At Home in Mitford (47 page)

“Those golden days passed so quickly. I wanted to stay a child forever, but before I felt like I was awake real good, I was sixteen, and it was time to go abroad. Abroad! What a hateful word. I came to despise it. So many girls would have given anything to ‘go abroad.’

“When I heard that Uncle Haywood had talked Papa into sending me, I was shocked, I felt betrayed. How could he send me away to another country? Mama was horrified, too, but she said it was for the best. I know I’d complained about Mr. Kingsley’s bad breath a hundred times, but I didn’t see that as a reason to change my schooling to the other side of the world!”

Miss Sadie opened her eyes. She was silent for a moment, gazing at the faded yellow roses on the wallpaper.

“I can just see Papa now. Right before we were ready to go down to Charleston to take the boat, he came in the front door. I remember all the luggage, the big trunks and the hatboxes, was stacked in the hall, and Papa came storming in and threw his hat on the table. He was burning mad, I had never seen him so mad. The veins stood out on his neck, and the top of his head was red as fire where the hair had thinned.

“ ‘Cur!’ is what he said over and over. He was shouting. I thought a dog had bitten him! But oh, it was so much worse than that.

“Mama tried to make him sit down and drink a lemonade, it was so hot his shirt was sticking to him, it was August. But he wouldn’t, and he started up again, saying things like ‘scoundrel’ and ‘scum of the earth.’

“It turns out he’d been driving up from the lumberyard in the valley, and somebody had come speeding by him so fast that Papa had run his Buick town car into a ditch, causing considerable damage to the beautiful grillwork and the fenders.”

Miss Sadie looked at the rector. “My papa was a good man, but he was not the kind of man you want to run off the road, and especially not into a ditch. You know, Father, times were different, then, and it was considered almost honorable for a man to hold a grudge against an injustice.”

She sighed. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you who it was that ran him off the road.”

No. No, she did not. Father Tim glanced across the room at the photo of the handsome young Willard Porter, whose dark gaze seemed to pierce the room so forcibly that he might have been present, listening.

“Papa had to borrow a car to drive to Charleston, and in those days, people did not care to loan their cars, so that upset Papa even more. On the way, he talked about what had happened on Lumber Road. He just couldn’t seem to get over it. He didn’t know who had done it, he hadn’t recognized the car, it was a new car, and fancy. And the more he talked about it, the less he acted like himself. Of course, he tried not to talk about me going away, because every time he did, he would cry a little.

“He’d never spent a night away from Mama since they were married, and it was a big sacrifice to give us both up at one time, for she was going with me—to stay ’til I got settled.

“You could have floated that big ol’ boat on our tears!” Miss Sadie said, laughing. “And to think— buying all those fancy clothes and hats and steamer trunks, and going to Charleston in August, of all things, and taking that long trip across the ocean in that big storm that broke a freighter in two, and all those tear-stained, homesick letters—just to turn around and come home again, lickety split, in two months!”

“But look what it’s given you to remember all these years.”

With the only irony he had ever heard in her voice, she said, “Yes. But look what it did to my heart.”

Suddenly, an alarm sounded so loudly that it caused his own heart to thunder. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed, thrusting his feet into his shoes and standing up at once.

“That’s just Louella,” she said, brightly. “Lunch must be ready. Father, dear, would you kindly turn your head and look toward the door?”

He did so, his ears ringing, as she got out of bed and put on her slippers and robe.

“Now you can look!” she said, going to the wall opposite her bed and grasping what appeared to be a drawer pull under a painting. A little door opened in the wall and Miss Sadie stuck her head inside. “Yes, Louella?”

“Miss Sadie!” he heard Louella’s mezzo voice boom up the shaft, “Do th’ Father want vinegar on his greens?”

“Father, do you want vinegar on your greens?”

“I think not. A little butter, perhaps.”

“Louella, he won’t have vinegar, he’ll have butter.”

“Butter! I never heard of butterin’ greens. Miss Sadie, y’all want your tea hot or cold?”

“Which is easier?”

“Cold’s done fixed.”

“Send cold,” said Miss Sadie with some pleasure. “And remember he likes his plenty sweet.”

“Ah, not anymore,” said the rector, fidgeting.

“Louella, not anymore,” his hostess shouted.

“What’d you say?”

“He doesn’t like his tea too sweet anymore.”

“No sugar,” he said, feeling as miserable as if he had just delivered an elegy.

“No sugar in his tea, Louella. Are you coming up?”

“I’m eatin’ right here in this kitchen. Do y’all want chow chow for your beans?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the rector, pacing the floor.

“Chow chow, Louella, and plenty of it. Don’t sound the alarm again, it nearly made him faint. Just knock twice with the broom handle and send it up.”

He found that the discussion over lunch particulars had given him an odd twinge in his stomach, but the tea, when it came up on the silent butler, revived his spirits.

“Father,” said Miss Sadie, who was sitting up in bed, having finished her lunch, “you can’t imagine how wonderful it is to have someone listen to me ramble. Did you ever think that just when people grow old and have so much to tell, that’s when people want them to hush? I hope when you grow old, there’ll be someone to listen to you ramble.”

“I feel blessed to have people listen to me ramble every Sunday of my life,” he said happily, folding his napkin and putting it on the tray.

“Oh, pshaw, you’re so modest. You never give yourself enough credit, in my opinion. You don’t ramble at all, you get right to the point, and it’s always God’s point, as far as I can see. But, do you know what I appreciate more than your sermons?”

“What’s that?”

“The fact that you love us. Yes, that’s enough for me, that you love us.” She closed her eyes and let out a lingering breath. “Ahhh, the peace. What a blessing. Father, will you come again tomorrow? While I’ve got the hook in the water, you might say. I don’t believe I have the strength to go to the end, today.”

“I will. Right after lunch. Don’t fix for me tomorrow. I’ll bring you a doughnut from Winnie’s.”

“Just plain,” murmured Miss Sadie. “Not fancy.”

He went as quietly as he could across the creaking floor and closed the door behind him.

Miss Sadie was sitting in a slip-covered wing chair by the window, with an afghan over her knees. “I’ve been thinking all night,” she said, “and I don’t want to waste a minute.”

He sat in the wing chair opposite her and unbuttoned his jacket. “I have until three o’clock, Miss Sadie. My time is yours.”

“When Mama and I met Willard in Paris, we would never have dreamed he was the one who made Papa run off the road. He was so nice, so considerate, so genuine. He had just moved to Mitford from Tennessee, and we learned from his conversation that his family had nothing to speak of. He was a boy who was trying to make the most of his God-given talents, and he was busy inventing things in the pharmaceutical field.

“One thing he’d invented was Formula R, which stood for Rose. Formula R was good to put on burns or wounds. It was an antiseptic, it just worked wonders, but it stung like fire.

“We had the sweetest times together in Paris. My mama was a wonderful judge of character, and while she had a soft heart, she couldn’t be fooled. She thought Willard was a fine person. But when we got home, and we started telling Papa about the Mitford boy who befriended us in that faraway place, why, I thought he would have a stroke.

“I couldn’t believe the horrible anger that welled up in him, something I had never seen before in my life. He said Willard Porter was trash, the lowest kind, an uneducated, penniless, heathen boy with no future and no breeding, and we were never to mention his name in our house again. He was so mean to Mama, as if she had betrayed him.

“I found out Papa had dealt with Willard after Willard came home from Paris, because when I saw Willard driving around the monument one day, he acted as if he hadn’t seen me.

“All the way over on the boat, I had dreamed of seeing him again, the fact that he lived in my hometown was . . . it was just too joyful for words. And then, to come home to that cold anger and rage, and a papa who hardly seemed the same person. . . .

“One day, China Mae brought me a note. It was folded up little bitty and hidden in her dress. It was from Willard, and when I saw the handwriting, the same handwriting on the notes that came with the roses in Paris, I remember that my heart beat so wildly, I had to sit down.

“China Mae said, ‘Don’t you dare faint, faintin’ is too white for words.’

“I still have the little note. It said: ‘I have made the very worst mistake of my life. The incident on the road was inexcusable and completely unintentional. I deeply regret that I have caused this strife and am willing to do anything within my power to remove the memory of it. I have apologized to your father with heartfelt sincerity, but he will not hear me. I do not know what more can be done at this time. Please forgive me. Your faithful servant, Willard James Porter.’

" ’Mama,’ I said, ’I think I love Willard.’

“She said, ‘Don’t even speak of it, don’t let your heart think such a thing, it is impossible. This has changed your father in a way I don’t understand.’

“Just like when I was a little girl, I stopped going to town. We ordered off for my clothes, just like always, and I didn’t even cut my hair. Mama helped me study, and I played the piano and did needlepoint, and read books, and went to church every evening and lit a candle and knelt down and talked to God.

“You would have thought the heavens had been barricaded against me, as if God had said, ‘Nail everything up good and tight, in case Sadie Baxter tries to get through.’

“It seemed a long time later that China Mae said someone was building a big house over in town, a big showplace, all white with porches and gables and even a widow’s walk, though there was no ocean for hundreds of miles.

“Everybody at church was talking about it, and talking about Willard, how he had sold some of his pharmaceutical inventions, and how he was getting rich.

“Something awful happened to Papa when his name was mentioned at church, or wherever. You would think that the years would soften his heart toward a foolish, unfortunate incident, but it did not.

“You know, Father, looking back, Papa was a lot like Willard. He came from nothing, he had no special education, he was a rough man in many ways, but he refined himself and taught himself to speak well and read good books and travel in polite society, just like Willard.

“China Mae came home now and again, all excited. ‘I seen ’im, Miss Sadie,’ she’d say, ‘I seen your Willard and he jus’ th’ han’somest man you ever laid eyes on.’ He opened up a pharmacy on Main Street where Happy Endings is now. And one in Wesley, and two in Holding.

“I received a letter from him one day, out of the blue. I’d like to show this one to you. Would you be so kind, Father, to step to the dresser and look in the top drawer on the right?”

He opened the drawer and was struck by the scent of lavender that rushed out at him. He found the ivory envelope just where she said it was and took it back to his chair by the window.

He removed the brittle stationery, unfolded it, and saw that the date at the top was June 13, 1927. He read aloud:

“ ‘My dear Sadie, I saw you go by yesterday, and though you did not see me, I was very touched by your sweetness and grace. I know it is risky to write to you, and have firmly emphasized to China Mae that you must burn this letter after reading it. I implore you to do so, as I take this liberty with the greatest concern for your happiness.

“ ‘I once said that when you grow up, I should like to marry you. Today, you are twenty-one, and I believe that is considered by all to be grown up.

“ ‘As for myself, I am twenty-six, my business is at last going well, and I am beginning to make a place for myself, my mother, and my little sister. For the first time, it is possible for me to marry, and yet it is impossible for me to marry the one I love devotedly and think about night and day.

“ ‘I do not know your feelings for me, except what China Mae has confided—please, I beg you, do not punish her for speaking out of turn.

“ ‘I have tried again and again to think of a way to change your father’s mind toward me, but I come each time to the same bitter conclusion. He despises me, and anything I might try to do to win your hand would only bring turmoil and despair to you and to your mother.

“ ‘You may know that I am building a house in the village, on the green where Amos Medford grazed his cows. Each stone that was laid in the foundation was laid with the hope that I might yet express the loving regard I have for you, Sadie.

“ ‘It is bold to write you so, but I am filled with a longing on this, your twenty-first birthday, that is nearly inexpressible.

“ ‘I am going to give this house a name, trusting that things may eventually be different between us. I will have it engraved on a cedar beam at the highest point in the attic, with the intention that its message may one day give you some joy or pleasure.

“ ‘Perhaps, God willing, your father will soon see that I have something to offer, and relent. Until then, dear Sadie, I can offer only my fervent love and heartfelt devotion.’ ”

Father Tim sat for a time, silently, and then put the letter back into the ivory envelope.