A Common Life (6 page)

“It
will
be September, you know.”

Hessie Mayhew—
Mitford Muse
reporter, Presbyterian mover and shaker, and gifted flower arranger—had come to consult with Cynthia in the rectory living room. As Father Tim served them lemonade and shortbread, he couldn’t help but listen. After all, wasn’t he a gardener? Wasn’t he interested in flowers?

He crept to a corner of the room with a glass of lemonade and appeared to be wholly absorbed in scratching his dog behind the ears.

“And in September,” said Hessie, “there’s precious little that’s worth picking.” Hessie had staked her reputation on what she foraged from meadow and pasture, roadside and bank. Her loose, informal bouquets were quite the hit at every spring and summer function, and her knowledge of where the laciest wild carrot bloomed and the showiest hydrangeas grew was both extensive and highly secret. However, as autumn drew on and blooms began to vanish, she hedged her bets—by dashing cold water on her clients’ heady expectations, she was usually able to come up with something agreeably breathtaking.

“What does this mean?” asked Cynthia, looking worried.

“It means that what we mostly have to deal with is pods.”

“Pods?”
His fiancée was aghast.

Hessie shrugged. “Pods, seeds, berries,” she said, expanding the list of possibilities. “Unless you’d like
mums
.” Hessie said this word with undisguised derision.

Mums
. He noted that the very word made his neighbor blanch.

Cynthia looked his way, imploring, but he did not make eye contact. No, indeed, he would not get in the middle of a discussion about pods and berries, much less mums.

“Pods and berries
can
be wonderful,” Hessie stated, as if she were the full authority, which she was. “Mixed with what’s blooming and tied in enormous bunches, they can look very rich hanging on the pew ends. Of course, we’ll use wide ribbons, I’d suggest Frenchwired velvet, possibly in sage and even something the color of the shumake berry.” As a bow to tradition, Hessie enjoyed using the mountain pronunciation for sumac.

He stole a glance at Cynthia from the corner of his eye. How had that gone down? She seemed uncertain.

“Why can’t we just order dozens of roses and armloads of lilacs and be done with it?”

Hessie sucked in her breath. “Well,” she said, “If you want to spend
that
kind of money . . .”

And let the word get out that his bride was a spendthrift? That was Hessie’s deeper meaning; he knew Hessie Mayhew like a book. He knew, too, that Hessie considered the ordering of lilacs in September to be something akin to criminal—not only would they cost a royal fortune, they were
out of season in the mountains
!

“Not to mention,” said Hessie, pursing her lips, “they’re out of season in the mountains.”

“Excuse me for living,” said his fiancée. “Anyway, we
don’t
want to spend that kind of money.” In truth, his bride-to-be had the capability to spend whatever she wished, being a successful children’s book author and illustrator. Besides, thought the rector, wasn’t it her wedding? Wasn’t it their money to spend however they liked? He hunkered down in the chair, anonymous, invisible, less than a speck on the wall.

Cynthia heaved a sigh. “So, Hessie, whatever you think. Sage and burgundy . . . or let’s call it claret, shall we? Burgundy sounds so . . .
heavy.
Do you think we should intermix the ribbon colors along the aisle or put sage on one side and claret on the other?”

The color deepened in Hessie’s ample cheeks. “Sage for the bride’s side and claret for the groom’s side, is my opinion!”

“Of course, I don’t have any family for the bride’s side. Only a nephew who isn’t really a nephew, and the last I heard, he was in the Congo.”

His heart was touched by the small sadness he heard in her voice, and so, apparently, was Hessie’s.

“Oh, but you
do
have family!” Hessie threw her head back, eyes flashing. “The entire parish is your family!”

Cynthia pondered this extravagant remark. “Do you really think so?”

“Think
so?” boomed Hessie. “I
know
so! Everyone says you’re the brightest thing to happen to Lord’s Chapel in an
eon,
and you must
not
forget it, my dear!” Mitford’s foremost, all-around go-getter patted Cynthia’s arm with considerable feeling.

Click!
Something wonderful had just taken place. Hessie Mayhew, sensitive to the bone underneath her take-charge manner, had for some reason decided to be his fiancée’s shield and buckler from this moment on; and nobody messed with Hessie.

“We’ll fill every pew on the bride’s side,” Hessie predicted. “We’ll be falling over ourselves to sit there! It’s certainly where
I’m
sitting—no offense, Father.”

Cynthia took Hessie’s rough hand. “Thank you, Hessie!”

Thank you, Lord,
he thought, forsaking his invisibility by bolting from the chair to refill their glasses all around.

“And what,” inquired Hessie, “are you planning to do, Father, other than show up?”

Hessie Mayhew was smiling, but he knew she was dead serious. Hessie believed that every man, woman, and child, including the halt and lame, should participate in all parish-wide events to the fullest.

“I’m doing the usual,” he said, casting a grin in the direction of his neighbor. “I’m baking a ham!”

G
one to seed” is how the rector once fondly described his rectory home of more than thirteen years. Puny’s eagerness to keep the place fastidious had, he was certain, worn away at least a stratum of walnut on the highboy, a gram or two of wool on the Aubusson, and a millimeter of sterling on the tea service.

She was now feverishly removing another layer from the whole kaboodle, in preparation for any celebration that may be held in the rectory, since, she said, Cynthia’s house was too small to cuss a cat, no offense to Violet.

Nearly overcome by the odor of Lemon Pledge, he went to the phone and dialed his neighbor. “Want to bring your notebook and go to the park?”

“I’ll race you!” she said.

They sat on the bench and listened for a moment to the birds and a light wind that stirred the leaves in Baxter Park. He kissed her, lingering. She kissed him back, lingering still more. She drew away and fanned herself with the notebook, laughing.

“On to more serious matters!” he exclaimed. “First order of business—pew bulletin or invitations, what do you think?”

“Pew bulletin! That way everyone knows, and those few who aren’t in the parish, we’ll call. I’ll try to reach David, though I can’t imagine he’d trek all the way from the Congo to Mitford!”

“Where shall we put Walter and Katherine? Your place or mine?”

“First things first,” she said. “We need to know where we’re spending our wedding night.”

“The rectory?”

“But darling, your bed is so small.”

“Yes, but your bed is so
big
.” In his view, they could hold a fox hunt on the vast territory she called a bed.

“Draw straws!” she said, leaning from the bench to pluck two tall spears of grass. She fiddled with them a moment, asked him to close his eyes, then presented them in her fist.

“Gambling again,” he said.

“Long one, my house, short one, your house.”

He drew the short one.

“Rats in a poke!”
fumed his neighbor.

“Watch your language, Kavanagh.”

“Isn’t it a tad early to call me Kavanagh?”

“I’m practicing.”

“Anyway, there’s your answer. Walter and Katherine spend the night at my house.”

“Done!” He checked the topic off his list. “Have you thought any more about flower girls?”

“Amy Larkin and Rebecca Owen!”

“Perfect. Music?”

“Richard and I are just beginning to work on it—let’s definitely ask Dooley to sing.”

“Splendid. Should have thought of it myself.”

“A cappella.”

“He doesn’t go for a cappella.”

“He’ll get over it, darling, I promise, and it will be wonderful, a true highlight for everyone. ‘O Perfect Love,’ what do you think?”

“There won’t be a dry eye in the house. By the way, we’re scheduled for the bishop on Wednesday at eleven o’clock.”

“What are you wearing?” she asked.

“Oh, something casual. A pink curler in my hair, perhaps.”

She swatted his arm over this old joke.

“I love you madly,” she said.

“I love you madlier.”

“Do not!”

“Do, too!”

“Prove it!”

“I shall. I’m serving you dinner tonight, Puny made chicken and dumplings.”

“Chicken and dumplings!” she crowed.

“With fresh lima beans.”

“I’m your slave!”

“I’ll remember that,” he said.

He felt the same age he usually felt at Miss Sadie’s house.

Here he was in his bishop’s office, seated next to his sweetheart, and only minutes away, they’d be talking about sex. He felt the blood surge to his head, coloring his face like a garden tomato. Though he was the priest, presumably competent to discuss a wide variety of personal issues, it was, in fact, Cynthia who felt perfectly at ease talking about anything to anybody, anytime.

They were currently in the touchy area of Financial, always the leading subject on Stuart’s program for premarital counseling. Thus far, they were in good shape, having discussed some days ago what Stuart called his bottom-line on the issue:

Consult with the other about significant purchases, be open about your assets and willing to share equally, and agree on a budget that puts God first.

“And how do you feel, Timothy, about having a wife whose income is significantly greater than your own?”

Blast. Why couldn’t Stuart have the discretion to avoid this issue? He and Cynthia had discussed it, but he hadn’t been completely candid with her. He hesitated, hating this moment for both of them. “Not good,” he said at last.

Cynthia looked at him. Did he see hurt or surprise, or both?

“God brought us together,” he said. “He knew what He was doing. And if He doesn’t mind the inequity in what I bring to the marriage, then I know I’m not to mind it, either. But—sometimes I do.

“Please understand that I don’t resent her greater assets, not in the least—Cynthia Coppersmith is the hardest-working, most deserving woman I’ve ever known. The problem, if there is one, is that . . .” He paused. What
was
the problem? Hadn’t he pondered this on several sleepless nights?

“The problem,” said Cynthia, “is loss of control! Isn’t that it, dearest? You’ve feared a loss of control all along, from the beginning. And now I’m the one who could buy a new car or take us to Spain—”

“I don’t want to go to Spain,” he said, feeling suddenly vulnerable, close to tears. He also didn’t want a new car; he was perfectly happy with the old one.