In This Mountain (40 page)

In his blessing of the meal, Father Talbot quoted from the prophet Isaiah, then invited all to break bread together.

“Did you bring your brownies?” Amy Larkin asked Harley, who was ahead of her in the queue to the food table.

“Yes, ma’am,” he told the eleven-year-old. “Right over yonder.”

“I brought pimiento cheese sandwiches.” Her eyes shone. “No crusts.”

“Where’re they at?”

“Right next to the potato salad in the red bowl,” she said. “On the left.”

He nodded, respectful. “I’ll make sure to have one.”

Amy Larkin reminded him of Lace when she was still a little squirt, running to his trailer with a book under her arm. He hated she had grown up and gone off to school, but he knew it was for the best.

He fixed his gaze on Cynthia’s lemon squares on the dessert table. He had set his mouth for a lemon square, and hoped he could get to the familiar blue and white platter before it was too late.

“O God, heavenly Father, who by Thy Son Jesus Christ has promised to all those who seek Thy kingdom and its righteousness all things necessary to sustain their life: Send us, we entreat thee, in this time of need, such moderate rain and showers, that we may receive the fruits of the earth, to our comfort and to Thy honor; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“Amen!”

The words of the eighteenth-century hymnist carried through the open windows of the parish hall and lifted on the mild September air.

A block away, Hope Winchester thought she could hear singing, but wasn’t sure. Maybe she heard something that sounded like
abide with me…
and something about eventide, but she couldn’t be certain.

She stood at her open window for what seemed a long time, listening.

Hélène Pringle heard the faint sound of the basement door closing, and knew that someone had come in.

When she saw Harley this afternoon at the gas station, he said he was having supper at Lord’s Chapel. “Are you goin’?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she’d said. “I haven’t been invited.”

“Ever’body’s invited,” he’d told her. “Hit’s community-wide, you ought t’ come!”

But of course she hadn’t gone; she’d felt terribly vulnerable last Sunday when the father preached on being thankful and had the odd notion he was preaching directly to her. She tried to recall if she had thanked God for anything, or only asked Him to give her something, as a child might make requests of St. Nicholas.

She had grown fond of those times of talking through the curtain, to the one she supposed to be God. She still had no certainty that He cared or was even listening, but she hoped He was. In truth, it was increasingly important to her that He should listen and care, and that their time together be more than the figment of a spinster’s overwrought imagination.

She turned the kitchen light off and was going along the hall when the phone rang. It would be a student, of course, canceling or rescheduling .

“Allo!” she said in the French way.

“Miss Pringle, it’s Hope Winchester. How are you this evening?”

“Very well, Hope, and you?”

“Good, thank you. Is…George Gaynor there? I hope this is no trouble.”

“No trouble in the least! One moment, please, and I’ll call down.”

She laid the phone on the hall table and walked to the basement door and opened it. “Mr. Gaynor! Are you there?” Though she called Harley by his first name, she had never felt comfortable calling Mr. Gaynor by his.

“Yes, Miss Pringle?” George Gaynor appeared in a pool of light at the foot of the basement stairs.

“You have a telephone call. Will you come up?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“The receiver is on the hall table, just switch on the lamp.”

Mr. Gaynor was an arresting figure, she thought, as he appeared at the top of the stairs—quite handsome and dignified, not at all like someone who had spent time behind bars. “Please don’t hurry,” she said. “I’ll be upstairs.”

“Thank you again.”

It was
étrange
, she mused as she went up, that her next-door neighbor had somehow collected the three of them under one roof—what an odd assortment! She smiled at the thought.

Ça alors!
what a day this had been—Barbizon was in the foulest of tempers, and all three of her students had done poorly at their lessons. She would take a hot bath and put on
sa chemise de nuit préférée
and talk to the other side of the curtain.

She paused at the top of the stair, attracted by laughter in the hallway. It was such an unusual sound, a man laughing in her house….

“I said you could call anytime. Yes, it’s all right, I assure you.”

There was a long silence. Hélène thought she should go to her room, but didn’t move from the banister railing.

“Of course. I remember the day when the teachers came in, I was going to tell you about the prayer, but…”

Her grandmother’s tall case clock ticked on the landing.

“It’s a very simple prayer. Sometimes, people think they want something more sophisticated, or even complicated. But if you have a willing heart, it’s all you need, nothing more….

“What will happen? That’s a good question.”

Hélène heard him chuckle; it seemed a glad sound.

“It would take years to tell you all that happens when you surrender your life to God. Perhaps forgiveness—I think His forgiveness may be the most important thing that happens….

“Yes. Even for the worst stuff….”

Hélène looked at the clock. In less than a minute, it would chime the hour. Her heart beat in her temples.

“Surrendering your soul to Him changes everything. That sounds scary, but I found it downright terrifying when I presumed to be in control…

“I understand. I had every reason, also. My uncle was a priest who stole six hundred thousand dollars from the church coffers—with the help of my father. I’ve found that if we keep our eyes on Christians, we can be disappointed in a major way. The important thing is to keep our eyes on Christ….

“I can’t honestly say that I know what
happy
means. Let’s say that I’m certain…

“About who He is, what life is for, where I’m going, what it means to be given a second chance….

“Yes, you can pray it with me…whatever seems right to you.”

Hélène heard the movement in the French clock begin to whir.

“Thank you, God, for loving me…and for sending Your Son to die for my sins….”

The first hour struck…

“I sincerely repent of my sins…and receive Jesus Christ as my personal savior.”

The second hour…

“Now, as your child, I turn my entire life over to you. Amen.”

The clock on the landing of the old rectory struck again, seven times.

Hélène stood by the railing, breathless and unmoving, lest she betray to George Gaynor that she was standing there at all.

When at last she went down the stairs to turn off the light, the hall was empty and the basement door was closed.

When Volunteer Fire Chief Hamp Floyd got the call from a neighbor, he ran to his back door and flung it open. Naked as a jaybird and still clutching the cordless, he looked east.

Rooted to the spot, he dialed the fire chief in Wesley.

“It’s Hamp,” he said, his voice shaking. “Bring both trucks, I’ll have a lead car waitin’ at the corner of Lilac an’ Main.”

He dressed in two-point-three minutes and, without kissing his wife, ran from the house to do the impossible.

Father Tim heard the truck leave the fire station at two in the morning.

He got up quickly and went to the window facing Wisteria, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“What is it, Timothy?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to throw something on and go down to the porch. Sounds like they’re headed north.”

“I’ll pray,” she said.

He pulled on his pants, shoved his feet into his loafers, and buttoned his shirt as he went down the stairs.

“Stay,” he said to his dog, who was hard on his heels at the front door.

From the porch, he saw a neighbor running toward Main Street.

“What is it?” he called.

“Fire on the ridge!”

He ran to the sidewalk, hooked a left, and jogged toward Main.

Several neighbors were standing in the street; a group had gathered on Edie Adams’s front lawn.

Bill Adkins, dressed in pajamas and a windbreaker, nodded as Father Tim reached the sidewalk at Edie’s. “It’s a bad one,” said Bill.

Father Tim turned and looked northeast, up to the long ridge where fire was turning the dark sky orange, where the clouds appeared lit by an eerie inner glow.

“Clear Day,” he whispered.

“Yessir. Looks like the truck went out mighty late.”

“I should go.” He was suddenly chilled, shaking.

“Nossir, I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

“That’s a huge fire.”

“Yessir, there’s no way our truck can handle it, they’ll have to get help from Wesley. Lord knows I hope th’ woods hadn’t caught fire, dry as it’s been.”

Ninety acres of parched timber bordering eight thousand square feet of heart pine, oak beams, and cedar shakes.

“That yella truck’ll have t’ do th’ work of three or four red ’uns,” said an onlooker.

“What if she’s up there?” he asked Bill Adkins.

“In Florida would be my guess.”

But something told him otherwise.

Stricken, he prayed aloud the prayer that never fails: “Dear God, Your will be done!”

“Amen,” replied a voice in the crowd.

Neighbors in slippers, a few with their hair in curlers, continued to convene along the west side of Main Street, as if gathering for a parade. There were long periods of astonished silence as they looked east to the furnace on the ridge. Then murmurs of disbelief again rippled through the crowd, swelling into agitated talk and laughter.

To Father Tim it seemed an eternity before they heard the twin sirens of Wesley’s trucks hauling south toward the Mitford monument. As the trucks came into view and swung left on Lilac Road, cheers went up.

He walked toward home, praying.

“That woman’s gettin’ back what she’s been dishin’ out.”

“A little taste of what’s to come, you know what I mean?”

Laughter.

He walked on.

“Hey, Father.”

“Hey, Sam. Will you pray?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cynthia would sleep through this; she could sleep through an air raid. He wouldn’t disturb her. But he needed her; he needed her to tell him what to do.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

She was sitting up in bed, waiting, her eyes wide.

“It’s Clear Day.”

“Dear God…”

“I think any effort I could make would be useless. Three trucks, and maybe more coming, I don’t know.”

“If you went, all you could do is pray; we can do that here. Come, sweetheart.”

She held out her hands to him.

He went to her and sat by her side and couldn’t stop trembling.

He awoke at first light and lay quiet and uneasy, listening to the snores of his dog in the hallway.

He thought for a while, trying to bring something forth from his befuddled mind, then got up and padded to the wing chair and turned on the floor lamp and picked up his Bible and turned to Isaiah.

Toward the end of the twenty-fifth chapter was the prophet’s warning to those who would not trust, the reverse side of the bright verse that Father Talbot had used in his prayer only last night, though it seemed days ago.

“For in this mountain,” he read, “shall the hand of the Lord rest…and the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.”

Without waking Cynthia, he dressed and went downstairs, and made a call from the kitchen.

“They wadn’t no fire alarm that went off, is what they say.”

Coot Hendrick was occupying the lead stool at Percy’s counter, and looking as ragged out as the rest of the early crowd.

Father Tim took a mug of coffee from Percy and sat on the stool beside Coot. “I called Wesley Hospital this morning, on the chance they’d know something. It turns out Ed Coffey drove her over there, and she was picked up by a trauma unit. They flew her to Charlotte.”

“Was she burned bad?” asked Percy.

“Wasn’t burned at all. A ceiling beam and some of the plaster gave way in her bedroom—it’s serious, I think.” Clergy shared a few privileges with the press; they were sometimes given information that others couldn’t access.

Percy rubbed his eyes. His house afforded one of the best views of the Clear Day property, and sleep had been scarce. “Tim Jenkins was th’ first one in this mornin,’ takin’ coffee to th’ ridge, said ’er house was about burned t’ th’ ground when they got there.”

“They’ll be on th’ ridge a while yet,” said Coot. “Smoke’s comin’ off of it, big time.”

“Took ’em a good half hour to get to th’ house from th’ road, Tim said they had t’ break down that electric gate she’s got, they busted th’ bloomin’ thing half t’ pieces t’ get in, then what d’you think?”

“What?” asked Coot.

“Turns out there’s a hedge of rhodos on either side of th’ road, runnin’ from th’ gate to ’er house—”

J.C. wheeled in with his briefcase, blackened from head to toe and reeking of smoke. He took a mug of coffee from Percy.

“We were just talkin’ about th’ rhodo hedge,” said Percy.

“Man, what a mess. Th’ guys in the trucks didn’t know there was a back way to th’ house, so they tried gettin’ th’ trucks in through th’ front. Th’ rhododendrons have grown together, sides and top, ’til they’re tight as a steel culvert.

“But ol’ Hamp floored his new truck an’ in they went. Only trouble is, they couldn’t get very far. There they were, three trucks stalled in that tunnel of rhodos and th’ house goin’ up like kindling.

“I think Hamp did some damage to his new vehicle before he finally got to th’ house.” He handed the mug back to Percy. “Shoot me a little cream in there and about a bucket of sugar.

“My take is, all th’ heavy equipment she’s had on th’ place th’ last couple of months, they maybe ran over a cable, somehow cut some wires, and took th’ security system out—that’s why Hamp didn’t get a call off th’ smoke alarm.” J.C. jerked several paper napkins from the aluminum holder and wiped his face. “Man, that was th’ worst thing I ever saw, I don’t want t’ see anything like it again in this lifetime.”

“Th’ father says Ed Coffey drove ’er to Wesley an’ they sent a trauma unit to pick ’er up.”

“I got to find Ed,” said J.C. “He’s th’ main man, th’ missin’ piece. This story’s got to run Monday, I got a lot of facts to pull together. What kind of trauma unit?”

“I don’t know,” said Father Tim. “They said part of the ceiling caved into her bedroom, she was flown out of Wesley about two-thirty this morning.”

J. C. swigged his coffee. “I wish we could run color like Gary Barnes’s paper over th’ mountain. When it comes to a fire, black and white photos don’t cut it.”

“So how come how Ed didn’t get hurt?” asked Percy.

“He lives in th’ carriage house out back,” said J.C. “Which is prob’bly what saved her neck.”

“Looked like the fire was bad enough to take the whole ninety acres,” said Father Tim.

“Yeah, well, when th’ guys saw th’ house was a goner, they went to work to keep th’ fire out of th’ woods; it was fish or cut bait, accordin’ to Hamp.”

“So, what’re you orderin’?” Percy asked J.C. This CNN news hour could go on ’til the cows came home. A man had to make a living.

“Can you do lunch?”

“Depends on what it is.” It was six-thirty in the morning, for Pete’s sake.

“Give me a ribeye, well done on a toasted bun, with mayo, steak sauce, onions, an’ an order of hash browns—make that a double order. I been goin’ like a sonofagun since Hamp hauled by my house at two
A.M
.”

Percy crossed his arms. “I can do it, but it’ll be a one-time-only deal.”

“An’ while you’re at it, fry my onions along with th’ steak.”

Percy had no intention whatever of frying onions at six-thirty in the morning. Let Mister Fat Cat Know-It-All fry his own blooming onions.

On Monday morning, the ashes of Clear Day still smoldered on the ridge; the smell hung over the village like an acrid incense.

Though a number of people couldn’t resist being secretly pleased that Clear Day’s owner had gotten her comeuppance, most of them kept their mouths shut. As dry as it had been, the fire could easily have spiraled out of control and advanced down the ridge to devour the town, like the Gordonsville fire in 1978. Nossir, you didn’t want to go badmouthing somebody at a time like this, especially since your own neck had been spared—they would badmouth Miss High and Mighty after the smoke cleared and the dust settled.

The story was accompanied by a large black and white front-page photo showing a crescent moon risen over the enormous conflagration. A piece of garden statuary in the foreground appeared to be of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. In the confusion of men and equipment, an arm had been broken from the statue and was lying in the grass.

“Lookit!” said Emma.

She pulled something from a shopping bag, unfurled it, and presented a navy blue dress with a white collar.

“England! What d’you think?”

“I like it.”

“I decided I’m not going to try an’ lose weight, I’ll just buy somethin’ dark and loose that makes me look thin.”

“Brilliant.”

“On sale. Half price.”

“Brilliant to the max.”

He wouldn’t exactly call Emma Newland beautiful, no, indeed. But ever since Andrew had insisted she be the one to go, she had looked radiant, a new woman.

“I’m studyin’ how to speak English,” she announced.

“It’s about time.”

“
Boot
for
trunk, post
a letter for
mail
a letter,
garden
for
yard
, and
ha-ha
for a
ditch
to put cows in….”

“Spot on,” he said.

“Timothy, Stuart. I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“The bad first.”

“You know about Edith Mallory?”

“I do. But not many details. It was a terrible fire, a sight I’ll never forget.”

“You remember I asked if you know how to reach her, thinking we might scare up a gift for the cathedral? She’s no longer on the membership list at Lord’s Chapel, so we had to trace her. Beth O’Conner—did you know Beth?”

“Yes, she visited Edith several times, came to church.”

“We knew she was a friend of Edith’s, so we called her. And listen to this…”

It had definitely been a while since he’d heard joy in Stuart’s voice.

“She’s giving us a half million dollars for the choir school!”

“Congratulations! Mazel tov!”

“It’s in memory of her son who died of cancer a few months ago. She’s been waiting, she said, until God spoke to her heart about where to give it. She loves the idea of the choir school, her son began singing in the choir when he was eleven years old, she may even do something for us again.”

“My friend, you sound eleven years old yourself. But I thought you were going to start with the bad news.”

“I was, but I forgot and gave you the good stuff instead. Anyway, that’s the first specific commitment we’ve had to the choir school, and I’m frankly beside myself. By the way, thanks a thousandfold for the Kavanagh gift, it means a great deal to have it.”

“It meant a great deal to send it.”

“The bad news, of course, is that Edith Mallory is in serious condition. Beth says Edith would want it kept quiet, but I thought you should know—both her motor and speech centers have been damaged. There’s great difficulty in expressing herself verbally, and she’s paralyzed along her right side, something like what happens with a stroke. She’ll be in a wheelchair, and the doctors don’t know where the brain injury could lead. Right now, Beth says she can only speak gibberish. The doctors call it word salad.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it.

“Yes. So am I. She’ll be in a rehab center for a couple of months, then down to Florida.”

“Do you know where she is in Charlotte?”

“Putney.”

“That’s good. Thanks for bringing me up to speed. I needed to know.”

“It occurs to me that Edith has participated in building the choir school, albeit unwittingly. In any case—moving along to happier themes—I’m encouraged, Timothy. I hope you are.”

“I am. Very much.”

“God is faithful, Timothy, listen to this—my secretary wrote it on my notepad this morning. ‘Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs, for the early rains have covered it with pools of water.’ Psalm Eighty-four.”

“Amen and amen.”

“Love to Cynthia.”

“And love to Martha.”

He sat for a time, looking out the window to Baxter Park.

Then he opened the desk drawer and took out his Mont Blanc pen and a sheet of ivory writing paper.

“Ugh!” exclaimed his wife, trying to huff the box from the porch bench.

“Here,” he said. “Let me get it.”

“It’s from Tennessee!” she said, as eager as he to see what the delivery contained.

“I must chide Father Roland for shipping UPS when the post office could have done it cheaper.”

“Tell him that next time he begs for money.”

They sat on the floor of the study, slicing through the laboriously applied tape with an old kitchen knife.

She pulled up the lid and peered inside. “The bundle on top says, ‘Unwrap first.’”

“Heave to.”

She removed the string and unrolled the paper, and Noah’s ark tumbled onto the floor, landing upright.

Tears sprang to her eyes. “Timothy!”

He was smitten at once with the grace and skill of Abner’s carving. The long, shoe-box-like vessel had clearly been modeled after the architectural and engineering directions contained in the book of Genesis.

“Amazing!” he said.

“And look!” Two amiable-looking camels rolled from the heavy wrapping paper and into her lap.

“They’re wondrous,” she said. “Wondrous!”

Unable to resist, he opened a bundle himself. “Geese, by George!”

“No, by Abner!” exclaimed his jubilant wife.

They were children for an hour, unwrapping a buck and a doe, two pigs, two bears, and two mules. They examined each creature, looking at the way the knife had shaped the wood, at the sleepy eyes of the pigs, the erect ears of the horses, the movement of the wood grain.

“If this is any indication,” she said, “Backyard is helping God do something wonderful in Tennessee.”

“Absolutely!”

“I have a great idea.”

“What’s that?”

“It isn’t a new idea, of course, Father Roland thought of it ages ago.”

“Speak.”

“Let’s send him some money,” she said. “A really generous amount.”

“What, and deny him the thrill of hammering us on the head?”

“I’ll just go upstairs and get the checkbook.”

“And I’ll take the envelope straight to the post office,” he said.

“I need a joke.”

“What for?” asked Mule.

“I’m going to see Uncle Billy, he’s back at home and could probably use a laugh.”

“I can’t remember jokes. They go in one ear an’ out th’ other.”

“Maybe Percy has a joke.”

“Come on. Have you ever heard that ol’ sourpuss tell a joke?”

“Now that you mention it, no.”

“I’ve heard Coot tell a joke a time or two, but you wouldn’t want to repeat it.”

“Maybe Harley,” said Father Tim. “Once in a while, Harley has a good joke.”

J.C. slung his briefcase into the booth and thumped down. “You need a joke?”

“Clean,” said Father Tim.

“Here you go. Th’ doctor asks the nurse, says, ‘How’s that little boy doin’, the one who swallowed all those quarters?’ Th’ nurse says, ‘No change yet.’”

J.C. looked across the table, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t get it,” said Mule.