At Home in Mitford (52 page)

He was so relieved, he might have shouted. A roller coaster. Being with Cynthia was like being on a roller coaster, his feelings dipped and soared so uncontrollably.

“I sketched ladybugs and moss, it was wonderful. Violet slept in the sun, and a butterfly lighted on her ear. Can you imagine?”

He could, but only with some effort. He leaned against the bench, which they’d spread the cloth beside. Surely he’d reached the very gates of heaven, where he found a balmy breeze, a place far removed from the fret of getting and spending, and, best of all, someone agreeable to talk with.

They lingered on in the twilight, the evening birdsong loud and vibrant in the hedges.

He knew he would ask her, sooner or later, but each time he thought of it, his heart pounded. “Cynthia,” he said, at last, glad for the fading light, “what does going steady mean . . . exactly?”

“Well, it’s one of those wonderful things that means just what it says. You
go
with someone. Steadily! And you don’t go out with anybody else.”

“I already don’t go out with anybody else.”

“Yes, but I do. Or did! Or, even might again.” She tilted her head to one side, smiling.

“What’s wrong with things as they are?” He felt slightly annoyed.

"Things as they are are so . . . unofficial. I never know when I might see you. It would be lovely to have something to look forward to with you, like going out to a movie or having you in for dinner more often, just simple things.”

“I don’t understand why we have to go steady to do those things.”

“Well, of course, we don’t have to. It would just be nicer, to know that someone was special, set apart.”

He cleared his throat. “You’ve . . . been seeing Andrew Gregory, I believe.”

“Andrew is lovely, really he is. Very gracious and lots of fun. But it’s Churchill this and Churchill that, and I can’t bear Churchill! He was horrid to his wife, rude to his guests, and cursed like a sailor. And every time we went to the club, I got a terrible knot in my stomach, I’m just not good at that sort of thing. Besides, he likes bridge, and I positively loathe it!” She gazed at him intently.

“You’re clearly the most interesting woman I’ve ever known.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“I do. You’re easy to be with, you’re thoughtful and amusing, you’re enormously talented, and, yes, very lovely to look at.” There. He’d said everything.

Why was this so difficult? She had, after all, asked a simple yes or no question: Would you like to go steady? Yet, he felt as if he needed to write a full sermon in reply.

“The truth is,” he said, “I’m fearful of anything that might interfere with my . . .”

“With your work.”

“Yes.”

“Typical.”

“What do you mean, typical?”

“Men are always afraid that someone might interfere with their work.” Now, she seemed annoyed. “You could try looking at it as something to enhance your work, as a welcome diversion that may help you along in your work.”

A fresh way of looking at it, he thought, with some surprise.

“You know, the knot that comes with a party at the country club is mild to what I’m feeling right now.”

“What are you feeling?”

“So nervous I could throw up. I have never in my life argued for anything like this. It never occurred to me that a simple question would turn into a Platonic debate. After all, Timothy, I did
not
ask you to marry me!” She stood up suddenly, and he rose, also, catching her arm.

“Please! Don’t be upset. It was a wonderful question, I should be flattered and grateful beyond words that you asked me. I’m sorry.”

Without thinking, he put his arms around her and drew her close, entering that territory of wisteria which infused even the faint warmth of her breath on his cheek. Her softness was a shock to him, to the place where he kept his heart orderly and guarded, and he realized it wasn’t hammering at all, it was completely at peace.

They heard it before they felt it. “Rain!” they cried, in unison, and, grabbing up the hamper and cloth, fled across the park as it came down in a sudden torrent.

The peace was still there, he thought, lying awake at three o’clock in the morning, listening to the murmur of the rain. It was a palpable thing, this feeling, undefiled by concern or doubt. He prayed for Cynthia, admiring her courage to speak up. “Come boldly to the throne of Grace,” Paul had written to the Hebrews. He liked her boldness!

He was filled with a certain excited expectation for the summer, as if his own school had been let out.

It felt as if thunder were vibrating through the bed.

Horrified, he sat up and saw lights flashing wildly around the room. In the sound that filled the air like another presence, he heard an oddly familiar rhythm: cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.

He sprang out of bed and went to the alcove window, but could see nothing more than the flashing light that seemed to be swinging rapidly in circles, like a beacon. Without switching on the hall light, he raced down the stairs to the kitchen window.

A helicopter! In Baxter Park. And people running, and there, just as the light flashed across it, Hoppy’s blue Volvo.

Good Lord! Olivia!

He slipped his feet into his garden shoes by the door and ran toward the hedge and through it, blinded by the light and sickened by the deafening roar.

He saw Hoppy and two others taking Olivia from the car.

“I’m here!” he shouted, fighting the storm of feeling that rose in him.

“Pray!” yelled Hoppy, who had lifted her in his arms. Olivia looked at him and reached out. He was able to touch only her fingertips as Hoppy rushed her to the helicopter door and handed her in to waiting hands. Then, the doctor climbed in, and the door closed.

Someone backed the car across the park, deeply trenching the rain-soaked grass, and almost immediately, the helicopter was lifting, lifting, was in the air, and vanishing over the tops of the trees.

“Philippians four-thirteen, for Pete’s sake,” he whispered hoarsely to the sudden darkness.

“What a horrid nightmare! What was it all about?” Cynthia came through her hedge with a flashlight.

“It’s Olivia. I don’t know what the mission is. I pray to God she’s flying to her heart.” Flying to her heart! A miracle of miracles.

Cynthia took his hand, dropping the flashlight by her side. It beamed on his feet. “Oh, dear,” she said, looking down. He had lost one of his untied tennis shoes, the other was covered with mud, his pajama legs were soaked nearly to the knees, and Violet was nuzzling his ankle.

He put his arms around Cynthia and held her. How good it was to hold someone, especially after the shock of that alarming mission in the park. “So lovely,” she murmured against his shoulder, stroking his cheek. “Two dear hugs in one night. It’s almost as good as . . .”

“As going steady?”

“Umhmm.”

He laughed a little. "Almost, perhaps. But surely, not quite.”

It was four-thirty in the morning when he fell to his knees by his bed and began to pray intensely. When he arose from the rug, creaking in his joints and assailed by a burning thirst, he was amazed to see it was six o’clock.

All day, he felt derailed, cut loose from his moorings. The loss of sleep, the accumulating fatigue, maybe it was his age, after all. He had forgotten to call Hoppy, but that was just as well, in view of things. He would see him next week, without fail, assuming Hoppy had returned from wherever he’d gone. If he hadn’t returned, he most assuredly did not want to see the new doctor, Wilson, who seemed wet behind the ears.

In the office mailbox, a card from Emma.

“Having wonderful time, do not wish you were here, ha, ha. You should have seen Harold talking to Mickey Mouse, I got a whole roll of snaps. Much love, Emma.”

He dropped by the Grill for a late breakfast, comforted by the familiar surroundings and Percy’s dependable nosiness.

“I heard that copter set down in th’ park last night, it like t’ scared Velma to death. Truth is, you look like
you
been scared t’ death, you’re white as a sheet.”

“I come in here to be cheered up, and, instead, I get brought down. Do I really look white as a sheet?”

“Warshed out. Gray, like. Sickly . . .”

“That’s enough, thank you very much.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He sat in the booth and buttered his toast. Just when he should be gaining a second wind, he was crashing and burning. It seemed a good time to write Stuart Cullen, perhaps even a good time to go see him in person. But he hated the thought of the long drive. Perhaps he would take Cynthia along. There! A brilliant idea. She and Martha would get on famously, and wouldn’t Stuart be fairly astounded?

“It’s like this . . .” he would explain. It’s like what? Well, of course, he didn’t know, exactly, so he’d just let Stuart figure it out, and then tell
him.

J.C. Hogan slipped into the booth with his bulging, half-open briefcase. “When you goin’ to have a letter from the man in the attic? I need to fill up some space, advertisin’s dropped off.”

“A letter from George Gaynor isn’t exactly filler. But I just got a letter, and you can have it next week.”

“Too late. I’d like to get it today, for Monday’s paper.”

“Let me finish my breakfast. I just came from the office, but I’ll go back again.”

J. C. got up, jolting the table, and nearly dumping the rector’s breakfast in his lap. “Just run it upstairs where I’ll be layin’ out the center spread.”

“I’ll see to it,” Father Tim said, crisply.

Coot Hendrick slipped into the booth, wearing a red cap from the hardware. “I wish t’ God a feller could git ’im a plate of gizzards in this place.”

"Gizzards, is it?”

“I was raised on gizzards, like ’em better’n white meat.”

“You won’t be gettin’ no gizzard plate around here,” yelled Percy, who could overhear the back booth from the grill.

“Heard anything ’bout y’r dog?” Coot wanted to know.

He dipped his toast in the poached egg. “Not a word.”

“I don’t think y’r goin’ to.”

“Is that right?”

“If hit was anybody aroun’ here that stoled ’im, they’d’ve jumped on that money like a beagle on a rabbit. Nossir, I think that dog’s long gone.”

Percy threw his spatula down and walked over. “Lemme tell you somethin’, buddyroe, you say one more word to th’ Father ’bout that dog bein’ long gone, and you’re th’ one’s gonna be long gone, you hear?”

“You don’t have t’ git s’ bent out of shape,” said Coot. “It ain’t nothin’ but a dog.”

“Th’ only fella I ever th’owed out of here was Parrish Guthrie. I said that’d be th’ only one, and I wouldn’t want t’ break my promise. Why don’t you go on over yonder and set by th’ window?”

Coot got up without taking his eyes off the owner and stomped over to the table by the window.

“Don’t pay no attention to him,” growled Percy. “He ain’t got a lick of sense.”

“Percy, you didn’t have to do that, but I thank you for it. Coot’s all right, he didn’t mean any harm.”

Just then, the door opened with some force, and Homeless Hobbes stumbled in on his crutch. “Father Tim!” he shouted. “Are you in here? I’ve found your dog! I’ve found Barnabas!”

The rector bolted from his seat in the booth and stood frozen by the counter.

“He’s way up th’ hill behind th’ creek. They had ’im tied out, I saw ’im with my own eyes. I went up there t’ take food t’ a sick feller, ol’ Barnabas got a load of me and like to barked his head off. Some pretty rough characters come out of that house and dragged him inside.”

“How’d he look?”

“I hate t’ tell you, he looked starved-like, pore.”

“I’m callin’ Rodney,” said Percy, taking the receiver off the wall phone.

“I asked around about th’ jack legs that’s livin’ there—they say they’re bad news, drugs or somethin’ else low-down. One feller said they might be armed. I’d want Rodney t’ be plenty careful.”

As the few early lunch customers fixed their mute attention on the unfolding drama, Percy held the phone to Father Tim. “He’s on th’ line.”

“Hello, Rodney! Something wonderful has happened. Homeless says he’s seen Barnabas at a house up the creek. Yes, yes. A little starved-looking, he says. I see. Well, I’ll ask him.

“Can you tell Rodney where the house is?”

“I don’t think you can get there from here. I’d have t’ ride with ’im t’ show ’im.”

“Rodney, he’d have to ride with you, it’s up the hill behind the creek. He says he hears they might be armed, drugs could be involved. Yes. Fine. We’ll be at the Grill.”

“Anybody wants a doughnut,” Percy said to his customers, “it’s on th’ house!”

He shook hands with Homeless and Rodney. “I’ll be at home, then. The Lord be with you.”

As the two men left, Percy stared after them. “I know ol’ Homeless comes t’ town Tuesday nights to go through Avis’s garbage, but that’s th’ only time I ever seen ’im in broad daylight.”

It was nearly three o’clock before he saw the police car pull up to the curb, and he was standing at the door as Rodney came up the walk. He saw at once that the mission had not been successful.

“Nothin’,” said the police chief. “We got s’ dern lost tryin’ to find th’ way in there, Homeless had walked in before, and when we finally come up on that house, it was tight as a drum. Nobody at home, no dog barkin’, nothin’. I hated t’ come tell you.” Rodney stood with one foot on the top step, looking downcast.

“Well, then.”

“We seen two old vehicles on th’ place, a car under a tarp and a van they’d kind of pushed off in th’ bushes.”

“Did you look at the license plate on the car?”

“I did. Wrote it down on my report. Hang on,” he said, going to the curb and taking a clipboard from the front seat. He walked back to the porch stoop, slowly, looking at the report. “Let’s see, here. VAT 7841.”