let them ring!” he told the foreman. “Let them ring!” What a wildly tender thing it stirred in his heart to hear those glorious bells.

  A small crowd gathered, staring with wonder at the Norman tower that was pealing with music. Andrew Gregory walked briskly down the lane to offer his congratulations. “I say,” he told the rector, “it’s been a bit dry around here without your bells.”

  J.C. Hogan heard the pealing and came on the run, and was given an elaborate story of their history, manufacture, and recent long sojourn in their homeland.

  It was two-fifteen before he went to his office for the first time that day and picked up the mail from the box, noting that the bundle seemed uncommonly fat. The phone was ringing as he unlocked and went in. “Timothy! How grand of you to ring the bells on your birthday!” said Cynthia.

  “My what?”

  “I think that’s just the boldest, most unrepressed thing to do.”

  “You do?”

  “I’d never have thought you’d have the . . . I’ve always thought you were so everlastingly modest! What a surprise!”

  His birthday! How extraordinary that he’d forgotten. But, of course, there had been no one around to remind him, and Walter never said a word before the fact, always letting a package from Tiffany’s stationery department send his greetings, which usually followed the actual date by several days.

  He laughed. “Well, then, now you know the truth. It’s my birthday, but you got the surprise.”

  “There’s a surprise for you, too. But only if you come for dinner this evening.”

  “I’d like that very much. How did you know it was my birthday?”

  “It’s on the church list I picked up last Sunday in the narthex.”

  “Ah, well, is nothing sacred?”

  He saw that the fat bundle was largely made up of birthday cards, two of which also extended a dinner invitation. There was one from Jena Ivey, which said, “Father Tim, you are dearer to us with each passing year.” And one from Meadowgate, signed by Hal, Marge, Dooley, Rebecca Jane, Goosedown, and the six farm dogs, who were all, according to the message, expecting him for an early supper on Sunday.

  Emma sent a card with a watercolor of roses, and a Polaroid of Harold and herself on the beach, presumably taken by some stranger she’d snared to do the job. He put it on the bathroom door with a thumbtack, noting that Emma had picked up a jot of weight, while Harold looked a bit spindly.

  There was a handwritten note from Stuart, with warm best wishes for a glad heart and good health.

  He sat before the stack of cards, feeling a certain comfort.

  Then he turned on the answering machine and listened to a lengthy series of well-wishers. “Father,” said Winnie Ivey, “I just hate to talk on this thing, but I wanted to tell you how much you mean to everyone. I don’t see how in the world any of us could get along without you . . .” He heard Winnie sniffing. “So . . . so, well . . . goodbye!”

  What a pleasant lot of activity around an event he’d entirely forgotten!

  After dinner, they strolled into Baxter Park and sat on the old bench across from Rachel Baxter’s memorial fountain.

  “Tell me how you’re feeling about Barnabas,” she said.

  “Terrible, and I think I’ve finally stopped trying to do anything about feeling that way. It will run its course. You know, if he’d died of old age, that would be one thing. But to have him taken so violently . . . I fear for such dark influences on his spirit.”

  “But think of the bright influences he found with you. Why, that dog knows more Scripture than most people!”

  He laughed, just as the bells at Lord’s Chapel pealed the ninth hour.

  “Let’s suppose the scales weigh heavier on the side of light than dark, and that Barnabas is generously fortified to contend with his present circumstances.” She looked at him eagerly. “Like, well, like water lasting a long time in a camel.”

  He thought about this. It helped a little, and he was thankful. He rested his arm along the back of the bench and touched her shoulder. “Thank you,” he said.

  They sat silently for a time. In the fading light, the green of the hedges was as dark as jade. How blessed they were to sit here in this peace, shielded from the suffering of the outside world. “I do hope,” Father Roland once wrote, “that you aren’t hiding your head in the sand and sparing yourself the challenge and passion of serving on the cutting edge.”

  Perhaps, in a small parish, he was spared the passion, but he didn’t feel spared the challenge. He was feeling more surely than ever that he was exactly where God meant him to be. All he really needed, he knew, was the endurance to be there with stamina and zeal.

  “Do you think you’ll stay in Mitford, Timothy?”

  “Funny you should ask. I want to. But I feel . . . worn, somehow. Thin soup. I can’t seem to do at least one of the things that would help renew my energies.”

  “And what’s that?”

  �
�Take a break. I’m afraid Pastor Greer nailed me one evening. He asked if I was too tired to run and too afraid to rest. And the answer is, yes. Yes, and I’m confused and ashamed about that, about my seeming inability to take charge of my own life.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, without elaborating.

  It occurred to him that he hadn’t heard anyone say “I understand” in a very long time. He was suddenly aware of the warmth of her shoulder through the silk shirt.

  “Will you drive over with me next Tuesday to see the bishop and his wife? We’re going to talk about this very thing, and I’d enjoy your company.” The truth was, she’d make the long drive seem a grand holiday.

  She looked at him in the frank way he found so appealing. “Next Tuesday? I don’t know. I’m trying to get the first draft of the new book out to my agent, to see what she thinks. If you’ll pray for me, then of course I can get it all finished, and in the mail, and go see the bishop with you.”

  “Consider it done,” he said, feeling a surge of happiness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A High Command

  Viewed from the site of the burned church, where Hope House would be built, the valley spread below like an emerald carpet, dotted with gardens that stocked the coolers of The Local twice a week.

  Already, the Silver Queen corn had started coming up the mountain every Tuesday and Friday, to be unloaded into the wooden bins. And, as always, the villagers could be counted on to clean out the entire truckload in a single day, so that everybody knew what everybody else was having for dinner.

  He was happy to stand in line at the sidewalk corn bins holding his paper bag, though, inevitably, someone offered him their place toward the front of the queue. No, he did not want to move through the corn line quickly, he wanted to savor the little hum of excitement that always came, and the fellowship, and the laughter.

  He wanted time to get a good look at Avis Packard’s face as he peeled back shuck and tassel to display seed-pearl kernels. “Ain’t a worm in ’em. You find a worm, you got yourself a free ear.”

  Miss Rose came, intently looking for worms, while uncle Billy sat on the bench by the streetlamp and told his latest joke to a captive audience. Winnie Ivey closed the bakery and filled a sack for herself and her brother.

  While Louella hunted for a dozen perfect ears, Miss Sadie sat in the car, which she had pulled onto the sidewalk in front of the library next door, and Percy Mosely walked across the street in his apron to pick up the bushel Avis had ear-marked for the Grill.

  A tourist once asked a local, “Is there a festival in town?”

  “Nope, it’s just that th’ corn’s come in.”

  “How quaint! Perhaps I should get some.”

  “Don’t know if I’d do that,” the local cautioned, darkly. “They say it sours if it travels in a car.” Mitford did not like to sell its early corn to outsiders, who, they said, would only overcook it and couldn’t appreciate it, anyway.

  Having picked up a bushel for the bishop’s wife, he drove around the monument with his neighbor, who looked dazzling in a dress the color of jonquils, and headed toward Wesley as the bells chimed nine o’clock.

  “Once you go around the monument,” he said, “it’s another world.”

  “I’m excited! Do you know I’ve hardly been outside the town limits since I came here last fall?”

  He laughed. “That happens to some of us. I’ve hardly been outside the town limits since I came here more than twelve years ago.”

  “Perhaps this is the day that will start to change.”

  “I’d like to think so. Old age and creeping provincialism are a dire combination.”

  “Did I tell you how much I liked your sermon on Sunday?”

  “You did not, or I would have remembered it.”

  “Well, it was glorious. You were very bold, I thought, to preach on sin. Hardly anyone wants to hear sin preached.”

  “Mainstream Christianity glosses over the fact that it isn’t just a question of giving up sin, but of doing something far more difficult—giving up our right to ourselves.”

  He made the turn onto the busy highway toward Wesley, which always, somehow, seemed a shock to his senses. “The sin life in us must be transformed into the spiritual life.”

  “How?”

  “Through sacrifice and obedience.”

  She smiled ironically. “How do you think that will be received by those of us who come to sit in a comfortable pew and find a hot seat instead?

  “They’ll just have to go across the street until I’ve finished preaching on that particular subject.”

  She laughed with delight. “You’re different these days.”

  He laughed with her. “I pray so,” he said.

  “Timothy!” Stuart Cullen came down the steps with his arms outstretched.

  “Stuart, old friend!” said the rector, as they embraced.

  “You’ve come a long way, and relief is on the table,” the bishop assured him. “And who is this beautiful woman?”

  Cynthia took his outstretched hand.

  “This is my neighbor, Cynthia Coppersmith. Cynthia, Bishop Cullen, my seminary confidant, esteemed friend, and—thanks be to God—my bishop.”

  Cynthia curtsied a little. “Oops, I’m sorry. That was involuntary.”

  He laughed. “You’re a century or so off, Cynthia, but I appreciate it, nonetheless.” Still holding her hand, he drew her toward the front door.

  The rector saw that Stuart’s sandy hair was beginning to mingle more freely with gray, and there were furrows in his brow that he hadn’t noticed when they met some months ago. Even so, he was still surprisingly trim and boyish, with an unaffected charm that never seemed to diminish. He felt a great warmth toward this man who had been an ongoing part of his life.

  “Come inside, please. We’ve laid on the family silver, and Martha’s rolls are just coming out of the oven. Your timing has always been excellent, Timothy.”

  As they entered the foyer, the rector saw something he hadn’t been able to see as Cynthia sat on the passenger side. It was one of those infernal pink curlers, bobbing jauntily behind her right ear, as she greeted the bishop’s wife.

  During lunch, he did everything he could think of to apprise her of the curler, to no avail.

  He decided he wasn’t very good at sending nonverbal signals, and gave up halfway through the veal chops. He remembered his father had been made responsible for telling his mother whether her slip was showing before they set out for church. Any runs in her stockings? Too much rouge? Any labels protruding in unsightly places?

  He recalled that his father had taken this job rather seriously, and seemed to enjoy it, though he had no earthly idea why.

  In the study, Stuart Cullen sat in a leather wing chair and looked at the rector with his warmly direct gaze.

  “Tell me everything, Timothy.”

  “I’ve tried to organize my thinking, so I could spare your time.”

  “Please. Let that be my concern. I’ve set all else aside until a meeting in my office at six.”

  “Well, then. Things haven’t changed dramatically since my letter more than a year and a half ago. I seem to be paralyzed at times with such fits of exhaustion that I end up merely plodding on, and my sermons reflect it. I should say my spirit reflects it, and it’s carried out into my preaching.

  “I’m reminded of the time the vestry was invited to the home of a new parishioner, someone fairly wealthy, by most standards.

  “Most of us were pretty excited about the banquet that would likely be spread.” He laughed. “Well, we sat around till nine in the evening eating stale crackers and a cheddar so hard it broke the cheese knife.”

  When the bishop smiled, fine lines crept around his eyes.

  “I feel that’s what I’m serving. On every side, God’s people look for—and deserve—a banquet, but they’re getting thin rations. ‘Feed my sheep,’ he said.
That’s a direct commission.

  “The love of the people at Lord’s Chapel is clearly there for me. The church is growing, our obligations are settled on time, and soon we’ll build one of the finest nursing homes anywhere. Looking at it from the outside, it seems everything is all right.”

  He was silent for a moment. “I think what I want to say, Stuart, is that I want it to be more than all right. It must be more than just . . . all right. That’s where I am. And I don’t know where to go from here.”

  “Cynthia seems to think your sermon on Sunday was a great deal more than thin rations. Even on first meeting, I trust her judgment. She appears to have a lively faith.”

  “Yes, well . . .”

  “Surely you don’t expect your sermons to be preached from the mountain every time? You know as well as I that we must also preach from the valley.”

  “I do know that. But the times on the mountain have been too few. I have, in many ways, disappointed myself, and if that’s so, then surely I’m disappointing others. It’s hard to put it clearly, Stuart, but I feel . . . flat.”

  “That’s putting it clearly.”

  “Somehow, things seem to have taken a turn about the time of the diabetes.”

  “Diabetes? You never told me you have diabetes.”

  “Oh, well,” he said, shrugging, “it’s the non-insulin-dependent variety, nothing to worry about. I didn’t want to trouble you with something unimportant.”

  “Martha’s sister is diabetic. And, believe me, it’s not unimportant. It’s a critical dysfunction.”

  “Oh, but nothing that diet and exercise can’t address. Martha’s sister is probably insulin dependent.”

  “She is now,” Stuart said, “but she was once precisely where you are. It erupted suddenly into something far more serious. This concerns me.”

  The last thing he wanted to do was give his bishop any grave concern. That was not why he had come.

  “Are you completely fastidious about taking your medication, about your exercise and diet?”

  He couldn’t tell a lie. “No. I’m not.”

  “Timothy. For God’s sake.”