At Home in Mitford (5 page)

“Wait? Wait was what broke the camel’s back!” Harry grabbed his slicker off the peg, threw it over his head, squeezed out the door, and called behind him, “Miss Sadie, you should have just drove this Plymouth on in the door.”

For some reason he couldn’t explain, the rector found Harry’s plan to involve an appraiser oddly unwelcome. Yet, something even less welcome occurred at noon.

While he waited with eager anticipation for his usual rainy-day share of cream-filled Little Debbies from Emma’s paper bag lunch, she said nonchalantly, “Little Debbies? I’ve given ’em up for Lent.”

He had just walked in the door and taken off the tweed cap Hal Owen gave him, when Percy Mosely turned around from the grill and winked. Then, he went back to frying his sausage.

That was odd, thought Father Tim, sitting down at his favorite booth and opening his newspaper. “Percy,” he said, “I believe I’ll have two over easy this morning.”

Velma came to the booth and stood there, grinning. “Gonna celebrate, are you? I’d have two eggs myself, if it wasn’t for my cholesterol.”

Cholesterol, cholesterol, thought Father Tim. He’d heard more than enough about cholesterol. It was as bad as the Hula Hoop craze.

Velma poured his coffee. He had traveled to many conferences, retreats, seminars, and workshops, and right here was the best cup of coffee he’d ever had. “What do you mean, celebrate?”

“Well, celebrate over all that money you’ll be gettin’ down at th’ chapel.”

“What money is that?” asked Father Tim, dumbfounded.

“That art money. Why, I heard you had a painting over there worth two hundred thousand dollars.”

He had just taken a mouthful of coffee and deeply regretted spitting it down the front of his shirt.

“Now, look at you!” said Velma, helping him clean up.

“Velma, whatever you’ve heard is absolutely untrue. Someone donated a painting to the church and we haven’t even had it appraised. It’s just a nice painting, that’s all.”

“We heard it was a Veneer,” said Percy, yelling from the grill.

“Yep, that’s what we heard,” agreed Mule Skinner, who sold real estate around town.

Blast! he thought, completely losing his appetite.

Miss Sadie had delivered the painting on Tuesday. By the end of the day on Thursday, he had received an unprecedented number of calls. Even Emma, who had the day off, called.

In the Grill at eight o’clock, the figure had been two hundred thousand. By three in the afternoon, he had a call from an architect who wanted to submit plans for an addition to the church, and congratulated him on the million dollars Lord’s Chapel would be getting from the sale of the old master. At three-thirty, the village newspaper called for a statement.

By four, his stomach felt painful and empty. Bleeding ulcer! he reasoned darkly.

He put the answering machine on, and left.

At five after four, Walter got this message: “Persevere in prayer, with mind awake and thankful heart. This is the office of The Lord’s Chapel. Please leave a message at the sound of the tone.”

That evening, Father Tim took the phone off the hook, gave Barnabas what was almost certainly his first bath, made a dinner of broiled chicken and packaged spinach souffle, had a glass of sherry, and went to bed.

What if the painting really were a Vermeer? He didn’t know much about art, but he did know the work had a certain power, a vitality he hadn’t found in just every depiction of the Blessed Virgin and child.

He also knew the turmoil that would ensue if they were actually in possession of such a priceless work. Hadn’t he had enough headaches over the seventeenth-century tapestry hanging in the nave? Just getting it insured had been a process that took months, endless costly phone calls, and sleepless nights. In the end, they’d been forced to keep the church doors locked, a thing he roundly despised.

The bottom line, however, was pretty simple. God would, indeed, be faithful to instruct and guide. As the evening progressed, he grew confident that he’d be led to act in the interest of all concerned.

On the way to the church office the next morning, there was a quickness in his step. Of course, he must never tell a soul. But last night, for the first time in his life, he had allowed a dog to sleep on the foot of his bed. And he’d found it an incomparably satisfactory experience.

“There!” said Emma, plunking a box of Little Debbies on his desk. “You weren’t the one who gave these up for Lent. You can have my supply.” She wondered what he did give up for Lent, anyway, but didn’t think it was proper to ask.

He put the box in his top right desk drawer, “You,” he said with feeling, “are a pearl above price.”

"What happened?”

“It was a landmark day. Petrey Bostick called to say we ought to use part of the money to put air-conditioning in the church.”

Emma rolled her eyes. That old business. What was the point of living at an elevation of 5,000 feet if you had to install air-conditioning? Every year, people got lathered up about air-conditioning.

In the course of the morning, a real estate agent called to suggest they buy the property on either side of the churchyard, which would quietly be made available, if they were interested. The rector was not surprised that the price had gone up fifty percent since the vestry made an inquiry just two years ago.

The newspaper called to ask if they could photograph the painting with Miss Sadie standing on one side and Father Tim on the other. The appraiser called and said he’d be there Monday at 9:30. And, they heard that the vestry had scheduled a meeting to discuss the purchase of a steel columbarium painted to look like walnut, brass collection plates instead of the traditional Lord’s Chapel baskets, and a floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window for the narthex.

After two parishioners called to remind him of the hungry around the world, another dropped by to remind him of the hungry here at home.

During a lull, he turned to Emma and said simply, “We must not let this destroy the joy of Easter.”

“Amen,” she said with conviction.

There was only one problem. He couldn’t figure out how to prevent that from happening.

A Canadian cold front was sending streams of icy air along the ridges and into the coves surrounding Mitford.

After walking Barnabas through Baxter Park, attending to his hospital rounds, and counseling a parishioner over breakfast at the Grill, he was profoundly ready for a peaceful time at his desk. Now he needed to catch up the loose strings of the two approaching Easter services. Perhaps he could do this, he thought, after the appraiser’s visit at nine-thirty. If he had any lingering anxiety about the outcome of the painting’s appraisal, he was blessedly unaware of it.

He saw Winnie Ivey sweeping the sidewalk in front of her Sweet Stuff Bakery, as she did each and every morning. It was one of the sights he liked most to see: someone putting their affairs in order.

“Good morning, Winnie!”

Winnie was bundled warmly. He could see only plump cheeks and bright eyes above her scarf. “Father, I’m glad to catch you! I saved yesterday’s napoleons just for you!”

Hoppy had recently warned him, “Stay away from that stuff, pal. Carry raisins in your pocket.” Raisins, indeed. Worse yet, he’d recently overheard someone refer to him as “that portly priest at Lord’s Chapel.”

“Winnie,” he said, following her inside and taking a deep breath of the cinnamon-scented air, “Hoppy tells me I’ve got to go easy on sweets.”

“He’s been telling me that for years, and I sure do wish I could mind him,” she said affably, removing three napoleons from the case.

“Maybe you could give those to Miss Rose and Uncle Billy when they come in.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that! They get yesterday’s oatmeal cookies. Good fiber, you know.”

He wondered why he felt helpless as she handed him the paper bag and patted his arm.

In case Hoppy should drive by on his way to the hospital, he carefully stuffed the bag into his coat pocket. He would not eat one bite, he told himself, not even one. They would go immediately to Emma, who could make her own peace with the seductive charm of Winnie Ivey’s napoleons.

As he came within sight of his office, he was startled to see a small group waiting at the door. It appeared to be Harry Nelson, Bud Simmons, and Maude Beatty. Also, two cars were parked at the sidewalk, with their motors running.

He felt a reckless desire to step behind a laurel bush and eat the entire contents of the bag in his pocket.

He was relieved that he’d left Barnabas sleeping in the garage, for the crowd had literally packed the office. He opened the bathroom door, which made room for two, shoved the communal wastebasket under his desk, which made room for another, and let the rest of the group shift for itself.

“Father,” Harry said sheepishly, “I know you didn’t expect such a big whang-do here this mornin’, but we thought the vestry ought to see what this appraiser fellow has to say.”

“As you can see, Harry, there’s no room left for the appraiser to get in here and say anything.”

Harry laughed weakly and stood closer to the wall.

The rector turned on the electric heater, then went about his coffee making. “With patience, forbearing one another in love,” he reminded himself. Funny how his morning readings often went out to greet the circumstances of the day.

In a few minutes, the smell of coffee filled the little room and began to warm the hearts of the entire assembly. But since the pot only made four cups, and there were seven people, he proceeded cautiously with the pouring.

Emma opened the front door with a glower and squeezed inside. She did not like cold spring mornings, dimly feeling they were some sort of betrayal.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” she said, seeing that Maude Beatty was sitting in her chair like she owned it.

The appraiser arrived at nine-thirty sharp, removed his coat, handed it to Harry Nelson, and went straight to work.

He hummed vaguely to himself and clicked his teeth. No one spoke.

“Hmmmm,” he said occasionally.

He took out a magnifying glass and went over every inch of the canvas, which he had propped against a stack of books on the rector’s desk.

Then he opened a small black box and removed a pair of pliers and a hammer. “Looking for a signature,” he informed the fascinated onlookers.

In a moment, the frame was off, and the appraiser was holding the canvas up to the natural light. “Hmm,” he said.

Father Tim thought it a wonderful thing that a man could say only “Hmm,” and gain the fixed attention of an entire roomful of people. Even his pithiest sermons failed to accomplish this.

“Use your bathroom?” asked the appraiser. The two vestry members moved out of the minuscule room, which was scarcely the size of a cupboard, and flattened themselves against Harry Nelson.

The appraiser took the canvas under one arm and went in, searching the walls and baseboards. “Got an outlet in here?”

“You’ll have to unplug the heater,” said Emma, testily. Why in God’s name was Bud Simmons sitting on the recipes she’d torn out of
Southern Living
and put on her desk, was he blind?

The appraiser shut the bathroom door, and everyone looked around with faint smiles.

If there was anything Harry Nelson didn’t like, it was a nervous silence. “Did you hear the one about the funeral procession?” he wanted to know.

Oh my aching back, thought Emma.

“Well, this funeral procession was goin’ up the hill to the church and the back door of the hearse flew open and out shoots the casket and,
blametty blam,
down the hill it goes through the intersection with horns blowin’ and people dodgin’ out of the way, and it runs on down the street and jumps up on the sidewalk and busts in through the pharmacy door and shoots down the aisle to the druggist and the lid pops up and this guy sits up and says: ‘Got anything to stop this coffin?’ ”

I wouldn’t laugh if my life depended on it, Emma thought, as the appraiser came out of the bathroom.

“This may be a Vermeer,” he said drily. A little gasp went up.

“And then again, it may not. I feel reasonably confident that it could have been painted during the mid- to late seventeenth century, by any one of a dozen people working under Vermeer’s influence.

“There is no signature that I can find and no evidence of restoration. I recommend that the canvas be shipped at once to New York, to a team of experts who can research the matter fully and apply more scholarship than I am able to provide.”

The appraiser had finished his report. In fact, he didn’t even wait for a response from the astonished gathering, but began to repack his toolbox and wind up the cord of his black light.

A murmur ran through the group. Bud Simmons got up, scattering recipes to the floor, and spoke in a low voice to Harry Nelson. The others waited.

“We think it ought to be sent to New York,” Harry said, considerably louder than was necessary in the small room.

“Agreed!” said Lester Shumaker, looking around for support.

The appraiser produced a sheaf of papers and had Harry Nelson sign every one. Then, he put on his coat and muffler, wrapped the painting in bubble plastic, slipped it into a large sack, picked up his toolbox, bowed briefly from the waist, and was gone.

In a few minutes, so were the others.

“Emma,” said the rector, with a trace of weariness, “let’s have another pot of coffee.”

“Great!” said Emma, who, on those rare occasions when he wanted a second pot, considered it a small celebration.

He looked at the visitor’s bench. There, propped against the wall just under the coat pegs, was the empty frame.

He squeezed by Emma, who was measuring out the Maxwell House, and took the frame into the bathroom. It fit perfectly behind the shower stall.

“There!” he said with satisfaction. “Out of sight, out of mind.”