The Mitford Bedside Companion Page 15

  The old preacher was silent, then he smiled. “I’ve never seen anything to top it.”

  “Nor I,” said the rector.

  Absalom got up and set his empty bottle in a crate.

  “You can baptize anywhere you’ve got water,” he said, “but to my way of thinking, you can’t beat a creek. It’s the way ol’ John did it—out in the open, plain and simple.

  “Only one thing nags me,” he told the rector. “Who’s goin’ to disciple those children of God?

  “What’s goin’ to become of Lacey Turner, as pert and smart a young ’un as you’ll ever see, with a daddy that’s beat her all her life, and a mama sick to death with a blood ailment?

  “I can’t keep goin’ back in there. My arthritis won’t hardly let me get down the bank from the main road.”

  The old man shook his head. “It grieves me, brother, it grieves me.”

  The knot in the rector’s throat was sizable. “I don’t know right now what we can do,” he said, “but we’ll do something. You can count on it.”

  They walked out to the porch and looked across the pasture and up to the hills. The sun was disappearing behind a ridge.

  “How’s Sadie?” asked Absalom.

  “Never better, I think. She has a heart like yours.”

  “Well…” said the old preacher, gazing at the hills. They stood on the porch for a moment, silent.

  Absalom Greer had passed a torch, and Father Tim had taken it. The only problem was, he had no idea what to do with it.

  These High, Green Hills, Ch. 4

  “WHAT?” HE SAID, his heart thundering.

  “Something fell on my head, oh, please, oh, no, it’s running down my neck, oh, get it off….!”

  “Water,” he said stoically, feeling a large drop crash onto his own head and roll down his back.

  “Are you sure? Run your hand down my back.”

  It had hit with such force, it must have come from a great distance. “Water,” he said again, smoothing her damp shirt.

  “Timothy, we’ve got to get out of here. We can’t just stand around talking about the seventh grade!”

  “Did you say you have candy bars in your day pack?”

  “Snickers. Two.” She turned her back to him and he reached into the pack and felt around among the colored pencils and the sketchbook and the dead flashlight and socks, and found them rolled up in her underwear.

  He didn’t know why it swam to the surface at just that moment, but he remembered Miss Sadie’s story of falling in the well, of the darkness and her terrible fear, and the long night when no one seemed destined to find her because of the rain. The rain had destroyed the scent for the bloodhounds. What if it were raining out there again, erasing their scent?

  But he was making mountains out of molehills. Good Lord, they’d been fumbling around in here for only ten or fifteen minutes, and already he was calling in the bloodhounds.

  His adrenaline had stopped pumping, and he felt exhausted, as if he wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. He ate two bites of the candy, wondering at its astonishing sweetness, its texture and form, the intricate crackle of the paper, and the way the smell of chocolate intensified in the darkness.

  “Please don’t eat the whole thing.” She had seen him in a diabetic coma once, which had been once too often.

  He put the rest of the bar in her day pack, realizing he felt completely befuddled. He didn’t want to press on until the sugar hit his bloodstream.

  “I’m going to start walking,” she said impatiently.

  “Which way?”

  “To my right. That’s the way we were going when we stopped to reflect on our early love interests.”

  “We were going to your left. I was ahead of you, remember?”

  “I thought I was ahead of you. No, wait. That was before.”

  “Trust me. We go this way. Grab my belt and hold on.”

  “I think it’s time to scream. In fact, I think we should scream now and walk ten paces and scream again, and so on until someone comes or we see the light.”

  “Have at it,” he said tersely.

  She swallowed the last bite of her Snickers, then bellowed out a sound that would have shattered the crystal in their own cabinets, forty miles distant.

  “How was that?” she wanted to know.

  “You definitely get the job of screaming, if further screaming is required.”

  “Every ten paces,” she said, feeling encouraged. “You pray and I’ll scream.”

  “A fair division of labor.” He was feeling the numbing cold, now, and the dampness of his clothes. Didn’t the French keep wine in caves because of a mean temperature in the fifties? This felt like thirty degrees and dropping.

  “Five, six, seven…” said Cynthia.

  Her voice seemed to come from somewhere above him. He reached up, feeling nothing but air, then touched a flat rock. He inched his hand along the edge, and found the tip of her shoe. “You’re standing on some kind of ledge. Back up a little, and take it easy.”

  “Timothy…”

  “Don’t panic. I’m fine. I’m telling you, we’ve got to be right at the entrance. We’ll be out of here in no time. Stay calm.”

  “Let me give you a hand.”

  “Back up and stay put.”

  He grabbed the ledge and hauled himself up. He had fallen only a couple of feet, thanks be to God.

  Lord, You know I’m completely in the dark, in more ways than one. I don’t have a clue where we are or what to do. I know You’re there, I know You’ll answer, give me some supernatural understanding here….

  He stood up and leaned against the wall, and reached for her, and found her sleeve and took her hand. He had lost all sense of time. A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night…. Was he being introduced to something like God’s own sense of time?

  “I’m going to scream again.”

  “Don’t,” he said, meaning it.

  “Why not, Timothy? People will be looking for us. We’ll never get out of here.”

  “Turn around.”

  “Turn around? Again? We’re so turned around now we can’t think straight. We’ve turned around and turned around, ’til we’re fairly churned to butter!”

  “Clearly, this is not the way. It vanishes into thin air.”

  He stepped around Cynthia, and she tucked her hands into his belt.

  The sugar was beginning to work. He felt suddenly victorious as he moved along the wall, his wife attached to his belt like a boxcar to an engine.

  These High, Green Hills, Ch. 10

  HE HAD LOVED the smell of his churches over the years, perhaps especially the little mission church by the sea. With the windows cranked open to the fresh salt breezes, and the incense wafting about on high holy days, it was enough to send a man to the moon. The Protestants didn’t think much of incense, and the culture of the sixties hadn’t done anything for its reputation, either, but he was all for it.

  When the Lord was laying out the plan for the Tent of Meeting to Moses, He was pretty clear about it. He asked that Aaron “burn sweet spices every morning” when he trimmed and filled the lamps, and to burn them again in the evening. Bottom line, there was to be “a perpetual incense before the Lord, throughout the generations.”

  Ah, well, it wasn’t worth wrangling over, incense. In the end, it was just one more snare of church politics.

  Why are church politics so bitter? someone recently asked. Because the stakes are so small, was the answer.

  He chuckled.

  Lord’s Chapel had had its share of political squabbles, but thanks be to God, not in the last three or four years. No, things had gone smoothly enough, and he was grateful.

  But why was he musing on politics, when the church was so sweetly hushed and somehow expectant? The light poured through the stained-glass depiction of the boy preaching in the temple, through purple and scarlet and gold, and the azure of the boy’s robe as He stood
before the elders. That was one smart, courageous kid, he thought. I’m glad I know Him.

  “Rest. Rest. Rest in God’s love,” Madame Guyon had written. “The only work you are required now to do is to give your most intense attention to His still, small voice within.”

  He sighed and moved forward in the worn pew, and fell to his knees on the cushion.

  “Lord,” he said aloud, “I’m not going to pray, I only want to listen. Why does Dooley turn away from us?

  “And what was the lesson of the cave?”

  These High, Green Hills, Ch. 13

  HE WOKE UP with it on his mind, and went downstairs to his study, padding as quietly as he could through the bedroom.

  Five o’clock.

  He had been getting up at five a.m. for years. It had become his appointed hour, even if he’d gone to sleep wretchedly late.

  He leaned against the mantel and stretched, breathing the prayer he learned from his grandmother: Lord, make me a blessing to someone today.

  Good. So good to stretch, to come alive, he thought, pushing up on the balls of his feet.

  He would make coffee, he would read the Morning Office and pray, he would sit quietly for twenty minutes; then he’d go to the hospital, a round he made every morning, with rare exceptions.

  Visiting the sick continued to be good medicine, as far as he was concerned. If he was having a rough go of it, all he had to do was pop up the hill to the hospital and self-concern went out the window.

  When he retired, he intended to keep at that very thing….

  When he retired?

  He let the tension go from his arms and stood holding the mantel.

  When he retired. Where had that come from?

  He went to the kitchen and ground the beans and brewed the coffee, feeling an odd blessing in this simple daily ritual. A ritual of well-being, of safekeeping, in the still and slumbering house.

  He took the steaming cup and set it next to his wing chair, then turned on the lamp and picked up his worn prayer book.

  This was the time to fill the tank for the day’s ride. He could put in a quarter of a tank and, later, get stranded on the road, or he could pump in a full measure now and go the distance.

  But something was pushing ahead of the Morning Office.

  Why haven’t You answered those questions? he asked silently.

  He had received nothing in that hour at the church but a sense of calm. That in itself was an answer, but not the one he was looking for.

  Forgiveness.

  He felt the word slowly inscribe itself on his heart, and knew at once. This simple thing was the answer.

  “Forgiveness,” he said aloud. “Forgiveness is the lesson of the cave….”

  He sat still, and waited.

  “And what about Dooley, Lord? Why does Dooley pull away from us?”

  Again, a kind of inscription.

  Ditto.

  He shook his head. Ditto? God didn’t talk like that; God didn’t say ditto. He laughed out loud. Ditto?

  He felt his spirit lifting.

  Ditto! Of course God talks like that, if He wants to.

  He got up and walked to the window and looked out at the new dawn.

  He would have to forgive Dooley Barlowe and Marge and Hal Owen, whether he liked it or not.

  These High, Green Hills, Ch. 13

  ESTHER BOLICK BANGED on a dishpan with a wooden spoon. “Quiet, get ready, here she comes!” Esther threw down the dishpan and took her place at the piano.

  “I hope I don’t break your camera!” said Miss Sadie, arriving with Louella and Ron Malcolm, and her best silver-tipped cane.

  “Hit it!” shouted Esther.

  Happy Birthday to you!

  Happy Birthday to you!

  Happy Birthday, Miss Sadie,

  Happy birthday to you!

  And many mo-oh-ore!

  “Happy Birthday, Miss Sadie!” chorused the children, holding up posters they had made for the occasion.

  The entire room burst into hoots, cheers, and applause as he offered his arm and led the guest of honor to a chair in front of the fireplace.

  “I’d better sit down before I fall down!” she warbled.

  Laughter all around.

  “Please come and pay your respects to our precious friend on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday,” said the rector. “Help yourself to the refreshments, and save room for cake and ice cream after the mayor’s speech. But first, let’s pray!”

  Much shuffling around and grabbing of loose toddlers.

  “Our Father, we thank You profoundly for this day, that we might gather to celebrate ninety years of a life well-lived, of time well-spent in Your service.

  “We thank You for the roof on this house which was given by Your child, Sadie Baxter, and for all the gifts she freely shares from what You graciously provide.

  “We thank You for her good health, her strong spirits, her bright hope, and her laughter. We thank You for Louella, who brings the zestful seasoning of love into our lives. And we thank You, Lord, for the food You’ve bestowed on this celebration, and regard with thanksgiving how blessed we are in all things. Continue to go with Sadie, we pray, and keep her as the apple of Your eye. We ask this in Jesus’ name.”

  “Amen!” chorused the assembly, who either broke into a stampede to the food table or queued up to deliver felicitations to the honored guest.

  These High, Green Hills, Ch. 15

  HE STOOD BY her bed and held the rail, and watched the random flickering of the lid over her closed eye. Sleeping, perhaps, or lost in the mist produced by morphine. The air in the tube that formed her breath sounded harsh against the constant hiss and gurgle of the IV drips.

  He prayed aloud, but kept his voice quiet. “Our Father, thank You for being with us, for we can’t bear this alone. Cool and soothe, heal and restore, love and protect. Comfort and unite those who’re concerned for her, and keep them in Your care. We’re asking for Your best here, Lord, we’re expecting it. In Jesus’ name.”

  She opened her eye after a moment and he looked into the deep well of it, feeling a strangely familiar connection.

  “Hey, there,” he said, smiling foolishly.

  These High, Green Hills, Ch. 17

  BACK AND FORTH, back and forth—always the same questions, and never any answers. At least, not as far as he was concerned.

  He couldn’t deal with this any longer.

  He got up from the sofa and knelt by his desk in the quiet study.

  “Lord, Miss Sadie’s house belongs to You, she told me that several times. You know I’ve got a real problem here.”

  He paused. “Actually, You’ve got it, because I’m giving it to You right now, free and clear. I’ll do my part, just show me what it is. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  Out to Canaan, Ch. 13

  THE NAVE OF Lord’s Chapel became a deep chiaroscuro shadow as dusk settled over Mitford. Candles burned on the sills of the stained-glass windows to light the way of the remnant who came for the evening worship on Thursday, scheduled unexpectedly by the rector.

  Winnie Ivey had donated tarts and cookies for a bit of refreshment afterward, and the rector’s wife had made pitchers of lemonade from scratch, not frozen. Hearing of this, Uncle Billy and Miss Rose Watson, not much used to being out after dark, arrived in good spirits.

  Esther Bolick, weary in every bone, trudged down the aisle with Gene to what had long ago become their pew on the gospel side. Several Bane volunteers, already feeling the numbing effects of pulling together the largest fund-raiser in the diocese, slipped in quietly, glad for the peace, for the sweetness of every shadow, and for the familiar, mingled smells of incense and flowers, lemon wax and burning wick.

  Most of the vestry turned out, some with the lingering apprehension that they’d robbed Mitford of a thriving new business, others completely satisfied with a job well done.

  Hope Winchester, invited by the rector and deeply relieved that the A sale was successful, stood inside
the door and looked around awkwardly. She found it daunting to be here, since she hadn’t been raised in church, but Father Tim was one of their good customers and never pushy about God, so she figured she had nothing to lose.

  She slid into the rear pew, in case she needed to make a quick exit, and lowered her head at once. It was a perfect time to think about the S sale, coming in September, and how they ought to feature Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter, which nobody ever seemed to know about, but certainly should.

  The Muse editor and his wife, Adele, slid into the rear pew across the aisle, and wondered what they would do when everybody got down on their knees. They both had Baptist backgrounds and felt deeply that kneeling in public, even if it was in church, was too in-your-face, like those people who prayed loud enough for everybody in the temple to hear.

  Sophia Burton, who had seen the rector on the street that morning, had been glad to come and bring Liza, glad to get away from the little house with the TV set she knew she should turn off sometimes, but couldn’t, glad to get away from thinking about her job at the canning plant, and the supervisor who made her do things nobody else had to do. Not wanting her own church, which was First Baptist, to think she was defecting, she had invited a member of her Sunday school class so it would look more like a social outing than something religious.

  Farther forward on the gospel side, Lace Turner sat with Olivia and Hoppy Harper, and Nurse Kennedy, who had been at the hospital long before Dr. Harper arrived and was known to be the glue that held the place together.

  And there, noted the rector, as he stood waiting at the rear of the nave, were his own, Cynthia and Dooley, and next to them, Pauline and Jessie and Poo and…amazing! Buck Leeper.

  The rector might have come to the church alone and given thanks on his knees in the empty nave. But he’d delighted in inviting one and all to a service that would express his own private thanksgiving—for the outcome of Fernbank, for Jessie, for this life, for so much.

  He came briskly down the aisle in his robe, and, in front of the steps to the altar, turned eagerly to face his people.

  “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ!” he quoted from Philippians.