Out to Canaan (214 page)

“Who was th' king of England when North Carolina became a royal colony?” Lace Turner sounded emphatic.

“George th' Second!”

“When was th' French and Indian War?”

“Lord, Lace, as long as I've lived, ain't never a soul come up t' me and said, ‘Harley, when was th' French and Injun war?' ”

“Harley . . .”

“They ain't a bit of use f'r me t' know that, I done told you who discovered America.”

“Who defeated George Washington at Great Meadows?”

“Th' dern French.”

“Who was th' first state to urge independence from Great Britian?”

“North Carolina!” Harley's voice had a proud ring.

“See, you learn stuff real good, you just act like you don't.”

“But you don't teach me nothin' worth knowin'. If we got t' do this aggravation, why don't you read me one of them riddles out of y'r number book?”

“OK, but listen good, Harley, this stuff is hard. You borrow five hundred dollars for one year. Th' rate is twenty percent per year. How much do you pay back by th' end of th' year?”

There was a long silence in the basement.

The rector put his arm around his wife, who had come to sit with him on the top basement step. They looked at each other, wordless.

“Six hundred dollars!” exclaimed Harley.

“Real good!”

“I done that in m' noggin.”

“OK, here's another'n—”

“I ain't goin' t' do no more. You git on back home and worry y'r own head.”

She pressed forward. “A recipe suggests two an' a half to three pounds of chicken t' serve four people. Karen bought nine-point-five pounds of chicken. Is this enough t' serve twelve people?”

“I told you I ain't goin' t' do it,” said Harley. “Let Karen fig'r it out!”

The rector looked at Cynthia, who got up and fled the room, shaking with laughter.

He went to his study and took pen and paper from the desk drawer. Let's see, he thought, if the recipe calls for two and a half to three pounds of chicken to serve four people . . .

He was changing shirts for a seven p.m. meeting when he heard Harley's truck pull into the driveway. Almost immediately he heard Harley's truck pull out of the driveway.

Harley must have forgotten something, he mused, buttoning a cuff.

When he heard the truck roll into the driveway again, he looked out his bathroom window and saw it backing toward the street. From this vantage point, he could also see through the windshield.

Clearly, it wasn't Harley who was driving Harley's truck.

It was Dooley.

He stood at the bathroom window, buttoning the other cuff, watching. In, out, in, out.

He didn't have five spare minutes to deal with it; he was already cutting the time close since he was the speaker. He'd have to talk to Dooley and Harley about this.

Dadgum it, he thought. He had a car-crazed boy living down the
hall and a race-car mechanic in the basement. Was this a good combination? He didn't think so . . . .

Emma looked up from her computer, where she was keying in copy for the pew bulletin.

“I know I'm a Baptist and it's none of my business . . .”

You can take
that
to the bank, he thought.

“ . . . but it seems to me that people who can't stand shouldn't have to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean all those people you get in th' summer who don't know an Episcopal service from a hole in the ground, and think they have to do all th' stuff th' pew bulletin tells 'em to do. I mean, some of those people are old as the hills, and what does th' bulletin say? Stand, kneel, sit, stand, bow, stand, kneel, whatever! It's a workout.”

“True.”

“So why don't we do what they do at this Presbyterian church I heard about?”

“And what's that?” He noticed that his teeth were clenched.

“Put a little line at the bottom of the bulletin that says, ‘Those who are
able,
please stand.' ”

Who needed the assistance of a curate or a deacon when they had Emma Newland to think through the gritty issues facing the church today?

As he left the office for Mitford Blossoms, Andrew Gregory hailed him from his shop across the street.

“We go three months without laying eyes on each other,” said the genteel Andrew, “and now—twice in a row!”

“I prefer this arrangement!”

“Before pushing off to Italy, I have something for your Bane and Blessing. I'll be back in only a month, but what with making room for the Fernbank pieces, I find I've got to move other pieces out. Would you mind having my contribution a dash early?”

“Mind? I should say not. Thrilled would be more like it.” He could imagine Esther Bolick's face when she heard she was getting antiques from Andrew Gregory.

Talk about an answer to prayer . . . .

He climbed the hill, slightly out of breath, carrying the purple gloxinia, and stood for a moment gazing at the impressive structure they had named Hope House.

But for Sadie Baxter's generosity, this would be little more than the forlorn site of the original Lord's Chapel, which had long ago burned to the ground. Now that Miss Sadie was gone, he was the only living soul who knew what had happened the night of that terrible fire.

Ah, well. He could muddle on about the fire, or he could look at what had risen from the ashes. Wasn't that the gist of life, after all, making the everyday choice between fire and phoenix?

Louella sat by her sunny window, with its broad sill filled with gloxinias, begonias, philodendron, ivy, and a dozen other plants, including a bewildered amaryllis from Christmas.

Dressed to the nines, she opened her brown arms wide as he came in. “Law, honey! You lookin' like somebody on TV in that blue coat.”

He leaned eagerly into her warm hug and returned it with one of his own.

“Have you got room for another gloxinia?”

“This make three gloxinias you done brought me!”

That's what he always took people; he couldn't help it.

“But I ain't never had purple, an' ain't it beautiful! You're good as gold an' that's th' truth!”

He set it on the windowsill and thumped down on the footstool by her chair. “How are you? Are they still treating you right?”

“Treatin' me
right
? They like to worry me to death treatin' me right. Have a stick of candy, eat a little ice cream wit' yo' apple pie, let me turn yo' bed down, slip on these socks to keep yo' feet toasty . . .” She shook her head and laughed in the dark chocolate voice that always made a difference in the singing at Lord's Chapel.

“You're rotten, then,” he said, grinning.

“Rotten, honey, and no way 'round it. That little chaplain, too, ain't he a case with them dogs runnin' behind 'im ever' whichaway?”

“Are you still getting Taco every week?”

“Taco done got mange on 'is hip and they tryin' to fix it.”

“You could have a cat or something 'til Taco gets fixed.”

“A cat? You ain't never seen Louella messin' wit' a
cat.
”

“Are you working in the new garden?”

“You ain't seen me messin' wit' a hoe, neither. Nossir, I done my duty, I sets right here, watches TV, and acts like somebody.”

“Well, I've got a question,” he said.

Louella, whose salt-and-pepper hair had turned snow-white in the past year, peered at him.

“Will you come to dinner at the rectory next Thursday? Say yes!”

“You talkin' 'bout dinner or supper?”

“Dinner!” he said. “Like in the evening.” Louella, he remembered, called lunch “dinner,” and the evening meal “supper.”

“I doan hardly know 'bout goin' out at
night,”
she said, looking perplexed. “What wit' my other knee needin' t' be operated on . . .”

“I'll hold on to you good and tight,” he said, eager for her to accept.

“I doan know, honey . . . .”

“Please,” he said.

“Let ‘Amazin' Grace' be one of th' hymns this Sunday and I'll do it,” she said, grinning. “We ain't sung that in a
month
of Sundays, an' a 'piscopal preacher
wrote
it!”

“Done!” he said, relieved and happy. He had always felt ten years old around Miss Sadie and Louella.

He took the stairs to the second floor to see Lida Willis.

He didn't have to tell her why he'd come.

Lida tapped her desk with a ballpoint pen, still looking stern. “She's doing well. Very well. We couldn't ask for better.”

“Glad to hear it,” he said, meaning it.

He found Pauline in the dining room, setting tables with the dishes Miss Sadie had paid to have monogrammed with
HH
. A
lifelong miser where her own needs were concerned, she had spared no expense on Hope House.

“Pauline, you look . . . wonderful,” he said.

“It's a new apron.”

“I believe it's a new Pauline.”

She laughed. He didn't think he'd heard her laugh before.

“I have a proposal.”

She smiled at him, listening.