Jan Karon's Mitford Years Read online

  He hoped the ensuing discussion wouldn’t collapse into a mindless lecture on his advanced age. Age had nothing to do with it, nothing whatever. No one else had bothered to bring it up, and even if they’d thought it, they had the common decency not to mention it.

  Then again, why wait to spill the beans? Maybe there was no such thing as the right time with this crowd.

  “I’ve got some great news.”

  J.C. glanced up and took a sip of coffee. Mule swiveled toward him and looked expectant.

  “Cynthia and I are getting married.”

  The coffee came spewing out of J.C.’s mouth, which was not a pretty sight.

  Mule put his hand to his ear. “What’s that? I can’t always hear out of—”

  J.C. wiped his shirtfront with a napkin. “He’s gettin’ married.”

  “Don’t shout, for heaven’s sake!” snapped the rector. He might as well have blared it up and down Main Street from a flatbed truck.

  “Who to?” asked Mule.

  “Who do you think?” asked J.C., who had apparently appointed himself the rector’s official spokesman.

  “Cynthia,” said Father Tim, wishing to the Lord he’d never mentioned it. “And I have to ask your complete confidence, you’re not to tell a soul until it comes out in the pew bulletin on Sunday. I need your word on this,” he insisted.

  “You want me to swear on th’ Bible?” asked Mule.

  “No, just promise me. I didn’t want you to hear it on the street, I wanted to tell you in person. But I don’t want my parish to hear it on the street, either.”

  “Done,” said J.C., shaking hands across the table.

  “You’ve got my word,” said Mule.

  “Son of a gun. Married.” J.C. shook his head. “I thought you had good sense.”

  “I do have good sense. Look who I’m marrying.” His chest actually felt more expansive as he said this.

  “Now, that’s a fact,” agreed J.C. “Cynthia Coppersmith is one fine lady, smart as a whip and good-lookin’ into the bargain. What she sees in you is a mystery to me.”

  “You sure about this?” asked Mule. “Is it a done deal?”

  “Done deal. We’ll be married in September.”

  Mule scratched his head. “Seems like you’re a little . . . old for this, seein’ it’s the first time and all. I mean, sixty-five—”

  “Sixty-two,” said the rector. “Sixty-two.”

  J.C. looked grim. “I wouldn’t get married if somebody gave me a million bucks. After taxes.”

  “You all are a real encouragement, I must say.” The rector heard a positive snarl in his voice.

  “Hold on,” said Mule. “We’re glad for you, cross my heart an’ hope to die. It just shocked me, is all, I’ll get over it. See, I’m used to you th’ way you are. . . .”

  “Right. Emerson said it was a bloomin’ inconvenience to have to start seeing somebody in a new light. But here’s to you, buddyroe.” The editor hoisted his coffee cup as Velma delivered their lunch.

  She carried a plate in each hand and one in the crook of her right arm. “Take this offa my arm,” she said to Mule. He took it.

  She set the other two plates down and stomped off.

  “I didn’t order this,” said Mule.

  “That’s mine,” said J.C., snatching the plate.

  “If I’d known that’s what you were havin,’ I’d of had that. Country-style steak is practically my favorite.” Mule gazed with remorse at his sandwich, which featured a dill pickle on the side.

  “I don’t like pickles, you want my pickle?” he asked the rector, who hadn’t felt so generally let down since the choir and the organist got the flu simultaneously and the congregation had to sing a cappella.

  It was all rushing by in a blur. He didn’t want to lose this moment so quickly. He wanted to savor it, rejoice in it, be thankful in it.

  He put on his pajamas and pondered what was happening.

  It gladdened him that he wanted to see her at the slightest opportunity; he yearned toward his neighbor as if a magnet had been installed in him on the night of his birthday, attracted to some powerful magnet in her.

  How he wished the magnet had been installed sooner. He didn’t want to think of the time he’d wasted trying to make up his mind. But no, it hadn’t been his mind that was slow to make up, it was his heart. His heart had always pulled away when he felt happiness with her; each time the joy came, he had retreated, filled with the fear of losing himself.

  He remembered the dream he’d had when she was in New York, when their letters had helped thaw the frozen winter that kept them apart. He dreamed he was swimming toward her in something like a blue lagoon, when his strength failed and he began to sink, slowly, as if with the weight of stones. He felt the water roaring in and the great, bursting heaviness of his head. He had come awake then, gasping for air and crying out.

  Now there was the custard feeling, which would terrify most people if they didn’t recognize it for what it was—it was love unhindered.

  This, too, took his breath away, but by the grace of God, he was easy with it, not enfeebled or frightened by it.

  No wonder he had counseled so many men before their walk down the aisle; the true softening of the heart and spirit toward a woman was usually an alarmingly unfamiliar feeling. How might a man wield a spear and shield, preserve his very life, if he were poured out at her feet like so much pudding?

  He turned off the lamp and went to his knees by his bed, praying aloud in the darkened room.

  “Father, we bless You and thank You for this miracle, for choosing us to receive it.

  “May we treat the love You’ve given us with gratitude and devotion, humor and astonishment.

  “May it be a river of living water to bring delight and encouragement to others, Lord, for we must never hold this rare blessing to ourselves, but pour it out like wine.

  “Protect her, Lord, give her courage for whatever lies ahead, and give me, I pray, whatever is required to love her well and steadfastly all the days of our lives.”

  There was something else, something else to be spoken tonight. He was quiet for a time in the still, dark room where only the sound of his dog’s snoring was heard.

  Yes. There it was. The old and heavy thing he so often ignored, that needed to be said.

  “Father—continue to open me and lay me bare, for I have been selfish and closed, always keeping something back, even from You. Forgive me. . . .”

  The clock ticked.

  The curtains blew out in a light breeze.

  “Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

  “Amen.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Fanfare

  The tidal wave, the firestorm, the volcanic spew—all the things he’d dreaded had come at last, and all at once.

  People were pounding him on the back, kissing him on the cheek, slapping him on the shoulder, pumping his hand. One of his older parishioners, a mite taller than himself, patted his head; another gave him a Cuban cigar, which Barnabas snatched off the kitchen table and ate in the wrapper.

  Well-wishers bellowed their felicitations across the street, rang his phone off the hook at home and office, and generally made a commotion over the fact that he had feelings like the rest of the common horde.

  Cynthia’s phone got a workout, as well. In approximately three days since the news had hit the street, a total of five bridal showers had been booked, not to mention a luncheon at Esther Cunningham’s and a tea at Olivia Harper’s. Emma Newland was planning a sitdown dinner with the help of Harold’s mother, and the ECW was doing a country club event.

  He was stopped on the street by Mike Stovall, the Presbyterian choirmaster, who offered to throw in sixteen voices for the wedding ceremony, which, including the voices at Lord’s Chapel, would jack the total to thirty-seven. “A real tabernacle deal!” enthused the choirmaster. “And tell you what, we’ll throw in a trumpet! How’s that?”

  (He’d hardly known what to do about the
Anglicans from Wesley, who offered to throw in a handbell choir.)

  Had he agreed to Mike Stovall’s ridiculous offer? He didn’t think so. He might have mumbled something like “Great idea,” which it was, but would Mike take that to mean he’d accepted? Thirty-seven people in the choir would barely leave room for the bride and groom to squeeze to the altar.

  His head was swimming, his stomach was churning, his palms were sweating, he felt like . . . a rock star. That heady notion was soon squelched, however, when he was forced to dash to the toilet at the church office and throw up. He flushed three times, trying to disguise the wretched indignity of the whole appalling act.

  “Something I ate,” he said to Emma, who knew a lame excuse when she heard one. He snatched a book off the shelf and sat with his back to her, numb as a pickled herring.

  “I’m sorry,” he told Cynthia one evening at the rectory.

  “Whatever for?”

  “For . . . you know . . . the ruckus, the . . . the tumult!”

  “But dearest, I love this! There’s never been such ado over any of my personal decisions. It’s wonderful to me!”

  “It is?”

  “And can’t you see how happy this is making everyone? Sometimes I think it really isn’t for us, it’s for them!”

  “Wrong,” he said, taking her hand in his. “It’s for us.”

  “Then please relax and enjoy it, darling. Can’t you?”

  She looked at him so searchingly, with such a poignant hope, that he was weak with a mixture of shame for his current dilapidation and love for her bright spirit.

  “Of course. You’re right. I’ll try. I promise.”

  “Please. You see, this will only happen to us once.”

  There! She’d nailed it. What made him uneasy was that it was happening to them; he preferred having some say-so, some . . . control.

  “Let God be in control,” she said, smiling. He was unfailingly astonished that she could read his mind. “After all, He’s done a wonderful job so far.”

  The tension flowed out of him like air from a tire.

  “Ahhhh,” he said, sitting back on the sofa and unsnapping his collar.

  The bishop rang him shortly after dawn.

  “Timothy! I know you’re an early riser. . . .”

  “If I wasn’t, I am now.”

  “Martha and I want the two of you to use our old family camp in Maine, it’s on a lake, has a boathouse and two canoes, and an absolutely glorious view! We’re thrilled about all this, you must say yes, we’ll call at once and make sure it’s set aside. . . .”

  His bishop was gushing like a schoolgirl.

  “And wait ’til you hear the loons, Timothy! Mesmerizing! Magical! Our family has gathered at this house for nearly fifty years, it might have been the set of On Golden Pond! Trust me, you’ll be thrilled, you’ll think you’ve expired and shot straight up!”

  “Thanks, Stuart, let me get back to you on that, we haven’t really discussed what we’re going to do.”

  “Don’t even think about Cancún, Timothy!”

  He hadn’t once thought of Cancún.

  “And get any notion of southern France out of your head . . .”

  He hadn’t had any such notion in his head.

  “. . . it’s all the rage, southern France, but you’ll like Maine far better! It’s where Martha and I spent our honeymoon, you know.”

  He hardly knew what to say to all the offers pouring in; Ron Malcolm had offered the services of a limousine following the wedding, but he’d declined. Why would they need a limo when they were only going a block and a half to spend their wedding night?

  Esther Bolick sat in the den that opened off her kitchen and stared blankly at Wheel of Fortune; it was nothing more than flickering images, she didn’t give a katy what a five-word definition for show biz might be.

  She glanced irritably at Gene, who was snoring in his recliner after a supper of fresh lima beans, new potatoes, fried squash, coleslaw, and skillet cornbread. They’d also had green onions the size of her fist, which Gene took a fit over. “Sweet as sugar!” he declared. She had never trusted a man who wouldn’t eat onions.

  She was thinking that she was happy for Father Kavanagh, happy as can be. But it had been days since she heard the good news and not one word had anybody said to her about baking the wedding cake. She knew Cynthia was very talented; she could do anything in the world except cross-stitch, so she could probably bake her own cake.

  Well, then, that was it, she thought with relief. That was why nobody had said doodley-squat about her famous orange marmalade being the center of attraction at one of the most important weddings in Mitford in . . . maybe decades.

  On the other hand, why would anybody in their right mind take time to bake their own wedding cake when all they had to do was dial Esther Bolick at 8705?

  She had designed that cake over and over in her mind. Considering that the color of the icing was white, she might crown the top with calla lilies. Jena Ivey at Mitford Blossoms could order off for callas in a heartbeat. She’d even thought of scattering edible pearls around on the icing; she’d never used edible pearls before, and hoped people’s fillings wouldn’t crack out and roll around on the parish hall floor.

  She also considered wreathing the base of the cake with real cream-colored roses, plus she’d have icing roses tumbling down the sides—after all, she’d seen a few magazines in her time, she was no hick, she knew what was what in today’s cake world. And would she dun the father for all that work? Of course not! Not a red cent, though Lord only knows, what they charged for ingredients these days made highway robbery look law-abiding.

  Esther pursed her lips and stared, unseeing, at a spot on the wall.

  The thing was, it didn’t make a bit of sense for somebody to bake their own wedding cake . . .

  . . . so, maybe somebody else had been asked to bake the cake.

  The thought made her supper turn to a rock in her digestive system. She balled up her fist and rubbed the place between her ribs, feeling the pain all the way to her heart.

  How could they ask anybody else to bake the father’s wedding cake? He had raved about her orange marmalade for years, had personally told her it was the best cake he had ever put in his mouth, bar none. Bar none! So what if two pieces of it had nearly killed him? It was his own blamed fault for stuffing himself!

  And how many orange marmalades had she carried to the doors of the downtrodden, the sick, the elderly, and the flat broke? And how many hundreds of miles had she walked from fridge to oven to sink, getting varicose veins and bad knees, not to mention bunions? Well, then—how many?

  She remembered the rueful time she baked marmalades the livelong day and finally dragged herself to her electric-powered recliner, where she pressed the button on her remote and tilted back to what Gene called “full sprawl.” All she lacked of being dead was the news getting out, when, blam! the most violent and sudden storm you’d ever want to see hit square over their house and the power went out. There she was, trapped in that plug-in recliner, clutching a dead remote—with no way to haul herself up and Gene Bolick out to a meeting at the Legion hut.

  She recalled the shame of having to pitch herself over the side like a sailor jumping ship; landing on the floor had caused her right leg to turn blue as blazes, then black, then brown, not to mention her hip, which, as she’d told the doctor, had given her sporadical pain ever since. And all that for what? For four orange marmalades to help raise money for a new toilet at the library!

  Trembling slightly, Esther picked up the TV remote and surfed to a commercial with a talking dog. She and Gene had never had a dog and never would, they were too much trouble, but she liked dogs. She tried to occupy her mind with dogs so she wouldn’t think about a shocking idea that suddenly occurred to her. Her attention wandered, however, and there it was, the bald truth, staring her in the face:

  Winnie Ivey!

  Winnie Ivey was exactly who they’d turned to for this special, on
ce-in-a-lifetime deal—Winnie Ivey, who was a commercial baker; Winnie Ivey, who’d never made just one of anything in her life!

  She sat bolt upright and tried to get her breath. Commercial flour! Commercial butter! And, for all she knew, powdered eggs.

  Her blood ran cold.

  “Of all th’ dadblame things to do!” she said, kicking one of her shoes across the room.

  “What?” Gene raised his head and looked around. “Was that you, dollface?”

  “Do you know who they’ve asked to bake the weddin’ cake?”

  “What weddin’ cake?”

  “Why, the father’s, of course!”

  “Who?” asked Gene, genuinely interested.

  “Winnie Ivey.”

  Gene burped happily. “Well, I’ll say.”

  “You’ll say what?” she demanded.

  When his wife stood up and leaned over his recliner as she was now doing, he thought she looked ten feet tall. “I’ll say that was a dirty, low-down trick not to ask you to bake it!”

  There. Gene Bolick knew what side his bread was buttered on.

  She was stomping into the kitchen, mad as a hornet, when the phone rang.

  “Hallo!” she shouted, ready to knock somebody’s head off.

  “Esther? This is Cynthia Coppersmith, I’m so glad you’re home, I thought you and Gene might have gone bowling tonight. Timothy and I agree we’d like nothing better than to have one of your fabulous three-layer marmalades as our wedding cake. We hope you’ll be able to do it, Timothy said we’ll pay top dollar!”

  Cynthia was astounded to hear Esther Bolick burst into tears, followed by a pause in which there was considerable murmuring and shuffling about.

  “Hello!” Gene bawled into the phone. “Esther said tell you she’d love to bake your weddin’ cake! And no charge, you tell th’ father no charge!”

  Now his choir was upset because the crowd from down the street had horned in.

  Had he actually agreed to such a plan? He remembered only that Mike had brought it up, nothing more. He called Mike Stovall.