Fortunately, there was one thing a host could count on in Mitford. Villagers arrived early or on time, and everyone, to a person, left at a decent hour.
When he appeared at five minutes after the specified four o’clock, the tea table was already surrounded.
He greeted Esther Cunningham, who was enjoying a large slice of Brie, and shook hands with her husband, Ray. Then, as he turned to look at the drawings, he observed quite another show. It was Miss Rose Watson, dressed to the tee in a green taffeta evening gown, a moth-eaten plaid velvet cummerbund, elbow-length satin gloves, a World War II officer’s cape, and saddle oxfords without laces.
She held several tea sandwiches in one gloved hand, while graciously extending the other. “How do you do,” she said to the rector, who no longer felt conspicuous in his new jacket, much less overdressed.
The beautifully framed drawings hung in a long, chronological line along the left wall, beginning with Uncle Billy’s rendering of three deer in a copse of spruce, drinking from the basin of a waterfall. Seeing them framed and hanging was unexpectedly impressive.
“Eloquent, aren’t they?”
Cynthia Coppersmith was standing by his side, dressed in a sweater and skirt the color of periwinkles, and holding a cracker on a napkin.
“Indeed!” he said. “I knew they were well done, but this, well this is . . .”
“Extraordinary!” she said helpfully.
“Emma tells me you’re an artist and writer.”
“I earn part of my way with a brush, yes. But I don’t call myself a true artist. I can’t draw people, you see. I’m best at animals, and especially cats.”
Someone slapped him on the back so hard, he nearly went reeling into a drawing of a quail on her nest.
“I see you’re learnin’ to love your neighbor as yourself!” said Harry Nelson. “This is the last I’ll be seein’ of you. Shirley and I have the car packed, and we’re headed out behind the movin’ van.”
“Don’t take any wooden Vermeers,” said Mule Skinner, who had joined the group.
Uncle Billy was seated in a Chippendale wing chair, balancing a plate of cheese and grapes on his lap, with a paper napkin stuck into his shirt collar.
J.C. Hogan was writing in a notebook with his left hand and mopping his forehead with his right. “When did you say you started drawin’?”
“Oh, when I was about ten or twelve, m’ uncle was a railroad man and ever’ time he come through the valley, he’d blow th’ whistle startin’ up around Elk Grove, and by th’ time he got over t’ Isinglass, don’t you know, I was standin’ by the track, and he’d th’ow somethin’ out t’ me.
“Sometimes, it was a sack of licorice candy, or horehound, and one time it was a little ol’ pack of pencils, real wide pencils with a soft lead, don’t you know. My daddy said that was a foolish thing to give a boy who couldn’t write, so I took to drawin’.”
“Did you ever use ink?” J.C. asked.
“Well, sir, I used it some, but I eat up a jar of pickle relish Rose said was hers, and she burned th’ whole stack of m’ ink pictures.”
“No!” exclaimed Winnie Ivey, nearly moved to tears.
“I’d a clapped ’er upside th’ head,” said Percy Mosely, with feeling.
Miss Rose rustled by in her taffeta gown. “Don’t be tellin’ that ol’ tacky story, Bill Watson! I’ve heard it a hundred times, and it’s a lie.”
“No, it ain’t,” said Uncle Billy, grinning.
“It most certainly is. It was not pickle relish. It was chow chow.” As she turned on her heel and walked away, the rector couldn’t help but notice the Ritz cracker that fell out of her cummerbund and rolled under a chair.
“I hear you’ve quit drawin’,” said J.C. “Why’s that?”
“Arthur,” said Uncle Billy.
“Arthur who?”
“Arthur-itis. But that ain’t hurt my joke tellin’ any. Let me give y’ one t’ go in th’ paper.”
“We don’t print jokes in the
Muse
,” J.C. snapped.
“If that ain’t a lie!” said Percy Mosely, who was thoroughly dissatisfied with a recent editorial.
At the food table, he visited with Rodney Underwood, who was Mitford’s young new police chief and a deacon at First Baptist.
“My granddaddy and my daddy both were police chiefs in this town. An’ bad as I always wanted to work at th’ post office, I couldn’t do it. No way. After four years of bein’ a deputy over in Wesley, I give up an’ let th’ town council hog-tie me.”
“Well, I imagine it’s a good life. I hardly ever see any crime reported in the
Muse
.”
“It’s around, though, don’t kid yourself. You don’t know what goes on behind these rose arbors . . .”
No, indeed, he thought, moving away. And I don’t want to know, either.
“Hello again, Father,” said Cynthia, holding what appeared to be the same cracker on the same napkin. “I’ve been meaning to say you look stunning in that copper-colored jacket.”
He felt the color rise to his face. Stunning! He knew he should have bought the navy blue.
“Well, what do you think?”
Andrew Gregory sat on one of the Queen Anne dining chairs that someone had placed in a neat circle around Uncle Billy.
“A smashing success!” said the rector. “Undeniably! How many have we sold?”
Andrew’s pleasure was visible. “Twenty-seven!”
He saw Hoppy Harper come through the door with Olivia Davenport. There was a flush in her cheeks, and her violet eyes sparkled. From what he could see, Hoppy looked more rested than he’d looked in months. Green jelly beans! he thought. That’ll do it every time.
“Well, I must be off,” said Andrew. “Miss Rose and the mayor have eaten all the Brie, and I have to dash to The Local and replace it with cheddar!”
Cynthia Coppersmith sat down where Andrew had gotten up. “This is my first social occasion in the village. Except, of course, for visits to the rectory.”
He could not think of one word to say.
“Violet ran away today,” Cynthia said matter-of-factly.
“She did?”
“But she came back.”
“Good! I hear you write and illustrate books about your cat.”
“Yes.
Violet Comes to Stay
,
Violet Goes to the Country
. . . oh, and
Violet Has Kittens
, of course. To name only a few!”
“What a full life! How old is Violet, anyway?”
“Just two.”
“Two! And she’s done all that?”
“Well, you see, this is Violet Number Three. I have to keep replacing my Violets. The original Violet was seven when I got her, and I painted her for two years before she died of a liver infection.
“Then there was a very haughty Violet, which I found through an ad. Oh, she was lovely to look at, but unaccountably demanding. There were three books with that Violet, before she took off with a yellow tom.”
“Aha.”
“I was sent scurrying, as you can imagine. A contract for a seventh book, and no model!”
“Couldn’t you use a cat of another color, and just, ah, paint it white in your illustrations?”
“No, no. I really must have a Violet to do the job. And not every white cat is one, of course.”
“Of course.”
“So, we were all looking for another Violet, and the newspaper got wind of it and the first thing you know, fifty-seven white cats turned up.”
He had a vision of Barnabas set free in the midst of fifty-seven white cats.
“Then, the eighth Violet story won a book award—the Davant Medal. It’s the most coveted award in children’s literature, and the whole thing absolutely took my breath away! Suddenly, all the books started selling like . . .”
“Pancakes?” he asked. Blast! He’d meant to say hotcakes.
“Yes! And now I have my own true home after years of apartments, and a bit of money, too. It’s a miracle!” she said in the earnest way that made her eyes seem bluer still. “But I must admit I’m weary of Violet books. Perhaps next time, I’ll do something with . . . oh, maybe with moles!”
His worst enemy! Why, every blessed spring in Mitford, a man could step into a hole up to his knee. If there were any more detestable creatures in the animal kingdom, he could not think what they might be.
“If it’s moles you’re after, you can find all you’ll ever want right next door. In my lawn.”
“You’re fun when you laugh,” she said, smiling frankly.
“Thank you. I’ll have to laugh more often.”
“You’ve been so kind to me, I was hoping you might be able to come for dinner next week. I think I’ll be settled by then.”
He stood up. “Well . . .”
“Good!” she said. “I’ll let you know more.”
Andrew Gregory approached, buttoning the cashmere jacket across his trim midsection and looking even more tanned and vigorous than he had an hour ago.
“Twenty-nine!” he said expansively to Father Tim, and then turned to Cynthia. “If you’re ready, I’d like you to see the books Miss Potter is said to have made notes in.”
As they walked away, the rector suddenly felt short, pale, overweight, and oddly suspicious that his jacket contained more polyester than wool.
“Why haven’t you told me about this woman?” Hoppy wanted to know, as they stood outside Andrew’s rear office and waited for the restroom.
“What was there to tell?”
“That she’s lovely, new in town, goes to Lord’s Chapel, I don’t know. I’m walking down the hall last week, and I see this angel sitting by Pearly’s bed, reading from the Psalms. I’ll never forget it. ‘Thou art my hiding place and my shield. I hope in thy word,’ she said. It struck me to the very marrow.”
And no wonder, thought the rector, whose own marrow had been struck by the depth of her feeling.
“I’ve been away from church so long . . . so long away from . . . believing.” Hoppy leaned against the wall, avoiding the rector’s gaze. “I’ve been very angry with God.”
“I understand.”
“He operated without anesthetic.”
He looked at the man who had lost his wife of sixteen years, and saw the sure mark that bitterness and overwork had left. Yet, something tonight was easier in him.
Percy Mosely came out of the restroom. “You better watch it,” he said, “there’s a real loud odor in that pink soap.”
He insisted that Hoppy go ahead of him and wandered into Andrew’s comfortably untidy office. He sat in a wingback chair next to Andrew’s desk and looked at the collection of paintings on the walls, at the jumble of books and magazines spilling from baskets and shelves. He idly turned his attention to a fragment of newspaper, protruding from beneath a leather blotter on the desk.
“Jewels Missing from Museum Exhibition,” he read silently, without any special interest. “Last night, as the fund-raising gala got under way in the new wing of the Sonningham, an armed guard discovered that a priceless array of antique royal jewels had been stolen while he stood within feet of the glass case.
“ ‘I stepped away for perhaps a minute and a half, to see what was making a rattling noise in the skylight,’ said Nigel Hadleigh, 62, of Armed Forces, Inc., a private security firm. ‘When I looked back at the case, the jewels were gone.’
“Investigators so far have no clue to the theft, nor any suspects. There were no fingerprints on the case, which, until 9:30 p.m. on the first night of the museum’s fund-raising effort, contained rare jewels from all of the British Isles, including a necklace once worn by Princess Louise.
“ ‘We’re dreadfully embarrassed,’ said Museum Director Wilfred Cappman. ‘Whatever will we say to the queen?’ ”
Ah, there’s the rub! thought the rector.
Hoppy came out of the restroom and peered into the office. “I need to talk to you pretty soon. But this time,” he said, “I’ll let you write the prescription.”
Strike while the iron is hot! he thought. “How about Thursday at the Grill? That’s Percy’s day for salmon croquettes.”
“Don’t be late,” warned the village doctor, grinning.
As he finished washing his hands, he heard laughter on the other side of the restroom wall. It was Cynthia Coppersmith. Obviously, she found moles very, very amusing, which was the oddest mark of character he had recently observed.
When he came home, he discovered one of his pie plates on the back step, and in it, a square envelope.
It contained a watercolor of Barnabas, which was so lifelike it might have barked. A note tucked into the envelope read, “Thanks so much for the kindness you’ve shown a stranger in your midst. Cynthia.”
“Truly amazing,” he said, looking at the watercolor with rapt fascination.
“Your sermon was real good yesterday,” Emma said on Monday morning.
There’s obviously no accounting for tastes, thought the rector, who recalled that a baby cried throughout the service, a squirrel chewed something behind the wall, and a lens from his glasses had dropped into the Bible as he read the gospel message.
“I saw you at the art show,” she said, “but when I finally got over to where you were standin’, you’d up and left.”
“Yes, well . . . how’s Harold?”
“Work, work, work. Do this, do that. Fix the roof. Paint the porch. Change the oil. Mulch up his corncobs. That’s the way the Baptists do, you know.”
“Is that right?”
“You don’t ever see Episcopalians mulching up their corncobs.”
“Don’t have any to mulch up.”
“I guess.”
Emma took her ledger out of the top drawer, along with a locked box containing Sunday’s offering.
“Seems to me your new neighbor was on your heels at the art show.”
“My neighbor . . . oh, yes, you mean Miss Coppersmith.”
“I do mean her, that’s right. Everywhere you turned, she turned. It was like ice dancin’.”
“Didn’t you have anything better to do than watchdog your preacher?”
“First thing you know, there’ll be more of those cat books in the stores. Like,
Violet Goes to Church, Violet Visits the Rector . . .”
“Emma, don’t push your luck.”