A Light in the Window (73 page)

“Mrs. Walter Harper?”

“The very same!”

“May I kiss the bride?”

“I’ll be crushed if you don’t.”

He kissed her on both cheeks and stood holding her hands, fairly smitten with the light in her violet eyes. “You’re a great beauty, Mrs. Harper. But there’s even greater beauty inside. I won’t say that Hoppy is a lucky man, for I don’t believe in luck, but grace. May God bless you both with the deepest happiness, always.”

“Thank you. May I kiss my priest and friend?”

“I’ll be crushed if you don’t.”

She kissed him on both cheeks, and they laughed. “I’ve never been so blessed and happy in all my life. A wonderful husband, a loving and doting aunt ... and this glorious room that I know was done just for us. How can one bear such happiness?”

“Drink deeply. It’s richly deserved.”

“I hope you’ll soon be doing this yourself, Father.”

“This?”

“Getting married, sharing your life.”

“I don’t know if I could ...”

She looked at him, smiling, but serious. “Don’t you remember? Philippians four-thirteen, for Pete’s sake!”

Dooley’s homeroom teacher wrote in a neat, confined hand:

He felt fortified. Now if Louise Appleshaw could pull off a miracle ...

He said as much. “Miss Appleshaw, I confess I’m expecting a miracle.”

“Rector, one does not
expect
miracles. A miracle is, at least partly by definition, something quite
un
expected.” She looked down her nose at him.

He became a worm and crawled from the room.

Andrew Gregory stopped in for a glass of Italian wine before meeting friends for dinner at the club.

Roberto had put on the rector’s favorite apron, tucked his tie into his shirt front, and was busy creating the most seductive aromas in the rectory’s history.

“Osso buco!” Roberto announced, taking the pot lid off with one hand and waving a wooden spoon with the other.

“Ummmm!” cried Cynthia, coming through the back door with an armful of flowers. “Ravishing!”

“Man!” exclaimed Dooley, lured downstairs.

“Oh, my gracious!” gasped Miss Sadie, who arrived with her usual hostess gift of Swanson’s Chicken Pie and a Sara Lee pound cake for his freezer.

Louella sniffed the air, appreciatively. “That ain’t no collards and pigs’ feet!”

The toasts flew as thick as snowflakes during last year’s blizzard.

To Leonardo, who lay crippled with rheumatism in Florence.

To Roberto’s happiness in Mitford!

To Miss Sadie’s good health!

To Louella’s quick recovery from an impending knee operation.

To Dooley’s prospects for a new school.

To the hospitality of the host!

To the charm and beauty of the hostess!

To Olivia and Hoppy at Brown’s Hotel in London!

Avis Packard called to find out if everything was going all right, thrilled with having cut veal for a real Italian who knew what was what.

Roberto showed photos of his wife and three beautiful children, of his grandfather’s work in the homes and churches of Florence, and of Leonardo himself, wearing the same boyish smile Miss Sadie remembered from his long-ago visit to Fernbank.

The rector had never seen so much toasting and cooking and pouring of olive oil and peeling of garlic, nor heard so much laughing and joking.

It was as if Roberto were one of their very own and had come home to them all, at last.

Bingo.

Dooley liked the second school they visited. And why not? Cynthia went with them on the journey and kept them laughing all the way.

Better still, she never once let the admissions director believe he was interviewing them but that it was definitely the other way around.

Though the boys were away for the summer and they couldn’t tell much about the tone of the place, Dooley warmed up to the affable headmaster who dropped in from his home next door, dressed in khakis, loafers, and a sweatshirt, to give them an enthusiastic tour.

He also liked the science lab with the brain in a jar, and the gym, the track, the football field, and the horse stables where the groom put him on his personal steed and slapped its rump and sent Dooley flying around the ring, barely clinging on.

“Needs polish,” said the groom.

The dorm rooms did not measure up.

“Gag,” said Dooley.

“Spoiled,” said the rector.

“No problem,” said Cynthia, who rattled on about paint and curtains.

In all, a satisfying trip, which brought them home at two o’clock in the morning, reeling with exhaustion.

The statue of Captain Willard Porter was definitely the centerpiece of the first—and soon to be annual—Mitford Museum Festival.

It stood on the freshly groomed lawn of the Porter place, mysteriously draped with a tarpaulin and encircled by booths.

Over by the lilac bushes, Joe Ivey had set up a barbering chair and a table displaying the tools of his trade, from tins of talc and bottles of Sea Breeze to a neck brush and a battery-operated shaver. Shaves were three dollars, haircuts were six, and all proceeds would go to the museum.

Across the circle, as far as she could possibly remove herself from the competition, was Fancy Skinner, dressed to the teeth in lime-green pedal pushers and a V-necked sweater. When someone wondered about the shocking departure from her favorite color, she said she was “trying to cut through the clutter and stand out in the crowd, which, as anyone ought to know, is what business is all about.”

Fancy was offering manicures for five dollars and lip waxings and pedicures for ten (behind a sheet that was hung on a wire). The only problem with her assigned location, as she later pointed out in a letter to the town council, was that Mack Stroupe was boiling hot dogs right next to her booth, which created both a clamor and a smell that were entirely inappropriate for beauty treatments.

Winnie Ivey manned the Sweet Stuff doughnut stand, which was staked out under the elm tree, in conjunction with her cousin who had made thirty pimento cheese sandwiches, thirty sliced ham and cheese, and forty chicken salad, which she was keeping on ice in a cooler.

On the opposite side of the elm tree, two llamas stood patiently in the shade gazing at the crowd.
Pet the Llamas Fifty Cents,
read the sign tacked to the tree.

“Fifty cents is way too much to pet a llama!” said a young mother, who decided to invest in doughnuts. Her brood of three stood howling at the mere sight of a llama.

There were cakes baked by Esther Bolick, who complained that the Harper wedding and museum festival were far too close together. Her cakes, however, were selling fast, with her prize two-layer orange marmalade waiting to be auctioned to the highest bidder at noon. It sat on review under an open tent, as Percy and Velma Mosely’s youngest grandchild waved a fly swatter over it.

Free lemonade was available on the porch, which was the only concession the town council had made in the area of hospitality—except, of course, for the Porta John that leaned alarmingly to the right on a bank next to the cellar door.

Dora Pugh offered a miniature garden shop under a tent, with a box of newly hatched biddies to entertain the children. Ten percent of Dora’s sales would go to the museum, while Andrew Gregory was donating all proceeds from the sale of his English Lemon Furniture Wax, which he displayed on an eighteenth-century teak garden bench under the redbud tree.

“Law!” said J.C. Hogan, wiping his face with his handkerchief, “this is a whopper.” He had shot four rolls of film in only one hour since the festival officially opened, one of which featured Mayor Cunningham standing on the steps of the Porter place, flanked by Miss Rose and Uncle Billy.

According to Uncle Billy, Miss Rose started the day in one of the worst moods he had ever witnessed and completely refused his offer of help with her wardrobe.

She had turned up at one of the most important events ever staged in Mitford, wearing a cracked-leather bomber jacket from World War II, a black cocktail hat with a mashed-flat silk peony that had come loose and slipped down over one ear, a pair of saddle oxfords, and a flowered dress that had belonged to her mother. She had chosen to carry a handbag made from the cork circles that once appeared in the caps of Pepsi-Cola bottles.

Uncle Billy had been able to make only one inroad on the discouraging situation—his wife had let him tie the laces of her shoes.

As the brass band marched around the lawn playing special selections, the crowd increased. Also, it was the first time anyone could remember the street being roped off, which clearly added to the general excitement.

A list of the day’s activities was handwritten on a blackboard, which stood teetering on an easel at the sidewalk facing Lilac Road.

Included in the long list were:

“I ain’t doin’ any hula dance,” said Percy, who had come home from Hawaii with a tan. “I told ’er that plain as day, but Esther Cunningham don’t take no for an answer, and now she’s got false advertisin’ on her hands.”

“Aw, Percy,” someone cajoled, “go ahead and do it. It’s for a good cause.”

The band passed by, drowning out Percy’s list of indignations.

“I declare,” said Chief Rodney Underwood, who was eating a hot dog and talking to the rector, “we go along thinkin’ we’re a small town. Then we get big doin’s like this, and first thing you know, we look like New York City.”

Esther Cunningham drew alongside them, wearing a new red linen suit. “Th’ tourists are swarmin’ over this place like flies,” she said with disgust. “You’d think they’d let us alone for five bloomin’ minutes.”